Films

Watch the Green Band ‘Clean’ Trailer for THE LITTLE HOURS

[caption id="attachment_19933" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Alison Brie, Kate Micucci and Aubrey Plaza appear in The Little Hours by Jeff Baena.[/caption] The Little Hours directed by Jeff Baena which debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, has released the new green band trailer. The film starring Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Mucucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Jemima Kirke, Nick Offerman, Adam Pally, Jon Gabrus, Lauren Weedman will open in New York and Los Angeles on June 30th. Medieval nuns Alessandra (Alison Brie), Fernanda (Aubrey Plaza), and Ginevra (Kate Micucci) lead a simple life in their convent. Their days are spent chafing at monastic routine, spying on one another, and berating the estate’s day laborer. After a particularly vicious insult session drives the peasant away, Father Tommasso (John C. Reilly) brings on new hired hand Massetto (Dave Franco), a virile young servant forced into hiding by his angry lord. Introduced to the sisters as a deaf-mute to discourage temptation, Massetto struggles to maintain his cover as the repressed nunnery erupts in a whirlwind of pansexual horniness, substance abuse, and wicked revelry.
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FilmRise to Release Ramona S. Diaz’s Sundance Winning Documentary MOTHERLAND | Trailer

[caption id="attachment_22502" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Motherland[/caption] Ramona S. Diaz’s documentary Motherland which world premiered earlier this year at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, will be released in the Summer by FilmRise. Motherland, which won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Commanding Vision at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, takes us into the heart of the planet’s busiest maternity hospital in one of the world’s poorest and most populous countries: the Philippines. The film’s viewer, like an unseen outsider dropped unobtrusively into the hospital’s stream of activity, passes through hallways, enters rooms and listens in on conversations. At first, the surrounding people are strangers. But as the film continues, it’s absorbingly intimate, rendering the women at the heart of the story increasingly familiar. Three women—Lea, Aira and Lerma—emerge to share their stories with other mothers, their families, doctors and social workers. While each of them faces daunting odds at home, their optimism, honesty and humor suggest a strength that they will certainly have to summon in the years ahead. Diaz said: “I’m very much looking forward to partnering with FilmRise on the release of our film after successful premieres at festivals both in the U.S. and abroad. We feel strongly that the film will strike a chord with viewers, all the more so in today’s political and cultural climate.”
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Award-winning Documentary, A CAMBODIAN SPRING to US Premiere at Brooklyn Film Festival | Trailer

[caption id="attachment_22492" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] A Cambodian Spring[/caption] The award-winning documentary, A Cambodian Spring, from UK video journalist/filmmaker Chris Kelly, will have its US premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival. The film won the Special Jury Prize earlier this year at 2017 Hot Docs in Toronto. A Cambodian Spring is an intimate and unique portrait of three people caught up in the chaotic and often violent development that is shaping modern-day Cambodia. Spending 9 years on the film (shooting for 6 of those years) the film charts the growing wave of land-rights protests that led to the ‘Cambodian Spring’ and the tragic events that followed. This film is about the complexities – both political and personal, of fighting for what you believe in. “A Cambodian Spring is for me a deeply personal film, which took 9 years to complete,” says director Chris Kelly. “It is an exploration of what motivates us, what gives our lives meaning, and what happens when our personal desires colour and shape our actions. It is an unapologetically subjective portrait of my time in Cambodia, of the people who shared their lives with me and of the shifting landscapes, both physical and emotional, that I found there.” The film also includes a riveting original soundtrack by the UK’s best known electronic music artist James Holden. 2017 Brooklyn Film Festival Screening Time and Location showtime: 7:30 pm | Wednesday June 7 | Wythe Hotel showtime: 8:30 pm | Sunday June 11 | Wythe Hotel
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Award-Winning Argentinian Film PAULINA Will Open in NY on June 23 | Trailer

