When National Geographic’s Janet Han Vissering and Wildstar Films’s Vanessa Berlowitz got the idea to make Queens, a six-part natural history series about female animals made by an all-woman production crew, they knew it would be a challenge. Only something like five percent of wildlife filmmakers are women, a number far short of the 20 to 30 percent average across the entertainment industry overall. They didn’t know how hard it would be, though.  “On the camera side, before Queens there were probably about five women who’d had the opportunity to get to the ‘premium wildlife’ level of work,” Berlowitz explains. “There […]

The post Women in the Wilderness: How Nat Geo’s Queens Aims to Close the Gender Gap in Natural History Filmmaking first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In what is a refreshing — at least for us at Filmmaker — changeup from the usual sorts of films that get the iPhone demo treatment, Apple has released a new 19-minute short, Midnight, directed by Takashi Miike. It’s no Audition or Ichi the Killer, naturally, but his adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s manga is a lot of fun. There’s also an accompanying short behind-the-scenes video, below, that demonstrates the use of iPhone modes like Action and Cinematic — the former’s handheld stabilization and the latter’s rack focus — as well as, most impressively, the use of the phone’s LIDAR scanner […]

The post Watch: Apple-Produced Takashi Miike Film Shot on iPhone 15 Pro first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Chicken & Egg Pictures, the non-profit organization dedicated to supporting women and gender-expansive filmmakers with funding and mentorship, today announced its 2024 (Egg)celerator Lab grantees. The organization is granting $40,000 each to ten feature documentary film projects, directed or co-directed by first- or second-time directors. Funds are targeted for production, and each director will also receive year-long mentorship. From today’s press release: The 2024 (Egg)celerator Lab films find families reimagining their histories, legacies, generational grief, and intimate end of life journeys such as in Ashley O’Shay’s Southmont Drive (Working Title), Gabriela Díaz Arp’s Matitinó, and Emma Francis-Snyder’s Anatomy of a […]

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As an actor, Hugo De Sousa had breakout leading roles in We Used to Know Each Other, Mister Limbo, and Everything in The End. I was introduced to his work as an actor/filmmaker, with the celebrated shorts he made in collaboration with Frank Mosley—The Event and Good Condition. On this episode he talks extensively about the making of those films, and his latest, which might be of particular, cathartic interest to listeners of this podcast, the absurdist short Je Ne Suis Pas Une Star De Cinéma. Plus he discusses the importance of feeling “out of balance in front of the […]

The post “Feeling Vulnerable is a Good Thing”: Hugo De Sousa, Back To One, Episode 281 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Debuting at True/False (followed by First Look), Elizabeth Nichols’s Flying Lessons is a beautiful ode to a New York City Lower East Side artist ass well as to the larger the “dying breed” that once roamed the streets of Alphabet City, performing in its now extinct clubs). Importantly, it’s also a call to end rampant gentrification and a love story between director and character all rolled into one. The drama began, rather unhappily, with an eviction notice after NYC real estate owner/convicted fraudster Steve Croman bought the building Nichols was living in as a rent-stabilized tenant. Within months the “Bernie Madoff of landlords” had […]

The post “A Film Can Be a Spark, and What Comes After It Is Where the Magic Is”: Elizabeth Nichols on Her True/False-Debuting Flying Lessons first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

While the pandemic spurred many (white collar) Americans to flee the big cities and retreat to the safety and comfort of living room Zooming, Detroit native Mitch McCabe returned home to the big city and instead roamed the often chaotic streets, eventually journeying throughout Michigan, camera in tow. What the veteran filmmaker-educator (and Flaherty Seminar and MacDowell fellow) witnessed was what we all primarily saw in that “unprecedented” election year: anger. At lockdowns, at those attending protests unmasked. And masked. At the murder of George Floyd, at the BLM movement, at Trump. At Democrat elites like Governor Gretchen Whitmer and […]

The post “I Don’t Invest Hope in Celebrity or Leaders Too Much, But I Do Have Hope in People”: Mitch McCabe on Their True/False Premiere 23 Mile first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Initially endeavoring to make a short about the synthesizer her late father, who died when she was ten weeks old, invented, documentary director Alison Tavel found herself learning much more about her dad and his legacy, leading to a feature film that’s both a music picture as well as one of family reckoning. Resynator, named after the synthesizer, premieres March 10 at SXSW, features music names such as Peter Gabriel and Jon Anderson, and is Tavel’s first picture. She’s made previously shorts and music videos for the Tom Petty Estate, where she’s the sole archivist. Read below her director’s statement […]

The post Trailer Watch: Alison Tavel’s SXSW Premiere, Resynator first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Pitch People is a feature documentary that takes an energetic look at the pitch business, a dynamic world that started in Europe, made its way to the U.S. boardwalks, and exploded on worldwide television in the 1990s. The film was completed in 1999. It was well-received at various festivals and independent film venues but a year later, it was still incomplete. It was missing an audience, partially due to it never having a formal theatrical release. In 2020, production and postproduction stopped due to the pandemic. With advanced filmmaking tools available and new ways of making people aware of a […]

The post Pitch People: Restoring A 25-Year-Old Cinematic Documentary into 4K first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Co-directed by an Israeli-Palestinian collective of four, No Other Land was filmed in the West Bank, in Masafer Yatta, where Israeli military and increasingly civilians have forced Palestinians out from their villages. Premiered at the 74th Berlinale, the debut feature won both the juried documentary award and the Audience Award in its section, Panorama—amply deserved honors for its adroit, affecting and infuriating portrayal of a tight-knit Palestinian community resisting Israel’s relentless campaign of expulsion. Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, two of the co-directors, are also extensively on screen. Adra, whose father was also an activist, offers the film’s primary eyes […]

The post “There is No Nice Way to Bulldoze a School”: Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham on No Other Land first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Heartbreak Ridge put him on the map as an actor, New Jack City as a director, and with Posse, the 1993 hit Western he directed and stars in, Mario Van Peebles secured his place as a celebrated actor/director with countless credits, over the next 30 years, on the big and small screen. His latest is another star-filled, super fun western called Outlaw Posse. On this episode, he talks about the importance of discovering the tone of the project, how his love of learning leads to his desire to make “edutainment,” ways his acting experience informs his work as a director, […]

The post “I Feel Like I’m Still Young Enough To Be a Fairly Humble, Malleable Student, and Old Enough To Be a Badass Teacher.” Mario Van Peebles, Back To One, Episode 280 first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.