Peter Vack’s visceral, gross-out directorial debut Assholes is slated for a theatrical release from Factory 25 followed closely by a DVD/VOD release from Breaking Glass in the Fall of 2017.
ASSHOLES will be released in New York City on October 6th and in Los Angeles on October 13th .
Assholes world premiered at SXSW where the film won the first ever Adam Yauch Award, an award given in honor of a filmmaker whose work strives to be wholly its own, without regard for norms or desire to conform. The film went on to play Calgary Underground Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Perth Revelation Film Festival, and the Fantasia Festival.
Written, directed, and starring Peter Vack (MFA, Mozart in the Jungle, Lace Crater) alongside his real-life family, including sister Betsey Brown (“The Carrie Diaries”, Muckland) in the atypical lead role, Assholes also stars Eileen Dietz (The Exorcist). Assholes follows recovering addicts Adah and Aaron who are struggling to stay sober. After meeting in their psychoanalyst’s waiting room, they fall in love, relapse on poppers, and become the biggest assholes in New York City.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with everyone at Breaking Glass Pictures, a smart and sensitive group, perfect for releasing my film about Assholes.”, said director Peter Vack.
Films
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Peter Vack’s Gross-Out Dark Comedy ASSHOLES Gets a Fall Release | Trailer
Peter Vack’s visceral, gross-out directorial debut Assholes is slated for a theatrical release from Factory 25 followed closely by a DVD/VOD release from Breaking Glass in the Fall of 2017.
ASSHOLES will be released in New York City on October 6th and in Los Angeles on October 13th .
Assholes world premiered at SXSW where the film won the first ever Adam Yauch Award, an award given in honor of a filmmaker whose work strives to be wholly its own, without regard for norms or desire to conform. The film went on to play Calgary Underground Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Oak Cliff Film Festival, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, Perth Revelation Film Festival, and the Fantasia Festival.
Written, directed, and starring Peter Vack (MFA, Mozart in the Jungle, Lace Crater) alongside his real-life family, including sister Betsey Brown (“The Carrie Diaries”, Muckland) in the atypical lead role, Assholes also stars Eileen Dietz (The Exorcist). Assholes follows recovering addicts Adah and Aaron who are struggling to stay sober. After meeting in their psychoanalyst’s waiting room, they fall in love, relapse on poppers, and become the biggest assholes in New York City.
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with everyone at Breaking Glass Pictures, a smart and sensitive group, perfect for releasing my film about Assholes.”, said director Peter Vack.
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DEALT, Documentary on 62 Year Old Blind Card Magician Richard Turner, Gets Release Date
Dealt directed by Luke Korem, is all about sixty-two year old Richard Turner, renowned as one of the world’s greatest card magicians, yet he is completely blind. The film which won the 2017 SXSW Documentary Feature Audience Award will open theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on October 20th.
One of the most renowned card magicians of all time, Richard Turner astounds audiences around the world with his legendary sleight of hand. What they may not even realize – and what makes his achievements all the more amazing – is that he is completely blind. Charting Turner’s colorful life from his tumultuous childhood to the present, DEALT reveals how through determination and force of will, he overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles to rise to the top of his profession. It’s both a tantalizing, up-close look at the secretive world of magic and a candid, awe-inspiring portrait of a man who lives beyond his limitations.
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Gun Violence Drama SHOT Starring Noah Wyle Opens September 22 | Trailer
The gun violence drama Shot starring Noah Wyle, Sharon Leal, and Jorge Lendeborg Jr. finally has a release date, the film will be released in theaters on September 22. The film directed by Jeremy Kagan, is described as a gripping drama about three lives irrevocably changed when a gun is accidentally fired on a busy Los Angeles street.
SHOT begins as sound mixer Mark Newman (Wyle), is pumping up the volume on a bloody shootout scene in an action film. Hours later, after an argument with his wife Phoebe (Leal), Mark is suddenly felled by a real random bullet, and lies bleeding on the pavement with a chest wound. With Phoebe desperately trying to stop the bleeding, they both agonizingly wait for an ambulance to arrive as Mark fights for his life. Meanwhile, hidden behind a fence across the street, a teenager, Miguel (Lendeborg), watches in horror with the still smoking gun in his hand. A gun that was just handed to him by his cousin and meant to protect him against gang bullies.
