The director’s 20 most read posts of 2022

As 2022 approaches Film director is back with our annual roundup of the most read posts of the year. As I click into Google Analytics, this piece always turns into something of a revelation, a mix of the predictable (our list of 25 new faces); the news-triggered (an old profile resurfacing because of a director’s recent success, for example, or, more sadly, their death); evergreen articles on filmmaking itself; and pieces where strong content, aided by SEO and provocative headlines, have combined to attract unusually large numbers of first-time readers. As in the past, the list is divided into two: the 10 most read posts of the past year and then, from the archives, the 10 previously published most read posts. See what everyone’s gravitating towards the most below.

The 10 Most Popular New Articles of 2022

10. “Heard Gunshots Behind Me, Turned Back and Saw Killers Approaching”: Lesya Kalinska at Tribeca Premiere A rising rage. A documentary set over eight years of conflict in Ukraine, Lesya Kalinska’s film premiered at Tribeca in the fourth month of Russia’s invasion of the country, and the director’s interview with Lauren Whisott was as much about the challenges of making the film as it was about the personal challenges. “I recently lost my mother in this war…” Kalisnka said. “She lived in the town of Bucha, and no matter how many times I warned her and begged her to leave, she refused… The day my mother died was the day Tribeca wrote to us about accepting our film at the festival. After my mother’s final farewell ceremony, editing our film saved me from falling into a very dark place. I found some clips of my mother on the Maidan when we went there together. I ended up looking at her beautiful face over and over and it helped me continue to deny that she was no longer here. Now she lives in our film.

9. “Ninety percent of the lighting was done pretty much the way you would do it in 1979.”: Cinematographer Elliott Rockett on the period horror film x. Director of Photography Matt Mulcahy’s interviews are second to none, with the DP always generous in answering his detailed, informed questions. Here, Elliott Rockett talks shaky zooms, old-school lighting and reuniting with director Ti West.

8. 25 New Faces of 2022 Film director‘s list of 25 new faces always makes it into this list and, as you’ll read below, individual profiles always appear in future releases. There are already a number of selections finding success on the festival circuit, with Georden West Playland premiere in Rotterdam and by Tina Sutter Is this a room in Berlin in the Berlin Panorama section.

7. Gessica Genéus’s Freda: A Woman’s View of Life in Haiti. It’s been more than 15 years since Annie Nocenti—filmmaker, teacher, journalist, and comic book writer and editor—wrote for Film directorand she’s back with this interview with director Gessica Geneus about her 21 Cannes premiere and the film scene in Haiti.

6. “Maria was saying things in 1983 that weren’t addressed by actresses until decades later”: Elizabeth Subrin on her Cannes premiere short film, Maria Schneider, 1983 Speaking of Cannes and 25 New Faces, Ahead of Cannes ’20 Selection Madeline Hunt-Ehrlich talks to director Elizabeth Subrin about her Directors Twonight premiere, Maria Schneider, 1983in which three actresses—Manal Issa, Aisa Maiga, and Isabelle Sandoval—expanded the minds of legendary actresses across generations.

5. “The stupidest use of IMAX in IMAX history”: DP Larkin Seiple on Everything everywhere and at once. Larkin Seiple has spoken with Matt Mulcahy a number of times, always smart and generous, and his interview for Daniels’ famous A24 issue is unsurprisingly high on this list.

4. Five questions for Casey Neistat about his SXSW premiere documentary David Dobrick, Under the influence. Two interviews from SXSW made our top ten list this year. The first (in reverse order) is my conversation with Casey Neistat (another 25 new face) about his documentary on YouTube sensation David Dobrik, a work that begins as a kind of generational relay and ends as a critical portrait, featuring commentary from the journalist Kat Tenbarge on sexual assault allegations.

3. “There’s a deliberate rebranding of Alt-Right women to have the veneer of smart, sophisticated Instagram influencers”: Director Beth de Araujo and DP Greta Zozula on Soft and quiet. Again outside of SXSW, my interview with the director and DP of Blumhouse’s November release, a gripping racism thriller that takes place in one take (and was realized in just four production shooting days), is fantastic, thanks to the many both detailed answers and production breakdowns.

