Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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SXSW Announces Midnight Movies and Final Titles Added to 2016 Lineup
Here’s the last group of titles to be added to SXSW’s slate. All the midnight features are here, as well as are new titles for the other slates, including the much-expanded “Festival Favorites” section. FEATURES MIDNIGHTERS Scary, funny, sexy, controversial – provocative after-dark features for night owls and the terminally curious. Carnage Park Director/Screenwriter: Mickey Keating The year is 1978. A team of wannabe crooks botch a small-town bank heist and flee with their hostage deep into the California desert, where they find themselves in a harrowing fight for survival against a psychotic ex-military sniper. Cast: Ashley […]
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“A Poor African-American Woman in the Jim Crow South”: Maggie Greenwald |Sophie and the Rising Sun
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? As the screenwriter as well as director of Sophie and the Rising Run, I didn’t believe there […]
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Embracing the Sublime and the Idiotic: 5 Questions with the Filmmakers of “Friends with Benefits”
When it comes to both geography and genre, the loose collective of American filmmakers made up of Gabriel Abrantes, Alexander Carver, Benjamin Crotty, and Daniel Schmidt favor radical destabilization. Their films are hard to categorize. They’re set in an array of countries, including France, Djibouti, Iraq, Puerto Rico, and underneath the US-Mexico border, and they’re not quite family drama, not quite political farce, and not quite science-fiction, though they borrow elements from each. The scenarios in their films often interrogate post-9/11 geopolitics and the legacy of colonization, but at the same time, the filmmakers approach these subjects with an absurd […]
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A Showcase for Pacific Islands Filmmakers: The Hawaii International Film Festival at 35
How does one measure a film festival’s success? Through the number of world premieres, red-carpet events, and sold-out screenings? Or possibly it’s something that occurs beyond the screen, in terms of how a festival supports its community and helps nurture its local film culture. Turning a respectable 35 this past November, the Hawaii International Film Festival attempted to do both. It kept its usual youthful swagger with a strong lineup of world and international premieres and some glamorous events featuring the likes of Japanese star Tadanobu Asano and Hong Kong director Mabel Cheung, yet made sure to spotlight key new […]
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SXSW Film Festival 2016 Unveils Feature Film Slate
There will be late additions, but the bulk of this year’s SXSW feature film slate has been unveiled. From the festival, here’s the rundown section by section. Obvious highlights: world premieres of Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some and Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, Joel Potrykus’ follow-up to Buzzard, and a documentary about the making of Smokey and the Bandit from Jesse Moss (The Overnighters). NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION Ten world premieres; ten unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,443 narrative feature submissions in 2016. The Arbalest Director/Screenwriter: Adam Pinney The inventor of the world’s greatest toy reflects on his decade-long obsession with a woman […]
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Five Questions for Newtown Director Kim A. Snyder
Kim A. Snyder’s Newtown examines the current spate of gun violence by presenting the families who have been most affected by it. Three years removed from the horrific school shooting at Newtown Elementary School that took twenty-six casualties in Connecticut, Snyder’s film gives a much-needed face to the community. As discussions revolving around the accessibility of firearms seem to get obscured and buried by politicians with a not-so-secret agenda, Newtown seeks to make the political personal. Filmmaker: Your previous film, Welcome to Shelbyville, was also about the residents of a small town reacting to a major event in their community. What brings you to a location? Are you first […]
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Five Questions for How to Tell You’re a Douchebag Writer/Director Tahir Jetter
Having made his Sundance debut with the short film Close. in 2011, filmmaker Tahir Jetter returned with his debut feature, How To Tell You’re A Douchebag — a film that, as he discusses below, he wasn’t sure would bring him back to Park City. After his web series Hard Times was picked up for distribution by Issa Rae Productions in 2014, Jetter set his sights on a feature film about dating in the modern world. To raise awareness of the project, Jetter published a blog, Occasionally Dating Black Women, written in a voice that would turn out to be his fictional main character. Inspired by films that handle […]
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Five Questions for Jim: The James Foley Story Director Brian Oakes
Developing a documentary about the murder of an innocent photojournalist at the hands of ISIS would be an emotional experience for any first-time feature filmmaker. Now imagine that the slain journalist in question, Jim Foley, is someone you’ve been friends with since childhood. This is the situation filmmaker Brian Oakes found himself in when making Jim: The James Foley Story, a film that looks at his friend’s death as well as the chilling aftermath the Foley family had to endure stateside. An intensely personal experience, Jim will air on HBO next month following its world premiere in the U.S. Documentary Completion section of […]
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Five Questions for NUTS! Director Penny Lane
A medical doctor in name only, John R. Brinkley became famous in the ’20s and ’30s for claiming to have found an unusual cure for male impotence: all it would take was the transplantation of goat testicles into his human subjects. A hundred years removed from “discovery,” documentarian Penny Lane (whose Our Nixon was about another very larger-than-life public figure) dives into the life and times of Brinkley, a man whose entire history was based on lies and false acclaim. Filmmaker: Your first feature documentary Our Nixon is compiled from archival footage clearly relevant to American history and politics. Did you set out for your follow-up to be a […]
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“The Idea of the Mother Who Leaves”: Rebecca Daly | Mammal
In every film, there is the story that you knew you were telling, the story the audience perceives. But there is always some other story, a secret story. It might be the result of your hidden motivations for making the film, or, instead, the result of themes that only became clear to you after you made the movie. It might be something very personal, or it might be a story you didn’t even know you were telling. What is your film’s secret story? For me, starting with a story, I like there to be a strong theme or idea at […]
