Given the recent Presidential threats to refugees and immigrants, it seemed only fitting that The New Neighbors Project: Self-Directed Stories from the New American West, which aims to put cameras in the hands of refugees and immigrants in Montana, won the inaugural pitch competition for Tribeca Film Institute’s IF/Then Pitch competition during the recent 14th annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula, Montana. Directed and produced by Bryan Bello, The New Neighbors Project plans to create a series of short documentaries through workshops which teach refugees media production skills so they can direct their own stories. Developed by Tribeca Film Institute (TFI), IF/Then is designed to support short […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 4, 2017The 14th annual Big Sky Documentary Film Festival has announced the official selections of the 2017 festival, which takes place February 17-26 in Missoula, Montana. The festival will screen over 200 films from 50 nations as well as retrospectives of Academy Award-winning filmmaker Daniel Junge and Montreal-based film collective EyeSteelFilm. In addition to retrospective programs, planned special events include Healing Blue, a multimedia dance/film performance. Longtime partner HBO Documentary Films will present Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’ new feature Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds on opening night. Closing night will be presented by Big Sky premiere sponsor Showtime Documentary Films. Other films to be screened during the festival include Leah […]
by Paula Bernstein on Jan 10, 2017A rough road from the existential world to the sickie ward to the movie screen, dodging hungry demons and embracing cinematic gems, while maintaining a clear eye on the tall grass on the horizon. For several years, my life revolved around attending film festivals and screening movies and writing reviews. Then the bomb dropped. The C-bomb! Now I’m fighting cancer and enduring chemotherapy and struggling as a whacked-out Chemo Head. Unlike Speed Heads and Flop Heads and Crack Heads, whose chem-soaked brains are tightly wrapped around a single heat-seeking obsession and whose emotions are riveted to one Pavlov […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Aug 8, 2012It was a grueling and exhilarating year. Last year from January to December I road-ripped in my van, the “Red Devil,” occasionally flew on airplanes, a few times rode on trains, sprinting across and around America, then over and around Europe, parachuting in on nearly 50 film festivals. It was a manic-depressive trip on the rollercoaster-roadway. One minute I was kissing the stars and the next I was eating asphalt. It was madness, but madness that made complete sense. To understand America today, non-fiction books are giving fewer and fewer clues. Literature has become passé for making sense out of […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Feb 4, 2011