Clik here to view.
Cutting Sports and Spielberg: The “Sight, Sound & Story” Editing Workshop
A not very wise man once reflected that the strongest examples of film editing are the sequences where you don’t notice it. Day-long seminars such as “Sight, Sound & Story,” which took place last...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“My Vampire has a Beer Gut”: Director Onur Tukel on Summer of Blood
Charmingly crude and equipped with the gift of gab, filmmaker and painter Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood is a Brooklyn-set vampire comedy with a love for witty banter. The film’s writer, director, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“We Have to Make a Creepy Movie in These Woods”: Director Josephine Decker...
Since premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, Butter on the Latch and Thou Wast Mild & Lovely, the remarkably assured debut feature-length films from Josephine Decker (one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“It Takes a Lot to Make a Film that Comes from Yourself”: The Babadook‘s...
Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, a frightening new film that finds the horror in the familial, opens Friday in theaters and on demand, almost a year after its debut at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival....
View ArticleClik here to view.
“85% of Protagonists in Film and Television are Male”: Madeleine Olnek on The...
The world’s oldest profession proves stressful and arduous in The Foxy Merkins, director Madeleine Olnek’s follow-up to her zany “fish out of water” black-and-white debut Codependent Lesbian Space...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spirituality in the South: Something, Anything‘s Paul Harrill and Ashley Maynor
An alum of the 2013 IFP Filmmaker Labs (an experience he wrote about here), Paul Harrill’s Something, Anything is less saccharine than truthful. A quietly meditative, regional production, Harrill’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“To Film Children in Ways You Don’t Usually See on Film”: Amanda Rose Wilder...
A gripping, obsessively watchable observation of adolescent behavior set free, first time feature filmmaker Amanda Rose Wilder’s Approaching the Elephant finds its inspiration in the inaugural semester...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shooting Mechanical Dinosaurs in 35mm: Lance Edmands on Bluebird
Lance Edmands’ ensemble drama Bluebird sets its story in a blue collar, hardworking industrialized town. The screenplay uses a tragic instance of negligence to connect age-defining experiences (first...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“For Every Kink, There is a Case”: Anja Marquardt on She’s Lost Control
The erotic meets the clinical in German director Anja Marquardt’s debut feature, She’s Lost Control, a quietly intense portrait of two characters brought together by deeply personal physical and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kieślowski, WarGames and the ’80s: Carleton Ranney on Jackrabbit
Set in the not-too-distant future, Carleton Ranney’s debut feature Jackrabbit observes two young hackers living in City Six, a dystopian urban environment still recovering from The Reset, an event...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“A Snapple Kind of Guy”: Co-Director Lev Kalman on L for Leisure
A period piece best appreciated less for its historical relevance than its microscopic adoration of a forgotten pop zeitgeist, Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn’s L for Leisure is equal part class critique...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Acceptance of The Other”: Iva Radivojevic on Evaporating Borders
Using the island of Cyprus as its setting and object of pointed criticism, Iva Radivojevic’s Evaporating Borders views the third largest island in the Mediterranean as both a place of familiarity and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“We’d Revert Back to the Idea of a Cauliflower”: Debra Granik on Stray Dog
Much more than a companion piece to her Oscar-nominated feature Winter’s Bone, Debra Granik’s Stray Dog sets its sights on a peaceful and welcoming side of Missouri rarely seen in American cinema. Ron...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Virtual Reality Cronenberg, Horror Anthologies and Turkish Rip-Off Cinema:...
Now in its nineteenth year, the Fantasia International Film Festival is known as one of the premier destinations for exciting genre cinema. With a focus primarily on horror, Asian genre fare, and more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In North Dakota with the Neo-Nazis: Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher K....
Chances are that if you’ve heard anything over the past few years about Leith, North Dakota, it was related to infamous white supremacist Craig Cobb’s attempted takeover of the micro-sized city....
View ArticleClik here to view.
“A Documentarian Needs to be Disarming”: Khalik Allah on Field Niggas
Filmed throughout the summer of 2014 on the warm, sweat-drenched streets of Harlem (between 125th Street and Lexington Avenue to be exact), Khalik Allah’s Field Niggas is an all-out sensory experience,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Neighborhood Movie Mentored by Spike Lee: Michael Larnell on Cronies
Michael Larnell grew his black-and-white debut feature Cronies through New York University’s Graduate Film program. Executive produced by NYU professor and project advisor Spike Lee, Larnell’s film...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Suburban Megachurch in John Hughes Territory: Stephen Cone on Henry...
Simultaneously a rebellious yell against Christian authority and an appreciation for growing up with evangelical values, Stephen Cone’s Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party is neither religious condemnation...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Eight Recommended Short Films at Sundance 2016
Features premiering at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival tend to receive the most media attention and press coverage, but there are a number of short works making their debut this week that deserve equal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Five Questions for Southside with You Writer/Director Richard Tanne
Intriguing for its logline alone, Southside with You raised considerable interest when it was announced as a Sundance selection. Telling the true story of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle...
View Article
