Olmo Omerzu, Jiří Konečný, Ada Solomon, Radu Jude (Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary)[/caption]
“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” from Romanian film director Radu Jude won the Crystal Globe for Best Feature Film at the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In the film Radu Jude takes up a massacre perpetrated by the Romanian Administration through the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front in 1941, an actual event that a young activist artist decides to stage. “As we are in the Czech Republic and my film was made with the Czech co-production, I would like to thank all the Czech people involved, primarily Jiří Konečný”, said Radu Jude.
Barry Levinson received the Právo Audience Award for his thirty-year old movie Rain Man. Levinson also received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinematography at the Closing Ceremony. “This is really a wonderful festival and an incredible experience for us. And also an extraordinary honour for a boy from Baltimore to be now granted an award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema here in the Czech Republic. Film is an artistic form that interconnects the whole world. While differing feelings drive us apart, we should bear in mind that we are in fact all quite similar,” the director expressed his gratitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4q3sWs8wE
The 54th Karlovy Vary IFF will be held from June 28th to July 6th, 2019.
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‘I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians’ Wins Top Prize at 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_30637" align="aligncenter" width="1151"] Olmo Omerzu, Jiří Konečný, Ada Solomon, Radu Jude (Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary)[/caption]
“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” from Romanian film director Radu Jude won the Crystal Globe for Best Feature Film at the 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In the film Radu Jude takes up a massacre perpetrated by the Romanian Administration through the Romanian Army on the Eastern Front in 1941, an actual event that a young activist artist decides to stage. “As we are in the Czech Republic and my film was made with the Czech co-production, I would like to thank all the Czech people involved, primarily Jiří Konečný”, said Radu Jude.
Barry Levinson received the Právo Audience Award for his thirty-year old movie Rain Man. Levinson also received the Crystal Globe for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to World Cinematography at the Closing Ceremony. “This is really a wonderful festival and an incredible experience for us. And also an extraordinary honour for a boy from Baltimore to be now granted an award for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema here in the Czech Republic. Film is an artistic form that interconnects the whole world. While differing feelings drive us apart, we should bear in mind that we are in fact all quite similar,” the director expressed his gratitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv4q3sWs8wE
The 54th Karlovy Vary IFF will be held from June 28th to July 6th, 2019.
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10 Film Finalists to Compete for 3rd Memphis Film Prize $10,000 Grand Prize
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Mattteo Servente, director of WE GO ON, Winner 2017 Memphis Film Prize[/caption]
The 10 film finalists for the 3rd annual Memphis Film Prize (August 3-5) with the top award of $10,000 cash were announced today. The ten finalists will play at the Memphis Film Prize Fest, August 3-4 at the Malco Theater in Overton Square. The ten shorts will play throughout the two days of the festival, and a combination of judges and the audience help determine the Grand Prize winner.
The 10 films (and filmmakers) that will compete for the $10,000 Grand Prize include; Daniel R. Ferrell’s DEAN’S LIST; Donald R. Meyers’s HYPNOTIC INDUCTION; Kevin Brooks’s LAST NIGHT; Will Robbins’s MINORITY; Robb Rokk’s OUTSIDE ARCADIA; Kyle Taubken’s PATRICK; Jason S. Lockridge’s THE STIX; Drew Fleming’s TRAVELING SOLDIER; Arnold G. Edwards II’s WAYWARD SON; and Marcus Santi’s YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SQUAT: THE TRIAL.
“Across the board, these filmmakers poured their hearts and souls into their projects and put the indie film spotlight on Memphis and Shelby County,” said David Merrill, the Memphis filmmaker liaison. “I couldn’t be prouder of the work that was done and of our ten Memphis Film Prize finalists.”
Gregory Kallenberg, founder and executive director of the Film Prize Foundation, said, “This was our largest group of participating filmmakers and, by far, our best crop of rough cuts to choose from. While I don’t envy their task, I can’t wait for our Memphis Film Prize fans to help choose our $10,000 winner in August!”
2018 Memphis Film Prize Jury
Thelma Adams (Journalist and Film Critic – Real Clear/Life, contributing writer for Variety)
Nelson Kim (Journalist and Film Critic – Hammer to Nail)
Victoria Negri ((Writer, Director, Producer, and Actor – GOLD STAR; Director of 2 WEEKS, Producer of THE FEVER AND THE FRET)
Brandon Oldenberg (Academy Award-winning filmmaker – THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE)
Farah White (Producer and Actor – DAYLIGHT’S END, THE LADIES OF THE HOUSE)
The Memphis Film Prize combines elements of a film competition and festival, inviting filmmakers from all over the world to create and present a 5-15 minute short film with just one rule – it must be shot in Shelby County, TN. Filmmakers shot their films beginning in February and submitted them in June, when a rough cut of the films were due to contest organizers.
