Risk, Laura Poitras[/caption]
Laura Poitras’s Risk will have its North American premiere as the Closing Night selection of Art of the Real, Film Society of Lincoln Center’s essential showcase for boundary-pushing nonfiction film, on May 2. The festival opens this Thursday, April 20, with Theo Anthony’s Rat Film.
After laying bare Edward Snowden the man and the myth in her Oscar-winning Citizenfour, Laura Poitras returns to the knotty territory of political truth-telling and international espionage with this years-in-the-making portrait of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A hero to some, a pariah to others, Assange comes across in this compelling documentary as guarded and inscrutable despite his crusade for complete transparency. Not interested in painting a simple portrait of one man fighting the system, Poitras traces his journey from 2011 all the way through this year’s election, finally admitting in voiceover: “This is not the film I thought I was making.” Significantly updated since its Cannes premiere last May, Risk is a film about principles, power, and human contradiction, and is not to be missed. Poitras will also appear in person for a post-screening discussion.
NEON will release the film theatrically nationwide on May 5th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6l4gPVeNEDocumentary
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North American Premiere of Laura Poitras’s RISK to Close Art of the Real Festival | Trailer
[caption id="attachment_21940" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Risk, Laura Poitras[/caption]
Laura Poitras’s Risk will have its North American premiere as the Closing Night selection of Art of the Real, Film Society of Lincoln Center’s essential showcase for boundary-pushing nonfiction film, on May 2. The festival opens this Thursday, April 20, with Theo Anthony’s Rat Film.
After laying bare Edward Snowden the man and the myth in her Oscar-winning Citizenfour, Laura Poitras returns to the knotty territory of political truth-telling and international espionage with this years-in-the-making portrait of controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A hero to some, a pariah to others, Assange comes across in this compelling documentary as guarded and inscrutable despite his crusade for complete transparency. Not interested in painting a simple portrait of one man fighting the system, Poitras traces his journey from 2011 all the way through this year’s election, finally admitting in voiceover: “This is not the film I thought I was making.” Significantly updated since its Cannes premiere last May, Risk is a film about principles, power, and human contradiction, and is not to be missed. Poitras will also appear in person for a post-screening discussion.
NEON will release the film theatrically nationwide on May 5th.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6l4gPVeNE
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Tribeca 2017: 17-Year-Old Daje Shelton Navigates Inner City America in FOR AHKEEM | Trailer
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For Ahkeem[/caption]
For Ahkeem is described as the moving portrait of 17-year-old Daje Shelton, a Black girl in North St. Louis, as she navigates the many challenges of growing up in inner city America with one goal: to graduate high school.
The documentary film from award-winning directors Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, had its World Premiere earlier this year at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, and will have its North American Premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival.
Filmed over a three year period, we watch as Daje struggles against countless obstacles to obtain her high school diploma, her only hope of a better future, while navigating life as a teenager in America. The camera quietly follows her as she experiences her first love and explores a challenging new role as a teen mother. Despite the daily struggle to maintain focus in school and graduate, Daje and her family show the strength, resilience, and determination it takes to survive.
People been labeling me a bad kid all my life. You don’t have to really do nothing, people just expect it. So you start to expect it of yourself.” – Daje Shelton
For Ahkeem follows Black teenager Daje Shelton as she comes of age in a rough part of St. Louis. Daje has a fiery and charismatic personality, loves to sing, and hopes to become a comedian or a journalist one day. All this despite never quite believing she’d live to see eighteen.
After a school fight gets Daje expelled and sent to a court-supervised high school, her hopes of being accepted to a good college are dashed. Her mother Tammy, who was also expelled from high school, reminds Daje of how important it is for her to stay the course and graduate..
“I don’t want you to get comfortable thinking this neighborhood and the things around here is the way of life, cus it’s not,” says Tammy.
“There are so many bigger and better things out there, you wouldn’t even believe it.”
