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.
Film Festivals
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2018 Pan African Film & Arts Festival Reveals Highlights, Opens with “Love Jacked”
[caption id="attachment_26705" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] 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.
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Berlinale 2018: “NATIVe − A Journey into Indigenous Cinema” Spotlights Films from Pacific Ocean Region
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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:
Feature-length Films at NATIVe:
Fata Morgana By Anastasia Lapsui, Markku Lehmuskallio, Finland 2005 Through a mesmerizing mix of filmic and storytelling styles, legendary film-making team Anastasia Lapsui and Markku Lehmuskallio recount thousands of years of history of the Chukchi people, from their mythology to the Russian colonisation and the modern-day survival of this culture. MA’OHI NUI, au cœur de l’océan mon pays (MA’OHI NUI, in the heart of the ocean my country lies) By Annick Ghijzelings, Belgium 2018 Documentary World premiere A poetic testimony on the adversities the Ma’ohi have undergone in times of contemporary colonization, portraying the aftermath of nuclear testing in French Polynesia, and the desire of a people to re-claim their identity.Short Film at NATIVe:
Three Thousand By Asinnajaq, Canada 2017 Documentary By combining historic footage with original animation in a poetic tapestry, Asinnajaq explores her Inuit heritage throughout its entire audio-visual history and beyond, projecting a hopeful future.
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Sundance 2018: Aneesh Chaganty’s SEARCH Wins Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize
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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).
Search: Winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize
Search has been awarded the 2018 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and received a $20,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at today’s reception. The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character. The jury stated, “For its gripping and original interrogation of our evolving relationship with technology and how it mediates every other relationship in our lives, both positively and negatively, and for its rigorous formal experimentation with narrative, the 2018 Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival goes to Aneesh Chaganty’s Search.” Search / U.S.A. (Director: Aneesh Chaganty, Screenwriters: Aneesh Chaganty, Sev Ohanian, Producers: Timur Bekmambetov, Sev Ohanian, Adam Sidman, Natalie Qasabian) — After his 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a desperate father breaks into her laptop to look for clues to find her. A thriller that unfolds entirely on computer screens. Cast: John Cho, Debra Messing. Aneesh Chaganty is a 26-year-old writer/director whose two minute short film, a Google Glass spot called “Seeds”, became an internet sensation after garnering more than 1 million YouTube views in 24 hours. Following its success, Aneesh was invited to join the Google Creative Lab in New York City, where he spent two years developing, writing and directing Google commercials. He is a recipient of the Future of Storytelling Fellowship, awarded to only five young creatives around the world “who have demonstrated a fearlessness to tell stories in unconventional ways” and whose works “will be instrumental in shaping the future of storytelling.” Search is Aneesh’s first feature. Sev Ohanian is a 30-year-old screenwriter and producer native to Los Angeles. At the age of 20, he produced and self-distributed My Big Fat Armenian Family, a no-budget indie feature film that became popular with Armenian audiences around the world. Shortly after, he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts MFA program — using the profits from his film to pay for tuition. Since graduating in 2012, he has been a producer on thirteen feature films, four of which have been Sundance Film Festival Official Selections. His first film, Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Andrew Bujalksi’s Results premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Magnolia Pictures. Clea DuVall’s The Intervention premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Paramount. At the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Ohanian was awarded the Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Producers Award.Sundance Institute / Sloan Commissioning Grant
Cherien Dabis will receive a $25,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for What the Eyes Don’t See, produced by Rosalie Swedlin for Anonymous Content and executive produced by Michael Sugar. Previous winners include Alex Rivera’s La Vida Robot and Robert Edwards’s American Prometheus. What the Eyes Don’t See (U.S.A.) / Cherien Dabis (Writer/Director), Rosalie Swedlin (Producer) and Michael Sugar (Executive Producer) — A true story of how Iraqi American pediatrician and scientist Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha blew the whistle on local and state government officials for poisoning thousands of Flint, Michigan residents, especially children, by exposing them to disastrous levels of toxic lead in the water. Cherien Dabis is an award winning filmmaker and television writer director who made her feature debut with Amreeka. The film world-premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and won the coveted FIPRESCI at Cannes. It went on to win a dozen more international awards including the Humanitas Prize and was nominated for a Best Picture Gotham Award, and 3 Independent Spirit Awards. Dabis returned to Sundance with her second feature May in the Summer, which opened the 2013 Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition section and had its international premiere at the Venice Film Festival. Dabis has also written and directed on such shows as Showtime’s groundbreaking series The L Word, Fox’s hit Empire and USA Network’s Golden Globe nominated crime thriller The Sinner. Rosalie Swedlin is a producer