Archive for November, 2004
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
The IFP Los Angeles has announced the nominees for the 2005 Independent Spirit Awards, which will be held in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica on Saturday, February 26.
“Hosted annually on the Saturday before the Oscars, the IFP Independent Spirit Awards is the yin to the Oscars’ yang — a celebration honoring filmmakers of independent vision. Televised in millions of homes and covered internationally, the Independent Spirit Awards program has become the vanguard event in independent film, recognizing the achievements of independent filmmakers and promoting independent film to a wider audience.”
Films vying for Best Feature this year are: Baadasssss! (Producer: Mario Van Peebles), Kinsey, (Producer: Gail Mutrux), Maria Full of Grace (Producer: Paul Mezey), Primer (Producer: Shane Carruth), and Sideways (Producer: Michael London).
The Best First Feature nominees are: Brother to Brother (Director: Rodney Evans; Producers: Rodney Evans, Jim McKay, Isen Robbins, Aimee Schoof), Garden State (Director: Zach Braff; Producers: Pamela Abdy, Gary Gilbert, Dan Halsted, Richard Klubeck), Napoleon Dynamite (Director: Jared Hess; Producers: Jeremy Coon, Sean C. Covel, Chris Wyatt), Saints and Soldiers (Director: Ryan Little; Producers: Adam Abel, Ryan Little), and The Woodsman (Director: Nicole Kassell; Producer: Lee Daniels).
Best Documentary nominees include: Bright Leaves (Director: Ross McElwee), Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed (Director: Shola Lynch), Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust (Directors: Menachem Daum, Oren Rudavsky), Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (Directors: Joe Berlinger, Bruce Sinofsky), and Tarnation, (Director: Jonathan Caouette).
With six nomiations this year, Alexander Paynes’s Sideways leads the pack, closely followed by Maria Full of Grace (five nominations); Primer, Kinsey, Brother to Brother and Mario de la Vega’s undistributed Robbing Peter (with four nominations each); and Baadasssss!, The Woodsman and The Motorcycle Diaries (with three each).
A complete list of nominees can be found at the IFP Web site.
… Read the rest
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
The Sundance Film Festival (January 20-30) have announced the lineup of this year’s Documentary and Dramatic competitions, as well as the films selected to compete in the World Cinema Documentary and Dramatic competitions.
Among the 60 films in the lineup announced today are 42 world premieres, 9 North American premieres and 9 U.S. premieres.
According to Todd McCarthy in today’s Variety: Of the 16 pictures selected for Dramatic Competition from the 761 American narrative features submitted, the festival’s director Geoffrey Gilmore said, “I have never been more excited about a competition lineup than I am this year. The level of accomplishment is where it should be. The evolution of what’s going on is really exciting and shows a certain maturity across the aesthetic spectrum.”
“Overall, 2,613 features were submitted to the festival, 1,385 from the U.S. and 1,228 from other countries. A year ago, fest fielded 2,485 total entries, 1,285 domestically and 1,200 from abroad.”
DRAMATIC COMPETITION:
“Between, a south-of-the-border thriller from director David Ocanas and screenwriter Robert Nelms about an American lawyer’s perilous search for her sister in the depths of Tijuana.
Brick, writer-director Rian Johnson’s noirish look at a teenager who investigates his ex-girlfriend’s disappearance by infiltrating a high school crime ring.
Dying Gaul, the feature directorial debut by playwright-screenwriter Craig Lucas, with Peter Sarsgaard as a tormented screenwriter in a treacherous relationship with a woman and her film exec husband.
Ellie Parker a feature-length expansion of a short made by writer-director Scott Coffey, with Naomi Watts in a comic look at an actress’s pursuit of a Hollywood career.
Forty Shades of Blue a drama directed by Ira Sachs and written by Michael Rohatyn and Sachs about the disruption in the lives of a Russian woman and an older rock ‘n’ roll legend living in Memphis upon the visit of an estranged son.
How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer writer-director Georgina Garcia Riedel’s look at the sexual awakenings of three generations of women in a Mexican-American family.
Hustle & Flow writer-director Craig Brewer’s account of a Memphis pimp who deals with his … Read the rest
Monday, November 29th, 2004
According to a press release received today, “Simmons Lathan Media Group (SLMG), a leading producer and distributor of media content with an urban/hip-hop theme, and the Kanbar Institute of Film and Television at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts today announced the creation of the Alumni Def Filmmaker Award, a competition for developing a narrative or documentary feature film with an urban/hip-hop theme. The contest, open to filmmakers from the Kanbar Institute who have graduated within the past five years, provides for production funding for up to $300,000 for a feature film project and up $150,000 for a documentary project.
“‘In our continued effort to expand filmmaking opportunities for the most talented story-tellers in Hip Hop/Urban Culture, we are extremely pleased to be partnering with the Tisch School’s Kanbar Institute, which has educated some of the most talented and acclaimed filmmakers in the industry today,” said Will Griffin, president of SLMG.’
“To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts Kanbar Institute of Film and Television within five years of the call for submission date of December 1, 2004. Film projects must be in the urban/hip-hop genre and submitted no later than February 15, 2005. Participants must submit the following materials: a screenplay (narrative category) or an outline (documentary category); a treatment of no more than 10 pages; personal statement of no more than 2-typed pages; comprehensive budget of up to $300,000 (narrative projects) or up to $150,000 (documentary projects); a visual statement pertaining to the film.
“Twelve semi-finalist projects, to be chosen by the faculty of the Kanbar Institute, will be forwarded to SLMG’s offices. No later than March 15, 2005 a panel of judges from SLMG will choose three finalists, who will be required to prepare a storyboard for his or her project. No later than May 1, 2005 SLMG will select no fewer than one and no more than two winners to receive production funding of their project/s. SLMG will secure distribution for the winning project/s in home video, television and pay television outlets. For additional information or to … Read the rest
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004
“Once, people who worked in advertising aspired to break into the movies. Now it seems, things have gone full circle,” write the editors of The Guardian in their introduction to Peter Bradshaw’s article on the world’s most expensive commercial — featuring Nicole Kidman, directed by Baz Luhrmann — for Chanel No. 5.… Read the rest
Friday, November 19th, 2004
David Poland’s Moviecity News links to this interesting interview with Mark Cuban in Business 2.0 in which the Broadcast.com, 2929, and HDNet founder (and Dallas Mavericks owner) concisely lays out his long-term vision as a digital distributor and content supplier. It’s a good read as it clearly lays out in one short article the thinking that informs Cuban’s business ventures, which include the producer of low-budget indie HD films, HDNet. Cuban disparages the DVD format (he believes they’ll be replaced by higher quality presentations delivered via satellite and broadband and stored on hard drives) and, in one great quote, dismisses all the current handwringing over digital piracy:
“It’s all bullshit,” he said. “A bunch of pathetic excuses. I personally have more than half a billion dollars invested in content. And I’m a lot less worried about piracy than I am about technological communism. I don’t want Orrin Hatch’s ‘help.’ I want technology unconstrained. Because if technology wins, content companies will benefit dramatically, like they always have.”
… Read the rest
Thursday, November 18th, 2004
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences yesterday released a list of films that will continue on in the voting process in the category of Best Documentary Feature for the 77th Academy Awards. The 12 films from which the five nominees will be selected are listed below in alphabetical order:
Born into Brothels (ThinkFilm), directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kaufmann
The most stigmatized people in Sonagachi, Calcutta’s red light district, are not the prostitutes, but their children. In the face of abject poverty, abuse, and despair, these kids have little possibility of escaping their mother’s fate or for creating another type of life. Zana Briski gives these kids cameras and teaches them how to use them, igniting latent sparks of artistic genius. The photographs taken by the children are not merely examples of remarkable observation and talent; they reflect something much larger, morally encouraging and even politically volatile: art as an immensely liberating and empowering force.
Home of the Brave (Emerging Pictures), directed by Paola di Florio
Home of the Brave is about the only white woman murdered in the civil rights movement in America and why we don’t know who she is. Told through the eyes of her children, the film follows the on-going struggle of an American family to survive the consequences of their mother’s heroism and the mystery behind her killing.
Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (First Run Features), directed by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller
The life and times of the historian, activist and author of the best selling classic A People’s History of the United States.
In the Realms of the Unreal (Wellspring), directed by Jessica Yu
Explores the parallel lives of legendary outsider artist Henry Darger. Reclusive janitor by day, visionary artist by night, Darger’s 15,000-page novel The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, as caused by the Child Slave Rebellion details the exploits of seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against godless, child-enslaving men.
Riding Giants (Sony Pictures Classics), … Read the rest
Wednesday, November 17th, 2004
Entitled “Settings – Locations – Scenes. Production Design & Film,” the Retrospective of the 55th Berlin International Film Festival (February 10 – 20, 2005) will be dedicated to the profession and impact of production design.
“Production designers are much more than just set builders,” says Berlinale director Dieter Kosslick on the Festival’s revamped Web site. “‘They are genuine artists who substantially influence the overall appearance of a film. At first glance the effects are often not evident, yet their work is of utmost importance for communicating dramatic action.’ Production designers supply the visual key for the mood and story of a film. They bring out individual emotions and social conditions as well as accentuate what is mysterious or menacing.”
In other Berlinale news, “In 2005, the Festival will present part 2 of the series of films from the U.S.A.’s recovery program for Europe following World War II. (Organized by IFP founder Sandra Schulberg with Richard Rena from the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Part 1 premiered earlier this year at the Berlinale and was reprised at the 2004 New York Film Festival.) “Conceived to run for a total of three years, the series will continue during the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005 and again in 2006.” At the 55th Berlinale… Selling Democracy – Welcome Mr. Marshall will feature “works from the early post-war years, including so-called re-orientation films, are to be screened under the heading Selling Democracy – Winning the Peace. The programme will be augmented by feature films from the period that depict Europe’s upheaval. In 2006, the project will close with Selling Democracy – Friendly Persuasion. The final series is to focus on how Europe changed as a result of modernization, mechanization and its emulation of ‘the American way of life’.”
.… Read the rest
Tuesday, November 16th, 2004
Blown Away! by The Residents. Courtesy of the Cryptic Corporation.
In 1980, a year before the launch of MTV, The Residents, a reclusive San Francisco-based band, released Commercial Album along with four short films (Moisture, Act of Being Polite, Perfect Love and The Simple Song) based on tracks from the album. The Residents’ pioneering work is often cited as contributing to the development of the modern music video artform, and their One Minute Movies, directed by Graeme Whifler, are now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
According to the Web site The Moles, “The premise of the Commercial Album… was for The Residents to create their own ‘top-forty’ of one-minute songs — one minute being the length of a typical TV commercial. Taking over where the group’s 1978 classic Duck Stab left off, the Commercial Album further distills the music of The Residents into a stream of compact and multi-faceted avant-pop gems. A model of economy, the songs on this kaleidoscopic album constantly convey more with less.”
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Commercial Album, Mute Records has issued a Special Edition DVD to both compliment and complete the project with an amazing collection of 56 one-minute films based on the original 40 Commercial Album songs.
“In order to produce this large number of films,” the Mute site reports, “in addition to themselves, The Residents have assembled an outstanding group of 42 visual artists from around the world [including Kar Aermann, Leigh Barbier, Ty Bardi, Doug Carney, Bulk Foodveyor, Fabrice Fouquet, Incorect, Andrew Koehler, Harry Lagoussis, Chip Lord, John McNaughton, Cedric Mercier, Eric Montchaud, Takeshi Murata, Eric Nordhauser, Eun-Ha Paek, John Payson, The Penguin Bros., Martin Redlich, Stephane Ricard, Rosto A.D., Jean-Michel Roux, John Sanborn, Gunter Segers, Rajendra Serber, Rich Shupe, Casey Stockdon, Geert Vandenbroele, Veber Veber, Luk Willekens, and others]. Working in various forms ranging from animation, live action, and puppetry to drawing, photography and sculpture, the disc is a virtual film festival in miniature. In addition The DVD … Read the rest
Monday, November 15th, 2004
In a blog entry below we reported on “window-busting” release of Chazz Palminteri’s film Noel, which will appear in theaters, on cable and on DVD all within the same month. It’s part of a marketing strategy designed to score Noel some ink in the press — perhaps to divert attention away from the reviews, which Rotten Tomatoes scores only 18% positive.
In our entry we were intrigued by the release strategy, but the folks at The Movie Blog linked to this USA Today piece which describes it in more critical terms. Some of the comments in the piece, like the ones from chain theater owners who disparage the concept, can be attributed to pure self-interest. (Of course theater owners don’t want consumers to think that the movies they play can be seen in alternate formats so soon after release.) But the piece does pinpoint a downside to the technology we hadn’t thought of: the discarded DVDs are yet another piece of environmental waste, destined to clog up landfills.
… Read the rest
Saturday, November 13th, 2004
At Filmmaker, we’ve interviewed documentarian Joe Berlinger and his partner Bruce Sinofsky several times over the years, and the two are always great explicators of the filmmaking process. Now Berlinger with co-writer Greg Milner has authored Metallica: This Monster Lives, the story of his and Berlinger’s making of the rock’n’roll-meets-therapy doc. And if you bookmark this blog page and skip over Filmmaker’s home page, then you’ve probably missed this downloadable Chapter Five book excerpt, in which Berlinger talks about submitting himself to therapist Phil Towle to discuss his post-Blair Witch 2 issues.
Also worth noting in our on-line features section is Jeremiah Kipp’s interesting interview with Jim Van Bebber about his cult epic The Manson Family.
… Read the rest
