We rarely get to hear Joel Potrykus talk about himself as an actor. The independent filmmaker of such beloved low-budget treasures as Ape, Buzzard, and Relaxer says he has, in fact, never talked about it. In his latest, Vulcanizadora, he once again co-stars with the man he loves to point his camera at, Joshua Burge. The two reprise their roles of Derek and Marty exactly ten years after they birthed those characters in Buzzard. On this episode, Potrykus explains the decision to take on the role in both films, why he loves working with the “machine” that is Burge, the […]

The post “Slow Cinema Meets Heavy Metal is Kind of Like My Goal in Life”: Joel Potrykus, Back To One, Episode 340 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With Joshua Erkman’s eerie horror/thriller, A Desert, which centers around a photographer lost in a Southwestern desert while on an expedition to photograph its abandoned movie theaters, in theaters now, the director presents here six inspirational photographs he shot on his own early research trip to the film’s locations. — Editor The original seed of A Desert was the photographer character, Alex Clark. I’ve long been obsessed with photography, and before movies took ahold and bent my brain, I had aspirations of being a photographer. Before I even had an idea of what A Desert was going to be about, […]

The post Six Derelict Movie Theaters That Inspired Joshua Erkman’s Horror Thriller, A Desert first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In 2021, we profiled Frederic Da as part of that year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film on the strength of his debut feature, Teenage Emotions. This May, Da will premiere his sophomore follow-up, isaiah’s phone, at the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival. We’re pleased to premiere the trailer for the film, whose festival synopsis is: “A socially awkward high school student films himself as he blunders through attempts to make friends, spiralling into a dark place where his only close relationship is with his phone.”

The post Trailer Watch: Frederic Da’s isaiah’s phone first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson’s Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted is a gonzo doc that perfectly reflects its trio of carpe diem stars — fun-loving musicians who reside in a bachelor pad in the hedonistic San Fernando Valley (aka the capital of porn). That Swamp Dogg, Guitar Shorty and Moogstar also happen to be in the AARP demographic (two of the three octogenarians) only adds to the unconventionality of it all. As does the filmmakers’s choice to forego the usual biopic route, which they clearly could have taken. The titular star, born with the far more staid name Jerry […]

The post “One of our Biggest Challenges Was Painting the Pool”: Isaac Gale on Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Tatyana Tenenbaum’s Everything You Have Is Yours centers on NYC-based choreographer Hadar Ahuvia, specifically her coming to terms, through her chosen art form, with the colonialism and cultural appropriation that birthed the Israeli folk dances she was raised on in Hawaii (by way of Israel/Palestine) and which she still deeply loves. It’s a maddening conundrum that likewise could be applied to the Jewish state itself. As Ahuvia reflects towards the end of the intriguing doc, “Palestinians’ lives are at risk. And Israelis’ lives are at risk because Palestinians’ lives are at risk.” And while much of the film is focused […]

The post “The Film Asserts a Clear Political Analysis of Zionism, and Simultaneously Does So While Asserting That No Human Beings are Villains”: Tatyana Tenenbaum on Everything You Have Is Yours first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Japan Society and Metrograph will co-present Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us, a 30-film retrospective devoted to Naruse, the “fourth great” master of Japanese cinema, from May 9th through June 29th. Co-organized with The Japan Foundation, New York, the two-part series will offer the first major New York survey of this signal studio-era filmmaker’s work in 20 years, presented in commemoration of the 120th anniversary of his birth and entirely on rare prints imported from collections and archives in Japan. Notable series highlights include all six of Naruse’s adaptations of celebrated feminist author Fumiko Hayashi’s work (Floating Clouds, Repast, Lightning, […]

The post Trailer Watch: “Mikio Naruse: The World Betrays Us” first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“Some places on Earth carry a weight that is almost impossible to put into words” is how Zhanana Kurmasheva puts it in her director’s statement for We Live Here, which world-premiered at CPH:DOX and next screens in the World Showcase section at Hot Docs. Fortunately, Kurmasheva has a way with images that allows her to artistically convey both the gravity and eerie specificity of the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Set in the breathtaking Kazakh steppe, it’s an otherworldly place where the Soviets spent over four decades — until 1991 when Kazakhstan gained its independence — conducting a whopping 456 nuclear tests; […]

The post “Radiation Became a Presence—Almost Like a Mythical Force”: Zhanana Kurmasheva on We Live Here first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“I always was hoping that it was music for the future. I mean, I think everyone who’s not that successful in their time tries to think that,” says Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus early on in Pavements, a new hybrid music documentary about the band. The group was certainly successful during their heyday in the ’90s, at least in indie rock terms—a perfect discography that drew near-universal critical acclaim, multiple tours including major international festivals and a hit on MTV—but their stature and popularity has only grown since they broke up in 1999. Beginning in 2002, Matador Records slowly re-released every […]

The post “False Histories. Corny Music Biopic”: Alex Ross Perry on Pavements first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Nearly 12 years in the making, Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon’s Free for All: Inside the Public Library is a heartfelt journey into the history of an institution that went from a radical idea (the “Free Library Movement”), to an entity taken for granted, to a present-day site of ginned up controversy. It’s also a contemporary cross-country celebration of the (overwhelmingly female) librarians then and now who fought, and continue to fight, for the right to knowledge for all. A few weeks before the doc’s April 29th debut on PBS’s Independent Lens, Filmmaker reached out to the co-directors, both lifelong […]

The post “What’s Remarkable To Me About the Story of the American Public Library is How Much of It Cuts Across Political Lines”: Lucie Faulknor and Dawn Logsdon on Free for All: Inside the Public Library first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today the nominations in twelve competitive award categories for the 2025 Gotham Television Awards, recognizing a range of series, including Adolescence, The Pitt, The Studio as well as performances from Kathy Bates, Sterling K. Brown, Ted Danson, Linda Lavin, Cristin Milioti, and Michelle Williams, among others. “Building on the success of last year’s inaugural ceremony, the Gotham Television Awards returns with new categories, expanded tributes, and a larger stage to celebrate the creators and artists making their mark on today’s television landscape,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham. “As […]

The post Nominees Announced for 2025 Gotham Television Awards first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.