Inspired by Ira Sachs’ Last Address, filmmaker (Love in the Time of Money) and novelist (The Deep Whatsis) Peter Mattei made this short film, Lost Arts, in 2010. Sachs’ film — which he discusses in the current issue of Filmmaker — looks at the final addresses of a generation of New York artists who died of AIDS. With Lost Arts, Mattei has taken Sachs’ formal approach and applied it to the real estate of arthouse cinema. For those who have long lived in New York, see how many of these Duane Reades, health clubs and Apple stores evoke any hint […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 5, 2014Filmmaker, 25 New Face and Film Fatales early member Danielle Lurie was in Barcelona recently, and, as she writes, made a short film there on the fly. Connecting with lead actress Montse Muñoz through Facebook, she has made a lovely film about romantic indecision, conflicting signals and the magic of serendipity. Check it out above. Read Lurie on women in today’s filmmaking at Sundance and the Film Fatales collective here at Filmmaker.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2014Filmmaker Alessio Fava, whose Yuri Esposito was one of the inaugural films at the Venice Biennale College Cinema, has directed this ironic, fantastical social media campaign about… selfie abuse. (I supposed whether that abuse is self-abuse or abuse towards others might depend on the shooter/subject.) This video has gone viral in Fava’s native Italy; check it out above.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 1, 2014Paul Trillo’s A Truncated Story of Infinity considers the limitless schema of possibilities that unfold over the course of a series of moments. The eight minute film — recently featured on Short of the Week — also boasts some pretty impressive practical effects for a budget of $10,000. I asked Paul to break down the means behind each technique, which he notes may not “the correct way” to render an effect, even if they look pretty fine to me. Hall of Mirrors at :00 “Our ‘mirror’ was just a framed piece of green on a wall. We did a simple dolly into the green so it […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jul 31, 2014In an article by Esther Robinson in our upcoming Summer issue, Barry Jenkins speaks to the delicate work-work balance incurred by many a filmmaker — that is to say, what he does to financially support his filmmaking career, and how that job tends to detract from passion projects. Jenkins is fortunate enough that his particular day job, as ringleader of the production company Strike Anywhere, allows him to regularly create content, even if of the branded and not feature-length variety. Over at Fandor, resident video essayist Kevin Lee takes a look at Strike Anywhere’s catalogue, and the work Jenkins has produced in the six […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jul 16, 2014James Franco, it seems, spent the majority of his Tisch career translating the lives and work of tormented American poets. There was C.K. Williams with the Tar omnibus, Hart Crane with The Broken Tower and Frank Bidart with the just released Herbert White. Franco and Michael Shannon played lovers in the largely misguided Broken Tower, and here, Shannon, fulfilling his menacing hulk of a persona, prefers dead girls. Franco discusses his adaptation of the Bidart poem with Matt Rager, his co-writer on As I Lay Dying and The Sound In The Fury (Faulkner, being yet another poet of sorts), over at Vice. For those who are largely uninterested in the musings […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jul 14, 2014Who would have guessed that Gore Verbinski was such a big Pialat fan? The good folks at The Seventh Art dug up Maurice Pialat’s first film from 1952, entitled Isabelle Aux Dombes. With its disjointed imagery — carcases, body parts, flea-covered horses — this silent short calls to mind the brooding sequences of The Ring, except that it’s, you know, better. The experimental horror show is rather far removed from Pialat’s feature work, which tends to derive terror from the household setting. Nevertheless, I’d be curious to hear it with a musical accompaniment.
by Sarah Salovaara on Jun 3, 2014The New York Times recently ran a story on the newfound viral status of a 2010 French short called Majorité Oprimée (Oppressed Majority). The film depicts a day in the life of a schlub who goes about his duties in a parallel Parisian society where women reign supreme. While the daddies run day care, their wives run topless. The protagonist eventually shoulders his fair share of sexual harassment and abuse in an exercise that begins with a touch more subtlety. The majority of the article discusses arguments over the role of gender in France’s workplace, but also of note to filmmakers is the fact […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Apr 9, 2014Short films are a peculiar enterprise. They are well regarded as an investment vortex, with nearly zero prospects for return and lots of prospects for expense. Many are made and vanish after a run on the festival circuit, if they are even seen at all. But they are also an essential tool for honing one’s craft, and, given the bitesized format, ripe for cultivating an audience. I was impressed by the intelligence and honesty Jim Cummings displayed in his talk on the digital recession at SXSW, so I asked if he’d be interested in doing a quasi-followup for Filmmaker. Given ornana’s […]
by Jim Cummings on Mar 27, 2014Far more whimsical than his down-the-middle abrasive character sagas Ape and Buzzard, Joel Potrykus’s 2010 short Coyote relates an outward manifestation of inner demons. Played by regular collaborator Joshua Burge, the Coyote in question is a heroin addict who trolls downtown Grand Rapids in between binges at his rundown compound. Replacing tirades with tunes, and low-grade digital with Super 8, Coyote presents a more curious Potrykus, whose character is guided by circumstance as much as his malcontent.
by Sarah Salovaara on Mar 24, 2014