Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Liliana Greenfield-Sanders Talks the Wassaic Project’s 2014 Summer Film Festival
Now in its seventh year, the multidisciplinary Wassaic Project’s Summer Festival — whose 2014 edition opens today — offers an intimate screening experience where independent films by emerging filmmakers mix with art, music, dance and the great outdoors. It’s probably the only festival where films are projected in a Cattle Auction Ring, a fact doubly surprising given the festival’s location just two hours from New York on Metro North’s Harlem Line. The Wassaic Project is a non-profit that has as its mission the creation of “genuine and intimate context for art making and strengthening local community by increasing social and […]
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The Death of Mr. Tarelkin: Edward Snowden on the Multi-Media Russian Stage
Volunteers welcome you into the theater, guiding you towards your allotted place. The lights are going off slowly. As you sit down on your chair, you look ahead at the stage. It’s unlike any other stage. I was at the Culture Center ZIL in Moscow, attending a performance of The Death of Mr. Tarelkin, staged by the Manege/MediaArtLab Open School, Ballet Moscow Theatre and the International Centre for Dance and Performance TsEKh. This was a sidebar event at the 36th Moscow International Film Festival (June 19 – 28), described on the website as “a performance where Russian classics, contemporary dance, […]
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Air Raid Sirens and Israeli Bombs: The Jerusalem International Film Festival
Noa Regev, the new director of the Jerusalem International Film Festival, had a difficult task for her first edition. Walking a fine line between continuing with the film screenings while acknowledging “the situation,” as it is called here, wasn’t easy but she handled it with grace and intelligence. “The situation”: Israel is bombing Gaza to smithereens while sirens wail over Israel, warning of Hamas rocket fire. The vast majority of the rockets cause little to no damage; the same, however, cannot be said of the Israeli bombs. So, with this as a background, many of the films showing at the […]
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Create Your Own Kinetoscope at Thomas Edison’s Black Maria Studio
Before the projector, there was the kinetoscope. Conceptualized by Thomas Edison in 1888 and developed by William Dickson, the device provided a peephole into early moving pictures. Mono No Aware, the Brooklyn-based cinema organization, has scheduled a visit to the Thomas Edison National Historical Park and its adjoining Black Maria Studio to allow participants to produce their own takes on these iconic film strips, at the very birthplace of movie production. An on-site workshop will equip attendees with 16 mm, and the resulting kinetoscopes will be screened and digitized in the same afternoon. To sign up for this Sunday’s excursion, head to […]
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Transformers: The Asian American International Film Festival
Over the years, many New York-based media arts organizations and the film festivals they produce have folded, or scraped by in spite of outdated approaches and rigid programming. Asian CineVision and its offspring, the Asian American International Film Festival, on the other hand, have proven to be the little engines that could. The secret to their success: a keen awareness of shifts in the zeitgeist and talent pool, without losing sight of the Asian American community they serve (with a value added outreach to non Asian American communities). They are masters of reinvention. The 37th edition of the AAIFF (July […]
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First Batch of 2014 TIFF Titles Announced
In a press conference this morning, Cameron Bailey and Co. released the Special Presentation and Gala selections for the upcoming edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Lots to parse through as the slate boasts world premieres from Christian Petzold, Mia Hansen-Løve, Noah Baumbach, David Gordon Green, Hal Hartley, Liv Ullman, Barry Levinson and several others. There are a few of the requisite Hollywood entries (Jason Reitman, Chris Evans’ directorial debut, two Reese Witherspoon vehicles, for starters), alongside Cannes entries Wild Tales, Force Majeure and Whiplash, but the festival looks to be off to an auspicious start. Let the Venice speculation begin. SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS 99 Homes. Ramin Bahrani, USA, […]
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Czech Dream: The 49th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Though the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival bills itself as “the most important film event in Central and Eastern Europe,” such a bold declaration belies the fact that KVIFF is anything but snobby and self-serious. Back in 2011 I covered the prestigious fest, located in a fairytale scenic, spa city – once frequented by Beethoven and Goethe – about an hour-and-a-half from Prague by car. (That would be a BMW, the “official car” of KVIFF, the company having its own “BMW Zone” where you can check out the latest models nearby the ultra-chic Grandhotel Pupp.) Returning three years later I […]
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Latinbeat: Five Vettings and a Funeral
Once again, this festival of both rarefied and salt-of-the-earth films from all over Latin America graces the Big Apple at the Walter Reade Theater, once again with a delicious menu that does the Film Society of Lincoln Center proud. I’ve been drawn to Latinbeat since now-retired FSLC Program Director Richard Peña established it in 1997. It has consistently displayed not only fine titles but also a less apparent connective tissue that has been expertly if unconsciously simulated, one affording us more than single plotlines, and which provokes a pleasurably heady and arty stretch. Now in its 15th edition, the films […]
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Borscht Corporation Launches Crowdsourced Scarface Redux
“Say hello to my little friend!” If you’ve ever fantasized unleashing your inner Tony Montana — or, more accurately, your inner ’80s-era Brian DePalma — then the latest crowdsourced art project from the Miami-based Borscht Corporation is for you. Borscht has announced Scarface Redux, a fan remake of the 1983 drug lord epic, with filmmakers from all over the world invited to direct and submit their own 15-second segment. The clip can be “live action, animation, puppets, legos, Chihuahuas, it doesn’t matter!”, the site says. The finished film will be screened at the Borscht Film Festival in December at a […]
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Four Nights in D-Town: The Third Annual Oak Cliff Film Festival
A few days before the summer solstice, I arrived on an oddly cool night in Dallas for the Third Annual Oak Cliff Film Festival. A driver picked me up from the airport and whisked me directly to a pre-festival soiree at a bar called Wild Detectives where everyone seemed to know each other already. A few houses from the corner of East 8th St. and North Bishop Ave., Wild Detectives is proof Dallas’ zoning rules are the envy of lushes everywhere; the bar is a two-story house right in the middle of a residential neighborhood! That neighborhood, from which the […]
