Documentary
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“KEVORKIAN” AT STRANGER THAN FICTION
Do not ask for whom Kevorkian tolls, Kevorkian tolls for Stranger Than Fiction. Last night, the spring season of the IFC series came to a close with Kevorkian, Matthew Galkin’s profile of the controversial right-to-die-activist’s recent run for Congress. During the nineties, Kevorkian assisted in the suicides of over one hundred people, becoming the center of a media fire storm, a storm he stoked by sending a tape of himself injecting a terminally-ill man with an overdose of drugs to 60 Minutes and then daring prosecutors to come after him. They took him up on his offer. Determined to provoke […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jun 9, 2010 -
50th KRAKOW FILM FEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED
The Krakow Film Festival ended yesterday closing its landmark 50th year. The oldest film festival in Poland, Krakow Fest is one of the most beloved events spotlighting the work of docs, animation and shorts in Europe. This year’s Documentary Competition had two winners: Sanya and Sparrow, directed by Andriej Griazew, about the early consequences of capitalism in the Soviet Union, and the Golden Horn winner Beyond This Place, directed by Kaleo La Belle, about inter-generational drama between a father and son. The winners of the Silver Horns in the same category were Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, who chronicled the […]
by Melissa Silvestri on Jun 7, 2010 -
CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FEST LINEUP; HONORS JONAS MEKAS
The 2010 Chicago Underground Film Festival, to be held June 24-July 1, will be honoring experimental film guru Jonas Mekas with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mekas will attend a number of festival screenings, including that of the new documentary Visionaries: Jonas Mekas and the (Mostly) American Avant-Garde, at which he will participate in a Q&A with director Chuck Workman. Here is the complete CUFF lineup: June 24 8:00 p.m.: The Wild Hunt, dir. Alexandre Franchi. A jilted boyfriend enters the strange world of medieval re-enactments in a desperate bid to win his girlfriend back. June 25 6:00 p.m.: World’s Largest, […]
by Jaimie Stettin on Jun 3, 2010 -
OUTFEST 2010 ANNOUNCES LINEUP
Outfest 2010: The 28th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival will screen 147 films from 23 countries and host panels and events throughout the city, from July 8-18. Opening with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Howl and closing with J.B. Ghuman, Jr.’s Spork, Outfest will have two other gala screenings as well as a number of special screenings of LGBT classics like Clueless and Hustler White. Here is the complete list of Outfest features: Opening Night Gala – HOWL, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (July 8 at 8:00pm – Orpheum Theatre) Closing Night Gala – Spork, J.B. Ghuman, Jr. […]
by Jaimie Stettin on Jun 3, 2010 -
GUCCI TRIBECA DOCUMENTARY FUND GRANT RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED
Out of 390 applicants from 23 countries, the Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci announced yesterday the seven recipients of the 2010 Gucci Tribeca Documentary fund, whose projects highlight globally important social issues. The projects that will receive a total of $100,000 in grant money are : African Deep, Directed and Produced by Rachel Boynton. – (USA) African Deep is a riveting adventure about the heated quest for oil in the deep waters off West Africa’s coast. Shot over the course of four years, at a time of rising demand for energy and increasing competition for resources worldwide, the film takes […]
by Jaimie Stettin on Jun 3, 2010 -
“THE PEOPLE VS. GEORGE LUCAS” TO HIT EDINBURGH, LA, SILVERDOCS AND MUNICH
After hit screenings at SXSW and HotDocs, Alexandre O. Philippe‘s The People vs. George Lucas will be shown at four film festivals this month: Edinburgh International, LA, AFI’s Silverdocs, and Munich. Philippe’s film examines the relationship between filmmaker George Lucas and his fans over the past thirty years. PvG is one of six documentaries at SILVERDOCS nominated for the WGA Documentary Screenplay Award this year. You can catch the film at any of the following screenings: Edinburgh International Film Festival: June 18 @ 7:45pm (Filmhouse 1) June 19 @ 3:30pm (Filmhouse 1) Los Angeles Film Festival: June 23 @ 8:30pm […]
by Jaimie Stettin on Jun 3, 2010 -
Barbara Bancaccio And Josh Zeman, Cropsey
Part personal history remembrance, part time capsule of a place, part true crime thriller, Cropsey is an absorbing and terrifying piece of filmmaking. A rough hewn, nine years in the making feature directorial debut for narrative film producer turned documentarian Joshua Zeman and NYC Human Resources Administration’s Deputy Commissioner Barbara Brancaccio, it delves into the disappearances of several handicapped children in their native borough of Staten Island during the ’70s and ’80s. The filmmaker trace their distinctive childhood memories of the events as well as those of dozens of Staten Island residents who live on with this disturbing mystery, many unconvinced—even though […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 2, 2010 -
“HAYNESVILLE” AT STF
Last night Thom Powers screened two docs, Jessica Edwards‘ short, Seltzer Works and Gregory Kallenberg‘s feature, Haynesville as the penultimate screening in his Spring Stranger Than Fiction series. The series rarely features shorts, but Powers credited the move to the fact that both films focused on gas crises – one very small, one very large, both man-made. Deftly shot, Seltzer Works is a carefully composed bit of nostalgia for a time when deliverymen schlepped heavy glass bottles full of fizzy water all over Brooklyn. A portrait of a third-generation seltzer man struggling to survive in a world that no longer needs him, […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jun 2, 2010 -
2010 Cannes Film Festival | By Livia Bloom
“You know the kind of movie where people laugh and cry?” asked a filmmaker character in Kornél Mundruczó’s Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project (seeking American distribution). “I want you to cry.” “I am crying,” responded the would-be actor before him, his face frozen solid. The internalization of emotion, and the tiny, subtle ways it can creep into the features and postures of even the most stoic characters was explored in some of the best work at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. At first glance, the protagonist of A Screaming Man (pictured above) (Un homme qui crie, seeking distribution), by […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Jun 2, 2010 -
REMEMBERING FLORENT
Director (The Look) and producer (the upcoming Valerie Plame story pic, Fair Game) David Sigal has made a documentary about Florent, the legendary and now shuttered New York meatpacking district restaurant. Scheduled to premiere at the New York Food Film Festival in June, Florent: Queen of the Meat Market is previewed at Nowness, which writes: Until its closure in June 2008, New York bistro Florent was that rare place where you could simultaneously eat a burger, catch a drag act and—if you were lucky—glimpse Calvin Klein. Named after its owner, the indefatigably flamboyant Florent Morellet, during its 23-year existence the […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 1, 2010
