• Winners Announced for 2014 Roxbury International Film Festival. ‘The Life & Crimes of Doris Payne’ Wins Top Award

     The Life & Crimes of Doris PayneThe Life & Crimes of Doris Payne

    The Roxbury International Film Festival (RIFF) which ran from Wednesday, June 25 to Sunday June 29 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced the jury and audience award winners.

    “This year the Roxbury International Film Festival broke new ground with 30 stellar, high quality films and great audience participation for the record number of filmmakers present to discuss their films,” said festival director Lisa Simmons.  “It was so difficult to name the awardees because of the incredible work that was screened over the five days. Congratulations to all the filmmakers!”

    The Festival’s top honor The Audience Favorite Award was given to filmmakers Matthew Pond and Kirk Marcolina for their film The Life & Crimes of Doris Payne, a riveting story of an 83 year old African American international jewel thief.

    The juried awards are the Narrative Feature and Narrative Short Award, the Documentary Feature and Documentary Short Award, and The Henry Hampton Award for Documentary Filmmaking.  The award is based on the award winning filmmaker Henry Hampton who created the Eyes on the Prize series among many others before his untimely death in 1998, and The Kay Bourne Emerging Filmmaker Award for a local filmmaker who has shown great promise in the film presented.

    The Narrative Feature Award recognizes the top narrative film in competition at the Festival and went to Darius Britt for his film Unsound, which made its New England premiere at the Festival and screened at the American Black Film Festival prior to screening at RIFF.   Narrative Short Award was bestowed upon Moon Molsen for his film The Bravest, The Boldest which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014.

    The Documentary Feature Award recognizes the top documentary film in competition at the Festival and went to Raouf J. Jacob and Lara Moreno for A Culture of Silence.  An honorable mention was also bestowed upon Chris Wilson and Stephen Witte for their film, You Have His Eyes, which also made its world premiere at the Festival.

    The Documentary Short Award recognizes the film that like the feature informs audiences of an unknown and compelling story. This award went to Coy Poiter for Cowboys of Color:  A Multi-Cultural Legacy, which made its world premiere at the festival.  An honorable mention was bestowed upon Gabriela Lozada Pozo for La Marea, a touching story about love and life on a small island.

    The Henry Hampton Award for Documentary Filmmaking was given to Noube Rateau for his film The Culture.  The award is named after the award winning filmmaker Henry Hampton who produced such films as Eyes on The Prize and I’ll Make Me A World.

    The Kay Bourne Emerging Filmmaker Award was given to Sam Powell and Peter Neudel for their film Good Fences, (also a world premiere at RIFF).  The award is named on behalf of Kay Bourne, a beloved writer who has been covering arts and entertainment in Boston for over 45 years.

    Just completing its 16th year, the Roxbury International Film Festival showcases films that incite action, educate, and share distinct and diverse images of people of color from across the world. Touted as a filmmaker’s festival, the festival prides itself on providing the best filmmaker experience with state of the art screening venues and a deeply dedicated audience base. 

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  • Film Line-up with Trailers for 2014 Rural Route Festival

    Butter on the LatchButter on the Latch

    The lineup was announced earlier this week for the 10th annual edition for the Rural Route Festival taking place August 8 to 10 at Museum of the Moving Image in New York City.  Some of the highlights of this year’s festival include a 50th anniversary presentation on restored 35mm of Parajanov’s legendary Ukraine/Carpathian-set Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, plus a new DCP Director’s Cut restoration of the British cult classic, Wicker Man, and a rare 16mm print of the great ethnomusicologist, Alan Lomax’s film on British May Day celebrations, Oss Oss Wee Oss.  

    Cutting-edge new films include Josephine Decker’s Butter on the Latch, alongside the North American Premiere of Ukrainian documentary, Krasna Malanka, the one-of-a-kind mythological fiction about one of the most unique ethnic groups within Russia, Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari, the World Premiere of renowned fashion casting director, Daniel Peddle’s Sunset Edge, and the new documentary on Yugoslavian Black Wave director, Karpo Godina, Karpotrotter.

    Full Program available at http://ruralroutefilms.com/2014-festival/

    Trailers

    http://youtu.be/eTs4JCS_TnQ

     

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    http://youtu.be/z6A5Cd1Wn5U

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  • See 10 Images from Animated Feature Film ROCKS IN MY POCKETS

    rocks in my pockets poster

    Check out 10 images from ROCKS IN MY POCKETS, the debut animated feature by Signe Baumane. In the animated gem ROCKS IN MY POCKETS Latvian-born artist and filmmaker Signe Baumane tells five fantastical tales based on the courageous women in her family and their battles with madness. 

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  • Animated Feature Film ROCKS IN MY POCKETS Sets Release Date (Release Date UPDATE)

    rocks in my pockets 

    Zeitgeist Films will release ROCKS IN MY POCKETS, the debut animated feature by Signe Baumane. ROCKS IN MY POCKETS had its World Premiere at the 2014 Karlovy Vary Film Festival where it was the first animated feature ever to take part in the Karlovy Vary International Competition. The film will open at the IFC Center in New York on September 3rd, NOT 5th, and at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on September 12. A national release will follow.

    In the animated gem ROCKS IN MY POCKETS Latvian-born artist and filmmaker Signe Baumane tells five fantastical tales based on the courageous women in her family and their battles with madness. With boundless imagination and a twisted sense of humor, she has created daring stories of art, romance, marriage, nature, business, and Eastern European upheaval—all in the fight for her own sanity.

    Employing a unique, beautifully textured combination of papier-mâché stop-motion and classic hand-drawn animation (with inspiration from Jan Svankmajer and Bill Plympton), Baumane has produced a poignant and often hilarious tale of mystery, mental health, redemption and survival. 

    http://youtu.be/gJcVnFripdc

    Director’s statement:

    The idea for ROCKS IN MY POCKETS came from my stream of consciousness. Like most people I think about a wide variety of things, some fantastical, some mundane, but my mind keeps coming back to thoughts of “ending it all” and the ways I could go about doing it. Why? Why do I think this way? And why I am still alive despite such thoughts? I find the fragility of our minds fascinating. Life is strange, unpredictable, sometimes absurd and I try to see the humor in it all. 

    While I was studying at Moscow State University, I got pregnant and married the father of my future child, a Russian artist. After my son was born, I started having dark obsessive thoughts. I sought council with a local psychiatrist to whom I confessed that, at 18, I had tried to commit suicide by taking an excessive amount of Dimedrol. I was immediately sent to a Soviet mental hospital and locked away for four months. The official diagnosis was schizophrenia, but this was downgraded to the “lesser” one of manic-depression after my parents bribed medical officials.

    Despite the diagnosis, I returned to the university, graduated successfully, and started my career as an animator. It turned out that I was not the only one in my extended family having dark, obsessive thoughts. In fact, I had plenty of company. Unfortunately, not all of the sufferers were able to fend their demons off.

