As I wrote when sharing an exclusive clip from the feature upon its festival premiere, Christina Kallas‘s Paris is in Harlem “takes place the night before New York’s infamous Cabaret Law was repealed. In a historic Harlem jazz bar, a shooting alters the lives of several strangers who have gathered for the final night of ‘no dancing.’” With the film premiering on digital platforms July 4, check out the new trailer above. Comments Kallas, ““As a European filmmaker making films in America, I’m somewhat obsessed with guns ending up in the wrong hands. In Paris is in Harlem, I am […]

The post Trailer Watch: Christina Kallas’s Paris is in Harlem first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In the midst of a successful modeling career a decade ago, Abbey Lee’s chance to break into acting came with Mad Max Fury Road. That challenging shoot was the first of many she faced with relish. A scene-stealing role in The Neon Demon followed, then M. Night Shyamalan’s Old, Lovecraft County, and Florida Man, to name a few, and now she stars opposite Kevin Costner in his 2-part western epic Horizon: An American Saga (in theaters now). On this episode, she talks about letting the character find her, the importance of staying malleable, using everything that happens as fuel for […]

The post “You Can’t Only Turn Up and Be Like ‘I’m Going To Show You My Soul’ — No, You’ve Got a Job To Do as Well”: Abbey Lee, Back To One, Episode 298 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“I thought about The Exterminating Angel,” Lucy Kerr says over coffee as she describes the origins of Family Portrait, her hypnotic feature debut. Indeed, the film’s central conceit hews closely to Luis Buñuel’s 1962 satire, but instead of posh partygoers being inexplicably stuck in a single room, an extended Texas family is unable to get everyone to gather for the titular photo. In particular, Katie’s (Deragh Campbell) pleas for everyone to assemble are frustratingly ignored or otherwise thwarted, especially when the family matriarch (Silvana Jakich) is suddenly nowhere to be found. Wandering around the vast property in search of her […]

The post “Suspense Comes From Air Conditioning”: Lucy Kerr on Family Portrait first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

It’s been a long decade’s wait since Catherine Breillat’s last feature, the semi-autobiographical Abuse of Weakness with Isabelle Huppert, but Last Summer shows the uncompromising French filmmaker in top form, at once fierce and precise. Returning to a favored subject—the desires and power dynamics in affairs between adolescents and usually much older adults—Breillat brings in another taboo this time: the messy sexual obsession between a lawyer, Anne (Léa Drucker), and her 17-year-old stepson, Théo (newcomer Daniel Kircher). After Théo comes back to stay at the family’s idyllic home outside Paris, the two carry on secretly until the truth becomes inescapable […]

The post “We Have Regressed Into an Obtuse and Rigid Moral Order”: Catherine Breillat on Last Summer first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The phrase “word-of-mouth indie theatrical hit” sounds as outdated in 2024 as “coming soon to LaserDisc.” And yet, the slapstick fur-trapping adventure comedy Hundreds of Beavers has graduated from its lengthy festival run to become that rarest of things, a star-free independent film that has already grossed more than double its $150,000 production budget during its self-distributed gradual cinema rollout (still continuing as of this writing, despite its release on VOD). First-time feature writer-director Mike Cheslik previously teamed with lead actor/producer/co-writer Ryland Brickson Cole Tews on the latter’s feature directorial debut, the black-and-white adventure comedy Lake Michigan Monster. In classic independent […]

The post Of Mascots and Men: Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickston Cole Tews on Hundreds of Beavers first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

There are few actors more well respected than the preternaturally gifted Julianne Nicholson. Recent notable credits include August: Osage County, Dream Scenario, Mare of Easttown (which won her an Emmy award), and, her latest, playwright Annie Baker’s first film, Janet Planet. In this episode, she talks in-depth about playing Janet in that remarkable film, her elusive preparation process, getting the environment to settle into her body, actually learning how to do acupuncture, why she lets her instinct lead the way, and much more. Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. […]

The post “It Was a Deeply Loving Set. Very Intimate. Very Small. Lots of Women”: Janet Planet Star Julianne Nicholson, Back To One, Episode 297 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Dan Licata has come a long way since high school, where he shattered both of his legs by jumping off the roof of a Buffalo church. A ferociously funny comedian, he has written for Saturday Night Live and Joe Pera Talks with You and recently performed stand-up on Late Night with Seth Meyers. His chaotically brilliant new stand-up special For the Boys (available on YouTube) was shot at his high school alma mater in front of a crowd of 15-year-old boys, the perfect audience for his arrested pubescent persona—a blustery Jackass-fueled manchild who desperately wants to connect with the youth but […]

The post “This Industry is Crumbling Like a Nature Valley Bar”: Dan Licata on For the Boys first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The organizing principles of portmanteau films are often quite simplistic. A group of directors tackling a particular genre, for example, or films united by geography. An example of the latter is the straightforwardly-titled New York Stories, of which only Martin Scorsese’s “Life Lessons” is remembered much these days. Jim Jarmusch has made a few united around theme and setting — Coffee and Cigarettes, where famous actors sit down over a brew and a smoke; Night on Earth, where famous actors take cab rides in production-friendly cities around the world; and Mystery Train, where the stories are linked by a setting […]

The post “It Is Like a Palette Cleanser, In a Way…”: Yorgos Lanthimos on Following Poor Things with the Sardonic Portmanteau Film, Kinds of Kindness first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Civil War, the United States has splintered into four clashing factions, but if you’re expecting a treatise on the country’s ideological divide from British writer-director Alex Garland, this is not that movie. America’s dysfunction is secondary to examining the toll on the journalists covering the conflict. The story follows a quartet of correspondents (including jaded photographer Kirsten Dunst and green Cailee Spaeny) as they travel to the war’s front in Washington D.C. in hopes of landing an interview with the embattled president (Nick Offerman). Cinematographer Rob Hardy, who’s lensed all of Garland’s projects since the novelist/screenwriter turned to the […]

The post Holding the Chicken: DP Rob Hardy on Civil War first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Every start of summer, the Cine Gear Expo comes to Los Angeles. Initially  held on the Paramount lot, the Expo had a short stint at the LA Convention Center for two pandemic years before landing this yearat the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. The movie lot aspect assists greatly with vibes: While its chief competitor, NAB Show—held a few months earlier in the Las Vegas Convention Center—feels like a traditional trade show, at Cine Gear you can peruse the latest lenses as the iconic Animaniacs water tower looms in the distance, just visible behind a camera crane which swings around […]

The post Cine Gear Expo 2024: 17 Cameras, LED (and Traditional) Lights, Lenses and Remote Camera Controls We Loved first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.