BY Shayna Maci Warner
Cinematographer to Watch: Ava Benjamin Shorr of “Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen” and “Equal”
Director of Photography Ava Benjamin Shorr is already well-versed in framing icons. In 2020, Shorr’s camera focused on dozens of trailblazing interviewees for Sam Feder’s “Disclosure: Trans...
Teen Dreams and Nightmares: VOD Picks
During hormone-addled, perpetually sleep-deprived teen years, life events can be so downright confusing that they take years of therapy, or at least out loud remembrances, to rediscover and accept....
Rewriting Heroes: Crowdfunding Picks
Everybody thinks they could use a hero now and again. However, the enshrined out-of-this-world idol dreamed up to cure all that ails often fizzles away in the face of reality. Super humans...
DOC NYC 2020 Women Directors: Meet Rosalynde LeBlanc – “Can You Bring It: Bill T. Jones and D-Man in the Waters”
Rosalynde LeBlanc has spent over 20 years in dance as a performer, choreographer, and educator. She was a member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance...
Composer to Watch: Anna Calvi of “Peaky Blinders”
You may already know Anna Calvi’s name — especially if you’re a fan of genre-defying virtuosity, overwhelmingly described as “cinematic” pop, laced through with impressive, spiraling...
Queer Family Felicitations: VOD and Web Series Picks
Queer family is an amorphous unit not quite like any other. For one thing, its permutations are endless; family could be anything from blood relatives, to acquaintances who look out for each other...
Talking Taboos: Crowdfunding Picks
What is art for in a fraught time, if not to serve as a template for those difficult conversations that are rarely introduced simply or without fuss at the dinner table? Though the best fiction may...
TIFF 2020 Women Directors: Meet Aisling Chin-Yee – “No Ordinary Man”
Aisling Chin-Yee is an award-winning producer, writer, and director based in Montreal, Canada and Los Angeles, California. She made her feature directorial debut with 2019’s “The Rest of...
TIFF 2020 Women Directors: Meet Mayye Zayed – “Lift Like a Girl”
Mayye Zayed is an Egyptian filmmaker, director, producer, director of photography, and editor, and the founder of Cléo Media. She is the recipient of Film Independent’s Global Media Makers...
TIFF 2020 Women Directors: Meet Stacey Lee – “Underplayed”
Stacey Lee’s work focuses on humanity, music, and movement. Her documentary short “Live Fast Draw Yung” premiered at Tribeca in 2015, winning awards in Atlanta and Tacoma. She was...
Cinematographer to Watch: Carmen Cabana of “Vida” and “High Fidelity”
Cinematographer Carmen Cabana’s reel is a varied trove of genres and forms that are all linked by an ability to visualize emotion on scales both intimate and magnificent. Her camera operation and...