Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Do You Need to Premiere at a Major Festival to Qualify your Doc for an Oscar? Roger Ross Williams on the Shortlist Process
One of the most intriguing aspects of this year’s Savannah Film Festival’s Docs to Watch Roundtable, which I wrote about a couple months back, was the lively back-and-forth that occurred when the subject of the Oscar shortlist came up. From all appearances it seems that a documentarian’s chances of making that Holy Grail cut are “predetermined” — i.e., if your film didn’t debut at one of a narrow number of A-list fests, well, forget about it. However, Roger Ross Williams, a member of the Documentary Branch of the AMPAS board of governors, took vigorous issue with that assessment. Which intrigued […]
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Watch Five Great Films this Weekend at our MoMA “Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You” Series
Filmmaker‘s annual collaboration with the Museum of Modern’s Film Department, the Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You, series returns this weekend for its 11th edition. Curated by MoMA’s Sophie Cavoulacos the IFP’s Milton Tabbot and Zachary Mandinach, and, from Filmmaker, Vadim Rizov and myself, the series is our pick of five great films that, in this download, streaming, pay per view era, deserve most especially to be seen on the big screen. Each year we think we’re going to struggle to find five films that meet our exacting standards — five pictures that both haven’t gotten distribution […]
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Filming During Malaria Season: Kelly Daniela Norris and T.W. Pittman on Nakom
Nakom is the first ever feature film in the Kusaal language and the first Ghanaian narrative film to have screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Following the world premiere in Berlin, the film made its U.S. debut at the New Directors/New Films festival in New York. Last month, Nakom was nominated for the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award for films budgeted less than $500,000. On the eve of their Berlin premiere, co-directors Kelly Daniela Norris and T.W. (Trav) Pittman said they were most excited to screen in Nakom, the rural village in northern Ghana where they lived for four […]
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Sundance Film Festival 2017 Announces Short Film Lineup
Following the announcement of its competition, NEXT, New Frontier, premieres, midnight, kids, spotlight and special events slates, Sundance rounds out its slate with a list of the shorts to be shown during the festival. Some quick highlights: Come Swim, Kristen Stewart’s first narrative short; Fish Story, the new short by documentary filmmaker Charlie Lyne (Beyond Clueless), who’s also been a contributor to Filmmaker; and a new film from Jim Cummings, winner of last year’s Short Film Grand Jury Prize for Thunder Road. He returns with The Robbery, whose one-line synopsis is unimprovable: “Crystal robs a liquor store—it goes pretty OK.” U.S. NARRATIVE SHORT FILMS American Paradise / […]
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Sundance Announces 2017 Premieres, Midnight, Kids, Spotlight and Special Events Slates
Last week Sundance released its competition, NEXT and New Frontier slates; today, we have the premieres, midnight, kids, spotlight and special events slates. Highlights of what’s below include new films from Miguel Arteta, Andrew Dosunmu, Ry Russo-Young, Luca Guadagnino, Michael Almereyda and Dee Rees, as well the directorial debut of Sicario/Hell or High Water screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. PREMIERES Beatriz at Dinner / U.S.A. (Director: Miguel Arteta, Screenwriter: Mike White) — Beatriz, an immigrant from a poor town in Mexico, has drawn on her innate kindness to build a career as a health practitioner. Doug Strutt is a cutthroat, self-satisfied billionaire. When these […]
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Sundance Film Festival Announces the 2017 New Frontier Slate
On the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the competition and NEXT slates, today Sundance has unveiled its New Frontier slate. Now in its 10th year, the section is devoted primarily to AR, VR and a variety of installations. Highlights from this announcement include new films from Travis Wilkerson and Jem Cohen, a performance by Terence Nash, plus the latest from VR veteran Nonny de la Peña and a new VR project from Rose Troche. FILMS AND PERFORMANCE 18 Black Girls / Boys Ages 1-18 Who Have Arrived at the Singularity and Are Thus Spiritual Machines: $X in an Edition of $97 Quadrillion […]
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“The Military System and a Movie Set are Similar”: Rachel Lang on Baden Baden
Described as the most daring section of the Berlinale, Forum aims to straddle art and cinema. Launched in the late ’60s to diversify the festival, Forum still showcases perhaps the most progressive and experimental films of the 400 total that are slated in Berlin’s beast of a festival. There were 44 titles selected for Berlinale’s Forum program this year, and of the 34 world premieres and 9 international premieres, several played at Berlin’s arthouse Arsenal cinema in the festival’s wake. Though this year’s program was focused on the Arab region, Forum is known for its dissidence and commitment to presenting unpredictable and unconventional lineups. This year, the […]
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Sundance Film Festival Announces 2017 Competition and NEXT Lineup
Here’s the first lineup for the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, with more to come in the days ahead regarding Special Presentations, Midnight Madness et al. Some highlights from the group below: new films by Alex Ross Perry (Golden Exits), Gillian Robespierre (Landline), and David Lowery’s recently revealed “secret feature” (A Ghost Story). Also: the sophomore feature from Dustin Guy Defa (Person to Person), Dayveon, the first feature by one of our 25 New Faces of Film, Amman Abbasi, and the documentary Casting JonBenet, on which Filmmaker‘s editor Scott Macaulay is a producer. U.S. DRAMATIC COMPETITION Presenting the world premieres of 16 narrative feature films, […]
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Moonlight, O.J.: Made in America, Casey Affleck, Isabelle Huppert Top 26th Annual Gotham Awards
TUESDAY AFTERNOON WRITE-THROUGH In 2008, Barry Jenkins remembered on one of several trips up to the podium tonight at the 26th Annual IFP Gotham Awards, held, as usual, at Cipriani Wall Street, he was in this same room as one of the nominees for Best New Director. He lost that year to Ballast‘s Lance Hammer, and, as he went on to note, he hasn’t made a film in the long eight years following. (Neither has Hammer, actually, although I hear that’s changing.) Until Moonlight. His beautiful, amazingly accomplished and much beloved second feature took home four awards tonight, including the […]
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American Honey, Moonlight, Free in Deed Score as 2017 Independent Spirit Awards are Announced
Jenny Slate and Edgar Ramirez unveiled the nominations for the 2017 Independent Spirit Awards today at Los Angeles’s W Hollywood Hotel. As always, many of the most heralded independent films of the year scored multiple nominations, including Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, Pablo Larrain’s Jackie and Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea. All these pictures were nominated for Best Picture as well as receiving nominations in several other categories. But one film that has yet to receive distribution in the States — Free in Deed, by 25 New Face Jake Mahaffy — also received many nods, including Best […]