and literary manager at Anonymous Content. Swedlin began her career in New York book publishing, followed by six years handling publicity and marketing for various UK book publishers. Prior to joining Anonymous Content, she was a literary manager, producer, and partner at ICM for twelve years after having served as a senior vice president. Swedlin was an agent at CAA from 1981 – 1991 and was named co-head of the agency’s motion picture department. Swedlin executive produced the upcoming TNT limited series The Alienist based on Caleb Carr’s bestselling novel. The Wife, Swedlin’s most recent feature film, debuted at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. Her upcoming film projects include Jane Anderson’s adaptation of The Women in the Castle and Haifaa Al Mansour’s adaptation of the Cara Hoffman novel Be Safe I Love You. Michael Sugar recently launched Sugar23 — a management and production company with a multi-year, first-look deal with Anonymous Content — where he was a partner for many years. He was awarded the Oscar® for Best Picture for Spotlight and most recently wrapped production on the Netflix series Maniac, with Cary Fukunaga. He is currently in production on One Day She’ll Darken at TNT. He is an Executive Producer on the Netflix series The OA and the hit Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. Sugar also Executive Produced Cinemax’s critically acclaimed drama series The Knick directed by Steven Soderbergh. Sugar’s impressive roster of literary and talent clients includes Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater, Cary Fukunaga, Edgar Wright, Marc Webb, Patty Jenkins, and Robin Wright. He has been nominated for multiple Emmys, and won a Peabody Award for The Knick.Sundance Institute / Sloan Lab Fellowship
C. Wrenn Ball will receive a $15,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Previous winners include Logan Kibens’s Operator, Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter and Marjorie Prime, and Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide to Everything. Katie Wright (U.S.A.) / C. Wrenn Ball (Writer) — Just as the Wright Brothers are about to capitalize on the invention of their airplane, Orville is badly injured in a public crash, and sister Katie unexpectedly emerges to lead their business. Fighting resistance from businessmen, society, and even her own brothers, she strives to keep the family together and claim her place as part of their legacy. Based on the forgotten true story. Hailing from North Carolina, C. Wrenn Ball exchanged life in the Southeast for work as an assistant on network television. He directed web series pilots in Los Angeles before completing an MFA at USC’s John Wells Division of Writing for Screen and Television. Obsessed by the twang and rhythm of life, Ball is constantly merging his Southern sensibilities with feature and television writing.Sundance Institute / Sloan Episodic Storytelling Grant
John Lopez will receive an $11,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Untitled J.P. Morgan Project (U.S.A.) / John Lopez (Writer, Creator) — A look at the family drama and professional innovations of American financier J.P. Morgan as the 20th century dawns and the country he helped build transforms radically. A Los Angeles native, John Lopez has covered film and the arts for Grantland, Vanity Fair online and Bloomberg Business Week. His short Plan B, starring Randall Park and Rosa Salazar, was a finalist in the NBC Short Cuts Film festival; he also directed segments for NBC’s 2014 Actor’s Showcase and served as associate producer on Hossein Amini’s film The Two Faces of January. In 2015, John was selected as a fellow for the 2015 Sundance Episodic Lab with his pilot Crude. Most recently, John has written for Netflix’s upcoming crime drama Seven Seconds and CBS All Access’s upcoming period drama Strange Angel, and he has just completed a mini-room for AMC’s Silent History.
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Berlinale 2018: 12th Culinary Cinema to Feature 10 Films Focusing on Food, Culture and Politics, Opens with “Chef Flynn”
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Flynn McGarry appears in Chef Flynn by Cameron Yates[/caption]
Nine documentaries and a fictional film focussing on the relationship between food, culture, and politics are being presented this year in the 12th Culinary Cinema at the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival, held under the motto “Life Is Delicate” from February 18 to 23, 2018.
“When it comes to cultural and political matters, sensitive decisions have to be made all the time. It’s like in a kitchen, where it’s also tricky to make, at the very least, something edible and, at the very best, something delicate,” Festival Director Dieter Kosslick says in explaining the motto.
The main program of Culinary Cinema will present three world premieres, as well as an international and a German premiere. Following these screenings, top chefs Thomas Bühner, Sonja Frühsammer, Michael Kempf, Flynn McGarry, and The Duc Ngo will take turns serving menus inspired by the films in the Gropius Mirror Restaurant.
Chef Flynn, a US documentary by Cameron Yates, will open the program. The film’s protagonist, Flynn McGarry, was born in 1998 and is already a famous chef. In the film we see how at the early age of ten, he transforms his parents’ living room in Los Angeles into a pop-up restaurant called Eureka and serves multi-course menus. Culinary superstars are impressed by his dishes. The New York press celebrates him as a ‘culinary prodigy’. In addition, on February 22, 2018, during “Youth Food Cinema” Day, Flynn McGarry will cook together with school kids. Afterwards he will talk with experts about how to prepare tasty food with good, clean and fair products, and the positive impact using them has on living conditions, the climate and sustainable development worldwide.
In La quête d’Alain Ducasse (The Quest of Alain Ducasse) by Gilles de Maistre, culinary visionary Ducasse defines his task: “We create memories that last.” To accomplish it he tirelessly travels the world, inspects his 23 restaurants on three continents and maintains his 18 Michelin stars.
