Lena Dunham was SXSW’s first keynote speaker four years ago, having premiered two films (“Creative Nonfiction,” “Tiny Furniture”) and a hit series (“Girls”) at prior festivals. Today, she returned to join Glamour magazine’s new editor-in-chief, Samantha Barry, for a conversation called, “Authenticity and Media in 2018.” At the top of the talk, Barry mentioned how allowing yourself to be vulnerable often invites criticism, and Dunham got very candid.
“Thank you for that thoughtfully phrased question, which wasn’t just like, ‘You fuck up a lot, what’s your secret to continuing to do that?'” began Dunham, who has been knocked for defending a “Girls” writer accused of rape; saying, “I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had;” and rehoming her dog. “I don’t have whatever the skillset is that allows you to program your own image from the outside, and make … calculated decisions...
“Thank you for that thoughtfully phrased question, which wasn’t just like, ‘You fuck up a lot, what’s your secret to continuing to do that?'” began Dunham, who has been knocked for defending a “Girls” writer accused of rape; saying, “I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had;” and rehoming her dog. “I don’t have whatever the skillset is that allows you to program your own image from the outside, and make … calculated decisions...
- 3/10/2018
- by Jenna Marotta
- Indiewire
An avid student of the depiction of youth in movies, I’ve taken to calling the twenties, as we live them nowadays, the benties, after the British word “bent,” for messed up. And, while I realize not everyone will have found this decade of late adolescence / imposed maturity as disconcerting as all that, I know for a fact that most Millennials will be hard-pressed to argue this point. It’s why we’re called the Me-Me-Me Generation after all: for us, the top-down pressure to grow up, move out and settle down rarely takes before the big 3-0 starts looming large. Perhaps, with a little less “luck” on our side, we too might look to the extraordinary lives of, say, Kelly Reichardt’s young female characters, and strive to fight adversity to heroic results. But, for the purposes of this list, we’ll concern ourselves with the simpler, not necessarily brighter,...
- 1/5/2016
- by Ioanina
- SoundOnSight
It’s long been unfair to classify the SXSW Film Festival as, well, just a film festival, simply because the Austin, Texas-based March event has always been a place for more than films, with bustling Interactive and Music programs that serve as their own draw, along with a steadily expanding roster of smaller draws (from SXSW Eco to SXSports to Digital Domain to their always amusing stable of live comedic talent) all adding into the full-bodied experience that is SXSW (or, really, just full, you try walking down Sixth Street smack in the middle of the event without getting accidentally intimate with just piles of strangers). For SXSW 2014, the Film team has quite noticeably folded in a new section to their slate, one that shows the perhaps steadily closing gap between television and film, or at least proves that plenty of small screen fare looks just as good on the big screen. The...
- 1/31/2014
- by Kate Erbland
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
A version of this story appears in theComedy/Drama issue of EmmyWrap Alex Karpovsky had written, directed and edited three movies and starred in several more before he met Lena Dunham at the South by Southwest Film Festival in 2009. Dunham was there with her first movie, "Creative Nonfiction," and she recruited Karpovsky to star in her next, "Tiny Furniture." It was the beginning of a fruitful relationship, as Dunham soon scored a deal with HBO and brought Karpovsky into the fold for one of the most divisive shows on television, "Girls." Karpovksy...
- 6/24/2013
- by Lucas Shaw
- The Wrap
A number of our favorite independent films of the year are screening this week at the Northside Festival, a Brooklyn-based film and music event that gathers a number of film organizations, includuing Filmmaker, to guest curate some of its programming. Filmmaker‘s night is Wednesday, when we screen in its New York premiere Andrew Neel’s wickedly funny King Kelly (pictured) and Jeremiah Zagar & Nathan Caswell’s haunting short, Remains, but there are a number of other favorites dotted throughout the schedule. For example, tonight there’s one of the best documentaries of the year, Ashley Sabin and David Redmon’s Girl Model (presented by Pov) as well Ryan O’Nan’s warm and spirited Ifp Lab project, The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best (presented by Oscilloscope and Rooftop Films). Also tonight is the Cuban artist doc Unfinished Spaces, which you’ll read about in the next issue of the magazine,...
- 6/18/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Lena Dunham writes about awkward sexual encounters on HBO's much talked-about new show "Girls," because Dunham knows awkward sex.
The 25-year-old actress/writer/director recently wrote an essay about losing her virginity on Rookiemag.com, an online magazine for teenage girls, created by teenage marvel Tavi Gevinson.
