MARK DUPLASS AND GRETA GERWIG IN JOE SWANBERG’S HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. Whatever the merits or otherwise of the “mumblecore” tag, one positive thing it has certainly done is help bring deserved attention to filmmakers like Joe Swanberg. The precocious 25-year-old was born in Detroit, but moved around as a kid before attending Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he studied film. After graduation, he used money he had made from web design work to fund his first feature, Kissing on the Mouth (2005), which played at the SXSW Film Festival at the time the concept of […]
by Nick Dawson on Aug 22, 2007Over at the Movie City News “Hot Blog”, David Poland reports on what he predicts could, with the right distributor, become the first big hit to get picked up out of the SXSW Festival. The film is Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and here’s what Poland has to say about it: First time director Scott Glosserman was here with his entire family for the premiere of Behind The Mask: The Rise Of Leslie Vernon. Title sucks. Poster looks like a conventionally crappy cheapo horror film. The only two acting names you’re likely to recognize are Freddy Englund […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 14, 2006Documentaries about kids triumphing (or sometimes not) within educational endeavors have been big hits recently, from Spellbound to the current festival favorite Mad Hot Ballroom. With its SXSW Special Jury Award, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s doc The Boys of Baraka should deservedly achieve the same level of recognition. Original, visually elegant and with an uncommonly ambitious narrative sweep, The Boys of Baraka was shot over a two-year period and makes a real investment in its subjects, an investment that pays off for the filmmakers. I met Ewing and Grady, who together run the New York production company Loki Films, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 16, 2005