Get the first look at a video clip from Lauren DeFilippo and Katherine Gorringe’s Red Heaven, a prescient exploration of self-imposed quarantine that chronicles a one-year mission in a Mars simulation pod by six volunteers, set to World Premiere at the online edition of DOC NYC 2020.
Netflix will release the documentary film AmarElo – It’s all for yesterday, by Brazilian rapper, singer, songwriter and MC, Emicida, with animations, interviews and backstage scenes on December 8, 2020. Having the rapper’s show at Theatro Municipal of São Paulo in 2019 as a spine, the film directed by Fred Ouro Preto explores the production of the Estúdio AmarElo project and, at the same time, the history of Brazilian black culture in the last 100 years.
Austin Film Festival will kick off this year’s 27th edition of the Festival, on October 22, 2020 with Nine Days from writer/director Edson Oda, with cast members Winston Duke and Zazie Beetz on hand for a post-screening Q&A. WWE Network Documentaries will bring the World Premiere of Brothers of Destruction to the festival’s Closing Night slate, which chronicles the legacy of the iconic legends, Undertaker and Kane. AFF’s Centerpiece film is IFC Films’ Farewell Amor, following the story of an Angolan immigrant reuniting with his wife and daughter after 17 years apart. IFC Films will also be bringing Stardust (directed/co-written by Gabriel Range) to the Festival’s Closing Night programming.
Amazon released the official trailer for Alan Ball’s hilarious road movie Uncle Frank, starring Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis and Peter Macdissi which premiered earlier this year at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Uncle Frank premieres on Amazon Prime Video on November 25th.
The new docu-feature “Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb” will premiere on Netflix on October 28th and documents the discovery of a “one of a kind” tomb that came to life beneath the sand at the archaeological site Saqqara in Egypt. Directed by James Tovell, the documentary films a team of local archaeologists excavating never before explored passageways, shafts, and tombs, piecing together the secrets of Egypt’s most significant find in almost 50 years.
Following its world premiere at IDFA and its North American premiere at AFI Docs, the Kenyan family docu-drama The Letter by Maia Lekow and Christopher King heads to DOC NYC 2020 for its East Coast premiere as part of International Perspectives, in addition to five other US festivals.
Samuel L. Jackson, Tessa Thompson and Steven Yeun will be honored at the upcoming 23rd annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, taking place as a virtual experience October 24 – October 31. The festival will honor Samuel L. Jackson with the Legend of Cinema Award, Tessa Thompson (Sylvie’s Love) with the Vanguard Award and Steven Yeun (Minari) with the Discovery Award.
Our Own (Les nôtres) directed by Jeanne Leblanc is the winner of the award for Best Narrative Feature at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival’s 12th edition, and MLK/FBI directed by Sam Pollard won for Best Documentary Feature. The award for Best New Mexico Feature went to Truth or Consequences directed by Hannah Jayanti.
IFC Midnight is planning a release in early 2021 for visionary director Anthony Scott Burns’ Come True a sci-fi nightmare based on the real-life horror of sleep paralysis and how it plays tricks on the mind. The film starring Julia Sarah Stone (The Killing, Weirdos, Allure) and Landon Liboiron (Truth or Dare, Frontier, Hemlock Grove) had its world premiere at the 2020 Fantasia Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the inaugural virtual super-festival NIGHTSTREAM.
NIGHTSTREAM, formed as a banner uniting five US genre festivals – Boston Underground, Brooklyn Horror, North Bend, Overlook, and Popcorn Frights – came to a close with Adam Rehmeier’s DINNER IN AMERICA winning the festival’s Audience Award.
Honey Bee is a dramatic thriller that shines light on marginalized young girls lured into human trafficking rings. The film directed by award-winning documentarian-turned-narrative filmmaker Rama Rau (“League of Exotique Dancers,” “No Place to Hide,” “The Market”) and starring Julia Sarah Stone (“Allure,” “Wet Bum,” “Weirdos,” “The Killing”) in the title role of “Honey Bee,” for which she won a Leo Award, will be released on all major VOD platforms starting November 10 via Syndicado.
DOC NYC announced the lineup of over 200 films for its eleventh edition, running online from November 11-19 and available to viewers across the US. Fifty-seven features (53% of the lineup) are directed or co-directed by women and 36 by BIPOC directors (34% of the feature program).