From the moment the shot rings out, Jeremy Kagan’s camera in real time daringly follows Mark from the street, to stretcher, to gurney, to examining table, as we watch the paramedics and medical teams in full life-saving mode. Through the imaginative use of split-screen, Kagan juxtaposes Mark’s medical crisis with Miguel’s moral one, as we simultaneously see the frightened young man wrestle with the fact that an innocent man was injured – or worse – as a direct result of his actions.
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WOODPECKERS is Dominican Republic’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
José María Cabral’s Woodpeckers (Carpinteros) was selected this week as Dominican Republic’s official submission for the 2018 Foreign Language Oscar category.
Woodpeckers (Carpinteros) which premiered earlier this year at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival tells the story of handsome Dominican-Haitian Julián (actor Jean Jean in a breakout role) who begins a begins a jail sentence for petty theft inside the notorious Najayo prison just outside Santo Domingo. He becomes immersed in the system of “Woodpecking,” the unique sign language the male prisoners use to communicate with women in the adjacent penitentiary just over 400 feet away. Julián’s entanglement with one female inmate, Yanelly (the astonishing Dominican actress Judith Rodriguez Perez), is the fuse that ignites the events of Woodpeckers, which was shot on location at the actual prison using real inmates for all but the lead roles.
Director José María Cabral’s first feature film, Jaque Mate (2011), was selected as the Dominican entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards.
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Award Winning BLOOD STRIPE, Indie Drama on Combat Female Soldier, Gets Release Date | Trailer
Blood Stripe explores a character that is relatively new to both U.S. policy and to movies – a fully-combat-participatory female soldier. The film, directed by Remy Auberjonois, and winner of the U.S. Fiction Prize at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival will open in New York on September 29, 2017, and in Los Angeles on October 13, 2017.
Our Sergeant (Kate Nowlin) returns home to a small town after a third tour with the Marines in Afghanistan. Unable to sleep and wracked by anxiety, it is clear that in addition to the scars she bears on her torso, Our Sergeant carries unseen wounds. When a homecoming party provokes her into an explosive outburst, Our Sergeant has nowhere to turn, and so she runs… deep into the North Woods. Discovering a picturesque summer camp on the shores of a lake, Our Sergeant seeks refuge and solace. But she cannot outrun her own heart of darkness and the pristine wilderness becomes fraught with peril.
Blood Stripe explores a character that is relatively new to both U.S. policy and to movies – a fully-combat-participatory female soldier. Co-filmmakers Remy Auberjonois and Kate Nowlin (the pair co-wrote the film, while Auberjonois directed and Nowlin stars) deftly feminize the warrior archetype while building the story to an emotional crescendo, reminding us of how little we understand post-traumatic stress beyond its definition. It is both an unusual and universal portrait of trauma and war’s cost to the individual and society.
The film received the U.S. Best Fiction Feature Film Award at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival. Additional accolades include: The Audience Award at the 2016 Austin Film Festival, The John Schlesinger Award for First-Time Filmmaker at the 2016 Provincetown International Film Festival, and both the Audience Award and the Indie Vision Breakthrough Performance Award at the 2016 Twin Cities Film Festival.
Blood Stripe is directed by Remy Auberjonois and co-written by Kate Nowlin and Auberjonois. Starring Kate Nowlin, Tom Lipinski, Chris Sullivan, Rusty Schwimmer, Ashlie Atkinson, Ken Marks, and Rene Auberjonois. Produced by Schuyler Weiss, Julie Christeas, Remy Auberjonois, and Kate Nowlin. Executive Producers are G. Mac Brown, Stephanie Dillon and Biz Stone. Co-EP is Christopher Conover. With Radium Cheung as director of Photography.
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RACER AND THE JAILBIRD is Belgium’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Michaël R Roskam’s Racer and the Jailbird (Le Fidèle), has been selected as Belgium’s official candidate for the best foreign-language film at the 2018 Oscar.
In Racer and the Jailbird, starring Matthias Schoenaerts (Bullhead, Our Souls at Night) and Adèle Exarchopoulos (Blue is the Warmest Color), it’s love at first sight at a racing circuit when gangster Gino (‘Gigi’) meets Benedicte (‘Bibi’), a wealthy and fearless racing driver. Fierce and loyal, Gigi and Bibi fight for their love against fate, but also against reason and their own weaknesses. But how far can endurance be stretched? How far can they go to try and save what may already be lost?
