Ryan Coogler
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IFP Announces Filmmaker Conference Highlights
Independent Film Week is less than a month away, and today IFP announced some highlights of the event Filmmaker Conference, which will take place at Lincoln Center between September 15 and 19. The keynote speakers this year include Leviathan director Lucien Castaing-Taylor and musician and filmmaker DJ Spooky while there will be case studies of Ryan Coogler’s Sundance-winning Fruitvale Station, Penny Lane’s archival doc Our Nixon, Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Elaine McMillion’s web doc Hollow. From the press release, here’s the info that was unveiled today: Each day of the conference guides filmmakers in the art, technology and business of […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 22, 2013 -
Fruitvale Station D.P. Rachel Morrison
“She was an incredible collaborator,” says Ryan Coogler of his Fruitvale Station d.p., Rachel Morrison, in Ava DuVernay’s cover story on the writer/director this issue. “She’s very tough,” he continues. “On your first glance of her, you know she has edge. You know she’s somebody who will bust her butt to get the shot. But as you get to really know her and some of the things she’s been through in her life, she’s just this big ball of emotion on the inside. Once she’s set on fire by a story there’s just no stopping her.” Selected after a recommendation […]
by Alix Lambert on Jul 29, 2013 -
The Day Before: Ryan Coogler on Fruitvale Station
On Jan. 1, 2009, two hours after the New Year’s stroke of midnight, a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer fired upon and killed an unarmed Oscar Grant on the platform at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station. Grant had been returning home to East Bay from San Francisco with friends when a fight broke out in the subway car. Cops pulled a number of people off the train, and with Grant face down and restrained, an officer named Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back. Later, Mehserle would say he meant to draw his Taser instead of his pistol. The incident was recorded […]
by Ava DuVernay on Jul 18, 2013 -
Fruitvale and Blood Brother Take Top Sundance Awards
Tonight at a ceremony in Park City, the Sundance Film Festival handed out the awards for this year’s edition. The night’s top awards went to Fruitvale — directed by one of the “25 New Faces” of 2012, Ryan Coogler — in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, and the documentary Blood Brother, directed by Steve Hoover (previous a guest blogger for the Filmmaker site), with both movies taking both the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award in their respective categories. Fruitvale, based on the true story of the killing of Oscar Grant, was picked up by The Weinstein Company earlier in the week, following a frenzy […]
by Nick Dawson on Jan 27, 2013 -
The Crowded Stages of the Sundance Film Festival
When I published my piece, “How To Do a Festival Q&A,” there was one word of advice from Trevor Groth that I wondered about: “#5: Don’t bring too many people onstage”: “It slows everything down and tends not to work with the vibe of a good Q&A,” says Groth about long lines of cast and crew marching to the stage after a film’s premiere. “Just bring the key actors and someone who played a crucial role — maybe a production designer or editor.” Apparently many of the Sundance filmmakers didn’t read my article — or heed Groth’s advice — because […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 23, 2013 -
Five Questions with Fruitvale Director Ryan Coogler
On January 1, 2009, a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer shot and killed unarmed 22 year-old Oscar Grant, who was being detained on the BART train’s platform for alleged fighting. With the help of cellphone cameras, witnesses filmed the officer shooting Grant and both the footage and news went viral. When the officer was convicted of only involuntary manslaughter instead of second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, peaceful protests turned violent and riotous throughout the Bay Area as the city made its anger known. Raised in the Bay Area himself, Ryan Coogler tackles the sensitive topic of Oscar Grant’s life […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 19, 2013 -
Coogler, Tully, Guerrero, de la Vega and Cretton Among SFFS KRF Grant Winners
In recent weeks, we profiled in three posts on the site, the 13 finalists for the San Francisco Film Society’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants. (In the current Fall issue of Filmmaker, we also spotlight the SFFS’s Filmmaker360 program, of which the KRF grants are the centerpiece.) Today, the winners of the KRF grants were announced, and five of the six were “25 New Faces” alums. Ryan Coogler, got postproduction funds for his forthcoming first feature, Fruitvale, which will debut at Sundance next month, while Michael Tully got money to finish his current film, Ping Pong Summer, which wrapped a […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 11, 2012 -
Profiling the SFFS/KRF Filmmaking Grant Finalists (Part 1)
Following on from the Bay Area Boom article about the San Francisco Film Society’s Filmmaker360 program, we are profiling the 13 finalists for the SFFS’s Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking grant. The winners of this award will be announced on December 8. RYAN COOGLER, FRUITVALE Synopsis: Based on a true story, Fruitvale follows Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on New Year’s Eve 2008. Bio: Ryan Coogler is a 26-year-old filmmaker based in the Bay Area. He earned his MFA at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 2011, where he made several short […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 21, 2012