Vines have been cultivated in Georgia for around 8,000 years. But during the Soviet regime, ancient methods of vinification were almost lost. In Our Blood Is Wine by Emily Railsback we experience how the tradition is being revived. Michael Kempf (two Michelin stars, “Facil”, Berlin) will be interpreting Georgia’s gastronomic heritage.
In Cuba, culinary traditions were also being neglected for a long time. But now they say that “the taste is back” on the island. The road movie Cuban Food Stories by Asori Soto takes us to remote places where delicacies are prepared al fresco. Sonja Frühsammer (two Michelin stars, “Frühsammers Restaurant”, Berlin) will be paying culinary homage to Cuba.
After participating in 2016, director Eric Khoo will be returning to Culinary Cinema with his new fictional film, Ramen Teh, set in the multi-ethnic city state and nation of Singapore. Here food serves as a means not only to preserve painful memories, but also to achieve reconciliation.
The late-night screenings (where no meals are served afterwards) explore many aspects of the culinary cosmos. The Green Lie by Werner Boote unmasks the sometimes subtle, often crass methods of ‘greenwashing’ with which companies deceive consumers. In The Game Changers by Oscar-winner Louie Psihoyos, outstanding athletes show how they maintain a healthy weight and stay in form without eating meat. Patrimonio by Lisa F. Jackson and Sarah Teale is also encouraging: in this film, Mexicans manage to protect their village from takeover by a US construction company. How a group of women in a Lebanese refugee camp succeeds in organising a food truck and getting out of the camp is recounted in Soufra by Thomas Morgan. In Tuscany, the views of the landscape are magnificent but there is no future in sight for the peasant farmers in Lorello e Brunello by Jacopo Quadri.
Culinary Cinema Program 2018 Films
Chef Flynn USA By Cameron Yates Documentary International premiere Cuban Food Stories USA / Cuba By Asori Soto Documentary World premiere The Game Changers USA By Louie Psihoyos Documentary International premiere The Green Lie Austria By Werner Boote Documentary World premiere La quête d’Alain Ducasse (The Quest of Alain Ducasse) France By Gilles de Maistre Documentary German premiere Lorello e Brunello Italy By Jacopo Quadri Documentary German premiere Our Blood Is Wine USA By Emily Railsback Documentary World premiere Patrimonio USA By Lisa F. Jackson, Sarah Teale Documentary World premiere Ramen Teh Singapore / Japan / France By Eric Khoo World premiere Soufra USA By Thomas Morgan Documentary European premiere
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Sundance Announces 2018 Short Film Awards – Álvaro Gago’s “Matria” Wins Grand Jury Prize
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Francisca Iglesias Bouzón appears in Matria by Álvaro Gago[/caption]
Winners of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival jury prizes in short filmmaking were announced at a ceremony in Park City, Utah, with the Short Film Grand Jury Prize going to Matria, written and directed by Álvaro Gago.
This year’s Short Film jurors are Cherien Dabis, Shirley Manson and Chris Ware.
Short Film awards winners in previous years include And so we put goldfish in the pool. by Makato Nagahisa, Thunder Road by Jim Cummings, World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt, SMILF by Frankie Shaw, Of God and Dogs by Abounaddara Collective, Gregory Go Boom by Janicza Bravo, The Whistle by Grzegorz Zariczny, Whiplash by Damien Chazelle, FISHING WITHOUT NETS by Cutter Hodierne, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom by Lucy Walker and The Arm by Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos and Jessie Ennis.
2018 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Jury Awards:
The Short Film Grand Jury Prize was awarded to: Matria / Spain (Director and screenwriter: Álvaro Gago) — Faced with a challenging daily routine, Ramona tries to take refuge in her relationships with her daughter and granddaughter. The Short Film Jury Award: U.S. Fiction was presented to: Hair Wolf / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Mariama Diallo) — In a black hair salon in gentrifying Brooklyn, the local residents fend off a strange new monster: white women intent on sucking the lifeblood from black culture. The Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction was presented to: Would You Look at Her / Macedonia (Director and screenwriter: Goran Stolevski) — A hard-headed tomboy spots the unlikely solution to all her problems in an all-male religious ritual. The Short Film Jury Award: Non-fiction was presented to: The Trader (Sovdagari) / Georgia (Director: Tamta Gabrichidze) — Gela sells secondhand clothes and household items in places where money is potatoes. The Short Film Jury Award: Animation was presented to: GLUCOSE / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Jeron Braxton) — Sugar was the engine of the slave trade that brought millions of Africans to America. Glucose is sweet, marketable and easy to consume, but its surface satisfaction is a thin coating on the pain of many disenfranchised people. A Special Jury Award was presented to: Emergency / U.S.A. (Director: Carey Williams, Screenwriter: K.D. Dávila) — Faced with an emergency situation, a group of young Black and Latino friends carefully weigh the pros and cons of calling the police. A Special Jury Award was presented to: Fauve / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Jérémy Comte) — Set in a surface mine, two boys sink into a seemingly innocent power game, with Mother Nature as the sole observer. A Special Jury Award was presented to: For Nonna Anna / Canada (Director and screenwriter: Luis De Filippis) — A trans girl cares for her Italian grandmother. She assumes that her Nonna disapproves of her – but instead discovers a tender bond in their shared vulnerability. Image: Francisca Iglesias Bouzón appears in Matria by Álvaro Gago, an official selection of the Shorts Programs at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Lucia C. Pan.
