This Day in Indie History: Woody Allen

Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen in Focus Features’ Scoop - 2006.jpg

Since Woody Allen appeared on the scene with What’s Up, Tiger Lily? in 1966, he has ingrained himself into the American consciousness with quirky humor, acute social commentary about New York culture and a distinct style best suited to induce anxiety and obsessive compulsive behavior in even the most reasonable movie lover. Born on this day in Brooklyn in 1935, Allen has a directorial career comprised of more than 40 feature films, among which Bananas, Love and Death and Annie Hall remain favorites of critics and audiences alike.

Cinematographer Gordon Willis on meeting Woody Allen before the shoot for Manhattan: “I arrived at his apartment, we said hello, he gave me the script and I proceeded to read it right there. He didn’t want it to leave his apartment. He left the room, and I sat there and read it through, laughing out loud, all by myself.” (MovieMaker Magazine, Issue #54)

November 30th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain premiered in Los Angeles on this day in 2005. Based on the story by E. Annie Proulx, the film opened to a flood of controversy, echoing the gay marriage rights battle raging around the country. Yet it also heralded what many critics claimed was the entry of gay cinema into the mainstream, garnering eight Academy Award nominations and winning three of those.

Film Factoid: Keep an eye out for a cameo by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who came out from behind the camera to play a young Mexican prostitute picked up by Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal).

November 29th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Scarface

Carrie, The Untouchables, Carlito’s Way—there are innumerable reasons to appreciate director Brian De Palma’s work, and placed foremost among them is Scarface, which started shooting on this day in 1982. Set in 1980s Miami in an environment riddled with drug smuggling and high-profile crime, Scarface delved uncompromisingly into the violence of that culture, earning itself an X rating for its first three cuts.

Film Factoid: Tony Montana’s “little friend” is a M203, a standard M16 assault rifle with a single-shot, 40mm grenade launcher attached to the barrel. By the end of the film, the total body count reaches 42.

November 28th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Boyz n the Hood

The first film of the ‘Hood Trilogy,’ John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood finished shooting on this day in 1990. As Singleton’s debut effort, the story pulled huge influence from the writer-director’s experiences growing up in South Central Los Angeles and gathered together a talented cast—including Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube and Morris Chestnut—to tell the story of three friends struggling to find the right path inside and outside of the ghetto.

Quotable: “I write when I am inspired. If I come up with an idea, right then and there I’ll write it on a piece of paper. I may write for hours at a time on a given day. I’ll do a first draft in the course of three months. I just attack a story like that and pick at it until I get the first draft.” (John Singleton on the writing process in MovieMaker Magazine, Hands on Pages Issue #5)

November 27th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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Brad Silberling

Writer/Director Brad Silberling on the set of THINKFilm’s 10 Items or Less - 2006.

After making his mark with the autobiographical drama Moonlight Mile, writer-director Brad Silberling has moved on to an indie retelling of the buddy road trip movie with Ten Items or Less, starring Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega as an unemployed actor and grocery store clerk who hit the road while learning about the other’s respective worlds. Silberling, whose directorial debut was the underwhelming live-action Casper in 1995, has found himself a niche in the bordering-on-mainstream indie world.

Born in Washington, DC in 1963, Silberling has worked steadily as a director for film and TV since the ‘80s, busting out his writing chops whenever he has a chance to bring a meaningful story to life. Moonlight Mile, based on Silberling’s experiences dealing with the murder of his girlfriend, actress Rebecca Schaeffer, was a quiet yet heart-wrenching indie film with an all-star cast of Susan Sarandon, Dustin Hoffman and relative newcomers Jake Gyllenhaal and Ellen Pompeo. Now, with 10 Items or Less, Silberling proves that less is more with his short (running time barely passes 70 minutes) but charming story of the unexpected intertwining of two very different lives.

While Silberling may make a living directing bigger flicks like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, it’s clear that the writer’s heart lies in telling smaller, more personal stories that strike a deep chord in his audiences. Ten Items or Less will open to limited released on December 1st, but will also screen on http://www.cstar.com beginning December 15th.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Screenwriter of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Norm Hunter

Actress Lalaine consults with writer-director-producer Norm Hunter between takes on the set of Summertime Films’ Her Best Move.

