• Go See the Indie Comedy “Rid of Me”

    ,

    by Francesca McCaffery

    RID OF ME, James Westby’s latest black comedy that follows Meris, (an awesome Katy O’Grady!) an awkward young woman trying too hard to perfect her marriage, amongst a new group of friends. RID OF ME follows Meris’ rejection from the cool crowd down a path towards truth and salvation which includes a job at a local candy shop, a group of punk friends, community gardening and a newfound love for Cambodian rock music! (Yes!)

    I think this was one of the hidden gems of the Tribeca Film Festival, and it is opening at Cinema Village West Theater tomorrow in New York City, November 18th- RUN OUT TO SEE IT ASAP THIS WEEKEND! We LOVED it, and so will you.  Let’s make this small wonder a huge hit! Check out the awesome reviews below:

    “Bracingly original, alarming and droll! The domestic meller and the horror movie have met, wed, and proven fruitful.” –John Anderson, VARIETY

    MEAN GIRLS for adults! Few recent movies are as darkly funny.” –Steven Zeitchik, LA TIMES

    “RID OF ME, if there’s any justice, should make actress Katie O’Grady a star.” –S.T. VanAirsdale, MOVIELINE

    “RID OF ME is cheerfully obscene, hip, and wickedly funny! Director James Westby is a talent on the march.” –Erica Abeel, HUFFINGTON POST

    RID OF ME was officially selected to play in the Tribeca Film Festival, Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, San Diego Film Festival, and Bend Film Festival. Winner of Best US Narrative at the Traverse City Film Festival

    {youtube}WkmHawHIpMg{/youtube}

    Read more

  • Mamitas wins Best Film at Inaugural Napa Valley Film Festival

    [caption id="attachment_1838" align="alignnone"]Mamitas[/caption]

    Napa Valley Film Festival (NVFF) announced its Jury and Audience Awards for the inaugural film festival which ran November 9 – 13, 2011.

    The coming-of-age film Mamitas, based on director Nicholas Ozeki’s award-winning short film of the same name took the top prize Best Narrative and the cash award of $10,000. In the film, cocky teenager and self-proclaimed Casanova Jordan Juarez thinks he knows everything about girls. But one day, while teaching his best friend how to pick up “hot mami chulas,” he learns just what it means to be a man who can truly connect with a woman.

    The complete list of winners: 


    Jury Awards for Narrative Features:

    Best Narrative Feature ($10,000 Cash Prize presented by Meadowood Napa Valley; wine from Gustavo Thrace) Mamitas, directed by Nicolas Ozeki

    Special Jury Award for Creative Excellence (wine from Hill Family) David, directed by Joel Fendleman and co-directed by Patric Daly

    Mt. Veeder Peak Performance for Best Acting in a Narrative Feature ($1000 Cash Prize and wine from Mt. Veeder Appellation) Amber Jaeger in Take Me Home, directed by Sam Jaeger

    Jury Awards for Documentary Films:

    Best Documentary Feature (wine from Peju) Kumare, directed by Vikram Gandhi

    Special Jury Mention for Social Impact (wine from Trinitas) First Generation, directed by Adam and Jaye Fenderson

    Best Documentary Subject (wine from Chappellet) Jack Sanderson in Becoming Santa, directed by Jeff Myers

    Best Documentary Short Subject (wine from Chiarello) Sin Pais, directed by Theo Rigby

    Special Jury Prize for Artistic Vision (wine from Broman) Library of Dust, directed by Ondi Timoner and co-directed by Robert James

    Jury Awards for Narrative Short Films:

    Best Narrative Short (wine from Laderra) Fatakra, directed by Soham Mehta

    Special Jury Mention for Creative Achievement (wine from Hope and Grace) Grave Dawn, directed by DJ Turner

    Audience Awards:

    Favorite Narrative Feature (wine from Jessup) Mamitas, directed by Nicholas Ozeki

    Favorite Documentary Feature (wine from Cornerstone) Wild Horse, Wild Ride, directed by Alex Dawson and Greg Gricus

    Favorite Documentary Short Subject (wine from Tallulah) Sin Pais, directed by Theo Rigby

    Favorite Narrative Short (wine from Freemark Abbey) Grave Dawn, directed by DJ Turner

    Favorite Lounge Feature (Narrative or Doc) (wine from Houdini) The Other F Word, directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins

    The second annual Napa Valley Film Festival will take place November 7 – 11, 2012.

