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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) has invited 487 artists and executives to become members, with Sandra Huller, Justin Triet, Celine Song and Da’Vine Joy Randolph among the high profile invitees.

Also invited to join are actors Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Fiona Shaw, directors Alice Diop, David Yates and S S Rajamouli, and writers Arthur Harari and Tony McNamara.

Executives invited to join that branch of the Academy include British Film Institute CEO Ben Roberts and Fifth Season co-CEOs Chris Rice and Graham Taylor.

Among those invited to join the costume designers branch are Holly Waddington and Małgorzata Karpiuk.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Tuesday that it is extending invitations to 487 to join the membership ranks of the Oscar organizer. If all accept, it will bring the Academy’s total membership to 10,910, of which 9,934 would be voting members.

This year’s list across 19 branches include 2024 Oscar winners Da’Vine Joy Randolph from The Holdovers; Poor Things costume designer Holly Waddington and production design team James Price, Shona Heath and Zsuzsa Mihalek; 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov, War Is Over! producer Brad Booker; The Zone of Interest sound duo Tarn Willers and Johnnie Burn; the Godzilla Minus One VFX team Tatsuji Nojima, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Takashi Yamazaki; American Fiction writer-director Cord Jefferson; and Anatomy of a Fall writing duo Justine Triet and Arthur Harari.

Jefferson and Triet are among eight names on the list who were invited to more than one branch (noted...

“Full House” and “Fuller House” creator Jeff Franklin is set to produce a new horror film, “Murder with the Stars.” Craig Shoemaker penned the screenplay and will serve as a producer, with Jonathan Silverman set to direct and act in the movie.

“This concept came to me several months ago, and I knew I was onto something unique and fun,” Shoemaker said. “Since then, the creative process has unfolded effortlessly with two old friends signing on, Jonathan Silverman and Jeff Franklin. It’s a killer team. In the case of this horror film, pun intended.”

“Murder with the Stars” will be created in partnership with Jaclyn and Ike Suri of Pelican Point Media, a film finance and production company, that has produced horror and comedy films like the 2016 thriller “Exposed,” starring Ana de Armas and Keanu Reeves. Silverman is repped by Authentic Talent and Brave Artists, and Shoemaker is repped by Innovative Artists.

Oppenheimer continued its dominant awards season form on Sunday night at the American Society of Cinematographers’ ASC Outstanding Achievement Awards, with Hoyte van Hoytema taking the prize for theatrical feature film.

The win was Van Hoytema’s first ASC award, after previously being nominated for Dunkirk (2018) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2012).

On the TV side, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel‘s M. David Mullen won the ASC prize for an episode of one hour of television, Barry‘s Carl Herse won for an episode of a half-hour series and Boston Strangler‘s Ben Kutchins won for limited or anthology series or motion picture made for TV.

Also on the night, Spike Lee was awarded the ASC Board of Governors Award and Don Burgess, whose work includes Academy Award-winning best picture Forrest Gump, received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Additionally, Steven Fierberg accepted the ASC Career Achievement in Television Award, and Amy Vincent...

Hoyte Van Hoytema has taken top honors at the 38th annual American Society of Cinematographers Awards for his work on “Oppenheimer.”

Van Hoytema topped a field that included Edward Lachman for “El Conde, Matthew Libatique for “Maestro,” Rodrigo Prieto for “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Robbie Ryan for “Poor Things.”

The awards were handed out Sunday night at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Ed Helms hosting the festivities.

All five theatrical feature film nominees are also nominated for best cinematography at the Oscars.

In its 38-year history, only 17 have gone on to win the Oscar. Last year, Mandy Walker made history when she became the first woman to win an ASC award for her work on “Elvis.” The Academy Award ultimately went to James Friend for “All Quiet on the Western Front.”

On the TV side, winners included Carl Herse for “Barry” and Ben Kutchins for “Boston Strangler.”

Van...

Filmmaker Eric Branco, best known for his work as a cinematographer on films like Clemency and The 40-Year-Old Version, has signed on to make his feature directorial debut with the drama Silent Partner for Black Man Films

Based on a short film of the same name, Silent Partner is written by actor and Black Man Films co-founder Roderick Lawrence, James J. Johnson, and Branco. The pic follows a Black attorney in New York who is thrust into a stand-your-ground case by a senior partner. He is asked to defend a white woman who has murdered a Black teen. The story focuses on the attorney’s moral struggle, his relationship with his wife, and the black professional experience of microaggressions in the workplace and systemic racism in the justice system. The film began production last week in New York City. Cast features Roderick Lawrence, Susan Heyward, Eric Nelsen, and Jeff Perry.

The American Society of Cinematographers has unveiled the nominations for its 38th annual ASC Awards, honoring the year’s best in feature film, documentary and television cinematography.

The society’s marquee Theatrical Feature Film nominees are chock-full of awards-season favorite pics, with one surprise. Edward Lachman is up for the Netflix pic El Conde, joining the likes of Matthew Libatique for Maestro, Rodrigo Prieto for Killers of the Flower Moon, Robbie Ryan for Poor Things, Hoyte van Hoytema for Oppenheimer.

Prieto also lensed the year’s No. 1 movie, Barbie, but missed the ASC cut today.

The group’s film winner has gone on to claim the Academy Award nearly half of the time — 17 times in its 37 years — but not last year. Mandy Walker won the ASC’s top film prize in 2023, but the Academy Award went to James Friend for All Quiet on the Western Front.

On the small-screen front,...

Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s lensing of Martin Scorsese’s drama Killers of the Flower Moon and Robbie Ryan’s photography of Yorgos Lanthimos’ fantasy Poor Things are among the nominees in the feature competition of the 2024 American Society of Cinematographers Awards, which will be held March 3 at the Beverly Hilton.

They are nominated alongside Edward Lachman, for Pablo Larraín’s El Conde; Matthew Libatique for Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Berstein drama Maestro; and Hoyte van Hoytema for Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer. All five Oscar-nominated DPs have been previously nominated in this ASC category and each are seeking their first win. Lachman, whose previous credits include Carol and Far from Heaven, was the ASC’s 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award winner. This year, Prieto’s work also includes Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.

A year ago, Elvis cinematographer Mandy Walker became the first woman to win the ASC feature competition. All Quiet on...

“Oppenheimer,” “Maestro” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” are among the films that received nominations for the American Society of Cinematographers Awards.

The ASC Award nominees for feature film, documentary and television cinematography represent the organization’s picks for the most compelling visual filmmaking.

Rounding out the feature film nominations are “El Conde” (Edward Lachman) and “Poor Things” (Robbie Ryan).

In television, “The Bear,” “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” were among the nominated series.

Last year’s feature film winner Mandy Walker made history when she became the first woman to win the ASC Award for her work on Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.” However, she did not go on to win the cinematography Oscar, which went to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Still, seven of the past 11 ASC winners went on to win the Oscar for best cinematography.

The ASC Award...

Over a decade ago, writer and director Aristotle Torres came across a news article about a teenager who attempted to rob a train conductor when, by the intervention of a grit-laced fairytale, he instead ended up being inspired into a more productive life path championed by his near victim. Now, set in the South Bronx, Torres has penned and directed an aesthetically rich and thematically heroic cinematic experience that is gripping, refreshing, and an extraordinary example of how to tell a relatable tale in a non-stereotypical way.

Produced by Torres along with Jamie Foxx, Lizzie Shapiro, and Datari Turner, Story Ave is about a gifted artist named Kadir, effortlessly portrayed by Asante Blackk (When They See Us). Kadir is a wayward teenage graffiti artist mourning the death of his younger brother while shouldering the heaviness of pressures from both school and family, all while maneuvering the potential perils and pitfalls of his neighborhood gangs.

The drama from debut director Aristotle Torres was a prizewinner at SXSW.

Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to SXSW prizewinner Story Ave, debut feature of music video director Aristotle Torres.

Kino Lorber is planning a theatrical release for the film in October, followed by a digital and home video release on all major platforms.

Starring Luis Guzmán and Asante Blackk, Story Ave won a Special Jury Award for Cinematography at SXSW for director of photography Eric Branco.

The drama centres on a South Bronx teen artist who escapes into the world of graffiti gangs after the death of...

Naming a young Black man’s story after a transport stop gives off strong Fruitvale vibes, but Aristotle Torres’ feature debut reaches back further to the hip-hop morality tales of the early ’90s, like Boaz Yakin’s Fresh or Ernest Dickerson’s Juice — the wave that immediately followed John Singleton’s influential Boyz n the Hood. Surprisingly, given Torres’ history of videos for the likes of Ludacris and Nas, the soundtrack is light on rap, using unexpected needle drops like Pavarotti’s version of “La Donna e Mobile” to score scenes of spray-can anarchy on the New York subway.