[caption id="attachment_22486" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Paulina[/caption] Santiago Mitre’s award winning film Paulina will open Friday, June 23, 2017, at New York’s Spectacle Theater (located on 124 S 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY), before a national expansion during summer 2017. Santiago Mitre’s (El Estudiante) Paulina is the winner of the Nespresso Grand Prix Award and the Fipresci Award at Cannes (Critics’ Week) – as well as eight Best Actress awards given to Dolores Fonzi (Truman, The Aura, Plata Quemada). Both a remake and a “potent update” (Eye for Film) of Daniel Tinayre’s La Patota (1960), Paulina is a complex exploration of the ethics of political action and a provocative character study of a social justice activist – and her unsettling choices in the face of violence and social discrimination. Set in a racially and politically marginalized community in Argentina’s Northeast, the film tackles the moral ambiguities of those who seek to aid and ally themselves with the disadvantaged from their positions of privilege. When the film begins, Paulina (Dolores Fonzi, in a searing performance) leaves a promising legal career in the shadow of her politically-powerful father to work as a school-teacher in a rural village, on the border with Paraguay and Brazil. Paulina speaks no Guaraní and her teenage students artfully parry her attempts to lift them into political consciousness. These uneasy encounters, and subtly observed civics lessons, echo disturbingly in the aftermath of a violent sexual assault by a group of young men. Paulina’s decisions in its wake, portrayed without judgment by Fonzi, mercilessly test her relationships and core beliefs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws2bP9IWB1E Awards Grand Prize, Cannes Film Festival (Critics’ Week – 2015) FIPRESCI Prize, Cannes Film Festival (Critics’ Week – 2015) Horizons Award, San Sebastián Int’l Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, Miami International Film Festival Torino FIlm Festival – Special Jury Award Best Actress Winner – Dolores Fonzi – Premio Fenix (Mexico’s Academy Awards) Beijing International Film Festival Premio ACE 2017 Biarritz International Festival of Latin American Cinema Platino Ibero-American Film Award Argentinean Film Critics Association Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Argentina Torino Film Festival
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Bill Morrison Unearths a Treasure Trove of Silent-Era Cinema in DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME | Trailer

[caption id="attachment_22483" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] First Avenue in Dawson City, 1898. – DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME[/caption] Bill Morrison’s mesmerizing new film, Dawson City: Frozen Time will open in New York on Friday, June 9 at the IFC Center with a national rollout to follow. Dawson City: Frozen Time pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of over 500 nitrate film prints from the 1910s and 1920s, which were lost for decades until being discovered buried under a hockey rink in a former Klondike gold rush town. Using these rare silent movies and a rich sampling of newsreels and historical photographs, fused with an enigmatic score by Sigur Rós collaborator Alex Somers (Captain Fantastic), this haunting cinematic mosaic depicts the unique history of Dawson City by chronicling the life cycle of a singular film collection through its exile, burial, rediscovery, and salvation. In telling this story of “one of the most astonishing and unexpected bonanzas in cinematic history” (Lawrence Weschler, Vanity Fair), director Bill Morrison conjures the forgotten ties between the fledgling movie industry and Manifest Destiny in North America. The films of Bill Morrison combine a documentarian’s thirst for uncovering hidden histories with an archivist’s obsession for recovering lost cinematic treasures. Morrison’s Decasia (2002) was heralded by Errol Morris as “the best film ever made” and critic J. Hoberman called it “the most widely acclaimed American avant-garde film of the fin de siècle.” His other notable films include The Miners’ Hymns (2011), a document of the early 20th-century coal mines of northern England, and The Great Flood (2013), a collaboration with Bill Frisell inspired by the Mississippi River Flood of 1927. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stxrwpvQZIs
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The Watergate Drama THE SILENT MAN Starring Liam Neeson Gets A September Release | Trailer

[caption id="attachment_22446" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] The Silent Man[/caption] The Silent Man, the film based on the life of Mark Felt, the secret high-ranking FBI informant during the Watergate scandal who is famously known as “Deep Throat” will be released in the Fall by Sony Pictures Classics. The Silent Man is set for a September release, as the recent political turmoil has sparked a renewed public interest in Felt’s story. Written and directed by Peter Landesman (Concussion), The Silent Man features an all-star cast including Academy Award–nominated Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List, Taken) in the title role of Mark Felt, as well as Diane Lane (Unfaithful), Marton Csokas (The Equalizer), Josh Lucas (The Lincoln Lawyer), Tony Goldwyn (“Scandal”), Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Tom Sizemore (“Black Hawk Down”), Wendi McLendon-Covey (Bridesmaids), Ike Barinholtz (Suicide Squad), Bruce Greenwood (Star Trek), Brian D’Arcy James (Spotlight), Kate Walsh (“Private Practice”), Noah Wyle (W.), and Maika Monroe (It Follows). The Silent Man centers on “Deep Throat”, the pseudonym given to the notorious whistleblower for one of the greatest scandals of all time, Watergate. The true identity of the secret informant remained a mystery and source of much public curiosity and speculation for more than 30 years. That is until, in 2005, special agent Mark Felt shockingly revealed himself as the tipster. This unbelievable true story chronicles the personal and professional life of the brilliant and uncompromising Felt, who risked and ultimately sacrificed everything – his family, his career, his freedom – in the name of justice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR1IjeAdevI
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IFC Films to Release Lars Von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT Starring Matt Dillon, Uma Thurman

