Ahead of the first-ever International Production Design Week, the Production Designers Collective has coordinated a series of interviews with directors and production designers, in which they discuss their working dynamics and mutual passion for the craft of storytelling. In the first episode of The Wilds, one of the main characters is introduced via a quick beat of her smoking a cigarette on her family’s back deck with a nicotine-stained, pink flamingo ashtray nestled on the rail nearby. Sara K White, the show’s production designer, recalls: “We were working to build out Dot’s character—a girl who doesn’t come from money and […]

The post “You Provide Everything That’s in Every Shot”: Production Designer Sara K White and Director Susanna Fogel first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“Unfortunately, because aging is so common and natural, we tend to think of it as destiny or something we should accept,” says biologist and researcher David Sinclair. And while the scientist’s work on aging and epigenetics is tied to discoveries in biology from the mid-20th century onwards, within the arts the theme of immortality goes back centuries. Filmmaker Eddie Alcazar, who appeared on our 25 New Faces list in 2011, is the latest to tackle man’s search for eternal life, doing so at a time when interest in longevity and even avoidance of death is contemplated by tech community thinkers […]

The post From 50 Crew Members to Five: Director Eddie Alcazar on Divinity first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction is a scathing adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated Black novelist who sets out to write a book purposefully full of outrageous Black stereotypes. American Fiction enters limited theatrical release on December 15 before expanding on December 22.

The post Trailer Watch: Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Todd Solondz’s indelible Happiness was released 25 years ago today. Filmmaker is reposting here its interview with Solondz, the cover story of our Fall 1998 issue. — Editor Winner of the Critic’s Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Todd Solondz’s startling new Happiness is not only one of the most challenging and invigorating independent films of the year, it’s also, by virtue of the strange politics of its release, a talking point for prognosticators everywhere concerned with the co-option of indie-film attitude by corporate-controlled majors and mini-majors. Ambitiously weaving five separate tales of modern alienation, romantic woe, and shocking […]

The post “The Price of Making a Movie is That I Have to Direct It”: Todd Solondz on Happiness first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Ahead of the launch of the first-ever International Production Design Week, the Production Designers Collective has coordinated a series of meetings between directors and production designers in which they discuss the particularities about their working dynamics as well as how production design can elevate the vision of a filmmaker.  Derek Cianfrance and Inbal Weinberg first collaborated on Blue Valentine, which set the stage for exploration and discovery. They continued to experiment with environment and process on such projects as The Place Beyond The Pines and I Know This Much Is True. Here they discuss the delicate balance of artifice and authenticity […]

The post “We Had to Row a Kayak to the Camera Truck to Save the Film Cans”: Director Derek Cianfrance and Production Designer Inbal Weinberg first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Reality Winner was an US Air Force vet and NSA employee whose leaking of an intelligence report about Russian interference in the 2016 election to The Intercept, which subsequently handed it over to the FBI in a bungled, source-disclosing attempt to verify it wasn’t a hoax, in turn leading to her arrest. The saga has been well-documented, to say the least: Just this year, Tina Satter premiered her Sydney Sweeney-starring HBO film Reality, adapted from the playwright’s IS THIS A ROOM: Reality Winner Verbatim Transcription. Now we have Sonia Kennebeck’s Reality Winner, itself an extension of the 25 New Faces alum’s […]

The post “We Offered to Bear Witness”: Sonia Kennebeck on Reality Winner first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Ahead of the first-ever International Production Design Week, the Production Designers Collective has coordinated a series of interviews with directors and production designers, in which they discuss their working dynamics and mutual passion for the craft of storytelling. Below, is the first of these conversations published at Filmmaker, a conversation between production designer Jade Healy and director David Lowery. Their first collaboration had them wearing different hats. Shot in Costa Rica, It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home was written by four friends, among them Jade Healy, an actress, and David Lowery, sound designer and editor. Years later, as […]

The post “I Become a Better Designer Every Time I Work with David”: Production Designer Jade Healy and David Lowery first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Wavelength, a production company which describes themselves as “an award-winning film and content studio committed to developing and producing great f**king stories,” is now accepting applications for their fifth annual WAVE Grant. From the press release: The grant stands for “women at the very edge” and is devoted to helping emerging female and non-binary filmmakers of color tell their own “great f**king story.” Wavelength will select five recipients to receive a $5,000 seed grant for the production of their first short film. Applications open October 1, 2023 and will close December 1, 2023. In addition to the grant, the studio […]

The post Applications Now Open for Fifth Annual WAVE Grant for Female and Non-Binary Filmmakers of Color first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After living undocumented in the US for 26 years, in Nowhere Near (2023), director Miko Revereza journeys back to the Philippines in an attempt to trace the source of the colonial ghosts causing his parents’ amnesia. Through an abstract odyssey into personal history à la Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, Revereza works in a range of mediums to express the borderless aesthetic of statelessness. What results is an investigative documentary layered with the narration of his own novel, floating into the mysteries of psychogeographical disconnect with superimposed images and submerged family portraits. On the day of the film’s US premiere, Revereza […]

The post Exorcising the Curse of the US: Miko Revereza on Nowhere Near first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

UFO (Untitled Film Organization) today announced the four filmmakers selected for its inaugural Short Film Lab. Bren Wyona, Kevin Xian Ming Yu, Brydie O’Connor and Tahiel Jimenez Medina will participate in an 18-month program “designed to help early-career directors advance and refine their voice and craft, while receiving project financial support, mentorship, professional development, and industry connections as part of a collaborative community.” In-person workshops will take place at Brooklyn Academy of Music, where the four will receive support and feedback from UFO co-directors, guest mentors and each other. The program supports these filmmakers through every stage of the process […]

The post UFO Announces Four Filmmakers Selected for Inaugural Short Film Lab first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.