September 18, 2017

Filmmaker In Focus: Barbecue, Easy Living, and Unrest

September brings a new wave of SXSW Film Festival alumni releases available for viewing. Many eye-opening experiences await, including a culinary journey around the world, a romantic comedy with a dark edge, and an investigation of the misunderstood phenomenon of chronic fatigue syndrome. Learn more about each film and read our short Q&A with the directors below.

Barbecue

Matthew Salleh is an Australian born, US and Australian based filmmaker who, with his partner Rose Tucker, have travelled to the corners of the globe to create his debut feature documentary Barbecue. His work focuses on capturing intimate portraits of unique and vibrant cultures as a pathway to understanding and appreciating the world we live in.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

MS: My partner Rose Tucker and I travelled to twelve countries as a two person crew to capture portraits of how people cook meat over fire, and see how their interpretation of barbecue brings people together and is an indication of the cultural values they hold dear.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

MS: Having been fortunate to travel with previous projects, a constantly recurring theme was the pride people took in their version of barbecue. Everyone thought theirs was the best, and it ignited (pun intended) some pretty extreme passion. For me, ridiculously passionate people are the root of all good documentary storytelling.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

MS: I hope people find a reaffirmed hope for humankind. It may sound silly, but when I started this film I was hoping that the global portrait we were creating would confirm my belief in the potential of humanity. And it was the everyday subjects of our film that gave me great inspiration – something that I hope the audience feels as well.

Easy Living

Adam Keleman‘s short, Going Black, premiered at SXSW in 2010. His work has shown work at a number of different film festivals around the country. As a film journalist and critic, he has written for Soma Magazine, AOL Moviefone, Slant, and Little Joe. Easy Living is Keleman’s first feature.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

AK: Easy Living is about a self-destructive makeup saleswoman trying to make amends with the past while also paving a path for a future on her own terms. The film interweaves improvised makeup selling moments with non-actors into the scripted narrative.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

AK: I was re-watching the Maysles’s brothers film Salesman in 2010, and I thought about what a female version of that film might look like, and that was the first seed of the story. Easy Living is the third part in a triptych of films centered around female characters, exploring similar themes and locales of small town Americana.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

AK:I hope they connect with the lead character despite all of her flaws, and appreciate the unconventional qualities of the film.

Unrest

Jennifer Brea is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She has an AB from Princeton University and was a PhD student at Harvard until sudden illness left her bedridden. In the aftermath, she rediscovered her first love, film. Unrest is her film debut.

Q: Tell us a little about your film?

JB: I was a PhD student at Harvard, engaged to the love of my life, when I came down with a fever of 104 degrees. I got sicker and sicker, to the point that I couldn’t even sit in a wheelchair, couldn’t write my own name — but doctors told me my symptoms were “all in my head.”

I began filming myself as a way to make sense of what I was going through, and eventually went online and found a hidden world of millions confined to their homes and bedrooms by ME, an illness commonly known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Unrest follows my personal story as my husband Omar and I grapple with how to live with the new reality of my illness, and also follows the stories of four other ME patients as technology enables us to connect, bedridden, from across the world.

Q: What motivated you to tell this story?

JB: I began shooting on my iPhone at a point when I was so sick that I couldn’t read or write. I had been a writer my whole life, but when that outlet was no longer available to me, filming myself became a way to make sense of what I was going through and to reclaim a piece of myself. It was also a way for me to convey the severity of what I was experiencing to doctors, who often minimized or reduced my symptoms when I tried to describe them in words.

The idea to make a feature film came later, and that really evolved from a desire for social justice. As I began to learn the long history of my disease, and the way millions living with ME have been forgotten by medicine and ignored because of misogyny and stigma, I thought that if I could share the experience of this disease with the world, perhaps I could help to bring about change.

Q: What do you want the audience to take away from this film?

JB: I hope people learn from the film that ME is a serious disease with a long history of neglect due to sexism, ignorance, and bias; that those of us living with disabilities are complex and human and deserve to be seen; and that we all have the ability to find strength and resilience in ourselves.

Barbecue is currently available to stream on Netflix, Easy Living will play in select theaters on September 15, and Unrest opens in theaters on September 22.

Join Us For SXSW 2018

Grab your Film Badge today for primary access to all SXSW Film events including world premieres, roundtables, workshops, and parties. Register to attend by Friday, October 20 and save before prices go up in November. Make your hotel reservations through SXSW Housing & Travel for the best available rates. We hope to see you in March!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and SXSW News for the latest SXSW coverage, announcements, application tips, and updates.

The post Filmmaker In Focus: Barbecue, Easy Living, and Unrest appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

September 17, 2017

‘It’ Lives Again, ‘mother!’ Dies at Box Office

Stephen King’s mighty “It” is single-handedly reviving box office totals after a bleak late summer. It is rare for the second weekend of a hit film to provide the majority of the gross for the time period, but that’s what Warner Bros. achieved on the horror flick’s second weekend. While not as dominant as it was in its September record initial three days, $60 million represented barely more than a 50 per cent drop. Not bad.

With almost $219 million in the till so far and a strong hold, forget $300 million as an ultimate domestic total — $350 million now looks possible. “It” is already the third-biggest modern-day September release ever after only ten days. It will soar past “Rush Hour” by next weekend, and end up almost certain behind “Crocodile Dundee” (adjusted to current ticket prices, at about $410 million) as best for the month in the era of wide initial releases.

