by Bharati Dubey.

The kind of films being made today are a reflection of the cinema of our times. Take the example of Shaitan. There is nothing left to your imagination, in terms of the treatment given by the director. A first-time director comes in today with a restricted budget; but he puts in everything in that film to prove himself. He does not just stick to the storytelling – he tries to change the method of filmmaking.

This was also the case with Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster. Another reason I feel is that if a big name associates itself with a young filmmaker, his confidence automatically goes up. Today, producers want different kinds of products to come out from their company. They want to see more filmmakers budding out.

Rea the res of this article from Times of India.

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by James Rocchi.

At this year’s Sundance film festival, which played out over 10 freezing days in Utah and came to a close last Sunday, the divide between American cinema and the news stories defining the nation’s mood seemed narrower than ever.

From abuses of military power abroad to the financial meltdown at home, to the long, sad aftermath of hurricane Katrina, real-world concerns were being tackled in challenging and provocative ways by the films in competition. And not only by those in the documentary section, which can be relied upon to respond sharply to recent events. These stories were also being told by dramatic features.

Read the rest of this article from the Guardian.

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I’m Peter D. Marshall and I created this film directing blog in 2007 as an online movie making resource center for Independent Filmmakers like yourself.

(As of February 8, 1585 film making posts have been published on this blog!)

For over 38 years I’ve worked (and survived) in the Film and TV industry as a Film Director, Television Producer, First Assistant Director and Creative Consultant. (See IMDb Credits.)

In 1999, I started my website, ActionCutPrint which has grown into one of the top film directing websites for Independent Filmmakers on the Internet today featuring online movie making courses, film directing articles, film and television books and filmmaking workshops.

In 2000, I started publishing my free monthly film making ezine, The Director’s Chair which is currently read by over 6000 filmmakers in 105 countries around the world. (You can read 125 back issues here.)

To fulfill my goal of mentoring and teaching, I developed several filmmaking workshops that I have presented over the past 18 years: from Canada to Singapore to Dubai. I am also a directing instructor at the Vancouver Film School.

So if you want to keep up to date on the latest Online film and television resources, please Bookmark this Page Now or Subscribe to this blog to read daily film making articles written by myself and other film makers from around the world.

by Christopher Vourlias.

More than five years after American helmer Lee Isaac Chung arrived in Rwanda to lens his debut feature, the seeds he planted among local filmmakers have begun to sprout.

Chung’s shingle, Almond Tree Films Rwanda, has produced a handful of highly regarded shorts that have traveled to international fests. Three of the company’s young helmers have been selected for prestigious training academies abroad. A partnership with Tribeca Film Institute is in the works.

Now, Almond Tree’s helmers are jump-starting their own initiative to share their talents with other aspiring filmmakers in Rwanda.

Read the rest of this article from Variety.

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by Evan Dickson.

A little while ago I tossed up an article about the sale of Black Rock at Sundance. In fact, it should be the piece right below this one.

Right after doing so I saw that Devin Faraci, one of my favorite critics, had already filed his review of the film over at Badass Digest so I headed over there to check it out. You can do the same by clicking here.

Now I’m gonna state in bold letters that I have not seen Black Rock. For all I know it could become my favorite movie of 2012. I don’t always agree with Devin (maybe 70% of the time), but he’s one of a handful of about 5 or 6 critics whose reviews are my “go-tos” when I’m deciding what films to spend my time or money on as a consumer (I don’t always see everything for free, especially non-horror stuff). Whether or not I ultimately agree with his take on something, he’s got a knack for thoroughly explaining the reasoning behind his reactions that’s in a language I can relate to.

So I was surprised to come across a couple lines in his piece on Black Rock that echoed something that’s been on my mind for sometime in regard to genre and people who think they’re slumming in it.

Read the rest of this article from Bloody-Disgusting.

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by Sandy Cohen.

