SXSW Film Festival
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The Micro-Budget Conversation: Is Enough… Enough ?
When and how did Edward Burns become the mouthpiece of micro budget cinema? That’s a question I asked on Facebook after a late night holiday bender and noticing the ridiculous amount of press Ed got for making a film that certainly didn’t cost him 9K. Then I thought, who really does make a film for 9K? If you add up all the favors and salaries that are not getting paid you’re in the hundreds of thousands. Then I thought, oh man is there any such thing as micro-budget at all? Or is it like the myth of cover girl beauty. […]
by John Yost on Feb 16, 2012 -
SXSW ADDS TODD ROHAL’S “NATURE CALLS,” MORE TO LINE-UP
SXSW has announced a few late additions, rounding out a lineup that already includes high-profile world-premieres from Nelson George, Lena Dunham, Drew Goddard, Caveh Zahedi, and the Duplass Brothers. Notably, Todd Rohal’s Nature Calls, his Johnny Knoxville and Patton Oswald-starring followup to last year’s surrealist comedy The Catechism Cataclysm, will premiere in the Narrative Spotlight section, while Sundance favorites such as Shut Up and Play the Hits, Safety Not Guaranteed, and Sleepwalk with Me will screen as well. The full list of additions: NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT Blue Like Jazz Director: Steve Taylor, Screenwriters: Donald Miller, Steve Taylor, Ben Pearson A Texas […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Feb 15, 2012 -
The Dish & The Spoon — A Hammer to Nail Review
(The Dish & The Spoon world premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival. It opens theatrically at the reRun Gastropub in NYC on Friday, February 10, 2012. Visit the film’s official Facebook page to learn more.) Alison Bagnall’s The Dish & The Spoon opens with a distraught young woman named Rose (played by Greta Gerwig) hastily driving an old, large Mercedes station wagon into the rainy sprawl of an off-season Delaware beach town. When her cell phone rings, she only hesitates for a moment before throwing it out the window onto the highway. This act — equal parts defiant, hostile, […]
by Vinay Singh on Feb 9, 2012 -
Bad Fever — A Hammer to Nail Review
(Bad Fever opens in New York City at the reRun Gastropub beginning Friday, January 3, 2011. It world premiered at the 2011 SXSW Film Festival and is being distributed by Factory 25. Visit the film’s official website to learn more.) For those viewers with a deep-seated fondness for the character-based New Hollywood dramas that were churned out in the 1970s, Dustin Guy Defa’s Bad Fever will feel like a welcome return to that glorious past (I should know, as I am guilty of said deep-seated fondness). From the spare opening title card—complete with a copyright tag at the bottom!—to its […]
by Michael Tully on Feb 2, 2012 -
DAVID POMES, “COOK COUNTY”
The rapid growth of methamphetamine use in rural America has been unabated for years now, but it has just now found its definitive cinematic dramatization in David Pomes’ bittersweet crime thriller Cook County. Contemplating the final weeks in the life of an east Texas drug din as its proprietor spins out of control, Pomes’ film details the dark underbelly of addiction within an entire community that silently affirms the control meth has taken over many of its citizen’s lives. Meditating on the particularly harsh affect the drug has had on a family through three generations, Cook County is at heart […]
by Brandon Harris on Dec 15, 2011 -
Shooting Tiny Furniture
Originally published in the Summer 2010 issue. Only a few months after we selected her for last year’s “25 New Faces” list, writer-director Lena Dunham went into production on her second feature Tiny Furniture. Shot by fellow 2009 “25 New Faces” Jody Lee Lipes and produced by Filmmaker contributing editor Alicia Van Couvering and Kyle Martin, the film wound up winning the Grand Prize at 2010’s SXSW Film Festival and was picked up by IFC for distribution this fall. The film was shot on the Canon 7D, and we asked Lipes, focus puller Joe Anderson and Technicolor colorist Sam Daley […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Nov 17, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: The Art Behind Sacrifice
Picking up right where we left off; Anna Rebek says nuts to embracing limitations; start sacrificing everything to make all the details important. One great thing about being micro is that no one but ourselves are breathing down our own necks, asking for results, and pushing the timeline. You often have as much time as you allow to problem-solve any limitations that you give yourself, so why would you cut corners and allow your film to be anything but what you realized at the script stage? Perhaps the best time to know how far you can push it is […]
by John Yost on Sep 1, 2011 -
Adam Bhala Lough And Ethan Higbee, Tha Upsetter
Widely revered in reggae and hip-hop circles, Lee “Scratch” Perry is one of 20th century music’s most influential and mysterious artists, a tried-and-true rasta man whose lasting contribution goes beyond spawning some of reggae’s most seminal acts. He was, in fact, the driver for the aesthetic innovations that germinated into the two genres mentioned above, and he reinvented the image of the studio engineer from mere technician to artistic focal point. Now in his mid seventies and expatriated to Switzerland, he’s the subject of the feature-length doc The Upsetter, from the directors Adam Bhala Lough (The Carter, Weapons) and […]
by Brandon Harris on Mar 23, 2011 -
“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP” DIRECTOR RODMAN FLENDER
Ever since Jane Pauley left the Today Show, the trials and tribulations of network television personalities have been the stuff of dinner table fodder. However, few contract negotiation battles captured as much attention as the recent skirmish over who would host The Tonight Show, Jay Leno or Conan O’Brien. What started out as a simple transition turned into an epic battle for late night’s soul, one that Leno won — even if many consider it to be a pyrrhic victory. One of the most anticipated films at SXSW, Rodman Flender’s Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop follows a bruised O’Brien in the […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Mar 13, 2011 -
CHICKENS, VINYL AND LOST & FOUND IN AUSTIN: JEANIE FINLAY AT SXSW
My name is Jeanie Finlay and I’m an artist and filmmaker from the U.K. I’m in Austin for my very first SXSW and the world premiere of the feature documentary Sound it Out which I produced and directed. Sound it Out is a documentary portrait of the very last record shop in Stockton-on-Tees in Teesside, my home town. It’s a small shop in a small town. It’s a film about men and music and passion and the North East of England. It’s the most personal film I’ve ever made for the lowest budget and I’m frankly still a bit gobsmacked that my […]
by Jeanie Finlay on Mar 13, 2011
