Director David Lowery admits he loves Christmas (he was born the day after), and that’s part of the reason why he embarked on his latest project: An Almost Christmas Story, a CG animated short for Disney from producer Alfonso Cuarón, who conceived the film with writer Jack Thorne. Set during the holiday season, An Almost Christmas Story sees a young owl named Moon who unexpectedly taken from his family when she accidentally catches a ride in the Christmas tree destined for Rockefeller Center. At that famed location, Moon encounters a young girl named Luna, who is also lost and searching […]

The post “I Love Corrugated Cardboard”: David Lowery on Directing An Almost Christmas Story first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Aaron Schimberg’s A24-drama of identity, appearance and personal transformation, A Different Man, won Best Picture last night at the 32nd annual Gotham Awards. No Other Land, directed by an Israel-Palestinian collective consisting of Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal , took home the Best Documentary award for its depiction of Israel’s expulsion of Palestinian West Bank residents from their homes and villages. Payal Kapadia’s Mumbai-set All We Imagine as Light won the Best International Feature Award. Two films picked up two awards each: Nickel Boys and Sing Sing. The former won Best Director for RaMell Ross and […]

The post A Different Man, No Other Land Win at 2024 Gotham Awards first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Michael Shannon is known for his intense and versatile performances across film, television, and theater—Take Shelter, 99 Homes, Nocturnal Animals, Boardwalk Empire, Long Days Journey Into Night, George and Tammy, to name just a few. On this episode, he talks about his “simplistic” approach to preparation, the test he gives directors to see if he can trust them, the importance of “disappearing,” why he no longer likes to do endless takes, and much more. Plus he discusses his love for George Mackay, who plays “Son” to Shannon’s “Father” in The End, Joshua Oppenheimer’s post-apocalyptic musical which opens in select theaters […]

The post “It’s Your Job to Disappear”: Michael Shannon, Back To One, Episode 320 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Please consider subscribing to Filmmaker — print or digital — for 40% off in our annual Black Friday sale. Subscribe by Tuesday, December 3, 10:00 AM, Eastern, use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY, and receive, for U.S. readers, a four-issue print subscription for just $10 or a one-year digital subscription for just $6.00. (That’s about one month of your favorite Substack!) Next Tuesday is also the cut-off to make it onto the mailing list for our Winter print issue, which hits mailboxes and Exact Editions (all print subscriptions include a free digital edition) by the end of the year, so subscribe […]

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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. Last March, in the week leading up to the 96th Academy Awards ceremony, I received an invitation from BBC News to chat about Bradley Cooper. An interview with him had recently gone viral for a clip where Cooper teared up while speaking of Leonard Bernstein, whom he played in Maestro. (He earned three Oscar nominations for that film—best picture, actor and original screenplay—but was passed over for his direction). In a brief phone call with […]

The post Considerations: Holding Space for Sing Sing first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Around sixteen years ago, the late great Filipino film critic Alexis Tioseco saw Antoinette Jadaone’s student short films ‘plano (2005) and Saling Pusa (2006) and began championing her work. In the words of critic Oggs Cruz, Tioseco thought Jadaone was “the person that is most qualified to give Filipino mainstream filmmaking that much-needed burst of novel inspiration,” given that her “shorts are all tightly packaged confections that marry the popular appeal of mainstream escapist entertainment and the unique wit of more adventurous fare.” Two years after Tioseco’s death, Jadaone made her feature debut—a love letter to and critique of Filipino […]

The post “The Abortion Ban May Be Protecting the Unborn, But It’s Killing Our Women”: Antoinette Jadaone on Sunshine first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

I’m peering into a small pool of water held in a shallow, roughhewn clay bowl suspended from a bar held aloft by two ladders, and I see moving images of a child’s face, hands, a woman, flowers, the blue of cyanotype, a strawberry. And then a drop of water disrupts the image with a sudden wave of concentric circles, and I am brought out of the image to the water’s surface, to a second layer of experience, realizing in a kind of minor epiphany all the effort I’m expending to see one thing while ignoring all the rest. Looking again, […]

The post The Intersection of IRL and the Digital: In Media Res: Expanded at the Torrance Art Museum first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The following is an edited transcript of the panel discussion “Permission to Narrate: Narrative Sovereignty in Documentary,” which followed a September 13 screening of No Other Land at the Camden International Film Festival. Moderated by Suhad Babaa (executive director, JustVision), the conversation featured CIFF programmer Zaina Bseiso, filmmaker and 4th World Media Lab founder Tracy Rector, and Jess Devaney (founder and president, Multitude Films). Using the film and Edward Said’s concept of “permission to narrate” as a starting point, the panelists explore the challenges of solidarity and co-authorship in the context of dominant Western media narratives that often fail to […]

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Based on the novel by Juan Rulfo, a key work in Mexican literature, Rodrigo Prieto’s Pedro Páramo follows several characters across decades as they search for answers to their lives. The story unfolds in arid villages and lush haciendas, against a backdrop of feudal aristocracy and a powerful Catholic church. First seen at a crossroads in a desolate landscape, Juan Preciado (Tenoch Huerta) sets out to keep a promise to reconnect with his estranged father Pedro Páramo (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo). In his journey Juan encounters others who have dealt with his father: criminals, priests, the deaf and blind, and above all, […]

The post “I Thought Maybe Directors Have This Magical Thing Where They Can Judge a Performance”: DP Rodrigo Prieto on his Directorial Debut, Pedro Páramo first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

This year’s IDFA (November 14-24) starred Polish filmmaker Maciej J. Drygas’s Trains, a cinematic ride through 20th century industrial revolution-propelled European history via a trove of archival found footage; it unanimously nabbed Best Film in the International Competition. And while the doc is undoubtedly a tour de force of editing and sound design (unsurprisingly, it also took Best Editing in the International Competition), not to mention hypnotically reminiscent of the work of Bill Morrison, it was actually the other B&W archival-heavy film in that section that I just couldn’t shake. Dutch director Luuk Bouwman’s The Propagandist (which did receive the IDFA Award for […]

The post IDFA 2024: Winners and Winners first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.