We’re with Daje for over two years as she strives to turn things around and maintain focus on school, which becomes even more challenging after suddenly losing a friend to gun violence. She falls in love with Antonio, a charismatic classmate who can identify with the trauma Daje is feeling. Struggling with schoolwork though, Antonio drops out and starts getting into trouble on the streets. Later, Daje learns she is pregnant with a son and wrestles with the heartbreaking reality of raising a Black boy in America today.
At the start of Daje’s senior year, an unarmed Black teen is killed by a police officer in nearby Ferguson, seizing the national spotlight. The incident further awakens Daje to her vulnerable position in the world, reinvigorating her mission to graduate from high school and make a better life for herself and her newborn son, baby Ahkeem.
Through Daje’s intimate coming of age story, For Ahkeem illuminates challenges that many Black teenagers face in America today, and witnesses the strength, resilience, and determination it takes to survive.
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Tribeca 2017: National Geographic to Release Coal Mining Documentary FROM THE ASHES | Trailer
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Deborah Graham at her home in Salisbury, North Carolina. Film still from FROM THE ASHES. Credit: Jonathan Furmanski.[/caption]
From the Ashes, a feature documentary that explores one of the country’s most contentious topics — coal and the mining industry, has been acquired by the National Geographic for release in the US.
Distributed under the National Geographic Documentary Films banner, From the Ashes will have its world premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, followed by a limited theatrical release this summer and will air globally on National Geographic in 171 countries and 45 languages later in 2017.
Produced by the Academy Award- and Emmy-winning production company RadicalMedia, directed by Emmy-nominated filmmaker Michael Bonfiglio, produced by Sidney Beaumont, and executive produced by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Joe Berlinger — as well as Jon Kamen, Katherine Oliver and Justin Wilkes, in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies — From the Ashes captures Americans in communities across the country as they wrestle with the legacy of the coal industry, and what its future should be under the Trump administration.
From Appalachia to the West’s Powder River Basin, the film goes beyond the rhetoric of the “war on coal” to present compelling and often-heartbreaking stories about what is at stake for our economy, health and climate. The film invites audiences to learn more about an industry on the edge and what it means for their lives.
“For over a century, mining and energy companies have been privatizing coal’s profits while socializing its costs. Coal plant pollution kills 7,500 Americans a year and causes many more serious illnesses,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and co-author of the new book “Climate of Hope.” “From the Ashes shows the risks we face as a nation if we continue to rely on coal and examines how Americans in local communities, including in coal country, are helping to lead the transition toward cleaner air and stronger economies.”
From the Ashes builds on Bloomberg’s environmental philanthropic work. Bloomberg Philanthropies has committed over $100 million to move the U.S. away from coal and toward clean energy through its Clean Energy Initiative and Beyond Coal efforts. As a UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Cities and Climate Change, and in partnership with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, Bloomberg convened more than 500 global cities at the first-ever Climate Summit for Local Leaders at Paris City Hall during COP21. Beyond Coal, which aims to secure the retirement of half the nation’s coal fleet, has already led to the closure or phasing out of 250 coal-fired power plants and helped to prevent more than 5,550 premature deaths per year. Additionally, Bloomberg Philanthropies supports sustainability in cities around the globe through C40, a network of more than 90 global megacities, and other grants.
“Using media and technology to inform, connect and prompt action is in the DNA of Bloomberg and we’re excited to harness the power of storytelling to reach new audiences and inspire change at such a critical time in our history,” shared Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Katherine Oliver, who also serves as executive producer.
The world premiere of From the Ashes will take place at the Festival Hub at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26, 2017, at 6 p.m. ET. Before the film festival screening there will be a special introduction by Bloomberg, a former three-term mayor of New York City. Immediately following the premiere, there will be a conversation with the director of the film, Bonfiglio, and other special guests to discuss the state of the American coal industry.
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Watch Trailer for RISK, Laura Poitras Newest Documentary on Julian Assange and Wikileaks
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Julian Assange in a scene from Laura Poitras’ Risk,[/caption]
RISK, the latest documentary from Academy Award winner Laura Poitras (CITIZENFOUR) on the controversial Julian Assange and the Wikileaks organization, premiered last night on Showtime during the season finale of Homeland. The documentary, filmed over six years including through the 2016 presidential election and up to the present moment, takes viewers closer than they have ever been before to Julian Assange and those who surround him.