Model-actress. Writer-director. Actor-director. Dozens of hyphenates have become commonplace titles in modern-day Hollywood. The one you don’t hear too often, however, is racecar-driver-turned-director. That is, of course, unless you’re talking about Norm Hunter.

After earning a degree in Aerospace Engineering from Princeton, and having spent his summers designing and building racecars, Hunter dove headfirst into a racing career that lasted five years and earned him a reputation as one of the world’s top professional drivers. A manufacturing career came next, but neither occupation was enough to deter Hunter from pursuing his true goal: Making movies.

Hunter’s latest project, the romantic teen dramedy Her Best Move, about a high school soccer star dealing with teen angst and her professional future, may seem to be a tame entry from a man with an obvious need for speed, but Hunter doesn’t think so: “Racing cars and making movies have more in common than you might think,” he says. “In both, you have to make a million decisions quickly and confidently—and any one of those decisions can dramatically affect the end result, for better or worse! In each, you have a fantastic, highly trained team of people you put your total trust in, all of whom are working in unison to achieve the same goal. And of course, in both racing and filmmaking, you’re always waiting forever for the green light!”

For more information, visit www.herbestmove.com.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Moviemaker of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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International Academy of Film and Television

Founded in 2004, the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT) is still a fledgling institution, but its keeping its footing in the world of moviemaking by constantly growing, attracting a bevy of film talent and boasting a truly one-of-a-kind setting.

Like its parent company Bigfoot Entertainment, IAFT is located on the island of Cebu in the Philippines. Dean Douglas Hersh calls the location “an amazing place for cultural, topographic and biodiversity.” He paraphrases Sam Goldwyn, asserting that “it starts with an idyllic tropical paradise and gets better from there.”

Cebu, known as “The Queen City of the South,” has historical roots going back as far as Magellan’s 16th century explorations of the island, and provides a rich and exotic backdrop to the top-notch moviemaking education. IAFT offers concentrations in both movie production and acting, including short-term workshops, corporate lectures and a now-famous Immersion Program, which allows students to complete their own reels in just one year’s time. On December 7, IAFT will hold the commencement ceremony for its first Immersion class, sending the graduates out into the world of moviemaking with a well-rounded body of knowledge and a uniquely international educational experience.

Under the shadow of Bigfoot, IAFT is able to provide its students not only with a great education, but also, according to Hersh, with an opportunity for “nations to come together and collaborate on the most sustainable of all projects—human creativity.”

For more information, visit www.filmschool.ph.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Film School of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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The Phoenix Fear Film Festival

Location: Phoenix, AZ
Festival Date: December 29th, 2006

In a show of support for all the Scrooges out there who detest the enforced merriment of the holiday season, Brain Damage Films and Trash City Entertainment have teamed up to bring you the first annual Phoenix Fear Film Festival, a one-day event designed to celebrate all things gory and Grinchy. “It’s good counter-programming for all that cheer and good will toward men during the holidays—something different to do,” says festival director Chris McLennan. “What we hope to accomplish at this inaugural event is to make our presence known. To let all the ‘Gore Hounds’ in the world know that we are interested in helping to expose the art of horror in many forms, not just the conventional, marketable, commercial one,” he continues.

Gearing their fest toward low-budget and cult films, The Fear Fest dealt with several formidable obstacles in putting its first-time event together: “The most difficult part of organizing this Fear Festival was getting the word out to filmmakers that we actually had an event they could submit their films to,” recalls McLennan. “Budget constraints made it nearly impossible to advertise in big publications, but we took full advantage of many of our sponsors, who helped us by handing out flyers, doing PSAs on broadcast radio and, of course, e-mail blasts to everyone in our combined databases and MySpace to get the word out.” Luckily, the fest received more than its fair share of submissions, and is looking forward to continuing a tradition of gruesome anti-holiday fun for years to come.