    ROCKS IN MY POCKETS is dedicated to my family members who did not survive, and to my surviving family, who still live in the aftermath. The film is dedicated to the hope that we sustain in our darkest moments.

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  • A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake Documentary about South African Actors to World Premiere at 2014 Durban International Film Festival

    Sibulele Gcilitshana, Quanita Adams, Sandile Matsheni & Jenny Stead, performing Truth in TranslationSibulele Gcilitshana, Quanita Adams, Sandile Matsheni & Jenny Stead, performing Truth in Translation

    A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake, the documentary debut of television/film/theatre director Michael Lessac, will World Premiere at the Durban International Film Festival taking place in venues in and around Durban,  South Africa from July 17 to 27, 2014.  The gala screening is on July 20, 2014.

    A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake follows a diverse group of South African actors as they tour global war-torn regions to share their country’s experience of reconciliation. As they ignite dialogue among people with raw memories of atrocity, the actors find they must confront once again their homeland’s complicated and violent past – and question their own capacity for healing and forgiveness.

    A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake was edited by Joel Plotch (In the Company of Men; Nurse Betty; Gone). It was produced by Jacqueline Bertrand Lessac and Emma Tammi and Executive Produced by Jonathan Gray, and Robert Lear.  It features never-before-heard original music by jazz legend Hugh Masekela, with lyrics taken from TRC personal testimonies. 

    “Can we forgive the past, to survive the future?” This profound question, posed by Nelson Mandela, become a mandate by which other nations could live.  Lessac wanted to better understand the subtleties of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and in so doing, bring the story of the TRC to a wider audience while exploring the possibility of the TRC as a concept which could successfully be exported to other post-conflict zones.

    In 2001, Lessac returned to the Colonnades Theatre Laboratory, which he had founded 25 years before in New York City, to find a way of telling the story of the South African TRC as theatre’s way of prompting others to drop their masks and tell the truth.

    He wanted to look beyond the presentations of victim and perpetrator and instead examine the role of the interpreters who translated the TRC proceedings into SA’s 11 official languages.  Lessac was intrigued by the fact that the interpreters, simultaneously translating in the first person, could never turn away from atrocity. He was fascinated with what the TRC looked like through the eyes of people who, for two and a half years, verbalised every moment of the hearings.  He met with actual TRC interpreters as they relived their stories and memories for the first time. Their experiences became the starting point for the journey ahead.

    In 2003, after interviewing over 350 actors in SA, Lessac held a three-week workshop with the core of chosen actors who developed script material out of their own life-experiences intertwined with the lives of the interpreters.

    The theatrical vehicle for these conversations was a production entitled Truth in Translation, a hard-edged, multi-award winning theatrical production, with accompanying workshops, created between 2003 and 2006. It opened in Rwanda and toured to three continents; 11 countries and 26 cities. It has played to more than 55 000 people and facilitated conflict transformation workshops for more than 10 000 participants.

    The documentary A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake is the result of this journey – a glimpse into the lives and minds of a group of South African performers who shared and listened; facilitated and responded to the heartbreaking real-life personal stories of the human casualties of global conflict. As South Africans representing various facets of South African society, they were forced to look at whether they themselves had even successfully “reconciled” their own individual pasts, and realised just how complex and challenging it is to engage with the multifaceted concept of forgiveness.

    “For me, this film pays homage to a very special group of South African actors and interpreters who were warriors of the most special kind.  They allowed themselves to travel through worlds that were often more painful than their own worst nightmares,” considers Lessac.

    The documentary’s intriguing title refers to a question which often appears in conflict situations when asked why perpetrators killed young babies. The answer, irrespective of culture is always, one way or another, “A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake.”

    “The film was originally titled Truth in Translation, just like the play. We changed it to A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake because no matter how true that might be, when revenge is celebrated as heroism, it is a poor excuse for killing.” 

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  • FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS – a documentary about a gay Iranian artist – opens in NYC August 8; in LA August 15

     Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Bahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box FilmsRamin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Bahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box Films

    Music Box Films will release FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS, the award-winning documentary film by Mitra Farahani in the U.S. The film had its World premiere as the Official Selection at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival and screened at numerous film festivals including New York, Telluride, and Seattle. FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS will open at the Lincoln Plaza in New York on August 8, and at Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles on August 15. A national release will follow.

    Mitra Farahani’s lyrical documentary explores the enigma of provocative artist Bahman Mohassess, the so-called “Persian Picasso,” whose acclaimed paintings and sculptures dominated pre-revolutionary Iran.  Irreverent and uncompromising, a gay man in a hostile world, Mohassess had a conflicted relationship with his homeland—revered by elites in the art scene and praised as a national icon, only to be censored later by an oppressive regime.  Known for his iconoclastic art as well as his scathing declarations, Mohasses abandoned the country over 30 years ago for a simple, secluded life in Italy.

    Bahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box FilmsBahman Mohassess in FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS. Courtesy of Music Box Films

    While the new Iranian government destroyed many of his works, Mohasses himself obliterated even more– in rage at man’s inhumanity to man, environmental destruction, and the futility of idealism.  Ranging from tender to playful to haunting to grotesque, these unforgettable pieces were as mercurial as the man himself, a chain-smoking recluse with the mouth of a sailor and the soul of a poet, touched by a mischievous spark and as likely to lapse into a political rant as a burst of eccentric laughter.

    Determined to interview Mohassess, fine artist/filmmaker Farahani discovers him living alone in a hotel room in Rome and begins to craft the perfect final biography, in his own words and on his terms.  Along the way, the inimitable spirit of the man behind the image is laid bare—both painfully sensitive and crudely comical, “condemned to paint,” but unable to compel himself to leave anything behind as a legacy.   When a pair of artist brothers and ardent fans of Mohassess commission him for an ambitious project, the elderly man is inspired with a renewed sense of purpose and returns to painting after decades of dormancy.  A lasting tribute to an elusive artistic genius, FIFI HOWLS FROM HAPPINESS affirms the power of creative freedom, the right of the artist to create and to destroy, and above all, to have no regrets.

    http://youtu.be/50Isgf9j9Dw

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  • Morelia Film Festival Unveils Official 2014 Poster

     morelia film festival 2014

    The Morelia International Film Festival unveiled the poster for the festival’s 12th edition taking place October 17-26, 2014, which celebrates the Golden Age of Mexican cinema.

    Throughout the year, FICM will gradually reveals the festival details that will characterize its next edition, beginning with the date of publication of the call, the announcement of the Official Selection, programming and, of course, the release of its image.

    In an interview, Rodrigo Toledo, designer of the FICM image, shared his creative process of each year: “It’s re-interpreting the same theme. Re-inventing the black thread again and again and reconvening the basic elements, which are even in the title: festival, film, Morelia. I start with that and then try to go on a tangent and create an abstract feeling, but you start with the basic building blocks.”

    In relation to the poster of the 12th FICM, Toledo said that his first source of inspiration was Mexican nationalist art of the period of Lázaro Cárdenas and also the graphic design of the Spanish Republic. “In the end, the image is inspired by the posters of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema which, curiously, were designed by the same artists of the Republican posters – exiles who came to Mexico.”

