Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“A Tiny Drop of Dew”: Journey to the West at the Tribeca Film Festival
Journey To The West‘s 14 shots begin with an extended screen-filling close-up of Denis Lavant’s face, neck and shoulders. His carotid artery’s unignorable pulsing attests to how difficult it is to attain complete stillness and mastery of even a small portion of the body; wrapped in a Buddhist monk’s robes, Lee Kang-sheng’s subsequent slowgoing progress across Marseilles magnifies that strain across an entire person. Lee must always maintain motion without going any faster than absolutely necessary, and his legs and torso sometimes wobble with the effort of restraining more violent movements. In two extended centerpiece shots, he descends the stairwell […]
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Previewing Hot Docs 2014: Ukrainian Women in the Spotlight and More
Hot Docs, the largest documentary festival in North America, opens Thursday night in Toronto, and a number of films caught my eye: Return to Homs is a grim diary of the Syrian civil war filmed from the inside — a dystopic landscape of bombed-out buildings, dead children, and snipers pockmarking empty streets as civilians run like frightened rats. The winner of the Grand Jury Prize in the World Documentary section at Sundance, this is likely the most difficult film to watch at this year’s Hot Docs, but perhaps its most rewarding. On a similar note, The Condemned profiles several inmates […]
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2014 Rooftop Films Lineup
Rooftop Films, New York’s pre-eminent outdoor Summer showcase, announced their lineup this afternoon, with a good dose of circuit selections and niche titles. Following a venue shuffle, Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child will kick things off on May 17 at Sunset Park’s Industry City, ahead of the film’s June 6 release. In my interview with Robespierre for the Spring issue, the director credited Rooftop’s grants and warm reception of her short as a necessary boost when deciding to press ahead with the feature, so it should be a nice homecoming. The slate will also showcase fellow New Directors/New Films titles, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and She’s […]
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Tribeca Film Festival XIII #2: Survey Says
Perhaps it’s just a coincidence (don’t strain yourself trying to find out) that the same year the Tribeca Film Festival was partially acquired by Knicks owner James Dolan’s Madison Square Garden Company, the ESPN-sponsored sports film sidebar — a reliable showcase of “30 For 30”-esque jock docs destined for the network — kicked off with a gala screening of actor Michael Rappaport’s When the Garden Was Eden, a documentary about the Knicks’ late ’60s and early ’70s glory years. Here, the director of the well-regarded A Tribe Called Quest doc Beats, Rhymes & Life (which I wrote about here) relies on standard-fare […]
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Tribeca Film Festival XIII #1: Street Dreams
No one gets confused anymore that going to the Tribeca Film Festival can mean being on the Upper West Side to watch a rapper perform. What’s to be confused about? The festival outgrew Tribeca. In the “Tribeca” of the mind — at least for those living outside New York — the Triangle Beneath Canal is synonymous with the festival started by Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal in the wake of 9/11. But festival venues aren’t down there: global brands don’t trade in symbolism unless it makes economic sense. Why shouldn’t the Big Ten have twelve teams? Nobody cares. Certainly not […]
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Robert De Niro’s First Vine
Posted by Jerome Jarre is what he bills as Robert De Niro’s first six-second film. (On first view, it kind of falls into the “Hey, is this thing on?” category of unintentional art.) Hat tip: MUBI Notebook.
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What to See from the Tribeca Film Festival Online
Screenings have just kicked off in Manhattan for the Tribeca Film Festival, but as always not all the films are showing in theaters–and there’s more available online this year than ever before. Here’s a quick guide to what you can see and how to see it. Streaming select titles: Four feature films and four shorts will be online after their initial theatrical screenings this week and next; they’ll also be eligible for an audience choice award with prize money totaling $15,000. All of Tribeca’s online material discussed below, including these eight films, is available at http://tribecafilm.com/online. The short films include: * Love in […]
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2014 Cannes Lineup Announced
There were few surprises to be had at this morning’s announcement of the Competition, Un Certain Regard and Special Screenings sections for the 2014 Cannes Film Festival — perhaps barring Fremaux’s proud, misleading assurance that a whopping 15 female directors were included in the lineup, which is evidently French for eight. Familiar faces returning to the Croisette include Assayas, Cronenberg, Zvyaginstev, Bilge Ceylan, Hazanavicius, Egoyan, Loach, Leigh and the Dardennes, whose Two Days, One Night may prove to be Marion Cotillard’s successful shot at the Best Actress title, after snubs for Rust and Bone and The Immigrant. The two American titles in Competition […]
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25 Picks for the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival opens today, and, as usual, it’s a multi-headed hydra with splashy events, panels, talks but also, of course, films by new and emerging filmmakers. And while Tribeca has garnered a reputation in recent years as a solid platform for international directors with either world or U.S. premieres, this year the American independent section seems particularly strong. Indeed, it was easy to whip out this list of 25 picks I’m especially interested in seeing and that tie closely with the American indie focus of this magazine. Docs look especially sharp, with a number of them dealing with […]
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2014 Sarasota Film Festival Award Winners
I made the un-journalistic decision to forgo last night’s closing awards ceremony at the Sarasota Film Festival for a screening, but judging by the recipients alone, the event was a successful one. Sarasota’s programming, while eclectic and strong, can prove an interesting match for its respective audience. I witnessed about 10 walkouts during the astonishing Stray Dogs, and when the credits arrived after a languid 138 minutes, someone shot up in the back of the theater to wonder, “did anyone like that film?” I chuckled but did not raise my hand. Other hybrid, art house films faired better. Nearly every local I […]