Moviemakers interested in screening their flicks can still submit up to the late deadline of December 15. Visit www.phxfearfilmfestival.com for more information.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Festival of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Millennium Biltmore Hotel

Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Elijah Wood and Lindsay Lohan in The Weinstein Company’s Bobby - 2006.

On May 11, 1927, designers sketched the concept for the Academy Award statuette out on a napkin, and in the Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, the now-famed Oscar was born. With cinematic history woven intimately into its fabric, the downtown Los Angeles hotel, long famed for its sophistication, went on to host the first years of the famous awards ceremony and has since welcomed productions including Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and Steve Kloves’ The Fabulous Baker Boys onto its grounds.

Decorated with the Spanish-Italian Renaissance in mind and sectioned into rooms that open up to cathedral-style, hand-painted ceilings, the hotel drips in hand-detailed wood paneling, crystal chandeliers and classical artwork and sculpture, all of which make it a prime location to recreate the bygone elegance of the early film industry. However, even more striking than its elite history, the hotel has seen a plethora of politicians and dignitaries make their way through its dining halls and bedrooms, making it a hotspot for political flicks from Wolfgang Petersen’s In the Line of Fire to Emilio Estevez’s Bobby, which will be released on November 23rd.

Other notable films shot in this L.A. landmark include:

Ghostbusters
Pretty in Pink
Splash
House of Sand and Fog

For more information on the Biltmore, visit www.biltmorehotel.com.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: Location of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Bruce Lee

Without a doubt, Bruce Lee holds a place as the single most influential figure in martial arts cinema. Born on this day in San Francisco in 1940, the actor and athlete became a favorite among Western audiences starting in the 1970s, though in fact he’d been involved in moviemaking since childhood. With his breakout hit, Wei Lo’s Fist of Fury, Lee became an instant success and later went on to star in such films as Robert Clouse’s Enter the Dragon, Way of the Dragon, which he also directed and William Beaudine, Norman Foster and E. Darrell Hallenbeck’s The Green Hornet.

Filmstar Factoid: Lee died unexpectedly at age 33 of a cerebral edema, reportedly triggered by a negative reaction to medicine taken to alleviate a headache.

November 26th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Ben-Hur

Often thought of as one of the most pivotal epic films of its time, William Wyler’s Ben-Hur opened in theaters in 1959. The second film adaptation of Lew Wallace’s novel, the film’s script was crafted by the talented collective of Karl Tunberg, Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry and Gore Vidal; however, the last three writers remain uncredited for their work, Vidal in particular for his addition of gay themes into an otherwise hyper-masculine script.

Film Factoid: A slew of actors including Rock Hudson, Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster were approached to take the title role before final casting narrowed down to Charlton Heston.

November 23rd, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: The Merchant of Venice

Michael Radford’s The Merchant of Venice began shooting on this day in 2003. Starring Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and Lynn Collins, the film joins the long line of Shakespearean adaptations with brilliant actors and lackluster box office numbers. Despite the financial hit however, the film went on to critical success at the BAFTA, David di Donatello and Satellite Awards.

Film Factoid: Avoided by studios for its anti-Semitic themes, Radford’s Merchant of Venice was the first version to be filmed since the silent era.

November 22nd, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: JFK

In 1963 President Jack Kennedy suffered fatal gunshot wounds while on visit to Dallas, Texas, an assassination that to this day feeds the flames of conspiracy theories, exhaustive research by independent study groups, and naturally, the moviemaking machine. From Oliver Stone’s focused look at the crime in JFK to a passing mention in Richard Linklater’s Slacker, the event, which sparked national outcry and continues to permeate the American consciousness, provides constant fodder for narrative exploration, also showing up in films like Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump and Ben Stiller’s Zoolander.

Film Factoid: In Oliver Stone’s epic JFK, Dr M.T. Jenkins, the anesthetist who officially declared John F. Kennedy dead, plays himself.

November 21st, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Oldboy

The second installment of Park Chanwook’s “Revenge Trilogy,” Oldboy opened for South Korean audiences in 2003. Based on the comic crafted by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi, the story follows the story of Oh Dae-su, a husband and father who has been mysteriously imprisoned for 15 years, as he seeks justice from his captors. Winning accolades from the Grand Bell Awards, Cannes Film Festival and European Film Awards among others, the movie found support from the likes of numerous American independent filmmakers, including Quentin Tarantino.

