
The 6th Toronto Black Film Festival (TBFF) announced the official program and events lineup featuring over 60 films from 20 countries.
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The official trailer and poster debut today for Ted Geoghegan’s highly anticipated second feature film, the no-holds-barred action-thriller Mohawk. Mohawk will be released in select theaters and on VOD/Digital HD on March 2nd from Dark Sky Films.
After one of her tribe sets an American camp ablaze, a young Mohawk warrior finds herself pursued by a contingent of military renegades set on revenge. Fleeing deep into the woods they call home, Oak and Calvin, along with their British companion Joshua, must now fight back against the bloodthirsty Colonel Holt and his soldiers – using every resource both real and supernatural that the winding forest can offer.
Mohawk stars Kaniehtiio Horn (Hemlock Grove), Justin Rain (Fear the Walking Dead), and Eamon Farren (Twin Peaks: The Return) along with Ezra Buzzington (Justified, The Middle), and including Ian Colletti (“Arseface” from AMC’s Preacher) and Jonathan Huber, WWE Superstar Luke Harper making his big screen debut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0utooEV8F8o
Back to Burgundy[/caption]
This year, the 21st edition of the New Orleans French Film Festival will kick off earlier than usual, beginning on February 23 and running through March 1, 2018, and will spotlight 17 feature films, 5 shorts, a retrospective of the magnificent Agnès Varda, French-themed live music performances prior to screenings, and special lectures, all in the historic Prytania Theater.
“The New Orleans Film Society’s French Film Festival was founded to engage and celebrate the French influence on our beloved city,” said Fallon Young, Executive Director of the New Orleans Film Society. “That’s why, in New Orleans’ tricentennial year, we are especially pleased that the French Film Festival features the world premiere of a uniquely New Orleans story. Created by a local director, cast and crew, the short film Le Grande Remix depicts New Orleans as a diverse and vibrant city with global cultural influences.”
Feature length films include the most awarded and sought after French films of the year: Back to Burgundy (opening night), Double Lover (closing night), 4 Days in France, After Love, All That Divides Us, Catch the Wind, Félicité, Ismael’s Ghosts, Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge, Montparnasse Bienvenüe, Nocturama, Souvenir, This is Our Land, as well as Jean Luc-Godard’s 1960 classic Breathless. The Agnès Varda retrospective includes three of her films, Le Bonheur (1965), The Gleaners and I (2000), and Faces, Places (2017). The shorts program includes Prestige Ingredients, We Are the Freak Show, The Elusive, Retaliation, and Le Grand Remix.
The only female director of the French New Wave and the only female director to ever receive an honorary Oscar, Agnès Varda (born in Belgium in 1928) has occupied a singular and well-respected role within the film industry since her first film La Pointe Courte in 1956. The French Film Festival presents Agnès Varda: A Retrospective, which includes an under-seen example of her early, formally audacious fiction work Le Bonheur (1965), as well as two of her more recent autobiographical documentaries The Gleaners and I (2000), and Faces, Places (2017) which is a nominee for the Best Documentary at the 90th Academy Awards.
The retrospective program includes a free lecture on Varda (on Sunday Feb 25, at 5pm) from Loyola professor Jean Brager, who will speak on Varda’s journey as a female filmmaker in a male-dominated industry as well as the ways in which her aesthetics paved the way for the Nouvelle Vague. The lecture will be followed by the screening of her latest documentary Faces, Places in which she collaborated with the phenomenal French photographer JR in search of the people and their villages that define rural France and make it what it is.
What’s the connection of Congo and New Orleans? Join a free lecture by Freddi Williams Evans on Wednesday, Feb 28 at 7:15pm which will be followed by a screening of the Congo-set film Félicité. Evans will address the not so well known connections between Congo and New Orleans, as detailed in her essay “Enslaved Africans Perpetuated Cultural and Commercial Practices at Congo Square,” featured in the new book New Orleans & the World: 1718-2018 Tricentennial Anthology.
Louisiana musicians Helen Gillet, Bart Ramsay, Bruce Sunpie Barnes, Thibault, Pascal Valcasara, and George Trahanis will be performing French-themed live music prior to select screenings during the French Film Festival. Performances will begin 30 minutes prior to the start time of the related films.
Opening Night: Back to Burgundy | Friday, February 23 | 7:00-7:30 pm | Bart Ramsay
Shorts Program | Saturday, February 24 | 2:00 – 2:30 pm | Bruce Sunpie Barnes
After Love | Sunday, February 25 | 2:00 – 2:30 pm | Thibault
Ismael’s Ghosts | Sunday, February 25 | 7:15 – 7:45 pm | Pascal Valcasara
All That Divides Us | Tuesday, February 27 | 7:30 – 8:00 pm | George Trahanis
Closing Night: Double Lover | Thursday, March 1 | 7:30 – 8:00 pm | Helen Gillet
FUTURE[/caption]
The MidWest WeirdFest described as ‘a cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, offbeat, and just plain weird’ revealed the first seven feature films for the upcoming 2nd edition taking place March 9 to 11, 2018 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
“We are delighted to unveil this first glimpse at some of the 2018 festival’s incredible program”, says fest founder and veteran programmer Dean Bertram. “The selection encapsulates MidWest WeirdFest‘s mission of showcasing a heady combination of the latest and most original horror, sci-fi, underground, and documentary films. We can’t wait for the festival’s audience to journey with us on another twisting, terrifying, and at times hilarious journey through the cutting-edge of this season’s weird cinema.”
