With every post taking the form of a six-second loop, the now-defunct online platform Vine can only tell so much story. That made it an ideal venue for “Simply Sylvio,” Albert Birney’s chronicle of a working class ape struggling to find his place in human civilization. That would be Birney, in a furry gorilla suit, enacting a series of strange and melancholic moments that pushed just beyond the boundaries of a simple gag: Whether contemplating the changing of the seasons, wandering the beach, or partying alone at sundown, Sylvio existed for the sole purpose of small moments — and users responded, as attested by the half million followers that Birney developed over the course of 814 posts.
Needless to say, it would be hard to imagine these tidbits amounting to much beyond limitations of the format, which is why it’s particularly fascinating to see Birney try. Unlike the teen stars...
Needless to say, it would be hard to imagine these tidbits amounting to much beyond limitations of the format, which is why it’s particularly fascinating to see Birney try. Unlike the teen stars...
- 3/11/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Brace yourself. The annual multi-pronged South By Southwest Conferences and Festivals — SXSW, of course — is hitting Austin, Texas later this week for days and days of fresh film offerings (and music and interactive stuff, too, but we can only do so much here). With it comes the promise of a brand new season of festival-going, along with a slew of films to get excited about finally checking out (and, because it’s Austin, lots of tasty barbecue to enjoy).
From SXSW regulars like Bob Byington and Joe Swanberg to rising stars like Nanfu Wang and Laura Terruso to marquee names like Terrence Malick and Edgar Wright — and just about everything in between — this year’s SXSW Film Festival is offering up its most robust slate yet. We’ve picked out a baker’s dozen of worthy new features to add to your SXSW schedule.
Check out 13 new films from this...
From SXSW regulars like Bob Byington and Joe Swanberg to rising stars like Nanfu Wang and Laura Terruso to marquee names like Terrence Malick and Edgar Wright — and just about everything in between — this year’s SXSW Film Festival is offering up its most robust slate yet. We’ve picked out a baker’s dozen of worthy new features to add to your SXSW schedule.
Check out 13 new films from this...
- 3/8/2017
- by Chris O'Falt, David Ehrlich, Eric Kohn, Jude Dry, Kate Erbland and Steve Greene
- Indiewire
With Sundance behind us, the next major American festival is waiting in the wings. The SXSW Film Festival lineup has landed, and there’s a lot to dig through.
Read More: SXSW 2017 Episodic Lineup to Include ‘Dear White People,’ ‘American Gods’
Unlike Sundance, which attracts a lot of industry attention around a handful of high-profile titles, SXSW is more about discovery. As usual, there are a lot of compelling possibilities in the program, from the newcomers in its competition sections through the more peculiar and surprising offerings in the Visions section. IndieWire got a few tips from SXSW Film director Janet Pierson and extracted these promising possibilities.
Small Stories, Big Steps
The festival’s narrative feature competition is often the place where filmmakers on their first or second feature get a sudden boost. It was there that Lena Dunham’s “Tiny Furniture” and Destin Cretton’s “Short Term 12” both took off.
Read More: SXSW 2017 Episodic Lineup to Include ‘Dear White People,’ ‘American Gods’
Unlike Sundance, which attracts a lot of industry attention around a handful of high-profile titles, SXSW is more about discovery. As usual, there are a lot of compelling possibilities in the program, from the newcomers in its competition sections through the more peculiar and surprising offerings in the Visions section. IndieWire got a few tips from SXSW Film director Janet Pierson and extracted these promising possibilities.
Small Stories, Big Steps
The festival’s narrative feature competition is often the place where filmmakers on their first or second feature get a sudden boost. It was there that Lena Dunham’s “Tiny Furniture” and Destin Cretton’s “Short Term 12” both took off.