    For Toledo, the image of the 12th FICM “represents film, first, by means of nostalgia, by means of nationalism, but not as nationalism is understood today, but by way of exalting that which is Mexican.” Choosing an iconic diva as protagonist was influenced by the amount of beautiful pictures that exist of Mexican actresses of that time. Furthermore, according to Toledo: “This is the third time that we use a female character, and indirectly I tell myself – she is Morelia.”

    The publication of the festival poster is one of the first signs that the next FICM is near. On August 8, the results of the call, in which more than 750 Mexican films enrolled, will be announced.

     

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  • French director Claude Lelouch Latest Film “We Love You, You Bastard” to Open 2014 Montreal World Film Festival

    alaud, on t’aime, (We Love You, You Bastard)  

    Salaud, on t’aime, (We Love You, You Bastard) the latest film by celebrated French director Claude Lelouch, will open the 38th edition of the Montreal World Film Festival on August 21, it was announced by the MWFF’s president Serge Losique and director-general Danièle Cauchard. “I am faithful to this great festival and I am very happy to return to Montreal to show Salaud, on t’aime,” declared Lelouch. “The Montreal World Film Festival has been an excellent platform for my films and I wish its 38th edition the greatest success.”

    We Love You, You Bastard tells the story of Jacques Kaminsky (Johnny Hallyday), a war photographer and absent father who spends more time with his camera than his four daughters (played by Irène Jacob, Pauline Lefebvre, Sarah Kazemy and Jenna Thiam), lives happily in the Alps with his new girlfriend (Sandrine Bonnaire). This all changes the day his best friend Frederick (Eddy Mitchell) attempts to reconcile with his family by telling them a big lie.

    The film’s Eddy Mitchell-Johnny Hallyday duo reflects the friendship the two have maintained off-screen for many years. As usual, Claude Lelouch, has painted a warm family portrait, surrounding himself with a host of actresses and actors who evoke the complexity of human relationships. Alongside the two principal male protagonists and the actresses impersonating Johnny Hallyday’s daughters, the cast includes Isabelle de Hertogh (whom Lelouch discovered at the MWFF in the film Hasta la Vista!, winner of the 2011 Grand Prize of the Americas as well as the festival’s Audience Award), Valerie Kaprisky, Rufus, Agnes Soral and, in her screen debut, Stella Lelouch, Claude’s daughter.

    The 38th MWFF will be held August 21 to September 1, 2014.

     

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  • Rome Film Festival Reveals Big Changes for 2014 Festival

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    The Artistic Director of the Rome Film Festival, Marco Müller, announced some of the new features of the Festival’s ninth edition, which will take place from October 16 to 25, 2014 at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, produced by the Fondazione Cinema per Roma. The audience will be the star of the event and will choose the award-winners in each section of the programme: the most important acknowledgments will therefore be awarded on the basis of the votes cast by the audience after the screenings.

    Further changes will involve the Official Selection and its different sections, which have all changed name and focus, and are all competitive. In this sense, the structure of the 2014 Festival will be “slimmer” than in the past, based on a total of 40 feature-length films: Cinema d’Oggiwill present films by both young and well-known authors, Gala will select the season’s great “popular but original” films, Mondo Genere will be a collection of films from various film genres, while Prospettive Italia will present a survey of the latest trends in Italian fiction films and documentaries (the new regulations do not include medium-length and short films). At the end of each screening, the audience will give their vote and assign: the BNL People’s Choice Award  | Gala, in collaboration with the Festival Main Partner BNL Gruppo BNP Paribas, thePeople’s Choice Award  | Cinema d’Oggi, the People’s Choice Award | Mondo Genere, the People’s Choice Award  |  Cinema Italia (Fiction)and the People’s Choice Award  | Cinema Italia (Documentary). On Sunday, October 26 all the winning films will be screened.

    The 2014 Festival will pay particular attention to emerging cinema: the debut and second feature-length films included in all the sections (including both the Official Selection and the Independent and Parallel Sidebars) will compete for the TAODUE Camera d’Oro Prize for best debut or second work, awarded by a specific and prestigious jury.

    The Artistic Director will also suggest to the Board of Directors the names of the recipients for the following Prizes: the Marc’Aurelio Lifetime Achievement Award, celebrating the work of a master of the art of cinema; the Maverick Director Award, for a filmmaker who has consistently broken new ground in cinema;  the Marc’Aurelio Acting Awards, for actors and actresses who have raised acting technique to the highest levels; the Marc’Aurelio of the Future Award, to spotlight the international value of a young director.

    Furthermore the DOC.IT association will award a prize to the Best Italian Documentary.

    In addition to the Official Selection, the Festival will also feature Alice nella Città, an independent and parallel sidebar with its own organization and regulations, directed by Gianluca Giannelli and Fabia Bettini. Alice nella Città will present a selection of youth-oriented films awarded by a jury composed of youngsters between the age of 14 and 18, to be selected on the national territory.

    The team of the selection committee and consultants that ensured the success of the Festival’s 2013 edition has been confirmed. The selection committee consists of Laura Buffoni, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Massimo Galimberti, Manlio Gomarasca, Sandra Hebron, Giona A. Nazzaro, and Mario Sesti. The consultants are Chen Zhiheng (Chinese area), Deepti D’Cunha (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka), Babak Karimi (Iran), Diego Lerer (Central and South America), Aliona Shumakova (Russia and CIS – Commonwealth of Independent States), Tomita Mikiko (Japan).

    From October 17 to 21, the International Film Market (TBS – The Business Street and NCN – New Cinema Network) will open the doors of the historic Hotel Bernini Bristol once again to the representatives of the international industry. Many events are currently being planned for the TBS Market with the support of long-term partners such as ICE, ANICA, and Rai Trade. They include a Focus on Brazil and Argentina, completed by a series of screenings addressed to the professionals of the film industry and by a conference to present guidelines and experiences in the cooperation between Italy and the two South American countries; the third edition of China Day, dedicated to the promotion of the Italian cinema system on the Chinese market and to the development of trade and co-production between the two countries; Remake it!, a project dedicated to remakes of hit films, to discover and select particularly appealing stories that can communicate with audiences all over the world.

    Finally the New Cinema Network, the international market for projects, will present a special focus entitled “The Great Beauties”, offering a selection of projects by foreign directors – both auteur and genre films – to be shot on location in Italy. The purpose is to encourage international co-productions, from both an artistic and a financial point of view, to promote Italy as an ideal territory for setting and shooting films.

    via Press Release / Image via Facebook 

     

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  • Cancer Documentary SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering – opens Aug. 29 in NYC; Sept. 5 in LA

     SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering

    SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering, a documentary film by Eric Merola, will open at Cinema Village in NYC on August 29, and at Laemmle Music Hall in LA on September 5. A national release will follow.  SECOND OPINION: Laetrile at Sloan-Kettering is the remarkable true story of a young science-writer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who risked everything by blowing the whistle on a massive cover-up involving a promising cancer therapy.

    The War On Cancer, launched in the early 1970s, set the stage for a massive influx of new ideas in fighting the disease of cancer. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, America’s leading cancer research center at the time, was assigned the task of testing an unconventional therapy called “Laetrile” in an effort to curb the public’s “false hope” in the alleged “quack” therapy. Ralph W. Moss PhD, a young and eager science writer, was hired by Sloan-Kettering’s public relations department in 1974 to help brief the American public on the center’s contribution to the War On Cancer. One of his first assignments was to write a biography about Dr. Kanematsu Sugiura, one of the Center’s oldest and leading research scientists as well as the original co-inventor of chemotherapy.

    While meeting with this iconic scientist to pen a biography on his 60-year career at Sloan-Kettering, Moss discovered that Sugiura had been studying this “quack remedy”
in laboratory mice, and with unexpectedly positive results. Shocked and bewildered, Moss reported back to his superiors what he had discovered, only to be met with backlash and denial from Sloan-Kettering’s leaders on what their own leading scientist had found. Fueled by respect and admiration for Sugiura—Ralph W. Moss attempted to publicize the truth about Sugiura’s findings. And after all diplomatic approaches failed, Moss started living a double life, working as a loyal employee at Sloan-Kettering while also recruiting fellow employees to help anonymously leak this information to the American public—
through a newly formed underground organization they called—“Second Opinion”.

    http://youtu.be/GcCyawsaWZQ

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  • Full Program Announced for 2014 Durban International Film Festival

    durban film film festival 2014

    2014 sees the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) return for its 35th year to celebrate the wonder and diversity of global cinema. From 17 to 27 July, Durban will be lit by the glow of the silver screen, with over 250 screenings in 9 venues across the city. Alongside this smorgasbord of the best of contemporary cinema from around the planet, including 69 feature films, 60 documentaries, 57 short films and 19 surf films, the festival offers a comprehensive workshop and seminar programme that facilitates the sharing of knowledge and skills by film industry experts. 

    This year’s diverse line-up of world-class cinema includes a key focus on 20 years of freedom and democracy in South Africa, as well as a snapshot of contemporary British film and various focus areas. DIFF 2014 includes a generous selection of feature films, cutting edge documentaries, eight packages of short films and a selection of thrilling surf films in the Wavescape Film Festival. This year also sees the return of Durban Wild Talk Africa, which includes a selection of the best environmentally themed films from around the world, as well as the second edition of ‘The Films That Made Me’, in which an acclaimed director introduces five films that have been important to their growth as a filmmaker . 

    South African Focus

    The ever-expanding African film industry will once more be represented at DIFF 2014, although South African film retains its key focus, with 40 feature-length films and 38 short films – most of them receiving their world premieres on Durban screens, and collectively representing by far the largest number of South African films in DIFF’s history.

    This year’s opening night film see the world premiere of Hard to Get, the electrifying feature debut from South African filmmaker Zee Ntuli, who has already received critical acclaim for his short films. The story of the mercurial relationship between a handsome young womaniser and a beautiful, reckless petty criminal, Hard to Get is fuelled by a bewitching visual poetry. Other high-profile South African films being showcased include the engaging thriller Cold HarbourBetween Friends, which recounts a reunion between old varsity friends, Hear Me Move, a locally flavoured dance movie, and Love the One you Love, which explores a constellation of relationships between young South Africans.

    Then there’s the Tyler Perry-flavoured Two ChoicesThe Two of Us which tells of a relationship between two siblings, and Icehorse, a surreal mystery drama set in the Netherlands from South African director Elan Gamaker. Young Ones is a dystopian down-beat sci-fi flick directed by Jake Paltrow, produced by Spier Films and shot in South Africa, while the French/South African co-production Zulu explores the unhealed wounds of the new South Africa. Finally, DIFF is very proud to present the 1973 film Joe Bullet, the first work to benefit from the Gravel Road legacy project, which aims to restore films lost in the dusty archives of apartheid.

    African Focus

    The rich programme of films from elsewhere on the continent includes a number of artistically and politically brave directorial voices that are unafraid to experiment with form or content. The bewitching and high experimental Bloody Beans recounts the Algerian revolution using a band of young children as its medium of expression, while the utterly charming and super-low-budget Beti and Amare is an Ethiopian vampire film with a difference. 

    DIFF 2014 also acknowledges the political reality of contemporary Africa with films such as Timbuktu from Malian master Abderrahmane Sissako, which recounts Timbuktu’s brief occupation by militant Islamic rebels. The mockumentary hybrid They Are the Dogs is set in Morocco in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, while the engagingly authentic semi-autographical film Die Welt is set in Tunisia shortly after the recent Jasmine Revolution. Imbabazi: The Pardon explores the possibilities of reconciliation in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, and Difret examines the potentially destructive role of patriarchal traditions in contemporary Ethiopia.

    Set in Tanzania, the disturbing but visually powerful White Shadow tells the story of a young albino boy named Alias who is targeted for body parts by muti traders. Veve, the latest film from the producers of the award-winning crime drama Nairobi Half Life, documents the double-crossing lives of those trading in khat or ‘veve’, a mildly narcotic local crop. From Moroccan director Abdellah Taia comes Salvation Army, which tells of a young Arab man grappling with notions of family and sexuality. Then there is the highly anticipated film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, set against the difficulties of post-independence Nigeria.

    Coz Ov Moni II: FOKN Revenge, billed as ‘the world’s second first pidgin musical’ is a Ghanaian hop-hop opera from rap duo the FOKN Bois, while B for Boy tells the story of how a Nigerian woman’s life is corrupted by the forces of patriarchy and tradition. 

    SPECIAL FOCUS: 20 Years of Freedom and Democracy

    2014 is the 20th anniversary of the advent of a free and non-racial democracy in South Africa. This year’s programme includes a generous spread of documentaries, both from home and abroad, which celebrates, explores and interrogates the progress that South Africa has made as a country over the last two decades. The 20 Years of Freedom and Democracy programme features an expanded South African documentary programme in response to the large number of high quality doccies currently being produced in the country.  

    The result is a rich and diverse slate of films, including Khalo Matabane’s Nelson Mandela: The Myth and Me and Miners Shot Down, Rehad Desai’s devastating account of Marikana. They are joined by many other films that chronicle lesser known but no less significant stories behind the end of apartheid and the rebirth of South Africa into a new country. 

    Word Down the Line with Poet Lesego Rampolokeng speaking to Gift (Makahafula Vilakazi) RamashiaWord Down the Line with Poet Lesego Rampolokeng speaking to Gift (Makahafula Vilakazi) Ramashia

    The full selection of the 20 Years of Freedom and Democracy programme are 1994 The Bloody Miracle,  Concerning ViolenceFatherlandFreedom Mixtape (1994-2014)Future Sounds Of MzansiGangster BackstageI,AfrikanerLetters To ZohraMiners Shot DownMy HoodNelson Mandela: The Myth & MeOne Humanity , The Other ManPlot For PeaceRainbow Makers: Tribute To The Frontline StatesShield And SpearA Snake Gives Birth To A SnakeSoft Vengeance: Albie Sachs And The New South Africa and Word Down The Line. 

    UK Focus

    This year’s UK focus is part a UK-South African cultural season taking place over the next two years. In recognition of this season, DIFF presents a diverse snapshot of contemporary British cinema – including the strangely compelling Lilting which tells the story of the triangular relationship between two gay men and one of their mothers, ’71 which is set in Belfast at the beginning of The Troubles and the highly endearing Frank, which chronicles the misadventures of a band of outsider musicians.

    How I Live Now is a post-apocalyptic tale set in rural England in the wake of a nuclear bomb. The Selfish Giant is a Dickensian tale of two working class boys who live on the knife’s edge of poverty and adolescence. Gone Too Far offers a nuanced look at race in contemporary Britain, while Only Lovers Left Alive is the UK-produced downbeat vampire masterpiece from Jim Jarmusch.

    British Documentaries include InRealLife, which explores our relationship with the internet and social networking technology, the real-life heist drama Smash and Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers20 000 Days On Earth, which documents a fictitious day in the life of much-loved musician Nick Cave, Coach Zoran And His African Tigers which tells of the birth of the South Sudan national soccer team, and the UK/SA coproduction One Humanity, which documents the global anti-apartheid movement from the perspective of the two tribute concerts to Nelson Mandela that took place in London in 1988 and 1990.

    In addition to this focus area in DIFF’s programing, the DIFF UK Focus also includes free public screenings of British films, preceded by a programme of short films from South African filmmakers, courtesy of the South African National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF). These screenings will take place on Friday 18 July, Saturday 19 July, Friday 25 July and Saturday 26 July.

    The UK Focus is supported by the British Council, while the beach screenings form part of the British Council’s Connect ZA programme in partnership with the NFVF.

    World Cinema

    Beyond its strong focus on Africa and South Africa, DIFF is a festival of world cinema and, as is the case every year, this year’s edition is filled with a richly diverse selection of films from around the world. From Sweden comes The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared based on the popular novel by Jonas Jonasson. Amazonia (France/ Brazil) follows the epiphanic journey of Sai, a tame capuchin monkey unaware of the wider natural world until the plane on which he is being transported crashes in the Amazon basin. An Episode In The Life Of An Iron Picker (Bosnia and Herzegovina/France/Slovenia) follows a Roma couple as they eke out a tenuous existence, and Arwad (Canada) tells the story of Ali, who, after the death of his mother, escapes to the island of Arwad, off the coast of Syria.

    Then there is the Chinese noir film Black Coal, Thin Ice which follows a dissolute former detective who falls under the spell of a widow with a dark secret. Concrete Clouds (Thailand, Hong Kong SAR China) is a complex story about identity and belonging set against the 1997 Asian economic crisis. The Congress (Israel/ Germany/Poland/ Luxembourg/France/Belgium) is the latest left-field masterpiece from Israeli animator Ari Folman (Waltz with Bashir), while The Lunchbox (France/Germany/ India) is a luminous tale of an isolated housewife who attempts to reignite her relationship with her husband through her delectably prepared meals. In Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy from Thailand, cinema meets social media in an innovative film that is constructed around 410 consecutive Twitter updates. The Austrian film My Blind Heart follows a young man suffering from a rare genetic disorder as he lives a marginal life in the city of Vienna, and Nuoc 2030 from Vietnam is set in a near-futuristic landscape flooded as a result of global warming.

    Nymphomaniac (Denmark/Germany/ France/Belgium/Sweden), from controversial filmmaker Lars von Trier, is an ambitiously explicit sexual epic while Omar (Palestinian Territories) is a tense political thriller set in the West Bank. Papilio Buddha (India/United States) tells of the university-educated son of a Dalit activist who is politically apathetic until he receives bad treatment at the hands of the state. The Rocket (Australia/Laos/ Thailand) is set in the lush mountain countryside of Laos and chronicles the attempts of a young outsider to overcome his fate. The Rover (Australia/United States) is the latest film from Australian filmmaker David Michôd, director of the 2010 DIFF hit Animal Kingdom, while the American film Wish I Was Here is a sequel of sorts to Zach Braff’s 2004 hit debut Garden State.

    Gender and Sexuality

    As is usually the case, this edition of DIFF has a strong selection of films exploring sexuality and gender issues. 52 Tuesdays chronicles the female-to-male gender transition of a woman from the perspective of her daughter, who visits her mother once a week during the year-long process. The frank yet mercurial Love is Strange tells of two gay New Yorkers who decide to get married after 40 years of living together, and suddenly find themselves separated from each other. The Indian film Qissa blurs the boundaries of gender and genre in its story of girl who is brought up as a boy, while Something Must Break introduces us to the apparently straight Andreas, who finds himself drawn to Sebastian, who is wrestling with the emerging strength of Ellie, the women he feels he must become. 

    Peaches Does Herself is an instant concert film classic and also a neo-queer, post-punk camp extravaganza, with the Canadian electroclash artist directing herself. Eastern Boys follows the shifting relationship between the between a mild-mannered, middle-aged Parisian named Daniel and Marek, a young Eastern European boy who he picks up in a train station. Finally, Salvation Army is an unflinching, poetic study of a young Arab man grappling with notions of family and sexuality. Rendered in filmmaking styles as diverse as the sexuality they document, this is a fascinating selection of films about the edges of sexuality.

    Documentaries

    This year’s selection of documentaries is the largest yet in DIFF’s 35 year history. As well as the rich selection of doccies presented in the 20 Years of Freedom special focus area, there are a number of other local offerings included in the Wild Talk stream. Then there is a stellar selection of documentaries from around the world, collectively presenting a global snapshot of life on earth. We Come as Friends explores the human cost of neo-colonialism in newly independent South Sudan, A World Not Ours provides a deeply compassionate but acerbic glimpse into life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, and Cairo Drive looks at life in contemporary Cairo from the perspective of its anarchic traffic system. 

    These Birds Walk tells the heart-breaking and cinematically astounding story of a Pakistani orphanage and ambulance service, while The Kill Team is a dark catalogue of illicit killings of civilians by American soldiers in Afghanistan. The King and the People documents the repressive rule of Swaziland’s King Mswati III, Africa’s last remaining absolute monarch, and Life Itself chronicles the life of Roger Ebert, the much loved film critic who died last year. Finally, Prophecy. Pasolini’s Africa and How Strange to be Named Federico present two very different tributes to two of the greatest names in Italian cinema.

    The Encounters-DIFF Connection

    This year DIFF presents several films in association with Encounters Film Festival. These films include Annalet Steenkamp’s I, Afrikaner, Rehad Desai’s Miners Shot Down, Jolynn Minnaar’s Unearthed, Marion Edmund’s The Vula Connection and Abby Ginzberg’ Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa.

    Wavescape Film Festival

    For the ninth year, DIFF partners with Wavescape to bring you a feast of surfing cinema, including 8 features and 11 shorts.  Inspired by such films as Rattle and Hum and Endless SummerFading West follows Grammy-winning alternative-rock band Switchfoot as they hunt for surf around the globe. In Land of Patagones two brothers trek to the guano-infested solitude of Patagonia, the far southern home of toothfish and uncharted surf. In Out in the Line Up two gay surfers unite to uncover the taboo of homosexuality in surfing, while Stephanie in the Water tells the story of Stephanie Gilmore who won her first world surfing championship event at the age of 17 on a day off from high school.

    Other Wavescape films include Tidelines, in which a South African crew circumnavigates the world to find waves but also to document how badly plastic debris has impacted our oceans, while McConkey is a tribute to Shane McConkey, the extreme skier.

    Wavescape opens with a free outdoor screening at the Bay of Plenty Lawns on Sunday 20 July, before locating at Ster-Kinekor Musgrave Monday 21 July to Friday 25 July.

    The Films That Made Me 

    This year, for the second time, DIFF presents a repertory section in which film lovers and filmmakers have the opportunity to access a slice of film history. In ‘The Films That Made Me’ section, acclaimed South African director Khalo Matabane presents five films that have been influential in his growth as a filmmaker. The five films that Matabane will present are Krzysztof Kieślowski’s A Short Film About Killing (1988), Denys Arcand’s The Decline Of The American Empire (1986), Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980), Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rear Window (1954) and Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989). After each screening, Matabane will lead a discussion regarding the importance of the film. These screenings will be part of the Talents Durban programme but will also be open to the public

    Wild Talk

    For the second year running, DIFF is host to the Durban Wild Talk Africa showcase of local and international environmentally and wildlife-focused films. The Durban Wild Talk Africa Film Festival and Conference, now in its 9th year, brings a world-class television market and natural history conference to South Africa every two years. After the success of last year’s conference at DIFF, Durban Wild Talk Africa will again present a programme of nature films. The full Wild Talk conference will be back in Durban next year.

    This year, the Wild Talk strand offers entertaining and enlightening viewing for nature enthusiasts, animal-lovers, adrenalin junkies and environmentalists alike. Some not-to-be-missed films include Unearthed, a shocking insight into the world of hydraulic fracking and the dark underbelly of America’s gas industry, Black Mamba: Kiss of Death, in which we witness an hour in the life of the most feared snake in Africa, and Birdman Chronicles, which launches head-first into the adrenaline-charged world of wing-suit flying. DamNation explores the changing attitudes towards dams and the devastating effect of these man-made structures while Expedition to the End of the World is an account of a visit by a group of artists and scientists to the rapidly melting massifs of North-East Greenland.

    Other Wild Talk films include the award-winning Iranian astronaut-inspired SepidehThe Ghosts in our Machines, Liz Marshall’s photographic exploration into the commodification of animals, an artistic voyage into water with Watermark, and the world premiere of Lady Baboon, which chronicles the life of the woman who single-handedly started the controversial baboon conservation movement in South Africa.

    Architecture Film

    The week after DIFF ends, Durban will be hosting the World Congress of Architects at UIA2014. In acknowledgement of this fact, the festival presents a small stream of films which explore various aspects of architecture. Cathedrals of Culture begins with the question “If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?”, and offers six startling responses from six filmmakers from around the world. Great Expectations presents the grand architectural visions of our time, from the functionalist cities of Le Corbusier to the light-weight structures of Buckminster Fuller to Paolo Soleri’s crystalline villages in the desert. The Human Scale documents how modern cities tend to leave us each alone in an almost infinitely large crowd and suggests that we can build cities in ways that takes human needs for inclusion and intimacy into account. Lastly, Microtopia  investigates various ways in which architects, artists and ordinary problem-solvers are pushing the limits to find answers to the dream of portable, flexible and sustainable housing.

    The architecture stream of programming is presented in partnership with the Architect Africa Film Festival and UIA2014.

     

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  • Michael Fassbender, Sally Hawkins Among 271 Invited to Join Academy

     Sally Hawkins in Blue JasmineSally Hawkins in Blue Jasmine

    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 271 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.  Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.

    “This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs.  “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”

    The 2014 invitees are:

    Actors
    Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
    Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
    Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
    Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
    Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
    Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
    Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
    Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,” “Happy-Go-Lucky”
    Josh Hutcherson – “The Hunger Games,” “The Kids Are All Right”
    Julia Louis-Dreyfus – “Enough Said,” “Planes”
    Kelly Macdonald – “Brave,” “No Country for Old Men”
    Mads Mikkelsen – “The Hunt,” “Casino Royale”
    Joel McKinnon Miller – “Super 8,” “The Truman Show”
    Cillian Murphy – “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Inception”
    Lupita Nyong’o – “Non-Stop,” “12 Years a Slave”
    Rob Riggle – “21 Jump Street,” “The Hangover”
    Chris Rock – “Grown Ups 2,” “Madagascar”
    June Squibb – “Nebraska,” “About Schmidt”
    Jason Statham – “Parker,” “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”
    David Strathairn – “Lincoln,” “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

    Casting Directors
    Douglas Aibel – “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Immigrant”
    Simone Bär – “The Monuments Men,” “The Book Thief”
    Kerry Barden – “August: Osage County,” “Dallas Buyers Club”
    Nikki Barrett – “The Railway Man,” “The Great Gatsby”
    Mark Bennett – “Drinking Buddies,” “Zero Dark Thirty”
    Risa Bramon Garcia – “Speed,” “Wall Street” 
    Michelle Guish – “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” “Nanny McPhee”
    Billy Hopkins – “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Disconnect”
    Ros Hubbard – “Romeo & Juliet,” “The Mummy”
    Allison Jones – “The Way, Way Back,” “The Heat”
    Christine King – “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” “Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith”
    Beatrice Kruger – “To Rome with Love,” “The American”
    Marci Liroff – “Mean Girls,” “Pretty in Pink”
    Debbie McWilliams – “Skyfall,” “Quantum of Solace”
    Joseph Middleton – “TheTwilight Saga: New Moon,” “Legally Blonde”
    Robi Reed – “For Colored Girls,” “Do the Right Thing”
    Kevin Reher – “Monsters University,” “Finding Nemo”
    Paul Schnee – “August: Osage County,” “Dallas Buyers Club”
    Gail Stevens – “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Lucinda Syson – “Gravity,” “Fast and & Furious 6”
    Fiona Weir – “J. Edgar,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2”
    Ronnie Yeskel – “The Sessions,” “Atlas Shrugged Part 1”

    Cinematographers
    Sean Bobbitt – “12 Years a Slave,” “The Place beyond the Pines”
    Philippe Le Sourd – “The Grandmaster,” “Seven Pounds”
    James Neihouse – “Hubble 3D,” “Nascar: The IMAX Experience”
    Masanobu Takayanagi – “Out of the Furnace,” “Silver Linings Playbook”
    Bradford Young – “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” “Pariah”

