Joseph Swanberg is an American independent filmmaker. Known for micro-budget films which make extensive use of improvisation, Swanberg is considered a major figure in the mumblecore film movement. His films often focus on relationships, sex, technology, and the filmmaking process. He is also known for his collaboration with Greta Gerwig.
Belladonna of Sadness is a 1973 Japanese adult animated art film produced by the animation studio Mushi Production and distributed by Nippon Herald Films. It is the third and final entry in Mushi Production's adult-oriented Animerama trilogy, following A Thousand and One Nights (1969) and Cleopatra (1970); It follows the story of Jeanne, a peasant woman who makes a faustian deal with the devil after she is raped by the local nobility on the night of her wedding day.
The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival is known for its close relationship with John Waters, who is on the festival's board of directors and selects a favorite film to host within each year of the festival.
Paul Korver is an American entrepreneur, filmmaker, and producer, who currently resides in Los Angeles. With early turns as an actor in his twenties, in 2002 he returned to his early love of cinematography, founding Fifty Foot Films and later Cinelicious.
Sarah Small is a Brooklyn-based American artist, composer, singer, filmmaker, photographer, and performer featured on Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble's GRAMMY-Winning album, Sing Me Home. She is known for her photographic and Tableau Vivant performance series The Delirium Constructions, singing as part of the Balkan vocal trio Black Sea Hotel, acting as the protagonist in the feature film Butter on the Latch by Josephine Decker, and directing the musical album, new music opera performance, and feature film Secondary Dominance.
A Horrible Way to Die is a 2010 American horror film directed and edited by Adam Wingard, written by co-producer Simon Barrett, and starring A. J. Bowen, Amy Seimetz, Joe Swanberg, Brandon Carroll, and Lane Hughes. The story follows an escaped serial killer as he chases down his recovering alcoholic ex-girlfriend who is responsible for his incarceration. The film had its world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival Vanguard program where it was picked up for distribution by Anchor Bay Entertainment. It also played at Fantastic Fest where it received three major awards: Best Screenplay for Simon Barrett, Best Actor for A. J. Bowen and Best Actress for Amy Seimetz.
Knight of Cups is a 2015 American experimental drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and produced by Nicolas Gonda, Sarah Green and Ken Kao. The film features an ensemble cast, starring Christian Bale as the central character.
Matthew "Matt" Porterfield is an American independent filmmaker. He has made four feature films to date, Hamilton (2006), Putty Hill (2011), I Used to Be Darker (2013) and Sollers Point (2017). Putty Hill and I Used to Be Darker had their international premieres at the Berlin International Film Festival. All of his features have had their local premieres at the Maryland Film Festival.
Happy Valley is a 2014 American documentary film, written and directed by Amir Bar-Lev. The film had its world premiere at 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2014.
Geoff Marslett is an American film director, writer, producer, animator and actor. His early career started with the animated short Monkey vs. Robot which was distributed internationally by Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation on video and Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation in theatres. More recently he directed several successful narrative feature films including MARS, as well as producing and acting in the experimental documentary Yakona. He appears onscreen in Josephine Decker's Thou Wast Mild and Lovely which was released theatrically in 2014. He currently resides in Austin, Texas and splits his time between filmmaking and teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Josephine Decker is an English–born American filmmaker and performance artist. Films she has directed include Butter on the Latch (2013), Thou Wast Mild and Lovely (2014), Madeline's Madeline (2018), Shirley (2020), and The Sky is Everywhere (2022). She also co-directed the documentary Bi the Way (2008) with Brittany Blockman.
Butter on the Latch is a 2013 experimental psychological thriller/drama film written, produced, and directed by Josephine Decker. It tells the story of Sarah and Isolde attending a Balkan music camp, the eroding friendship between them, and the budding romance between Sarah and a male camper named Steph.
Hill of Freedom is a 2014 South Korean arthouse film written and directed by Hong Sang-soo. It premiered in the Orizzonti ("Horizons") section of the 71st Venice International Film Festival, and won Best Film at the 34th Korean Association of Film Critics Awards and the 36th Three Continents Festival. Hill of Freedom also made The New Yorker's list of Best Undistributed Films of 2014.
Digging for Fire is a 2015 American comedy-drama film directed by Joe Swanberg and co-written by Swanberg and Jake Johnson. It stars an ensemble cast led by Johnson, Rosemarie DeWitt, Brie Larson, Sam Rockwell, Anna Kendrick, Orlando Bloom and Mike Birbiglia. Johnson and DeWitt play a married couple who find a gun and a bone in the backyard of a house they are staying in.
Cinelicious Pics is a distribution wing of the post-production company Cinelicious, launched by Paul Korver and Dennis Bartok, former American Cinematheque head programmer.
Art History is a 2011 American drama film directed by Joe Swanberg, written by Swanberg, Josephine Decker, and Kent Osborne. It stars Decker, Swanberg, Osborne, Adam Wingard, and Kris Swanberg as filmmakers whose lives are complicated by a graphic sex scene in an arthouse film.
Shirley is a 2020 American biographical drama film directed by Josephine Decker and written by Sarah Gubbins, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Susan Scarf Merrell, which formed a "largely fictional story" around novelist Shirley Jackson during the time period she was writing her 1951 novel Hangsaman. The film stars Elisabeth Moss as Jackson, with Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, and Logan Lerman in supporting roles. Martin Scorsese serves as an executive producer.
Kaitlyn Helena Howard is an American actress. After being discovered by director Josephine Decker at age 15, she made her film debut in the drama film Madeline's Madeline (2018), which was hailed by IndieWire as one of the 50 best performances of the 2010s decade and 2nd in The New Yorker's list of the 50 best film performances of the 21st century.
Ashley Connor is an American cinematographer who is best known for her work on films such as Madeline's Madeline, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, The Death of Dick Long, and Thou Wast Mild and Lovely. She was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award in 2019 for Best Cinematography.
Little Girl is a 2020 French documentary film written and directed by Sébastien Lifshitz. The cinematography was by Paul Guilhaume, and the editing was by Pauline Gaillard. It focuses on the story of transgender seven-year-old Sasha, who was assigned male at birth but has known she is a girl since the age of four. She sees a psychiatrist with a special interest in gender who diagnosis her with gender dysphoria. The documentary follows the difficulty Sasha and her family face in helping her transition in provincial France.
