Armin Mueller-Stahl, one of the few German actors whose careers have spanned East Germany, West Germany and Hollywood, will be the recipient of the 2015 Zurich Film Festival’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Following the award ceremony, Mueller-Stahl will present Jim Jarmusch’s NIGHT ON EARTH (1991), where he played an East German taxi driver trying his luck in New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ESHkySoJs
His most noteworthy films include LOLA (1981), OBERST REDL (1985), MOMO (1986), MUSIC BOX (1989), NIGHT ON EARTH (1991), DAS GEISTERHAUS (1993) and SHINE (1996).
Raised in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and initially trained as a concert violinist, East Prussia-born Mueller-Stahl played the lead role in approximately 60 TV and cinema films, and became one of the most decorated GDR actors ever.
Armin Mueller-Stahl’s career came to an abrupt end when he signed the petition against the expatriation of singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann. He moved from East to West Berlin in 1980, where his career continued with roles in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s LOLA (1981) and DIE SEHNSUCHT DER VERONIKA VOSS (1982) et al.
Despite being barely able to speak English, Armin Mueller-Stahl decided to make a fresh start in the USA. His first film MUSIC BOX (1989) by Costa Gavras was both an artistic and commercial success. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in his second Hollywood film, Barry Levinson’s AVALON (1990), and SHINE (1996), garnered him his second Academy Award nomination.
Despite his success in Hollywood, Armin Mueller-Stahl returned to Germany, where he took on such leading roles as Thomas Mann in the three-part TV series DIE MANNS – EIN JAHRHUNDERTROMAN (2001).
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Academy Award Nominated-German Actor Armin Mueller-Stahl to Receive Zurich Film Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Armin Mueller-Stahl, one of the few German actors whose careers have spanned East Germany, West Germany and Hollywood, will be the recipient of the 2015 Zurich Film Festival’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. Following the award ceremony, Mueller-Stahl will present Jim Jarmusch’s NIGHT ON EARTH (1991), where he played an East German taxi driver trying his luck in New York.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ESHkySoJs
His most noteworthy films include LOLA (1981), OBERST REDL (1985), MOMO (1986), MUSIC BOX (1989), NIGHT ON EARTH (1991), DAS GEISTERHAUS (1993) and SHINE (1996).
Raised in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and initially trained as a concert violinist, East Prussia-born Mueller-Stahl played the lead role in approximately 60 TV and cinema films, and became one of the most decorated GDR actors ever.
Armin Mueller-Stahl’s career came to an abrupt end when he signed the petition against the expatriation of singer-songwriter Wolf Biermann. He moved from East to West Berlin in 1980, where his career continued with roles in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s LOLA (1981) and DIE SEHNSUCHT DER VERONIKA VOSS (1982) et al.
Despite being barely able to speak English, Armin Mueller-Stahl decided to make a fresh start in the USA. His first film MUSIC BOX (1989) by Costa Gavras was both an artistic and commercial success. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role in his second Hollywood film, Barry Levinson’s AVALON (1990), and SHINE (1996), garnered him his second Academy Award nomination.
Despite his success in Hollywood, Armin Mueller-Stahl returned to Germany, where he took on such leading roles as Thomas Mann in the three-part TV series DIE MANNS – EIN JAHRHUNDERTROMAN (2001).
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Director Jonathan Demme to be Honored at Venice International Film Festival
Director Jonathan Demme (Ricki and the Flash, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married) will be honored with the Persol Tribute to Visionary Talent Award at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival. The festival also selected Jonathan Demme to be the President of the Orizzonti Jury.
The Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, commented “Jonathan Demme is part of that generation of cinephile auteurs who revolutionized Hollywood in the Seventies. From the cultured reinterpretation of genres in his early films, to the development of a personal film style deeply rooted in the individual, to his systematic incursion into documentary filmmaking distinguished by his innovative approach, Demme has brought to life a vivid gallery of characters against the background of an exuberantly pop American landscape that harks back to the classic figurative experiences of the Sixties, anticipating the post-Modernist experimentation of many contemporary auteurs. Colourful, exuberant, straightforward, passionate and intelligent, his cinema moves easily from studio productions to independent, fiction and documentary films, indulging his personal taste for the unexpected, for a shift in tone or genre within each individual film, which has become the original and recognizable hallmark of his style”.
