Here is the new teaser trailer for Megan Griffiths’ SADIE which will premiere at the 2018 SXSW. The film, which is in the festival’s Narrative Feature Competition, also features Arrested Development‘s Tony Hale taking a dramatic turn, Orange is the New Black favorite Danielle Brooks as well as young actor Keith Williams who has appeared in The Last Man on Earth. Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready composed the film’s score. SADIE also stars Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, and John Gallagher Jr.
SADIE is the story of a 13-year-old girl (Sophia Mitri Schloss) who lives at home with her mother (Melanie Lynskey) while her father serves repeated tours in the military. Sadie is extremely attached to her father despite his prolonged absence, and when her mother begins dating a new man (John Gallagher Jr.), Sadie takes extreme measures to end the relationship and safeguard her family through the only tactics she knows – those of war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk1lgi7fjwcFilms
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SXSW 2018: Watch New Teaser Trailer for Megan Griffiths’ SADIE Starring OITNB Danielle Brooks
Here is the new teaser trailer for Megan Griffiths’ SADIE which will premiere at the 2018 SXSW. The film, which is in the festival’s Narrative Feature Competition, also features Arrested Development‘s Tony Hale taking a dramatic turn, Orange is the New Black favorite Danielle Brooks as well as young actor Keith Williams who has appeared in The Last Man on Earth. Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready composed the film’s score. SADIE also stars Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, and John Gallagher Jr.
SADIE is the story of a 13-year-old girl (Sophia Mitri Schloss) who lives at home with her mother (Melanie Lynskey) while her father serves repeated tours in the military. Sadie is extremely attached to her father despite his prolonged absence, and when her mother begins dating a new man (John Gallagher Jr.), Sadie takes extreme measures to end the relationship and safeguard her family through the only tactics she knows – those of war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk1lgi7fjwc
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Netflix Acquires Sundance Award-Winner “Shirkers” and Documentary Short “Zion”
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Shirkers[/caption]
Sandi Tan’s creative odyssey Shirkers, which had its world premiere at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, where Tan won the Directing Award in World Cinema Documentary has been acquired by Netflix. The film will next be shown at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri on Friday, March 2. Adding to its robust slate of documentary shorts, Netflix also acquired Zion, a ten-minute film directed by Floyd Russ about a young wrestler who was born without legs and finds acceptance and community within the world of wrestling. Both films will debut on Netflix later this year.
An inspired labor of love for zine-making teens Sandi Tan, Jasmine Ng and Sophie Siddique, Shirkers was a Singapore-made 1992 cult classic – or it would have been, had the 16mm footage not been stolen by their enigmatic American collaborator Georges Cardona, who disappeared. More than two decades later, Tan, now a novelist in L.A., returns to the country of her youth and to the memories of a man who both enabled and thwarted her dreams. Magically, too, she returns to the film itself, revived in a way she never could have imagined.
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Zion Clark appears in ZION by Floyd Russ | photo by Gregory Wilson[/caption]
Zion is a gripping portrait of Zion Clark, a young wrestler born without legs who grew up in foster care. Clark began wrestling in second grade against his able-bodied peers. The physical challenge became a therapeutic outlet and gave him a sense of family. Moving from foster home to foster home, wrestling became the only constant thing in his childhood.
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Jonathan Hacker’s Jihadi Terrorism Documentary PATH OF BLOOD Eyes Summer Release
Described as a “documentary thriller,” the documentary Path Of Blood is a provocative and unprecedented glimpse into the world of jihadi terrorism. Path Of Blood is directed by Jonathan Hacker based on his acclaimed book of the same title. Paladin today announced that the company has acquired the film with plans for a multi-city summer release in 2018.
Path Of Blood depicts Islamist terrorism as it has never been seen before. Drawn from a hoard of jihadi home-movie footage that was captured by Saudi security services, this is the story of Muslim terrorists targeting Muslim civilians and brought to justice by Muslim security agents. It is a stark reminder that all who are touched by terrorism are victimized by it.
