It’s hard to regain one's faith once you’ve lost it. Director Tracy Trost explores this spiritual struggle in his latest film The Lamp, in which he offers viewers a much-needed message of hope.

Dramatic stories are infinitely more compelling when we know that they are true. Like the story of Budd Dwyer: On January 22, 1987, Dwyer, the Treasurer of Pennsylvania, committed suicide during a televised press conference.

Short films don't always get the respect they deserve. You can see Transformers anywhere, but it takes a dedicated fan to track down a short film he or she wants to see. Unless they are attached to the beginning of a Pixar movie, short films have a very limited theatrical exposure to the public.

The Tunnel, from Australian director Carlo Ledesma, is the story of five journalists who encounter more than they bargained for while investigating a network of abandoned tunnels underneath Sydney. The only thing more shocking than this Blair Witch-esque horror flick is its ticket price: Zero. Yes, free. The Tunnel is now available to download through BitTorrent clients as part of VODO.net’s Artist Spotlight program, which digitally promotes the work of its featured artists.

In the new action-thriller Deep Gold, a champion free-diver and her sister are drawn into a deadly conspiracy while investigating the disappearance of a government plane carrying a fortune in gold. Filmed entirely in and around the exotic islands of Cebu and Palawan in the Phillipines, Deep Goldfeatures eye-popping 3-D action sequences.

When one hears the word “burlesque” two references often come to mind: For theater geeks it’s the Broadway musical Gypsy, based on the memoirs of burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee. For pop culture junkies it’s Burlesque, the recent sequin-studded spectacular starring Cher and Christina Aguilera. But what exactly is burlesque? Is it all about singing strippers or is there more to it than we assume?

What is microfinance? The term is often used to define financial services for poor and low-income clients. It is also the subject of Gayle Ferraro's new, buzzed-about documentary—To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America.

Waste Land tells the inspiring story of the “catadores”—self-appointed collectors of recyclable materials who comb through the trash of the largest garbage dump in the world, Brazil's Jardim Gramacho. Director Lucy Walker follows contemporary artist Vik Muniz from Brooklyn to his native Brazil as he sets out to immortalize the catadores in artwork made from the garbage of Jardim Gramacho.

In Aaron Katz’s Cold Weather, Doug (Cris Lankenau) is a former forensic science student and detective story enthusiast who moves in with his sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn) in Portland, gets a job at an ice factory, and becomes friends with his coworker, Carlos, (Raúl Castillo) after lending him a Sherlock Holmes novel. When Doug’s ex-girlfriend goes missing, Doug, Gail and Carlos set out to find her—but are unaware of the dangers they face in doing so.

When Florida-based moviemaker Matt Katsolis stumbled upon a contest link this past summer, little did he know that he would soon be named the grand prize winner in Panasonic's "Shoot It. Share It" video contest.

23-year-old Grete Eliassen is quickly emerging as a breakout star in the skiing world. Raised in Minnesota and Norway, Eliassen started skiing at the age of two, began competing when she was 10 and turned pro at 17.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, famed director Spike Lee returned to document the city’s ongoing recovery efforts.

IndieProducer.net—a place for independent moviemakers to network and get the word out about their upcoming projects—is not exempt from the financial hardships being faced by many.

Imagine the basic premise of The Blair Witch Project—young moviemakers on a quest to unravel a bogeyman of their past—but then imagine that it all really happened.

In Ben and Joshua Safdie's new movie, Daddy Longlegs, Ronald Bronstein plays Lenny, a father whose custody agreement allows him to see his two children for only two weeks out of the year. During this short period he tries to take care of them, but it's perfectly clear from the bad decisions he makes that he has yet to grow up himself.

"I have created a different way to make a film—a process that allows a first-time moviemaker (like myself) to be able to make a good film," claims veteran actor and first-time director (with Still the Drums) Talbot Perry Simons.

Johnny Otto is no stranger to the difficulties moviemakers face when trying to turn aspirations into reality.

When Marshall Curry took a break from his job working for a Web design company so that he could make films, he had not been to film school nor had he received any formal film training; he went out, bought a camera and started shooting.

Renowned as the "female version of Tom Savini," special makeup effects artist Teresa Fahs began her career a decade ago as a figure sculptor. Today, she is a highly successful prosthetic designer and macabre makeup effects wizard.

Marc Fienberg is making his debut into full-length features will full force. He is the writer, director and producer of Play the Game, starring Andy Griffith, Doris Roberts and Paul Campbell.

