Noir
-
Murder in Passing: Transmedia on the Toronto Subway
Public transit’s always been a great place for art, from busking musicians to the New York MTA’s current Sam Shaw photography exhibit, sponsored by Arts for Transit. Such exhibits are often moving in the direction of narrative media, and today the Toronto Transit Commission is launching a new project that explores the boundaries between public art and a good old-fashioned transmedia detective story. Every day for the next two months a new thirty-second episode of Murder in Passing will play in the Toronto subway. The series, which adds up to a roughly twenty-minute film, begins today with the discovery of […]
by Randy Astle on Jan 7, 2013 -
Lady Vengeance: Interview with Sundance Filmmaker Eve Sussman
Although Sundance is predominantly known for indie dramas and social issue documentaries, the New Frontiers section provides a loving home for particularly odd ducks. Unlike many projects in New Frontiers, which are presented as installations or other new media formats, Eve Sussman’s whiteonwhite:algorithmicnoir was screened in a conventional theater. However, the film’s text, 300 bits of voiceover, 150 pieces of music, and 3,000 images are live-edited by an algorithmic computer dubbed the Serendipity Machine that creates a randomized sequence, meaning each screening is entirely unique. Not only does Sussman’s piece turn the idea of the mystery genre on its ear, […]
by Farihah Zaman on Jan 27, 2012 -
Götz Spielmann, Revanche
JOHANNES KRISCH AND URSULA STRAUSS IN DIRECTOR GÖTZ SPIELMANN’S REVANCHE. COURTESY JANUS FILMS. Contemporary Austrian cinema has been dominated by the works of its two best known names, Michael Haneke and Ulrich Seidl, but now the name of the prodigiously talented Götz Spielmann can be added to that list. Spielmann was born in 1961 in the town of Wels, but grew up in the country’s capital, Vienna. As a child he was drawn to film and he began writing and directing in his teens; when he was just 17, he had his first film shown on television. Between 1980 and […]
by Nick Dawson on May 1, 2009 -
Milcho Manchevski, Shadows
BORCE NACEV AND VESNA STANOJEVSKA IN DIRECTOR MILCHO MANCHEVSKI’S SHADOWS. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Writer-director Milcho Manchevski has only made three features over the course of his 15-year film career, yet the multi-talented Macedonian rarely allows himself a moment to catch his breath. Born in 1959 in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, Manchevski studied History of Art and Archeology at his hometown university before going to film school at Southern Illinois University on a scholarship. Following his graduation, he relocated to New York and began making commercials, music videos, documentaries, shorts and experimental films. In 1992, he won several major awards […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 30, 2009 -
Catherine Breillat, The Last Mistress
ASIA ARGENTO IN DIRECTOR CATHERINE BREILLAT’S THE LAST MISTRESS. COURTESY IFC FILMS. Hated and loved in equal measure, Catherine Breillat is a filmmaker who could never be accused of being boring. The French writer director seems courting controversy since the beginning of her career: she was a literary sensation at the age of 17 when she published her first novel, L’homme Facile which was sufficiently racy to be forbidden reading for minors and her first cinematic involvement was acting in Bernardo Bertolucci’s sordid classic Last Tango in Paris (1972). She made her directorial debut in 1976 with an adaptation of […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 27, 2008 -
John Dahl, You Kill Me
BEN KINGSLEY AND TÉA LEONI IN JOHN DAHL’S YOU KILL ME. COURTESY IFC FILMS. John Dahl has unquestionable cinematic flair and a genuine talent for telling unconventional stories, yet he never set out to be a film director. Growing up in Montana in the 60s and 70s, his great passions were art and music: he studied fine art in college, then dropped out to become a commercial artist and play in rock ‘n’ roll bands. Still uncertain of his place in the world, he ended up at film school where he focused on directing. After graduation, he worked as an […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 22, 2007