    Read more

  • Bahamas International Film Festival Announces 2011 Official Film Lineup

    [caption id="attachment_1836" align="alignnone"]Johnny Depp in The Rum Diary[/caption]

    “The Rum Diary” starring BIFF’s 2009 Career Achievement tributee and Bahamian home owner, Johnny Depp, will open the 8th Bahamas International Film Festival (BIFF) on Thursday, December 1st while sports dramedy “Breakaway” starring Rob Lowe will close the festival on Sunday, December 4th.

    This year, the Festival, which takes place December 1-4, 2011 in Nassau, will showcase 68 films from 33 different countries, including 42 features of which several are international premieres and all are Bahamian premieres. The four competition categories at BIFF are Spirit of Freedom: Narrative; Documentary; New Visions; First Look; and Short Film. Special sections include Caribbean and Environmental sidebars as well as a World Cinema showcase.

    The official BIFF lineup is comprised of the following films: 


    SPIRIT OF FREEDOM (NARRATIVE)

    MOTHERS (Macedonia) / Director: Micho Manchevski

    MAYA (Albania) / Director: Pluton Vasi

    WHERE THE ROAD MEETS THE SUN (USA/Singapore/Indonesia) / Director: Mun Chee Yong

    BETTER MUS’ COME (Jamaica) / Director: Storm Saulter

    VIPS (Brazil) / Director: Toniko Melo



    SPIRIT OF FREEDOM (DOC)

    MARATHON BOY (USA/UK/India) / Director: Gemma Atwal

    ZERO PERCENT (USA) / Director: Tim Skousen

    FAMBUL TOK (USA) / Director: Sara Terry

    GIVE UP TOMORROW (USA / UK) / Director: Michael Collins

    DONOR UNKNOWN (UK) / Director: Jerry Rothwell



    NEW VISIONS

    BRINGING UP BOBBY (USA) / Director: Famke Janssen

    YELLING TO THE SKY (USA) / Director: Victoria Mahoney

    JE T’AIME I LOVE YOU TERMINAL (Israel) / Director: Dani Menkin

    RESTLESS CITY (USA) / Director: Andrew Dosunmu

    WITHOUT (USA) / Director: Mark Jackson

    LOVE.NET (Bulgaria) / Director: Ilian Djevelekov



    WORLD CINEMA

    FACE TO FACE (Australia) / Director: Michael Rymer

    SAVAGE (Sweden) / Director: Martin Jern, Emil Larsson

    SWEET LITTLE LIES (USA) / Director: William Saunders

    THE WEDDING PARTY (Australia) / Director: Amanda Jane

    TIRZA (Belgium/The Netherlands/Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) / Director: Rudolf van den Berg

    CAPSULAS (Guatemala) / Director: Verónica Riedel

    TOAST (USA) / Director: SJ Clarkson

    Y-NING? (Trinidad & Tobago) / Director: Emilie Upczak

    BOMBAY BEACH, CALIFORNIA (USA) / Director: Alma Har’el

    THE CREATORS (South Africa) / Director: Laura Gamse, Jacques de Villiers

    BIG IN HOLLYWOOD (India/USA) / Director: Bill Bowles, Kenny Meehan

    DO WOMEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT (USA) / Director: Michael Baisden