- 1/31/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Filmmaker and actor Kentucker Audley, who is best known for his lead performance in Amy Seimetz's directorial debut "Sun Don't Shine" and his supporting role in David Lowery's "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" created a petition on Change.org urging fellow mediocre filmmakers to stop making films. The petition, a direct response to recent stories in The New York Times and Salon complaining about the glut of independent films, is clearly tongue in cheek. Audley, who previously wrote and directed the features "Open Five" and "Open Five 2" said he counts himself among the "mediocre" filmmakers who should retire. He also tweeted his request. He writes on the Change.org page: Our goal is 5,000 signatures. We believe if we can convince enough aspiring filmmakers to give up on their dreams, the industry will become solvent again, returning to a thriving and viable state. Film critics and film audiences will...
- 2/24/2014
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Chicago – Actor/filmmaker Kentucker Audley gave an exclusive interview to Indie Outlook, the independent film blog and podcast founded by Hollywood Chicago staff writer Matt Fagerholm. Audley stars opposite Kate Lyn Sheil in Amy Seimetz’s acclaimed crime drama, “Sun Don’t Shine,” which premieres in Chicago on Friday, May 3rd, kicking off a week-long run at the Gene Siskel Film Center.
In addition to discussing his work in “Sun Don’t Shine,” Audley offered some great insight into his method of blurring the line between narrative and documentary in his 2010 film, “Open Five” (and its 2012 sequel), which offer painstakingly intimate portraits of struggling artists. Those are merely two of the numerous movies available in their entirety on the site, NoBudge Films, an indispensable collection of microbudget gems curated and updated by Audley himself. The Memphis-based filmmaker also revealed the profound inspiration he garnered from Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket,...
In addition to discussing his work in “Sun Don’t Shine,” Audley offered some great insight into his method of blurring the line between narrative and documentary in his 2010 film, “Open Five” (and its 2012 sequel), which offer painstakingly intimate portraits of struggling artists. Those are merely two of the numerous movies available in their entirety on the site, NoBudge Films, an indispensable collection of microbudget gems curated and updated by Audley himself. The Memphis-based filmmaker also revealed the profound inspiration he garnered from Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket,...
- 5/1/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Texas-based filmmaker David Lowery has been at the center of the indie scene for some time now, and not just because of his excellent 2009 directorial debut St. Nick and that film’s much lauded follow-up, the 2011 short Pioneer. Check out Lowery’s IMDb page and you’ll discover that he has worked extensively on dozens of other projects over the past few years – as editor on Amy Seimetz’s Sun Don’t Shine and Dustin Guy Defa’s Bad Fever, as cinematographer on Frank Ross’ Audrey the Trainwreck, even as sound recordist for Kentucker Audley’s Open Five. With Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Lowery’s …...
- 1/20/2013
- by Dan Schoenbrun
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Chicago – Some of the finest names in modern independent cinema may be garnering their largest audiences to date when the anthology horror film, “V/H/S,” is released on October 5th. It combines five horror shorts with a “wraparound” tale in which an assortment of troublemaking vandals (including “Open Five” director Kentucker Audley) search a spooky house for a priceless VHS tape.
This segment, “Tape 56,” was directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, two accomplished filmmakers in their own right, who have collaborated on horror films such as “A Horrible Way to Die” and “You’re Next.” Barrett also wrote and co-produced the “V/H/S” segment entitled “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” which was directed by Chicago’s own Joe Swanberg (Wingard served as photographer and sound designer). Swanberg’s film stars Helen Rogers as Emily, a young woman who attempts to show her boyfriend,...
This segment, “Tape 56,” was directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, two accomplished filmmakers in their own right, who have collaborated on horror films such as “A Horrible Way to Die” and “You’re Next.” Barrett also wrote and co-produced the “V/H/S” segment entitled “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” which was directed by Chicago’s own Joe Swanberg (Wingard served as photographer and sound designer). Swanberg’s film stars Helen Rogers as Emily, a young woman who attempts to show her boyfriend,...
- 10/1/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Historically, sequels have been reserved solely for Hollywood franchise films, so did I ever expect to be reviewing a sequel to Kentucker Audley's Open Five? Not in a million years! But judging from the narrative structure, it appears that Audley always planned for a sequel. If we believe the timeline of narrative (and I do not mean to infer that Audley is deceiving us), Open Five 2 begins while Kentucker (Kentucker Audley) -- a presumably fictionalized version of the director -- is editing Open Five. Kentucker resides in Lexington, while his girlfriend Caroline (Caroline White) lives in Memphis. Their relationship seems strained not only by the distance between them, but also by an admission made by Caroline during a Skype conversation (a scene that plays as a subtle homage to Joe Swanberg). It is not long before Kentucker is on the road to New Orleans by way of Memphis...
