Harry Sherriff recommends: DIY Films & Filmmakers

Covering the true breadth and diversity of independent film is impossible but here are a mixture of films and their makers that I’m recently obsessing over. If you’re annoyed I didn’t mention a certain filmmaker all I can do is apologise and offer to give you your money back. I’m still annoyed I didn’t mention Agnès Varda but now I have so we can continue.

1.     Richard Linklater - Slacker. Possibly the best American filmmaker of his generation and also the film that inspired a generation of filmmakers. The first time I watched Slacker I was about 18, which is kind of the best time to see it. He made such an impossible task seem easy.

2.     Barry Jenkins - Medicine For Melancholy. In a lesser director’s hands this film could so easily been a mess. It made me want to visit San Francisco and talk politics.

3.     Robert Rodriguez - El Mariachi. Oh, you think credit card debt is cool? Well, how about giving your body to medical testing to fund your feature film. Rodriguez is an outlier on this list in that he wasn’t going to stop a $7000 budget get in the way of making a genre film.

4.     Barbara Loden - Wanda. I don’t know if you’re emotionally ready for Wanda. I wasn’t. 16mm blown up to 35mm. Brilliant performance by Barbara herself. To cast the film she asked the local radio station could she put out a casting call. Only children turned up so she took photos of all the parents and that was her casting! Filed under: Great films by filmmakers who only made one film.

5.     Steven Soderbergh - Sex, Lies & Videotape. I love Steven Soderbergh because he does interesting things and he’s a create-aholic. If you’ve not seen his film Bubble I’m still searching for someone else who loves it. Also, the first film to be released in cinemas, on DVD and VOD on the same day.

6.     Richard Ayoade - Submarine. A perfectly cast debut with French New Wave energy and an Alex Turner score. I’m also biased towards a film with funny voiceover.

7.     Alex Holdridge - In Search Of A Midnight Kiss. A depressingly unseen and unsung indie masterpiece from 2007. A perfect premise for a no-budget film. When you have little to no money the writing and acting have to be great.

8.     Phillip Youmans - Burning Cane. Wrote, shot, directed and edited his first feature at 17 and he’s the youngest filmmaker to be accepted into the Tribeca Film Festival. Just typing that made me feel lazy.

9.     Chloe Zhao - The Rider. One of my favourite films of 2017. I think about this one a lot because of how Zhao crafted real-life around a narrative. One of the person examples of street casting I’ve ever seen.

10.  Spike Lee - She’s Gotta Have It / Do The Right Thing. I revisited Do The Right Thing a couple of years ago after reading Spike’s journals on the making of both films. They’re more like personal diaries that cover the whole process and start before he even comes up with the ideas for each film. I highly recommend them. I can’t believe De Niro passed on the role of Sal but glad he did, Aiello is iconic.

11.  Claudia Weill - Girlfriends. It’s extraordinary in its realism. Claudia Weill shot over a year and you can tell in the best possible way. Why do we let pesky things like money and time get in the way of art?

12.  Sean Baker - Tangerine. Yes, it cost £100,000 but it was shot on an iPhone. I’m always excited to hear about a new Sean Baker film because he’s always trying to do something different.

13.  Duplass Brothers - The Puffy Chair. “The second mention of the Duplass Brothers in the same article? Get over them, Harry!” I’m sorry but I won’t and there’s a third reference to the brothers Duplass you have to look forward to at the end of this article. The Puffy Chair is the type of premise that makes me jealous. It screened at Sundance and won an Audience Award at SXSW, not bad for a film made for £15,000. It’s important to note before they made this they made a complete disaster of a feature for $60,000 that no one will ever see.

14.  Lena Dunham - Tiny Furniture. So much to admire about Tiny Furniture. This type of simplicity is not easy. It’s not always right to cast your friends and family but for this film it was perfect. I wish Lena Dunham would go back to making $60,000 feature films but I heard her show Girls did pretty well.

15.  Joanna Hogg - Exhibition. I have no idea what made me watch this but I’m so glad I did. Thanks to HOME in Manchester I managed to be a part of a masterclass with Hogg last year. I hope the 34 questions I asked her in an hour conveyed how much of a fan I am.

16.  Shane Meadows - Small Time. I’m a Shane Meadows fan and even I didn’t expect to like his debut film as much as I did. It’s just fun and also great to see Shane acting.

17.  Lynn Shelton - Humpday. The fact that Lynn Shelton was an editor before she directed features makes her worthy of close attention. Humpday is another great concept and I didn’t know until now it got a French remake!

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Harry Sherriff is a filmmaker based in Manchester

www.harrysherriff.com