Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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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% […]
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Inclusive Feelings at the Oak Cliff Film Festival
There’s an argument happening at the bar of the Texas Theater. No, it’s not about politics, as one might guess with a liberal film crowd taking over a small pocket of Texas. This is Oak Cliff, the blossoming cultural community north of the Dallas Trinity river, and no, the conversation is not about karaoke either. The Oak Cliff Film Festival opening night party was at Barbara’s Pavilion, a dive bar in a re-purposed home. As the film festival crowd rolled in around midnight, badges and conversations about Lemon and 35mm making the nerd fumes quite potent, the argument was about […]
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Documentary Goes “Alternate Reality” at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017
Virtual and augmented reality — a topic that is fast and feverishly taking over the zeitgeist of major film festivals — took center stage in last week’s 24th edition of the Sheffield Doc/Fest. “What exactly is a feature documentary now?” Paul Ashton of Creative England asked panelists from Sundance, VICE, the non-profit film foundation Cinereach and Germany’s broadcast outlet WDR/ARD. In part, he was referring to the festival’s endless range of strands that covered experimental film, live theater and an expanded VR and AR section — “Alternate Reality” — that included 25 works housed inside the stunning Millennium Gallery and […]
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Eleven Recommended Titles at BAMCinemafest 2017
BAMcinemafest, the Brooklyn presenting organization’s annual festival of top new American independent films, kicked off last night with Aaron Katz’s stylish L.A. murder mystery Gemini and runs through the 24th, with Alex Ross Perry’s Golden Exits as closing night film. The festival, which gains stature and momentum every year, mixes a fair swatch of local NYC auteurs with out-of-towners whose work strikes allied notes of idiosyncratic auteurism. Below, from myself and Vadim Rizov, are a series of picks and capsule reviews for recommended films in this year’s edition. Princess Cyd. Stephen Cone’s fifth feature is his first not grounded in […]
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Making Rent in Bed-Stuy at the Metrograph
Brandon Harris — whose insightful, politically sagacious and ruefully funny blend of memoir and criticism has graced the pages of the New Yorker, n+1 and Filmmaker, where you’ll recognize him as a Contributing Editor — has just released his debut book, Making Rent in Bed-Stuy, a cultural memoir on neighborhoods, race, millennial culture and filmmaking. Appropriately, he has also programmed a series of relevant films this weekend at New York’s Metrograph Theater. Running through the 12th, the films include Spike Lee’s Crooklyn (next to Do the Right Thing my favorite 40 Acres joint, actually), Jay-Z: Fade to Black, and Sebastián Silva’s […]
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From Race to Resistance to Refugees: The 28th Human Rights Watch Film Festival
The 28th edition of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival, running June 9-18 at NYC’s Film Society of Lincoln Center and IFC Center, will be showcasing 21 feature docs and panel discussions (and no fiction films – a smart programming move as the fiction films in past years inevitably ended up the weakest links in the lineup). Glancing through the program there looks to be a whole lot of timely stuff to choose from, including a “From Audience to Activist” discussion in which “filmmakers, journalists and activists share best practices on how to hold powerful institutions accountable safely and effectively,” […]
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On Loving — and Panning — Shows in Television’s Renaissance Moment: A Report from the Split Screens Festival
A TV series is like a conversation — or, when a show turns awful, a bad relationship. That was just one observation from a spirited panel, “The Evolution of TV Criticism,” held at Split Screens, the new New York festival that celebrates and explores television in its current “renaissance moment.” Speaking were four well-read critics who represent two generations of TV writers. Matt Zoller Seitz, of New York Magazine and RogertEbert.com (and also the festival’s head programmer), began by saying that he got his start as a critic in 1991 with his first paid byline in the Dallas Olbserver. His debut piece […]
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Mr. Robot, Man in the High Castle and More are Dissected at the Inaugural Split Screens Festival
The inaugural year of Split Screens Festival, celebrating the art and craft of television, kicked off Friday night, June 2, at New York’s IFC Center, and it runs through June 8. The festival’s programming team is headed by Matt Zoller Seitz, Editor-in-Chief of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com and author of several books on film and television. I attended the first full day of screenings and panels on Saturday, and it was an incredibly varied line-up. Following “The Evolution of TV Criticism,” which I’ll cover in a separate post, there was a showcase of the behind-the-scenes […]
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Oregon Doc Camp: A Weekend in the Woods with Documentary Filmmakers
What happens when 50 documentary filmmakers converge in the woods of Oregon for a long weekend? It sounds like the premise of an episode of Portlandia or a new reality TV show. But Oregon Doc Camp, featuring four days of film talks, screenings, workshops, and campfires at a Silver Fall State Park in Oregon, is something entirely different. It’s a relaxed, non-competitive environment where nonfiction filmmakers can swap war stories, share hard-earned expertise and provide support and feedback. In its fourth year, Oregon Doc Camp, presented by Women in Film Portland from May 18-21, gained momentum with a top-notch lineup of speakers, including editor Kate Amend (The Keepers, The Case […]
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Cannes Dispatch #4: Thoughts on Prize Winners 120 Beats Per Minute, You Were Never Really Here, The Killing of a Sacred Deer
For the third year in a row, Cannes’s Main Competition jury — this year comprised of jury president Pedro Almodóvar, German filmmaker Maren Ade, and several celebrity industry professionals whose tastes in cinema had never previously been of much concern to anyone — awarded the Palme d’Or to a movie I didn’t much like. Considered by some to be True Cinema’s answer to the Oscars, the medium’s actual most prestigious prize has suffered some blows to its reputation in the last two years after being handed to mediocre films (Dheepan in 2015 and I, Daniel Blake last year) that weren’t […]
