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. We’re now five weeks away from the Jan. 17 Oscar noms, and the last few days have seen which campaigns are working—at least with critics and whoever is voting for the Golden Globes these days. And miraculously, no main frontrunner has emerged in the best picture race, although the sure things are making themselves known. Over the last week, while publications began rolling out their year-end lists, critics in New York and Los Angeles voted […]

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Drawing on a huge fanbase, the screen adaptation of Wicked has helped revitalize the year-end theatrical box office. Director Jon M. Chu’s Wicked builds on its Broadway pedigree by casting Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Galinda/Glinda, frenemies who are summoned to the Emerald City by the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum). Wicked unfolds on a massive scale that can feel overwhelming. Nine million tulips were planted for an exterior scene. One set encompassed two soundstages with the wall between them removed. The score by Stephen Schwartz and John Powell was performed by an eighty-member orchestra. Finding intimate, […]

The post 17 Soundstages and 750 Crew Members: DP Alice Brooks on Wicked first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths is a study in contracts. At the center of the tale are two sisters, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Chantelle (Michele Austin), who are as dissimilar as possible. While Chantelle, a hairdresser and single mother of two adult daughters, has a cheerful outlook on life, Pansy is brash, gruff and downright mean toward everyone she encounters—from strangers in the grocery store and the local furniture shop to her detached husband Curtley (David Webber) and reclusive son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). Over the course of 100 minutes, it’s easy to despise Pansy because of her shockingly short temper and […]

The post “We Discover What the Film Is When We Watch It”: Marianne Jean-Baptiste on Hard Truths first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew met as undergraduate film students at NYU, where they honed a collaborative practice that responded to the high-budget, high-flown projects of their peers with DIY aesthetics and an emphasis on developing their own formal language. Folding in experiences from their respective careers in the worlds and subcultures of art, fashion, and publishing, First (2018), Negative Two (2019) and 38 (2023) form a triptych of canny portraits of New York subcultures and of personal lives unfolding in uneasy symbiosis with the internet. In advance of a series presented by Metrograph and MacDowell, where Chew and Durand […]

The post “You Can Be a Troubled Teen at Any Point in Your Life”: Filmmakers — and MacDowell Fellows — Micaela Durand and Daniel Chew on Their Metrograph Series first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

For Myron Kerstein, whose work on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s feature debut Tick, Tick… Boom! earned him a 2022 Oscar nomination for best editing, cutting a musical number is no different than any other scene in a movie. With Wicked, the editor’s third collaboration with director Jon M. Chu (following Crazy Rich Asians and In the Heights), Kerstein had roughly 250 hours of footage to assemble into the two-part adaptation of the long-running and beloved Broadway musical that serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz—and honoring both the stage show and the classic 1939 film brought extra challenges to the […]

The post “Musicals Are the Hardest Thing I Could Ever Cut”: Editor Myron Kerstein on Wicked first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

During his storied career, Francis Ford Coppola forged relationships with some of film’s most renowned cinematographers: Gordon Willis, Vittorio Storaro, Bill Butler, John Toll and Jordan Cronenweth all shot multiple projects for him. But with Megalopolis, Mihai Malaimare Jr. becomes Coppola’s most frequent collaborator behind the camera. They first met when Coppola came to Malaimare’s native Romania to shoot 2007’s Youth Without Youth, the beginning of a low-budget experimental phase for Coppola that included the Malaimare-shot Tetro and Twixt. Even then, Coppola was already dreaming of his quixotic passion project Megalopolis, showing Malaimare concept art and B-roll of New York […]

The post “We Needed Crazier Ideas”: DP Mihai Malaimare Jr. on Megalopolis first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Sundance Institute announced today the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Among the films are new pictures from returning filmmakers Cherien Dabis, Bill Condon, Amalia Ulman, Ira Sachs, and Amir “Questlove” Thompson, while in the U.S. and World Dramatic Competitions, all 20 filmmakers are making their first appearance at the festival. Additionally, 41% of the entire feature film program across the festival consists of films by first-time directors. Those statistics, says Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programing, in an interview with Filmmaker, are “a reminder of how much […]

The post 2025 Sundance Film Festival Announces 93 Projects Across Its Feature Film and Episodic Programs first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Gotham Film & Media Institute, Filmmaker‘s parent publication, announced today that UTA Partner Theresa Peters will join the organization’s Board of Directors. Known as a guiding force in entertainment who has shaped the evolution of countless careers across film and media, Peters will work with The Gotham to advance its mission of celebrating and nurturing independent film and media creators by providing career-building resources, access to industry influencers, and pathways to wider recognition.  “Theresa Peters represents the very best of what an industry leader can be – someone who not only shapes the careers of renowned artists but also creates […]

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Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson are the stars of Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ bold and brilliant adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel that tells the story, cinematically, almost entirely in a first-person POV-style. Herisse and Wilson talk about the challenge of acting to the camera, their saga of navigating auditions, the “freedom” and “openness” they both felt from Ross, how the trust they built with the crew played a big part in performing in this process, and much more. Nickel Boys opens in select theaters on December 14th. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple […]

The post Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson on the Unique Challenge of Performing in Nickel Boys— Back To One, Episode 321 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

For years the object of cult devotion, Maria Callas went from a dazzling career as a soprano to international celebrity, a figure of relentless scrutiny even after she lapsed into silence. Maria continues director Pablo Larraín’s fascination with larger-than-life figures like Jacqueline Onassis (Jackie) and Princess Diana (Spencer). Here, Angelina Jolie takes on the role of Callas, seen over several years of her life in Europe and the United States. Larraín’s kaleidoscopic approach jumps among timelines and locations, assembling a character from moments large and small.  Although we see glimpses of Callas’s successes on stage, Steven Knight’s screenplay primarily takes […]

The post “Transitioning From Digital Back to Film”: DP Ed Lachman on Maria first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.