I AM NOT A WITCH[/caption]
The American Film Institute announced today the films that will be featured in the New Auteurs and American Independents sections at AFI FEST 2017 presented by Audi.
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section is comprised of 11 films, nine of which come from female directors.
The American Independents section represents the best of independent filmmaking this year. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh new voices and filmmakers returning to AFI FEST.
“The New Auteurs and American Independents programming speaks to a singular mandate of AFI FEST: ensuring that emerging filmmakers from around the globe have a world-class venue to present their stories to an eager audience,” said Lane Kneedler, AFI FEST Director of Programming. “These films embody the promise of women and men who strive to lift our spirits through comedy, documentary, drama, science fiction and even a great American western.”
Film Festivals
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New Auteurs and American Independents Films Announced for AFI FEST 2017
[caption id="attachment_25151" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] I AM NOT A WITCH[/caption]
The American Film Institute announced today the films that will be featured in the New Auteurs and American Independents sections at AFI FEST 2017 presented by Audi.
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section is comprised of 11 films, nine of which come from female directors.
The American Independents section represents the best of independent filmmaking this year. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh new voices and filmmakers returning to AFI FEST.
“The New Auteurs and American Independents programming speaks to a singular mandate of AFI FEST: ensuring that emerging filmmakers from around the globe have a world-class venue to present their stories to an eager audience,” said Lane Kneedler, AFI FEST Director of Programming. “These films embody the promise of women and men who strive to lift our spirits through comedy, documentary, drama, science fiction and even a great American western.”
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Compelling Documentary WHAT HAUNTS US by Paige Goldberg Tolmach to Premiere at 2017 DOC NYC
The documentary What Haunts Us by Paige Goldberg Tolmach, tells the story about the 1979 class of Porter Gaud School in Charleston, South Carolina that graduated 49 boys. Within the last 35 years, six of these boys committed suicide.
Filmmaker Tolmach graduated from this school and now digs deep with the film in discovering the dark secrets that have lingered and haunted this community that she so loves.
What Haunts Us will premiere at the 2017 DOC NYC Film Festival on Monday Nov 13th.
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.’ William Faulkner
This is the central idea in What Haunts Us, Paige Goldberg Tolmach documentary about the horrific nightmare that happened at her seemingly perfect high school…that NO ONE wants to talk about to this day. When Paige hears about the suicide of yet another former schoolmate, she begins to take a deeper look at the past and starts to ask questions that almost no one in Charleston wants to answer. As she digs deeper, she begins to hear the awful truth about a beloved teacher who methodically manipulated and molested many of his students for years. It becomes her obsession to understand how it could have happened in plain view and, as it turns out, with the knowledge of the school. Her obsession becomes a story about our obligation to speak up and protect those who can’t protect themselves. It’s a story about how silence is complicity and about finding the courage to unearth what lies below the surface in order to shine a light on the truth of our own past.
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LIYANNA Wins Top Prizes – Best of Show and Audience Awards at 2017 BendFilm Festival
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Liyana[/caption]
Liyana, directed by Amanda Kopp and Aaron Kopp won the top prizes – Best of Show and Audience Awards at the 2017 BendFilm Festival. In total, the festival awarded 14 films and filmmakers with jury recognized and audience voted prizes.
Todd Looby, Director of BendFilm said, “I want to thank everyone who came to contribute to the creative culture of the 14th annual BendFilm Festival. […] I know the conversations sparked by these films will live on well past these 4 days.”
Erik Jambor, Festival Programmer for BendFilm said, “This year’s Festival was one of BendFilm’s funniest, deepest, most adventurous and most heartfelt programs to date. Though the awards could only go to a few, we are honored to have been able to screen and share all 105 with the our festival audience. Through dialogue and sharing stories together we strengthen our sense of community locally and around the world.”
2017 BendFilm Festival Jury Award Winners
Best of Show Liyana – directed by Amanda Kopp and Aaron Kopp Five orphaned children in Swaziland collaborate to tell a breath-takingly beautiful story of perseverance drawn from their darkest memories and brightest dreams. Their fictional character’s journey to rescue her young twin brothers is interwoven with poetic and observational documentary scenes to create a genre-defying celebration of collective storytelling. Best Director Bomb City – directed by Jamie Brooks Based on the true story of Brian Deneke, Bomb City is an intense and illuminating crime-drama about the cultural aversion of teenage punks and artists in a conservative Texas town. Their ongoing battle with a rival, more-affluent group of jocks leads to a controversial hate crime that questions the morality of American justice–especially relevant today. Best Cinematography Relationtrip – directed by Renée Felice Smith and C.A. Gabriel At an age when everyone around them is settling down and finding love, Beck and Liam are self-proclaimed loners. After bonding over their mutual disinterest in relationships, they decide to go away together on a ‘friend’ trip. And that’s when things get weird. Really, surreally weird. Best Narrative Feature Mr. Roosevelt – directed by Noël Wells After an auspicious death in her family, struggling LA-based comedian Emily Martin (Noel Wells, Master of None and SNL) returns to Austin. There she finds herself in the awkward position of staying with her ex and his new girlfriend until the funeral while trying to close old doors from her past. Best Documentary Feature Forever ‘B’ – directed by Skye Borgman In 1974, in the quiet town of Pocatello, Idaho, 12-year-old Jan Broberg was kidnapped by her family’s best friend and neighbor. 18 months later, out on bail and awaiting trial for kidnapping, Robert Berchtold abducted Jan a second time, triggering a nationwide FBI manhunt. Special Documentary Jury Award for Most Lovable Character Big Sonia – Directed by Leah Warshawski and Todd Soliday When Sonia Warshawski (90) is served an eviction notice for her iconic tailor shop (in a dead Seattle mall), she’s confronted with an agonizing decision: either open up a new shop or retire. For a woman who admits she stays busy “to keep the dark parts away,” facing retirement dredges up fears she’d long forgot she had, and her horrific past resurfaces. Special Short Film Jury Award A Shepherd – directed by Vern Moen A young shepherd in Oregon’s Willamette Valley struggles with the life and death circle of his ancient job in a modern era. Special Short Film Jury Award Homegrown – directed by Quentin Hamberham Francis learns that what is right for himself may not be best for his son. Special Short Film Jury Award Mixtape Marauders – directed by Peter Edlund Two young burnouts live in a world of mindless day jobs, petty drug deals, and wildly unconventional musical tastes. Best Student Short How Far She Went – directed by Ugla Hauksdóttir Adapted from the Flannery O’Connor Award-winning short story by Mary Hood, How Far She Went takes an unflinching look at family, personal sacrifice, and the lengths we will go for those we love. Best Documentary Short The Last Honey Hunter – directed by Ben Knight Maule Dhan Rai is the last man in the remote Nepal village of Saadi who has been visited in a dream by a spirit called Rongkemi. If no one else in the village has the dream, a generations-old tradition may die. Best Animated Short Pittari – directed by Patrick Smith A horned creature’s destructive rampage is halted by a stubborn adversary. Best Narrative Short Emergency – directed by Carey Williams Faced with an emergency, a group of young Black and Latino friends carefully weigh the pros and cons of calling the police. Best of the Northwest Short Running Eagle – directed by Konrad Tho Fiedler An American Indian girl escapes from captivity in the oil fields of North Dakota and hitchhikes back to her home in Blackfeet country, Montana. 2017 BendFilm Katie Merritt Audience Award Liyana – directed by Amanda Kopp and Aaron Kopp Five orphaned children in Swaziland collaborate to tell a breath-takingly beautiful story of perseverance drawn from their darkest memories and brightest dreams. Their fictional character’s journey to rescue her young twin brothers is interwoven with poetic and observational documentary scenes to create a genre-defying celebration of collective storytelling.
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BIG TIME, Portrait of Bjarke Ingels, Architect of 2 World Trade Center, to Premiere at DOC NYC | Trailer
Big Time is an intimate portrait of the Danish starchitect – Bjarke Ingels – the architect of the 2 World Trade Center, as he tries to balance his professional ambition and personal life. The film will have its NYC Premiere at the 2017 DOC NYC in Art + Design section on Wednesday, November 15, 2017.
Big Time is spread over a period of six years while his architecture firm BIG works to complete their largest projects yet, the 2 World Trade Center and the New York skyscraper VIA 57W, which houses the newly opened multiplex Landmark at 57 West, where the film opens later this year for a week-long theatrical run.
Director Kaspar Astrup Schröder is a self-taught visual artist and designer. Though based in Copenhagen, he often works in Asia. Has exhibited visual work and released music in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Brussels, New York, Shenzhen and Tokyo. His previous films THE INVENTION OF DR. NAKAMATS (2009) and MY PLAYGROUND (2010) were selected for the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). RENT A FAMILY INC. (2012) was honored with a Golden Eye Award in the category Best International Documentary at Zürich International Film Festival.
Astrup Schröder: “I wanted to convey architecture in a different, cinematic way. Bjarke’s business in New York evolved so quickly, it was as if he had put himself in the driver ’s seat in a train, which could never stop, and now he had to lay the tracks while managing the steering wheel. He ran into some health-related issues, and the pressure became even bigger. That’s when I started to feel that the film could be more universal and that it could also paint the greater picture of of how the little things in life – close relations, love and health – might be more important than we presume.”
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INFINITY BABY and SHINGAL, WHERE ARE YOU? Win Top Awards at Woodstock Film Festival
On Saturday, the 18th Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Awards Ceremony took place at Backstage Studio Productions in Kingston, NY, with INFINITY BABY winning award for Best Narrative Feature, and Best Documentary Feature for SHINGAL, WHERE ARE YOU?
Celebrated producer, talent manager, and film agent Shep Gordon was presented with the Trailblazer Award for his visionary approach to the arts.
Actor Bill Pullman received the Excellence in Acting Award. Earlier in the day, following the East Coast premiere of THE BALLAD OF LEFTY BROWN, the actor discussed his role as the title character.
18th Woodstock Film Festival Maverick Awards Winners
BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
The GIGANTIC PICTURES’ FEATURE NARRATIVE AWARD went to Bob Byington for INFINITY BABY. In this absurdist comedy set in the near-future, Ben, a perpetual dater who is incapable to commit to any relationship, portrayed in a wonderfully wacky performance by Kieran Culkin, works for a company tasked with finding a forever home for genetically modified babies who don’t age, cry, eat or soil diapers. So-called Infinity Babies are a stylistic choice for parents who don’t want the responsibilities of raising a child. But somewhere along the way, one of these care-free babies almost dies of neglect and one of our characters discovers a need and knack for parenting. Featuring such supporting comedic veterans as Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally (both from Parks and Recreation) and Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks, Silicon Valley), whose hilarious performances are essential to the whole, and assuredly directed by Bob Byington with beautiful black and white imagery, Infinity Baby is about trying to find our place in a world that is becoming increasingly artificial and the human relationships and connections that we hone along the way. – Evan Thomas Honorable Mention went to Bruce Thierry Cheung for DON’T COME BACK FROM THE MOON. A Special Award for Excellence in Acting by an Ensemble went to SUBMISSION.BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Best Documentary Feature, sponsored by Films We Like, was presented to director Angelos Rallis for SHINGAL, WHERE ARE YOU? In 2014, the Yezidis, a persecuted minority in Iraq, were driven from their ancestral land by ISIS during a campaign of genocide in which more than 3,000 women and children were kidnapped. Caught in raw, sweeping cinematography, SHINGAL, WHERE ARE YOU? weaves together the dramatic stories of the remaining young boys and their families, relegated to an abandoned coal mine on the Turkish border and longing for their lost home. Honorable Mention to director Lillian Lasalle for MY NAME IS PEDRO.BEST SHORTS
Best Narrative Short Sponsored by Gigantic Pictures, went to director Laura Beckner for (LE) REBOUND. Honorable Mention went to THE FOSTER PORTFOLIO. Best Student Short Sponsored by Gigantic Pictures, went to director Kevin Wilson, Jr. for MY NEPHEW EMMETT. Honorable Mention went to TV IN THE FISHTAIL. Best Animated Short was Presented to PatRick Smith for PITTARI. Best Short Documentary, sponsored by Markertek.com, went to Kyle Morrison for MOTT HAVEN. Honorable mention to Jon Bunning for THE TABLES.OTHER AWARDS
The Woodstock Film Festival Ultra Indie Award was presented to Harris Doran for BEAUTY MARK. The Haskell Wexler Award for Best Cinematography went to David Kruta for THE SOUNDING. The James Lyons Editing Award For Narrative Feature was presented to editor Joe Murphy for DON’T COME BACK FROM THE MOON. The James Lyons Editing Award For Documentary Feature was presented to editor Toby Shimin for 32 PILLS: MY SISTER’S SUICIDE. The World Cinema Award, presented to Sandra Vannucchi for GIRL IN FLIGHT. The jury also gave a special mention to the young actress Lisa Ruth Andreozzi for her breakthrough performance. The Carpe Diem Andretta Award presented to the film that best represents living life to the fullest was awarded to director Lisa France and subject Gabriel Cordell for ROLL WITH ME.
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20 Pound Nutrias Invade Louisiana in Documentary RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE | Trailer
Rodents Of Unusual Size takes us up-close into a large region south of New Orleans that survived hurricane Katrina and is now facing its latest threat—hordes of monstrous 20 pound rodents known as the nutria.
The documentary by award winning filmmaking team Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer (Plagues and Pleasures of the Salton Sea and Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone) & co-director Quinn Costello. The film will screen as part of 2017 DOC NYC at the IFC Film Center on November 15th at 7:15pm.
Louisiana’s coastal wetlands are one of the largest disappearing landmasses in the world and the voracious appetite of this curious and unexpected invasive species from South America is greatly accelerating coastal erosion, which in turn makes the area even more vulnerable to hurricanes. As the coastline disappears, the hunters and trappers, fishermen and shrimpers, storytellers and musicians that makes Louisiana a country unto itself are leaving en masse. Nonetheless, a stalwart few remain and are fighting back.
Rodents Of Unusual Size tells the story of one such diehard, Thomas Gonzales, and his community of Delacroix Island, as they resist the invasion of the rodents. The state of Louisiana has started a program that pays a $5 bounty for every nutria tail collected, which has helped the effort, by encouraging former trappers to hunt the nutrias for their tails instead of the fur. Others have tried business ventures to harvest the nutria for their fur and meat, in hopes that by creating a demand for this sustainable resource, they could help protect the wetlands and fight back the rodents.
And yet despite the havoc this invasive species has wrought on Southern Louisiana, it has also been embraced by the culture. The Audubon Zoo in New Orleans has opened a nutria exhibit, the local Triple-A baseball team has a nutria as a mascot, a fashion collective designs clothing made out of nutria promoting it as “sustainable fur” and even some Cajuns have nutria as pets.
Through the offbeat and unexpected stories of the people confronting the nutria problem, the film confronts issues surrounding coastal erosion, the devastation following hurricanes, loss of culture and homeland, and the resilience of the human spirit.
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LOVELESS, THE WOUND and KINGDOM OF US Win BFI London Film Festival Awards
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Loveless[/caption]
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless, a film about a divorcing Russian couple whose son disappears, won the Best Film Award at the 61st BFI London Film Festival.
This is the second time that Andrey Zvyagintsev has won the Best Film at BFI London Film Festival having previously received the award for Leviathan in 2014, which went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language film and was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA in the same category.
The jury commented, “We felt that Loveless was a very poetic and beautiful film. Dark and told with a fierce passion. Although the film concentrated on the intimate story of one family in Russia, it felt like a universal tragedy; one that we recognized as one of the world’s great sadnesses. The filmmaker elevated the personal to a social and political statement. A critique of our current psychological and political moment. Some of us felt the film a cautionary tale. An angry warning. And some of us saw it as a rallying call for the opposite of what the film is called”
The Sutherland Award, awarded to the director of the most original and imaginative first feature in the Festival, went to John Trengove for The Wound, a powerful exploration of masculinity and unspoken queer desire set in the remote mountains of South Africa’s Eastern Cape.
And, the Grierson Award for the Best Documentary went to Lucy Cohen’s documentary feature debut, Kingdom of Us, a luminous exploration of grief, identity, family bonds and emotional recovery.
OFFICIAL COMPETITION WINNER – Best Film
LOVELESS, directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev (Russia, France, Germany, Belgium)
FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION WINNER – The Sutherland Award
John Trengove for THE WOUND (South Africa)
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION WINNER – The Grierson Award
KINGDOM OF US, directed by Lucy Cohen (United Kingdom)
SHORT FILM COMPETITION WINNER – Best Short Film Award
THE RABBIT HUNT directed by Patrick Bresnan (USA)
BFI FELLOWSHIP
BAFTA award-winning director, producer, screenwriter and former broadcast journalist, PAUL GREENGRASS
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Comedian Hari Kondabolu Confronts Minority Media Representation in THE PROBLEM WITH APU | Trailer
Brooklyn-based comedian Hari Kondabolu is the host of the popular podcast “Politically Re-Active” alongside W. Kamau Bell. In the new documentary, The Problem With Apu he tackles minority media representation and specifically Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Indian immigrant proprietor of the Kwik-E-Mart, a convenience store in Springfield – in the animated television series The Simpsons.
In this highly-personal, insightful and timely exploration of minority media representation, Kondabolu speaks with prominent South Asian actors about the damaging legacy of Apu – who is voiced by a white actor with a heavily exaggerated, stereotypical Indian accent.
Aziz Ansari, Kal Penn, Aasif Mandvi, Hasan Minjaj, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Aparna Nancherla, Russell Peters, Sakina Jaffrey and Maulik Pancholy share poignant stories about their own experiences with Apu and the broader questions about the comedy and representation he evokes.
With additional interviews with EGOT-winner Whoopi Goldberg, W. Kamau Bell, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Mallika Rao, and many more, The Problem With Apu takes a humorous look at how even a beloved television series can have a blind spot.
The Problem With Apu directed by Michael Melamedoff will World Premiere at DOC NYC 2017 on Tuesday, November 14, 2017; and will make its television premiere on truTV Sunday, November 19 at 10PM ET/PT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGzvEqBvkP8
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SAVING BRINTON, Documentary on Discovery of Cinematic Treasures of Barnstorming Movie Man | Trailer
Saving Brinton follows eccentric collector Mike Zahs who discovers the showreels of the man who brought the moving picture to the Heartland. He begins a journey to restore the legacy of America’s greatest barnstorming movie man and save these irreplaceable cinematic treasures from turning to dust.
The documentary film, directed by Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburn, will make its NYC premiere at 2017 DOC NYC on November 13 and 14, 2017.
The screenings of Saving Brinton are presented at DOC NYC with an additional 10-minute package of silent films from the collection with live narration by film subject Michael Zahs. Included among the shorts are films by Edison and the Lumière brothers as well as a rediscovered “lost film” from 1904 by George Méliés that premiered in October 2017 at the prestigious Pordenone Silent Film Festival.
In a farmhouse basement on the Iowa countryside, eccentric collector Mike Zahs makes a remarkable discovery: the showreels of the man who brought the moving picture to America’s Heartland. Among the treasures: rare footage of President Teddy Roosevelt, the first moving images from Burma, a lost relic from magical effects godfather Georges Méliés. These are the films that introduced movies to the world. And they didn’t end up in Iowa by accident.
Amid the old nitrate reels are the artifacts of William Franklin Brinton. From thousands of trinkets, handwritten journals, receipts, posters and catalogs emerges the story of an inventive farmboy who became America’s greatest barnstorming movieman.
As Mike uncovers this hidden legacy, he begins a journey restore the Brinton name and return the films to big screen glory in the same small-town movie theater where Frank first turned on a projector over a century ago.
By uniting community through a pride in their living history Mike embodies a welcome antidote to the breakneck pace of our disposable society. “Saving Brinton” is a portrait of this unlikely Midwestern folk hero, at once a meditation on living simply and a celebration of dreaming big.
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SOUFRA, Inspirational Story of Refugee Entrepreneur, Mariam Shaar, to Premiere at DOC NYC
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Mariam Shaar in Soufra[/caption]
The award-winning documentary film Soufra follows the inspirational story of intrepid social entrepreneur, Mariam Shaar – a refugee who has spent her entire life in the 69-year-old Burl El Barajneh refugee camp south of Beirut, Lebanon.
Soufra, directed by award-winning filmmaker Thomas Morgan (Storied Streets, Waiting for Mamu), will have its North American Premiere at the DOC NYC Film Festival in New York on November 12th.
[caption id="attachment_25078" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
Manal Hassan and Maha Hajjaj vegetable shopping in SOUFRA[/caption]
The film chronicles Mariam and a diverse team of fellow refugee women, from throughout the Middle East who share the camp as their home as they set out to change their fate by launching a catering company, “Soufra,” and then expanding its reach (thanks to an astonishing Kickstarter campaign), outside the camp with a food truck business. Together, they heal the wounds of war through the unifying power of food while taking their future into their own hands.
Soufra is produced by Primetime Emmy®-winning filmmaker Kathleen Glynn (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, TV Nation), Rebelhouse President, Trevor Hall, Pilgrim Media Group President & CEO Craig Piligian, and executive produced by Academy Award®-winning actress Susan Sarandon.
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More Films -THE LEARS, Trudie Styler’s FREAK SHOW, CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Added to Virginia Film Festival
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The Lears[/caption]
The 2017 Virginia Film Festival has added more films and special guests including actor Anthony Michael Hall, who will come in for a screening of his film The Lears. Other highlighted guests include director Trudie Styler, who will discuss her film Freak Show; actor Noel Fisher, who will take part in a panel discussion about the acclaimed new National Geographic Channel Iraq War series The Long Road Home; and actor Nick Robinson, who joins writer/director/actor William H. Macy for a screening of Macy’s new film Krystal. The Festival’s Closing Night Film will be Luca Guadagnino’s coming-of-age love story Call Me by Your Name.
The Lears is a quirky black comedy that stars Bruce Dern as Davenport Lear, a world-renowned architect who summons his dysfunctional children to a weekend family retreat to test their love in a modern-day derivative of Shakespeare’s classic King Lear. Actor, producer, and director Anthony Michael Hall, who plays Davenport’s son Glenn Lear in the film, first burst on the film scene in the 1980s with a string of unforgettable turns in the John Hughes classics including Sixteen Candles, National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science. His other film credits include Out of Bounds, Edward Scissorhands, and Six Degrees of Separation. Hall also played the lead role in the popular USA Network series The Dead Zone from 2002-2007.
Noted actor and producer Trudie Styler makes her directorial debut with Freak Show, based on the 2007 New York Times bestselling Young Adult novel by James St. James about a gay and eccentric teenage boy who reacts to an incident of insidious bullying by deciding to run for homecoming queen. The campaign draws wide attention to Billy’s advocacy for all teenagers letting their freak flag fly. The film, which features a stellar cast including Abigail Breslin, Alex Lawther, and Bette Midler, recently had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival. Trudie Styler has a long and successful track record as a producer, including Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch from director Guy Ritchie; Girl Most Likely, which stars Kristen Wiig; Filth, starring James McAvoy; Ten Thousand Saints, starring Ethan Hawke; and American Honey, which stars Shia LaBeouf and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016. Styler will be joined by the film’s producer Celine Rattray for a post-screening discussion.
Nick Robinson, known to many for his role as Zach in Jurassic World, most recently starred in the Warner Bros. and MGM drama Everything, Everything. He also just wrapped production on Strange But True, where he leads an all-star cast including Amy Ryan, Brian Cox, and Greg Kinnear. Other credits include Kings of Summer and an unforgettable guest spot on HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. He will attend the Festival for a post-screening discussion for his role in William H. Macy’s Krystal.
The Virginia Film Festival also announced Call Me by Your Name as its Closing Night Film. Based on the acclaimed novel by André Aciman, this transcendent story of first love, set against the backdrop of northern Italy in the summer of 1983, follows Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet), a highly-cultured teenager whose sophistication about music and literature is juxtaposed with his naivety about love. Upon meeting American scholar Oliver (Armie Hammer), his father’s charming intern, the two form an undeniable bond that grows vulnerably and passionately toward young, new love. The film by director Luca Guadagnino displays a raw portrait of a kind of love and sexual awakening that blossoms without fear or consequences.
’63 Boycott – The latest from famed documentarian Gordon Quinn about the 1963 boycott of Chicago schools by more than 200,000 students in protest of racial segregation.
Beetlejuice – Award-winning cinematographer Tom Ackerman will discuss his work on this groundbreaking Tim Burton film.
The Last Stop – Director Todd Nilssen’s exposé on the troubled teen reform industry.
Mood and Memory – In a series of eleven photo films, young authors, media artists, and media specialists from Austria and Germany approach a variety of stories and themes ranging from a young girl in Aleppo, a Somali farmer, and more.
My Art – Artist Laurie Simmons’ makes her feature film debut, also starring alongside daughters Lena and Grace Dunham in the story of an artist with a stable job and life, but an endless yearning for respectability in the art world. Simmons will participate in a post-screening discussion.
Roll With Me – A paraplegic former drug addict sets out to become the first person to push an ordinary wheelchair from California to New York.
Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me – The first major documentary about one of the most fascinating careers in the history of entertainment, this film follows the legendary singer, dancer, and actor’s rise to stardom, and a life lived across flashpoints of American society from the Depression through the 1980s.
The Science of Pixar – Masterclass senior scientist and lead of the Research Group at Pixar Animation Studios Tony DeRose will work in tandem with Sara Maloni (Department of Mathematics), Earl Mark (School of Architecture), and Light House Studio to offer a free masterclass for their students and the general public. The workshop will focus on physical simulation and the mathematics of surface modeling that DeRose developed at Pixar, as well as a discussion of his career path.
Short Films – More than 50 short films screened before feature screenings and in different packages based on similar themes and genres, including narrative, documentary, experimental, and animated.
Thelma (from Norway) – Rounding out the list of now ten spotlight films recently submitted by their countries for consideration in the “Best Foreign Language Film” category at the 2018 Academy Awards, Thelma is about a college student who starts to experience seizures as a result of supernatural abilities.
Tonsler Park – Internationally renowned artist and UVA cinematography professor Kevin Everson uses 16mm black-and-white film to observe the democratic process at Charlottesville voting precincts on November 8th, 2016, providing a portrait of the working-class African-American public officials who ran the polls, while enabling citizens to vote in a democracy that has systematically abused them.
Voices Beyond the Wall: Twelve Love Poems From the Murder Capital of the World – Rescued from the streets of Pedro Sula, Honduras, seventy girls at Our Little Roses orphanage find their voices in poetry about love, family, and betrayal as they heal from the traumas of their past, while transitioning into an uncertain future.
Wild Honey – An offbeat, romantic comedy about an unsuccessful phone-sex operator who is unhappy, aimless, and living at home with her mother until she hits it off with a mysterious caller and impulsively flies across the country to meet him.
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Watch Trailer for Netflix Documentary JOAN DIDION: THE CENTER WILL NOT HOLD Premiering at NY Film Fest
Ahead of its world premiere tonight at this year’s New York Film Festival, Netflix has released the trailer for the documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold.
The documentary launches globally on Netflix on October 27.
Across more than 50 years of essays, novels, screenplays, and criticism, Joan Didion has been our premier chronicler of the ebb and flow of America’s cultural and political tides with observations on her personal – and our own – upheavals, downturns, life changes, and states of mind.
In the intimate, extraordinary documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold, actor and director Griffin Dunne unearths a treasure trove of archival footage and talks at length to his “Aunt Joan” about the eras she covered and the eventful life she’s lived, including partying with Janis Joplin in a house full of L.A. rockers; hanging in a recording studio with Jim Morrison; and cooking dinner for one of Charles Manson’s women for a magazine story. Didion guides us through the sleek literati scene of New York in the 1950s and early ’60s, when she wrote for Vogue; her return to her home state of California for two turbulent decades; the writing of her seminal books, including Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It as It Lays, A Book of Common Prayer, and The White Album; her film scripts, including The Panic in Needle Park; her view of 1980s and ’90s political personalities; and the meeting of minds that was her long marriage to writer John Gregory Dunne. She reflects on writing about her reckoning with grief after Dunne’s death, in The Year of Magical Thinking (winner of the National Book Award for Nonfiction), and the death of their daughter Quintana Roo, in Blue Nights.
With commentary from friends and collaborators including Vanessa Redgrave, Harrison Ford, Anna Wintour, David Hare, Calvin Trillin, Hilton Als, and Susanna Moore, the most crucial voice belongs to Didion, one of the most influential American writers alive today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99NaRJQzXiM