A powerful and sometimes shocking cinematic experience, Path Of Blood reveals how brainwashed youths, fuelled by idealism and the misguided pursuit of adventure, can descend into madness and carnage. The raw, unvarnished footage, to which the filmmakers negotiated exclusive access, captures young thrill-seekers at a jihadi “boot camp” deep in the Saudi desert, having signed on to overthrow the Saudi government. They plot to detonate car-bombs in downtown Riyadh, become embroiled in a game of cat-and-mouse with government forces and, as their plans unravel, resort to ever more brutal tactics.
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Jonathan Hacker[/caption]
Adopting a strictly objective approach, the film doesn’t editorialize and contains no interviews or “talking heads” commentary. The home video footage was shot by the terrorists themselves, allowing viewers to see them in all their complexity, while compelling audiences to draw their own conclusions. About the film, Hacker says, “I was shocked at how powerful the imagery was. The footage took the viewer behind the scenes with Al Qaeda and had a genuine intimacy. I felt, for the first time, that I was seeing these disturbed young men as real human beings.” Urman adds, “Path Of Blood is an intense, immersive look at one of the most important—and polarizing—issues of our time: terrorism. It is an eye-opening experience, unlike any non-fiction film I’ve seen, and it is bound to capture the interest of anyone who cares about the ever-evolving way in which documentaries can tell us about the world we live in.”
The book of the same title, published by Overlook Press in the U.S. and Simon & Schuster U.K., is currently available.
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SXSW 2018: See New Artsy Poster for Megan Griffiths’ SADIE
The new artsy poster debuted this week for Sadie, written and directed by Megan Griffiths, which will screen at the upcoming 2018 SXSW Film Festival. Sadie stars Sophia Mitri Schloss, Melanie Lynskey, John Gallagher Jr., Tony Hale, Keith Williams, and Danielle Brooks.
Sadie is the story of a 13-year-old girl (Sophia Mitri Schloss) who lives at home with her mother (Melanie Lynskey) while her father serves repeated tours in the military. Sadie is extremely attached to her father despite his prolonged absence, and when her mother begins dating a new man (John Gallagher Jr.), Sadie takes extreme measures to end the relationship and safeguard her family through the only tactics she knows – those of war.
Sadie SXSW Festival Screenings
World Premiere: Saturday, March 10th at 4:15pm (Stateside) Screening #2: Sunday, March 11th at 12:15pm (Alamo Lamar B) Screening #3: Wednesday, March 14th at 4:30pm (Alamo Lamar E)
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Award-Winning NY Short Comedy, SURE-FIRE to Screen at Queens World Film Festival | Trailer
The award-winning NYC true story-inspired short comedy, Sure-Fire directed by Michael Goldburg, will will screen at the upcoming 8th Annual Queens World Film Festival on Friday, March 16 at 8:15pm. Sure-Fire is a hilarious crime comedy, inspired by a true story, about a New York City con man, Benny Boon, having a midlife crisis who stumbles into becoming a movie producer to pay off gangsters threatening to kill him.
Sure-Fire is a short, fast-paced crime comedy about a New York City con man, played by the hilarious PJ Marshall (“Luke Cage,” “American Horror Story,” “Underground”), who stumbles into becoming a movie producer to pay off gangsters threatening to kill him. Sure-Fire is inspired by director Michael Goldburg’s upcoming feature comedy of the same name and recalls New York comedies from Woody Allen (“Broadway Danny Rose”) and Mel Brooks (“The Producers”) as well as Hollywood crime comedies like “The Big Lebowski,” “Pulp Fiction,” and “Get Shorty.”
Benny Boon, a New York City con man, needs to come up with $50,000 in 3 days to pay off a gangster–or else. Luckily, he meets a washed-up actress, Kitty Kinkaid, who’s desperate for a comeback and claims to have the money to bankroll a screenplay. Benny then poses as a movie producer and hooks her with a script called “A Woman on the Edge.” Problem is, the script doesn’t exist, and Benny doesn’t know how to write one. So he places an ad on Craigslist for a screenwriter and puts his scheme into high gear.
