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Robert Redford, Academy Award–winning director, actor, producer, environmentalist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival and Institute, will be honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the 42nd Annual Chaplin Award Gala held at Lincoln Center on Monday, April 27, 2015. 

“The Board is thrilled to have Robert Redford as the next recipient of the Chaplin Award,” said Ann Tenenbaum, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Board Chairman. “Not only is he an internationally known and loved actor, director, and producer, but perhaps no other single artist has done more to champion the work of independent filmmakers. This makes him a truly distinguished honoree—the Film Society, the New York Film Festival, and the film world in general are immensely richer because of his contributions.”

Born in 1936 in Santa Monica, Redford began his career in New York in 1959 appearing as a guest star on several TV shows, including The Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and that year also marked his Broadway debut in Tall Story (1959), followed by roles in The Highest Tree (1959), Sunday in New York (1961), and his biggest Broadway success as the newlywed husband in Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park (1963). He also earned an Emmy nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Voice of Charlie Pont in 1963, followed by one of his last television appearances on Breaking Point.

Redford made his screen debut in War Hunt (1962), which also marked the directorial debut of Sydney Pollack, and the first of several collaborations between the two. He won his first Golden Globe award for Inside Daisy Clover (1965), in which he played a bisexual movie star who weds Natalie Wood. He worked with the actress again in Pollack’s This Property Is Condemned(1966), and that same year, he starred in Arthur Penn’s The Chase opposite Jane Fonda, with whom he would later reteam with for the movie version of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and Pollack’s The Electric Horseman (1979).

Playing alongside Paul Newman in 1969’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford launched to superstardom, and throughout the following two decades he further cemented his role within film history playing iconic characters in such films asJeremiah Johnson (1972), The Candidate (1972), The Way We Were (1973), the Oscar-nominated The Sting (1973), The Great Gatsby (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), All the President’s Men (1976), The Natural (1984) and Out of Africa (1985), winner of seven Academy Awards.     

Redford’s impressive career also extends behind the camera. He made his directorial debut with the Academy Award–winningOrdinary People, followed by The Milagro Beanfield War (1987), A River Runs Through It (1992), Quiz Show (1994), The Horse Whisperer (1998), and The Company You Keep (2012), among others. 

He was the recipient of the 1997 National Medal for the Arts by President Clinton. In 2001 he was honored with the Freedom in Film Award presented by the First Amendment Center, and in 2002 received the Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts: Lifetime Achievement Award. In December 2005, Redford accepted the Kennedy Center Honors for his “distinguished achievement in the performing arts and in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the life of our country.” Most recently, Redford received the Legion d’Honneur medal, France’s highest recognition, from President Nicolas Sarkozy on October 14, 2010.

Redford starred in last year’s New York Film Festival selection All Is Lost, and just completed production on A Walk in the Woods, based on Bill Bryson’s memoir and co-starring Nick Nolte. It is scheduled for release in 2015. He is now shooting Truthwith Cate Blanchett. The film is based on the book Truth and Duty by Mary Mapes.

The Film Society’s Annual Gala began in 1972 and honored Charlie Chaplin, who returned to the U.S. from exile to accept the commendation. Since then, the award has been renamed for Chaplin, and has honored many of the film industry’s most notable talents, including Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Laurence Olivier, Federico Fellini, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, James Stewart, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Michael Douglas, Sidney Poitier, Catherine Deneuve, Barbra Streisand and, last year, Rob Reiner.

image via flickr

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Ellen Page, who got her break in JUNO which premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, revealed over the weekend that she is gay.  Page, 26, made the announcement at the Time to THRIVE, a conference to promote the welfare of LGBT youth held at Bally’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“I’m here today because I am gay, and because maybe I can make a difference. To help others have an easier and more hopeful time. Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility.”

“I am tired of hiding and I am tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered and my relationships suffered. And I’m standing here today, with all of you, on the other side of all that pain.”

http://youtu.be/1hlCEIUATzg

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Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in his New York City apartment earlier today of an apparent heroin overdose.  He was 46 years old.  According to the NY Daily News, Hoffman was found alone in the bathroom of his apartment with a needle in his arm.

Hoffman won the Academy Award for best actor for his role as famed author Truman Capote the 2005 film CAPOTE, and recently appeared at the Sundance Film Festival for the premiere of his movie  GOD’S POCKET which also stars John Turturro and Christina Hendricks. 

