South by Southwest

  • Festivals

The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World, 2017

Keith Richards said it best: “If you gotta think about being cool, you ain’t cool.” The 25 rare birds on…

7 years ago
  • Spring 2017

Persistence Pays Off: Alien: Covenant‘s Katherine Waterston is Finally Ready For Her Close-Up

Do a cursory scroll through the IMDb page of Katherine Waterston, and you’ll find someone who—on the surface—is in the…

7 years ago
  • Moviemaking

Devilish Charisma: Michael Fassbender on Making Song to Song With Terrence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki

Overdosing on his on own ambition, confronted with the shattered reality of a broken brotherly bond and a slew of…

7 years ago
  • Other

Crowd-Teasers: Donald Cried Trailer Features Scant Crying, Lots of Uncomfortable Smiling

In sharp contrast with the film’s title, the trailer for Kris Avedisian’s Donald Cried features a marked profusion of smiling.…

7 years ago
  • Directing

Team-Directing: What We Learned By Making Our Feature Drama Claire in Motion as a Pair

Many years ago, two friends who had been film school classmates decided to make something together. We were at a…

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
  • Interviews

Weighty Responsibility: Kim A. Snyder on Making Newtown, a Documentary Centered on Terrible Tragedy

It’s almost been four years since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, which took 20 kids, six teachers, and shook…

8 years ago
  • Interviews

Cinema is Dead: Todd Rohal and Kent Osborne Poke Fun at the Movies with “Unwanted Sequel” Uncle Kent 2

Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Sometimes the sequel is just…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It

Casting a Light: Lessons on Finding the Right Actors From Before the Sun Explodes

When my writing and producing partner, Zeke Farrow, and I set out to cast our film Before The Sun Explodes,…

8 years ago
  • Interviews

Let Other Voices In: Don Cheadle Talks Miles Ahead, Empowering His Team, and Influences from Beatty to PTA

It’s as daunting a task to play a icon in a film as it is to write and direct that…

8 years ago
  • Interviews

Takeaways from Producing an Indie Sensation: Six Lessons One Krisha Producer Learned

We’ve heard case after case of hungry independent filmmakers who shoot their first films on a shoestring budget, using their…

8 years ago
  • Interviews

Augmented Needs: Director Benjamin Dickinson Makes Technology Visceral in Creative Control

Science-fiction premises and impressive futuristic settings are absolutely possible in independent cinema—if they're grounded on skillful storytelling. Slickly stylized through…

8 years ago
  • How They Did It

SXSW 2016: Why the Doc Best and Most Beautiful Things Took Six Years to Make, and Needed Every Minute of it

The beauty of DIY is that you get to dream the biggest dreams you can. The challenge of DIY is…

8 years ago
  • Directing
  • How They Did It

Fact, Fiction or All of the Above? The Sweaty Betty Directors Break Down Their One-of-a-Kind Movie

Sweaty Betty tells the story of a family, the Riches, who are determined to make their 1,000-pound pig, Miss Charlotte,…

8 years ago
  • Fall 2015

Slaying the Horror Festival Circuit: How To Navigate the Deep, Dark Maze of North American Horror Film Festivals

No continent in the world hosts as many horror film festivals as North America, so the task of selecting a…

8 years ago
  • Spring 2015

The Art of the Interview: 10 Essential Tenets of On-Camera Conversation

Ken Burns stopped. The legendary documentarian typically plows forward with the relentless tenacity of a cragged New Englander picking rocks…

9 years ago
  • Best Of

The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World, 2015

We go to film festivals for the same reasons we see our favorite bands in concert. Or pop into bookstores…

9 years ago
  • Fall 2014
  • Festivals

The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World, 2014

Our annual list of the world’s weirdest and most wonderful cinematic celebrations: the 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World.…

9 years ago