2. “Someday we’ll shoot through Coke bottles just to get a look that’s not too pristine”: DP Jeff Cronenuet on Being Ricardo. Being Ricardo may not have made much of a splash critically or on the award circuit, but DP Jeff Cronenuet always stirs interest, especially when he’s on the other side of Matt Mulcahy’s recorder.

1. ‘We’re all pornographers now’: Juliette Bashor on her 2K-recovered Kamikaze hearts. An article about a movie starring the legendary porn star Sharon Mitchell, who went on to form the Adult Industry Medical Health Foundation, was always going to generate traffic, but there are other elements at play here. Juliet Bashor’s hybrid documentary is a rarely screened cult film, and her interview with Lauren Whissott is a fascinating, semiotext(e)-examining, The Battle of AlgiersBertold Brecht and Sunset Blvd. Also, it was the first major interview with Bashor at the beginning of the re-release of the film Kino Lorber and, as is often the case here, it was the first assistant.

The 10 Most Popular Archive Articles of 2022

10. Don’t mess with the male missionary: A preacher with a machine gun Sam Childers. Lauren Wissott’s 2014 interview with Sam Childers, the subject of Kevin Evans’ documentary at the Gasparilla International Film Festival, was our tenth most-read archive article of the year.

9. 2017 25 New Face Jessica Kingdon. With her almost surreal documentary about China’s state-run industrial economy acquired by MTV Documentary Films and nominated for the 2022 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Vadim Rizov’s 2017 profile 25 New Faces of the Director was rightfully rediscovered by readers this year.

8. 2011 25 New Faces Dean Fleischer-Kamp and Jenny Slate. Going even further back in the 25 New Faces archives, my profile of the then-married Dean Fleischer-Kamp and Jenny Slate elevated our analysis following A24’s release of the couple’s delightful cartoon, Marcel The Shell with Shoes.

7. The 27 films (more or less) shot on 35mm in 2019. Vadim Rizov’s obsessive study tracing the long half-life of 35mm production (see his current issue here) is always a good read, and somehow cause the 2019 edition struck a particularly deep chord.

6. 12 Tips for Selling Your Own Film. Here’s the first of three filmmaking guidance articles that appear on the list, my film sales article from way back in 2001. These 12 tips are a bit broad and rough, and I’m not sure I’d be writing this piece today . But much of that advice still applies, sometimes soberingly. See for example the last entry: “Don’t beat your movie to death. It’s unlikely that a better deal will come along in a year. Okay, so your investors have put $2 million into the movie and all you have is a deal with no advance. If that’s all, accept the deal and be happy with it.

(And, yes, there is self-allocation, which is easier to do today than it was then, but many, after considering the workload, would still do the calculation that was recommended above. But for a counterargument, you can read the honest account to Lisa Hurwitz for her self-publishing of The automaton.)

5. Independent Camera of the Year: Blackmagic delivers small in a big way. Underneath the ’21 calendar year came David Leitner, who after 12 months of lens shooting called the Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro “camera of the year.”

4. Shooting Under Fire: Filmmaking in Conflict Zones with Brent and Craig Reno Filmmaker Brent Reno’s death while reporting from Ukraine was the sad reason Lauren Wise’s 2013 interview with Reno and his brother Craig attracted new readers this year.

3. 2018 25 New Face Charlotte Wells. With that of Charlotte Wells After sun scoring rave reviews, positions on many top 10 lists, and Gotham and Spirit Award nominations, my 25 New Faces profile of the writer/director drew many readers to her backstory.

2. What everyone does on set. Brandon Toner-Connelly and Alicia Van Coovering’s tongue-in-cheek explanation of roles from the set was our second most read archive post of the year.

1. 15 Steps to Take After Finishing Your Script. Finally, my evergreen article aimed at aspiring writers/directors on what to do after finishing a screenplay continues to rank at the top of our traffic charts. So much so that I’m slowly working on a necessary rewrite/update that takes into account that many people who land on this article are pure screenwriters looking to market their work or connect with a producer or director. If there’s anything you’d like to see in this update, you can email me at smacaulay AT thegotham.org.