Octavio Is Dead![/caption]
The 10th DTLA Film Festival, taking place October 17 to 21, announced today the 11 documentary and 17 narrative feature-length movies in the 2018 line-up, under the of women’s empowerment, a nod to the #metoo and #timesup movements. In keeping with the theme, 18 of the 27 (65%) of the new feature films screening at the festival are by women directors.
In separate ceremonies, Rosanna Arquette and Malcolm McDowell are to be honored with the festival’s Independent Film Pioneer Award for their body of work in independent cinema. Arquette appears in two films in competition at the festival. She stars in Amanda Sthers’ “Holy Lands” as a matriarch attempting to hold her family together even as she must confront her own mortality. The film, co-starring James Caan, Tom Hollander and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, will screen as the festival Centerpiece presentation. Arquette also co-stars in Sook-Yin Lee’s “Octavio Is Dead!” a contemporary ghost story. In a career spanning four decades, Arquette has appeared in many signature roles, including “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985), for which she earned a Best Actress Golden Globe Nomination, “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “After Hours” (1985) and “The Whole Nine Yards” (2000). Over the past year, she has become a public face of the #metoo movement.
McDowell stars in the festival’s Los Angeles premiere screening of director Kayla Tabish’s “Culture of Fear,”a dystopian suspense thriller. Forever known for his iconic starring role as Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s “Clockwork Orange” (1971), he would go onto star in “O Lucky Man” (1973), based on his concept and the script that he co-wrote, Paul Schrader’s “Cat People” (1982), “The Caller” (1987) “Gangster No. 1” (2000), Robert Altman’s “The Company (2003), “The Employer” (2013) and literally dozens of other independent and studios releases spanning six decades.
In the festival’s tradition of presenting an archival movie to conclude the festival, this year’s Closing Night Film will be a special 20th anniversary screening of director Kevin Rodney Sullivan’s “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”(1998) with appearances by the cast and crew.
In “A Tuba To Cuba” filmmaker T.G. Herrington profiles a cultural institution, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, as they journey to Cuba in search of musical camaraderie and historical root. In “Underdogs,”first-time director Téo Frank also is in search of musical origins but with the focus on hip-hop, as he travels from his native Paris to New York. Hip hop plays another leading role in Sam Bathrick’s “16 Bars,”the third documentary in the festival’s music series. The film follows three inmates as they collaborate with Grammy -Award-winning artist Speech of Arrested Development, discovering painful elements of their past in the process.
Three inmates are also the subject of Tamara Perkins’ inspirational documentary “Life After Life”as they set out to prove their success on the other side. The theme of overcoming challenges permeates two films about veterans. In “Surviving Home,” co-directors Jillian Moul and Matthew Moul document the lives of four generations of warriors after returning from war. In Anita Sugimura Holsapple’s “Battlefield Home – Breaking The Silence,”a Vietnam era military child exposes the unflinching impact of war on family dynamics.
A battle of another kind is the subject of filmmakers Tricia Russo’s and Craig E. Shapiro’s “Love Always, Mom,”an inspirational documentary about a stage-4 cancer survivor’s journey to build a family after diagnosis. Family is also the focus of Ensar Altay “Guardian of the Angels,”a documentary profile of a widower who continues to find his wife’s love in his care of their child with special needs. In co-directors Liza Meak’s and Kathryn Basiji’s documentary “The Edge of Success,”it’s youth who take matters into their own hands when their high school is plagued by suicide clusters.
Social justice is manifested in myriad ways in fiction and nonfiction films screening at the festival. In Sally Colón-Petree’s documentary “Women Like Us,”three American women are inspired by the powerful women they encounter in Kenya, who against all odds are successfully confronting a host of social injustices from female genital mutilation to child prostitution. In “Give Us This Day”co-directors Michael Zimbalist and Jeff Zimbalist track a year in East St. Louis, the city with the highest homicide rate in the United States. Told from the perspectives of both police officers and residents, a community plagued by gun violence experiences complex challenges, heartbreak and hope.
Also screening at the festival are two dramas that tackle social injustice. In Laura Somers’ “Rich Kids,”economic class divide is the backdrop as a group of teens from a low-income community break into a mansion to enjoy the good life if only for a day. Class divides also figures into the theme of Collin Schiffli’s dramatic feature “All Creatures Here Below,”about a destitute couple struggling to find refuge for themselves and a stolen infant.”
The impact of crime is explored in Wes Miller’s “River Runs Red,”about a hardened detective (John Cusack) and a grieving father (George Lopez) who take the law into their own hands when police violence spirals out of control. Taye Diggs co-stars. Jay Francisco Lopez’s “Love, Cecy”is based on a true crime story of a promising high school student whose brutal murder was chronicled by the media nationwide. In Richard Levien’s “Collisions,”a 12-year-old must turn detective when she returns home with her younger brother to find their house ransacked and their immigrant mother missing.
Searching for a lost loved one is also the theme of Ilana Rein’s suspenseful “Perception,” the story of a successful businessman who comes to believe that a small-time psychic has the power to reconnect with his dead wife. Psychological thrills freefall in Angela Matemotja’s “Elevate,” a set of intertwining stories about people trapped in elevators who must face their greatest fears. In Amanda Kramer’s “Paris Window,” adult siblings Julian and Sunny are caught in a trap of their own making as they maneuver hallucinatory paranoia and sinister conspiracies in their otherwise lovely pied-à-terre.
Comedy and drama blur in several films screening at the festival. Director Sean McGinly uses a light touch to explore profound questions about life, love, friendship and family in “Silver Lake.”Wendy McColm’s “Birds Without Feathers”also navigates the shoals of human connections in her black comedy about six broken individuals on their quest for love. Nancy Goodman’s rom-com “Surprise Me”is a seemingly light-hearted story of an event planner but with a darker undercurrent about eating disorders. Jean Lee throws cautionto the wind in her absurdist comedy “Original Sin,”which follows the consequences to the marriage of a respectable couple when an enfant terrible artist pays a visit.
Lines blur as well in Joy Shannon’s genre-bending “My Dead Selfie,”a ghostly horror story that tackles head-on issues of racism and racial identity in America. In Anne-Sophie’s “Ballet Blanc,” the innocence of childhood reveals itself as a bloody terror in a unsuspecting small town.Life After Life
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28 Feature Films to LA Premiere at 2018 DTLA Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_31965" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Octavio Is Dead![/caption]
The 10th DTLA Film Festival, taking place October 17 to 21, announced today the 11 documentary and 17 narrative feature-length movies in the 2018 line-up, under the of women’s empowerment, a nod to the #metoo and #timesup movements. In keeping with the theme, 18 of the 27 (65%) of the new feature films screening at the festival are by women directors.
In separate ceremonies, Rosanna Arquette and Malcolm McDowell are to be honored with the festival’s Independent Film Pioneer Award for their body of work in independent cinema. Arquette appears in two films in competition at the festival. She stars in Amanda Sthers’ “Holy Lands” as a matriarch attempting to hold her family together even as she must confront her own mortality. The film, co-starring James Caan, Tom Hollander and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, will screen as the festival Centerpiece presentation. Arquette also co-stars in Sook-Yin Lee’s “Octavio Is Dead!” a contemporary ghost story. In a career spanning four decades, Arquette has appeared in many signature roles, including “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985), for which she earned a Best Actress Golden Globe Nomination, “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “After Hours” (1985) and “The Whole Nine Yards” (2000). Over the past year, she has become a public face of the #metoo movement.
McDowell stars in the festival’s Los Angeles premiere screening of director Kayla Tabish’s “Culture of Fear,”a dystopian suspense thriller. Forever known for his iconic starring role as Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s “Clockwork Orange” (1971), he would go onto star in “O Lucky Man” (1973), based on his concept and the script that he co-wrote, Paul Schrader’s “Cat People” (1982), “The Caller” (1987) “Gangster No. 1” (2000), Robert Altman’s “The Company (2003), “The Employer” (2013) and literally dozens of other independent and studios releases spanning six decades.
In the festival’s tradition of presenting an archival movie to conclude the festival, this year’s Closing Night Film will be a special 20th anniversary screening of director Kevin Rodney Sullivan’s “How Stella Got Her Groove Back”(1998) with appearances by the cast and crew.
In “A Tuba To Cuba” filmmaker T.G. Herrington profiles a cultural institution, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans, as they journey to Cuba in search of musical camaraderie and historical root. In “Underdogs,”first-time director Téo Frank also is in search of musical origins but with the focus on hip-hop, as he travels from his native Paris to New York. Hip hop plays another leading role in Sam Bathrick’s “16 Bars,”the third documentary in the festival’s music series. The film follows three inmates as they collaborate with Grammy -Award-winning artist Speech of Arrested Development, discovering painful elements of their past in the process.
Three inmates are also the subject of Tamara Perkins’ inspirational documentary “Life After Life”as they set out to prove their success on the other side. The theme of overcoming challenges permeates two films about veterans. In “Surviving Home,” co-directors Jillian Moul and Matthew Moul document the lives of four generations of warriors after returning from war. In Anita Sugimura Holsapple’s “Battlefield Home – Breaking The Silence,”a Vietnam era military child exposes the unflinching impact of war on family dynamics.
A battle of another kind is the subject of filmmakers Tricia Russo’s and Craig E. Shapiro’s “Love Always, Mom,”an inspirational documentary about a stage-4 cancer survivor’s journey to build a family after diagnosis. Family is also the focus of Ensar Altay “Guardian of the Angels,”a documentary profile of a widower who continues to find his wife’s love in his care of their child with special needs. In co-directors Liza Meak’s and Kathryn Basiji’s documentary “The Edge of Success,”it’s youth who take matters into their own hands when their high school is plagued by suicide clusters.
Social justice is manifested in myriad ways in fiction and nonfiction films screening at the festival. In Sally Colón-Petree’s documentary “Women Like Us,”three American women are inspired by the powerful women they encounter in Kenya, who against all odds are successfully confronting a host of social injustices from female genital mutilation to child prostitution. In “Give Us This Day”co-directors Michael Zimbalist and Jeff Zimbalist track a year in East St. Louis, the city with the highest homicide rate in the United States. Told from the perspectives of both police officers and residents, a community plagued by gun violence experiences complex challenges, heartbreak and hope.
Also screening at the festival are two dramas that tackle social injustice. In Laura Somers’ “Rich Kids,”economic class divide is the backdrop as a group of teens from a low-income community break into a mansion to enjoy the good life if only for a day. Class divides also figures into the theme of Collin Schiffli’s dramatic feature “All Creatures Here Below,”about a destitute couple struggling to find refuge for themselves and a stolen infant.”
The impact of crime is explored in Wes Miller’s “River Runs Red,”about a hardened detective (John Cusack) and a grieving father (George Lopez) who take the law into their own hands when police violence spirals out of control. Taye Diggs co-stars. Jay Francisco Lopez’s “Love, Cecy”is based on a true crime story of a promising high school student whose brutal murder was chronicled by the media nationwide. In Richard Levien’s “Collisions,”a 12-year-old must turn detective when she returns home with her younger brother to find their house ransacked and their immigrant mother missing.
Searching for a lost loved one is also the theme of Ilana Rein’s suspenseful “Perception,” the story of a successful businessman who comes to believe that a small-time psychic has the power to reconnect with his dead wife. Psychological thrills freefall in Angela Matemotja’s “Elevate,” a set of intertwining stories about people trapped in elevators who must face their greatest fears. In Amanda Kramer’s “Paris Window,” adult siblings Julian and Sunny are caught in a trap of their own making as they maneuver hallucinatory paranoia and sinister conspiracies in their otherwise lovely pied-à-terre.
Comedy and drama blur in several films screening at the festival. Director Sean McGinly uses a light touch to explore profound questions about life, love, friendship and family in “Silver Lake.”Wendy McColm’s “Birds Without Feathers”also navigates the shoals of human connections in her black comedy about six broken individuals on their quest for love. Nancy Goodman’s rom-com “Surprise Me”is a seemingly light-hearted story of an event planner but with a darker undercurrent about eating disorders. Jean Lee throws cautionto the wind in her absurdist comedy “Original Sin,”which follows the consequences to the marriage of a respectable couple when an enfant terrible artist pays a visit.
Lines blur as well in Joy Shannon’s genre-bending “My Dead Selfie,”a ghostly horror story that tackles head-on issues of racism and racial identity in America. In Anne-Sophie’s “Ballet Blanc,” the innocence of childhood reveals itself as a bloody terror in a unsuspecting small town.
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20 Feature Films to Compete for Golden Gate Awards at 2017 San Francisco International Film Festival
[caption id="attachment_19940" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
A film still from In Loco Parentis by Neasa Ní Chianáin and David Rane[/caption]
10 narrative feature films and 10 documentary feature films will compete for the Golden Gate Awards (GGAs), and nearly $40,000 in total prizes at this year’s 2017 San Francisco International Film Festival taking place April 5 to 19.
“The SF Film Society has been a champion of emerging and international filmmakers since its first edition 60 years ago,“ said Rachel Rosen, SF Film Society Director of Programming. “We continue to believe that festivals are in a unique position to advocate for films from a variety of cultures and viewpoints, often in languages other than our own. The Golden Gate Awards provide an opportunity to bring additional exposure and awareness to these artists and their work.”
The GGA New Directors Prize winner will receive a cash prize of $10,000, the GGA McBaine Documentary Feature winner will receive $10,000 and the GGA McBaine Bay Area Documentary Feature winner will receive $5,000.