With unprecedented access, Poitras give us the WikiLeaks story from the inside, allowing viewers to understand our current era of massive leaks, headline-grabbing news, and the revolutionary impact of the internet on global politics. RISK is a portrait of power, principles, betrayal, and sacrifice when the stakes could not be any higher. It is a first-person geopolitical thriller told from the perspective of a filmmaker immersed in the worlds of state surveillance and the cypherpunk movement. RISK confirms Poitras’ directorial ability to record history as it unfolds on camera, and craft narratives at the highest level.
Showtime Networks has partnered with NEON to release RISK theatrically nationwide, with a television premiere on SHOWTIME this summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx6l4gPVeNE
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VIDEO: Watch 4 New Clips from Environmental Documentary TOMORROW by Mélanie Laurent and Cyril Dion
Watch four new clips from the environmental documentary TOMORROW co-directed by Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and activist Cyril Dion.
The clips represent 4 chapters in the film including AGRICULTURE, ECONOMY, DEMOCRACY and EDUCATION. TOMORROW opens in theaters on April 21 in NYC, LA, and major cities.
Popular French actress Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and activist Cyril Dion’s César Award-winning environmentally-themed documentary Tomorrow (Demain) will open theatrically in San Francisco on April 14 and then in New York, Los Angeles and other markets on April 21 – to coincide with Earth Day celebrations on April 22.
In 2012, “Nature” published a study led by more than 20 researchers from the top scientific institutions in the world predicting that humankind could disappear between 2040 and 2100. It also said that it could be avoided by drastically changing our way of life and take appropriate measures.
Shortly after giving birth to her first child, French actress and director Mélanie Laurent became increasingly aware of the dangers and the state of urgency that her son will face in the future. Along with friend and activist Cyril Dion and their crew, she decided to travel the world in search of solutions that can help save the next generations. The result is Tomorrow, an inspiring documentary that presents concrete solutions implemented throughout the world by hundred of communities.
From the US to the UK and through Finland and India, together they traveled to 10 countries to visit permaculture farms, urban agriculture projects and community-owned renewable initiatives to highlight people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education. Their common ideas and examples make Tomorrow one of the most essential and unexpectedly inspirational viewing experiences of our time.
AGRICULTURE
ECONOMY DEMOCRACY EDUCATION
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PBS To Release DOLORES – Sundance 2017 Documentary on Labor Activist Dolores Huerta
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Dolores Huerta appears in Dolores by Peter Bratt[/caption]
The documentary Dolores sheds light on an enigmatic, intensely private woman who is among the most important yet little-known workers’ rights activists in American history – Dolores Huerta. “Dolores,” premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year in the US Documentary Competition category, and will be released in theaters in the Fall and make its broadcast premiere on PBS in 2018.
In the copious volumes written about Cesar Chavez and how he formed the first farm workers’ union in America, there’s little mention of Dolores Huerta, although she was his equal partner and co-founder of the union. With unprecedented access to Dolores and her children, the film reveals the raw, personal stories behind the public figure. It portrays a woman both heroic and flawed, working tirelessly for social change even as her 11 children longed to have her at home.
“Dolores” was written, produced and directed by Peter Bratt, produced by Brian Benson, and executive produced by Carlos Santana, Regina K. Scully, and Janet MacGillivray Wallace. Benjamin Bratt served as consulting producer. This is the second film for 5 Stick Films Inc, the Bratts’ production company with partner Alpita Patel.
“In the 1970s, the national grape boycott Dolores Huerta helped organize played out in the small rural Minnesota farming community where I grew up—supported by our Catholic Church, along with tens of thousands of religious organizations across the country,” said Lois Vossen, INDEPENDENT LENS executive producer. “More than 40 years later, Dolores is still an indefatigable architect for social change on behalf of poor, under-represented people, urging them to seek self-determination with her refrain ‘Si Se Puede’ (‘Yes We Can’).”
