Toronto International Film Festival
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Five Questions with Jeff, Who Lives At Home Writer/Directors Mark and Jay Duplass
Last year Mark and Jay Duplass ventured into the world of studio filmmaking when they made the dramedy Cyrus for Fox Searchlight. At this year’s TIFF the Duplass brothers and Searchlight will premiere their next effort, Jeff, Who Lives at Home, starring Jason Segel, Ed Helms and Susan Sarandon. Filmmaker: Tell us a little about what your film is about? Duplass Bros: It’s about a 30 year-old guy named Jeff (Jason Segel) who believes, heavily, in fate. He bides his time in his mom’s basement, eagerly awaiting the day that the universe will deliver his destiny upon him. When his […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 7, 2011 -
WEINSTEINS START VOD LABEL
A few weeks ago we learned about Focus Features’ new VOD arm, Focus World, well today Deadline broke the story that at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (which begins Thursday) The Weinstein Company will go full steam ahead on their own VOD label. The Weinstein Company has also confirmed that Magnolia Pictures’ SVP and Head of Acquisitions, Tom Quinn, will come over to head the label along with Magnolia’s head of legal and business affairs, Jason Janego. The two had been instrumental in Magnolia’s day-and-date platform. Quinn and Janego will be at TIFF scouting titles for the Weinsteins’ as […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 7, 2011 -
TORONTO FEST UNVEILS COMPLETE LINEUP
After multiple announcements of films screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival that spanned over several weeks, this morning TIFF completed their 2011 lineup by unveiling the titles in its Masters section, participants in its Maverick series and the works in the Discovery and free sections. See the complete list of films and fest schedule at the TIFF website. Totaling 268 features and 68 shorts, TIFF 2011 will have 123 world debuts from 65 countries. 13 films will screen in the Masters section, including Wim Wenders‘ Pina and Jafar Panahi‘s This is Not a Film. TIFF’s Maverick series, which […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 23, 2011 -
ENDING CHANGE FOR LATEST “WEST MEMPHIS 3” DOC
In news that developed Thursday night, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin, also known as the “West Memphis 3,” could be freed later today after spending over 18 years in prison for the charge of murdering three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas in 1993, though strong evidence over the years has pointed to their innocence. UPDATE: “West Memphis 3” have been set free. The subjects of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky‘s landmark Paradise Lost documentaries, the filmmaker’s latest, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, and as its synopsis on the […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Aug 19, 2011 -
SUNDANCE ANNOUNCES NEW ONLINE DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE
At a Los Angeles press conference today, Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam announced an expansion of the organization’s Artist Services Initiative that will bring independent films to digital platforms. Exclusively partnering with aggregator New Video, Sundance is offering its festival and lab films distribution opportunities on iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and SundanceNOW. Filmmakers will retain ownership and control of their titles, will be free to publicize and market them, and Sundance will conduct its own marketing efforts as well as leverage the potency of its brand to gain the films wider audiences. Commented Putnam, “By acting as a conduit […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 27, 2011 -
American Idol: Tabloid Director Errol Morris
As globalism renders the world ever smaller, national boundaries seem increasingly porous, if not outright irrelevant to the study of cinema. Yet Errol Morris still strikes me as a distinctly American filmmaker. From pet cemeteries in California (Gates of Heaven) to death row in Texas (The Thin Blue Line), from the Vietnam War (The Fog of War) to the Iraq War (Standard Operating Procedure), and in ads for the presidential campaigns of John Kerry and Barack Obama, Morris tends to bring his insatiable curiosity and searing intellect to stories and characters that, for all their strangeness and improbability, are inseparable […]
by Livia Bloom Ingram on Jul 13, 2011 -
2ND ANNUAL ARUBA FILM FESTIVAL
A Dutch protectorate tucked near the very bottom of the Caribbean, Aruba is a small, arid, resort powered island that, despite its idiosyncrasies, may feel at times, especially along its sunbather packed eastern shores, like any other tourist satellite (although a particularly intoxicating one it is). Still, woe is he who gets caught in the all too ubiquitous American simulacrum, one of decidedly marked-up Five Guys fries and T.G.I. Friday’s chicken fingers, of cheeseburger “specials” at Hooters with beef that taste like copper. Of course, this is a film festival on a beautiful tourist trap, so there’s a lot of […]
by Brandon Harris on Jul 7, 2011 -
ED GASS-DONNELLY, “SMALL TOWN MURDER SONGS”
One of Canada’s hottest filmmaking prospects for much of the aughts, Toronto-based Ed Gass-Donnelly made a reputation for himself as a prolific short filmmaker, making the festival rounds with several shorts during the first half of the decade. He broke through as a feature director with his 2007 drama This Beautiful City, a look at five disparate citizens of Ontario’s largest metropolis that is at once a sprawling ensemble piece and an intimate investigation into ordinary lives intertwined by extraordinary events. A favorite at that year’s Toronto International Film Festival, it went on to be nominated for four Genie Awards […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 30, 2011 -
FCP X – First Musings
Final Cut Pro X (version 10.0) arrived 8:30 a.m. yesterday morning at the App Store for $299, unleashing torrents of criticism about missing features and a perceived drift from professional product to one that consumers might find friendlier. So far, so good. Let me explain. I, too, had an advance copy (version 9.9.1.77) and wrestled to overcome personal expectations of what a 64-bit next-gen Final Cut should be, given the countless hours of my life spent in front of this revolutionary NLE since it first introduced us to FireWire and DV editing back in 1999. As I wrote last night […]
by David Leitner on Jun 22, 2011 -
SHAWN KU, “BEAUTIFUL BOY”
It’s been a dozen years since the Columbine tragedy and almost a half decade since the Virginia Tech shooting, but random outbursts of violence by troubled young male students with easy access to weaponry are still among the most troubling topics that our society is struggling to come to grips with. Less self consciously arty than say an Elephant or We Need to Talk About Kevin, Shawn Ku‘s Beautiful Boy tells the story of Bill and Kate, (Michael Sheen and Maria Bello), a relatively comfortable suburban couple who have entered middle age content but relatively uninspired. First and foremost a […]
by Brandon Harris on Jun 1, 2011
