Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Wish Granter Tamika Lamison on the Make A Film Foundation
In late February I attended the Richmond International Film Festival, where I met Tamika Lamison, the extraordinary founder and executive director of the L.A.-based Make A Film Foundation, which lets children with serious or life-threatening medical conditions live out their filmmaking dreams. She was there with the MAFF film The Magic Bracelet, a Diablo Cody-adapted short originally penned by 15-year-old Rina Goldberg, who died of mitochondrial disease in 2010. I decided to find out more post-fest about the idea to pair veteran altruistic filmmakers with young aspiring filmmakers in need. I spoke with Lamison right before the short’s next stop […]
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Visual Mixtape: Elisabeth Holm on the Kickstarter Film Festival
The crowdfunding boom has proved an altogether blessing for entrepreneurism, artists and consumers alike, with the role of sites like Kickstarter now extending beyond a helpful platform and into the campaign afterlife. While some competitors are adopting distribution pathways, Kickstarter culls their most prized projects into a festival lineup for added exposure. Submissions are currently open (through May 14) for the Kickstarter Film Festival’s fourth iteration, for which any successfully funded, recently completed projects are eligible. And not just films. Last year’s fest featured several food options, music and artwork, in addition to notable docs like 12 O’Clock Boys, Everybody Street and Flex is Kings. Filmmaker spoke to […]
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Cannes Adds Six Films to Official Selection, Announces First Ever 35mm-Free Classics Selection
In addition to the previously announced Official Selection lineup, Cannes has now added six films, though none in competition: • André Téchiné’s In The Name Of My Daughter marks the veteran director’s latest appearance at the festival after his last film, 2011’s Unforgivable, premiered in the Director’s Fortnight. Téchiné won Best Director at the festival for 1985’s Rendez-Vous. Like 2009’s The Girl On The Train, Daughter is based on a true story, with sales agent Elle Driver describing the story of the 1977 disappearance of Agnès Le Roux as “the most famous alleged murder case of the French Riviera.” • […]
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Upcoming Deadlines for IFP’s Independent Film Week
IFP is nearing its annual deadline for applications to the Independent Film Week Project Forum, set to take place September 14-18 at Lincoln Center. This Friday, May 2, submissions close for RBC’s Emerging Storytellers — for writers at the script stage, and web series creators in development, production, and post-production looking to connect with producers, funders, agents, digital distributors, and streaming platforms — and the No Borders International Co-Production Market — for established narrative producers with partial financing in place looking to connect with financiers, distributors, sales agents and international partners. Also of note is the Spotlight on Documentaries program, with an early deadline of May […]
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The Cannes Film Festival Announces Its Jury
With less than a month before the Cannes Film Festival starts up, the jury lineup has been fully unveiled. As announced in January, the jury president will be New Zealand director Jane Campion (Top Of The Lake, The Piano). Now her fellow jurors have been named: • Carole Bouquet, the veteran French actress who made her debut in Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object Of Desire • Sofia Coppola, whose The Bling Ring was the divisive opening film of the festival’s 2012 Un Certain Regard slate • Leila Hatami, the Iranian actress best known internationally as the star of Asghar Farhadi’s […]
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“You’re Really Just Talking to Yourself:” Beau Willimon, David Simon, Nate Silver and Anne Thompson on Audiences and Data
“There are two asteroids corrupting media,” bellowed radio host John Hockenberry at the start of the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Stories By Numbers” panel last week. The first, viewing patterns; the second, data streams. “Narratives,” he opined, pacing before Beau Willimon, David Simon, Nate Silver and Anne Thompson, “are becoming indistinguishable from vices.” It’s no secret that Netflix’s limitless entree into consumer preferences has informed much of its success in the realm of original content. Hockenberry noted that big brother Sarandos can scrutinize viewing behavior down to its utter minutiae: “what people skip over, what sex scenes they replay, is all fed back into […]
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2014 Tribeca Film Festival Winners
I’m openly hopping on the Brandon Harris bandwagon and declaring Tribeca’s programming vastly underrated. Leaps and bounds ahead of SXSW, much of the curation this year proved artful and risky, with standouts including Fishtail, Güeros, Young Bodies Heal Quickly, Gabriel, Broken Hill Blues, Ne Me Quitte Pas, Glass Chin, 1971, Summer of Blood and so forth. Even its selections that didn’t completely click were admirable in their aims. It’s frustrating then that the winners feel so incredibly safe. Particularly, the gifting of the Best Documentary prize to a two-time Academy Award nominee, when I can think of no fewer than five first timers in competition who were more deserving of both […]
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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 […]