2018 MEMPHIS FILM PRZE FINALISTS
DEAN’S LIST Director: Daniel R. Ferrell Running Time: 7:02 min A young college student who is coming off his best semester has to deliver a backpack to his eccentric associate so he can attend college for the next year. HYPNOTIC INDUCTION Director: Donald R. Meyers Running Time: 15:00 min A hypnotherapist helps a man quit smoking, but there appears to be something else he needs to quit. LAST NIGHT Director: Kevin Brooks Running Time: 9:47 min A man spends his last day of freedom with his wife and daughter. MINORITY Director: Will Robbins Running Time: 6:07 min A convenience store clerk is frightened by a man minding his own business. OUTSIDE ARCADIA Director: Robb Rokk Running Time: 15:00 min Decades after tragic events, a brother and sister use a peculiar machine to break free. PATRICK Director: Kyle Taubken Running Time: 14:58 min Two strangers with different backgrounds get to know one another over crummy coffee and shared struggles in an old church basement. THE STIX Director: Jaron S. Lockridge Running Time: 9:48 min Two rural county sheriff detectives work a day on patrol due to a manpower shortage. With only 30 minutes before end of shift, they get a call that will forever change their lives. TRAVELING SOLDIER Director: Drew Fleming Running Time: 7:28 min After a shy, lonesome soldier strikes up a conversation with a young waitress, they find themselves wrapped up in an unexpected romance while he’s at war. WAYWARD SON Director: Arnold G. Edwards II Running Time: 14:46 min A PTSD-stricken vet must choose between peacefully waiting out the final days of his house arrest and breaking parole to save a befriended teen from an abusive stepfather. YOU DON’T KNOW JACK SQUAT: THE TRIAL Director: Marcus Santi Running Time: 14:51 min Jack Squat reluctantly takes on the worst team at his University (women’s soccer). He may or may not have crossed lines.
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5 Projects Selected for Sundance Institute ‘s 2018 Documentary Edit and Story Lab
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Christopher McNabb, Damon Davis and Sabaah Folayan work on “Whose Streets?” at the 2016 Documentary Editing Lab. © 2016 Sundance Institute | Photo by Jonathan Hickerson.[/caption]
Five projects will convene at the Sundance Resort in Utah for the Sundance Institute flagship Documentary Edit and Story Lab on July 6.
The Lab creates a space to develop, interrogate and collaborate on independent nonfiction films that are in the later stages of post-production. Through a rigorous process, director and editor teams come together with renowned documentary filmmakers, who advise on the process of re-centering their work around original motivations, tweaking or re-conceiving dramatic structures, and exploring story and character development.
Documentary Film Program Director Tabitha Jackson, who oversees the process with Labs Director Kristin Feeley, said “By facilitating these filmmakers coming together to dig deep into context, meaning, structure and narrative — aided by some of documentary’s most innovative and experienced minds — we hope to advance not just these projects, but also make a meaningful investment into some of the most exciting practitioners of nonfiction storytelling for the screen.”
Advisors for the Documentary Edit and Story Lab are Maya Hawke (Box of Birds), Sabine Hoffman (Risk), Jeff Malmberg (Spettacolo), Robb Moss (Containment), Jonathan Oppenheim (Blowin’ Up) and Toby Shimin (This Is Home). The contributing editors are Yuki Aizawa, Hannah Choe, Jaki Covington and Katherine Gorringe.
For the third year, the Lab will host a writer-in-residence: Eric Hynes joins as part of a program designed to bring film critics and nonfiction filmmakers together to forge a deeper understanding of nonfiction film through immersion in the creative process.
The 2018 Documentary Edit and Story Lab projects and Fellows are:
After a Revolution (United Kingdom)
Giovanni Buccomino (director), James Scott (editor), Naziha Arebi, Al Morrow (producers) — An intimate story, filmed over six years, of a brother and sister who struggle to rebuild their lives after fighting on opposite sides of the Libyan revolution. It is also a close-up on the country’s traumatic course from rebellion, to elections to the edge of civil war.
Giovanni Buccomino studied History and Philosophy and gained his master at the University of Rome. While studying Giovanni worked as a sound engineer in music and later moved into film. He has directed two nonfiction features, In the Valley of the Moon and Yanqui. He spent a long time in Libya creating a sound installation of Libya for the Azimut project at the MuCEM Museum in Marseille, directing a 52’’ film for Al Jazeera on the Tabu tribe of Libya. Giovanni continues working as a sound designer and field recordist in documentary, television and fiction cinema, as well as directing his own films.
James Scott is a film editor based in Brighton, England, originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. He won a Special Jury Award for Editing at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival & the Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Feature Length Documentary for Jerry Rothwell’s How To Change The World. His feature-length cinema documentary credits include, Toby Amies’ The Man Whose Mind Exploded, Jeanie Finlay’s The Great Hip Hoax. Other feature credits include, Jerry Rothwell’s Sour Grapes (Netflix), Dunstan Bruce’s This Band is So Gorgeous; The Search For Weng Weng; and Sophie Robinson’s My Beautiful Broken Brain (Netflix).