    REAL VOODOO (Canada) / Director: Sandra Whiteley

    SENNA (UK) / Director: Asif Kapadia



    SPECIAL SCREENING


    THE RUM DIARY (US) / Director: Bruce Robinson

    BREAKAWAY (Canada) / Director: Robert Lieberman

    A DANGEROUS METHOD (Germany/ Canada) / Director: David Cronenberg



    FIRST LOOK

    ON THE WINGS OF MEN (USA/The Bahamas) / Director: Calvin Dwight Harris

    ISLANDS OF LIFE (USA/The Bahamas) / Director: Bo Boudart

    COCOON (The Bahamas) / Director: Giovanna Swaby

    TALL TALE OF AN ACCIDENTAL TOURIST (The Bahamas) / Director: Jason Evans

    FIVE BONES (The Bahamas)  / Director: Tyler Johnston

    DEVOTEE (The Bahamas)  / Director: June Collie

    AMOS (The Bahamas)  / Director: Karen Arthur, Thomas Neuwirth



    SHORTS

    ANYTHING FOR YOU (USA) / Director: Laura Belsey

    SEXTING (USA) / Director: Tim Harms

    THE SEA IS ALL I KNOW (USA) / Director: Jordan Bayne

    THIEF (USA) / Director: Julian Higgins

    15 SUMMERS LATER (Norway) / Director: Pedro Collantes

    ALAMBAMENTO (Angola/Egypt/USA) / Director: Mario Bastos

    AUGENBLICKE (Germany) / Director: Martin Bargiel

    HOMECOMING (USA) / Director: Gursimran Sandhu

    CHRISTMAS PIGGY (Denmark) / Director: R.S. Soderstrom

    GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL (USA) / Director: Todd Cobery

    MERCY GRACE & CRAB MEAT (USA) / Director: Jonathan Thompson

    MI HATICE (Turkey) / Director: Denis Metin

    MISH MUSH (Syria/Canada) / Director: Amar Chebib

    KILL BRASS (Canada) / Director: Michael Kandinsky

    THE SHORE (Northern Ireland) / Director: Terry George

    LAN (USA/China) / Director: Taylour Chang

    POST-NUP (USA) / Director: Katharine Woodman-Maynard

    TELL-TALE (UK) / Director: Greg Williams

    MY BIG RED PURSE (USA) / Director: Giancarlo Iannotta

    NORTH ATLANTIC (Portugal/UK) / Director: Bernardo Nascimento

    THE BURNT CORK (Australia) / Director: Alexandra Edmondson

    THE HAYMAKER (Canada/USA) / Director: Daniel D’Alimonte

    TORA (Canada) / Director: Glen Samuel, Wendy Ord

    TOY SOLDIER (Australia/France/Israel) / Director: Jeremy Bliss

    10 AVE MARIA (Aruba) / Director: Ryan Oduber, Juan Francisco Pardo

    INCEST! THE MUSICAL (USA) / Director: Grant Reed

    BOFFIN & BOFFIN (USA) / Director: Ed Blythe

    MUMBIA CHARLIE (UK/ INDIA) Director: Deepak Verma

     

    Actress/singer Zoe Isabella Kravitz (“X-Men: First Class,” “It’s Kind of a Funny Story,” “Yelling to the Sky”), daughter of legendary American/Bahamian musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet, will be honored with BIFF’s signature Rising Star Tribute. Kravitz will be on hand for the special award tribute presentation on Friday, December 2nd at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island.

    The festival will also bring back the Filmmaker’s Residency Program. For the second year BIFF has broadened the program to include filmmakers from around the world to submit screenplays that are based in The Bahamas or Caribbean region.

    BIFF 2011 begins Thursday, December 1st in Nassau and runs through Sunday, December 4th.

    Read more

  • Chinese non-fiction and work by Ai Weiwei to be screened at Film Festival Rotterdam



    Recent films by Chinese documentary makers and films by versatile artist Ai Weiwei will be screened during the 41st edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The films highlight hidden aspects of Chinese society in an intimate and surprising way. These films and Ai’s work will be shown in Hidden Histories, a themed program of the IFFR main Signals section.

    Signals: Hidden Histories

    What the films in Hidden Histories have in common is that their makers focus on hidden aspects of Chinese society such as for example poverty, corruption or misrule. The ‘hidden’ aspect also applies to the films themselves: screenings and distribution are often thwarted. In spite of this, the makers have managed to create convincing, substantively strong and visually impressive work on minimal budgets.