In all other ways, however, Story Ave is very much a ’hood movie, in the sense that its young protagonist is both constrained and defined by the place where he lives, in this case the Bronx. That person is Kadir (Asante Blackk), a talented young artist tormented by the recent death of his disabled little brother.

Audience Awards voting concludes on March 19.

Raging Grace has taken the 2023 SXSW Narrative Feature Competition award and Angel Applicant has taken top prize in the Documentary Feature Competition.

15 acquisition titles to tempt buyers at SXSW 2023

Raging Grace director Paris Zarcilla’s film about an undocumented Filipina house cleaner and her daughter who find work for a wealthy British man was praised by the jury for “cleverly employing genre tropes to explore vast socio-political matters”.

Courtney Eaton won the special jury award for performance for her role in Parachute, Brittany Snow’s feature directorial debut about a young woman freshly out...

As SXSW basks in the Oscars afterglow of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which premiered out of competition at the event last year, jury and special awards winners for the 30th edition of the film and TV festival have been announced.

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Top honors in the Narrative Feature Competition went to Paris Zarcilla’s horror pic Raging Grace. The film follows Joy, an undocumented Filipino immigrant who is struggling to do the best she can for her daughter Grace when she secures the perfect job: taking care of an extremely wealthy but terminal old man. The new...

This year’s South by Southwest Film & TV Festival has officially unveiled the 2023 winners list.

With buzzy titles such as “Bottoms,” “Beef,” “Swarm,” and “Air” debuting at the festival, the 2023 conference in Austin, Texas proved to be a memorable time. “What an extraordinary week of film and TV premieres here at SXSW, and there is more to come through Saturday,” Claudette Godfrey, VP, Flm & TV, said. “Our theaters have been brimming with enthusiastic audiences celebrating the exceptional and diverse work in our lineup, and we’re so excited to celebrate this year’s jury and special award winners!”

The Narrative Feature Competition, presented by Panavision, bestowed the top honor to “Raging Grace,” written and directed by Paris Zarcilla.

“‘Raging Grace”s heady blend of horror, history, and midnight humor announces the arrival of an exciting new filmmaking talent in writer-director Paris Zarcilla,” the official statement reads. “The story of a...

Two days after ”Everything Everywhere All at Once“ won seven Oscars, including best picture, the SXSW Film Festival, where Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s movie launched last year, has announced its own awards. To be clear, “Eeaao” was a studio-backed opening night premiere (not one of the smaller movies launched in competition at the indie-focused fest), but you can still feel the excitement in Austin around the landmark Oscar win. After all, SXSW was the first festival to take Daniels seriously, awarding them top prize for their Battles music video (“My Machines”) in 2012.

Will any of the movies or directors screening here this year go on to change film history?

With five days still to go at SXSW, the juries convened to present the winners.

Narrative feature honors went to writer-director Paris Zarcilla’s “Raging Grace.” On the surface, the tense story of an undocumented Filipina house cleaner and...

There’s a double meaning to the title of writer-director Aristotle Torres’ debut feature, Story Ave, that neatly sums up what this homegrown NYC coming-of-age drama is all about.

On the one hand, it refers to the fictitious Bronx subway station where its main character, a young and troubled graffiti artist named Kadir, has an encounter that will put him on either the right or wrong path for the future. On the other, it underlines the storybook quality of a movie that, although entrenched in certain socioeconomic realities, veers toward fantasy in some unexpected ways.

Torres, adapting with co-writer Bonsu Thompson from a short they made together in 2018, jumps back and forth between the two elements throughout Story Ave, which takes familiar tropes of the urban youth genre (gang violence, domestic troubles, peer pressure, guns and drugs) and, in its most memorable moments, turns them into something slightly magical. The...

Opposition to the Academy’s plan to award eight Oscars prior to the live telecast continues to grow, with more than 350 new names — including more than a dozen Oscar-winning editors, cinematographers and production designers — added to the petition sent last week to Academy president David Rubin urging a reversal of the plan.

Among the industry professionals signing are Oscar-winning cinematographers John Seale (“The English Patient”), John Toll (“Braveheart”) and Dean Semler (“Dances With Wolves”), and Oscar-winning editors Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch (“Star Wars”), Mikkel Neilsen (“The Sound of Metal”), Pietro Scalia (“JFK”) and Zach Staenberg (“The Matrix”).

Oscar-winning production designers Hannah Beachler (“Black Panther”), Barbara Ling (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), Adam Stockhausen (“Grand Budapest Hotel”) and David and Sandy Wasco (“La La Land”) also signed on.

