Thirty-three independent documentary films have been selected for 2015 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program support.
The Sundance Documentary Fund moved to a limited rolling open call in 2015, encouraging filmmakers to submit applications only when they feel their film is ready to share. Rahdi Taylor, Film Fund Director, said, “This past year was one of experimentation and change. We eliminated deadlines, embraced risk taking in form, filmmaker and subject matter, but we stayed true to our core purpose of discovering contemporary stories of meaning and moral purpose. Overall the selections are characterized by risk, inclusion and innovation as well as addressing the most vital conversations of our time.”
DEVELOPMENT
The Acali Experiment (Sweden) (pictured above)
Director: Marcus Lindeen
Producer: Erik Gandini
In 1973 five men and six women went on a dramatic raft expedition across the Atlantic Ocean for 101 days to study human aggression and sexuality. This documentary reunites them forty years later to reveal what actually happened during one of history’s strangest group experiments.
Afterglow (Hungary)
Director: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi
Producer: Julianna Ugrin
The filmmaker found her missing brother, who was kidnapped at age six by his father, a man with extraordinary connections in communist Hungary.
Casting JonBenet (Australia/U.S.)
Director: Kitty Green
Producer: Scott Macaulay and Kitty Green
An artful exploration of the legacy of the world’s most sensational child-murder case, the unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.
Shirkers (U.S.-Singapore)
Writer-Director-Producer: Sandi Tan
In 1992, an enigmatic American named Georges shot Singapore’s first indie film with a group of female teenage film-buffs, then absconded with all the footage. Nearly twenty years later, his widow uncovers the 16mm cans in New Orleans—and ships them to the film’s screenwriter-actress, who embarks on a new voyage to Singapore, Cambridge, New Orleans, and into the past.
Three Identical Strangers (U.K.)
Director: Tim Wardle
Producer: Grace Hughes-Hallett
There’s no-one else on Earth quite like you. Or is there…?
Untitled Kronos Project (U.S.)
Director: Sam Green
Untitled Kronos Project is an experimental, live documentary that will tell the story of legendary classical group the Kronos Quartet and its 40 year career.
Untitled Prison Project (U.S.)
Director: Roger Ross Williams
Producer: Femke Wolting, Bruno Felix, Roger Ross Williams
Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams sets out on a deeply personal journey to understand why so many friends from his childhood town of Easton, Pennsylvania are in prison.
Yoghurt Utopia (U.K./Spain)
Directors: Anna Thomson, David Baksh
Producer: Adrian Pennink
Christopher Columbus gives 200 mental patients an opportunity to live, work and lead productive lives producing La Fageda, a top yogurt brand from Catalonia, Spain. Can this Yoghurt Utopia survive the mounting internal and external pressures?
Young Men and Fire (US)
Director: Kahlil Hudson and Alex Jablonski
Producer: Kyle Dickman
Young Men and Fire tells the story of working class men in a single wildland firefighting crew as they struggle with fear, loyalty, love, and defeat all over the course of a single fire season.
When God Sleeps
Director: Till Schauder (U.S/ Germany)
Producer: Sara Nodjoumi & Till Schauder (U.S./Germany)
When God Sleeps depicts the journey of an Iranian musician who is forced into hiding after hardline clerics offer a $100,000 reward for his murder
Whose Streets? (U.S.)
Director: Sabaah Jordan and Damon Davis
Producer: Flannery Miller
The murder of a teenage boy became the last straw for a community under siege. Whose Streets? follows the journey of everyday people turned freedom fighters, whose lives intertwine with a burgeoning national movement for black liberation.
PRODUCTION
All These Sleepless Nights (Poland/UK)
Director: Michal Marczak
Producer: Marta Golba, Michal Marczak, Julia Nottingham, Thomas Benski and Lucas Ochoa
A new era is coming, and Warsaw stands uncomfortably at its edge. Christopher and Michal, on the precipice of their own coming of age, restlessly roam their city’s streets in search of living forever inside the beautiful moment. Never content with answers, they push each experience to its breaking point, testing what it might mean to be truly awake in a world that seems satisfied to be asleep.
Audrie & Daisy (U.S.)
Director: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk
Producers: Richard Berge and Sara Dosa
Two teenage girls are sexually assaulted while unconscious by boys who they thought were their friends. Each girl is harassed relentlessly online, both attempt suicide, and tragically, one girl dies. High school assault in the age of social media is explored from the perspective of the girls –and the boys –involved in the assaults.
Cecilia (India)
Director/Producer: Pankaj Johar
When Cecilia Hasda’s 14 year old daughter is trafficked and found dead in Delhi, the filmmaker and his wife decide to help her seek justice. As they battle a web of corruption at all levels, they find themselves navigating a complex network of cops, traffickers, judges, lawyers, villagers and family members.
Eagle Huntress (UK/Mongolia)
Director: Otto Bell
Producer: Stacey Reiss and Sharon Chang
This spellbinding documentary follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old nomadic Mongolian girl as she battles a culture of misogyny to become the first female Eagle Hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated history.
Forgiveness (U.K.)
Director: Elizabeth Stopford
Producer: Nicole Stott
A modern American ghost story and a house that vanished. In the wake of two seemingly inexplicable shooting sprees, can a community forgive the teenage boy at the heart of its tragic past? .
Greywater (U.S.)
Director: Jeff Unay
Greywater is the story of Joe, a blue-collar family man who breaks the promise he made years ago to never fight again. Now forty years old, with a wife and four children who depend on him, he risks everything—his marriage, his family, his financial security— to go back into the fighting cage for one last time and come to terms with his past.
The Keepers (U.S.)
Director: Ryan White
Producer: Jessica Lawson
A documentary thriller unraveling a longstanding mystery in Baltimore.
Untitled Newtown Documentary (U.S.)
Director: Kim A. Snyder
Producer: Maria Cuomo Cole, Kim A. Snyder
We witness residents of Newtown, CT navigate the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting of schoolchildren in American history.
Untitled Reef Project (U.S.)
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Producer: Larissa Rhodes
Richard Vevers quit his job at a top London ad agency and sets out to become an underwater photographer. Face-to-face with stunning evidence of the human caused destruction of vibrant underwater ecosystems, Richard races the clock to save the oceans.
POST-PRODUCTION
Almost Sunrise (U.S.)
Director: Michael Collins
Producer: Marty Syjuco
Two friends, ex-soldiers, embark on an epic journey to heal from their time in combat. Filled with hope for veterans who’ve left the battlefield behind and are now seeking peace on the home front, Almost Sunrise follows Tom and Anthony as they walk 2,700 miles across America.
The Event (Ukraine/Russia)
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Producers: Sergei Loznitsa & Maria Choustova
Three days that shook the world or much ado about nothing?
Holy Cow (Azerbaijan/Germany/Romania)
Director: Imam Hasanov
Producer: Andra Popescu, Veronika Janatkova, Stefan Kloos
One man’s dream of bringing a European cow in his remote village in Azerbaijan unsettles the conservative community that wants to keep their secular traditions intact.
Maman Colonelle (France/DR Congo)
Director: Dieudo Hamadi
Producer: Christian Lelong
Colonel Honorine works for the Congolese police force and heads the unit for the protection of minors and the fight against sexual violence. Having worked for 15 years in Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she learned she was being transferred to Kisangani. There, she found herself faced with new challenges.
Markie in Milwaukee (U.S.)
Director: Matt Kliegman
Producer: Matt Kliegman and Zac Stuart-Pontier
Markie dreams of completing her gender transition, but can she overcome the ghosts of her past as a Fundamentalist Baptist preacher?
The Pearl Button (El Boton de Nacar)
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Producer: Renate Sachse
The Pearl Button is a story about water, Cosmos and us. It all starts with the discovery of two mysterious buttons deep in the Pacific Ocean, off the Chilean coast.
