Authors — Lauren Wissot
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THE 2012 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH FILM FESTIVAL
The strength of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival is also its weakness. This year’s 23rd edition boasts 16 doc and fiction flicks from 12 countries – yet most fall firmly in the category of solid ITVS fare (in fact, only three are narrative features). Like with the agribusiness detailed in Micha X. Peled’s Bitter Seeds, about the epidemic of farmer suicides in India, variety is often an illusion – especially when U.S. or U.S. co-productions are in the majority. This is another way of saying that, yes, the chances of seeing a stinker at HRWFF are slim, but there’s […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jun 7, 2012 -
THE SANTA CRUZ FILM FESTIVAL
The “Keep Santa Cruz Weird” campaign in the northern California city that’s been host to the Santa Cruz Film Festival for nearly a dozen years now seems more than a cheap ploy to sell bumper stickers (though the one that read “You’re just jealous because the voices are talking to me” probably captures the essence of the place even better). It’s a serious – and controversial – plea to retain a way of life. For Santa Cruz is nothing if not, well, weird. So exotic, in fact, that SCFF should probably qualify as a foreign film festival showcasing American flicks […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 29, 2012 -
Marks Elijah Rosenberg Talks Rooftop Films
As a writer and filmmaker just beginning to branch out into indie festival programming, I’ve been looking for an excuse to chat with Mark Elijah Rosenberg for quite some time. The man behind the granddaddy of open-air cinema (hard to believe Rooftop Films is now in its 16th year!) has seen his DIY endeavor expand from avant-garde shorts shown on a roof above his humble apartment to Academy Awards-destined features screened in diverse outdoor venues throughout NYC’s boroughs (and beyond). But what’s most impressive to me is that he’s managed to accomplish all this while staying firmly grounded in his […]
by Lauren Wissot on May 10, 2012 -
THE SONOMA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Once-in-a-lifetime experiences abounded at this year’s Sonoma International Film Festival, a boutique event in the heart of northern California’s wine country – complete with complementary wine and cheese before every screening (and a trailer featuring an animated, tap-dancing wine bottle named Tipsy whose tagline read, “Is everything out of focus, or is it just me?”). Held early April, a week apart and an hour’s drive – yet a world away – from that longest running festival in the U.S., SIFF serves as a worthy reminder that attending non-market-driven fests not only allows one the opportunity to discover overlooked diamonds amongst […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 24, 2012 -
Prophet Motive
Save for the beard, Vikram Gandhi resembles nothing of his fictional creation Sri Kumaré, “a revered yoga master known to his contemporaries as Adarsha or ‘The Mirror.’ He is the current torchbearer of the Kumaré lineage and a respected, charismatic teacher of Yogic Science. Sri Kumaré is known for his youthful energy, transformative philosophy and divine blessing.” (That’s all from the Kumaré website — yes, Gandhi’s made-up character has his own website.) Instead, Gandhi comes across as the humble and inquisitive New Jersey native that he is in real life — a guy whose mischievous curiosity about humankind’s search for […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 17, 2012 -
THE BERMUDA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
“Location, location, location” could very well serve as the tagline for the Bermuda International Film Festival. Set on a paradise island surrounded by spectacular pink sand and Technicolor-blue waters in the North Atlantic, it’s only a couple hours’ plane trip from NYC (or less if you can hitch a ride with the private-jetting Mayor Mike). This gracious and warmly welcoming fest – a reflection of the country’s unbelievably gregarious and helpful population (pull out a map and you’re just as likely to have a total stranger walk you to your destination as point the way) – is now in its […]
by Lauren Wissot on Apr 10, 2012 -
Director Dominic Allan on Calvet
The titular tattooed protagonist of Dominic Allan’s Calvet is Jean Marc Calvet (pictured), who went from being a hustling, drug-addicted street kid in the south of France to an NYC art world darling. But the path he took to get there is equal parts winding, fascinating and downright insane. After being discovered in a shooting competition by a guy who ran a security firm, Calvet joined the “world of bodyguards,” taking care of the likes of Mel Gibson, Forest Whitaker and Tim Robbins at Cannes. But he was soon enticed to leave his young family and “disappear” to America with […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 7, 2012 -
THE 18TH ANNUAL SEDONA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Although in the winter most Stateside independent filmmakers set their sites on Sundance and SXSW, while international directors target Rotterdam and Berlin, the cold hard reality is that the majority of cinema’s craftspeople aren’t going to have their labors of love accepted into even one of these fests. (Forget about being wined and dined by the Weinsteins.) That’s the bad news. The good news is that as indie fests increasingly become less populist and more Miramax-ish, regional festivals around the globe are looking to step up to the plate. I’ve covered a number of these homegrown events, many times basing […]
by Lauren Wissot on Mar 4, 2012 -
Kirsten Sheridan and the Factory: Assembling Ireland’s Actors
Talk to Kirsten Sheridan, director of August Rush and her latest Dollhouse (pictured and premiering in the Panorama section of the 2012 Berlinale) about The Factory, the collective she co-founded with fellow filmmakers John Carney (Once) and Lance Daly (Kisses), and it soon becomes apparent that Ireland’s recent financial woes have done little to dampen Dublin’s DIY spirit. If anything the collapse has, ironically, helped artists, Sheridan theorizes, by making their outsized dreams affordable. Indeed, in a thriving economy just meeting the rent on a space big enough to house everything from production studios, to a fully equipped camera department […]
by Lauren Wissot on Feb 10, 2012 -
TONEELGROEP AMSTERDAM STAGES “CRIES AND WHISPERS” AND “DISGRACE”
One of my biggest complaints about Broadway theater is the lack of artistic risk. (Indeed, one could make the case that Julie Taymor’s cursed production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark had the media riveted more by its performers’ injuries than by its Hollywood blockbuster budget. The safe Great White Way had become dangerous again!) Which is why it’s been like a breath of fresh air to take in several English-surtitled productions from Toneelgroep Amsterdam (headquartered a very easy hour’s train ride away from the International Film Festival Rotterdam), where in lieu of bodily harm to actors there’s a couple […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jan 28, 2012