2017 GGA NEW DIRECTORS (NARRATIVE FEATURE) COMPETITION
Duet, Navid Danesh, Iran (North American Premiere) After a Tehran musician instigates an encounter with his college girlfriend in an attempt to address the poor end their relationship suffered, their lives and the equilibrium of their spouses are thrown into existential crisis. Navid Danesh’s resonant and moving depiction of the impact the past has on the present lives of its protagonists is both culturally specific and universal in its reach. Everything Else, Natalia Almada, Mexico/USA/France Academy Award-nominee Adriana Barraza (Babel) gives a masterfully controlled performance as Doña Flor, a solitary bureaucrat whose lifelong service in a government office has left her markedly unsympathetic towards her clients. Shot with an attentive and deeply empathetic lens, documentarian Natalia Almada’s narrative debut is a starkly intimate portrait of a woman at odds with her life who may still have a chance to escape her isolation. God’s Own Country, Francis Lee, UK Filmed on the Yorkshire hillside where he grew up, Francis Lee’s debut feature tells the rich and sexy story of John Saxby, a hard-drinking lad who keeps his emotions in check until an irrepressible Romanian immigrant comes to help out on the family farm and upends the young man’s life. Full of gloriously captured details about the care and breeding of animals, God’s Own Country is one of the year’s most moving romantic dramas. Godless, Ralitza Petrova, Bulgaria/Denmark/France In post-Communist era Bulgaria, where the shadow of oppression drives selfish behavior and hidden economies, outwardly impassive Gana works as a home care nurse—a job which provides ample opportunity to supplement her income with stolen ID cards to maintain the morphine habit she shares with her boyfriend. When Gana’s actions threaten the one glimmer of hope in her fatalistic world, will she break the cycle of corruption or spiral deeper? Godless is a bold first feature from Ralitza Petrova. Heaven Sent, Wissam Charaf, France/Lebanon Absurdly funny sequences punctuate this stylized comedy drama from Lebanon. Omar is a heavyset bodyguard who gets the assignment of his dreams, protecting a gorgeous TV personality, though matters are complicated when his brother Omar, a former militiaman presumed dead, magically reappears. Charaf’s surprising and inventive debut reflects on a country rife with absurdities and still reeling from its fraught history. The House of Tomorrow, Peter Livolsi, USA (World Premiere) When a sheltered teen named Sebastian meets an aspiring punk rocker and falls for the boy’s older sister, the stage is set for a cheerful and energetic comedy that tackles matters of friendship, young love, and musical dreams with equal aplomb. Ellen Burstyn is once again wondrous as Sebastian’s grandmother who is devoted to the life and scientific work of Buckminster Fuller. The Human Surge, Eduardo Williams, Argentina/Brazil/Portugal Eduardo Williams has steadily made a name for himself with a series of indelible shorts featuring young protagonists adrift in strange environments. In his debut feature, a prizewinner at Locarno, he takes the premise further, crafting a dreamlike three-part drama where youths from Argentina, Mozambique, and the Philippines are connected by invisible, electronic, or even subterranean means. Consistently inventive, The Human Surge burrows into three continents and finds surprising associations. Life After Life, Zhang Hanyi, China As the inexorable progress of industrialization in China makes its way into the lives of village residents Mingchun and his son Leilei, a surprise haunting by Leilei’s dead mother, who has an impassioned plea for her husband, points to a time when more attention was paid to the earth and its bounty. Produced by Jia Zhang Ke, this evocative and poetic debut depicts a rapidly disappearing way of life with a gorgeous visual sensibility and a subtly wry humor. Park, Sofia Exarchou, Greece/Poland The formerly grand stadiums and swimming pools of the 2004 Athens Olympics have become modern-day Greek ruins, a place for disaffected kids who’ve come of age since the Games to run wild. First-time director Exarchou, working mostly with non-professional actors, develops a compellingly anarchic style where the threat of violence and socio-economic troubles are omnipresent and the young characters act out their frustrations through boisterous, sometimes dangerous, horseplay. The Wedding Ring, Rahmatou Keïta, Niger/Burkina Faso/France (US Premiere) The Wedding Ring is a rare achievement, a wondrously complex dramatic feature directed by an African woman that explores female desires and empowerment in a traditional Muslim society. Rahmatou Keïta tells the story of Tiyaa who returns to Niger with lingering romantic feelings for the handsome man she left behind in France while grappling with family members who wish to arrange her marriage.2017 GOLDEN GATE AWARDS MCBAINE DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
