MovieMaker The Art and Business of Making Movies » Login | Register  

May 22, 2012

ABOUT | CONTACT | NEWSLETTER | Search

Articles

Over the Rainbow with Jonathan Kalafer

(l-r) PS22 Chorus director Gregg Breinberg guides chorus members Denise Bestmen and Azaria Chamorro through an improv singing session in director Jonathan Kalafer's <i>Once in a Lullaby: The PS22 Chorus Story</I>. Photo by Jonathan Kalafer.

The PS22 Chorus isn't your normal elementary school extracurricular group. A certified viral sensation after chorus director Gregg Breinberg started posting their performances on YouTube, in 2010 they were invited to perform at the Academy Awards. There to capture their journey from Staten Island to the Kodak Theatre was director Jonathan Kalafer, for whom the making of the film was its own sort of underdog story. In advance of world premiere of Once in a Lullaby: The PS22 Chorus Story at the Tribeca Film Festival, Kalafer took the time to share with MM his experience filming the PS22's Chorus incredible journey—and the personal impact doing so had on him. (No comments yet)


25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee: 2012

Movies are a serious business, but the folks at the Central Florida Film Festival aren't afraid to have some fun.

Making the decision to screen at a festival is easy. But which fests are truly worth a withdrawal from your hard-earned Entry Fee Bank Account? Here's our 2012 list of 25 festivals worth the entry fee.
(No comments yet)


Enjoying Chicken with Plums

Star-crossed lovers Irâne (Golshifteh Farahani) and Nasser-Ali (Mathieu Amalric). Photo by ©Patricia Khan, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics. <br />

Co-directors of the Oscar-nominated Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud have tackled another one of graphic novelist Satrapi's works for their second collaboration, the dreamy, fairy tale-esque Chicken with Plums, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival last year and is having its U.S. premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. In advance of the film's first Tribeca screening this Sunday, the duo took the time to chat with MovieMaker about their second collaboration and the source of their visual inspiration for this truly stunning film. (No comments yet)


Weathering the First Winter

(l-r) Paul Manza (Paul) and Benjamin Dickinson (Thomas) in <I>First Winter</i>. Photo by Adam Newport-Berra.

In Benjamin Dickinson's feature directorial debut First Winter, a group of Brooklyn hipsters at a yoga retreat in upstate New York are forced to learn survival skills the hard way after an immense blackout hits, stranding them a drafty farmhouse with dwindling supplies and miles separating them from any passable roads—or, indeed, the rest of humanity. With their stock of food shrinking and temperatures dropping, buried tensions come to the fore, straining the friends' ability to work together even though—in a world with no electricity, no way to communicate with the outside world and virtually no chance of making it back to the city alive–all they really have is each other. (1 comment)


Meet the Rat King

Petri Kotwica

Petri Kotwica's gaming-themed thriller brings a modern edge to noirish suspense

To get a sense of Finnish director Petri Kotwica's Rat King, try imagining a standard thriller. Then infuse it with a heavy dose of Hitchcockian suspense, add a dash of high school drama and flavor the whole thing with a cyberpunk aesthetic. In advance of the film's international debut at this month's Tribeca Film Festival, Kotwica shared with MM his inspiration, influences and favorite silver screen villains. (No comments yet)


Ian Fitzgibbon Tackles the Death of a Superhero

Ian Fitzgibbon

In Irish director Ian Fitzgibbon's Death of a Superhero, teenager Donald's creativity, active imagination and innate talent combine to make him a highly talented comic book artist. His future would be bright were it not for one thing: Donald, 15, is dying of leukemia. With a cast that includes Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Donald, a non-mocap Andy Serkis as his unconventional psychologist and Michael McElhatton and Sharon Horganas his struggling-to-cope parents, Fitzgibbon has managed to direct a film about a teen with cancer that manages to be inspiring but not melodramatic, sad and poignant but not unrelentingly grim.

With his film coming out on VOD tomorrow courtesy of Tribeca Films, Fitzgibbon took the time to chat with MovieMaker about what initially drew him to the script and how he crafted his own approach to the material. (No comments yet)


Blog/Forum/Poll navigation

Blog Forums Polls
Latest from the blog:
 
Andy Young
Directing on a Dime: Summer Reading List
posted 05.11.12

Blog

SITE DELIVERY OPTIONS

producing Listings

FEATURED LISTINGS

View All

  

Add Listing

Email Newsletter

Get MovieMaker in your Inbox!

Email:
Format Options: HTML TEXT