Near the end of Matewan (1987), socialist union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper), a guiding light and galvanizing force for a West Virginia town of striking coal miners under siege, attempts to console frustrated young Danny Radnor (Will Oldham), a nascent preacher and union man. Overwhelmed by the violence and hardships they’ve suffered, the boy gives into despair, declaring in rage and desperation that it’s every man for himself. Joe’s stirring reply is that they must all look after each other, no matter what. Though followed by a long-brewing scene of climatic violence, this quiet but deeply moving moment between […]

The post Cinema of Bread and Roses: An Interview with Maggie Renzi and John Sayles  first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Filmmaker and New York’s Metrograph Theater have partnered on a screening series as well as online streaming selection, “25 New Faces: Highlights, Favorites and Deep Cuts.” As the title suggests, it spotlights filmmakers chosen for our popular annual survey of new talent. Three programs run this weekend (Friday, December 15 and Saturday, December 16): one program of short films curated from our 2023 selection and then two drawn from prior years. In addition, a number of the shorts will stream online for Metrograph members. I’ll be there this weekend hosting the screenings along with some of the filmmakers and hope […]

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The Sundance Institute announced today the 2024 Sundance Film Festival short film lineup and the 40th Edition Celebration Screenings and Events — programming featuring alumni artists looking back on the festival’s four-decade history. The 40th Edition events will take place the second half of the festival (January 23 – 26) and will include brand-new 4K restorations of Napoleon Dynamite (20th anniversary) Go Fish (30th anniversary), Three Seasons (25th anniversary), and an extended version of DIG! (20th anniversary), featuring over 30 minutes of additional footage, titled DIG! XX. Also showing will be The Babadook and Pariah, and restorations of Mississippi Masala […]

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Melora Hardin is best known for playing Jan on the American version of The Office. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on the series Transparent. Recently she stepped back into the role of Trudy Monk for Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, which is streaming now on Peacock. On this episode she talks about bringing the character Mabel Montgomery-Mayflower to life in the new independent film Golden Vanity, and how the perfect combination of director’s vision and true collaboration helped her deliver that tour-de-force performance. She takes us back to her early days as a child […]

The post “I Was Like a Pig in Mud Making Golden Vanity.” Melora Hardin, Back To One, Episode 272 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This post is part of a series, Girlblogging. Read the introduction here. Maybe you have seen this image: five outlines of a head (turned sideways in profile), each holding (in its mind’s eye) one of four images of apples stamped (from left to right) in decreasing order of detail, except for the last head, which is empty. This is an image of images, an image about how imagination works.  At its most basic level, imagination is image visualization. When you think of an apple, what do you see?  In The Love Witch (2016), witchcraft looks a lot like imagination—energy concentrated […]

The post Girlblogging: The Love Witch first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Oxbelly, the Greek non-profit founded by producer and Faliro House founder Christos V. Konstantakopoulos, announced today an open call for the 2024 Oxbelly Retreat, to be held June 22-30 in Costa Navarino, Greece. Screenwriters, episodic writers, and fiction writers will be supported through in-person workshops and/or one-on-one sessions. All expenses for fellows are covered, and there is no application fee. The application deadline is January 19, 2024. From the press release: The Oxbelly Retreat is an annual gathering of international storytellers, dedicated to the exchange of ideas, deepening of craft and broadening of artistic horizons through intercultural dialogue. In 2024, […]

The post Oxbelly Announces Open Call for Its June 2024 Oxbelly Retreat in Costa Navarino, Greece first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Sundance Institute today announced the 91 feature films, episodic and New Frontier works that comprise the 2024 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival. Premieres by Steven Soderbergh, Lana Wilson, Nathan Silver and the Zellner Bros. join debuting filmmakers such as Jazmin Renée Jones, Haley Elizabeth Anderson and River Gallo at the festival, which runs January 18 – 28, 2024 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. A selection of the film’s programming will also be available online from January 25 – 28. Sundance received a record 17,435 submissions this year from 153 countries, with 4,410 being feature […]

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It might seem strange for an actor to have a breakout year at age 54. To those who witnessed Colman Domingo’s star rise on the New York theater scene in the early aughts and would cringe at now labeling the actor a “discovery”—I don’t disagree! I first encountered Domingo’s stage work in summer 2008, in the Broadway premiere of Passing Strange that would be filmed a few days later by Spike Lee. (Looking over Domingo’s earlier theater credits, I realize now that I would’ve first seen him in the 2003 Shakespeare in the Park production of Henry V, but the […]

The post “Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things”: George C. Wolfe on Rustin first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Film Independent has announced the nominations for the 2024 Spirit Awards. May December, Past Lives and American Fiction lead the group with five nominations each, while on the television side The Last of Us and I’m a Virgo received four each. Among other independent films receiving nods were Showing Up, We Grown Now, birth/rebirth, Earth Mama and Passages. “This year’s exciting group of Spirit Award nominees reflect the undeniable strength and vitality of independent storytelling – this is the beating heart of film culture today,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent in a press release. “It’s especially thrilling to […]

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Celebrating its 30th anniversary next month, the Slamdance Film Festival has announced the full lineup for its 2024 edition, unspooling in Park City and Salt Lake Utah from January 19 – 25. The selection consists of 32 features, of which 17 are World Premieres, 75 shorts, and five episodic series. Oscar-winning filmmaker Carol Dysinger’s One Bullet is the opening night film, and the closing is Vanessa Hope’s Invisible Nation. “Our 2024 Slamdance lineup is a testament to filmmakers who dare to push their stories to the very edge of filmmaking, making it deeply personal yet globally resonant,” said Festival Director […]

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