Proposition for a Revolution (India)
Directors: Khushboo Ranka, Vinay Shukla
Producer: Anand Gandhi
Co-Producer: Ruchi Bhimani
Exec. Producer: Joris van Wijk
What happens when an insider challenges corruption in the world’s largest democracy? Proposition for a Revolution tells the extraordinary story of the 2013 New Delhi elections, which catapulted bureaucrat-turned-activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal into power within a year of forming a new anti-corruption political party. A ground-level verite portrait depicting the transformation of a people’s movement into a political party, the film follows Arvind Kejriwal with unprecedented access as he takes on the oldest political party in India–The Congress Party.
The Reagan Years (U.S.)
Director: Pacho Velez
Producer: Sierra Pettengill
The Reagan Years is about a prolific actor’s defining role: Leader of the Free World. It uses the Reagan administration’s internal documentation to capture the spectacle of American might at its acme.
Teatro (U.S./Italy)
Director: Jeff Malmberg
Producer: Chris Shellen
For the past 50 years, the villagers of Monticchiello have confronted their communal issues through art in the form of a play that the entire town writes and performs. Teatro is a portrait of this tradition seen through the lens of the last man trying to keep it alive.
They Call Us Monsters (U.S.)
Director: Ben Lear
Producer: Sasha Alpert and Gabriel Cowan
They Call Us Monsters takes us behind the walls of The Compound, where Los Angeles houses its most violent juvenile offenders. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults and to their victims they’re monsters. This film asks us to decide for ourselves.
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
1971 (U.S.)
Director: Johanna Hamilton
Producer: Marilyn Ness
On March 8, 1971 a group of citizens broke into an FBI office in Media, PA near Philadelphia and raided thousands of secret files that revealed an illegal government program known as COINTELPRO. Never caught, they have remained anonymous. Until now.
Enter the Faun (U.S.)
Director & Producer: Tamar Rogoff and Daisy Wright
Executive Producer: Véronique Bernard
Art and science collide as a young actor with cerebral palsy and a dancer embark on a journey that leads to unprecedented physical transformation and challenges the limitations associated with disability.
SUNDANCE | ESPN FILMS FELLOW
Shot in the Dark (U.S.)
Director: Dustin Nakao Haider
Producers: Daniel Poneman, Daniel Dewes, Derek Doneen, and Ben Vogel
For the players on Orr Academy’s basketball team, the court is a haven. Outside, it’s the Westside of Chicago – a neighborhood racked with gangs, gun trafficking, and violence. Within those walls, each player has his own struggle. But they’ll need to fight together if they ever want to break out.News
All the News.
All the News.
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33 Independent Documentary Films Selected for 2015 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program Support
Thirty-three independent documentary films have been selected for 2015 Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program support.
The Sundance Documentary Fund moved to a limited rolling open call in 2015, encouraging filmmakers to submit applications only when they feel their film is ready to share. Rahdi Taylor, Film Fund Director, said, “This past year was one of experimentation and change. We eliminated deadlines, embraced risk taking in form, filmmaker and subject matter, but we stayed true to our core purpose of discovering contemporary stories of meaning and moral purpose. Overall the selections are characterized by risk, inclusion and innovation as well as addressing the most vital conversations of our time.”
DEVELOPMENT
The Acali Experiment (Sweden) (pictured above)
Director: Marcus Lindeen
Producer: Erik Gandini
In 1973 five men and six women went on a dramatic raft expedition across the Atlantic Ocean for 101 days to study human aggression and sexuality. This documentary reunites them forty years later to reveal what actually happened during one of history’s strangest group experiments.
Afterglow (Hungary)
Director: Noémi Veronika Szakonyi
Producer: Julianna Ugrin
The filmmaker found her missing brother, who was kidnapped at age six by his father, a man with extraordinary connections in communist Hungary.
Casting JonBenet (Australia/U.S.)
Director: Kitty Green
Producer: Scott Macaulay and Kitty Green
An artful exploration of the legacy of the world’s most sensational child-murder case, the unsolved death of six-year-old American beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.
Shirkers (U.S.-Singapore)
Writer-Director-Producer: Sandi Tan
In 1992, an enigmatic American named Georges shot Singapore’s first indie film with a group of female teenage film-buffs, then absconded with all the footage. Nearly twenty years later, his widow uncovers the 16mm cans in New Orleans—and ships them to the film’s screenwriter-actress, who embarks on a new voyage to Singapore, Cambridge, New Orleans, and into the past.
Three Identical Strangers (U.K.)
Director: Tim Wardle
Producer: Grace Hughes-Hallett
There’s no-one else on Earth quite like you. Or is there…?
Untitled Kronos Project (U.S.)
Director: Sam Green
Untitled Kronos Project is an experimental, live documentary that will tell the story of legendary classical group the Kronos Quartet and its 40 year career.
Untitled Prison Project (U.S.)
Director: Roger Ross Williams
Producer: Femke Wolting, Bruno Felix, Roger Ross Williams
Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams sets out on a deeply personal journey to understand why so many friends from his childhood town of Easton, Pennsylvania are in prison.
Yoghurt Utopia (U.K./Spain)
Directors: Anna Thomson, David Baksh
Producer: Adrian Pennink
Christopher Columbus gives 200 mental patients an opportunity to live, work and lead productive lives producing La Fageda, a top yogurt brand from Catalonia, Spain. Can this Yoghurt Utopia survive the mounting internal and external pressures?
Young Men and Fire (US)
Director: Kahlil Hudson and Alex Jablonski
Producer: Kyle Dickman
Young Men and Fire tells the story of working class men in a single wildland firefighting crew as they struggle with fear, loyalty, love, and defeat all over the course of a single fire season.
When God Sleeps
Director: Till Schauder (U.S/ Germany)
Producer: Sara Nodjoumi & Till Schauder (U.S./Germany)
When God Sleeps depicts the journey of an Iranian musician who is forced into hiding after hardline clerics offer a $100,000 reward for his murder
Whose Streets? (U.S.)
Director: Sabaah Jordan and Damon Davis
Producer: Flannery Miller
The murder of a teenage boy became the last straw for a community under siege. Whose Streets? follows the journey of everyday people turned freedom fighters, whose lives intertwine with a burgeoning national movement for black liberation.
PRODUCTION
All These Sleepless Nights (Poland/UK)
Director: Michal Marczak
Producer: Marta Golba, Michal Marczak, Julia Nottingham, Thomas Benski and Lucas Ochoa
A new era is coming, and Warsaw stands uncomfortably at its edge. Christopher and Michal, on the precipice of their own coming of age, restlessly roam their city’s streets in search of living forever inside the beautiful moment. Never content with answers, they push each experience to its breaking point, testing what it might mean to be truly awake in a world that seems satisfied to be asleep.
Audrie & Daisy (U.S.)
Director: Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk
Producers: Richard Berge and Sara Dosa
Two teenage girls are sexually assaulted while unconscious by boys who they thought were their friends. Each girl is harassed relentlessly online, both attempt suicide, and tragically, one girl dies. High school assault in the age of social media is explored from the perspective of the girls –and the boys –involved in the assaults.
Cecilia (India)
Director/Producer: Pankaj Johar
When Cecilia Hasda’s 14 year old daughter is trafficked and found dead in Delhi, the filmmaker and his wife decide to help her seek justice. As they battle a web of corruption at all levels, they find themselves navigating a complex network of cops, traffickers, judges, lawyers, villagers and family members.
Eagle Huntress (UK/Mongolia)
Director: Otto Bell
Producer: Stacey Reiss and Sharon Chang
This spellbinding documentary follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old nomadic Mongolian girl as she battles a culture of misogyny to become the first female Eagle Hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated history.
Forgiveness (U.K.)
Director: Elizabeth Stopford
Producer: Nicole Stott
A modern American ghost story and a house that vanished. In the wake of two seemingly inexplicable shooting sprees, can a community forgive the teenage boy at the heart of its tragic past? .
Greywater (U.S.)