Crip Camp (USA)
James LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham (co-directors/producers), Andy Gersh (editor), Sara Bolder (producer) — They came as campers, and left as rebels. Just down the road from Woodstock, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a parallel revolution blossomed in a ramshackle summer camp for disabled teenagers. Crip Camp explores summer camp awakenings that would transform young lives, and America, forever. Told from the point of view of former camper Jim LeBrecht, the film traces the journeys of several teenagers from camp to the raucous early days of the disability rights movement in Berkeley — and up to the present, in this compelling and untold story of a powerful journey towards inclusion.
James LeBrecht has over 40 years experience as a film and theater sound designer and mixer, author, disability rights activist and filmmaker. His film mixing credits include the documentaries Minding The Gap, Unrest, The Force, The Island President, The Waiting Room, The Kill Team, and Audrie and Daisy. Jim co-authored Sound and Music for the Theatre: the art and technique of design. Now in its fourth edition, the book is used as a textbook all over the world.
Nicole Newnham is an Emmy-winning documentary producer and director. She recently produced two virtual reality films with the Australian artist / director Lynette Wallworth: the breakthrough VR work Collisions, and the mixed-reality work Awavena. She co-directed The Revolutionary Optimists; co-produced and directed the acclaimed documentary The Rape of Europa. With Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Brian Lanker, she produced They Drew Fire, about the Combat Artists of WWII, and co-wrote the companion book, distributed by Harper Collins.
Andrew Gersh is a documentary film editor based in Berkeley, California. He began his career on staff at WGBH in Boston, working on many groundbreaking series for PBS, including NOVA, FRONTLINE and the ten-hour WGBH/BBC co-production on the history of ROCK & ROLL. His latest feature documentaries include Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin, REAL BOY. Other work includes Ask Not, Daddy Don’t Go, and Ready, Set, Bag!
Forgiveness (United Kingdom)
Elizabeth Stopford (director/producer), Gary Forrester (editor) — A modern American ghost story and a house that vanished. In the wake of two seemingly inexplicable shooting sprees, can a community forgive the teenage boy at the heart of its tragic past?
After graduating with a Masters in English from Oxford, Elizabeth Stopford took her passion for storytelling to UK production company Tiger Aspect, developing and producing a portfolio of documentaries for the BBC about monastic life – The Monastery, The Convent, and 40 Days (TLC). She set up White Rabbit Films in 2008, and her directing credits include: Long Lost Family, and We Need to Talk About Dad. Selected in 2014 for the BFI’s Guiding Lights scheme, over the past four years Elizabeth has focused on developing two feature film projects that combine the authentic heart of documentary with the craft of fiction: Forgiveness (developed with Film4 and Sundance), and Shooting Kids (developed with the British Film Institute).
Gary Forrester is a dynamic and diverse editor moving seamlessly between commercials, feature nonfiction as well as fiction. His film credits include the award winning feature documentary Radioman, directed by Mary Kerr. His most recent film Access All Areas, an indie drama directed by Bryn Higgins (Black Mirror) won best screenplay at the National Film Awards 2017.
The Hottest August (USA)
Brett Story (director/producer), Nels Bangerter (editor), Danielle Varga (producer) —
A film about climate change, disguised as a portrait of collective anxiety, The Hottest August offers a window into the collective consciousness of the present.
Brett Story is an award-winning non-fiction filmmaker based out of Toronto and New York whose films have screened at True/False, Oberhausen, Hot Docs, the Viennale, and Dok Leipzig, among other festivals. Her feature documentary, The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and was a nominee for Best Canadian Feature Documentary at the Canadian Screen Awards. Story holds a PhD in geography from the University of Toronto and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Prison Out of Place.
Nels Bangerter is an award-winning documentary film editor whose work includes Cameraperson, Let the Fire Burn, Very Semi-Serious and War Child. Nels also edited the fiction short film Buzkashi Boys, which was produced and edited in Kabul, Afghanistan and nominated for an Academy Award. Before becoming an editor, he worked in a gold mine, lived in a redwood tree, and earned bachelor’s degrees in English and electrical engineering from Rice University and an MFA at USC. He is based in Oakland, California, and has two terrific kids, ages two and five.
POST-PRODUCTION INTENSIVE
#Mickey (Mexico) Betzabé García (director/producer), José Villalobos (editor), Indira Cato, Joceline Hernandez (producer) — Born in Sinaloa, Mexico, land of drug cartels, carnival queens and deep homophobia, gender fluid Mickey found in social media a way to explore her sexual identity. She has become a Youtube celebrity, but now she is fighting a new identity crisis: a conflict between her online persona and her real self. Betzabé García directed and produced her first feature documentary film Kings of Nowhere. The film won multiple awards at Festivals around the world and was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film at the 2016 Cinema Eye Honors, Best Documentary at the Mexican Ariel Awards, and Betzabé won Best Director of a Documentary Film at the 2016 Cinema Tropical Awards. The film was distributed by FilmBuff and SundanceTV. José Villalobos has been working as an editor of documentary film since 2006. His first feature as a director, producer, cameraman and editor is the documentary film El charro de Toluquilla (2016), winner of the Audience Award and Best Documentary at Guadalajara International Film Festival, best director at Guanajuato International Film Festival, best director and cinematography at Moscow International Documentary film festival, best documentary at Bergamo Film Meeting, best documentary at Tirana Film Festival, among other awards and/or mentions.The film has also been screened at Tribeca Film Festival (Best first time filmmaker nomination), Zurich Film Festival, Sheffield Doc Fest, Munich DokFest, Sydney Antenna international documentary film festival, among others. The film is distributed in North America by Syndicado and have Taskovski Film as its international sales agent.WRITER IN RESIDENCE:
Eric Hynes is a New York-based journalist, film critic, and programmer. He is Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, New York, overseeing programs such as the annual First Look film festival celebrating innovative works in the cinematic arts, and the ongoing New Adventures in Nonfiction series. He writes a column on the art of nonfiction, “Make It Real,” for Film Comment Magazine, and other outlets have included the New York Times, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Slate, the Village Voice, Sight & Sound and Reverse Shot, where he’s a staff writer and host of the “Reverse Shot Talkies” video interview series. Starting in January 2018, he and collaborators Jeff Reichert and Damon Smith launched Room H.264, an iterative, theatrical and gallery-based 21st century answer to Wim Wenders’ Room 666, with contemporary filmmakers contemplating and confronting the future of film.
