The new documentary film The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble set to World Premiere at the upcoming 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) have been acquired by The Orchard and HBO for release in the U.S. The Orchard is planning a theatrical release in the Spring of 2016 with an HBO premiere to follow.
From Morgan Neville, the director of the Oscar®-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom and the critically-acclaimed Best of Enemies, the new film The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble tells the extraordinary story of an international musical collective created by legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The film follows this group of diverse instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers as they explore the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjrILQproKU
“What could be better than being involved in a film that erases differences in the name of music,” commented Sheila Nevins, President, HBO Documentary Films.
“Morgan’s film is an inspiring and soulful experience we are proud to be a part of ” said The Orchard’s SVP of Film and TV, Paul Davidson.Films
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The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble Doc to Get Spring 2016 Release | VIDEO
The new documentary film The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble set to World Premiere at the upcoming 2015 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) have been acquired by The Orchard and HBO for release in the U.S. The Orchard is planning a theatrical release in the Spring of 2016 with an HBO premiere to follow.
From Morgan Neville, the director of the Oscar®-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom and the critically-acclaimed Best of Enemies, the new film The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble tells the extraordinary story of an international musical collective created by legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The film follows this group of diverse instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers as they explore the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjrILQproKU
“What could be better than being involved in a film that erases differences in the name of music,” commented Sheila Nevins, President, HBO Documentary Films.
“Morgan’s film is an inspiring and soulful experience we are proud to be a part of ” said The Orchard’s SVP of Film and TV, Paul Davidson.
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IFC Sets December Release Date for 3D drama EVERY THING WILL BE FINE Starring James Franco, Rachel McAdams | TRAILER
Wim Wenders‘ 3D drama EVERY THING WILL BE FINE which stars James Franco, Rachel McAdams, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Marie-Josée Croze, will be released in the US on December 4, 2015, via IFC Films.
In the film, which will have its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, a tragic car accident links the lives of a struggling writer (James Franco), his long-suffering girlfriend (Rachel McAdams), a grieving mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and a publisher’s assistant (Marie-Josée Croze).
The Quebec landscape provides a rich backdrop as Wenders casts his camera on an author coming to terms with a fatal car accident. Holed up in a cabin in the wintry wilds near Oka, Tomas (James Franco) is struggling with writer’s block. While driving in a ferocious blizzard, he hits and kills a young boy. This tragedy becomes the fulcrum for an agonizing reappraisal of his life. Tomas finds himself in an existential trap, caught between competing forces: his long-suffering girlfriend Sara (Rachel McAdams, also appearing at the Festival in Spotlight); the victim’s mother, Kate (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and older brother; and Ann (Marie-Josée Croze), an assistant at his publishing company. As the years slip by, Tomas revisits the scene of the accident in an attempt to make sense of it all, even as the rest of his life progresses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl62PplyZis
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Laurie Anderson’s HEART OF A DOG to be Released by Abramorama and HBO Documentary Films
Laurie Anderson’s HEART OF A DOG which will world premiere this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by Abramorama and HBO Documentary Films for release in the U.S. Abramorama will release Heart of a Dog in theaters on October 21 in New York, followed by a national release, while HBO will air the film in 2016.
In addition to Telluride Film Festival, Heart of a Dog is set to screen at most of the upcoming major film festivals including Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival and San Sebastian Film Festival.
Renowned multidisciplinary artist Laurie Anderson returns with this lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.Laurie Anderson’s eclectic career spans music, drawing, storytelling, performance, and more. She had a surprise hit with her 1981 song “O Superman,” was NASA’s first artist in residence, and toured internationally with her political performance-art piece Homeland. Her new feature film, Heart of a Dog, combines her multiple talents in a personal film essay. The dog of the title is her beloved rat terrier Lolabelle, who passed away in 2011 during a succession of family deaths that also included Anderson’s mother, Mary Louise, and husband, Lou Reed. Anderson’s close bond with Lolabelle underlies the film’s stream of consciousness, which flows through subjects as diverse as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings. She lingers particularly over the concept of thebardo, described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead as the forty-nine-day period between death and rebirth. Overlaying the film’s tapestry of images — which include Anderson’s animation, 8mm home-movie footage, and lots of lovingly photographed dogs — is her melodic narration, full of warmth, humour, and insight. Anderson’s approach has a kinship with that of filmmaker Chris Marker (Sans Soleil), with a similar flair for connecting disparate themes and images. She quotes from other writers and artists, including Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Gordon Matta-Clark, and David Foster Wallace, whose line “every love story is a ghost story” resonates strongly in this work. If those references sound philosophical, so is this film. But it’s also dreamy, comic, and intensely emotional. Like Anderson, it defies easy categorization.
