See the trailer for the independent comedy film SPENCER, written by, starring, and directed by Geoff Lerer. The film which recently won the Award for Best U.S.A. Feature Film at the 2013 New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF) follows the travails of Spencer Berg, an aspiring filmmaker trying to make his first movie in Brooklyn.
FULL CIRCLE won the Award for Best New York Feature Film at New York International Film Festival
The Vietnamese documentary film “THE TALE OF AN PHUC HOUSE” directed by Ivan Tankushev won the Award for Best feature Documentary Film at the 2013 New York City International Film Festival (NYCIFF). “THE TALE OF AN PHUC HOUSE” follows the everyday lives of twenty disabled children – third generation victims of the Agent Orange warfare that occurred during the Vietnam War ( 1963-1973). JIHAD IN AMERICA: THE GRAND DECEPTION, a 70-minute documentary film exploring the Muslim Brotherhood in America, and directed by Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson won an honorary award.
FULL CIRCLE won the Award for Best New York Feature Film, SPENCER won the Award for Best U.S.A. Feature Film and the South African film, LITTLE ONE won the Award for Best International Feature Film. FULL CIRCLE directed by Olli Koivula and Solvan Naim is about a young pizza delivery boy, Anthoni, who faces a life-changing crisis when his curiosity pulls him away from his delivery order into an adjacent apartment’s open door. SPENCER, written by, starring, and directed by Geoff Lerer, follows the travails of Spencer Berg, an aspiring filmmaker trying to make his first movie in Brooklyn. LITTLE ONE directed by Darrell Roodt and South Africa’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, is the story about a six-year-old girl found left for dead outside a township in Johannesburg.
Brad Pitt attends the “World War Z” Screening during the Moscow International Film Festival at Pushkinsky Cinema on June 20, 2013 in Moscow, Russia.
The 35th Moscow International Film Festival kicked off on Thursday, June 20, 2013 with the opening gala premiere of Marc Forster’s WORLD WAR Z starring Brad Pitt. The film revolves around United Nations employee Gerry Lane (Pitt), who traverses the world in a race against time to stop a pandemic that is toppling armies and governments and threatening to decimate humanity itself.
TaorminaFilmFest released a statement today on behalf of actor James Gandolfini, who died of a heart attack yesteday in Italy. Gandolfini was in Italy to attend the 59th TaorminaFilmFest. In a statement on it’s website, the festival said that Gandolfini had been confirmed to attend the TaorminaFilmFest on June 22 to preside over a TaoClass that the festival dedicated to what it calls “the great interpreters of film and television” and to receive the Taormina City Prize.
Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian’s feature film debut FORTY YEARS FROM YESTERDAY premiered on Sunday at the 203 Los Angeles Film Festival. Starring Bruce Graham, Suzette Graham, Robert Eddington, Wyatt Eddington, Matt Valdez, Chelsea Word, Elizabeth Overton and Rebekah Mott, the film follows Bruce, a quietly spiritual man with three grown daughters, returns home from his morning jog to discover Suzette, his beloved wife of forty years, has passed away. The film then goes on to capture moments with each family member as they grieve. FORTY YEARS FROM YESTERDAY screens again on Saturday at the festival.
The new indepedent film POLLYWOGS premiered just recently at the still running 2013 LA Film Festival where it was described as offering an equally amusing and insightful look at directionless thirty-somethings lurching towards adulthood. The film is directed by first-time feature director Karl Jacob (who also wrote the screenplay, produced and starred) and T. Arthur Cottam. In the film Dylan–who’s played by Karl Jacob–retreats to Minnesota for a family reunion featuring firearms, heavy metal and unwelcome questions. Amongst the throng of relatives, he discovers Sarah, the childhood crush he hasn’t seen since her family decamped to a religious compound. Could she prove to be the perpetually heartbroken Dylan’s salvation or will their emotional scars fail to align?
Closing Night Film – Free Angela
From July 18 to 28, 2013, Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) in South Africa, will feature over 250 screenings, including 72 feature films, 48 documentaries and 45 short films. As part of its African Focus this year’s festival will open with ‘ground-breaking African-noir work’ Of Good Report by filmmaker-on-the-rise Jahmil XT Qubeka. Telling the story of a serial killer obsessed with beautiful young girls, the film expands the language of African cinema. The festival’s closing film acknowledges Angela Davis, an important figure in the African diaspora, with the film Free Angela – and all political prisoners, directed by Shola Lynch.
THE ACT OF KILLING directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
THE ACT OF KILLING directed by Joshua Oppenheimer won the Special Jury Award, and shared the 2013 Audience Award for Best Feature with PARTICLE FEVER directed by Mark Levinson at the 2013 Sheffield Doc/Fest. In the documentary THE ACT OF KILLING, produced by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog, the unrepentant former members of Indonesian death squads are challenged to re-enact some of their many murders in the style of the American movies they love. PARTICLE FEVER follows six brilliant scientists during the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, marking the start-up of the biggest and most expensive experiment in the history of the planet, pushing the edge of human innovation.
The Complete 2013 SHEFFIELD DOC/FEST AWARD WINNERS RECAP
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.
LLYN FOULKES ONE MAN BAND, a feature documentary about artist and one-man-band musician Llyn Foulkes, will have its World Premiere at the 2013 LA Film Festival on Thursday, June 20. Directed and produced by first-time documentary filmmakers, Tamar Halpern and Chris Quilty, the documentary chronicles 7 years of Llyn Foulkes’s life from ages 70 to 77. During the seven years chronicled in the film, artist and musician Llyn Foulkes creates, destroys, and recreates a pair of large-scale, three-dimensional paintings, one that costs him his marriage, while trying to keep afloat in the fickle art market.
The new indie romantic comedy “FOREV” co-written and co-directed by Molly Green and James Leffler is already receiving earning critics praises after the world premiere on Saturday night at the 2013 LA Film Festival. The film is described as a romantic comedy about impulsive marriages. In the film, Pete and Sophie are somewhere on the edge of the desert when he works up the nerve to propose. The hitch being: Their whirlwind road trip from L.A. to Phoenix is the closest these neighbors have ever come to going on a date. Nevertheless, fueled by their respective fears of intimacy and low-grade self-loathing, they run with the idea, much to the annoyance of Pete’s sister Jess, who’s along for the latter half of the ride.
Beth Murphy’s WHAT TOMORROW BRINGS
The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) and Gucci announced the nine documentary film projects selected as the 2013 recipients of the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund grant awards, totalling $150,000 to be administered by the Tribeca Film Institute. The Fund provides production and finishing finances, year-round support and guidance to domestic and international documentary filmmakers with feature-length films highlighting and humanizing critical issues of social significance from around the world.