Why ‘mother!’ bombed

On the other hand, Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” marked a challenge for Paramount, which knowingly took on a major risk. Its failure ($7.5 million in 2,368 theaters, F Cinemascore rating despite favorable reviews) will bring much second-guessing about the decision to go wide.

The reality: there was no route for success. When one makes a $30-million film starring Jennifer Lawrence that falls outside of mainstream audience expectations, strong festival play and reviews aren’t enough to propel it to awards. It has no expectations of appealing to most of the artistically conservative older audiences essential for quality films.

That means that the alternative, trying a platform release with a slow word-of-mouth build also carries its own risks. Those include higher expenses, even more attention to initial box office response, and heading deeper into a fall release schedule that will only get more competitive.

Let’s assume Paramount knew the difficulties involved. These likely included expectations of negative audience response. They also had to keep their eye on foreign play and try to open around the world before the negative domestic reaction hurt its chances (it grossed a soft $6 million in its first 16 mostly European foreign territories) and increase awareness in order to get attention for later home viewing options. And at $30-million plus marketing, the studio needs to protect those possibilities. A slow release with a likely even worse wider break could have done more damage.

Personal, non-mass audience films from top auteurs are tricky. Five years ago Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” opened limited to about $150,000 per theater platform dates, then expanded two weeks later to lackluster wider results (about $16 million total eventually). Aronofsky himself saw failure with “The Fountain” which went wide initially in 2006, with only $3.8 million initially (in 1,472 theaters). He rebounded with Oscar contenders “The Wrestler” and “Black Swan.”

The state of the box office

This weekend’s Top Ten Total would have qualified before last week as the second-biggest September gross ever (just behind “Rush Hour” adjusted at $62 million). The 51 per cent drop — below average for most $100 million-plus openings and terrific for a horror film (the genre usually falls more than others) — was boosted by post-hurricane reopening Florida theaters, but even so it’s is terrific.

The recent surge has reduced 2017’s gross shortfall from last year to about five per cent. It still will be a steep uphill climb to equal last year (full weeks will need to average about $27 million each to accomplish that feat, but is down from the $30 million per week number needed before “It” arrived).

Lionsgate

Two new releases had more normal numbers for September (i.e., under $15 million — last year three wide new films grossed just $8 million to $9.5 million). The action thriller “American Assassin” (CBS Films/Lionsgate), starring recent “Spider-Man” villain Michael Keaton, did a credible $14.8 million. That’s second only to “It” among new releases over the last four weeks. The gross is similar to Lionsgate’s  first “John Wick” three years ago, which went on with good word of mouth to do well enough (particularly internationally) to justify a sequel. Indie Michael Cuesta (“12 and Holding”), who in recent years has been a major creative part of “Homeland,” with this film is trying to recreate a more sophisticated than usual action film.

Holdovers

Overall the rest of the holdovers in the Top Ten held better than usual with less competition from Hurricane Irma and the NFL, not to mention wide openers, which only grossed $23 million.

Of note is “Wind River” (Weinstein), which at $29 million has surpassed last year’s Oscar-contender “Hell or High Water,” also written by Taylor Sheridan, who added directing this time around. “Wind River” did boast a much wider and expensive release, and should make it to at least $35 million.

The Top Ten

1. It (Warner Bros.) Week 2; Last weekend #1

$60,000,000 (-51%) in 4,148 theaters (+45); PTA (per theater average): $14,465; Cumulative: $218,711,000

2. American Assassin (Lionsgate) NEW – Cinemascore: B+; Metacritic: 46; Est. budget: $33 million

$14,800,000 in 3,154 theaters; PTA: $4,692; Cumulative: $14,800,000

3. mother! (Paramount) NEW – Cinemascore: F; Metacritic: 75; Est. budget: $30 million

$7,500,0003,167 in 2,368 theaters; PTA: $; Cumulative: $7,500,000

4. Home Again (Open Road) Week 2; Last weekend #

$5,334,000 (-38%) in 3,036 theaters (+96); PTA: $1,757; Cumulative: $17,135,000

5. Hitman’s Bodyguard (Lionsgate) Week 5; Last weekend #

$3,550,000 (-26%) in 3,272 theaters (-50); PTA: $1,085; Cumulative: $70,357,000

6. Annabelle: Creation (Warner Bros.) Week 6; Last weekend #

$2,600,000 (-35%) in 2,117 theaters (-886); PTA: $1,228; Cumulative: $99,900,000

7. Wind River (Weinstein) Week 7; Last weekend #

$2,554,000 (-18%) in 2,619 theaters (-271); PTA: $975; Cumulative: $29,122,000

8. Leap! (Weinstein) Week 4; Last weekend #

$2,118,000 (-13%) in 2,416 theaters (-275); PTA: $877; Cumulative: $18,660,000

9. Spider-Man: Homecoming (Sony) Week 11; Last weekend #

$1,875,000 (-7%) in 1,436 theaters (-221); PTA: $1,306; Cumulative: $330,262,000

10. Dunkirk (Warner Bros.) Week 9; Last weekend #

$1,305,000 (-30%) in 1,478 theaters (-632); PTA: $883; Cumulative: $185,142,000

Source: IndieWire film