UPDATE: A search of the home of Philip Seymour Hoffman home turned up used syringes and approximately 50 bags of heroin, this according to law enforcement officials. [Variety]

UPDATE: The Berlin International Film Festival mourns the actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In 2006 the Berlinale Competition presented Capote, the film directed by Bennett Miller which won Philip Seymour Hoffman a Golden Globe and later an Oscar as Best Actor.

This exceptional performer also appeared in Berlinale films like OWNING MAHOWNY (Panorama 2003) and Spike Lee’s 25TH HOUR (Competition 2003). He was unforgettable in the roles he played in two Berlinale films in 2000: Anthony Minghella’s THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY and Golden Bear winner MAGNOLIA directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. [ Berlin International Film Festival ]

UPDATE: Four people thought to be connected to the drugs found in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s apartment were arrested late Tuesday night [ CNN ]

UPDATE: An autopsy of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s body is inconclusive, and tests will be needed to determine what caused his death, the city medical examiner’s office said Wednesday. [Variety]

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Sam Berns, who battled the rare and fatal genetic condition that accelerates the aging process and was the subject of the award winning documentary LIFE ACCORDING TO SAM, has died. He was 17. Berns died Friday due to complications from Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, commonly known as progeria. Berns was diagnosed with progeria when he was 22 months old. 

In the documentary LIFE ACCORDING TO SAM, directed by by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, which premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film explores Progeria, an extremely rare and fatal disease, exemplified by accelerated aging in the children who are afflicted by it. There is no treatment. There is no cure. Enter Doctors Leslie Gordon and Scott Berns. When their son, Sam, was diagnosed with progeria at age two, the prognosis was grim—the couple were simply told to enjoy the few years they had left with their only son—but they weren’t willing to give up that easily. They spearheaded a campaign to save Sam and the other children in the world who share this devastating illness. In a little more than a decade, their extraordinary advances have led not only to identifying the gene that causes progeria and testing the first experimental drug to treat it but also to the amazing discovery that it is linked to the aging process in all of us. 

http://youtu.be/Z5hm44x7ICA

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James Avery, who played “Uncle Phil” on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” died earlier this week at age 68. According to reports, Avery died Tuesday night at a Los Angeles hospital due to complications from open-heart surgery. Avery just recently wrapped the indie film WISH I WAS HERE directed by Zach Braff, set to premiere later this month at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.

Zach Braff tweeted:

WISH I WAS HERE

WISH I WAS HERE, also starring Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Josh Gad, Ashley Greene, and Joey King, is about Aidan Bloom, a 35-year-old struggling actor, father, and husband,  still trying to find purpose in his life. In coming to terms with the death of his father, Aidan and his family unite to discover how to turn the page onto the next chapter. 

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Actor James Gandolfini, best known for playing New Jersey mob boss Tony Sopranos on the HBO series “The Sopranos,”  died of a heart attack earlier today in Italy. He was 51. Gandolfini was reportedly scheduled to appear in conversation with director Gabriele Muccino at the 59th Taormina Film Festival in Sicily.

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 [caption id="attachment_4096" align="alignnone" width="550"]Mott Green in NOTHING LIKE CHOCOLATE[/caption]

Mott Green, who founded the Grenada Chocolate Company, the subject of the documentary “NOTHING LIKE CHOCOLATE,” directed by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, died on June 1 in Grenada. He was 47.

The NY Times is reporting that his mother, Dr. Judith Friedman, said he was electrocuted while working on solar-powered machinery for cooling chocolate during overseas transport.

Green was born David Friedman in Washington, and grew up on Staten Island in New York City. He later took Green as his surname to reflect his environmental interests.

As a child he built go-karts using lawn mower engines; he ran the New York City Marathon when he was 16; he dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania just months before graduation; and he spent much of his 20s squatting with a community of anarchists in abandoned homes in west Philadelphia, where he “rescued” food that restaurants had planned to throw away and distributed it to homeless people.

He eventually ended up in Grenada, an island he visited as a child when his mother, Dr. Sandor Friedman, the director of medical services at Coney Island Hospital, taught there each winter.

Mr. Green founded the Grenada Chocolate Company in 1999, under the slogan from “tree to bar.” Human rights advocates had criticized the treatment of small cocoa farmers, and Green set out to address these issues by dealing directly with small growers and by keeping the entires process including processing and packaging of chocolate within Grenada. 

