Being nominated for a Film Independent Spirit Award. -Stacie Passon, Concussion You really can’t imagine how big of a deal this is for me. I come from the middle-of-nowhere Saudi Arabia, a country without cinemas, and now I’m going to the Spirit Awards; imagine! For me the best thing about this nomination is to see a Saudi film being considered in the same category with such amazing films from all around the world....

Recently, Film Independent Director of Artist Development Jennifer Kushner sat down with Scheckel at her Hollywood bungalow to discuss how she came to The Technique, and what it means to tell more meaningful stories. (To read a previous interview with Kushner and Scheckel, click here). Below is an edited transcript of the conversation. To view the complete playlist of our Joan Scheckel interview series, please visit our YouTube channel....

Last week, Sundance Film Festival programmers Lisa Ogdie and Kim Yutani stopped by Film Independent to do a Q&A with our members, offering insight into the selection process as well as helpful hints for filmmakers submitting their work. The deadlines for Sundance 2015 are fast approaching (official deadlines are Monday, August 25 for shorts and Friday, August 29 for features; late deadlines, at a slightly higher entry fee, are Monday, September 15 for shorts and Monday, September 29 for features), so check out their tips and then send them your movie!...

Gathered amid stylishly intimate lounge-style seating inside The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA’s warehouse in Little Tokyo, attendees learned from Canals about his roots as a storyteller, which started with an afterschool film program but was interrupted by a 10-year career in higher education before the Bronx-born writer fully re-committed to a career in television with the pilot to what would eventually be Pose. Speaking to Film Independent Artistic Director Jacqueline Lyanga, Canals shared his long—often serendipitous, frequently arduous—career journey....

From pastel skies to arid planes punctuated by cactus flowers and desert mesas, the American Southwest is inarguably one of the most cinematic looking of any geographic region. But the Southwest’s beauty as on-camera subject hasn’t always translated to a robust support for cinema itself, with long unpopulated distances separating major metropolitan areas and all the requisite difficulties of sustaining an engaged arts community in challenging times. One place where film culture is flourishing, however, is Tucson—home of the University of Arizona, the O....

Gathered in comfy, lounge-style seating in the Warehouse space at host venue The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, New Wave attendees were first greeted by Film Independent Artistic Director Jacqueline Lyanga, who introduced a short program of some of the director’s best-known work. Calmatic himself then joined Lyanga onstage for a lively 25-minute conversation about his life and career. A self-taught filmmaker, Calmatic’s style first began to develop when—as the only member of his crew to own a decent camera—he began shooting footage and drawing inspiration from hip-hop peers such as Odd Future, picking up a wide array stylistic tricks from online editing tutorials....

The first I am Film Independent trailer actually premiered before the 2016 Spirit Awards ceremony way back in January. But we felt there was simply too much good stuff left on the cutting room floor, so we decided to dig back in and see what else our amazing gaggle (flock? murder?) of interviewees had to say about a life spend thinking about, making, watching and loving independent film. Naturally, it didn’t take long for our subjects to start waxing rhapsodic about their favorite films:...

But forget about tortured metaphors involving slam cafés and carnivorous groupers. The Film Independent Forum doesn’t need any embellishment or exaggeration to help make clear how valuable of a resource it is for working (or aspiring) independent media creators. Look no further than this year’s keynotes, featuring Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and indie producer Effie T. Brown. Both speakers touched on a variety of topics, but two biggest takeaways were Esmail and Brown’s thoughts, respectively, on reinventing the TV model for creative storytellers, and on fighting your way back from hardship while staying true to yourself as an artist—valuable lessons for anyone looking to survive the industry....

Enter Fast Track—a rapid-fire, three-day film marketplace held each year during the LA Film Festival in which select participants are invited to pitch their projects to top industry execs, including financiers, agents, managers, distributors, granting organizations and production companies. “Fast Track provides an extraordinary opportunity for independent producers and directors to gain critical support for their feature films,” said Jennifer Kushner, Film Independent’s Director of Artist Development. In an interview with Film Independent earlier this year, Film Independent Project Involve Fellow and Fast Track veteran Logan Kibens described the fast-and-furious Fast Track experience as “kind of like speed dating”—intimidating and intense, but with the possibility of being immensely rewarding....

School’s out! Sort of. The summer movie season officially kicked off last weekend with the release of Avengers: Age of Ultron, so Hollywood had better be ready to face the music and get graded for the spring. Unfortunately, none of the top 25 highest-grossing films of this season were directed by women—a disappointing backslide after a substantial improvement in this area on our winter report card. Oh, dear. Looks like Hollywood’s headed for summer school....

Plaza’s hosting debut at the 2019 Spirit Awards ceremony left a pretty high bar, with memorable bits including celebrity-stuffed ritual blood sacrifice and fellatio-friendly Fyre documentary spoof courtesy of Plaza’s Parks and Rec cast mate Jim O’Heir—not to mention an opening monologue that conjured almost as much delightfully on-brand awkwardness as it did big, broad laughs. “Like all great independent film performances, this one deserves a sequel. The people have spoken—bow down to your host!...