At 9-years-old, Dunham wrote a vow of celibacy, promising herself she'd remain a virgin until she graduated from high school. "This seemed important because I knew my mother had waited until the summer after she graduated and also ["My So-Called Life" character] Angela Chase seemed pretty messed up by her experience at that flophouse where high school kids went to copulate," she explained.
It was a vow she ended up keeping; she lost her virginity during her sophomore year of college at Oberlin. "I met Jonah* in the cafeteria. He was roommates with an emo kid who worked at the video store and had a crush on my best friend,...
The 25-year-old actress/writer/director recently wrote an essay about losing her virginity on Rookiemag.com, an online magazine for teenage girls, created by teenage marvel Tavi Gevinson.
At 9-years-old, Dunham wrote a vow of celibacy, promising herself she'd remain a virgin until she graduated from high school. "This seemed important because I knew my mother had waited until the summer after she graduated and also ["My So-Called Life" character] Angela Chase seemed pretty messed up by her experience at that flophouse where high school kids went to copulate," she explained.
It was a vow she ended up keeping; she lost her virginity during her sophomore year of college at Oberlin. "I met Jonah* in the cafeteria. He was roommates with an emo kid who worked at the video store and had a crush on my best friend,...
- 4/20/2012
- by Stephanie Marcus
- Huffington Post
Get ready for television's radically new view of the secret lives of "Girls."
It comes from Lena Dunham, a young writer-director-actress whose unique creative voice has made marks at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Festival in Austin, Texas. After big receptions there for her films "Creative Nonfiction" and "Tiny Furniture," she returned last month to unveil her newest project: the often stunningly frank HBO series "Girls," which premieres Sunday, April 15.
With filmmaker Judd Apatow ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin") as an executive producer, the serio-comic show revolves around several 20-something New Yorkers struggling to balance their careers and love lives ... and, frequently, their friendships with one another. If that sounds like a younger "Sex and the City," Dunham purposely sets her edgier "Girls" apart by referencing the earlier series in the first episode.
"I'd heard that writers and independent filmmakers could make a living writing or directing for TV,...
It comes from Lena Dunham, a young writer-director-actress whose unique creative voice has made marks at the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Festival in Austin, Texas. After big receptions there for her films "Creative Nonfiction" and "Tiny Furniture," she returned last month to unveil her newest project: the often stunningly frank HBO series "Girls," which premieres Sunday, April 15.
With filmmaker Judd Apatow ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin") as an executive producer, the serio-comic show revolves around several 20-something New Yorkers struggling to balance their careers and love lives ... and, frequently, their friendships with one another. If that sounds like a younger "Sex and the City," Dunham purposely sets her edgier "Girls" apart by referencing the earlier series in the first episode.
"I'd heard that writers and independent filmmakers could make a living writing or directing for TV,...
- 4/16/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Zap2It - From Inside the Box
Editor’s note: With Girls premiering on HBO this weekend, we thought one of Kate’s favorites from SXSW was in need of a re-run. This review was originally posted on March 13, as part of our SXSW Film Festival coverage. Multi-hyphenate Lena Dunham has previously hit SXSW with two unique efforts – in 2009, with the debut of her ambitious, lo-fi Creative Nonfiction, and follow-up in 2010 with the controversial Tiny Furniture, which earned the Narrative Feature award in that year’s section. Dunham’s work has proven polarizing – some people admire her self-effacing and very personal brand of filmmaking, while others balk at her navel-gazing style. Returning to SXSW this year, Dunham again brought along a personal project about self-effacing, navel-gazing, shaky-legged twenty-something girls in the big city, but this time Dunham is serving as star/writer/director/producer on a television series, HBO’s Girls, produced with Judd Apatow. And while her previous works might not have the...
- 4/13/2012
- by Kate Erbland
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Even if you don't know who Lena Dunham is, you've heard of Lena Dunham. In the last few weeks, she has appeared on the cover of New York magazine, she was the subject of an op-ed penned by famed New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, and her visage has been plastered on seemingly every New York City subway platform in posters for her new HBO series, "Girls" (premieres Sunday, April 15 at 10:30 p.m. Et). She's also, as "Girls" executive producer Jenni Konner told The Huffington Post without a hint of sarcasm, "really made of magic."
Konner isn't necessarily kidding. In person, Dunham is smart, funny, thoughtful and, yes, magical -- even on four hours of sleep. (HuffPost TV caught Dunham the afternoon after "Girls" had its star-studded New York premiere.) It's no wonder people like Judd Apatow are falling over themselves to work with her. "It's easy to play...
