HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST FEATURE FILM SCARY MOTHER, 2017 SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL[/caption]
The Georgia film Scary Mother directed by Ani Urushadze, was awarded the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film at the 2017 Sarajevo Film Festival. In the film, Manana, a 50-year-old housewife, struggles with a dilemma – she has to choose between her family life and her passion for writing, which she has repressed for years. She decides to follow her passion and plunges herself into writing, sacrificing everything to it, both mentally and physically.
The award for Best Documentary went to City of the Sun, directed by Rati Oneli. City of the Sun portrays a few of the remaining inhabitants of the mining city of Chiatura, in western Georgia. Up to 50 percent of the world’s manganese, a vital metal across the globe, used to be mined here, but today, it resembles an apocalyptic ghost town. Music teacher Zurab dismantles ramshackle concrete buildings by hand and sells the iron girders to make some money on the side. Archil still works in the mine, but his real passion is the local amateur theatre group. Despite being malnourished, two young female athletes train stoically for the next Olympic Games.
Actor and comedian John Cleese, best known as a member of the famous comedy team Monty Python’s Flying Circus, received the honorary lifetime achievement award. “I accept it not as a film person, but more as a comedian because I think at this time in world history, we’ve never needed comedians more,” Cleese said.
Film Festivals
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2017 Sarajevo Film Festival Awards: SCARY MOTHER Wins Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film
[caption id="attachment_23921" align="aligncenter" width="960"] HEART OF SARAJEVO FOR BEST FEATURE FILM SCARY MOTHER, 2017 SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL[/caption]
The Georgia film Scary Mother directed by Ani Urushadze, was awarded the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Film at the 2017 Sarajevo Film Festival. In the film, Manana, a 50-year-old housewife, struggles with a dilemma – she has to choose between her family life and her passion for writing, which she has repressed for years. She decides to follow her passion and plunges herself into writing, sacrificing everything to it, both mentally and physically.
The award for Best Documentary went to City of the Sun, directed by Rati Oneli. City of the Sun portrays a few of the remaining inhabitants of the mining city of Chiatura, in western Georgia. Up to 50 percent of the world’s manganese, a vital metal across the globe, used to be mined here, but today, it resembles an apocalyptic ghost town. Music teacher Zurab dismantles ramshackle concrete buildings by hand and sells the iron girders to make some money on the side. Archil still works in the mine, but his real passion is the local amateur theatre group. Despite being malnourished, two young female athletes train stoically for the next Olympic Games.
Actor and comedian John Cleese, best known as a member of the famous comedy team Monty Python’s Flying Circus, received the honorary lifetime achievement award. “I accept it not as a film person, but more as a comedian because I think at this time in world history, we’ve never needed comedians more,” Cleese said.
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Pinoy HipHop Film RESPETO Wins 7 Awards at Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival
Alberto Monteras II’s RESPETO, an exploration of the Pinoy hiphop underground world where a young aspiring rapper and a Martial Law poet cross paths, won seven awards at the 13th Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival.
Respeto won Best Film, Best Supporting Actor for Dido de La Paz, Best Sound, Best Editing, the 2017 NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema) Award and the Audience Choice Award.
The film shared the Best Cinematography Award with another full length feature Joseph Israel Laban’s film Baconaua.
Baconaua, based on an actual story of how one morning after a particularly strong squall, a sleepy fishing village woke up to the astonishing sight of the sea that had turned red, won the Special Jury Prize and Best Direction awards.
Angeli Bayani won Best Actress for her role in Bagahe by Zig Dulay while Noel Comia Jr. and Yayo Aguila landed the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress awards respectively for their work in Kiko Boksingero by Thop Nazareno.
Bayani was hailed for her role as an OFW suspected of dumping a newborn child in the trash bin of an airplane toilet; Comia for his heartrending performance of a boy grieving for his mother while trying to win the love of his estranged father; and Aguila for her endearing portrayal of the nanny who tries to soothe her ward’s loneliness.
Bagahe also won the Best Screenplay award for Zig Dulay while Kiko Boksingero bagged Best Musical Score for Pepe Manikan. Nabubulok won Best Production Design for Marxie Maolen Fadul.
In the short feature category, the Best Film award went to Hilom by P.R. Patindol while Fatima Marie Torres and the Invasion of Space Shuttle Pinas 25 by Carlo Francisco Manatad won the Special Jury Prize. Aliens Ata by Karl Glenn Barit scooped up the 2017 NETPAC Award; Best Direction went to E Del Mundo for her Manong ng Pa-Aling and Duwi Monteagudo won Best Screenplay for Bawod. The Audience Choice Award was given to Marvin Cabangunay and Jaynus Olaivar’s Nakauwi Na. Best Short Film winner Hilom won Php150,000 cash award and the Cinemalaya Balanghai trophy.
In this year’s Cinemalaya, nine films competed in the Full Length Feature category. These were: Ang Guro Kong Di Marunong Magbasa (My Teacher Who Doesn’t Know How To Read) by Perry Escaño; Ang Pamilyang Hindi Lumuluha (The Family That Doesn’t Weep) by Mes de Guzman;Baconaua by Joseph Israel Laban; Bagahe (The Baggage) by Zig Dulay; Nabubulok (The Decaying) by Sonny Calvento; Kiko Boksingero by Thop Nazareno; Requited by Nerissa Picadizo; Respeto by Alberto Monteras II; and, Sa Gabing Nanahimik ang mga Kuliglig (Clouds of Plague) by Iar Lionel Benjamin Arondaing.
For the first time in Cinemalaya history, there were 12 short films, instead of the usual 10, that competed. These were: Aliens Ata (Maybe Aliens) by Karl Glenn Barit; Bawod (Bent) by TM Malones; Fatima Marie Torres and the Invasion of Space Shuttle Pinas 25 by Carlo Francisco Manatad; Hilom (Still) by P.R. Patindol; Islabodan (Free Men) by Juan Carlo Tarobal; Juana and the Sacred Shores by Antonne Santiago; Lola Loleng (Grandma Loleng) by Jean Cheryl Tagyamon;Manong ng Pa-Aling (Man of Pa-Aling) by E del Mundo; Maria by JP Habac Jr.; Nakauwi Na by Marvin Cabangunay and Jaynus Olaivar; Nakaw by Arvin Belarmino and Noel Escondo; and Sorry For The Inconvenience by Carl Adrian Chavez.
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Four Special Screenings Added to 2017 San Sebastian Festival’s Official Selection
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SEE YOU UP THERE[/caption]
The latest film from the producers of Kimi no Na Wa / Your Name, an adaptation of the Prix Goncourt 2013 and a 3D exploration of underwater treasures with the voice of Arnold Schwarzenegger join Fernando Franco’s Morir to complete the four special screenings in the Official Selection at the 2017 San Sebastian Festival. With these, the festival has now announced 18 of the Official Selection titles.
AU REVOIR LÀ-HAUT / SEE YOU UP THERE
ALBERT DUPONTEL (FRANCE)
November 1919. Two survivors of the trenches set up a scam based on war memorials. One is a brilliant illustrator, the other an unassuming accountant. In the France of the Roaring Twenties, their operation becomes as dangerous as it is spectacular… Adaptation of Pierre Lemaitre’s novel The Big Swindle, winner of the Prix Goncourt.
MORIR (DYING)
FERNANDO FRANCO (SPAIN)
The lives of Luis and Marta are abruptly paralysed. Lies, guilt and fear put the couple’s stability and love to the test.
UCHIAGE HANABI, SHITA KARA MIRUKA? YOKO KARA MIRUKA? / FIREWORKS, SHOULD WE SEE IT FROM THE SIDE OR THE BOTTOM?
