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Every Sunday, I'll post a quick video -- and podcast -- about an indie film from at least a year ago. Today's film: GRAND TOUR (2024)

Director: Miguel Gomes

Writers: Telmo Churro; Maureen Fazendeiro; Miguel Gomes

Cast: Gonçalo Waddington; Crista Alfaiate; Cláudio da Silva

SYNOPSIS

Edward, civil servant, flees fiancée Molly on their wedding day in Rangoon, 1917. His travels replace panic with melancholy. Molly, set on marriage, amused by his escape, trails him across Asia.

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Merry Christmas and happy holidays from the new classic (if that's a thing) CHRISTMAS, AGAIN (2014) and director Charles Poekel. He's hosting screenings ten years on for the film, saying it's found a new audience, and it's easy to see why. The film captures Christmas in New York City -- or at least what it looks like in reality versus postcards -- and starred talent that exploded in the indie film scene in the last decade.

It's the perfect time to catch up with its director.

In this episode, Charles and I discuss:

• what makes a great Christmas film and why CHRISTMAS, AGAIN fits that bill;
• how he got involved in filmmaking;
• the truly insane story of creating your own tree stand and running it for FIVE years as a gateway for the film;
• how the film is a great case study for his students;
• how the film heralded so much great indie film talent for the subsequent decade;
• that film v. digital is such a project-specific question;
• who should be attending film school?
• the "everyone is a filmmaker" phrase and what that means for students and emerging filmmakers;
• what's next for him and avoiding cultural references in a film so that it ages better, especially for Christmas films.

Charles' Indie Film Highlight: OBEX (2025) dir. by Albert Birney

Memorable Quotes:

"Every year there's a little bit of bump in people who discover it."

"People really appreciate the familiarity of Christmas tree sellers in New York."

"There'd be a lot of complications trying to shoot a film like this at somebody else's Christmas tree stand."

"And then the third year we shot the film at the Christmas tree stand while it was open. So we had people working there selling trees while we were shooting. Our actors would stop and sell trees if customers came up right."

"I was working documentaries. I'd never made a feature. I hadn't even made a fiction short since college at this point. My boss very smartly at the time was like, don't make a short, make a feature. And I was like I don't even know what I'm doing."

"And I've shot some stuff on an iPhone and even if someone gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't have shot it on 35 because it just wasn't the right thing to do."

"Shooting on film is more than just like an aesthetic look of a one frame versus another frame."

"Especially with cinephiles, we all kinda approach this as like, film is a holy thing that we have and let's treat it that way."

Links:

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Watch CHRISTMAS, AGAIN (2014)

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Every Sunday, I'll post a quick video -- and podcast -- about an indie film from at least a year ago. Today's film: CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER'S POINT (2024)

Director: Tyler Taormina

Writers: Eric Berger; Tyler Taormina; Kevin Anton

Cast: Matilda Fleming; Francesca Scorsese; Maria Dizzia

SYNOPSIS

A family gathers on Christmas Eve for what could be the last holiday in their ancestral home. As the night wears on and tensions arise, one of the teenagers sneaks out with her friends to claim the wintry suburb for her own.

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