Filmmaker Magazine

SEAN DUNNE ANNOUNCES DEBUT FEATURE “OXYANA”

2012-05-24T19:33:27Z

For some years now, I have been a big fan of the work of Sean Dunne, whose shortform documentaries are not only intelligent and compassionate but also visually accomplished and highly cinematic. Anyone looking to get a sense of Dunne’s talent should check out The Archive, his 2008 debut, or American Juggalo, which he put out last year. (To see all of his work, go to Dunne’s Vimeo page.) Given my admiration for his shorts, I was very excited yesterday to receive an email from Dunne about the new project he’s working on: Oxyana, his debut feature. He wrote, “I truly believe in the power of good filmmaking. It can make a real difference, I’ve seen that with my other films. I think this is an important film and...

POLANSKI / PRADA

2012-05-24T18:09:54Z

As Jeff Wells noted, this stuff “pays the bills,” but if you’re Roman Polanski there have to be worse ways to spend your time than making little movies with the likes of Ben Kingsley, Helena Bonham Carter, Ronald Harwood, Alexandre Desplat, Dean Tavoularis and Eduardo Serra… … Read the rest

WERNER HERZOG AND THE MAKING OF “HEART OF GLASS”

2012-05-24T16:59:04Z

In 1976 Werner Herzog hypnotized his cast of actors and directed one of the strangest narrative films in the history of cinema, Heart of Glass. Alan Greenberg, then a young writer, aspiring filmmaker, and Herzog disciple, was on the set, and thirty-odd years later he, and Herzog, would like to tell you all about it. Hence, Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass” (Chicago Review Press). Greenberg had fallen under Herzog’s spell the year before, when he was sent by a film journal to interview the director. Neither cared for that process, but the two discovered they shared the same ideas about film, music, and athletics. During this meeting Herzog mentioned an upcoming film project that...

“OSLO, AUGUST 31ST” — A HAMMER TO NAIL REVIEW

2012-05-24T23:48:54Z

(Oslo, August 31st is being distributed by Strand Releasing. It opens Friday in NYC at the IFC Center.) Joachim Trier’s follow-up to his much-loved 2006 debut, Reprise, begins with an audio montage of voices sharing their memories of the titular city: “I remember taking the first dip in the Oslo fjord on the first of May.” “I don’t remember Oslo as such, its people I remember.” “We moved to the city. We felt extremely mature.’” On the screen, stationary shots of empty city streets are followed by home movies—children at play, friends enjoying each other’s company—then back to the streets as they fill with daytime bustle. Meanwhile, the voices continue: “I remember hours on trams, buses, the metro, walking along endless roads to some...

WIN “MOONRISE KINGDOM” SWAG!

2012-05-23T21:32:42Z

We’re all caught up in the spirit of Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (read this, if you don’t believe me!), so we’re excited to be able to give away a bunch of rather cool (and also very useful) swag related to the movie, which opens in selected cities this Friday through Focus Features. The two Filmmaker readers who are quickest on the (email) draw can get their hands on: a T-Shirt, a set of two patches, a cooler, a canteen and a Moonrise Kingdom soundtrack. All you have to do is email nick@filmmakermagazine.com and tell me which Hollywood movie star appeared in a 2008 commercial directed by Wes Anderson which, like Moonrise Kingdom, features a troop of boy scouts. (A quick tip: check out the Spring issue of...

KICKSTARTING “DAYS OF GRAY” IN ICELAND

2012-05-23T22:01:36Z

We are Ani & Cailin, founders of the barely one-year-old Bicephaly Pictures, and we’ve embarked on a wild journey to make our first feature film: Days of Gray. It’s a modern-day fantastical silent film, scored by the amazing Iceland band Hjaltalín. The story follows an 11-year-old boy who lives in a timeless, barren land. His entire community must wear face masks outside to protect themselves from an epidemic that caused the people in the village next to theirs to develop strange animal mutations. The men on the boy’s side first erected a wall to keep them out and then ultimately ended up killing all of them. One day the boy discovers a girl with gill-like openings on the sides of her face: she’s the only survivor from the...

HEADS UP: SUNDANCE SHORTSLABS

2012-05-23T20:35:49Z

Strangely, the details of the 2012 Sundance ShortsLabs passed us by when they were announced a couple of weeks ago. (Particularly strange as both Scott and I are involved in panels at the NYC event in June!) So, I’m playing catch up now by posting the info on the workshops, including the first to be held in Seattle, which is currently undergoing an indie filmmaking renaissance. So, from the press release, here’s the skinny on this year’s excellent events: ShortsLabs offer filmmakers first-hand insight and access into the world of short filmmaking through panels and sessions with industry representatives, as well as Sundance Institute staff and alumni, on story development, production and exhibition of shorts. Featured...