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Angelina Jolie’s Controversial Ethiopian Drama DIFRET Finally Gets Release Date | TRAILER
The controversial award-winning film DIFRET, directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari and executive produced by Angelina Jolie Pitt, finally has a release date in time for the awards season. DIFRET which premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival where it won the World Cinematic Dramatic Audience Award, and the Panorama Audience Award for Best Fiction Film at the Berlin Film Festival 2014, will be released on October 23.
Difret is a powerful drama based on a true story. In Addis Ababa, lawyer Meaza Ashenafi has established a network providing poor women and children with free legal representation. She takes on the case of 14-year-old Hirut who is abducted and raped on her way home from school and shoots dead her tormentors as she escapes. Accused of murder, Hirut may face the death penalty even though she was acting in self-defence – for in rural Ethiopia the tradition of ‘Telefa’ or marriage by abduction still exists.
The NY Post’s Page Six reported that the woman who said she inspired the project, Aberash Bekele, had reportedly sought an injunction on the night of its Ethiopian premiere to block its release, saying she didn’t give filmmakers permission to use her story. However, the matter was eventually settled out of court.
Three hours outside of Addis Ababa, a bright 14-year-old girl is on her way home from school when men on horses swoop in and kidnap her. The brave Hirut grabs a rifle and tries to escape, but ends up shooting her would-be husband. In her village, the practice of abduction into marriage is common and one of Ethiopia’s oldest traditions. Meaza Ashenafi, an empowered and tenacious young lawyer, arrives from the city to represent Hirut and argue that she acted in self-defense. Meaza boldly embarks on a collision course between enforcing civil authority and abiding by customary law, risking the ongoing work of her women’s legal-aid practice to save Hirut’s life. Beneath the layer of polite social customs, an aggressively rooted patriarchy perpetuates inhospitable conditions for women in this engrossing and significant film, based on a real-life story. Ethiopian writer/director Zeresenay Berhane Mehari portrays, with panoramic beauty, the complexity of a country’s transformation toward equal rights, featuring the courageous generation that dares to own it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4NbqGeEZQ
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Official Poster + Watch 2nd Trailer for Documentary HE NAMED ME MALALA | TRAILER
Fox Searchlight has released the official poster and second trailer for the documentary HE NAMED ME MALALA from acclaimed documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman). HE NAMED ME MALALA opens in select theaters on Friday, October 2nd 2015.
HE NAMED ME MALALA is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 15-year-old (she turned 18 this July) was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education, and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.
Documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman) shows us how Malala, her father Zia and her family are committed to fighting for education for all girls worldwide. The film gives us an inside glimpse into this extraordinary young girl’s life – from her close relationship with her father who inspired her love for education, to her impassioned speeches at the UN, to her everyday life with her parents and brothers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ghiYve6k68
“One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” – Malala
Image: Malala Yousafzai in HE NAMED ME MALALA. Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved
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Jose Nestor Marquez’s sci-fi thriller, REVERSION, Follow-up to ISA, Gets a Fall 2015 Release
Filmmaker Jose Nestor Marquez’s sci-fi thriller, REVERSION will be released on October 9, 2015 in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, with a wider national release to follow. Filmmaker Jose Nestor Marquez created REVERSION intertwining technology and identity, a continuation of the theme from his 2014 feature film ISA, which premiered on the Syfy channel.
