Filmmaker's look at upcoming DVD releases.

GONZO

LIBERTY KID

LYNCH

"A BLUESMAN IN THE LIFE OF THE MIND"

Scott Macaulay
On my "best of '08" list is a sub-category for the best films I saw on the fest circuit that have distribution in '09, and one of my favorites of these is Astra Taylor's Examined Life. It's a documentary in which the director takes eight philosophers to the streets and explores the way in which their ideas bleed back and forth between the world and their consciousnesses. It's a smart, heady film [continue]

JOHN AUGUST ON iMOVIE POST MAC WORLD

Scott Macaulay
One of the questions Apple's filmmaker fans had going into today's Macworld conference was whether the rumored changes to the iLife suite of programs would include an upgrade to iMovie that bring the program's functionality back to where it was before it was disastrously retooled as iMovie HD. Unfortunately, based on screenwriter and director John August's opinion, it doesn't sound like this [continue]

CINEVEGAS CHECKS IN WITH DENTLER

Scott Macaulay
Cinetic's Matt Dentler, who is part of the roundtable discussion on the current state of the biz in the current Filmmaker ("as discouraging as it was galvanizing" one indie director called it in an email) is interviewed on the CineVegas blog by Roger Erik Tinch. Check it out.

PRIDE'S FESTIVAL PHOTOBLOGS

Scott Macaulay
Ray Pride has coverage of the Thessaloniki Film Festival in the upcoming issue of Filmmaker, but over the past few days he's uploaded a bunch of his fantastic fest photography to our Festival Ambassador section. In addition to the Greek festival he's got snaps from Sheffield and True/False as well as embedded clips featuring directors and writers like Azazel Jacobs, Diablo Cody and Michael [continue]

NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR INDIE FILMMAKERS

Scott Macaulay
CinemaTech's Scott Kirsner has been collaborating with ITVS on a series of case studies focusing on filmmakers who are using new technologies to connect with their audiences and achieve distribution. The first seven case studies, featuring filmmakers like Hunter Weeks and Josh Caldwell, Tiffany Shlain and Kate Chevigny, are up now as is Kirsner's "Top Five Digital Strategies for Social Issue Filmmakers." [continue]

THE GOOGLE BOOK SETTLEMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR ONLINE VIDEO

Scott Macaulay
I've posted a couple of times about the Google Book Settlement, more from a general interest in intellectual property issues than anything else. The relationship between the settlement's engagement with the publishing industry and its possible application to the world of film are not direct by any means. The Google Book Settlement applies to library collections containing copyrighted but [continue]

DIGITAL EDITION LAUNCHED

Filmmaker Magazine is now available as a digital issue. Get everything from our print version on your computer. Click here to see a sample. A digital subscription also gives you access to back issues from 2005 to the current for free. Click here to subscribe.

For more information go to our FAQ page by clicking here. See digital issue links above cover.

ALEXEI BALABANOV, CARGO 200

Nick Dawson
Though he only decided he wanted to be a filmmaker in his late twenties, Alexei Balabanov has made up for lost time by creating a body of work that has made him both Russia's most interesting auteur and one of its most commercially successful directors. Born in Sverdlovsk in 1959, Balabanov [continue]

JOHN WALTER, THEATER OF WAR

Nick Dawson
In the field of documentary, John Walter has emerged as the medium's most eloquent and entertaining cultural historian. The Detroit-born director, who is also an unpublished poet, began his career in the film industry as a boom operator and worked in that capacity on Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II. In [continue]

THE FLAMING LIPS' CHRISTMAS ON MARS
By Mike Plante

How couldn’t you be existential in space? Cut off from Mother Earth, becoming a machine of sorts with only memories of holidays to pass the time? In the lovably lo-fi sci-fi Christmas On Mars, psych rock band The Flaming Lips have invented a straight-to-DVD film that could be a lost cousin to 2001, [continue]

HENRY MAY LONG
By Alicia Van Couvering

The Talented Mr. Ripley by way of Somerset Maugham, Henry May Long is a drama about two men, Henry May and Henry Long, set in the upper crust and under belly of 1887 New York City. Long is obsessed with the golden child May, and via constant surveillance has come to know his secret debt and drug [continue]

NYFF46 PART 4

In Jamie Stuart's final episode from his New York Film Festival series, Mickey Rourke reflects on the bad time in his career while Jamie learns the present is the best place to be.

To see the whole NYFF 46 series click here.

AFI FILM FESTIVAL
By Justin Lowe

Always an indication of the imminent onset of awards season, AFI Fest typically gets ahead of the curve with world and local premieres of would-be contenders. For some films, it’s a prestigious Hollywood launching pad to build momentum toward the Golden Globes, guild honors and the Oscars, [continue]

PLUS: Festival Ambassador - The latest news from the film festival circuit