    As part of Hidden Histories, the festival will also be showing works of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei: six long films which he refers himself to as ‘social documentaries’ and four documentary art videos. There is a remarkable difference between Ai’s sometimes highly conceptual art videos and his social documentaries. For the latter, he acts – before and behind the camera – as a committed research journalist, persistent to bring injustice in the open. Hidden Histories is being compiled by IFFR programmers Gertjan Zuilhof and Gerwin Tamsma.

    Documentaries in Hidden Histories

    Hidden Histories will include the film APUDA by He Yuan. This film won the main prize at Yunfest in China and its only other prior screening was during the Vancouver film festival in Canada. APUDA provides a sober portrayal of the daily life of a carpenter and his dying father.

    Hidden Histories will also be showing BACHELOR MOUNTAIN, the new documentary by Yu Guangyi and the sequel to his SURVIVAL SONG, which was screened at IFFR 2009. In BACHELOR MOUNTAIN, Yu returns to the barren north of China and provides an intimate portrait of the uneasy friendship between a lumberjack and the women he has taken a shine to.

    The documentary SHATTERED is filmmaker Xu Tong’s third work. In 2010 and 2011, the IFFR screened his films WHEAT HARVEST and FORTUNE TELLER. In SHATTERED, socially committed Xu once again films the daily lives of those on society’s margins in a very straightforward manner. This time around he follows with his camera a retired railway worker and the former’s daughter, who is also active in the underworld.

    The complete line up of Hidden Histories will be available online at www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com as of Thursday 19 January 2012.

    About Ai Weiwei

    Ai Weiwei, who was born in 1957, is a conceptual artist, political activist and philosopher. He is a multifaceted artist who also engages in architecture, photography and film. He is also known for his criticism of the social and cultural changes in his country, and this has resulted in his being hampered in many ways by the Chinese authorities. Spring 2011, Ai Weiwei was imprisoned for 81 days. He was released after being issued a hefty fine for alleged back taxes. Recently Ai paid the bond raised by supporters from China and abroad.

    Ai grew up in Sianking in the northwest of China. Because his father – a famous writer, painter and poet – was banished to a labour camp twice during the 1950s and 1960s, the family lived in poverty. In 1975 they moved to Beijing. Ai enrolled at the film academy and was a classmate of, among others, Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. After living in New York for 12 years, Ai returned to Beijing. In 1999, he founded the gallery Chinese Art Archive & Warehouse in the south of the city with Dutch artist and collector Hans van Dijk and the Flemish art collector Frank Uytterhaegen. From the mid-1990s onwards, Ai often exhibited his large-scale installations in and outside China, founded a firm of architects, wrote books on the new generation of artists in China and collaborated on the design for the Olympic stadium (the bird’s nest) in Peking. At the moment, Ai is China’s most famous artist and this year he topped the magazine ArtReview’s ‘Power 100 List’.

    The International Film Festival Rotterdam has a long tradition of screening independently made feature films, shorts and documentaries from China. In recent years, some of these films came about thanks to contributions from the Hubert Bals Fund, including, for example, the epic TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS by Wang Bing. In 2012, the IFFR intends to continue on this course and will select films from China for several parts of the programme. On Thursday 19 January 2012, the full festival programme will be made available as an insert in the Volkskrant newspaper and online at: www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com. The 41st edition of the festival is set to take place from 25 January – 5 February 2012.

    Read more

  • Durban International Film Festival Announces 2012 Dates, and Call for Films

    The 33rd DURBAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL will take place from July 19 to 29, 2012, and will present over 200 screenings of films from around the world, with a special focus on films from South African and Africa. Screenings will take place throughout Durban, South Africa,  including township areas where cinemas are non-existent. The festival will also offer an extensive seminar and workshop programme featuring local and international filmmakers.  2012 will also see the return of Talent Campus Durban and the Durban FilmMart.

    The festival calls for entries from around the world. Feature films, short films and documentaries are all welcome. The festival does have a competition component.

    The deadline for entries is March 16, 2012 for short films and documentaries; April 6, 2012 for feature films. Early submissions are encouraged.


    All submissions can be done via the Festival’s Eventival online system.

