Cinematic overdrive takes effect every summer for an 11-day spree at the New Horizon festival in Wroclaw, Poland, a “best-of” assortment of festival bangers from Rotterdam, Berlin, Cannes and elsewhere that also splinters into provocative sidebars, career retrospectives and funky late-night fare. The companion festival to fall’s American Film Festival likewise unspools at Kino Nowe Horyzonty (New Horizons), a contemporary multi-level nine-screen movie complex embedded in the city’s nightlife hub, well-designed as a life support system for cinephiles embarked on 14-hour immersive viewing sessions. (Which is to say, espresso and marvelous pastries are never far from reach). I’ve gotten to […]
Following her vibrant and raucous concert doc, Gogol Bordello Nonstop, Colombia-born, New York-based filmmaker Margarita Jimeno makes her dramatic feature debut with the Cinequest-premiering Grind Reset Shine, another story about an art and artmaking but one that unfolds in a very different way. From the press release: When the worlds of a struggling artist and a nun entangle, how will they break free? Peter is a struggling artist who moves from New York to Berlin to explore his luck and join an art collaborative. Alicia, preparing for nunhood in a remote Polish village, tries to decipher the existence of Satan […]
For several years Christopher Doyle has been a fixture at Camerimage, the annual festival in Bydgoszcz, Poland, devoted to cinematography. This past November he was especially busy, hosting two panels called “The Language of Cinema Is Images” with his friend and colleague Ed Lachman. Extending over six hours, these were a chance for Doyle, Lachman, and their guests to share stories, give advice, and question each other about style and technique. The panels were also an opportunity for Doyle to screen some examples of his work. Leslie Cheung dancing to “Perfidia” in Wong Kar Wai’s Days of Being Wild. A […]
In January 2017, I interviewed San Francisco-based independent filmmaker Daniel Kremer for a local Bay Area publication called CineSource Magazine. In these past two years, he’s been as indefatigable and as busy as ever. On February 10 and 11, the San Francisco Independent Film Festival premieres his latest feature film, Overwhelm the Sky. In late March, he will host a local screening of the roadshow-style edition of the film, a nearly three-hour epic complete with an orchestral overture and intermission. Come springtime, he’ll be opening the film at a prominent European film festival (the name of which must be kept under […]
Hello! Happy New Year! The fine folks at Filmmaker have invited me back to put together my (now) annual list of the 50 most anticipated American films of the year. I thought about making the list shorter this time around (because 50 blurbs is really a lot), but believe it or not I had a tough time narrowing things down even to this number. Before we get started, I want to share some quick clarifications and warnings: First and foremost, this list represents my opinions alone, and in case you got here via Google you should know that my taste […]
Almost 10,000 shorts — 9,443, to be exact, broken down into 4,720 from the U.S. and 4,723 from the rest of the world — were submitted to the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, yielding today’s announced program of 73 works from 33 countries. (For those doing the math, that’s an acceptance rate of just over three quarters of one percent.) According to the festival, “53% were directed or created by one or more women, 51% were directed or created by one or more filmmaker of color, and 26% by one or more people who identify as LGBTQIA. Twelve were supported by […]
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) concluded its 53rd edition on July 7th, and with it a solid line-up of both Western and Eastern European fare. Romanian director Radu Jude (Aferim!) won the Grand Prix for his darkly comedic past-meets-present holocaust drama I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians, and Barry Levinson won the Audience Award for Rain Man — a film that gave him the Oscar for Best Picture in 1989. The 76-year-old director was also honored with the Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema. Before discussing the film and industry […]
Alvin Toffler in his prescient 1970 bestseller, Future Shock, predicted that in a post-industrial society the design of goods would turn over frequently as they became quickly outdated and triggered their own replacement. They would grow disposable too, with the cost of repair exceeding cost of replacement. His emblem of discardability was the disposable lighter. (He also foresaw the rise of the freelance economy in which people would change career and workplace frequently—a fact of life for most of us in this industry.) At NAB in April, Blackmagic Design advertised a new “Professional Ultra HD broadcast camera for less than […]
Here are my favorite film experiences of the year: 10. Loving Vincent (2017; dir. Dorota Kobiela & Hugh Welchman; Lincoln Plaza Cinema) 9. The Red Turtle (2016; dir. Michaël Dudok de Wit; Lincoln Plaza Cinema) 8. Metropolis (1927; dir. Fritz Lang; Marble Collegiate Church) 7. La Belle et la Bête (1946; dir. Jean Cocteau; Tribeca Film Festival at Town Hall) 6. The Last Animals (2017; dir. Kate Brooks; Tribeca Film Festival at Cinépolis Chelsea) 5. City Lights (1931; dir. Charlie Chaplin; United Palace) 4. Harmony of Difference (2017; dir. Kamasi Washington; Whitney Biennial) 3. Romeo + Juliet (1996; dir. Baz Luhrmann; Little Cinema at House of Yes) 2. Imponderable (2015-16; […]
Slamdance’s Beyond category — for emerging filmmakers working beyond their first features — was announced yesterday along with its two shorts competitions, with five world premieres gracing the first category. The 2018 Slamdance Film Festival runs January 19-25 in Park City, Utah. Check out the announcement below. BEYOND PROGRAM Back at the Staircase (USA) World Premiere Director: Drew Britton Five distinctive people, each with a flimsy coping strategy, find themselves stuck together after an accident. Cast: Jennifer Lafleur, Stephen Plunkett, Leonora Pitts, Mickey O’Hagan, Logan Lark, Heather LaVine Funny Story (USA) World Premiere Director: Michael Gallagher After years of being […]