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RIP: Claude Lanzmann Director of Holocaust Documentary SHOAH Dead at 92
French film-maker and journalist Claude Lanzmann, best known for directing the Holocaust documentary Shoah, died today in Paris, he was 92.
His first documentary Pourquoi Israel? (Why Israel?) was released in 1973, and he began filming Shoah, a year later in 1974, conducting a series of filmed interview with death camp survivors all over the world. Lanzmann was reportedly attacked while attempting a covert interview, and was hospitalized for a month.
Over nine hours long and 11 years in the making, Shoah presents Lanzmann’s interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators during visits to German Holocaust sites across Poland, including extermination camps.
Released in Paris in April 1985, Shoah won critical acclaim and many prestigous awards, including the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Non-Fiction Film in 1985, a special citation at the 1985 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary in 1986. That year it also won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Non-Fiction Film and Best Documentary at the International Documentary Association.
Lanzmann has released four feature-length films based on unused material shot for Shoah.
A Visitor from the Living (fr) (1997) about a Red Cross representative, Maurice Rossel, who in 1944 wrote a favourable report about the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Sobibor, October 14, 1943, 4 p.m. (2001) about Yehuda Lerner, who participated in an uprising against the camp guards and managed to escape.
The Karski Report (fr) (2010) about Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski’s visit to Franklin Roosevelt in 1943.
The Last of the Unjust (2013) about Benjamin Murmelstein, a controversial Jewish rabbi in the Theresienstadt ghetto during World War II.
Previously unseen Shoah outtakes have also been featured in Adam Benzine’s HBO documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah (2015), which examines Lanzmann’s life during 1973–1985, the years he spent making Shoah.
Lanzmann’s final film, Napalm, which premiered at Cannes in 2017, drew on his earlier visits to North Korea as a young journalist, in which he revealed his brief affair with a North Korean nurse.
Claude Lanzmann received a Honorary Golden Bear at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, and was made Grand Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honor on July 14, 2011.
Update: Berlinale issued a statement
French director and author Claude Lanzmann has passed away.
“Claude Lanzmann was one of the great documentarists. With his depictions of inhumanity and violence, of anti-Semitism and its consequences, he created a new kind of cinematic and ethical exploration. We mourn the loss of an important personality of the political-intellectual life of our time,” says Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick.
Claude Lanzmann’s film Shoah (1985) made cinematic history as an unparalleled masterpiece of commemorative culture. The nine-and-a-halfhour documentary on the genocide of European Jews was screened in the Berlinale Forum in 1986 and received numerous international awards.
Born in Paris in 1925 to Jewish parents, Claude Lanzmann fought in the Résistance, studied philosophy in France and Germany, and held a lectureship at the then newly founded Freie Universität Berlin in 1948/49. His exploration of the Shoah, anti-Semitism and political struggles for freedom infuse both his cinematic and journalistic work.
His first film was made in 1972, the documentary Pourquoi Israël (Israel, Why; France 1973), in which he illustrates the necessity of Israel’s founding from the Jewish perspective. In the film Tsahal, which screened in the 1995 Berlinale Forum, he focuses on women and men who serve in the Israeli Army. Sobibor, 14 octobre 1943, 16 heures (France 2001), about the 1943 revolt in the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, was also screened in the Berlinale Forum, in 2002.
In 2013, the Berlinale honoured him with an Homage and awarded the Honorary Golden Bear for lifetime achievement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIV7SYk9mWk
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Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick to Receive Sam Spiegel Intl Film Lab 1st Force-of-Nature Filmmaking Award
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Dieter Kosslick[/caption]
The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Son of Saul, The Kindergarten Teacher, Red Cow) will present the first Force-of-Nature Filmmaking Award to longtime Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick. The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab in Jerusalem is a program to promote filmmakers’ projects launched by the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in 2011. The new Force-of-Nature Filmmaking Award is conceived to honor extraordinary personalities committed to the development of world cinema.
