Few artists march to the beat of their very own drum as proudly as Rick Alverson. The Virginia-based filmmaker is thought for his unapologetically bleak explorations of subjects that could be humorous in different contexts, just like the Neil Hamburger tragedy “Leisure” and the Tim Heidecker drama “The Comedy,” making use of his singular, uncompromising voice to every venture. And now, he desires to show the following era of filmmakers tips on how to do the identical factor with their very own voices.
Alverson and musician Emilie Rex just lately launched the Little Valley Faculty, an arts training group within the Allegheny Highlands of Virginia. IndieWire can completely reveal the varsity’s first main program: a collection of two on-line filmmaking workshops hosted by Man Maddin, the director of provocative movies like “My Winnipeg,” “The Saddest Music within the World” and “Rumors,” and Carlos Reygadas, the acclaimed Mexican arthouse director behind movies like “Publish Tenebras Lux,” “Japón,” and “Silent Mild.”
Every filmmaker will host a four-week on-line course, which can meet twice weekly. Every week will encompass a chat given by the filmmaker, an train designed to stimulate creativity, and shared time for the scholars to current their work and assist one another.
An official synopsis of this system describes it in phrases that may doubtless delight followers of the three filmmakers. “Within the new irregular — the place local weather chaos, hovering inequality, neofascism, and runaway synthetic intelligence outline an more and more dystopian current — Little Valley Faculty asks: What’s the function of artwork? Artists have lengthy been beholden to the calls for of a shopper product pipeline, designed primarily to extract consideration and maximize worth. The digital workshops give attention to artwork issues and course of as a method of disrupting this dynamic.”
Maddin will host the primary workshop, presently scheduled to run from September 7-28. Reygadas’ workshop will happen in February 2026. Each workshops will probably be carried out on-line (although the Little Valley Faculty finally plans to increase into in-person applications) and can be found to college students anyplace on this planet at any stage of their inventive growth.
The workshops are priced at $165 for 4 weeks, with pre-registration out there for $150 till August 8. Extra info may be discovered right here.
Watch a trainer for Maddin’s workshop, which he’s calling “Fruits of Frustration,” beneath.