Strand Releasing
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Doc (and Art-Film) Blocking: How Algorithmic Content Moderation is Hurting Indie Films
You have to look hard to find a trailer for the recent release of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood, Estonia’s entry for this year’s Best International Feature Film category, on Facebook and Instagram — and forget about clips. Even though the lyrical documentary about women in an Estonian sauna has won numerous top prizes around the world—Best Directing at Sundance 2023; Best Documentary at San Francisco International; Best Documentary at the 2023 European Film Awards; Best Cinematography at IDFA 2024—many of the film’s artful moving images of women’s bodies were banned by Meta’s algorithms, and the U.S. distributor Greenwich Entertainment had to […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Feb 9, 2024 -
“This Movie Could Only Happen at This Budget in New York City”: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz on Mutt
A breakout at Sundance, Berlinale and New Directors/New Films this year, Chilean-Serbian writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s debut feature Mutt is as scrappy and charming as its canine title. Following a frenzied 24 hours in the life of New York trans man Feña (Lío Mehiel, the first trans actor to win the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance), Mutt explores the constant micro-aggressions that trans people face daily—even in a supposedly hyper-tolerant locale, especially from loved ones—and the connections and community that make these encounters sting a little bit less. Even when Feña faces his capricious ex-boyfriend, moody tween […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 18, 2023 -
Trailer Watch: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s Mutt
The trailer arrives today for Mutt, the feature debut of writer-director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz. The film premiered at Sundance in January (where star Lío Mehiel received the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting, becoming the first trans actor to do so), before subsequently screening at Berlinale (winning the Generation 14plus—Best Film award) and closing out this year’s New Directors/New Films. The trans coming-of-age film will open at New York City’s Film Forum later this summer. Here’s the official synopsis: Feña (Mehiel), a young trans guy bustling through life in New York City, is afflicted with an incessantly challenging day that […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 18, 2023 -
“By No Means a Film Against Boys”: Alli Haapasalo on Girl Picture
Girl Picture, the sophomore feature from Finnish director Alli Haapasalo, ditches hokey coming of age conventions while preserving the crushing emotional weight inherent to being a teenage girl. The film’s protagonists—best friends Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) and Rönkkö (Eleonoora Kauhanen), alongside Mimmi’s lover Emma (Linnea Leino)—navigate the threshold of impending adulthood, oscillating wildly between manic self-centeredness and graceful altruism, encapsulating the disparate emotional poles one must traverse to arrive at self-actualized adulthood. What truly sets Girl Picture apart from the otherwise cloyingly twee coming of age landscape is its depiction of teenage sexual awakenings as something that can be natural, pleasurable […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 12, 2022 -
On Screwball Comedy, Making it Work in the Master and Queer Love Stories: Writer/Director Maria Maggenti on The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love
With Maria Maggenti’s 1995 picture The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love now in rerelease from Strand Releasing, we’re reprinting our 1995 print issue interview with Maggenti, who has gone on to write and direct Puccini for Beginners, write Before I Fall, and write and write and produce for series such as Motherland: Fort Salem and Supergirl. The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love is currently screening at New York’s Metrograph, where Filmmaker‘s Scott Macaulay will be moderating a conversation with Maggenti and Hall on November 24. The below interview has been lightly reedited to add […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 24, 2021 -
“It’s Really the Act of Saying the Words Out Loud, Bringing Darkness into Light, Negotiating the Past for Yourself”: Matthew Fifer on His Autobiographical NYC Drama, Cicada
Writer, director and actor Matthew Fifer makes his feature debut with Cicada, a very personal urban romance that’s also a perceptive and searching drama about the legacy of childhood abuse. Films that revolve around buried trauma can be overly melodramatic affairs, but Fifer’s Cicada balances painful backstory revelation with the sensuous pulse of the present. His depiction of early-aughts twentysomething Brooklyn romance is alive to the rhythms of the city and understanding of how place as well as economic circumstance frame the ways we connect with one another. Fifer plays Ben, a bisexual who we meet as he’s engaging in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 5, 2021 -
“The Concept Stemmed from Loneliness…”: Writer, Director and Star James Sweeney on his Romantic Comedy, Straight Up
Harkening back to Golden Age romantic comedies while placing its young characters in of-the-moment relationship scenarios, Straight Up, the feature debut of director, writer and actor James Sweeney, opens in theaters today from Strand Releasing. Sweeney plays Todd, a gay man and software developer questioning his sexuality who falls romantically (and perhaps just platonically) with an aspiring actress played by Katie Findlay. Shot in eye-popping colors within a 4:3 frame, and with sharp dialogue delivered rat-a-tat-tat, Straight Up, which premiered at last year’s Frameline Film Festival, subverts the tensions traditionally found in romantic comedies in service to a more inclusive […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 28, 2020 -
Strand Releasing’s “30/30 Vision”: Premiering New iPhone Shorts by Ira Sachs, James Schamus and Elisabeth Subrin
Strand Releasing, the inventive, carefully curated independent distributor known for its release of both American and international arthouse auteurs, turns 30 this year, and to celebrate it has invited its filmmaker friends to create short iPhone films that speak in various ways to Strand’s mission and film culture today. I’m happy to premiere here exclusively at Filmmaker shorts by Ira Sachs, whose Frankie opens this Friday, October 25th; Indignation director, screenwriter and producer James Schamus; and Shulie and A Woman, A Part director Elisabeth Subrin. Previously released have been shorts by Fatih Akin and Karim Ainouz. Comments Strand co-founder Marcus […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 22, 2019 -
Can Critics’s Awards and Top Ten Mentions Boost Revenues for Independent Films?
Do critics matter? Maybe. But do critics’ top ten lists matter? There’s little doubt within the industry that an Academy Award nomination (or win) can provide an extraordinary boost to a film’s profile, especially smaller independent films who need the long tail of awards recognition more than most. Think of last year’s The Florida Project or Faces Places. But what about all those year-end numerical rankings and lists, proffered by that dwindling professional entity known as the film critic? He’s no Oscar, but when the New York Times’ A.O. Scott puts your little film at the top of his year-end […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jan 14, 2019 -
The Sorrows of a Young Vampire: Writer/Director Mike O’Shea on The Transfiguration
In Mike O’Shea’s insidiously unsettling and remarkably assured debut film The Transfiguration — the most unlikely official selection at last year’s Cannes Film Festival — Milo (Eric Ruffin), a black teenager in a far flung outer borough ghetto, is first seen hunched over a dead white man in a public bathroom stall, his mouth wrapped around the cadaver’s jugular. Although he might be the super predator of Hillary Clinton’s nightmares, this kid is no regular old vampire; he can walk around during daylight hours and eats actual food. Perhaps he’s just a killer? The movie gives you little certainty on […]
by Brandon Harris on Apr 7, 2017
