• 569 Films in Competition for 2012 Student Academy Awards

    Fifty-one entries from 29 countries, along with 518 entries from students representing 105 U.S. colleges and universities, are in competition for the 2012 Student Academy Awards. The competition – now in its 39th year – will culminate in the awards presentation, on Saturday, June 9, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The presentation will include screenings of the winning films.

    The Academy established the Student Academy Awards in 1972 to support and encourage excellence in filmmaking at the collegiate level. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medal awards and corresponding cash prizes may be presented in each of five categories: Alternative, Animation, Documentary, Narrative and Foreign Student Film.

    Past Student Academy Award® winners have gone on to receive 46 Oscar® nominations and have won or shared eight awards. At the 84th Academy Awards earlier this year, 2011 Student Academy Award winners Hallvar Witzø and Max Zähle were nominated in the Live Action Short Film category for “Tuba Atlantic” and “Raju,” respectively. James Spione, a Student Academy Award winner in 1987, earned a nomination in the Documentary Short Subject category for “Incident in New Baghdad.”

    via press release AMPAS

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  • Three Film Projects Win 2012 Tribeca Film Institute Sloan Filmmaker Fund Awards

    Three film projects, Unmanned, Computer Chess and Resonance, will receive financial and creative support from the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund, provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The film projects will be awarded a total of $150,000 and will be recognized at the annual Tribeca Film Festival, taking place April 18-29, 2012.

    The projects, which all emphasize science and technology in their storylines, focus on subjects including a new style of war fought by remote control, tensions between human ingenuity and machines in the computer chess tournaments of the 1980s, and the impact of brain abnormalities on interpersonal relationships.

    The winning projects were selected by an Award Committee made up of film and science notables including actor Ryan Phillippe (Flags of Our Fathers, The Lincoln Lawyer); actor Stephen Lang (Avatar, Public Enemies, Terra Nova); producer Michael Shamberg (Pulp Fiction, Erin Brockovich, Django Unchained); neuroscientist Joseph E. LeDoux; professor of astrophysical sciences J. Richard Gott (Princeton); and molecular endocrinologist Dr. Carter Bancroft.

    Selected projects for funding:

    Unmanned
    A young Air Force drone operator struggles to balance the stresses of going to war for the first time with the challenges of being a good father and husband, as he commutes each day between suburban family life and a new style of war fought by remote control. The short version of this film received an earlier Sloan Foundation production grant and is premiering at this year’s Festival.   Casey Cooper Johnson (writer/director), Casey Fenton (producer), Peter W. Singer (story by), Sevdije Kastrati (cinematographer)

    Computer Chess
    This film focuses on a computer chess tournament in the 80’s, transporting viewers to a nostalgic moment when the battle of technology versus the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs. Andrew Bujalski (writer/director), Houston King (producer), Alex Lipschultz (producer)

    Resonance
    Two damaged young men trying to reclaim their lives, push each other to the breaking point until they realize that only their friendship will save them.  Portraying the crossroads of neurology and psychiatry, the film examines how the brain’s functioning affects the way we interact, and how medical science treats brain abnormalities. Dara Bratt (director/writer), Keiran Dick (writer), Andrew Fierberg (producer), Robert Gerber (executive producer)

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  • No More, the Reno Film Festival to End

    The recession has not been kind to film festivals, and VIMOOZ can confirm that the Reno Film Festival has also fallen to the economic downturn and has decided to end.

    The press release:

    After careful review and consideration, evaluation of past 12 years performance and economic conditions, including grant availability, the Board of Directors of the Reno Film Festival has voted unanimously to cease operation and dissolve the organization effective June 30, 2012.

    “Naturally we’re very sorry to make this announcement,” said Festival President Scott Birmingham, “But the current board—and speaking for past volunteer boards through the years—is very proud of the films, competitions, seminars and programs we’ve brought to our area for more than a decade.  Looking back, we’ve hosted a ‘who’s who’ of those involved in the film industry to interact with local and visiting film fans,” he added.

