Announced earlier today, the 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival announced their Competition roster and films in their Showcase category for this year’s fest, which takes place April 21 – May 2 in New York City. Some of the highlights include Alex Gibney‘s work-in-progress screening of his doc on Eliot Spitzer and (get this) Vincent Gallo lending his voice in the animated film, Metropia. Full list of films are below. World Narrative Feature Competition “Buried Land,” directed by Geoffrey Alan Rhodes and Steven Eastwood, written by Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, Steven Eastwood, and Dzenan Medanovic. (USA, UK, Bosnia and Herzegovina) – World […]

Celebrating its 15th anniversary, the Gen Art Film Festival runs through April 7-13 at the Ziegfeld Theatre in NYC. Opening the festival this year will be the directorial debut of How I Met Your Mother star Josh Radnor with happythankyoumoreplease, featuring a cast of young up-and-comers like Zoe Kazan, Malin Akerman, Pablo Schreiber, and Kate Mara. The other anticipated premieres include Sebastian Gutierrez‘ Elektra Luxx, James Keach’s Waiting for Forever, Adrian Grenier’s Teenage Paparazzo, Patrick Hoelck’s Mercy, and Alexandre Franchi’s The Wild Hunt. In addition, the festival offers three prizes in three categories. The Acura Grand Jury Award is given […]

Just in time for SXSW is this blog post from Mark Suster, an “entrepreneur turned VC” who blogs at “Both Sides of the Table.” Titled “Making the Most of Sitting on Panels,” it begins like this: “Many of us in the technology, media and VC world sit on panels at lot. Many of them are painfully boring.” I have to agree. I’m not a big fan of panels for some of the same reasons that Suster cites. Most panels are too big. By the time everyone gets a chance to talk and each answer a few questions, time is up. […]

Celebrated film critic, screenwriter and national arbiter of taste for the moviegoing public, Roger Ebert, will be honored at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22 – May 6) with the Mel Novikoff Award, an award that celebrates an individual or institution’s achievement in bringing to the public a treasured appreciation of world cinema. He will be honored on Saturday, May 1 at 5:30 pm as part of a presentation entitled An Evening with Roger Ebert and Friends at the Castro Theatre. Guests include directors Jason Reitman and Terry Zwigoff, with others to be announced soon. The festival […]

Traditionally known for unveiling blockbusters on opening night, the Tribeca Film Festival will continue that tradition in 2010 when it screens the World Premiere of DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek Forever After. The final chapter in the successful Shrek franchise, the film will also be shown in 3-D. Shrek Forever After will be released nationally on May 21. The slate of films at this year’s festival, running April 21 – May 2, will be announced later this month. Tickets for the Tribeca Film Festival are available at www.tribecafilmfestival.com/festival.

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has always been an exciting oasis in the festival calendar, a place to see new directors, experimental programming, and to connect with new projects away from the din of more market-defined festivals and red-carpet affairs. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of Rotterdam’s CineMart.) This year’s festival was a good one — you can read Michael Tully’s wrap-up here — and now New Yorkers have the opportunity to discover the filmmakers of the Tiger Competition. The Tigers consist of films by new filmmakers, and the gamut runs from edgy dramas to intriguing doc-fiction hybrids to […]

Are you addicted to large oil drums of coffee? Feel alive only when you’re a sleep-deprived stumbling zombie? Relish your emotions ripping from ice berg to flame thrower? Then you are made for the International Documentary Challenge. Started in 2006, the International Documentary Challenge is a timed filmmaking competition — this year beginning on March 4 — where filmmakers have five days to craft a five-to-seven minute non-fiction film. In the last four years, more than 500 participating filmmakers — more than 125 each year — from some 20 countries chose to forgo sleep and sanity for this the ultimate […]

Here’s the trailer for “25 New Face” filmmaker Lena Dunham‘s second feature, Tiny Furniture, which premieres in the narrative Competition at SXSW. From the Vimeo page: 22-year-old Aura returns home after college to her artist mother’s loft with the following: a useless film theory degree, 357 hits on her YouTube page, and no shoulders to cry on. Starring Dunham and her real-life family, Tiny Furniture is tragicomedy about what does and does not happen when you graduate with no skills, no love life, and a lot of free time. Tiny Furniture Trailer from Lena Dunham on Vimeo.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Museum of Modern Art have announced the films selected for this year’s New Directors/New Films. In its 39th year, the series, taking place March 24 – April 4 at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and the Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters at MoMA, will screen 38 films from emerging filmmakers. Richard Press‘s documentary Bill Cunningham New York will be the opening film, while acclaimed Canadian writer-director Xavier Dolan will close ND/NF with the New York premiere of I Killed My Mother (J’ai tué ma mère). For tickets and more on ND/NF, […]

Big news out of Sundance tonight: Keri Putnam, former President of Production at Miramax Films and Executive Vice President at HBO Films, has been named the new Executive Director of the Sundance Institute. The position was previously held by Ken Brecher, who left Sundance last April. Keri is well known to many of us in the independent community for her leadership at Miramax and HBO, where she opened the door to both new directors as well as established veterans looking to explore new ideas that wouldn’t fly in the mainstream studio system. Among the films she has been involved with […]