Brimstone & Glory, Viktor Jakovleski, USA Burning Man has nothing on Tultepec’s charging toritos and exploding castillos. Mexico’s weeklong National Pyrotechnic Festival is sheer unbridled madness. Scars that tourists take away from fireworks-exploding bulls and towering infernos are earned with pleasure, apparently, as this dynamic documentary keeps explanation to a minimum while maximizing the experiential through GoPro camera POVs and gorgeous abstractions. Filmmaker Viktor Jakovleski has created a visually rapturous, immersive, sensory experience of this extraordinary event, capturing the danger and mayhem in all its glory. The Cage Fighter, Jeff Unay, USA (World Premiere) With the emotional force and power of a Bruce Springsteen song, Jeff Unay’s cinema vérité portrait of Joe Carman packs an emotional wallop. A family man who has promised not to return to competitive mixed martial arts fighting, the dangerous sport that gives him the most complete sense of purpose he’s been able to find, Joe risks everything for one more chance in the ring. The Challenge, Yuri Ancarani, France/Italy Italian artist Yuri Ancarani melds his luminous cinematic vision with the ancient sport of Arab falconry in The Challenge, an evocative and visually dazzling portrait of a celebrated hunting competition set in the coastal deserts of Qatar. Modern technology, such as GPS, augments a practice dating to antiquity as participants track their prized raptors across the austere plains, reconnecting with desert custom in the shadow of a falcon’s wing. The Cinema Travellers, Shirley Abraham, Amit Madheshiya, India A moving homage to the bygone era of celluloid, The Cinema Travellers exquisitely captures the splendor of the moving image through India’s traveling movie caravans. Shot over five years, this intimate documentary takes the viewer on a cinematic journey joining the undaunted technicians, the projectionists who create movie magic, and the boisterous, overflowing crowd that await at each stop. Donkeyote, Chico Pereira, Spain/Germany/UK A Spanish man’s quest to defy barriers and borders in search of the American West by planning a journey on the Trail of Tears with his donkey by his side is its own quixotic trail of laughter and tears. The understanding between man and animal has rarely been so intimately conveyed as it is in Chico Pereira’s winning tale, a stunningly photographed film that hovers between documentary and fiction, one inspired and performed by a real-life character with outsized dreams. The Force, Peter Nicks, USA For the powerful second film in his trilogy concerning the relationship between public institutions and the communities they serve, Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) takes a powerful, immersive look at the Oakland Police Department. Filming from 2014-2016 with astonishing access, Nicks captures a particularly turbulent time in Bay Area law enforcement history. Intended as a catalyst for conversation and change, Nicks’ empathetic and observational style avoids easy generalizations and upends expectations, resulting in a rich, thought provoking real-time conversation about social justice and the mutual responsibilities of police officers and those they serve and protect. Half-Life in Fukushima, Mark Olexa, Francesca Scalisi, Switzerland/France Five years after the devastating 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, elderly farmer Naoto Matsumura struggles to restore his life in the radioactive red zone, wandering through an empty dystopian nightmare of concrete ruins; abandoned, weed-filled facilities; contamination cleanup crews; and the haunting fragments of a city swept away by tsunami. With minimal commentary and a graceful and sympathetic eye, Half-Life in Fukushima underlines the danger inherent in nuclear power in its depiction of Fukushima’s sinister remnants and Matsumura’s lonely last stand. In Loco Parentis, Neasa Ní Chianáin, David Rane, Ireland/Spain Irish filmmaker Neasa Nî Chianáin and David Rane present a charming and deeply intimate portrait of a year at Headfort boarding school in picturesque Kells, Ireland. Following devoted and wryly funny educators John and Amanda Leyden as they battle through another season of Latin, Shakespeare, and kids playing “Wild Thing,” In Loco Parentis shows how the level of attention and concern the teachers have for their students lead to remarkable transformations in everyone’s lives. Muhi – Generally Temporary, Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander, Tamir Elterman, Israel/Germany (World Premiere) Muhi, a cherubic Palestinian toddler with a life-threatening immune disorder, was transported to an Israeli hospital as a baby for emergency treatment. He and his devoted grandfather have lived there ever since, stuck in a bizarre no man’s land, with their extended family living on the other side of a fiercely guarded checkpoint. Their unique and moving story takes place within the crucible of the relentless Israeli-Palestinian conflict that impacts everyone in its orbit. Serenade for Haiti, Owlsley Brown, USA “Music is our refuge,” says a student at the Sainte Trinité Music School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Shot over a seven-year period both before and after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, this vibrant tribute to the students and teachers of Sainte Trinité testifies to the role that art can play in creating community and sustaining hope under the most difficult of circumstances.
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Under the Shadow Kicks Off Lineup for 2016 New Directors / New Films
Under the Shadow The Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art have announced the complete lineup for the 2016 New Directors / New Films (ND/NF), taking place March 16 to 27 in New York City.