The Sundance Institute and Women In Film are working together to track female filmmakers who are showing their work at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and plan to use the data to increase women’s presence in all areas of filmmaking.

The aim of the joint effort, announced Monday, is to “initiate a real hard look at why this constant lack of parity seems to exist in terms of the amount of women working in film and media and the amount of men,” said Cathy Shulman, president of Women in Film. “What does it really mean and why is it happening, and instead of talking about it every year as a fact, start to see if we could be part of a solution.”

Keri Putnam, president of the Sundance Institute, said the organizations were motivated by statistics that show that only 5 percent of the top 250 films last year were directed by women. That figure hasn’t changed since 1998.

Read the rest of this article from Associated Press.

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from The Bay Net.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland’s fifth annual film series, Out of Bounds: Feminist Films and Filmmakers, will focus on the work of women filmmakers and women’s filmmaking collectives. It kicks off with Yun Suh, who will screen her film “City of Borders” at 8:15 p.m. Monday, Feb. 6, in Cole Cinema in the college’s Campus Center, and answer questions afterwards.

Read the rest of this article from The Bay Net.

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by Jackson Chan.

The iPhone Film Festival will host a screening and Q&A this Friday evening at Macworld | iWorld with an international group of filmmakers who go beyond using their iPhones to capture a pet’s adorable antics or a favorite song at a concert — these filmmakers see their phones as a tool to tell a story. More than 800 films have been submitted to the festival, with the requirement that the film’s footage was shot entirely on an iPhone. A select group of filmmakers will be debuting their new films, and their festival-winning shorts will be screening as well.

Since the iPhone introduced video recording as a feature, a new breed of independent filmmaking has emerged. The short films highlighted at the festival exhibit a lushness that belies the diminutive size of the camera the footage was shot on. With the introduction of 720p HD video recording in the iPhone 4, and subsequently 1080p in the iPhone 4S, filmmakers can shoot high-quality footage on a shoe-string budget. Furthermore, many accessories, such as lens attachments and camera stands, are available for the iPhone, adding to the filmmaking capabilities of the device and allowing for different effects and steadier shooting.

Read the rest of this article from All Voices.

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by Jeff Mays.

Decades from now, Roland Laird wants My Image Studios LLC to be mentioned in the same breath as legendary Harlem venues like the Apollo Theater.

Scheduled to open in June, the $21 million film screening, performance space and restaurant will be dedicated to African and Latino culture.

“We want to be the premier space for culture and entertainment for the African and Latino diaspora,” said Laird, CEO of My Image Studios or MIST. “We want it to be Harlem’s living room.”

The three separate theater spaces with stadium seating can be transformed into one 250-seat area for plays or spoken word performances. It can also be configured into a 320-person banquet hall.

There will be a fully equipped editing room and a 132-seat restaurant featuring world cuisine with outdoor seating at a $20 tp $25 price point. At capacity, the entire space, located at the Kalahari Condominiums at 40 West 116th Street between Lenox and Fifth avenues, will hold up to 800 people.

Read the rest of this article from DNA Info.

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by Greg Jericho.

This week Rupert Murdoch has decided to take to Twitter to let us know all about his views on movie piracy.

His tweets have provided some nice nuggets of amusement that have been akin to your father telling you he’s heard about this thing called the information superhighway and wanting to know if you have heard of The Google.

The context for his tweets has been the bill before the US congress called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). You know the act will do absolutely nothing to actually stop online piracy because of the standard rule that the more explicit an act’s title, the less likely it will achieve those aims.

The notional target of SOPA is file-sharing, but its current wording is so broad (and I advise you read Bernard Keane in Crikey for greater detail) that if passed the US government could do such things as shut down YouTube if it contained “pirated video”; or force Google to not link to sites that may allow one to download illegal content. (I should say the US government could “try to shut down” – because they won’t succeed). In protest against the bill, today at 4.00pm Wikipedia will shut down for 24 hours.

Read the rest of this article from ABC.net

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