There’s a pivotal dramatic beat that occurs about 40 minutes into Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, out for rental and purchase on digital platforms today, that’s been less remarked upon in many of the reviews and interviews. In the film, Richard Gere plays terminally-ill documentary filmmaker Leo Fife as he gives a final interview for what will be a documentary about his life. Fife’s documentarian, former student Malcolm, is played by Michael Imperioli, who uses for the interview an Interrotron, a device invented by filmmaker Errol Morris that allows a subject to look down the barrel of the camera lens while […]

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Brad Fleischer is an actor, teacher, coach, filmmaker, producer, and founding partner of GhostLight Media. He originated the role of Doug in Gruesome Playground Injuries alongside Selma Blair. On Broadway, he starred opposite Robin Williams in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, opposite Tony Schaloub in Golden Boy, and played the title character in the Olivier award winning Coram Boy. On the screen, Brad has worked with Robert De Niro in The Good Shepherd, Scott Frank and Liam Neeson in Walk Among the Tombstones, Greg Nicotero on The Walking Dead, among many others. For 17 years and counting, he continues […]

The post Actor and Teacher Brad Fleischer on the Importance of the Visceral Over the Intellectual in the Work of the Actor: Back To One, Episode 328 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Grand Theft Hamlet, which took the Documentary Feature Jury Award at last year’s SXSW, is groundbreaking cinema to say the least. The first documentary to win an Innovation Award at The Stage Awards in London back in 2022, the film’s production probably also marked the first time a filmmaker jumped into an online avatar and then shot her doc entirely within a video game (one in which conditions often resembled a war zone to boot). The project was born out of the UK’s third Covid lockdown in 2021, when abruptly out-of-work theater actors Sam Crane (who co-directed along with his […]

The post “There Was a Fair Amount of Us All Killing Each Other”: Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls on Grand Theft Hamlet first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In 2021, I was sitting in a dark room in the depths of the Andes, listening to the steady chanting of a Peruvian Shipibo shaman guiding me through a wildly personal and intense ayahuasca ceremony. I was bawling my eyes out, purging what felt like an entire lifetime of pain through my tears, the tribally-robed medicine man before me some kind of God pulling the abuses of my past up and out of my body with his song.  The next day, I saw this same man eating oatmeal in Nike sweatpants and jovially WhatsApping his wife. I was disoriented: I […]

The post Things I Learned About Filming Shamans While My Marriage Ended first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Director David Lynch, whose works plumbed the dream life of the American unconscious, revealing both joy and the deepest of horrors within, died today at the age of 78. “It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time,” his family posted on Facebook. “There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, ‘Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.’ It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and […]

The post Remembering David Lynch, 1946 – 2025 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

For over a year, the images coming out of Gaza have been more chilling and disturbing than most horror films. Scenes of devastation and death became the norm, pain and suffering a recurring and unshakeable theme. But while Palestinians broadcast to the world what it was like to live—to survive—under Israel’s bombing of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israeli citizens, Palestinian filmmaker Rashid Masharawi was also organizing, advising and funding filmmakers in Gaza to use the moving image to express themselves artistically, to create during a time of destruction. The result is From Ground Zero, […]

The post “I Believe Art Can Invent Hope”: Rashid Masharawi on From Ground Zero first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is getting accolades and awards for her incredible performance in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths. The two last worked together nearly 30 years ago, on Leigh’s Secrets and Lies, for which Jean-Baptiste was nominated for an Oscar. On this episode, she takes us all the way back to her first time working with Mike Leigh, on the play It’s A Great Big Shame, and details for us the ins and outs of working with him on these three projects. She talks about her love of process, how this intense character work fuels her on less actor-centric jobs, why she’s still mad at Leigh […]

The post “If You Remember That You Are a Creative Artist While You’re Being an Interpreter, You’re Gonna Be All Right”: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Back To One, Episode 327 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Delwin Fiddler Jr., star of Jonathan Olshefski (a “25 New Face” of 2017) and Elizabeth Day’s Without Arrows, grew up on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota, where he found his calling as a grass dancer (which led to championships on the pow-wow circuit and eventually even international fame. His work can be seen not only in the film but also in a continual loop at the Museum of the American Indian in D.C.). And then he spent over a decade in Philadelphia, making more money if not a better living. Having had enough of big city […]

The post “It Was Crucial to Bring a Native Lens into Each Area of the Creative Roles”: Jonathan Olshefski and Elizabeth Day on Without Arrows first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A beloved and virtuoso annual production, David Ehrlich’s video montage of the previous year’s best films is here. Set aside 23 minutes and dive in. Ehrlich’s practice it to use these videos to fundraise for non-profits, and he asks directors to name receiving organizations. Last year, he decided himself to direct the funds to Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Today, he writes, he writes: This year, I would again like to do what I can to support the people of Palestine. Eager to ensure that this fundraiser is as effective as possible at a time when aide isn’t reliably reaching the […]

The post Watch: David Ehrlich’s 25 Best Films of 2024 Video Countdown 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. This is the most important week of Oscar campaigning, the conclusion to what we collectively refer to as Phase 1: A slew of guilds announce their nominees this week (including the DGA, PGA and SAG, plus sound editors and mixers, art directors and cinematographers), and the Academy opens nominations ballots on Wednesday before closing the voting window on Sunday. (As such, campaign spending pauses from the end of voting until the nominations are announced on […]

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