“Dear David, the important thing is you told me the truth.” — Ingmar Bergman Early 1964 “It’s Paul Kohner. Do you want to talk to him?” asked my assistant Peggy. Why not? Paul, who was born in Germany and worked for several American studios in Europe in the ’30s, was a highly respected agent in Hollywood representing mostly talent born or based in Europe. The good news with Paul was that you never knew what he might have up his sleeve, since his representation was reasonably unpredictable. The other good news was that he was on the phone from Los […]

This was my fourth year attending Columbia, Missouri’s documentary-oriented True/False Film Festival, which this time celebrated its 10th anniversary — a number calling for reflection, with the attendant risk of self-congratulation. A commemorative book was released, and nearly every screening had its reserved tickets sold out (ticket sales were up about 5,000 from last year, placing the festival at around 42,000 advance tickets sold), but signs of hubris or overcrowding and goodwill-fraying logistical problems were minimal. My attending experience has remained consistent: commendably adventurous programming during the day, a sort of free-for-all of critics, filmmakers and college students running around […]

It began with a glance. When Céline hurried down the aisle of the Vienna-bound train, did she notice Jesse first — or he her? It’s been so long since the two met — 18 years! — and so much has happened since then (divorce, commitment, children). It’s easy to forget that Jesse and Céline were once proverbial strangers on a train. But the couple still sees each other, sees through each other as only romantic partners can, and their romance has spanned millennial change. What was once a Gen X, pre-Internet love affair has aged into a full-blown, middle-age relationship — […]

“My name is J, and I’m awkward and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right.” So says the title character in the pilot episode of The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, one of YouTube’s biggest Web series that’s spawned two seasons and a major career. Issa Rae, 28, is the creator and lead actress of the series (commonly referred to as ABG), which has millions of views and legions of fans, including Pharrell Williams, now an executive producer on the series, and Shonda Rhimes, who has added Rae’s forthcoming […]

Last year, when I wrote about the Sundance Film Festival, I did so through the prism of its New Frontier section, using artists’ dialogue with mainstream filmmaking as a way to work my way into a broader discussion of the films found at the rest of the festival. Another year, I used the “revolution” theme of Sundance’s pre-film bumpers to discuss evolving changes in the festival’s self-definition. This year, when I interviewed festival director John Cooper before the 2013 edition, I asked him if there were any themes running through the curation, and he mentioned a “fearless” quality among the […]

I’m sure I’m not the only person who wondered why the Sundance Institute and Women in Film Los Angeles needed to spend who-knows-how-much money and time to study whether women are getting a fair shake in the independent film world. The answer has two letters, and it starts with “n.”  Am I right, ladies?  Nevertheless, they went ahead with the research, and the resulting 43-page report, “Exploring the Barriers and Opportunities for Independent Women Filmmakers,” was released in January. Spoiler alert: The news is not good. While independent film has a higher percentage of women behind the lens, compared to mainstream […]

“Should filmmakers learn to code?” That’s the question posed by MIT OpenDocLab’s Katie Edgerton in a story in this issue on the relationship between filmmakers and technologists. Before too many of you complain that you can’t crowdfinance, DIY distribute and now code interactive content, too, while also making movies, I’ll rush to assure you that the short answer is “no.” There’s a “but,” however, and that’s that filmmakers do need increasingly to understand what developers and coders do and how to talk to them. Edgerton’s piece is a companion to a series of interviews on the Filmmaker website, and in […]

In 2008, Noah Baumbach surprised many people by teaming up with Joe Swanberg, first on a couple of Saturday Night Live Digital Shorts (which Baumbach directed and Swanberg shot), and then on Alexander the Last, Swanberg’s fourth feature, which Baumbach produced. The director of The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding seemed to have little in common with the most prolific of the mumblecore directors, but the association was indicative of a desire on Baumbach’s part to reinvent himself and find new ways of working. For his 2010 comedy drama Greenberg, Baumbach recruited Swanberg’s former muse (and […]

A hit on last fall’s festival circuit was A Hijacking, writer/director Tobias Lindholm’s smart, gripping thriller about a Danish cargo ship captured by Somali pirates. (Writing about the movie in the previous issue of Filmmaker, Aaron Hillis called it “a tack-sharp, heart-in-the-throat Danish procedural,” while Adam Cook called it the best film he saw at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.) The critical success of A Hijacking, released stateside by Magnolia on June 14, has brought some much-deserved international attention to Lindholm, who is a highly active and well-respected figure in Denmark. He made his feature debut in 2010 with the […]

In his breakout 1994 feature Cold Water, Olivier Assayas turned his eye on the adolescent scene in a provincial town not far from Paris in the early ’70s, focusing on a young man named Gilles and his troubled girlfriend, Christine. That film, notable for containing some of the director’s most self-consciously bravura camerawork and a more or less complete absence of the political machinations that defined the era, is a cousin of sorts to the 58-year-old Assayas’ newest work, Something in the Air. Returning to similar environs during the same period, he once again focuses on a young pair named […]