THE TREE INSIDE by Vancouver, B.C.-based filmmakers, Michelle Kim and Rob Leickner (pictured above) is the winner of the Audience Award for “Favorite Narrative Feature” and MAKE MINE COUNTRY by Portland filmmaker, Ian Berry is the winner of the Audience Award for “Favorite Documentary Feature” at the 42nd Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival, which ran from November 12-18, 2015.
Jerzy Sladkowski’s Don Juan won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary and Ukrainian Sheriffs by Roman Bondarchuk won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at the 28th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA award ceremony.
The prize for the best Dutch documentary went to Ester Gould for A Strange Love Affair with Ego. The festival’s opening film A Family Affair by Tom Fassaert was awarded the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary.
A total of 16 prizes were awarded and three of the winners: Ukrainian Sheriffs, Roundabout in My Head and Sonita were made with financial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund.
Jerzy Sladkowski won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary for Don Juan (Sweden/Finland). The film is a portrait of 22-year old Oleg, and his mother Marina’s attempts to cure him of his lethargy.
From the jury’s report: “This tender, bittersweet tragicomedy about role-playing within both therapeutic theatre games and family dramas, and the interplay between them, is both subtle and aggressive, speaking volumes about the definitions of normality, abnormality and the dynamics of power and love.”
Furthermore, the jury awarded the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary to Ukrainian Sheriffs (Ukraine/Latvia/Germany) by Roman Bondarchuk. The documentary, which was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund and was a 2014 IDFAcademy Summer School project, is a tragicomic portrait of two sheriffs in a remote Ukrainian village where, alongside all manner of commonplace situations, political developments also threaten to disturb the peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29qoEzqw5Mk
The IDFA Award for First Appearance was awarded to Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze and David Meskhi for When the Earth Seems to Be Light (Georgia/Germany).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSQix_-g0fI
The Special Jury Award for First Appearance – in memory of Peter Wintonick – went to Hassen Ferhani’s Roundabout in My Head (Algeria/France/Lebanon/Qatar).
Roundabout in My Head was financially supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund.
Andreas Koefoed won the IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary for At Home in the World (Denmark).
Samir Mehanovic won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary for The Fog of Srebrenica (Scotland/Bosnia and Herzegovina).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCHdvD7zD4A
The IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling was presented to Jan Rothuizen and Sara Kolster for Drawing Room (the Netherlands).
Ant Hampton received the IDFA DocLab Immersive Non-Fiction Award for Someone Else (Belgium).
The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary was awarded to A Strange Love Affair with Ego made by Ester Gould.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDeqrlVLLrE
Tom Fassaert received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary for A Family Affair.
The ARRI IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary went to My Aleppo (USA) by Melissa Langer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4lXDzur4Ts
The Mute’s House (Israel) by Tamar Kay won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Student Documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01CtMn48dgE
This year, the IDFA Award for Best Children’s Documentary was awarded for the first time and went to Ninnoc by Niki Padidar (the Netherlands).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hn3GFvFWsM
The jury decided to also award an honorable mention to Victor Kossakovsky’s Varicella (Norway/Denmark/Sweden/Russia).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeKWKC2w5o
IDFA DOC U Award for the youth jury’s favorite film was awarded to Sonita by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (Iran). Sonita was made thanks to a financial contribution from the IDFA Bertha Fund.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B47MbpPuz7A
The Oxfam Global Justice Award went to Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina for Walls (Spain).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_kUNh9TpI
Finally, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists’ EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary was awarded to Motley’s Law by Nicole Nielsen Horanyi (Denmark). Motley’s Law was an IDFA Forum project in 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_hfsq5gL-o
IDFA continues until Sunday November 29, 2015, when the winners of the BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award and the IDFA Music Audience Award, for the music documentary will be announced.
Spotlight director Tom McCarthy (seated, far right) will be presented with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the annual Awards Gala of the upcoming 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). The 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival runs January 1 to 11, 2016.
