Independent Films

Filmmaker Magazine

• Do You Love Me Reassembles Lebanon’s Cultural Memory July 14, 2026
  Lana Daher’s debut feature, Do You Love Me (2026), is a kaleidoscopic exploration of Lebanon’s cultural memory. The Beirut-based multidisciplinary artist drew from 70 years of found footage and archival material to assemble this visceral 76-minute portrait of Lebanese history, which premiered at Venice Days and is now playing at Metrograph in New York. Daher stitches together clips […]
  Lauren Wissot
• Full Sail University Teams Sweep All Three Major Awards in Coca-Cola Refreshing Films Program [Sponsored] July 14, 2026
  Full Sail University teams swept the competition in the 2026 Coca-Cola Refreshing Films program, earning top honors across the nationwide filmmaking contest. Alongside a Red Ribbon Panel Grand Prize Award win for the graduate team’s Behind the Screens and Best Music Composition honors for Full Sail Lab instructor Kevin Kraus, the student team’s What Makes […]
  Filmmaker Staff
• The Emmys’ Locks, Hopefuls, and Snubs July 10, 2026
  This morning, Emmy winners Liza Colón-Zayas (The Bear) and Jeff Hiller (Somebody Somewhere, nominated again this year for his guest role in Pluribus) announced the nominees for the 78th Emmy Awards, which will be handed out across three ceremonies (one for primetime categories, two for creative arts) in September. And despite a packed TV season with […]
  Tyler Coates
• Take Care: Georgia Bernstein on Night Nurse July 10, 2026
  I could tell by the title sequence alone—the camera gliding along a body, following the path of a telephone cord—that Night Nurse (2026) would not be like the other movies I had been seeing at Sundance. While the festival in aggregate leans toward safe picks, Night Nurse, which premiered in the NEXT competition, is anything but. The film […]
  Alex Lei
• The Los Angeles Film School: Craft your story, leave a legacy [Sponsored] July 8, 2026
  There’s no industry more sought after than entertainment. Industry hopeful dream of being top-tier directors, thought-provoking screenwriters, or successful producers. The main obstacle is knowing where to start and how to build foundational skills on gear and procedures used on major production sets. Since 1999, The Los Angeles (L.A.) Film School has developed the next […]
  Filmmaker Staff
• Scary Movie and the Wayans’ Spoof Empire July 2, 2026
  The latest installment in the Scary Movie franchise is the sixth, though the numeral is pointedly left off the title. This is a form of protest. The Wayans family collectively disowned the three films made in their absence—Scary Movie 3 through 5 (2003, 2006, 2013)—after a compensation dispute with the Weinsteins in 2001, a grievance which became the subject […]
  Abe Beame
• “We’re Magnifying Stupid”: Jeff Tremaine on Jackass: Best and Last June 30, 2026
  In Jackass: Best and Last (2026), some of the cast get unexpectedly wistful about the possibility that this will be the final chapter of the brilliantly sophomoric series. The man who has been behind the camera and orchestrating the madness from the start, director Jeff Tremaine, has been feeling a bit emotional about it, too. “I really […]
  Tim Grierson
• Fix Your Heart or Die: Adrian Chiarella on Leviticus June 22, 2026
  Leviticus (2026), Adrian Chiarella’s debut feature, begins with an archetypal horror image: a “little death” that begets a big one. In this cold open, a lesbian lifeguard succumbs to the lubricious persuasions of an invisible lover in a poolside shower, a moment of illicit pleasure that ends in her murder. The sinister seducer, which appears […]
  Alexander Mooney
• Slow Burn: Dispatch from Cannes June 19, 2026
  The wearied refrain—Cannes 2026 was a ho-hum edition, no masterpieces to see here, take the earlier flight home—obscured the quiet revolution taking place in film after film. This was a year of stories that build: All of a Sudden, The Dreamed Adventure, and La Gradiva are accumulative works, beautifully wrought and devastating in different ways, […]
  Nicolas Rapold
• Live From Cine Gear Expo 2026 June 18, 2026
  If NAB Show seems to inspire a mini–existential crisis in me each year, as I am forced to reckon with cinema’s diminishing relevance amidst other growth arenas in video, Cine Gear Expo invites more optimistic vibes with its film focus and Hollywood backlot setting. Cine Gear acts as a two-day gathering of Los Angeles cinematographers, gaffers, and […]
  Caleb Hammond