After 11-year-old Toni (newcomer Royalty Hightower) joins a dance group with older girls, the team begins to experience mysterious spasms. It’s a wholly original – if unlikely – premise for a film and, in the case of The Fits, it succeeds as a compelling meditation on coming-of-age. Written and directed by Anna Rose Holmer, one of Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, The Fits premiered at the Venice Film Festival and also played Sundance earlier this year. It will hit theaters on June 3rd courtesy of Oscilloscope. Check out the intriguing trailer above.
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 28, 2016New York’s Rooftop Films will kick off its 20th annual summer series on May 18 with a screening of Weiner, the winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s 2016 US documentary grand jury prize. Directed by Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg, Weiner will open in theaters May 20 and hit VOD on May 26 via Sundance Selects. As the trailer (above) shows, the documentary follows the now infamous former New York congressman on the 2013 mayoral campaign trail following a sexting scandal. In addition to Weiner, Rooftop Films will present the documentaries Don Juan and Life, Animated, as well as narrative titles Hunt for the Wilderpeople and White Girl. […]
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 26, 2016Swiss Army Man, the debut feature from acclaimed music video directing duo The Daniels (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert), divided audiences at Sundance 2016 like no other film. Now you can get a peek at the controversial film in its first trailer (above). Following its premiere, Variety declared that the film “could win the festival’s award for the most walk-outs, as a continuous stream of audience members kept standing up and bolting for the door throughout the film.” The premise of the dark comedy is certainly pretty bizarre. Paul Dano plays Hank, a man marooned on an island who is about to commit suicide. […]
by Paula Bernstein on Apr 4, 2016Written and directed by Rodrigo Garcia, Last Days in the Desert premiered way back at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and it’s finally getting its first trailer. The film in which Ewan McGregor plays both Jesus and the Devil is an imagined episode from his 40 days of fasting and praying in the desert. On his way out of the wilderness, Jesus (McGregor) struggles with the Devil (also McGregor) over the fate of a family in crisis. Ciarán Hinds, Ayelet Zurer and Tye Sheridan co-star, but the big draw is the cinematography by two-time Academy Award-winning DP Emmanuel Lubezki. Could his work […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 24, 2016Following its well received world premiere at Sundance 2016, Love & Friendship, Whit Stillman’s latest comedy of manners, gets its first trailer. Stillman reunites his Last Days of Disco co-stars Kate Beckinsale and Chloe Sevigny for this adaptation of Jane Austen’s novella Lady Susan. Beckinsale plays the titular Lady Susan Vernon, “the most accomplished flirt in all England,” who visits the estate of her in-laws where she schemes to marry off her daughter and perhaps find her own husband. Sevigny plays her visiting American friend. Xavier Samuel, Stephen Fry, Tom Bennett, Jemma Redgrave, James Fleet, Justin Edwards and Emma Greenwell round out the cast. As Filmmaker‘s Vadim Rizov notes […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 23, 2016Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth, Alps) makes his English-language debut with the absurdist comedy The Lobster, which premiered at Cannes 2015. The satire stars Colin Farrell as a newly single architect looking for love. The newly released trailer depicts a bizarro world in which a seemingly ordinary hotel serves as a twisted dating service of sorts. Unless guests hook up with a mate within 45 days, they’ll be turned into an animal of their choice and released into the wild (Farrell’s character chooses a lobster, thus, the film’s title). In his report from Cannes 2015, Filmmaker‘s Aaron Hillis called the film a “wickedly laugh-out-loud, quasi-dystopian […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 18, 2016Tim Blake Nelson’s last film, Leaves of Grass, was released five years ago. Since then, the award-winning actor, writer and director has been busy acting in indies such as James Franco’s take on As I Lay Dying, big-budget films such as Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and on Netflix with an ongoing role in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Anesthesia, Blake Nelson’s latest film as writer-director, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year and was later picked up by IFC Films. The drama, starring Kristen Stewart and Sam Waterston, alongside Blake Nelson, Glenn Close, Gretchen Mol, Corey Stoll and Michael K. Williams, will hit theaters and on demand on January […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 14, 2015The new trailer for Michael Moore’s latest documentary Where to Invade Next (above) positions the guerrilla filmmaker as “America’s secret weapon” and “the only one who can save us.” The film tracks Moore as he travels around the globe and explores social programs and policies that work well in other countries (while criticizing school lunch and highlighting other problems in the U.S.A.). Luckily, these days, Moore is feeling like a “crazy optimist.” As Moore explains in the trailer, “Three years ago, gay marriage in the United States was outlawed. Now it’s the law of the land. It really proves anything can happen.” […]
by Paula Bernstein on Dec 7, 2015Jake Mahaffy appeared on Filmmaker‘s 25 New Faces list in 2005 following his Tarkovsky-esque black-and-white (shot on a hand cranked camera, no less) tale of American collapse, War. His very different 2008 feature Wellness won the Grand Prize at SXSW and now, seven years later, Mahaffy is back with the Venice-premiering Free in Deed. Produced by Mike Ryan, it’s easily the film I’m anticipating most on the Fall festival circuit. From the film’s Facebook page: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2015The Wire creator David Simon moves up the East Coast for his latest drama, Show Me a Hero, that’s set in Yonkers in the 1960s. Based on a true story, the six-part miniseries portrays a young mayor, played by Oscar Isaac, who, amidst the civil rights movements, fights local powers to build low-income housing in his borough. The cast is impressive and includes Alfred Molina, Bob Balaban and Winona Ryder. The series debuts August 16 on HBO.
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 3, 2015