The fantasy/eco-thriller Harbinger, the debut feature of writer-director Cody Duckworth, will have its world premiere at the 19th Annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.
Austin-based entertainment company luzworks produced Harbinger, a cautionary fairy tale in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm that follows a young girl and her family who leave the city for an idyllic location to escape her nightmares, only to find more horrific experiences in reality than she could have ever dreamed.
Literature is rich with examples of tales that were not only intended for children but for adults as well. Harbinger does owe its story line to classic folklore in a modern way. Just as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a message about innocent children seeing things more clearly than adults, Harbinger stresses an environmental theme that is current and socially significant for all ages. The film’s tag line says it all: “Not all fairy tales are created equal.”
“I love the magic of storytelling,” intones the movies’ director Cody Duckworth, “When I was a kid, the whole world seemed all at once magical and frightening. Adults need more fairy tales in their lives. It helps explain the real world in a less invasive way … because Marvel comic book characters can only do so much.”
Harbinger most recently won a Silver Remi Award in the Fantasy/Horror category at the 49th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film & Video Festival. However, the filmmakers chose to premiere Harbinger in Austin instead of Houston.
Writer-director Cody Duckworth was born and raised in Boerne, Texas, a small town outside of San Antonio. He studied Film and Television at Savannah College of Art and Design and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Harbinger will premiere at the festival on May 7th at 4pm at The Marchesa Hall and Theatre, in Austin, Texas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKae0lHIBkFilms
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Indie Thriller HARBINGER to World Premiere at Cine Las Americas International Film Festival
The fantasy/eco-thriller Harbinger, the debut feature of writer-director Cody Duckworth, will have its world premiere at the 19th Annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival.
Austin-based entertainment company luzworks produced Harbinger, a cautionary fairy tale in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm that follows a young girl and her family who leave the city for an idyllic location to escape her nightmares, only to find more horrific experiences in reality than she could have ever dreamed.
Literature is rich with examples of tales that were not only intended for children but for adults as well. Harbinger does owe its story line to classic folklore in a modern way. Just as Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a message about innocent children seeing things more clearly than adults, Harbinger stresses an environmental theme that is current and socially significant for all ages. The film’s tag line says it all: “Not all fairy tales are created equal.”
“I love the magic of storytelling,” intones the movies’ director Cody Duckworth, “When I was a kid, the whole world seemed all at once magical and frightening. Adults need more fairy tales in their lives. It helps explain the real world in a less invasive way … because Marvel comic book characters can only do so much.”
Harbinger most recently won a Silver Remi Award in the Fantasy/Horror category at the 49th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film & Video Festival. However, the filmmakers chose to premiere Harbinger in Austin instead of Houston.
Writer-director Cody Duckworth was born and raised in Boerne, Texas, a small town outside of San Antonio. He studied Film and Television at Savannah College of Art and Design and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts.
Harbinger will premiere at the festival on May 7th at 4pm at The Marchesa Hall and Theatre, in Austin, Texas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAKae0lHIBk
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Film Review: Weed, Religion & Trouble in DOUGH
Weed, religion & trouble make up the ingredients for the award winning film Dough directed by John Goldschmidt.
Dough stars Jonathan Pryce and Jerome Holder, and is the winner of the Audience Award at Hartford Jewish Film Festival 2016, Green Mountain Film Festival 2016, and New Hampshire Jewish Film Festival 2016.
The film is set in London and tells the story of a Jewish bakery owner (Nat) played by Jonathan Pryce who is in need of a boost to his bakery so he hires a new apprentice Ayyash played by Jerome Holder. While working one day in the bakery Ayyash drops his weed in the bread dough and Nat business started to get a major boost in sales but in the end the shop was turned upside and unlikely friendship was created.
Dough puts off highly realistic vibes and all the actors worked really well together. I loved the fact “Dough” tackled religion and still had the ability to add comedy and weed in the same film. My only dislike about the film is that at times it got a little too predictable, however, over all I would recommend this film.