    Screenings of the finalists in the Lumiere All School Film Fest, the Reno Film Festival’s competition for elementary to some college level students, will take place as scheduled May 16-18.  The location for these evening screenings will be announced on the Festival’s website, www.renofilmfestival.com and all three screenings will be free, courtesy of a grant from the DP Foundation.

    Reno Film Festival sponsors this year are KTVN-Channel 2, Reno News & Review, Reno Media Group, Bea-Design for Marketing, KUNR Public Radio – FM 88.7 and Red Machine Multimedia.  Grant support has been received from the City of Reno Arts & Culture Commission, DP/Dermody Properties and the E.L. Cord foundations.  All eight City of Reno Advisory Boards also support the festival:  Ward 1, Southwest Reno. Wards 2, Central and South Reno; Ward 3, East Reno; Wards 4, Northeast and North Valleys; Wards 5, Old Northwest and Northwest.

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  • Inaugural Unreal Film Festival to run November 9 – 11 in Memphis, TN to

    There is a new film festival in Memphis, TN, called the Unreal Film Festival.  This is the first year of the festival which is designed as a genre film festival inside a comic convention.  The festival is currently open to entries and will be until June 15th.  The winners will be announced on July 15th and the winning films will be screened at the festival on November 9-11, 2012 at the Hilton Hotel in Memphis, TN.

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  • Santa Barbara International Film Festival Announces 2013 Dates

    The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has set Thursday, January 24 through Sunday, February 3, 2013 as the dates for the 28th edition of the festival, it was announced today by SBIFF Executive Director, Roger Durling.

    Comments SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, “The 27th edition was an exciting one for us – full of changes and growth with our first ever acquisitions program. Now in the midst of preparations for the 28th edition – we guarantee you that the best is yet to come.”

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  • Inaugural Film Festival Week – LA Set to Run April 11-19 in Hollywood, CA

    The newly created Film Festival Week – LA will be held April 11-19,2012 in Hollywood, CA, at Raleigh Studios, 5300 Melrose Ave, Hollywood (Chaplin Building).

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  • Tribeca Unveils Lineup for 2012 Tribeca Online Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_2732" align="alignnone" width="550"]Babygirl[/caption]

    The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) today unveiled the lineup and programming for the third edition of Tribeca Online Film Festival. Audiences across the country will get front row access to the exclusive Festival content and hear filmmakers and industry leaders talking about the future of the industry as TFF’s 11th edition runs concurrently in lower Manhattan from April 18 to 29.

    Four world premiere feature selections from the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, and five short films, three of which are world premieres, will be available during the online Festival.

    Online viewers will be able to vote for the Best Tribeca Online Feature Film, a prize of $10,000, and the Best Tribeca Online Short Film, a prize of $5,000. Winners will be announced at the Tribeca Film Festival Awards on April 26. There will also be a social voting competition, based solely on popularity: the number of “likes” that film accrues on the Tribeca Online Film Festival film detail page. The feature film and the short film that drive the most Facebook likes on the page will each receive a separate $500 prize. Winners will be announced on April 30.

    The complete list of feature films streamed on the Tribeca Online Film Festival is as follows:

    Babygirl, directed and written by Macdara Vallely. (Ireland, USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints. For as long as she can remember, Bronx teenager Lena has watched her mom Lucy squander her life on a series of deadbeat men. When Victor, her mom’s latest boy toy, starts hitting on Lena, she sets up a trap to expose Victor for the creep he is… but the plan backfires. Macdara Vallely crafts a heartfelt drama about the emotional highs and lows in the moment between childhood and adulthood.

    [caption id="attachment_2733" align="alignnone" width="550"]On The Mat[/caption]

    On The Mat, directed and written by Fredric Golding. (USA) – World Premiere, Viewpoints and Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival. Achieving greatness in high school wrestling requires a level of devotion unmatched perhaps by any other sport. That greatness has become a yearly expectation at Lake Stevens High, winner of seven Washington state championships in the past 10 years. Narrated by Lake Stevens wrestling alum Chris Pratt (Moneyball), this riveting documentary follows the team over the course of a season as they fight through injuries and academic issues to maintain their school’s legacy.

