KATE LYN SHEIL DISCUSSES ACTING AT SXSW

With a focused, intense, and somewhat mysterious screen persona, actress Kate Lyn Sheil has stood out in a number of recent independent films, including Silver Bullets by Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal’s Green. At SXSW this year she arrives with four titles, including Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine and Bob Byington’s Somebody Up There Likes Me. Here I talk with Sheil about how she got into acting, being a movie fan, her influences and the particular pleasures of independent film.

 … Read the rest

IRA GLASS ON THE STRANGE LIFE OF THE PRODUCER

When Mike Birbiglia asked This American Life‘s Ira Glass to produce his first feature, Sleepwalk with Me, premiering here at Sundance, Glass thought it sounded like it might be fun. “I’d read a couple of scripts, look at a couple of rough cuts,” he remembers thinking.

Glass’s presumption was far from the truth… very far. In this short interview, shot before Sundance while Glass was in the sound studio with Birbiglia, he ponders — hilariously — the job of the producer.

… Read the rest

GARY OLDMAN TALKS “TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY” AND HIS LEGENDARY CAREER

In the first of a series of videos we did at this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards, Gary Oldman talks to Filmmaker about his new film, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (which opens Fri.) as well as what he’s gotten out of working on franchises like Batman and Harry Potter and why acting still interests him.

Oldman was honored with a Tribute Award at this year’s Gothams. See more news and features from nominees and winners here.

Coming later this month (and throughout awards season) we’ll have more videos of winners from the Gotham Awards.

“TYRANNOSAUR” STAR PETER MULLAN AND DIRECTOR PADDY CONSIDINE

When Jamie Stuart and I shot this video at Sundance this year, our jaws dropped at Peter Mullan spun out an incredibly eloquent, sustained one-take summation of Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur. He’s a great actor, of course, but still we were stunned at how it all just flowed. Here is that video, with Mullan and writer/director Paddy Considine talking about making a movie based on a short, dark characters, and where it all comes from. The film opens tomorrow from Strand Releasing.

… Read the rest

CALVIN LEE REEDER AND LINDSAY PULSIPHER OF “THE OREGONIAN”

Calvin Reeder’s trippy art-horror film The Oregonian lands in New York today for one screening at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema.

When we selected Reeder for our 25 New Faces series, Mike Plante wrote:

“I’m not really sure” how he arrived at his alt-horror style, Reeder says. “Just sorta roll the dice. I do love Sleepaway Camp. I just like to make movies all bent up, I guess.” Originally from Portland, Ore., and living in Seattle up until this year, Reeder played extensively with the great art-punk bands the Popular Shapes and the Intelligence. But he got notoriety, for better or worse, with the twisted public access show and later-feature film Jerkbeast, co-made with Brady Hall.

Perhaps stemming from his musical background, the sound designs in his films are complex in their layering of thick aural moods. They give the movies the feeling of old folk songs telling brutal tales. “Songs tell stories and set a mood like nothing else,” Reeder says. “When I listen to Jimmie Rodgers or someone like that, they just lay down these amazingly sad and gnarly stories so perfectly. ‘T.B. Blues’ is a favorite that comes to mind. If I could write songs like that, I would never even bother with film.”

And here are some quotes about the new film:

“Strange and sweep­ing, with shock­ing, hal­lu­ci­na­tory imagery that at times defies descrip­tion let alone ratio­nal com­pre­hen­sion…. Bold, impres­sion­is tic, pos­si­bly sym­bolic or maybe just nuts, The Ore­gon­ian fol­lows a young woman (Lind­say Pul­sipher of True Blood) as she wakes up from a car crash to find the world has gone hor­ri­bly wrong. With its star­tling sound design and Reeder’s back­woods, David Lynch-esque world­view, the film nev­er­the­less fits com­fort­ably within what seems to be one of the sub­texts of Sun­dance films this year: “Am I crazy, or is this the apoc­a­lypse?”” –Mark Olsen, Los Ange­les Times

“A movie like no one has seen since 1977.” – David Gordon Green, fan

Here’s a short video we shot at Sundance with Reeder and star Lindsay Pulsipher talking about their film.

And here is the film’s trailer.

… Read the rest

SEAN DURKIN, ELIZABETH OLSEN AND JOHN HAWKES ON “MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE”

In the below video: Martha Marcy May Marlene writer/director Sean Durkin on Altman, Polanski and why he’s fascinated by cults; Elizabeth Olsen on her character, scripts, and what attracted her to this part; and John Hawkes on why his cult leader wasn’t another dark creepy dude. Photographed by Jamie Stuart, edited by Daniel James Scott and with music by T. Griffin. Shot at Sundance 2011.

… Read the rest

TAXI RIDERS: ELEANOR BURKE AND RON EYAL

If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production or marketing brief. All the filmmakers were veterans of the IFP Labs and also selected for Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces.

Today I’m posting the last spot, featuring Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal. Their feature Stranger Things has won multiple awards, including Best Narrative Feature at Slamdance 2011 and Best Feature at the Woodstock Film Festival.

… Read the rest

TAXI RIDERS: KOO AND ZACH LIEBERMAN

If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production or marketing brief. All the filmmakers were veterans of the IFP Labs and also selected for Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces.

Today I’m posting Koo and Zack Lieberman‘s spot. Koo runs the site No Film School and busted Kickstarter records for his new feature, Man-Child. Lieberman is currently planning a new feature, Max and Charlie. In partnership they are well known for their web series, The West Side.

… Read the rest

TAXI RIDERS: PAOLA MENDOZA

If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production or marketing brief. All the filmmakers were veterans of the IFP Labs and also selected for Entre Nos, and she also stars in the film.

… Read the rest

TAXI RIDERS: ALRICK BROWN

If you’ve taken a ride in the back of a New York City taxi cab these last two weeks, you may have heard the stories of seven of New York’s most distinctive independent filmmakers of the moment. In partnership with Royal Bank of Canada and the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, the IFP has produced six spots that are playing not only in cabs but on NYC Life. Jamie Stuart directed, T. Griffin scored and I produced these pieces, and each one, in addition to profiling a person, highlights a different aspect of the independent filmmaker’s current creative, production or marketing brief. All the filmmakers were veterans of the IFP Labs and also selected for Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces.

Today I’m posting Alrick Brown, whose Kinyarwanda won the Audience Award in Sundance’s World Cinema Competition this year and is forthcoming in theaters this fall from the AFFRM.

… Read the rest