Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. While this Sunday was the Super Bowl (and, because I’m always rooting for Bradley Cooper, I’m thrilled the Eagles won), Saturday was just as important for the awards race. If you had asked me on Saturday what would win best picture—and many people hounded me for an answer—my reply would have been: “I don’t know!!!” Hours before both the Directors Guild Awards and the Producers Guild Awards, NEON hosted a toast to Anoraand Sean Baker […]

The post Considerations: Anora, Acting Frontrunners and Other Post-Weekend Fallout first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A24’s Sing Sing follows a group of inmates participating in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, which offers incarcerated men the chance to produce theatrical productions while in prison. A true story developed by co-writers and producers Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (who also directed) and RTA alumni Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield, the film stars Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Paul Raci alongside an ensemble of formerly incarcerated men who participated in the RTA program, including Maclin, who plays himself along with other RTA alumni. With incredible performances from Domingo (who earned his second consecutive […]

The post “The Film Hits a Person’s Heart”: Colman Domingo on Sing Sing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In The Brutalist, a creatively uncompromising Hungarian-Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) immigrates to Pennsylvania after World War II and struggles to complete an ambitious project financed by a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce). Creating a three-hour epic in 34 days for under $10 million doesn’t allow the luxury of boundless obstinance, yet it’s easy to draw parallels between the protagonist’s unyielding artistry and a team of filmmakers that insisted on using the VistaVision format whose heyday ended more than 60 years ago. With the film, which is up for 10 Academy Awards, still in theaters and now also on VOD, Oscar-nominated cinematographer […]

The post “It Doesn’t Have to Always Cost $200 million”: DP Lol Crawley on Shooting The Brutalist (Mostly) in VistaVision first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Griffin Dunne has balanced acting, directing, and producing for over 40 years in this business. Chilly Scenes of Winter, An American Werewolf in London, After Hours, Practical Magic, This is Us, to name just a small handful of his credits. For his latest, Ex-Husbands, he delivers a performance revelatory in its ease, miraculously blending lightness and dread. It’s so much fun, and even inspirational, to simply watch him walk around as this character, carrying this load. Hopefully, this is the start of a new chapter: Dunne as the contemplative man of a certain age who has seen it all. On […]

The post “I’m Really Good at Getting a Laugh Out of Terrible Circumstances”: Griffin Dunne, Back To One, Episode 330 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With a style influenced by her work with documentary director Albert Maysles as well as shadowing DP Emmanuel Lubezki on The Tree of Life, Amy Bench wanted her work on Kim Snyder’s Sundance-premiering doc The Librarians, about a group of Texas librarians fighting censorship, “to shoot in the way that showed audiences the urgency, alarm, and fear felt by librarians and students in Texas.” Below, Bench, whose previous credits include the 2016 Sundance title Holy Hell and the 2015 Berlinale Silver Bear-winner Bad at Dancing, discusses those influences, anonymizing her subjects, and for what scene she brought in a second […]

The post “I Made Sure My Presence and Camerawork Reflected the Difficult Position They Were Put In”: DP Amy Bench on Shooting The Librarians first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Katarina Zhu’s Sundance Competition debut, Bunnylovr, a New York City-based Chinese American cam girl (played by the writer/director) navigates a number of fraught personal relationships (her ex, terminally ill father, artist best friend and one boundary-pushing client) while also caring for a white rabbit, a gift from said client. Working with Zhu to hone and focus these storylines was editor Stephania Dulowski, a Sundance veteran who cut Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s 2024 title, Tendaberry. Below, Dulowski talks about focusing on character, delineating the film’s final beats, and how working within a commercial house has influenced her approach to editing. Filmmaker: […]

The post “The Final Film Often Grows From a Process of Letting Go of Preconceived Ideas…” Editor Stephania Dulowski on Bunnylovr first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Director Joel Alfonso Vargas made Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2024 on the basis of his short film, Mad Bills to Pay, which is now a debut feature selected for both the 2025 Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals. “A shoestring-budget production” realized by a “minimal team,” Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) is also a debut feature for producer Paolo Maria Pedullà, a UK National Film and Television School graduate whose previous work includes associate producing Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God as well as shorts and various high-end TV shows. Below, Pedullà discusses […]

The post “Only Four Weeks for Prep — Including Casting — and 16 Days to Shoot the Entire Film”: Paolo Maria Pedullà on Producing Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Every Tuesday Tyler Coates publishes his new Filmmaker newsletter, Considerations, devoted to the awards race. To receive it early and in your in-box, subscribe here. In October, I told (warned?) a publicist friend that it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw some old-fashioned, Weinstein- and Rudin-style opposition campaigning this Oscar season. Back then, the prominent narrative was that the field was wide open without a clear frontrunner, and most of the studios and marketing agencies were operating with smaller budgets. By this time last week, the only controversies were about the use of AI to perfect the Hungarian accents in […]

The post Considerations: The Gascón Press Tour first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Sundance is capable of showing some fairly excruciating and/or formulaic comedy, but one alternative this year was the shaggy DIY delight of Endless Cookie. Tucked away in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, this Canadian animation from half-brothers Seth and Pete Scriver (who are white and indigenous, respectively) daisy-chains stories about their family history, from the far-flung Shamattawa First Nation community in Manitoba (where Pete lives) to 1980s downtown Toronto (where they logged time together). Stories from the past blur with the constant activity of the house and environs where Pete’s children and dogs live as Seth visits to record people’s […]

The post Nine Years of Storytelling: Seth and Pete Scriver on Endless Cookie first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In movies like Million Dollar Baby, August: Osage County, Blow The Man Down, and series like The Americans, Justified, and Sneaky Pete, “esteemed character actress Margo Martindale” loves to play people much different from herself. And she’s been so good at it for so long that she only started to get truly recognized for her work in her 60s. Three Emmys later, she’s able to pick and choose what she wants to do. Her latest, the Amazon series The Sticky, finds her number one on the call sheet and having a blast playing the bombastic maple syrup farmer Ruth Landry. […]

The post “Being Clean with the Words Gave Me More Freedom than Anything”: Margo Martindale, Back To One, Episode 329 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.