Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
-
TRIBECA WINNERS
The winners of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival were announced tonight. Feo Aladag‘s When We Leave received the fest’s top honor, the Founders Award for Best Narrative. The film follows a woman and her son as they try to escape her husband’s abuse and finds shelter with a family in Berlin. Best Documentary went to Alexandra Codina‘s Monica & David, which highlights a couple living with Down syndrome. Other winners include Dana Adam Shaprio‘s Monogamy taking home the New York Competition category and the outlandish comedy Spork won the first ever Best Feature in the Tribeca Film Festival Virtual category. […]
-
“CLEANFLIX” at STF
Despite being born and bred on our shores, Mormonism is still something of a fringe religion. For a lot of Americans, there’s something vaguely worrying about its army of clean-cut, nametag wearing missionaries. Neither Hollywood nor the independent film scene have helped the Mormon case for normalcy – their portrayals tend to fixate on the church’s checkered history with polygamy. Last night’s Stranger Than Fiction featured Cleanflix, a sympathetic look at the more mainstream side of Mormon culture. Directed by Andrew James and Joshua Ligairi, two filmmakers who grew up in the tradition (James is no longer practicing, but Ligairi […]
-
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL, PART TWO
Some good, or at least interesting, films surfaced at Tribeca this year—I’ll get to a few a couple of paragraphs down, and I wrote about others here last week—almost in spite of the umbrella organization itself. You can’t help but wonder: What is the template for this festival, which has been struggling to find its identity since its inception? Toronto, Sundance, Cannes, Berlin? San Francisco, Denver? Answer: It’s not cast from a festival mold at all, in spite of the invaluable input of former artistic director Peter Scarlet and David Kwok, as far as I can tell the only current […]
-
SUNDANCE DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITING LABS ANNOUNCED
Today the Sundance Institute announced the 13 projects selected for this year’s Director and Screenwriting Labs. Talking place in Park City, Utah June 1-25, the Labs will be filled with many familiar names to Filmmaker readers. 2008 25 New Faces alum Myna Joseph will be attending; as will Ondi Timoner, whose doc We Live In Public won the doc Grand Prize at Sundance in 2009; Ry Russo-Young, who was awarded our Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You award for You Wont Miss Me at last year’s Gothams, will be attending with her latest screenplay; and ’09 25 […]
-
FULL FRAME FILM FESTIVAL |
By Ryan Koo
Now in its 13th year, the documentary-only Full Frame Film Festival (April 8-11) takes place in my hometown of Durham, North Carolina. The city of Durham is historically a tobacco town, moving slowly but steadily towards an uncertain future: while its tobacco warehouses are being converted to swank lofts, downtown office space is readily available with a seemingly high vacancy rate. The festival is very much a cultural cornerstone for the city, and as a result Full Frame means a lot to Durham. As of late, however, Durham also means a lot to Full Frame: while in previous years the […]
-
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT SLATE ANNOUNCED
Earlier today Cannes unveiled the 24 films selected for its annual sidebar, Directors’ Fortnight. Opening this year with Renaud Barret & Florent de la Tullaye’s documentary Benda Bilili!, the line-up is dominated by first-time filmmakers, 11 in all. One American standout is Cam Archer (Wild Tigers I Have Known) who will be screening his latest, Shit Year, starring Ellen Barkin. Fortnight will take place May 13-23. Full list of titles below. FEATURE FILMS Alegria (Joy), directed by Marina Méliande et Felipe Braganca (Brazil) All Good Children, directed by Alicia Duffy (UK) Alting bliver godt igen (Everything Will Be Fine), directed […]
-
Tribeca Film Festival
MSNBC’s nightly programs are manna, a much-needed counterbalance to the agitprop spewing from Fox News. Reading Stephen Holden’s preview of the Tribeca Film Festival in the April 16th edition of the Times, I wondered if we need more than ever an alternative print organ covering culture, in New York anyway, with the clout of the Times. Holden parrots Tribeca’s moldy marketing theme, then jumps to a questionable conclusion. “Because the festival…was born in the ashes of the World Trade Center as a community development project to revive the devastated economy of Lower Manhattan, you might say My Trip to Al-Qaeda is woven into […]
-
WHAT SHOULD A NEW DOC FESTIVAL LOOK LIKE?
That was the question asked a group of about 40 filmmakers and members of the filmmaking community at an IFC Center Friday breakfast by Thom Powers (artistic director), John Vanco (managing director) and Raphaela Neihausen (executive director) about their new event, DOC NYC. Powers, Vanco and Neihausen are teaming to present the inaugural edition of this new Gotham doc fest this November, and their first step has been to reach out to the community for opinions on what’s needed to distinguish their festival. From their initial release: “DOC NYC will fill an important void in New York City and will […]
-
CANNES 2010 LINE-UP ANNOUNCED
The South of France will be filled with familiar faces for this year’s Cannes Film Festival as the line-up was announced overnight in Paris. As previously announced Ridley Scott‘s Robin Hood will open the festival. Notable names attending will include Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jean Luc-Godard and Gregg Araki (full list of titles below). The one glaring omission is Terrence Malick‘s Tree of Life, though festival chief Thierry Fremaux says there more titles are expected to be announced as the festival approaches. The fest will take place May 12-23. IN COMPETITION: Tournee directed by Mathieu Almaric Des […]
-
SARASOTA KICKS OFF A FUN 10 DAYS WITH “THE EXTRA MAN”
In its 12th year the Sarasota Film Festival has established itself as an important regional festival stop. Wedged between SXSW and Tribeca, Sarasota’s 10-day event is filled with festival circuit favorites, access to industry folk for the area filmmakers and lots of parties. [Full disclosure: I’m on the jury for the Independent Visions award this year.] Kicking off last night with Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini‘s The Extra Man, the film stars Kevin Klein and Paul Dano as unlikely roommates living in Manhattan, one an aging playboy (Klein) the other a dreamer trying to find his place in life […]
