Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
-
“I Am Completely Oblivious to Risk When I Film”: Five Questions for The Other Side Director Roberto Minervini
Italian-born, American-based Roberto Minervini’s fourth feature The Other Side grew out of his previous film, 2013’s Stop the Pounding Heart. That hybrid documentary followed the (fictionalized) romance between Colby Trichell, a teen rodeo rider, and Sara Carlson, a young girl in a devoutly Christian family. Moving from Texas to West Monroe, Louisiana, Minervini’s new documentary starts by following Lisa, the sister of Colby’s dad Todd, and her boyfriend Mark. This is a dark story, one of drug abuse and disenfranchisement, and the second half plunges further into the backwoods, riding along with a virulently anti-Obama militia as they train and prepare to confront their perceived enemies. The […]
-
Halftime Disappointment at the Venice Film Festival
In its first half, the Competition of the 72nd Venice Film Festival has been a let-down, failing to present a single truly great title. The Orizzonti and Out of Competition selections have generally proved a safer bet, and of course the excellent Venice Classics program, which so far included screenings of restored masterpieces by the likes of Fellini, Melville and Hou Hsiao-hsien, has been a reliable and most welcome morale boost whenever necessary. Following Birdman and Gravity in the last two years, the festival extended its string of star-studded, big-spectacle openers with Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest, a fictionalization of an infamous 1996 commercial […]
-
IFP Announces Program for Screen Forward: IFP Conference 2015
Today, IFP (Filmmaker‘s parent organization) announced the full lineup for the annual Screen Forward: IFP Conference. Taking place this year from September 20-25 at Lincoln Center, the program consists of several different sections. Among Industry Talks, you’ll find a discussion with longtime collaborators David Wain and Michael Ian Black, whose resurrected Wet Hot American Summer has recently made a splash on Netflix, and one with Christine Vachon, the Killer Films producer whose latest project is Todd Haynes’ forthcoming, keenly anticipated Carol. Some other highlights, as noted in the press release: *“Who Needs the Boys Club?” a discussion on inequality and the misperceptions […]
-
Watch: Cruise, Pacino, Travolta and More in a Red-Hued Disco Multiverse
An unintended companion piece to yesterday’s post, “Red Lighting in the Films of Martin Scorsese,” Hells Club is a blood-hued mash-up from Antonio Maria Da Silva in which a host of our favorite cinematic characters all boogie down — and draw their weapons — in the same pulsating nightclub. Writes Da Silva: There is a place or fictional characters meet. Outside of time, Outside of all logic, This place is known as HELL’S CLUB, But this club is not safe TERMINATOR VERSUS TONY MONTANA VERSUS TOM CRUISE VERSUS CARLITO BRIGANTE VERSUS BLADE VERSUS JOHN TRAVOLTA VERSUS AL PACINO VERSUS PINEAD […]
-
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 […]
-
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 […]
-
“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 […]
-
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 […]
-
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 […]
-
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 […]
