Sarah Polley on her Astonishing new Documentary Stories We Tell

Once known primarily for her work as a child actress, as of late, Sarah Polley has distinguished herself as a writer and director, first, on 2006’s Away From Her, and then again with 2011’s Take This Waltz. This month marks Polley’s debut as a documentarian. In Stories We Tell, the Oscar nominee uses recollections of her late mother,

Jane Campion, Cannes, & the Power of the Short Film

Short films have figured prominently in the Cannes official selection from the Festival’s earliest days, with a jury awarding a Palme d’Or (and occasionally, Jury and Grand Prix prizes) to that year’s most successful short. Famous past winners include Jim Jarmusch’s 1993 Palme d’Or for Coffee and Cigarettes (Somewhere in California), which was later expanded into a feature-length portmanteau comprising 11 interlinked stories, and British director Lynne Ramsay’s 1996 and 1998 Jury Prize wins for her shorts Small Deaths and Gasman (Ramsay sits on the jury of the main competition this year).

Heavyweight American Films Populate the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival

The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival is nearly upon us. Running from May 15th to the 26th, the Festival has already been praised for a well-curated lot of films drawn from an eclectic mix of established and rising international filmmakers. This year’s competition films seem a placid bunch, likely to garner more reflection and praise than controversy, but with one of the most Hollywood- and American- leaning competition slates and jury committees in recent years,

Trailer Talk: Evaluating What’s Coming out in Three Minutes or Less

The end of this week saw the release of trailers for several of next fall’s most hotly anticipated film releases. Here’s our take on what to expect based on our extensive deep dives into their sub-three minute trailers…

The World’s End

Is it lazy to just write about films in terms of those that have come before them? What about writing about two movies that haven’t come out yet?

Eli Roth on Aftershock, Learning to Love Horror, and Woody Allen

Brilliant, demented horror master Eli Roth — the Frank Sinatra of The Splat Pack — is ready to make the next round of moviegoers barf, thanks to Aftershock, a shock fest that chronicles the hell-on-earth circumstances that befall coastal Valparaiso, Chile, after an earthquake levels the town. While the film is helmed by Chilean director Nicolás López, Roth produces and stars, playing a hapless American who goes from partying and chasing girls to worrying about collapsing nightclubs and escaped prisoners. 

The Greatest Gatsby: Before Leo,There was Redford

When Paramount purchased the film rights to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel for $350,000 (more than fifty times what the author earned for the book in his lifetime), studio head Robert Evans had no way of knowing just how different the 1974 film would look from his original vision. For a story that’s all about dwelling on the past, on the eve of Baz Luhrmann’s latest 'Great Gatsby' interpretation, it seems fitting to look back on the making of the Robert Redford-Mia Farrow film,

Golden Age of Documentaries: A Q&A With Filmmaker Jamie Meltzer

Documentarian Jamie Meltzer knows how to pick his subject matter. Take his award-winning film Informant, which took home the Grand Jury Award at the DocNYC Festival as well as Best Documentary at the Austin Film Festival. Informant examines the life of Brandon Darby, a radical leftist activist turned FBI informant. Darby became a hero when he traveled to a Hurricane Katrina-ravaged New Orleans and braved toxic floodwaters to rescue a friend of his stranded in the Ninth Ward.

From Soldier to Filmmaker: Q&A With The Iceman Director Ariel Vromen

How does an 'extreme' special unit Israeli Air Force soldier, law student and world-traveling DJ become a successful director working with some of the country’s biggest stars?  Here’s the circuitous route Ariel Vromen took on his path from performing military maneuvers in Israel and reading dense law texts in England to getting behind the camera. Vromen faced an endless string of challenges to get his latest project, The Iceman,

Drawing Inspiration: Sketching With the Storyboard Artists of Oblivion

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) heads down to planet Earth — or what’s left of it anyway — to find a downed surveillance drone that has landed in the charred remnants of the New York Public Library’s Rose Reading Room. It’s only when Harper hits the ground of this cavernous space that he realizes he’s entered a trap. Someone — or something — wants to capture this drone repairman alive.

Whether he’s rappelling into a forgotten old library,

CinemaCon Showcase: Twentieth Century Fox’s Upcoming Film Releases

So we’ve gotten a peek at Paramount, Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and Sony Pictures upcoming slate of films during our time at CinemaCon.

Here’s a trailer roundup for you from Twentieth Century Fox, which includes a good cross section of animation, comedies, and big-time action blockbusters.

