Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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NYFF Critic’s Notebook: 12 Years A Slave, Blue Is The Warmest Color, Like Father, Like Son
A substantial majority of the New York Film Festival slate is traditionally reserved for established auteurs and big-buzz festival titles. It might be better for adventurous film culture if NYFF and Cannes were to ditch the ballast of already established directors in favor of new and uncharted terrain, but that’s simply never going to happen and to protest otherwise is an unrealistic waste of time. (For those in the press corps, it’s also fun to bang through a dozen of the Year’s Most Important Releases in rapid sequence.) The U.S. premiere of Steve McQueen’s much-praised 12 Years A Slave may have […]
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New Mexican Films Shine at the Zurich Film Festival
Quickly gaining stature as one of the best of Europe’s newer players on the fall festival scene, the Zurich Film Festival wrapped its ninth edition last weekend after it’s longest and most wide ranging event yet. One hundred and twenty-two films screened over the course of 11 days in Switzerland’s largest city, one which besides being a capital of world banking is among of the oldest continuous settlements in Europe, dating back over 6,400 years. The festival, run by Karl Spoerri and Nadja Schildknecht, featured its most star-studded group of guests yet, with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Harrison Ford, […]
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How Big a Team Do You Need to Drive Box Office? A Talk with Gathr’s Richard Matson
In the past, films that don’t have a large distributor behind them had only a couple of distribution options: they could go straight to the internet and DVD, or the filmmakers could travel around the country arranging screenings at festivals. Now Gather Films offers a third option: on-demand theatrical performance. With Gathr, a screening of a film can be requested at a local theater, and if enough people buy tickets the screening happens. Gathr handles independent movies, as well as larger movies that are being distributed and promoted, but may only have organized theater runs in a few cities. Richard […]
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NYFF Critics Notebook: Stray Dogs, Bastards, Redemption
The New York Film Festival’s most exciting offerings are often those deemed “undistributable” and unlikely to make a return visit soon, with Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs this year’s standard-bearer. By 2009’s Face, Tsai seemed in an increasingly droll mood, embracing slow-burn physical comedy for its own sake; Stray Dogs — his first feature since — strips out nearly all levity under digital’s harsh glare. An early daylight shot of an isolated rural area is representatively demanding/rewarding, initially nearly swallowed by a dense cluster of skinny trees, whose semi-open circle hedges in a cave-like darkness lit by floating motes slowly identifiable […]
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Arthouse in the Caribbean: The Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival 2013
Now in its seventh year, the Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival is both a celebration of Caribbean cinema and of the young country itself, which only gained independence from its British rulers, after a long series of turnovers through the hands of Spain, France, The Netherlands and Courland a little over 50 years ago. (Though I’ve covered many film festivals both in the U.S. and abroad over the past few years, this was the first time I was required to stand for the singing of a national anthem on opening night.) And while many international festivals struggle for a taste […]
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More Than Saunas and Kaurismäkis: The Second Finnish Film Affair
“Love & Anarchy” may have been the motto of the 26th Helsinki International Film Festival, which took over the Finnish capital the last ten days of September, but hospitality and order ruled the three-day Finnish Film Affair. The industry event, which takes place during the fest and is now in its second year, was created in 2012 to highlight Finnish films and connect international professionals (mostly sales agents, distributors, and programmers) with the Nordic country’s surprisingly robust film scene. To that end, works in progress were presented alongside prestigious festival hits. And an abundance of networking opportunities at nightly parties […]
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Distributing Films In The Internet Age: Interviews with Pivotshare and Fandor
The Film, TV & Digital Session at the recent Hacking Arts event focused on film distribution, with panelists Richard Matson from Gathr Films, Adam Mosam from Pivotshare and Albert Reinhardt from Fandor. The panel was moderated by Elle Schneider of Digital Bolex. All three firms are involved with distribution. Pivotshare offers tools to help the filmmaker sell their videos online. Fandor is an online subscription platform that pays its filmmakers a share of its subscription fees. Gathr Films provides an on-demand theatrical experience; a screening of a film can be requested at a local theater, and if enough people buy […]
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In Mid-Coast Maine, Documentaries Take Center Stage: The 2013 Camden International Film Festival
Christened Megunticook (“great swells of the sea”) by the long eradicated Penobscot Abenaki native American tribe that first lived in the region before it took turns being in the hands of the French and British during colonial times, the town of Camden, Maine is these days primarily a summering community for the northeast’s wealthy; its tiny population of just over 4,000 triples in size between Memorial and Labor Days. No wonder — the natural beauty of the place is quite stunning. It’s rolling hills and mountains, those great swells of the sea the PA’s were referring to, are covered in […]
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Forest Whitaker to Receive Actor Tribute at 2013 Gotham Awards
IFP today announced that its third honoree at this year’s Gotham Independent Film Awards will be Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker. (The previously announced tributes were of Mayor’s Office Media & Entertainment Commissioner Katherine Oliver and writer/director Richard Linklater.) The tribute caps a highly successful year for Whitaker, who won great acclaim for his lead performance in Lee Daniels’ The Butler and produced Ryan Coogler’s Sundance-winning Fruitvale Station. He also appears in the forthcoming 2013 releases Black Nativity and Out of the Furnace. Announcing the tribute, IFP’s Executive Director Joana Vicente commented, “We are thrilled to pay honor to a man whose work […]
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On Growing Up with the Mumblecore Generation
The mumblecore mumblecorp is growing up, a reality certain to impact American independent film for years to come. And we, their generation, are aging with them. Some of us are their peers, some their audience, some their collaborators. Others, like me, have a more indirect tether. If “fan” is not the correct word then we are those who, because of our interest in and pursuit of film over the last decade, have come of age in their shadow. The mumblecorp — that tenacious group of filmmakers who, by blurring narrative and autobiography, cinema and home video, pioneered ultra-low-budget filmmaking — […]
