Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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TIFF Critic’s Notebook 1: Canadian Border Security, Call Me By Your Name, Bodied
It’s customary, when diving into a series of festival dispatches, to include some prefatory, contextualizing stuff up top, which has always been tough for me. This year, though, reality has made it easy: by having me arrive at Sundance a day late thanks to Air Force Two speeding Trump off to the inauguration, and in Canada in the form of a border security official, one officer Nicoara. I’d remembered last year that Canadian customs is a little more severe than you’d expect: I think I answered about five minutes’ worth of questions about anything and everything relating to my TIFF […]
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25 Films We’re Looking Forward to at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival got underway today with Janus Metz’s Borg/McEnroe as Opening Night and a number of heavily anticipated Fall titles — including mother!, Battle of the Sexes, Downsizing, I, Tonya — making either their world or North American premieres. Vadim Rizov will be on the ground filing his critics dispatches for Filmmaker, and we’ll have select interviews and other editorial as the fest goes on. But before diving into our preview of 25 films we’re especially excited about, I want to comment on what may be TIFF’s biggest news this year, which arrived a week before the […]
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Camden International Film Festival Announces 2017 Slate and Expanded VR Section
The Camden International Film Festival, which takes place September 14 – 17 throughout Camden, Rockport and Portland, Maine, announced its 2017 lineup today. Opening the festival is a world premiere, Dustin Nakao Haider’s basketball doc, Shot in the Dark, and the lineup also contains eight films, including The Reagan Show, All That Passes By Through A Window That Doesn’t Open and Whose Streets?, that received support from parent organization Points North Institute’s Artist Programs. “Screening at CIFF this year feels like a homecoming,” said Sabaah Folayan, Director of Whose Streets?, in a press release. “This community believed in our project […]
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Al Gore, Jason Blum To Receive Tribute Awards at the 2017 IFP Gotham Awards
IFP announced today that former Vice President Al Gore, whose work on the issue of climate change has been featured in two feature documentaries, will receive a newly created Humanitarian Tribute at this year’s IFP Gotham Awards. Blumhouse topper Jason Blum, the producer behind low-cost, high-profit, zeitgeist-zinging horror hits like this year’s Get Out, will receive the Industry Tribute. “We are thrilled to be presenting Vice President Al Gore with the Humanitarian Tribute and Jason Blum with the Industry Tribute” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center, in a press release. “Mr. Gore’s […]
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IFP Week Programs Announced, Including Filmmaker-Hosted Opening Day with Barry Jenkins, Safdie Bros, Dee Rees and More
IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today programs to be included in its annual signature event, IFP Week. They include, I’m excited to say, an opening day hosted by Filmmaker timed to the celebration of this magazine’s 25th Anniversary and 100th issue. On Sunday, September 17, I and other Filmmaker editors and writers will be moderating a day of presentations and discussions at BRIC with speakers who’ve been important our collective history, including Oscar-winning filmmakers Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski of Moonlight; Josh and Benny Safdie of Good Time; and Emmy-nominated director Dee Rees of the forthcoming Netflix release Mudbound. The running […]
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Summer Festival(ing): On Seattle, BAMCinemaFEST & Fantasia
I normally go to the Seattle International Film Festival towards the end, when the festival hosts its largest contingent of industry types and you get to go to the top of the Space Needle, where the annual awards brunch is held, for free. As an out-of-towner, it’s necessary to focus on a weekend or two; Seattle’s is the country’s largest festival by sheer volume of films, screening exactly 400 this year, so it’s clearly impossible to see a significant chunk of the program — even if you decided to stay for the fest’s entire entire three-and-a-half week duration. Of the […]
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SFFILM Picks Two New Filmmaking Teams to Receive Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowships
A multi-layered biography of Alexander Graham Bell that explores not only the invention of the telephone but Bell’s work with eugenics and a thriller about industrial hacking are the two projects receiving Sloan Science in Cinema Fellowships from SFFFILM. SFFILM, the parent organization of the San Francisco International Film Festival, awards these grants — funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation — biannually and will provide each filmmaking team with script development support, a $35,000 cash grant and a two-month residency at FilmHouse, SFFILM’s suite of production offices for local and visiting independent filmmakers. Filmmakers will be connected with scientific […]
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Post-Romero Zombies and Others in a Trump World: Fantasia International Film Festival 2017
“Holy shit.” “George Romero just died.” “Wtf?!?!?!” “Did you see that?” Those frantic texts, sent in rapid succession by a friend on July 16th, days before I was to head to the Fantasia International Film Festival, hit hard. The legendary horror filmmaker had passed away from lung cancer at the age of 77; his death came as a shock, and not just due to the severity of his private illness. To the outside world, old George was still as productive as ever, and his new project, George A. Romero’s Road of the Dead, was to continue a restless franchise nearing its 50th year. Less than a […]
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IFP Announces Feature Film Slate for IFP Week
IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project), Filmmaker‘s parent organization, today announced its 2017 IFP Week feature film slate, highlighting over 110 narrative and documentary projects in development from over 15 countries. This follows the earlier announcement of 37 television, digital and web series in development that have also been selected for the annual event. Combined, over 145 projects will be presented in DUMBO, Brooklyn September 17-21, 2017. “This year’s feature film program doesn’t shy away from tackling the controversial and key issues of our time. Art often reflects the times we live in, and this slate certainly represents a multitude of points of […]
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IFP Announces Series Lineup to be Presented at 2017 IFP Week
IFP, Filmmaker‘a parent organization, announced today the more than 35 television, digital and app-based series that will be included in the 39th annual IFP Week, taking place September 17-21, 2017 in Brooklyn. For the last several years, IFP has been broadening its mandate to include both script and non-fiction series of all formats and genres. This year’s IFP Project Forum, writes IFP in a press release, includes “series from veteran and new creators, with 70% of works at the scripted/early development stage and 30% with independently shot pilots. Of the series featured, 51% are made by women and overall, 74% […]