So with that said Dough will be opening this weekend in city near you, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, and right here in New York City at Village East Cinema so if you have a chance to view this film you should just do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAcqo7ZzlU
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THE GOD CELLS Documentary Tackling Stem Cell Issue to Open In Theaters in June | TRAILER
THE GOD CELLS, a film directed by award-winning documentary filmmaker, Eric Merola will open at Cinema Village in New York on June 3rd and at Laemmle Music Hall in Los Angeles on June 10.
A national release will follow.
THE GOD CELLS explores one of the most controversial and polarizing subjects facing mankind today: the harvesting of stem cells from aborted fetuses to be used for therapeutic use. Currently, the clinical practice fetal stem cell therapy is illegal in the United States, but research toward seeking FDA-approval has been underway for more than a decade.
Stem Cell research and therapy have been growing at a rapid rate over the past 15 years. Scientific advances coupled with consumer demand has proven that stem cell therapy is the wave of the future, and is poised to change the face of medicine. THE GOD CELLS takes the audience on a journey by following those who are seeking fetal stem cell therapy abroad—while avoiding these seemingly insurmountable roadblocks at home.
Originally harvested by abortions, Fetal Stem Cells are arguably the most contested and controversial form of stem cell therapy to date. Not only does this technology face enormous religious opposition, but commercial and regulatory agencies wish to slow down the approval process for fetal stem cells due to profit and market reasons— creating an atmosphere for a seemingly insurmountable dilemma. The documentary follows patients from all walks of life who sought fetal stem cells for a variety of reasons: including Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Lupus and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. Also included are interviews with some of the patients’ doctors, who were once highly skeptical, but now stand baffled by the full remissions their patients have achieved due to fetal stem cells.
Eric Merola’s previous films within the same genre of THE GOD CELLS have garnered wide audiences, starting with his debut documentary series Burzynski (2010-2013), which has been viewed by millions, and sparking an international movement. Merola’s third documentary Second Opinion received rave reviews by the mainstream press with the New York Daily News saying: “Though a documentary, it’s dramatic enough to be reminiscent of ‘The Insider,’ the whistleblowing thriller about Big Tobacco.”
The God Cells far exceeds the scope of anything else Merola has produced or that mainstream audiences have experienced. It has it all: religious conflict, scientific controversy, and a message that could bring down the pharmaceutical industry itself: because any patient with any ailment can seek this therapy; and any group with the proper resources can provide it. In a sentence, “this movie will piss off more people for more reasons than we can count—while also giving hope to countless others who once thought their declining health situation was hopeless.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08H0ih490RY
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Animated Films Focus of World Cinema Spotlight at 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival
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Blanca Engström in GRANNY’S DANCING ON THE TABLE[/caption]
The 6th World Cinema Spotlight at the 2016 San Francisco International Film Festival will feature films under the theme Animating the Image, focusing on frame-by-frame animation.
Whether hand-drawn, stop-motion, CGI, motion capture or a combination thereof, animation recalls the illusory magic of the earliest days of cinema, a surprisingly simple “trick” that continues to enthrall and inspire—when presented in succession, a series of still images transform to appear in motion.
Adaptable to a variety of eclectic approaches—exemplified by this year’s Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award recipient Aardman Animations, the collage of Lewis Klahr’s Sixty Six and the variety of styles employed by multiple artists in Penny Lane’s surprising and singular documentary NUTS!—animation endures as one of the most satisfying and versatile techniques in cinema.
WORLD CINEMA SPOTLIGHT PROGRAMS
Granny’s Dancing on the Table (Sweden/Denmark 2015) – Taking place within the quiet serenity of the dense Swedish woods, isolated from civilization, Hanna Sköld’s intense drama delivers a harrowing tale of abuse, psychological imprisonment and the power of imagination to withstand painful circumstances. Enchanting stop-motion animation captures 13-year-old Eini’s worldview as she silently struggles against her father’s brutal control and envisions the dysfunctional family history that led to her grandmother’s rebellious travels and her own pale and powerless existence.
