After eight years—much of them spent developing projects that never came to fruition—Mud and Midnight Special filmmaker Jeff Nichols is thankfully back with a new movie. That means cinematographer Adam Stone is back with a new movie too. After meeting Nichols at the University of North Carolina School for the Arts, Stone has been behind the camera on all six of the director’s features. Every one of them has been shot on 35mm, including the pair’s latest collaboration, The Bikeriders.  Lensed in and around Cincinnati, the movie takes its inspiration from the photographs and stories in Danny Lyon’s titular 1968 […]

The post “Shooting on Film Remains Somewhat of a Black Art”: DP Adam Stone on The Bikeriders first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

One of the evergreen questions of filmmaking is: Can cinema make a difference? Usually, the issue is raised in connection with specific movies, such as those championing change, including SeaWorld-skewering doc Blackfish, or better husbandry of the planet. Take one step back, though, and there’s another, perhaps more vital way that cinema can make a difference — by bringing a community together in shared experience and cause. This latter force for good is firmly in evidence at Greece’s Evia Film Project, which has just wrapped its third edition on the island nestled near the mainland a couple of hours from […]

The post Is There Life After Fire?: A Trip to Greece’s Evia Film Project 2024 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The rain started just as our plane took off from Porto Alegre, sealing our narrow escape. Forty-eight hours later, the airport was underwater, as Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul faced its worst flooding in nearly a century. How could this happen? We had just premiered my new film there a few nights before. Was it a dream? A quick glance at my arm confirms otherwise. Like many filmmakers who attend the so-called “coolest” of the Méliès Federation’s consortium of fantastic film festivals, I got inked by Laiss, a native tattoo artist who specializes in blackwork. Mine is a simple line drawing […]

The post Screening Before the Storm: Drowning in Anxiety at Fantaspoa first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Greek nonprofit Oxbelly announced today the participants of its 2024 Oxbelly retreat, which was held June 22-30, 2024 in Costa Navarino, Greece. Thirty fellows broken into three strands — screenwriting, episodic writing and fiction writing — received mentorship from an illustrious list of advisors, who included Charlie Kaufman, Chigozie Obioma, Miguel Gomes, Marielle Heller, Barry Jenkins and Michael Almereyda. Leaders and program directors for the three programs were Guardians of the Galaxy screenwriter Nicole Perman (Screenwriting); Jen Blake (executive producer, Joyland) and Deutschland 83 producer Jörg Winger (Episodic); and An Orchestra of Minorities author Chigozie Obioma (Fiction). As the […]

The post Oxbelly Announces the Fellows and Advisors of Its 2024 Oxbelly Retreat first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In 2012, Scottish composer Anna Meredith released her first non-classical-music recording, Black Prince Fury, a four-track EP opening with what immediately became her signature tune: “Nautilus,” a ferociously escalating blast of brass running arpeggios up and down at increasingly overwhelming volume. It’s at once visceral and programmatic, applying classical discipline to an earth-shaking instrumental in a mission statement that also opened Meredith’s first full-length album, 2016’s Varmints. In an interview with The Guardian’s Laura Snapes at the time, Meredith was insightful about the economics of choosing to move from the realm of classical music, where she wrote work paid for […]

The post “Massive Decisions Can Be Made In the Mix”: Composer Anna Meredith on Her Film Score Career first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

After early success opposite Kirsten Dunst in Lifetime’s Fifteen and Pregnant, and as Jasper on the CW’s reboot of 90210, he’s gone on to build an impressive acting resume balancing television work (Hulu’s Under the Banner of Heaven) with edgy, transformative roles in independent films (Cuck; Can’t Seem to Make You Mine, opposite Lindsay Burdge; and A Desert, which just premiered at the Tribeca Festival, to name a few). On this episode, he talks about why it all starts with building trust with his collaborators early, the semi-mystical process of aligning his heart with the character’s heart, the importance of […]

The post “If We’re Gonna Live in This Story, We’ve Gotta Live with Each Other”: Zachary Ray Sherman, Back To One, Episode 299 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A Bird Came Down is both a short and a feature-to-be by Heather von Rohr, produced by Nick Dawson, Editor of the Talkhouse and Filmmaker‘s former Managing Editor, and Emmett Kerr-Perkinson. In the guest essay below, von Rohr discusses the film’s themes within the context of its long gestation period. Von Rohr, Dawson and Kerr-Perkinson are currently crowdfunding the short’s post-production. To learn more, visit the project’s fundraising page at the New York Foundation for the Arts. — Editor In mid-June, I shot my first film in more than two decades. It’s called A Bird Came Down, and will be […]

The post A Cinema of Gestation: On Returning to Filmmaking After a False Start, Multiple Life Changes, and 14 Years of Motherhood first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

BlackStar Projects, the organization celebrating visionary Black, Brown and Indigenous film and media artists, announced today the full program for its 2024 BlackStar Film Festival. This 13th edition of BlackStar takes place August 1 – 4 at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with additional screenings, parties and events at various venues in Center City Philadelphia. Among the highlights are the Opening Night selection, Dreams in Nightmares, writer/director Shatara Michelle Ford’s feature follow-up to their acclaimed Gotham and Spirit Award-nominated debut, Test Pattern. Dreams in Nightmares tells the story of three Black queer femmes on a Midwestern road trip […]

The post BlackStar Projects Releases Full Schedule of Programs for 2024 Film Festival first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

McKenzie Wark is out in Brooklyn, New York. We’re speaking via video chat in the days leading up to the FIDMarseille premiere of Life Story, her new collaboration with Jessica Dunn Rovinelli. Between questions, and while we wait for Jessica to join us, McKenzie moves around the world just out of frame. She speaks to her daughter, walks into and out of L-Train Vintage, crosses streets, occasionally exchanging greetings with passersby. It is a joy to edit the transcript of this interview later on—sentences are punctuated with “oh hi!”s, “how’ve you been?”s, little subtexts of intimacy smuggled into thoughts about […]

The post “The Contingency of the Image Is Its Truth”: McKenzie Wark and Jessica Dunn Rovinelli on Life Story first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Legendary writer/director Robert Towne, whose screenplays include Chinatown and Shampoo and films include Personal Best and Tequila Sunrise, died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 89. On this sad occasion we’re reposting Matt Ross’s print edition interview with Towne from our Spring, 2006 issue. Below, the two discuss Towne’s adaptation of John Fante’s Ask the Dust, the financing difference between studio and independent films, and why Towne keeps returning to cinematic L.A. R.I.P. Robert Towne. — Editor Every city has its quintessential storyteller. And when it comes to Los Angeles, a city whose primary business is itself the […]

The post “It’s People Struggling To Be Something Other Than What They Are”: Writer/Director Robert Towne on Making L.A. Movies first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.