In this article, we will look at some directors without many feature credits to their names who have films starting to make festival tours. We will look at their backgrounds, their styles, and why we think viewers should be excited about their projects.

Rose Glass

Rose Glass got her start making short films at the London College of Communication and the National Film and Television School. In 2019, she made a splash in the horror world with her first feature film, Saint Maud. Her direction and writing yielded a film with an impressively dour and creepy atmosphere, fantastic lead performances and nuanced female characters. Saint Maud saw Glass nominated for several industry awards, including at the BAFTAs and Fangoria’s Chainsaw Awards. Marking her as a director to watch. With her latest film, Love Lies Bleeding, having its UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival later this month, it will be interesting to see Glass’ dark, character-focused style in use in a different genre, in this case, a crime story.

Pamela Adlon

With a career reaching back to Grease 2 (1982), which includes acting, writing, producing and TV directing credits, Pamela Adlon is now making her feature directorial debut this year with Babes. Which will be premiering at SXSW. Her citing John Cassavetes’ “conversational, documentary-style” as a creative influence on prior projects, her long acting career and her previous experience directing the naturalistic comedy series Better Things, which, like Babes, deals with themes of motherhood, it’s easy to see Babes being a great launching pad for an artist interested in creating more realistic, grounded work.

Jon Bell

RGM artists call Jon Bell “one of the most experienced Indigenous Screenwriters in Australia”. With writing credits on several award-winning television projects already under his belt. His first feature film is an extension of his short The Moogai. Which I stated was the scariest short film at Celluloid Screams 2021. Owing to Bell’s ability to develop great tension through dark visuals, careful editing and eliciting great performances from his cast. The Moogai (2024) has already had a screening at Sundance and will have a later showing at SXSW. If Bell can keep the style he demonstrated in the original short while expanding the story in interesting ways then The Moogai (2024) may be on track to be one of 2024’s best horror films.

Tiago Teixeira

Another horror director about to make the leap from shorts to full-length films is Tiago Teixeira. The Frightfest regular (his previous shorts Molar, Dog Skin and Wrong Number all having played at the festival before) will be debuting his upcoming movie Custom at Glasgow Frightfest in March. The award-winning filmmaker’s penchant for precise and glacial camera movement, eye-catching colour and his clear understanding of visual storytelling, owing to his studying of cinema and design, should have horror fans excited for an arresting work that doesn’t rely solely on sound for scares.

Julie Lunde Lillesæter

Finally, we would like to highlight a documentary filmmaker whose work has already been featured on several high-profile news sources and whose feature debut will be coming to SXSW soon. A critical media and communication studies graduate from LSE, Lillesæter’s career has focused on humanising marginalised and oppressed voices. Such as migrants, the LGBTQ community and people affected by climate change. Her mixture of handheld and poetic visuals creates both an immediacy and an emotional depth to her work. Her film An Army of Women looks at a group of women’s struggle for justice against law enforcement for their inaction regarding sexual violence cases. An unfortunately all too common occurrence. With Lillesæter’s track record, this film is sure to provide searing insight into a difficult subject. In a way that sensitively foregrounds the people affected.

These are just some up-and-coming directors whose careers we are interested to see progress. Hopefully, their upcoming projects will cement their positions as filmmakers. And with many talented new directors out there we will continue seeking out more rising creators for everyone to see.

Also Read: The Impact: How Dozens of Filmmakers Around The World Crowd-Created A Film About The Apocalypse

The post Emerging Directors To Watch In 2024 appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Interacting on Social Media and YouTube

Sometimes the best motivation to give something a watch is knowing that others will be watching the same thing. Well over the past few weeks various social media sites and platforms like YouTube have presented opportunities for you to give a film a watch and interact with the wider community.

Several big names have encouraged the world to check out certain titles on Twitter. Jared Leto started his own tweet along cinema club with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. And director James Gunn recently joined in with a #QuarantineWatchParty of Guardians of the Galaxy. Meanwhile, on Facebook, groups like Celluloid Screams have used the Watch Party function to host their own movie marathons. Here the festival programmers provided intros for several horror films encouraging people to binge-watch all of them in a single day.

Also, platforms like YouTube have proven a great place for watch parties to be hosted. Actor Riz Ahmed recently hosted a live stream on the platform where he provided commentary on the film Four Lions along with the films other actors Kayvan Novak & Nigel Lindsay.

The appeal of these online events comes from knowing that you are watching these titles along with others. And that you are able to engage and interact with them. So keep an eye open for similar events coming up on these platforms. Or why not host your own?

3^rd Party Applications and Add Ons

There are also several applications and add ons you can use to interact with others while watching films. Video and voice chat applications like Skype, Messenger Video Call and Discord allow you to connect with friends and chat along together while watching something.

But there are also apps that allow simultaneous viewing of films with your friends. For example the Netflix Party application for Google Chrome. This app allows you and several friends to watch and text chat over the same show/movie on Netflix at the same time. However, it’s currently only available on Chrome. Other resources like Metastream also offer similar services. Finally, there are services like Kast. This application works on Windows and Mac; it allows you to connect with several other people and stream your computer screen to them. Allowing you all to sit back and watch a movie on your platform of choice.

These apps and add ons provide a great way to Netflix and chill with your friends while in lockdown.

Festivals

Finally, because many film festivals have had to cancel physical screenings, several festivals including the upcoming SXSW festival in America and Visions du Réel 2020 in Switzerland have opted to showcase their films and other content on the internet. Releasing films through subscription services or websites, hosting interviews and performing masterclasses online. Which when coupled with the social media and connective opportunities mentioned above will allow the public to remain in touch with film culture. So be sure to keep an eye out for more opportunities like this in the future.

Conclusion

With all these options provided by 3^rd party companies and online platforms, we have ample opportunity to connect together and still enjoy a social media experience during the lockdown.

With many filmmakers and stars providing opportunities for socialization the community has a great opportunity to interact with each other as well as creatives in the industry. Allowing us to gain extra insight into films and perhaps giving us some inspiration to make something for ourselves. And while it may not be the same as the cinematic experience, these apps and events will help us stay in touch. As well as allowing us to continue experiencing great movie moments with others.

Also Read: The Most Important Cinema In The World (To Me)

The post Share the Love in Lockdown appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.