Dogleg is one of the best films of the year. A unique and hilarious feat of cinematic inventiveness, it follows amateur director Alan, played by Al Warren, after he loses his fiancé’s dog at a gender reveal party on the day of an important shoot. Warren also wrote and directed the film, which took more than half a decade to finish. On this episode, he tells us why he was in no hurry to complete the film, and why he has taken a much more intentional and meaningful approach toward bringing it to the audience. He takes us back to […]

The post “It’s a Braver and More Worthy Cause, At Least for Me, Than Me Being a Soldier or Politician”: Al Warren (Back To One, Episode 267) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

There’s something fittingly appropriate about the way that The Spirit Of The Beehive director Victor Erice became the first Basque director to receive a lifetime achievement Donostia Award at the 71st San Sebastian Festival, while the Golden Shell for Best Film also went to San Sebastian-born Jaione Camborda for The Rye Horn, which is scripted in Galician and Portuguese. It encapsulates not just the way that the old meets the new at the festival but how, under José Luis Rebordinos’s directorship since 2011, it has continued to champion home-grown voices and non-hegemonic languages. Erice brought Close Your Eyes, his first film […]

The post The Public Experience: San Sebastian International Film Festival 2023 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

At a small gathering recently at New York’s Posterati in honor of Jeremy Thomas, the legendary producer sat surrounded by international posters of the classic films he’s made over the course of his nearly 60-year career. Nodding at one for David Cronenberg’s Crash, I tell him how much I love the film, whose Criterion re-release Joanne McNeil recently wrote about for Filmmaker. “You couldn’t make it today,” Thomas leans over to say to me. I know he’s right, but why exactly? Business reasons, cultural ones, or a confluence of the two?  “Every reason,” he tells me the next day as […]

The post “You Have to Mutate or Die in this Business”: Jeremy Thomas on a Career Producing Challenging Cinema first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With October upon us—and specifically the spooky season, with all the “Shocktober” viewing plans that come with it—we’re drawing upon our deep well of festival dispatches and interviews with indie horror creators. Here’s 13 (mostly) recent indie horror films we’ve written about, all currently available to stream on widely-beloved ad-supported streamer service TUBI. All Jacked Up and Full of Worms The psychedelic potency of fictional invertebrates is pure nightmare fuel in Alex Phillips’s feature debut All Jacked Up and Full of Worms. Yet worms alone don’t drive the film’s deviant characters past the brink of sanity. Rather, the creature’s hallucinogenic […]

The post 13 Indie Horror Films to Watch on TUBI in October 2023 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Neither high winds nor power failures could throw the Camden International Film Festival far off course this year, as the annual nonfiction showcase executed a nimble pivot to accommodate a late-arriving guest: Hurricane Lee, which had weakened to become a post-tropical storm by the time it reached north coastal Maine halfway through its 19th edition. “We’ve been right in the middle of hurricane season for our very existence, but for a tropical storm to get as far north as it did and make landfall as close as it did was unique,” said Ben Fowlie, CIFF founder and artistic director. The […]

The post The Night The Lights Went Out in Maine: Camden International Film Festival 2023 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

San Antonio is where the new seamlessly meets the old. Where rolling Hill Country landscapes and farmland terrain are just a quick drive from the city’s bustling downtown core. Home to the first movie studio in Texas (Star Film Ranch), San Antonio has a proud, rich film heritage dating back to the early 1900s.  With a built history of 300+ years, San Antonio is a treasure trove of unique locations. Whether you’re looking for Spanish colonial missions, dude ranches and dance halls, or sleek, modern buildings, vibrant murals and industrial warehouses, San Antonio can set the scene for all points and everything in between. The San Antonio Film Commission […]

The post Deep in the Heart of Texas: San Antonio in the Spotlight (Sponsored Post) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With the opening night of the 61st New York Film Festival upon us, Filmmaker would like to recommend 18 titles to catch during the 17-day engagement, which runs from September 29 through October 15. Over the course of our previous festival coverage from this year—including Sundance, Cannes, Venice and TIFF—many of these films have been featured on our site in critical dispatches and reviews. Below, we share links and edited excerpts from these director interviews and festival dispatches. Anatomy of a Fall  Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winner is more straightforward and more detour-prone than its courtroom drama premise—even if a […]

The post 18 Films to Watch in 17 Days at NYFF 2023 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Fresh off its world premiere at Telluride, the first trailer is here for Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s sophomore feature and English-language debut, Fingernails. The high-concept film stars Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed as a couple living in a not-so-far-off dystopian future who find the validity of their love under investigation at the Love Institute. The film is produced by Cate Blanchett, who reached out to Nikou after being impressed by his debut, Apples. Per Variety, Nikou cites Charlie Kaufman as a major influence and The Truman Show as “the best film ever made.” The film premieres in New York and Los Angles theaters on […]

The post Trailer Watch: Christos Nikou’s Fingernails, Starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, Jeremy Allen White and Luke Wilson first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Fresh off its world premiere at Telluride, the first trailer is here for Greek filmmaker Christos Nikou’s sophomore feature and English-language debut, Apples. The high-concept film stars Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed as a couple living in a not-so-far-off dystopian future who find the validity of their love under investigation at the Love Institute. The film is produced by Cate Blanchett, who reached out to Nikou after being impressed by his debut, Apples. Per Variety, Nikou cites Charlie Kaufman as a major influence and The Truman Show as “the best film ever made.” The film premieres in New York and Los Angles theaters on […]

The post Trailer Watch: Christos Nikou’s Apples, Starring Jessie Buckley, Riz Ahmed, Jeremy Allen White and Luke Wilson first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Here’s the first full trailer for Todd Haynes’s May December, which Netflix acquired at Cannes this year for a reported $11 million. At that time, contributor Blake Williams wrote that the “campy, provocative and sexy May December was the most fun I’ve had at this year’s festival, and stands as the filmmaker’s strongest work since Far from Heaven (2002), if not Safe (1995).” The film will show this Friday as the opening night selection for this year’s NYFF. May December will receive a limited release on November 17 prior to joining the streaming platform on December 1.

The post Trailer Watch: Todd Haynes’s May December first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.