Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Fassbinder and his Friends: Lynne Stopkewich
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
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Fassbinder and his Friends: Everett Lewis
Entering its final weekend, “Fassbinder: Romantic Anarchist” is part one of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s massive survey of the work of the late, great Rainer Werner Fassbinder — a madly prolific, protean figure of the German New Wave. Marrying social commentary with emotional melodrama and, sometimes, genre entertainment, Fassbinder cranked out four and five movies a year, drawing from a repertory group of actors, exploring themes of love and obsession, and building a sustained critique of post-war capitalism that still penetrates today. In 1997, the Museum of Modern Art programmed a Fassbinder retrospective, and we asked several directors […]
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Cannes 2014: Diary of a Party Crasher
(Aaron Hillis’ first two festival dispatches can be read here.) The past 11 days are mighty hazy. Double that number and you’ll not only know how many features I’ve seen at Cannes, but the quantity of cocktail mixers, dance-a-thons, karaoke get-togethers, and other costly promotional soirées littering the Croisette that I came into like a wrecking ball. Only two of them actually invited me, but I don’t get shut out of parties at Cannes. Sometimes cinema can wait. “You’re burning the candle at both ends,” chided one of my Cannes flatmates just now, an industrious journalist who sees more films […]
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Cannes 2014: Maps to the Stars, Clouds of Sils Maria, The Tribe, Adieu Au Langage
That’s Cannes, man. The red carpet’s rolled and stashed; you don’t have to go home but you can’t afford to stay here. Turkish auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s three-hour-plus, mixed-reviewed Winter Sleep pocketed the Palme d’Or. Sorry, Naomi Kawase with your so-called “masterpiece” and Xavier Dolan, who said he “deserved” to win top honors, juries are subjective. The more burning issue is when undistributed landmarks like Adieu Au Langage and The Tribe will find their way to your eyes and ears. Until my final take on the 2014 edition of Cannes appears in the next issue of Filmmaker, here are my […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