A message on the filmmakers website reads: “Mott Green, founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company, died suddenly while working in his beloved chocolate workspace in Grenada on June 1, 2013. We miss you, Mott.”

http://youtu.be/nAyjRNhakZM

Here is how the filmmakers, describe the film:

Deep in the rain forests of Grenada, anarchistchocolatier Mott Green seeks solutions to the problems of a ravaged global chocolate industry. Solar power, employee shareholding and small-scale antique equipment turn out delicious chocolate in the hamlet of Hermitage, Grenada. 

Finding hope in an an industry entrenched in enslaved child labor, irresponsible corporate greed, and tasteless, synthetic products, Nothing like Chocolate reveals the compelling story of the relentless Mott Green, founder of the Grenada Chocolate Company (GCC). [grenadachocolate.com]

Relocating from Oregon to Grenada in 1998, headstrong and driven, Mott Green set out to make chocolate, from the tree to the bar, using recycled antique equipment. Wondering “would we really learn how to make great chocolate?”, the neophyte entrepreneur leased 100 acres of land from a neighboring estate and established the Grenada Organic Chocolate Co-operative.

Within 5 years, the co-operative was producing 9 to 10 tons of local organic chocolate. Nothing Like Chocolate looks at this revolutionary experiment, focusing on how solar power, appropriate technology and activism merge to create a business whose values are fairness, community, sustainability and high quality. While Hersheys threatens to remove cocoa from chocolate, and can not guarantee slave-free cocoa in its chocolate, it is Mott Green and his friends, including calypso singer and lawyer Akima Paul, and Shadelle Nayack Compton, owner of the Belmont Estate, who defy all the odds. They insist that this worker co-operative is the model for the future: “We’re doing this for idealistic reasons: we are activists and our goal is to create a true worker-owned co-operative.”

Nothing Like Chocolate traces the continued growth of Mott’s co-operative, exposing the practices and politics of how chocolate has moved worldwide from a sacred plant to corporate blasphemy. Governments around the world, beholden to multi-nationals, sell cocoa for export at the best possible price. Industrial chocolate dominates taste buds and the market. Threatened by boutique producers, such as Grenada Chocolate Company, mega-companies work hard to buy up these small artisans, as Hersheys has done with Scharffenberger.

Confronted by the financial challenges of small-scale farming, Mott Green envisions a unique niche for exquisite organic chocolate in the global market, whose profits will come back to nourish the working shareholders.

With a suitcase full of chocolate bars, Mott boards a plane to persuade chocolate distributors in the UK and the USA that Grenada Chocolate Company makes the best chocolate in the world. 65,000 chocolate bars in stylish new packaging, stashed in air-conditioned storage, await their destiny.

How successful will this bold experiment be? The Grenada Chocolate Company produces less than 1% of the world’s chocolate, while at least 43% of cocoa beans come from Ivory Coast, where trafficked child labour is exploited to harvest cocoa. In the chocolate industry, Mott’s way of doing things – delicious chocolate, organics co-operatives, employment for local communities – is unusual.

From currency to candy, chocolate reflects a rich history saturated with sacred ritual, endorphin highs, hip anti-oxidants, exotic sensuality and high quality luxury. Nothing Like Chocolate adds new depth to the stories of chocolate.

via NYTimes

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Award-winning, Bengali director Rituparno Ghosh, THE LAST LEAR, suffered a heart attack and died last Thursday in Calcutta, India, reports the New York Times. He was 49.

Although Mr. Ghosh is more well known in the Bengali film industry, he also achieved international success with his films including, his first English-language film in 2007, “THE LAST LEAR,” which had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and was later shown at the London Film Festival.

Mr. Ghosh, often described as a  cross-dresser, also touched on the issue of sexuality and gender in his films. Ghosh who sometimes acted, was known for playing gay characters including in Kaushik Ganguly’s “Arekti Premer Golpo” (“Just Another Love Story,” 2011) and Sanjoy Nag’s “Memories in March” (2011).

Behind the scenes, his most recently released film, “Chitrangada” (2012), dealt with same-sex relationships and gender identity and featured Mr. Ghosh in the role of a gay man who undergoes a sex-change operation so that he and his partner can adopt a child. 

via New York Times

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