Life, Animated (USA 2016) – The power of cinema has rarely been revealed as strongly as in this documentary about an autistic man named Owen Suskind who, as a boy, discovers a way to communicate with his parents through Disney movies. Now a young man, Owen is getting ready to live on his own, and the film shows his successes and struggles as he embarks on this huge step.
NUTS! (USA 2015) – Penny Lane’s documentary—comprised of archival material, animated sequences and the occasional talking head—blooms into an incredible almanac of early 20th-century quackery and innovation as she focuses on JR Brinkley, an early broadcasting baron, direct-mail pioneer and an evangelical proponent of goat-testicle implants. An empire built on spurious claims and fear mongering seems unstoppable—until the American Medical Association dares to question its foundations.
Persistence of Vision Award: An Afternoon with Aardman Animations – Established in 1997, the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award honors the achievement of filmmakers whose main body of work falls outside the realm of narrative feature filmmaking. This year, we recognize the team behind beloved animation studio Aardman. Join co-founder Peter Lord for an in-depth conversation and a filmic celebration of the studio’s 40th anniversary.
Phantom Boy (France/Belgium 2015) – When a kingpin with a face only Picasso could love threatens to bring down New York City’s infrastructure, a seriously ill boy with a unique, ghostly superpower teams up with a bedridden crusading cop to stop him. The team behind A Cat in Paris (SFIFF 2011) delivers another dose of enchanting 2D animation along with a story that blends absurd humor with an emotionally potent tale of a child rising about troubling circumstances.
Shorts 3: Animation – A retirement home resident attempts to woo with music. A participant in a primal scream class gets more than he bargained for. And a child is made to drink blood from deer antlers. These imaginative, often hilarious story-based animations mingle with non-narrative works that ply their magic with light and sophisticated processing techniques in this wide-ranging program.
Shorts 5: Family Films – In this eclectic international collection of short films for young audiences, an array of colorful characters—of the human, animal and monster varieties—learn how to help one another and work together in fun and sometimes surprising ways. Works range from new student films to those by veteran artists such as Nick Park of Aardman Animations, Disney animator Glen Keane, YouTube favorite Simon Tofield (and his fussy fat cat), and Oscar-winning SFIFF alum Brandon Oldenburg.
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A scene from Lewis Klah’s SIXTY SIX[/caption]
Sixty Six (USA 2015) – Sixties pop-art heroines and DC comic-strip heroes are suffused with the passions of Greco-Roman gods in Lewis Klahr’s short film compilation spanning 14 years of filmmaking, chosen by the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis as one of the best films of 2015. Lovers of melodrama, all your paper-doll superstars are here, but an individual heart beats beneath the vivid imagery.
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Chloé Leriche’s BEFORE THE STREETS Gets Quebec Hometown Release
Chloé Leriche’s first feature-length film, BEFORE THE STREETS (Avant les rues), will be released in Quebec, Canada, on April 15th.
The film will play in Cinéma Beaubien (MTL), Cinéma du Parc (English sub-titled version), Station Vu – Cinéma de quartier (MTL), Cinéma Guzzo Méga-Plex Pont-Viau (Laval), Cinéma Guzzo place Jacques-Cartier in Longueuil, Cinéma Le Clap (Québec), La Maison du cinéma (Sherbrooke), Cinéma RGFM Joliette and Cinéma Le Tapis Rouge (Trois-Rivières).
BEFORE THE STREETS world premiered in competition at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation section, and closed the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois film festival 2016.
Young Shawnouk kills a man during a robbery and flees into the forest. Deciding to return to his Atikamekw village in Québec, he tries to redeem himself using traditional cleansing rituals.
BEFORE THE STREETS celebrates a revival of native culture and its traditions, as embodied by the very actors who participated in the film. The first dramatic feature shot in the native language of Atikamekw, the film boasts a cast composed almost entirely of non-professionals living and working in the villages where the film was shot. The story takes place in Manawan, while a forest fire closes in on the nearby village of Wemotaci.
