SXSW Film Festival 2016
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SXSW: Five Questions for Boone Director Christopher LaMarca
Placing the viewer amidst the everyday workings of a goat farm in southern Oregon, Christopher LaMarca’s Boone represents a daring exercise in direct cinema filmmaking. Originally a photojournalist interested in environmental causes, LaMarca found the setting of the farm to be an ideal location for one of his two feature filmmaking debuts (The Pearl, which he co-directed, premiered recently at True/False). Boone immerses the viewer in the fields, barns and homes of the farm’s human and animal inhabitants. As discussed below, LaMarca spent much more time on the farm than originally planned, finding it necessary to fully immerse himself in the day-to-day experience of the strenuous grind. With […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for The Arbalest Writer-Director Adam Pinney
As part of the Atlanta-based film collective Fake Wood Wallpaper, Adam Pinney has accumulated credits as an actor, editor, cinematographer, camera operator, grip, producer and director on projects such as Joe Swanberg’s 24 Exposures and Alex Orr’s A Is for Alex. With his latest project, The Arbalest, which has its world premiere tonight in the narrative feature competition at SXSW, Pinney makes his feature debut as a writer-director with a distinct visual aesthetic. The Arbalest, which was selected for the 2015 IFP Narrative Lab, tells the story of Foster Kalt (Mike Brune), a famous and reclusive toy inventor, who reflects on his lifelong obsession with Sylvia Frank […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for The Bandit Director Jesse Moss
Jesse Moss’ documentaries often take on heavy material, and his last film — 2014’s The Overnighters — was no exception. The experience of profiling pastor Jay Reinke — a North Dakota minister whose decision to open up his congregation to homeless laborers seeking oil field work placed him at odds with his flock — took a heavy toll on Moss. His new documentary The Bandit is a completely different kind of movie, an archival-based profile of Burt Reynolds and his good friend Hal Needham. Moss examines their complicated relationship through the making of 1977’s Needham-directed Smokey and the Bandit, a film still in regular circulation […]
by Vadim Rizov on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for Claire in Motion Directors Lisa Robinson and Annie J. Howell
Five years after premiering their pregnancy road trip drama Small, Beautifully Moving Parts at SXSW, the writing/directing team of Lisa Robinson and Annie J. Howell return to Austin with their Competition entry Claire in Motion, a drama about a woman grappling with the disappearance of her husband — as well as the secrets of his life that disappearance has caused to surface. Below, we talk to the duo about the nature of their collaboration, being female directors working with female subject matter, and whether comparisons to Gone Girl are accurate or not. Filmmaker: It’s been five years since Small, Beautifully […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for Beware the Slenderman Director Irene Taylor Brodsky
An incident so horrific it could only be attributed to an otherworldly paranormal presence, the stabbing of a twelve-year-old girl by two of her friends in Waukesha, Wisconsin made national headlines in the spring of 2014. Lured into the woods, stabbed nineteen times and left for dead, the girl survived and her two assailants, also twelve years of age, were quickly apprehended. Claiming that they were carrying out the deadly attack in honor of the Slenderman, a fictional murderer whose mystique had been bolstered by rabid internet lore and perverse fascination, the girls’ reprehensible act was a unique case of the […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Interactive Documentary EXIT: A Mobile Guide to the Post Apocalypse
Audiences are slowly growing accustomed to watching films on their phones — and even watching movies shot on phones — but what about projects made explicitly for phones? Today at Convergence at SXSW, in a session entitled “Cinematic Apocalypse: Storytelling for Smartphones,” audiences will get a sneak preview of the first segment of Jongsma + O’Neill‘s interactive documentary, EXIT: A Mobile Guide to the Post Apocalypse, which was designed to be experienced on a phone. Along with POV and Submarine Channel, Kel O’Neill, one half of the married award-winning Dutch-American filmmaking team of Jongsma + O’Neill, will present the first chapter of the project, A Kid-Friendly Apocalypse. This segment focuses on a Portland, Oregon-based […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 14, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for Slash Writer/Director Clay Liford
Love stories set in a specific subculture are a hallmark of independent cinema, and for most directors the challenge is to simply find a fresh subculture that hasn’t had its inner workings drained and exploited by sundry other jndie movies or cable series. And while I won’t swear that no one else has set a romance in the world of erotic fan fiction, I can’t think of one other than Austin-based Clay Lifford’s Slash, which premieres today at SXSW. Below, Lifford talks about the “slash” world, not shooting his own film and Google search terms you should definitely avoid. Filmmaker: […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2016 -
“A Little Like Borat but Without the Punchlines”: Five Questions for Rainbow Time Writer/Director Linas Phillips
Back in 2005, young filmmaker Linas Phillips paid homage to a cinematic hero by recording a cross-country pedestrian journey in Walking to Werner — the “Werner” being, of course, Werner Herzog. At the time, he told Filmmaker, “I remember Werner saying if there is a big decision in your life, it should be done on foot.” Over a decade later, Phillips’ career has ambled through a number of interesting digressions, including acting in Manson Family Vacation and this latest, a narrative feature about the strange relationship between two brothers, one mentally challenged. It’s premiering at SXSW, and below Phillips updates […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2016 -
“If Something Looks ‘Lit’ My Skin Crawls”: Free in Deed D.P. Ava Berkofsky
After shooting a number of well-regarded shorts, including former SXSW selection Sequin Raze and Picturing Barbara Kruger, Ava Berkofsky makes her impressive dramatic feature cinematography debut with one of the most bracing movies on this year’s independent circuit, Free in Deed. The third feature from 2005 Filmmaker 25 New Face Jake Mahaffy, it’s a probing and at times assaultive story inspired by a real-life tragedy: the death of a young boy at the hands of a religious faith healer. Berkofsky’s fluid, expressionistic lensing brings the mental turmoil of the film’s characters — the healer, the boy, and the boy’s distraught, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 13, 2016 -
SXSW: Five Questions for In a Valley of Violence Writer/Director Ti West
SXSW and Ti West have been to each other over the years. The Austin festival premiered his debut feature (The Roost) before going on to play Trigger Man and then breakthrough picture The Innkeepers, which landed West on our Winter, 2012 cover. Now he returns to Texas with, certainly, his starriest movie to date, and one that steps outside of the horror genre he’s best known for. Produced by his usual team alongside Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Pictures, In a Valley of Violence is a revenge western starring John Travolta, Ethan Hawke, Taissa Farmiga and Karen Gillan and set […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 12, 2016