Konner isn't necessarily kidding. In person, Dunham is smart, funny, thoughtful and, yes, magical -- even on four hours of sleep. (HuffPost TV caught Dunham the afternoon after "Girls" had its star-studded New York premiere.) It's no wonder people like Judd Apatow are falling over themselves to work with her. "It's easy to play...
- 4/9/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Even if you don't know who Lena Dunham is, you've heard of Lena Dunham. In the last few weeks, she has appeared on the cover of New York magazine, she was the subject of an op-ed penned by famed New York Times columnist Frank Bruni, and her visage has been plastered on seemingly every New York City subway platform in posters for her new HBO series, "Girls" (premieres Sunday, April 15 at 10:30 p.m. Et). She's also, as "Girls" executive producer Jenni Konner told The Huffington Post without a hint of sarcasm, "really made of magic."
Konner isn't necessarily kidding. In person, Dunham is smart, funny, thoughtful and, yes, magical -- even on four hours of sleep. (HuffPost TV caught Dunham the afternoon after "Girls" had its star-studded New York premiere.) It's no wonder people like Judd Apatow are falling over themselves to work with her. "It's easy to play...
Konner isn't necessarily kidding. In person, Dunham is smart, funny, thoughtful and, yes, magical -- even on four hours of sleep. (HuffPost TV caught Dunham the afternoon after "Girls" had its star-studded New York premiere.) It's no wonder people like Judd Apatow are falling over themselves to work with her. "It's easy to play...
- 4/9/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Aol TV.
Lena Dunham's new comedy series, Girls, co-produced by Judd Apatow, won't premiere on HBO for another two weeks but, following a single screening of three episodes at SXSW, it's already landed her a cover story in New York. Today, in the wake of a conversation with Dunham for his blog, Frank Bruni tells us in an Op-Ed for the New York Times that Girls has got him wondering, if not outright worried, about the state of feminism: "Gloria Steinem went to the barricades for this? Salaries may be better than in decades past and the cabinet and Congress less choked with testosterone. But in the bedroom? What's happening there remains something of a muddle, if not something of a mess."
Girls, he notes, "is drawing inevitable — and apt — comparisons to Sex and the City, in whose long shadow it blooms. Girls, too, is a half-hour comedy (of sorts) about...
Girls, he notes, "is drawing inevitable — and apt — comparisons to Sex and the City, in whose long shadow it blooms. Girls, too, is a half-hour comedy (of sorts) about...
- 4/1/2012
- MUBI
The meteoric ascent of Lena Dunham from precocious indie filmmaker to, well, still-precocious TV series creator and star can be tracked over intereations of SXSW. In 2009, her debut "Creative Nonfiction" played in the Emerging Visions category. In 2010, her sophomore film "Tiny Furniture" won the narrative competition, was picked up by IFC Films and eventually released on DVD by the Criterion Collection. And this year her terrific new show "Girls," about four young women trying to carve out lives in New York, was all over the festival, with HBO touting its April premiere via posters, bicycle shares and free coffee, and with three episodes screening at the 1300-seat Paramount Theatre. It's a heady amount of success for someone who's only 25, but Dunham seems to be handling it with aplomb. It certainly doesn't hurt to have the support of Judd Apatow, who serves as the series' executive producer and who's worked in both the.
- 3/20/2012
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
As far as young independent filmmakers go, writer/director Lena Dunham has been the subject of an excessive amount of conversation and handwringing, even by the admittedly loose standards of the ever-chatty Internet age. Her first feature, "Creative Nonfiction," was accepted to SXSW and the follow-up, "Tiny Furniture," won the Best Narrative Feature award at the same festival. That film also managed to attract quite a bit of attention, with comedy world luminaries like Will Ferrell and Judd Apatow singing its praises and some comparing her confessional, no-nonsense style to the early work of Woody Allen.
It's just that there were just as many people who jumped up to condemn her – for her low-rent mumblecore aesthetic, her privileged upbringing, and (shallowly) her physical appearance. But that didn't stop her, or even slow her down. She's got a brand new HBO series debuting in mid-April called "Girls," produced by Apatow (and...
It's just that there were just as many people who jumped up to condemn her – for her low-rent mumblecore aesthetic, her privileged upbringing, and (shallowly) her physical appearance. But that didn't stop her, or even slow her down. She's got a brand new HBO series debuting in mid-April called "Girls," produced by Apatow (and...
- 3/13/2012
- by Drew Taylor
- The Playlist
Independent Distributors have released the official U.K. trailer for Tiny Furniture.
