Pictures of promise: 10 young American moviemakers to watch
Lynn Shelton
The Seattle-based director is a leading exponent from the mumblecore, movement, a group of film-makers who make tiny-budget movies that focus on personal relationships. Her third film, Humpday, about two male friends who decide to make a porn film after a dare on a drunken night out, won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance. The 37-year-old also writes, edits and acts.
Ben and Joshua Safdie
Go Get Some Rosemary is the first film that the Safdie brothers, Ben (27) and Joshua (25), do not appear in themselves, though it is an autobiographical tale about two young boys trying to cope with their parents’ divorce. Joshua, also a successful stand-up comedian, features in several of their films, including the award-winning The Pleasure of Being Robbed, which is about a quirky young kleptomaniac called Eléonore making her way around New York, stealing grapes, cars and kittens along the way.
Ryan Fleck
Raised in California, Fleck moved to Brooklyn following his graduation from NYU. His critically acclaimed debut feature, Half Nelson, about a crack-addicted teacher going off the rails, earned its star, Ryan Gosling, an Oscar nomination. Fleck, who works with his long-term partner, producer-director Anna Boden, followed its success with the baseball drama Sugar, about a rookie player from the Dominican Republic trying to make it in the big league.
Emily Abt
Abt came to prominence with her documentary Take it from Me in 2001. Her work, including 2008’s All of Us, about the high number of black women in the South Bronx with HIV/Aids, examines social issues. Her fictional feature debut, Toe to Toe, focuses on a young black high-school student embarrassed by her poor background after she wins a scholarship to a prep school.
Miranda July
The 35-year-old artist Miranda July (main picture, above) picked up awards from Cannes to Sundance for her critically-acclaimed debut, Me and You and Everyone We Know. A writer, director, musician and actress, she’s appeared in videos for bands, written books and curated exhibitions. Her visually-playful style gave Me and You a unique look. She’s working on her second feature, Satisfaction, in which she stars.
Ramin Bahrani
The eminent critic Roger Ebert declared Ramin Bahrani “the new great American film director” on the strength of the 34-year-old’s films about the downside of the American dream: Man Push Cart, about a Pakistani rock star who is frustrated in his work as a New York coffee vendor; Chop Shop, set in Queens’ Latino community; and Goodbye Solo, which focuses on a Senegalese cab driver’s relationship with a white Southerner in North Carolina.
David Gordon Green
Martin Scorsese often says that he needs to make one for the studio and one for himself. Still, it was something of a surprise when David Gordon Green, the cerebral 34-year-old director of George Washington and Undertow, agreed to helm Pineapple Express, Judd Apatow’s 2008 stoner comedy starring Seth Rogen. In doing so, though, he defied pigeonholing and proved that he’s every bit as comfortable grappling with big-budget genre comedies as he is making movies set in depressed small-town America.
Barry Jenkins
His compelling 2008 debut, Medicine for Melancholy, a love story set in the 24 hours after a one-night-stand, had hints of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It about it. The San Francisco-based film-maker, originally from Miami, is now hotly tipped as a director to watch out for.
Alex Holdridge
Born in the South’s film-making mecca of Austin, Texas, the 34-year-old Alex Holdridge had to wait until his third offering, In Search of a Midnight Kiss, a quirky black-and-white romance set in LA, before he was embraced outside of the festival circuit. Holdridge spent four years working on his debut film, Wrong Numbers, released in 2001, and followed it with another low-budget feature, Sexless, after he struggling to finance a big-budget remake of Wrong Numbers. He now lives in LA.
Matt Bissonnette
Almost American: born in Toronto, Bissonnette now lives and makes movies out of his adopted home in Los Angeles. His latest offering, Passenger Side (which stars his brother Joel), a black comedy featuring two siblings on a road trip in LA, confirms the promise of his two previous efforts, Looking for Leonard and Who Loves the Sun. While his first works were compared to early Hal Hartley, his most recent effort was likened to a highbrow Judd Apatow movie following its generally well-received premiere at the LA Film Festival last month.