[caption id="attachment_22443" align="aligncenter" width="1100"] The House That Jack Built[/caption] Lars Von Trier’s The House That Jack Built, starring Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Riley Keough and Siobhan Fallon Hogan, will be released in the U.S. by IFC Films. IFC Films also released Von Trier’s 2009 film Antichris. USA in the 1970s. We follow the highly intelligent Jack through 5 incidents and are introduced to the murders that define Jack’s development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack’s point of view. He views each murder as an artwork in itself, even though his dysfunction gives him problems in the outside world. Despite the fact that the final and inevitable police intervention is drawing ever near (which both provokes and puts pressure on Jack) he is – contrary to all logic – set on taking greater and greater chance.
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Award Winning Comedy FUTURE ’38 to NY Premiere at Art of Brooklyn Film Festival

[caption id="attachment_22399" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] FUTURE ’38[/caption] FUTURE ’38, which won the Audience Award at this year’s 2017 Slamdance, will have its New York premiere on June 8 at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival. FUTURE ’38 from director/writer Jamie Greenberg, is a technicolor valentine to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and ‘40s, with a sci-fi twist. It’s a time-travel adventure which presents the exotic future-world of 2018 A.D., as imagined by the film-makers of 1938! Starring Betty Gilpin, Nick Westrate, Robert John Burke, Ethan Phillips and Sean Young. ART OF BROOKLYN SCREENING INFORMATION: NY PREMIERE – Thursday, June 8, 9:00pm – St. Francis College, Brooklyn
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Drops First Official Trailer for CANT’T STOP WON’T STOP: A BAD BOY STORY

Last night Sean “Diddy” Combs took the stage at the Billboard Music Awards to drop the first official trailer for the highly anticipated documentary Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story, that world premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story, produced by Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Heather Parry, alongside executive producers Michael Rapino, Andre Harrell and Alex Avant, explores the passion and personalities of Bad Boy and will be available on Apple Music on June 25. Directed by Daniel Kaufman, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A Bad Boy Story is an exclusive look behind the scenes at the history of Bad Boy through a complex portrait of the label’s mastermind, Sean “Diddy” Combs, as he tries to reunite his Bad Boy Family in the course of a frantic three week rehearsal period. As they prepare to celebrate the label’s 20th anniversary, the film traces Bad Boy’s emergence in Harlem and Brooklyn, follows it’s meteoric rise, explores the tragic killing of Biggie Smalls, and celebrates Bad Boy’s influence in reshaping music, fashion, marketing and culture. “I knew this was a story that should be shared with the world. Heather Parry and Live Nation Productions, and Director Daniel Kaufman, helped create this very special documentary,” says Sean Combs on the making of the film. “Now I’m blessed to also be working with Apple Music to showcase the film and share Bad Boy’s history and impact with fans. The support Live Nation, Apple Music and everyone on the team has given to this project is a true testament to the Bad Boy legacy.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtqIL4L8HmE
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THIRST STREET, Nathan Silver’s Psychosexual Drama from Tribeca 2017 Set for a Late 2017 Release

[caption id="attachment_22373" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Lindsay Burdge as Gina in THIRST STREET. Photo by Sean Price Williams.[/caption] Thirst Street, the darkly comic Paris-set tale of romantic obsession directed by Nathan Silver that World Premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival will be released later this year by Samuel Goldwyn Films. The film stars Lindsay Burdge (“A Teacher”), Damien Bonnard (“Staying Vertical”) and is narrated by Academy Award-winner Anjelica Huston. Thirst Street follows grief-stricken American flight attendant Gina (Burdge) on a layover in Paris, where she hooks up with nightclub bartender Jerome (Bonnard). As Gina falls deeper into lust and opts to stay in France, Jerome’s ex (Esther Garrel) reenters the picture, sending Gina on a downward spiral of miscommunication, masochism and madness. “We are immensely excited to work with Samuel Goldwyn on the release of Thirst Street. We feel like it’s the ideal home for this French/American labor of love,” says director Nathan Silver.
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ON A KNIFE EDGE Coming of Age and Activism Doc on American Indian Young Man to World Premiere at SF DocFest