    Read more

  • REVIEW: Le Havre

    Shot in the picturesque French port city of the same name, “Le Havre,” directed by Aki Kaurismaki, looks like it truly could have been created forty-five years ago. It’s an amazing and lovely film about community and solidarity, without any maudlin nostalgia to muck it up in the middle. It’s truly an original, and already feels like a dyed-in-the-wool classic. 

    A shoe-shine man (the glorious Marcel Max), making a meager living and relying on the unconditional adoration of his wide Arletty, (the sad-eyed Kati Outinen) one afternoon spots a young black African boy (Blondin Miguel), who has come here illegally in a freight container with his extended family. The boy has escaped police after temporary capture, and is hiding out in chest-deep seawater underneath a dock, where Andre has been lunching. After his wife must go to the hospital and stay there for treatment, Andre brings the boy into his home, hiding him away from the kind but thorough police captain ( an implacable Jean-Pierre Darroussin), who may or may not have some history with Andre. The entire neighborhood then becomes deftly enlisted in helping Andre with is new mission- getting the boy to London- where his family awaits him.

    This film is built so solidly on these beautiful performances, and bears the stamp of a director who knows how to disappear into the ether- making a truly charming, enriching tale of love and community. This is how they used to make ‘em, and it’s amazing that the marriage of all these nameless elements comes together to bring us a tale that is both timeless as well as genuinely topical. The way the director and production designer, (Wouter Zoon) with the obvious help of a genius DP (Timo Salminen), have merged to make a film that seems simultaneously so anchored in time as well as feeling absolutely timeless. (When we see the word “Alchieda” in a newspaper headline, it’s almost jolting) The era or time simply do not matter here. It’s the story that, finally, truly counts.

    In the director’s statement, Kaurismaki explains that this is a film about the plight of refugees, in all nations. If this is going to be the shape of politically driven narrative film, this is certainly one way to do it- with an almost unparalleled sense of grand confidence and a purely “cinematic” sense. “Le Havre” will leave you feeling warm inside without the fuzzy, and good without the heinous “feel good” feeling. It’s impossible, in the end, to explain the truly unique charm and beauty of this film: You will just have to go out and see it for yourself…

    by Francesca McCaffery

     

     

    Read more

  • WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT and the Complete List of Winners of 2011 AFI FEST

    [caption id="attachment_1831" align="alignnone"]WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by Alexandra-Therese Keining[/caption]

    AFI FEST 2011 announced the features and short films that took home this year’s Audience and Jury Awards. The audience voted the lesbian themed drama, WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by first-time writer/director, Alexandra-Therese Keining the winner in the Breakthrough Section.

    The 2011 AFI FEST complete list of winners: 

    AUDIENCE AWARDS

    Breakthrough Section (award accompanied by a $5,000 cash prize)
    WITH EVERY HEARTBEAT by Alexandra-Therese Keining

    New Auteurs Section
    BULLHEAD by Michaël R. Roskam

    World Cinema Section
    A tie: JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI by David Gelb and KINYARWANDA by Alrick Brown

    Young Americans Section
    WUSS by Clay Liford

    LIVE ACTION AND ANIMATED SHORT FILM SECTION JURY AWARDS
    The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences recognizes each winner as a qualifier for the annual Academy Awards®.

    Live Action Short Film Section
    Grand Jury Prize: FROZEN STORIES from Grzegorz Jaroszuk “for its world of meta-reality suffused with enough context to rend a beautifully nuanced story for the most heightened elements.”

    Honorable Mention: BABYLAND by Marc Fratello “for its assured direction, stunning lead performance and the ability to balance humor and pathos all the way up to its shocking conclusion.”

    Animated Short Film Section

    Grand Jury Prize: THE EAGLEMAN STAG by Michael Please “for its ambitious and elegant storytelling, both narrative and aesthetically, in which the bigness of life and the concept of time are deftly unpacked in a moving nine minutes.”

    Honorable Mention: THE VOYAGERS by Penny Lane “for its skillful juxtaposition of archival footage and personal narrative to tell a moving story of exploration, romance and space travel.”

