While introducing Wo Ai Ni Mommy (I Love You Mommy) at last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, programmer Thom Powers thanked the Sadowsky family for allowing director Stephanie Wang-Breal to document their experiences adopting an eight-year-old girl from China, pointing out that “it’s not an easy thing to let a camera into your life.” Startlingly intimate, Wo Ai Ni Mommy follows the Sadowsky family as they struggle to incorporate their new daughter, who speaks no English, into their family. When the girl, Faith, demands to know why her parents would even want a Chinese daughter, her parents are shocked that multiculturalism is a concept […]
Voting is currently underway for the Gotham Independent Film Awards‘ first-ever Festival Genius Audience Award. The IFP and Slated have complied 26 titles from 50 U.S. and Canadian film festivals that will vie for the award, which will be announced during the Gotham Awards on November 29. They include Winter’s Bone, Fair Game, Waiting for ‘Superman’, Waste Land, The New Year and happythankyoumoreplease, to name a few. Voting for the five nominees of the award will close Nov. 7, then voting for the winner will open Nov. 9 and end the night of the event. And by voting you will […]
Nicholas Rombes, of The Rumpus’s 10/40/70 column and Filmmaker‘s Into the Splice, has launched an experimental project in film criticism — a Tumblr blog collecting 102 takes on Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream. Tied to the film’s tenth anniversary (hey, where’s the features-packed new DVD?), the project consists of 102 contributors writing about 102 frames of the film — one for each minute of its running time. Writes Rombes: October 27 2010 marks the 10th anniversary of the release of Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream, a movie that shook some foundations. To mark that and to extend the […]
As a filmmaker who makes G-rated porn I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being thoroughly excited when I learned that a festival devoted to celebrating sex onscreen had filled its opening night slot with a flick that contains not one sex scene. And writer/director/producer/editor Zach Clark’s SXSW 2009 hit Modern Love Is Automatic (pictured right), a refreshingly respectful and poignant comedy that centers around a jaded nurse who moonlights as a dominatrix and her aspiring (or rather delusional) model roommate, wasn’t the only selection to subversively screw with the very definition of porn. This year’s fifth edition, which […]
For most curators, programming the Toronto Film Festival would be a full plate, but Thom Powers’ appetite for documentary knows no bounds. In between programming and promoting Stranger than Fiction, his weekly documentary series at the IFC, he and Raphaela Neihausen, his wife and business partner, have co-founded DOC NYC, a New York based documentary festival. It’s a festival of riches for documentary lovers — five days of documentary screenings, panels and stars (Werner Herzog and Errol Morris will be in attendance). A celebration of documentary media of all kinds, in addition to the many screenings there are also panels […]
Here’s the BBC’s Mark Kermode hailing as a “forgotten gem” John Landis’s Into the Night, starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. It’s been years since I’ve seen this film but I’ve always remembered it fondly as well. To see if it holds up I’m going to put it on my Netflix queue.
Here’s a little treat for ya on Halloween! Today on Kevin Smith‘s blog, Silent Bob Speaks, the outspoken writer-director put up a teaser poster of his next film, Red State, his first foray into horror. In the past Smith has described the film as being loosely based on religious extremism, and its one he’s talked about making for years. If you follow Smith on Twitter you know he finally found enough money to shoot it over the summer, and according to his blog post, principal photography is now wrapped. Smith on the poster: Moody, weird, and pitch-perfect for the tone […]
Friends of the late Karen Schmeer, the documentary film editor whose credits include Errol Morris’s Fast, Cheap and Out of Control and Greg Barker’s Sergio, have honored their colleague by creating a fellowship for editors. They have partnered with ACE, SXSW, IFFBoston, the Manhattan Edit Workshop, and Powell’s books for this program intended to help-and-coming documentary editors while remembering Schmeer’s extraordinary accomplishments. Schmeer died last year when she was struck by a car fleeing a drug store robbery. From the group’s website: We are now accepting submissions for the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship. Awarded annually, the Fellowship was created […]
Scott Kirsner and Peter Broderick are bringing their Distribution U. to New York and Los Angeles November 13 and 20, respectively. Among the various presentations dealing with independent marketing and distribution in New York will be a case study of Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop. In L.A., singer-songwriter Jill Sobule will be talking about how she reinvigorated her recording career through crowdfunding and an online community. I’ll be leading one of the seminars in New York. Here is how the event is described: Designed and presented by leading distribution strategist Peter Broderick and cutting-edge author and tech analyst Scott […]
There’s an explosion. Children play on swings, unaware of a darkening cloud on the horizon. A man opens the back of his toilet only to discover it’s filled with black sludge. Just a few scenes from On Coal River, last night’s selection for Stranger Than Fiction, the weekly documentary series hosted by Thom Powers at the IFC Center. Significantly more frightening than your average horror flick, On Coal River follows a group of West Virginia activists in their fight against Massey Energy and its practice of “mountaintop removal mining,” a type of strip mining where they literally blow off the top […]