Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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Park City Critic’s Notes #3: On Happiness, Web Junkie, Love Child and the Peril of Electronic Screens
A couple nights before the Sundance Film Festival commenced this year, I came home one evening hoping to squeeze in at least a couple of pre-fest screeners before I went to bed, knowing I had a full day of hack journalist duties awaiting me the next morning. While taking the train back from the Filmmaker offices and walking through a dreary Bedford-Stuyvesant evening, I dreaded what I thought I would discover upon returning home: a subletter — a young aspirant sportswriter whose presence in our home had only been announced by one of my more regular roommates the day before […]
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Park City Critic’s Notes #2: How Should a Family Be?
Everybody has dreams at Sundance. Some dream of distribution deals, others of the respect and recognition that may come with them. The most exuberant dreamers conjure the high seven-figure sales of yesteryear, but the ranks of such folks are dying away, the reality of the new normal having long set in. Some just want to get laid or go skiing and dream accordingly. Lucky them. Still others can’t navigate Sundance without complaining about this or that. A lot of folks are upset by the shuttles this year, claiming they aren’t as efficient as years past. More pressing, some observers have […]
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Park City Critic’s Notes #1: Jungle Violence and Prairie Reckonings
Generally speaking, the documentary competitions sections of major market film festivals are not places to go and find uplift. Wanna feel good in, say, the James Brown sense of the phrase? The Premieres or Spotlight sections at a festival such as Sundance are usually better bets, programs that tend to provide, with some notable exceptions, a bevy of of biopics, inspiring tales and quirky comedies packaged to appeal to vain movie stars and whatever audience still remains for mid-to-lowbrow, adult-centered specialty films. Any world where the people are all as attractive as, say, Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz and Mark […]
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Lionsgate and CNN Films Buy Dinosaur 13 in First Doc Pickup of Sundance 2014
Dinosaur 13, the opening night film in the doc competition section, just became the first non-fiction acquisition of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. In a deal brokered by the film’s sales agent, Josh Braun of Submarine, Lionsgate and CNN Films bought North American rights for the buzz doc, which chronicles the real-life drama following the discovery in 1990 of the remains of “Sue,” the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Dinosaur 13 will play theatrically through Lionsgate before having a TV premiere through CNN. The beautifully shot Dinosaur 13 had a lot of interest going into the fest, but […]
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Palm Springs International Film Festival 2013
Outside of Camelot Theatres, where Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas screens in 30 minutes, stands an older man with a telescope. He doesn’t appear to be affiliated with the Palm Springs International Film Festival — or even attending it, for that matter — and is dressed as you might expect an actual astronomer to be. Arnaud des Pallières’ adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s 1811 novella premiered to mixed reviews at Cannes last year, but familiarity with the source material and the fact that Mads Mikkelsen and Denis Lavant are both involved seem reason enough to take a […]
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Michael Tully and Eric Lavallée Found the American Independent Film Awards
Do we really need another award show? Michael Tully, filmmaker (Ping Pong Summer, Septien) and editor of Hammer to Nail, and Eric Lavallée, founder of Ioncinema, can assure you we do. Tully and Lavallée have partnered to announce the creation of the American Independent Film Awards (AIFAs), a soon-to-be annual celebration of “a distinctive category of micro-budget films.” Says Tully, “There are way too many awards shows as it is, and yet Eric and I have become frustrated with the way truly excellent work is marginalized every year simply because it doesn’t have the money to play with the big boys. We feel […]
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First Announcements from Robust Berlinale Slate Include Two Josephine Decker Titles
The Berlinale has a rather hefty program: Competition, Out of Competition, Special, Panorama, Forum, Forum Expanded, Generation, Perspective, Retrospectives — and that gets us about halfway there. In the last few days, three section lineups have trickled out of the press office, offering Berlin’s signature mix of international auteurs, Sundance holdovers and the downright esoteric. Familiar titles for a plebe like me include the Park City world premieres 52 Tuesdays; Boyhood; Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and God Help The Girl, as well as the out of competition, Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux starring Beauty and the Beast — which appears to be more Disney than Cocteau. […]
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21 Films I’m Anticipating at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival
These lists get harder and harder. You know more filmmakers, you hear more buzz and honing in on pre-festival favorites with any kind of concision becomes more an act of exclusion than a celebration of possibility. (In other words, this list’s length is more determined by the pokiness of Delta’s on-flight wi-fi and the festival opening-day deadline than my enthusiasms for the selections of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.) Below are 21 festival picks, beginning with a favorite project I’ve been wanting to see realized for years. As you’ll note, I’ve paid particular attention to folks from our 25 New […]
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Tastemade Offers Video Previews of Sundance Restaurants
I have many pieces of advice for filmmakers, but here’s one I have for everyone attending the Sundance and Slamdance festivals this week: sit down and have a meal. Really. I mean, it’s ridiculously easy to subsist on hors d’oeuvres for a week, or to grab microwave burritos at the 7/11, or to nibble from the Albertsons/Fresh Market supply you loaded your refrigerator up with on the first day. But, such a dietary regime will make you feel bad, and you’ll probably get sick too. In addition, you’ll have better conversations with your friends over dinner at a real restaurant […]
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New Directors/New Films Announces First Titles in 2014 Lineup
Perhaps my favorite festival of the year, The Film Society’s New Directors/New Films has just announced its first seven titles for the 2014 edition. Immediate notables include Richard Ayoade’s The Double, which bows at Sundance this week following its well-received Toronto premiere, and Albert Serra’s Locarno Golden Leopard prize winner, Story of My Death. (Death was recently the cover story in a strongly recommended issue of Cinema-Scope.) As ever, there are still obscure debuts to be found in Of Horses and Men and Trap Street, ensuring the festival’s spirit of discovery is alive and well. This year’s ND/NF is set for March 19-30 at Lincoln Center, and […]