With Sundance underway, Park City, Utah has become the epicenter of indie movies, pitting each festival in a turf war over whose festival represents indie moviemaking in the truest sense. One of these movies is Steve Kelly’s City Rats.

I Sell The Dead is far from your typical horror movie. In the words of writer-directo, Glenn McQuaid, it’s “an old-fashioned buddy flick... about robbing graves and, more importantly, robbing graves of the undead.”

Moviemaking hotspots like New York and Los Angeles are generally the first place a potential film school student turns when looking to learn more about the moviemaking process. The cities are host to a plethora of film schools, but you can find a few off the beaten path, too—like Academy of Art University. Located in San Francisco, the university has both BFA and MFA programs and is made up of many schools that target different areas of the arts and offers various courses that cover acting, cinematography, editing and screenwriting, to name a few.

His filmography defies easy categorization because Jon Avnet says he's only interested in one thing: Great acting. He's proving it this summer, as he teams up with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for Righteous Kill.

In 1999, a plastic ball floated in the wind—the most beautiful thing ever seen by the strange boy next door—and with that, Alan Ball won an Academy Award for his very first screenplay, American Beauty. Nine years later, he's making his feature directorial debut with Towelhead, which, even before its release, is confronting controversy for its title and few key scenes.

He may be best known for the beloved Cinema Paradiso, but Giuseppe Tornatore's The Unknown Woman, his first film since 2000's Malena, is a substantial departure from that bittersweet love song to cinema. The Unknown Woman stars Russian actress Xenia Rappaport as Irena, a mysterious Ukrainian woman who ingratiates herself with a prosperous Italian family, taking care of their young daughter. Is she after blackmail? Revenge? Lightning-quick flashbacks provide hints of terrible secrets from her past, andThe Unknown Woman constantly keeps us off-balance with its blend of suspense and melodrama, and its mingling of past and present into one continuous stream.

Longtime fans of Judd Apatow will recognize a few familiar moments in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, out in theaters Friday, April 18. From an awkward reunion of sorts for lead actor-writer Jason Segel and his “Undeclared” love Carla Gallo to Segel’s uncontrollable sobbing over a girl who has left him for another man, the movie borrows a few tricks from Apatow’s television series “Undeclared.” “I think this is a story that we started telling eight years ago on the TV show that no one saw and that we’re completing now on the bigger screen, with full frontal male nudity,” jokes Marshall director Nick Stoller. Together with Segel, who appeared in a handful of episodes of the 2001 college comedy, Stoller had been a force behind the series.

Immigration has been a hot topic of debate in this country for the past decade (just ask Lou Dobbs) and with this fall’s election just around the corner, it may even be the deciding factor in determining our next president. But if you think that Patricia Riggen’s feature film debut, Under the Same Moon, is a controversial or political vehicle for discussing such views, think again.

Sure Zak Penn can write you a surefire blockbuster. He has proven that time and again with X-Men, Electra, Fantastic Four, etc. But that's not all he can do. The Grand, an improvisational comedy set in the world of competitive poker that he wrote and directed, contains neither a superhero nor a highfalutin special effect. But what the film lacks in terms of big-budget luxuries it makes up for with those erstwhile and less marketable traits: Intelligence, wit and originality.

"On the blockbuster summer movies, writing subplots that intersect with the main plot in the third act can be the difference between a good script and a bad one" and other lessons learned from one of Hollywood's most in-demand screenwriters.

Blockbuster moviemaking would be the expected career path of one of Michael Bay's former employees, but Mark Palansky has never been one for doing the "expected" thing. In facting, spending the early part of his career on the sets of such big-budget projects as Armageddon, Pearl Harbor and The Island, helped this Toronto native make the most of a $12 million budget on the quirky Penelope.

"Do a lot of daydreaming" and other lessons from Hollywood's go-to guy when it comes to family fantasy films.

Since 2000’s My Dog Skip, director Jay Russell has been the go-to man for bringing the heartwarming tales of children’s novels to life on the big screen. His latest effort, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, which opens on Christmas Day, used the resources of Peter Jackson’s Weta Workshop to bring the mythical hatchling to life and portray the bond between boy and pet.

Twelve years and seven directorial efforts after storming the indie film scene at Sundance, Ed Burns is making history once again, as he premieres Purple Violets exclusively on iTunes.

"When sending your screenplay out to a movie star, don’t expect to hear back from them for at least three months" and other lessons from a truly independent moviemaker.