    Costume Designers 
    William Chang Suk Ping – “The Grandmaster,” “In the Mood for Love”
    Pascaline Chavanne – “Renoir,” “Augustine”
    Daniela Ciancio – “The Great Beauty,” “Il Divo”
    Frank L. Fleming – “Draft Day,” “Monster’s Ball” 
    Maurizio Millenotti – “Hamlet,” “Otello”
    Beatrix Aruna Pasztor – “Great Expectations,” “Good Will Hunting”
    Karyn Wagner – “Lovelace,” “The Green Mile”

    Designers
    William Arnold – “Lovelace,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”
    K.K. Barrett – “Her,” “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”
    Susan Benjamin – “Saving Mr. Banks,” “The Blind Side”
    Bill Boes – “The Smurfs 2,” “Fantastic Four”
    Tony Fanning – “Contraband,” “War of the Worlds”
    Robert Greenfield – “Priest,” “Almost Famous”
    Marcia Hinds – “I Spy,” “The Public Eye”
    Sonja Brisbane Klaus – “Prometheus,” “Robin Hood”
    David S. Lazan – “Flight,” “American Beauty”
    Diane Lederman – “Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” “Tower Heist”
    Heather Loeffler – “American Hustle,” “Silver Linings Playbook”
    Christa Munro – “Jack Reacher,” “Erin Brockovich”
    Andy Nicholson – “Gravity,” “The Host” 
    Adam Stockhausen – “12 Years a Slave,” “Moonrise Kingdom”

    Directors
    Hany Abu-Assad – “Omar,” “Paradise Now”
    Jay Duplass – “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” “Cyrus”
    Mark Duplass – “Jeff, Who Lives at Home,” “Cyrus”
    David Gordon Green – “Joe,” “Pineapple Express”
    Gavin O’Connor – “Warrior,” “Miracle”
    Gina Prince-Bythewood – “The Secret Life of Bees,” “Love and Basketball”
    Paolo Sorrentino – “The Great Beauty,” “This Must Be the Place”
    Jean-Marc Vallée – “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Young Victoria” 
    Felix van Groeningen – “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” “The Misfortunates”
    Denis Villeneuve – “Prisoners,” “Incendies”
    Thomas Vinterberg – “The Hunt,” “The Celebration”

    Documentary
    Malcolm Clarke – “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life,” “Prisoner of Paradise”
    Dan Cogan – “How to Survive a Plague,” “The Queen of Versailles”
    Kief Davidson – “Open Heart,” “Kassim the Dream”
    Dan Geller – “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” “Ballets Russes”
    Dayna Goldfine – “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” “Ballets Russes”
    Julie Goldman – “God Loves Uganda,” “Gideon’s Army”
    Sam Green – “Utopia in Four Movements,” “The Weather Underground”
    Gary Hustwit – “Urbanized,” “Helvetica”
    Eugene Jarecki – “The House I Live In,” “Why We Fight”
    Brian Johnson – “Anita,” “Buena Vista Social Club”
    Ross Kauffman – “E-Team,” “Born into Brothels”
    Morgan Neville – “20 Feet from Stardom,” “Troubadours”
    Matthew J. O’Neill – “Redemption,” “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province”
    Rithy Panh – “The Missing Picture,” “S-21: The Khmer Rouge Death Machine”
    Lucy Massie Phenix – “Regret to Inform,” “Word Is Out”
    Enat Sidi – “Detropia,” “Jesus Camp”
    Molly Thompson – “The Unknown Known,” “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer”
    Cynthia Wade – “Mondays at Racine,” “Freeheld”

    Executives
    Adrian Alperovich 
    Sean Bailey 
    Len Blavatnik
    Nicholas Carpou
    Nancy Carson
    Charles S. Cohen
    Jason Constantine
    Peter Cramer
    William Kyle Davies
    Christopher Floyd
    David Garrett
    David Hollis
    Tomas Jegeus
    Michelle Raimo Kouyate
    Anthony James Marcoly
    Hiroyasu Matsuoka
    Kim Roth
    John Sloss

    Film Editors
    Alan Baumgarten – “American Hustle,” “Gangster Squad”
    Alan Edward Bell – “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “The Amazing Spider-Man”
    Dorian Harris – “The Magic of Belle Isle,” “The Mod Squad”
    Sabrina Plisco – “The Smurfs 2,” “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow”
    Tatiana S. Riegel – “Million Dollar Arm,” “The Way, Way Back”
    Julie Rogers – “Wreck-It Ralph,” “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl”
    Mark Sanger – “Gravity”
    Joan Sobel – “Admission,” “A Single Man”
    Crispin Struthers – “American Hustle,” “Silver Linings Playbook”
    Tracey Wadmore-Smith – “About Last Night,” “Death at a Funeral”
    Joe Walker – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
    John Wilson – “The Book Thief,” “Billy Elliot”

    Makeup Artists and Hairstylists
    Vivian Baker – “Oz The Great and Powerful,” “Conviction”
    Adruitha Lee – “Dallas Buyers Club,” “12 Years a Slave” 
    Robin Mathews – “Dallas Buyers Club,” “The Runaways”
    Anne Morgan – “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” “A Little Bit of Heaven”
    Gloria Pasqua-Casny – “The Lone Ranger,” “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”

    Members-at-Large
    Peter Becker
    Jeff Dashnaw 
    Kenneth L. Halsband
    Jody Levin
    Tom MacDougall
    Chuck Picerni, Jr.
    Spiro Razatos 
    Mic Rodgers
    Kevin J. Yeaman

    Music
    Kristen Anderson-Lopez – “Frozen,” “Winnie the Pooh”
    Stanley Clarke – “The Best Man Holiday,” “Boyz N the Hood”
    Earl Ghaffari – “Frozen,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
    Steve Jablonsky – “Lone Survivor,” “Ender’s Game”
    Robert Lopez – “Frozen,” “Winnie the Pooh”
    Steven Price – “Gravity,” “The World’s End”
    Tony Renis – “Hidden Moon,” “Quest for Camelot”
    Angie Rubin – “Pitch Perfect,” “Sex and the City”
    Buck Sanders – “Warm Bodies,” “The Hurt Locker”
    Charles Strouse – “All Dogs Go to Heaven,” “Annie”
    Eddie Vedder – “Eat Pray Love,” “Into the Wild”
    Pharrell Williams – “Despicable Me 2,” “Fast & Furious”