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“This Is Home: A Refugee Story,” to Air on EPIX in 2018 Following World Premiere at Sundance Film Festival
This Is Home: A Refugee Story which world premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, will make its television debut on the premium pay television network EPIX, later in 2018.
Directed by Alexandra Shiva (How to Dance in Ohio), This is Home is an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugee families arriving in America and struggling to find their footing. Displaced from their homes and separated from loved ones, they are given eight months of assistance from the International Rescue Committee to become self-sufficient. As they learn to adapt to challenges, including the newly imposed travel ban, their strength and resilience are tested.
After surviving the traumas of war, the families arrive in Baltimore, Maryland and are met with a whole new set of challenges. They attend cultural orientation classes and job training sessions where they must “learn America” – everything from how to take public transportation to negotiating new gender roles.
This Is Home goes beyond the statistics, headlines, and political rhetoric to tell deeply personal stories, putting a human face on the global refugee crisis.
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Berlinale 2018: More Films Added to Competition and Berlinale Special Lineup
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Museum[/caption]
Another five films, including Steven Soderberg’s Unsane, and Gael García Bernal in Alonso Ruizpalacios’ Museum, have been added to the Competition lineup of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival; and a further six films have been invited to participate in the Berlinale Special Program.
The 68th Berlin International Film Festival will take place from February 15 to 25, 2018. The complete program will be presented on February 6, 2018.
Competition
7 days in Entebbe USA / United Kingdom By José Padilha ( The Elite Squad, Garapa ) With Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl, Eddie Marsan, Lior Ashkenazi, Denis Menochet, Ben Schnetzer, Angel Bonanni, Juan Pablo Raba, Nonso Anozie World Premiere – Out of competition Ága Bulgaria / Germany / France By Milko Lazarov ( Otchuzhdenie ) With Mikhail Aprosimov, Feodosia Ivanova, Galina Tikhonova, Sergey Egorov, Afanasiy Kylaev World premiere – Out of competition Season of the Devil (Ang panahon ng halimaw) Philippines By Lav Diaz ( A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery ) with Piolo Pascual, Shaina Magdayao, Pinky Amador, Bituin Escalante, Hazel Orencio, Joel Saracho, Bart Guingona, Angel Aquino, Lilit Reyes, Don Melvin Boongaling World premiere Museum (Museo) Mexico By Alonso Ruizpalacios ( Güeros ) With Gael Garcia Bernal, Leonardo Ortizgris, Alfredo Castro, Simon Russell Beale, Bernardo Velasco, Leticia Breedy, Ilse Salas, Lisa Owen World premiere Unsane USA By Steven Soderbergh ( Traffic, The Good German ) With Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, Amy Irving World premiere – Out of competitionBerlinale Special
Berlinale Special Gala at the Friedrichstadt-Palast The Happy Prince Germany / Belgium / Italy By Rupert Everett With Colin Firth, Emily Watson, Colin Morgan, Edwin Thomas, Rupert Everett’s European Premiere – First Feature Becoming Astrid (Unga Astrid) Sweden / Germany / Denmark By Pernille Fischer Christensen ( A Soap, A Family, Someones You Love ) With Alba August, Trine Dyrholm, Magnus Krepper, Maria Bonnevie, Henrik Rafaelsen World premiereBerlinale Special at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele
AMERICA Land of the Freeks – Documentary Form Germany By Ulli Lommel ( Tenderness of the Wolves, The Boogey Man, Absolute Evil ) With Ulli Lommel, Tanner King Barklow, Nola Roeper, Gil Kofman, Chris Kriesa, Lilith Stangenberg, Tatjana Lommel, Max Brauer World Premiere Tribute to Ulli Lommel RYŪICHI SAKAMOTO: async AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY – Documentary USA / Japan By Stephen Nomura Schible ( Ryūichi Sakamoto: Coda ) International premiereBerlinale Special at Kino International
The Interpreter Slovak Republic / Czech Republic / Austria By Martin Šulík ( The Garden , Landscape , Gypsy ) With Peter Simonischek, Jiří Menzel, Zuzana Mauréry, Attila Mokos and Anna Rakovská World premiere Usedom – The Sea View – Documentary Germany By Heinz Brinkmann ( The Carbide Factory, Come Into The Garden, The Boehme Case – The Wondrous Life Of A Left-Handed Man )Competition