Dieter Kosslick will be presented with the Force-of-Nature Filmmaking Award in Jerusalem on July 6, 2018. “A particular concern of mine has always been the national and international promotion and funding of talent and up-and-coming filmmakers. I’m exceedingly pleased to receive this award,” said Dieter Kosslick.
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Filmmaker and Graphic Designer Kyle Cooper to be Honored at Locarno Film Festival
Filmmaker and graphic designer Kyle Cooper will receive the Vision Award Ticinomoda, dedicated to those who have used their talents to create new perspectives in the world of cinema at the upcoming 71st Locarno Festival. Kyle Cooper will be a guest in Piazza Grande on Sunday August 5, and the tribute will be accompanied by a screening of the film Se7en.
Born in 1962 in Salem, Massachusetts, Kyle Cooper is one of the most original and innovative film title designers in world cinema. Known to the mainstream public for the opening sequence he created for the film Se7en (1995), directed by David Fincher, Cooper has given fresh impetus to the art of movie titling. Over the three decades of his career to date he has directed and produced over 350 titles sequences, working with some of the highest profile filmmakers in global cinema.
After studying graphic design at the Yale School of Art and under the guidance of noted U.S. designer Paul Rand, he named and co-founded one of Hollywood’s most successful creative agencies: Imaginary Forces. His career as director and graphic designer took off with the title sequence for Se7en (1995), a milestone which the New York Times Magazine hailed as “one of the most important design innovations of the 1990s”. Cooper experimented with kinetic typography, reprising the work of Saul Bass and attuning lettering and other elements to each single movie, as with the hieroglyphs of The Mummy (1999) or the cobweb typography of the first Spider-Man movie (2002). He came up with an astonishing range of techniques to capture viewers’ attention during the opening minutes, immersing them in the atmosphere of the film from the very outset. The range of films and genres on which he worked was equally broad: Braveheart (1995), Donnie Brasco (1997), Across the Universe (2007), The New World (2005), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Final Destination 5 (2011), Black Mass (2015), Argo (2012), Mission Impossible (1996), Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013), Mother! (2017). He also worked for television, with The Walking Dead (2010), American Horror Story (2011), Scream Queens (2015), Limitless (2015), Feud (2017), and lastly for video games, in such as Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001), Scarface: The World Is Yours (2006), Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) and Death Stranding (upcoming). He worked also on brand designing brands such as SU2C and Marvel logo animation. In 2003 he left Imaginary Forces and set up the creative agency Prologue Films. In 2008 he was a finalist at the National Design Awards. He has earned five nominations for the Emmy Awards. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and he also holds the title of Royal Designer for Industry from the Royal Society of Arts in London.
Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director of the Locarno Festival: “Kyle Cooper is an artist who has single-handedly changed the visual impact of contemporary cinema. His hundreds of creations have been gateways to iconic movies loved by millions of viewers. His title sequences combine experimentation and graphic research, CGI (computer-generated imagery) and details borrowed from often invisible microcosms, breaking down the barriers between auteur and mainstream, crafting and industry. The award is both a mark of our recognition of the significance of his work and an invitation to reassess the role and value of these short films within films.”
Kyle Cooper will receive the Vision Award Ticinomoda in Piazza Grande on the evening of August 5. On the following day, Monday August 6, he will hold a master class. The tribute will also be accompanied by screenings of a selection of films reflecting his career.
In recent years the Locarno Festival has given the Vision Award, introduced in 2013, to Douglas Trumbull (2013), Garrett Brown (2014), Walter Murch (2015), Howard Shore (2016) and José Luis Alcaine (2017).
The 71st Locarno Festival will take place from August 1 to 11, 2018.
https://vimeo.com/9400332
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Logo Unveils 2018 Documentary Slate – LIGHT IN THE WATER, WHEN THE BEAT DROPS and QUIET HEROES
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Light in the Water[/caption]
Logo Documentary Films today announced its 2018 slate which includes Light in the Water, When the Beat Drops and Quiet Heroes. The first film, Light in the Water, premiering Thursday, July 19th on Logo, details the humble beginnings of one of the first openly gay masters swim and water polo club in 1982. When the Beat Drops, premiering August 9th, follows a crew of gay African-American men as they pioneer the Southern-rooted underground dance scene known as “bucking.” The Sundance Film Festival favorite, Quiet Heroes, which tells the story of one female doctor fighting to save the denigrated and largely male AIDS population in the socially conservative Salt Lake City area, premieres August 23rd. Logo Documentary Films division recently received the 2018 Television Academy Honor for Forbidden: Undocumented and Queer in Rural America as well as its third Daytime Emmy for KEVYN AUCOIN Beauty & The Beast in Me.
“Now more than ever, it is imperative for us to tell the stories of our community’s ability to triumph over adversity,” said Taj Paxton, VP of Logo Documentary Films. “These documentaries represent our bravery and our continued fight against stigma and the sting of hatred and intolerance.”
The 2018 slate includes:
LIGHT IN THE WATER / Premieres Thursday, July 19th at 8PM ET/PT on Logo
Light in the Water reveals the untold story of a group of gay men and women who found one another through their love of competitive swimming, ultimately becoming a family and a force for the LGBTQ sports movement.