Chloé Leriche’s BEFORE THE STREETS International Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpKe2NpemU4 Chloé Leriche made BEFORE THE STREETS with the collaboration of Québec’s three Atikamekw communities in, drawing on all the vitality they embody. By following the pacing of her non-professional actors, she created a distinct style that goes beyond notions of the North-American indie genre and recent media reports on the dismal conditions in Canada’s native communities. Screenwriter, director, producer and editor Chloé Leriche will accompany the film in Montreal and certain cities in Quebec, along with some of the film’s main actors Rykko Bellemare, Kwena Bellemare Boivin, Jacques Newashish. Janice Ottawa, Martin Dubreuil (Félix and Meira) and Normand Daoust (Les manèges humains) are also part of the cast. [caption id="attachment_12059" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
Chloé Leriche[/caption]
Chloé Leriche is a self-taught writer, director, and editor who has produced a dozen short films since 2001; her work has won several international film festival awards. She worked for Wapikoni Mobile, encouraging young people from different native tribes in Québec and Ontario to express themselves through cinema.
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Indie Thriller FARE to World Premiere at Newport Beach Film Festival | TRAILER
FARE, a feature-length thriller filmed entirely inside a moving car over three days, makes its world premiere April 26 at the Newport Beach Film Festival.
Blurring the lines of tone and genre, “Fare” marks the feature-film debut of Charlotte, N.C.-based filmmaker Thomas Torrey. Filmed entirely inside a moving car in real traffic and shot on a limited budget, the film is ambitious, tackling mature thematic elements such as marriage, love and betrayal. The story follows a cab driver whose chance encounter with a passenger spirals into a night of darkness.
“The subject matter required an unusual approach, from conception to production,” said filmmaker Torrey. “And just when we think we know where the film is headed, it diverges quickly. Interpretations of the material have varied widely, from concretely thrilling to deeply surreal.”
Producer Justin Moretto described “Fare” as “existing in the now universal human experience of pulling out your phone to hail a cab. What would happen if we found ourselves somewhat notoriously connected with the driver who responded to our request for a lift? How would the night end?”
Presented by the Los Angeles Times and the City of Newport Beach, the Newport Beach Film Festival is one of southern California’s largest, attracting over 55,000 attendees each year. Many notable films, including the premiere of Best Picture Oscar winner “Crash,” as well as “(500) Days of Summer,” “Layer Cake,” “Pieces of April” and others have screened at the Festival.
“We’re very excited to screen Fare at our 2016 festival,” said Festival Programmer Deona Hamilton. “It’s sure to become one of our audience’s favorites.”
“Fare” will premiere on Tuesday, April 26 at 8:30 p.m. at Island Cinemas, 999 Newport Center Dr., Newport Beach, CA. Immediately following the premiere, Torrey and Moretto will join cast members from the film for a brief question-and-answer session.
Torrey and Moretto founded Charlotte, N.C.-based production company Bad Theology Pictures in 2015. Bad Theology’s mission is to produce theme-driven narratives from writers and directors who have something to say. “Fare” is Bad Theology’s first film and one of four films to be produced under the company’s debut slate offering.
https://vimeo.com/155327913
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Danish Comedy MEN & CHICKEN Sets April 22nd Release Date | TRAILER
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MEN & CHICKEN[/caption]
The “inventively bizarre and outlandish comedy” MEN & CHICKEN directed by acclaimed, Oscar-winning director Anders Thomas Jensen will open in New York and LA on April 22nd.
MEN & CHICKEN starring David Dencik (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) was an official selection of the 2015 Toronto Film Festival and 2015 Fantastic Fest, where the film won the award for Best Director for Anders Thomas Jensen.
Men & Chicken is a darkly hilarious slapstick comedy starring Mads Mikkelsen (“Hannibal,” ingeniously cast against type) about a pair of socially-challenged siblings who discover they are adopted half-brothers in their late father’s videotaped will. Their journey in search of their true father takes them to the small, insular Danish island of Ork, where they stumble upon three additional half-brothers—each also sporting hereditary harelips and lunatic tendencies—living in a dilapidated mansion overrun by barn animals. Initially unwelcome by their newfound kin, the two visitors stubbornly wear them down until they’re reluctantly invited to stay. As the misfit bunch get to know each other, they unwittingly uncover a deep family secret that ultimately binds them together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1miLsTpeQ
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EVA HESSE Documentary Sets Release Date | TRAILER
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EVA HESSE[/caption]
EVA HESSE, a documentary film by Marcie Begleiter, about the art and life of Eva Hesse will be released in the U.S. in April by Zeitgeist Films.