Written and directed by Lena Dunham (Creative Nonfiction), Tiny Furniture stars Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky, David Call, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz and Isen Ritchie.
22-year old Aura (Dunham) returns home from university to her artist mother’s Tribeca loft with: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her YouTube page, a boyfriend who’s left her to find himself, a dying hamster and her tail between her legs. Luckily, her train wreck childhood best friend never left home, the restaurant down the block is hiring and ill-advised romantic options lurk around every corner. Aura quickly careens into her old/new life: a dead-end hostess job, pathetic Brooklyn “art shows”, drinking all the wine in her mother’s neatly organised cabinets and competing with her prodigious teenage sister. Surrounded on all sides by what she could become,...
Written and directed by Lena Dunham (Creative Nonfiction), Tiny Furniture stars Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky, David Call, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz and Isen Ritchie.
22-year old Aura (Dunham) returns home from university to her artist mother’s Tribeca loft with: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her YouTube page, a boyfriend who’s left her to find himself, a dying hamster and her tail between her legs. Luckily, her train wreck childhood best friend never left home, the restaurant down the block is hiring and ill-advised romantic options lurk around every corner. Aura quickly careens into her old/new life: a dead-end hostess job, pathetic Brooklyn “art shows”, drinking all the wine in her mother’s neatly organised cabinets and competing with her prodigious teenage sister. Surrounded on all sides by what she could become,...
- 3/1/2012
- by Jamie Neish
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
DVD Playhouse—February 2012
By Allen Gardner
To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.
Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...
By Allen Gardner
To Kill A Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition (Universal) Robert Mulligan’s film of Harper Lee’s landmark novel pits a liberal-minded lawyer (Gregory Peck) against a small Southern town’s racism when defending a black man (Brock Peters) on trumped-up rape charges. One of the 1960s’ first landmark films, a truly stirring human drama that hits all the right notes and isn’t dated a bit. Robert Duvall makes his screen debut (sans dialogue) as the enigmatic Boo Radley. DVD and Blu-ray double edition. Bonuses: Two feature-length documentaries: Fearful Symmetry and A Conversation with Gregory Peck; Featurettes; Excerpts and film clips from Gregory Peck’s Oscar acceptance speech and AFI Lifetime Achievement Award; Commentary by Mulligan and producer Alan J. Pakula; Trailer. Widescreen. Dolby and DTS 2.0 mono.
Outrage: Way Of The Yakuza (Magnolia) After a brief hiatus from his signature oeuvre of Japanese gangster flicks,...
- 2/26/2012
- by The Hollywood Interview.com
- The Hollywood Interview
Christopher Hitchens once courted controversy by penning an article entitled "Why Women Aren't Funny" in Vanity Fair, to which this year's Spirit Awards almost seem intended as a pointed rebuke. The funny business was good for both sexes in 2010, but extraordinary for those without the Y chromosome, resulting a group of pictures that heralds what's new and next for comedy.
Of course, one of the most nominated films of the evening is "The Kids Are All Right," Lisa Cholodenko's comedy about the children of lesbian parents (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who seek out their biological father (Mark Ruffalo). Cholodenko, who had been best known for drama, took a turn towards comedy with her latest, with the help of longtime comedy screenwriter Stuart Blumberg ("The Girl Next Door," "Keeping the Faith"), and as it turns out, the sun-dappled San Fernando Valley that seemed so foreboding in her music biz...
Of course, one of the most nominated films of the evening is "The Kids Are All Right," Lisa Cholodenko's comedy about the children of lesbian parents (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who seek out their biological father (Mark Ruffalo). Cholodenko, who had been best known for drama, took a turn towards comedy with her latest, with the help of longtime comedy screenwriter Stuart Blumberg ("The Girl Next Door," "Keeping the Faith"), and as it turns out, the sun-dappled San Fernando Valley that seemed so foreboding in her music biz...
- 2/27/2011
- by IFC
- ifc.com
Last week I completed my quest to see all 35 of the independent films nominated for this year’s Spirit Awards. This meant weeks upon weeks of trekking to Tribeca through snow drifts, slick ice and high winds, and sitting through some heartbreaking moments, some grotesque sequences, and some deeply pretentious drivel. But I also saw a lot of truly daring and enthralling cinema – much of it on its way to theaters near you this year!
So now that I’ve done the legwork it’s time to vote. Below I break down my thoughts on who will win, and who should win.