REVERSION centers on Sophie Clé (Aja Naomi King), a delighted user of the Oubli, a wisp of high-tech jewelry that wraps behind the ear and uses neuroscience to help its users experience their most joyful memories as if they were happening for the first time. In addition to being the head of marketing for the company that makes this revolutionary memory-enhancing wearable device, she is also the daughter of its inventor, Jack Clé (Colm Feore).
Sophie’s most joyful memory is the last day she saw her mother alive, fifteen years earlier. But on the eve of the Oubli’s worldwide launch, a stranger named Isa (Jeanette Samano) kidnaps Sophie, setting off a chain of events that remind us all, you can’t escape what you can’t forget.
REVERSION is directed and Co-written by Jose Nestor Marquez (pictured above) (Ana Maria in Novela Land) and stars Aja Naomi King (How to Get Away With Murder), Colm Feore (Gotham, The Chronicles of Riddick), Gary Dourdan (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Being Mary Jane) and Jeanette Samano (ISA, Speechless).
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Jewish Doc “THE PRIME MINISTERS: Soldiers and Peacemakers” Sets Release Date
THE PRIME MINISTERS: Soldiers and Peacemakers, the follow up to the critically acclaimed “The Prime Ministers: The Pioneers”, will open at the AMC Empire in New York on Friday, October 9, and at the Royal in Los Angeles and Town Center in Encino on Wednesday, October 14. A national release will follow.
Directed by Richard Trank, the documentary film, THE PRIME MINISTERS: Soldiers and Peacemakers, the fourteenth production of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s two-time Academy Award®- winning Moriah Films, follows the experiences of the late Ambassador Yehuda Avner during the years he worked for Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Menachem Begin. Based on Ambassador Avner’s best-selling book, The Prime Ministers, the film examines Rabin’s election as the country’s first native born Israeli leader in 1974, his negotiating the first bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1975, the dramatic events surrounding Israel’s rescue of hostages in Entebbe in 1976, the tense relationship between newly elected US President Jimmy Carter and Rabin, and Rabin’s subsequent downfall in a financial scandal involving his wife Leah. The movie also explores Ambassador Avner’s decision to work for Menachem Begin when he surprised the world in 1977 by being elected the Prime Minister of Israel. It looks at the drama behind Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem, the Camp David negotiating process, the difficult relationship between President Carter and Menachem Begin as well as the tense relations that arose between Begin and President Reagan over the 1982 Lebanon War. The documentary also recounts Begin’s decline after the death of his beloved wife Aliza, and Yehuda Avner’s career as a diplomat in the UK and Australia before returning to Israel to work with Yitzhak Rabin not long before his assassination in 1995, after he had been elected a second time as Israel’s Prime Minister.
Starring the voices of Michael Douglas as Yitzhak Rabin and Christoph Waltz as Menachem Begin and introducing Nicola Peltz as the voice of Esther Cailingold, THE PRIME MINISTERS: Soldiers and Peacemakers is full of emotion and rich history with rare, never before seen photos and film footage.
https://vimeo.com/74139176
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JAMES WHITE Starring Christopher Abbott, Cynthia Nixon Sets Fall 2015 Release Date
JAMES WHITE, the directorial debut from writer/director Josh Mond and starring Christopher Abbott, Cynthia Nixon and Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi has set a Fall release date of November 13th via The Film Arcade. The film which had its world premiere at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the “Best of Next” Audience Award, is “a coming-of-age story about a young New Yorker struggling to take control of his self-destructive behavior in the face of momentous family changes.”
A confident and closely observed directorial debut by MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE producer Josh Mond, JAMES WHITE explores loss and the deep relationship between a mother and son. James White (Abbott) is a troubled twenty-something trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. He retreats further into a hedonistic lifestyle, but his mother’s battle with a serious illness forces James to take control of his life. As the pressure mounts, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely. Shot on location in New York City with an intimate visual style, the film follows its lead into deep, affecting places while still maintaining its fragile humanity.
The film marks the first lead film role for stage and screen actor Christopher Abbott, whose previous film and TV credits include HELLO, I MUST BE GOING, THE SLEEPWALKER and “Girls.”
