In an anticipated annual announcement, Filmmaker Magazine unveiled its “25 New Faces of Independent Film” today. The 12th annual list spotlights, in the words of the publication, “up-and-comers poised to shape the next generation of independent film.” The complete roster appears in the new issue of Filmmaker Magazine and is available below.
Some of the people selected will attend IFP’s Independent Film Week, taking place Spetember 19 – 24 in New York. Film Week, formerly known as IFP Market, is the founding program of IFP, the oldest and largest forum in the U.S. for the discovery of new projects in development and new voices. IFP publishes Filmmaker.
“Inventive and industrious, the film artists we selected for this year’s 25 New Faces are those who are making exciting work while breaking free of old models of independent film,” commented Filmmaker editor Scott Macaulay in a statement. “They stand out by virtue of their compelling, often boundary-breaking filmmaking, but also by their productivity. In a challenging environment, they are discovering new ways to get noticed and develop their craft while not relying on traditional funders or outlets.”
Past 25 Faces include: Lena Dunham (“Tiny Furniture”), Derek Cianfrance (“Blue Valentine”), Craig Brewer (“Hustle & Flow”), Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (“Half Nelson”), Barry Jenkins (“Medicine for Melancholy”), Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”), Joshua Safdie (“The Pleasure of Being Robbed”) and Peter Sollett (“Raising Victor Vargas”). Notable actors include several high profile names in the early stages of their careers such as Ryan Gosling (“The Believer”), Ellen Page (“Hard Candy”), Peter Sarsgaard (“Another Day in Paradise”) and Hilary Swank (“Boys Don’t Cry”).
For a list of last year’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, click here
Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film for 2010 (with background information provided by the publication):
L.A.-based writer, director and actor Adam Bowers‘ debut comedy, “New Low,” premiered at Sundance, 2010 in the festival’s new NEXT section.
CalArts graduate Jason Byrne‘s experimental documentary “Scrap Vessel” has played numerous festivals this year, including the New York Film Festival’s Views from the Avant Garde program. He is currently working as an audio/visual archivist for the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Rebecca Richman Cohen‘s documentary “War Don Don” won a Special Jury prize at this year’s SXSW and will be broadcast September 29 on HBO.
Sara Colangelo‘s short film “Little Accidents” won the Grand Jury Prize for Narrative Short at the Seattle International Film Festival. She is currently in post-production on a documentary about the band BILL as well as a feature version of her short.
Photojournalist-turned-documentary film director Danfung Dennis is currently in post on his first feature, “Hell and Back Again,” which follows a Marines sergeant from the frontlines in Afghanistan home to North Carolina, where he tries to recover from his injuries and return to his unit.
Trieste Kelly Dunn stars in Aaron Katz’s upcoming “Cold Weather, Zach Clark’s Vacation!,” and Brett Haley’s “The New Year,” for which she received particular acclaim at this year’s Los Angeles Film Festival.
Producer and writer-director Sean Durkin is currently preparing his debut feature, “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” an outgrowth of his recent short, “Mary Last Seen,” which won a prize at this year’s Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
Writer-director Marc Fratello won the Focus Features Best Film Award, the Student Choice Award and an Audience Award for his short film “Babyland” at this year’s Columbia University Film Festival.
Writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green has made several acclaimed shorts, including “Premature,” and he is currently prepping his debut feature, “Gun Hill Road.”
Production designer Jade Healy designed half a dozen upcoming completed features, including happythankyoumoreplease and The Innkeeper in addition to other recent films including “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!” and “Alexander the Last.” She also directed with Kris Swanberg the SXSW feature, “It Was Great, But I Was Ready to Come Home.”
With their collaborative project, “Sparrow Songs”, director and editor Alex Jablonski and D.P. Michael Totten have been making one short documentary film a month and premiering them on their website. They are currently planning their first documentary feature.
Writer-director Arielle Javitch is in post-production on her debut feature, “Look, Stranger,” which was shot in Serbia and stars Anamaria Marinca (“4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”).
The California-based directing team of Robert Machoian and Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck have made 14 shorts, including the Sundance 2010 premiering “Charlie and the Rabbit,” as well as two seasons of an idiosyncratic documentary web series, “American Nobodies.”
Victoria Mahoney, one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Face of Independent Film. Image courtesy of Filmmaker Magazine.After working as an actress, New York-based Victoria Mahoney wrote and directed her debut feature, “Yelling to the Sky.” It stars Zoe Kravitz, Gabourey Sidibe and Tim Blake Nelson, and is currently in post.
Writer-director Julius Onah is currently in production on his debut feature, “The Girl Is In Trouble,” a noir set on New York’s Lower East Side that is executive produced by Spike Lee. His recent cell-phone short, “Goodbye Chicken, Farewell Goat” premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
Writer-director Holden Abigail Osborne‘s short doc-fiction hybrid, “Solitary/Release,” premiered at SXSW this year. It consists of two parts: a doc that chronicles her brother’s return home from prison and then a fictionalized version of the same story starring James Franco.
Baltimore-based writer-director Matt Porterfield‘s features include Hamilton and this year’s “Putty Hill,” which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and is forthcoming in theaters from Cinema Guild.
The directing team of Radical Friend (Julia Grigorian and Kirby McClure) have created music videos for groups like Black Moth Super Rainbow and Yeasayer and are currently working on a giant multi-city media project, “The Digital Flesh,” commissioned by the Creators Project.
Detroit-based writer-director Sultan Sharrief traveled his debut feature, “Bilal’s Stand” to Sundance, Berlin and New Directors/New Films. The film’s cast and crew was comprised of new actors and local youth from the Student EFEX Project, a partnership between Detroit artists, students from the University of Michigan, and metro Detroit high schools.
Nashville-based Brent Stewart premiered his debut feature, “The Colonel’s Bride,” at this year’s Sarasota Film Festival. He also produces films in the south through his company, Nomadic Independence Pictures.
Milwaukee-based writer-director Mike Stoklasa created Star Wars: The Phantom Menace Review, a unique, new kind of online film criticism that has been viewed over 2 million times.
Zac Stuart-Pontier‘s editing credits include the recent Sundance documentary “Catfish,” the Berlin selection Candy Darling, and the SXSW documentary, “NY Export: Opus Jazz.” He also works as an assistant director, most recently on the Cannes title Two Gates of Sleep.
Born in Copenhagen and now based in New York, D.P. Kasper Tuxen has shot music videos for Martin de Thurah, art pieces for Jesper Just and, this year, several American independent features, including the Sundance competition entry 3 Backyards and, upcoming, Mike Mills’ Beginners.
Co-founder of the True/False Film Festival, Missouri-based David Wilson directed this year the well-received short documentary, “Big Birding Day,” and is currently collaborating with fellow documentarian A.J. Schnack on a Branson, Missouri-shot film.
Brooklyn-born, Amsterdam-based writer-director Susan Youssef recently attended the IFP Narrative Lab with her debut feature “Habibi Rasak Kharban,” the first film to be set in Gaza in the last 15 years. She is currently in post-production.
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