Filmmakers You Need to Search Out Part 2

Patrick Meaney ices his hand while Neil Gaiman explains why

Welcome to part to of what is destined to be a long running list of filmmakers you need to search out. (Part 1 can be found here).

As those who read the first part know, the list comes from my getting pissed off at Film Twitter and most major writers ignoring all of the great filmmakers  from around the world who aren't cranking out the big films. In order to set the record straight I'm listing a whole bunch of filmmakers who are either making great films no one seems to have seen or they are making films that are pushing the bounds of what cinema is.

This part of the list a bunch of filmmakers I discovered as Unseen Films started to be a officially a member of the press.

There is no order here. No one is better than anyone else. Its just a randomly selected list of filmmakers ordered in the way I ran across them as I complied the list. The list is small so you don't have a ton of people to try and track down.

The list will continue into at least September - though it will probably go way beyond it.

Yoshihiro Nakamura

Chun-Yi Hsieh was the first filmmaker who ever reached out to me. He asked me to see his short BRAID in 2011 when I missed it at Tribeca.. It is a masterpiece. He has since gone on to make films in Asia and all of them are worth seeing. APOLITICAL ROMANCE

Patrick Meaney maybe best known for his documentaries about comic gods (Grant Morrison, Chris Claremont and Neil Gaiman, among others,) but he also has made a killer horror film (HOUSE OF DEMONS) and is now writing comics.

Irina Varina - Brooklyn based filmmaker has a glorious one of a kind look at the world. I fell under her spell with her feature US, FOREVER AGO and I have been delighted with everything that followed 

Qunshu Gao, the director of THE MESSAGE, OLD FISH, BEIJING BLUES and WIND BLAST is making the best films you haven't seen and which are difficult to see in the US outside of a festival. Don't be fooled or put off by the difficulty he is one of the truly great directors you need to be actively searching out.

Yoshihiro Nakamura is one of my most favorite directors in the world. His INERASABLE is one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen. Hs other films like POTECHI, SNOW  WHITE MURDER CASE, A FISH STORY, A BOY AND HIS SAMURAI and others. Thank god I did Unseen so I could not only discover him but meet him.

Hitoshi Matsumoto makes off kilter films. They always seem to be about one thing before they twist at the end into perfection in ways that will move you. R100, SCABBARD  SAMURAI, BIG MAN JAPAN, SYMBOL are magic films. (SCABBARD SAMURAI will rock your world and SYMBOL is a glorious shaggy dog tale)

Segundo de Chomon was a contemporary of Melies and he ripped off some of his films, like a TRIP TO THE MOON, but he also improved on many, and he also made a ton of other films that were wonderfully unique.

Benjamin Renner has made two of my favorite animated films of all time  Ernest and Celstine and THE BIG BAD FOX AND OTHER TALES.  Both films will make you laugh, make you feel warm and make you want to revist them over and over again.

Andy Viner makes funny funny films. Start with Dick Night and Kirsten Lives in Los Angeles and go off laughing from there. That may not sound like a huge rave- but once you see his films you'll know its enough.

Linda Hoaglund's THINGS LEFT BEHIND and WOUND AND THE GIFT have haunted me since I saw them. THINGS LEFT BEHIND maybe the greatest film on the Hiroshima bombing I've seen reducing the massive tragedy to a level we can all understand.