Film Factoid: In one memorable scene of the film, Oh Dae-su eats a live octopus. In shooting the scene, the actor Choi Min-sik actually ate four live octopi, a stunt that caused no end to controversy when the film screened outside of Korea.

November 20th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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Native American Film & Video Festival

Location: New York, New York
Festival Dates: November 30 - December 3, 2006

It’s that time of year again: The time when Americans give thanks—for the lives we lead, the health we have and to the Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims survive that very first winter in the New World. Well, that last part of the tradition is always a bit fuzzy. However, this year we should be looking to give thanks to the people who have given us an abundance of independent films that vibrantly depict their contemporary national identity.

The Native American Film & Video Festival, organized by the National Museum of the American Indian, is celebrating its thirteenth year by showcasing more than 125 films from Native American moviemakers, including The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, the newest outing from The Fast Runner directors Norman Cohn and Zacharias Kunuk. Elizabeth Weatherford, head of the Film and Video Center at the New York-based museum, praises this year’s roster of moviemakers, saying that their “liveliness and numbers have created a whole new vision of the future of Native film.”

When the festival first began there were only two major festivals celebrating Native American moviemaking; there are now more than 40. Yet, outside of urban areas such as New York and San Francisco, there is little exhibition for such productions. In the years to come Weatherford looks to tour with the festival “bringing Native works to audiences everywhere.” Let’s hope the festival will be able to share its cinematic wealth sooner rather than later.

For more information visit http://www.nativenetworks.si.edu.

November 20th, 2006 | Category: Festival of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Film Movement

Imagine you’ve finally made it: After years of slaving away, your little indie film has made it to a big-name fest. You schmooze with industry types, promote the hell out of your movie and audiences love it. But after the festival crowds have dispersed, you find yourself with no idea how to get your movie seen ever again. This is where Film Movement comes to the rescue.

“Film Movement started because we were tired of reading about great films… that we never got to see because they either never came to a theater near us or came and left so quickly that we missed them,” says Stuart J. Litman, CEO of Film Movement. “We decided to find a way to bring award-winning independent and world cinema from the festival screens to our screens.”

Each month, Film Movement members receive an award-winning film, hand-selected by the company’s curatorial board, on DVD. Which means that, with help from this innovative company, all those great flicks that don’t happen to fit inside current mainstream trends are finally getting the audiences they deserve.

As a plus, many Film Movement selections manage to reach an even wider audience than the thousands of subscribers. “Lots of art-house films cannot or will not get foreign sales deals until they have a U.S. distributor lined up, so signing with Film Movement helps in that sense,” adds Litman. By serving both underappreciated moviemakers and undernourished movie lovers alike, Film Movement truly has indie cinema’s best interests at heart.

Though Film Movement does not accept direct submissions for feature films, moviemakers interested in submitting their shorts for consideration may send screeners to:

Film Movement
ATTN: SHORTS
109 West 27th Street, Suite 9B
New York, NY 10001

For more information or to subscribe, visit www.filmmovement.com.

November 20th, 2006 | Category: Exhibitor of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Urban Filmmakers Workshop

A lot of burgeoning moviemakers need a little boost to get them started on the path to realizing their dreams. And if you’re a moviemaker of color, breaking into the business can seem doubly challenging. In order to demystify this process and encourage urban moviemakers in their efforts, Camille Irons and H. M. Coakley founded the Rockstone Foundation, which reaches out to up-and-coming moviemakers across the country with its Urban Filmmakers Workshop.

“We created the Urban Filmmakers Workshop because we wanted to educate filmmakers of color around the country about the film business—the stuff that they won’t tell you in Hollywood. The UFW brings the secrets of Hollywood directly to this under-represented group,” says Irons.

After taking a two-year hiatus to work on the horror film Holla (which is being released by Lionsgate in December), Irons and Coakley have returned with the UFW, touring a total of eight cities from Philadelphia to Houston with a series of intensive, two-day workshops covering screenwriting, producing, acting and directing, using Holla as a case study of how to take a film from script to major studio distribution and beyond.

In future years, Irons hopes to expand UFW’s efforts even further: “We’re looking to transition the Urban Filmmakers Workshop into the five-day annual Urban Filmmakers Conference, which we plan to launch in Los Angeles in Fall 2007.” For more information and to sign up for the last stop of this year’s UFW, November 24 and 25 in Houston, Texas, visit http://www.rockstone.org.

November 20th, 2006 | Category: Film School of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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Morocco

Keisha Castle Hughes in The Nativity Story, photo courtesy New Line Cinema.

It’s highly possible that you’ve seen at least some half-dozen movies filmed on location in Morocco and not even known it. Bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean and the Sahara Desert, this North African country has stood in for locales in movies as diverse as the classic Lawrence of Arabia to the most recent incarnation of The Hills Have Eyes. In fact, since foreign filming began there in 1987, more than 500 movies have featured the country’s universal landscape as the backdrop. Directors choosing to film in the region have included Bernardo Bertolucci (The Sheltering Sky), Alfred Hitchcock (The Man Who Knew Too Much) and Martin Scorsese (Kundun and The Last Temptation of Christ).

Among the commitments listed by the Moroccan Cinematographic Centre are government cooperation, military and police assistance, a simplified procedure for the importing and exporting of shooting material and professional, trained crews experienced in working with foreign productions. Each year the country sees the production of an average 30 films, but in 2004 alone, 93 U.S. films were permitted production visas.

Most recently audiences would have seen the beauty of this “Western Kingdom” in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel. It will also be featured in Catherine Hardwicke’s The Nativity Story, out December 1^st. The movie follows the Biblical characters of Mary (Academy Award nominee Keisha Castle-Hughes of Whale Rider) and Joseph (Oscar Isaac) as they deal with the miracle birth of Jesus. While much of the film was set in Italy, key scenes of Herod’s castle and the temple of Jerusalem made use of the beautiful Moroccan landscape.

The following movies also offer visuals of Morocco’s mountains, coasts and dunes include:

Patton
The Man Who Would Be King
Hideous Kinky
Gladiator
Alexander

For more information on filming in Morocco, visit http://www.ccm.ma/defaultEng.html

November 20th, 2006 | Category: Location of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Estelle Parsons

With a high-pitched whine and high-strung personality, Estelle Parsons detailed her performance as Blanche Barrow in Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde with equal parts theatrics and nuance, garnering an Oscar for her film breakthrough. Born on this day in 1927, Parsons has dabbled in the fields of law, journalism and teaching along with her numerous credits in theater and film, among which are roles in Paul Newman’s Rachel, Rachel, Howard Morris’ Don’t Drink the Water and Gilbert Cates’ I Never Sang For My Father.

Filmstar Factoid: Though Parsons is well known for her work in theater and film, she’s best known to younger generations of viewers for her mid-1990s performance as Bev Harris on “Roseanne.”

November 19th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Gentleman Prefer Blondes

After completing the Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers comedy Monkey Business, Howard Hawks started shooting Gentleman Prefer Blondes in 1952. Starring Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe, the movie featured the iconic tune “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” and solidified Monroe’s fame in the film business.

Film Factoid: Though gentlemen preferred blondes in 1952, Jane Russell later would go on to star in Richard Sale’s 1955 Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.

November 17th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Maggie Gyllenhaal

Born on this day in New York City to film director Stephen Gyllenhaal and screenwriter Naomi Foner in 1977, Maggie Gyllenhaal became an indie household name when Steven Shainberg’s Secretary hit theaters in 2002. Through the strength of her acting, defined by its quirkiness and subtlety, Gyllenhaal has landed roles in John Sayles’ Casa de los babys, Don Roos’ Happy Endings and Marc Forster’s Stranger Than Fiction.

Filmstar Factoid: Initially, Secretary producers were focused on casting a bigger name for the lead role of Lee Holloway. But after a year of auditions and courting actresses including Christina Ricci and Claire Danes, the part was offered to Gyllenhaal, who garnered a Golden Globe nomination and won the National Board of Review award for “Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress.”

