Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
-
Going 360 with Zombies on Hallowe’en
We file past a solemn priest down the stairs into the church basement. My friend and I excited.“There are the infected. There are the survivors. Then there is you.” That’s what the e-mail boasted when it arrived 30 hours earlier, promising a mix of live theatre and film called a 360 Screening. We were part of a sold-out audience of 200 that paid $60 apiece to see a film without knowing the title until the last minute. This was the third 360 Screening in Toronto and its first Hallowe’en edition. Tonight it was taking place in the old Berkeley Church […]
-
“25 New Faces” Update: Our Nixon at MoMA, Kickstarting F to 7th, Borscht Commissions, Mayer Erases the Web
I’ve not been posting as regularly recently as much of my focus has been on the redesigned Filmmaker website, which will be launching in the very near future. But, on this quiet Friday afternoon, I thought I’d take the opportunity to provide a few quick updates on the current class of filmmakers in our “25 New Faces,” who are a very productive bunch. Firstly, New Yorkers should head to MoMA this Sunday, October 28, for The White House Home Movies: Richard Nixon on Super-8, a screening which is part of the 10th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation. There will be clips […]
-
On Death at the New York Film Festival
At this year’s New York Film Festival I took part in a panel organized by Indiewire’s Critics Academy, a program for young, emerging film writers. The following is a consideration on the subject of death as it is depicted in three of this year’s films by one of those writers, Fariha Roisin. — SM In Michael Haneke’s latest film, Amour, an opening wide shot captures a crowded mass. An audience is watching a piano recital, and we are hypnotized, unsure of where to look, or rather, who to look for. The shot gives us no clues and yet a romanticism lurks, […]
-
Hawaii Critics Notebook #1
To be a film festival in today’s era of instant-streaming gratification and downloading-at-home culture means organizing events and creating a community beyond the traditional movie screen, and this year’s edition of the Hawaii International Film Festival certainly promised its patrons far more than a typical film-going experience. Out with the hot dogs, seating rows, frigid air conditioning, and desultory Q&A’s of your usual festival situation, and—for a few special nights at least—in with artisanal food trucks, outdoor screenings, martial arts demos, live music performances, cosplay displays, lengthy photo ops with various stars, and even, oddly enough, quite a few films. […]
-
Filmmaker Magazine & IFP to Program reRun Theatre, To Play Girl Walk // All Day, Otelo Burning & Habibi in November
Following on from the “25 New Faces” screening series that we have been organizing around the country, I’m very happy today to announce that Filmmaker and IFP will be programming theatrical runs at the reRun Theatre in Brooklyn, starting on November 2. The first three films we will be showing at reRun are Jacob Krupnick’s crowdpleasing NYC dance movie Girl Walk // All Day (above), Sara Blecher’s South African drama Otelo Burning, and Susan Youssef’s Gaza-set love story Habibi. We’re incredibly excited to be entering into this partnership with reRun and, through it, to continue what the magazine has been […]
-
Alchemy at Emerging Visions
It’s been nearly two weeks since my participation in IFP’s Emerging Visions Program and now that the dust has settled, I can see clearly how valuable this experience was, not only in a practical sense, i.e., the nuts and bolts of filmmaking, but also in more intangible ways. I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate in the Emerging Narratives and the Emerging Visions Program, back to back, with my feature film script The Whispering Giant. Both IFP programs offer filmmakers a chance to pitch their projects in a “safe” environment, where they can be critiqued by an industry […]
-
Gotham Award Nominations Announced: Beasts, Bernie, Middle and Moonrise Lead the Way
This morning, the Gotham Awards nominations were announced (indeed tweeted), and in a very competitive field, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild, Richard Linklater’s Bernie, Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom lead the way, each earning two nominations. Commenting on the nominations, IFP’s executive director Joana Vicente said, “From master film artists to richly talented newcomers, this year’s nominees comprise a diverse group of filmmakers and actors that defines the spectrum of independent film today. In addition to celebrating the work and the community, we also hope that the Gotham Award attention will encourage more […]
-
VIFF Critics Notebook #2
The Dragons & Tigers section has been the richest part of VIFF’s legacy, dating back to 1994. Each year, the Award for Young Cinema has highlighted an as yet unrecognized talent of East Asian cinema. This year the Dragons & Tigers jury was made up of Shinozaki Makoto, Joao Pedro Rodrigues and Chuck Stephens. I was able to see a few films from the competition, including the winner Emperor Visits the Hell, directed by Li Luo. An often perplexing, but always interesting film, Li’s movie transports a story (three chapters) from the Ming Dynast novel Journey to the West to […]
-
Nicole Kidman: Hollywood’s Unlikely Rebel
While other A-List actresses have chased the kind of star vehicles that kill on opening weekend, Nicole Kidman has been quietly becoming Hollywood’s most unlikely rebel—a statuesque leading lady with a snowballing penchant for bold auteur partnerships. It’s hard to pinpoint when, exactly, the gal from Days of Thunder began her metamorphosis into the daring muse currently drawing viewers to The Paperboy (above), but many would likely cite Gus Van Sant’s To Die For as the pivotal work in Kidman’s filmography. The sheer unlikeability of the delusional, cradle-robbing viper Suzanne Stone screams of Tinseltown-bombshell repellant, but Kidman executed the role […]
-
A Trans-Generational Triple Feature at NYFF 50
It was not until the very close of Michael Haneke’s laurel-laden Amour that I came to a pleasantly odd realization. Without any foresight, I had managed to stumble upon the perfect trans-generational triple feature—perhaps not just at the New York Film Festival, but in the grander scheme as well. At first blush, the Tokyo-set Like Someone in Love, New York-based Frances Ha, and the claustrophobic Parisian quarters of Amour have as much in common as, well, an Eastern social order, a misguided American woman, and a shackled octogenarian couple could. But a closer look reveals a glaringly common thread. […]