    Producers
    Jason Blumenthal – “Hope Springs,” “Seven Pounds”
    Dana Brunetti – “Captain Phillips,” “The Social Network”
    Megan Ellison – “American Hustle,” “Her”
    Sean Furst – “Daybreakers,” “The Cooler”
    Nicola Giuliano – “The Great Beauty,” “This Must Be the Place”
    Preston Holmes – “Waist Deep,” “Tupac: Resurrection”
    Lynette M. Howell – “The Place beyond the Pines,” “Blue Valentine”
    Anthony Katagas – “12 Years a Slave,” “Killing Them Softly”
    Alix Madigan – “Girl Most Likely,” “Winter’s Bone”
    Paul Mezey – “The Girl,” “Maria Full of Grace”
    Stephen Nemeth – “The Sessions,” “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”
    Tracey Seaward – “Philomena,” “The Queen”
    John H. Williams – “Space Chimps,” “Shrek 2”

    Public Relations
    Larry Angrisani
    Nancy Bannister
    Christine Batista
    Karen Hermelin
    Marisa McGrath Liston
    David Magdael
    Steven Raphael
    Bettina R. Sherick
    Dani Weinstein

    Short Films and Feature Animation
    Didier Brunner – “Ernest & Celestine,” “The Triplets of Belleville”
    Scott Clark – “Monsters University,” “Up”
    Pierre Coffin – “Despicable Me 2,” “Despicable Me”
    Esteban Crespo – “Aquel No Era Yo (That Wasn’t Me),” “Lala”
    Peter Del Vecho – “Frozen,” “The Princess and the Frog”
    Kirk DeMicco – “The Croods,” “Space Chimps”
    Doug Frankel – “Brave,” “WALL-E”
    Mark Gill – “The Voorman Problem,” “Full Time”
    David A. S. James – “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” “Megamind”
    Fabrice Joubert – “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax,” “French Roast”
    Jean-Claude Kalache – “Up,” “Cars”
    Jason Katz – “Toy Story 3,” “Finding Nemo”
    Jennifer Lee – “Frozen,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
    Baldwin Li – “The Voorman Problem,” “Full Time”
    Nathan Loofbourrow – “Puss in Boots,” “How to Train Your Dragon”
    Lauren MacMullan – “Get a Horse!,” “Wreck-It Ralph”
    Tom McGrath –  “Megamind,” “Madagascar”
    Dorothy McKim – “Get a Horse!,” “Meet the Robinsons”
    Hayao Miyazaki – “The Wind Rises,” “Spirited Away”
    Ricky Nierva – “Monsters University,” “Up”
    Chris Renaud – “Despicable Me 2,” “Despicable Me”
    Benjamin Renner – “Ernest & Celestine,” “A Mouse’s Tale (La Queue de la Souris)”
    Michael Rose – “Chico & Rita,” “The Gruffalo”
    Toshio Suzuki – “The Wind Rises,” “Howl’s Moving Castle”
    Selma Vilhunen – “Pitääkö Mun Kaikki Hoitta? (Do I Have to Take Care of Everything?),” “The Crossroads”  
    Anders Walter – “Helium,” “9 Meter”
    Laurent Witz – “Mr. Hublot,” “Renart the Fox”

    Sound
    Niv Adiri – “Gravity,” “The Book Thief”
    Christopher Benstead – “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit,” “Gravity”
    Steve Boeddeker – “All Is Lost,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”
    Beau Borders – “Million Dollar Arm,” “Lone Survivor”
    David Brownlow – “Lone Survivor,” “The Book of Eli”
    Chris Burdon – “Captain Phillips,” “Philomena”
    Brent Burge – “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”
    André Fenley – “How to Train Your Dragon 2,” “All Is Lost”
    Glenn Freemantle – “Gravity,” “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Greg Hedgepath – “Frozen,” “The Incredible Hulk”
    Craig Henighan – “Noah,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
    Tony Johnson – “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “Avatar”
    Laurent M. Kossayan – “Red Riding Hood,” “Public Enemies”
    Thomas L. Lalley – “Mr. Peabody & Sherman,” “Star Trek Into Darkness”
    Ai-Ling Lee – “Godzilla,” “300: Rise of an Empire”
    Stephen Morris – “Monsters University,” “Fruitvale Station”
    Jeremy Peirson – “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “Looper”
    Mike Prestwood Smith – “Divergent,” “Captain Phillips”
    Alan Rankin – “Iron Man 3,” “Star Trek”
    Oliver Tarney – “Captain Phillips,” “Philomena”
    Chris Ward – “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey”

    Visual Effects
    Gary Brozenich – “The Lone Ranger,” “Wrath of the Titans”
    Everett Burrell – “Grudge Match,” “Pan’s Labyrinth”
    Marc Chu – “Noah,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
    David Fletcher – “Sabotage,” “Prisoners”
    Swen Gillberg – “Ender’s Game,” “Jack the Giant Slayer”
    Paul Graff – “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Identity Thief”
    Alex Henning – “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Hugo” 
    Evan Jacobs – “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Olympus Has Fallen”
    Chris Lawrence – “Edge of Tomorrow,” “Gravity” 
    Eric Leven – “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2,” “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1”
    Steven Messing – “Godzilla,” “Oz The Great and Powerful”
    Ben Matthew Morris – “Lincoln,” “The Golden Compass”
    Jake Morrison – “Thor: The Dark World,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
    Eric Reynolds – “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”
    David Shirk – “Gravity,” “Elysium”
    Patrick Tubach – “Star Trek Into Darkness,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
    Bruno Van Zeebroeck – “Lone Survivor,” “Public Enemies”
    Tim Webber – “Gravity,” “The Dark Knight”
    Harold Weed – “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” “Star Trek”

    Writers
    Chantal Akerman – “A Couch in New York,” “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles”
    Olivier Assayas – “Summer Hours,” “Irma Vep”
    Craig Borten – “Dallas Buyers Club”
    Scott Z. Burns – “Side Effects,” “Contagion”
    Jean-Claude Carrière – “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie”
    Steve Coogan – “Philomena,” “The Parole Officer”
    Claire Denis – “White Material,” “Beau Travail”
    Larry Gross – “We Don’t Live Here Anymore,” “48 Hrs.”
    Mathieu Kassovitz – “Babylon A.D.,” “Hate (La Haine)”
    Diane Kurys – “For a Woman,” “Entre Nous”
    Bob Nelson – “Nebraska”
    Scott Neustadter – “The Spectacular Now,” “(500) Days of Summer”
    Jeff Pope – “Philomena,” “Pierrepoint – The Last Hangman”
    John Ridley – “12 Years a Slave,” “Undercover Brother”
    Paul Rudnick – “In & Out,” ”Jeffrey”
    Eric Warren Singer – “American Hustle,” ”The International”
    Melisa Wallack – “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Mirror Mirror”
    Michael H. Weber – “The Spectacular Now,” “(500) Days of Summer”
    Terence Winter – “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “Get Rich or Die Tryin’”

    Associates
    Matt Del Piano
    Joe Funicello
    Robert Hohman
    Paul Christopher Hook
    David Kramer
    Joel Lubin
    David Pringle
    Melanie Ramsayer
    Beth Swofford
    Meredith Wechter

    Each year Academy members may sponsor one candidate for membership within their branch.  New member application reviews take place in the spring.  Applications for the coming year must be received by March 19, 2015.

    New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception in September.

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