BOOM FOR REAL The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, director Sara Driver’s love letter to New York City’s past through the eyes of people who knew the renowned artist has been acquired by Magnolia for a 2018 theatrical release. The film, which world-premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim, will next screen at the 55th New York Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. .
BOOM FOR REAL The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, follows Basquiat’s life pre-fame and how New York City, the times, the people and the movements surrounding him formed the artist he became. Using never before seen works, writings and photographs, Driver worked closely and collaboratively with her friends and other artists who emerged from that scene: Nan Goldin, Jim Jarmusch, James Nares, Fred Brathwaite aka Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Luc Sante and many others. Providing their thoughts, period film footage, music, images, and anecdotes of their young friend, they helped visually tell the story of Basquiat’s downtown NYC – pre Aids, President Reagan, the real estate and art boom, and before anyone was motivated by money and ambition. The definition of fame, success and power were very different than today – to be a penniless but published poet was the height of success, until everything changed in the early 1980’s. This is New York City’s story before that change.
“I have always admired Magnolia’s film selections and their attention to their releases over the years,” said Driver. “And now, I am honored and delighted to have our film with such a caring and wonderful company of true cinephiles.”Documentary
-
Magnolia to Release BOOM FOR REAL THE LATE TEENAGE YEARS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
BOOM FOR REAL The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, director Sara Driver’s love letter to New York City’s past through the eyes of people who knew the renowned artist has been acquired by Magnolia for a 2018 theatrical release. The film, which world-premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival to critical acclaim, will next screen at the 55th New York Film Festival, presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. .
BOOM FOR REAL The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat, follows Basquiat’s life pre-fame and how New York City, the times, the people and the movements surrounding him formed the artist he became. Using never before seen works, writings and photographs, Driver worked closely and collaboratively with her friends and other artists who emerged from that scene: Nan Goldin, Jim Jarmusch, James Nares, Fred Brathwaite aka Fab Five Freddy, Lee Quiñones, Luc Sante and many others. Providing their thoughts, period film footage, music, images, and anecdotes of their young friend, they helped visually tell the story of Basquiat’s downtown NYC – pre Aids, President Reagan, the real estate and art boom, and before anyone was motivated by money and ambition. The definition of fame, success and power were very different than today – to be a penniless but published poet was the height of success, until everything changed in the early 1980’s. This is New York City’s story before that change.
“I have always admired Magnolia’s film selections and their attention to their releases over the years,” said Driver. “And now, I am honored and delighted to have our film with such a caring and wonderful company of true cinephiles.”
-
MANKILLER will Open and CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY will Close 2017 Rome International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_24880" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
Mankiller[/caption]
Two documentaries, Mankiller directed by Valerie Red-Horse Mohl, and Charged: The Eduardo Garcia Story will bookend the 2017 Rome International Film Festival (RIFF) taking place November 9 to 12, 2017.
To kick-off the fest, RIFF will showcase feature length documentary MANKILLER as the Opening Night Presentation on Thursday, November 9, 2017 at Rome’s historic DeSoto Theatre. From Director/Producer Valerie Red-Horse Mohl (NATURALLY NATIVE) and Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd (THE TERMINATOR, “The Walking Dead”), MANKILLER explores the legacy of the Cherokee Nation’s first woman Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller.
On Sunday, November 12, 2017 , RIFF will conclude its 2017 festivities with CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY. Directed by Phillip Baribeau, CHARGED examines the life and recovery of chef Eduardo Garcia after he was shocked with 2400 volts of electricity while hiking in Montana. CHARGED had its World Premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and has since won several awards, including an Audience Award at the Sidewalk Film Festival.
MANKILLER
DIRECTED BY VALERIE RED-HORSE MOHL
USA, 2017, ENGLISH, 74 MINUTES
In 1985, after serving as Deputy Chief under a conservative leader, Wilma Mankiller took office as the Cherokee Nation’s first woman Principal Chief. Having relocated from Oklahoma to San Francisco earlier in her life, Mankiller worked with both the nascent Black Panther and the Alcatraz occupation movements, eventually bringing the passion and experience she gained there back to her people. During her decade-long tenure as Principal Chief and beyond, Mankiller’s leadership enabled the Cherokee Nation to become one of the most economically and culturally successful tribes in America. Through rare archival footage and intimate interviews with activists including Gloria Steinem, as well as with Wilma herself, MANKILLER gives us insight into how this remarkable woman successfully navigated through the minefield of bipartisan politics. Veteran filmmaker Valerie Red-Horse Mohl and Executive Producer Gale Anne Hurd present a portrait of a composed and assured leader who persevered through sexism and devastating personal setbacks to become one of the greatest leaders in American history.