JAMES WHITE is considered a high profile release for the distributor The Film Arcade, and as a result the film will receive a traditional theatrical release followed by an awards campaign highlighting the career-best performances by Christopher Abbott and Cynthia Nixon. Both actors topped Indiewire’s Sundance Criticwire poll for Best Lead Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.
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UK’s Music Documentary Festival, 2015 Doc’n Roll Film Festival Unveils Lineup | TRAILERS
Doc’n Roll Film Festival, the UK’s music documentary festival, returns to London for its second edition from September 25 to October 4, 2015. The 2015 Doc’n Roll Film Festival will open with the UK premiere of Morphine: Journey of Dreams, the story of the unique and genre-blurring trio Morphine told through rare performance footage and tour journals, plus a Q&A with the film’s director Mark Shuman. Ten days later the festival will come to a close with the Theatrical World premiere of Lost Songs – The Basement Tapes Continued, a behind the scenes look at a two week recording session with some of today’s most talented musicians as they create new music using long-lost Bob Dylan lyrics from the iconic Basement Tapes sessions.
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Poster and Watch Trailer for YOUTH Starring Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel | TRAILER
Fox Searchlight Pictures has released the poster and trailer for YOUTH, directed by Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty), and starring Academy Award winner Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules, Kingsmen: The Secret Service) and Academy Award nominee Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, The Grand Budapest Hotel), which debuted earlier this year at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. YOUTH will be released in theaters on December 4.
From Paolo Sorrentino, the director of Italy’s Oscar foreign language winner THE GREAT BEAUTY comes YOUTH, about two longtime friends vacationing in the Swiss Alps. Oscar winning actor Michael Caine plays Fred, an acclaimed composer and conductor, who brings along his daughter (Rachel Weisz) and best friend Mick (Harvey Keitel), a renowned filmmaker. While Mick scrambles to finish the screenplay for what he imagines will be his last important film, Fred has no intention of resuming his musical career. The two men reflect on their past, each finding that some of the most important experiences can come later in life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJNxQ8Wzr2I
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2015 Milwaukee Film Festival Announces Shorter Is Better | Short Films Lineup
The 7th Annual Milwaukee Film Festival announced its lineup for Shorter Is Better, a short film showcase comprised of eight themed programs, featuring 58 of the “best short stories told by filmmakers from all over the world, from all walks of life.”
Milwaukee Film’s newest shorts programs, Sports Shorts. Shorts about Sports. and Stories We Tell, return for a second year, and will join programs: The Best Damn F*#@ing Midnight Program Ever. Sh*t., Date Night, Let’s Get Animated, Out of This World, Modern Families and Stranger Than Fiction.
2015 MILWAUKEE FILM FESTIVAL
SHORTER IS BETTER
Shorts: The Best Damn F*#@ing Midnight Program Ever. Sh*t.
Not for the faint of heart (or those who aren’t willing to equip themselves with adult diapers) comes this series of brain-f^#@ingly psychedelic, pants-sh*ttingly insane shorts — replete with bloody stumps, psycho ghosts, and plotlines that make Donnie Darko look like Bambi. Only those looking for a temporary respite from political correctness and polite society need apply.
ANAL JUKE -anal juice- (Ketsujiru Juke) (Japan / 2013 / Director: Sawako Kabuki)
The Black Bear (L’ours noir) (France, Belgium / 2015 / Directors: Méryl Fortunat-Rossi, Xavier Séron) (pictured above)
DRIVING (USA / 2014 / Director: Nate Theis)
Limbo Limbo Travel (France / 2014 / Directors: Zsuzsanna Kreif, Borbála Zétényi)
Polaroid (Norway / 2015 / Director: Lars Klevberg)
Primrose Lane (USA / 2014 / Director: Nick Phillips)
Kajutaijuq: The Spirit That Comes (Canada / 2015 / Director: Scott Brachmayer)
teeth (United Kingdom, Hungary, USA / 2015 / Directors: Tom Brown, Daniel Gray)
Zepo (Spain / 2014 / Director: Cesar Diaz Melendez)
Shorts: Date Night
You should be sure to swipe right on this fun, fluffy, and relatable collection of love in all of its messy glory. We celebrate heart-pounding puppy love, sobbing-in-the-shower breakups, and all the love emojis in between. Be it young love, old love, new love, or no love at all, these relatable bite-sized bits are sure to do a number on your heartstrings.
