Today, a host of platforms and mobile applications aim to broaden technology’s impact, offering support in the planning stages, as well as on set, in the hopes of saving the independent filmmaker time, simplifying efforts, and maximizing the results of those efforts.
Here, The Independent provides an overview of some of the leading planning software and apps for independent filmmakers.
Last year Steven Abrams said that women “brought the substance” to SXSW. This year, in keynotes and panels, they continued to call for equality and change, citing independent storytelling as fertile ground for that change.
In addition to our 10 filmmakers to watch, we want to put a handful of others on your radar with work coming out in 2016 and later. We have Khalik Allah, Hunter Baker and Jordan Fein, Julie Bayer and Josh Salzman, and Nicolas Steiner.
Director/Producer Annie Berman makes The Independent’s 10 to Watch list for her feature-length essay film, The Faithful, a fifteen-year journey through the world of images and representations of three global icons: Elvis Presley, Pope John Paul II, and Princess Diana.
Garrett Zevgetis makes our 10 to watch list with his documentary, Best and Most Beautiful Things, a portrait of a young woman’s journey to assert her identity and find her purpose outside of her disability. The film premiered at this year’s South by Southwest.
The film industries of the countries of former Yugoslavia continue to evolve and adapt to changing environments, both on the industry level in the broader European landscape, and in the political and economic contexts of their respective countries. At this year’s Berlinale, the region’s continued ability to punch above its weight was proven by Bosnian director Danis Tanović’s Silver Bear win Death in Sarajevo.
The Independent‘s 10 to Filmmakers Watch is our annual shout out to filmmakers, working in documentary, narrative, new media and virtual reality, whose work we think you should see. Now in its 8th year, our list celebrates filmmakers who are taking risks, promoting change, and speaking their minds. And their work, all which will be out this year, shows it.
Abatemarco, who spent nearly seven years making Kivalina, advises first-time documentarians to recognize that some of the hardest work of making a film is not technical or financial, but interpersonal. “It’s about your relationship with your subjects over time. That is the real work and the real difficulty. Somehow you’ll find the money but the most difficult work is to carry the story for however long you have to carry it, because these are heavy subject matters.”
Now in its eighth year, The Independent’s 10 Filmmakers to Watch highlights filmmakers – producers, programmers, animators, and others – whose upcoming work we think will wow you this year. Submit your nominations by February 15, 2016.