Authors — Paula Bernstein
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Five Questions with The Witness Director James Solomon
More than 50 years ago, the murder of Kitty Genovese stunned the nation when 38 witnesses in nearby apartments witnessed her brutal stabbing and did nothing. The incident came to represent urban apathy and spawned the “bystander effect” theory. But The Witness, a gripping new documentary about Genovese’s murder, challenges our long-held beliefs about the case. The directorial debut of screenwriter James Solomon, The Witness had its world premiere at the 2015 New York Film Festival and will open theatrically at New York’s IFC Center on June 3, with a national rollout to follow. The multi-layered documentary investigates what actually happened on that fateful […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 2, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold
He’s taken on cave paintings, Siberian fur trappers, and an ill-fated bear enthusiast. Now, with his latest film, Werner Herzog tackles the internet. “The explosion of information technology on the internet has led to some of its greatest glories,” intones Werner Herzog in his signature Werner Herzog voiceover in the trailer for Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (above). The film, which premiered earlier this year at The Sundance Film Festival, examines the past, present and evolving future of the internet by interviewing cyberspace pioneers and prophets such as PayPal and Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Internet protocol inventor Bob Kahn, […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 1, 2016 -
The 50 Greatest Movies By Black Directors
It’s not enough to use the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite in order to draw attention to the historic underrepresenation of African-American directors in Hollywood. Pushing Hollywood to open the gates for women and people of color to tell stories is crucial, but so is looking back and appreciating the films that deserve recognition. Over at Slate, Aisha Harris and Dan Kois created a list of “The 50 Greatest Movies By Black Directors” in order to draw attention to films which warrant inclusion in the canon of great films. As the two point out, when Sight & Sound delivers its once-a-decade critics’ poll or the American Film Institute shares its 100 Years… lists, […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 1, 2016 -
Alamo Drafthouse Partners with Fan-Owned Studio Legion M
A new partnership between Alamo Drafthouse, the independent theater chain and distribution company, and Legion M, the world’s first fan-owned entertainment company, could help pave a new way for independent films to get financed and developed. The two companies announced yesterday that they had formed a strategic partnership to develop and distribute genre content, including feature films, shorts and virtual reality. On May 16th, Legion M launched a public equity crowdfunding campaign under new rules adopted by the Securities and Exchange Commission under the the 2012 JOBS Act. Since it launched the campaign last week, the company has raised $400,000 from accredited investors and […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 27, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog
Seventeen years after director Todd Solondz introduced us to Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo), the downtrodden pre-teen star of the darkly comic Welcome to the Dollhouse, the character, now all grown up (and played by Greta Gerwig), returns in the quasi-sequel, Wiener-Dog. Dawn is just one of several characters featured in Wiener-Dog, which tells a variety of stories, all revolving around a particular dachshund. Featuring Kieran Culkin, Tracy Letts, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy, and Zosia Mamet, the film premiered earlier this year at The Sundance Film Festival and is scheduled to be released on June 24 by Amazon Studios and IFC Films. You can check out the […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 26, 2016 -
Jan Švankmajer Crowdfunds His Final Film Insects
Jan Švankmajer, the 81-year-old surrealist Czech animator, along with his longtime producer Jaromír Kallista, has launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund the filmmaker’s final project, Insects. Švankmajer, known for his dark but playful satirical works, has directed over 30 short and feature-length films throughout his career including Alice, Little Otik, and Dimensions of Dialogue. As a pioneer of stop-motion animation, he has had a direct influence on the works of Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, David Lynch, and the Brothers Quay, among many others. Švankmajer wrote the screenplay for Insects, which is loosely based on “The Insect Play” by the Čapek brothers, an allegorical comedy from 1922 […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 25, 2016 -
How to Build Your Documentary’s Distribution Strategy
Gone are the days when if you were lucky enough to sell your documentary to a single distributor, they would take care of the rest. Though a select group of established documentary filmmakers still operate along those traditional lines, the majority of independent filmmakers working in documentaries today rely on a hybrid distribution plan in which theatrical, festivals, broadcast, educational, non-theatrical, and VOD rights are split. The upsides of a hybrid plan are that it potentially enables filmmakers to earn more revenue and also to develop a long-term audience. The downside? It means more work for filmmakers. A workshop at the recent Oregon […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 24, 2016 -
Five Questions for Almost Holy Director Steve Hoover
In the early 2000s, amid political turmoil in the Ukraine, a pastor named Gennadiy Mokhnenko battled child homelessness and drug addiction using unorthodox methods. The controversial pastor abducted homeless children, many of whom suffered drug addiction, and forcibly brought them to Pilgrim Republic, a rehabilitation center he founded in the city of Mariupol. Relying on a mix of interviews and footage which tracks the self-appointed savior’s mission over fifteen years, Almost Holy is a complex portrait of a complex person. The film was directed by Steve Hoover, who directed the Sundance Grand Jury and Audience prize-winning Blood Brother, which also focused on a self-appointed savior […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 20, 2016 -
Werner Herzog to Teach Online Filmmaking Class
Traditional film school is overrated, according to Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Werner Herzog, who has signed on to teach an online filmmaking class. “You spend way too much time in film school. It costs way too much money. You can learn the essentials of filmmaking on your own within two weeks,” said Herzog in the (above) trailer for his class. The new class, which will focus on the art of both feature and documentary filmmaking, will be offered as part of the online education platform MasterClass. Pre-enrollment is open to everyone and the class will become available this summer. “Werner Herzog vibrantly and charismatically […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 18, 2016 -
Fight Club Author Chuck Palahniuk Crowdfunding Lullaby
Though he wrote the novel on which David Fincher’s 1999 hit Fight Club was adapted, novelist Chuck Palahniuk has never written a screenplay. That will change with the upcoming film adaptation of the author’s 2002 novel Lullaby. Palahniuk will executive produce and co-write the screenplay with director Andy Mingo. Along with producer Josh Leake, the team has turned to Kickstarter to raise $250,000 to fund production of the film. Lullaby follows the life of Carl Streator, an over-the-hill reporter whose family mysteriously died years earlier. Palahniuk wrote the novel during the murder trial of the man eventually convicted of murdering his father. “Chuck doesn’t […]
by Paula Bernstein on May 17, 2016