The West Hollywood Aquatics Team were pioneers in gay sports, from registering as one of the first openly gay Masters swim teams in 1982, to pushing through the devastation of the AIDS crisis. This documentary reveals the inside story of a group of trailblazers who personified the change they wanted to see and created a legacy for equality in sports that lives on in the team today.
Light in The Water is produced by Patty Ivins Specht and Lis Bartlett and directed by Bartlett. Executive Producers from Logo Documentary Films are Pamela Post and Taj Paxton.
WHEN THE BEAT DROPS / Premieres Thursday, August 9th at 8PM ET/PT on Logo As Voguing exploded out of the ballroom scene of NYC, “bucking,” an electric and subversive underground dance scene, was boldly pioneered in the clubs of the Deep South as a new form of self-expression and education. Together with his crew of fellow gay African-American men, Anthony Davis, a heavy-set, Atlanta-born kid with a love of dance, helped grow bucking into a national movement, complete with fierce competitions. In the process, Davis created a haven for a generation of displaced black gay men. When the Beat Drops had its premiere at the 2018 Miami Film Festival where is won the “Knight Documentary Achievement Award” and recently received the “Outstanding Documentary Jury Award” at Frameline42: San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival. The film will also serve as the Documentary Centerpiece at Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles on July 19th. It is a World of Wonder (WOW) production and is the directorial debut of internationally acclaimed choreographer Jamal Sims, who brings a sensitive intimacy to the subject’s brilliant artistry and their inspiring lives. When the Beat Drops is produced by WOW’s Emmy Award-winning Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, along with Jordan Finnegan. Pamela Post and Taj Paxton serve as executive producers from Logo Documentary Films. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc3292–FL4 QUIET HEROES / Premieres Thursday, August 23rd at 8PM ET/PT on Logo In Salt Lake City, Utah, the socially conservative religious monoculture complicated the AIDS crisis, where patients in the entire state and intermountain region relied on only one doctor, Dr. Kristen Ries. Quiet Heroes is the story of her fight – against stigma, shame and ignorance – to save a maligned population everyone else seemed willing to just let die. Quiet Heroes had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It is directed and produced by Jenny Mackenzie, Jared Ruga and Amanda Stoddard. Pamela Post and Taj Paxton serve as executive producers from Logo Documentary Films.
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Works in Progress, Eurimages Lab Project and Docs in Progress Prizes Awarded at 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
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ALL THIS VICTORY[/caption]
On Works in Progress at the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, eleven projects were presented from countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and now also the Middle East. The jury chose ALL THIS VICTORY by director Ahmad Ghossein as the winning project. A prize in the value of 100,000 Euro will be given to the project.
The Eurimages Lab Project prize went to the winning project NORMAL by director Adele Tulli. KVIFF is the first of four international film festivals in Europe to be awarding the Eurimage prize. KVIFF has selected projects for the Eurimage prize that surpass traditional film methods and are based on international cooperation. The prize was awarded in the value of 50,000 Euro.
The Docs in Progress prize went to the winning project THE PROJECTIONIST. For this section, projects are chosen from Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East. The winning film received a cash prize in the amount of 5,000 Euro.
A Special Mention was awarded to the Polish project Little Poland.
ALL THIS VICTORY
90 min, Lebanon, France, Germany
Directed by: Ahmad Ghossein
Scriptwriter: Ahmad Ghossein, Abla Khoury, Syllas Tzoumerkas
Producer: Georges Schoucair, Myriam Sassine, Marie-Pierre Macia, Claire Gadéa, Fabian Massah
Camera: Shadi Chaaban
Music: Charbel Haber
Cast: Karam Ghossein, Adel Chahine, Boutros Rouhana, Issam Bou Khaled, Sahar Minkara Karame, Flavia Juska Bechara, Eli El Choufani, Charles Hbailiny
Language: Arabic
Genre: fiction
Release date: 07/03/2019
Synopsis:
Lebanon, July 2006. War is raging between Hezbollah and Israel. During a 24-hour ceasefire, Marwan heads out in search of his father, who has refused to leave his Southern village, leaving his wife Rana alone to prepare their immigration to Canada. Marwan finds no traces of his father and the ceasefire is quickly broken, forcing him to take shelter in the house of Najib, his father’s friend. Marwan finds himself trapped under a hail of bombs with Najib and a group of elders, who are friends of his father. Tension rises inside and outside of the house. Suddenly, a group of Israeli soldiers enter the first floor. The next three days sees the situation spiral out of control.
NORMAL
70 min, Italy, Sweden
Directed by: Adele Tulli
Scriptwriter: Adele Tulli
Producer: Valeria Adilardi, Laura Romano, Luca Ricciardi
Camera: Clarissa Cappellani, Francesca Zonars
Music: Andrea Koch
Language: Italian
Genre: creative documentary
Release date: 01/10/2018
What’s missing: final editing, sound post-production, color grading, international promotion, production financing gap
Synopsis:
An unsettling visual journey through gender norms in contemporary Italy. Blending realist and experimental aesthetics, Normal sketches a disorienting portrait of the accepted ideas of normality. A kaleidoscopic mosaic of everyday-life scenes observes the ritualized performance of femininity and masculinity in ordinary interactions, from birth to adulthood, interpreting gender as a corporeal and performative practice, a social ceremony, a collective mise-en-scène affecting our gestures, desires, behaviours, and aspirations. With an innovative and visionary film language, Normal meditates on the everyday constraints of gendered reality, producing a poignant reflection on a current and crucial matter.
