Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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IFP Screen Forward: 5 Tips on Pitching Web Series
The on-stage pitch has become a staple of documentary film forums, like IDFA and CPH:DOX, and pitch panels long ago snuck into events like IFP’s Screen Forward Conference (previously the Filmmaker Conference). But the on-stage pitching of web series is something relatively new at these more film-oriented events. Befitting the IFP’s conference name change, three filmmakers storytellers took the stage Sunday at noon at the Bruno Walter Auditorium to impress a panel of web content professionals with their ideas of episodic tales to be streamed online. But given the Wild West nature of web series, where buyers, monetization strategies and […]
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TIFF 2015, Critic’s Notebook #4: Unexpected Pleasures from Corneliu Porumboiu, Yermek Tursunov, and Pietro Marcello
There’s a sense of disappointment in the air. At the parties, people have been whispering, maybe this year’s just not a good year. Maybe next year will be better, they forecast in hushed tones. It’s true, many of the much-hyped films were somewhat of a letdown, but the best part of a film festival is when you walk out into a theater with zero expectations and you walk out enamored by what you just saw. There have still been moments like that for me at TIFF this year. A highlight of the fest for me has been Romanian director Corneliu […]
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Previewing IFP Film Week and the Screen Forward Conference
I wonder what some time-traveling filmmaker would think of IFP’s Independent Film Week, which commences tomorrow up at the Bruno Walter Auditorium at the New York Performing Arts Library. The non-profit IFP — formerly “Independent Feature Project” and now “Independent Filmmaker Project” — has done some version of its Film Week for nearly the entirety of its 35-year history. For much of that time it wasn’t called “Film Week,” but, nonetheless, events occurred annually over a few days in the Fall, and these events served to advance the interests of independent filmmakers by, initially, providing them with a market for […]
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“I Prefer Not to Hear ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ with a Bad Drumbeat Behind It”: Keith Richards at TIFF
Keith Richards swept into Toronto late this week to inject fresh excitement into TIFF just as the parties were waning, filmgoers were yawning and industry heavvies were flying back to the States. Sporting a snakeskin jacket, a Jamaican-coloured headband and impenetrable mirrored glasses, the 71-year-old rhythm guitarist for The Rolling Stones was here to promote Morgan Neville’s documentary, Keith Richards: Under The Influence. It enjoyed its world premiere here last night before playing today on Netflix. The consensus in Toronto holds that Under The Influence is really a commercial for Richards’ latest album, Crosseyed Heart, also released today. No surprise that […]
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TIFF 2015 Critic’s Notebook #3: Guy Maddin and Alan Zweig Offer New Notions of Being Canadian
Growing up, no two things did more to define Canadianness than Tim Horton’s commercials, with their warm and fuzzy scenes of dads bringing hot chocolate to the hockey rink, and Heritage Minutes, vignettes reenacting “proud” moments ranging from Native Americans teaching early settlers how to make maple syrup to the moment Marshall McLuhan came up with the phrase “the medium is the message.” Too often Canadian film seems aimed at riling up the same hollowed-out brand of patriotism. The cause of this is at least partly due to the fact that its funding is frequently tied up in a government-sponsored […]
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The Seedy Side of LA: Michael Curtis Johnson on Hunky Dory at IFP Film Week
[This is the first of two guest blog posts from Michael Curtis Johnson, who will be participating in Independent Film Week with his feature Hunky Dory.] Los Angeles. Sunrise. Goodbye kisses. This will be the longest I’ve been away from my wife and two daughters since they were born. I’m catching a flight to New York for the second phase of IFP’s Narrative Filmmaker Labs and Independent Film Week with my first feature film Hunky Dory, a drama about a glam rock dilettante and his eleven-year-old son. IFP’s Filmmaker Labs are a year-long mentorship program that helps first-time directors and their teams […]
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How To Complete Post-Production Quickly to Meet a Festival Deadline: The Making of Joe Begos’ The Mind’s Eye
In order to make the submission deadline for the Toronto International Film Festival, writer/director Joe Begos and producer/editor Josh Ethier had a locked cut of The Mind’s Eye seven weeks into the editing; the effort paid off as the psychokinetic thriller is getting a World Premiere as part of Midnight Madness programme. The cinematic tale features Zack Connors (Graham Skipper) attempting to use his special abilities to prevent the mysterious Dr. Slovak from descending into a psychic rage. “Joe is a visual director who shoots and operates on his own films,” explains Ethier, who has collaborated with Begos ever since […]
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Two New Awards For Serial Television and Digital Media at This Year’s Gotham Awards
The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today that two new awards will be given at the upcoming 25th Annual IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. Two Breakthrough Series awards will single out outstanding achievement in serialized content in television and new digital media. Long Form (for continuing or limited series with episodes running 30 minutes and longer) and Short Form (for continuing or limited series with the majority of episodes under 20 minutes). Focusing on “debut” series, only series that premiered within the last year (September 1, 2014 – August 31, 2015) will be eligible. Full criteria for the […]
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TIFF 2015 Critic’s Notebook #2: High-Rise, The Lobster and Anomalisa
Toronto seemed the perfect place for Ben Wheatley’s High-Rise to have its world premiere. The J. G. Ballard adaptation stages a class-war in an ultra-modern high-rise, and the theater where it played Sunday night is only about a mile from the luxury condo developments that tower over Toronto’s waterfront, which suggest a modern Eden in shiny glass and steel but have instead exacerbated the city’s homelessness problems and real-estate bubble. Another felicitous detail to the evening: the screening was sponsored by Visa and before you could take your seat to see Wheatley’s commentary on class and capitalism, there was a […]
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Gotham Independent Film Awards to Present Tributes to Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Todd Haynes and Steve Golin
Today the IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards (presented by Filmmaker Magazine‘s parent organization IFP) announced three additional tributes to be presented at this year’s 25th anniversary awards ceremony. In addition to previously announced director honoree Todd Haynes, Actor and Actress tributes will be presented to Robert Redford and Helen Mirren, and Anonymous Content founder and CEO Steve Golin will be awarded the Industry Tribute. The awards will take place Monday, November 30. For more information, click here for the full press release.