- 9/13/2012
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
"The sleeper hit of the 2010 film-festival and indie-awards circuit, Mike Ott's moody micro-budget Littlerock patiently observes the California road trip of college-aged Japanese siblings Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka, also the film's co-writer) and Rintaro (Rintaro Sawamoto)." Karina Longworth in the Voice: "En route to Manzanar (the filmmakers leave viewers to draw on their own knowledge, if any, of what that destination portends until the film's very end), their car breaks down in the tiny desert town of Littlerock, where they soon fall in with a local crowd of young layabouts."
"Amid the keggers and daytime bike rides is plenty of drug use, an overdue loan, and a menacing alpha-male bigot (Ryan Dillon)," notes Bill Weber in Slant, "but Ott uses the threat of violence as a mere layer of mood, keeping his focus on the mutable, and often unspoken, themes of identity and the nature of attempts to explore and redefine it…...
"Amid the keggers and daytime bike rides is plenty of drug use, an overdue loan, and a menacing alpha-male bigot (Ryan Dillon)," notes Bill Weber in Slant, "but Ott uses the threat of violence as a mere layer of mood, keeping his focus on the mutable, and often unspoken, themes of identity and the nature of attempts to explore and redefine it…...
- 8/12/2011
- MUBI
Memphis-based filmmaker Kentucker Audley (Team Picture, Open Five), selected for Filmmaker’s “25 New Faces” list in 2007, is releasing today online his new film, Holy Land (pictured here, with stars Bunny Lampert and Cole Weintraub), and with it a platform for fellow directors working in the no-budget trenches. The site is called “No Budge Films,” and it is described simply as “a place to watch no-budget films… Post your short film or feature // for a short run or indefinitely.” Why such a simple site? “Because most films don’t get distributed + it’s cool to give away your film for free + you don’t owe anyone money because you raised your budget on Kickstarter,” Audley writes in his site’s mission statement.
After Audley told me about the site, I asked him a couple of questions which he answered by email. Our conversation is below.
Filmmaker: Why did you decide to become a de facto distributor?...
After Audley told me about the site, I asked him a couple of questions which he answered by email. Our conversation is below.
Filmmaker: Why did you decide to become a de facto distributor?...
- 8/3/2011
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): **
What a collection of talent is gathered here: writer/directorJoe Maggio, who gave us the wonderful Virgil Bliss (2001) and the interesting Paper Covers Rock (2008); a cast of indie pros like James Le Gros, who’s coming up on a 30-year career of mostly independent film and TV, in which he’s always good and often charismatic; Joshua Leonard, so different here from his work in last year’s Humpday; the lovely Amy Seimetz, currently on a roll, after Alexander the Last, Tiny Furniture and Open Five; and producer/co-starLarry Fessenden, who’s always fun to watch ( I Sell the Dead, Wendy and Lucy) and whose production company Glass Eye Pix has given us some wonderful little “scare” movies of late. The result of all this talent blended into a chef-gets-revenge-on-food-critic thriller (in which even Mario Batali makes an appearance) is the disappointing Bitter Feast.
Rating (out of 5): **
What a collection of talent is gathered here: writer/directorJoe Maggio, who gave us the wonderful Virgil Bliss (2001) and the interesting Paper Covers Rock (2008); a cast of indie pros like James Le Gros, who’s coming up on a 30-year career of mostly independent film and TV, in which he’s always good and often charismatic; Joshua Leonard, so different here from his work in last year’s Humpday; the lovely Amy Seimetz, currently on a roll, after Alexander the Last, Tiny Furniture and Open Five; and producer/co-starLarry Fessenden, who’s always fun to watch ( I Sell the Dead, Wendy and Lucy) and whose production company Glass Eye Pix has given us some wonderful little “scare” movies of late. The result of all this talent blended into a chef-gets-revenge-on-food-critic thriller (in which even Mario Batali makes an appearance) is the disappointing Bitter Feast.
