2013 San Francisco International Film Festival Announces Big Nights Opening, Centerpiece and Closing Night Films

2013 San Francisco International Film Festival Announces Big Nights Opening, Centerpiece and Closing Night Films

The 56th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 25 – May 9) announced the films in its Big Nights series. Things kick off with the Opening Night presentation of returning Bay Area duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s drama What Maisie Knew (USA 2012) starring Julianne Moore, Steve Coogan and Alexander Skarsgård. The celebration continues on May 4 with the Centerpiece screening of Jacob Kornbluth’s Inequality For All (USA 2013), featuring local economist Robert Reich. The festival then comes to a close with Richard Linklater’s (Bernie, SFIFF 2012) Before Midnight (USA 2013), the third film in the director’s romantic trilogy starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. 

The Spectacular Now to Open 2013 Phoenix Film Festival

The Spectacular Now to Open 2013 Phoenix Film Festival

The Spectacular Now, which premiered earlier this year at 2013 Sundance Film Festival, will have its Arizona Premiere on April 4th as this year’s Opening Night film selection at the 13th Annual Phoenix Film Festival!  James Ponsoldt, the director of The Spectacular Now, will also be on hand to introduce the film and participate in a post screening Q&A. This is Ponsoldt’s third feature film and an adaptation of Tim Tharp’s novel The Spectacular Now.  The Spectacular Now is described as […]

Toronto International Film Festival Announces 2013 Asian Film Summit

Toronto International Film Festival Announces 2013 Asian Film Summit

 

Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival, today announced the return of the Asian Film Summit. Returning to the Shangri-La Hotel, Toronto, the 2013 Summit will take place during the Festival, on Tuesday, September 10, 2013. The Summit is a key element of TIFF’s ongoing commitment to building bridges between Asian cinema and the West.

“Last year we were honoured to have among our Asian Film Summit guests filmmakers Chen Kaige, Mira Nair and Eli Roth, film executives Harvey Weinstein, Bill Kong, Chris Dodd, Nina Lath Gupta and Stuart Ford, and global superstar Jackie Chan,” said Bailey. “We’re looking forward to welcoming another stellar lineup of key influencers and film leaders from both sides of the Pacific.”

SHORT TERM 12

12 Finalists Picked for Spring 2013 San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants

Recent SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winners include Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton’s sophomore feature which just won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013

The 12 finalists were announced for the latest round of San Francisco Film Society / Kenneth Rainin Foundation Filmmaking Grants; more than $300,000 will be awarded to one or more narrative feature films at any stage of production. Winners of the spring 2013 SFFS/KRF Grants will be announced in mid-April. 

Recent SFFS / KRF Filmmaking Grant winners include Short Term 12, Destin Daniel Cretton’s sophomore feature which just won both the Narrative Grand Jury Award and Audience Award at South by Southwest 2013; Ryan Coogler’s debut feature Fruitvale, which won both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the narrative category at Sundance 2013; and Beasts of the Southern Wild, Benh Zeitlin’s debut phenomenon which won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize and Cannes’ Camera d’Or in 2012, earned four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture) and became an indie box office smash.

Tribeca Film Institute Announces April 20 'TFI Interactive' Program  at 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

Tribeca Film Institute Announces April 20 ‘TFI Interactive’ Program at 2013 Tribeca Film Festival

The Tribeca Film Institute (TFI) today announced the program for the second annual TFI INTERACTIVE daylong conference at the Tribeca Film Festival (TFF). Made possible by support from the Ford Foundation, TFI INTERACTIVE, which launched at last year’s TFF, will assemble the brightest thinkers and innovators from the worlds of film, media, gaming, technology and society to explore storytelling in digital age through an all-day forum on Saturday, April 20.

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Short Term 12 and The Short Game Among Audience Award-winners at 2013 SXSW

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced Audience Award-winners from the Narrative Feature Competition, Documentary Feature Competition, Narrative Spotlight, Documentary Spotlight, Emerging Visions, Midnighters, 24 Beats Per Second, SXGlobal, Festival Favorites and Design Award categories.

The Audience Awards follow the previously announced 2013 Jury Awards, which included Grand Jury Winners Destin Daniel Cretton’s Short Term 12 for Narrative Feature, and Ben Nabors’ WILLIAM AND THE WINDMILL for Documentary Feature.

2013 SXSW Film Festival Audience Award Winners:

William And The Windmill Leads Award-winners of the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival

William And The Windmill Leads Award-winners of the 2013 South by Southwest Film Festival

William And The Windmill

William And The Windmill directed by Ben Nabors took the top prize when the Jury and Special Award-winners of the 2013 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival were announced at the Festival’s Awards Ceremony, hosted by comedian Jerrod Carmichael. SXSW also announced the Jury Award-winners in Shorts Filmmaking and winners of the SXSW Film Design Awards, as well as Special Awards, including the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award and the SXSW Chicken & Egg Emergent Narrative Woman Director Award.

SXSW FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2013 JURY & SPECIAL AWARD WINNERS

Documentary "American Meat" Premieres in New York City

Documentary “American Meat” Premieres in New York City

Farmer Joel Salatin in American Meat

The pro-farmer documentary American Meat will open on Friday, April 12, 2013 at New York City’s Cinema Village for its first theatrical screening. The Friday, April 12th opening of American Meat will include a grass carpet entrance, and one of the farmers featured in the film, Joel Salatin, will be dropped off on a tractor.

American Meat is described as a solutions-oriented, macroscopic, “pro-farmer” documentary surveying the current state of the U.S. meat industry. Featuring Fred Kirschenmann, Joel Salatin, Steve Ells, Chuck Wirtz, Paul Willis, and other farmers across America, the film takes an even-handed look at the past and future of animal husbandry and meat production in America. The film explains how America arrived at its current industrial system and introduces the charismatic industry leaders who are working hard to create practical and tangible solutions to change it for the better.

DVD Indie: Cult Horror Indie Film "Skew"

DVD Indie: Cult Horror Indie Film “Skew”

Independent horror feature film SKEW is now available on DVD on Redbox in the U.S.A. and will be available on iTunes April 2nd, 2013. SKEW will be released on DVD in Japan on April 5th, 2013.

SKEW follows three close friends who head out on an eagerly anticipated road trip with video camera in hand to record their journey.  What starts out as a carefree adventure slowly becomes a descent into the ominous as unexplained events threaten to disrupt the balance between them.  One by one they must struggle with personal demons and paranoia as friendships are tested and gruesome realities are revealed…and recorded.

Unmasking The Takeover of Brooklyn in New Documentary "My Brooklyn"

Unmasking The Takeover of Brooklyn in New Documentary “My Brooklyn”

Fulton Mall in the 1980′s, photo by Jamel Shabazz

by Cecily Witcher

My Brooklyn is a documentary by Kelly Anderson and Allison Lirish Dean that touches on the gentrification of the Brooklyn borough and how it affects the local Brooklyn residents. A large portion of My Brooklyn explores the downtown area know as Fulton Street that was once home to the famous Albee Square Mall which had a major influence on the community as well as the hip hop world internationally. The Fulton Mall was once the 3rd most profitable shopping district in New York but now that local experience that drew people from all over the world to the Fulton Mall has been stripped with the closing of the Albe Square Mall as well as the local owned stores have been replaced with major chains.