Director: Jeff Unay
Greywater is the story of Joe, a blue-collar family man who breaks the promise he made years ago to never fight again. Now forty years old, with a wife and four children who depend on him, he risks everything—his marriage, his family, his financial security— to go back into the fighting cage for one last time and come to terms with his past.
The Keepers (U.S.)
Director: Ryan White
Producer: Jessica Lawson
A documentary thriller unraveling a longstanding mystery in Baltimore.
Untitled Newtown Documentary (U.S.)
Director: Kim A. Snyder
Producer: Maria Cuomo Cole, Kim A. Snyder
We witness residents of Newtown, CT navigate the aftermath of the deadliest mass shooting of schoolchildren in American history.
Untitled Reef Project (U.S.)
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Producer: Larissa Rhodes
Richard Vevers quit his job at a top London ad agency and sets out to become an underwater photographer. Face-to-face with stunning evidence of the human caused destruction of vibrant underwater ecosystems, Richard races the clock to save the oceans.
POST-PRODUCTION
Almost Sunrise (U.S.)
Director: Michael Collins
Producer: Marty Syjuco
Two friends, ex-soldiers, embark on an epic journey to heal from their time in combat. Filled with hope for veterans who’ve left the battlefield behind and are now seeking peace on the home front, Almost Sunrise follows Tom and Anthony as they walk 2,700 miles across America.
The Event (Ukraine/Russia)
Director: Sergei Loznitsa
Producers: Sergei Loznitsa & Maria Choustova
Three days that shook the world or much ado about nothing?
Holy Cow (Azerbaijan/Germany/Romania)
Director: Imam Hasanov
Producer: Andra Popescu, Veronika Janatkova, Stefan Kloos
One man’s dream of bringing a European cow in his remote village in Azerbaijan unsettles the conservative community that wants to keep their secular traditions intact.
Maman Colonelle (France/DR Congo)
Director: Dieudo Hamadi
Producer: Christian Lelong
Colonel Honorine works for the Congolese police force and heads the unit for the protection of minors and the fight against sexual violence. Having worked for 15 years in Bukavu, in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she learned she was being transferred to Kisangani. There, she found herself faced with new challenges.
Markie in Milwaukee (U.S.)
Director: Matt Kliegman
Producer: Matt Kliegman and Zac Stuart-Pontier
Markie dreams of completing her gender transition, but can she overcome the ghosts of her past as a Fundamentalist Baptist preacher?
The Pearl Button (El Boton de Nacar)
Director: Patricio Guzmán
Producer: Renate Sachse
The Pearl Button is a story about water, Cosmos and us. It all starts with the discovery of two mysterious buttons deep in the Pacific Ocean, off the Chilean coast.
Proposition for a Revolution (India)
Directors: Khushboo Ranka, Vinay Shukla
Producer: Anand Gandhi
Co-Producer: Ruchi Bhimani
Exec. Producer: Joris van Wijk
What happens when an insider challenges corruption in the world’s largest democracy? Proposition for a Revolution tells the extraordinary story of the 2013 New Delhi elections, which catapulted bureaucrat-turned-activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal into power within a year of forming a new anti-corruption political party. A ground-level verite portrait depicting the transformation of a people’s movement into a political party, the film follows Arvind Kejriwal with unprecedented access as he takes on the oldest political party in India–The Congress Party.
The Reagan Years (U.S.)
Director: Pacho Velez
Producer: Sierra Pettengill
The Reagan Years is about a prolific actor’s defining role: Leader of the Free World. It uses the Reagan administration’s internal documentation to capture the spectacle of American might at its acme.
Teatro (U.S./Italy)
Director: Jeff Malmberg
Producer: Chris Shellen
For the past 50 years, the villagers of Monticchiello have confronted their communal issues through art in the form of a play that the entire town writes and performs. Teatro is a portrait of this tradition seen through the lens of the last man trying to keep it alive.
They Call Us Monsters (U.S.)
Director: Ben Lear
Producer: Sasha Alpert and Gabriel Cowan
They Call Us Monsters takes us behind the walls of The Compound, where Los Angeles houses its most violent juvenile offenders. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults and to their victims they’re monsters. This film asks us to decide for ourselves.
AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT
1971 (U.S.)
Director: Johanna Hamilton
Producer: Marilyn Ness
On March 8, 1971 a group of citizens broke into an FBI office in Media, PA near Philadelphia and raided thousands of secret files that revealed an illegal government program known as COINTELPRO. Never caught, they have remained anonymous. Until now.
Enter the Faun (U.S.)
Director & Producer: Tamar Rogoff and Daisy Wright
Executive Producer: Véronique Bernard
Art and science collide as a young actor with cerebral palsy and a dancer embark on a journey that leads to unprecedented physical transformation and challenges the limitations associated with disability.
SUNDANCE | ESPN FILMS FELLOW
Shot in the Dark (U.S.)
Director: Dustin Nakao Haider
Producers: Daniel Poneman, Daniel Dewes, Derek Doneen, and Ben Vogel
For the players on Orr Academy’s basketball team, the court is a haven. Outside, it’s the Westside of Chicago – a neighborhood racked with gangs, gun trafficking, and violence. Within those walls, each player has his own struggle. But they’ll need to fight together if they ever want to break out.
-
10 Live Action Short Films Advance in 2015 Oscar Race | TRAILERS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 10 live action short films will advance in the voting process for the 88th Academy Awards®. One hundred forty-four pictures had originally qualified in the category.
The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:
“Ave Maria,” Basil Khalil, director, and Eric Dupont, producer (Incognito Films)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC7B8q6J9s4
“Bad Hunter,” Sahim Omar Kalifa, director, and Dries Phlypo, producer (A Private View)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEwVhi_iSl4
“Bis Gleich (Till Then),” Philippe Brenninkmeyer, producer, and Tara Lynn Orr, writer (avenueROAD Films) (pictured in main image above)
“Contrapelo (Against the Grain),” Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer, director, and Pin-Chun Liu, producer (Ochenta y Cinco Films)
“Day One,” Henry Hughes, director (American Film Institute)
“Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut),” Patrick Vollrath, director (Filmakademie Wien)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPrRmiJXTVY
“The Free Man (Zi You Ren),” Quah Boon-Lip, director (Taipei National University of the Arts)
“Shok,” Jamie Donoughue, director (Eagle Eye Films)
“Stutterer,” Benjamin Cleary, director (Bare Golly Films)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnlBGQUn0tM
“Winter Light,” Julian Higgins, director, and Josh Pence, producer (Innerlight Films and Prelude Pictures)
Members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting.
Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist. Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, London, New York and San Francisco in December.
The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at
the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The 88th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland
Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar
presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
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10 Animated Short Films Advance in 2015 Oscar Race | TRAILERS
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 10 animated short films will advance in the voting process for the 88th Academy Awards®. Sixty pictures had originally qualified in the category.
The 10 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production companies:
“Bear Story (Historia De Un Oso),” Gabriel Osorio, director, and Pato Escala, producer (Punkrobot Animation Studio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUYg7WZSqc
“Carface (Autos Portraits),” Claude Cloutier, director (National Film Board of Canada)(pictured in main image above)
“If I Was God…,” Cordell Barker, director (National Film Board of Canada)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAEQIK4pDvw
“Love in the Time of March Madness,” Melissa Johnson and Robertino Zambrano, directors (High Hip Productions and KAPWA Studioworks)
https://vimeo.com/89993508
“My Home,” Phuong Mai Nguyen, director (Papy3D Productions)
https://vimeo.com/110398088
“An Object at Rest,” Seth Boyden, director (California Institute of the Arts)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmfk1Sz0gS4
“Prologue,” Richard Williams, director, and Imogen Sutton, producer (Animation Masterclass)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G78qA9oreNE
“Sanjay’s Super Team,” Sanjay Patel, director, and Nicole Grindle, producer (Pixar Animation Studios)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bJKwsTKFrY
“We Can’t Live without Cosmos,” Konstantin Bronzit, director (Melnitsa Animation Studio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KQKYzgusFI
“World of Tomorrow,” Don Hertzfeldt, director (Bitter Films)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdV1uFwtCpo
Members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch viewed all the eligible entries for the preliminary round of voting.