THE CITY AS CHARACTER: “OSLO, AUGUST 31ST”

2012-05-23T16:47:46Z

In March, Joachim Trier introduced his second film, Oslo, August 31st, to an enthusiastic audience at the 2012 Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films series. The film focuses on Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), a recovering drug addict who aimlessly roams the streets of Oslo trying to reunite with friends and family. Oslo, August 31st is a tremendous work featuring an intense yet understated performance by Danielsen Lie and exquisite cinematography by Jakob Ihre. During the post-screening Q&A, Trier explained that with his latest film, he wished to portray Oslo as a character – a city in constant change filled with memories both beautiful and tragic. This is immediately evident in the film’s opening which features...

BRANDON HARRIS, “REDLEGS”

2012-05-23T16:35:34Z

For his micro-budget debut feature Redlegs, which resides comfortably alongside work by Aaron Katz (Quiet City) or Bradley Rust Gray (The Exploding Girl) both tonally and dramatically, Filmmaker magazine contributing editor Brandon Harris (with whom I share this column) returned to his hometown of Cincinnati with three actors and a tiny crew hoping to dramatize the moment when childhood camaraderie dissolves in the face of adult realities and overdue reckonings. Very loosely modeled after John Cassavetes’ Husbands, the film trails three young men — brooding ex-actor Marco (Nathan Ramos), sensitive Willie (Evan Louison), and aggressively obnoxious parking-lot owner Aaron (Andrew Katz) — over the course of a long, aimless weekend...

THE ‘BLUE VELVET’ PROJECT, #117

2012-05-23T21:19:37Z

Second #5499, 91:39 This look—this sharp, suspicious, and accusatory look—is passed between Detective Williams and Jeffrey just moments after Jeffrey describes Frank as “a sick and dangerous man.” In the temporal flow of the film, the moment of this gaze passes very quickly, as the narrative draws our attention to what Jeffrey (who has brought along his black and white surveillance photographs) tells Detective Williams about Frank and his dark goings-on. And yet, when the film is frozen and this frame from second #5499 is de-linked from linear chronology, the Detective’s look takes on a new shade of meaning, one that suggests that perhaps Jeffrey, as well as Frank, is a “sick and dangerous man.” There is something in that look, those...

AT CANNES: THE SUN SHINES AT THE WETTEST FESTIVAL

2012-05-24T17:00:50Z

Is there anything worse than some other guy going on about the weather? When Angelenos extoll their perpetually sunny climes, it always feels a bit like a reproach to those who live anywhere else. Pacific Northwesterners discuss their persistent rain quietly, as if wearing some old war medal. But journalists in Cannes? What do readers feel when reading reports of how cold and soggy it is in the south of France? Sympathy? Schadenfreude? Or perhaps just disinterest? Despite my suspicion that it is the latter, I still have to go there because, yes, the rain has been the most notable story so far at the 65th edition of the Cannes Film Festival. While the sun is shining as I type this — and after many industry folk have left — since Friday...

MARK KERMODE’S FILM CLUB KICKS OFF WITH JIM MCBRIDE’S “BREATHLESS”

2012-05-22T18:27:51Z

As a teenager in the U.K., I grew up reading the reviews of film critic Mark Kermode, whose smart and opinionated engagement with contemporary cinema rapidly won him a following and led to him becoming a familiar presence on TV and radio arts programs. Kermode is now one of the most passionate and prominent voices in (populist) film criticism — his slot on Simon Mayo’s BBC Five Live radio show has been a very successful podcast on iTunes for some years — and he has used his position as a figure of influence to champion films and directors that his listeners/viewers/readers might not otherwise be aware of. Recently, Gareth Evans’ The Raid: Redemption was a movie he gave special attention; those long familiar with...

KICKSTARTER CEO ON EQUITY CROWDSOURCING: “WE’RE NOT INTERESTED IN THAT MODEL”

2012-05-22T18:08:10Z

When the JOBS Act was passed into law last month, I immediately wondered about the effect it would have on the crowdfunding of independent feature films. Many independent films are successfully raising into the six figures by banking on the generosity of their supporters and giving them only creative, non-monetary rewards. But the JOBS Act, as detailed by Matthew Savare and Richard Jaycobs at Filmmaker, allows filmmakers to seek actual equity investors via crowdfunding platforms. These platforms, like Kickstarter, will have to register with the SEC and provide investors with various disclosures. Some filmmakers are excited by these new regulations, believing that equity investment will attract more coin for their films. Others worry that...