    [caption id="attachment_2734" align="alignnone" width="550"]The Russian Winter[/caption]

    The Russian Winter, directed by Petter Ringbom. (Russia) – World Premiere, Spotlight. Brooklyn-born John Forté was a Grammy-nominated musician in The Fugees at 21 and a federal prison inmate at 26. When his prison sentence was remarkably commuted in 2008, Forté was given a second chance to share his talents with the world. Chronicling his concert tour across Russia, this inspirational documentary takes us on Forté’s personal journey—one that’s as much about having his voice heard as having his music heard. In English, Russian with subtitles.

    [caption id="attachment_2735" align="alignnone" width="550"]Town of Runners[/caption]

    Town of Runners, directed by Jerry Rothwell. (UK) – World Premiere, Viewpoints. Over the past two decades the small, rural Ethiopian town of Bekoji has been the unlikely home to numerous Olympic champion long-distance runners, whose athletic success has paved the way for a generation of young Ethiopians searching for a better future. With a keen artistic eye, TFF award winner Jerry Rothwell (Donor Unknown) follows two teenage track hopefuls who face the challenge of growing up and striving for greatness in a developing nation. In Amharic, Oromo with subtitles.


    The short films streaming on Tribeca Online are:

    BFF (World Premiere) Directed and written by Neil LaBute. Jack and Jill have been “best friends forever,” and when Jill suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her, Jack offers to help her.

    CatCam (New York Premiere) Directed by Seth Keal. German engineer Jürgen Perthold was intrigued about where his newly adopted stray, Mr. Lee, disappeared to for days on end, so he developed the CatCam to help solve the mystery.

    Scenes from a Visit to Japan (World Premiere) Directed and written by Joel Schlemowitz. An experimental film invoking diverse cultural landscapes, suggesting a collective struggle of humanity between apocalyptic visions of the past, present, and future, and the redemptive power of the human spirit.

    Transmission (International Premiere) Directed and written by Zak Hilditch. Following a deadly pandemic that has decimated the world’s population, a father drives his nine-year-old daughter from the west coast of Australia to the safe zone.

    Doggy Bags (World Premiere) Directed and written by Edward Burns. A young man suspects the girl he is dating to be hiding a secret after she routinely orders massive amounts of food to go. Produced by American Express as a result of the 2011 My Movie Pitch contest. This film is ineligible for awards.

    Nine additional short films will be made available through FOCUS FORWARD – Short Films, Big Ideas, a partnership between GE and CINELAN. Five will premiere on tribecafilm.com beginning today, April 9, when the Tribeca Online Film Festival site goes live. The last four, which are world premieres, will debut on tribecafilm.com on April 25, simultaneous with their TFF premieres at Tribeca Cinemas. The four world premiere films are directed by Nelson George, Katy Chevigny, Steven Cantor, and Michèle Ohayon. Each film is three minutes long and tells an amazing story of innovators making our world a better place.

    Select events will be streamed live as part of the Tribeca Online Film Festival, with TFF’s many other events, Q&As and conversations being captured on video for dynamic segments to be posted each day on tribecafilm.com, giving online audiences a comprehensive Festival experience. Among the live events scheduled are:

    April 19 at 3pm EDT – A celebration of Universal Studios 100th Anniversary, featuring Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, and Judd Apatow sharing their favorite moments and memories from Universal’s extraordinary history.

    April 26 at 7pm EDT – TFF Awards Night, saluting the best of the Festival;

    April 27 at 11am EDT – Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, celebrating innovation across the media, entertainment and technology spectrum.

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  • Film Lineup is Complete for 2012 Montclair Film Festival and Tickets Go On Sale

    [caption id="attachment_2724" align="alignnone" width="550"]Opening Night Gala film ‘The Oranges’[/caption]

    Tickets are now on sale for the 2012 Montclair Film Festival running May 1 – May 6, 2012 in Montclair New Jersey. The festival will present over 45 films with live participation by over 50 special guests including Kathleen Turner, Olympia Dukakis, Michael Moore, Patrick Wilson, and Oliver Platt.

