Documentary
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Sundance Labs: “There is no end. Everything that’s happened will be carried forward.”
[ Filmmaker concludes its exclusive look inside the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs (which wraps up at the end of the week) with a final entry from Filmmaker Braden King [pictured above], who’s been posting weekly stories on his experience at the Labs. His project is titled Here, co-written by himself and Dani Valent, and follows an American mapmaker charting the Armenian countryside who’s traveling with an adventurous landscape photographer revisiting her homeland. King has directed music videos and short films for Sonic Youth, Will Oldham and Yo La Tengo. He co-directed the film Dutch Harbor: Where The Sea Breaks […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 25, 2007 -
CELEBRATING MELVIN
Out on DVD today is Joe Angio’s documentary, How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It), on the life and work of Melvin Van Peebles. I saw the film at its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival a few years back and when I watched it again on IFC not too long ago I was reminded by how well done the film is. Angio not only examines how Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song invented the Blaxploitation genre, but spotlights his renaissance life which includes working on Broadway and the New York Stock Exchange. But I think […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jun 5, 2007 -
IRAQ VETS ON VIDEONATION
Filmmaker Astra Taylor (Zizek!), who was one of our “25 New Faces of Independent Film” last year, and producer Laura Hanna are producing clips for VideoNation, the new web documentary component of The Nation magazine. Their first has just been posted, a short piece on Iraq Veterans Against the War. The link to the new Nation video page is here and the piece itself is also embedded below. Taylor says to check back in a couple of weeks for her second piece, an animation about industrial food pollution.
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 2, 2007 -
Judd Apatow, Knocked Up
KATHERINE HEIGL AND SETH ROGEN IN JUDD APATOW’S KNOCKED UP. COURTESY UNIVERSAL. After 15 years rising up through the Hollywood ranks, comedy’s underdog is on top of the world. At the moment, studios are scrambling to work with Judd Apatow (there are no less than seven films he’s currently involved with which he has written and/or produced), but this is a stark contrast to the rejection he became used to. It is ironic that the projects now being snapped up are the same ones that were repeatedly passed on previously. Apatow began as a writer on The Ben Stiller Show […]
by Nick Dawson on Jun 1, 2007 -
Lars Von Trier, The Boss Of It All
JENS ALBINUS AND IBEN HJEJLE IN LARS VON TRIER’S THE BOSS OF IT ALL. COURTESY IFC FIRST TAKE. Lars von Trier, the enfant terrible of world cinema, is always looking for the next thing to surprise or wrongfoot audiences. He made only three features in the first decade of his career, and though The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Zentropa (1991) were all critical successes that ably demonstrated von Trier’s cinematic gifts, it is since then that he has truly excelled. In this period, not only has he founded the revolutionary Dogme 95 movement, but completed the Gold […]
by Nick Dawson on May 23, 2007 -
Oren Rudavski, The Treatment
IAN HOLM AND CHRIS EIGEMAN IN OREN RUDAVSKY’S THE TREATMENT. COURTESY NEW YORKER FILMS. After studying at Oberlin College and NYU Film School, director and cinematographer Oren Rudavsky carved out a niche for himself in filmmaking: if you have seen a documentary about Judaism made in the last 20 years, most likely Rudavsky was involved in it. He has made numerous documentaries for television, many of them Jewish-themed, and has recently graduated to making documentary features, with notable success. The highly-praised A Life Apart (1997), an examination of the Hasidic lifestyle in America co-directed by Rudavsky with Menachem Daum (and […]
by Nick Dawson on May 4, 2007 -
TRIBECA WINNERS
Awards were handed out last night in Chinatown for the 6th annual Tribeca Film Festival. See list of winners below. The Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature – My Father My Lord (Hofshat Kaits), directed by David Volach (Israel). Best New Narrative Filmmaker – Two Embraces (Dos Abrazos), directed by Enrique Begne (Mexico). Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film – Lofti Edbelli in Making Of (Akher film), directed by Nouri Bouzid (Tunisia, Morocco). Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film – Marina Hands in LadyChatterley, directed by Pascale Ferran (France, Belgium). Best Screenplay – Making Of (Akher film), written […]
by Jason Guerrasio on May 4, 2007 -
JOE SALEH, 1934 – 2007
I received this email of an obituary that Jackie Raynal wrote for Joe Saleh, who died at 73 last week of complications from a stroke in Paris. Saleh produced many Merchant-Ivory movies and also founded the Angelika movie theater. Joseph J.M. Saleh who produced many of the Ivory-Merchant movies, created and founded the famous Angelika movie theater multiplex in New York, died in Paris last wek. Saleh financed the documentary STREETWISE which received the 1985 Academy Awards Nomination. He was also resposible for the developing the first network election night forecasting system in 1964. He was born January 18th,1934 in […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 26, 2007 -
San Francisco Fest at 50
In 1957, when the Berlin International Film Festival was in its sixth year and the Festival de Cannes had recently turned 12, there was still no established annual film festival in the U.S. “Back in the ’50s, San Francisco needed to keep its place in the arts world with an international film festival. There wasn’t one in North or South America,” San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF) founder Irving M. “Bud” Levin recalled in 1995. Following Levin’s lead, the San Francisco Film Society has presented the SFIFF since 1957 and becomes the first North American festival to celebrate its 50th […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2007 -
CHOOSE… BUT CHOOSE WISELY
With the Tribeca Film Festival a few days away, Anthony Kaufman has a great piece over at indieWIRE about the rivalry between Tribeca, SXSW and LAFF. As the three fests are scheduled so close to one another, most of the times they are fighting for the same films (and leaving regional fests like Sarasota, Florida Film Festival and Independent Film Festival Boston with little to choose from). This causes headaches for filmmakers who due to premiere-crazed programming aren’t choosing a festival that’s best for their film but what fest will give them the most exposure. Here’s an excerpt: “’Call me […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 23, 2007
