The Black Balloon
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DISPOSABLE MEMORIES FROM SXSW
I pack quickly the night before leaving for SXSW. Not only do I forget to bring business cards, I don’t even pack my digital camera. I pop into a CVS once I’ve landed in Austin and pick up a two-pack of disposable cameras. I’m surprised they still sell them. My five day jaunt across SXSW is a flurry of rain, movies, tacos, friends, panels, and long lines. I watch Purple Rain on VHS. I watch V/H/S in a movie theater. I’m asked by multiple people if I’ve heard what this year’s Tiny Furniture is. I hear a big-four agent tell […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Mar 16, 2012 -
SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES JURY PRIZES IN SHORT FILMMAKING
At a ceremony last night, Sundance announced this year’s short film prize winners. The 2012 shorts jury, which included Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge, Pariah director Dee Rees, and TIFF public program director Shane Smith, narrowed down the sixty-four shorts currently playing at the festival to six winners. The big winner was Cutter Hodierne’s fictional Somali pirate expose Fishing Without Nets, which took home the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. Meanwhile, Ben and Josh Sadie’s (Daddy Longlegs) The Black Balloon was awarded the US Fiction Prize while Kosovo filmmaker Blerta Zeqiri’s The Return (Kthimi) won the International Fiction Prize. The […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Jan 25, 2012 -
SHORTS PROGRAM II: EVALUATING RELATIONSHIPS YOUNG, OLD, AND NEW
The films that make up Sundance’s Shorts Program II all address issues of basic intimacy and loneliness. Whether telling the story of a homecoming between wife and husband, an unexpected encounter with a stranger, or in one case, the way technology’s interference in everyday life renders a relationship unidentifiable, these young filmmakers are all attempting to understand emotions that still remain mysterious. Take Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, and Jessie Ennis’ The Arm, for example. The film begins misleadingly. A narrative seemingly about a power struggle between two male teenage friends turns quickly into a darkly humorous depiction of a subject […]
by Alexandra Byer on Jan 23, 2012 -
Elissa Down, The Black Balloon
LUKE FORD AND RHYS WAKEFIELD IN WRITER-DIRECTOR ELISSA DOWN’S THE BLACK BALLOON. COURTESY NEOCLASSICS FILMS. Since she was very young, Elissa Down has been honing her skills as a director. Admittedly, it wasn’t strictly conscious when she was writing, acting in and masterminding little drama projects as a kid growing up in Australia, or bossing her parents around when they were reading her bedtime stories. However, her vocation as a filmmaker became ever clearer as she grew older and by the time she was a film and television student at Perth’s Curtin University, she had her eye on cinematic success. […]
by Nick Dawson on Dec 5, 2008