Digits (USA / 2015 / Director: Alexander Engel)
Forever Over (Germany / 2014 / Director: Erik Schmitt)
In the Clouds (En las Nubes) (Argentina / 2014 / Director: Marcelo Mitnik)
One-Minute Time Machine (USA, United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Devon Avery)
Say Nothing (No Digas Nada) (Spain / 2014 / Director: Silvia Abascal) (pictured above)
We’ll Find Something (USA / 2015 / Director: Casey Gooden)
Who’s Up? (Qui de Nous Deux?) (France / 2014 / Director: Benjamin Bouhana) (pictured in main image above)
Shorts: Let’s Get Animated
This diverse, unexpected, and beautiful grouping of animated offerings presents an ever-shifting series of stories where anything can and will happen. Ranging from silly and absurd to heartfelt and personal, each short is perfectly matched with its technique, form, and function in animated harmony. The wide variety is sure to provoke post-screening conversations in the lobby.
Automatic Fitness (Germany / 2015 / Directors: Alberto Couceiro, Alejandra Tomei) (pictured above)
Beach Flag (Vosta) (France / 2014 / Director: Sarah Saidani)
Edmond (United Kingdom / 2015 / Director: Nina Gantz)
The Five Minute Museum (Switzerland / 2015 / Director: Paul Bush)
Light Motif (France, United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Frédéric Bonpapa)
Queen Bum (Königin Po) (Switzerland / 2015 / Director: Maja Gehrig)
Storm Hits Jacket (Tempête sur anorak) (France / 2014 / Director: Paul E. Cabon)
We Can’t Live Without Cosmos (Russia / 2014 / Director: Konstantin Bronzit)
Shorts: Modern Families
All the love and drama one can expect from everyday life surrounded by family is on display here — a daughter becomes a woman, a son becomes a man in the absence of his incarcerated father, a husband seeks to reconnect with his wife after the birth of their child, and a mother relies on the kindness of strangers to be there for her family.
De Smet (Belgium, Netherlands / 2014 / Directors: Thomas Baerten, Wim Geudens) (pictured above)
The Emperor (Der Kaiser) (Netherlands / 2014 / Director: Eché Janga)
Gloria (Mexico / 2014 / Director: Luis Hernández de la Peña)
Grounded (Au sol) (France / 2014 / Director: Alexis Michalik)
Personal Development (Ireland / 2014 / Director: Tom Sullivan)
SexLife (United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Stefan Georgiou)
Shorts: Out of This World
Do you prefer your shorts a little askew? Perfect for those looking to have the rug pulled out from under them, these effects-filled tales of the fantastical are tailored to your sensibilities. Just remember to keep a close eye on your clone, don’t get overly attached to that imaginary friend, and watch out for the end of days, because it’s nearly here and it’s going to look amazing.
Actor Seeks Role (USA / 2015 / Director: Michael Tyburski)
Francis (USA / 2014 / Director: Richard Hickey)
The No Look Dunk (USA / 2014 / Director: Dan Samiljan) (pictured above)
So You’ve Grown Attached (USA / 2014 / Director: Kate Tsang)
Sundays (Mexico, Netherlands / 2015 / Director: Mischa Rozema)
Zelos (USA / 2015 / Director: Thoranna Sigurdardottir)
Zero M2 (France / 2015 / Director: Matthieu Landour)
Shorts: Sports Shorts. Shorts about Sports.
Whether you’re a lifelong sports fanatic or you think a goalie can dunk a touchdown, these stories are for you. They all deal with some manner of underdog, and the humanity of these subjects shines through and leaves you rooting for their success. These populist parables of perseverance, as people push the limits of what’s possible, will leave you grinning ear to ear (and doing the wave).