Short Films and Feature Animation Branch members will now select five nominees from among the 10 titles on the shortlist.
Branch screenings will be held in Los Angeles, London, New York and San Francisco in December.
The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The 88th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland
Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
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Jessica Chastain is Named Honorary Chair of 2016 Spirit Awards
Actress Jessica Chastain (The Martian, A Most Violent Year, Interstellar, Tree of Life) has been named Honorary Chair for the 2016 Spirit Awards. Chastain was nominated for a Spirit Award for her work in Take Shelter (2012) and A Most Violent Year (2015).
Past Chairs include Kerry Washington, Tom Cruise, Benecio Del Toro, Angela Bassett, Jeremy Renner, Salma Hayek, Halle Berry, Robert Duvall, Jodie Foster, Danny Glover, Harvey Keitel, Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee, Julianne Moore, Martin Scorsese and John Travolta.
Also announced, actors John Boyega (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, Attack the Block, The Circle, Imperial Dreams) and Elizabeth Olsen (I Saw the Light, Old Boy, Silent House, Martha Marcy May Marlene) will present the 2016 nominees in a press conference at 10:00 am PT on Tuesday, November 24 at The W Hollywood. The 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards will be broadcast exclusively on IFC on February 27, 2016, LIVE at 2:00 pm PT / 5:00 pm ET.
“We’re so honored to have Jessica as our Honorary Chair at this year’s Spirit Awards,” said Welsh. “As a past Spirit Award nominee and someone whose work as an actor and producer embodies the qualities we celebrate at Film Independent, I can’t think of a more suitable Honorary Chair for this exciting celebration of artist-driven filmmaking. Our press conference hosts are also great friends of Film Independent. John Boyega’s Attack the Block had a Gala presentation at the LA Film Festival in 2011 and Olsen is a past Spirit Award nominee for Martha Marcy May Marlene (2012).”
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CARTEL LAND, MERU Leads Nominations for 9th Cinema Eye Honors awards for Nonfiction Filmmaking
Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman’s gripping account of violence and vigilantes on both sides of the US-Mexico border, led the nominations for 9th Cinema Eye Honors awards for Nonfiction Filmmaking, with five nominations, including Outstanding Nonfiction Feature. It is joined in the top category by Asif Kapadia’s Amy, Camilla Neilsson’s Democrats, Stevan Riley’s Listen to Me Marlon, Crystal Moselle’s The Wolfpack and Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence. The latter, which received four nominations, and Cartel Land were the only films nominated for Outstanding Feature, Direction, Production and Cinematography.
Other films that received multiple nominations include the mountain climbing thriller Meru (4 nominations); Amy, Heart of a Dog, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck and The Wolfpack (3 nominations); Best of Enemies, Democrats, Listen to Me Marlon, The Nightmare, Uncertain and Western (2 nominations).
Winners of the 9th Annual Cinema Eye Honors will be announced Wednesday, January 13, 2016 in New York at the Museum of the Moving Image.
The complete list of nominations for 9th Cinema Eye Honors
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
“Amy”
Directed by Asif Kapadia
Produced by James Gay-Rees
“Cartel Land”
Directed by Matthew Heineman
Produced by Tom Yellin
“Democrats”
Directed by Camilla Nielsson
Produced by Henrik Veileborg
“Listen to Me Marlon”
Directed by Stevan Riley
Produced by John Battsek, George Chignell and R.J. Cutler
“The Look of Silence”
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen
“The Wolfpack”
Directed by Crystal Moselle
Produced by Crystal Moselle and Izabella Tzenkova
Outstanding Achievement in Direction
Matthew Heineman, “Cartel Land”
Kim Longinotto, “Dreamcatcher”
Laurie Anderson, “Heart of a Dog”
Frederick Wiseman, “In Jackson Heights”
Albert Maysles, Lynn True, Nelson Walker, David Usui & Ben Wu, “In Transit”
Joshua Oppenheimer, “The Look of Silence”
Outstanding Achievement in Editing
Chris King, “Amy”
Aaron Wickenden and Eileen Meyer, “Best of Enemies”
James Scott, “How to Change the World”Brett Morgen and Joe Neshenkovsky, “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”
Stevan Riley, “Listen to Me Marlon”
Outstanding Achievement in Production
Tom Yellin, “Cartel Land”
Henrik Veileborg, “Democrats”
Alex Gibney, Lawrence Wright and Kristen Vaurio, “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”Signe Byrge Sørensen, “The Look of Silence”
Jimmy Chin, Chai Vasarhelyi and Shannon Etheridge, “Meru”
Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography
Matthew Heineman and Matt Porwoll, “Cartel Land”
Lars Skree, “The Look of Silence”
Renan Ozturk, “Meru”
Ewan McNicol, “Uncertain”
Bill Ross and Turner Ross, “Western”
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Films Made for Television
“Deep Web”
Directed by Alex Winter
Produced by Marc Schiller, Alex Winter and Glen Zipper
For EPIX: Executive Producers Jill Burkhart and Ross Bernard
“Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”
Directed by Alex Gibney
Produced by Alex Gibney, Kristen Vaurio and Lawrence Wright
For HBO Documentary Films: Supervising Producer Sara Bernstein and Executive Producer Sheila Nevins
“Outbreak”
Directed by Dan Edge
Produced by Dan Edge and Sasha Joelle Achilli
For Frontline/PBS: Coordinating Producer Carla Borras and Executive Producers Raney Aronson-Rath and David Fanning
“Private Violence”
Directed and Produced by Cynthia Hill
For HBO Documentary Films: Senior Producer Nancy Abraham and Executive Producer Sheila Nevins
“Whitey: The United States of America vs. James J. Bulger”
Directed by Joe Berlinger
Produced by Joe Berlinger and Caroline Suh
For CNN Films: Supervising Producer Courtney Sexton and Executive Producers Vinnie Malhotra and Amy Entelis
Audience Choice Prize
“Amy”
Directed by Asif Kapadia
“Best of Enemies”
Directed by Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon
“Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief”
Directed by Alex Gibney
“The Hunting Ground”
Directed by Kirby Dick
“Iris”
Directed by Albert Maysles
“Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”
Directed by Brett Morgen
“Meru”
Directed by Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi
“What Happened, Miss Simone?”
Directed by Liz Garbus
“Where to Invade Next”
Directed by Michael Moore
“The Wolfpack”
Directed by Crystal Moselle
Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film
“Kings of Nowhere”
Directed by Betzabé Garcia
“Peace Officer”
Directed by Brad Barber and Scott Christopherson
“Pervert Park”
Directed by Frida Barkfors and Lasse Barkfors
“The Russian Woodpecker”
Directed by Chad Gracia
“Uncertain”
Directed by Ewan McNicol and Anna Sandilands
“The Wolfpack”
Directed by Crystal Moselle
Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Score
Jackson Greenberg and Scott Salinas, “Cartel Land”
Laurie Anderson, “Heart of a Dog”
J. Ralph, “Meru”
Jonathan Snipes, “The Nightmare”
Casey McAllister, “Western”
Outstanding Achievement in Graphic Design or Animation
Nominees TBD, “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon”
Laurie Anderson, “Heart of a Dog”
Stefan Nadelman and Hisko Hulsin, “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”
Syd Garon, “The Nightmare”
Ryan Green and Josh Larson, “Thank You for Playing”
Spotlight Award
“Almost There”
Directed by Dan Rybicky and Aaron Wickenden
“Barge”
Directed by Ben Powell
“Field Niggas”
Directed by Khalik Allah
“Frame by Frame”
Directed by Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli
“(T)error”
Directed by Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
“Toto and His Sisters”
Directed by Alexandre Nanău
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking
“The Breath”
Directed by Fabian Kaiser
“Buffalo Juggalos”
Directed by Scott Cummings
“Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah”
Directed by Adam Benzine
“The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul”
Directed by Kitty Green
“Hotel 22”
Directed by Elizabeth Lo
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YOUTH, THE LOBSTER Leads Nominations for 28th European Film Awards
Youth directed by Paolo Sorrentino, lead the nominations for the 28th European Film Awards with 6 nominations, including Best European Film 2015, European Director for Paolo Sorrentino , European Actress for Rachel Weisz, European Actor for Michael Caine, European Screenwriter for Paolo Sorrentino.