The film has screened at over 20 festivals, and won numerous awards including Best Screenplay at the 2017 Et Cultura Festival, Best Actor at 2017 River Bend Festival, and Best Actor in a Comedy at 2017 Williamsburg Independent Film Festival. Building on this buzz the filmmakers are actively exploring turning Sure-Fire into a feature film.
https://vimeo.com/214382976
“SURE-FIRE” Screens at the 8th Annual Queens World Film Festival
Friday, March 16 at 8:15pm
“Local Express” Program
Museum of the Moving Image (Redstone Theater)
36-01 35 Avenue, Astoria, NY 11106
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THE JUDGE Documentary on First Woman Judge on Middle East’s Shari’a Courts Sets Release Date | Trailer
The inspiring documentary feature The Judge from Emmy-Winning Director Erika Cohn, offers a unique portrait of Kholoud Al-Faqih who became the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a (Islamic law) courts – her brave journey as a lawyer, her tireless fight for justice for women, and her drop-in visits with clients, friends, and family.
When she was a young lawyer, Kholoud Al-Faqih walked into the office of Palestine’s Chief Justice and announced she wanted to join the bench. He laughed at her. But just a few years later, Kholoud became the first woman judge to be appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a (Islamic law) courts.
The Judge, which debuted at Toronto International Film Festival will open in U.S. theaters nationwide wide starting April 13.
Religious courts in the Middle East had historically banned women from adjudicating domestic and family matters – in both the Shari’a courts of Islam and the Rabbinic courts of Judaism – until Kholoud Al-Faqih, dares to challenge that history.
With the support of a progressive Sheik, Kholoud becomes the first woman judge with her appointment to a Palestinian Shari’a court in the West Bank, bringing a subtle new perspective garnered from her early professional life working with battered women as an attorney in both the criminal and Shari’a courts.
This feature-length documentary chronicles Kholoud’s appointment, her first years as a judge, and her tenacious ability to maintain her position despite attempts to marginalize and demote her. Through Kholoud’s eyes, the film examines the religious and legal stipulations between men and women according to Shari’a law, relaying how the worst aspects of misinterpreted Shari’a laws reflect a tragic misogyny – rape, beatings, and polygamy – stemming from misconstrued ignorance of the Qur’an.
As Kholoud’s most compelling cases develop in gripping cinema vérité style, the film reveals precisely the kinds of misinterpretations of Shari’a law that Kholoud now has the power to correct.
With unparalleled access and a critical cinematic eye, The Judge follows Kholoud in and outside of the courtroom as she asserts her right to equality and redefines how Shari’a law perceives, treats, and respects women.
Illustrating a unique portrait of her sustained intervention, The Judge reveals that Shari’a is a system largely mischaracterized both in the Middle East and in the West. Amid a time of rapidly increasing global Islamophobia, the unprecedented Muslim Ban and potential future Muslim registry – The Judge illuminates how colonial occupation has impacted the legal and cultural worlds of the contemporary Islamic world, while reflecting a universal struggle for women’s control over their bodies, economic welfare, custodial rights, and marital status.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5VNYkwjG30
THEATRICAL RELEASE SCHEDULE
Friday, April 13, 2018
Opens in New York City at Cinema Village
Friday, April 20, 2018
Opens in Los Angeles at Laemmle Monica Film Center
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Opens in Seattle at Northwest Film Forum
Friday, April 27 , 2018
Opens in San Francisco at The Roxie
Opens in Berkeley, CA at Rialto Cinemas® Elmwood
Opens in Detroit at Cinema Detroit
Friday, May 4 , 2018
Opens in Washington, DC at Landmark’s West End Cinema
Additional Markets/Theaters TBA Soon
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See Trailer + Poster for ITZHAK – Documentary on Famed Violinist Itzhak Perlman
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ITZHAK[/caption]
The trailer and poster dropped today for Alison Chernick’s documentary Itzhak, a intimate portrait of the famed violinist Itzhak Perlman. Itzhak will be released theatrically in New York on March 9th and in Los Angeles on March 16th with a national rollout to follow.
From Schubert to Strauss, Bach to Brahms, Mozart to…Billy Joel, Itzhak Perlman’s violin playing transcends mere performance to evoke the celebrations and struggles of real life; “praying with the violin,” says renowned Tel Aviv violinmaker Amnon Weinstein. Alison Chernick’s enchanting documentary looks beyond the sublime musician to see the polio survivor whose parents emigrated from Poland to Israel, and the young man who struggled to be taken seriously as a music student when schools saw only his disability. Itzhak himself is funny, irreverent and self-deprecating, and here his life story unspools in conversations with masterful musicians, family and friends, and most endearingly his devoted wife of 50 years, Toby. Itzhak and Toby’s lives are dedicated to their large, loving, Jewish family in NYC and their continual support of young musicians.
