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Talkhouse

Josh Heaps is a PhD dropout, ex-publicist, perennial assistant who has also made a movie. His debut feature, <a href="https://www.factorytwentyfive.com/city-wide-fever" target="_blank" rel="noopener">City Wide Fever</a>, is out April 17 through Factory 25.

Josh Heaps

Film

City Wide Beaver

Born and raised in New Jersey, Vincent D&#8217;Alessandro is a micro-budget filmmaker, whose work has played in various venues around the world, including the British Film Institute in London, the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, as well as festivals in Australia and Germany. His first feature film, Bottom Feeders, screened as an official selection at the Kansas City Underground Film Festival, Torino Underground Cinefest, and the Melbourne Underground Film Festival, and is now available on <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/bottomfeeders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vimeo On Demand</a>. He is a graduate of the BFA Filmmaking program at the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University. For more info, visit <a href="http://www.vincentdalessandro.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">vincentdalessandro.com</a>.

Vincent D’Alessandro

I Made a Movie for an Industry That Didn’t Want It

Ryan J. Sloan and Ariella Mastroianni’s feature <a href="https://www.gazerfilm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gazer</a> is out now in theaters through Metrograph Pictures. Ryan co-wrote, co-produced and directed Gazer and Ariella co-wrote, co-produced and stars in the film. Ryan is an electrician turned filmmaker from New Jersey with no credits you&#8217;d recognize. Gazer is his first feature. Ariella is an actor and writer from New Jersey by way of Ontario, Canada. She founded the music and entertainment magazine NKD MAG in college with Catherine Powell.

Ryan J. Sloan and Ariella Mastroianni

How We Made Gazer

Ethan Eng is a filmmaker from Toronto. His debut feature film, <a href="https://therapydogs.world/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Therapy Dogs</a>, which he wrote, directed and acted in, had its world premiere at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival, was released theatrically by Utopia Distribution and is now available on Apple TV. He is currently working on his next feature film about the 20’s and the 2020s, titled A New Age.

Ethan Eng

Open Doom Crescendo, A Lo-Fi Odyssey

Justin Zuckerman is an amateur filmmaker currently residing in Washington, D.C., and is the writer-director of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbu0o163-H4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Yelling Fire in an Empty Theater</a>. Made on a minuscule budget with an old MiniDV camcorder, Yelling Fire premiered at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival. Soon after, the film was acquired by Cinedigm and is now streaming on Fandor. The film was produced by Ryan Martin Brown and 5th Floor Pictures, with production design by Natalie Lizbeth Montoya, and stars Isadora Leiva, Kelly Cooper, Michael Patrick Nicholson, Austin Cassel, and Colin Burgess. After directing Yelling Fire, Justin produced the feature film Free Time, directed by Ryan Martin Brown.

Justin Zuckerman

Striving for Amateur

Dan Coplan is an award-winning writer, director, producer and actor. He has been shot at twice, has traveled to Mt. Fuji in Japan on a Buddhist pilgrimage and, when he was 14, he was very, very sick – standing 5&#8217;11&#8221; tall, he weighed a mere 69lbs and was only given hours to live. This is why he makes movies. Coplan started making movies when he was 14 years old. One of his early films, The Incredibly Awful Dr. Sporgo, won the Silver Medal at the 1974 Atlanta International Film Festival and Golden Image Certificate at the 1975 Long Island International Film Festival. He graduated from the NYU Film School, where he was mentored by department head Haig Manoogian, who was also Martin Scorsese’s mentor. In 1975, he wrote and produced the documentary The Dream Factory, starring Sean Connery, Gloria Swanson, Marlo Thomas, Roy Schieder and narrated by Eli Wallach. It is now part of the permanent cinema collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Echos of Enlightenment, his critically acclaimed directing debut, has been shown around the world and was acquired by Netflix. He produced Growing Up Smith, which won the audience award at the 2015 Woodstock Film Festival, and the acclaimed documentary film The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille. His new film, 8 Winds, was released in March 2022. It won the award for Best Original Screenplay at the Madrid International Film Festival 2021. Look him up on IMDb.

Dan Coplan

How I Turned an Ancient Buddhist Parable into a Contemporary No-Budget Political Thriller

Pete Ohs writes, directs, shoots and edits. His latest film, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B09L77C3SG/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Youngstown</a>, is now streaming on Amazon Prime. He is a four-time Emmy-Award winner and was named one of Filmmaker Magazine&#8216;s &#8220;25 New Faces of Independent Film&#8221; for 2013. His feature-length sci-fi film Everything Beautiful Is Far Away stars Julia Garner &amp; Joseph Cross. premiered in competition at the 2017 Los Angeles Film Festival, where it received the U.S. Fiction Cinematography Award, was acquired by The Orchard and is currently available to stream online. He edited the features Beast Beast directed by Danny Madden, which premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and Olympic Dreams, starring Nick Kroll and Alexi Pappas and directed by Jeremy Teicher, which premiered at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival and was named one of the 10 best films at the Festival by both Hollywood Reporter and Indiewire. He lives and works in Los Angeles. (Photo by Christian Sorensen Hansen.)

Pete Ohs

No Script. No Budget. No Crew. No Problem.

Originally hailing from Queens, NY, John Wilson is the writer, director, cameraman and star of the new HBO series <a href="https://www.hbo.com/how-to-with-john-wilson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How To with John Wilson</a>. He started working for a private investigator directly after graduating from college, and has been making first-person &#8220;how-to&#8221; documentaries in his idiosyncratic style for over a decade. In 2015, Wilson was asked to go on tour with David Byrne to make an original film about his performance. The year after that, Wilson was hired to make an official documentary for Vimeo about the Sundance Film Festival. His work eventually caught the eye of Nathan Fielder, whom John met by chance at a restaurant in Chinatown one night – and immediately started a collaboration with. Thus, How To with John Wilson was born. His catalog of films can be seen at <a href="http://www.johnsmovies.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">johnsmovies.com</a>. (Picture by Zach Dilgard / HBO.)

John Wilson

Why I Shunned the Sundance Route (But Still Made a Film About the Festival)

Frankie Latina is an Italian-American independent writer-director born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who began using his uncle Dave&#8217;s Super 8mm camera to make movies when he was a teenager. He studied film at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he learned how to make 16mm movies, and made his feature debut in 2009 with Modus Operandi. It was released theatrically by Kino Lorber in 2010 and is now available on VOD. <a href="http://www.frankielatina.com/" target="_blank">Latina</a> is currently making his second feature, Snapshot.

No-Budget