EVA HESSE will open at Film Forum in New York on April 27, and at Laemmle Monica Film Center on May 13. Many other cities will follow.
As the wild ride of the 1960’s came to a close, Eva Hesse was cresting the wave of a swiftly rising career. One of the few women recognized as central to the New York art scene, she had over 20 group shows scheduled for 1970 in addition to being chosen for a cover article in ArtForum Magazine. Her work was finally receiving both the critical and commercial attention it deserved.
EVA HESSE deepens the understanding of this extraordinary artist, not only in terms of her ground-breaking work, but also the life that provided the fertile soil for her achievements. With dozens of new interviews, high quality footage of Hesse’s artwork and a wealth of newly discoverd archival imagery, the documentary not only traces Eva’s path but engages in a lively investigation into the creative community of 1960’s New York and Germany.
Born in Hamburg in 1936 to a German-Jewish family, the artist’s fierce work ethic may have developed from a complex psychology that was formed, in part, as a Jew born in Nazi Germany. Having escaped the fate of her extended family, Eva and her older sister Helen were sent out on one of the last Kindertransports (trains that carried Jewish children to safety) and was eventually reunited with their parents in Holland. They made their way to New York in 1940 but her family struggled to make a new home. The remaining years of Hesse’s youth were difficult, and through dealing with these challenges she discovered herself as an artist early in life. The passion and serious attention she gave to her work led her first to Yale and then to playing a central part in the New York art scene of the sixties. Hesse’s cohort, major artists such as Dan Graham, Richard Serra, Nancy Holt, Carl Andre, Robert and Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Eva’s husband Tom Doyle and her friend, writer Lucy Lippard, speak candidly and with great passion about the 60’s, Eva’s work and her life.
When Eva Hesse died in May 1970, at 34 years of age from a brain tumor, the life of one of that decade’s most passionate and brilliant artists was tragically cut short. As Jonathon Keats wrote in Art and Antiques Magazine “Yet the end of her life proved to be only the beginning of her career.” Her work is now held by many important museum collections including the Whitney, MoMA, the Hirschhorn, the Pompidou in Paris and London’s Tate Modern and Cologne’s Ludwig Museum.
2016 is proving to be a banner year for Eva Hesse; in addition to the film’s domestic and international release, “Diaries” a book of her journal entries will be published in May by Yale University Press. Also, the artist’s work is included in many landmark exhibitions this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aov6R8qmf10
EVA HESSE Director’s statement:
I have an abiding interest in the art and life of Eva Hesse. The work moves me deeply in the mysterious way that powerful art can function. It’s hard to categorize; inhabiting a space that moves fluidly between media and ideas. The work made me want to know more about the artist and that led to Lucy Lippard’s “Eva Hesse”, the first book written on the artist after her early death in 1970. This volume includes fragments from Hesse’s unpublished journals and quotes from the single interview she gave in her lifetime. I connected strongly with the voice and heart that came through in these short quotes and began to search out more material from Hesse’s archive. Like Eva, I also have roots in the European Jewish community, a history that comes with many opportunities as well as inherent challenges. The female perspective is also very strong in her writing as is her ambition and bravery. No biography in English has been published, so I decided to go visit those unpublished journals at the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio where they are housed. Given a pair of white gloves, I sat for a week in their rare manuscripts library, reading through hundreds of pages. The journals told a deep and compelling story about this remarkable woman’s journey. It was characterized by loss, but more importantly for me, by a triumphant commitment to work and living life to its fullest. By week’s end I had fallen for the woman as I had for the work and began a series of projects of which this film is the latest incarnation.
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Award-Winning Bulgarian Film VIKTORIA Sets U.S. Release Date | TRAILER
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VIKTORIA[/caption]
The Bulgarian film VIKTORIA, directed by Maya Vitkova will be released in the U.S. by Big World Pictures.
