“STRANGER THINGS,” “MARWENCOL” WIN WOODSTOCK

I was very excited to see the list of Woodstock Film Festival winners over at Indiewire. Two Filmmaker favorites picked up the top prizes. You’ve read about Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol on the site before (see Alicia Van Couvering’s blockquote interview with the director here), and if your memory is good you’ll remember that I picked Stranger Things directors Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal for our 2009 “25 New Faces” after seeing the rough cut of this very same feature. I think this is a beautiful, delicate, and extremely well directed and acted film, and I’m really happy that it’s now entering its festival life on the backs of this recognition.

Here’s what I wrote about Burke and Eyal in 2009:

“At some point in her life my grandmother was a bit of a wanderer,” explains New York City-based but U.K.-born Eleanor Burke. “She was attracted to the beach and the seaside, and she was itinerant at different times of her life.” Says Burke’s partner, Ron Eyal, “We thought about that idea and then imagined Adeel [Akhtar] in that role [of the wanderer].” With Akhtar, another lead actor, Bridget Collins, and a small house belonging to a family friend near Hastings, U.K., Burke and Eyal riff on the themes of homelessness, loss and human vulnerability in their delicately beautiful debut feature, Stranger Things, currently in postproduction.

Stranger Things tells the simple story of a vagrant, played by Akhtar, who breaks into the home of a young woman’s (Collins) recently deceased grandmother. Of course, a friendship follows, but Stranger Things‘ best qualities can’t be captured in a plot synopsis. It’s a small-scale story sensitively attuned to its fine actors as well as broader themes of responsibility, loss and community.

Burke and Eyal, who are engaged, met at NYU Film School in 2003. “We’ve worked on a lot of projects together,” Burke says, “like documentary things I shot and Ron’s directed. This was the first time we co-directed something, but we were always on the same page.” “Before we shot,” continues Eyal, “we got advice from the faculty at … Read the rest

“MARWENCOL” OPENS STRANGER THAN FICTION AT THE IFC CENTER

By Scott Macaulay

“Stranger than Fiction,” the annual documentary series at the IFC Center, opens tonight with Jeff Malmberg’s Marwencol, winner of the Best Documentary award at SXSW, Comic-Con and SIFF.

From tonight’s program notes:

On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was attacked outside of a bar in Kingston, NY, by five men who beat him literally to death. Revived by paramedics, Mark had suffered brain damage and physical injuries so severe even his own mother didn’t recognize him. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in the hospital, Mark was discharged with little memory of his previous life.

Unable to afford therapy, Mark decided to create his own. In his backyard, he built Marwencol, a 1/6th scale World War II-era town that he populated with dolls representing his friends, family and even his attackers. He used the small dolls and props to redevelop his hand-eye coordination, while he dealt with the psychic wounds from his attack through the town’s many battles and dramas.

After a few years, Mark started documenting his miniature dramas with his camera. Through Mark’s lens, these were no longer dolls – they were living, breathing characters in an epic WWII story full of violence, jealousy, longing and revenge. And he (or rather his alter ego, Captain Hogancamp) was the hero.

When Mark’s stunningly realistic photos are discovered and published in an art magazine, his homemade therapy suddenly becomes “art,” forcing Mark to make a choice between the safety of his fictional town and the real world he’s avoided since his attack.

Shot over the course of four years, Jeff Malmberg’s documentary intertwines the dual realities of Mark Hogancamp to tell the whole story of Marwencol – a surprising tale of love, secrets, pain, and adventure.

Alicia Van Couvering interviewed Malmberg last Spring for our SXSW coverage. From her interview:

Filmmaker: Well that’s what’s so interesting about Marwencol itself is that it’s this very private therapeutic tool, but it’s also a way for him to communicate with other people – by putting them into the town as characters.

Malmberg: Yeah, absolutely, I think he enjoys the

… Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #5: “MAKING PEOPLE NOTICE”

Here’s part five of the New Breed Los Angeles series looking at the creative filmmaking process through the eyes of several filmmakers attending this year’s Los Angeles Film Fest. Today’s episode focuses on the time-honored question of how to get people to notice your work. Speaking are Marwencol director Jeff Malmberg and The New Year director Brett Haley.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 5 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.… Read the rest

SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WINNERS ANNOUNCED

The 36th Seattle International Film Festival end this weekend with audiences flocking to the 25 day fest as nearly 20% increase from last year. From May 20-June 13, the festival had shown 408 films. The awards ranged from the audience-selected Golden Space Needle Awards; the five juried Competition Awards, as well as the FIPRESCI Award for Best American Film. Borys Lankosz‘s The Reverse won the narrative Grand Jury Prizee , while Marwencol, directed by Jeff Malmberg, took home the doc Grand Jury Prize.

The winners of the Jury and Audience Awards are below.

SIFF 2010 Best New Director

Grand Jury Prize
The Reverse, directed by Borys Lankosz (Poland, 2009)

Special Jury Mentions
Turistas, directed by Alicia Scherson (Chile, 2009)

Gravity, directed by Maximilian Erlenwein (Germany, 2009)

SIFF 2010 Best Documentary

Grand Jury Prize
Marwencol, directed by Jeff Malmberg (USA, 2010)

SIFF 2010 Short Film Jury Awards

Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Short
Little Accidents, directed by Sara Colangelo (USA, 2009)

Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary Short
White Lines And The Fever: The Death Of DJ Junebug, directed by Travis Senger (USA, 2010)

Grand Jury Prize for Best Animated Short
The Wonder Hospital, directed by Beomsik Shim (USA, 2010)

Special Jury Mention for Short Animation
Cherry On The Cake, directed by Hyebin Lee (United Kingdom, 2009)