“Tom McCarthy’s latest feature is the critically acclaimed Spotlight, a remarkable film that creates cinematic tension between two institutions, as The Boston Globe investigates the Catholic Church,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For his expert storytelling of this subject matter, The Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present Tom McCarthy with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.”
Spotlight is a film about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team of investigative journalists, who in 2002 shocked the city and the world by exposing the Catholic Church’s systematic cover-up of widespread pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 local priests. Presented by Open Road Films, Spotlight was co-written by McCarthy and Josh Singer, produced by Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon, and stars Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James and Billy Crudup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgnrwwiIDlI
McCarthy’s list of filmmaking credits include The Station Agent, (which won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay and two Independent Spirit Awards) Win Win, The Visitor, The Cobbler, and Up (which earned him an Oscar® nomination for Best Original Screenplay).
Past recipients of the Sonny Bono Visionary Award include filmmakers Tom Hooper, Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater and Michel Hazanavicius.
The 2015 African Diaspora International Film Festival taking place from November 27 through December 13, in Manhattan, will showcase a selection of films coming from the Caribbean and about Caribbean people out of the Caribbean.
The Black British Film Program is comprised of a selection of four films about the presence of Black people in the UK with a very strong Caribbean flavor in front and behind the camera.
Let The Music Talk by Yvonne Deutchmann is a 1981 musical documentary never screened in the USA before. It tells the story of black music in Britain, from the calypso of Lord Kitchener arriving on the SS Windrush in 1948, gospel choirs, griots from Grenada, steel pans in schools and at the Notting Hill Carnival, jazz, Afro-rock, soul-funk with the Real Thing, reggae with Misty in Roots and Eddy Grant.
The Story of Lovers Rock by Menelik Shabazz – a favorite of ADIFF – tells the story of Lovers Rock as a musical genre and gives a voice to the Caribbean descendant people who created that music and culture in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJof_zx2Uk
Honeytrap by Rebecca Johnson plays out as a tragedy. It tells a story of fifteen-year-old Layla (Jessica Sula – Skins), a beautiful and naive Trinidadian girl who, freshly arrived from her native land, quickly embarks on a journey of love, sex, hip hop and violence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTyYCB_OyL0
“Second Coming” by Debbie Tucker Green is an emotional and intimate drama about a woman in a London family who faces a dilemma with her husband (Idris Elba) and the tensions and communication issues associated with her situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LdB5mYbGz8
Other films in the festival have a Caribbean flavor including NY Premiere and festival Centerpiece “Cu-Bop: Cuba – New York Music Documentary” by Japanese filmmaker Shinishi Takahashi. Separated by an ocean, two Cuban jazz musicians continue to perform in spite of the difficulties they face. César López is recognized as Cuba’s premier saxophonist, having founded his landmark jazz band, the Havana Ensemble, in his native country. The gifted young pianist Axel Tosca lives in New York City, the leader of (U)NITY, a band which fuses Afro-Cuban culture with modern jazz and hip-hop. With this documentary for all music lovers, first-time filmmaker Shinichi Takahashi explores the African roots of Cuban jazz and documents what happens when expats return to the source of their inspiration. The screening will be followed by a concert with Axel Tosca and his band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVOO4ag_4EU
Shot in Haiti and Bangladesh, “A Journey of a Thousand Miles” tells us a story of two countries that are embarked in a mutual discovery of sorts. A contingent of Muslim, Bangladeshi policewomen is deployed in Haiti to serve as UN Peacekeepers to maintain peace after the 2010 earthquake. We then learn, as the camera follows three of these Muslims women, about life in Haiti and Bangladesh and the challenges faced by the population in both countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAR3SXSme6c
“Black / Nwa,” a “Hood” film set in Montreal, Canada that chronicles the lives of four people – including several youths of Haitian descent – living in a neighborhood plagued by poverty and violence, aspiring to freedom and happiness.