Official Selection at Sundance, Rotterdam, AFI Fest and a number of other prestigious film festivals, and winner of numerous awards, VIKTORIA will open at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York on April 29, with a national release to follow.
Maya Vitkova’s stunning debut feature VIKTORIA, follows three generations of women in the final years of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria and the early years of the transition to democracy. The film focuses on reluctant mother Boryana and her daughter, Viktoria, who in one of the film’s surreal, magical touches is born without an umbilical cord. Though unwanted by her mother, Viktoria is named the country’s Baby of the Decade, and is showered with gifts and attention until the disintegration of the East Bloc. Despite throwing their worlds off balance, the resulting political changes also allow for the possibility of reconciliation.
Maya Vitkova wrote, produced and directed VIKTORIA, making it both personal and universal, and demonstrating a precocious command of all elements of the filmmaking process. Especially impressive is the film’s visual sensibility and its command of a range of shifting tones, from absurdist humor to political allegory to deeply moving familial drama. VIKTORIA was coproduced by Cristi Puiu’s Mandragora.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BcZe6neFQA
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Les Cowboys Featuring John C. Reilly to Open June 24th
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LES COWBOYS[/caption]
LES COWBOYS directed by Thomas Bidegain, and starring Finnegan Oldfield, featuring John C. Reilly will be released theatrically on June 24th, opening in NY at Lincoln Plaza.
The debut feature from celebrated French screenwriter Thomas Bidegain (DHEEPAN, RUST AND BONE, A PROPHET), LES COWBOYS is a haunting tale of a young woman’s disappearance—and a father’s all-consuming quest to bring her back to safety.
Set amidst a sub-culture of Western enthusiasts in rural France, Alain (François Damiens) attends a cowboy fair with his wife (Agathe Dronne) and children—sixteen-year-old daughter, Kelly (Iliana Zabeth), and young son, Kid (Finnegan Oldfield). When Kelly disappears amidst the chaos of the festivities, Alain’s initial fear quickly turns to anger and disbelief as it becomes increasingly clear that his daughter has willingly abandoned her life to begin anew as a Muslim with her boyfriend. Convinced that she was coerced, Alain devotes what’s left of his broken existence to finding her, eventually bestowing the responsibility of the search onto his son.
A fresh take on John Ford’s classic, THE SEARCHERS, the sixteen-year pursuit takes the two men across personal and international borders, becoming bigger than they could have ever imagined. Lensed by veteran cinematographer Arnaud Potier (5 TO 7, BREATHE, STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA), LES COWBOYS transports the classic iconography of the Western genre to striking contemporary landscapes—from the hillsides of France to the deserts of Pakistan.
A long-time collaborator of filmmaker Jaques Audiard, Bidegain has established himself as one of France’s most talented and prolific screenwriters, penning the scripts for Audiard’s aforementioned RUST AND BONE, A PROPHET, and DHEEPAN. Bidegain also wrote Bertrand Bonello’s SAINT LAURENT, which went on to be the French Foreign Language Oscar submission for 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPdGgmXTZjo
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WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT: THE STORY OF LATIN BOOGALOO Sets Release Date of March 15 | TRAILER
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WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT[/caption]
Award-winning documentary WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT will be released on iTunes and VOD nationwide on March 15.
Directed by Mathew Ramirez Warren, WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT tells the story of Latin boogaloo, a colorful expression of 1960s Latino soul, straight from the streets of New York City. From its origins to its recent resurgence, it’s the story of a sound that redefined a generation and was too funky to keep down.
WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT explores this fascinating, though often overlooked, bridge in Latin music history, showcasing the musical style that was born in the barrios of NYC and would eventually spawn a generation of chart-topping music artists and a global music movement that is once again alive and well today.
In the 1960s, a generation of musicians from East Harlem, the South Bronx and parts of Brooklyn fused Afro-Cuban music with R&B, jazz, funk and rock to create Latin boogaloo. It was a period of revolution and social awakening and young Latinos in search of their identity adopted Latin boogaloo as their soundtrack.