The first seven feature films announced follow:
3 DEAD TRICK OR TREATERS (dir: Torin Langen)
After stumbling upon the graves of three murdered trick or treaters, a small town paperboy discovers a series of handwritten horror stories tacked to the children’s headstones. Penned by a deranged pulp author driven mad by his craft, the stories chronicle grisly tales of Halloween rites, rituals and traditions. Absent of dialogue and heavy on atmosphere, 3 DEAD TRICK OR TREATERS is a horror chiller unlike any you’ve seen before.
ATTACK OF THE TATTIE-BOGLE (dir: Pete Marcy)
A group of unlikely bunkmates gathers at a mutual friend’s cabin in remote Wisconsin. Armed with all the comforts of urban life, they are ready to celebrate Independence Day; but when the group is attacked, they are sent reeling. Confused, scared, and unprepared to handle real danger, survivors are forced to battle fears, balance egos, and summon their courage – or die. Forget “cabin in the woods” slashers in the style of FRIDAY THE 13TH. This edge of your seat film depicts believable adult characters being killed with unpredictable, rapidly descending, and brutal violence. It feels uncannily real, and is all the more disturbing for it.
BORLEY RECTORY (dir: Ashley Thorpe)
This spine-tingling film chronicles the true story of “The most haunted house in England”. Narrated by Julian Sands (WARLOCK, GOTHIC, LEAVING LAS VEGAS), and starring Reece Shearsmith (THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, SHAUN OF THE DEAD), BORLEY RECTORY features a stunning combination of live action re-enactments, animated photographs from the period, and eerie visual effects. Be prepared to be mesmerized and chilled in equal portions by the most haunting film of the festival season.
FAKE BLOOD (dir: Rob Grant)
Rob Grant and Mike Kovac receive a disturbing fan video inspired by their previous horror movie MON AMI, motivating them to investigate the responsibility of filmmakers in portraying violence in movies. In their pursuit of the truth they are unwittingly introduced to the real world of violent criminals and their victims. Few films have managed to so successfully examine the blurred lines between real and imagined violence. FAKE BLOOD will keep you engaged and unbalanced until the final frame.
THE FLATWOODS MONSTER: A LEGACY OF FEAR (dir: Seth Breedlove)
Ahead of its official release this April, MidWest WeirdFest proudly presents this special sneak-peak screening of the latest, highly anticipated offering from production company Small Town Monsters. It is a terrifying documentary that revisits one of the earliest and most famous alien encounter reports of American UFO lore. The film’s director, Seth Breedlove (BOGGY CREEK MONSTER, THE MOTHMAN OF POINT PLEASANT, INVASION ON CHESTNUT RIDGE) is the most important documentarian working in the UFO/paranormal/cryptid field today, and was the recipient of 2017’s “Cryptozoologist of the Year” award. Don’t miss your chance to be one of the first people on this haunted planet to see his latest film.
FUTURE (dir: Robert Cousineau, Chris Rosik)
A drunken train-wreck of a time traveler offers a suicidally depressed tea store barista a do-over. The catch is, the do-over comes at a murderous price. FUTURE is a poignant and funny low-fi sci-fi that begs the question: If you only had a few days left to live, and you felt like no one wanted you around, what would you do with that time? Would you climb a mountain, fall in love, invent a world saving device? Or would you eat all the junk you usually don’t let yourself have, and blow off work to get drunk with your old friends?
THE MOOSE HEAD OVER THE MANTEL (dir: Rebecca Comtois, Bryan Enk, Jessi Gotta, Matthew Gray, Shannon K. Hall, Jane Rose)
Lillian Hoffhienze-Bachman and her family move into the previously abandoned Hoffhienze ancestral home, where their hopeful new start becomes tainted by the discovery of a century’s worth of abuse, dysfunction and violence. Lillian becomes consumed by her sordid ancestry, terrified that the past might dictate her son’s future. The grisly events of the past 100 years are revealed through the eyes of the family’s victims… including the moose head hanging on the mantel wall. Influenced and inspired by the notorious real lives of H.H. Holmes, The Bender Family, Lizzie Borden, Carl Panzram and The Fox Sisters, this dark and unsettling anthology chills to the core.
Love Jacked[/caption]
The 26th Annual Pan African Film and Arts Festival (PAFF) will take place Thursday, February 8 through Monday, February 19, 2018. The festival will open with Love Jacked directed by Alfons Adetuyi, and close with Traffik directed by Deon Taylor, starring Paula Patton, Omar Epps and Laz Alonso.