Cinematography will be presented during the live show, but editing and production design are among the eight awards to be presented during the 4 p.

On the title page of her script for The 40-Year-Old Version, director and star Radha Blank wrote: “A New York Tale in Black and White.” Cinematographer Eric Branco took those words to heart, shooting the Netflix production almost entirely on Kodak Double X film. In the film Blank plays an alternate of herself, a playwright once named in a “30 Under 30” list of artists to watch, now trying to reinvent herself as the rapper RadhaMUSPrime. Over the 20-day schedule, Branco shot almost entirely on locations in Manhattan and the Bronx, from apartments to studios, clubs, theaters, and crowded streets. […]

The post "I Wanted the Movie to Have a 'Time Out of Time' Feel": Cinematographer Eric Branco on Shooting the Black-and-White The 40-Year-Old Version first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

On the title page of her script for The 40-Year-Old Version, director and star Radha Blank wrote: “A New York Tale in Black and White.” Cinematographer Eric Branco took those words to heart, shooting the Netflix production almost entirely on Kodak Double X film. In the film Blank plays an alternate of herself, a playwright once named in a “30 Under 30” list of artists to watch, now trying to reinvent herself as the rapper RadhaMUSPrime. Over the 20-day schedule, Branco shot almost entirely on locations in Manhattan and the Bronx, from apartments to studios, clubs, theaters, and crowded streets. […]

The post "I Wanted the Movie to Have a 'Time Out of Time' Feel": Cinematographer Eric Branco on Shooting the Black-and-White The 40-Year-Old Version first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Audiences can’t help but root for the underdog, and that’s exactly what writer-director-actor Radha Blank’s black-and-white directorial debut “The Forty-Year-Old Version” gives them. The film posits that there are no age restrictions to career advancement, and it’s a defensible assertion: Famed artists ranging from Claude Monet to Leonard Cohen didn’t experience breakout success until they were in their 30s and 40s. That’s Blank’s narrative, onscreen and off.

“It doesn’t matter how much you put into something, no matter how old you are, because you should always expect the possibility that your effort will be undervalued,” she said in a recent interview with IndieWire. “But you can’t really take that personally. It’s just the way it is.”

In the film, which won the directing prize at the world premiere at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, Blank stars as a fictionalized version of...

Shooting black-and-white still photography has long been a passion for “Clemency” cinematographer Eric Branco. So it seemed serendipitous when he received an inbox message that included a script for Radha Blank’s “The-Forty-Year-Old Version” with a title page that read, “A New York tale in black and white.”

Blank, a writer-producer on Spike Lee’s Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It,” wrote and directed the semi-autobiographical comedy about Radha, a playwright who hasn’t sold anything in a while and teaches high school theater to make ends meet. On the brink of turning 40, she finds her creative juices reinvigorated one day when she goes to an underground rap club and is lured into the world of hip-hop battles.

When we first meet the character, she’s lying on her bed and with the last light of day coming through the windows — the lighting scheme seems pretty straightforward. But another movie...

Radha Blank overcomes failure as a playwright by reinventing herself as a rapper in Netflix’s first trailer for “The Forty-Year-Old Version.”

The footage starts with Blank teaching a playwriting class in New York City as one of “30 under 30 Playwrights to Watch.”

“Remember, if you put in nothing, it will be nothing,” she tells her students. In true New Yorker fashion, one of them snarkily asks, “Like your career?”

Blank, who won the U.S. dramatic competition directing award at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, helmed from her own script about a down-on-her-luck New York playwright who decides to salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how — by becoming a rapper at age 40.

“What about me doing hip-hop?” she asks her friend, portrayed by Peter Kim. “Doing what to it?” he responds.

“The Forty-Year-Old Version” also stars rapper Oswin Benjamin, who makes his feature film acting debut, along with Imani Lewis,...

Netflix’s upcoming movie slate includes major new offerings from top directors like Charlie Kaufman (“I’m Thinking of Ending Things”), David Fincher (“Mank”), and Ron Howard (“Hillbilly Elegy”), but it also includes a Sundance gem from breakout first-time filmmaker Radha Blank. This gem is “The Forty-Year-Old Version,” which won Blank the Best Director prize at Sundance earlier this year. Blank stars in the film as a variation of herself opposite a cast of mostly new faces, including Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin, Imani Lewis, and Haskiri Velazquez. Tony winner Reed Birney also stars, while Lena Waithe is attached to the film as one of its producers.

The official synopsis for “The Forty-Year-Old Version” from Netflix reads: “Radha, a down-on-her-luck NY playwright, is desperate for a breakthrough before 40. But when she foils what seems like her last shot at success, she’s left with no choice but to reinvent herself as rapper RadhaMUSPrime.

Netflix is in negotiations to buy the worldwide rights to Radha Blank’s semi-autobiographical comedy “The 40-Year-Old Version,” sources have confirmed.

Blank directed, wrote, produced and stars in “The 40-Year-Old Version,” which premiered on Jan. 25 at the Sundance Film Festival. Peter Y. Kim, Oswin Benjamin, Reed Birney, Imani Lewis, Tj Atoms and Jacob Ming-Trent also star.

Blank portrays a down-on-her-luck New York playwright who decides to reinvent herself and salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how — by becoming a rapper at age 40. This film follow its protagonist as she vacillates between the worlds of New York’s theater and hip-hop.

The film was shot on 35mm black and white film by cinematographer Eric Branco. “The 40-Year-Old Version” was selected for development at Sundance’s 2017 Screenwriters and Directors labs.

Besides Blank, producers include Lena Waithe, Jordan Fudge, Inuka Bacote-Capiga, Jennifer Semler and Rishi Rajani. Endeavor Content is handling sales.

According to most platitudes, your 20s are for experimenting, you’re more grounded in your 30s, and by the time you hit 40, you’ve pretty much settled into who you are as a person. Maybe so many people scoff at these ubiquitous Instagram bromides because they often induce a sense of anxiety about where you should be in your life and when. That anxiety certainly fuels writer-director-producer-star Radha Blank’s delightfully earnest new film, “The 40-Year-Old Version.”

The filmmaker plays (presumably) a version of herself as she borrows her own name for the character, a playwright barreling toward age 40 and no closer to a successful career or a stable personal life than she was at 20. Known for once producing a play with modest acclaim back in the day, Radha now teaches a theater workshop for similarly adrift black and brown youth in Harlem. And like so many single women of...

The essence of “The 40-Year-Old Version” comes early, when Radha Blank, playing a fictionalized version of herself, sobs in the corner of her apartment. A soggy rib dangles from one hand as her large frame melts into her chair. “I just wanna be an artist!” she cries, touching on the legitimate anxieties of the black woman at its center, and poking fun at them at the same time. Much about Blank’s smart and funny crowdpleasing directorial debut negotiates that tricky balance, with

Shot throughout New York with gorgeous black-and-white photography (by “Clemency” cinematographer Eric Branco), “The 40-Year-Old Version” always feels close to the ground, with Blank’s uneven path to writing a new play — and finding unexpected catharsis in hip hop — taking a series of entertaining twists. At 129 minutes, the lighthearted format risks growing stale, and certainly could have shaved off some perfunctory scenes. But Blank is so adroit...

If you want to see what great acting is, watch Alfre Woodard deliver a master class in Clemency. In this shattering second feature from writer-director Chinonye Chukwu (alaskaLand) — which earlier this year made her the first black woman to win the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance — Woodard plays Bernadine Williams, an emotionally restrained prison warden who is about to oversee her twelfth execution by lethal injection. The last one, as Chukwu shows us, damn near wrecked her.

The film opens with the gut-wrenching sight of state-sanctioned murder. The paramedic can’t find a vein.

In an interesting bit of irony, one of the first films to stand out as a possible Oscar contender in 2019 is now one of the year’s final releases. Yes, Clemency is finally hitting theaters this week, right in the final crop of Academy Award hopefuls. A heavy drama in all senses, this movie has some very strong acting, for sure, and focuses on a pair of interesting characters, but the story is so heavy, it ultimately undoes the story. Almost everything within the central location of the prison works, but when the flick ventures outside, things become almost comedically melodramatic, dulling its effectiveness. The movie is a character study/drama, focusing on Bernadine Williams (Alfre Woodard), a prison warden tasked with overseeing executions on death row. She’s been doing it for years, and while she claims it doesn’t bother her, it’s clearly taking a toll, especially...

Writer-director Chinonye Chukwu deserves all kinds of acclaim for daring to tell a story about the death penalty through the eyes of one of its enactors — a prison warden, the kind of character that’s usually reduced to a one-dimensional villain on screen. And she also should get props for attracting high-caliber talent like Alfre Woodard and Wendell Pierce for only her second full-length feature. But despite those accomplishments, “Clemency” doesn’t quite resonate.

That’s mostly because “Clemency” doesn’t effectively investigate the conflict upon which its plot hinges. Warden Bernadine Williams (Woodard) is a woman who, by nature of her profession, follows the law unequivocally. She stoically gets up each morning, heads to her prison, and oversees the men on death row — from sifting through their mounds of paperwork to calling the time they take their last breaths in the electric chair. In her world, everything is routine,...

For cinematographer Eric Branco, shooting “Clemency” was “an eye-opening experience. I’ve never really been a supporter of the death penalty, but at the same time, it’s never been something that I put much thought into.” It wasn’t until he got the script that he understood “the emotional toll taken on the people” affected by it. “You don’t realize that the wardens and the people that work in the prison have to go home and deal with this.” Watch our exclusive video interview with Branco above.

See Alfre Woodard Interview: ‘Clemency’

The film, written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, examines the human cost of capital punishment, both for the inmates and the administrators. Alfre Woodard stars as Bernadine Williams, a prison warden who’s been psychologically scarred by years of carrying out executions. She reaches her breaking point with Anthony Woods (Aldis Hodge), a prisoner fighting for...

From Escape from Alcatraz to Cool Hand Luke to The Shawshank Redemption, cinema is rich with not only prison films focused on the plight of the prisoner, but also depicting wardens in an evil light. Clemency, winner of the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, flips the script in both ways, both turning the spotlight on a warden and painting her in an empathetic, complicated light. Led by Alfre Woodard, she gives a riveting, emotional performance as the Bernadine Williams, a woman who is stuck between the demands of her grueling job and a disintegrating marriage, and can’t give her all to both.

I said in my review, “Written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, Clemency is exceptionally narrow and precise in its focus, both in terms of the cold aesthetic and the stripped-down script. Shot by Eric Branco, the frame often captures its isolated characters in all their loneliness,...

Lena Waithe is producing Radha Blank’s comedy “The 40-Year-Old Version,” Variety has learned.

Blank is directing from her own script about a down-on-her-luck New York playwright who decides to reinvent herself and salvage her artistic voice the only way she knows how — by becoming a rapper at age 40. This film follow its protagonist as she vacillates between the worlds of New York’s theater and hip hop scenes, places where a black woman’s voice is still often marginalized. Production is currently underway in New York City.

“The 40-Year-Old Version” also stars Peter Kim and hip hop performer Oswin Benjamin, who makes his feature film acting debut. The film will be shot almost entirely on 35mm black and white film by cinematographer Eric Branco, who shot “Clemency,” which won the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance film Festival this year. “The 40-Year-Old Version” was selected for...

Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios has acquired the pilot of gritty drama Up North for global distribution on its streaming services, including TheGrio and Local Now. The company will finance and distribute eight episodes of the series to launch the first season.

Written by Emil Pinnock and Ian Robertson, the Up North pilot digs into the brutal reality of the New York prison system, as an innocent teenager gets arrested for a crime he did not commit. Up North looks at incarceration and inner-city life from various points of view, taking a deep look at New York’s flawed and corrupt prison system and the violent life that feeds it. The series features an ensemble cast of Eugene Clark, Gabriel Ellis, Robert Lewis, Ian Duff and Kris Lofton.

Pinnock and Robertson will continue to write and executive produce the series, filmed by Dp Eric Branco, along with Keith Patterson and Barry Tatelman.

From Escape from Alcatraz to Cool Hand Luke to The Shawshank Redemption, cinema is rich with not only prison films focused on the plight of the prisoner, but also depicting wardens in an evil light. Clemency, winner of the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival, flips the script in both ways, both turning the spotlight on a warden and painting her in an empathetic, complicated light. Led by Alfre Woodard, she gives a riveting, emotional performance as the Bernadine Williams, a woman who is stuck between the demands of her grueling job and a disintegrating marriage, and can’t give her all to both.

Setting the stakes from the first scene, Williams is overseeing the latest execution on death row. It’s a cold, calculated process that requires rehearsal from all involved, but when it’s time to find the vein to lethally inject the prisoner, one can...

IndieWire reached out to the cinematographers and directors behind the scripted narrative features premiering this week at Sundance to find out which cameras, lenses, and formats they used, and why they chose them to create the looks and meet the production demands of their films. Here are their responses.

Films in U.S. Dramatic Competition are below, Premieres are on Page 2, Next Page 3, Midnight Page 4. Films appear in alphabetical order by title.

Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition

“Before You Know It”

Dir: Hannah Pearl Utt, DoP: Jon Keng

Format: 3.2K Prores 4444

Camera: Arri Alexa Mini

Lens: Cooke S4i

Keng: The cast was made up of primarily women across all age groups, so I wanted a lens set that would render their faces well without being overly clinical and sharp. The S4s have a very pleasant way of compressing people’s faces, even at wider focal lengths. I chose...

For a short film, “Night Shift” has a backstory of its own which gives more than the film’s glimpse into a day in the life of a bathroom attendant in a Los Angeles nightclub.

Filmmaker Marshall Tyler’s “Night Shift”, stars Tunde Adebimpe and is executive produced by JuVee Productions, the company founded by Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon established to empower diverse voices and emerging artists. It is produced by Moira Griffin, Efuru Flowers and Roberta Marie Munroe.

Watch the trailer here: https://vimeo.com/198757828

Marshall and I had a long conversation at the Yarrow in Sundance the day of the premiere of his film.

Let’s start with who you are…

Well, I was born in Philadelphia and raised in Hawaii and then moved to San Diego. I went to Howard University. Now I am based in La. My first documentary, “Skid Row”, followed Pras Michél,...

"Stay Cold, Stay Hungry," screens this afternoon at the Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia (July 31 - August 3), starting at 3pm, followed by Q&A with director Eric Branco & the film's cast, moderated by Nicole Giles . Here's our review of the film. "Stay Cold, Stay Hungry," the first feature from Writer/Director Eric Branco ("Barbasol" cinematographer) is the story of two different homeless men on a journey to self-actualization and redemption. The film opens with cuts between a very morose Manny ("12 Steps to Recovery’s" Stephen Hill) attempting to reach his family on the phone and...

We first heard about "Chapter Four," the first installment of a ten-part dark science fiction thriller web series from James Felix McKenney, last June; and now that it's available for download, we have a look at the trailer and word of the next segment: "Chapter Seven."

From the Press Release:

In the tradition of the critically acclaimed feature film Automatons comes MonsterPants' latest retro science fiction project, "Chapter Four."

The first episode in a proposed ten-part micro-budget web serial, "Chapter Four" stars musician, filmmaker, artist, and author Aurelio Voltaire, actress Mizuo Peck (Night at the Museum 1 & 2), actor Matt Huffman (Satan Hates You), and artist and television personality The Sucklord (Bravo TV's "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist"). The project's writer and director is genre-bending Diy filmmaker James Felix McKenney (Hypothermia, Satan Hates You), who is co-producing the series with Lisa Wisely of The Work Room. Eric Branco (Hypothermia,...

It’s lucky 13 for the fun and fabulous Coney Island Film Festival! That’s right, 2013 will see the 13th annual edition of this New York City staple that combines the fine art of filmmaking with the rambunctious art of sideshow performing on Sept. 20-22.

The fest opens on the 20th with the documentary More Than the Rainbow, a profile of Matt Weber, an NYC cab driver who moonlights as an art photographer. The film is directed by Dan Wechsler.

Other docs screening at the fest include the uplifting tale of A Clown’s Recovery, directed by Matthew Broomfield; the sports drama of One Wall: Kings of Coney Island, directed by Joe Glickman; the profile of a Coney Island legend in The Commander in Chief, directed by Jim McDonnell; the struggle of Bending Steel, directed by Dave Carroll; and World Circus, directed by Angela Snow.

But, there are also fiction films in the mix,...

Stay Cold, Stay Hungry, the first feature from Writer/Director Eric Branco (Barbasol cinematographer) is the story of two different homeless men on a journey to self-actualization and redemption. The film opens with cuts between a very morose Manny (12 Steps to Recovery’s Stephen Hill) attempting to reach his family on the phone and enigmatic Harley (newcomer John Marra) enjoying drinks at the bar with old friends, discussing their various travels around the world. We get the feeling Harley’s on another journey, but he doesn’t make that clear. We soon see he has no phone and is living on the street.It’s evident there is something amiss with Harley in his movements as...

Word on a new project from MonsterPants, the New York-based, do-it-yourself non-studio behind such films as Satan Hates You and Hypothermia, landed in our inbox this week; and it's so unique and intriguing we just had to share!

From the Press Release:

MonsterPants is proud to announce its latest film project, "Chapter Four," the first episode in a ten-part online serial written and directed by Diy auteur James Felix McKenney (Automatons, Hypothermia). For now, the name of the entire serial is to remain a mystery. Each episode of this dark science fiction thriller will carry its own title, simply that of the number of the chapter.