Epic (May 24)

This 3D animated adventure directed by Chris Wedge and based on William Joyce’s children’s book “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs”

The Sky’s the Limit: Cinematography’s Technological Revolution

Just as smart phones and tablets are changing the way we experience daily life, other technologies are dramatically shifting the cinematic landscape. Directors today can harness these tools in order to express their artistic vision on the screen as never before. We spoke with two of the most significant players in this field in order to find out what’s possible now, and what we can expect to see in the future.

3D moves beyond ‘next big thing’

Writer-Director Derek Cianfrance on The Place Beyond the Pines

Ryan Gosling may have recently suggested that he is taking a break from acting, but fans can still find solace in this weekend’s release of The Place Beyond the Pines, a triptych that reunites him with Blue Valentine writer-director Derek Cianfrance.

The cops and robbers caper—costarring Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, and Ray Liotta—traces the ramifications caused when Gosling’s character, a drifter-cum-motorcycle stunt driver,

511 Days of Total Darkness: The Incredible True Story Behind the Documentary No Place on Earth

In 1993, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, NYPD officer and caving enthusiast Chris Nicola set out to Western Ukraine to explore Verteba and the Priest’s Grotto Cave, one of the longest cave systems in the world. Inside the caves—dark, damp, and stifling, wholly inhospitable to human life—he found the unthinkable: buttons, shoes, a house key, artifacts of human habitation decidedly recent. Upon returning from the caves, his attempts at discovering the origins of these items led him to only the offhand comment from a local villager that,

Documentary Filmmaker Andrew Jenks Makes Compassion Cool on MTV’s World of Jenks

Andrew Jenks wasn’t the first free spirit to drop out of college. He also wasn’t the first to do it despite having two successful parents, one of whom currently serves as the Assistant Secretary General for the United Nations. But he was certainly the first to go from the halls of NYU straight into an assisted living facility, where the documentary he shot, Andrew Jenks, Room 335, was quickly acquired by HBO,

Can We Predict The Oscars? Social Media Reveals Who The Public’s Rooting For

They are known as quants (short for ‘quantitative analyst), and their undisputed supreme leader, at least in the public’s perception, is Nate Silver. You’ve heard of Silver, the man who went from relative obscurity before the 2008 presidential election to a household name thanks to his pinpoint accuracy predicting the last two presidential elections.

Quants are not just employed to help us figure out who the next Commander in Chief is going to be,

Celebrate The Other Oscar Nominees – You Know, The Ones Ryan Seacrest Likely Won’t Interview

Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director–these might be the most anticipated categories of the Oscars, but this year, let's celebrate the other half.  After all, the year's best films wouldn't stand a chance without the genius nominees in less-publicized realms like Production Design, Cinematography, Makeup/Hairstyle, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.

Here at The Credits, we love all parts of film, which is why we created this infographic to celebrate the many industry icons who are making big waves (but perhaps not big red carpet debuts) at this year's 85th Academy Awards.

Talking With Malik Bendjelloul, Director of Oscar Nominated Documentary Searching for Sugar Man

A surprise hit at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize for Best International Documentary, first time filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man opened last summer to strong critical reviews and robust commercial success. The story of singer-songwriter Rodriguez, from his late 1960s emergence from the streets of Detroit; his startling and strange success in South Africa during the waning days of Apartheid in the 70s and 80s;

An Evening with Dror Moreh, Oscar Nominated Director of the Documentary The Gatekeepers

Dror Moreh’s stunning, sobering documentary The Gatekeepers is told from a remarkable point of view, or views, rather. Moreh managed to get six former directors of the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, to speak to him for hours–on the record. The Shin Bet is, as the Los Angeles Times described the organization,  "a combination of the CIA and the FBI.” The agency was created after the Six Day War of 1967,

How Would Lubitsch Do It? A Valentine’s Day Ode to the Classic Rom-Com

It’s Valentine’s Day, which means there’s a good chance you and your special someone might want to catch the latest lighthearted romantic comedy—but right now, there’s not much out that qualifies as such. Sure there is Silver Linings Playbook and Warm  Bodies, two recent (and well executed) genre twists on the rom-com, but “light hearted” they are not. The former, up for 8 Academy Awards, is wonderful but dark,

We Are Living in a Star Wars Universe

The film world was riveted with the news that J.J. Abrams, perhaps the most logical successor to George Lucas for the Star Wars franchise, would direct Star Wars: Episode VII. As it’s been widely (and breathlessly) reported, Abrams has already successfully rebooted a space franchise with the release his 2009 Star Trek, which was a critical and commercial success.

Abrams admitted to Entertainment Weekly that he was more of Star Wars fan growing up.