Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Microcinema Blues: What Happens When Corporations Sponsor Experimental Cinema?
The Mini Microcinema, in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine district, is perhaps the country’s only corporate-backed experimental microcinema. At least until today, when it has its final event in the subsidized pop-up location it has inhabited this summer. Screenings, at least for most citizens, have been held on the second floor of the former Globe Furniture building at 1805 Elm Street, a gorgeous structure that dates back to the 1890s. It sits across the street from Ohio’s oldest continually operating market. The first floor serves as a gallery and gathering space; adorned with old movie chairs, its white walls are covered with well-manicured posters […]
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Why the Kickstarter Film Festival is Expanding to 32 Screens for its Fifth Edition
Previously, the Kickstarter Film Festival showcased everything from feature film excerpts to apps funded on the site over the course of one evening in Brooklyn, Los Angeles and London. For the 5th edition, Kickstarter has pared down the lineup to include two features and three shorts, while expanding their geographical reach, as the program will now be presented in 32 screens across the country on October 15, for free with RSVP. Filmmaker spoke to Kickstarter’s Film Partnerships Lead Dan Schoenbrun about this new iteration, which seeks to bring the platform’s films to their widest audience yet. Filmmaker: What was the decision behind the move from three cities […]
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“We Couldn’t Do Our Jobs If We Weren’t Social People”: Diane Henderson on Festival Programming
I’m chastising two filmmakers for walking out of Nanni Moretti’s My Mother, the closing night film at the New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw. I make some argument about how films, even bad ones, deserve the attention of at least their running times, and I gloat about having suffered through the entirety of Moretti’s newest flop myself. Two weeks later, on my second morning at the Locarno Film Festival, while watching the World Premiere of Chantal Akerman’s No Home Movie, which will premiere in the U.S. later this fall at the New York Film Festival, I’m almost amused by the […]
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NYFF Announces Spotlight on Documentary Lineup
The latest slate announcement from the Film Society of Lincoln Center for this year’s New York Film Festival covers the documentary sidebar. There are several world premieres, including new work from Laura Poitras and New Yorkers’ first chance to see In Jackson Heights, Frederick Wiseman’s portrait of the Queens neighborhood. Here’s the lineup, with descriptions from the press release. Everything Is Copy Jacob Bernstein, 2015, USA, DCP, 89m Jacob Bernstein’s extremely entertaining film is a tribute to his mother Nora Ephron: Hollywood-raised daughter of screenwriters who grew up to be an ace reporter turned piercingly funny essayist turned novelist/screenwriter/playwright/director. Ephron comes […]
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NYFF 2015 Announces Special Events and Revivals Screenings
This morning, the New York Film Festival announced a characteristically impressive supplement to their Main Slate line-up, with their Special Events and Revivals screenings. Included in the Special Events sections are Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier and Laszlo Nemes’ Son of Saul, which were somewhat conspicuously absent from the Main Slate, along the world premiere of Paul Thomas Anderson’s documentary Junun on his collaborator Jonny Greenwood; Venice documentaries De Palma and Heart of a Dog; and an anniversary screening of O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Revivals are stacked with Lubistch, de Oliviera, Kurosawa, Hou, Ford, Ophüls and much more. View the full lineup, which includes a tribute […]
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Right Then, Right Now: The Locarno Film Festival 2015
Considering last year’s Locarno Film Festival presented what turned out to be some of the best films of 2014 – Lav Diaz’s From What Is Before, Pedro Costa’s Horse Money, Martín Rejtman’s Two Shots Fired and Matías Piñeiro’s The Princess of France – artistic director Carlo Chatrian had a lot to live up to in his third year of tenure. Unbelievably, when the program of the festival’s 68th edition was announced, the main competition featured an even more impressive selection of auteurs. Though the extremely high expectations weren’t quite met, it was nevertheless an excellent year, and for every disappointment […]
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New York Film Festival 2015 Announces Its Main Slate
Straight from the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s admirably thorough press release, here’s the main slate of this year’s New York Film Festival — 26 films strong, heavy on Cannes titles, and with Steven Spielberg’s second ever appearance in the fest (following the work-in-progress surprise screening of Lincoln in 2012). Opening Night The Walk Robert Zemeckis, USA, 2015, 3-D DCP, 100m Robert Zemeckis’s magical and enthralling new film, the story of Philippe Petit (winningly played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his walk between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, plays like a heist movie in the grand tradition of Rififi and Bob le flambeur. Zemeckis […]
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Mountain Men: Bexar County Filmmakers Blake Pickens and Stephen Love at the Sundance Creative Producing Lab
Blake Pickens and Stephen Love traveled last week to the mountains of Utah where they took part in the Sundance Creative Producing Lab with their project Bexar County. To be directed by Catherine Grieve, the film is described by Sundance like this: “In sunny San Antonio, Texas, where nothing ever changes, a town is turned on its head when a delusional Texas housewife accidentally poisons her son’s fiancée, learning that killing people is an efficient way to solve her problems.” Below, the two producers recount their experience at the Lab as well as the Creative Producing Summit that followed. Two […]
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TIFF 2015 Announces Documentaries, Vanguard, Midnight Madness, Masters of Cinema and Classics Lineups
Following the announcement of this year’s TIFF Gala and Special Presentations lineups, we now have titles from many more slates. All information taken from TIFF’s press releases, and keep an eye out for Lucile Hadžihalilović’s long-overdue sophomore feature Evolution, which comes no less than 11 years after her fascinating 2004 debut Innocence. TIFF Docs Amazing Grace Sydney Pollack, USA International Premiere Sydney Pollack’s film of Aretha Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace.’ Filmed during church services in Los Angeles on January 13 and 14, 1972, the footage was never seen until now. Featuring Reverend James Cleveland, the Southern California Community Choir and the Atlantic Records rhythm […]
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NYWIFT and IRIS Announce Inaugural Participants for The Writers Lab, Funded by Meryl Streep
Back in April, I interviewed the directors of NYWIFT and IRIS about their noted launch of The Writers Lab, a retreat for women screenwriters over 40, that received a substantial amount of funding from Meryl Streep. The 12 inaugural participants, listed below, were selected from a pool of over 3,500 applicants. The eight mentors for the weekend long September lab are Jessica Bendinger (Bring It On, Aquamarine), Caroline Kaplan (Time Out of Mind, Me and You and Everyone We Know), Meg LeFauve (Inside Out), Darnell Martin (Cadillac Records), Lydia Dean Pilcher (Darjeeling Limited, The Talented Mr. Ripley), Gina Prince-Bythewood (Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights, Mary Jane Skalski (Win Win, The Station Agent) and […]
