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, 2008BLIND CLIMBER DACHUNG IN DIRECTOR LUCY WALKER’S BLINDSIGHT. COURTESY ROBSON ENTERTAINMENT. The projects Lucy Walker has chosen to take on in her career demonstrate an admirable desire to tell difficult and important stories. The British documentarian was born and raised in London, and during her childhood lost the sight in one of her eyes. However, if anything this only further fueled her fascination with film and other visual media. She was a literature major at Oxford University before winning a Fulbright Scholarship which took her to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where she studied film. During this time, she […]
by Nick Dawson on Mar 5, 2008CHRIS 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, 2008ANDY WARHOL AND DANNY WILLIAMS IN DIRECTOR ESTHER ROBINSON’S A WALK INTO THE SEA: DANNY WILLIAMS AND THE WARHOL FACTORY. COURTESY ARTHOUSE FILMS. Esther Robinson has an effusive passion for cinema that is infectious, and has led her to dedicate her career to helping artists and filmmakers. She studied film and television at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, and at the age of only 24 produced Alive TV, a television show for PBS about alternative and experimental film. In 1998, she started Wavelength Releasing, a company established to explore new ways to make, distribute and show movies, which was […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 14, 2007JULIE DELPY AND ADAM GOLDBERG IN 2 DAYS IN PARIS. COURTESY SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS. It is difficult to write about Julie Delpy’s career without rhapsodizing about the multi-talented Frenchwoman. At just 14, she got her breakthrough in Jean-Luc Godard’s Detective, and while still in her teens she worked with such celebrated European auteurs as Leos Carax, Bertrand Tavernier, Carlos Saura, Agnieszka Holland and Volker Schlöndorff. In the early 1990s, Delpy established herself as one of the most promising actresses around with her work in both arthouse successes (Krysztof Kie?lowski’s White and Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise) and more commercial fare like […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 10, 2007IAN HOLM AND CHRIS EIGEMAN IN OREN RUDAVSKY’S THE TREATMENT. COURTESY NEW YORKER FILMS. After studying at Oberlin College and NYU Film School, director and cinematographer Oren Rudavsky carved out a niche for himself in filmmaking: if you have seen a documentary about Judaism made in the last 20 years, most likely Rudavsky was involved in it. He has made numerous documentaries for television, many of them Jewish-themed, and has recently graduated to making documentary features, with notable success. The highly-praised A Life Apart (1997), an examination of the Hasidic lifestyle in America co-directed by Rudavsky with Menachem Daum (and […]
by Nick Dawson on May 4, 2007NYU film student and short filmmaker Sam Goetz worked for a bit in my production office, and I got to watch his odd and original comedy shorts. He’s now working on his final film at NYU, Bruno, the story of a asthmatic, nihillstic bicyclist, Derke, and his polar opposite cousin Bruno, a gentle pianist. Goetz says he’s not sure if the piece is a comedy or a drama because it “changes constantly and radically.” To realize his vision, Goetz is raising money via the web. Check out his website for more about him and his films and for his rather […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 12, 2005One New York indie I’ve been tracking over the last year is Kevin Jordan’s Lobster Farm, the story of two generations of one Brooklyn family struggling to hold onto the family business, a Sheepshead Bay lobster shop. Jordan’s previous pic, Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire, received much festival acclaim, and as he readies his new one for a fest premiere, he’s already picked up one high-profile supporter. Reports Michael Fleming in Variety, Martin Scorsese has agreed to put his “Martin Scorsese presents” label on the film, assuring it some degree of critical buzz. Jordan connected with Scorsese when he […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 11, 2004One of the buzz films to emerge at this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival has been Teona Strugar Mitevska’s How I Killed a Saint. The 29-year-old director attended the MFA program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and on one level, her film could easily fit within the American indie “dysfunctional family” tradition. It tells the story of Viola, a young girl who returns home after travelling abroad for three years, having left behind a family secret and returning to tense relationships with her out-of-it parents and alienated, delinquent brother. Except in this case, Viola is returning in 2001 from […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 1, 2004