His fifth feature, and the first following his co-directed (with Martha Stephens) breakthough comedy Land Ho!, Gemini returns writer/director Aaron Katz to the character-based neo-noir of his earlier Cold Weather but with the cloudy Portland grays of that film replaced here with a sunlit sensuality befitting the picture’s L.A. setting. Indeed, shooting in his new hometown for the first time, Katz looks for inspiration to the kind of ’80s thrillers — American Gigolo and Bad Influence in particular — that found their treacheries and ambiguities within the city’s sunlit highways, dark nightclubs and oversized mansions. And while city geography is […]

1. Solstice The independent video game studio Moacube’s ambitious follow-up to its well-regarded Cinders is a mystery set in an enclosed city, one in the middle of a desert constantly torn apart by blizzards. To remedy the lack of minority representation in video games, Moacube has made the majority of the characters minorities and offered up a gay male protagonist. The ambitious game has been in development for a few years, but the six-chapter saga will be out before year’s end or early next year. 2. The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing Critic — and occasional Filmmaker contributor — Nicolas […]

Vilmos Zsigmond, the Oscar-winning cinematographer of such films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Deer Hunter, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Sugarland Express and The Long Goodbye, dropped by unexpectedly to discusses his work and a special screening of Summer Children at Slamdance. Here is the uncut footage. Shot by Jamie Stuart.