CHARGED: THE EDUARDO GARCIA STORY
DIRECTED BY PHILLIP BARIBEAU
USA, 2017, ENGLISH, 86 MINUTES
A successful chef and adventurer, Eduardo Garcia’s life was forever changed after he was shocked with 2400 volts of electricity in a backcountry freak accident while hiking in Montana. Garcia lost his left hand, ribs, muscle mass and nearly his life, but more important than what he lost was what he found. Through the caregiving and patience of his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Jane, he was nursed back to health and learned to embrace his past, his family, and his future. A love story unlike any other, CHARGED is about both a physical recovery and a life newly and fully realized.
-
VIDEO: Watch Bill Nye on a Mission in BILL NYE: SCIENCE GUY Official Trailer
Here is the trailer for Bill Nye The Science Guy, which premiered at the 2017 SXSW in March. The film will open theatrically on the Friday October 27, 2017 in New York City exclusively at Landmark Sunshine, and then expand to other markets nationwide.
Bill Nye is a man on a mission: to stop the spread of anti-scientific thinking across the world.
The former star of the popular kids show “Bill Nye The Science Guy” is now the CEO of The Planetary Society, an organization founded by Bill’s mentor Carl Sagan, where he’s launching a solar propelled spacecraft into the cosmos and advocating for the importance of science, research, and discovery in public life. With intimate and exclusive access– as well as plenty of wonder and whimsy– this behind-the-scenes portrait of Nye follows him as he takes off his Science Guy lab coat and takes on those who deny climate change, evolution, and a science-based world view. The film features Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ann Druyan, and many others.
-
A GRAY STATE, Documentary on Mysterious Deaths of Filmmaker David Crowley and His Family, Gets US Release
A Gray State, the A&E IndieFilms acclaimed documentary feature from Erik Nelson and executive produced by Werner Herzog, has been acquired by First Run Features. The film, which had its world premiere at this past Tribeca Film Festival to critical praise, will receive a US theatrical release this November along with an awards push. Following the theatrical run “A Gray State” will make its television debut on A&E.
In 2010 David Crowley, an Iraq veteran, aspiring filmmaker and charismatic up-and-coming voice in fringe politics, began production on his film “Gray State.” Set in a dystopian near-future where civil liberties are trampled by an unrestrained federal government, the film’s crowd funded trailer was enthusiastically received by the burgeoning online community of libertarians, Tea Party activists as well as members of the nascent alt-right.
In January of 2015, Crowley was found dead with his family in their suburban Minnesota home. Their shocking deaths quickly become a cause célèbre for conspiracy theorists who speculate that Crowley was assassinated by a shadowy government concerned about a film and filmmaker that was getting too close to the truth about their aims. Directed by “Grizzly Man” producer Erik Nelson and Executive Produced by Werner Herzog, “A Gray State” combs through Crowley’s archive of 13,000 photographs, hundreds of hours of home video, and exhaustive behind-the-scenes footage of David’s work in progress to reveal what happens when a paranoid view of the government turns inward — blurring the lines of what is real and what people want to believe.
“’A Gray State’ is a deep dive into some of the fault lines that are fracturing America,” said Erik Nelson. “It’s a dark ride through the tunnel of conspiracy culture, the trauma experienced by many veterans, celebrity worship, gun obsession, and the unforeseen consequences of an addiction to social media. But it is a dark ride that tries to point a way to the light.”
-
Ittetsu Nemoto Is Not Your Ordinary Monk in THE DEPARTURE | Trailer
The Departure directed by Lana Wilson (After Tiller) is described as poetic and deeply moving look at a former punk-turned-Buddhist priest in Japan who has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live.
The documentary film which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival will open in New York at the Metrograph Theater on Friday, October 13. It will be followed by a release in Los Angeles on Friday, October 20, with other cities to follow.
A 44-year-old Tokyo native, Ittetsu Nemoto loves riding his motorcycle and dancing all night in clubs. But he’s also a Rinzai Zen priest, who lives with his wife, mother and baby son at a temple in the remote countryside of Gifu prefecture, Japan. There, over the last ten years, he has become famous for his work in combating suicide. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between the people he counsels and himself. With astonishing access and artistry, Wilson’s camera captures Nemoto at a crossroads, when his growing self-destructive tendencies lead him to confront the same question his patients ask him: what makes life worth living?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnQNXOl8Nbw
-
THE NEWSPAPERMAN: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF BEN BRADLEE to Debut on HBO
Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, credited with taking down President Richard Nixon in 1974 after the Post broke the Watergate story, exposing the largest political scandal in American history, is the subject of the documentary The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee.
