About James Kaelan

All Articles

September 1, 2015
Collaborating with your crew is your greatest strength. As a confident movie-maker, don’t hesitate to ask your film crew for help. They aren’t your employees; they’re your collaborators.
war
August 14, 2013
James Kaelan, MovieMaker’s Senior Editor, steps down from the magazine to fight at the frontline of the independent film war.
August 1, 2013
Andrew Bujalski’s latest feature “Computer Chess” burrows through the dustbin of broadcast video history to achieve its authentic lo-fi look.
July 8, 2013
This April, the Los Angeles-based VOD startup Yekra generated over $250,000 of rental revenue within 48 hours of releasing the documentary, Sirius.
June 19, 2013
The inaugural AMFM Fest, which shares a valley with the Coachella Art and Music Festival, may have been too ambitious. But the future is bright. Coachella
coachella
June 5, 2013
AMFM Fest, the brainchild of Albuquerque Film Festival founders Rich Henrich and Robert Galarza, aims to make the Coachella Valley the new Austin.
April 18, 2013
Clip turned out to be one of the most unflinching and controversial portraits of teenage lust, longing, anguish, and rebellion ever captured on camera.
April 9, 2013
By popular demand, Nairobi Half Life—Kenya’s first official submission for the Academy Awards ® and the 2012 AFI Fest Audience […]
April 9, 2013
This summer, the team behind Dogfish Pictures (one of the companies that helped produce last year’s Compliance, and this year’s Prince Avalanche) is fielding the first class of producers for its inaugural accelerator program.
April 5, 2013
I don’t claim to be a Sam Peckinpah expert or a film critic by any means. I am a poster […]
April 4, 2013
Wading through the muck of Tribeca’s programming is always a tricky business. It’s gotten a bit easier in recent years, […]
April 2, 2013
On February 20 of this year, 75 days after launching their beta site, Seed&Spark—one of the most innovative crowdfunding platforms […]
April 1, 2013
I have a confession to make: I’m a bit of an interloper in the film world. I was an actress for 15 years, having […]
March 29, 2013
I was never really a fan of Harmony Korine’s work. I saw Kids (directed by Larry Clark) and Gummo, and […]
March 27, 2013
MovieMaker Manifesto: Men and women of contemporary independent film, auteurs and fans alike, you downtrodden and enraged creators of beauty, you repressed thinkers of monumental thoughts, join us!
March 26, 2013
Anyone familiar with the films of Mike Leigh knows that, in the right hands, the seed of a story—a lovable […]
March 25, 2013
As Josh Ralske writes in the MovieMaker interview, “The film is at once asinine and wholly mesmerizing. It’s crazy, and conceivably mean-spirited, but it’s also exquisitely assembled and gorgeous.”
March 19, 2013
The Embassy of Kenya in the U.S. announced its support for Nairobi Half Life, a Kenyan film screening today as part of the Feature Film Project.
cinequest
March 17, 2013
James Kaelan travels to Cinequest 23 and gets bowled over by the sheer volume (86!) of U.S. and World Premieres presented by the Silicon Valley festival.
March 17, 2013
James Kaelan travels to the premiere Palm Springs film Festival, the Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) to sample the best in international cinema.
memphis festival
March 17, 2013
Academy Award winner Daniel Lindsay travels to Indie Memphis, the premiere Memphis festival for all things independent film, to serve on the jury.
March 17, 2013
2013 marks the first year of the Humphrey Bogart Film Festival in Key Largo. Besides screenings of Bogie’s work, visitors can chill on the African Queen.
March 8, 2013
Read Part 1 Read Part 2 Read Part 4 Surely I’m not the only person in America weary of stylistic […]
March 6, 2013
Find A Festival Test 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore […]