Filmmaker Magazine | The Magazine of Independent Film

The Guide

READ: Our SXSW coverage here
WATCH: Trakovsky on Tarkovsky
IN THEATERS: Andrei Tarkovsky tribute at NYC's Anthology Film Archives this weekend

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DIRECTOR INTERVIEWS

MARCO BELLOCCHIO, “VINCERE”
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Brandon Harris
An operatic look at the largely forgotten life and times of Benito Mussolini’s first wife Ida Dalser (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), veteran Italian helmer Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere is a tragedy on scales both intimate and national. Il Duce’s transformation from a anti-war journalist to ...read more
BONG JOON-HO, “MOTHER”
Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Livia Bloom
Mother, the latest film by South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho, is an inky affair. The humor is dark and the sky is a soggy shade of gray. The bumbling characters have limited prospects, and when love exists, it’s intense and deranged enough to kill for. The central relationship in the film is ...read more

more director interviews...

WEB EXCLUSIVES

THOUGHTS ON PAUL GREENGRASS’S “GREEN ZONE” | By Scott Macaulay
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The genius of the Jason Bourne movies is their welding of existentialist inquiry with the demands of the thriller in a globalist age. Adapted from Robert Ludlum’s series, Doug Liman and screenwriters Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron established the template with The Bourne Identity, locating ...read more
THE DOCUMENTARY CHALLENGE’S FIVE-DAY WORK WEEK | By Stewart Nusbaumer
Monday, March 01, 2010
Are you addicted to large oil drums of coffee? Feel alive only when you’re a sleep-deprived stumbling zombie? Relish your emotions ripping from ice berg to flame thrower? Then you are made for the International Documentary Challenge. Started in 2006, the International Documentary Challenge is a ...read more

more web exclusives...

OUR VIDEOS

NEW BREED VIDEO REPORT FROM PARK CITY

We and The Workbook Project team up to film this open discussion on the new ways indie filmmakers can get their work to audiences.

FESTIVAL COVERAGE

PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL | By Graham Flashner
Friday, January 15, 2010
Now in its 21st year, the Palm Springs International Film Festival Festival (Jan. 5-18) continues to be the place to be seen for foreign film Oscar contenders, 41 of which screened in this year’s Festival. U.S. films, for the most part, take a distant back seat, since most serious American ...read more

PLUS: Festival Ambassador - The latest news from the film festival circuit

more festival coverage...

THE BLOG

SXSW BLOG: “CANAL STREET MADAM” PRODUCER MRIDU CHANDRA, PART THREE
Friday, March 19, 2010 Filmmaker Staff
So I’ve been a little out of touch, I know. It’s taken some time to absorb what’s been going on since we premiered at the G-Tech 500 seat theater in the Austin Convention Center on Monday afternoon. Everything has been happening so fast. Jeanette Maier, the subject of our film, seemed pretty calm as we all had our photos taken in front of the step-and-repeat (the yellow SXSW logo wall) and there was a huge lineup before anyone got in. I realized this just after I sent a message to two ...read more
SXSW BLOG: DAVID HILLMAN CURTIS, PART TWO
Thursday, March 18, 2010 Scott Macaulay
Here is Ride Rise Roar director David Hillman Curtis’s post-screening, post-Austin blog. Back in Brooklyn. Missing the warmth. The house we rented. The juice shack down the street I went to everyday, the festival and the films and the camaraderie we shared in that big house on Barton Blvd. It was an exciting trip for so many reasons. Like any big project, our film almost met an early fate several times. There were the cuts David rightly did not like and the commercial projects that ...read more
NEW GODARD (REALLY)
Thursday, March 18, 2010 Scott Macaulay
It’ not everyday that I can stream in its entirety a new film by Jean-Luc Godard on the website. Okay, I don’t know for sure that the teaser trailer for Godard’s forthcoming Socialism is the whole film, albeit sped-up, but I imagine it is. From a blog called Radio Deleuze comes what seems to be a synopsis: A symphony in three movements. Things such as: The Mediterranean, a cruise ship. Numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are ...read more
TIPS ON ATTENDING FESTS BY SXSW DIRECTORS
Thursday, March 18, 2010 Scott Macaulay
Heather Menicucci from Howcast, the online site that develops filmmakers by having them create its instructional training videos, was down at SXSW meeting filmmakers and interviewing them for Howcast and YouTube’s Creator’s Corner. She’s just posted this video with tips from directors on how to attend SXSW. SXSW may be winding down on the film side (the awards are over but films are still screening), but, needless to say, these tips hold true for independent filmmakers and ...read more
UNEARTHING GARTH DONOVAN’S “PHILLIP THE FOSSIL” AT SXSW
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Scott Macaulay
Garth Donovan’s Phillip the Fossil got good buzz at SXSW, with its lead actor, Brian Hasenfus, picking up a Special Jury Award for Best Individual Performance. I met Donovan on Tuesday and used my Flip camera to ask him a few questions about his movie. ...read more
SXSW BLOG: ANNA HIGGS, DAY 5
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Filmmaker Staff
Today is the day our film screens at the gorgeous Paramount cinema in Austin. We were there opening night for the raucous screening of KICK-ASS and so it feels like we have big shoes to fill! However a quick glimpse at the theatre at lunchtime with a queue already forming despite the rain, we had some hope of at least filling the 600 seat stalls before we had to worry about the balcony. It ended up being better than we could have expected (I know I keep saying this, but SXSW keeps amazing me!) ...read more