Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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IFP Partners With Film London To Bring UK Producers to Film Week
IFP has announced a partnership with Film London to bring two UK-based producers to Independent Film Week to partake in the No-Borders International Co-Production Market. Each year during Film Week, 35 producers with projects that have at least 20% funding in place participate in the No-Borders section to network with buyers, sales agents and financiers, in order to get their films off the ground. No-Borders has previously partnered with the likes of the Berlinale, Venice Biennale, and TorinoFilmLab, to allow international producers to partake in the US-based market. This is Film London’s first US partnership designed to benefit and foster UK producers. […]
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Nowhere To Go But Up: The 6th Annual Eastern Oregon Film Festival
“A good movie is like a blast to the head,” growled Dusty Decker — musician, actor, purveyor of the Albino Bumblebee (goat’s milk, Jack Daniels, honey) and something of a local legend in the valley of La Grande, Oregon. His off the cuff commentary, though in jest, nonetheless proved a perfect transition from bb gun toting and hatchet throwing to a roundtable discussion on independent film beneath the towering trees of his backyard. We were all there for the sixth annual Eastern Oregon Film Festival, and the conversation began with the occasion. Just as any old chum can go out and shoot a film […]
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Cannes 2015: Five Questions for Carol Director Todd Haynes
Todd Haynes reteams with Cate Blanchett, after 2007’s I’m Not There, for his latest Palme d’Or contender Carol. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt, Rooney Mara plays shopgirl Therese, who falls in love with the older, married Carol (Blanchett) in the ’50s. The two embark on a road trip, which culminates in Carol’s husband blackmailing her with the liaison to prevent her from having custody over their daughter. Edward Lachman’s cinematography is rich in period detail. And two masters at their craft bring the challenging characters to life, ending the film in a final wordless scene […]
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Cannes 2015: Five Questions for Tale of Tales Director Matteo Garrone
Italian director Matteo Garrone is no stranger to Cannes. He picked up the Grand Prix twice for his previous films Gomorrah (2008), exploring the Camorra mafia, and Reality (2012), about society’s obsession with reality TV. With his third film in competition, Garrone has once again completely switched gears, debuting his first period piece and his first film shot in English, Tale of Tales. Based on the fairytales of Giambattista Basile, the film has been the buzz of Cannes with its rich storytelling, outstanding performances, and lush cinematography. Going back to the raw and oftentimes brutal storytelling of early fairytales (Basile’s […]
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Cannes 2015 Critic Notebook #1: Standing Tall, Tale of Tales, The Lobster
Could it be, six features deep at the most exalted film festival in the world, that this writer’s favorite film isn’t some scrappy Critics’ Week indie or an ennui-driven Eastern European drama of profound sociopolitical relevance — but rather, the $150-million studio juggernaut Mad Max: Fury Road? Nothing new needs to be said about the most inventive, thrilling, lyrical action flick in ages (considering it’s now opened worldwide) except that it’s radically more feminist than Emmanuelle Bercot’s Standing Tall. Cannes’ first opening night selection to be directed by a woman in nearly three decades, Bercot’s juvenile justice-system drama — a clumsy, histrionic […]
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Eight Thoughts From the Pitch Round Table at Hot Docs Forum
From April 23-May 3, Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival spread its wings across the theaters of Toronto. Against that backdrop, the 16th Annual Hot Docs Forum and Conference Market featured another opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of documentary film funding and pitching. With 19 scheduled pitches (and one project picked out of a Mountie’s hat), I was once again given the chance to take the pulse of the documentary marketplace. Below are several thoughts culled from the front row at those pitch proceedings. 1. Get Your Trailer in Order So you’ve been chosen to be one […]
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Watch: Lynne Ramsay Through Details
The latest in Tony Zhou’s Every Frame a Painting series centers on a filmmaker who is relatively unscrutinized in the realm of the video essay: Lynne Ramsay. Though Ramsay’s films turn on watershed moments in the lives of her characters, she often chooses to relate their emotional impact through a string of details, rather than a single overblown reaction. Such a notion is the subject of Zhou’s essay, “The Poetry of Details,” wherein he dissects Ramsay’s use of framing and repetition.
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BAMcinemaFest Announces 2015 Features Line-Up
A slew of festival favorites are set to make their New York premieres at the 2015 edition of BAMcinemaFest, which will open with James Ponsoldt’s The End of The Tour and close with Sean Baker’s Tangerine. Alex Ross Perry’s Berlinale premiere Queen of Earth will serve as Centerpiece at the festival, which runs from June 17 – 28 in Fort Greene. Aside from the Sundance and SXSW holdovers, notable selections include Jem Cohen’s Counting; Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven; Here Come the Videofreex, a documentary about a 1960s and 70s video collective; the world premiere of Jason and Shirley, a reimagining of Portrait of Jason; and Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party, Stephen Cone’s latest, […]
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Rooftop Films Announces 2015 Opening Weekend and Features Lineup
Rooftop Films, New York’s pre-eminent eventized screening series, has announced the first films from their 2015 Summer Series program. Set to open with a slew of shorts on May 29, including the excellent All Your Favorite Shows! and Actor Seeks Role from 25 New Faces Danny Madden and Michael Tyburski (respectively), the lineup includes festival favorites like The Wolfpack and Krisha, and some more relatively unseen titles like Bloomin’ Mud Shuffle, Spartacus & Cassandra, and Divine Location. Check out the films below and head to Rooftop’s Kickstarter to support the series in exchange for memberships. Friday, May 29, 2015 This is What We Mean by Short Films […]
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Anagram Creators May Abdalla and Amy Rose on Door into the Dark
The best work I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival wasn’t a film at all. It was, instead, a lovely piece of conceptual counterprogramming in Tribeca’s Storyscapes section, Door into the Dark. An immersive theater piece by May Abdalla and Amy Rose of the U.K.-based company Anagram, Door into the Dark wasn’t positioned by curator Ingrid Kopp against the films in the festival. Rather, by including Door into the Dark within a program largely dominated by Oculus Rift VR work, Kopp used Door in the Dark‘s simply generated yet expansive mindscapes as a way of setting a high bar […]
