Sundance Film Festival 2014
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Dispatches from Sundance, Berlin, SXSW & True/False
Sundance By Scott Macaulay “Can’t we just try to have a good time?” The plea so often heard when going on a family trip — or an evening out with a couple you don’t like so much, or when indulging your partner on a trip back home — is terrible advice for a journalist attending a film festival, especially Sundance. You see, as long as your tickets are in order, you can quite easily have a good time at the Park City festival. By “good time,” I’m speaking in film festival terms, which means “see good movies.” The destination for […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Apr 28, 2014 -
Park City Critic’s Notes #5: Short Shrift
There were movies. Some, like New York Times film critic (and my fellow SUNY Purchase Film alum) Manohla Dargis, said there were too many — even before she saw any of them. Sales, at least during the festival, weren’t robust; perhaps some of the weary execs, including a couple she overheard dishing on their inability to sit through American Hustle while in line for a theater, are taking her advice and sitting on their pocketbooks. Perhaps we’ll find some of these movies on VUDU or Seed&Spark or NoBudge. Maybe someone will tap an unexpected and unforeseen audience outside of the […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 26, 2014 -
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash Wins Two Top Prizes at the 30th Sundance Film Festival
Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash soared to victory in the major awards categories in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 30th Sundance Film Festival Saturday night. The picture, which was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics during the festival, took home both the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award. Starring Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons, Chazelle’s second feature tells the story of an ambitious young jazz drummer and his unrelenting instructor in a no-holds-barred conservatory environment. The 28-year-old Chazelle first gained attention in 2009 when his feature directorial debut Guy and Madeleine on a Park Bench surfaced at […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 25, 2014 -
IFP & Vimeo Celebrate Filmmakers and Storytellers at 2014 Sundance Film Festival
On Sunday night, IFP and Vimeo held a party to celebrate the thirteen films screening at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival that had first been developed at the IFP Labs, Project Forum or other IFP programs. IFP supported films included Appropriate Behavior, CAPTIVATED: The Trials of Pamela Smart, Cesar’s Last Fast, Dinosaur 13, Hellion, Little Accidents, Marmato, Memphis, Obvious Child, The Overnighters, Ping Pong Summer, Rich Hill and The Skeleton Twins. The Park City celebration also included many of the 45+ IFP alumni from previous years that were launching new work at the Sundance Film Festival. Joana Vicente, IFP and Made […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 24, 2014 -
Why the Zellner Brothers’ Kumiko is The Perfect Allegory for Independent Filmmaking
Warning! This piece contains major spoilers for David and Nathan Zellner’s wonderful new film, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter. If you’ve yet to catch Kumiko (which premiered earlier this week at Sundance), read on at your own risk. Tuesday night at Sundance’s annual short filmmaking awards (held, as all great award ceremonies are, at a bowling alley), David and Nathan Zellner delivered something of an impromptu keynote about the many joys and headaches of independent filmmaking. The brothers, who have had nearly half a dozen films at the festival over the years – as well as three features – talked about […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 24, 2014 -
Interview with Laggies 1st AD Lynn Wegenka
Filmmaker: Why did you first get into being an AD? Did you ever want to direct? Do you now? Wegenka: I started working as an AD after college. As a filmmaker I love production, the process of making films. As an AD I’m right in the thick of it, helping to create the director’s vision. I’ve been able to work with many directors I admire: Bernardo Bertolucci, David Lynch, David Mamet, John Waters, Robert M. Young, Wayne Wang, Martha Coolidge, Neema Barnett and many others. I’ve learned from all of them. Working with Lynn has been a joy, it has brought me […]
by Danielle Lurie on Jan 23, 2014 -
Director Sydney Freeland Discusses Drunktown’s Finest
I’ve been hearing the praises of Drunktown’s Finest director Sydney Freeland being sung for some time now. The 2004 Fulbright scholar and Sundance alum – whose long list of awards includes a Sundance Institute Screenwriting Fellowship and a Sundance Institute Directing Fellowship in 2010, and a 2009 Sundance Institute Native American Lab Fellowship – has also long been a fixture on the cozy New Mexico filmmaking scene. (Since I programmed the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival 2012 it’s not surprising the Gallup native and I even share mutual friends.) That said, as a jaded critic it’s second nature for me […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 23, 2014 -
Jonathan Harris Peeks Inside the Lesbian Porn Industry in I Love Your Work
A three-time Webby Award winner and a 2009 World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader,” who has exhibited at MoMA and built the world’s largest time capsule with Yahoo!, Jonathan Harris can now add the firestarters IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling – for his latest interactive project I Love Your Work – to his esteemed CV. In it Harris invites us on an online journey not to the Arctic Ocean with Alaskan Eskimos – as he did in his previous piece, The Whale Hunt – but into the lives of nine women residing in a much hotter climate, that of the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 23, 2014 -
Interview with To Be Takei Director Jennifer M. Kroot
Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Kroot: I was compelled to do it! I have always been a big fan of the original Star Trek, which I loved for its mix of campy aesthetics and also its thinly veiled exploration of the serious social and political issues of the 1960’s. George Takei’s sexual orientation never occurred to me but I was very impressed when he “came out” at age 68 in 2005 to become a voice for LGBT civil rights and then marry his long time partner, Brad Altman. I noticed how George’s philosophy was […]
by Danielle Lurie on Jan 23, 2014 -
Sundance Days Four and Five: Reflection
I think I incorrectly titled my last post. Compared to the rate I am moving at now, my pace on Day Three seems utterly turbo. I am combining the last two days because there is a bit less to report. A good number of our crew members had flights cancelled due to a snow storm in New York City, which allowed for a bit more time to reflect all together. Memphis screened at the Sundance Resort on Tuesday evening. While the movie played for a different audience than we had interacted with over last four days, our crew sat in […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 23, 2014
