Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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True/False Dispatch 1: Director w/vs. Subject
It was a very good year for True/False, but I’ll save the taking-fest-temperature overview for our next print issue. In starting to sort through this year’s films, therefore, I need some kind of arbitrary framework that will provide the illusion of meaningfully segueing from one work to another. In this dispatch, I’ll be focusing on the thorny subject of what happens when documentaries do — or antagonistically don’t — try to serve as compassionate ambassadors to the world on behalf of their subjects. Unambiguous Sympathy Christopher LaMarca and Jessica Dimmock’s The Pearl is a nighttime movie, all quiet, warmly illuminated interior spaces populated by a self-supporting […]
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Hot Docs Selects Forum Projects for 2016
The Hot Docs Forum, the annual pitching event that stimulates international co-production financing, has announced this year’s 19 projects, representing 16 different countries. Selected from over 200 submissions, the below projects will present their pitches in front of a round table of leading commissioning editors, film fund representatives, financiers, programming executives and delegates from around the world. One high profile project, Objective: Change the World, otherwise known as “the Bill Nye film,” has already managed to raise $859,000 via Kickstarter, making it the most funded documentary ever on the crowdfunding platform. “We want to congratulate this year’s incredibly diverse projects, which showcase a […]
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Here’s How to Direct Catherine Hardwicke-Style
With Twilight in 2008, Catherine Hardwicke became the first female director to launch a successful blockbuster movie franchise (the film grossed $400 million worldwide). But rather than direct the sequel films in the blockbuster series, Hardwicke opted to take on more daring fare, such as Red Riding Hood, a dark re-telling of the fairy tale. But when that 2011 film was both a critical and financial disappointment, Hardwicke found she was no longer a hot commodity in Hollywood. Unlike male directors who are allowed a flop or two, female filmmakers are held to a higher standard, she quickly found. Instead of vying for the next superhero […]
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Tribeca Film Festival Announces Second Half of its Feature Slate
The first half of Tribeca’s feature film slate was announced last week; now we’ve got the second part. Regular contributor Noah Buschel is in there with his new film The Phenom, although the big marquee title is probably the spectacle of Michael Shannon as Elvis Presley. CENTERPIECE Elvis & Nixon, directed by Liza Johnson, written by Joey Sagal, Hanala Sagal, and Cary Elwes. (USA) – World Premiere, Narrative. In 1970, a few days before Christmas, Elvis Presley showed up on the White House lawn seeking to be deputized into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs by the President himself. Elvis & Nixon, starring […]
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Tech on The Beach: The FilmGate Interactive Creative Conference 2016
“Tech Up, Make Stories, Get a Tan” was the accurate tagline of this year’s cutting edge FilmGate Interactive Conference (which ironically took place at a ’50s-era throwback, the Deauville Beach Resort Miami this past February 20-28). Now in its third year, the event boasts of being “the first conference in the USA to focus solely on interactive and immersive content.” While this might conjure up images of gear heads discussing the latest drone technology – and there was indeed a Tech Playground for those so inclined – most events were not only free but, refreshingly, open and quite welcoming to […]
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“The Original Pitch Couldn’t Be Said in Less than a Thousand Words”: Robert Greene and Kate Lyn Sheil on Kate Plays Christine
After winning the Special Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance, filmmaker Robert Greene and actress Kate Lyn Sheil arrived in Berlin for their international premiere of Kate Plays Christine. Of the 44 titles slated in Berlinale’s Forum, Greene’s documentary is one of only three American films to have been selected to screen. The film is described as a documentary, but the nature of the project has a complicated and multi-layered explanation. On one level, the film follows Kate preparing for a role, but the character she must assume isn’t written in a script. She’s researching to play […]
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The 2016 Tribeca Film Festival Announces Selections for New U.S. And International Narrative Competitions, Plus World Documentary Competition and Viewpoints
The Tribeca Film Festival announced today its first wave of selections, including its newly created U.S. and International Narrative Competitions. Encompassing 18 films between them, the sections feature works by several Filmmaker 25 New Faces (Sophia Takal, Ian Olds, Ingrid Jungermann, Cecilia Aldarondo, and Alma Har’el) as well as new work by Demitri Martin and Tracy Droz Dragos, director (with Andrew Droz Tragos) of the Sundance winner Rich Hill. Each section will have an Opening Night film. The U.S. Narrative Competition unspools with Justin Tipping’s San Francisco-set youth crime drama, Kicks. The International Narrative Competition opens with Madly, an anthology […]
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“Shooting the Interview Like a Game”: Kamilla Pfeffer on Who is Oda Jaune?
After seeing only one Oda Jaune painting in an art catalogue at a bookstore, Kamilla Pfeffer had found her next subject. Born in Bulgaria, Oda Jaune is a German painter currently based in Paris, and has had her work exhibited all over the world. The nature of her paintings and the process of her practice are the primary interests in Pfeffer’s documentary, Who is Oda Jaune?, but how to first engage with the introverted artist is Pfeffer’s requisite challenge. “Oda’s work has a way of speaking to my irrational side,” says German actor Lars Eidinger during his short interview with […]
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“The Vanity of Trans-People Versus the Humanity of Trans-People”: Sara Jordenö and Twiggy Pucci Garcon on KIKI
“One of my friends was killed over there,” says Christopher Waldorf, reflecting back to a scene from KIKI, the 66th Berlinale’s Teddy Award-winning documentary. In an early scene from the film, Waldorf is captured voguing down a dangerous street in Harlem. “The Trade are straight hood guys,” says Waldorf, explaining the threat of violence and harassment that the Trade inflicts on Voguers like himself. “The only reason we were able to joke around when we were filming there,” chimes in another featured subject in the film, Gia Marie Love, “is because we were with white people.” First-time documentary filmmaker Sara […]
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Alongside Spotlight, Mya Taylor, Krisha, The Look of Silence Nab 2016 Spirit Awards
Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, about a team of Boston journalists investigating Catholic Church pedophilia scandals in the 1980s, swept the Film Independent Spirit Awards yesterday, scoring Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Editing awards, in addition to the Robert Altman Award for Best Ensemble. As if often the case at the Spirits, the Open Roads released film was by far the highest-grossing film in all of its winning categories, sometimes to a surprising degree. On the awards circuit this year, Spotlight has been that rare frontrunner without a galvanizing lead, or even supporting, performance. (Perhaps acknowledging that fact, the […]