Michaël R Roskam’s was previously nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar for his feature debut Bullhead in 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onPQ8MnfZl4
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Can Ulkay’s AYLA is Turkey’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Can Ulkay’s debut feature Ayla: The Daughter of War has been selected as Turkey’s official candidate for the best foreign-language film at the 2018 Oscar.
The film tells the story of a soldier (played by Ismail Hacioglu as the young soldier, and Cetin Tekindor as an older man) who risks his own life to save a young girl Ayla ( played by Kim Seol as a young girl and Lee Kyung-Jin as an older woman) he finds half-frozen and on the verge of death, smuggling her into his army base. Despite being unable to communicate with each other, the two form a strong bond. When the war ends and the soldier must return home, he cannot bear to abandon the girl but is forced to hand her over to an orphanage, hoping one day to be reunited with her. The pair were finally reunited 60 years later.
The film is based on the true story of Korean War veteran Süleyman Astsubay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PELOIYaEiw
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New York Film Festival FREE Convergence Section will Feature VR, Augmented Reality Projects
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Reality Jockeys[/caption]
The sixth edition of the highly anticipated FREE Convergence section of the 2017 New York Film Festival delves into the world of immersive storytelling via interactive experiences, featuring virtual reality, augmented reality, live labs and demos, and more.
The Convergence section will include three Virtual Reality horror experiences from Dark Corner Studios, highlighted by the World Premiere of their terrifying project Night Night; Sanctuaries of Silence, which takes viewers virtually through Olympic National Park in search of the quietest place in North America; Reality Jockeys, where audience members collaborate with the creators to form their own immersive, surreal virtual worlds; Virtual Virtual Reality, which imagines the purpose of humans in a future run by machines; and Look But With Love, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s VR documentary series exploring the lives of Pakistani citizens.
Complementing these experiential works is an exciting partnership with Lucasfilm to publicly present never-before-seen technology showcasing the future of Virtual Production, which harnesses the power of VR as a tool for filmmakers to compose shots, create virtual storyboards, and more. Its uses within the film community could be boundless, and creators of the technology will be on hand to participate in a conversation about its potential applications, followed by a demonstration allowing audiences to experience the system firsthand. As part of this, Convergence will also host a special workshop with handpicked industry creators, filmmakers, and cinematographers, allowing them to test out how it could be applied to their daily work.
Other highlights of Convergence include the return of Gamescape, an exploration of narrative games and the artists who make them—which this year focuses on the comeback of Full Motion Video with a selection of new, playable work from a number of creators; and De-Escalation Room, a live lab with Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab, where audiences will be allowed to take a peek into their process and actively participate in creating the group’s latest project, which tackles the negative behavior of social media.
Convergence will take place Friday, September 29, 3-6pm, and Saturday and Sunday, September 30 and October 1, from 12-6pm in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center.
All Convergence events are free and open to the public!
2017 New York Film Festival Convergence
VIRTUAL REALITY PROJECTS
Dark Corner VR: Night Night, Mule, & Catatonic The team at Dark Corner Studios have made a name for themselves on 360-degree virtual reality projects that explore the boundaries of horror cinema by placing audiences in the center of thrilling—and often terrifying—scenarios. Convergence will feature the world premiere of their latest piece Night Night as well Dark Corner’s Mule and Catatonic. Night Night Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 7m World Premiere Night Night takes you from the safety of your childhood bed to a clown filled nightmare dreamscape. A Dark Corner Studios, MPC, and Unit Sofa production. Mule Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 6m A thrilling, emotional journey through the last moments of a man’s life. Choose your ending—do you want to be buried or cremated? A Dark Corner Studios production. Catatonic Guy Shelmerdine, USA, 5m This pioneering horror experience places you in the POV of a new patient as you are welcomed into a sinister psychiatric hospital. A Dark Corner Studios & Here Be Dragons production.
