Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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The Los Angeles Film School: Where Your Next Chapter Starts (Sponsored)
Breaking into the entertainment industry can be a tough process, especially if you don’t know where to start, lack the proper skills, or even know what fields that are available to make your dreams into a reality. Since 1999, The… Read more
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“You Think You’re Scared of These Creatures, Well, Look Into Our Own Dark Hearts”: Sean Byrne on His Cannes-Premiering Shark Attack Horror Film, Dangerous Animals
For most viewers, sharks and horror cinema were permanently conjoined with Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws, one of the first wide release summer blockbusters, and one with shocks far more intense than its PG rating would indicate. Today, shark horror has migrated to the small (and vertical) screen, with TikTok’s algorithm serving many of us — me, somewhat inexplicably, included — a never ending gallery of shark attacks, menacing underwater shark approaches and the occasional gliding shark beauty shot. Australian director Sean Byrne’s Cannes-premiering Dangerous Animals confidently mines these lingering fears and fascinations as it mashes up the shark horror […]
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“There’s So Much Evil Done Because People Are Just Doing their Job”: Writer/Director Amalia Ulman On Her Satirical Comedy/Drama, Magic Farm
Clueless and a bit pathetic, the American video crew in Magic Farm, writer-director Amalia Ulman’s new satirical comedy, embody the vices of Western media companies that exoticize, exploit and sanitize the stories of the developing world for views. Set in small-town Argentina, the film, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, mostly follows the crew — Edna (Chloë Sevigny), Jeff (Alex Wolff), Justin (Joe Apollonio) — as they try to fabricate the story of a non-existent music act by enlisting the locals’ help. Meanwhile, the more pressing narrative of how the use of glyphosate, sprayed overhead by crop-dusting planes, […]
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Poster Premiere: ACID 2025 Selection A Light That Never Goes Out
We’re pleased to premiere the poster for ACID 2025 selection A Light That Never Goes Out. From the Cannes section’s website: Lauri-Matti Parppei, who has recorded several albums in a parallel life, takes us to their hometown in Northern Finland, a place where people speak little and depression is a taboo – this is Pauli’s illness, as he returns home to heal his wounds. With a melancholic tone, the film, through its precise, no-frills directing style, weaves its story like a musical score. Pauli rejects success and returns to life thanks to a chaotic lineup of outcasts. Friendship, stronger than anything, […]
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Filmmaker Magazine Presents Swoon and Monsoon Wedding at New York’s Paris Theater
Filmmaker‘s monthly series at New York’s Paris Theater, Filmmaker Magazine Presents, continues in June with two new events coupled with in-person conversations. On Monday, June 2, the Paris will welcome director Tom Kalin and producer Christine Vachon for a Q&A following a screening of 1992’s New Queer Cinema highlight Swoon. Kalin co-wrote and directed this stylish take on the infamous murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr., a case that also provided inspiration for the stage play Rope, later adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock. Swoon will show on a 35mm print courtesy of Kalin and the film’s director of photography, Ellen Kuras. On Monday, […]
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“We Have More in Common Than We Think”: Mel Sangyi Zhao on Her Student Short Film Showcase Winner Return to Youth
For her California Institute of the Arts MFA thesis film, Mel Sangyi Zhao decided to travel back to her Chinese hometown of Chengdu and cast her mother in the lead role. The resultant film, Return to Youth, follows a retired dancer as she navigates the pressures of misogyny, ageism and a budding romance with a man several decades her junior. Recently pitched with the prospect of undergoing a vaginal rejuvenation surgery, the elegant Bing (Xiaobing Zhao) laughs off the procedure as preposterous. Only when her cohort of friends begin to seriously discuss their interest does she understand that she, too, […]
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Six Derelict Movie Theaters That Inspired Joshua Erkman’s Horror Thriller, A Desert
With Joshua Erkman’s eerie horror/thriller, A Desert, which centers around a photographer lost in a Southwestern desert while on an expedition to photograph its abandoned movie theaters, in theaters now, the director presents here six inspirational photographs he shot on his own early research trip to the film’s locations. — Editor The original seed of A Desert was the photographer character, Alex Clark. I’ve long been obsessed with photography, and before movies took ahold and bent my brain, I had aspirations of being a photographer. Before I even had an idea of what A Desert was going to be about, […]
