New York

David Siegel And Scott McGehee, Uncertainty

If one had only a single adjective with which to describe the body of work that directing team David Siegel and Scott McGehee have crafted over the past decade and a half, cerebral immediately jumps to mind. Since their debut film Suture (1993), an austere, black and white thriller starring Dennis Haysbert that took Toronto and Sundance by storm, they have often found it difficult to get their peculiar brand of thoughtful, idea driven filmmaking off the ground. Even if it was far from experimental hijinks of a Hollis Frampton or Kenneth Anger, the fact that the original Suture VHS […]
by Brandon Harris on Nov 11, 2009
Gavin O’Connor, Pride And Glory

COLIN FARRELL AND EDWARD NORTON IN DIRECTOR GAVIN O’CONNOR’S PRIDE AND GLORY. COURTESY WARNER BROS. As a director who values realistic characters and emotionally resonant stories above all else, Gavin O’Connor is a young filmmaker who is keeping the values of a bygone Hollywood alive. The son of a cop, O’Connor grew up in New York on a diet of classic studio movies from the 30s and 40s then immersed himself in the great films produced by the New Hollywood auteurs of the 1970s. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, O’Connor returned to New York, where he began writing […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 23, 2008
Peter Sollett, Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist

KAT DENNINGS AND MICHAEL CERA IN DIRECTOR PETER SOLLETT’S NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST. COURTESY SCREEN GEMS. For all the current talk of the sky falling on American independent cinema, you don’t have to look any further than Peter Sollett’s recent experiences to see how tough things have become for even the most gifted indie writer-directors. Thirty-two-year-old Brooklyn native Sollett grew up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood in Bensonhurst and studied film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1998. In 2000, he directed and co-wrote, with his partner Eva Vives, the short filmFive Feet High and Rising, about […]
by Nick Dawson on Oct 3, 2008
Matt Wolf, Wild Combination: A Portrait Of Arthur Russell

A REENACTED SHOT OF ARTHUR RUSSELL ON THE STATEN ISLAND FERRY FROM DIRECTOR MATT WOLF’S WILD COMBINATION: A PORTRAIT OF ARTHUR RUSSELL. COURTESY PLEXIFILM. Some people age more quickly than others, and Matt Wolf – both in person and in his work – displays a confidence and maturity that belie his tender years. Twenty-six-year-old Wolf was born and raised in San Jose, California, and spent much of his teenage years watching movies. He won a full-tuition fellowship to study film at NYU, where he made a number of shorts including Smalltown Boys (2003), an experimental biopic about AIDS activist David […]
by Nick Dawson on Sep 26, 2008
Your Film Online

My name is Ryan Bilsborrow-Koo and this is my guest post for the just-concluded Independent Film Week here in New York. Along with Zachary Lieberman (co-creator of The West Side), I spoke on Monday’s panel “Your Film Online,” and I wanted to expand here on some thoughts I shared during that panel — mostly in response to the prevailing wisdom that “the sky is falling” on independent film. (This is also cross-posted on my own blog, No Film School). I’m a New Face of independent film, not an Industry Veteran, so maybe it’s naiveté that leads me to have a […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 23, 2008
Ramin Bahrani, Chop Shop

ALEJANDRO POLANCO IN DIRECTOR RAMIN BAHRANI’S CHOP SHOP. COURTESY KOCH LORBER FILMS. Ramin Bahrani’s films are what one could term “outsider cinema,” and yet they are made with the quiet confidence of someone who knows he belongs. Iranian-American Bahrani was born and raised in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and moved to New York to study film at Columbia University. After making the short films Backgammon (1998) and Strangers (2000), he spent three years living in Iran, his parents’ former home country. Once back in the U.S., his awareness of immigrant life and the psychology of the outsider found a voice in […]
by Nick Dawson on Feb 27, 2008
Bryan Gunnar Cole, Day Zero

CHRIS KLEIN, JON BERNTHAL AND ELIJAH WOOD IN DIRECTOR BRYAN GUNNAR COLE’S DAY ZERO. COURTESY FIRST LOOK PICTURES. It is common for directors to have a background in theater, documentary filmmaking or editing, but Bryan Gunnar Cole is almost unique for having made a mark in all three fields. Cole was one of the founders of the Annex Theatre, a fringe company based in his native Seattle which memorably put on shows like Wonka, a colorful musical version of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He gained a BA in Film at Yale and then an MFA at NYU, […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 18, 2008
Steve Barron, Choking Man

OCTAVIO GÓMEZ IN STEVE BARRON’S CHOKING MAN. COURTESY INTERNATIONAL FILM CIRCUIT. Considering Steve Barron’s career, you can’t help wondering why he isn’t better known. Having grown up around films (because his mother, Zelda Barron, was a script supervisor, producer and director), Dublin-born Barron progressed from a clapper loader on movies like A Bridge Too Far and Ridley Scott’s debut The Duellists (both 1977) to one of the most influential pop promo directors of the 1980s. He was responsible for the videos for Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, Dire Straits’ Money for Nothing and a-ha’s Take On Me. After making the cult […]
by Nick Dawson on Nov 9, 2007
GOOD NEWS FOR NEW YORK FILMMAKERS

For those worried about the announcement a few weeks back that New York ran out of money for its successful film tax rebate program, here’s an email from Pat Kaufman that arrived in my inbox this morning: The legislature has approved the Governor’s recommended expansion of the film credit!! We are pleased to confirm that funding for the NY State’s Production tax credit has been expanded and extended through 2011. New York State will continue to offer a fully refundable tax credit of 10% of the below the line budget of qualified feature films, episodic television and pilots. The city […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2006
NEW NEW YORK FILMMAKERS ON THE WEB

I received two emails recently from filmmakers who are highlighting their work on newly launched websites. The first was from director and editor Jim Helton, whose Blue Coup D’Etat is, as he describes, a “docu-poetic video blog” where he’s posting “sometimes little silent movies of friends and family, sometimes sound movies, sometimes simple, sometimes complicated.” Helton is a world traveller, and many of these mini-movies capture brief flashes from journies to Bangkok, Koh Samui and other places. Other clips feature (and are birthday gifts to) his filmmaker friends Derek Cianfrance and Shannon Plumb. The second site is BorderLine Films, the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2006

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