Joshua Oppenheimer’s latest film, The Look of Silence, is a companion piece to the critically acclaimed, and hotly debated, The Act of Killing. The Independent‘s staff writer Dana Knight spoke with Oppenheimer at SXSW, where he commented on how Americans misinterpret cinéma vérité. “It’s actually precisely because of the camera not despite it…that certain things are happening,” he said.
In a first-ever for The Independent, at least since our reincarnation in 2007, we feature a poem. This “found poem” by Brian Burt lets Bill Murray talk about movie stars, golf, and his idea of paradise, something Murray thinks everyone should experience.
“Oh, he was frustrated with me and I was frustrated with him through the process of making this film, but I’m a fan of the man,” says Ondi Timoner to The Independent’s Dana Knight. The pair talks shop about filming Russell Brand for Brand: The Second Coming, which premiered at SXSW 2015.
From two boxing documentaries to the viewpoints of Afghan photojournalists, much of the buzz during this year’s SXSW surrounded films by or about women. Steven Abrams offers up his observations of this festival, growing each year in every direction, as it struggles to keep the margins front and center.
With more than 240 offerings, even seasoned SXSW attendees like Steven Abrams can feel overwhelmed. Abrams took a step back and gleaned the best nuggets from the film panels so that those of us who couldn’t attend can get a sense of what’s what.
Is this how you want to be entertained? Senior critic Kurt Brokaw asks tough questions of a blatantly tough-on-the-senses program at this year’s New Directors/New Films. A handful of the full slate make his cut. The rest just cut.
“I didn’t want her to be just a girl looking. She had to drive herself…” says director Sanna Lenken about My Skinny Sister. The story is in the POV of a young girl whose sister has an eating disorder. Lenken talks with Dana Knight about how she adapted events from her life into her first feature-length fiction film.
The Independent kicks off a new series to aid would-be curators and filmmakers (seasoned and new) in their hunt for the best of indie film community gatherings. First up: Salem Film Fest, an all-documentary festival, growing in audience numbers and prestige, held in Salem, MA each March.
Jonathon Narducci tries to blow up perfect ideas of love in his documentary, Love Me, about men and women whose matches are made the old-fashioned way, by mail order. Dana Knight asks how he reached his conclusions about how and when love succeeds.