Features by two first-time documentarians, Ascension by Jessica Kingdon and Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) by Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson lead this year’s nominations for the 6th Annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards (CCDA) with six each.
Panah Panahi’s thrilling debut Hit the Road described as “by turns tender, quirky, even laugh-out-loud funny” won the Best Film Award at the BFI London Film Festival 2021.
Actor and podcast host Dasha Nekrasova makes her feature directorial debut with The Scary of Sixty-First, the thriller film starring Betsey Brown, Quinn, Nekrasova and Mark Rapaport. Winner of Best First Feature Award at 2021 Berlin International Film Festival, the film follows two women who move into a New York apartment once owned by convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Here is the official trailer for I Was A Simple Man, the Hawaiian ghost story drama starring Constance Wu and Steve Iwamoto which premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi, the film stars a cast of Asian American and Native Hawaiian actors including Steve Iwamoto, Tim Chiou, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Hau’oli Carr, and Nelson Lee.
Oscilloscope Labs debuted the official trailer for the documentary, So Late So Soon, “An intimate portrait of the energetic and beautifully eccentric Chicago-based artists Jackie and Don Seiden, married for five decades.” Directed by Daniel Hymanson, the documentary was an official selection of multiple festivals including True/False Documentary Film Festival, DOC NYC, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Calgary Underground Film Festival. Oscilloscope Labs will release the documentary in theaters in November 2021.
IFC Films dropped the official trailer for The Beta Test, the horror-thriller film directed by and starring Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe along with Virginia Newcomb, Kevin Changaris, Olivia Grace Applegate, Jessie Barr, Malin Barr, and Christian Hillborg. In the film, a married Hollywood agent receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, murder and infidelity.
The official trailer is here for Israeli filmmaker Maya Sarfaty’s haunting documentary Love It Was Not opening in movie theaters starting Friday, November 5 including at Quad Cinema in New York City, Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles, and Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino.
Key West Film Festival announced the recipient of its annual Golden Key Awards, including two new awards honoring Emerging Talent and Breakthrough Florida director.
After earning critical praise following the premieres at Venice and Telluride Film Festivals, Sony Pictures Classics will release Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. The film will receive a North American theatrical release in 2022.
Dear Rider, a feature documentary from Red Bull Media House and Emmy®-winning director Fernando Villena, is a celebration of the life and vision of Jake Burton Carpenter (1954-2019), the pioneer who propelled the sport of snowboarding into a global and cultural phenomenon. The film debuts Tuesday, November 9 (9:00 – 10:30 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO.
Scott Barber’s This Is GWAR documentary took top Audience Award honors for features at NIGHTSTREAM 2021, which ran from October 7-13th virtually all across the U.S.
Tribeca and CHANEL concluded the seventh annual Through Her Lens: The Tribeca Chanel Women’s Filmmaker Program, and Maya Tanaka and Schuchi Talati are the winning recipients of this year’s grand prize for their film Honolulu. Honolulu tells the story of Yuki, a 12-year-old with a vivid fantasy life, who complicates her already morose beach vacation with her father and grandmother.