Ricky D’Ambrose, writer/director of The Cathedral, discusses the production of his acclaimed ultra-low-budget feature.

Overview

Ricky D’Ambrose’s second feature, The Cathedral, is a beautifully elegiac and introspective feature that, through the viewpoint of the young son, follows a family’s rise and fall through the late ‘80s into the ‘90s. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival before playing Sundance, and now in release from MUBI, the film is a triumph of economical filmmaking, using a boldly minimalist style and clever production and sound design to skillfully evoke its period. Filmmaker Editor Scott Macaulay will speak to D’Ambrose, one of the magazine’s 25 New Faces, about the production decisions involved in making a period film on an ultra-low budget, and about scaling up to larger crews and casts from his previous micro-budget work.

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Panelists

Ricky D’Ambrose

The Cathedral - Writer/Director

Ricky D'Ambrose is a writer and director in New York City. His second feature, The Cathedral, was produced with support from the Venice Biennale College Cinema and had its world premiere at the 78th Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at Sundance. His short films and first feature, Notes on an Appearance, have screened at festivals internationally, including Berlin, Rotterdam, Vienna, the New York Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, and Jeonju. In 2017, he was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, as well as one of the decade’s Best New Filmmakers by Richard Brody of the New Yorker magazine. As a critic, he has contributed to The Nation, Filmmaker, n+1, MUBI, and Film Quarterly. He is currently developing his third feature.

Moderators

Scott Macaulay

Filmmaker Magazine - Editor

Scott Macaulay is the co-founder and Editor-in Chief of Filmmaker, the print magazine and website devoted to independent film published by the Gotham Institution for Film & Media. He is also an active New York-based producer. With Forensic Films, the company he co-founded with Robin O’Hara, he has produced and co-produced many independent features and international co-productions. Among his producing credits are Kitty Green’s The Assistant and Casting JonBenet; Peter Sollett’s Raising Victor Vargas; Elisabeth Subrin’s A Woman, A Part; Alice Wu’s Saving Face; Harmony Korine’s Gummo and julien donkey-boy; and Tom Noonan’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning What Happened Was…. In 1998 he and O’Hara received a Spirit Award for Independent producing and in 2018 he was awarded the Cinereach Producing Fellowship.