Phillip Youmans isn’t sure if he’s returning to New York University. He’s a sophomore at the venerable institution, but he took the fall semester off because he’s a little busy. Last spring, during the second semester of his freshman year, the filmmaker’s debut feature, Burning Cane, won three awards at the Tribeca Film Festival: Narrative Feature, Cinematography (for him), and Actor for co-lead, the estimable Wendell Pierce. Its executive producer is Benh Zeitlin, of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and it’s being released by Ava Du Vernay’s Array, who arranged a two-city theatrical release before its Netflix drop on November […]

The issue of diversity in the film canon — the movies celebrated and studied at film schools across the country — has come under hot debate in the past couple of years, with students starting conversations about the larger consequences of curricular omissions. “When I look at a syllabus and there’s no one from my perspective on there, I wonder if my ideas will be taken seriously by Hollywood or by any producer,” admits Zsaknor Powe, a junior studying film at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. “It really affects the artistic self-esteem of the students,” explains Powe, […]

Michael Larnell grew his black-and-white debut feature Cronies through New York University’s Graduate Film program. Executive produced by NYU professor and project advisor Spike Lee, Larnell’s film follows three young men living in St. Louis as they discuss women, drugs, and other salacious topics of interest to innocently pass the time over a twenty-four hour period.  A nonchalant, unassuming look at how men externalize their emotions, Cronies’ pleasures derive from its layered, amusing screenplay, documentary-inspired character interviews, and conflicted study of how far one will go to protect their brethren.  As Cronies opens this Friday in IFP’s Screen Forward screening series, I spoke with Larnell about the decision […]

NYU student Elena Parker has created an intriguing device called Walter (named for the legendary Walter Murch) which tackles editing in an innovative new way. Here’s the description from the university website’s about her “eye-ware kinetoscope”: Walter watches your eyes as you watch a film, and every time that you blink, it edits the video. Based on the theories of Walter Murch in In the Blink of An Eye, I’ve transformed the subliminal action of blinking into a method of interaction with the film. By cutting every time that you blink, Walter creates a customized narrative for you, without interrupting […]

Screening Times: Monday March 14th, 6:30pm (State Theatre), Tuesday March 15th, 11:00am (Alamo Lamar A), Friday March 18th, 6:30pm (State Theatre) In the dark comedy American Animal, a delusional, terminally ill young man (director, writer, editor and star Matt D’Elia) spends a long, booze and drugs-fueled night with his soon to be relocating roommate (Brendan Fletcher) as they prepare to take vastly different paths in life and death. Filmmaker: How did you first conceive of the character of Jimmy? Did you always intend to play him yourself? D’Elia: Like American Animal‘s lead character, Jimmy, I was also very ill in […]

  2010 was a big year for Michael Mohan. His first feature, One Too Many Mornings, premiered at Sundance (and can now be watched – in its entirety – on Hulu). He directed a music video for Fitz and the Tantrums that was blogged about by Justin Timberlake (no, really). And one year later he returns to Park City with a short film, Ex-Sex.   Mohan’s short about ex’s hooking up is gorgeous to look at, totally relatable, and so pitch-perfect in its bitter-sweetness that the only logical question would be: Couldn’t you make it as a feature? Please? Characters […]