Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Slamdance Announces its 2018 Narrative and Documentary Competition Lineup
Sixteen premieres — including 10 world premieres — are part of the 2017 Slamdance Film Festival, whose Narrative and Documentary Competition films were announced today. A punk rock romance, surrogacy drama, documentary about the Polaroid age and a non-fiction tale of a woman who withdraws from the fashion world to become a hermit are just four of the films to be presented January 19 – 25, 2018, in Park City, Utah. Notably, Slamdance submissions are selected from blind submissions by festival alumni and “are programmed democratically.” In addition to the films, Slamdance also announced a new prize. From the press […]
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Call Me By Your Name, Strong Island, Get Out Top 2017 IFP Gotham Awards
Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name and Yance Ford’s Strong Island topped the 2017 IFP Gotham Awards, winning Best Feature and Best Documentary last night at a ceremony held at downtown New York’s Cipriani. And Jordan Peele’s Get Out made a very strong showing, winning the Audience Award, the Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award and the Best Screenplay. The Gotham Awards, presented by Filmmaker‘s parent organization, IFP, is the first awards show of the Oscar season, and in the past it’s been a harbinger of future success for its awarded films. (Previous Gotham Best Pictures include the last three […]
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Watch Live: Gotham Independent Film Awards 2017
Tonight marks the 27th annual edition of the Gotham Independent Film Awards, presented by Filmmaker‘s parent organization, IFP. Starting at 6 pm EST tonight you’ll be able to watch the ceremony, beginning with the red carpet arrivals, with the ceremony proper staring at 8. A Facebook live stream of the ceremony has begun; click on the Facebook icon here to watch. For more information, including a complete list of the nominees and tributees, click here, and check back tomorrow for a write-up of the ceremony.
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“Don’t Judge Your Footage in the Field”: Tips on Doc Verite Shooting From the Camerafolk Behind One of Us, The Judge, and E-Team
Vérité cinema is frequently tossed about as a term, and likely most of us know the broader strokes of the genre: an observational camera whose team aims not to interfere with the subjects or action; a film frequently built on intimate access, shunning sit down interviews or use of archival footage. At a November 12 DOC NYC PRO panel dubbed “Observational Camera,” five respected filmmakers reflected on the specifics of how they go about shooting direct cinema. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s One of Us follows three individuals who leave an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, and on the panel were cinematographers Jenni […]
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Spotlight on UXdoc at The 20th RIDM (Montreal International Documentary Film Festival)
Running November 9th-19th, this year’s 20th edition of RIDM (or the Montreal International Documentary Film Festival for us non-Québécois) once again proved that big things come in small(ish) packages. Though not nearly as big as that other international doc fest directly on its heels, RIDM’s charm lies precisely in the fact that it’s both wide-ranging and easily navigable. In other words, a docuphile can relax and focus on the inspiring work in front of their eyes at any given moment instead of lamenting over the dozen other screenings, panels and events they’re inevitably missing. Which is not to say there […]
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Escape into America: The Eastern Oregon and Indie Memphis Film Festivals
Keeping on top of the media conversation in 2017 has begun to feel more like an exercise in self-harm than consumption. The dirty laundry is exhaustive and exhausting; we are quick to expose and defile, but quicker to move onto the next victimizer, leaving little lasting resolution in the wake of the penultimate upheaval. At the movies, we look for meaning where we can get it. Plots are politicized to the point where the once ghettoized “issue film” is mutating into standard grade. Even if the latest Thor joint is raking it in at the box office, cotton candy escapism […]
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Revisiting History at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival
Sante Fe has archeological sites that date back 13,000 years. As we drove to my hotel from the Albuquerque airport, almost an hour-long trek at midnight, my driver told me about the history of the city, rooted in Native American culture, that I had no idea dated that far back. “History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes,” Mark Twain supposedly said. After spending a weekend at the Sante Fe Independent Film Festival, the thought felt applicable — the lineup of films demonstrated the cynical nature of oppression, struggle and minority battles that indeed continue in familiar patterns. Set on […]
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Premiering Docs within the New World Order: Thom Powers on DOC NYC 2017
The increasingly robust DOC NYC opens today through November 16, with over 100 documentary features unspooling in three locations in downtown New York and Chelsea. Among the 23 world and 23 U.S. premieres are new films from Barbara Kopple, Sam Pollard and Julia Bacha, whose Naila and the Uprising, about the woman of First Intifada, won the festival’s first pitch competition in 2016. Films unspool across 16 sections, including the new New World Order, focused on pictures with global news importance, and Metropolis, the competitive section featuring films from and about New York City. The DOC NYC Pro section is […]
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Y’allywood Babylon: The 20th SCAD Savannah Film Festival’s Docs to Watch Roundtable
This year’s 20th anniversary edition of the SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) Savannah Film Festival, which lays claim to being the largest university-run film fest in the world, continued its two-decades-long tradition of mixing Hollywood wattage with downhome southern hospitality. Once again the fest honored an eclectic mix of celebrity guests of all ages (elder statesmen and women included Richard Gere, Sir Patrick Stewart, Aaron Sorkin, Salma Hayek Pinault, Holly Hunter, and Kyra Sedgwick, while the “youngsters” featured the likes of John Boyega, Zoey Deutch, Robert Pattinson, Andrea Riseborough, and Willow Shields). The festival also played host to […]
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Watch Now for 48 Hours: Short Films from Eastern Oregon Film Festival
For the third year Filmmaker is happy to exclusively host online selections from the currently underway Eastern Oregon Film Festival. These films will stream exclusively here on the site until Sunday morning at 9:00 AM. This year, we’re hosting a work of philosophical science fiction by Blake Salzman, a new drama from festival veteran Frank Mosley, and an inspiring London-set work from Tal Amiran. You can watch all the films embedded below, and check out the rest of the lineup at Eastern Oregon Film Festival. Midwife (dir. Blake Salzman, 2017) Synopsis: In a bleak future where women are dying rapidly, […]