Look But With Love – Episodes 1 & 2 Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, USA, 2017 Directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and presented by WITHIN, this documentary series follows extraordinary people in Pakistan actively working to change their communities through causes they care deeply about. From a doctor in the slums of Karachi who has dedicated his life to providing free emergency care to children, to a courageous community of women in Nowshera, the epicenter of the terrorist insurgency, Look But With Love explores the lives of Pakistan’s most fearless and passionate citizens one story at a time. Audiences are invited to experience the first two episodes of this exciting project, “A Story of Women” and “A Story of Dance.” The documentary is produced by SOC Films and Here Be Dragons, and will be available on the WITHIN app. Reality Jockeys Virtual Reality Experience Vizor, Finland, 2017 At parties, DJs control the mood by selecting the music, and VJs set the ambience by displaying visuals on screens. With VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift, the experience is more than that, as everything around you can be changed on the fly. Finnish visual artists Fthr and Lintu specialize in creating surreal worlds in real time while interacting with the audience. Using custom software (Vizor Patches) and a variety of materials, they guide you through a trip that starts from nothing and ends in a living, breathing virtual world. Each participant walks away with a personalized piece that is saved on the web and can be relived at home. Sanctuaries of Silence Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, USA, 2017 Virtual Reality Project One of the defining characteristics of virtual reality is its fully immersive nature: we gear up, covering our eyes and ears in order to briefly live another person’s story. In Loften and Vaughan-Lee’s piece, the story that we’re asked to experience is that of silence itself, as told through the unique perspective of acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton. “Sanctuaries of Silence” invites its audience to join Hempton as he travels through Olympic National Park, one of the quietest places in North America, searching for a place not impacted by noise pollution—which is fast becoming as threatened as any endangered species. A New York Times Op-Docs production. Virtual Virtual Reality Tender Claws, USA, 2017 The brainchild of Tender Claws, the collective behind PRY (2015), Virtual Virtual Reality ponders humanity’s purpose in a future where our jobs have been co-opted by machines. Will we be little more than relics, reminders…even pets? Activitude, a Virtual Labor System, is here to help, creating an A.I. manager that’s a perfect match for your meaningfulness quotient. It’s Inception meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy meets The Wizard of Oz, only there is not just one wizard but a network of wizards living inside wizards, splitting themselves open like nesting dolls, pulling back infinite tiny curtains to reveal a churning multitude of unstable realities. VR and the Future of Virtual Production by Lucasfilm Demo and Talk Rachel Rose, Jose Perez and Nick Rasmussen From the depths of earth’s oceans to galaxies far, far away, VR allows us to be anyone, go anywhere, and see anything. Lucasfilm and its visual effects division, Industrial Light & Magic, have harnessed the power of this medium to create a new Virtual Production toolset, allowing filmmakers to build and scout a virtual set, manipulate props, puppeteer characters and vehicles, even compose shots to create virtual storyboards. It’s a game changing application that is easy to learn, allowing storytellers to focus on the elements that blend together to form great stories. The creators of the toolset will participate in a conversation about the development of the platform and its potential to impact the filmmaking process, followed on Saturday by a public demonstration that will allow audiences to experience the system first hand.EXPERIENCES AND TALKS
Arilyn Augmented Reality Installation With Augmented Reality, which superimposes images, video, and other content onto our flesh and bone world, the line between the virtual and the real can blur to the point of being indistinguishable—with little more than a cell phone. Helsinki-based Arylin has created a number of installations and activations that leverage the power of AR to great effect: paintings that come to life and everyday objects that spawn interactive videos. A number of these pieces will be on display throughout the festival venues—simply download the Arilyn app to experience AR for yourself. Gamescape: The Revenge of Full Motion Video It’s 1983. You find yourself in an arcade in the ’burbs. Among the future classics—Galaga, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong—you find something different: Sega’s Astron Belt or Cinematronics’ Dragon’s Lair, games that eschewed pixelated sprites for video and vivid animation. Full Motion Video games were movies you could play—to a point: the technical execution left something to be desired. Games were unreliable, systems crashed, and FMV all but disappeared. But FMV is making a comeback as creators breathe new life into this 35-year-old form. The 2017 edition of Gamescape celebrates some of the best new FMV work and looks back on titles both famous and infamous from the golden age of the arcade. GameScape is co-curated by Clara Fernandez-Vara, of the NYU Game Lab. Featuring: Her Story (Sam Barlow, UK, 2015) Mind Trapped (Claire Carre, USA, 2017) Loop Record (Nicolai Troshinsky, Spain, 2017) PRY (Tender Claws, 2015) Cibele (Nina Freeman, 2016) Last Night (Dejobaan Games, 2018) De-Escalation Room: Live Lab with Columbia Digital Storytelling Lab Talk and Rapid Prototyping Session Presented by Lance Weiler Founded in 2014, Columbia University’s Digital Storytelling Lab was created to explore ways of telling stories that incorporate technology and disciplines from across the humanities. A champion of iterative, collaborative design, the DSL will pull back the curtain on its creative process during this special session, and invite the festival audience to become participants in developing the group’s next project, the De-Escalation Room. A collaboration with SAFELab, the De-Escalation Room aims to create an immersive storytelling space that reckons with the negative behaviors of social media, forcing its players to work together to defuse an otherwise dangerous situation.