- 1/18/2011
- by underdog
- GreenCine
Unknown Pleasures, a festival of American independent film, opens at the Babylon in Berlin tomorrow with Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro and runs through January 16. With special programs focusing on the work of Thom Anderson and John Gianvito, the lineup also features, for example, Alejandro Adams's Canary, Matt Porterfield's Hamilton and Putty Hill, Kentucker Audley's Open Five and a collection of shorts from Red Bucket Films.
While we're in the neighborhood, and to segue into today's roundup of year-end lists, Cargo's just posted "Was vom Jahr bleibt" ("What remains — what lasts — of the year"), a collection in German from contributors and friends.
While we're in the neighborhood, and to segue into today's roundup of year-end lists, Cargo's just posted "Was vom Jahr bleibt" ("What remains — what lasts — of the year"), a collection in German from contributors and friends.
- 12/31/2010
- MUBI
Via his blog Cinemasparagus and two Twitter accounts (@evillights and @mastersofcinema), Craig Keller has been declaring Kentucker Audley's Open Five to be "the best American film of the year." This is no off-the-top-of-the-head, caught-up-in-the-moment declaration. In August, he posted an essay constructed of argument, anecdote, poetry, images and clips exploring the "conversation taking place between" Audley's Holy Land (which he wrote about in April when it was released) and Open Five, a film completed during more or less the same period, with Joe Swanberg manning the camera and David Lowery on sound. Last night, Open Five opened the 13th Indie Memphis Film Festival and, at precisely the same moment, began streaming — in full, for free and without ads, albeit for a limited time — on Audley's site.
- 10/22/2010
- MUBI
"Open Five," a new film directed by Kentucker Audley and shot by mumblecore's own Joe Swanberg, just had its premiere at the Indie Memphis Film Festival, and is now watchable online for free for a limited time. The official description of the film calls it "a blend of reality and fiction that follows the story of a struggling musician and his sidekick (a maker of 'poor' films), and what happens when two NYC girls venture down to Memphis for a long weekend visit." The New Yorker's Richard Brody sums it up as "a loamy, bittersweet ramble through the emotional and practical tangles of its young artists' lives, as well as through the inner and outer life of Memphis itself, with its vigorous musical scene and its gospel churches and Graceland itself."...
- 10/22/2010
- by Alison Willmore
- ifc.com
Mumblecore, the nascent film genre made by, about, and for navel-gazing, semi-articulate urban twenty-somethings, has gotten a bad rap for being about, well, navel-gazing, semi-articulate urban twenty-somethings. Memphis-based Kentucker Audley is one of the few mumblecore directors from the South, and in just a few years has already written, directed, and acted in a trio of features: the rambling, idiosyncratic character studies Team Picture (2007), Holy Land (forthcoming Internet release), and Open Five (screening in April). He also finds time to act in others' movies, including Passenger Pigeons, which premieres at the SXSW Film Festival on March 13. He recently discussed the cinematic movement he's associated with, his filmmaking technique, and how to break out of the genre's insular tendencies. Do you mind being lumped in the with mumblecore movement? Do you see your films as very different from Andrew Bujalski's,...
- 3/8/2010
- by Teddy Wayne
- Huffington Post
I'll post a bit later about all the stuff in the new Filmmaker magazine that's not online. It's a particularly good issue, I think, and one of the things which is print-only is Alicia Van Couvering's look at five films that found their money and went into production in 2010. We decided to do a financing-oriented corrective to all the doom-and-gloom stories out there, and this one is full of practical tips for filmmakers looking to crowdsource and raise money through other unconventional means. One of the films she writes about is Kentucker Audley's Open Five, which is our 25 New Face filmmaker's follow-up to his Team Picture. Here's Alicia's lede: Though it’s not a new idea to “pass the hat” to raise money for a film, “crowdsourcing”...
- 1/19/2010
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
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