McKenney explains, "I want to capture that pre-Internet, broadcast television feeling of discovery, where you would be flipping through television channels and stumble across a movie or a TV series in mid-story and get sucked in. During those times you couldn't go back and see what you missed,...

Fans of NCIS actress Pauley Perrette will welcome the opportunity to see more of her in the forthcoming film The Girl from Mars.

The Girl from Mars tells the story of a lonely geek whose life is transformed when he meets the girl of his dreams (Perrette) who claims to be a visitor from another planet.

The film is written and directed by Diy auteur James Felix McKenney, whose previous features include the retro sci-fi flick, Automatons and the upcoming Hypothermia from Dark Sky films starring Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead).

McKenney will be sharing producing chores with Lisa Wisely and Chase Tyler of Brooklyn, NY based The Work Room Productions.

The Director of Photography will be Eric Branco, who lensed both McKenney's Hypothermia and Satan Hates You for New York-based production company Glass Eye Pix.

Says the director about working with Perrette, "We've wanted to do something with Pauley...

I know there has to be some geeks out there who are fans of Pauley Perrette, who plays Abby Sciuto on the CBS television series, NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service. She’s the Goth girl/forensic specialist who was once described by another character on the show as “a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron smothered in contradictions in terms. Sleeps in a coffin. Really, the happiest goth you’ll ever meet.”

Outside of NCIS, Perrette does a couple other dashes of geek cred, having lent her voice in one episode of the animated series, Batman Beyond and more recently playing Ramona, a virtual alter ego in a documentary hybrid film based on Ray Kurzweil’s book, The Singularity is Near.

Now, Perrette will be taking a lead role in The Work Room Productions‘ next film, The Girl From Mars. Check out their release below for all the details.

The Work Room Productions...

The Work Room Productions has announced that "NCIS" star Pauley Perrette will be leading the cast of the sci-fi/romance The Girl From Mars . The film tells the story of a lonely geek whose life is transformed when he meets the girl of his dreams (Perrette) who claims to be a visitor from another planet. The film is written and directed by Diy auteur James Felix McKenney, whose previous features include the retro sci-fi flick, Automatons and the upcoming Hypothermia from Dark Sky films, starring Michael Rooker ("The Walking Dead"). McKenney will be sharing producing chores with Lisa Wisely and Chase Tyler of Brooklyn, NY based The Work Room Productions. The Director of Photography will be Eric Branco, who lensed both McKenney's Hypothermia and...

From my inbox…

The story goes… Unsatisfied with his comfortable life, Harley (John Marra) has struck out to experience the hardships of being homeless in New York City. In his travels, he is befriended by Manny (Stephen Hill), a recovering alcoholic who is trying to get his life back in order. Together they embark on a journey that takes them throughout Manhattan, the Bronx, and ultimately to a work farm upstate, as Harley struggles to keep his true identity hidden.

No release date set yet. But the info I have says it’ll happen sometime this year.

I’ve watched Stephen Hill in 2 other indie features – both featured on this blog: a feature-length film by Clayton Broomes Jr titled, Pro Black Sheep, (see my original post Here) currently making the festival rounds; and Nyu Mfa student Nikyatu Jusu’s short film, African Booty Scratcher (Watch it Here). He didn’t star in either,...

Now this is what I call a Christmas celebration! You can keep your four-hour long Mass services and ritualistic chanting; I’m going to hang out with the guys and girls at Glass Eye Pix.

You see, they’ve teamed with Beck Underwood to produce short films inspired by images seen in the 2008 Creepy Christmas Advent Calendar. One short will air per day starting December 1st and running until Christmas Day on the official Creepy Christmas site; check out the list of whose shorts are playing when below, if you’re feeling snobby like that...

Dec. 1 – David Goldin

Dec. 2 – Glenn McQuaid

Dec. 3 – Sara Driver

Dec. 4 – Heather Sinclair

Dec. 5 – Jt Petty

Dec. 6 – Michael Vincent

Dec. 7 – Devin Febbroriello

Dec. 8 – Larry Fessenden

Dec. 9 – Beck Underwood

Dec. 10 – Isabel Samaras, Marcos & Nico Sorensen

Dec. 11 – Brandon Taylor & Eric Branco

Dec. 12 – Merrill Rauch, Gareth, Maud & Sam Brown

Dec. 13 – Brahm Revel

Dec. 14 – Jim Mickle

Dec. 15 – Annie Nocenti

Dec.