Filmmaking Feeds

With his last two features, "Tony Manero" and "Post Mortem," Chilean director Pablo Larraín quickly established himself as the preeminent chronicler of his country's lingering demons from its years of oppression under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. For his third and most accomplished work, "No," Larraín has traded the allegorical track for the real thing, delivering a lively, mesmerizing drama about a national call to action during the 1988 referendum on Pinochet's presidency. With a full-bodied turn by Gael Garcia Bernal as its anchor, "No" broadens Larraín's range by replicating historical events in engrossing detail.   Set in 1988 and shot on low-grade video to reflect the media technology of the time, "No" stars Bernal as Rene Saavedra, a cynical advertising executive asked by a friend to spearhead the campaign against the president during the referendum. The tense proceedings...

With the Cannes Film Festival currently underway, last year's winner of the Jury Prize, Maïwenn's ensemble drama "Polisse," hits select theaters today. The film, which marks the actress' third feature as a director, explores the personal lives and daily grind of the Parisian Child Protection Unit. Maïwenn, known best for her turn in "High Tension" and as the opera singing alien diva in Luc Besson's "The Fifth Element," also co-wrote and stars in "Polisse" as a photojournalist sent in to document the unit. Indiewire sat down with Maïwenn in New York shortly following its screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, to discuss her inspiration for the project and her experience interning for the Unit during the pre-production phase of the shoot. What inspired "Polisse"? I saw a documentary on the subject that intrigued me. But I said, OK, don't get too carried away too quickly. It...

BAMcinématek announced its schedule for the fourth annual BAMcinemaFest, running June 20 - July 1. In addition to the lineup that includes 22 features (among them "Beasts of the Southern Wild," "Sleepwalk with Me," "Francine," "The Comedy" and "Detropia") -- of which seven are NY premieres, one North American premiere and three world premieres -- the fest will host three shorts programs. The feature lineup is below. Here's more details and the complete lineup. Noah Baumbach’s directorial debut, "Kicking and Screaming" will screen with the director, writer and cast present, Roberto Rossellini's newly restored "The Machine That Kills Bad People" will have its North American debut (after screening last year at Cannes), and live performances from the likes of Simeon Coxe of the Silver Apples, Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt of The Sea and Cake will be featured. Lotte Reiniger's homage to...

Ladies and gents, try to compose yourselves. A new trailer for "Magic Mike" has landed -- right in your lap this time. It seems logical that after casting a hairless cast of heartthrobs in a movie about male strippers you'd get right to the point with the trailer: naked men dancing! Alas, the first trailer also tried to lure us in with the story of a would-be custom furniture maker who wants us to know that he is not his lifestlye, dammit! Why bother? The second trailer gives us what we really want - thongs and Amerian flags. Long live Channing Tatum and the advent of male objectification. Check out both trailers below. Steven Soderbergh's "Magic Mike" will close the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 24 and hit theaters June 29.  

"Room 514" went to Film Movement for North American distribution out of the Cannes Film Festival. The Israeli psychological thriller, directed by Sharon Bar-Ziv, recently won a special jury mention for Best Narrative Director at Tribeca. "Room 514" is now screening in the ACID program at Cannes. It will open later this year; here's the synopsis and trailer. A female Israeli soldier is ordered to interrogate an Israeli officer who is alleged to have abused an Arab family. Lower in rank and also a woman, she is barely taken seriously by the haughty man; he only gives her sarcastic answers. Her colleagues, including her lover, advise her to stop the case - because it is too political, too complex and too notorious. Instead, she fastens her teeth in it, in the hope of getting justice for the victims.

"Room 514" went to Film Movement for North American distribution out of the Cannes Film Festival. The Israeli psychological thriller, directed by Sharon Bar-Ziv, recently won a special jury mention for Best Narrative Director at Tribeca. "Room 514" is now screening in the ACID program at Cannes. It will open later this year; here's the synopsis and trailer. A female Israeli soldier is ordered to interrogate an Israeli officer who is alleged to have abused an Arab family. Lower in rank and also a woman, she is barely taken seriously by the haughty man; he only gives her sarcastic answers. Her colleagues, including her lover, advise her to stop the case - because it is too political, too complex and too notorious. Instead, she fastens her teeth in it, in the hope of getting justice for the victims.