“We are thrilled and inspired to be partnered with PBS and INDEPENDENT LENS for the release of our film ‘Dolores’,” said Peter Bratt. “Part of our mandate at 5 Stick Films is to create socially relevant content which not only entertains, but also provides an alternative point of view for what it means to be mainstream. This is exactly the kind of work that PBS has been focused on since its inception: opening up new worlds to its viewers, using media to educate and captivate people with an immense diversity of perspectives. As longtime champions of arts education and public access for all, they are the perfect partners to illuminate and share Dolores Huerta’s compelling story and important work with the rest of the world.”
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SXSW Award Winning Documentary THE WORK to Be Released in The Fall
Jairus McLeary and Blanketfort Media’s The Work, winner of the 2017 SXSW Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary will be released in Fall 2017 by The Orchard.
Co-directed by Gethin Aldous, The Work is an immersive film shot entirely inside Folsom Prison where convicts and civilian volunteers run a one a kind social justice program. Offering a powerful and rare look past the cinder block walls, steel doors and dehumanizing tropes in our culture, The Work reveals a movement of change and redemption that transcends what we think of as rehabilitation.
Producers are Alice Henty, Jairus McLeary, Eon McLeary, Miles McLeary and Angela Sostre and executive producers are James McLeary, Rob Allbee and Aldous.
Jairus McLeary is a court videographer and filmmaker. The Work is his first documentary. He spent several years gaining the trust of the convicts and prison administration in order to film. Gethin Aldous directs motion capture for a major video gaming company. After his own experience at Folsom he joined forces with Jairus. This is his second documentary feature.
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Tribeca 2017: Watch Trailer for I AM HEATH LEDGER Documentary
Here is the trailer for the documentary I Am Heath Ledger, released to coincide with the late actor’s 38th birthday. Ledger died from an accidental mixture of prescription drugs in 2008. The documentary directed by Derik Murray, and Adrian Buitenhuis will world premiere at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on April 23, and released in theaters on May 3.
Following its cinema debut, Spike TV will show an edited version of the documentary on May 17.
The new feature-length documentary celebrating the life and work of the late actor Heath Ledger brings a new understanding of the man behind his public image. Ledger was one of the most gifted Hollywood talents in a generation, who appeared in a string of seminal films including the culturally defining “Brokeback Mountain,” and in “The Dark Knight,” for which he won a posthumous Academy Award®.
Heath Ledger was a versatile artist whose talents spanned a broad array of mediums, including a love for photography, music and directing. He often rejected the trappings of Hollywood, instead creating an environment for himself which fostered his own passions and those of his friends and family. “I Am Heath Ledger” illustrates Ledger’s artistic output through both clips of his iconic film performances, as well as through the images he captured as a photographer and videographer. Extravagant in gesture and in action, it was this energy and unshakable willingness to take risks that instilled such a deep love and affection in those people closest to him.
“I Am Heath Ledger” provides an intimate look at Heath through the lens of his own camera, with a treasure trove of never-before-seen footage, as he films and often performs in his own personal journey – extravagant in gesture and in action. Through these personal home movies, we get a rare glimpse into his true character – demonstrating his creative energy and unshakable willingness to take risks that instilled such an extraordinarily deep love and affection in the people that entered his life. From his earliest performances to his iconic Academy-Award(R) winning performance as The Joker in „The Dark Knight,” the film truly speaks to his profound talent as an actor. The documentary goes behind-the scenes of the shooting of „The Dark Knight,” as Heath morphed into the psychotic criminal-mastermind that will live in cinematic lore forever.
The film features interviews from those who knew Heath best, including close friends, family members, and industry peers, such as actors Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, and Emile Hirsch, directors Ang Lee and Catherine Hardwicke, musicians Ben Harper, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), N’fa, and Grace Woodroofe, and the Ledger family. „I Am Heath Ledger” recounts his fabled rise to the pinnacle of the Hollywood dream and the indelible mark he left. Not only did he cut a path for himself, but Heath often championed other talents and artists whose voices he thought deserved to be heard. The documentary also showcases his most memorable moments on screen from his beginnings in Australia to the heights of his Hollywood achievements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bbHxWwRzPY
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Julie Perini Wins 2017 Oregon Media Arts Fellowship to Fund ‘The Story of Butch Lesbian Freedom Fighter rita bo brown’
Julie Perini has been selected by The Northwest Film Center, Oregon Arts Commission, and Portland Film Office as the winner of the 2017 Oregon Media Arts Fellowship (OMAF).