“The Pan African Film and Arts Festival has been recognized as one of the largest celebrations of Black culture and Black films,” mentions Ayuko Babu, PAFF Executive Director. “For 26 years, we have presented diverse and inclusive programming that features the creative work of leading disruptors in film and entertainment. The 2018 PAFF experience aims to step outside the ‘business as usual’ film festival norms and move the needle forward by amplifying the game-changing voices of influential, ethnic, millennial and LGBTQIA storytellers.”
With pride, PAFF shares reign as one of two international film and art festivals that screen a large selection of new Black films and exhibit fine art and unique crafts from around the world. This year’s confirmed lineup showcases over 170 films from over 40 countries within five continents and in 26 languages! What’s more, as an official Oscar-qualifying festival for shorts and live-action films, PAFF will hold special screenings for several works that are up for consideration for the 90th Annual Academy Awards
The festival will be held at the Cinemark Rave 15 Theatres/Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza (3650 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd) in Los Angeles, California.
MA’OHI NUI, au cœur de l’océan mon pays (MA’OHI NUI, in the heart of the ocean my country lies)[/caption]
This year, the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival will focus on Indigenous film-making in the countries and islands bound together by the Pacific Ocean, in the special program NATIVe − A Journey into Indigenous Cinema.
Climate change is the most obvious link between the two seemingly very different regions: Melting ice masses are among the leading causes of the rising sea level, which threatens the whole Pacific region, including the island nations and regions of Polynesia, Melanesia/New Guinea and Micronesia, along with their primarily Indigenous populations. But climate change is not the only regional commonality. Industrialization, the repression of Indigenous languages and cultures, forced relocations and other long-term effects of colonizing practices still have consequences for both the peoples of the Arctic regions and the cultural areas in and around the Pacific.
The documentary film MA’OHI NUI, au cœur de l’océan mon pays (MA’OHI NUI, in the heart of the ocean my country lies) clearly outlines one form of colonial aggression specific to the Pacific region: From 1966 to 1996, France ran an intensive nuclear testing program across French Polynesia. The film shows the catastrophic effects on the region’s environment and on the health and social structures of the Ma’ohi people. NATIVe will celebrate the documentary’s world premiere.
The destructive effects of centuries of colonial repression are also illustrated in Anastasia Lapsui’s and Markku Lehmuskallio’s poetic, activist film Fata Morgana, and in the short film Three Thousand by Asinnajaq. In one striking scene in Fata Morgana, the children of the Chukchi explain how they must choose new Russian names for themselves at school so that their Russian teacher can pronounce them better. And the narrator in Three Thousand, an evocative tapestry of animated images and archival material, comments: “My father was born in a spring igloo − half snow, half skin. I was born in a hospital, with jaundice and two teeth.”
As in previous years, there will be a number of talks and special presentations around the core film-program.
The panel discussion “Establishing Indigenous Cinema” will continue NATIVe’s long-standing and successful collaboration with the Embassy of Canada. The industry talk, in which film professionals will discuss the role of Indigenous cinema within the global film scene, will be followed by a screening of the short film programme Reel Kanata VI.
For the second time, NATIVe will be hosting an event together with the Helmholtz Climate Initiative Regional Climate Change (REKLIM) at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research and the DEKRA University of Applied Sciences Berlin. At “Indigenous Life and Global Climate Change − From Polar Regions to Pacific Islands. From Melting Sea Ice to Sea Level Rise” scientists and film-makers will take a closer look at the dramatic consequences of global warming and its regional effects in scientific talks, film screenings, and panel discussions.
Furthermore, Berlinale Special will present the international premiere of the Australian documentary film Gurrumul. The screening will take place at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in cooperation with NATIVe. Gurrumul is an intimate portrait of the life and musical career of the late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, the internationally celebrated blind Aboriginal singer who masterfully combined rhythms and melodies of his people, the Yolngu, with contemporary western music.
Film program:
John Cho appears in Search by Aneesh Chaganty, an official selection of the NEXT program at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. photo by Juan Sebastian Baron.[/caption]
The Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation handed out $71,000 in grants at a reception held at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize was awarded to Aneesh Chaganty’s Search, who was presented with a $20,000 check. Other winners include Cherien Dabis’s What The Eyes Don’t See (Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant), produced by Rosalie Swedlin for Anonymous Content and executive produced by Michael Sugar; C. Wrenn Ball’s Katie Wright (Sundance Institute | Sloan Lab Fellowship) and John Lopez’ Untitled J.P. Morgan Project (Sundance Institute | Sloan Episodic Storytelling Grant).
Sally Hawkins and Octavia Spencer in the film THE SHAPE OF WATER.[/caption]
Actress-comedian Tiffany Haddish and actor-director Andy Serkis, joined by Academy President John Bailey, announced the 90th Academy Awards nominations today, with “The Shape of Water” leading with 13 nominations, followed by “Dunkirk,” with got eight nominations, and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” received seven nominations.
The 90th Oscars, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, will be held on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT.