Films

Sony Pictures Classics to Release Lance Armstrong documentary, “THE ARMSTRONG LIE”

Alex Gibney’s Lance Armstrong documentary, THE ARMSTRONG LIE which tells the unfolding story of Armstrong’s life and career over the last four years.will be released by Sony Pictures Classics. No exact release date was announced.

Lance Armstrong was considered one of the greatest sports figures of all time and put competitive cycling into the global spotlight, by beating cancer and winning the Tour de France seven times. That success earned him an immense fortune and worldwide fame. His was also one of the most influential and inspiring sports stories of recent memory and became a pop culture phenomenon, thanks to his Livestrong initiative. Beginning in 2009, Academy Award winning documentarian Alex Gibney followed Armstrong for four years chronicling his return to cycling after retirement, as he tried to win his eighth title. Unexpectedly, Gibney was also there in 2012 when Armstrong admitted to doping, following a federal criminal investigation, public accusations of doping by his ex-teammates, and an investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency, that led USADA’s CEO, Travis Tygart, to conclude that Armstrong’s team had run “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.”

What began as the chronicle of a comeback became an examination into the anatomy of a lie. This film offers unparalleled access to Armstrong’s former teammates, doctors, and professionals, many of whom have never before spoken to the media about Armstrong and his bombshell doping admission – as well as unprecedented access to Armstrong himself.

Read more
Documentary “I AM BREATHING” Life-affirming film about man with ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease in Theaters This Fall 2013

The documentary “I AM BREATHING” which played at many prestigious international film festivals will make its U.S. theatrical premiere in New York Sept. 6-12 at IFC Center and in Los Angeles Sept. 13-19 at Laemmle Music Hall with additional national screenings to follow. In I AM BREATHING, filmmakers Emma Davie and Morag McKinnon craft a life-affirming portrait of the last months of Neil Platt, a 34-year-old architect and father from England diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig’s Disease also known as Motor Neuron Disease (MND) in the UK.

I AM BREATHING is a film about a man, when faced with the unimaginable, shares his own story in what he called, “a tale of fun and laughs with a smattering of upset and devastation.” Within a year, Neil Platt goes from being a healthy 30-something British bloke, with a great sense of humor, to becoming completely paralyzed from the neck down, due to the devastating illness he has inherited, ALS. As his body gets weaker, his perspective on life changes. His humor remains, but a new wisdom emerges:

“It’s amazing how adaptable we are when we have to be. It’s what separates us and defines us as human beings.”

Knowing he only has a few months left to live, and while he still has the ability to speak, Neil puts together a letter and memory box for his baby son Oscar and communicates his experience and thoughts about life in a blog (The Plattitude) – and in this film, which he was determined to make. The directness of his communication mingles with images of the sensory details of a life well lived, and makes us revalue the ordinary.

His blog posts form the film’s narration as he tells his own story through memories and impressions of his life – the sheer joy of falling in love, of partying with his mates, of fast motorbike rides. Through his determination to share his final journey, Neil makes us ask questions about our own lives.

Neil Platt was diagnosed with ALS in February 2008 by Professor Chris Shaw. Sadly, Neil lost his own personal battle with the disease a year later, but through his family, friends and this documentary he wanted to continue to raise awareness around this devastating illness. ALS/MND has been described as the last truly incurable disease of the modern day. ALS/MND is a rapidly progressive and fatal disease. It can affect any adult at any time and attacks the motor neurons that send messages from the brain to the muscles, leaving people unable to walk, talk or feed themselves. Ten days after Neil died, Shaw made a very significant breakthrough in MND research by identifying one of the genes that causes it, and more discoveries are being made every day. Neil Platt was among the small proportion (5-10%) of people with MND who have a family history of the disease, caused by genetic mistakes that can be passed from one generation to the next.