3 Days in Quiberon ( 3 Tage in Quiberon ) by Emily Atef (Germany / Austria / France) 7 Days in Entebbe by José Padilha (USA / United Kingdom) – Out of competition AGA by Milko Lazarov (Bulgaria / Germany / France) – Out of competition Season of the Devil (Ang panahon ng halimaw) by Lav Diaz (Philippines) Black 47 by Lance Daly (Ireland / Luxembourg) – Out of competition Damsel by David Zellner and Nathan Zellner (USA) Do not Worry, He Will not Get Far on Foot by Gus Van Sant (USA) Dovlatov by Alexey German Jr. (Russian Federation / Poland / Serbia) Eldorado by Markus Imhoof (Switzerland / Germany) – Documentary, out of competition Eva by Benoit Jacquot (France) Figlia mia ( Daughter of Mine ) by Laura Bispuri (Italy / Germany / Switzerland) The Heiresses (Las herederas) by Marcelo Nessi Marti (Paraguay / Germany / Uruguay / Norway / Brazil / France) – First Feature In the Aisles (In den Gängen) by Thomas Stuber (Germany) Isle of Dogs by Wes Anderson ( United Kingdom / Germany) – Entertainment Pig (Khook) by Mani Haghighi (Iran) My brother’s name is Robert, and He is an Idiot (Mein Bruder heißt Robert und ist ein Idiot ) by Philip Gröning (Germany / France / Switzerland) Museo ( Museum ) by Alonso Ruizpalacios (Mexico) La prière ( The Prayer ) by Cédric Kahn (France) The Real Estate (Toppen av ingenting) by Måns Månsson and Axel Petersén (Sweden / United Kingdom) Touch Me Not by Adina Pintilie (Romania / Germany / Czech Republic / Bulgaria / France) – First Feature Transit by Christian Petzold (Germany / France) Mug (Twarz) by Małgorzata Szumowska (Poland) Unsane by Steven Soderbergh (USA) – Out of competitionBerlinale Special
AMERICA Land of the Freeks by Ulli Lommel (Germany) – The Bookshop by Isabel Coixet ( Spain / United Kingdom / Germany) The Happy Prince by Rupert Everett (Germany / Belgium / Italy) Gurrumul by Paul Williams (Australia) – Documentary, debut movie The Interpreter by Martin Šulík ( Slovak Republic / Czech Republic / Austria ) Monster Hunt 2 by Raman Hui (People’s Republic of China / Hong Kong, China) RYŪICHI SAKAMOTO: async AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY by Stephen Nomura Schible (USA / Japan) – Documentary The Silent Revolution (Das schweigende Klassenzimmer) by Lars Kraume (Germany) Becoming Astrid (Unga Astrid) by Pernille Fischer Christensen (Sweden / Germany / Denmark) Usedom – The clear sea view by Heinz Brinkmann (Germany) – Documentary A Journey to the Fumigated Towns (Viaje a los Pueblos Fumigados) by Fernando Solanas (Argentina) – DocumentaryBerlinale Special – Berlinale Series
Bad Banks – Director: Christian Schwochow – Head writer: Oliver Kienle, based on a concept by Lisa Blumenberg (Germany / Luxembourg) Home Ground (Heimebane) – Creator: Johan Fasting – Director: Arild Andresen (Norway) Liberty – Creator: Asger Leth – Director: Mikael Marcimain (Denmark) The Looming Tower – Creators: Dan Futterman, Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright – Director: Alex Gibney – Written by Dan Futterman, based on the book by Lawrence Wright (USA) Picnic at Hanging Rock – Director: Larysa Kondracki (episodes 1-3) – Written by Beatrix Christian, Alice Addison (Australia) Sleeping Bears – Creator and director: Keren Margalit (Israel) The Terror – Showrunners: David Kajganich and Soo Hugh – Director: Edward Berger (episodes 1-3), (USA)
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Sundance 2018: See New Poster for Nicolas Pesce’s PIERCING Starring Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska
Here is the poster for Piercing, written and directed by Nicolas Pesce, that World Premiere in the Midnight section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Piercing stars Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska, Laia Costa, Marin Ireland, Maria Dizzia, and Wendell Pierce
Reed (Christopher Abbott) is going on a business trip. He kisses his wife and infant son goodbye, but in lieu of a suitcase filled with clothes, he’s packed a toothbrush and a murder kit. Everything is meticulously planned: check into a hotel and kill an unsuspecting victim. Only then will he rid himself of his devious impulses and continue to be a good husband and father. But Reed gets more than he bargained for with Jackie (Mia Wasikowska), an alluring call girl who arrives at his room. First, they relax and get in the mood, but when there’s an unexpected disruption, the balance of control begins to sway back and forth between the two. Is he seeing things? Who’s playing whom? Before the night is over, a feverish nightmare will unfold, and Reed and Jackie will seal their bond in blood.