Jonathan Demme is considered to be one of the most important authors in contemporary cinema. He is a director, producer and screenwriter. He has directed unforgettable world-famous masterpieces such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991), winner of five Oscars including Best Film and Best Director, and Philadelphia(1993), winner of two Oscars. He made his debut as a director in 1974 at Roger Corman’s production company, and has since directed over thirty films, in various genres from horror to comedy, some of which have become cult movies, such as The Last Embrace (1979),Something Wild (1986) and Married to the Mob (1988). Demme has demonstrated remarkable talent in directing films with strong musical elements (Stop Making Sense, 1984; Neil Young: Heart of Gold, 2006; Ricki and the Flash, 2015). He has participated many times in the Venice Film Festival with some of his most significant films, such as Melvin and Howard (1980, in Competition, winner of two Oscars), The Manchurian Candidate (2004, Out of Competition), Man from Plains (2007, Orizzonti Doc), Rachel Getting Married (2008, in Competition), I’m Caroline Parker: the Good, the Bad and the Beautiful (2011, Orizzonti) and Enzo Avitabile Music Life (2012, Out of Competition). His newest film is Ricki and the Flash (2015), with Meryl Streep
The 72nd Venice International Film Festival will be held on the Lido from September 2nd to 12th 2015.
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15 Students Are Winners of 42nd Student Academy Awards
The Academy has voted fifteen students as winners of the 42nd Student Academy Awards competition. The Academy received a record number of entries this year — 1,686 films from 282 domestic and 93 international colleges and universities — which were voted upon by a record number of Academy members. Past Student Academy Award winners have gone on to receive 47 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared eight awards. Previous winners include Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Spike Lee, Trey Parker and Robert Zemeckis.
The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title):
Alternative
“Chiaroscuro,” Daniel Drummond, Chapman University, California
“Zoe,” ChiHyun Lee, The School of Visual Arts, New York
Animation
“An Object at Rest,” Seth Boyden, California Institute of the Arts
“Soar,” Alyce Tzue, Academy of Art University, San Francisco
“Taking the Plunge,” Nicholas Manfredi and Elizabeth Ku-Herrero, The School of Visual Arts
Documentary
“Boxeadora,” Meg Smaker, Stanford University
“I Married My Family’s Killer,” Emily Kassie, Brown University
“Looking at the Stars,” Alexandre Peralta, University of Southern California
Narrative
“Day One,” Henry Hughes, American Film Institute, California
“Stealth,” Bennett Lasseter, American Film Institute
“This Way Up,” Jeremy Cloe, American Film Institute
Foreign Film
“Everything Will Be Okay…,” Patrick Vollrath, Filmakademie Wien, Austria
“Fidelity,” Ilker Catak, Hamburg Media School, Germany
“The Last Will,” Dustin Loose, Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany
Students will arrive in Los Angeles for a week of industry activities that will culminate in the awards ceremony onThursday, September 17, at 7:30 p.m., at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The medal placements – gold, silver and bronze – in the five award categories will be announced at the ceremony.
First-time honors go to Chapman University in the Alternative category and Filmakademie Wien in the Foreign Film competition. Academy members voted the winners from a field of 33 finalists, announced last month.
The 42nd Student Academy Awards ceremony on September 17 is free and open to the public, but advance tickets are required.
The Student Academy Awards were established in 1972 to provide a platform for emerging global talent by creating opportunities within the industry to showcase their work.
image via pinterest: Spike Lee accepting a Dramatic Merit Award for his student film “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads”, with presenter Ronald Neame at the 1983 (10th) Student Academy Awards ceremony.
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Mexican Director Arturo Ripstein to Be Honored at 2015 Venice International Film Festival
Mexican director Arturo Ripstein will be honored at the upcoming 72nd Venice International Film Festival as celebration of his fiftieth year as a filmmaker. The ceremony will take place on the night of the presentation of his latest film, La calle de la amargura.
The Director of the Venice Film Festival Alberto Barbera stated: “Arturo Ripstein is the most vital, tenacious and original director of the generation that made its debut in the mid-Sixties, the heir of the golden age of Mexican studio films and the forerunner of the new generation of contemporary authors such as Carlos Reygadas, Guillermo del Toro and Nicolas Pereda, each of whom in their own way, recognizes the profound debt that they owe to his work. In his so many unforgettable films, most of them co-written with Paz Alicia Garciadiego, Ripstein has brought to life a restless and afflicted universe, populated with characters pathetically on the verge of the abyss into which they are destined to fall. The strange blend of beauty and brutality, compassion and violence, irony and sadness, adds a wholly personal dimension to his cinema, which delves its roots into popular tragedy and the atmospheres of melodrama, which he cleverly re-elaborates. These elements are also to be found, their power and beauty intact, in his latest film, which the Venice Film Festival has the pleasure of presenting in its world premiere screening”.
The awards ceremony for this honor will take place before the screening of the film, which is scheduled for Thursday September 10th, in the Palazzo del Cinema’s Sala Grande.
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Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands, Debbie Reynolds to Receive Honorary Oscar Awards
Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands, and Debbie Reynolds will honored at the upcoming Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 7th Governors Awards on Saturday, November 14. The Academy will present Honorary Awards to Spike Lee and Gena Rowlands, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to DebbieReynolds.
The Honorary Award, an Oscar statuette, is given “to honor extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the Academy.”
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, also an Oscar statuette, is given “to an individual in the motion picture arts and sciences whose humanitarian efforts have brought credit to the industry.”
“The Board is proud to recognize our honorees’ remarkable contributions at this year’s Governors Awards,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “We’ll be celebrating their achievements with the knowledge that the work they have accomplished – with passion, dedication and a desire to make a positive difference – will also enrich future generations.”
Lee, a champion of independent film and an inspiration to young filmmakers, made an auspicious debut with his NYU thesis film, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads,” which won a Student Academy Award® in 1983. He proceeded to blaze a distinctive trail with such features as “She’s Gotta Have It,” “School Daze” and “Do the Right Thing,” which earned him a 1989 Oscar® nomination for Original Screenplay. His work as a director ranges from the Oscar-nominated documentary feature “4 Little Girls” to such mainstream successes as “Malcolm X” and “Inside Man.” Lee’s other feature credits include “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Jungle Fever,” “Crooklyn,” “He Got Game,” “25th Hour,” “Miracle at St. Anna” and “Red Hook Summer.” He currently serves as the artistic director of the graduate film program at NYU. Rowlands, an original talent whose devotion to her craft has earned her worldwide recognition as an independent film icon, received Academy Award nominations for her lead performances in “A Woman under the Influence” (1974) and “Gloria” (1980), both directed by her husband and frequent collaborator, John Cassavetes. She got her start on the New York stage and in live television in the 1950s and has appeared in 40 feature films to date, from “The High Cost of Loving” in 1958 to “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks,” which she starred in earlier this year. Her other notable films include “Lonely Are the Brave,” “Faces,” “Minnie and Moskowitz,” “Opening Night,” “Another Woman,” “Unhook the Stars,” “Hope Floats,” “Playing by Heart,” “The Notebook” and “Broken English.” Reynolds, a Hollywood icon since she won hearts with her buoyant performance in “Singin’ in the Rain,” embarked on the role of a lifetime as a founding member of the Thalians, a charitable organization conceived and sustained by entertainers to promote awareness and treatment of mental health issues. She served as the group’s president almost continuously from 1957 to 2011, adding numerous terms as board chair and frequently presiding over its annual fundraising gala. Her tireless efforts have enabled the Thalians to contribute millions to the Mental Health Center at Cedars-Sinai and to UCLA’s Operation Mend, which helps military veterans recover from the physical and psychological wounds of war. Reynolds has appeared in more than 40 feature films, including “The Tender Trap,” “A Catered Affair” and “Mother,” and received a 1964 Oscar nomination for her lead performance in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
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Cate Blanchett to Receive BFI Fellowship; TRUTH Added to BFI London Film Festival
Cate Blanchett will receive the BFI’s highest honor, the BFI Fellowship, at the BFI London Film Festival’s annual Awards Ceremony. TRUTH, starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford, will have its UK Premiere on the same night and, in honor of the award, is screening as the Fellowship Special Presentation film. Based on the book “Truth and Duty” by Mary Mapes, TRUTH tells the incredible story of Mary Mapes, an award-winning CBS News journalist and Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes producer and the risks she took to expose a story on the then President George W. Bush.
TRUTH, which screens as the Fellowship Special Presentation, is directed by James Vanderbilt, based on the book “Truth and Duty” by Mary Mapes, played in the film by Cate Blanchett who stars with Robert Redford as Dan Rather. The film chronicles the story Mapes and Rather uncovered that sitting US president, George W. Bush, may have been AWOL from the United States National Guard for over a year during the Vietnam War. When the story blew up in their face, the ensuing scandal ruined Dan Rather’s career, nearly changed a US Presidential election, and almost took down all of CBS News in the process.
Blanchett is also starring in Todd Haynes’ Carol, the festival’s American Express Gala, as an alluring woman trapped in a loveless marriage who falls for a young woman (Rooney Mara) working as a department store clark in 50s Manhattan.
Each year at the LFF Awards Ceremony a BFI Fellowship is awarded to an individual in recognition of their outstanding contribution to film or television. Previous BFI Fellowships have been presented to Stephen Frears in 2014, the late Sir Christopher Lee – given the honor by his friend Johnny Depp – in 2013, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter in 2012 and Ralph Fiennes, who was presented his BFI Fellowship by friend Liam Neeson, in 2011. In the last year, Al Pacino and Mel Brooks were also awarded BFI Fellowships.
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Director Mike Leigh To Receive A Tribute to… Award at Zurich Film Festival
Zurich Film Festival will honor British film director Mike Leigh, described as “one of the most significant exponents of New British Cinema” with A Tribute to… award during the Award Night ceremony at the upcoming festival taking place September 24 to October 2, 2015. Screened during the ZFF, a comprehensive retrospective comprising a number of his productions will offer insight into his work. Mike Leigh will also head a ZFF Public Master Class.
Mike Leigh is known to cinema audiences across the globe for films such as HIGH HOPES (1988), LIFE IS SWEET (1990), NAKED (1993), SECRETS AND LIES (1996), VERA DRAKE (2004), HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (2008), ANOTHER YEAR (2010) and, most recently, MR. TURNER (2014). Often set against the backdrop of a working-class Britain, his sensitive works have garnered a variety of important film awards.
Theatre, Television, Cinema Mike Leigh was born in 1943 in Salford, North West England. He learned his craft and his oft-praised sensitive approach to actors and actresses in the theatre. He began training as an actor and director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and continued at the London Film School. He worked as an assistant director with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has written and directed more than 20 of his own plays, including his celebrated social comedy “Abigail’s Party”. Leigh developed his first feature in 1971 from the play BLEAK MOMENTS, a film which won him the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival. He worked primarily throughout the 1970s and 80s for television and created during this period numerous films for the BBC, most of which were caustic commentaries on British society and the politics of the time. He completed his second feature film HIGH HOPES in 1988 and continued on a regular basis to create exceptional films that screened at the world’s most important film festivals and garnered countless awards, including seven Oscar nominations. In 1993 his film NAKED won the award for best director at Cannes Film Festival. In 1996, again at Cannes, his SECRETS AND LIES took the coveted Golden Palm. VERA DRAKE won the Golden Lion for Best Film at Venice Film Festival in 2004, and HAPPY-GO-LUCKY won the film’s main actress, Sally Hawkins, the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlinale in 2008. Humour and Wit Star actors such as Tim Roth, Gary Oldman and Stephen Rea cut their teeth in the films of Mike Leigh, and character actors such as Alison Steadman, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Sally Hawkins and Lesley Manville appear regularly in his films. Created with humour, wit and extreme sensitivity, Mike Leigh’s films capture the struggle for survival and minor trials and tribulations of Britain’s working class. Leigh is less a social warrior and more a person who takes the weaknesses and psychological idiosyncrasies of his protagonists seriously, and develops them into dialogue-rich stories. Leigh does not write screenplays per se, but develops his films in collaboration with his actors. His productions are usually understated and low budget, exceptions include the historical drama TOPSY-TURVY (1999) and MR. TURNER, which was released last year. A retrospective of his films will be screened during the ZFF.
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Museum of the Moving Image in NYC to Honor Alex Ross Perry with a Retrospective
From August 22 through 25, 2015, Museum of the Moving Image in New York City will honor director Alex Ross Perry with a Retrospective, and will present all of his features, including a special preview screening of the new film Queen of Earth.
“Alex Ross Perry’s two most recent films feature unforgettable and vivid performances—most notably Elisabeth Moss’s daring portrayal of emotional despair in the astonishing Queen of Earth,” said Chief Curator David Schwartz. “The Museum is pleased to offer New Yorkers an opportunity to catch up on an impressive body of work by this unique emerging talent who has incorporated his love of cinema into his own original vision.”
Impolex
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 4:30 P.M.
Dir. Alex Ross Perry. 2009, 73 mins. 35mm. With Riley O’Bryan, Kate Lyn Sheil, Bruno Meyrick Jones. In his feature debut, Perry was loosely inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. Taking place just after World War II, the film follows the shambling young soldier Tyrone S. as he wanders through the forest looking for German V2 rockets and encounters a number of inexplicably figures, including an eyepatch-wearing Englishman, a garrulous octopus, and the girlfriend he left behind to join the army.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJqIOt7UHI0
The Color Wheel
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 3:00 P.M.
Dir. Alex Ross Perry. 2011, 83 mins. 35mm. With Carlen Altman, Alex Ross Perry. Having recently broken up with her boyfriend and former professor, aspiring TV weathergirl JR calls on her estranged younger brother Colin to help retrieve her possessions at her ex’s apartment. What follows is one of the most uncomfortable road movies ever, as the two equally despicable characters incessantly pick on, undercut, and attack one another. “Perry gives a harsh, sarcastic twist to the intimate rivalry of siblings…. [He] directs these uproarious rapid-fire flareups with exquisite comic timing and incisive comic framing,” wrote Richard Brody in The New Yorker.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOtO8JBtxpE
Listen Up Philip
SUNDAY, AUGUST 23, 5:30 P.M.
Dir. Alex Ross Perry. 2014, 109 mins. With Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Jonathan Pryce. Feeling alienated by the pressures of the New York literary world and the girlfriend who financially supports him, the narcissistic and self-involved author Philip Lewis Friedman seeks refuge in the country home of his equally self-obsessed idol, the older, more established writer Ike Zimmerman. “Words do more than hurt, they also slash and burn in this sharp, dyspeptic, sometimes gaspingly funny exploration of art and life […],” noted Manohla Dargisin The New York Times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkjn5ICqmJI
SPECIAL PREVIEW SCREENING
Queen of Earth
With Elisabeth Moss and Alex Ross Perry in person
TUESDAY, AUGUST 25, 7:30 P.M.
Dir. Alex Ross Perry. 90 mins. With Elisabeth Moss, Patrick Fugit, Katherine Waterson. Catherine (played in what Variety calls “an utterly fearless central performance by Elisabeth Moss”) has entered a particularly dark period in her life. Following her father’s death and a bad breakup with her longtime boyfriend, she decides to spend a week recuperating in the lake house of her best friend, Virginia. However, fissures between the two women begin to appear, sending Catherine into a downward spiral of delusion and madness. As Scott Foundas points out in his Variety review, ”Perry is working in a style that seems equally influenced by doppelganger narratives like Bergman’s Persona and Brian De Palma’s Sisters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU3a8oniq2s
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Director Brian De Palma to be Honored at Venice International Film Festival
Director Brian De Palma will receive the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker 2015 Award, dedicated to personalities who have made particularly original contributions to contemporary cinema, at the upcoming Venice International Film Festival.
Regarding this award, the Director of the Festival Alberto Barbera declared, “The child of an artistic era (the ‘70s) full of innovative ferment, Brian De Palma has made a name for himself as one of the most skillful directors in constructing perfect narrative mechanics with great creative freedom, experimenting with new technical solutions, rejecting the classic rules of the language, abandoning himself to aesthetic virtuosity, and celebrating his favorite authors. When watching a movie by Brian De Palma, we revert to being basic spectators. Although our eyes are wide open to avoid falling into the trap, we know full well we’re bound to fall into it anyway. De Palma’s cinema is playful to the nth degree; it is a pleasure for the eyes and at the same time a game that tantalizes the cinéphile. He has never lost the curiosity of the experimenter as he reinvents the already-seen, and when it comes to constructing and manipulating images, this fundamental trait makes De Palma one of the greatest innovators who came of age in the shadow of the New Hollywood.”
“Jaeger-LeCoultre is proud to pay tribute to Brian De Palma with the Glory to the Filmmaker Award”, declared Daniel Riedo, CEO of Jaeger-LeCoultre. “For ten years, our company has supported the seventh art and the Venice International Film Festival through continuous promotion of cinema’s creativity and ingenuity. Precision watches and the maximum expression of the cinematographic art are fruit of the same passion. Both call for months and even years of concentration and patience, in order for the virtuosity of talented professionals to lead to the creation of masterpieces of aesthetic and technical perfection, destined to last forever.”
The award will be given to Brian De Palma on September 9th at 9.30 p.m. in the Sala Grande (Palazzo del Cinema) during the 72nd Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12, 2015), directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by the Biennale chaired by Paolo Baratta.
Following the award ceremony, the 72nd Film Festival will present the world premiere, Out of Competition, of the documentary De Palma (109’) by Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow. The film grew out of the two directors’ spending time with Brian De Palma for over ten years. It’s an intimate conversation between filmmakers, chronicling Brian’s six decade long career, his life, and his filmmaking process.
This major award consolidates the important bond between the Venice Film Festival and Brian De Palma, who has presented seven movies at the Lido, the first time forty years ago with Sisters in the section Proposte di nuovi film (1975). In 1981, De Palma screened Blow Out in the section Mezzogiorno/Mezzanotte; in 1987, The Untouchables, an out-of-competition Special Event; in 1992, Raising Cain, the closing film in competition; in 2006, The Black Dahlia, the opening film in competition; in 2007, Redacted, in competition and the winner of the Silver Lion; and in 2012, Passion, in competition.
Born in 1940, Brian De Palma studied film in New York. In 1963, he directed The Wedding Party, giving twenty-year-old Robert De Niro his first part. Carrie, a movie starring Sissy Spacek and based on the Stephen King novel, was his first big success. To date, De Palma has directed over 30 films, including The Untouchables (1987) with Robert De Niro, Kevin Costner and Sean Connery; Mission Impossible (1996) with Tom Cruise; and Scarface (1983) with Al Pacino. Over the years, De Palma has directed stars such as John Travolta, Melanie Griffith, Tom Hanks and Sean Penn. He is particularly famous for his psychological thrillers, which feature his personal style, unusual camera angles and elements that often recall works by the directors who have influenced him, in particular Alfred Hitchcock. Among the great actors Brian De Palma has directed, three have received Oscar nominations: Sissy Spacek (best actress, Carrie), Piper Laurie (best supporting actress, Carrie) and Sean Connery (best supporting actor, The Untouchables), who received the Oscar for his performance.
Jake Paltrow was born September 26, 1975 in Los Angeles, CA. His films are Young Ones (2014) and The Good Night (2007).
Noah Baumbach was born and raised in Brooklyn. His films include Kicking and Screaming (1995), The Squid and the Whale (2005), Margot at the Wedding (2007), Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), While We’re Young (2014), and Mistress America (2015).
Jaeger-LeCoultre has been a sponsor of the Venice International Film Festival for eleven years, and for nine years has sponsored the Glory to the Filmmaker Award. In the past years, the prize has been awarded to Takeshi Kitano (2007), Abbas Kiarostami (2008), Agnès Varda (2008), Sylvester Stallone (2009), Mani Ratnam (2010), Al Pacino (2011), Spike Lee (2012), Ettore Scola (2013) and James Franco (2014).
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2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards Now Accepting Entries
Film Independent President Josh Welsh announced that the call for entries for the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards is now open. The Regular Deadline is Tuesday, September 22, 2015 and the Final Deadline is Tuesday, October 13, 2015. The nominations will be announced on November 24, 2015 in a press conference. The Awards will be held on February 27, 2016 and will premiere exclusively on IFC.
“There are so many strong films this year, coming out theatrically as well as at the major festivals,” said Josh Welsh, President of Film Independent. “We’re so excited to begin the process of considering all the great work that we’ll be recognizing at next year’s Spirit Awards.”
The Film Independent Spirit Awards include the following categories: Best Feature, Best First Feature, Best Screenplay, Best First Screenplay, Best Director, John Cassavetes Award (given to the best feature made for a budget under $500,000), Best Male Lead, Best Female Lead, Best Supporting Male, Best Supporting Female, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best International Film, and Best Documentary. The Filmmaker Grants, for emerging filmmakers, include the Producers Award, the Truer Than Fiction Award and the Someone to Watch Award.
As the first event to exclusively honor independent film, the Film Independent Spirit Awards has made a name for itself as the premier awards show for the independent film community. Artists who have received industry recognition first at the Spirit Awards include Joel and Ethan Coen, Ava DuVernay, Spike Lee, Lynn Shelton, Oliver Stone, Ashley Judd, Steve McQueen, Robert Rodriguez, David O. Russell, Aaron Eckhart, Neil LaBute, Darren Aronofsky, Spike Jonze, Charlie Kaufman, Hilary Swank, Marc Forster, Todd Field, Christopher Nolan, Zach Braff, Amy Adams, Lena Dunham and many more.
Film Independent Members vote to determine the winners of the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Members are filmmakers, film industry leaders and film lovers. Anyone passionate about film can join at filmindependent.org/membership to be eligible to vote for the winners of the 2016 Film Independent Spirit Awards
In addition to celebrating the broad spectrum of independent filmmaking, the Spirit Awards is also the primary fundraiser for Film Independent’s year-round programs, which cultivate the careers of emerging filmmakers and promote diversity in the industry.
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Todd Haynes to Receive Director Tribute at IFP’s 25th Gotham Independent Film Awards
Todd Haynes will be presented with this year’s Director Tribute at the 25th Annual IFP Gotham Independent Film Awards. Each year, the Director Tribute is awarded to a veteran filmmaker with unique vision who has made a significant contribution to the motion picture industry.