Told primarily in his own words, The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee is an intimate portrait of this formidable man, tracing his remarkable ascent from a young Boston boy stricken with polio to the one of the most pioneering and consequential journalistic figures of the 20th century when it debuts Monday, December 4, exclusively on HBO.
Ben Bradlee’s career spanned the most critical moments of the second half of the 20th century. As a foreign correspondent for Newsweek in the ’50s, Bradlee cut his teeth reporting from the frontlines of wars in the Middle East. In Washington, he befriended young Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy and later gained unprecedented access to the White House. By the ’70s, he had transformed the Washington Post from an undistinguished local paper into a national powerhouse, publishing the Pentagon Papers, breaking Watergate and challenging the New York Times for supremacy.
Taking on the political establishment and ushering in a new era of investigative journalism, the tough-talking, chain-smoking Bradlee came to epitomize the modern newspaper editor. Today, when the First Amendment and the press are under constant attack, Bradlee’s fortitude in the face of withering criticism has never been more relevant.
The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee delves into the highs and lows of Bradlee’s personal life and career, and features previously unseen home movies, photographs, archival footage and interviews with a who’s who of American journalism, Washington insiders, and family and friends who knew him best, including: Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, Quinn Bradlee, Courtland Milloy, David Maraniss, David Remnick, Don Graham, George Vaillant, Henry Kissinger, Ben Bradlee Jr., Jim Hoagland, Jim Lehrer, John Dean, Norman Lear, Richard Cohen, Robert Kaiser, Robert Redford, Sally Bedell Smith, Sally Quinn, Tina Brown and Tom Brokaw.
John Maggio (“Looking for Lincoln”) directs; Peter Kunhardt, Teddy Kunhardt and George Kunhardt (HBO’s Emmy(R)-winning “Jim: The James Foley Story“) produce.
-
Insightful and Funny Docu Film TAKE MY NOSE… PLEASE! Sets Release Date | Trailer
The insightful and funny Take My Nose… Please! by Joan Kron goes in depth with a comedic take from the top female comedians on the subject of women and plastic surgery and their career as artists. Interviews, clips and commentary from some of our legendary comics including Roseanne Barr, Phyllis Diller, the late Joan Rivers,Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho, Wanda Sykies, Lisa Lampanelli, Giulia Rozzi, and Adrianne Tolsch add to the magic of this film.
Take My Nose… Please! is the debut feature film from longtime former Allure Magazine editor now turned filmmaker, Joan Kron. For Joan, at the amazing age of 89 years-old, documentary film making is now her new career.
The film will open exclusive one week engagements in New York on October 6 at the Village East Cinemas, and then October 13 in Los Angeles at the Laemmle Monica in Santa Monica. It will open nationally following these cities.
Take My Nose… Please! is a seriously funny and wickedly subversive look at the role comedy has played in exposing the pressures on women to be attractive and society’s desire/shame relationship with plastic surgery. More than 15 million cosmetic procedures were performed in the US in 2014. And 90% of them on were done on women. Yet, for those who elect to tinker with Mother Nature, especially for high-profile women, plastic surgery is still a very dark secret. Funny women, though, are the exception. From Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers to Roseanne Barr and Kathy Griffin, comedians have been unashamed to talk about their perceived flaws, and the steps taken to remedy them. For these dames, cosmetic surgery isn’t vanity, it is affirmative action – compensation for the unfair distribution of youthfulness and beauty.
By admitting what their sisters in drama deny, comic performers speak to women who feel the same pressures, giving them permission to pursue change (or not to) while entertaining us.
Take My Nose… Please! follows two comedians as they deliberate about going under the knife. Emily Askin, an up-and coming improv performer, has always wanted her nose refined. Jackie Hoffman, a seasoned headliner on Broadway and on TV, considers herself ugly and regrets not having the nose job offered in her teens. And maybe she’d like a face-lift, as well. As we follow their surprisingly emotional stories, we meet other who have taken the leap – or held out.
Putting it all in perspective are psychologists, sociologists, the medical community and cultural critics. And for comic relief and the profundity only comedians can supply. The film includes commentary from Roseanne Barr, Phyllis Diller, the late Joan Rivers,Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Lisa Lampanelli, Giulia Rozzi, Bill Scheft, and Adrianne Tolsch.
