Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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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 […]
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Todd Haynes to Receive Director Tribute at IFP’s 25th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards
Via a press release from IFP: The Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP), Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today that Todd Haynes will be presented with this year’s Director Tribute at the 25th Annual IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. Signaling the official kick-off for the film awards season, the Gotham Awards is one of the leading honors for independent film and provides critical early recognition to worthy independent films and their writers, directors, producers, and actors. Anchoring the evening’s competitive awards are tributes to film community icons, including the Director Tribute, as well as an Industry tribute and an Actor/Actress to be announced. […]
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Virtual Reality Cronenberg, Horror Anthologies and Turkish Rip-Off Cinema: The 19th Fantasia Film Festival
Now in its nineteenth year, the Fantasia International Film Festival is known as one of the premier destinations for exciting genre cinema. With a focus primarily on horror, Asian genre fare, and more indescribable film art, this three-week Montreal festival annually takes over Concordia University and other venues to entertain in provocative fashion. And while there are many goings-on taking place concurrently within the city (such as the massive Just For Laughs comedy fest and Osheaga’s live music performances), Fantasia always seems to hold a special place in the province of Quebec. “We’re not a subtle event,” co-director Mitch Davis noted […]
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Borscht Corp Retrospective This Week at the Made in New York Media Center
There are many places to find air conditioning in New York City this weekend, but, if you ask us, you should seek it at the Made in New York Media Center, where IFP’s Screen Forward is mounting a five-night Borscht Corporation retrospective. Borscht, if you don’t know, is the wildly creative, culturally prescient and litigation-inviting collective of Miami filmmakers (and their friends) who are behind some of today’s best short films and certainly one of our best film festivals. Headed by Lucas Leyva and Jillian Mayer, Borscht produces a semi-annual Miami festival centered around commissioned short films as well as […]
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TIFF Announces 2015 Gala and Special Presentations Lineup
Hot on the heels off NYFF announcing Steve Jobs as their centerpiece film yesterday comes the Gala and Special Presentations lineup from TIFF. There are the expected Cannes holdovers, and a handful of world premieres from Julie Delpy, Ridley Scott, Michael Moore, Terence Davies, Rebecca Miller and more. The full list is below. OPENING NIGHT FILM “Demolition” Jean-Marc Vallee, USA (World Premiere) GALAS “Beeba Boys” Deepa Mehta, Canada (World Premiere) “Eye in the Sky” Gavin Hood, United Kingdom (World Premiere) “Forsaken” Jon Cassar, Canada (World Premiere) “Freeheld” Peter Sollett, USA (World Premiere) “Hyena Road” (“Hyena Road: Le Chemin du Combat”) Paul Gross, Canada (World […]
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A Worthy Kickstarter to Show the Shuttered Beijing Independent Film Festival’s Selections in the US
With 20 days to go, the Kickstarter launched by producer/distributor Karin Chien, critic/curator Shelly Kraicer, and filmmaker/anthropologist J.P. Sniadecki has already hit its initial target goal for the purpose of organizing a series showcasing some of the best films shown at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. These works — including People’s Park, a personal favorite film of the last few years co-directed by Sniadecki and Libbie Cohn — were all once screened at the Festival, which was shut down completely last year by Chinese authorities. (You can read more about that here.) The initial funding goals focused on bringing over […]
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Medium-Length Highs Over Fragmented Landscapes: FIDMarseille
Diversity’s the aim of every city’s game, but Marseilles really does have everything. Greek in origin, Roman by design, Arabic in flavor, French in architecture and Mediterranean in climate: this encouragingly rough-edged melting pot is an appropriate setting for a film festival like FIDMarseille. Eschewing the standard but arbitrary practice of dividing films based upon format or duration, FID throws all of its selections together: fictional shorts, feature-length documentaries, mid-length essay-films and just about every hybridized bastard form in between. At a time when festivals are increasingly wary of upsetting sponsors and other funding bodies, appealing where they can to […]