Forget "Veep," is there are show on TV right now with a darker view on politics than "Scandal"? The Shonda Rhimes-created political thriller came to a season one end last night in a crescendo of overheated developments that included a murder, a cover-up, a confession of love and, yes, the scandal promised in the title. It was a continuation of the turn the series took at the end of its fourth episode, going from a workplace drama, albeit one in which the main character regularly traipsed into the most powerful (and ovaloid) office in the country, to a show about the country in distress and the White House being a den of moral equivocators willing to do anything to get or keep their candidate in power.  From its start, "Scandal" has had a strange and strained set of ethics -- its characters talk of being "gladiators in suits" and wearing the "white hat," but from a larger perspective, the series' take on doing the right...

Forget "Veep," is there are show on TV right now with a darker view on politics than "Scandal"? The Shonda Rhimes-created political thriller came to a season one end last night in a crescendo of overheated developments that included a murder, a cover-up, a confession of love and, yes, the scandal promised in the title. It was a continuation of the turn the series took at the end of its fourth episode, going from a workplace drama, albeit one in which the main character regularly traipsed into the most powerful (and ovaloid) office in the country, to a show about the country in distress and the White House being a den of moral equivocators willing to do anything to get or keep their candidate in power.  From its start, "Scandal" has had a strange and strained set of ethics -- its characters talk of being "gladiators in suits" and wearing the "white hat," but from a larger perspective, the series' take on doing the right...

Below Alex Ross Perry shares an exclusive scene from his sophomore feature "The Color Wheel," which topped Indiewire's 2011 end-of-year poll for best undistributed film. The film got picked up by Cinema Conservancy after topping that chart and opens Friday at BAMcinematek in New York. Co-staring and co-written by Perry and Carlen Altman ("You Wont Miss Me"), "The Color Wheel" is an odd, funny story of a slacker brother and ambitious sister on a mission to move her things from her ex-lover/ex-professor's home. Check out our profile of Perry HERE. THE SCENE This scene occurs early in the film, like within the first twenty minutes or so. Colin and JR are beginning day two of their trek to move her stuff out of professor/scorned lover Neil Chadwick’s (Bob Byington) house. It immediately follows a sequence in a motel, where they are told only married couples can share a room. This was part of a series of circumstances that I felt...

Below Alex Ross Perry shares an exclusive scene from his sophomore feature "The Color Wheel," which topped Indiewire's 2011 end-of-year poll for best undistributed film. The film got picked up by Cinema Conservancy after topping that chart and opens Friday at BAMcinematek in New York. Co-staring and co-written by Perry and Carlen Altman ("You Wont Miss Me"), "The Color Wheel" is an odd, funny story of a slacker brother and ambitious sister on a mission to move her things from her ex-lover/ex-professor's home. Check out our profile of Perry HERE. THE SCENE This scene occurs early in the film, like within the first twenty minutes or so. Colin and JR are beginning day two of their trek to move her stuff out of professor/scorned lover Neil Chadwick’s (Bob Byington) house. It immediately follows a sequence in a motel, where they are told only married couples can share a room. This was part of a series of circumstances that I felt...

The French feminist collective known as La Barbe (French for “The Beard”) printed an open letter in France’s daily newspaper Le Monde earlier this week addressing the complete absence of films directed by women in the Competition section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. La Barbe is made up of actress Fanny Cottençon, writer/director Virginie Despentes and director Coline Serreau, who have also set up an online petition which has been signed by numerous luminaries, including feminist icon Gloria Steinem and filmmakers such as Ry Russo-Young, Gillian Armstrong and Ava DuVernay. The British newspaper The Guardian ran a translation of the open letter, which reads as follows: “What has changed in cinema?...

The French feminist collective known as La Barbe (French for “The Beard”) printed an open letter in France’s daily newspaper Le Monde earlier this week addressing the complete absence of films directed by women in the Competition section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. La Barbe is made up of actress Fanny Cottençon, writer/director Virginie Despentes and director Coline Serreau, who have also set up an online petition which has been signed by numerous luminaries, including feminist icon Gloria Steinem and filmmakers such as Ry Russo-Young, Gillian Armstrong and Ava DuVernay. The British newspaper The Guardian ran a translation of the open letter, which reads as follows: “What has changed in cinema?...

