James Kaelan

  • Directing

Let the PA Direct (Almost): Why Collaborating with Your Crew is Your Greatest Strength

Collaborating with your crew is your greatest strength. As a confident movie-maker, don’t hesitate to ask your film crew for…

9 years ago
  • Things Learned

Bound for the Frontline: MovieMaker Senior Editor James Kaelan Steps Down to Join the Independent Film War

“In the town of Osijiek, Croatia, Eduardo Flores, a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia and a follower of…

11 years ago
  • Articles
  • blog-test

MovieMaker Editor’s Pick: Back to the Future in Computer Chess by James Kaelan

MovieMaker's Editor's Weekend Pick is Computer Chess, though we can't resist sending a shout out to The Spectacular Now. Two…

11 years ago
  • Articles
  • Articles - Digital
  • Articles - Distribution
  • Articles - Documentary
  • DIY
  • Documentary

Revenue Record: Yekra Crushes with Online Doc

Like everyone else trying to forecast the economic landscape of independent film, over here at the MovieMaker offices, we think a lot…

11 years ago
  • Articles
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Blog - Festival of the Week
  • Festivals

Coachella: Triumphs, failures, and lessons from the inaugural AMFM Fest

The inaugural AMFM Fest, which shares a valley with the Coachella Art and Music Festival, may have been too ambitious.…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Festivals

Bringing Film to Coachella: AMFM Fest aims to bring film, art, and more music to the Coachella Valley by James Kaelan

AMFM Fest, the new acronymic festival in the Coachella Valley, might just be aiming to overthrow that other four-letter film…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Directing
  • Articles - Screenwriting
  • DIY

This Film Isn’t Real: Maja Milos’ Tiger Award-winning debut, Clip

On a Saturday afternoon at AFI Fest last November, I walked into a 4:15 PM screening of a Serbian film…

11 years ago
  • blog-test

Nairobi Half Life: Back by popular demand!

By popular demand, Nairobi Half Life—Kenya’s first official submission for the Academy Awards ® and the 2012 AFI Fest Audience…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Producing
  • DIY

Accepting Applications: Dogfish, the world’s first film production accelerator

Back in 2005, Paul Graham and Trevor Blackwell, two tech pioneers who'd made fortunes in Silicon Valley, founded a company…

11 years ago
  • blog-test

The Wild Bunch: Eight new Midnight Marauder posters for Sam Peckinpah’s masterpiece Western by Midnight Marauder

I don’t claim to be a Sam Peckinpah expert or a film critic by any means. I am a poster…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Documentary
  • Festivals

Tribeca 2013: Dance docs, war docs, Michael Haneke docs, and a few films that aren’t docs by Josh Ralske

Wading through the muck of Tribeca's programming is always a tricky business. It's gotten a bit easier in recent years,…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Distribution
  • blog-test

Farm-to-Table Crowdfunding: Seed&Spark helps fund and distribute independent films by James Kaelan

On February 20 of this year, 75 days after launching their beta site, Seed&Spark—one of the most innovative crowdfunding platforms…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Distribution
  • DIY
  • We Make Movies (Better)

We Make Movies (Better): New grass roots and the digital age of moviemaking at SXSWby Jennifer Flaks

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…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Directing
  • Interviews

Narcotic Harmony: An American provocateur wages a war against the senses with Spring Breakers by Josh Ralske

I was never really a fan of Harmony Korine’s work. I saw Kids (directed by Larry Clark) and Gummo, and…

11 years ago
  • Producing

The MovieMaker Manifesto: A Document for an Oppressed Majority

If French film in the 1950s was a convalescent in a hospice, as Godard and Truffaut claimed, the Nouvelle Vague…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Directing
  • Festivals
  • Interviews

Sundance for $60,000: Daniel Hoesl’s Soldate Jeannette is a Masterclass in Low-Budget Filmmaking (Video)

Anyone familiar with the films of Mike Leigh knows that, in the right hands, the seed of a story—a lovable…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Directing

Things I’ve Learned: Harmony Korine

As Josh Ralske writes in his forthcoming MovieMaker interview... "I was never really a fan of Harmony Korine’s work. I…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Exhibition
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Movie News

Nairobi Half Life: Endorsed by the Kenyan Embassy

Washington, D.C.—This morning, the Embassy of Kenya in the U.S. announced its support for Nairobi Half Life, a Kenyan film…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Festivals

Cinequest 23: 86 US and World premieres constitute the Cinequest line-up by James Kaelan

If Cinequest were a film, the plot would be too complicated to condense into an elevator pitch. For the last…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Festivals

Palm Springs International Film Festival: This Palm Springs film festival programs the best in international cinema by James Kaelan

I have a propensity for severe landscapes. Minimalist architecture excites me. Between a rain forest and a desert, I prefer…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Documentary
  • Festivals

Indie Memphis Film Festival: The premiere Memphis festival offers brilliant docs and backyard keggers by Daniel Lindsay

I am always excited when I get the chance to return to Memphis. After spending nine months there filming the documentary…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Festival Beat
  • Articles - Festivals
  • Festivals

Humphrey Bogart Film Festival: Bogie returns to Key Largo for this beach-side festival by MM editors

The first weekend in May, 2013, fans of the cultural icon Humphrey Bogart—the man that the American Film Institute ranked…

11 years ago
  • Articles - Auteur
  • Articles - Directing

Fake Independence and Reel Truth, Pt. 3: Plastic emotions and lite art by Ray Carney

Read Part 1 Read Part 2 Read Part 4 Surely I’m not the only person in America weary of stylistic…

11 years ago
  • Find A Festival

Test 1

Find A Festival Test 1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore…

11 years ago