“Sand Dollars” (pictured in main image above) by Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas is a film from the Dominican Republic submitted to the Oscar competition in the foreign film category. “Sand Dollars” is the story of Noeli (Yanet Mojica) whose love affair with Anne (Geraldine Chaplin) a woman double her age, is a rare subject in films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HeEPnn7ioE
Mustang directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven has been voted winner of the Audience Award at the 2015 Stockholm International Film Festival. Mustang was also awarded with an Aluminium Horse for Best Script, written by Alice Winocour, director of Maryland, and Deniz Gamze Ergüven.
Early summer in a village in Northern Turkey. Five free-spirited teenaged sisters splash about on the beach with their male classmates. Though their games are merely innocent fun, a neighbor passes by and reports what she considers to be illicit behavior to the girls’ family. The family overreacts, removing all “instruments of corruption,” like cell phones and computers, and essentially imprisoning the girls, subjecting them to endless lessons in housework in preparation for them to become brides. As the eldest sisters are married off, the younger ones bond together to avoid the same fate. The fierce love between them empowers them to rebel and chase a future where they can determine their own lives in Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s debut, a powerful portrait of female empowerment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5nyY8E6CPg
Following films received the most votes:
1. Mustang
2. Wolfpack
3. Suffragette
4. Carol
5. Angry Indian Goddesses
6. Virgin Mountain
7. Mediterranea
8. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
9. Taxi Teheran
10. Louder than bombs
The 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Brie Larson with the Breakthrough Performance Award at its Awards Gala. The Festival runs January 1 to 11, 2016.
“Brie Larson breathes vibrant life into the character of Ma from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel Room. Larson delivers a performance of great warmth, deep reserves of courage and strong empathy as a committed parent determined to make sure her son is taken care of under unimaginable circmstances,” said Film Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For this stand-out performance, it is an honor to present her with the 2016 Breakthrough Performance Award.”
Both highly suspenseful and deeply emotional, Room is a unique and touching exploration of the boundless love between a mother and her child. After 5-year-old Jack and his Ma escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery: the outside world. As he experiences all the joy, excitement, and fear that this new adventure brings, he holds tight to the one thing that matters most of all—his special bond with his loving and devoted Ma. Based on the award-winning bestseller by Emma Donoghue, the film is directed by Lenny Abrahamson and stars Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen and William H. Macy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6fZ-fwDws
Past recipients of the Breakthrough Performance Award include Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Hudson, Felicity Huffman, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike and Jeremy Renner. In the years they were honored, Cotillard, Hudson and Nyong’o went on to receive Academy Awards®, while Huffman, Pike and Renner received nominations.
The dark Hungarian black comedy Liza, the Fox-Fairy is the winner of the 2015 Leeds International Film Festival Audience Award for New Narrative Feature, and Landfill Harmonic directed Graham Townsley, Brad Allgood is the winner of the Audience Award for New Documentary Feature.
Liza, the Fox-Fairy is about a 30 year old nurse whose only friend is Tomy Tani, the ghost of a Japanese pop singer from the 1950s that only she can see, and who comes to believe she may be a Fox-Fairy from Japanese mythology. LIFF29’s audience have described the film as ‘exceptionally funny, sweet and charming’ and a ‘beautiful, hilarious, touching love story’ with a brilliant Japanese pop soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWxLLyr9aOU
New Narrative Feature
1. Liza, the Fox-Fairy
2. In The Crosswind
3. Assassination Classroom
4. Brooklyn
5. Embrace of the Serpent
6. Victoria
7. Green Room
8. Crow’s Egg
9. Taxi Tehran
10. Carol
Landfill Harmonic is described as a testament to the transformative power of music and the resilience of the human spirit. In Paraguay there is a children’s orchestra living next to one of South America’s largest landfills. A music teacher and a rubbish picker scavenge materials from the dump to make instruments for the local children; flutes from pipes, guitars from packing crates and violins from oil drums. When their story goes viral the ensemble are propelled into the global spotlight, touring with some of their favourite heavy metal bands. However, when a natural disaster devastates their community, the orchestra provides an instinctive source of hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCjbd21fYV8
New Documentary Feature
1. Landfill Harmonic
2. The Wanted 18
3. Warriors
4. Do You Own the Dancefloor?
5. Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster
The 2015 Zagreb Film Festival Golden Pram Award went to the Hungarian film Son of Saul by Lászlo Nemes. Son Of Saul, the winner of Grand Prix at the Cannes, Film Festival is the directorial debut of Lászlo Nemes. October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of Sonderkommando – the Jewish prisoners’ unit isolated from the rest of the camp. They are in charge of taking other prisoners to gas chambers and burning corpses. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul finds the body of a boy and is convinced it is his son. Shaking off his lethargy, he decides to secretly arrange a real Jewish funeral for the boy. While other members of Sonderkommando are planning to rebel and escape, Saul takes upon himself the impossible mission of saving the boy’s body from the flames. To this end, he makes his way through the concentration camp in search of a rabi who would perform the ritual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwC9DsWyxQc
The Golden Pram for Best Short Film went to the French film A Few Seconds by Nora El Hourch, and the Best Checkers Film is The Beast by Daina O. Pusić.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0k3EJYdF6U
Special mentions were awarded in each of the categories, as well. The Best PLUS Film is the Dutch entry Prince, directed by Sam de Jong, and the HT Audience Award went to the French film The New Kid by Rudi Rosenberg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgXbuIcGInA
Special mentions in the feature competition went to the Danish film A War (Krigen), directed by Tobias Lindholm and the Australian film Tanna, directed by Bentley Dean and Martin Butler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRkE5ZrPzs0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMmpaj3K7dY
The 2016 Sundance Film Festival announced the nine feature films that will screen in its Midnight section, which has launched films including The Blair Witch Project, SAW, Super Troopers, The Babadook, Black Dynamite, What We Do In The Shadows, Dead/Alive, Delicatessen, The Descent and Hard Candy. The 2016 Sundance Film Festival takes place January 21 to 31, 2016, in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah.
MIDNIGHT
From horror flicks to comedies to works that defy any genre, these unruly films will keep you on the edge of your seat and wide awake.
31 / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Rob Zombie) — Five friends are kidnapped on the day before Halloween and are held hostage in a terrifying place named Murder World. While trapped, they must play a violent game called 31, in which the mission is to survive 12 hours against a gang of evil clowns. Cast: Sheri Moon Zombie, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Brake, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Meg Foster. World Premiere
Antibirth / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Danny Perez) — In a desolate community full of drug-addled marines and rumors of kidnapping, a wild-eyed stoner named Lou wakes up after a crazy night of partying with symptoms of a strange illness and recurring visions. As she struggles to get a grip on reality, the stories of conspiracy spread. Cast: Natasha Lyonne, Chloë Sevigny, Mark Webber, Meg Tilly, Maxwell McCabe-Lokos. World Premiere
The Blackout Experiments / U.S.A. (Director: Rich Fox) — A group of friends discover the dark underworld of the ultra-scary, psychosexual horror experience called Blackout. But what starts as a thrill ride through the unknown becomes deeply personal, developing into an obsession that hijacks their lives and blurs the line between reality and paranoid fantasy. World Premiere
Carnage Park / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Mickey Keating) — The year is 1978. A team of wannabe crooks botch a small-town bank heist and flee with their hostage deep into the California desert, where they inexplicably find themselves in a harrowing fight for survival against a psychotic ex-military sniper. Cast: Ashley Bell, Pat Healy, Alan Ruck, Darby Stanchfield, James Landry Hébert, Larry Fessenden. World Premiere
The Greasy Strangler / U.S.A. (Director: Jim Hosking, Screenwriters: Jim Hosking, Toby Harvard) — When Big Ronnie and his son Brayden meet lone female tourist Janet on Big Ronnie’s Disco Walking Tour—the best and only disco walking tour in the city—a fight for Janet’s heart erupts between father and son, and the infamous Greasy Strangler is unleashed. Cast: Michael St. Michaels, Sky Elobar, Elizabeth De Razzo, Gil Gex, Jesse Keen, Joe David Walters. World Premiere
