Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Report from Big Sky: Tips on Documentary Pitching
Given the recent Presidential threats to refugees and immigrants, it seemed only fitting that The New Neighbors Project: Self-Directed Stories from the New American West, which aims to put cameras in the hands of refugees and immigrants in Montana, won the inaugural pitch competition for Tribeca Film Institute’s IF/Then Pitch competition during the recent 14th annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. Directed and produced by Bryan Bello, The New Neighbors Project plans to create a series of short documentaries through workshops which teach refugees media production skills so they can direct their own stories. Developed by Tribeca Film Institute (TFI), IF/Then is designed to support short […]
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Five Questions for The Last Laugh Director Ferne Pearlstein
Originally published during the Tribeca Film Festival, where the doc on humor and the Holocaust had its premiere, here is Paula Bernstein’s interview with director Ferne Pearlstein about The Last Laugh. The film is opening in theaters today and plays in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. There has been no shortage of documentaries about the Holocaust but, until now, none of them have featured Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. In Ferne Pearlstein’s The Last Laugh, which premieres today at the Tribeca Film Festival, she delves into the history of humor about the Holocaust, exploring the ethical questions […]
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Berlin Critic’s Notebook 2: Bright Nights, A Fantastic Woman
Thomas Arslan’s flaccid anti-Western Gold, which screened here in Competition four years ago, spoiled what could have been a brilliant hat-trick for the Berlin School alumnus following Vacation and In the Shadows. With Bright Nights he’s back in great form, once again showcasing his flair for precise, intimately scaled dramas. Like his compatriot Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, a quick synopsis of Arslan’s film makes it sound like standard feel-good Hollywood fare: after his estranged father dies, the protagonist Michael decides to try and reconnect with his own teenage son Luis, whom he barely knows, and takes him on a road trip, embarking on a journey towards […]
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Trust Fund Kids in Hollywood: Mike Ott on California Dreams
In Mike Ott’s California Dreams (which I reviewed here), five aspiring actors are shown giving auditions and later acting out scenes in a film-within-the-film. Although this nested film is supposed to be a fiction, and also looks like one thanks to the gorgeous work of cinematographer Mike Gioulakis, the script is drawn – or appears to be drawn – directly from the actors’ biographies. One of the fascinating aspects of California Dreams is that Ott never allows you to know for certain how much is real and how much is fabricated. It was therefore a pleasure to be able to […]
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Inside the IFP Labs: How to Claim Your Emerging Voice
Monday night’s event at the Made in NY Media Center — “Inside the IFP Labs: How to Claim Your Emerging Voice” — brought together three film directors and an episodic series producer, all of whom had gone through the various Labs, to talk about the process. A bit of background: the IFP Filmmaker Labs — the Narrative Lab and Documentary Lab — are open to first-time feature directors with works in post-production. Films must be budgeted under $1 million. The Screen Forward Lab is geared toward episodic media intended for any platform. All applicants must be IFP members. Sessions are […]
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Berlin Critic’s Notebook #1: somniloquies, El mar la mar, California Dreams
Some lines from Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s somniloquies: “I don’t wanna see your ass, Mrs. Dangerfield.” “Welcome to Midget City. Yes, we built it from the ground up. We have our own police.” “I’ve seen the past. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it! I want the future. The present is squalid!” “Kill the cunt! KILL THE CUNT!!” These are all spoken by Dion McGregor, a musician from New York described in the film’s opening titles as “the world’s most prolific sleep-talker.” Over a period of six years, McGregor’s flatmate recorded hundreds of his elaborate, vividly narrated […]
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Tech Talks: The FilmGate Interactive Media Festival
The 2017 FilmGate Interactive Media Festival, which took place February 3-5, was a bit different from prior editions I’ve attended. For one thing, the fest was now headquartered in the heart of Hurricanes-land — over Super Bowl weekend no less — at the University of Miami School of Communication (rather than in trendy South Beach). For another, accommodations this time included a lovely historic house rented in Coconut Grove, where I found myself one of four born-and-bred Americans, along with three other artists originally hailing from India, Serbia and Turkey. Very Real World meets virtual reality. But perhaps the biggest […]
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Sundance Notes: Disarming a Film Festival
On Friday, January 27, as I attended the second half of Sundance, Trump signed an executive order barring Syrian refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the United States. “We’re not willing to be wrong on this subject,” said White House chief of staff Reince Priebus on Face the Nation two days later. “President Trump is not willing to take chances on this subject.” The following Monday, The New York Times reported that senior White House officials “were proud of taking actions that they said would help protect Americans against threats from potential terrorists.” This year at Sundance […]
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Sundance Notes: RISE to RUMBLE, must-see TV… from Canada
Malcolm Forbes, of all people, once memorably said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.” I’d like to extend that principle: You can easily judge the character of a nation by how it treats the indigenous people from whom it took its territory. I’m from Chattanooga, near the Chickamauga battlefield, just east of the Ocoee and Hiwassee rivers, in the southeast corner of Tennessee. I grew up on an Appalachian mountain, dated a girl in nearby Ooltewah. I now live in Manhattan. All indigenous names. Where are […]
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Last Dance Before Trumpism: Eastern Oregon, Park City (Virtual) and Rotterdam
In retrospect, it seems like it was the last glimmer of something. We were all in Eastern Oregon again, the loose circuit of folks who gather annually for the tiny two-and-a-half day, two-venue film festival that takes cinephilia to the reddest corner of a blue state. The election was just a few weeks off. No one seemed particularly bothered about it, seeing as the weekend before all the talk had been about the #BillyBushTapes and how could an admitted sexual assailant become the President anyway, puhleeze? It wasn’t hard to encounter a Trump/Pence sign in La Grande, though. It’s a largely […]