AKIYUKI SHINBO, NOBUYUKI TAKEUCHI (JAPAN)
Summer break in a town by the sea. / One day before a firework festival, / classmates excitedly discuss whether / “fireworks are round or flat when they’re viewed from the side”. / Their classmate Nazuna, who Norimichi has a crush on, / is lost in her own thoughts after learning that / her mother, who is getting remarried, / is making her transfer schools. / “Let’s elope”. / Nazuna asks Norimichi to run away with her but gets caught by her mother, / who drags her home. Norimichi can’t do anything but watch helplessly. “If I had…” / Norimichi, frustrated with himself for not helping Nazuna, / throws a mysterious ball Nazuna found on the beach. / Then suddenly, time gets rewound to the moment / before Nazuna is forced to go home… / What does fate have in store for Nazuna and Norimichi / at the end of the day that keeps repeating itself? / When fireworks light up the sky, a miracle of love occurs.
WONDERS OF THE SEA 3D
JEAN-MICHEL COUSTEAU, JEAN-JACQUES MANTELLO (UK – FRANCE)
Shot in 3D over three years in locations ranging from Fiji to the Bahamas, the film takes us underwater on a thrilling submarine voyage beneath the seas that cover 71% of our planet’s surface. Spectacular documentary produced and narrated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, mythical star of The Terminator and Total Recall. A film with the mission to raise awareness on the treasures of the sea and the need to preserve them. Co-directed by the son of the emblematic pioneer of scientific dissemination Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
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Filmmaker Brett Ratner to Close HollyShorts Film Festival with Keynote Conversation
Filmmaker Brett Ratner will close the Academy Awards qualifying 2017 HollyShorts Film Festival with a special Keynote conversation presented by Kodak Motion Picture and Entertainment. The Conversation will take place during the HollyShorts Awards this Saturday, August 19, at the Harmony Gold Theater moderated by Steve Bellamy, Kodak’s President of Motion Picture and Entertainment.
Because of the overwhelming interest of directors moving back to film and last year’s strong showing of shorts captured on film, HollyShorts added a film-only category this year that received a substantial amount of submissions. Ultimately, 10 shorts were selected: Miss World by Georgia Fu, Frank Embree by Skinner Meyers, Nathan Loves Ricky Martin by Steven Arrigada, Real Artists by Cameo Wood, Goodnight Eulogy Created by Roi Vissel / Director: Yonatan Weinstein, To Be Free by Esther de Rothschild, Little Bird by Georgia Oakley, That Unusual Brick by Jesse Burks, Blood Letting by William Davis. Jason Ruscio’s newly restored film eclipse which premiered at Telluride and won top prize at the Student Academy Awards is also in the category and screens on August 18 at the festival.
The 13th edition of HollyShorts, which is LA’s biggest shorts film festival has been taking place this week at the TCL Chinese 6 Theater, Roosevelt Hotel, and other venues throughout Hollywood. This year’s festival received an all-time record of over 4,000 submissions from 65 countries. The 400 + shorts are competing for the Best Short Film Prize and Grand Jury Prize, Best Director among other top categories.
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European Premiere of THE WIFE Starring Glenn Close to Close San Sebastian Festival
Glenn Close (with Jonathan Pryce) in The Wife The European premiere of The Wife directed by Björn Runge and starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, will close the 65th edition of the San Sebastian Festival.
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New York Film Festival Unveils Projections Lineup of Daring and Experimental Films
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Good Luck[/caption]
This year’s lineup for the Projections section of the 55th New York Film Festival features 51 films, including eight features and eight programs of shorts, with eight world premieres, eight North American premieres, and 15 U.S. premieres. Among the highlights are the U.S. premiere of Caniba by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, whose feature Leviathan was presented in the Main Slate of NYFF50; Good Luck by Projections regular Ben Russell; and the North American premieres of two films by Kevin Jerome Everson, feature Tonsler Park and short IFO. The lineup also features the NYFF debuts of several acclaimed visual artists, including Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eyes, winner of the International Critics Prize at the recent Locarno Film Festival; Neïl Beloufa’s Occidental; and mid-length works Rubber Coated Steel by Lawrence Abu Hamdan and The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy by Duncan Campbell; the North American premiere of Zhou Tao’s The Worldly Cave, which was included in this year’s Venice Biennial; and the world premiere of Jaakko Pallasvuo’s Filter. Visual artists returning to Projections include Luke Fowler, whose Electro-Pythagoras (a Portrait of Martin Bartlett) screens in its U.S. premiere, and Rosalind Nashashibi, whose Vivian’s Garden is one of several works in this year’s lineup first presented at documenta 14 and will screen in its North American premiere.
Eighteen works will screen on 16mm, including all 13 of this year’s repertory selections, which showcase the work of experimental cinema pioneers Barbara Hammer and Mike Henderson, preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Projections also showcases returning filmmakers Ephraim Asili (Fluid Frontiers), Sky Hopinka (Dislocation Blues), Sara Magenheimer (Art and Theft), Jodie Mack (Wasteland No. 1: Ardent, Verdant), Takashi Makino (On Generation and Corruption), Steve Reinke (Semen Is the Piss of Dreams), Fern Silva (Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder), and 2012 Kazuko Trust Award winner Michael Robinson (Onward Lossless Follows). NYFF debut artists also include Pia Borg (Silica), Jorge Jácome (Flores), Peter Burr (Pattern Language), Nazli Dinçel (Shape of a Surface), Charlotte Prodger (BRIDGIT), Ayo Akingbade (Tower XYZ), Marta Mateus (Barbs, Wastelands), and a few Film Society of Lincoln Center alums—Benjamin Crotty (Division Movement to Vungtau), who was in New Directors/New Films in 2015, and Narimane Mari (Le fort des fous), whose work has screened in the Film Society’s Art of the Real festival.
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS Caniba Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, France, 2017, 90m U.S. Premiere The latest by the makers of Leviathan (NYFF50) is a harrowing engagement with the sheer presence of a man who did the unthinkable: Issei Sagawa, who became a tabloid magnet after killing and cannibalizing a woman in Paris in 1981. Caniba moves past sensationalism to immerse viewers in an unnervingly intimate encounter with Sagawa, who has since lived off his notoriety (as a sexploitation star and manga author), and his brother and primary caretaker. The filmmakers use this modern-day instance of cannibalism, long a subject of anthropological study, to raise questions about repulsion, desire, madness, and more. Audacious and unflinching, Caniba compels us to reckon with the most extreme limits of human behavior.Dragonfly Eyes Xu Bing, China, 2017, 81m U.S. Premiere Chinese visual artist Xu Bing’s ambitious debut feature follows an ill-fated romance through a frightening and faceless urban environment, using only closed-circuit surveillance footage. Constructing a fictitious narrative from real-world encounters and frequently spectacular images, Xu turns the story of a young man attempting to relocate his object of desire into a cogent analysis of postmodern identity and digitally mediated communication.
Electro-Pythagoras (a Portrait of Martin Bartlett) Luke Fowler, U.K./Canada, 2017, 45m U.S. Premiere The life and work of highly influential, yet little known, Canadian composer and microcomputer pioneer Martin Bartlett is resurrected in this lovingly constructed biographical essay. Archival footage finds Bartlett at home, at work, and onstage, while voiceover readings of the proudly out artist’s reflections on his place in the era’s gay community convey a sense of intimate, holistic personal history. Preceded by: Vivian’s Garden Rosalind Nashashibi, U.K., 2017, 30m North American Premiere Deep in the Guatemalan Highlands, Swiss-Austrian artists Vivian Suter and Elisabeth Wild live in a garden villa. Nashashibi captures the complexity of their unorthodox microcosm, which is dominated by their curiously intimate mother-daughter dynamic as well as the keen sense of dependency seen in their relationship with the Mayan domestic workers.
