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Back to One, Episode 83: Devika Bhise
The Warrior Queen of Jhansi is the first Hollywood action film to have a female Indian lead. Devika Bhise not only stars in the film (opening Friday November 15th), she co-wrote it with her mother, Swati Bhise, who also directed it. In this episode, she talks about performing under stressful time restraints, how not having “the leisure to lose it" actually helped her play such a powerful leader, and the physical work required (including some “illegal" horseplay!), plus how her intense training in classical Indian dance helps her prepare for every role, and much more! Back To One can be found wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher. And if you're enjoying what you are hearing,… Read more
Five Narrative Feature Winners Announced for Fall 2019 SFFILM Westridge Grant
SFFILM, in partnership with the Westridge Foundation, announced today the five narrative feature film projects that will receive $100,000 in development funding from the organization. Awarded twice annually, the SFFILM Westridge Grants are one of the few U.S. sources of grant support for narrative features in the development phase. The grants target US-based filmmakers whose films take place primarily in the States and which focus on "social issues and questions of our time." FALL 2019 SFFILM WESTRIDGE GRANT WINNERS all dirt roads taste of salt . Raven Jackson, writer/director; Maria Altamirano, producer – development/packaging – $20,000 Through lyrical portraits evoking the texture of memories, all dirt roads taste of salt viscerally and experientially explores the life of a Black woman in Tennessee, from her youth to… Read more
“Cinema Perfects Life”: Pedro Almodóvar on Rewatching His Films, Using Latin American Music, and Fighting Against Penélope Cruz’s Tears
Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas (c) El Deseo. Photo by Manolo Pavón. Courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.
Notwithstanding the many awards seasons and release campaigns he’s endured in the United States, the manufactured climate of hotels and restaurants in Los Angeles still makes Spanish cinema idol Pedro Almodóvar uncomfortable. “Everywhere we go here is freezing,” he says as he sits down to talk and scrambles to find something warm to cover himself with. It’s as if the coldness of these spaces he’s walked repeatedly over the years brings a sensory memory, one that he should have anticipated but still surprises him. Like so, we’ve come to expect a colorful aesthetic brand and tonal irreverence from an Almodóvar film, a baseline of artistic comfort upon which he manages to build revelatory melodramas. He’s an auteur with nothing to prove,… Read more
Homecoming Attitude: Wrapping the 2019 Indie Memphis Film Festival
Lil' Buck: Real Swan
Last year, after my first Indie Memphis, I penned my love letter to the city and the film festival with a scene from Jim Jarmusch’s own Memphian billet-doux, 1989’s Mystery Train. This year, as if to one-up the experience, the film was programmed during its week-long run (Oct. 30–Nov. 4) with Jarmusch himself present for a Q&A afterwards, in celebration of the film’s 30th anniversary. I don’t have personal ties to Memphis, but neither did Jarmusch when he made Mystery Train, yet the city has a way of touching you deeply; after the screening, the director, now 66, beautifully articulated that feeling. “Once something really moves me culturally, that’s part of me now,” he said. “I got a big part… Read more
Talking the Bigger-than-Ever Tenth Anniversary Edition of DOC NYC
The Wind
Overwhelming by design -- that’s the first impression offered by the 2019 edition of DOC NYC, the packed-to-the-rafters non-fiction film event currently underway in New York until November 15. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the festival boasts over 300 events, including 28 world premieres, an expanded DOC NYC PRO seminar series, and 46 doc works in progress shown to industry attendees. Says director of programming Basil Tsiokos, “It’s our tenth anniversary, and we wanted to make it bigger and better. We just kept pushing [during the programming process] to include more and more films. “Every year we’ve tried to grow the festival,” says Thom Powers, its artistic director. “Several years back we introduced our Short List, and then we started our Visionary… Read more
“Amy Heckerling Should be Thought of as a John Hughes!”: Words of Wisdom from the SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Wonder Women Directors Panel
Wonder Women: Directors panel at the 22nd SCAD Savannah Film Festival (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for SCAD)
Once again, this year’s not-to-be-missed event at the 22nd edition of the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (October 26-November 2), the nation’s largest university-run film fest, was the Wonder Women Panel Series. Now in its third year, these always informative discussions highlight female power in the cinematic arts, from directing, to producing, to writing, to the below-the-line crafts. And for me one of the standouts was Wonder Women: Directors, featuring seven ladies behind the lens currently upending every preconceived notion about chick flicks in impressively eclectic ways. Taking place on a laidback, late Tuesday morning at a packed Gutstein Gallery, and moderated by Variety’s Pat Saperstein, the panel included Gail Mancuso (Modern Family, A Dog’s Journey), Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Lueebe (Greener… Read more
A Film on the Arrogance of Man: Josh Murphy on His Environmental Doc, Artifishal
Artificial
"We are on a path to where eventually there will be no fish, and we will have spent billions of dollars to get to that point." This dire warning is from one of the many experts in Artifishal: The Road to Extinction is Paved with Good Intentions, a new documentary from director Josh Murphy and Patagonia that opened on multiple platforms this past week. It premiered last spring at Tribeca, followed by screenings at Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride and the Seattle International Film Festival, near the heart of the film's action. From there it's moved into a series of 550 festival and community screenings to at least 60,000 viewers, and in an effort to reach as many viewers as possible it's now… Read more
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