A designer designs out of the same deep, personal, dark, poorly lit (or well lit) places that any writer writes or any painter paints or any musician creates. It comes out of the same places. You can’t tell what that is really. It’s just out of who you are and what you’ve become. —Production Designer Jeannine Oppewall As mysterious and inexplicable as the creative impulse can sometimes be, there are certain specific processes and philosophies that every designer relies on and returns to again and again, no matter what the project or who the director may be....

This week: Brown Girls is an intimate story of the lives of two young women of color. Leila is a South Asian American writer just now owning her queerness. Patricia is a sex-positive Black American musician struggling to commit to anything—job, art and relationships. While the two women come from completely different backgrounds, their friendship is ultimately what they lean on to get through the messiness of their mid-20s. BROWN GIRLS Type: Narrative Web Series Director: Sam Bailey Writer: Fatimah Asghar Producer: Sam Bailey Budget: $20,000 Financing: Grants/Crowdfunding Production: 9 days, August 2016 Shooting Format: Sony A7S, Black Magic World Premiere: elle....

Unfortunately, it can be too easy to take stunt performers for granted. They’re invisible by design. They’re supposed to be mistaken for the project’s above-the-line talent, their physical dexterity and exacting craft disguised as violence and random chaos. And as recent fatal tragedies on the sets of The Walking Dead and Deadpool 2 grimly attest, it’s a job that’s not just difficult, but dangerous. Such is the subject of Matthew Kaplowitz and Stephen Koepfer’s new documentary short, Concrete and Crashpads, profiling several hardworking members of the New York stunt community....

With this morning’s exciting announcement by Rosario Dawson and Diego Luna of the 2015 Film Independent Spirit Awards nominees, we can officially declare our 30th birthday party started. Big congrats to all the nominees, with special kudos to the Best Feature nominees—Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Boyhood, Love is Strange, Selma and Whiplash—as well as to the 12 Film Independent Fellows and 13 Members (see below) up for awards in this super special year....

Festival Artistic Director David Ansen, along with Film Independent Associate Director of Programming Doug Jones, opened the ceremony with thanks and praise for all of the Festival staff and volunteers’ hard work. They then introduced special guest Jersey Boys star Vincent Piazza to announce the winners. And the winners are… Narrative Award (for best narrative feature) Man From Reno, directed by Dave Boyle Documentary Award (for best documentary feature) Stray Dog, directed by Debra Granik LA Muse Award Los Angeles, directed by Damian John Harper Best Performance in the Narrative Competition The ensemble cast of Recommended by Enrique, directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature The Young Kieslowski, directed by Kerem Sanga Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature Meet the Patels, directed by Geeta V....

In our February 15 Directors Close-Up session “A New Kind of Narrative: Best New Non-Scripted Series” panelists and 2023 Film Independent Spirit Award nominees W. Kamau Bell (We Need to Talk About Cosby), Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Ted Gesing (Children of the Underground), Andrew Renzi (Pepsi, Where’s My Jet) and Nanfu Wang (Mind Over Murder) gathered together to discuss their projects. Continuing today online at noon, our full library of 2023 Directors Close-Up online sessions are still available to pass holders with three live in-person events (Guillermo Del Toro!...

Then there’s the sort of insight you can only glean from master moviemakers in person—especially if they can lay claim to having made one of the year’s very best films. And there’s one destination that for years has towered far above the flood of awards season Q&A roundtables: Film Independent’s annual Directors Close-Up series, which returns next week, January 30. Now in its 19th year, the Directors Close-Up is a series of five weekly panel discussions exploring—in lively detail—the art, craft and collaboration of visual storytelling, featuring the minds behind some of 2018’s most acclaimed films....

At his most productive, 2012 Documentary Lab Fellow William J. Saunders will clear his calendar for a full month or two at a time and make documentaries guided by his film score of choice. Music, after all, seems to be a guiding force for the filmmakers; Saunders tends to choose whatever most appropriately captures the mood of the project he’s currently working on. His latest nonfiction series (made for Aol....

The Lunchbox When: July 1 Where: DVD Director: Ritesh Batra Starring: Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur Why We’re Excited: A lonely widower and unhappy housewife are brought together when a mistaken delivery arrives by the lunchbox service. Set in Mumbai and made for only $1 million, this is an exciting debut feature from Ritesh Batra. Life Itself When: July 4 Where: Theaters Director: Steve James Featuring: Roger Ebert, Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Gene Siskel, Ava Duvernay, Chaz Ebert Why We’re Excited: A celebration of the life and work of world-renowned film critic Roger Ebert, directed by Spirit Award-winning documentary filmmaker Steve James....