Articles
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Notable Festivals: Venice (Out of Competition) Before she was a filmmaker, director Sofia Coppola was a fixture in the fashion world. From an early age, her upbringing as Hollywood royalty regularly brought her into contact with celebrities from every walk of life. In her teen years, when most of us were driving around our hometowns…
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In 2022, Baz Luhrmann released ELVIS, his gargantuan ode to the King Of Rock And Roll. The Australian maximalist director’s take on an American icon was glitzy, gaudy, and appropriately over-indulgent – much like the singer’s latter Vegas years. Like any conventional biopic, ELVIS lionized its namesake, overlooking his moral shortcomings as the necessary byproduct…
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Notable Festivals: Cannes Film Festival It’s natural to romanticize one’s childhood; who wouldn’t want to attribute a poignant meaning to our formative years, or at least a nostalgic glow? The world didn’t seem as complicated, emotions were purer and more strongly felt, and seemingly-pedestrian events can take on the charge of a life-defining moment. Most…
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The final frontier: an unfathomable expanse of icy blackness that we call “outer space”. It’s the cosmic cradle that makes the conditions for life on Earth possible, yet space itself kills it in a matter of seconds. The scale of the solar system, let alone the universe, boggles the mind, paradoxically compelling us to venture…
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Welcome to THE DIRECTORS SERIES PODCAST, an exclusive presentation of PodFrontier. This show dives deep into the craft and careers of influential filmmakers while aiming to further the mission of increasing media literacy and inspiring the next generation of storytellers. This episode of THE DIRECTORS SERIES PODCAST examines Guillermo Del Toro’s embrace of fairy tales…
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Long-time readers of THE DIRECTORS SERIES will remember that since 2021, we’ve been deep in production on an original horror feature, THE VEIL. We’re excited to share that THE VEIL (written and directed by THE DIRECTORS SERIES host Cameron Beyl) is now available to watch on demand (and just in time for the arrival of…
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We’ve just launched THE DIRECTORS SERIES PODCAST, a proud member of the PODFRONTIER podcast network! THE DIRECTORS SERIES PODCAST is a film history series that dives deep into the craft and careers of your favorite filmmakers. Our mainline series arrives this September, but in the weeks leading up to it, we’ll be releasing several minisodes…
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Over the decades, the documentary work of director Martin Scorsese has grown to rival the breadth and pedigree of his narrative features. Applied with the same personal touch that makes his theatrical films so distinctive, his documentaries are just as essential in the conversation about his cinematic legacy. Whether he’s exploring his immigrant heritage in…
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In theory, the streaming revolution should be a miraculous prospect— unlimited access to all the movies and TV one could ever want, all for one small monthly payment. In practice, however, its rapid adoption has been more akin to a Trojan Horse, infiltrating our homes on a campaign of disruption that’s since been revealed to…
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Following the release of their long-gestating passion project UNCUT GEMS in 2019, Josh and Benny Safdie were faced with the endless possibilities of a wide-open creative future. Rather than dive immediately into development on a new feature, the brothers would make a short detour into the warm familiarity of the short-form medium. 2020 would see…
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Notable Festivals: Telluride, Toronto There’s an old adage taken to heart by any aspiring writer: “write what you know”. It’s simple. Succinct. It works. But I would argue it’s too simple— in an effort to reduce a sentiment down into an easily-digestible buzz-phrase, a crucial nuance has been lost that might otherwise have empowered the…
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OHNEOTRIX POINT NEVER: “THE PURE AND THE DAMNED” (2017) An accompanying pop single for a theatrical release used to be standard practice in Hollywood filmmaking. It still is, to a degree, but the windfall a hit single would provide as an ancillary revenue stream has been greatly diminished by the meager returns of the streaming…