Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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12 Picks for the SXSW PanelPicker
Not five months after the mammoth festival wraps, SXSW opens up their PanelPicker site, an online forum which aggregates all industry and filmmaker programming pitches for their next conference. Last year, I went through the offerings and highlighted 15 that piqued my interest; this year, the stakes are higher, and I’m down to 12 from the 183 listed. You have till September 5 to vote on your favorites. How “High Maintenance” Is Redefining Storytelling I fondly recall the day former Managing Editor Nick Dawson sent me a link to an episode of High Maintenance some 18 months back. Since then, Ben Sinclair and […]
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Blackmagic Does Manhattan
On August 13 the disruptive Australian company Blackmagic Design took over the Grand Ballroom at the historic New Yorker Hotel at 8th & 34th to showcase their growing stable of switchers, signal converters, encoders, routers, and test equipment along with their latest unorthodox production products: cameras, monitors, disk recorders, and grading/NLE software. Plus a new scanner for film transfer. Call it a make-up day for Northeast media makers who missed out on Blackmagic’s crowded NAB booth this year. Since few companies boast the range of products Blackmagic now produces, no less their erosive pricing, it made good marketing sense to also […]
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Rotterdam International Film Festival Co-signs Solidarity Statement over Beijing Independent Film Festival Shutdown
You may have read over the weekend about the Chinese government shutting down the Beijing Independent Film Festival. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened: the Associated Press’ Didi Tang has a solid overview of this year’s events and past context here. As writer/critic/curator Shelley Kraicer pointed out on Twitter, the shutdown also included a raid on the Li Xianting Film Fund, the festival host which “has (had?) likely the most comprehensive collection of independent Chinese films.” A statement co-signed by the heads of the Rotterdam International Film Festival and heads of other major fests including the […]
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NYFF Announces Spotlight on Documentary Selections: Films From Maysles, Blank, Scorsese
The New York Film Festival took some haranguing after announcing the inclusion of only one documentary in their Main Slate a week ago. Rectifying matters is their Spotlight on Documentary lineup, which features new works from Albert Maysles, Les Blank, Frederick Wiseman, Martin Scorsese and assorted filmmaking giants. I will, of course, also be looking forward to the New York premiere of Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing follow-up, The Look of Silence, which is said to be an exemplary companion piece, and Arthur Jafa’s Dreams Are Colder Than Death, which is perhaps more topical than ever. Check out the full list of films […]
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Last Looks: The 2014 Locarno Film Festival
[Paul Dallas’ first report can be read here.] Time wasted and time well spent — a ratio every festivalgoer has to work out when gambling on what to see and miss. At Locarno this year, one had to decide whether or not to devote five hours and forty minutes to a single competition film, the equivalent of four Italian classics from the wonderful Titanus retrospective. It wasn’t easy when the former was Lav Diaz’s From What Is Before, an early frontrunner and eventual winner of the Golden Leopard, and the latter all screened on 35mm — an increasingly powerful incentive […]
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“Burn That Film! Burn It!” Tsui Hark and Patrick Lung Kong on A Better Tomorrow
It’s not every day a director comes on stage in Buddhist monk’s garb and slippers, but such was Patrick Lung Kong’s refreshingly idiosyncratic appearance Saturday night at Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image, two days into a two weekend retro of his work. To his right was Tsui Hark, who himself reshaped the Hong Kong film industry multiple times: with 1986’s Peking Opera Blues, a breakthrough moment for international recognition of HK martial arts fare, 1992’s Once Upon a Time in China, and as producer on John Woo’s 1986 A Better Tomorrow, among many other instances. 1967’s The Story of […]
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Evolution of a Filipino Filmmaker: Lav Diaz’s From What Is Before
Although Lav Diaz’s artistry is formidable, the first thing anyone ever mentions about his films is their prodigious length: the longest, 2004’s Evolution of a Filipino Family, clocks in at eleven and a half hours. Waggish aficionados refer to last year’s Norte, the End of History as his short — it’s just over four hours long. Apart from the attendant notoriety, this renders Diaz’s films extremely rare. With the exception of Norte, which was picked up for distribution in the US, UK and France, the only chance of seeing his work is at festivals and special screenings. Whenever one of […]
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First Impressions: The 2014 Locarno Film Festival
A spinning vortex of yellow leopards could be a metaphor for the feverish mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration experienced at the Locarno Film Festival. The image was a large collage of the festival’s mascot produced by the proprietor of my B&B, which he showed to me one sleep-deprived morning, on my way to a 9 am press screening at the Kursaal Cinema. Speaking of altered states, there’s been a persistent sense of déjà vu at the festival — which is actually a good thing. Seven days into the ten-day celebration, it’s clear that the 67th edition continues its tradition as […]
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The 52nd New York Film Festival Main Slate is Here
Here we have the just announced line-up for the main slate of the 52nd New York Film Festival. It’s probably safe to expect some additional titles to be added later on, but the 30 titles below are already no joke, covering a broad swath of some of the most-discussed titles from this year’s festival circuit. Titles and descriptions are from Lincoln Center’s press release, which can be read in full here, with links to any previous coverage of the films as applicable in the title. Gone Girl (Opening Night – World Premiere, previously announced) David Fincher, USA, 2014, DCP, 150m […]
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Camden International Film Festival Announces Commissioning Partnership with Al Jazeera Digital Platform
The Camden International Film Festival announced today a partnership with AJ+, the new digital platform from Al Jazeera Media Network. Submissions are now open for a competition that will bring five independent filmmakers to the festival to pitch short doc projects to filmmakers and industry leaders. AJ+ will then commission up to five projects, providing them with $10,000 budgets. From the press release: All selected filmmakers will be provided with an All Access pass to CIFF (September 25-28, 2014) and a stipend to support both travel and accommodations during the festival. This opportunity is for stories driven by strong characters, […]
