The 2010 Chicago Underground Film Festival, to be held June 24-July 1, will be honoring experimental film guru Jonas Mekas with its Lifetime Achievement Award.  Mekas will attend a number of festival screenings, including that of the new documentary Visionaries: Jonas Mekas and the (Mostly) American Avant-Garde, at which he will participate in a Q&A with director Chuck Workman. Here is the complete CUFF lineup: June 24 8:00 p.m.: The Wild Hunt, dir. Alexandre Franchi. A jilted boyfriend enters the strange world of medieval re-enactments in a desperate bid to win his girlfriend back. June 25 6:00 p.m.: World’s Largest, […]

Outfest 2010: The 28th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival will screen 147 films from 23 countries and host panels and events throughout the city, from July 8-18.  Opening with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Howl and closing with J.B. Ghuman, Jr.’s  Spork, Outfest will have two other gala screenings as well as a number of special screenings of LGBT classics like Clueless and Hustler White. Here is the complete list of Outfest features: Opening Night Gala – HOWL, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (July 8 at 8:00pm – Orpheum Theatre) Closing Night Gala – Spork, J.B. Ghuman, Jr. […]

Out of 390 applicants from 23 countries, the Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci announced yesterday the seven recipients of the 2010 Gucci Tribeca Documentary fund, whose projects highlight globally important social issues. The projects that will receive  a total of $100,000 in grant money are : African Deep, Directed and Produced by Rachel Boynton. – (USA) African Deep is a riveting adventure about the heated quest for oil in the deep waters off West Africa’s coast. Shot over the course of four years, at a time of rising demand for energy and increasing competition for resources worldwide, the film takes […]

After hit screenings at SXSW and HotDocs, Alexandre O. Philippe‘s The People vs. George Lucas will be shown at four film festivals this month: Edinburgh International, LA, AFI’s Silverdocs,  and Munich.  Philippe’s film examines the relationship between filmmaker George Lucas and his fans over the past thirty years.  PvG is one of six documentaries at SILVERDOCS nominated for the WGA Documentary Screenplay Award this year. You can catch the film at any of the following screenings: Edinburgh International Film Festival: June 18 @ 7:45pm (Filmhouse 1) June 19 @ 3:30pm (Filmhouse 1) Los Angeles Film Festival: June 23 @ 8:30pm […]

Last night Thom Powers screened two docs, Jessica Edwards‘ short, Seltzer Works and Gregory Kallenberg‘s feature, Haynesville as the penultimate screening in his Spring Stranger Than Fiction series. The series rarely features shorts, but Powers credited the move to the fact that both films focused on gas crises – one very small, one very large, both man-made. Deftly shot, Seltzer Works is a carefully composed bit of nostalgia for a time when deliverymen schlepped heavy glass bottles full of fizzy water all over Brooklyn. A portrait of a third-generation seltzer man struggling to survive in a world that no longer needs him, […]

Each year, before the movies and parties and deals go down at the Cannes Film Festival, thousands of international participants go through the same steps. They complete their registration, receive the color-coded badge that designates their place in a screening hierarchy as rigid as that of a fascistl state, and pick up a mid-sized, branded satchel that holds, among reams of leaflets and ads, the official festival program. This is a slim, beautifully produced book—the 2010 edition is midnight blue—where each film in the Official Competition is given a full double-page spread. There is a portrait of the auteur behind […]

  “You know the kind of movie where people laugh and cry?” asked a filmmaker character in Kornél Mundruczó’s Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project (seeking American distribution). “I want you to cry.” “I am crying,” responded the would-be actor before him, his face frozen solid. The internalization of emotion, and the tiny, subtle ways it can creep into the features and postures of even the most stoic characters was explored in some of the best work at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. At first glance, the protagonist of A Screaming Man (pictured above) (Un homme qui crie, seeking distribution), by […]

Since part of the mission of Stranger Than Fiction is to promote “lost gems,” it should come as no surprise that programmer Thom Powers would choose to screen Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera, a little seen (outside of film schools) Soviet classic that has had a profound influence on everything from Jean-Luc Godard to car commercials. A mish-mash of documentary material and visual effects, Man With a Movie Camera is a rapidly edited documentary experiment — and perhaps the world’s first music video. Last night’s screening featured a modern score arranged by John Walter, an editor and filmmaker […]

The 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival wrapped up this evening in France with Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (pictured) taking the coveted Palme d’Or. Other winners include Xavier Beauvois‘s Of God and Men receiving the Grand Prix, Mathieu Amalric winning Best Director for Tournee, Juliette Binoche was awarded Best Actress for Certified Copy and in a tie Javier Bardem (Biutiful) and Elio Germano (La Nostra Vita) won Best Actor. See full list of winners below. Palme d’Or: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Grand Prix (runner-up): Des […]

South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo‘s Ha Ha Ha received top honors for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section last night. The jury also gave a special award to the three actresses from Ivan Fund and Santiago Losa’s Los Labios (The Lips), Adela Sanchez, Eva Bianco, and Victoria Raposo. The main Cannes jury awards will be announced later today.