Since Neil’s death, his widow Louise Oswald continues to fulfill her final promise to Neil by continuing to raise awareness of ALS/MND. Louise is working closely with the filmmaking team on the outreach campaign, providing interviews for national press and making many personal appearances to speak at screenings.

Since 2009 Louise has been writing a book about her experience of caring for her family in the eighteen months between the birth of her son and the death of her husband. Neil’s words join her in the latter part of the book as she adds comment to each entry of The Plattitude. Louise now lives in a small village near St. Andrews in Scotland with Oscar and her new husband Robin. Oscar is now in his first year of school.

According to the ALS Association, every day, an average of 15 people are newly diagnosed with ALS — more than 5,600 people per year. As many as 30,000 Americans may currently be affected by ALS. Annually, ALS is responsible for two deaths per 100,000 people. More information at: www.alsa.org/news/media/

Read more
Colombian Drama “LA PLAYA DC” Open in New York Theater on Friday July 19

The Colombian film “LA PLAYA DC“, an official selection at 2012 Cannes Film Festival, will open in NY on Friday July 19 for a one week run at reRun Theater in Brooklyn, NY. Directed by Juan Andres Arango, the film tells the story of Tomas (Luis Carlos GUEVARA), an Afro-Colombian teenager who fled the country’s Pacific coast pushed out by the war, faces difficulties of growing up in a city of exclusion and racism. When Jairo (Andrés MURILLO), his younger brother and closer friend disappear, Tomas is forced to leave his home to look for him.

With the help from his older brother Chaco (James SOLIS), Tomas plunges in the streets of the city. His search becomes an initiatory journey that compels him to face his past and to leave aside the influence of his brothers in order to find his own identity. Through this journey, Tomas reveals a unique perspective of a vibrant and unstable city that, like Tomas, stands on the threshold between what once was and what might be.

http://youtu.be/nJWLSGikowU
Read more
The Good, The Bad, and the Horrific: Indie Horror Movies at Film Festivals

The Blair Witch Project

We can probably all recall the first time we ever watched a horror film that truly scared us. There’s something so oddly enjoyable about watching scary movies, and though films in the horror genre are not often critical favorites they have started to turn up more often in a surprising place: film festivals.

Truly, this really isn’t surprising from a business standpoint. First, horror is a genre that has one of the most dedicated fanbases. There aren’t many websites out there solely devoted to Westerns or comedies, but there are hundreds of websites strictly devoted to all things horror.

Horror films are also popular with first time directors because they tend to be cheaper to make than nearly any other genre. Because of dark lightning, limited casts, and other factors, horror films can be made cheaply – and even more cheaply if made using affordable digital cameras to produce the “found footage” effect. While indie dramas might boost one or two perhaps expensive familiar faces to draw audiences, horror filmmakers know that the scares are the true “stars” of the film and have no issue with hiring amateur or rookie actors for little or no money.

Many don’t immediately associate horror films with independent film festivals, but all one has to do to gauge the significant role that horror plays in film festivals is to look at the most well-known U.S. film festival, Sundance. Three of the most successful movies in the U.S. box office to make their U.S. premieres at Sundance were not indie dramas but 28 Days Later, Saw, and The Blair Witch Project. In fact, despite other Sundance films garnering immense critical praise and countless prestigious awards, it’s hard to argue against the nearly $900 million Saw and its six sequels collectively made at the worldwide box office.

As a result, film festivals have recently increased their horror film programming, with an increasing amount hosting midnight screenings for devoted horror film fans. These are certainly a good idea from a festival promotional standpoint, as it draws fans of horror films to festivals who might not normally attend a film festival with more traditional indie dramas and experimental films.

However, one problem with this is the issue of quality. Again, horror films can be made on extremely low budgets (very often less than $100,000), and the popular found footage style keeps costs down even more. While some talented filmmakers can produce brilliant low budget horror films, it’s not something that anyone with a camera can do. In particular, the once-groundbreaking found footage style that The Blair Witch Project helped pioneer in 1999 has been… well, overdone over the last decade and a half. I’ve seen enough bad found footage horror movies at recent film festivals and on DVD to know that few filmmakers are doing anything new with the style. I’m not alone in this assessment – many such films have scored extremely low with even critics who write for websites devoted to horror films, and several haven’t even gotten any sort of release meaning that they haven’t even made back the low budget invested in them.

Obviously I’m a huge supporter of indie filmmaking, but I feel that the increased acceptance of horror films shouldn’t be taken as encouragement for indie filmmakers to ALWAYS go the cheap route when making their first horror feature knowing that their film could be accepted regardless of budget.

Of course filmmaking is expensive – that goes without saying – but just because the “found footage” style means one can shoot a film at low cost doesn’t mean that it’s right for every indie horror film. Filmmakers should take a cue from The Blair Witch directors, who attempted to do something that seemed totally original back in the late 1990s and try to break new ground in horror filmmaking. There’s a reason horror remains so popular with audiences, but it is truly groundbreaking horror films like Psycho, The Exorcist, Halloween, Night of the Living Dead and those mentioned about that remain enduring classics.

After all, I still love seeing good movies that scares me.
Read more
Documentary THE WAITING ROOM An Inside Look Behind the Doors of an Oakland Public Hospital, to Premiere on PBS

The documentary THE WAITING ROOM, directed by Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Peter Nicks, that goes behind the doors of Oakland’s Highland Hospital, a safety-net hospital fighting for survival while weathering the storm of a persistent economic downturn, premieres on Independent Lens on Monday, October 21, 2013 as part of the first PBS Independent Film Showcase.

Highland is the primary care facility for 250,000 patients of nearly every nationality, race, and religion, with 250 patients — most of them uninsured — crowding its emergency room every day.The film weaves together several stories from the hundreds being played out in the waiting room: a frightened child with a dangerous case of strep throat, a young man with a testicular tumor in desperate need of surgery, as well as those suffering from chronic conditions such as alcohol and drug abuse, heart disease, and diabetes. Young victims of gun violence take their turn alongside artists and uninsured small business owners. Steel workers, cab drivers and international asylum seekers crowd the halls.

We also meet the overwhelmed hospital staff who cope with under-staffing, insufficient beds, and a never-ending stream of ER patients who jump to the head of the line of those sitting in the waiting room. As one doctor says, Highland is “the institution of last resort for so many people.”

http://youtu.be/15Fn32l_At8
Read more
Calvin & Hobbes Documentary “DEAR MR. WATTERSON” Gets A November 15 Release Date

The documentary “DEAR MR. WATTERSON,” directed by Joel Allen Schroeder, which explores the phenomenon of Bill Watterson’s popular 1980s and 1990s comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, will be released in theaters and VOD on November 15, 2013 by Gravitas Ventures.

As described by the filmmakers:

Calvin & Hobbes dominated the Sunday comics in thousands of newspapers for over 10 years, having a profound effect on millions of readers across the globe. When the strip’s creator, Bill Watterson, retired the strip on New Year’s Eve in 1995, devoted readers everywhere felt the void left by the departure of Calvin, Hobbes, and Watterson’s other cast of characters, and many fans would never find a satisfactory replacement.

It has now been more than a decade since the end of the Calvin & Hobbes era. Bill Watterson has kept an extremely low profile during this time, living a very private life outside of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite his quiet lifestyle, Mr. Watterson is remembered and appreciated daily by fans who still enjoy his amazing collection of work.

Mr. Watterson has inspired and influenced millions of people through Calvin & Hobbes. Newspaper readership and book sales can be tracked and recorded, but the human impact he has had and the value of his art are perhaps impossible to measure.

This film is not a quest to find Bill Watterson, or to invade his privacy. It is an exploration to discover why his ‘simple’ comic strip made such an impact on so many readers in the 80s and 90s, and why it still means so much to us today.

http://youtu.be/sRnnGfuS4vU
Read more
Documentary ZIPPER Gets A Release Date

ZIPPER a documentary about “greed, politics, land use and public policy’ and the battle over the Coney Island amusement district in New York City will be in theaters this Summer. The film will open at the IFC Center in New York City on August 9th, 2013.

Directed by Amy Nicholson, ZIPPER is described as a story about greed, politics and the land grab of the century, – chronicling the battle over an American cultural icon. On a small rented lot in the heart of Coney Island’s gritty amusement district, Eddie Miranda proudly operates a 38-year-old carnival contraption called the Zipper. When an opportunistic real estate mogul sets his sights on the property, Eddie and his ride – along with many of Coney Island’s eclectic small businesses – are forced to leave.

Behind the scenes, a high-stakes power struggle brews between the developer and the City of New York. Both see the redevelopment of Coney Island’s waterfront real estate as a lucrative opportunity. They lock horns when the City denounces the developer’s glitzy vision of condos and shopping, and ironically, hatches its own grand scheme to transform the area with the promise of housing and retail. The resulting standoff is a scary ride that leaves the future of the world-famous amusement park up in the air.

Can a reinvented Coney Island remain the “People’s Playground?” Will the zeal to capitalize on Coney Island as a brand ultimately sanitize its unfettered spirit? Be it an affront to history or simply the path of progress, ZIPPER examines the high cost of economic development. In an increasingly corporate landscape where authenticity is often sacrificed in the interest of economic growth, the Zipper may be just the beginning of what is lost.

http://youtu.be/nwqg_QAQUJs

image via facebook
Read more
THE ROMEOWS (Retired Old Men Eating Out Wednesdays) Documentary Gets A Release Date

THE ROMEOWS (Retired Old Men Eating Out Wednesdays), a feature documentary directed by Kevin Raman and Robert Sarnoff about a “Band of Brooklyn Buddies” who break bread, and each other’s chops, every Wednesday evening, will open in theaters on July 19, 2013.

What is the THE ROMEOWS?

Older people are using little blue pills, hooking up on Match.com, running marathons, flying planes and safely ditching them in the Hudson. Pull up a chair at this movable feast, break bread with this Brooklyn Band of Buddies who know each other for more than half a century as they break each other’s chops. Their generational perspective connects with “No Country for Old Men” and “Gran Torino” while repelling notions of “Grumpy Old Men” and “Bucket List”.

“When We Get Together We Get Younger” is the theme song playing in the background, highlighting the fun, affection and intensity of this weathered, vibrant group continuing to continue their affirmation of life on Wednesday evenings.

No avatars, cyborgs, no Facebook, nothing virtual about this half century friendship. It’s the real deal.

http://youtu.be/7NF0eaqVHOI
Read more
Documentary LEWD & LASCIVIOUS World Premiere to Sold Out Audience at 2013 Frameline

The documentary LEWD & LASCIVIOUS had its sold out World Premiere at the 2013 FRAMELINE LGBT Film Festival in San Francisco. LEWD & LASCIVIOUS directed by Dr. Jallen Rix documents police harassment and public abuse on New Year’s Day 1965 of a gay and lesbian Mardi Gras Costume Ball attendees and how it changed the Gay civil rights landscape in San Francisco.

According to the filmmakers, long before the rainbow flag, gay pride parades and even before “Stonewall” there was an incident in 1965 San Francisco that very few people know about. This critical event spotlighted in the film was actually what helped turned the tide on police brutality and gay bashing in the City By The Bay.

The filmmakers are seeking major distribution of the documentary so they can bring this timely piece about the LGBT struggle for equality, to the broadest audience possible. “Hopefully soon, we will be picked up by one of the giants like HBO, LOGOS, or BRAVO,” added Director Dr. Rix.