The Bad Boy of Bowling (USA / 2015 / Director: Bryan Storkel)
Boxeadora (USA, Cuba / 2014 / Director: Meg Smaker)
The Edge of Impossible (USA / 2014 / Director: Conor Toumarkine) (pictured above)
Every Day (USA / 2014 / Director: Gabe Spitzer)
Giovanni and the Water Ballet (Netherlands / 2014 / Director: Astrid Bussink)
Run Fast (USA, Kenya / 2014 / Director: Anna Musso)
Shorts: Stories We Tell
Everybody’s got a story to tell — personal, provocative, funny, sad, or heartfelt, this program’s got ’em all. Between a love affair with a dolphin, a fateful camping trip that would irrevocably change the lives of many, and a family photo years in the making, this smattering of tales both true and fictional is sure to leave you satisfied.
{THE AND} Marcela & Rock (USA / 2014 / Director: Topaz Adizes)
Copycat (United Kingdom / 2015 / Director: Charlie Lyne)
Dolphin Lover (USA / 2015 / Director: Kareem Tabsch)
In the Hollow (USA / 2015 / Director: Austin Bunn)
The Little Deputy (Canada / 2015 / Director: Trevor Anderson)
Mother’s Song (USA / 2015 / Director: Matty Brown)
My Beefs with Taco Bell (USA / 2015 / Director: Connor Kerrigan)
Two Dosas (United Kingdom / 2014 / Director: Sarmad Masud)
Walls (Spain / 2014 / Director: Miguel López Beraza)
Shorts: Stranger Than Fiction
These extraordinary and unusual shorts beggar belief, but unbelievable as they may seem, they’re all true. Be it the story of an infamous murder house, a team risking life and limb to stop the spread of Ebola, or a boxing champion turned taxi driver, these documentaries prove true life can be as fascinating, sobering, and heartfelt as the finest of fictions.
Body Team 12 (USA / 2015 / Director: David Darg)
The Champion (USA / 2014 / Directors: Brett Garamella, Patrick McGowan)
The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul (Australia / 2014 / Director: Kitty Green)
The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano (USA / 2015 / Director: Joshua Seftel)
The House is Innocent (USA / 2015 / Director: Nicholas Coles)
Spearhunter (USA / 2015 / Directors: Adam Roffman, Luke Poling)
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JAMES WHITE Starring Rapper Kid Cudi, Cynthia Nixon to Premiere in Canada at Toronto International Film Festival
Josh Mond’s JAMES WHITE will make its Canadian premiere at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival in the Discovery Program. Starring Christopher Abbot, Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi, Cynthia Nixon, Ron Livingston, David Call, and Mackenzie Leigh, JAMES WHITE is a coming-of-age story about a young New Yorker struggling to take control of his reckless, self-destructive behavior in the face of momentous family challenges. JAMES WHITE was the recipient of the 2015 Sundance “Best of Next” Award.
James White (Christopher Abbott) is a troubled twenty-something trying to stay afloat in a frenzied New York City. He retreats further into a self-destructive, hedonistic lifestyle, but as his mother (Cynthia Nixon) battles a serious illness James is forced to take control of his life. As the pressure on him mounts, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely. The directorial debut of MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE producer Josh Mond, JAMES WHITE, which had its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2014 where it was the winner of the “Best of Next” Audience Award, is a confident and closely observed debut that explores loss and the deep relationship between a mother and son. Abbott’s strong central performance is aided by a stellar supporting cast featuring Cynthia Nixon (“Sex and the City”), Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi (“Comedy Bang! Bang!”), and Ron Livingston (DRINKING BUDDIES). Shot on location in New York City with an intimate visual style, JAMES WHITE follows its lead into deep, affecting places while still maintaining its fragile humanity.
JAMES WHITE is Josh Mond’s feature film debut as a director. He has worked as producer on a number of films including the award-winning MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE for which he was recognized with an Independent Spirit Award nomination and shared the Los Angeles Film Critic Association New Generation Award.
JAMES WHITE will be released theatrically Fall 2015 by The Film Arcade.