FESTIVALS AND AWARDS:
Audience Award – Miami International Film Festival Audience Award – Berkshire International Film Festival Official Selection – Newport Beach International Film Festival; San Francisco Doc Fest; Arizona International Film Festival; Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival; San Luis Obispo Film Festival; Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival; and more
-
Six Documentary Films Win 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund Awards
[caption id="attachment_23721" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
The Feeling of Being Watched[/caption]
SFFILM announced the six winners of the 2017 SFFILM Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $125,000, which support feature-length documentaries in postproduction.
Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched, RaMell Ross’ Hale County, This Morning, This Evening, Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby, Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family, Heaven Through the Back Door by Anna Fitch and Banker White, and A Machine to Live In by Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, were each awarded significant funding that will help push them towards completion.
The SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has an excellent track record for championing important films that have gone on to earn great acclaim. Previous DFF winners include Peter Nicks’s The Force, which won the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Directing Award for documentary and SFFILM Festival’s Bay Area Documentary Award, and will be released this fall by Kino Lorber; Peter Bratt’s Dolores, which won the 2017 SFFILM Festival Audience Award for Documentary Feature following its Sundance premiere; Jamie Meltzer’s True Conviction, which won a Special Jury Mention for Documentary Feature at the Tribeca Film Festival; and Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie and the Boxer, which won Sundance’s Directing Award for documentary and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature; among many others.
Since its launch in 2011, the SFFILM Documentary Film Fund has distributed nearly half a million dollars to advance new work by filmmakers nationwide. The 2017 Documentary Film Fund is made possible thanks to an expanded gift from the Jenerosity Foundation.
The panelists who reviewed the ten finalists’ submissions are Jennifer Battat, founder of the Jenerosity Foundation; Noah Cowan, SFFILM Executive Director; Caroline von Kühn, Director of Artist Development at SFFILM; Jenny Slattery, Associate Director of Foundations and Artist Development at SFFILM and independent producer Corey Tong.
“We are thrilled to support these six filmmaking teams, each of which is telling an important story with boldness and passion,” remarked the jury. “This group of projects represents a wide range of artistic visions, subjects, and approaches to nonfiction filmmaking—from the intimate portrayal of an independent woman’s last days to an arresting journey into the surreal, futuristic city of Brasilia. We very much look forward to supporting these films as they evolve, make their way into the world, and leave their imprint on audiences, fellow filmmakers, and our collective sense of what can be achieved through the documentary form.”
2017 DOCUMENTARY FILM FUND WINNERS
The Feeling of Being Watched – Assia Boundaoui, director/producer; Jessica Devaney, producer – $25,000 When a filmmaker investigates rumors of surveillance in her Arab-American neighborhood in Chicago, she uncovers one of the largest FBI terrorism probes conducted before 9/11 and reveals its enduring impact on the community. Hale County, This Morning, This Evening – RaMell Ross, director; Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim, producers – $15,000 What is the experience of coming-of-age in the Black Belt region of the US? This film presents the lives of two young men in a series of visual movements that replace narrative arc with orchestral form. Heaven Through the Back Door – Anna Fitch and Banker White, co-director/producers; Sara Dosa, producer – $20,000 Heaven Through the Backdoor is a contemplative documentary that tells the story of Yo (Yolanda Shae), a fiercely independent 88-year old woman whose unique brand of individualist feminism impacts how she chooses to live in the final years of her life. (Former SFFILM FilmHouse resident; Bay Area-based project) How to Have an American Baby – Leslie Tai, director/producer; Jillian Schultz, co-producer – $20,000 There is a city in Southern California that abounds with pregnant women from China. Told through multiple perspectives, How to Have an American Baby is a kaleidoscopic voyage behind the closed doors of the Chinese birth tourism industry. (SFFILM FilmHouse resident; SFFILM fiscally sponsored filmmaker; Bay Area-based project) A Machine to Live In – Yoni Goldstein and Meredith Zielke, co-directors; Sebastian Alvarez, producer; Andrew Benz, co-producer – $20,000 Hovering over what remains of Brazil’s modernist future, this film looks at how social control, rational design, and space-age architecture gave rise to a vast landscape of transcendental and mystical utopias. (Bay Area-based project) Midnight Family – Luke Lorentzen, director; Kellen Quinn, producer; Daniela Alatorre,and Elena Fortes, co-producers – $25,000 In Mexico City, 16-year-old Juan Ochoa struggles to legitimize his family’s unlicensed ambulance business, as corrupt police in the neighborhood begin to target this cutthroat industry.
