The No Film School Podcast

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord and Jon Fusco are headed to Park City, Utah for the 34th Sundance Film Festival. They are joined by NFS Managing Editor Erik Luers to share everything you should know to get ready for the big event, whether you’ll be there in person or not. In gear news, Kodak makes a big gamble on a new version of old tech, and in Ask No Film...

This is the third and final episode of our “Best of 2017”, but honestly, with the quality of advice we received over the course of our interviews last year, we could keep this going forever. All of the excerpts featured in this week’s volume are part of what we here at No Film School like to call “Roundtable” episodes. We’ll try to get at least one or two of these done at every festival we travel...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord and Jon Fusco discuss one of the most memorable Golden Globes ever and other awards season news, as well as the group of industry women coming out *against* the #MeToo movement. Liz answers an Ask No Film School question about holding public screenings before your festival premiere. Charles Haine joins us to preview the new fil...

It’s officially a new year but we’re still not over how great our podcasts turned out in 2017. Last year, we started doing interview podcasts every single week in addition to our Indie Film Weekly episodes. We’ve had tons of great guests from Sean Baker to Flying Lotus and everything in between. In the first volume of our “Best Of” episodes, we heard from Flying Lotus, Gillian Robespierre, Brett G...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine discuss rumors of a major merger that could change the industry as we know it, and results of the 2017 box office returns. We also say a sad goodbye to ‘Black Swan’ production designer Thérèse DePrez. In gear news, we reveal the most rented items on ShareGrid last year. Charles also answers an Ask...

Well, it's been quite a year. Here at No Film School, we started doing interview podcasts every single week in addition to our Indie Film Weekly episodes. We’ve had tons of great guests from Sean Baker to Flying Lotus and everything in between and we’re all really proud of the type of resource this podcast has become. Before we conduct each interview, we'll take the time to remind our guests that...

This special, year-end episode of Indie Film Weekly reveals the best that 2017 had to offer while you were busy making films. This year was full of controversy and growing pains in the industry, balanced by stellar indie releases, gear innovations, and inspiring filmmaker journeys. In our final episode of 2017, co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine reveal our favorite films, top camera a...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord and Jon Fusco discuss Louis CK’s ‘I Love You, Daddy’ distribution saga and awards season updates (and upsets) from the Golden Globes, European Film Awards, and IDA Documentary Awards. We also reveal Netflix's most binged shows of 2017, get into a pretty geeky debate about Star Wars, and share tips from filmmaker Ela Thier about...

Directors Nathan Fitch and Daniel McCabe join No Film School’s Liz Nord to share their tips on preparing to film in a conflict zone, both practically and emotionally. Fitch embedded with the US Military in Afghanistan for his film 'Island Soldier', and McCabe filmed amidst various factions of the Congolese civil war for six years for his documentary 'This is Congo’. In this episode, the directors...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine discuss one filmmaker’s major role in Russia’s Olympic doping scandal, the first news from Sundance 2018, and the inaugural Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society Awards decision to split best male and female directors into two separate categories. We say goodbye to influential video essay series...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine discuss the indie films that are changing the face of awards season after the results of the Gothams and the National Board of Review list results were revealed this week. We cover the questionable award categorizations of Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ and Errol Morris’ ‘Wormwood’ and why they matter to...

Three producers with decades of combined experience under their belts join No Film School’s Liz Nord for a detailed primer on how to get a documentary made and seen. Geeta Gandbhir has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and has won two, as well as working professionally as an editor as such acclaimed titles as Oscar-winning 'O.J.: Made in America’, Chanda Chevannes is an award-winning documentar...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine discuss discuss what the FCC's recent actions on Net Neutrality and the 600mhz band mean for filmmakers, along with the most bizarre and heartbreaking turns in the avalanche of sexual misconduct stories and how they're affecting productions everywhere. In gear news, we reveal some of the best Black...

No Film School’s Liz Nord is joined by three directors who have taken on the challenge of telling character-based stories where their films center around the personal journeys of one or a small handful of subjects. Their characters couldn’t be more different—one is the tough guy frontman of a New York hardcore band, one is the first female Sharia Law judge in Palestine, and one is a woman who has...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord and Jon Fusco discuss Drip, Kickstarter's bold new move for filmmakers, plus a field report from DOC NYC that reveals why it's become the American documentary festival to pay attention to. We also cover the first Oscars handed out this year, marvel at Agnes Varda's infinite wisdom, and say farewell to Oscar-winning filmmaker De...

We all know that getting your first film made is hard. With the added pressure of expectation, getting a second made can be even harder. And then there are the Julie Cohens of the world. Cohen is a documentary filmmaker who has completed and distributed 8 feature docs and 5 shorts in the past ten years, and won three Emmys along the way. And this is after a prolific career as a producer at NBC, wh...

What happens when the community you’re filming doesn’t want you there? That is exactly the dilemma that faced celebrated documentarians Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady when they embarked on their latest project, the Netflix Original film 'One of Us'. The directing duo returns to the territory that garnered them an Oscar nomination in 2007 for 'Jesus Camp': extreme religious sects in America. In 'One...

Have you ever been at one of those parties where people talk about movies and Hitchcock comes up, but you’ve never seen any Hitchcock? So then you get all sweaty and start avoiding people’s gaze? It feels like everyone is watching you, the world is slowly closing in and you get so claustrophobic and insane that you feel like you want to scream? Us neither. Funnily enough, the experience of watchin...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine get in the mood for Halloween by sharing some of No Film School's best horror filmmaking tips from the likes of Jeremy Saulnier and Rob Zombie. We discuss a lens so good that it got its own Emmy (plus this year's other Engineering Emmy winners) and why there's an uncertain future for Amazon Studios...

Ruben Östlund has never been one to shy away from difficult themes. That's not to say that the themes he presents his audiences are controversial or difficult to watch. It's more that they're difficult to fully comprehend. Östlund's ability to translate his thoughts to screen, however, is unrivaled among his contemporaries. "The Square" is certainly one of these pictures. Östlund explores what exa...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine predict what the Harvey Weinstein fallout could means for future film sets and discuss some steps being taken by the Academy, the PGA, and other film institutions to combat sexual misconduct in the industry. We also share a ton of news from Netflix, including the company's plans to release 80 origi...

Steven Spielberg is the highest grossing directors of all time, with over 50 influential titles under his belt. And yet, do we really know Spielberg? After all, he rarely does public appearances or gives in-depth interviews. Perhaps the director was just waiting for the right moment to tell his life’s story and the right person to tell it to. Fortunately, that time has come, and that person is our...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord and Jon Fusco discuss the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse accusations and what they mean for indie film, share highlights from our New York Film Festival coverage including conversations with Richard Linklater and Sean Baker, and ponder what exactly is the future of storytelling. In gear news, RED has finally released its Monstro...

"The Florida Project" may be the first Sean Baker movie you'll go out to see in theaters, but he's been on the scene for a long, long time. Perhaps best known for the iPhone 5s filmed "Tangerine", Baker has been a champion of low-budget filmmaking for his entire career. More so than that, he has been a trailblazer in the democratization of film. Inspired by the Dogme 95 movement pioneered by Danis...

In this episode of Indie Film Weekly, No Film School co-hosts Liz Nord, Jon Fusco, and Charles Haine discuss Vulture’s list of the Top 100 Screenwriters of All Time, a new online marketplace for lenses, an indie distributor making bold moves, and how one filmmaker is changing the entire advertising industry. Charles also answers an Ask No Film School question about whether or not you need to buy a...