    The Opening Night Gala (May 1) will present the New Jersey comedy, The Oranges. Set in suburban New Jersey, Hugh Laurie (House M.D.) and Catherine Keener (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) play a couple whose best friends and neighbors are Oliver Platt (Love and Other Drugs) and Allison Janney (The West Wing). Their comfortable existence goes awry when a prodigal daughter played by Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) returns and sparks an affair. The ramifications affect all of the family members in unexpected and hilarious ways.

     

    Other highlights of the festival include the drama Tiger Eyes, based on the novel by New Jersey native Judy Blume directed by her son Lawrence Blume, and An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, the debut of African-American director Terence Nance.

     

    [caption id="attachment_2725" align="alignnone" width="550"]Tiger Eyes[/caption]

    Born and raised in New Jersey, Judy Blume belongs to the pantheon of American storytellers, yet none of her books have been adapted for the big screen – until now. Her son Lawrence Blume directs this touching story of a 17 year-old girl played by Willa Holland (Gossip Girl; The O.C.) who suffers a family loss. She’s uprooted from her home in Atlantic City and transplanted to New Mexico where she meets a young man who helps her find new strength.

    [caption id="attachment_2726" align="alignnone" width="550"]An Oversimplification of Her Beauty[/caption]

    In An Oversimplification of Her Beauty which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Terence Nance in his directing debut chronicles his relationship with a lovely young woman (Namik Minter), teetering between platonic and romantic. Utilizing a tapestry of live action and animated styles, Nance explores his fantasies, emotions, and memories for a vibrant expression of young love.

    Documentaries at the festival include the world Premiere of The Prep School Negro and a screening of About Face.

    [caption id="attachment_2727" align="alignnone" width="550"]The Prep School Negro[/caption]

    In The Prep School Negro, André Robert Lee revisits the life-changing events of his adolescence when he gained a way out of Philadelphia’s ghettos with a scholarship to an elite prep school. As he moved into a different world, he grew distant from his sister and mother. In this poignant film, he explores thorny questions of race, education, opportunity and family. He also spends time with current day prep school students of color to see if anything has changed inside the ivory tower.

    [caption id="attachment_2728" align="alignnone" width="550"]About Face[/caption]

    About Face features esteemed portrait photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders interviewing fashion’s top supermodels on their lives, careers, and lifelong relationship with beauty. From youth to cosmetic surgery, addiction to self-esteem, overnight stardom to reinvention, this HBO documentary reveals the extraordinary women behind the famous faces. The memorable testimonies include Paulina Porizkova on her insecurities; Pat Cleveland on breaking boundaries for African-American women; and Carol Alt on posing for Playboy in her late 40s. Not to mention Christie Brinkley, Beverly Johnson, Jerry Hall, Isabella Rossellini and more. Courtesy of HBO Documentary Films.

    The festival will host the world premiere of David Bromberg: Unsung Treasures and Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Story.

    [caption id="attachment_2729" align="alignnone" width="550"]David Bromberg: Unsung Treasures[/caption]

    In David Bromberg: Unsung Treasures, David Bromberg is a musician’s musician who collaborated with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jerry Garcia and other greats. But Bromberg stopped performing publicly in the 1980’s and turned to violin making. New Jersey director Beth Toni Kruvant, who won acclaim for Heart of Stone about Newark’s Weequahic High School, follows Bromberg as he helps to revitalize an urban community and makes a musical comeback with esteemed friends such as Dr. John and Levon Helm.

    [caption id="attachment_2730" align="alignnone" width="550"]Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Story[/caption]

    Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Story, looks at Morton Downey Jr., dubbed the “Father of Trash Television,” who pushed the boundaries of controversy and confrontation from his New Jersey studio and became a media sensation in the late 1980s. Évocateur gains access to never-before-seen footage and takes us behind Downey’s cult of personality while charting his rise and fall. Interviewees include Pat Buchanan, Sally Jessy Raphael, Alan Dershowitz, as well as Downey’s former colleagues, critics and fans. Their testimony brings new insight to a bizarre chapter of TV history.