SIFF 2010 FIPRESCI Award for Best American Film

FIPRESCI Award
Night Catches Us, directed by Tanya Hamilton (USA, 2010)

Special Jury Mention
Jenna Fischer in A Little Help

SIFF 2010 Golden Space Needle Audience Awards

Best Film Golden Space Needle Award
The Hedgehog, directed by Mona Achache (France, 2009)

Runners-up (in order):
Mao’s Last Dancer, directed by Bruce Beresford (Australia, 2009)
Micmacs, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France, 2009)
Cell 211, directed by Daniel Monzon (Spain, 2009)
Hipsters, directed by Valery Todorovsky (Russia, 2009)

Best Documentary Golden Space Needle Award
Ginny Ruffner: A Not So Still Life, directed by Karen Stanton (USA 2010) and Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker (United Kingdom, 2010) (tie)

Runners-up (In … Read the rest

THE SXSW 2010 WINNERS

The winners of the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas were announced tonight. Here is a complete list of the awards:

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – Marwencol (Director: Jeff Malmberg)
Runner-up: War Don Don (Director: Rebecca Richman Cohen)

NARRATIVE FEATURE – Tiny Furniture (Director: Lena Dunham)
Special Jury Award – Best Ensemble: Myth of the American Sleepover (Director: David Robert Mitchell)

SPECIAL JURY AWARD – Best Individual Performance: Brian Hasenfus in Phillip the Fossil (Director: Garth Donovan)

Feature Film Audience Awards

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE – For Once in My Life (Directors: Jim Bigham & Mark Moormann)

NARRATIVE FEATURE – Brotherhood (Director: Will Canon)
Short Film Jury Awards

NARRATIVE SHORTS – Cigarette Candy (Director: Lauren Wolkstein)
Runner Up: Teleglobal Dreamin’ (Director: Eric Flanagan)

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS – Quadrangle (Director: Amy Grappell)
Runner Up: White Lines and The Fever: The Death of DJ Junebug (Director: Travis Senger)

ANIMATED SHORTS – The Orange (Director: Nick Fox-Gieg)
Runner Up: One Square Mile of Earth (Director: Jeff Drew)

EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS – Night Mayor (Director: Guy Maddin)
Runner Up: Kids Might Fly (Director: Alex Taylor)

MUSIC VIDEOS – Cinnamon Chasers, Luv Deluxe (Director: Saman Keshavarz)
Runner Up: Grizzly Bear, “Forest” (Director: Allison Schulnik)

TEXAS SHORTS – Petting Sharks (Director: Craig Elrod)
Runner Up: The Big Bends (Director: Jason William Marlow)

TIME WARNER CABLE & OVATION YOUNG FILMMAKER SCHOLARSHIP for TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORT – Give the Dog a Bone (Director: Edward Kelley)
Runner Up: The Sleep Project (Directors: Whitney Bennett & Matthew Cunningham)
SXSW Film Design Awards

EXCELLENCE IN POSTER DESIGN – Feeder (Designer: Joseph Ernst)
Runner Up: Amer (Designer: Gilles Vranckx)
Audience Award Winner: Richard Garriott: Man on a Mission (Designer: Michael Anderson)
Special Jury Award: Equestrian Sexual Response (Designers: Martim Vian & Zeke Hawkins)

EXCELLENCE IN TITLE DESIGN – Zombieland (Designer: Ben Conrad)
Runner Up: earthwork (Designer: Stan Herd)
Audience Award Winner – earthwork (Designer: Stan Herd)
Special Jury Award: Enter the Void (Designers: Gaspar Noé and Tom Kam)
SXSW Special Awards

SXSW WHOLPHIN AWARD – Quadrangle (Director: Amy Grappell)

SXSW CHICKEN & EGG EMERGENT NARRATIVE WOMAN DIRECTOR AWARD – Lena Dunham for Tiny Furniture
Special Award –

… Read the rest

MARWENCOL’S JEFFREY MALMBERG |
By Alicia Van Couvering

Mark Hogencamp was an illustrator living in Kingston, NY, and one night in 2000, he walked out of a bar and was followed by a group of teenagers who beat him mercilessly and left him for dead. Hogencamp was in a coma for nine days, suffered massive brain damage, and lost most of his memory and ability to move and write. Unable to afford therapy, he came up with his own: Marwencol. A 1/6 scale World War II-era town set someplace in Belgium, Marwencol’s inhabitants are dolls painstakingly painted and clothed by Mark, most representing a person from his real life. Mark’s doll is our hero, Captain Hogencamp, a strapping GI who first stumbles upon the town when its only other residents are women (Barbies, wearing co-opted SS uniforms from the soldier’s they’ve killed).

Hogencamp used the small dolls and props to redevelop his hand-eye coordination while he dealt with the psychic wounds from his attack through the town’s many battles with the SS and interpersonal dramas. He also began to take photographs of the events as they unfold, which are soon discovered by an art magazine, leading to a gallery show in New York City and a filmmaker, Jeffrey Malmberg, showing up to make a documentary about him. Four years later, Marwencol is premiering at SXSW, and it is a captivating, multi-faceted portrait of Hogencamp and the incredible world he’s created – call it art, therapy, or something in between, you’ve never seen anything like it before. As Hogencamp said to Malmberg the first day of filming, “it just gets weirder and weirder.”

You can view images of Marwencol and read more about the film at marwencol.com.

Filmmaker: I have a superficial question: how physically big is Marwencol? Like 20 x 20 feet?

Malmberg: I would say it’s about maybe twelve buildings at this point. It’s gotten pretty developed — now there’s kind of like a main drag through town, which Mark can walk down. But he’s very careful; he’ll only walk on a certain side so that he doesn’t get big footprints in the photographs. it’s kind … Read the rest