-
Video: Watch Trailer for Showtime Documentary GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM
Here is the trailer the Showtime documentary “George Michael: Freedom.” Filmed before Michael’s untimely passing, the documentary is narrated by the singer, who was heavily involved in the making of the film that serves as his final work.
“George Michael: Freedom”, will premiere on Saturday, October 21 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showtime.
“George Michael: Freedom” covers the span of his entire career, but concentrates on the formative period in the late Grammy(R) Award winner’s life and career, leading up to and following the making of his acclaimed, best-selling album “Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1” and his subsequent, infamous High Court battle with his record label that followed, while also becoming poignantly personal about the death of his late partner and first love, Anselmo Feleppa. Filmed before Michael’s untimely passing, the documentary is narrated by the singer, who was heavily involved in the making of the film that serves as his final work. GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM features Michael’s incredible, unseen archival and private home footage, giving viewers a first-person account of this dramatic period in his life – revealing how he became one of the most influential recording artists of all time who alone fought a corner for all artists by challenging the standard recording contract helping to rewrite the rules of the music industry. He talks about why he stepped out of the limelight and turned his back on celebrity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdzK6Iw94Kg
-
VIDEO: Watch Trailer for Documentary NUDE, Chronicling Fashion Photographer David Bellemere
The documentary “Nude” explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of fashion photographer David Bellemere.
In anticipation of the October 29th, 2017 premiere of the film, Starz released the official trailer and key art for the new original documentary “NUDE” from Director and Producer Anthony B. Sacco and Producer Josh Shader which follows treats! magazine founder Steve Shaw and photographer David Bellemere’s NU Muses project.
“NUDE” – a feature-length documentary – explores perceptions of nudity in art by chronicling the creative process of fashion photographer David Bellemere. Commissioned by NU Muses founder Steve Shaw to shoot a fine art calendar of nude photographs to debut at Art Basel in Miami, Bellemere’s unique methods and visual style are examined. The film also looks at the creative and business aspirations of Shaw, plus how social media shapes the lives of today’s young models.
-
VIDEO: Watch Trailer for Heartbreaking Documentary KINGDOM OF US Premiering at London Film Festival
Here is the trailer for the documentary Kingdom of Us set to premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 7th ahead of its global launch on Netflix on October 13th.
How does a family deal with memories of a traumatic event? It’s a question sensitively examined in this moving documentary. In her quietly watchful debut, Lucy Cohen impresses with a delicate, powerfully effective exploration of grief, identity and family bonds. For over three years, Cohen filmed a mother and her seven children – whose father’s suicide left them financially ruined. Incorporating family archive footage and capturing the surrounding West Midlands landscape, Kingdom of Us records the siblings’ emotional recovery, piecing together their broken past and contemplating fears and aspirations for their future. Cohen’s film highlights youthful power and resilience, as the family travel the rocky road towards hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc8_spETMBY
-
VIDEO: Netflix Debuts THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON Trailer
Netflix debuted the trailer for The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, documentary on the self-described “street queen” of NY’s gay ghetto found floating in New York’s Hudson River in 1992.
The documentary that premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, launches on Netflix on Friday, October 6, 2017.
Who killed Marsha P Johnson? When the beloved, self-described “street queen” of NY’s gay ghetto was found floating in the Hudson River in 1992, the NYPD chalked it up as a suicide and refused to investigate. However, as shown in Academy Award(R) nominated director and journalist David France’s (How to Survive A Plague) new film, it’s a decision many questioned.
Having played a pivotal role in the previous year’s Stonewall Riots, in 1970, Johnson and fellow trans icon Sylvia Rivera formed the world’s first trans-rights organization, STAR (Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries). And despite their many challenges over the years-homelessness, illness, alcoholism-Marsha and Sylvia ignited a powerful and lasting civil rights movement for gender nonconforming people.
Now, a quarter century later, at a time of unprecedented visibility and escalating violence in the transgender community, Marsha’s old friend and fellow activist Victoria Cruz has taken it upon herself to reexamine what happened to Marsha. Dipping deep into jaw-dropping archival footage of another era of New York City life, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson follows as this champion pursues leads, mobilizes officials, and works to tell the story of Marsha’s life and get to the bottom of Marsha’s death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pADsuuPd79E