Every Friday I write a free newsletter that’s a riff on various topics — filmmaker sustainability, the health of our ecosystem, new players and ideas, the plight of the producer, the rise of AI and more are frequent subjects. This week, I used the newsletter to announce two upcoming events, our new issue, and my news that after the next issue in September I’ll be stepping down as Editor-in-Chief after 33 years. Read all of this below, and if you’d like to sign up to the newsletter, which I’ll be writing for almost three more months, you can do so here. — Scott Macaulay, Editor-in-Chief
I’m starting the newsletter this week with notice of a couple of free events for Filmmaker readers. The first is an online seminar on distribution with the heads of four new and inspiring theatrical distributors in collaboration with Jon Reiss and his 8 Above. I’ll be talking with Jon and the heads of Cartuna x Dweck, Muscle, Watermelon and Willa. They all value the role of theatrical, and they are all innovating when it comes to marketing, audience outreach and impact. Learn more about them as well as today’s distribution landscape in general next Wednesday, June 25, at 2PM Eastern. You can register for free here.
Also, our Filmmaker Presents series at New York’s Paris Theater continues on Monday, June 23 (the day before election day) with Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding. The picture was our Winter, 2002 cover story, and I’m excited to watch it again on the big screen. The house is almost full, but we have a few free tickets left for Filmmaker readers. [Filmmaker newsletter subscribers can find the link for free tickets in their inboxes.]
I’ve edited this magazine since co-founding it in 1992, and sometimes, when hearing a pitch I think to myself, “Oh, we’ve already done that.” But more lately I check myself and think, “Yeah, we did that before half our readers were even born!” So, I always try to remind myself to not dismiss the energies and simple advice found in our earliest issues — to not assume that everyone knows everything. The the distribution seminar above, for example, is a companion event to a feature spotlighting the four companies that appears in Filmmaker’s new print edition, which just went online and is on its way to mailboxes and bookstores. (Thank you, as always, to Charlotte Gosch for her beautiful designs.) The distributor profiles are the kind of piece we did a lot of in the early days of Filmmaker — industry coverage of the newest companies, not the established players — and it felt really nice to return to that in an issue that has other old-school callbacks as well. Micro and ultra-low-budget filmmaking has been a through-line across Filmmaker’s history, and we have two articles that I hope new filmmakers will find helpful and inspiring. Alex Lei writes about how multi-hyphenate Callie Hernandez rented an idiosyncratically designed house in the Berkshires during the pandemic and used it as a studio to jumpstart four striking features and shorts. And Max Cea walks you through, step-by-step, his process of learning by doing as he produced his first feature. (I make a cameo appearance, on the subway, dispensing advice I have repeated ad nauseum since James Schamus gave it to me over 30 years ago.)
Of course, there’s plenty in the issue that could only have been written in 2025, including Caleb Hammond’s piece on how film students and film schools are reacting to various forms of AI, from incorporating it into their work to writing petitions and organizing against it. Dan Mirvish writes about the big issues facing film schools in the current climate. James N. Kienitz Wilkins discusses the link between teaching and hypocracy. And Anthony Kaufman writes about Future Film Coalition, an all-volunteer group formed to advocate for independent film amidst the “business practices and consolidation of today’s corporate entertainment industry.” Joanne McNeil writes about the resurgence of interest in EZTV, an experimental LA video group that sprang up in the ’80s. (Their work, actually, is being distributed by one our our profiled companies above, Muscle.) And Deniz Tortum has a truly fascinating piece about how our dreams are Big Tech’s final frontier.
Our cover is another multi-hyphenate, Eva Victor, who discusses her sensitive and unexpected story of friendship amidst the aftermath of trauma, Sorry, Baby, with Nic Rapold. This year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic winner, it’s out from A24 on June 27. Vadim Rizov interviews Wes Anderson about The Phoenician Scheme, and two 25 New Faces — Ephraim Asili and Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich — discuss between them Hunt-Ehrlich’s in-release The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire. Amalia Ulman goes birding with Lili Taylor in Central Park, and unpaywalled now is director Sofia Bohdanowicz’s conversation with Sarah Friedland about her elegant and wise Venice-winning depiction of aging and memory loss, Familiar Touch, opening today from Music Box. And there’s much more of course, which I will let you find..
Finally, and in keeping with the reminiscing above, I’m ending the newsletter this week by sharing what is known in the business as “some news.” Filmmaker’s next print edition will be the 25 New Faces issue, our 33rd anniversary, and my last as Editor-in-Chief. Earlier this year I told our publisher, The Gotham, that I’ll be stepping down in the Fall. After over three decades, and with the magazine strong and having survived so many adversities befalling print publications over the years, the timing just felt right for me to direct my creative energies in new directions while settling into the role of Filmmaker reader rather than Editor.
It’s been a distinct privilege for me, alongside our smart and talented writers and staff, to chronicle and champion the work of so many inspiring independent filmmakers through these 33 years of innovation and change. Thanks to all of them, and thank you to our current Director of Editorial Operations, Vadim Rizov, for all of his vital creative and editorial work throughout this past decade. As for me personally, I’m looking forward to producing more, other writing projects and, remaining engaged with cinema — just without all the writing deadlines and late-night issue proofing.
I’ll have much more to share in the weeks ahead — in this newsletter and especially in my final issue, which will be a great one. Thanks, as always, for reading, and see you next week.
Best,
Scott Macaulay
Editor-in-Chief