Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Racism in Baltimore via Pest Control: Theo Anthony on Rat Film
An ethnographic and sociological nonfiction horror film, Theo Anthony’s Rat Film is a free-form experience with topical relevance. Long burdened by a documented history of residential segregation, Baltimore, Maryland — Anthony’s current place of residence — has served as a recent political hotbed due to the unjustified death of African-American resident Freddie Gray while in police custody. Less than a month after a court ruling declared (in the midst of the strengthening Black Lives Matter movement) all tried police officers not guilty of any wrongdoing in the Gray homicide, Anthony’s challenging film debuted in Switzerland at the Locarno Film Festival to much […]
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Considering the Possibilities of VR at the IFP Screen Forward Labs
[Editor’s note: this is a guest post from Taylor Cohan, the creator/director/producer/writer of the webseries Newtopia and a partcipant in this year’s IFP Screen Forward Labs.] Before the IFP Screen Forward Labs started, we received a sheet asking us to rank the different workshops taking place at the lab in terms of our interest. We hadn’t ever thought about incorporating VR into our project, but I still ranked the VR workshop as #2. Our first activity at the labs was a group screening of our films for the fellows and IFP staff. Our project screened and then we got feedback from […]
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Locarno Critic’s Notebook #2: The Dreamed Path, The Sun, The Sun Blinded Me and The Human Surge
Angela Schanelec’s continued lack of recognition, at least outside of Germany, is genuinely baffling. Judging from the dismissive-to-hostile reactions that followed the premiere of her eighth feature at the Locarno Film Festival, this regrettable state of affairs is unlikely to change. And yet, out of the competition entries I managed to see, The Dreamed Path is the only one I feel deserves to be called a masterpiece. The Dreamed Path is a demanding film, even more so than Schanelec’s previous work, but the challenge is legitimated by being commensurate with her thematic ambition: to dissect the torturous dialectic between the universal […]
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NEXT Fest 2016 Filmmakers on Accepting Financial Limitations in Exchange for Freedom to Make Uncompromising Cinema
To fuel their tentpole machines, studios have gotten into the habit of poaching successful independent filmmakers to direct (or at least assume the role of the director in a ceremonial way on) their most valuable franchises. Some would argue that the practice exists to cut down on costs and allow executives to easily manipulate a filmmaker with less leverage or experience. Indeed, when this happens, the result is often disastrous. Nevertheless, young storytellers continue to be tempted by studio-based jobs-for-hire that wind up costing them their creative freedom. By comparison, the independent model allows filmmakers an enviable amount of experimentation, […]
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Defending the Feature Film in a Television Age: Sundance NEXT Fest Filmmakers on Why Films Matter
With streaming powerhouses like Netflix or Amazon now stepping into theatrical distribution of feature-length content, while also creating spaces for storytellers to work on episodic content, filmmakers’ options to reach a wider audience have expanded — even if that means sacrificing a more traditional release. Now, filmmakers’ dilemmas revolve around determining the length, visual language, and viewing situations most suitable for their stories. Undoubtedly, each medium presents distinct artistic tools, benefits, and its own set of restrictions. However, television, and episodic content in general, has in recent years been heralded as a space where filmmakers can deviate from the norm […]
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What’s the Most Daunting Aspect of Working in Independent Film Today? Sundance NEXT Fest Filmmakers Respond
Boasting an eclectic program of features, shorts, musical performances, conversations and informational panels, Sundance NEXT Fest 2016 will bring a piece of the Park City action to Downtown Los Angeles from August 12-14 at the Theatre at Ace Hotel. Six features that had their world premieres back in January at Sundance will screen alongside bonus events ranging from stand-up comedy to Q&As and live acts. The films, all of which have secured theatrical distribution post Sundance, encompass explorations of gender and race from a strong female perspective, a twist on the immigrant story and assimilation, a paranormal Iranian tale set […]
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Documentary Selections Announced for the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival
Sixteen films, including new works by Steve James, Raoul Peck, Fischer Stevens and Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as a first-time feature by documentary director and producer Erin Heidenreich, were announced for the Toronto International Film Festival’s doc program today. Commented TIFF Docs Programmer Thom Powers in a press release, “Revelations abound in this year’s crop of documentaries. We gain fresh perspectives on high profile figures such as James Baldwin, Amanda Knox and The Beatles; and we meet compelling figures from the worlds of activism, music, sports and, not to be forgotten, classic burlesque.” Among the films listed above, Steve James, […]
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54th New York Film Festival (NYFF) Announces 2016 Main Slate
Fresh from Lincoln Center, here’s the line-up for the main slate of this year’s New York Film Festival. Amid the usual set of heavy-duty auteurs’ latest works (Jim Jarmusch, Olivier Assayas, the Dardennes, Kelly Reichardt et al.), there are a few outliers as usual, including Dash Shaw’s My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea, which will premiere at this year’s TIFF. NYFF runs from September 30-October 16, kicking off with the world premiere of Ava DuVernay’s new documentary The 13th and closing with another high-profile world premiere, James Gray’s The Lost City of Z. Opening Night The 13th Directed by Ava DuVernay […]
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Locarno Critic’s Notebook #1: The Ornithologist, Mister Universo, The Hedonists, All Clues Lead to Berlin
In the last two years, the main slate of the Locarno Film Festival had been nigh miraculously star-studded (in strictly arthouse terms), boasting premieres by the likes of Chantal Akerman, Pedro Costa, Lav Diaz and Andrzej Żuławski, to name but four of the most prominent. Perhaps inevitably, normality had to be reinstated eventually and this year presented less immediately mouth-watering offerings. Indeed, the best films in this first half of the festival were to be found outside of the international competition. Thus far, the most anticipated title has also been the most disappointing: Portuguese auteur João Pedro Rodrigues’ The Ornithologist, […]
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Inside the New Points North Institute for Nonfiction Storytellers
I first met Caroline von Kuhn when she was working for Tribeca Film Festival, and we became fast friends. Eventually our friendship grew to include professional collaborations — I had a small role in her directorial debut, Like the Water; when she joined the team at Camden International Film Festival, I rushed to cover it for Paste; she produced a short documentary I directed about Albert Maysles; and we are in development on a major scripted feature. So when she told me that the Camden International Film Festival had big news to announce, I knew it was going to be […]