BILL MURRAY’S SLIGHTLY TIPSY TOUR OF “MOONRISE KINGDOM”

2012-05-22T17:49:04Z

Bill Murray has been in every Wes Anderson movie bar one (“Bottle Rocket, still not seen that one”), so who better to give you a tour of the set of Anderson’s latest opus, Moonrise Kingdom, than Murray himself. The film — which received rave reviews when it opened Cannes last week, and we love so much that we put Anderson on the cover of our Spring issue — opens stateside on Friday. Keep your eyes peeled for a Moonrise Kingdom giveaway in this space later in the week. Oh, and just to warn you, Murray was under the influence of Sailor Jerry spiced rum when he filmed this… … Read the rest

AT CANNES: THE CRONENBERG METHOD

2012-05-22T17:28:54Z

As Toronto Film Festival head Cameron Bailey said by way of introducing a conversation with directors David Cronenberg and Brandon Cronenberg here at the Cannes Film Festival, 2012 is the first time the event has ever featured father and son filmmakers in the official selection. Pere Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis is a hotly anticipated title in the Official Competition. (Perhaps “ruefully anticipated” is a more accurate description; the film plays Saturday; many journalists, myself included, will be back home; and there have been no advance press screenings.) Antiviral, son Cronenberg’s foray into body horror and celebrity culture, is in Un Certain Regard. “It took me 20 years to get to Cannes and he’s walking...

LUCY WALKER & TRUDIE STYLER ON WOMEN IN FILM

2012-05-24T17:01:52Z

The Guardian has been taking the lead in coverage of the controversy surrounding the complete absence of work by female filmmakers in this year’s Cannes Competition section. Last week, it published the English translation of an open letter by the French feminist group La Barbe, and over the weekend interviewed Trudie Styler (who runs Maven, a production company specifically supporting women in film) and Lucy Walker, the Academy Award-nominated documentarian who was one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces in 2002, about gender imbalance within cinema. Here’s an extract from Walker and Styler’s conversation about the difficulties facing women in the industry: LW: If you look at this row at Cannes, I suspect the bigger...

FIRST CLIP FROM PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON’S “THE MASTER”

2012-05-21T17:23:52Z

We featured Paul Thomas Anderson in conversation with Robert Downey Sr. last week on the blog, and now we’re pleased to share the first clip from Anderson’s upcoming The Master. The 1950s-set drama about a religion not dissimilar to Scientology will be released by the Weinstein Company on October 12 and is bound to be a major player come awards season. Just from this sneak peak alone, it looks like this might be a career-defining role for Joaquin Phoenix… … Read the rest

EIGHT THINGS ALEX HOLDRIDGE MISSES ABOUT L.A.

2012-05-21T15:50:39Z

As expected, Alex Holdridge’s inspirational interview — about the creative boost he received from making a life change and swapping L.A. and “the system” for a very different life in Berlin — prompted some spirited discussion in the comments section. In case you read the article but not any of the dialogue that followed on from it, it’s definitely worth flagging up one of the comments — from Holdridge himself — that responded to director Zak Forsman’s list of things he loved about Los Angeles. Here’s what Holdridge had to say: I spent 8 years living there, making a film and writing many scripts. It offers all you said and more. As a point of clarification, of course I will be...

IS CROWDFUNDING FOR YOU?

2012-05-21T16:12:07Z

On April 5, President Obama signed the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, known as the JOBS Act. The Act establishes a number of registration exceptions from traditional securities laws to facilitate a wider adoption of micro-financing practices, including crowdfunding. This is the phenomenon by which a relatively large pool of small investors can use the Internet to make an equity investment in a company. Filmmaker has covered this important development. Scott Macaulay presented a helpful introductory overview to the Act and discussed some of its likely consequences for indie makes. Matthew Savare, an attorney, and Richard Jaycobs provided a more in-depth analysis of the Act’s features as well as a number of helpful cautionary...

THE ‘BLUE VELVET’ PROJECT, #116

2012-05-21T18:53:34Z

Second #5452, 90:52 In Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Roland Barthes wrote about the studium (the cultural and political meanings of a photograph) and the punctum (the piercing of the photograph into the realm of personal meaning): Now, confronting millions of photographs . . . I sense no blind field: everything which happens within the frame dies absolutely once this frame is passed beyond. When we define the Photograph as a motionless image, this does not mean only that the figures it represents do not move; it means they do not emerge, do not leave: they are anesthetized and fastened down, like butterflies. Yet once there is a punctum, a blind field is created . . . The frame—dislodged from the flow of context in the...