Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
-
In Trans(media)ition: the Seattle Transmedia Independent Film Festival
After ten years of being the scrappy little guy to the Seattle International Film Festival’s big kahuna, the Seattle True Independent Film Festival has run its course — which is exactly why I decided to visit the tech-addicted city (as a guest of the fest) to check out the outgoing underdog. Rather than pluck along as second fiddle for another 10 years, STIFF has done what I wish more regional festivals would do: rebrand for the future. As of this year STIFF now stands for the Seattle Transmedia Independent Film Festival, putting the focus squarely on “web series, video game […]
-
Clinton Dolls, Guns, and Crawfish: The Little Rock Film Festival
Lauren Wissot’s report from Little Rock last year was titled “Kicking Ass in Clintonland,” and certainly when it comes to varied programming and festival fun, this year was no different. I may have lacked the requisite dexterousness to tackle the über-fresh crawfish, and have yet to unwrap the talking action figure of Bill Clinton in my gift bag, but my schedule was quickly filled with activities from partying on one of Little Rock’s scenic bridges to popping into a workshop on the applications of Google Glass and 3D printing in film. Under the helm of brothers Brent and Craig Renaud […]
-
Cannes 2014: Mr. Turner, Salt of the Earth, Force Majeure and the Art of First Impressions
“What’s your elevator pitch?” people ask — the same people who’d recoil backwards, their body language flashing danger signals, if you actually collared them in an actual elevator and launched into a pitch of your movie. Indeed, it’s a paradox of the film business that the smooth-talking hustler is held up as some kind of model when most film industry types would prefer an approach by someone genuine — personable, even — who understands both the cultural and the transactional nature of their business. I watched one exec from an established production and distribution company last week at the 2014 […]
-
Winter Sleep, The Wonder, Dolan and Godard Take Top Prizes at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival
Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan won the Palme d’Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival today for, Winter Sleep, his discursive tale of ethics, love and relationships set in and around a small inn in central Anatolia. The prize was awarded by Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman in a ceremony that saw nearly all of the most critically-praised films emerge with some award or another. (Interestingly, this was the second year in a row Cannes awarded its top prize to a film over three hours in length.) Earlier in the week, Winter Sleep was also awarded the FIPRESCI prize for […]
-
Cannes Announces Un Certain Regard and Critics Week Awards
Ahead of Saturday’s Competition ceremony, the Cannes Film Festival sidebars Un Certain Regard and Critics Week have announced their prizewinners. Critics are often want to beat the drum for various UCR selections, decrying their supposed relegation from the main slate, and this year was no different. Hotly tipped titles such as Lisandro Alsono’s Jauja and Jessica Hausner’s Amour Fou nonetheless went home empty-handed, as Kornél Mundruzcó’s more divisive White God scooped up the Prix d’Un Certain Regard. Also the source of critical contention was the opening night selection Party Girl, whose writing-directing trio comprised of Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger, Samuel Theis received an ensemble prize. Over in the Critics […]
-
Cannes Day 9: France Responds to Welcome To New York, Ukraine & Azerbaijan Unite
News items of interest as the Cannes Film Festival rolls through its ninth day: • At The Conversation, Sue Harris has an overview of the furious reception Abel Ferrara’s Welcome To New York has received in France. As she points out, the casting of Gérard Depardieu is far from incidental: Depardieu’s casting breaches the fictional veneer of Ferrara’s film in ways that no other actor could. No one could be more suited to play the nation’s premier “disgraced” Frenchmen than the other principle one. And so, thanks to a volatile mix of the real and the imagined – a heady […]
-
Cannes 2014: 5 Questions for Welcome to New York Director Abel Ferrara
It’s been the most talked about film of Cannes this year, one of the most well-reviewed yet, and it’s not even part of the competition line-up. That’s just Abel Ferrara’s style: he’s still one of the few directors who consistently manages to make films his own way, outside the typical studio system. His latest is a masterstroke of filmmaking. It’s a story that puts the fun back into cinema, a film that breathes wit, heart and imagination. The New York native returns to the Croisette with Welcome to New York, a damning film inspired by the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal. The film […]
-
Cannes 2014: 5 Questions for Le Meraviglie Director Alice Rohrwacher
Following up on her 2011 debut Corpo Celeste, which premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section, Alice Rohrwacher returns to Cannes with Le Meraviglie (The Wonders), this time as part of the main slate competition. It’s an intimate fairytale full of surreal characters and scenery, marvelously shot in Italy’s central-northern landscapes. Eldest daughter Gelsomina is the head of the family. While taking care of her three sisters, she struggles to keep the bee farm running with her stubborn German father, who opposes anything modern. The family has run out of money when the government imposes new regulations that could shut the […]
-
Cannes 2014: Girlhood, It Follows, Red Army, Foxcatcher and Stray Duds
If it weren’t for the inflexible, charmingly antiquated press hierarchies of the Cannes Film Festival, where journalists queue up and get let into screenings by priority of their rainbow badge color (yellow, blue, pink, pink with a yellow dot, and the all-powerful white), it would only be a matter of time before influential Twitter users were accredited. The social media juggernaut of mass brevity — like college, marriage, or colonic irrigation — is not for everyone, but during Cannes, it’s the handiest tool for aggregating kneejerk reactions to what typically shakes down as half of the year’s Most Important Films. […]
-
Cannes News, Weekend Round-Up: Controversy Over Kisses and Dominique Strauss-Kahn
While we took the weekend off from keeping tabs on news in and around Cannes, here are some highlights we missed: • Over at the Montreal Gazette, Liz Ferguson rounds up photos of red carpet activism, ranging from nearly the entire cast of The Expendables 3 holding papers reading “Bring our girls back” (after riding down the streets in two tanks) to Jauja director Lisandro Alonso, star Viggo Mortensen, screenwriter Fabian Casas and other cast members bearing a sign reading “We want the trophy” in Spanish — a message of support for Buenos Aires’ Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, […]