—–
Best Foreign Film
The King’s Speech, Mademoiselle Chambon, Kisses, Of Gods and Men, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Unlike the Oscars, the Spirit Award’s foreign film eligibility is defined by place of origin — not language. So, English-language pictures are not disqualified from this category.
So now that I’ve done the legwork it’s time to vote. Below I break down my thoughts on who will win, and who should win.
—–
Best Foreign Film
The King’s Speech, Mademoiselle Chambon, Kisses, Of Gods and Men, and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Unlike the Oscars, the Spirit Award’s foreign film eligibility is defined by place of origin — not language. So, English-language pictures are not disqualified from this category.
- 2/21/2011
- by Kristy Puchko
- The Film Stage
As a way of celebrating this year's nominees for the Spirit Awards in the weeks leading up to the ceremony, we reached out to as many as we could in an effort to better understand what went into their films, what they've gotten out of the experience, and where they've found their inspiration, both in regards to their work and other works of art that might've inspired them from the past year. Their answers will be published on a daily basis throughout February.
Of all the things written about Lena Dunham in the past year, a span of 12 months that has included a New York Times piece on her ultra-low budget feature "Tiny Furniture"'s successful debut at SXSW in March and culminated with a lengthy profile in The New Yorker upon its release in November, the irony, which has surely not been lost on the actress/writer/director, has...
Of all the things written about Lena Dunham in the past year, a span of 12 months that has included a New York Times piece on her ultra-low budget feature "Tiny Furniture"'s successful debut at SXSW in March and culminated with a lengthy profile in The New Yorker upon its release in November, the irony, which has surely not been lost on the actress/writer/director, has...
- 2/15/2011
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
Lena Dunham is no stranger to multitasking. She served as writer-director-actor on her first short, "Dealing," which premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival, and took on that triple-threat role yet again for her first feature, "Creative Nonfiction," as well as the Web series "Tight Shots" and "Delusional Downtown Divas." Now, Dunham is bringing her latest work, the coming-of-age dramedy "Tiny Furniture," to this year's Los Angeles Film Festival. Recently, she spoke to Back Stage about performing, directing fellow actors, and casting her mom and sister in a pair of key roles.Back Stage: How would you describe your film?Lena Dunham: It's a pretty relatable story. It's about that moment when you first get out of college and you're trying to figure out who you are in relation to the world, in relation to your family. You're not someone's child anymore; you're also not adult. It's about the in-between places,...
- 11/11/2010
- backstage.com
Ever since Lena Dunham’s feature debut Creative Nonfiction won for Best Narrative at SXSW ’09, her career has rapidly ascended in the indiewood ranks with her break-thru year being topped by her sophomore year and comedy-drama about the pitfalls of post-graduation life. Recently nominated for a pair of Gotham Awards (Breakthrough Director and Best Ensemble Performance), Tiny Furniture went under the knife in November of 2009, and was conceived at the same Austin-set festival where she once again walked away with top honors. Tiny Furniture tracks the misadventures of Aura (Dunham) as she comes home after graduation and is trying to figure out what to do with her life. Hanging with old friends, enduring family conflicts, working a low-paying job, trying to get her art/film career off the ground, and having trysts with the wrong kind of guys, Aura is at both sympathetic in her relatability and frustratingly self-centered and immature.
- 11/8/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
The discovery of this year's SXSW (and best narrative feature winner) was 24-year-old New York writer-director Lena Dunham, who shot her semi-autobiographical micro-budget film Tiny Furniture at her family's Tribeca loft with herself, her sister Grace and her artist mom Laurie Simmons (The Music of Regret) in leading roles, along with indie professionals Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky and Merritt Wever--who she met at SXSW when she debuted her first film Creative Nonfiction there. Dunham's painter father Carroll didn't want to be in the film, she admits during our flip cam interview at L.A.'s Four Seasons (below). "I was exploring a more female-centric thing." Her family worked their butts off during fifteen days of filming (Jody Lee Lipes is her cinematographer) and are "quite proud of ...
- 10/30/2010
- Thompson on Hollywood
Exclusive: HBO has given a pilot order to a half-hour comedy project from comedy heavyweight Judd Apatow and hot young prodigy Lena Dunham. The 24-year-old Dunham wrote the untitled comedy, about the assorted humiliations and rare triumphs of a group of girls in their early 20's. She will also direct the pilot, star in it, and co-executive produce. Apatow and writer-producer Jenni Konner, who got her first writing job on Apatow's Fox series Undeclared, are executive producing. Dunham is the writer, director and star of the much buzzed about feature Tiny Furniture, which won the top prize at this year’s South by Southwest. It was actually Dunham’s second feature, following the 2009 Creative Nonfiction. Like her features, the HBO project is expected to feature autobiographic elements. With so many young people delaying taking on full-blown adult responsibilities until later in life, there is a lot of attention on today's...