THE PROJECTIONIST
70 min, Ukraine, Germany, Poland
Directed by: Yuriy Shylov
Scriptwriter: Yuriy Shylov
Producer: Gennady Kofman, Olha Beskhmelnytsina, Dirk Simon
Camera: Yuriy Shylov, Serafim Kusakin, Illya Ehorov
Language: Ukrainian, Russian
Genre: dramedy, documentary
Release date: 02/11/2018
What’s missing: sales agent, distributors, broadcasters, festivals
Synopsis:
Valentin is an eccentric projectionist. For 44 years, he’s been working in one of the oldest movie theatres in Kiev’s city centre. In his projection booth, he drinks with war veterans, dances with the show girls from next door or cuts his friend’s hair. Every day at work seems like another adventure. The turmoil on Maidan Square and the war remain behind the scenes, while the life on screen creates an alternative reality. It all comes to an abrupt end when a fire breaks out in the cinema and Valentin is forced to retire. He looks after his dying mother, rushing to help her the moment she calls. With an average life expectancy for men in Ukraine of 64 years, Valentin is aware that he does not have much time left. Still, he fights desperately to find a new meaning in life in a rapidly changing country.
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SCIENCE FAIR, VIRUS TROPICAL, RESPETO Among First 6 Films Selected for 2018 Calgary International Film Festival
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Science Fair directed by Cristina Costantini and Darren Foster[/caption]
The Calgary International Film Festival has revealed the first six youth focused films coming to the 19th annual festival from September 19 to 30, 2018.
The films were selected by a group of Calgary high school students recruited by the Calgary International Film Festival for its new Generation Next program. With the help of the festival’s experienced film programming team, the students picked six youth-focused films from a roster of new films from around the world.
The six films will have special screenings for high school classes participating in the Generation Next program. These same films will also screen as part of the regular festival lineup. Schedule information and individual ticket sales will be announced August 28.
The six Generation Next films are as follows:
FILM SCHOOL AFRICA: Nathan Pfaff’s powerful and heartwarming feature directorial debut follows Katie Taylor, a Los Angeles casting director, as she teaches filmmaking to youth in an impoverished South African community.
L’ANIMALE: Director Katharina Mueckstein’s second feature film is a raw, honest coming-of-age drama with a synth-heavy soundtrack that takes us down the familiar path of trying to fit in amongst friends, and figuring out our identity.
RESPETO: A bold, dark, utterly unique and electric film filled with original poetry and rap music, lead by Filipino hip-hop artist and YouTube star Abra.
SCIENCE FAIR: In this inspiring documentary, we meet a global roster of teenage scientists as they compete for the top prize at the International Science and Engineering Fair.
THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST: Based on the novel by Emily M. Danforth, Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) gets caught with another girl in the backseat of a car on prom night, and is quickly shipped off to a conversion therapy
VIRUS TROPICAL: Born into an unconventional Ecuadorian family, Paola grows up between Ecuador and Colombia and finds herself unable to fit in any mood.
“It was amazing to work with the high school students and learning which films and themes really resonate,” said Brenda Lieberman, Lead Programmer with the Calgary International Film Festival. “Our students were committed to curating a strong list of films and the program itself really opened their eyes to a wide range of genres, topics and styles of film and all competing on the festival circuit. Even being exposed to World Cinema for the first time was incredible for them.”
Generation Next is a new program, the first of its kind in Canada, and strives to empower youth voices and help local students consider careers in the Alberta film industry.
“Calgary Film is always striving to add diversity in our festival’s film selection, which Generation Next makes possible,” says Calgary Film Executive Director Steve Schroeder. “We are also inspiring local students to pursue careers in filmmaking.”
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CRYSTAL SWAN is Belarus Entry in Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | Trailer
In a series of first, Darya Zhuk’s debut feature “Crystal Swan” about a young female DJ in Belarus who hope to emigrate to the U.S, which world premieres at the 2018 Karlovy Vary Film Festival has been selected as Belarus’ submission for the Oscars’ foreign-language film category for the 91st Academy Awards reports Variety. This is the first country to publicly announce their selection for the 91st Academy Awards race, and it is the first time Belarus has entered a film in the Oscars competition for 22 years.