As charming and entrancing as the famous violinist himself, Itzhak is a portrait of musical virtuosity seamlessly enclosed in warmth, humor, and above all, love.
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Documentary BREAKING POINT: THE WAR FOR DEMOCRACY IN UKRAINE Opens in Theaters on March 2nd | Trailer
Breaking Point: The War For Democracy in Ukraine, from three time Oscar® winning director Mark Jonathan Harris, is described as a powerful and intimate look at the war and revolution in Ukraine through the eyes of ordinary people who risked their lives to create a more democratic, equitable, and independent country. The documentary opens in theaters on March 2nd in New York and March 9th in Los Angeles, with additional cities to follow.
Breaking Point is the dramatic and inspiring portrait of people willing to give up their private, normal lives to unite in a collective effort to bring the rule of law and democracy to their country. Their battle to wrest power from the autocrats and plutocrats who control their governments is a struggle that is being waged around the world, from the Mideast to America. The outcome affects not only the future of Ukraine, but the future of democracy throughout the world.
The principal characters are a children’s theater director, a doctor, a rabbi, a TV journalist, an investigative reporter, and a lawyer turned medic and her soldier husband.
Their lives were transformed by the tumultuous, three-month revolution on the Maidan, which ended in the death of 123 protestors and the flight of corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych.
When Russia retaliated by annexing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine, the subjects went to war to defend and remake their country. The film depicts this intense and on-going struggle, which has so far killed 10,000 Ukrainians and displaced 1.9 million refugees.
Director Mark Jonathan Harris is an Academy Award® winning documentary filmmaker and Distinguished Professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. Among the many documentaries he has written, produced and/or directed are Huelga!, the landmark film about Cesar Chavez and The Redwoods, which won an Oscar® for Best Short Documentary and helped establish a redwood national park in 1968. The Long Way Home, a film he wrote and directed about the period immediately following the Holocaust, won the Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary in 1997; and Into The Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport, which he also wrote and directed, won the Academy Award® for Best Feature Documentary in 2000 and was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress for inclusion in its National Film Registry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15KbznNoFSI
Release Dates:
March 2, 2018 – New York – Cinema Village March 9, 2018 – Los Angeles – Laemmle Music Hall March 9, 2018 – Chicago – Theater TBC ** Additional cities to follow **
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“Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1” Tells True Story of the Original Air Jordan | Trailer
Including unfiltered interviews with fashion, sports, music and pop culture icons, the documentary film Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 tells the true story and features first-hand personal experiences around the irreverent shoe that powered its way into our culture and changed the world. Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 was written and directed by Dexton Deboree, co-founder of the award-winning creative agency, Los York and would be in limited theaters and available digitally on July 13, 2018.
“The AJ1 is more than a shoe. It’s a symbol of a much greater meaning across genders, race, geography and time. Now more than ever, what this shoe represents, its impact on society and its role in really creating, defining and redefining a lot of our modern culture makes it a story that has to be told,” said Writer-Director Dexton Deboree.
Unbanned: The Legend of AJ1 explores the dynamic journey of the Air Jordan 1 from its unlikely beginnings to its role in disrupting long-established rules of the NBA, changing the game of basketball, birthing sneaker culture and influencing a social and cultural revolution. Highlighting icons from across the cultural spectrum – including Spike Lee, Anthony Anderson, Michael B. Jordan, DJ Khaled, Lena Waithe, Kenya Barris, Jason Sudeikis, NBA stars Carmelo Anthony and Russell Westbrook, hip-hop legend Chuck D, as well as rising stars Gizzle, Christian Combs, and Kid Ink, and many more – the film takes a raw and riveting look at a movement that so heavily shaped the culture in which we live.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p79nXVeyj4s
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Guy Maddin, Evan & Galen Johnson’s New One-Take Short ACCIDENCE Premieres at 68th Berlin International Film Festival | Trailer
The new one-take short Accidence from Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, will receive its world premiere on Tuesday 20th February, 2018 at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival.