In the 1980's the Greek-American filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos began showing his decades of experimental film work in a remote area of the Greek Pelopenesse he called the Temenos.  The Greek meaning for the word Temenos is "a piece of land set apart."  Markopoulos screened his career's work with new work from his partner, the filmmaker Robert Beavers. During the 1960's, Markopoulos took off from the U.S. to head to Europe, removing himself from the New American Cinema movement that he and his films ("Du Sang, de la volupté, et de la mort," "Swain," and "The Illiac Passion") had helped constitute, along with Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and others.  He made the move with Beavers, who now manages the Temenos Archives in Switzerland that house Markopoulos's body of work and his own films. In 1992, Markopoulos passed away, and since 2004, Beavers has been heading to the Temenos every four years to...

In the 1980's the Greek-American filmmaker Gregory Markopoulos began showing his decades of experimental film work in a remote area of the Greek Pelopenesse he called the Temenos.  The Greek meaning for the word Temenos is "a piece of land set apart."  Markopoulos screened his career's work with new work from his partner, the filmmaker Robert Beavers. During the 1960's, Markopoulos took off from the U.S. to head to Europe, removing himself from the New American Cinema movement that he and his films ("Du Sang, de la volupté, et de la mort," "Swain," and "The Illiac Passion") had helped constitute, along with Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and others.  He made the move with Beavers, who now manages the Temenos Archives in Switzerland that house Markopoulos's body of work and his own films. In 1992, Markopoulos passed away, and since 2004, Beavers has been heading to the Temenos every four years to...

Here’s friends and fellow directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Downey Sr. talking about Babo 73, one of the five early Downey features included on Criterion’s new box set from their no-frills Eclipse series, Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr., which comes out next week on DVD. … Read the rest

Here’s friends and fellow directors Paul Thomas Anderson and Robert Downey Sr. talking about Babo 73, one of the five early Downey features included on Criterion’s new box set from their no-frills Eclipse series, Up All Night with Robert Downey Sr., which comes out next week on DVD. … Read the rest

War Witch is a film about resilience. Resilience of an individual, of a community and even of the architecture of a society. French-Canadian filmmaker Kim Nguyen tells a story that is set to become a benchmark in jungle films. From the painful, complex situation of the child soldiers, he weaves an intelligent movie which enables the viewer to penetrate their reality and the multi-level relationship these children create with their environment. Set in stunning natural landscapes, War Witch transports us from play to gunfire, from tenderness to abuse, from hardcore survival to ghostly magic. It also reveals the raw, powerful talent of its lead actress, 15-year-old Rachel Mwanza, who won Best Actress at both Berlin Film Festival and the...

When discussing the lineup at the upcoming BAMcinemaFEST a while back, I noted that a new cut of Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s long-awaited follow-up to Tarnation, would be playing as part of the festival on June 27. While that’s exciting news on its own, now comes word of a very savvy move by IFC to capitalize on the interest in the film by giving the film a simultaneous online premiere on SundanceNOW’s Doc Club, the SVOD (Subscriber Video-on-Demand) series curated by documentary maven Thom Powers. “Walk Away Renee makes a perfect headliner for the June [Doc Club] theme of ‘Up Close and Personal,’” said Powers. “Jonathan Caouette directs with such intimacy that viewers feel like a...

When discussing the lineup at the upcoming BAMcinemaFEST a while back, I noted that a new cut of Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s long-awaited follow-up to Tarnation, would be playing as part of the festival on June 27. While that’s exciting news on its own, now comes word of a very savvy move by IFC to capitalize on the interest in the film by giving the film a simultaneous online premiere on SundanceNOW’s Doc Club, the SVOD (Subscriber Video-on-Demand) series curated by documentary maven Thom Powers. “Walk Away Renee makes a perfect headliner for the June [Doc Club] theme of ‘Up Close and Personal,’” said Powers. “Jonathan Caouette directs with such intimacy that viewers feel like a...

Cohen Media Group has acquired U.S. distribution rights to the Francois Ozon thriller “In the House.” Discussions with the French filmmaker’s Wild Bunch sales reps begun weeks ago were finalized this week in Cannes, though the film is not yet finished. Kristin Scott Thomas (“Bel Ami”), Emmanuelle Seigner (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), Denis Menochet (“Inglourious Basterds”) and Fabrice Luchini (“Potiche”) star. Ozon based his screenplay on Spanish playwright Juan Mayorga’s “The Boy in the Last Row,” which was performed earlier this year at the Bucharest National Theatre. The play’s storyline follows a high school teacher who becomes entangled with a student’s invasion of a classmate’s privacy sparked by an essay assignment. Mandarin Films’ Eric Altmeyer and Nicolas Altmeyer (“Potiche”) produced the film project with Claudie Ossard...