The ACID section of Cannes has announced its lineup for this year’s edition. From the press release: ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion) is a collective of filmmakers who support independent films by giving them greater exposure. Their goal? To help original, daring films reach their audience, both in France and abroad. […] ACID stands out for its unique selection process: filmmakers choose the films they support. Each year, 14 filmmakers see over 600 feature films for the Cannes Film Festival and select 9 of them, to receive invaluable support for their release in theaters and at festivals, […]

The post ACID Announces 2025 Cannes Lineup first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The ACID section of Cannes has announced its lineup for this year’s edition. From the press release: ACID (Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion) is a collective of filmmakers who support independent films by giving them greater exposure. Their goal? To help original, daring films reach their audience, both in France and abroad. […] ACID stands out for its unique selection process: filmmakers choose the films they support. Each year, 14 filmmakers see over 600 feature films for the Cannes Film Festival and select 9 of them, to receive invaluable support for their release in theaters and at festivals, […]

The post ACID Announces 2025 Cannes Lineup first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Michael Angarano has been acting since he was an infant and has a long resume of memorable work in both comedic and dramatic roles—Almost Famous, Will and Grace, This is Us, Gentlemen Broncos, Oppenheimer, to name a few. His latest is a wonderful comedy with a lot of heart that he stars in, co-wrote and directed called Sacramento. On this episode he talks about the long road of getting that film made, how he needed to adjust once he saw Michael Cera’s approach to the role, and the interesting realization that he may not need to act and direct and […]

The post Sacramento Writer, Director and Star Michael Angarano, Back To One, Episode 338 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Woman in the Yard is the latest production from horror factory Blumhouse, but tones down the jump scares in favor of visualizing the dark imaginary of a woman battling depression. It’s not what audiences have come to expect from the studio, and it has garnered wildly divisive reactions from audiences and critics alike. Woman follows single mother Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), grieving her husband’s death, who is haunted by a female specter in the backyard that is pushing her to self-annihilation. It was a very personal project for first-time screenwriter Sam Stefanak, who was channeling his own demons during the […]

The post “Audiences Think They Want Answers, but They Don’t”: Screenwriter Sam Stefanak on The Woman in the Yard first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

[This is the second of three interviews with key collaborators on Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey. Click here to read the first part, an interview with screenwriter Susan Sandler, and click here to read an interview with co-star Amy Irving.] Filmmaker: You’d worked with Joan Micklin Silver before, on Chilly Scenes of Winter. What kind of an actor-director relationship did you have? Riegert: It was very comfortable. She was a very good writer—she wrote Chilly Scenes of Winter—and knew how to take [on] a script that she didn’t write. She knew how to cast. She had a wonderful eye for […]

The post “What’s This Bright Guy Doing in a Pickle Barrel?” Peter Riegert on Crossing Delancey first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

[This is the second of three interviews with key collaborators on Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey. Click here to read the first part, an interview with screenwriter Susan Sandler, and check back tomorrow to read the final part, an interview with co-star Peter Riegert.] Filmmaker: Joan Micklin Silver is a filmmaker whose reputation has really grown over the past decade, and I’m curious what her secret sauce was, for lack of a better term. What do you remember about working with her? Irving: Joan spent a lot of time figuring out her cast. If you look at all her movies, […]

The post “I Found My Pickle Man”: Amy Irving on Crossing Delancey first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

When Joan Micklin Silver died on the last day of 2020, cinephiles mourned the passing of a major American filmmaker, a status to which she may have begun to ascend in late 2014, when IFC Center presented a 35mm screening of her third feature Chilly Scenes of Winter with its original title and the director’s preferred ending—the first time in perhaps a decade that the film had resurfaced in New York’s repertory scene. At that time, Vadim Rizov spoke to Silver, then in her late 70s, about her struggles to break into the film industry (“‘At that point in time, […]

The post From the Jewish Repertory Theater to the Movies: Screenwriter Susan Sandler on Crossing Delancey first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Jolene Purdy is always a standout. She gained recognition for her performance as Cherita Chen in the cult classic Donnie Darko, and later appeared in hit shows like Orange Is the New Black, Under the Dome, Breaking Bad, WandaVision, and The White Lotus. She now plays opposite Kevin Bacon in the new Amazon series The Bondsman. On this episode, she talks about how the collaborative nature of that production ignited her creativity and brought out the best in her. She tells us her secret to mastering the art of delivering exposition, why she loves to be directed, how she learned […]

The post “I Love Television Because You Have To Continuously Evolve Your Character”: Jolene Purdy, Back To One, Episode 337 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Even if you don’t count yourself has a diehard Janis Ian fan, the singer-songwriter’s songs, such as her 1967 hit “Society’s Child,” when they appear in Varda Bar-Kar’s compelling bio-doc, Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, will strike a memory chord, so ubiquitous they have been across radio playlists for more than half a century. It’s a real strength of Bar-Kar’s film, which is organized around several of Ian’s most memorable albums, including the eponymous 1993 release, that she weaves these compositions into a rich fabric that places Ian’s personal life story — her coming out, her relationship with and 2003 marriage […]

The post “The Biggest Challenge Was That Janis Has Led an Incredibly Interesting and Varied Life”: Director Varda Bar-Kar on Janis Ian: Breaking Silence first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

With Todd Solondz’s Palindromes currently rereleased by Monument Releasing in a new 4K restoration on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, we are reposting Matthew Ross’s interview with Solondz from our Spring, 2005 print edition. The film opens today at New York’s Metrograph Theater before traveling to Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles in the weeks ahead.  It  was nine years ago that Todd Solondz took home the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance for his second feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse. One of the seminal indies of the late 1990s, the film earned more than $4 million at the box office […]

The post “Even Stalin on his Deathbed Thought He Was a Good Person”: Todd Solondz on Palindromes first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.