Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? As a filmmaker, […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Is Internet addiction […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014“I couldn’t figure out if I was acting or telling the truth,” said singer Willis Earl Beal, making his film debut in Tim Sutton’s Memphis, at the movie’s U.S. Sundance Film Festival premiere yesterday. “That’s the way it is with my life. I’m trying to be real but I can’t. Or, if I am being real people don’t recognize it as that.” Beal — not from the film’s eponymous city, but like his character, a mysterious figure whose obliquely impassioned DIY soul soars over crackly, homemade backdrops — inflects Sutton’s film with his own very artful dodgery. Indeed, the spirit […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? While working on […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Please feel free […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? When I think […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? Turning ones attention […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Attention, our audience’s and our own — it’s a valued commodity these days. We struggle to command our audience’s attention, for them to discover our work and then, once they’ve discovered it, to actually focus on it. Meanwhile, we struggle to focus our own attention, to fight our society’s weapons of mass distraction so we can not just see our work to completion but fully discover the meanings within it. What role does attention play in your work? Can you discuss an instance where you thought about some aspect of attention when it came to your film? It’s funny because […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jan 18, 2014Filmmaker: Why this movie? Why did you decide to do it? Freeland: I grew up on the Navajo reservation and one thing that struck me growing up was that I never saw anybody that I recognized in the movies. I wanted to tell a story about the people and experiences I saw growing up and that’s what set me out to try and make this movie. Filmmaker: How much of your crew was female? Was hiring women a consideration for you? Freeland: I’m not sure, honestly. Our pre-production schedule was only 3 weeks and our shoot schedule was only 15 days. […]
by Danielle Lurie on Jan 18, 2014The following article originally ran in Spring 2013, when Street was on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is republished here to coincide with it playing as part of New Frontier at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. In James Nares’s 1976 film Pendulum, a large metal sphere swings ominously from a bridge in a desolate TriBeCa street. We watch with unease as the ball, viewed from multiple positions, traces a giant arc, pulling on the cable, which emits a low rhythmic groan on the soundtrack. This tense, hypnotic Super-8 film, which transforms a forlorn […]
by Paul Dallas on Jan 18, 2014