Starring Academy Award winner Michael Caine as Fred and Academy Award nominee Harvey Keitel as Mick, Paolo Sorrentino’s YOUTH explores the lifelong bond between two friends vacationing in a luxury Swiss Alps lodge as they ponder retirement. While Fred has no plans to resume his musical career despite the urging of his loving daughter Lena (Academy Award Winner Rachel Weisz), Mick is intent on finishing the screenplay for what may be his last important film for his muse Brenda (Academy Award winner Jane Fonda). And where will inspiration lead their younger friend Jimmy (Paul Dano), an actor grasping to make sense of his next performance? Set against a sprawling landscape of unforgettable sights and intoxicating music, YOUTH asks if our most important and life-changing experiences can come at any time – even late — in life. Fox Searchlight will release the film on December 4, 2015.
Other films with multiple nominations, include The Lobster directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, with 4 nods, including Best European Film 2015, European Director for Yorgos Lanthimos, European Actor for Colin Farrell and European Screenwriter for Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou.
In the very near future, society demands that we live as couples. Single people are rounded up and sent to a seaside compound—part resort and part minimum-security prison—where they are given a finite number of days to find a match. If they don’t succeed, they will be “altered” and turned into an animal. The recently divorced David (Colin Farrell) arrives at The Hotel with his brother, now a dog; in the event of failure, David has chosen to become a lobster… because they live so long. When David falls in love, he’s up against a new set of rules established by another, rebellious order: for romantics, there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Welcome to the latest dark, dark comedy from Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth), creator of absurdist societies not so very different from our own. With Léa Seydoux as the leader of the Loners, Rachel Weisz as David’s true love, John C. Reilly, and Ben Whishaw. An Alchemy release.
EUROPEAN FILM 2015
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
EN DUVA SATT PÅ EN GREN OCH FUNDERADE PÅ TILLVARON
Sweden, France, Germany, Norway, 96 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Roy Andersson
PRODUCED BY: Pernilla Sandström
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7pna4laaAk
MUSTANG
France, Germany, Turkey, 100 min.
DIRECTED BY: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
WRITTEN BY: Deniz Gamze Ergüven & Alice Winocour
PRODUCED BY: Charles Gillibert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU9JAN8LtIk
RAMS
HRÚTAR
Iceland, Denmark, 93 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Grímur Hákonarson
PRODUCED BY: Grímar Jónsson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWOFWaltGRw
THE LOBSTER
UK, Ireland, Greece, France, Netherlands, 118 min.
DIRECTED BY: Yorgos Lanthimos
WRITTEN BY: Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou
PRODUCED BY: Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Ceci Dempsey & Yorgos Lanthimos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z069ldsumxA
VICTORIA
Germany, 138 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Sebastian Schipper
PRODUCED BY: Jan Dressler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp8wcV3GjW0
YOUTH
YOUTH – LA GIOVINEZZA
Italy, France, UK, Switzerland, 118 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Paolo Sorrentino
PRODUCED BY: Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima & Carlotta Calori
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJNxQ8Wzr2I
EUROPEAN COMEDY 2015
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
EN DUVA SATT PÅ EN GREN OCH FUNDERADE PÅ TILLVARON
Sweden, France, Germany, Norway, 96 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Roy Andersson
PRODUCED BY: Pernilla Sandström
THE BÉLIER FAMILY
LA FAMILLE BELIER
France, 106 min.
DIRECTED BY: Eric Lartigau
WRITTEN BY: Eric Lartigau, Victoria Bedos, Stanislas Carre de Malberg & Thomas Bidegain
PRODUCED BY: Eric Jehelmann, Philippe Rousselet & Stéphane Celerier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9p0qnj4OC4
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT
LE TOUT NOUVEAU TESTAMENT
Belgium, France, Luxembourg, 114 min.
DIRECTED BY: Jaco Van Dormael
WRITTEN BY: Jaco Van Dormael & Thomas Gunzig
PRODUCED BY: Jaco Van Dormael, Olivier Rausin & Daniel Marquet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jEA8uzHwQ
EUROPEAN DOCUMENTARY 2015
A SYRIAN LOVE STORY
UK, 76 min.
DIRECTED BY: Sean McAllister
PRODUCED BY: Elhum Shakerifar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30JqnWtLvlU
AMY
UK, 127 min.
DIRECTED BY: Asif Kapadia
PRODUCED BY: James Gay-Rees
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2yCIwmNuLE
DANCING WITH MARIA
Italy, Argentina, Slovenia, 75 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Ivan Gergolet
PRODUCED BY: Igor Princic, David Rubio & Miha Cernec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHW5kOLRVP4
THE LOOK OF SILENCE
Denmark, Norway, Indonesia, 99 min.
DIRECTED BY: Joshua Oppenheimer
PRODUCED BY: Signe Byrge Sørensen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp1xT302VcY
TOTO AND HIS SISTERS
TOTO SI SURORILE LUI
Romania, Hungary, 93 min.
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Alexander Nanau
PRODUCED BY: Valeriu Nicolae, Hanka Kastelicova, Alexander Nanau, Catalin Mitulescu & Marcian Lazar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXtjJbB1Oh4
EUROPEAN DIRECTOR 2015
Roy Andersson for A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
Yorgos Lanthimos for THE LOBSTER
Nanni Moretti for MY MOTHER
Sebastian Schipper for VICTORIA
Paolo Sorrentino for YOUTH
Małgorzata Szumowska for BODY
EUROPEAN ACTRESS 2015
Margherita Buy in MY MOTHER
Laia Costa in VICTORIA
Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Alicia Vikander in EX MACHINA
Rachel Weisz in YOUTH
EUROPEAN ACTOR 2015
Michael Caine in YOUTH
Tom Courtenay in 45 YEARS
Colin Farrell in THE LOBSTER
Christian Friedel in 13 MINUTES
Vincent Lindon in THE MEASURE OF A MAN
EUROPEAN SCREENWRITER 2015
Roy Andersson for A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE
Alex Garland for EX MACHINA
Andrew Haigh for 45 YEARS
Radu Jude & Florin Lazarescu for AFERIM!
Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou for THE LOBSTER
Paolo Sorrentino for YOUTH
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Brent Green and Thyra Heder Win SFFS / Hearst Screenwriting Grant for “Over the Eaves”
Brent Green and Thyra Heder have been selected to receive this year’s $15,000 2015 San Francisco Film Society / Hearst Screenwriting Grant for development of their script Over the Eaves.
“Man, it takes a long time to write a screenplay! Way longer than you’d think,” said Green. “Or at least longer than I’d have thought. I’m so very grateful to the San Francisco Film Society and William Hearst III for their generosity, which will allow Thyra and I to set aside the necessary time to finish up writing what we hope to be a stellar movie.”
Working in the hills of rural Pennsylvania, Brent Green is a self-taught filmmaker, storyteller and visual artist whose films have screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the San Francisco Film Society, MoMA, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Walker Art Center and the Hammer Museum. He serves on the board of Rooftop Films, is a 2005 Creative Capital grantee, and the recipient of 2014 MAPfund grant. Green’s work is in permanent collections including the Progressive Collection, the Hammer Museum and MoMA. Green is an alum of the January 2015 Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the 2015 Sundance Directors Lab.
Thyra Heder is an author, illustrator and artist who got her start studying film. She graduated from Brown University with a BA in Art Semiotics and put it to use storyboarding for television, feature films and advertising campaigns. Over the last decade her clients have expanded to include major restaurant groups, design companies and hotels, and her work has been regularly featured in Vogue. Her debut picture book, Fraidyzoo, garnered numerous starred reviews and was one of the ALSC Notable Children’s Books of 2014. Her second book, The Bear Report, will be released this fall. She is an alum of the June 2015 Sundance Screenwriters Lab.
In the stop-motion animated film, OVER THE EAVES, a young boy begins inventing strange, hand-made machines to ease his mother’s hard labor and bring joy to her monotonous life. When his most daring invention backfires and changes life on Earth forever, his neighbors struggle to understand whether he has done them harm or shown them what they have been missing.
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Complete List + TRAILERS of 16 Animated Feature Films Submitted For 88th Academy Awards
Sixteen features have been submitted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 88th Academy Awards®.
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
“Anomalisa”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrrU3is7qvU
“The Boy and the Beast”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uifJLWoWv8c
“Boy and the World”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th0NihA2q-Q
“The Good Dinosaur”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RgquKVTPE
“Home”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g50GhaH0U3Y
“Hotel Transylvania 2”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3nqmGgnJe8
“Inside Out”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAgJcEmMTek
“Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9dY5zkwK5M
“The Laws of the Universe – Part 0”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxWTp7O0VkM
“Minions”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wfql_DoHRKc
“Moomins on the Riviera”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ie8lqrOe_4
“The Peanuts Movie”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XmV3zGifOE
“Regular Show: The Movie”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf6vwAOUDek
“Shaun the Sheep Movie” (pictured above)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQvwiOWpj7o
“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge out of Water”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGjbpO1toTc
“When Marnie Was There”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjmrxqcQdYg
Several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles qualifying run. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules before they can advance in the voting process. At least eight eligible animated features must be theatrically released in Los Angeles County within the calendar year for this category to be activated. In any year in which 16 or more animated feature films are eligible, a maximum of five motion pictures may be nominated.
Films submitted in the Animated Feature Film category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories.
The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The 88th Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
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AMY, Listen To Me Marlon, Among Nominees for 2015 IDA Documentary Awards, Tig Notaro to Host Ceremony
Grammy-nominated comedian Tig Notaro will host the 2015 IDA Documentary Awards ceremony. Tig Notaro is the subject of Tig, the Netflix Original documentary chronicling her life after it famously fell apart.
The 2015 edition of the Awards will highlight six films in Best Feature Documentary category. These films include AMY, Asif Kapadia’s moving film about six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse; The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Stanley Nelson’s vibrant chronicle of the birth of the Black Panther Party; Listen To Me Marlon, Stevan Riley’s fascinating self-portrait of Marlon Brando culled from his vast archive of personal audio and visual materials; The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer’s powerful companion piece to the Oscar®-nominated The Act of Killing; The Russian Woodpecker, Chad Gracia’s riveting examination of eccentric Ukranian artist Fedor Alexandrovich’s obsession with a Soviet-constructed radio antenna near the Chernobyl site; and What Happened, Miss Simone?, Liz Garbus’s sensitive exploration of the legendary singer and activist Nina Simone.
In addition to the awards, this year’s honorees include Matthew Heineman, recipient of the IDA’s Courage Under Fire Award in recognition of conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth. Heineman’s gripping film, Cartel Land, documents two modern-day vigilante movements – Dr. José Mireles’s citizen-led uprising against a violent drug cartel wreaking havoc in Mexico and the Arizona Border Recon led by Tim “Nailer” Foley, which is working to prevent Mexico’s drug wars from crossing into the United States. Previous recipients of the award include: Laura Poitras, Christiane Amanpour, Andrew Berends, Jonathan Stack and James Brabazon and Saira Shah.
In addition to Heineman, the 2015 IDA Documentary Awards will honor Gordon Quinn with its Career Achievement Award. Tony Tabatznik and the Bertha Foundation (berthafoundation.org) will receive the IDA Amicus Award, and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos will receive IDA’s Pioneer Award. (T)ERROR directors Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe will share the Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award sponsored by the Archibald Family Foundation.
The recipients of this year’s IDA Creative Recognition Awards include The Russian Woodpecker (cinematography by Artem Ryzhykov) will be recognized with the award for Best Cinematography; Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (edited by Joe Beshenkovsky and Brett Morgen) will receive the Best Editing award; Best of Enemies (original score by Jonathan Kirkscey) will be presented with the Best Music award, and Listen To Me Marlon (written by Stevan Riley, co-writer Peter Ettedgui) will receive the Best Writing award.
The 31st Annual IDA Documentary Awards will take place on Saturday, December 5th at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles, CA
31st Annual IDA Awards Nominees
Best Feature Award
Amy
Director: Asif Kapadia
Producer: James Gay-Rees
A24
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
Director: Stanley Nelson
Producer: Laurens Grant
PBS DISTRIBUTION
Listen to Me Marlon
Director: Stevan Riley
Producer: John Battsek
SHOWTIME DOCUMENTARY FILMS
The Look of Silence
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen
DRAFTHOUSE FILMS AND PARTICIPANT MEDIA
The Russian Woodpecker
Director: Chad Gracia
Producer: Ram Devineni and Mike Lerner
FILMBUFF
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Director: Liz Garbus
NETFLIX
Best Short Award
Body Team 12
Director: David Darg
Producer: Bryn Mooser
RYOT FILMS AND VULCAN PRODUCTIONS
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
Director: Adam Benzine
HBO
The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul
Director: Kitty Green
Producer: Philippa Campey
KURZFILMAGENTUR HAMBURG (GERMANY)
Last Day of Freedom
Directors: Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman
Object
Director: Paulina Skibińska
MUNK STUDIO AND POLISH FILMMAKERS ASSOCIATION
Best Curated Series Award
30 for 30
Executive Producers John Dahl and Connor Schell
ESPN
America ReFramed
Executive Producers: Chris Hastings and Simon Kilmurry
WORLD CHANNEL
Independent Lens
Executive Producers: Sally Jo Fifer and Lois Vossen
ITVS/PBS
POV
Executive Producers: Simon Kilmurry and Chris White
POV, PBS
Storyville
Series Editor: Nick Fraser
Executive Producer: Kate Townsend
BBC TV, BBC WORLD NEWS
Best Limited Series Award
Blood Brothers
Executive Producers: Kees Schaap and Anja van Oostrom
VARA TELEVISION (THE NETHERLANDS)
Hard Earned
Executive Producers: Steve James, Justine Nagan, and Gordon Quinn
Series Producer: Maggie Bowman
AL JAZEERA AMERICA AND KARTEMQUIN FILMS
The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Executive Producer: Jason Blum
Co-Executive Producer: Zac Stuart-Pontier
Produced by: Andrew Jarecki and Marc Smerling
HBO
Life Story
Executive Producer: Mike Gunton
DISCOVERY
Rebel Architecture
Executive Producer: Fiona Lawson-Baker
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH
Best Episodic Series Award
Chef’s Table
Executive Producers: David Gelb, Andrew Fried, and Brian McGinn
NETFLIX
Morgan Spurlock Inside Man
Executive Producers: Jeremy Chilnick, Matthew Galkin, and Morgan Spurlock
CNN AND WARRIOR POETS
NOVA
Senior Executive Producer: Paula Apsell
Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Cort
PBS
The Seventies
Executive Producers: Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks, and Mark Herzog
CNN, PLAYTONE, AND HERZOG & COMPANY
This is Life with Lisa Ling
Executive Producers: Amy Bucher, Lisa Ling, and David Shadrack Smith
CNN AND PART2 PICTURES
Best Short Form Series Award
Do Not Track
Executive Producer: Hugues Sweeney
NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA, UPIAN, ARTE, AND BR
Highrise: Universe Within
Executive Producers: Anita Lee and Silva Basmajian
NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA
The New York Times Op-Docs
Executive Producer: Jason Spingarn-Koff
THE NEW YORK TIMES
POV Interactive Documentaries
Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry and Adnaan Wasey
POV AND PBS
WE THE ECONOMY: 20 Short Films You Can’t Afford to Miss
Executive Producer: Paul G. Allen and Morgan Spurlock
VULCAN PRODUCTIONS AND CINELAN
David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award
This award recognizes exceptional achievement in non-fiction film and video production at the university level and brings greater public and industry awareness to the work of students in the documentary field.
The Archipelago
Director: Benjamin Huguet
THE NATIONAL FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL
The Blue Wall
Director: Michael Milano
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
El Cacao
Director: Michelle Aguilar
University of California Santa Cruz
In Attla’s Tracks
Director: Catharine Axley
STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Looking at the Stars
Director: Alexandre Peralta
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Pare Lorentz Award
The Pare Lorentz Award recognizes films that demonstrate exemplary filmmaking while focusing on the appropriate use of the natural environment, justice for all and the illumination of pressing social problems.
How to Change the World
Director: Jerry Rothwell
ABC News VideoSource Award
This award is given each year for the best use of news footage as an integral component in a documentary.
(T)ERROR
Directors: Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe
INDEPENDENT LENS ALONG WITH BBC
Best of Enemies
Directors: Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville
MAGNOLIA PICTURES AND INDEPENDENT LENS
Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll
Director: John Pirozzi
ARGOT PICTURES
Night Will Fall
Director: André Singer
HBO
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Director: Liz Garbus
NETFLIX
Creative Recognition Award Winners
The Creative Recognition category recognizes special achievement in cinematography, editing, music and writing in films entered in the Feature Category.
Best Cinematography
The Russian Woodpecker
Cinematography by: Artem Ryzhykov
Best Editing
Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck
Edited by: Joe Beshenkovsky and Brett Morgen
Best Writing
Listen to Me Marlon
Written by: Stevan Riley
Co-Writer: Peter Ettedgui
Best Music
Best of Enemies
Original Score by: Jonathan Kirkscey
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THE DANISH GIRL, AMY, BROOKLYN are Winners at 2015 Hollywood Film Awards
The 2015 Hollywood Film Awards, the official launch of the awards season, took place last weekend at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The Danish Girl (pictured above) was a big winner, taking awards for Hollywood Director Award for Tom Hooper, Hollywood Breakout Actress Award for Alicia Vikander, and Hollywood Film Composer Award for Alexandre Desplat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d88APYIGkjk
Other winners included Carey Mulligan who spoke passionately about women’s rights while accepting the Hollywood Actress Award for her work in Suffragette, Asif Kapadia won the Hollywood Documentary Award for Amy, and Jane Fonda who received a standing ovation after stepping onstage to accept the “Supporting Actress Award” for her work in Youth. Ryan Gosling set the record straight on how to pronounce Saoirse Ronan’s name, while singing her praises, as she accepted the New Hollywood Award for her performance in Brooklyn.
The 19th Annual Hollywood Film Awards show honored the following:
“Hollywood Career Achievement Award”
Robert De Niro, presented by David O. Russell
“Hollywood Producer Award”
Ridley Scott for The Martian, presented by Russell Crowe
“Hollywood Director Award”
Tom Hooper for The Danish Girl, presented by Amber Heard
“Hollywood Actor Award”
Will Smith for Concussion, presented by Jamie Foxx
“Hollywood Actress Award”
Carey Mulligan for Suffragette, presented by Jake Gyllenhaal
“Hollywood Supporting Actor Award”
Benicio Del Toro for Sicario, presented by Reese Witherspoon
“Hollywood Supporting Actress Award”
Jane Fonda for Youth, presented by Laura Dern
“Hollywood Breakout Actor Award”
Joel Edgerton for Black Mass, presented by Johnny Depp and Dakota Johnson
“Hollywood Breakout Actress Award”
Alicia Vikander for The Danish Girl, presented by Armie Hammer
“New Hollywood Award”
Saoirse Ronan for Brooklyn, presented by Ryan Gosling
“Hollywood Ensemble Award”
The Hateful Eight cast including Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Channing Tatum, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Walton Goggins, Demian Bichir, presented by Jamie Foxx
“Hollywood Breakout Ensemble Award”
Straight Outta Compton cast including Corey Hawkins, O’Shea Jackson, Jr. & Jason Mitchell, presented by Ice Cube
“Hollywood Comedy Award”
Amy Schumer for Trainwreck, presented by Selena Gomez
“Hollywood Breakthrough Director Award”
Adam McKay for The Big Short, presented by Steve Carell
“Hollywood Screenwriter Award”
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer for Spotlight, presented by Mark Ruffalo
“Hollywood Blockbuster Award”
Furious 7 (award accepted by Vin Diesel, Tyrese Gibson, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez), presented by Kurt Russell
“Hollywood Song Award”
Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth for “See You Again” from the Furious 7 soundtrack, presented by Vin Diesel
“Hollywood Animation Award”
Inside Out (award accepted by director Pete Docter), presented by Amy Poehler
“Hollywood Documentary Award”
Asif Kapadia for Amy
“Hollywood Cinematography Award”
Janusz Kaminski for Bridge of Spies
“Hollywood Film Composer Award”
Alexandre Desplat for The Danish Girl and Suffragette
“Hollywood Editor Award”
David Rosenbloom for Black Mass
“Hollywood Visual Effects Award”
Tim Alexander for Jurassic World
“Hollywood Sound Award”
Gary Rydstrom for Bridge of Spies
“Hollywood Costume Design Award”
Sandy Powell for Cinderella
“Hollywood Make-Up & Hair Styling Award”
Lesley Vanderwalt for Mad Max: Fury Road
“Hollywood Production Design Award”
Cory Gibson for Mad Max: Fury Road
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THE LOBSTER Leads Nominations for 2015 Moët British Independent Film Awards
The Lobster topped the list of nominations for the 2015 Moët British Independent Film Awards with 7 nominations, including Best British Independent Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay andProducer of the Year. Colin Farrell is nominated for Best Actor and Olivia Colmanand Ben Whishaw for their supporting roles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR_NcqD-Gfs
45 Years and Macbeth received six nominations each, including Best British Independent Film and Best Director. 45 Years also has nominations for its screenplay, for Producer of the Year, and for its stars Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillardare nominated for Best Actor and Best Actress and Macduff, Sean Harris, for Best Supporting Actor. The film’s Cinematography also gets a nod.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg5cpiX18TA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqHhKuCQmoY
Asif Kapadia’s Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, has five nominations, for Director, Documentary, Producer of the Year, for its Editing and for Best British Independent Film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2yCIwmNuLE
Completing the Best British Independent Film line up is Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, which is nominated for Director and Screenplay. The film’s Production Design and Visual Effects are also recognised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bggUmgeMCdc
Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne-Marie Duff are all nominated for their performances in Suffragette. Alicia Vikander is nominated for Best Actress for her performance in The Danish Girl. Tom Hardy is nominated (just once) for Best Actor for his performance as both Kray twins in Legend.
Father and son Brendan and Domhnall Gleeson are both nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Suffragette and Brooklyn, respectively. Brooklyn’s other nominations come for Nick Hornby’s Screenplay and for Best Actress Saoirse Ronanand Best Supporting Actress Julie Walters. The film’s Casting is also nominated, in the Outstanding Achievement in Craft category.
Amy Jump’s Screenplay for High-Rise, adapted from the novel by JG Ballard, is nominated. The film’s cast are recognised too: Tom Hiddleston is nominated forBest Actor, Sienna Miller for Supporting Actress and Luke Evans for Supporting Actor.
There are five first-time performance nominees this year (Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay, Tom Hiddleston, Marion Cotillard and Luke Evans) and nine past winners: Tom Hardy, Brendan Gleeson Anne-Marie Duff, Olivia Colman, Michael Fassbender, Helena Bonham Carter, Julie Walters and Ben Whishaw, who was BIFA’s Most Promising Newcomer in 2001.
This year’s Most Promising Newcomers are Agyness Deyn for Sunset Song, Mia Goth for The Survivalist, Abigail Hardingham for Nina Forever, Milo Parker for Mr Holmes and Bel Powley for A Royal Night Out. Nina Forever and The Survivalist are both nominated for The Douglas Hickox Award for Best Debut Director for directors The Blaine Brothers and Stephen Fingleton. The other first-time directors nominated are John Maclean for Slow West, Corin Hardy for The Hallow and Paul Katis for Kajaki: The True Story, which is also nominated for Producer of the Year.The Violators is also nominated for Producer of the Year.
Nominated for Best Documentary along with Amy, are Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance, How to Change the World, Palio and A Syrian Love Story.
The nominations for the new Discovery Award, which recognises innovation and vision in lower-budget films, are Aaaaaaaah!, Burn Burn Burn, Orion: The Man Who Would Be King, The Return and Winter.
The Variety Award, which recognizes a director, actor, writer or producer who has made a global impact and helped to focus the international spotlight on the UK, will be presented to Kate Winslet.
The winners will be announced at The Moët British Independent Film Awards on Sunday 6 December at Old Billingsgate.
2015 MOËT BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS NOMINATIONS
Best British Independent Film sponsored by Moët & Chandon
45 YEARS Tristan Goligher, Andrew Haigh
AMY James Gay-Rees, Asif Kapadia
EX MACHINA Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Alex Garland
THE LOBSTER Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday, Efthymis Filippou, Yorgos Lanthimos
MACBETH Iain Canning, Emile Sherman, Laura Hastings-Smith, Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, Justin Kurzel
Best Director
45 YEARS Andrew Haigh
AMY Asif Kapadia
EX MACHINA Alex Garland
THE LOBSTER Yorgos Lanthimos
MACBETH Justin Kurzel
Best Screenplay sponsored by BBC Films 45 YEARS Andrew Haigh BROOKLYN Nick Hornby EX MACHINA Alex Garland HIGH-RISE Amy Jump THE LOBSTER Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Best Actress sponsored by MAC
MARION COTILLARD Macbeth
CAREY MULLIGAN Suffragette
CHARLOTTE RAMPLING 45 Years
SAOIRSE RONAN Brooklyn
ALICIA VIKANDER The Danish Girl
Best Actor sponsored by Movado
TOM COURTENAY 45 Years
COLIN FARRELL The Lobster
MICHAEL FASSBENDER Macbeth
TOM HARDY Legend
TOM HIDDLESTON High-Rise
Best Supporting Actress
HELENA BONHAM CARTER Suffragette
OLIVIA COLMAN The Lobster
ANNE-MARIE DUFF Suffragette
SIENNA MILLER High-Rise
JULIE WALTERS Brooklyn
Best Supporting Actor
LUKE EVANS High-Rise
BRENDAN GLEESON Suffragette
DOMHNALL GLEESON Brooklyn
SEAN HARRIS Macbeth
BEN WHISHAW The Lobster
Most Promising Newcomer sponsored by The London Edition
AGYNESS DEYN Sunset Song
MIA GOTH The Survivalist
ABIGAIL HARDINGHAM Nina Forever
MILO PARKER Mr Holmes
BEL POWLEY A Royal Night Out
The Douglas Hickox Award (Best Debut Director) sponsored by 3 Mills Studios
THE HALLOW Corin Hardy
KAJAKI: THE TRUE STORY Paul Katis
NINA FOREVER Chris & Ben Blaine
SLOW WEST John Maclean
THE SURVIVALIST Stephen Fingleton
The Discovery Award sponsored by Raindance
AAAAAAAAH! Andrew Starke, Steve Oram
BURN BURN BURN Daniel-Konrad Cooper, Tim Phillips, Charlie Covell, Chanya Button
ORION: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING Jeanie Finlay
THE RETURN Oliver Nias
WINTER Tilly Wood, Paula Crickard, Heidi Greensmith
Best Documentary
AMY James Gay-Rees, Asif Kapadia
DARK HORSE: THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY OF DREAM ALLIANCE Judith Dawson, Louise Osmond
HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD Bous De Jong, Al Morrow, Jerry Rothwell
PALIO James Gay-Rees, John Hunt, Cosima Spender
A SYRIAN LOVE STORY Elhum Shakerifar, Sean McAllister
Producer of the Year
TRISTAN GOLIGHER 45 Years
JAMES GAY-REES Amy
PAUL KATIS, ANDREW DE LOTBINIERE Kajaki: The True Story
CECI DEMPSEY, ED GUINEY, YORGOS LANTHIMOS, LEE MAGIDAY The Lobster
DAVID A HUGHES, DAVID MOORES The Violators
Outstanding Achievement in Craft
ADAM ARKAPAW Cinematography – Macbeth
MARK DIGBY Production Design – Ex Machina
CHRIS KING Editing – Amy
FIONA WEIR Casting – Brooklyn
ANDREW WHITEHURST Visual Effects, Ex Machina
Best British Short Film
BALCONY Tom Kimberly, Ali Mansuri, Toby Fell-Holden
CRACK Joseph Taussig, Peter King
EDMOND Emilie Jouffroy, Nina Gantz
LOVE IS BLIND Lizzie Brown, Dan Hodgson
MANoMAN Kamilla Kristiane Hodøl, Simon Cartwright
Best International Independent Film
CAROL Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Christine Vachon, Phyllis Nagy, Todd Haynes
FORCE MAJEURE Erik Hemmendorff, Marie Kjellson, Philippe Bober, Ruben Östlund
GIRLHOOD Bénédicte Couvreur, Céline Sciamma
ROOM Ed Guiney, David Gross, Emma Donoghue, Lenny Abrahamson
SON OF SAUL Gábor Sipos, Gábor Rajna, Cara Royer, László Nemes
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Actor and Comedian Mike Epps to Host Inaugural 2016 ABFF Honors
Actor and comedian Mike Epps will host the 2016 American Black Film Festival (ABFF) Honors on February 21 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. This annual gala, held one week before the Academy Awards, is a celebration of Black culture, recognizing individuals, movies and television shows that have had a significant impact on American entertainment, as well as those who are proponents of championing diversity and inclusion in Hollywood.
To kick off this inaugural year, 2016 ABFF Honors has chosen a host who the organization describes as “a talented and dedicated actor and comedian”. Among his many notable achievements are the Starz’ hit series Survivor’s Remorse, the ABC series Uncle Buck, HBO’s Emmy-winning biopic Bessie and the much anticipated Lee Daniels’ film Pryor, featuring Oprah Winfrey, Eddie Murphy and Kate Hudson, where he will play the title role of comedy icon Richard Pryor.
“I am very proud to be hosting this year’s ABFF Honors celebrating the best in film and television. To be in a room with such amazing talent and creativity will make for an exciting night, and you know I’ll be ready to hit the stage and entertain,” says Epps.
The ABFF Honors ceremony describes itself as a hybrid of the Kennedy Center Honors and the Golden Globes Awards, featuring Competitive Awards as well as Special Tributes. The 2016 Awards Committee, comprised of artists, journalists and industry influencers, determines the honorees and competitive award winners.
“I am encouraged that a handful of Black artists are now being acknowledged at high-profile mainstream award ceremonies, but work of the majority of our artists continues to be unheralded. ABFF Honors will change this and there’s no better person to host our first show than Mike Epps. He is an inspiration to many standup comics and living proof that talent combined with focus and perseverance will eventually bring success. I plan to be laughing all night,” says Jeff Friday, Executive Producer and President of ABFF Ventures.