In post-Soviet Belarus, unemployed raver Velya dreams of emigrating to the U.S. After purchasing blank letterhead and forging proof of employment to win a much-coveted visa, her dream appears within reach… Until Velya realizes the American consulate plans to call the fake phone number on her application to confirm her employment. Velya’s only solution is to endure a week in a small factory town to convince the authorities of her supposed job. She locates the cramped Soviet apartment on the other end of the line, overrun by a family preparing for the wedding of their son. The imperious mother refuses to lie for her, but Velya negotiates a solution: she can answer the phone during business hours as if she works at the factory. But Velya’s presence soon upends both the family’s and the town’s order, with potentially disastrous consequences for all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eav__UGDdQ
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Watch New Sweet Trailer + Poster for Jack C. Newell’s Teen Drama HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
Samuel Goldwyn Films today released the official poster and trailer for Jack C. Newell’s teen drama Hope Springs Eternal. The film stars Mia Rose Frampton (Bridesmaids), Pej Vahdat (Bones), Beth Lacke (Frequency), Stony Blyden (Hunter Street), Juliette Angelo (NCIS), Beau Brooks, Lauren Giraldo (FML), and all of the Cimorelli sisters. The film is slated for a day and date release on August 10.
Hope Gracin is known as “the girl dying of cancer” and has fully embraced this identity. Posting YouTube videos, having fun with friends, an Australian boyfriend, and being popular have been results of this identity… until her tests show that she is cured. Hope, unsure of what her new future holds, hides the truth. But as what happens with most secrets, the truth comes out. How will everyone react? With the help of her friends and loved ones, Hope faces her fear of living only to discover the beauty of living.
Hope Springs Eternal is one of the debut films for the burgeoning new production company Gylden Entertainment. The film was directed by Jack C. Newell and written by Stephnie Mickus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6zmzJ8wqZ0
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HEAVY WATER and BETHANY HAMILTON: UNSTOPPABLE Among Films at DIFF’s 2018 Wavescape Surf Film Festival
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Heavy Water[/caption]
The 14th edition of the Wavescape Surf Film Festival takes place at the Durban International Film Festival, headlined by the African premiere of smash-hit feature documentary Heavy Water, by California-based South African Michael Oblowitz on July 22.
Heavy Water: The Life and Times of Nathan Fletcher will open Wavescape on Sunday July 22. The film is one of 22 films Wavescape brings to Durban this year, including features and shorts from Sierra Leone, Namibia, South Africa, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Australia, Hawaii, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Canada, among others.
Wavescape Director Steve Pike, aka Spike, says that the lineup for DIFF was one of the most exciting in years. “We’re honored to have several other African premieres, such as the incredible story of Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm to a shark; and the gritty documentary Secrets of Desert Point, a piece of pioneering surf history.”
From Monday July 23 to Friday July 27, Wavescape moves to Arena 5, Village Walk, uShaka Marine World for five 6pm screenings, which are free. The screenings at uShaka open with a lineup of three short films and two features, the soulful Perilous Sea and Church of the Open Sky, a master piece of surf filmmaking by Australian director Nathan Oldfield.
Wavescape closes with Bethany Hamilton: Unstoppable, the untold story of Hamilton’s journey from childhood to motherhood and how she lost an arm to a tiger shark as a child. However, her relentless determination turns her into one of surfing’s great pro surfers and big wave riders, despite her disability. Bethany rewrites the phrase “Surfs Like a Girl.”
The midweek highlight is the documentary Secrets Of Desert Point, an excellent piece of historical story telling by Director Ira Opper, who chronicles the story of how a young Californian and his friends stumble across a perfect wave in the early 1980s from leaky boats among the remote islands of Indonesia, but it was fraught with dangers, from drugs to pirates and deadly coral reefs.
Spike says there are also excellent films about travel – the quest for reach for something precious, like the soulful travels of a Moroccan who brings clean water to the poor communities of Africa while working his way towards the infamous waves of Skeleton Bay in Namibia. The Seawolf is pure surf soul as we follow “eight surfers on a two-year journey to remote places to find the most dangerous waves on terrifyingly shallow rock slabs. Filmed in high definition 4k on Red Cameras, this is a enriching viewing experience”.
Several films tackle the emotional side of the human condition, such as Finding Purpose, a short film about Durban big wave surfer Tammy-Lee Smith who finds purpose riding big waves after pain and loss. A Million Waves tells the story of Kadiatu Kamara, 19, who is left to face the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone alone after her dad dies. She finds hope surfing in the waves.
In Visit, we travel with a shy, former street kid from Durban on his trip to England to visit the land of the funders who saved him from disappearing down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole. There is Adam, an award-winning short film about a Cape Town surfer diagnosed with a chronic form of cancer; or Awen, in which we see the uncomfortable reality of a young Chinese man who clashes with his mother because she wants him to become a fisherman like his ancestors, but he just wants to go surfing.
However, beyond the pain of being human come films to celebrate the visual poetry of the natural world, and the spiritual enrichment that the act of surfing and being in the ocean brings. Sea Lone eulogises some of the world’s top women longboarders on a surf trip to Sri Lanka.
Shape Qui Rit is a cute short about a two year old girl who “shapes” her dream surfboard; Night Rose sees an elderly lady in England transported by a vision into the ocean for a night surf; Black Rain catches a session in the tropics that cracks with the sea surface chatter of a thunderstorm, while The Edge Of North follows top British surfers to Scotland for a refreshing surf trip on the doorstep of their home.