On A Knife Edge, from director Jeremy Williams, a documentary film five years in the making, follows Guy Dull Knife and his son, George, as George comes of age on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. The film will world premiere June 10 and June 15 at the 16th annual San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. “On a Knife Edge” is a father-son story about Guy and George Dull Knife that unfolds over the course of George’s coming-of-age journey. Under his father’s guidance, George becomes an activist and organizer, and begins identifying with the role of traditional Lakota warrior, which he views as his family legacy. He commits himself to the fight for social justice, but struggles with adapting the old ways and his father’s expectations to the modern-day realities of growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Told largely through George’s eyes, the film offers a privileged glimpse into the youngest generation of the American Indian Movement, as well as George’s own evolving notions of Native identity, manhood, and duty. His story is interwoven with animated sequences that depict five generations of family history, narrated by his father and based on paintings he has created to explore the continuum of their fight through the generations.
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Margaret Byrne’s Award-Winning Documentary RAISING BERTIE Opens June 9

RAISING BERTIE is a six-year portrait of three young African American men coming-of-age in North Carolina’s rural Bertie County. Like MOONLIGHT and BOYHOOD before it, the intimate portrayal of these young men interconnects narratives of family, youthful innocence, and isolation with the will to succeed in the face of formidable odds. The feature-length documentary RAISING BERTIE, winner of Best Documentary Feature at Atlanta Docufest, is produced by Kartemquin Films and executive produced by Jermaine Cole aka rapper J. Cole. This powerful vérité film delivers an authentic and tender portrait of the lives of three young boys – Reginald “Junior” Askew, David “Bud” Perry, and Davonte “Dada” Harrell – as they face a precarious coming of age in Bertie County, North Carolina. Director Margaret Byrne brings audiences deep into the emotional lives of these young men as they try to find room for themselves in a place where life is dictated by a slow pace, opportunities are limited and tenuous family ties simultaneously offer comfort and heartache. Shot over the course of six years, RAISING BERTIE is an experience that asks us to see this world through their eyes: boys navigating between finishing high school and an elusive first job, as millions of young Americans similarly take their next step into an inherited idea of adulthood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1iNY7Fh3PA Set in Bertie County, a rural African American-led community in Eastern North Carolina, Raising Bertie offers viewers an authentic and tender portrait of the lives of three young boys – Reginald “Junior” Askew, David “Bud” Perry, and Davonte “Dada” Harrell – as they face a precarious coming of age. Rural minorities like the youth in Bertie represent some of the nation’s most vulnerable and least visible. Like many rural areas, Bertie County struggles with a dwindling economy, a declining population and a high school graduation rate below the state average. The Perdue chicken processing plant is Bertie’s last major employer, and the 27 prisons that lay within a 100 miles of Bertie cast a long shadow. Bertie County is predominately African American – its challenges compounded by generations of economic and educational discrimination and exclusion. Bertie also is the home of Junior, Bud, and Dada, three engaging young men with difficult pasts attending high school at The Hive, an alternative school for at-risk boys. There, we meet Vivian Saunders, a passionate community activist from Bertie County. At The Hive a combination of respect, socio-emotional learning, and mentorship helps to put these young men’s lives on track. The Hive is a beautiful model of effective, supportive, and innovative interventions that help to improve opportunities and the quality of life for African-American boys and young men in Bertie. But, when budget shorgalls lead the Board of Education to close The Hive, Junior, Bud, and Dada must return to Bertie High School and a system that once failed them. This raw and starkly poetic Kartemquin vérité documentary weaves the young men’s stories together as they navigate school, unemployment, violence, first love, fatherhood, and estrangement from family members and mentors, all while trying to define their identities. Intimate access depicts an honest portrayal of the boys’ perspectives and the caring adults in the community who understand what it means to take care of their own. The film is an in-depth look at issues facing many of rural America’s youth of color and what happens in the everyday lives of young people caught in the complex interplay of generational poverty, economic isolation, and educational inequity. Raising Bertie is an experience that asks us to see this world through their eyes and incites recognition and understanding of lives and communities too often ignored.
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