Accidence is based on music composed by Ensign Broderick, an enigmatic experimental songwriter from Toronto, Canada. The song, officially titled “Accidence PSA,” is found on his forthcoming album Feast of Panthers, to be released on March 9, 2018. To illuminate his unique creative process, Ensign Broderick recently shared two alternate versions of the song as an accompanying Triptych.
In a deadly and maddeningly endless loop of crime and punishment, Accidence explores the narrative potential of the mundane architectural projection. In Maddin’s words, “Every balcony is a poem, a chant — a muscle! But whoever lives with that extra blueprint luxury of a balcony lives on the wrong side of a cross-section, on the busy, narrative-addled side of something like an ant-farm window, a brazen architectural arrangement selling cheap peeks into the naked sideshows of the quotidian — even the grisly. Step right up! Behold! A ten story wall of solid twitching muscle!”
Based on the metaphor that we are each our own victims, each of us the worst perpetrators of our own worst traumas, and each the most tireless prosecutors of the crimes we commit against ourselves, Accidence follows the nightmarish cycle of a man who hurls to his death a doppelganger of himself from an apartment balcony, and is then pursued by a detective who is yet another doppelganger. The perpetrator is pursued from apartment to apartment, to the homes of his parents, and of his girlfriend, flats where he seeks sanctuary from persecution. By the end of the film, the perpetrator joins his victim in death as he is hurled from the balcony by his lookalike pursuer of justice, who promptly considers himself a perp, and who is promptly dogged by yet another lookalike agent of justice. And endless loop of crime and punishment is thus established. Everyone else living in the apartment block, at least those visible out on their balconies, is also caught in their own personal loops of varying activities. We all live in loops, each of us condemned to repeat ourselves in essential ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV0pK6BerHw
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Sony Pictures Classics to Release Rupert Everett’s THE HAPPY PRINCE
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Rupert Everett in The Happy Prince[/caption]
The Happy Prince, written and directed by, and starring Rupert Everett, which has its European premiere this weekend at the Berlin International Film Festival as a Special Gala, has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for release in the US. Sony Pictures Classics is planning a 2018 release.
The film which also stars Colin Morgan, Edwin Thomas, Colin Firth, Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January.
The last days of Oscar Wilde—and the ghosts that haunted them—are vividly evoked in Rupert Everett’s directorial debut. Everett gives a career defining performance as Wilde, physically and emotionally embodying the literary genius as he lives out his last days in exile in Europe. His body ailing and heavy, his mind spinning, he survives by falling back on the flamboyant irony and brilliant wit that defined him. As the film travels through Wilde’s final act and journeys through England, France and Italy, desire and loyalty face off, the transience of lust is laid bare, and the true riches of love are revealed.
“I am absolutely thrilled, particularly because Michael and Tom distributed my first film Another Country,” said Everett.
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VIDEOS: Watch 2 New Clips from Raoul Peck’s THE YOUNG KARL MARX
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The Young Karl Marx (Le jeune Karl Marx)[/caption]
The Orchard has released two new clips from THE YOUNG KARL MARX, celebrated Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s first film since the Oscar®-nominated documentary I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO. A fervently intelligent chronicling of the blood, sweat and debate that went into the creation of a manifesto and a movement, the film premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival.
Timed to the anniversary of the original publishing date of The Communist Manifesto, The Orchard will open THE YOUNG KARL MARX theatrically on Friday, February 23rd in New York and Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.
At the age of 26, Karl Marx (August Diehl; INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, THE COUNTERFEITERS) embarks with his wife Jenny (Vicky Krieps; PHANTOM THREAD) on the road to exile. In 1844 Paris they meet young Friedrich Engels (Stefan Konarske), son of a factory owner and an astute student of the English proletariat class. Engels brings Marx the missing piece to the puzzle that composes his new vision of the world. Together, between censorship and police raids, riots and political upheavals, they will preside over the birth of the labor movement, which until then had been mostly makeshift and unorganized. This will grow into the most complete theoretical and political transformation of the world since the Renaissance – driven, against all expectations, by two brilliant, insolent and sharp-witted young men.
The Meeting
Critical Critique