In its press release the IFP states that Todd Haynes exemplifies the true independent spirit, with a career spanning over the last three decades and a truly extraordinary and uncompromising body of work. Haynes made his directorial debut in 1987 with the controversial short film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, using Barbie dolls to portray the life and death of singer Karen Carpenter. His feature film debut followed in 1991 with the provocative Poison, which went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance, spearheading what would become known as the New Queer Cinema. Haynes’s second feature, Safe, was later voted the best film of the 90’s by the Village Voice’s Critic Poll. Haynes’s next film, Velvet Goldmine, premiered in Official Selection at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a Special Jury Prize. This was followed by Far From Heaven (2002), which received four Oscar nominations, including one for Haynes’ Original Screenplay. His 2007 film, I’m Not There, imagined the life and work of Bob Dylan through the guise of seven fictional characters, and once again won him mass critical acclaim. In 2011, Haynes directed and co-wrote Mildred Pierce, a five-hour mini-series, which garnered 21 Emmy nominations, winning five of them, in addition to three Golden Globes Awards. His latest feature film, Carol, premiered in the Official Selection of the 2015 Cannes Films Festival, where Rooney Mara was awarded the prize for Best Actress. The much-anticipated film, which also stars Cate Blanchett, is scheduled for release in November 2015.
“We are thrilled to present the Director Tribute to Todd Haynes in our 25th Anniversary year” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director, IFP and Made in NY Media Center. “Todd’s career exemplifies precisely the kind of visionary, independent filmmaking the Gotham Awards first began championing in 1991. We’re also honored to celebrate screenwriting this year for the first time, finally giving due credit to the significance of this craft to independent film as an art form.”
The eight competitive Gotham Awards include Best Feature, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Documentary, Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director, Breakthrough Actor, Audience Award, and now Best Screenplay. Recent past winners include Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), CITIZENFOUR, and Boyhood (2014) Inside Lleywn Davis, Fruitvale Station and The Act of Killing (2013); Moonrise Kingdom, Beasts of the Southern Wild and How to Survive a Plague (2012);Beginners, The Tree of Life and Better This World (2011); all of which went on to win numerous awards and garner Oscar™ nominations.
Last year the organization honored director Bennett Miller, actress Tilda Swinton, and Netflix Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos.
Todd Haynes and the additional Gotham Awards tribute recipients to be announced will join a prestigious group of previous honorees including: Jeff Skoll, James Schamus, Bob & Harvey Weinstein, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sheila Nevins, Jonathan Sehring and film critic Roger Ebert; actors Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard, Charlize Theron, Stanley Tucci, Natalie Portman, Javier Bardem, and Penélope Cruz; filmmakers David O. Russell, David Cronenberg, Mira Nair and Gus Van Sant.
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Cheryl Boone Isaacs Re-elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Cheryl Boone Isaacs was re-elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Tuesday night (August 4) by the organization’s Board of Governors.
In addition, Jeffrey Kurland was elected first vice president; John Bailey, Kathleen Kennedy and Bill Kroyer were elected to vice president posts; Jim Gianopulos was elected treasurer; and Phil Robinson was elected secretary.
Boone Isaacs is beginning her third term as president and her 23rd year as a governor representing the Public Relations Branch. Kurland and Bailey were re-elected to their posts. Kennedy has served previous terms as vice president. Last year Kroyer served as secretary. This will be the first officer stint for Gianopulos. Robinson has served previous terms as vice president as well as secretary.
Boone Isaacs currently heads CBI Enterprises, Inc., where she consults on film marketing efforts. Starting this September, she will be an adjunct professor at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. She recently received an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Over her career, Boone Isaacs has consulted on such films as “The Call,” “The Artist,” “The King’s Speech,” “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” “Spider-Man 2” and “Tupac: Resurrection.” Boone Isaacs previously served as president of theatrical marketing for New Line Cinema, where she oversaw numerous box office successes, including “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “Rush Hour.” Prior to joining New Line in 1997, she was executive vice president of worldwide publicity for Paramount Pictures, where she orchestrated publicity campaigns for the Best Picture winners “Forrest Gump” and “Braveheart.”
Academy board members may serve up to three consecutive three-year terms, while officers serve one-year terms, with a maximum of four consecutive years in any one office.
A full listing of the Academy’s 2015–16 Board of Governors.