Doclisboa by Pamela Cohn “I can’t trust my own memories, and neither should the audience.” — filmmaker Naeem Mohaiemen, The Young Man Was trilogy A robust and wide-ranging sidebar program at a festival draws on the conventions of the multivolume novel, or the cantos of a long poem, varied portraits refracting off a narrative throughline. Stories both epic and quotidian dovetail and, as a result, iconoclastic interventions and disruptions atomise historical temporality. What’s left behind when the so-called terrorist no longer identifies, or is identified, as such? Or is dead? Or never existed in the first place? Traces of a progression […]

The countdown to Sundance 2016 has begun with a slew of recent announcements of film selections for the festival, which runs from January 21-31. Earlier this week, the crowdfunding platform unveiled the list of Kickstarter-funded works which made the cut for this year’s festival, including new documentary features from Dawn Porter (Trapped), Penny Lane (NUTS!) and Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (Unlocking the Cage). Read the full blog post here and check out highlights below:  This year at Sundance, we’ll be crossing our fingers for a great roster of docs and dramatic features in competition for major awards: NUTS!, Spa Night, Trapped, and When Two Worlds […]

Rooftop Films, which is heading into its 20th season, has awarded 13 cash and service grants to alumni filmmakers. The GarboNYC Feature Film Grants were awarded to directors Kitty Green and Sebastian Silva. Green will receive a monetary grant of $15,000 to help finish her new film, Casting JonBenet, and Silva will receive a $10,000 grant to support his film, Demon Me. Casting JonBenet, a documentary about the infamous murder of child model JonBenet Ramsey, marks Green’s second feature after her 2013  documentary debut Ukraine Is Not a Brothel. Among the films Silva has directed are Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus and Nasty […]