Julie Perini is a Portland-based media who works in experimental and documentary film and video, installations, and live events. Originally from Poughkeepie, NY, she has been exploring her immediate surroundings with cameras since age 15 when she discovered a VHS camcorder in her parent’s suburban home. Perini’s work often explores the areas between fact and fiction, the staged and improvised, and the personal and political, often in response to social movements happening locally and globally. Perini’s work has exhibited and screened internationally at such venues as the Centre Pompidou-Metz (France), Artists’ Television Access (San Francisco), Visible Evidence XX (Stockholm), The Horse Hospital (London), Cornell Cinema (Ithaca, NY), Microscope Gallery (New York City), among others. She has been awarded artist residencies at Yaddo, Signal Fire, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and Djerassi Resident Artists Program and is currently employed as an Associate Professor in the School of Art + Design at Portland State University. She has received grants and fellowships in support of her work from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Regional Arts and Culture Council, the Oregon Arts Commission, and The Precipice Fund.
The $5,500 Fellowship award will go towards funding The Gentleman Bank Robber: The Story of Butch Lesbian Freedom Fighter rita bo brown, a feature-length documentary that tells the story of bo brown, a white working-class butch from Klamath Falls, Oregon who was a member of the revolutionary George Jackson Brigade, an underground, militant revolutionary prison abolitionist group based in Seattle, Washington in the 1970s. As a member of the George Jackson Brigade, bo became known as “The Gentleman Bank Robber” for combing her butch style of dress with a polite way of demanding funds from bank tellers, one of the ways the Brigade funded its militant activities to protest military aggression, injustice, and exploitation.
The Oregon Media Arts Fellowship supports filmmakers who have demonstrated an ongoing commitment to the media arts. Jurors reviewed 42 submissions from applicants throughout the state, weighing artistic merit, the potential of the proposed activity to advance the artist’s work, and the feasibility of the projects proposed. The Fellowship is funded by the Oregon Arts Commission and the Portland Film Office and administered by Northwest Film.
The application deadline for the 2018 Oregon Media Arts Fellowships is January 1, 2018
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Poster + Watch Trailer for French Actress Mélanie Laurent Award-Winning Environmental Documentary TOMORROW
Here is the poster and official trailer for Popular French actress Mélanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and activist Cyril Dion’s César Award-winning environmentally-themed documentary Tomorrow (Demain). The documentary film which won the awards for Best Documentary Feature -César Awards 2016, and Best Documentary- COLCOA French Film Festival (Los Angeles), will open theatrically in San Francisco on April 14 and then in New York, Los Angeles and other markets on April 21 – to coincide with Earth Day celebrations on April 22.
In 2012, “Nature” published a study led by more than 20 researchers from the top scientific institutions in the world predicting that humankind could disappear between 2040 and 2100. It also said that it could be avoided by drastically changing our way of life and take appropriate measures.
Shortly after giving birth to her first child, French actress and director Mélanie Laurent became increasingly aware of the dangers and the state of urgency that her son will face in the future. Along with friend and activist Cyril Dion and their crew, she decided to travel the world in search of solutions that can help save the next generations. The result is Tomorrow, an inspiring documentary that presents concrete solutions implemented throughout the world by hundred of communities.
From the US to the UK and through Finland and India, together they traveled to 10 countries to visit permaculture farms, urban agriculture projects and community-owned renewable initiatives to highlight people making a difference in the fields of food, energy, finance, democracy, and education. Their common ideas and examples make Tomorrow one of the most essential and unexpectedly inspirational viewing experiences of our time.
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Watch Exclusive Film Clip + Poster for Climate Change Documentary THE AGE OF CONSEQUENCES
Here is the poster and exclusive video clip from the The Age of Consequences. Described as The Hurt Locker meets An Inconvenient Truth, the film investigates the impacts of climate change on increased resource scarcity, migration, and conflict through the lens of US national security and global stability.
