With the Cannes Film Festival fast approaching, the first trailer has arrived for Strange Way of Life, Pedro Almodóvar‘s latest to premiere on the Croisette. The Saint Laurent-backed, 30-minute short film stars Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal as two men who reconnect after many years apart. This is Almodóvar’s second English-language effort, the first being the 2020 short film The Human Voice starring Tilda Swinton. The film’s official synopsis reads: A man rides a horse across the desert that separates him from Bitter Creek. He comes to visit Sheriff Jake. Twenty-five years earlier, both the sheriff and Silva, the rancher who […]

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Tribeca Festival announces today its 2023 short film lineup, which arrives shortly after feature film, TV and NOW programming was revealed last week. This year’s short film slate includes 76 titles across narrative, documentary, animation and music video categories. The Festival will run from June 7-18 in New York City. Of the 91 filmmakers attached to short films at the 2023 Festival, several are actors-turned-directors. Harry Holland casts brother Tom in his latest short Last Call; Francesca Scorsese makes her directorial debut with Fish Out of Water; British actor Alex Lawther also steps behind the camera with For people in […]

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I’d enjoyed watching films from Visions du Réel online over the last three years, but in-theater is always better and this year that became possible. “I’m very interested in the festival, not so much the idea of ‘visiting Switzerland,’” I kept insisting in the weeks leading to my first IRL attendance—historically I’m left cold by the splendors of nature, I don’t ski and have no large or illicit banking transactions to perform (to my regret!)—but that statement needed revision after arriving. On my first morning in Nyon, I walked to Lake Geneva and realized it looked uncannily familiar from Goodbye […]

The post Visions du Réel 2023: Follow the Water, Zimmerwald, Knit’s Island, Human, Not Human first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

My first encounter with the work of actor, writer, director Betsey Brown was her captivating and shocking performance in The Scary of Sixty-First. Then, in her first feature film Actors, she and her brother Peter Vack play over-the-top versions of themselves in a wildly fictional, yet super-personal exploration of their relationship that boldly pulls out all the cinematic stops. It’s the kind of rare indie that gives you hope for the future of film. In this episode, she talks about the aspects of the acting craft that are central to her—patience, relaxation, fearlessness, appreciation, the importance of the present moment—plus […]

The post “The Only Thing We Have Is the Moment”: Betsey Brown (Back to One, Episode 250) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

If you’re a screenwriter or want to be a screenwriter, then at some point you will have used Final Draft. Co-founded in 1990 and now in its 12th version, the Final Draft screenwriting software boasts both a user-friendly interface and features related to both outlining and production. Final Draft’s great success—complete with a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award it received in 2013— has led it to become known as the “industry standard” for screenwriting.   But at the same time, Final Draft has attracted a fair amount of criticism. Some screenwriters have complained about its high price, glitches, and the specifics […]

The post Is Final Draft the Final Answer? On Alternatives to the Popular Screenwriting Software first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After previous announcements revealed the initial lineup for the Cannes Film Festival and adjoining Directors’ Fortnight program, several more titles have just been added to the mix. Today, the festival announced 14 additional films that will debut on the Croisette within various sections, including efforts from Lisandro Alonso, Pedro Costa, Robert Rodriguez, Amat Escalante, Jean-Stephane Sauvaire and more. The 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will run from May 16-27. Find the latest editions to this year’s lineup below. Competition: Black Flies by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire Le Retour by Catherine Corsini Cannes Premiere: Perdidos en la noche by Amat Escalante […]

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In their documentary Body Parts, which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in 2022 and is now streaming on digital platforms, director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and producer Helen Hood Scheer confront issues of the male gaze and male supremacy within the film industry. The vastly informative film explores topics such as body doubling, beauty retouching in post, sexual harrassment on set and the introduction of intimacy coordination. Through candid interviews, an expansive array of archival footage and reenactments, this film thoroughly uncovers the darker history of sex on screen, also highlighting the ways in which tides are changing with more female filmmakers […]

The post Secrecy and the Creation of “Nakedness” On Screen: Director Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Producer Helen Hood Scheer on Their Documentary, Body Parts first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Just a few days after the Tribeca Festival feature film lineup for 2023 went live, the TV and NOW slate have been announced. Featuring eight premieres of new series and two first looks at returning favorites, the Festival will run from June 7-18 in New York City. The standout among this year’s lineup is the world premiere of Full Circle, a six-episode miniseries directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Dennis Quaid, Claire Danes, Timothy Olyphant, Zazie Beetz, and Jharrel Jerome. The series will hit streamer Max (formerly HBO Max) later this year. Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the NOW program highlights […]

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La Biennale di Venezia, Netflix and The Gotham (Filmmaker‘s publisher) have partnered on “Venice Film Festival Presents: Next Generation,” a screening series hosted at the Paris Theater in New York City. Comprised of six films from the past decade that are products of the Venice Biennale College Cinema program, which develops and produces bold features budgeted at €200,000 or less, the series will include moderated Q&As alongside one-time screenings of each title. “Next Generation” opens tonight with a 7pm screening of Ellie Foumbi’s Our Father, the Devil, featuring a Q&A moderated by Nanny writer-director Nikyatu Jusu. The series concludes on […]

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Prismatic Ground, the annual New York-based film festival for experimental and avant-garde works, has unveiled the lineup for its 2023 edition, which will take place from May 3-7. Co-presented by Screen Slate, the festival will be hosted across several NYC theaters: Museum of the Moving Image, Maysles Documentary Center, BAM Cinematheque, DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, Light Industry, and Anthology Film Archives. Featuring approximately 60 films, Prismatic Ground will showcase recent works from renowned artists, such as Tsai Ming-Liang and Kimi Takesue, alongside new restorations of essential filmmakers like Raphael Montañez Ortiz and Bill Brand. Retrospective screenings will also honor late filmmakers […]

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