    NEW AUTEURS SECTION CRITIC’S PRIZE

    Grand Jury Prize: THE LONELIEST PLANET by Julia Loktev “for its bold exploration of societal structures and gender roles, set against a landscape that conveys both profound beauty and profound alienation.”

    Special Jury Prize: ATTENBERG by Athina Rachel Tsangari “for its wit, distinct voice and playful sense of storytelling.”

    Acting Award Prize: BULLHEAD’s Matthias Schoenaerts “for his nuanced and intensely physical embodiment of bruised masculinity.”

    Read more

  • Morgan Freeman to receive the Cecil B DeMille award at the Golden Globes

    ,

    Morgan Freeman will receive the Cecil B. DeMille award at the Golden Globes ceremony in January. The award is given every year by the HFPA for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment.

    Freeman won a best actor Golden Globe in 1990 for Driving Miss Daisy and was nominated three more times, for The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, for which he won an Oscar, and Invictus.

    The Cecil B. DeMille was first given in 1952 to the filmmaker whose name it bears and other recipients have included Walt Disney, Joan Crawford, Robert Mitchum and, more recently, Warren Beatty, Anthony Hopkins, Steven Spielberg and Robert DeNiro among others.

    Read more

  • Oliver Platt and Edie Falco to cohosts Gotham Independent Film Awards

    Oliver Platt and Edie Falco will co-host the 21st annual Gotham Independent Film Awards ceremony scheduled to take place November 28th 2011 in New York.

    “We are absolutely thrilled to be co-hosting this year’s Gotham Awards,” Platt and Falco said in a joint statement. “We look forward to an evening that celebrates outstanding independent film-making, brave and bold voices against the backdrop of this incredible city.”

    Read more

  • Billy Crystal is the new host of the Oscars

    Billy Crystal will replace Eddie Murphy as the host of the 84th Academy Awards. The funny man announced in a tweet, “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show.”

    This will mark Crystal’s ninth time as host. Only Bob Hope has hosted more Academy Awards presentations, with 19 ceremonies between 1940 and 1978. Crystal last hosted the Academy Awards in 2004.

    Read more

  • Brian Grazer is the new producer of 84th Academy Awards

    Academy President Tom Sherak announced today that Academy Award®-winner Brian Grazer will be the replacement for Brett Ratner as the producer of the 84th Academy Awards. This will be the first time Grazer has produced the Oscar® telecast.

    “Brian Grazer is a renowned filmmaker who over the past 25 years has produced a diverse and extraordinary body of work,” said Sherak. “He will certainly bring his tremendous talent, creativity and relationships to the Oscars®.”

    “I am thrilled to welcome Brian Grazer as my partner and that we will be  collaborating to produce an outstanding show,” echoed co-producer Don Mischer.

    “It’s very gratifying to be part of a show that honors excellence in the medium to which I have devoted so much of my career,” said Grazer. “Don is a legend, and I am excited to work with him.”

    “I too am delighted that Brian will join Don in producing the Academy Awards and I am looking forward to our producers delivering the movie event of the year,” commented Academy CEO Dawn Hudson.

    Grazer has earned four Academy Award nominations. He won a Best Picture Oscar in 2001 for “A Beautiful Mind.” In 1984, Grazer was nominated in the writing category for “Splash,” and he received Best Picture nominations in 1995 and 2008 for “Apollo 13” and “Frost/Nixon,” respectively.  His other film credits include “Spies Like Us,” “Kindergarten Cop,” “The Nutty Professor,” “Liar Liar,” “8 Mile” and “Cinderella Man.”  His current projects include the about to be released “J. Edgar” and the just released “Tower Heist.”

    Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012.

    Read more

  • Eddie Murphy Quits as Host of 84th Academy Awards

    One day after Brett Ratner, quit as producer of the 84th Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Tom Sherak announced that Eddie Murphy has withdrawn as host of the 84th Academy Awards. “I appreciate how Eddie feels about losing his creative partner, Brett Ratner, and we all wish him well,” said Sherak.

    In the statement, Murphy said, “First and foremost I want to say that I completely understand and support each party’s decision with regard to a change of producers for this year’s Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I’m sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job.”

    Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2011 will be presented on Sunday, February 26, 2012.

    Read more