Authors — Paula Bernstein
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The Rumpus Launches Lo-Fi Los Angeles Film Festival
What to do when your film doesn’t get accepted to any film festivals? Why, start your own film festival! Of course, it’s helpful if you’re the founding editor of a successful web site such as The Rumpus. That’s the case with Stephen Elliott, who was frustrated when his latest film, After Adderall, didn’t get accepted to any film festivals. Elliott wrote an in-depth report investigating a “rigged” system of film festival programming which makes it nearly impossible for paid submissions to be programmed. Titled “The Great Film Festival Swindle”, the article, published recently on The Rumpus, analyzed the odds of getting into various film festivals […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 23, 2016 -
New Documentaries Use Animation to Bring Nonfiction Stories to Life
In recent decades, some of the best documentary films — including Oscar-winners such as Bowling for Columbine and Searching for Sugar Man, and, more recently, festival favorites Point and Shoot and Meet the Patels — have have relied on animation to tell compelling nonfiction stories in nontraditional ways. It’s a technique audiences have grown accustomed to and nonfiction filmmakers have learned to adopt with varying degrees of success. While in the past, documentary purists might have posited that animation had no place in non-fiction storytelling, it’s now largely accepted that even observational documentaries involve some degree of manipulation. If anything, by using animation in a documentary, the manipulation is more […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 23, 2016 -
BitTorrent Launches BitTorrent Now with Streaming Option for Creators
BitTorrent Bundle will re-launch as BitTorrent Now, extending the platform with new streaming apps for Apple TV, iOS, and Android, as well as introducing advertising as a new revenue stream for creators, BitTorrent announced today. Straith Schreder, BitTorrent’s VP of Creative Initiatives, who has been the principal driver of this initiative, told Filmmaker, “we wanted to build a platform with the ability for creators to connect with their audience no matter where they are in the world. So being able to bring their project to what’s now an audience of 200 million passionate fans of indie film and indie music and to be able […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 23, 2016 -
David Lynch Launches “Festival of Disruption” with Film, Music and More
“Life is a festival of disruption,” according to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Now filmmaker and Maharishi disciple David Lynch will create his own Festival of Disruption. Taking place at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles on October 8 and October 9, the festival will feature film, music, photography, multimedia, dance, and discussions all curated by Lynch himself. On the film side, the festival will screen the documentary Blue Velvet Revisited, The Elephant Man, and rare David Lynch shorts. There will talks by architect Frank Gehry, Mel Brooks, Kyle McLachlan & Laura Dern, and Blondie’s Debbie Harry & Chris Stein. Chris Milk will exhibit […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 21, 2016 -
Cinema Eye Names Semifinalists for Nonfiction Filmmaking for Television
Now entering its tenth year, Cinema Eye, the organization that recognizes outstanding work in nonfiction film, today announced the ten films that have been named as semifinalists for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking for Television. Films eligible for this award must have aired or broadcast between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016, which explains why O.J.: Made in America, Ezra Edelman’s stunning five-part documentary series for ESPN, which premiered June 11, didn’t make the list. Among the documentaries recognized this year are HBO Documentary Films’ Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures by documentary veterans Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, A&E’s Happy Valley, […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 20, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Ron Howard’s Beatles Doc Eight Days A Week
We recently reported that Hulu has launched Hulu Documentary Films, a destination for original and exclusive documentary film titles. Now its first acquisition — The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, a new Beatles documentary from Ron Howard — has its first trailer (above). The film features rare and exclusive footage, and was produced with the full cooperation of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison. It focuses on the early part of The Beatles’ career (1962-1966), and will explore how John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr came together to form the Fab Four. The documentary’s U.S. theatrical […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 20, 2016 -
Producer Miranda Bailey Debunks Swiss Army Man Controversy and Challenges Conventions about Women in Film
You may not know Miranda Bailey’s name, but you probably know her work. As an actress, writer, director and producer, Miranda Bailey has a hand in just about every aspect of the independent film business. Early in her career, she executive produced Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and since then her producing credits have included Oren Moverman’s Time Out of Mind and the award-winning documentary Spinning Plates. Bailey’s production company Cold Iron Pictures was behind the award-winning 2015 Sundance sensation Diary of a Teenage Girl, in which she played a supporting role opposite Kristen Wiig. This summer two other films that […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 17, 2016 -
Watch: Dawn Porter’s Op-Doc Film The Chosen Life
The New York Times today debuted a new Op-Doc film, The Chosen Life, the latest film in a series by independent filmmakers supported by Chicken & Egg Pictures. Directed by Dawn Porter, The Chosen Life chronicles the challenges faced by Dr. Yashica Robinson, the only practicing OB GYN in Huntsville, Alabama who provides abortions. This film was inspired by Porter’s feature Trapped, which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Social Impact Filmmaking. Trapped will appear on PBS’s Independent Lens on June 20. “While making Trapped, I met this beautiful smart determined woman and I […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 16, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or Winner
The new film by British filmmaker Ken Loach, I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and now it’s got a trailer (above) in advance of its U.K. release on October 21. The film stars Dave Johns as Daniel Blake, a 59-year-old in the North-East of England who falls ill and applies for unemployment benefits only to get caught in a mess of red tape. Along the way, he meets a single mother and her two children who are dealing with their own challenges. Sundance Selects has U.S. rights to the film, but no release date has […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 15, 2016 -
Watch: The Radical Beauty of Tangerine
When Tangerine was released in 2015, much of the press attention focused on the fact that it was shot entirely on an iPhone 5s. Though that technical feat is impressive, the raw beauty of the film is equally striking. Set on Christmas Eve, Tangerine follows transgender sex workers and best friends Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) on an odyssey through various Los Angeles subcultures. At Fandor Keyframe, a new video essay (above) by LJ Frezza examines the film’s unique aesthetic and how director Sean Baker and DP Radium Cheung found beauty from a position of marginalization.
by Paula Bernstein on Jun 14, 2016
