Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Tech on The Beach: The FilmGate Interactive Creative Conference 2016
“Tech Up, Make Stories, Get a Tan” was the accurate tagline of this year’s cutting edge FilmGate Interactive Conference (which ironically took place at a ’50s-era throwback, the Deauville Beach Resort Miami this past February 20-28). Now in its third year, the event boasts of being “the first conference in the USA to focus solely on interactive and immersive content.” While this might conjure up images of gear heads discussing the latest drone technology – and there was indeed a Tech Playground for those so inclined – most events were not only free but, refreshingly, open and quite welcoming to […]
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“The Original Pitch Couldn’t Be Said in Less than a Thousand Words”: Robert Greene and Kate Lyn Sheil on Kate Plays Christine
After winning the Special Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance, filmmaker Robert Greene and actress Kate Lyn Sheil arrived in Berlin for their international premiere of Kate Plays Christine. Of the 44 titles slated in Berlinale’s Forum, Greene’s documentary is one of only three American films to have been selected to screen. The film is described as a documentary, but the nature of the project has a complicated and multi-layered explanation. On one level, the film follows Kate preparing for a role, but the character she must assume isn’t written in a script. She’s researching to play […]
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The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival Announces Selections for New U.S. And International Narrative Competitions, Plus World Documentary Competition and Viewpoints
The Tribeca Film Festival announced today its first wave of selections, including its newly created U.S. and International Narrative Competitions. Encompassing 18 films between them, the sections feature works by several Filmmaker 25 New Faces (Sophia Takal, Ian Olds, Ingrid Jungermann, Cecilia Aldarondo, and Alma Har’el) as well as new work by Demitri Martin and Tracy Droz Dragos, director (with Andrew Droz Tragos) of the Sundance winner Rich Hill. Each section will have an Opening Night film. The U.S. Narrative Competition unspools with Justin Tipping’s San Francisco-set youth crime drama, Kicks. The International Narrative Competition opens with Madly, an anthology […]
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“Shooting the Interview Like a Game”: Kamilla Pfeffer on Who is Oda Jaune?
After seeing only one Oda Jaune painting in an art catalogue at a bookstore, Kamilla Pfeffer had found her next subject. Born in Bulgaria, Oda Jaune is a German painter currently based in Paris, and has had her work exhibited all over the world. The nature of her paintings and the process of her practice are the primary interests in Pfeffer’s documentary, Who is Oda Jaune?, but how to first engage with the introverted artist is Pfeffer’s requisite challenge. “Oda’s work has a way of speaking to my irrational side,” says German actor Lars Eidinger during his short interview with […]
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“The Vanity of Trans-People Versus the Humanity of Trans-People”: Sara Jordenö and Twiggy Pucci Garcon on KIKI
“One of my friends was killed over there,” says Christopher Waldorf, reflecting back to a scene from KIKI, the 66th Berlinale’s Teddy Award-winning documentary. In an early scene from the film, Waldorf is captured voguing down a dangerous street in Harlem. “The Trade are straight hood guys,” says Waldorf, explaining the threat of violence and harassment that the Trade inflicts on Voguers like himself. “The only reason we were able to joke around when we were filming there,” chimes in another featured subject in the film, Gia Marie Love, “is because we were with white people.” First-time documentary filmmaker Sara […]
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Alongside Spotlight, Mya Taylor, Krisha, The Look of Silence Nab 2016 Spirit Awards
Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, about a team of Boston journalists investigating Catholic Church pedophilia scandals in the 1980s, swept the Film Independent Spirit Awards yesterday, scoring Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing awards, in addition to the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble. As if often the case at the Spirits, the Open Roads released film was by far the highest-grossing film in all of its winning categories, sometimes to a surprising degree. On the awards circuit this year, Spotlight has been that rare frontrunner without a galvanizing lead, or even supporting, performance. (Perhaps acknowledging that fact, the […]
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Anohni, Academy’s Only Transgender Nominee Ever, Explains Decision to Skip the Oscars
As a viewer it’s easy and arguably admirable to skip the Oscars. As a film writer, a disinterest in the Academy Awards can provide thoughtful commentary on the artistic and commercial priorities of our film business. But for those with more vested interest, not attending the Awards is a powerful statement. In the year of the Oscar boycott, this essay by Anohi (aka Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons), the first transgender performer ever to be nominated, is particularly bracing. Anohni, who was nominated for Best Original Song (“Manta Ray,” her collaboration with J. Ralph from the movie Racing […]
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Deadline Approaching for the IFP Narrative and Documentary Labs
The IFP Labs, which offer intensive, year-long mentorship to first-time filmmakers with features in post-production and budgeted less than $1 million, has a March 1 deadline coming up. Still the only Labs focused on post-production, festival strategy, marketing, distribution and DIY strategies, the program is, I think, an invaluable resource and one of the IFP’s best activities. (Full disclosure: IFP publishes Filmmaker, and I was a creator of the IFP Narrative Labs.) In addition to the guidance and advice from Lab Leaders and professional mentors, the Labs also create a tight-knit community of filmmakers who wind up being their own […]
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The Origins and Challenges of Cartel Land, Amy, What Happened, Miss Simone? and Winter on Fire
Few festivals do a better job of rounding up the year’s most enticing documentaries than the always charming Savannah Film Festival. During its 18th edition last fall, the festival — largely curated by publicist Steven Wilson and entertainment reporter Scott Feinberg on behalf of the Savannah College of Art and Design — brought many of the leading lights in documentary filmmaking to the northeastern corner of Georgia for its second annual “Docs to Watch” sidebar. The culmination of the program is a panel, moderated by Feinberg, that includes a smorgasbord of directors whose movies will figure prominently in the award season races to […]
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“Treat Me Like a Man”: K8 Hardy on Outfitumentary
“I wanna be where the boys are…” sings K8 Hardy as she makes her way to the final TigerPro discussion at the 2016 Rotterdam International Film Festival. She’s a panelist in a 90-minute panel discussion, “Commodifying the Queer,” and her attitude walking in is guarded. “Lately, my perspective is just, you know, treat me like a man,” she sighs before the panel begins. Gender, feminism, queerness, and identity are all subjects in Hardy’s work as an artist and filmmaker, but being “called upon as the radical feminist lesbian,” as she says once the panel begins, is stifling. “It’s so minimizing […]