Le fort des fous Narimane Mari, France/Algeria/Greece/Germany/
Qatar, 2017, 140m In this shape-shifting hybrid feature, Algerian citizens’ memories of their country’s occupation are brought to life via resurrected military reports and re-enactments of France’s decades-long colonial project. As the film moves into a more dramatic mode, two characters from the first act join up with a small community that has sought refuge along the coast. But utopia proves fleeting, and the film, seeming to sense their fate, reinvents itself yet again as documentary. Good Luck Ben Russell, France/Germany, 2017, 143m U.S. Premiere In his first solo feature in eight years, Ben Russell takes us deep into the unforgiving copper mines of Serbia. When we emerge, we’re thousands of miles away, amongst an illegal band of gold miners in the Suriname jungle. The physical demands of labor, as well as the transformative power of music, connect these communities, each equally fortified by the realities of capital and a spirit of masculine camaraderie.
Occidental Neïl Beloufa, France, 2017, 74m U.S. Premiere In a boho Parisian hotel, two sexually and politically ambiguous Italians romp through a succession of blatantly artificial, anachronistically decorated set pieces, stoking the prejudices of staff members and fellow guests. Outside, riots rage and protesters march, threatening to spill into the increasingly feverish atmosphere gathering indoors. French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa’s second feature—reminiscent of films by Bertrand Bonello and the stage-derived works of Alain Resnais—confirms the arrival of a uniquely provocative, socially attuned filmmaker.
Tonsler Park Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2017, 80m North American Premiere Election Day, 2016. Kevin Jerome Everson and his 16mm camera quietly observe a community of mostly African-American voters and volunteers at a local polling precinct in Charlottesville, Virginia. Emerson’s film captures everyday faces and the general optimistic atmosphere with a casual formal elegance.
The Worldly Cave Zhou Tao, China, 2017, 48m North American Premiere Anonymous figures are diminished against unforgiving environs, both natural and manmade, in Zhou’s expansive cross-continental diary, featuring monumental views of the Incheon Sea, the Balearic island of Menorca, and the Sonoran Desert that serve to visualize the infinitesimal stature of the human race.
Barbara Hammer Program TRT: 82m A pioneer of experimental cinema, Barbara Hammer has spent much of her five-decade career deconstructing gender and sexuality through material examinations of the celluloid image and representations of the female body onscreen. This program of 16mm films combines her surreal, sexualized 1970s fantasias with the forays into poetic nonfiction and the trailblazing experiments with optically printed visuals she helped popularize throughout the 1980s. Program includes Psychosynthesis, Women I Love, and Audience, preserved by Electronic Arts Intermix and the Academy Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation’s Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation; and Still Point and No No Nooky T.V., preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Mike Henderson Program TRT: 75m A singular cinematic figure, San Francisco’s Mike Henderson became one of the first independent African-American artists to make inroads into experimental filmmaking in the 1960s. Henderson’s work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, from which this program of 16mm films is culled, thrums with a sociopolitical, humorous sensibility that lends his small-scale, often musically kissed portraits (which he later dubbed “blues cinema”) a personal, artisanal quality. Program includes MONEY, Dufus (aka Art), The Shape of Things, The Last Supper, When & Where, Down Hear, Mother’s Day, and Pitchfork and the Devil. All films preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Program 1: SPECULATIVE SPACES TRT: 76m
Division Movement to Vungtau Benjamin Crotty and Bertrand Dezoteux, France, 2016, 4m U.S. Premiere In Crotty and Dezoteux’s cheeky and damning political patchwork, a quartet of dancing, computer-animated fruits infiltrate amateur footage shot by soldiers during the Vietnam War.
Wherever You Go, There We Are Jesse McLean, USA, 2017, 12m North American Premiere Assisted by a buoyant electro-acoustic soundtrack, McLean maps an evocative cross-country travelogue through elegantly illustrated postcards and the strangely intoxicating language of junk emails.
IFO Kevin Jerome Everson, USA, 2017, 10m North American Premiere In Everson’s hometown of Mansfield, Ohio, multiple UFO sightings yield both passionate firsthand accounts and detailed reflections; meanwhile, suburban youths raise their arms toward the heavens in becalmed surrender.
Silica Pia Borg, Australia/U.K., 2017, 23m North American Premiere An unseen location scout explores an opal mining town in South Australia in Pia Borg’s sci-fi-laced essay film, which finds in this semi-deserted region both the traces of indigenous culture and remnants of cinema history.
Flores Jorge Jácome, Portugal, 2017, 26m U.S. Premiere Island life, love, and labor are captured in vivid detail in this speculative fiction, in which two soldiers speak in voiceover about the over-proliferation of hydrangea flowers on their isolated Portuguese island in the Azores.
Program 2: PRESENT TENSE TRT: 76m
Pattern Language Peter Burr, USA, 2017, 10m Architect Christopher Alexander’s design theories are applied towards a generative video game labyrinth, resulting in this rhythmic animation made of rippling, skipping, and strobing arrays of light infused with programmatic digital pixelation.
.TV G. Anthony Svatek, USA/Tuvalu/New Zealand/France, 2017, 22m World Premiere The much sought-after, two-letter web domain suffix of the title is examined as both a form of capital and an emblem of a country on the brink of a climate-induced catastrophe in this simultaneously humorous and illuminating essay film centered on the environmentally contentious Pacific Islands of Tuvalu.
disruption Belit Sağ, Netherlands, 2016, 5m World Premiere In the span of a short walk, images and information flow ceaselessly into view as our increasingly digitized lives absorb disparate movie and media moments, from the warmly humorous to the coldly clinical.
Dislocation Blues Sky Hopinka, USA, 2017, 17m The Standing Rock protests are the starting point for Ho-Chunk artist Sky Hopinka’s inquiry into identity, community, and mass media. Against twilit images of the Dakota landscape, the film frames present-day traumas through distinct first-person perspectives and reflects on the threatened environment and the complex social realities of the resistance camps.
Rubber Coated Steel Lawrence Abu Hamdan, 2016, 21m North American Premiere Abu Hamdan, an artist and Forensic Architecture researcher, made an audio analysis to ascertain whether Israeli soldiers used rubber or live bullets in the murder of two Palestinian teens. Through the frame of a speculative court proceeding, the video acts as a tribunal for the case, which includes audio testimony and onscreen forensic animations.
Program 3: THE SHAPES OF THINGS TRT: 78m
The Crack-Up Jonathan Schwartz, USA, 2017, 16mm, 18m World Premiere Schwartz’s poetic 16mm work meditates on the sights and sounds of slowly crumbling glaciers, charting an interior dance between desperation and hope. The carefully deployed superimpositions, strident soundtrack, and contrasting tones of intensity and tranquility suggest the unpredictable rhythms of metaphysical transformation.
Saint Bathans Repetitions Alexandre Larose, Canada, 2016, 16mm, 20m U.S. Premiere A series of cinematic portraits shot in domestic spaces in a former gold mining town in New Zealand expand into a tapestry of glistening natural light and vaporous movement, created via a painstaking process of in-camera layering effects.
Shape of a Surface Nazli Dinçel, Turkey, 2017, 16mm, 9m Shooting on 16mm amidst the Aphrodisias ruins in western Turkey, Dinçel refracts multiple epochs of religious history with mirrors and occluded space, finding figural as well as metaphorical power in the human body’s place within the landscape.
Wasteland No. 1: Ardent, Verdant Jodie Mack, USA, 2017, 16mm, 5m U.S. Premiere Jodie Mack’s bracing 16mm montage film juxtaposes gleaming close-ups of electrical circuit boards with hyper-saturated images of a flower-littered landscape. In its rapid-fire presentation, the film offers a swift metaphorical representation of technology’s inexorable march.
On Generation and Corruption Takashi Makino, Japan, 2017, 26m In this Aristotle-inspired audiovisual panorama, a fathomless void slowly accumulates rippling digital textures, and waves of watercolor pastels wash atop barely perceptible images of natural phenomena. When the darkness returns, only the droning soundscape is left to point the way forward.
Program 4: FIRST PERSON TRT: 76m
Art and Theft Sara Magenheimer, USA, 2017, 7m World Premiere Magenheimer’s video explores the bounds of narrative and the illusion of received wisdom in the seven minutes and twenty-two seconds it takes to rob a house. Here, images of medieval art, popular cinema, and “live” news reportage speak candidly to the constructedness of all storytelling traditions.
Filter Jaakko Pallasvuo, Finland/USA/Germany, 2017, 25m World Premiere Mixing crude animation, 3D modeling, and faux filmic textures in a self-reflexive essay on digitally abetted nostalgia, this playful work of fair use pastiche refracts all manner of postmodern touchstones (David Foster Wallace, Talking Heads, Reality Bites) into an aesthetic interrogation of its own methodology, resulting in, to paraphrase one onscreen subject, a critique of a critique of a critique.
Semen Is the Piss of Dreams Steve Reinke, USA/Canada, 2016, 7m In Reinke’s latest provocation, the words of author Hervé Guibert are made flesh through a montage of “human events” that work to collapse the boundaries between the private and public, the perverse and the prosaic.
Year Wojciech Bąkowski, Poland, 2017, 6m World Premiere Bąkowski’s strangely personal, nostalgia-laced video combines the Polish animator’s love of everyday domestic objects and geometric aesthetics with a flickering synth score out of an eighties urban crime film.
BRIDGIT Charlotte Prodger, U.K., 2016, 32m Prodger examines issues of gender, sexuality, and creativity in this first-person essay film, shot in and around the Scottish Highlands and named for the Neolithic goddess of springtime.
Program 5: URBAN RHAPSODIES TRT: 75m
Tower XYZ Ayo Akingbade, U.K., 2016, 3m U.S. Premiere A visual guide to the under-acknowledged multiethnicity of the London borough Hackney, Tower XYZ skips to the beat of the city’s vibrant youth culture and communal spirit, offering up a rebel cry for a new generation: “Let’s get rid of the ghetto!”
Ride Like Lightning, Crash Like Thunder Fern Silva, USA, 2017, 16mm, 9m North American Premiere Through softly textured 16mm photography and regional iconography, Silva offers a modernist reflection on two of upstate New York’s most storied 19th century touchstones—the landscape painters of the Hudson River School and the legend of Rip Van Winkle—nodding to a few musical heroes along the way.
Fluid Frontiers Ephraim Asili, USA, 2017, 23m U.S. Premiere Visually tracing the 19th-century Windsor-Detroit slave pass, with on-site readings of notable texts by many of Motor City’s most storied African-American poets, Asili deftly captures the city not simply as a repository of memory but as a landscape of living history.
Onward Lossless Follows Michael Robinson, USA, 2017, 17m U.S. Premiere Robinson’s latest work of cinematic excavation uncovers the darkness inherent even in life’s most banal images and encounters. It’s an unsettling study in duality—between the earthbound and the cosmic, the found and forgotten, the rural and domestic, the verbal and written.
Aliens Luis López Carrasco, Spain, 2017, 23m U.S. Premiere In this short nonfiction portrait, Tesa Arranz, one-time leader of pioneering Spanish new wave band Zombies, reminisces about her sexual and political conquests, while dozens of her recent paintings are examined by Carrasco’s inquisitive camera.
Program 6: THE FORGOTTEN TRT: 77m
Barbs, Wastelands Marta Mateus, Portugal, 2017, 25m North American Premiere In this accomplished debut, peasants of the Alentejo region of Portugal stand in stylized tableaux and speak to local youths of the Carnation Revolution, the postwar agrarian reform movement, and the ghosts of a postcolonial struggle that haunt the landscape to this day.
Fantasy Sentences Dane Komljen, Germany/Denmark, 2017, 17m U.S. Premiere In a serene meditation on image-making and the slippery nature of storytelling, Komljen ominously mingles anonymous home video footage with images of contemporary Ukraine’s desolate landscapes.
Missing In-Between the Physical Proper Olivia Ciummo, USA, 2017, 6m World Premiere A prismatic collection of re-photographed images––of deserts and oceans, plants and animals––are disrupted and transformed by an array of color filters, soft synth accompaniment, and familiarly boorish messages lifted from the online world.
The Welfare of Tomás Ó Hallissy Duncan Campbell, U.K./Ireland, 2016, 31m U.S. Premiere Campbell’s fictional narrative, concerning a pair of American anthropologists en route to the Irish village of Dún Chaoin, expands into a reflective investigation of filmmaking ethics and a portrait of a small community forced to confront the changing tides of traditions.
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Glenn Close, Larry Wilmore, Morgan Spurlock Among Lineup for 2017 TIFF Industry Conference
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Glenn Close, Larry Wilmore, Morgan Spurlock[/caption]
The Toronto International Film Festival continued today to roll out its bold and ambitious 2017 TIFF Industry Conference program. The six-day conference, which runs September 8–13, will feature more than 150 guest speakers taking the stage including Tim Bevan, Timothée Chalamet, Glenn Close, Denis Côté, Cassian Elwes, Heidi Ewing, Eric Fellner, Rachel Grady, Luca Guadagnino, Armie Hammer, Mary Harron, Armando Iannucci, Franklin Leonard, Brett Morgen, Sam Pollard, Anna Serner, Morgan Spurlock, Syrinthia Studer, Graham Taylor and Larry Wilmore.
The Conference features a range of curated programmes, which brings emphasis to different elements of industry debate.
MASTER CLASSES and MOGULS
Storytelling, satire, authenticity and equality are at the forefront of this year’s Master Class conversations, lead by some of the industry’s creative luminaries: Emmy and Peabody Award–winning producer, actor, comedian and writer Larry Wilmore (Black on the Air, Black-ish) keeps it “100” with Jesse Wente, Director of TIFF Cinematheque and Armando Iannucci director, writer, creator (The Death Of Stalin, VEEP) on the Art of Political Satire. The Conference closes with renowned homegrown director and writer Mary Harron (Alias Grace, I Shot Andy Warhol) on her distinguished career in film and television, interviewed by celebrated Canadian filmmaker Patricia Rozema (I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing). Moguls previously announced: Anna Serner (CEO of the Swedish Film Institute) and veteran producer Cassian Elwes (Mudbound, Dallas Buyers’ Club), joined by Indiewire’s Editor-in-Chief, Dana Harris.
GUARDIAN TIFF TALKS
Three intimate onstage talks and Q&As will be hosted by Benjamin Lee and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian: Luca Guadagnino, Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet discuss one of the year’s most acclaimed films, Call Me by My Name; Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner discuss decades of remarkable Working Title Films productions include their fast-paced indie hit Baby Driver, and upcoming Festival films Darkest Hour and Victoria and Abdul. Legendary actor of stage and screen Glenn Close talks about her career, notable for challenging performances and iconic roles, and about her latest Festival film, The Wife.
DIALOGUES
TIFF’s Dialogues presents innovative and informative discussions on business and creative topics with notable industry experts. At the Table, presented in collaboration with the African American Film Critics Association, unpacks a film’s journey through candid examination of the importance of bringing more diverse perspectives to key decision-making roles, where objectivity is professed but subjectivity practiced.
Speakers:
Graham Taylor Partner and Head of WME Global,
Syrinthia Studer Worldwide Acquisitions, EVP, Paramount Pictures,
Franklin Leonard, CEO & Founder, The Black List,
Tre’vell Anderson Film Reporter, LA Times,
Gaylene Gould Head of Cinemas and Events, BFI Southbank,
and chaired by Gil Robertson Co-Founder & President, AAFCA.
Building Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office, featuring Marcia Nickerson, Chair of imagineNATIVE, Valerie Creighton, President & CEO Canada Media Fund, and Danis Goulet, filmmaker, unveils the unique and vertical approach employed to create Canada’s newest film sector designed to support the wealth of Indigenous talent.
Eve of Disruption features venture capitalists and industry disruptors discussing emerging trends and technologies that will shape the future of the entertainment industry.
3 For 30 – From Words to Screen, hosted by The Black List’s Franklin Leonard and Kate Hagen, this session illuminates the creative process and the choices filmmakers have to make to transform an ordinary script into a masterpiece.
2001: An Immersive Odyssey explores how science fiction films and immersive technologies inform how we consume the stories we love.
DOC CONFERENCE TIFF
Now in its ninth edition, the Doc Conference is back to showcase a dynamic slate of filmmakers and industry experts. Featured filmmakers include directing duo Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp, One of Us), Brett Morgen (Cobain: Montage of Heck, Jane), Sam Pollard (Slavery by Another Name, Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me), and Denis Côté (Curling, Ta peau si lisse). Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!) and Brent Hodge will present Culture Shock, a new comedy series, previewing its first episode, Freaks & Geeks.
Geralyn Dreyfous, co-founder of Impact Partners Film Fund and Gamechanger Films, will talk about private investment; director Anjali Nayar (Gun Runners, Silas) will speak on cultural appropriation and access in the Global South; and Peter Broderick will provide sustainable career strategies for filmmakers.
CONNECTIONS
TIFF’s Connections provides networking opportunities by bringing together leading international film professionals and experts. Connections networking strands: Co-Productions, Documentary, Primetime (TV), Shorts and New Technologies & Immersive Storytelling. Executives include: Mo Abudu, Julie Goldman, Katriel Schory, Steven Markovitz, Jennifer Jonas, Landon Zakheim, Brad Pelman and Sarah Lash. Signups will open late August.
SHORT CUTS DIALOGUES
TIFF Short Cuts programming includes Directing Actors and Actors Directing focusing on excellence in directing performance, with Yassmina Karajah (Rupture), TIFF Rising Stars Alumnus Connor Jessup (Lira’s Forest); while Maximizing Your Short’s Impact provides strategies and tips to get short films seen and heard.
FOUNDATIONS
TIFF’s Foundations programme explores cinematography, editing, story development, music licensing, US/Canadian legal coventures and collaborative teams. The 2017 lineup features: Pat Mills, Tiffany Beaudin (Don’t Talk To Irene); Caroline Habib, Mongrel International; Kisha Imani Cameron, Ghetto Film School; Lorraine D’Alessio, D’Alessio Law Group; Evelyn Ackah, Ackah Business Immigration Law; Elliott Anderson (ACTRA); Michael Perlmutter, President of CDN Guild of Music Supervisors; and script consultant Corey Mandell.
THE INDUSTRY LOUNGE
The Industry Lounge is the business and networking centre for industry professionals with free WiFi. It will be open on September 8 to 13, from 9:00am to 6:30pm, and is located in the Glenn Gould Studio Lobby at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, 250 Front St. West.
INDUSTRY HAPPY HOURS
Connect with filmmakers, producers, and potential business partners from around the globe. Industry Happy Hours are held in the Glenn Gould Studio Lobby at the Canadian Broadcasting Centre, 250 Front St. West, September 8–12 from 5:30pm to 6:30pm. The Industry Cocktail, on September 13 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm, will celebrate another year of ambitious industry events.
ADDITIONAL INDUSTRY PROGRAMMING AND INITIATIVES
CMPA Feature Film Producer’s Award recognizes the entrepreneurship, vision, and passion of Canadian independent producers. The event will take place on Thursday, September 7, 3:30pm–5:30pm.
Telefilm Canada Talent to Watch
Presented by Telefilm Canada, this series highlights the hottest homegrown directors who are the buzz of 2017. Topics include:
∙ In the Director’s Chair: Lady Boss
∙ Going International: What to Know Before You Go!
∙ Canada’s Class of 2017: Powered by Creativity
Additional companies presenting at the Conference include Amazon Video Direct, and Micro Sessions: Adobe Systems®, and Ontario College of Trades. Telefilm Canada’s
PITCH THIS!
Six filmmaking teams have six minutes to pitch their feature film idea to an international industry audience and jury. The winning team will take home $15,000 to help bring their film project to life.
∙ 12 Days – Tracey Deer, Jennifer Mesich
∙ Boring Girls – Coral Aiken, Hannah Cheesman
∙ Fall from the sky – Deragh Campbell, Dan Montgomery, Kaz Radwanski
∙ Imposter – Adam Goldhammer, Evan Landry, Katie McMillan
∙ Nadia, Butterfly – Dominique Dussault, Pascal Plante
∙ We Will Not Be Defeated – Andrew Nicholas McCann Smith, Dylan Reibling, Brian Robertson
BREAKFAST AT TIFF
TIFF will present curated networking opportunities via an expanded Breakfast at TIFF series, with events hosted by agencies from around the world, including Telefilm Canada, South Africa’s NFVF, German Films, New Zealand Film Commission, Finnish Films, Caribbean Tales and CinemaChile. Access will be determined by the focus of each event. Signups open late August.
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Mina Shum’s MEDITATION PARK Starring Sandra Oh to Open Vancouver International Film Festival
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Meditation Park[/caption]
Mina Shum’s Meditation Park will be showcased as the Opening Night Gala Film of the 2017 Vancouver International Film Festival. On the heels of her critically acclaimed 2015 documentary, Ninth Floor, Shum makes a triumphant return to narrative filmmaking with this bittersweet comedy about a devoted Chinese-Canadian wife and mother (Cheng Pei Pei) who is shaken out of her isolation and stupor by suspicions that her husband (Tzi Ma) has been untrue. Shum makes fantastic use of East Vancouver and Chinatown locations and draws fantastic performances from an all-star cast that also includes Sandra Oh and Don McKellar.
VIFF will present Movie Nights Across Canada as part of its opening night festivities on September 28, 2017.
The festival also revealed 18 additional Canadian feature films in the True North stream and Future//Present film series, which celebrate the extraordinary creativity and craft being demonstrated by Canadian storytellers from coast to coast.
Opening Gala
Meditation Park
DIR. MINA SHUM
Maria (Cheng Pei Pei) has spent decades of devoted marriage dutifully excusing the prejudices and vices of her husband (Tzi Ma). But when she discovers another woman’s thong in his pocket, she embarks on some unintentionally comic sleuthing which soon introduces her to new East Vancouver communities and ultimately sets her on the course to self-discovery. Mina Shum makes an inspired return to narrative feature filmmaking with this richly detailed, emotionally rewarding and unmistakably Vancouver story.
True North Stream
Indian Horse DIR. STEPHEN CAMPANELLI In this moving adaptation of Richard Wagamese’s novel, Stephen Campanelli condemns Canada’s most deplorable transgression while celebrating our national game’s transcendent power. Languishing in a residential school, Saul Indian Horse finds salvation on a sheet of ice. But while a preternatural hockey sense lets him slip bodychecks with a dancer’s grace, he can’t evade the ramifications of past abuses. Saul’s strength in this struggle is a testament to the Indigenous peoples’ indomitable spirit. Infiltration DIR. ROBERT MORIN This dark thriller brings us into the carefully constructed world of narcissistic plastic surgeon Dr. Louis Richard (Christian Bégin) as it comes crashing down around him. Director Robert Morin delivers a voyeuristic and claustrophobic experience. His camera parallels the control-freak doctor’s state of mind as his sense of authority over his wife, his son and his career slips away. A beautifully shot and lit travelogue of a journey into isolation and madness. Like a Pebble in the Boot DIR. HÉLÈNE CHOQUETTE Against the picturesque backdrop of Brunelleschi’s Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Senegalese migrants peddle Chinese trinkets and selfie sticks to tourists – but only if they’re lucky. People are often racist, street vending is illegal and many of the vendors are undocumented. It’s frustrating, and they’re barely scraping by, but their families in Africa depend on them. Filmmaker Hélène Choquette turns her empathetic eye on these harassed peddlers, resilient victims of global inequality. Rebels on Pointe DIR. BOBBI JO HART For over 40 years, the all-male drag troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been delighting audiences around the world. In size 11 toe shoes, the Trocs send up the high art and formality of classical ballet. Director Bobbi Jo Hart shares the rich archival history of this New York collective, born in the wake of the Stonewall Riots, and their progress from preposterous to phenomenal. Best of all, we get to know the international ballerinos while enjoying their satiric wit and outré virtuosity. A Skin So Soft DIR. DENIS CÔTÉ Iconoclastic director Denis Côté is at his playful best with this equally awe-inspiring and amusing profile of bronzed, inked and bulging-at-the-sinews bodybuilders. While there’s abundant absurd comedy courtesy of the surreal sight of these man-mountains negotiating suburban homes or labouring to meet their caloric needs, Côté’s inquisitive camera reverentially appraises the astonishing frames that their devotion has wrought, while also revealing glimpses of vulnerability lurking in these Goliaths’ eyes. Suck It Up DIR. JORDAN CANNING Determining that Ronnie (Grace Glowicki), her hot mess of a besty, is in desperate need of a change of scenery, obsessive-compulsive Faye (Erin Carter) whisks her away to placid Invermere. However, the best laid recovery program derails into debauchery as the two fall prey to ill-advised hookups and bowling under the influence. And that’s before the MDMA kicks in. Jordan Canning’s wickedly funny, BC-set buddy comedy shirks sentimentality in favour of a barbed sincerity that leaves a lasting mark. Tattoos DIR. PASCAL PLANTE Crossing post-gig paths with Mag (Rose-Marie Perreault), Théo (Anthony Therrien) is all scowling swagger until she calls him on the fake tattoo he’s brandishing. As he sheepishly drops his defences, Pascal Plante’s “punk rock romance” likewise abandons brashness in favour of character-centric drama reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. Demonstrating a remarkable gift for eliciting naturalistic performances, Plante traces the formative experiences that will shape Mag and Théo’s adult lives. Unarmed Verses DIR. CHARLES OFFICER At the cusp of adolescence and facing forced relocation, Francine has a lot on her mind. And while this Toronto ‘tween possesses a way with written words, she has yet to develop the necessary confidence to express herself in full voice. Charles Officer’s luminous, poignant documentary charts this marginalized yet magnetic young woman’s determination to make herself and her community heard. “Like [Jim Jarmusch’s] Paterson, Unarmed Verses is both about poetry and a work of poetry in itself.” – RogerEbert.com Worst Case, We Get Married DIR. LÉA POOL Léa Pool’s 13th film is not for the faint of heart. Working from a novel by Sophie Bienvenu, Pool tells the disturbing, poignant story of 14-year-old Aïcha (a luminous Sophie Nélisse), who spends most of the time roaming around her Montréal neighbourhood. She lives with her distracted mother Isabelle (Karine Vanasse) and the memory of her turfed stepfather. When she encounters Baz (Jean-Simon Leduc), a sympathetic twenty-something musician, she falls hard for him, and teenage fantasy rules. You’re Soaking in It DIR. SCOTT HARPER Advertising is no longer the arcane territory of a few well-lubricated characters. The creative leaps of Mad Men have been replaced by precise, targeted surveillance rooted in complicated computer modelling. The data collected is often very personal information, and it is used to design advertising that influences you at the precise moment you are most ready to spend. Scott Harper documents this chilling shift and introduces us to corporate execs who proudly let us know how much they know about us.Future//Present Series
Black Cop DIR. CORY BOWLES With tension growing and Black Lives Matter putting the heat on law enforcement, a black police officer is torn between his affinity for the badge and the colour of his skin. He decides to take matters into his own hands and changes the priority of his targets from black to white, embarking on a spree of vengeance. With its provocative use of dash-cam and chest-cam footage, Cory Bowles’ film is as stylistically bold as it is politically charged, standing pointedly between the satirical and the dead serious. Fail to Appear DIR. ANTOINE BOURGES Isolde is a caseworker adjusting to the challenges of her new job when she is assigned to a man charged with theft and facing an upcoming court hearing. She does her best to help, but when the two meet she struggles to connect. Antoine Bourges’ film is many things at once: a portrait of those who fall through the cracks and the few who try to help them, a studious analysis of the systems in place and how they operate, and a poignant reflection on the difficulty of human connection across social strata. Forest Movie DIR. MATTHEW TAYLOR BLAIS A young woman dreams of the forest. Upon waking she texts a friend, cancelling their plans. She packs up, compelled to head into the woods. The deeper she moves into the forest, the more it begins to take on a life of its own. What waits for her there? Hypnotic, deceptively simple, and graced with strikingly sensual cinematography, Matthew Taylor Blais’ Forest Movie is a liberating experience that plays like a call to embrace nature, slow down, pay attention and get in touch with your thoughts. In the Waves DIR. JACQUELYN MILLS In Jacquelyn Mills’ impressionistic documentary, her grandmother Joan Alma Mills is struggling to come to terms with the death of her younger sister and searching for answers in the natural beauty that surrounds her coastal village home. With a delicate attention to detail, spoken musings on mortality and meaning are intricately interwoven with elegiac imagery. This is a soulful rumination on the passage of time–its ebbs, flows and eternal mysteries. Maison du bonheur DIR. SOFIA BOHDANOWICZ 2016’s Emerging Canadian Director award-winner Sofia Bohdanowicz (Never Eat Alone) returns with the colourful documentary Maison du bonheur. When asked to make a film about her friend’s mother, a widowed Parisian astrologer named Juliane, the director sets off for Montmartre and produces a lovingly made portrait of an infectiously exuberant personality and the lovely pre-war apartment she’s called home for 50 years. Shooting gorgeously on 16mm, Bohdanowicz again transforms quotidian details into beauty. Mass for Shut-Ins DIR. WINSTON DEGIOBBI Amidst poverty in New Waterford, Cape Breton, 25-year old Kay Jay is sleeping on his grandfather’s couch. Without much of anything, the two sit around eating 5-cent candies, drinking pop and watching movies. This film looks squarely at a type of comatose living in which the aging residents are dwindling away and the futures of the young are dim at best. Director Winston DeGiobbi bends the mundane slightly towards the surreal, distilling the directionless daily existence of his characters into poetry. PROTOTYPE DIR. BLAKE WILLIAMS From experimental filmmaker Blake Williams comes this ambitious 3D sci-fi film, which reimagines the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and its aftermath with the presence of a mysterious, futuristic televisual device. Then the cultural centre of Texas, Galveston was devastated by the storm. PROTOTYPE moves from stereoscopic pictures of the city to an awesome visceral conjuring of the storm and then into further sense-engaging abstraction, interrogating notions of origin and historical memory. Still Night, Still Light DIR. SOPHIE GOYETTE An existential meditation on longing, loss and memory, Sophie Goyette’s lyrical drama seamlessly moves between three characters and three distinct locations. Haunted by the death of her parents, Eliane leaves her Montreal home to teach piano in Mexico City. Her student’s father Romes is coping with midlife disappointment. Lastly, Pablo’s father harbours memories of a lost love. Each character is processing their past and unsure about how to move into the future.
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Director Stephen Frears to Receive Award at Venice International Film Festival
Director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen, Dangerous Liaisons) will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival, dedicated to a personality who has made an original contribution to innovation in contemporary cinema.
Stephen Frears will be awarded the prize at a ceremony to be held on Sunday September 3rd, before the Out of Competition screening of his new film Victoria & Abdul, receiving its world premiere screening in Venice. The film is set in 1887, when Abdul travels from India to present a ceremonial medal as part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee but surprisingly finds favor with the elderly Queen. The unprecedented and unlikely relationship causes a battle royale within the royal household, pitting the Queen against court and family. Victoria & Abdul humorously explores questions of race, religion, power, and the farce of Empire through the prism of a highly unusual and deeply moving friendship.
The Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, made the following statement about the award: “Prolific and unpredictable, eclectic and provocative, Stephen Frears seems to challenge the very idea of a monolithic definition of his cinema. Along with Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, he is one of the most vibrant and representative exponents of contemporary British cinema. As opposed to many other directors, he is not afraid of seeming self-contradictory: he nonchalantly passes from the social realism of the 1980s to biographies, from comedies to historical dramas, alternating British and American movies, low-budget and high-budget productions, cinema and television, and each time he is at ease. This evident contrast might be the most interesting aspect of his work, along with his universally recognized qualities: an uncommon sensitivity in the way he directs his actors; the ability to get the most out of his relationship with famous authors (Alan Bennet, Christopher Hampton, Hanif Kureishi, Nick Hornby); his apparent modesty, which consists in subordinating style to the demands of the material. A great narrator of stories with recurring topics, such as his attention to oppressed and marginalized characters, in his best movies Frears has the rare gift of creating a portrait of British society: sharp, caustic, unconventional, and simultaneously disturbing and amusing.”
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World Premiere of COUSIN, COUSINE An Unreleased Short by French Filmmaker Jean Rouch Added to Venice Film Festival
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Jean Rouch[/caption]
For the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the great French director and ethnographer Jean Rouch, the Venice Film Festival adds to its line-up the world-premiere screening of Cousin, cousine (1985-1987, 31′, color), the only film that Rouch made in Venice, the very unusual and previously unreleased short film, with Damouré Zika and Mariama Hima (Venice Classics).
Cousin, cousine has been fully restored by the French CNC (Centre national du cinéma e de l’image animée) in collaboration with the Fondation Jean Rouch and the Association Centenaire Jean Rouch 2017.
Cousin, cousine is a “caprice” invented in Venice by Jean Rouch and by his two friends and performers, Nigerian actor Damouré Zika and Nigerian filmmaker Mariama Hima, who came to the Venice Film Festival in 1985 to present Mariama Hima’s film Baabu Banza in the “Venezia Genti” section, where it won an award. On that occasion, they decided to make a film fantasy built around a painting by Gentile Bellini and several locations and stories within the city. The plot has Mariama and Damouré, two cousins, meeting in Venice to look for a long-lost relic, like in one of Gentile Bellini’s most famous paintings. Mariama thus introduces Damouré to the city, taking him to a “squero”, a boatyard where he can study how gondolas are made (which is very different from building pirogues).
Cousin, cousine will screen at the 74th Venice Film Festival in the Venice Classics section, following the documentary L’Enigma di Jean Rouch a Torino – Cronaca di un film raté by Marco di Castri, Paolo Favaro and Daniele Pianciola.
Jean Rouch (1917-2004), a French ethnographer and director, made over 180 films (some unfinished), along with a great number of photographs, sound recordings and writings of various kinds. He founded important centres and institutions such as the Comité du film ethnographique and events such as the Cinéma du Réel festival. He taught, defended and promoted ethnographic and documentary filmmaking, and visual anthropology.
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‘The Silent Child’ ‘Restraint’ ‘Circle Up’ Among Winners of Rhode Island International Film Festival Awards
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The Silent Child, directed by Chris Overton won the the award for Best Live Action Short at 2017 Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival[/caption]
Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival (RIIFF) announced the Award Winners for its 35th Anniversary Celebration of Flickers, on Sunday, August 13th. The winners of RIIFF’s Live Action, Animation and Documentary Short Grand Prizes hold a special honor: they become the Festival’s nominees for Academy Award consideration.
“The Silent Child,” directed by Chris Overton from the United Kingdom (2017) won the the award for Best Live Action Short. “The Silent Child” follows the story of a profoundly deaf child, and the deaf-specialized social worker who struggles to help the family try to understand their child’s deafness.
“Coin Operated,” directed by Nicholas Arioli from the United States (2016) won the award for Best Animated Short. “Coin Operated” is an animation that spans 70 years in the life of one naive explorer, as he works to earn enough money to take a coin operated space ship to outer space.
And “Marian,” directed by Rick Rogers, a Rhode Island native and Rhode Island School of Design Graduate, won the award for Best Documentary Short. Filmed over eight years, “Marian” documents the final years of renowned actress Marian Seldes’ life and touches on the themes of identity, the worship of others and the deterioration of family.
In other awards, Douglas Trumbull, renowned visual effects artist for such films as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” (which is celebrating its 40th Anniversary in November), “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “Blade Runner” received this year’s Inaugural Gilbert Stuart Artistic Vision (Lifetime Achievement) Award. Johnny Wilson, visual effects artist for such films as “Ant Man,” “Doctor Strange,” and “Captain America: The First Avenger” was presented by Steven Feinberg with this year’s RI Film & Television Office Dream Maker Award.
The Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival returns August 7 to 12, 2018
2017 Rhode Island International Film Festival Awards
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
GRAND Prize: (RIIFF’s Official Academy Nomination) “The Silent Child” | Directed by: Chris Overton | UK, 2017 FIRST Prize: “Emma” | Directed by: Martin Edralin | Canada, 2016 Tied With: “Half A Man” | Directed by: Kristina Kumric| Croatia, 2016 BEST SHORT ANIMATION GRAND Prize: (RIIFF’s Official Academy Nomination) “Coin Operated” | Directed by: Nicholas Arioli | USA, 2017 FIRST Prize: “Poles Apart” | Directed by: Paloma Baeza | UK, 2017 Tied With: “The Full Story” Directed by: Daisy Jacobs | UK, 2017BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY
GRAND Prize: (RIIFF’s Official Academy Nomination) “MARIAN” | Directed by: Rick Rodgers | USA, 2016 FIRST Prize: “Hale” | Directed by: Bradford Bailey | USA, 2017 Tied With: “AJ” | Directed by: Philippine Merolle | USA, 2017BEST FEATURE
GRAND Prize: “Restraint” | Directed by: Adam Cushman | USA, 2017 FIRST Prize: “1:54” | Directed by: Yan England | Canada, 2016 Tied With: “La Soledad” | Directed by: Jorge Thielen Armand| Venezuela, Canada, Italy, 2016BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY
GRAND Prize: “Circle Up” | Directed by: Julie Mallozzi | USA, 2017 FIRST Prize: “A Whale of a Tale” | Directed by: Megumi Sasaki | Japan, USA 2016 Tied With: “Anatomy of a Male Ballet Dancer” | Directed by: James Pellerito and David Barba| USA, 2017 FILMMAKER OF THE FUTURE AWARD Presented to a filmmaker whose vision excites audiences and judges alike about the potential to produce compelling and successful films in the future. Ian Bibby, “Mainland” USA, 2017 BEST ACTOR: Mohamed Seddiki, “The Geneva Convention” | France, 2016 JUDGE’S COMMENT: “Mohamed elegantly showcased that making the right decision is easier than it seems.” BEST ACTRESS: Maisie Sly, “The Silent Child” | UK, 2017 JUDGE’S COMMENT: “Maisie Sly is a defining example of how being different makes you special and that true talent and passion comes in all shapes and sizes.”BEST COMEDY SHORT
GRAND Prize: “The Eleven O’Clock” | Directed By: Derin Seale, Written by: Josh Lawson | Australia 2016 FIRST Prize: “All Exchanges Final” | Written & Directed by: Annabel Oakes | USA, 2016 Tied With: “Perfect Roast Potatoes” | Written and Directed by: Nick Frew | USA, 2017BEST EXPERIMENTAL
GRAND Prize: “The Avant-Gardener” | Directed by: Lindsay Katt and Heather Matarazzo | USA 2017 FIRST Prize: “The Ogre” | Directed by: Laurene Braibant | France 2017BEST DIRECTOR
GRAND Prize: John Sheedy, “Mrs McCutcheon” | Australia 2017 FIRST Prize: Genevieve Clay-Smith, “Kill Off” | Australia 2017 DR. J. GERALD LAMOUREUX AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE Presented to a filmmaker and artist who represents the spirit of cultural exchange between the United States and Canada. Sandrine Brodeur-Desrosiers, “Cast Off” | Canada 2016 DIRECTORIAL DISCOVERY AWARD GRAND Prize: “Finding Fronsdal” | Directed by: Kevin Morra | USA, 2017BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
GRAND Prize: “Our Wildest Dreams” | Directed by: Marie Elisa Scheidt, Cinematography by: Julian Krubasik | Germany 2017 FIRST Prize “Faith” | Directed by: Tatiana Fedorovskaya, Cinematography by: Vladimir Egorov | Russia 2017RIIFF NEW ENGLAND DIRECTOR’S AWARD
GRAND Prize: Karen Allen, “A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud.” | USA 2016 RIIFF DIRECTOR’S CHOICE AWARD “The Gamble House” | Directed by: Don Hahn | USA, 2017HEARTS, MINDS, SOULS AWARD
Celebrating Films that Reflect the Jewish Experience. GRAND Prize: “Memory Songs” | Directed by: Lucy Kaye | UK 2016 FIRST Prize: “The Twinning Reaction” | Directed by: Lori Shinseki | USA 2017 Tied with: “Mustard Seed” | Directed by: Lina Roessler | Canada, Germany 2016BEST EDITING
GRAND Prize: “Revolving Doors” | Directed by: James Burns; Edited by: Stacy Kim & Jeb Banegas | USA 2017 FIRST Prize: “The Sugaring Off” | Directed by: Alexandre Isabelle; Edited by: Élisabeth Olga Tremblay | Canada 2016 Tied With: “The Catch” | Directed by: Holly Brace-Lavoie; Edited by: Sophie Benoit Sylvestre | Canada 2017BEST SCREENPLAY
GRAND Prize: “The Secret Market” | Directed by: Garret Daly; Written by: Conor Ryan | Ireland 2017 FIRST Prize: “Ostoja Will Move Your Piano” | Written and Directed by Sandra Mitrovic | Serbia/ Montenegro, 2017 FLICKERS’ AMBASSADOR AWARD Presented to an individual who inspires and empowers communication and cultural understanding. Patricia Chica, “Morning After” | Canada, 2017FLICKERS’ INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AWARD
Given annually to films or filmmakers who inspire social change and community outreach and strive to better the world in which we live. GRAND Prize: “Man in Red Bandana” | Directed by: Matthew Weiss | USA 2017 FIRST Prize: “Refugee” | Directed by: Joyce Chen and Emilie Moore | USA 2016 PROVIDENCE FILM FESTIVAL AWARD Presented annually to a New England director whose work brings cinematic excellence to an international audience. GRAND Prize: Laura Colella | “The Flying Electric” | USA 2017ALTERNATIVE SPIRIT AWARD (LGBTQ) SHORT
GRAND Prize: “Cocoon” | Directed by: Liying Mei | China, 2016 FIRST Prize: “Iris” | Directed by: Gabrielle Demers | Canada, 2017 Tied with: “Something New” | Directed by: TJ Marchbank | USA 2017ALTERNATIVE SPIRIT AWARD (FEATURE)
GRAND Prize: “Prom King, 2010” | Directed by: Christopher Schaap | USA, 2017 FIRST Prize: “Something Like Summer” | Directed by: David Berry | USA, 2017 Tied with: “High Low Forty” | Directed by: Paddy Quinn | USA, 2017ALTERNATIVE SPIRIT AWARD (DOCUMENTARY)
GRAND Prize: “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” | Directed by: Lisa Rideout | Canada, 2017 FIRST Prize: “John Hemmer & the Show Girls” | Directed by: Kirsten Larvick | USA, 2017KIDSEYE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS
Presented to a film that resonates with the filmmaker within both children and adults alike.BEST CHILDREN’S ANIMATION
GRAND Prize: Rouff | Directed by: Markus Eschrich, Benjamin Brand, Johannes Lumer, Julius Rosen, Markus Eschrich | Germany, 2017 FIRST Prize: “Way of Giants” | Directed by: Alois Di Leo | Brazil, 2016 Tied with: “We’re Going on Bear Hunt” | Directed by: Joanna Harrison, Robin Shaw | UK, 2016LIVE ACTION
GRAND Prize: “TRiGGA” | Directed by: Meloni Poole | UK, 2017 FIRST Prize: “Einstein-Rosen” | Directed by: Olga Osorio | Spain, 2016GREEN PLANET AWARD
Celebrating the vision of man’s shared humanity and achieving sustainability on our planet. GRAND Prize: “Run While You Can” | Directed by: Marion Mauran | USA, 2017VORTEX SCI-FI & FANTASY AWARD
GRAND Prize: “Girl of My Dreams” | Directed by: Johnny Wilson | USA, 2016 FIRST Prize: “Belle à croquer” | Directed by: Axel Courtière | France, 2017BEST STUDENT FILM AWARD
COLLEGE
GRAND Prize: “SHARK” | Directed by: J. Sivert Lendorph Christensen | UK, 2017 FIRST Prize: “THE GREEN” | Directed by: Sophia Loffreda | USA, Canada, 2017HIGH SCHOOL
GRAND Prize: “N.O.VI.S” | Directed by: Arthur Rodger “Harley” Maranan | Philippines, 2017 First Prize: “Buoyancy” | Directed by: Tori Taylor | USA, 2017 BEST INTERACTIVE MEDIA “-KLAUS-” | Created by: Victor Velasco | USA, 2017 BEST INTERNET SERIES “Gunner Jackson” | Directed by: Christian Strevy | USA, 2016FLICKERS’ YOUTH FILM JURY AWARDS
BEST NARRATIVE SHORT GRAND Prize: “Oh What a Wonderful Feeling” | Directed by: Francois Jaros | Canada, 2016 FIRST Prize: “New Neighbors” | Directed by: E.G. Bailey | USA, 2016 Tied With: “Life Boat” | Directed by: Lorraine Nicholson | USA, 2016 BEST ANIMATION “Totem” | Directed by: Alex Cannon | USA, 2017 BEST FEATURE FILM DOC “Stumped” | Directed by: Robin Berghaus | USA, 2017 BEST FEATURE FILM NARRATIVE “American Folk” | Directed by: David Heinz | USA, 2017 BEST DOCUMENTARY: “Edith+Eddie” | Directed by Laura Checkoway | USA 2017 BEST LGBTQ FILM: “Cocoon” | Directed by: Liying Mei | China, 2017THE 2017 FLICKERS’ SPECIAL AWARDS:
GILBERT STUART ARTISTIC VISION (LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT) AWARD Douglas Trumbull, Visual Effects/Director RI FILM & TELEVISION OFFICE DREAMMAKER AWARD Johnny Wilson, Visual Effects/Director RIIFF SCREENPLAY COMPETITION AWARD Tannaz Hazemi, “Dean the Drummer” | New York THE 2017 FLICKERS’ PRODUCER’S CIRCLE AWARD Presented to members of the community who have actively worked to support and promote the mission of Flickers. This year’s winners include: Anthony Ambrosino, Director The Champlin Foundation Deborah Newhall, Costume Designer Angela Ryding, Actress Andy Smith, Arts Writer Andre Stark, Producer WSBE, RI PBS
Oh Lucy! starring Josh Hartnett[/caption]
The 25th