A federal tax credit?
Apr. 4 — Happy Friday! Today, we’re talking tax credits. As I’m sure anyone working in the U.S. film industry knows, it’s getting harder and harder to get work lately, with so many big productions moving across the pond to the U.K., where incentives have gotten much more lucrative.
U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) is arguing for a baseline 15 percent national incentive program – one that would provide additional incentives for productions that relocate to the U.S. from elsewhere. That’s all well and good, but recently he jumped on an episode of The Town with Matt Belloni to discuss the challenges of getting such an incentive passed.
Schiff talked about the importance of bipartisan support, which these days feels utterly impossible. Schiff sounded optimistic, but this conversation – which covers incentives and the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger – made me feel less than optimistic. Unless someone (ahem, ahem!) decides to go on a posting spree in support of it soon.
Schiff and Belloni focus a lot on L.A., but I think anyone making movies in the U.S. should be up to date on what’s happening (and not happening) at the federal level to affect their livelihoods. The title of this podcast episode is “Can D.C. save Hollywood?” Given how impossible it seems for Congress to do anything good lately, I don’t know if the answer to that is yes. But we’ll be keeping an eye on it here.
Without further ado … Action!
👂 “A Body To Live In,” the first feature film made about the performance artist Fakir Musafar, will screen on April 7 at the Plaza Theatre.
✊ Emory’s departments of Film and Media and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies are hosting a screening called “Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy” at the Plaza Theatre on April 7, featuring 10 short films.
🇫🇷 Paratime, a new Atlanta screening series dedicated to avant-garde films that bend perception, will debut on April 16 with a screening of Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” at the Tara Theatre.
🎭 “blueprint,” a short play and film festival, will host its second annual event May 7-9 in East Point.
👋 The indie distributor Row K Entertainment has been through a slew of troubles recently, including the exits of President Megan Colligan and Chief Marketing Officer Ben Carlson just seven months after the company launched. Now, they’ve canceled their appearance at the upcoming CinemaCon convention.
🍿 The Oscars will move from the Dolby Theatre, where they’ve been held since 2022, to the much-larger Peacock Theater at L.A. Live starting in 2029.
This week’s newsletter is a big one, featuring two interviews with filmmakers, one about a local documentary about “The American Music Show,” and one about the new film “Palestine 36.” Plus, I sat in on a press conference with the filmmaker and journalists behind the new Mubi documentary “My Undesirable Friends,” and we’ve got two movie reviews – “The Drama” and “Two Prosecutors.” Also take a look at what’s playing in theaters this week, a new edition of Spotlight, and some reading and listening recommendations for your lunch break.
Thanks for reading!
Sammie
🥂 Taste of Atlanta is celebrating its 25th Anniversary with an epic night of two dozen chef-driven tastings, craft cocktails, wine and beer tastes, live music, and electric energy! April 16 from 6 to 10 p.m. at The Works. Tickets are on sale here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Documentary about ‘The American Music Show’ gets a refresh for April 5 screening
🏳️🌈 In 2017, filmmaker Matt Terrell, with help from Out on Film, created a documentary exploring the history of “The American Music Show,” a weekly variety show that ran on public access television in Atlanta from 1981 to 2005.
“The American Music Show” was created by Dick Richards along with collaborators Potsy Duncan, Bud Lowry, and James Bond. The show wasn’t explicitly branded as a gay show during its run, but the final product is proudly queer and unapologetically Southern. The show became a home for underground creatives, allowing queer artists, drag performers, punk artists, and the like to reach the mainstream for the first time.
Almost 10 years later, Terrell is re-releasing a new version of his film, “Three Decades of Queer Atlanta: The American Music Show,” on April 5 at the Tara Theatre.
💄 Click here to read my interview with Terrell about the re-release.
Don’t miss THE event of the spring – Move For Grady!
SPONSORED BY GRADY HEALTH FOUNDATION
🏃 It’s time to register for Move For Grady on April 25, Atlanta’s best ride/run/walk event supporting Grady! Choose one of three fully supported cycling routes or 5K or 10K run/walk courses that will show you Atlanta from a new point of view. Then stay to celebrate with great food, drinks and music at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium.
❤️ Move For Grady raises funds to support Grady’s mission to build a healthier Atlanta. Register today, start training and join the party on April 25!