- 9/8/2010
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
The Independent Film Festival of Boston kicks off on Wednesday. If you're in the New England area, this is the best film festival around, having supplanted the fall Boston Film Festival as the one to be at after less than a decade of existence. It offers a great opportunity to see a lot of great independent films, a few of which are premieres, and several of which played earlier at Sundance or at South by Southwest. IFFBoston, however, offers a more low-key opportunity to see those same movies without having to deal with the massive crowds or the lengthy lines. Even two days before the festival begins, you can still purchase tickets and walk up, half an hour before showtime, and get a seat. Most of the films play in Davis Square (in Somerville), which is the second best neighborhood in metro Boston, save for Brookline (where some of the other films will be showing,...
- 4/19/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
- The current issue of Filmmaker Magazine has hit kiosks and the only reason why I'd be pointing this out is because it includes its annual "25 New Faces" feature (available here) which is basically: a sampling of the future voices, filmmakers, editors, actors and cinematographers who in the opinion of the magazine's editors represent the future of independent filmmaking and who, I admittedly know only two of the twenty-five. Sebastián Silva helmed The Maid, got rave reviews at Sundance and got picked up by Elephant Eye (read here), and Derek Cianfrance, who finally commenced filming Blue Valentine with thesps Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams on board - 2 bucks says that this preems in Park City. Here are the names of those who made the cut: docu-filmmaker Ian Olds (Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi), filmmaking duo Eleanor Burke & Ron Eyal (Stranger Things), editor Nat Sanders (The Freebie), filmmaker Jessica Oreck
- 7/16/2009
- IONCINEMA.com
There aren't many chances that you get to watch an artist progress in front of your eyes. How many of us would love to see David Fincher's first productions in a festival? We get that chance with Lena Dunham's Creative NonFiction, which was selected for screening at SXSW as part of the fest's Emerging Visions category. The 22-year-old Dunham wrote, directed and starred in her first feature film as Ella, a liberal arts student writing a screenplay about a mysterious wanderer trying to escape from her relentless professor. At the same time Ella is struggling to find her way through the relationships around her. We sat down with Dunham, who is definitely a talent to look out for, and she was nice enough to walk us through the process of her selection to SXSW, as well as her future ambitions. Fsr: Lena, tell us a little about how you got Creative NonFiction into SXSW. Lena Dunham...
- 6/16/2009
- by Adam Sweeney
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Lena Dunham’s SXSW Emerging Visions entry Creative Nonfiction is exactly that — an Emerging Vision. It’s the early and somewhat unformed work of a clearly ambitious artist (22 year-old Dunham wrote, directed and stars in a dual role in the film, which was shot on video and 16mm over the course of several years, beginning when she was a junior at Oberlin College and making extensive use of that school’s dorm rooms as sets) who seems to know what she wants to say, which is something of a feat in itself. If she doesn’t quite manage to actually say it in this, her first feature, if her enthusiasm for the language and possibilities of cinematic comedy seem to outweigh her grasp of tools and technique, she proves herself as someone to watch, as a conceptual artist and as a comedienne. Dunham plays Ella, a liberal arts student working...
- 3/16/2009
- by Karina Longworth
- Spout
SXSW is one of my favorite festivals of the year as it showcases some of the best and most innovative real independent films, and with this host of world premiers, it's also playing alot of Sundance material as well as genre fare from all over the world, many of which we've covered heavily in these pages.
From the Sundance lineup, we have films like Moon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, You Won't Miss Me, Grace, and Humpday, among others.
For the world genre material we've covered, there's Lake Mungo, The Square, Zift, and Awaydays.
I think you get the point that lots of great looking film will be playing. I'll leave a bit of the exploration to you..
Lineup after the break.
Narrative Features Competition
Artois the Goat
Director: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle Bogart
Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest...
From the Sundance lineup, we have films like Moon, The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, You Won't Miss Me, Grace, and Humpday, among others.
For the world genre material we've covered, there's Lake Mungo, The Square, Zift, and Awaydays.
I think you get the point that lots of great looking film will be playing. I'll leave a bit of the exploration to you..
Lineup after the break.
Narrative Features Competition
Artois the Goat
Director: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle Bogart
Lab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest...
- 2/2/2009
- QuietEarth.us
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