Documentary
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“WINTER’S BONE” LEADS NOMINEES FOR THIS YEAR’S GOTHAMS
Announced moments ago on UStream by Elvis Mitchell, the nominees for IFP’s 20th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards have been revealed. Known as the official kick off to the awards season, a total of 26 films were nominated across six categories for an event that gives recognition to this year’s top independent films. Listed below are the full list of nominees. Standouts include Debra Granik‘s Sundance Grand Prize winner Winter’s Bone, which received Best Feature, Breakthrough Actor (for lead Jennifer Lawrence) and Best Ensemble Performance; while Lisa Cholodenko‘s The Kids Are All Right and Lena Dunam‘s Tiny Funrinture both received […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 18, 2010 -
ELVIS MITCHELL TO HOST GOTHAMS ANNOUNCEMENT
Critic Elvis Mitchell will be livestreaming the 2010 Gotham Award nominations Monday, October 18th. Tune in and hear all the nominations, including the five films we picked for the Filmmaker-sponsored “Best Film Playing at a Theater Near You Award. More details from the press release: Signaling the official kick-off to the film awards season, the Gotham Independent Film Awards™ nominations will be announced at 1 p.m. ET / 10 a.m. / PT to a global audience on UStream TV at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/gotham-independent-film-awards-2010 There will also be a link from IFP’s website. Mitchell, currently host of the public radio show The Treatment, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 15, 2010 -
SAM GREEN, “UTOPIA IN FOUR MOVEMENTS”
After Sam Green and Dave Cerf premiered their “live documentary” Utopia in Four Movements at Sundance, I wrote the below as part of a Sundance wrap-up at FilmInFocus. Also part of New Frontier was Sam Green and Dave Cerf’s Utopia in Four Movements. In what was billed as a “live documentary,” filmmaker Green, who previously helmed the doc, The Weather Underground, explores a precondition for revolution: a shared vision of utopia. The score was composed and played live by The Quavers (Catherine McCrae, Dennis Cronin, T. Griffin, and Cerf), and Green did live voiceover over film clips and slides. Recalling […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 11, 2010 -
Vimeo Announces Vimeo Awards Winners
The Vimeo Festival + Awards has announced the winners of its first annual competition last night in New York. From the press release: A distinguished panel of judges — including M.I.A., David Lynch, Roman Coppola, Ted Hope, Lucy Walker, and Morgan Spurlock, to name a few — chose the winners from more than 6,500 entries submitted from around the world. Legendary cult Director David Lynch, who judged the Experimental Category of the Festival commented, “The quality of films I watched for the Vimeo Festival was A Number One.” Roman Coppola, film Director and founder and owner of The Directors Bureau, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2010 -
“AMERICAN SPLENDOR” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
At last night’s Stranger Than Fiction, a weekly documentary series at the IFC, host Thom Powers paid tribute to underground comic icon Harvey Pekar, who died in July of this year, by screening American Splendor, the dramatization of Pekar’s celebrated autobiographical comic series about his life as a file clerk. A comics fanatic who became friends with the writer while working in the underground comic scene, Powers described discovering Pekar’s work as “a truly transformative experience.” Powers almost did not attend a screening of the film at Sundance in 2003, terrified it would do something horrible to something “so precious.” […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Oct 6, 2010 -
“STRANGER THINGS,” “MARWENCOL” WIN WOODSTOCK
I was very excited to see the list of Woodstock Film Festival winners over at Indiewire. Two Filmmaker favorites picked up the top prizes. You’ve read about Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol on the site before (see Alicia Van Couvering’s blockquote interview with the director here), and if your memory is good you’ll remember that I picked Stranger Things directors Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal for our 2009 “25 New Faces” after seeing the rough cut of this very same feature. I think this is a beautiful, delicate, and extremely well directed and acted film, and I’m really happy that it’s now […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 2, 2010 -
“MARWENCOL” OPENS STRANGER THAN FICTION AT THE IFC CENTER
“Stranger than Fiction,” the annual documentary series at the IFC Center, opens tonight with Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol, winner of the Best Documentary award at SXSW, Comic-Con and SIFF. From tonight’s program notes: On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside of a bar in Kingston, NY, by five men who beat him literally to death. Revived by paramedics, Mark had suffered brain damage and physical injuries so severe even his own mother didn’t recognize him. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with little memory of his previous life. Unable to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 28, 2010 -
JOHN SLOSS: “I COULD BE BANKSY!”
Cinetic Media powerhouse John Sloss took to the stage on Wednesday morning at the Independent Filmmaker Conference in a conversation moderated by indieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez (who announced today that he is leaving indieWIRE to take a new role as Director of Digital Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center). Sloss began the conversation by acknowledging that we all stand on the shoulders of giants, pointing to the influence of John Pierson on his career, “His heart wasn’t in the business side of things but mine was.” Everyone should read Pierson’s book Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes he declared. He […]
by Ingrid Kopp on Sep 23, 2010 -
NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL
Like a bitch-slap to those who have accused it of excessive reverence for French fare over the past 48 years, the 2010 New York Film Festival is bookended and centered on American movies—oddly enough, all from the big studios. David Fincher‘s The Social Network (pictured above) opens the event September 24; Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter is the October 10 Closing Night selection; and Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, the Centerpiece. I’ve seen none of them, but early reviews of The Social Network have been very positive, not surprising from the director of Se7en and Fight Club. Evaluations of Hereafter have been much […]
by Howard Feinstein on Sep 23, 2010 -
Things That Seem Real, Part 3 : Catfish And Fakery
Editor’s Note: Part one of this essay, “Things That Seem Real: A Three-Part Essay on Catfish and Other Movies,” appeared Tuesday on the site and can be read here. Part Two appeared yesterday and can be read here. These essays contain major spoilers regarding the film Catfish. Catfish and Fakery. Catfish has some major truth-problems. Major. Like, plot holes big enough to drive a truck through. The stirrings of suspicion began instantly after its Sundance 2010 premiere. On January 30th, reporting from Sundance, Indiewire’s Bryce Renninger wrote that “Over the week since its premiere, though, many critics and audience members […]
by Zachary Wigon on Sep 23, 2010
