Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“The Lingua Franca of Non-Fiction Filmmaking Should be the Language of Cinema, Not Grant Applications”: Sundance Documentary Film Program Director Tabitha Jackson at DOC NYC
“We have to make artful films,” declared Tabitha Jackson at this morning’s DOC NYC keynote. Her thoughtful and engaging address — accompanied, half-jokingly, by what she dubbed her first attempt at Powerpoint — was filled not with statistics about audience reach or NGO partnerships but instead illustrations drawn from documentaries as well as poetry, visual art and experimental films. Indeed, this Director of the Sundance Documentary Film Program — one of the field’s most important funders — could not have been clearer about the direction she intends to bring to the program when she said, to applause, “The lingua franca […]
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The Reagans and Sex Parties: Recapping Female Sexual Fantasies in Film
“So many fantasies are fear based, so I can understand why you’d want Ronald Reagan shoving cake in your mouth,” said Amy Seimetz. She was responding to a particular fantasy from an anonymous audience member after a screening of Josephine Decker’s Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, nearing the midway point in its one week run at the IFP Media Center. Seimetz and Decker, along with Mild and Lovely d.p. Ashley Connor, Ry Russo-Young, Emily Carmichael, and Celia Rowlson-Hall were all in attendance for an interactive panel on Female Sexual Fantasies in Film. The filmmakers began with a discussion that centered on the […]
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Up in the Air: Announcing the New York City Drone Film Festival
Within an overly crowded film festival landscape, it takes something special for a new event to stand out. Such is the case with New York’s newest festival, scheduled for February, 2015: the New York City Drone Film Festival. While the FAA’s drone filming rules are still being developed, festival founder and cinematographer Randy Scott Slavin intends to use the event to celebrate robotic aerial filmmaking and to change the public’s perception of drones. He told the New York Post’s Chris Perez, ““These flying robots are amazing and exciting technologies, but because the word drone is so controversial, its constantly being […]
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2014 Cinema Eye Honors Nominees Announced
The nominees have been announced for the eighth annual Cinema Eye Honors (of which Filmmaker is an industry sponsor), which recognize outstanding achievements in documentary filmmaking. A quick breakdown: CITIZENFOUR (the cover story subject of our latest issue) leads the pack with six nominations, closely followed by Life Itself and 20,000 Days on Earth with five apiece. Below, find the bulk of the nominations. For more information, visit the Cinema Eye Honors website, which also contains more trivia and facts about the nominees in each category. The Cinema Eye Honors winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 7 at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image. […]
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The Yes Men, Con Men and a Trans Man: What to See at DOC NYC
DOC NYC, “America’s largest documentary festival,” certainly lives up to its billing. With a whopping 153 films and events, there’s quite a bit to navigate, from critically acclaimed historic revivals to Toronto darlings to fresh premieres. For this fifth edition several sections have been broadened, and a few themes even added. There’s now “Centerstage” (performance focused films), “Jock Docs” (sports-centric flicks), “Fight the Power” (activist docs) and, perhaps most stimulating for nonfiction geeks, “Docs Redux.” That would be a sidebar of seven oldies but goodies, most with their legendary directors – Chris Hegedus, D.A. Pennebaker and Albert Maysles, all three receiving […]
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“Is This Line to See the Avant-Garde Show?”: NYFF 2014 Projections
There was an inauspicious start to the New York Film Festival’s inaugural Projections sidebar, a weekend showcase of experimental film and video, which, for 17 years prior as “Views from the Avant-Garde,” had been curated by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith. Nearly an hour before the first screening, a long line extended along the exterior glass wall of the Eleanor Bunin Film Center. Having successfully secured my tickets, I scuttled around looking for familiar faces in the crowd. As I began chatting with a friend, an elderly gentleman with a confused expression approached us. “Excuse me. Is this line to […]
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Men, Women and Children: The 8th Abu Dhabi Film Festival
In Abu Dhabi, it’s easy to let the smoke cozy up to your eyes. The festival, now in its 8th year, unfolds in one of the city’s most dazzling corners, with the mammoth, labyrinthine, five star Emirates Palace as its proverbial hub. Gold dripping from its vending machines and balconies alike, the place is sheer, 11 billion Dirham, stadium sized spectacle. As a festival guest, you are chauffeured from the seaside St. Regis tower to screening venues in a designated Mercedes, which, barring the unwanted sexual advances that come with being a long-haired, white American female, can make you feel […]
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Wroc and Roll: 5th American Film Festival, Poland
Recently announced as a European Capital of Culture for 2016, the picturesque western Polish city of Wroclaw (actually pronounced Vrotz-wav, thus rendering the title pun sadly unworkable) welcomed an extremely distinguished guest for its fifth annual American Film Festival: none other than flying POTUS Barack Obama. Well, it seemed so for a moment, but appearances can be deceptive. A closer look revealed the man to be Louis Ortiz, top Barack-alike and star of Ryan Murdock’s enjoyable Bronx Obama, which screened as part of the festival’s documentary slate. The personable Ortiz’s social ubiquity made for a pleasingly incongruous addition to a […]
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Boyhood, Birdman, CITIZENFOUR, and More Receive 24th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards
Nominees were announced this morning for the 24th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards by IFP, with Richard Linklater’s Boyhood receiving the most nominations, including Best Picture. Birdman received two awards, including Best Director (for Alejandro G. Iñárritu) and Best Actor (Michael Keaton). The Best Picture nominations were rounded out by Ira Sachs’ Love is Strange, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel and a left-field pick, Jonathan Glazer’s unsettling tale of alien visitation, Under the Skin. The Gothams are also awarding a Special Jury Award to the three lead actors of Foxcatcher: Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, and Channing Tatum. “Each year […]
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Little Accidents Director Sara Colangelo Wins Tangerine Juice Award at the Hamptons
Congratulations to Filmmaker 25 New Face Sara Colangelo, who was awarded today the Tangerine Juice Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Created to honor a female first- or second-time narrative feature director, the prize comes with $1,000 cash and five hours of consultation with Tangerine Entertainment. Starring Elizabeth Banks, Boyd Holbrook and Chloe Sevigny, Little Accidents is a drama set in the aftermath of the disappearance of a teenager in a small American coal-mining town. It premiered at Sundance 2014 and will be released by Amplify. “The competition for our award was tough this year,” said Tangerine co-founder Anne […]
