Slamdance Film Festival

  • Movie News

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2022, Presented by FilmFreeway

Moviemaker Kevin T. Morales, whose ‘90s high school comedy Generation Wrecks is coming soon, tweeted something recently that we strongly…

2 years ago
  • Movie News

18th and Grand Traces L.A. History Through a ‘Palace of Violence’

18th and Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story tells the story of 20th century Los Angeles through a "palace of violence."…

3 years ago
  • Spring 2019

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2019

Film festivals require a strategy. It's accepted as gospel among independents that a feature film is the result of dogged…

5 years ago
  • Festivals

Slamdance Film Festival 2018: Park City’s Other Annual Film Fest Dances to its Own Drummer, Busts Some New Moves

If 2018 was the year Sundance struggled to answer how much of its DNA is market-driven and how much of…

6 years ago
  • Annual Lists

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2018

Stamping the MovieMaker seal of approval on each destination in our annual guide to the 50 Film Festivals Worth the…

6 years ago
  • Festivals

Festival Beat: Freezing Weather Belied Warm Welcome at Slamdance 2017

My Park City initiation was like getting hugged and slapped at the same time. I produced Dave Made a Maze,…

7 years ago
  • Festivals

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2017

Are film festivals getting better? That is, are they providing you—independent moviemakers—more of the things you want and need? I…

7 years ago
  • Movie News

The Best Advice I Ever Received: How the Team Behind Slamdance Film Cortez Found the Courage to Make Their Film

The Man with the White Hair sat a long way away from me, his '80s-era glasses slipping down his nose.…

7 years ago
  • Directing

A Recipe for Indie Success: The Tried-and-True Methods Behind Blake Robbins’ The Scent of Rain & Lightning

How was it possible to take a New York Times best-selling novel—spanning more than 20 years and dealing with 13…

7 years ago
  • Festivals

Festival Wrap: Small Discoveries Stand Out at the 11th Gasparilla International Film Festival

Among a massive slate of features screening incessantly over several weeks, a microbudget, no-name production or a foreign language documentary,…

7 years ago
  • Movie News

ICYMI: The Best of January 2017 on Moviemaker.com

January 2017 was a historic month for political reasons we don't need to tell you about here. In the world…

7 years ago
  • Festivals

Absolute Submission: Top Programmers Share the Secrets to Getting Into the Festivals of Your Dreams

Dear moviemakers, I want you to know this: I love you. Or at least, I really want to love you.…

7 years ago
  • Festivals

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, 2016: Plot Your Festival Course on This Interactive Map

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2016: now plotted out on this interactive map! So you've read about…

8 years ago
  • Acting

Quick Change Artist: Costume is the Key to Accessing and Discarding Character, Says the Star of Hunky Dory

“Clothes make the man.” — Mark Twain When director Michael Curtis Johnson and I decided to make Hunky Dory, we…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It

How They Did It: The Radical Sound Design of Driftwood, Shot Without a Sound Crew

Close your eyes and concentrate on the sounds around you: the humming of the refrigerator, footsteps from the floor above,…

8 years ago
  • Directing

The Weird, Grey Area: How to Find Tonal Balance in a Dramedy, by the Writer-Director of MAD

"And that's really the thing, can you make people emotional, make people feel something, maybe even have tears... and get…

8 years ago
  • Best Of

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, 2016

When we compile the 50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee list every year, we start by imagining you: an…

8 years ago
  • Documentary

Fur Example: Director Dominic Rodriguez Confronts His Own Furry Fandom in Fursonas

When I started working on the documentary feature Fursonas, I had no idea what I was getting into. Actually, I’m…

8 years ago
  • Directing
  • Festivals

Slamdance 2016: Watch Interviews with Adam Rifkin, Penn and Teller from Director’s Cut

Director's Cut, Adam Rifkin and Penn Jillette's warped comedy about obsession and moviemaking, opened the 22nd Slamdance Film Festival on…

8 years ago
  • Documentary

Family, Farming and Fostering Trust: Director Morgan Schmidt-Feng on Making On Her Own

On Her Own began as a project to satisfy my personal curiosity about farm life. Farming was a topic I…

9 years ago
  • Documentary

Dancing with Death: How the Director of Huntington’s Dance Documented His Own Suicide Attempt

It takes a braver-than-usual moviemaker to chronicle how an incurable disease has ravaged generations of his family—much less put his…

9 years ago
  • Movie News

Exclusive: ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club Unveils June, July and August Titles (plus, a Ticket Giveaway!)

ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club, the recently minted collaboration between Arclight Cinemas and the Slamdance Film Festival, today announced their…

9 years ago
  • Festivals

50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee, 2015

Was it worth it? Indie film, by definition, resides on the margins. It’s a medium of miracles, of squeezing so…

9 years ago
  • Directing
  • Documentary
  • Interviews

Addictive Personalities: 20 Years of Madness Explores Friendship, Filmmaking and Mental Illness

“If there’s anything else in life that you can do and be happy with, go do that. Because this is…

9 years ago