Guest Column

Remote Area Medical Filmmakers Respond to Closing of Free Clinic

Wed, 11/19/2014 - 15:06 -- Nick Dager

Editor’s Note: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office turned down an offer from the group Remote Area Medical to offer free health care to thousands of New Yorker’s the day after Thanksgiving. Filmmakers Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman have made a documentary about Remote Area Medical, which opens in New York on November 28. They published an open letter in response. Here is their letter:

Don’t Say Drones

Mon, 08/04/2014 - 11:36 -- James Mathers

[Editor’s Note: This article is excerpted from the Digital Cinema Society eNewsletter, July 2014, and is published with the author’s permission.]
The world is abuzz with talk of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and in order to avoid conjuring up images of CIA missile strikes, or NSA spying, I’ll avoid using their more common name – drone. The technological and commercial promise of this mode of aviation seems boundless. Amazon talks of delivering packages this way someday soon. Someday you might order a pizza and a UAV will make a beeline navigating by GPS over traffic right to your door. But as things stand today, professional filmmakers in the United States are not allowed to use UAVs on a movie shoot.

Close Encounters of the Implosion Kind

Mon, 06/24/2013 - 11:08 -- Nick Dager

[Editors Note: As has been widely reported, in recent weeks filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh have predicted that Hollywood will implode if the major studios continue to invest only in tent-pole movies and endless sequels. In a guest column Russ Collins, artistic director of the Cinetopia Festival, CEO of Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater and director of the Art House Convergence, takes exception.] Steven Spielberg is a gifted filmmaker whose impact on the art and business of cinema is arguably peerless. Steven Soderbergh is a gifted and important filmmaker. The aesthetic and financial success of both Stevens is unquestioned. However, both of these cinema icons have come out with almost bitter assessments of the future of movies recently. I believe these assessments are wrongheaded. Maybe it’s because the pessimistic assessments come from these two cinema idols that it makes me sad and a little mad.

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