The Age of Consequences directed by Jared P. Scott will be theatrically released in New York and Los Angeles and will be available digitally today, April 4, 2017. The film will also screen for NASA at the AmesResearch Center south of San Francisco on April 20th.
Through unflinching case-study analysis, distinguished admirals, generals and military veterans take us beyond the headlines of the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab Spring, the rise of radicalized groups like ISIS, and the European refugee crisis – and lay bare how climate change stressors interact with societal tensions, sparking conflict.
Whether a long-term vulnerability or sudden shock, the film unpacks how water and food shortages, drought, extreme weather, and sea-level rise function as ‘accelerants of instability’ and ‘catalysts for conflict’ in volatile regions of the world.
These Pentagon insiders make the compelling case that if we go on with business as usual, the consequences of climate change – waves of refugees, failed states, terrorism – will continue to grow in scale and frequency, with grave implications for peace and security in the 21st century.
The film’s unnerving assessment is by no means reason for fatalism – but instead a call to action to rethink how we use and produce energy.
As in any military defense and security strategy, time is our most precious resource.
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‘8 BORDERS, 8 DAYS’ and ‘SWEETHEART DEAL’ Win True Productions + SIFF Documentary Filmmakers Grants
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Sham, Yaman and Lulu in Lesbos, Greece, September 2015 (Amanda Bailly) (8 BORDERS, 8 DAYS – Amanda Bailly)[/caption]
Amanda Bailly’s film 8 BORDERS, 8 DAYS and co-directors Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller’s film SWEETHEART DEAL have been awarded filmmaking grants in the 2016 True Productions + SIFF $50,000 Documentary Filmmakers Grant program.
True Productions founder Dwayne Clark, and his wife Terese Clark, have generously pledged to underwrite an annual $50,0000 grant for three years, this being the second year. “We are committed to producing true stories and both these documentaries touch our hearts. Both my wife and I are children of immigrants and we understand the plight of the immigrant. But we are especially touched by those seeking refuge from violence. In addition, when it comes to the topic of heroin addiction, we see Seattle and nearby communities struggling with solutions. We hope by supporting SWEETHEART DEAL, that we can keep the problem top of mind and perhaps spark more conversations around prevention,” said Dwayne Clark.
“I am so grateful to True Productions + SIFF for investing in the story of this single Syrian mother and her children, who had no other option but to travel in a raft across the sea with smugglers,” director Amanda Bailly said. “It is through human stories like this one that I hope our country can understand what it means to close our doors to the millions of people in need of refuge.”
8 BORDERS, 8 DAYS is the story of one woman’s personal revolution in the context of one of the greatest human rights crises of our time. The film weaves between the intimate story of a fierce single mother of two from Syria, and an immersive experience of their eight-day journey to safety.
Elisa Levine and Gabriel Miller’s film SWEETHEART DEAL, produced by Peggy Case, follows the lives of four women whose lives are ruled by heroin, and there is no help in sight – except from a ponytailed eccentric living in a Winnebago parked on Seattle’s notorious Aurora Avenue.
“When Mary Ellen Mark and Martin Bell made STREETWISE back in 1984, they chose Seattle because it was considered America’s most livable city. They wanted to show that if the issue of homeless kids could be a problem in wholesome Seattle, it had to be a problem everywhere. The same holds true today for heroin addiction,” director Elisa Levine said. “This incredible support from True Productions + SIFF comes at a crucial point in our post-production process. We so look forward to sharing SWEETHEART DEAL with SIFF audiences when it is completed.”
“Continuing with our second consecutive year, we are thrilled to have selected two powerful documentaries for the True Productions + SIFF Documentary Filmmaking Grant,” said Interim Artistic Director Beth Barrett. “8 BORDERS, 8 DAYS and SWEETHEART DEAL have tackled the issues of immigration and heroin addiction with such grace and thoughtfulness, and thanks to the dedication of Dwayne and Teresa Clark and True Productions, both films will be equipped with the necessary tools for launching into the festival and exhibition world.”