Based on the critically acclaimed cult novel by Ryu Murakami, Director Nicolas Pesce (THE EYES OF MY MOTHER, Sundance 2016) blends psychological horror with comedy and stylish neo-noir, resulting in a sly take on the fantasy of escape and the hazards of modern romance.
2018 Sundance Film Festival Screenings:
World Premiere: Saturday, January 20th at 11:59pm (PC Library)
Public Screening #2: Sunday, January 21st at 8:30pm (Egyptian, PC)
Public Screening #3: Wednesday, January 24th at 8:30pm (The MARC)
Public Screening #4: Friday, January 26th at 11:59pm (Broadway 6, SLC)
Public Screening #5: Saturday, January 27th at 11:59pm (PC Library)
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Sundance 2018: See Bart Layton’s AMERICAN ANIMALS New Poster
Here is the new poster for American Animals, written and directed by Bart Layton and World Premiere tonight in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. American Animals stars Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson, Ann Dowd, and Udo Kier.
Lexington, Kentucky, 2004: Spencer and Warren dream of remarkable lives beyond their middle-class suburban existence. They head off to colleges in the same town, haunted by the fear they may never be special in any way. Spencer is given a tour of his school’s incredibly valuable rare book collection and describes it all to Warren. Suddenly, it hits them—they could pull off one of the most audacious art-thefts in recent history, from the university’s special collections library. Convinced they can get away with it, they recruit two other friends. Suddenly, the dance of knowing what happens if they cross the line becomes all-consuming.
Buoyed by an exceptional cast, BAFTA Award–winning documentary director Bart Layton (The Imposter, 2012 Sundance Film Festival) makes a brilliant leap into the world of fiction, cleverly utilizing elements of nonfiction to propel the narrative. A “mostly” true story, American Animals is both a thrilling heist film and an existential journey of four misguided young men searching in all the wrong places for identity, meaning, adventure, and the kind of life that movies are made about.
2018 Sundance Film Festival Screenings:
World Premiere: Fri. 1/19, 3:30 p.m., Eccles PC
Press & Industry Screening: Friday, January 19th at 6:00pm (Park Ave Theater)
Second Public Screening: Sat. 1/20, noon, Grand SLC
Third Public Screening: Sat. 1/20, 10:00 p.m., Redstone 2 PC
Fourth Public Screening: Sun. 1/21, 9:00 p.m., Sundance Resort Provo
Fifth Public Screening: Wed. 1/24, 3:00 p.m., PC Library PC
Sixth Public Screening: Fri. 1/26, 9:00 p.m., Sundance Resort Provo
Seventh Public Screening: Sat. 1/27, 11:30 a.m., MARC PC
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Paul Schrader to Receive Award at Audi Dublin International Film Festival + Premiere “First Reformed”
Director and screenwriter Paul Schrader will receive a Volta Award at the Irish Premiere of his new film First Reformed at the 2018 Audi Dublin International Film Festival.
Gráinne Humphreys, Festival Director, said “Paul Schrader started his career as one of the talented young filmmakers who were at the centre of an extraordinary renaissance of American cinema in the 1970s. Schrader has also had a remarkable career as a director and, as a critic, he’s a passionate advocate and interrogator of film culture. I know my excitement at his visit and the Irish Premiere of First Reformed will be shared by many of Dublin’s cinema fans and we’re delighted to be honoring him with ADIFF’s prestigious Volta Award.”
In First Reformed, ex-military chaplain Toller (Ethan Hawke) is tortured by the loss of the son he encouraged to enlist and struggles with his faith. A faith that’s challenged by befriending a radical environmentalist, Michael, and upon learning of his church’s complicity with unscrupulous corporations.
Previous winners of Audi Dublin International Film Festival’s Volta Award include Al Pacino, Julie Andrews, Danny DeVito, Daniel Day-Lewis, Joss Whedon, Brendan Gleeson, Angela Lansbury, Stanley Tucci, Stellan Skarsgård, Kristin Scott Thomas and Ennio Morricone. The Volta Award is named after Ireland’s first dedicated cinema, the Volta Picture Theatre on Mary Street in Dublin, which was opened on the 20th December 1909 by an enterprising young novelist named James Joyce.
Schrader will be this year’s ADIFF Guest Curator, selecting and introducing three films that have inspired his own work as a filmmaker including Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959), Yasujirō Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon (1962), and Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970).
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Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2018 Announces Rich Line-up of Irish Documentaries
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A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot[/caption]
With the festival about a month away, the Audi Dublin International Film Festival taking place February 21st to March 4th, 2018, gave a taste of their exciting 2018 film program by announcing this year’s Irish documentary line-up.
Festival Director, Gráinne Humphreys said, ‘This year’s Irish documentary line-up, full of World and Irish Premieres reveals a preoccupation with the tensions between long-held traditions and the contemporary society. These extraordinary films ask questions of what we can treasure and protect, what can be re-invented and what we need to learn to let go of. These profound and searching documentaries give a glimpse of what’s in store when the full Audi Dublin International Film Festival programme is announced on 24th January’.