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Ruben Östlund’s THE SQUARE is Sweden’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Ruben Östlund’s The Square, 2017 Palme d’Or winner, has been selected as Sweden’s official entry for the 2018 Foreign Language Oscar category.
Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, Dominic West and Terry Notary star in the satirical drama set in the art world, about an art museum chief curator whose plans to promote an exhibit spiral out of control.
Christian is the respected curator of a contemporary art museum, a divorced but devoted father of two who drives an electric car and supports good causes. His next show is “The Square”, an installation which invites passersby to altruism, reminding them of their role as responsible fellow human beings. But sometimes, it is difficult to live up to your own ideals: Christian’s foolish response to the theft of his phone drags him into shameful situations. Meanwhile, the museum’s PR agency has created an unexpected campaign for ”The Square”. The response is overblown and sends Christian, as well as the museum, into an existential crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcmMYzyVt5Y
This is Ruben Ostlund’s third time representing Sweden at the Oscars – Involuntary was the official submission in 2009, and he made the shortlist in 2014 with Force Majeure but was disappointedly not nominated. In response he made the YouTube video “Swedish director freaks out when he misses out on Oscar nomination.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTWqLmnjt0
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Fatih Akin’s IN THE FADE is Germany’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Fatih Akin’s In the Fade (Aus dem Nichts) will represent Germany as the country’s official submission for the 90th Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
In the film, Katja’s (played by Diane Kruger) life collapses after the death of her husband and son in a bomb attack. The police arrest two suspects: a young neo-Nazi couple. Katja wants justice – for her, there is no alternative.
In the Fade world premiere in competition at the 70th Cannes Film Festival, where Diane Kruger won the award for Best Actress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKBqOE3WNu0
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Rare Prince Concert Film Documentary SIGN O’THE TIMES to Air on Showtime
The rarely seen Prince concert film Sign o’ the Times, will air on American television for the first time in more than a decade, premiering September 16 on Showtime. Created as a companion to the 1987 Prince double album of the same name, Sign o’ the Times features live performances of songs including “U Got the Look” (with Sheena Easton), “If I Was Your Girlfriend” and “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” in addition to the title song and a striking rendition of the Prince classic, “Little Red Corvette.” Much of the film was shot at Prince’s own Paisley Park Studios, as well as on tour in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Sign o’ the Times captures Prince at a critical juncture in his career, immediately after the disbanding of his group The Revolution and on the heels of Purple Rain and Under the Cherry Moon. Rock critic Robert Christgau declared that the film, directed by Prince, was a contender to rival Stop Making Sense as the greatest rock concert movie ever, yet it was never issued on DVD. Prince’s visual and musical passion reigns throughout the 84-minute project, a must-see for anyone seeking a full understanding of the performance legend, whose Sign o’ the Times was named the top album of 1987 in Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop Critics Poll.
Produced by Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo and Steven Fargnoli, Sign o’ the Times joins an esteemed list of projects airing on Showtime that focus on the lives and legacies of culture-defining figures, including Whitney. “can I be me” (which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26 before airing on Showtime beginning August 25) and Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars, which will have its world premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival before airing nationally on Showtime next year.
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Racing Champion Bruce McLaren Documentary Released in US on August 25 | Trailer
The documentary McLaren, directed by Roger Donaldson, tells the incredible true story of Bruce McLaren, the legendary racing champion, designer, engineer and founder of the iconic supercar that bears his name. Mclaren will be available in the U.S. via video-on-demand, starting August 25th. The film will be accessible nationally via iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Vudu, Sony PlayStation, Vimeo, and Microsoft Movies & TV.
A fearless sportsman and a brilliant visionary engineer, Bruce McLaren became a superstar during the glamorous jet-set world of 1960s Formula One motor racing. McLaren recounts the New Zealander’s life, from his humble beginnings at his father’s auto shop in Auckland, to revolutionizing Formula One racing by becoming the youngest driver ever to win a Grand Prix, to his death at 32. Featuring interviews from his closest friends and family members, the documentary is an unprecedented window into the life of a true genius.
Directed by Roger Donaldson, McLaren was written by Matthew Metcalfe, Tim Woodhouse and James Brown, with Fraser Brown and Metcalfe producing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyMfzi6WRnY