Erik Jensen is a multipyphenate who, along with his wife and creative partner Jessica Blank have been called “the foremost practitioners of documentary theater in the U.S.” Their genre-defining plays The Exonerated, Aftermath, Coal Country, and The Line were all critically acclaimed. As an actor, Jensen’s credits include The Walking Dead, Mindhunter, Mr. Robot, The Americans, not to mention his praised portrayal of legendary NY Yankee Thurman Munson in The Bronx is Burning. On this episode he details his approach toward playing that beloved figure, and finding out that “almost the entire body of that character was an emotional word-gesture.” […]

The post “It was Physicalizing the Words That Became the Goal”: Erik Jensen, Back To One, Episode 349 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Rita Azevedo Gomes’ cinematic universe, a characteristic blend of literary adaptation and cinematic innovation creates simultaneously concrete and oneiric landscapes—places where the wandering subject, camera, plot and spectator become absorbed by the unknown, yet strangely familiar, territory before them. With Fuck the Polis, her most bold and daring film to date, the Portuguese filmmaker continues her cinematographic explorations of word, image, time and human emotions. Making its world premiere at FIDMarseille 2025, Polis follows Irma, who around twenty years ago, believing herself condemned, traveled to Greece. She now retraces that journey, moving from island to island in what becomes […]

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At a time when observation remains the dominant approach among contemporary Ukrainian documentarians and it feels as though every subject suited to a distanced gaze has already been explored, in Divia Dmytro Hreshko approaches nature during wartime with radical, dialogue-free minimalism. Originally from Uzhhorod, a city on the Slovakian border, Hreshko has celebrated Ukraine’s landscape in previous documentaries such as Snow Leopards of the Carpathians (2019) or Mountains and Heaven in Between (2022). With his signature admiration for picturesque scenery—captured through drone and sustained by extra-long shots with deep focus—Divia is a harmonious continuation of his career as both director […]

The post “I Had Never Filmed Near the Front Before”: Dmytro Hreshko on Karlovy Vary-Premiering Ukrainian War Documentary Divia  first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With Isaiah’s Phone, French-American filmmaker Frederic Da caps off an informal trilogy cataloging the contemporary teenage experience by corralling his film students at a private high school in Santa Monica as crew and on-camera as actors. Short “Ava Dates a Senior” was expanded into the ensemble feature Teenage Emotions—both of which are lensed on multiple iPhones and had their premieres at Slamdance. Da’s latest, Isaiah’s Phone, employs a diegetic, found footage framing device, following a young student Isaiah (Isaiah Brody) as he navigates the difficulties of high school. On-screen text up top teases “a horrific act of violence,” explaining that […]

The post “A Lot of Movies Right Now are Just Shrugs”: Frederic Da on iPhone-Shot Found Footage film Isaiah’s Phone first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Part eulogy for a bygone commercial space, part rigorous investigation of its origins and subsequent representation in popular culture, Alex Ross Perry’s Videoheaven leaves virtually no stone unturned during its nearly three hour runtime. Composed entirely of clips that take place in or otherwise center video stores—from Body Double to Seinfeld to Stranger Things—the essayistic documentary features droll narration from Maya Hawke (who stars in the latter) waxing poetic about their rise and fall, both physically and on screen, in six chapters. The role of pornography, corporate chains and the front-facing employees within these spaces is exhaustively charted; notably, Perry […]

The post “Everybody Involved in This Was a Total Loser”: Alex Ross Perry on His Exhaustive Essay Doc Videoheaven first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Chheangkea, who traveled to the Lab with Little Phnom Penh. Here’s the description: “Spanning two ever-changing decades, from post–Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California, a Cambodian woman grapples with her deep personal desires, untimely love, and shifting family roles amid profound cultural and historical upheavals.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor All I wanted when I arrived at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park for the Directors Lab was […]

The post Sundance Institute Directors Lab 2025: Chheangkea first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Bonnie Rose started her professional career as a stand-in for Bette Midler on First Wives Club. Next up, the iconic and legendary film director Sidney Lumet hand picked her for the feature film Night Falls On Manhattan, playing a New York City cop opposite Andy Garcia, which led to many other Lumet projects over the next decade including a recurring role as a legal aid attorney on the TV legal drama 100 Centre St. Bonnie’s massive credits in television and film include Inside Llewyn Davis, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Mr. Robot, Blue Bloods, Broad City, The Sopranos, and the trifecta of all  Law & Orders. She recently won Best Actress at three different […]

The post “Right-Size Yourself”: Bonnie Rose, Back To One, Episode 348 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Diffan Sina Norman, who traveled to the Lab with Sitora. Here’s the description: “A young doctor arrives in a Malay village to establish its first health clinic, jeopardizing the community’s allegiance to a racketeering shaman and his unlikely accomplice: an elusive half-man, half-tiger.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor It’s two days after my return from the lab. My memory of the last two weeks are a little hazy and scrunched […]

The post Sundance Institute Directors Lab 2025: Diffan Sina Norman first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This month Filmmaker is publishing diaries from writers and directors who attended the 2025 Sundance Institute Directors Lab. Today we’re sharing the diary of Alexandra Qin, who traveled to the Lab with Thirstygirl. Here’s the description: “When Charlie is forced to drive her estranged younger sister cross-country to rehab, her own secret addiction comes to the surface in the most devastating and hilarious ways.” A complete list of Sundance Labs participants can be found here. — Editor What they don’t tell you about the Sundance Directors Lab:  You’ll feel like a big shot when you land at the Denver airport. You’ll float […]

The post Sundance Institute Directors Lab 2025: Alexandra Qin first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The titular sports car of Robin Schavoir’s The Jag is parked in an imaginary space off-stage at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, where the play is currently running in a production directed by Paul Felten. The existence of this symbolic object structures the matrix of resentment, envy and desire searchingly embodied by The Jag‘s on-stage trio: struggling screenwriter Tyler (Gilles Geary), rich guy art collector Brian (Mickey Solis), and nursing student Cori (Giovanna Drummond). (A fourth character, the renter of the Catskills home the three converge at, and voiced by a “downtown icon,” is only heard via recited emails […]

The post “It’s Really Sharp on the Neurotic Relationships that Americans Have with Money”: Robin Schavoir and Paul Felten Discuss The Jag first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.