One farmer’s courageous struggle to maintain a centuries-old lifestyle in the shadow of a huge multinational is traced in the Irish Premiere of Feargal Ward’s The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid; the walk of the Camino is re-invented as a Kerry curragh sea journey in the Irish Premiere of Dónal Ó’Céilleachair’s The Camino Voyage featuring Brendan Begley and Glen Hansard; and Paul Duane traces a hypnotic musical journey that brings us to the earliest Western music still in existence in the World Premiere of While You Live, Shine.
A less welcome tradition, that of dissident Republican vigilantism in pockets of the North, is shockingly explored in the Irish Premiere of Sinéad O’Shea’s much-anticipated A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot. The Troubles also reverberate through the Irish Premiere of Donal Foreman’s The Image You Missed, which sees the filmmaker grapple with the legacy of his estranged father, Arthur MacCaig, and the decades-spanning archive of the conflict in Northern Ireland that he created.
Each year the Arts Council’s Reel Art scheme, in association with ADIFF and Filmbase, commissions two films that offer filmmakers a chance to make highly creative, imaginative and experimental documentaries on an artistic theme. Receiving their World Premieres at this year’s festival in the IFI are Rouzbeh Rashidi’s Phantom Islands, a visceral exploration of the boundaries between documentary and fiction and Niall McCann’s reflective encounter with Irish musician and artist Adrian Crowley in The Science of Ghosts.
Lastly, major Irish filmmaker Pat Collins returns to documentary with Twilight, a beautiful evocation of the end of day, that was filmed over two years in Baltimore, West Cork.
Irish Documentaries at ADIFF 2018
The Lonely Battle of Thomas Reid The Science of Ghosts Phantom Islands Twilight Light While You Live, Shine The Image You Missed The Camino Voyage
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Berlinale 2018: Guy Maddin’s “The Green Fog” Among 44 Films Featured in Forum 2018 Lineup
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The Green Fog. Regie/directors: Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson[/caption]
The Forum program of the 2018 Berlin International Film Festival will feature 44 films, 35 of which world premieres. This year, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art is putting on the Forum as part of the Berlinale for the 48th time.
21 years after his directorial debut The Day a Pig Fell into the Well, Korean director Hong Sangsoo makes a more auspicious return to the Forum. Grass is another cheerfully melancholy story about the guests at a small café whose owner loves classical music. Kim Minhee, who won the Silver Bear for Best Actress in 2017, plays a café regular who always seems to be at the table in the corner writing on her laptop. She repeatedly draws inspiration from what’s happening around her, picking up the threads of the dialogue and spinning them further and sometimes even actively intervening in conversations. Is she perhaps the author of these relationship dramas in miniature, whose stores and themes mirror one another?
French director Claire Simon is equally willing to try out new experiments in her documentary works. In her new film Premières solitudes (Young Solitude), she creates a cinematographic space for open, intimate discussion together with pupils from a school in the Paris suburbs. As they talk together about their backgrounds, parents, first loves, longings and fears for the future, ten ordinary teenagers forge ever closer bonds. It’s good to realise you’re not alone.
For his part, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa is showing a film at the Berlinale for the very first time. In Den’ Pobedy (Victory Day), he observes the huge crowds that gather each year at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin-Treptow on May 9th and records the hustle and bustle with quiet precision, as different moods come to the fore: pride, contemplation, patriotism, curiosity, the desire for recognition.
Two films from this year’s program draw on video material shot by their directors in periods of political upheaval and imbue it with new significance. At the end of the 1980s, Kristina Konrad collected opinions on the streets of Uruguay in relation to a referendum to be held on a law granting impunity to those responsible for the military dictatorship. Unas preguntas (One or Two Questions) takes a magnifying glass to the democratic process.
Around the same time, the scandal surrounding the Nazi past of former UN General Secretary and Austrian president Kurt Waldheim was making headlines worldwide. Edited together entirely from archive footage, Ruth Beckermann’s Waldheims Walzer (The Waldheim Waltz) is a documentary essay of frightening topicality.
Julien Faraut also works with material largely shot in the 80s in L’empire de la perfection (In the Realm of Perfection). Back then, tennis-obsessed director Gil de Kermadec attempted to use film as means of analysing the game. His meticulously shot footage of John McEnroe matches during the French Open forms the starting point for an ironic look at the parallels between film and the sporting world: cinema lies, sport does not.
Corneliu Porumboiu’s Fotbal Infinit (Infinite Football) takes an equally peculiar look at the world of sport, this time in provincial Romania, following a local official’s attempts to bequeath the world an improved version of the beautiful game. But does everything here really just revolve around football?
Two features from the US shine a light on intellectual escapism. Ted Fendt’s second feature Classical Period is once again shot in Philadelphia on 16mm and tells a drolly melancholy story about intellectualism and loneliness. The members of a reading group exchange cultural and literary references with such vigour that there’s little room for anything else: an attempt to leave the modern world behind or merely their own solitary existences?