Much of this music was released by Alegre, Cotique and Fania Records during the 1960s and 70s. But as salsa, a more traditional style of Latin music, grew in popularity by the 1970s, some say the Latin boogaloo was killed off, not by the fans, but by cultural and industry politics.
By the 2000s, after decades of obscurity, the artists who made Latin boogaloo popular finally began to get the recognition they deserved, with the help of DJs and new bands such as DJ Turmix, The Boogaloo Assassins and Ray Lugo & the Boogaloo Destroyers, that pay tribute to the genre.
The cast of musicians and their personal stories told in We Like it Like Thatare as vibrant and enduring as the unforgettable rhythms they created. Some of the notable artists include Joe Bataan, a former gang leader who spent several years in prison before starting a band and becoming known as the “King of Latin Soul” and continues to be one of the most popular and active Latin boogaloo luminaries working today; Ricardo Ray, a Juilliard trained piano player who along with his singer, Bobby Cruz, recorded the first known Latin boogaloo “Lookie, Lookie” and went on to enjoy international fame in Latin music; Johnny Colon, the influential multi-instrumentalist, composer and bandleader who was a key player in the boogaloo scene and behind the first major latin boogaloo hit, “Boogaloo Blues,” a controversial song at the time for its chorus “LSD’s got a hold on me;” Jimmy Sabater, the late singer and percussionist for the Joe Cuba Sextet who helped write “Bang Bang,” the first boogaloo song to break through as a national hit; Pete Rodriguez, the bandleader whose group created “I Like it Like That,” the biggest Latin boogaloo hit of the 1960s and a repeat chart topper when it was covered in the 1990s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c–UlUha8nY
Additionally on March 11, “We Like It Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo Volume One” original motion picture soundtrack will be released digitally on Fania Records, featuring 14 classic latin boogaloo tracks from legendary music icons featured in the film such as Pete Rodriguez (“I Like It Like That”), Joe Bataan (“Ordinary Guy,” “Subway Joe”), Richie Ray (“Lookie Lookie”), Ray Barretto (“New York Soul”), Eddie Palmieri (“Azucar”), LeBron Brothers (“Summertime Blues”) and more.
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WATCH Video Clips from Black & White Indie Drama I FALL DOWN
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I Fall Down[/caption]
The ultra low-budget indie feature film I Fall Down is now available on iTunes in North America and Ireland.
The Prairie Gothic drama was shot over two and a half years around Edmonton, Alberta. Writer/Director Christopher White harkens back to the tragic silent monster movies from cinema’s golden age, like The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“In those films, the ‘monsters’ are nothing more than mistreated, unloved freaks,” he explains. “It’s not just the imagery that I borrowed, its their humanity and the audience’s empathy for these outcasts”. He credits the black-and-white reversal film for defining the tone and mood of the picture. “There’s a grit to the image, it pops, fizzles and it isn’t perfect. You get changing shades of grey which mirror the characters’ conflicts and relationships.”
Starring Emma Houghton and Tom Antoni, I Fall Down tells the story of Annessa (Houghton), a lonely teenage girl with a troubled past, hoping to leave her life behind. After a failed suicide attempt she meets Charlie (Antoni), a disfigured, child-like man who lives alone in a woodland shack. Although their mutual loneliness draws them together, their lives begin spiralling out of control when confronted by an intolerant world and Charlie’s own violent, primal nature.
The film debuted at the 2015 Macabre Faire Film Festival (Hauppauge, NY) followed by the inaugural Censured in Canada Film Festival (Toronto, ON). Critics have hailed it as a “modern Gothic story” and “an adult fairy tale”, praising Houghton for her captivating performance. She earned a Best Actress nomination at the 2014 Rosie Awards Gala alongside five other nominations for the picture, including Best Cinematography (David Baron) and Best Dramatic Production.
https://youtu.be/wYdUpJ2yjTg
https://youtu.be/kGmKl0XvXok
https://youtu.be/ZgNbWZFLjsg
https://youtu.be/ulnMS7ZCTno
https://youtu.be/PXd7sDEDIFE