When Moonlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture, writer-director Barry Jenkins and his team weren’t the only ones celebrating. For many filmmakers, the Moonlight triumph was both a victory for indies but also a rebuke against the racism, sexism and prejudice of Trump’s America. It was, perhaps, the entertainment industry’s biggest embrace of “the Resistance” yet. But the Trump regime isn’t just affecting awards shows and celebrity Twitter accounts. Financiers and producers speak about an uncertain marketplace, fueled by the wild vacillations of the Trump presidency, which has the ability to both hinder and bolster independent films. Yellow Bear […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Apr 13, 2017Safety Not Guaranteed might be the first feature film based on an internet meme. In 2005, a newspaper classified ad from 1997 started to spread across the web, depicted a mulleted man who claimed to be seeking, “Somebody to go back in time with me.” The ad, which also specified, “this is not a joke” was eventually revealed to be exactly that, a fake listing published to fill out space in the paper. But that hasn’t stopped director Colin Trevorrow from crafting his first feature film around it. Produced by Marc Turtletaub and Peter Saraf of Big Beach (Little Miss […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 19, 2012