Ricky D’Ambrose’s debut Notes On an Appearance may be set in Brooklyn, but unfolds in a similar milieu. Before the backdrop of the disquiet spread by the followers of a controversial philosopher, the film uses both real-life documents and smartly falsified writings to tell the story of a young man who one day disappears without warning. An eerie look at modern life with shades of dystopia.
Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline on the other hand plunges into the analogies of creativity and insanity. The young titular heroine doesn’t like spending time with her mother, played by actress Miranda July, and feels far freer when with her theatre group. But where does the border lie between personality and role?
Two features from Morocco explore gender relations. Jahilya by Hicham Lasri (the title alludes to the pre-Islamic “time of ignorance”) is a furious condemnation of the misogyny of Moroccan society and all its attendant malice.
Narjiss Nejjar’s Apatride (Stateless) gives an account of a historical event from a female perspective, an event that still dictates the relationship between Morocco and Algeria to this day. Full of beguiling images, her feature shows how a gentle, yet determined woman attempts to prevail over the border between the two countries.
It would be more than appropriate to refer to the electrifying directorial debut An Elephant Sitting Still as a new hope for Chinese cinema. But its 29-year-old director Ho Bu, who had previously made a name for himself with two novels, took his own life soon after the film was completed. This visually stunning work links together the biographies of a range of different protagonists in virtuoso fashion, narrating the course of one single, tension-filled day from dawn until dusk, painting a portrait of a society marked by selfishness in the process.
The films of the 48th Forum:
14 Apples von Midi Z, Taiwan / Myanmar – WP Afrique, la pensée en mouvement Part I by Jean-Pierre Bekolo, Senegal – IP Aggregat (Aggregate) by Marie Wilke, Germany – WP Amiko by Yoko Yamanaka, Japan – IP Apatride (Stateless) by Narjiss Nejjar, Morocco – WP Aufbruch (Departure) by Ludwig Wüst, Austria – WP La cama (The Bed) by Mónica Lairana, Argentina / Germany / Netherlands / Brazil – WP La casa lobo (The Wolf House) by Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León, Chile – WP Casanovagen (Casanova Gene) by Luise Donschen, Germany – WP Classical Period by Ted Fendt, USA – WP Con el viento (Facing the Wind) by Meritxell Colell Aparicio, Spain / France / Argentina – WP Los débiles (The Weak Ones) by Raúl Rico, Eduardo Giralt Brun, Mexico – WP Den’ Pobedy (Victory Day) by Sergei Loznitsa, Germany – WP Die Tomorrow by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit, Thailand – IP Djamilia (Jamila) by Aminatou Echard, France – WP Drvo (The Tree) by André Gil Mata, Portugal / Bosnia and Herzegovina – WP L’empire de la perfection (In the Realm of Perfection) by Julien Faraut, France – WP An Elephant Sitting Still by Hu Bo, People’s Republic of China – WP Fotbal Infinit (Infinite Football) by Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania – WP Grass by Hong Sangsoo, Republic of Korea – WP The Green Fog by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, USA / Canada + Accidence by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Canada – WP Interchange by Brian M. Cassidy, Melanie Shatzky, Canada – WP Jahilya by Hicham Lasri, Morocco – WP Kaotični život Nade Kadić (The Chaotic Life of Nada Kadić) by Marta Hernaiz, Mexico / Bosnia and Herzegovina – WP Last Child by Shin Dong-seok, Republic of Korea – IP Madeline’s Madeline by Josephine Decker, USA – IP Maki’la by Machérie Ekwa Bahango, Democratic Republic of the Congo / France – WP Mariphasa by Sandro Aguilar, Portugal – WP Minatomachi (Inland Sea) by Kazuhiro Soda, Japan/USA – WP Notes On an Appearance by Ricky D’Ambrose, USA – WP Old Love by Park Kiyong, Republic of Korea – IP Our House by Yui Kiyohara, Japan – IP Our Madness by João Viana, Mozambique / Guinea-Bissau / Qatar / Portugal / France – WP Premières armes (First Stripes) by Jean-François Caissy, Canada – WP Premières solitudes (Young Solitude) by Claire Simon, France – WP SPK Komplex (SPK Complex) by Gerd Kroske, Germany – WP Syn (The Son) by Alexander Abaturov, France / Russian Federation – WP Teatro de guerra (Theatre of War) by Lola Arias, Argentinia / Spain – WP Tuzdan Kaide (The Pillar of Salt) by Burak Çevik, Turkey – WP Unas preguntas (One or Two Questions) by Kristina Konrad, Germany / Uruguay – WP Waldheims Walzer (The Waldheim Waltz) by Ruth Beckermann, Austria – WP Wieża. Jasny dzień. (Tower. A Bright Day.) by Jagoda Szelc, Poland – IP Wild Relatives by Jumana Manna, Germany / Lebanon / Norway – WP Yours in Sisterhood by Irene Lusztig, USA – WP