Annemarie Jacir and the critical moment of ‘Palestine 36’
🇵🇸 In January of 2023, filmmaker Annemarie Jacir began pre-production for her movie “Palestine 36” – the crew was sewing costumes, restoring villages, and prepping a slew of locations across the county of Palestine that would serve as a backdrop for the period epic.
But, after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military invasion of Gaza, the production was forced to shut down and relocate to Jordan. For Jacir, the experience of continuing to make the film – which eventually completed shooting in Palestine, but stopped and started four times in the process – was one of the hardest and most painful things she had ever done.
But, the cast and crew kept pushing forward, determined to finish what would be an important document of Palestinian resistance against colonialism. Ahead of the film’s release in Atlanta, I spoke with Jacir about the making of the film.
🎥 Check out our conversation here.
‘My Undesirable Friends’ documents Russian journalists in peril in real time
🇷🇺 In 2021, filmmaker Julia Loktev went to Russia with the intention of making a film documenting the country’s ever-growing list of “foreign agents” – a list of people and organizations the government deems “under foreign influence.”
The designation is often used to stigmatize journalists, NGOs, and groups that go against President Vladimir Putin and the government, and in 2021, the list was growing like mad. So, Loktev began documenting, with nothing but her iPhone, a group of journalists in Moscow.
However, while “My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow” might have started out as a deep dive into the difficulty and danger of being a journalist in Moscow, it became a document that captured history in real time. Loktev captured the mood in Moscow during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, following these journalists as, one by one, they made the harrowing decision to leave their home and their work for their own safety. The five-part documentary will begin streaming on Mubi on April 3.
🗞️ I attended a press conference where Loktev and a few of the journalists featured in the documentary talked about their experiences. You can check that out here.
Performativity and perception are our ruination in ‘The Drama’
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
💒 Early on in “The Drama,” Charlie (Robert Pattinson) and Emma (Zendaya) are practicing for the first dance at their wedding. They’re doing one of those old-timey, heavily choreographed routines. You know the type – the kind where you’re too busy thinking about the next step to worry about the fact that everyone is watching you during what’s meant to be an intimate moment.
They’re good, says their dance instructor, but still have a lot of room for improvement. It’s here where Emma breaks, wondering out loud why they can’t just dance normally to a song they love. The whole thing just feels a little performative. The instructor shoots back with the unfortunate truth that all weddings are performative – less about the bride and groom than the hundreds of people they’ve invited to witness just how perfect and in love they are. And for Charlie, that performativity is kind of the point.
There are little nods to Charlie’s obsession with how others see him leading up to the first act reveal in Kristoffer Borgli’s black comedy, the reveal that forces Charlie, for the first time seemingly ever, to consider how he feels about something rather than how the world at large does. When a game of sharing secrets goes a little too far – recontextualizing everything Charlie thought he knew about his beautiful, perfect, kind fiancé – “The Drama” becomes a darkly funny, cringe-tastic and chaotic takedown of humankind’s obsession with the way we’re perceived.
🍷 Read my full review here.
‘Two Prosecutors’ and the bureaucracy of evil
WEEKLY FILM REVIEW
📮 In an early scene in Sergei Loznitsa’s “Two Prosecutors,” there’s a scene between two guards at a Soviet prison. It’s 1937, and the guards are laughing about some joke or another, and then launch into a conversation about whether or not they should allow the new prosecutor – the young, freshly graduated Kornyev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) – to speak to a political prisoner who has requested his presence.
They quickly decide they won’t – or, at least they’ll make it as difficult as possible. Their plan is to just let Kornyev wait. If he’s still there at the end of the day, they’ll deal with it then. Before one guard leaves the other’s office, they bring back up that joke, and once again start cutting up like two schoolboys. But, as soon as the first guard exits the room, leaving the other alone, he just … stops. His laughter dies out, and he sits there, eyes empty, staring straight ahead. It’s almost like with no one there to impress, with no regime to uphold, he just turns off.
This guard is just one in a series of cogs in a machine in “Two Prosecutors,” a slow burn of a political thriller that doesn’t excite, but doesn’t exactly want to. Loznitsa’s film does not offer great exhilaration, but is rather astute about the banal ways in which bureaucracy feeds oppression. Made up of just a few long, dialogue-heavy scenes, “Two Prosecutors” lets the tension slowly, slowly, rise until the dread of where we end up feels inevitable.
🇷🇺 You can read my full review here.
At the Movies!
If you’re looking for a movie to see in theaters this week, here’s what you’ve got to look forward to!