    Visit the festival website to see the full film lineup and to purchase tickets

    credit: Film description from the festival’s website.

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  • A Separation to Receive European Commission’s first EU Media Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_2495" align="alignnone"]Asghar Farhadi Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film[/caption]

    Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, director of A Separation (Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film) and his producer, Memento Films Production’s Alexandre Mallet-Guy, will be awarded the European Commission’s first EU Media Prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.

    Farhadi and Mallet-Guy will receive the award for their new project that will be filmed in France and in French in the Fall.

    “In these times when certain politicians are trying to turn the beautiful rainbow of cultural diversity in the world into differences and confrontations, I believe that this MEDIA award for my next film project is a very encouraging sign,” Farhadi said of the prize.

    The MEDIA prize is awarded to the best project with box-office potential submitted by a screenwriter and a production company. The project is selected from the applications submitted for development support from the MEDIA program in a given year. MEDIA will allocate support for the screenplay, casting, preparing a financial plan, marketing and piloting production. The EU MEDIA prize is part of the MEDIA program’s new €1.8 billion agenda set to kick off in 2014 and run through 2020 called “Creative Europe” meant to facilitate cultural exchange among film industry professionals through digital technology.

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  • Actor Armand Assante’s Dialogue From the Steppes Among Winners of 2012 Gasparilla International Film Festival

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    [caption id="attachment_2721" align="alignnone" width="550"]Armand Assante[/caption]

    “Dialogue From the Steppes,” a short film written and directed by actor Armand Assante (“Mambo Kings,” “Private Benjamin”) won the top documentary short prize at this year’s Gasparilla International Film Festival. “Dialogue From the Steppes” is described as Armand Assante’s presentation based on his own observations and feelings for the people of Kazakhstan. about the formation of an independent state, through several periods of Kazakhstan’s development, including the war years, closing of Semipalatinsk testing site, political repressions and the latest economic and political achievements of the country.

    The complete list of winners of 2012 Gasparilla International Film Festival:

    Life Achievment Award: Keith David

    Career Achievement Award: Chazz Palminteri

    Rising Star Award: Ryan O’Nan

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Screenwriting Competition
    “Heart of a Family” BY Sharon Duncan

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Audience Best Short Documentary
    Dialogue from the Steppes

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Audience Best Documentary
    Teresa Sareo – Alive Again

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Audience Best Narrative
    Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Audience Best Short Narrative
    Underground

    Florida Governor’s Office Film in Florida Award for Best Florida Prod.
    Subprime

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Special Mention Male
    Michael Weston in “Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best”

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Special Mention Female
    Danielle Harris

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Grand Jury Short Narrative
    Wolf Call

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Grand Jury Short Documentary
    Dilli

    Digital Domain Institute Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary
    The Loving Story

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Grand Jury Animated Short
    Live Outside the Box

    Digital Domain Institute Award for Grand Jury Narrative
    Downtown Express

    Digital Domain Institute Grand Jury Award for Young Filmmaker
    According to Plan

     

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  • 2012 Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival CANCELED

    The 2012 Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival which had been scheduled for September, has been canceled, organizers announced Thursday.

    The PE website reported that founder and Executive Director Jo Moulton said organizers are restructuring the annual event and the festival will return in 2013.

    Moulton said that, after 17 years, it was a difficult decision, but a combination of factors led organizers to conclude it was the right thing to do including a substantial reduction in festival donations and fewer people available to work on the event this year.

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  • Bully Expands in Wider Release After New PG13 Rating

    The controversial new documentary “Bully,” was given a PG-13 rating by the Classification and Rating Administration on Thursday, clearing the film for wider release in theaters by the film distribution company, Weinstein Company.

    The ratings board had initially given “Bully” an R rating for harsh language, but after earlier unsuccessful appeals, the Weinstein Company decided to release the film with no rating.

    This week though, the Weinstein Company and Lee Hirsch, the director and a producer of the film, agreed to edit some, but not all, of the offending language from the film. Kept intact was what is considered a crucial scene in which obscenities are hurled at a young victim on a school bus.

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