Nine individual screenwriters and one writing team have been selected as finalists for the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. Their scripts will now be read and judged by the Academy Nicholl Fellowships Committee, which may award as many as five of the prestigious $35,000 fellowships.
Black Out (UK) Directed by Eva Weber
Fifteen documentary short films have been named as finalists for the 2014 Cinema Eye Honor for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Short Filmmaking. Nominees in the Short Film category will be announced along with this year’s feature film nominees in November. Awards will be presented at the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors in New York City in January.
Steve McQueen
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the details and participants for the second annual free-to-the-public NYFF LIVE series of filmmaker and film industry conversations at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater (144 W. 65th Street) and the Apple Store, SoHo (103 Prince Street).
Jason Reitman’s LABOR DAY
The full film line-up was unveiled for the 22nd Philadelphia Film Festival, taking place from October 17 to October 27 throughout the Greater Philadelphia area. As earlier announced, the Festival will open on October 17th with J.C. Chandor’s, ALL IS LOST, starring Robert Redford, at the Perelman Theater. Jason Reitman’s LABOR DAY, will close the Festival on Friday, October 25th at the newly renovated Prince Music Theater.
THE CONGRESS, directed by Ari Folman (Academy Award-nominated Waltz With Bashir), will be featured as the opening film at the ninth Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. A science- fiction parable about identity and celebrity that blends live action sequences with fantastic hand-crafted animations, The Congress stars Robin Wright as herself, and also features Harvey Keitel, Jonn Hamm and Paul Giamati.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center (FSLC) and Rockstar Games will present panel discussions from September 29 to October 1 tied to the recent release of Grand Theft Auto V (GTAV) during the 51st New York Film Festival as part of its NYFF Convergence program, as well as an exclusive concert with live performances of the original score from composers Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, The Alchemist & Oh No.
We’re almost in October, so that means we can look forward to indie horror films trying to squeeze themselves onto the release schedule. We get two this week, along with a pair of interesting documentaries and some other indie and foreign releases. As always, check your local art house theaters to see when these might be coming to your area.
As a huge music fan who nevertheless can’t play a note, I always enjoy watching documentaries about behind the scenes details about the music business and how the greatest records of all time were recorded. While there are hundreds of music documentaries, many are fairly pedestrian and focus on household names who have sold millions of records and whose stories are already well-known. The stars of MUSCLE SHOALS, a documentary about two prolific recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, certainly have had that “sold millions of records” part down since the 1960s, but their lives have been anything but open books.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s Polish Communist-era drama IDA, which has been playing to audiences at film festivals in Telluride and Toronto will be released in the US next year 2014 by Music Box Films. IDA tells the story of a young orphaned novice nun exposed to a past and a family she never knew existed.
ABOUT TIME
More films announced for the 2013 Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF). Director Richard Curtis’ ABOUT TIME will be the Southampton opener on Friday, October 11th and Saturday’s Centerpiece Film is AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY directed by John Wells. The Spotlight films include: BREATHE IN, FREE RIDE, HER, LABOR DAY, LOUDER THAN WORDS, MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, THE PAST and CAPITAL.This year the festival will pay special tribute to Oscar Award winning director Costa-Gavras before the screening of his latest film CAPITAL.
ALL IS LOST by writer/director J. C. Chandor is the Opening Night film of the 22nd Philadelphia Film Festival (PFF), premiering in the new state-of-the-art Perelman Theater at the Kimmel Center on Thursday, October 17 . The film is described as “a gripping tale of solitude and survival in the face of disaster” and featuring a “tour-de-force solo performance from Robert Redford.” In ALL IS LOST Robert Redford plays a lone sailor who finds his yacht sinking after a collision with a discarded shipping container in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
MALAGASY MANKANY (LEGENDS OF MADAGASCAR)
The Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF) taking place October 2 to 6, 2013, in Hollywood, CA, has integrated a new sidebar, Film Diaspora, into its 2013 programming slate. Film Diaspora will showcase independent films and filmmakers from the African Diaspora. The lineup will include 11 films — three features, six shorts, and two documentaries from 8 countries — Nigeria, Haiti, Cameroon, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Madagascar, Burkina Faso and South Africa