Movies releasing this weekend:
🍄 “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” (pictured)
👰 “The Drama”
🇷🇺 “Two Prosecutors”
🍷 “The Napa Boys”
🇵🇸 “Palestine 36”
👶 “Fantasy Life”
Special Events:
⚰️ “Dead Lover” in Stink-O-Vision @ The Plaza (Friday-Saturday)
🐍 “Chime” + “Serpent’s Path” in 4K @ The Plaza (Friday-Thursday)
⚔️ “Excalibur” @ The Plaza (Saturday-Wednesday)
🎷 “Shadows” @ The Tara (Saturday-Tuesday)
🎭 National Theatre Live: “The Audience” @ The Tara (Saturday-Sunday)
🥂 Taste of Atlanta is celebrating its 25th Anniversary with an epic night of two dozen chef-driven tastings, craft cocktails, wine and beer tastes, live music, and electric energy! April 16 from 6 to 10 p.m. at The Works. Tickets are on sale here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Spotlight: Sope Dirisu in ‘My Father’s Shadow’
Warning: Light spoilers for “My Father’s Shadow” ahead!
🇳🇬 My favorite scene in Akinola Davies Jr.’s “My Father’s Shadow” takes place on a beach. In the scene, Remi (Chibuike Marvellous Egbo) and his father, Folarin (Sope Dirisu) talk about the idea of sacrifice.
Folarin works in Lagos, far away from the village where. his sons, Remi and Akin, live with their mother. His absence is a sacrifice, but it’s one that provides them with money. However, during this conversation with Remi, Folarin insinuates that while he believes that sacrifice is an inescapable part of life, he often worries that he sacrificed the wrong thing. He cries as he goes on, confessing to Remi how much he loves his boys and their mother, and how much he misses them. You believe him – this is a man who wishes he could be home more often.
Fast forward a bit, and Remi has caught his father in a rather compromising position with another woman. Nothing explicit, mind you, but enough heat between them that even little Remi understands that they are not just friends. But, despite this revelation, you still don’t doubt the truth behind everything that Folarin said before – and that’s all due to Sope Dirisu’s performance.
Dirisu’s strength in the role lies in a beautiful combination of power and tenderness. When we first meet him, he’s a bit scary – the introduction is filmed from Remi and Akin’s point of view as they peer around the corner at this unknowable force of nature who has suddenly reappeared into their lives and decided to take them away to Lagos for the day. There’s a real energy about Folarin – just look at the way he walks in the still above, a swing in his step, his chest out and proud.
The beach scene displays a different side of Folarin, as Dirisu slowly strips away the outward posturing to find something deeper and stronger in the character’s vulnerability. It’s a side of himself he’s scared to show his kids – and you can see that fear hiding behind his eyes – but it’s one he’s resolved to make sure they know about. It’s important they see the everyday struggle their father faces, no matter how difficult it is to show. It’s important they know that struggling is a part of life, and it’s okay to live in that space, even as a man.
The allusion to Folarin’s infidelity doesn’t come until after this moment, a complication that Dirisu wears with the appropriate amount of shame. But that complication is also part of the reason I liked this movie as much as I did. Remi seeing how fallible his father is only drives Folarin’s earlier points home. Knowing where the film ends up, you can feel throughout how the weight of Folarin’s mistakes wears on him just by the set of Dirisu’s shoulders. But – however much he fails, however much he sacrifices wrongly – he won’t stop trying.
Lights, Camera, Action!
🏝️ If you’re a “Survivor” fanatic, like me, you might be aware of the chatter going around social media about the lack of screen time on the 50th season for many of the season’s female contestants (Angelina, I will avenge you). I think this piece from Joe Reid effectively outlines the problem, and the performativity of some of the show’s other strides towards progress when compared with this extremely pervasive issue.
❤️ Zendaya and Robert Pattinson appeared on the podcast Modern Love recently to promote “The Drama.” The duo talks about the film, and also answer questions about relationship anxiety in conjunction with their own lives. Take a listen here.
🎥 I really enjoyed this excerpt from “Famesick,” Lena Dunham’s new memoir, published in the New Yorker. I found the moment where she finds her mother’s journals and realizes they are not so different after all to be exceptionally moving – realizing our parents are people too is a fundamental rite of passage, and this particular one is quite lovely.
🖋️ Today’s Scene was edited by Collin Kelley.