But first, the filmmakers are running a Kickstarter campaign to complete the production of the film. “Our friends and families have supported us in substantial ways up to this point,” said Director Rix. “We are confident with the exposure of Kickstarter and the ability it gives us to reach multitudes of people who understand how important our history is and what part this story played in the freedoms we enjoy today, we will raise the remainder of the funds we need by our deadline on July 23rd.”

Lewd & Lascivious plan is to be in as many festivals as possible and to share the story with as many people as possible.

http://youtu.be/ISmuXFsKSEM

via press release
Read more
TRAILER: Bobcat Goldthwait’s BigFoot Horror Film “WILLOW CREEK” Releases Trailer

A trailer has been released for horror film WILLOW CREEK which premiered earlier this year at Boston Independent Film Festival. Bobcat Goldthwait, known for his “gruff but high-pitched voice” who has also directed WORLD’S GREATEST DAD, 2009; GOD BLESS AMERICA, 2012, wrote and directed the BIg Foot “found-footage” horror film.

Jim and his girlfriend Kelly are in Willow Creek, California, to retrace the steps of Bigfoot researchers Patterson and Gimlin, who, in 1967, recorded the most famous film of the legendary monster. Kelly is a skeptic, along for the ride to spend time with her boyfriend between acting gigs. Jim, a believer, hopes to capture footage of his own, so his camera is constantly rolling.

The small town is a mecca to the Bigfoot community; sasquatch statues guard the local businesses, murals of the missing link line the roads, and Bigfoot burgers are the town delicacy. The couple interview locals who range from skeptic to believer and from manic to completely menacing. Some of the stories they hear are of chance encounters with a gentle creature, while others are tales of mysterious eviscerations.

On the day that Jim and Kelly plan on hiking into the woods to look for proof, they are given a simple warning: “It’s not a joke. You shouldn’t go there.” Despite the ominous message and Kelly’s own reservations, they head deep into the forest to set up camp. The events that follow will make them wish they had simply spent the night at the Bigfoot Motel. [IFFB]

http://youtu.be/eHcqBIPecRE

Read more
Kathleen Hanna Documentary “THE PUNK SINGER” to Get a Fall 2013 Release

The punk roc documentary THE PUNK SINGER directed by Sini Anderson will be released in the Fall 2013 by Sundance Selects. The Punk Singer: The Documentary about Kathleen Hanna focuses on Kathleen Hanna credited as a founder of the third wave of feminism and Riot Grrrl movement.

Kathleen Hanna, lead singer of the punk band Bikini Kill and dance-punk trio Le Tigre, rose to national attention as the reluctant but never shy voice of the riot grrrl movement. She became one of the most famously outspoken feminist icons, a cultural lightning rod. Her critics wished she would just shut-up, and her fans hoped she never would. So in 2005, when Hanna stopped shouting, many wondered why. Through 20 years of archival footage and intimate interviews with Hanna, “THE PUNK SINGER” takes viewers on a fascinating tour of contemporary music and offers a never-before-seen view into the life of this fearless leader. SXSW

http://youtu.be/xuhtI_Kgn3E
Read more
Dance Documentary “DANCING IN JAFFA” to be Released in the U.S.

Sundance Selects will release in the U.S., Hilla Medalia’s dance documentary “DANCING IN JAFFA,” which premiered earlier this year at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Sundance Selects did not announce a release date, but a Fall 2013 date is expected.

DANCING IN JAFFA follows ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine as he returns to his hometown Jaffa, Israel expecting his old home but greeted by new racial animosity. A firm believer that dance can build self-esteem and social awareness, Dulaine brings his popular Dancing Classrooms program to 5 ethnically diverse Jaffa schools. Dulaine sends the best children to a dance competition, boldly pairing Palestinian and Jewish children and challenging the children’s and their family’s beliefs.

Executive producers of DANCING IN JAFFA include Morgan Spurlock & Jeremy Chilnick, La Toya Jackson & Jeffré Phillips and Nigel Lythgoe.

http://youtu.be/DDBkUTHykoQ
Read more