Outlaws and Angels / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: JT Mollner) — With a notorious bounty hunter closing in on their trail, a gang of cold-blooded outlaws invades the home of a seemingly innocent frontier family, where an unexpected game of cat and mouse ensues throughout the night, leading to seduction, role reversal, and ultimately bloody revenge. Cast: Chad Michael Murray, Francesca Eastwood, Luke Wilson, Teri Polo, Madisen Beaty, Nathan Russell. World Premiere
Trash Fire / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Richard Bates Jr.) — When Owen is forced to confront the past he’s been running from his whole adult life, he and his girlfriend, Isabel, become entangled in a horrifying web of lies, deceit, and murder. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll be scarred for life. Cast: Adrian Grenier, Angela Trimbur, AnnaLynne McCord, Fionnula Flanagan, Matthew Gray Gubler, Ray Santiago. World Premiere
Under the Shadow / United Kingdom, Jordan (Director and screenwriter: Babak Anvari) — Tehran, 1988: As the Iran-Iraq War rumbles into its eighth year, a mother and daughter are slowly torn apart by the bombing campaigns on the city coupled with the country’s bloody revolution. As they struggle to stay together amidst these terrors, a mysterious evil stalks through their apartment. Cast: Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi, Bobby Naderi, Ray Haratian, Arash Marandi. World Premiere
Yoga Hosers / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Kevin Smith) — Colleen Collette and Colleen McKenzie are teenage besties from Winnipeg who love yoga and live on their smartphones. But when these sophomores get invited to a senior party by the school hottie, the Colleens accidentally uncover an ancient evil buried beneath their Canadian convenience store. Cast: Lily-Rose Depp, Harley Quinn Smith, Johnny Depp, Justin Long, Austin Butler, Tyler Posey. World Premiere (pictured above)
The 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Johnny Depp with the Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actor at its annual Awards Gala for his performance in Black Mass. The Festival runs January 1-11, 2016.
“Johnny Depp is one of the most versatile and dynamic actors of our time,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “In his latest film, Black Mass, Depp, in a stunning transformation, creates a gripping and multi-layered portrait of infamous gangster James ‘Whitey’ Bulger. He delivers an astounding performance that has earned raves from both critics and audiences and is sure to garner awards attention. It is our honor to present the 2016 Desert Palm Achievement Award, Actor, to Johnny Depp.”
Depp can currently by seen in “Black Mass,” which tells of the unholy alliance between ruthless mobster James “Whitey” Bulger (Depp) and childhood friend-turned-FBI agent, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton). The bond, forged growing up on the streets of South Boston, would test the limits of loyalty in a town that answers to its own, unwritten code. Blinded by ambition, Connolly convinces Bulger to inform on their common enemy, the Italian Mafia. The deal allows Bulger to expand his criminal empire with complete impunity, threatening to destroy both men, their families, and the very city that made them. Based on true events, the film is directed by Scott Cooper and features an ensemble cast, also including Benedict Cumberbatch, Rory Cochrane, Jesse Plemons, Dakota Johnson, Julianne Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, W. Earl Brown, David Harbour, Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Scott and Juno Temple. The screenplay is by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neil. Produced by John Lesher, Brian Oliver, Scott Cooper, Patrick McCormick and Tyler Thompson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE3e3hGF2jc
Past actor recipients of the Desert Palm Achievement Award include Jeff Bridges, Bradley Cooper, Daniel Day-Lewis, Colin Firth, Matthew McConaughey, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt and Eddie Redmayne. In the years they were honored, Bridges, Day-Lewis, McConaughey, Penn and Redmayne went on to win the Academy Award® for Best Actor, while Cooper, Firth and Pitt received Oscar® nominations.
The 2015 IDFA International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam officially opened with the screening of A Family Affair directed by Tom Fassaert (pictured above) and presented awards to filmmakers Thomas Vroege and Tom Fassaert.