November 15th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: Silence of the Lambs

Classic thriller Silence of the Lambs began filming on this day in 1989. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris, the film famously follows FBI agent Clarice Starling as she attempts to track down a serial killer with the help of the cannibalistic psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter. The film won numerous Academy Awards, including a Best Actor statue for Anthony Hopkins. With only 16 minutes of screen time, it was the shortest performance to win the award for lead actor.

Filmstar Factoid: In order to add to Hannibal Lecter’s scare factor, Anthony Hopkins added a number of improvisational—and eerie—touches that would become Lecter’s signature, including never blinking his eyes while he spoke.

November 14th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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MM Remembers: Jack Palance (February 18, 1919-November 10, 2006)

Jack Palance in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989). Photo: Warner Bros.

When Jack Palance famously took the stage at the 1992 Academy Awards, he was celebrating much more than a single Oscar victory. For the first time in his long Hollywood career, Palance was getting the recognition he deserved.

After 40-odd years as an iconic on-screen villain, it was Palance’s self-mocking turn as Curly Washburn in City Slickers—a surprising comic performance from the actor—that would win him the statuette, and the opportunity to show off his talent for one-handed pushups in front of all of Hollywood and a worldwide viewing audience.

But famous stunts aside, Palance was an impressive on-screen presence, able to portray villainy to perfection in films like David Miller’s Sudden Fear and George Stevens’ Shane. An accomplished painter and writer (his prose poem, The Forest of Love, was published in 1996), Palance was known for his matter-of-fact attitude toward the Hollywood machine; he was a man who played the game without selling out. As the embodiment of old-school movie star masculinity, Jack Palance made an indelible mark on the film world that will not be forgotten.

November 14th, 2006 | Category: MM Remembers | By MovieMaker Staff

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This Day in Indie History: A History of Violence

Based on a graphic novel created by John Wagner and Vince Locke, David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence finished shooting in 2004. Acclaimed by the Academy Awards, the Cannes Film Festival and the National Society of Film Critics Awards among others, the movie pulled Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt together to tell the story of an all-American family man whose dark past is revealed when he becomes a local hero.

Film Factoid: After the film’s infamous stairwell sex scene, Maria Bello is seen lying in bed with bruises on her back. In actuality, makeup was used to downplay the number of bruises Bello received from filming the scene.

November 14th, 2006 | Category: This Day in Indie History | By MovieMaker Staff

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Fabián Bielinsky

Some say he’s the David Mamet of the Latin film world; others have drawn comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock. After 20-plus years in the film industry, writer-director Fabián Bielinsky left us with only two feature films of his own making, but somehow still captured the attention of the entire moviemaking world. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Bielinsky attended Argentina’s national film institute, the Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales. Upon graduation, he found work as an assistant director on local film sets before launching his own brief but sensational career.

Ricardo Darín, Fabián Bielinsky and Pablo Cedrón as Sosa in The Aura.Photo credit: Elías Meckler. An IFC First Take release.

Toiling away for years on his own movie projects and finding no production support, Bielinsky entered and won a 1998 screenplay contest. By 2000 his film, Nine Queens, was completed and released in his native country and quickly met with international acclaim at film festivals the world over. Hollywood recognition came with the territory, and in 2004 the moviemaker saw the release of Criminal, Gregory Jacobs’ English-language version of Bielinsky’s film, starring John C. Reilly and Diego Luna.

Sadly, in June of this year the mastermind of the Argentinean thriller passed away from a heart attack at the age of 47, only five months before the U.S. release of his second film venture, The Aura, opening November 17th. The film, starring Bielinsky veteran Ricardo Darín, tells the twisted tale of an epileptic man attempting to pull off the perfect crime. Once again, both director and film have been well received at festivals throughout the world, including a handful of awards from the Argentinean Film Critics Association and a Grand Jury Prize nomination at Sundance. With his untimely death, Bielinsky’s impressive duo of films stands as a testament to a formidable—and unfortunately short-lived—talent.

November 13th, 2006 | Category: Moviemaker of the Week | By MovieMaker Staff

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