The 36th Seattle International Film Festival end this weekend with audiences flocking to the 25 day fest as nearly 20% increase from last year. From May 20-June 13, the festival had shown 408 films. The awards ranged from the audience-selected Golden Space Needle Awards; the five juried Competition Awards, as well as the FIPRESCI Award for Best American Film. Borys Lankosz‘s The Reverse won the narrative Grand Jury Prizee , while Marwencol, directed by Jeff Malmberg, took home the doc Grand Jury Prize. The winners of the Jury and Audience Awards are below. SIFF 2010 Best New Director Grand Jury […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jun 14, 2010In its 12th year the Sarasota Film Festival has established itself as an important regional festival stop. Wedged between SXSW and Tribeca, Sarasota’s 10-day event is filled with festival circuit favorites, access to industry folk for the area filmmakers and lots of parties. [Full disclosure: I’m on the jury for the Independent Visions award this year.] Kicking off last night with Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini‘s The Extra Man, the film stars Kevin Klein and Paul Dano as unlikely roommates living in Manhattan, one an aging playboy (Klein) the other a dreamer trying to find his place in life […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Apr 10, 2010[PREMIERE SCREENING: Saturday, Jan. 23, 12:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] In Daniel Woodrell’s novel, the protagonist, Ree Dolly, has two younger brothers. We decided to cast these roles in Missouri and held auditions during preproduction. We were excited to find Isaiah Stone for the part of the older boy, Sonny, but we struggled to cast the younger boy. We auditioned a lot of boys, and then paired different boys with each other. We thought we were getting close, but something was holding me back. The boys we were moving toward were not from the rural areas in which […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 23, 2010