The controversial documentary LEAVING NEVERLAND recently had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival where among the early critical raves for the documentary, Rolling Stone described it as “hard to watch, tougher to ignore, impossible to forget… a portrait of bravery,” and the Hollywood Reporter called it “harrowing, complicated and heartbreaking,” while Variety hailed the documentary’s “devastatingly powerful and convincing testimony.”
The winners of the 44th Annual HUMANITAS Prize were announced on Friday with prizes going to ON THE BASIS OF SEX for Drama Feature Film, LOVE, SIMON for Comedy Feature Film, STOLEN DAUGHTERS: KIDNAPPED BY BOKO HARAM for Documentary, and BRIAN BANKS for Independent Feature Film.
The Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) unveiled its 2019 program lineup of 55 films, including six films straight from this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and six music documentaries, two of which will be the feature films on Opening and Closing nights.
From award-winning documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and world-renowned photographer and mountaineer Jimmy Chin, the directors of the Oscar-shortlisted film “Meru,” comes FREE SOLO, a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of the free soloist climber Honnold as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock … the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park … without a rope.
Matthew Broderick stars in the indie film To Dust as Albert, a community college biology professor, who embarks on an unlikely friendship with an Hasidic cantor, distraught by his wife’s death. To Dust directed by Shawn Snyder opened in theaters on Friday February 8th in NY, with nationwide rollout to follow.
AMONG WOLVES by director Shawn Convey is an observational documentary film about those who struggle to heal long after war’s end. The Wolves are a rare breed, a multi-ethnic motorcycle club led by Bosnian War veterans. In the mountains where they once fought, they now defend the threatened herd of wild horses with whom they once shared the front line. Since the war, a harsh environment, poachers, and urbanization have threatened the herd. Stirred by their spirit of survival, the Wolves fight for them and organize ever more ambitious humanitarian efforts for their town and region. In helping others, they discover a new kind of freedom. In working together, they get ever closer to controlling their own fate and finally emerging from the shadow of war.
The 33rd edition of BFI Flare: London LGBTQ+ Film Festival taking place March 21st to 31st, will open with the UK premiere of Chanya Button’s VITA & VIRGINIA at BFI Southbank.
The three new chapters of the critically-acclaimed award-winning I Am documentary series will feature Richard Pryor, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Patrick Swayze. I Am Richard Pryor, the first of the three 2019 installments, will make its world premiere at South by Southwest Film Festival on Tuesday, March 12, and will debut on Paramount Network on Friday, March 15 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT. Premiere dates for the Jackie O and Patrick Swayze documentaries will be announced at a later date. These three iconic figures join the prestigious roster who have been featured in past I Am documentaries, including John F. Kennedy Jr., Martin Luther King Jr., Bruce Lee, Steve McQueen, Evel Knievel, Heath Ledger, Paul Walker, Sam Kinison, and Chris Farley.
Nina Shaw, one of the founding members of Time’s Up, will be honored at the 2019 Athena Film Festival, along with writer, director, and actress Desiree Akhavan and Cameron Bailey, co-head of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The award-winning documentary Knock Down the House, which chronicles the campaigns of four female progressive candidates including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, against powerful incumbents in the 2018 midterm elections has been acquired by Netflix and is expected to debut on the streaming network later this year. The film is directed by Rachel Lears and produced by Lears, Robin Blotnick, and Sarah Olson.
This year, the competition program of the 31st Filmfest Dresden (April 9 to 14, 2019) will consists of 76 films from 38 countries.
South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival announced the second round of its Film Festival program, including the Midnighters, Festival Favorites, Shorts, Episodic Pilot Competition, Virtual Cinema, Music Video and Title Design lineup, plus late-addition Features and the Closing Night Film for the 26th edition of the Festival, running March 8 to 17, 2019 in Austin, Texas.