The Criterion Channel’s September 2020 Lineup Includes Sátántangó, Agnès Varda, Albert Brooks & More
As the coronavirus pandemic still rages on, precious few remain skeptical about going to the movies. But while your AMCs and others claim some godlike safety from Covid, there remains a chunk of people still uncomfortable hitting up theaters. To them, we bring you the September 2020 Criterion Channel lineup.
It starts off with quite the swath of content too. Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó hits the service on September 1, and its seven-plus hours should take up a large chunk of your day. Coming soon after is a collection of more than a dozen Joan Blondell starrers from the pre-Code era, including Howard Hawks’ The Crowd Roars, three collaborations with Mervyn LeRoy, and Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley’s Dames.
For some stuff released almost a century later, the service also sees the addition of documentary bender Robert Greene. His Actress, Kate Plays Christine, and Bisbee ’17 join soon after. Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon,...
It starts off with quite the swath of content too. Béla Tarr’s Sátántangó hits the service on September 1, and its seven-plus hours should take up a large chunk of your day. Coming soon after is a collection of more than a dozen Joan Blondell starrers from the pre-Code era, including Howard Hawks’ The Crowd Roars, three collaborations with Mervyn LeRoy, and Ray Enright & Busby Berkeley’s Dames.
For some stuff released almost a century later, the service also sees the addition of documentary bender Robert Greene. His Actress, Kate Plays Christine, and Bisbee ’17 join soon after. Janicza Bravo, director of Lemon,...
- 8/25/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
Three years ago, when Disney announced a remake of its animated classic The Lion King, it was easy to be skeptical: With the original still so beloved, was an upgrade even necessary? But at least one family in South Africa was hopeful. In both the first movie and a later stage production, The Lion King features “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a Sixties pop hit that has its roots in “Mbube,” a song written and recorded in the Thirties by South African singer and migrant worker Solomon Linda. For decades, Linda...
- 11/7/2019
- by David Browne
- Rollingstone.com
Netflix’s original documentary series “ReMastered” investigates high-profile events affecting major figures in music. Helmed by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, the Zimbalist brothers and directors Kief Davidson, Barbara Kopple, Sara Dosa, Brian Oakes, Stuart Sender, B.J. Perlmutt, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Sam Cullman, each episode investigates events in the lives of artists such as Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Jam Master Jay, Sam Cooke and others.
ReMastered is a Netflix original documentary series produced by Triage Entertainment and All Rise Films.
The series will launch monthly on Netflix, with the following rollout, according to the announcement:
“Who Shot the Sheriff?” – Launches October 12
Directed by: Kief Davidson
The violent political suppression of the roots reggae movement in Jamaica told through an investigation into Jamaican politics and the CIA’s involvement in the mysterious shooting of Bob Marley.
“Tricky Dick and the Man in Black” – Launches November 2018
Directed by: Barbara Kopple...
ReMastered is a Netflix original documentary series produced by Triage Entertainment and All Rise Films.
The series will launch monthly on Netflix, with the following rollout, according to the announcement:
“Who Shot the Sheriff?” – Launches October 12
Directed by: Kief Davidson
The violent political suppression of the roots reggae movement in Jamaica told through an investigation into Jamaican politics and the CIA’s involvement in the mysterious shooting of Bob Marley.
“Tricky Dick and the Man in Black” – Launches November 2018
Directed by: Barbara Kopple...
- 9/24/2018
- by Variety Staff
- Variety Film + TV
Netflix is delving into the history behind some of the most legendary names in music with ReMastered, an eight-part investigative docuseries from Emmy and Peabody Award-winning brothers Jeff Zimbalist and Michael Zimbalist, Triage Entertainment and All Rise Films.
Each of ReMastered‘s eight installments will roll out monthly on Netflix beginning October 12. Created by the Zimbalist brothers and helmed by directors Kief Davidson, Barbara Kopple, Sara Dosa, Brian Oakes, Stuart Sender, B.J. Perlmutt, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Sam Cullman, each episode seeks to reveal answers about seminal events in the lives of artists such as Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Jam Master Jay and Sam Cooke. You can watch a first-look clip above.
The episodes include “Who Shot the Sheriff?”which probes the violent political suppression of the roots reggae movement in Jamaica and the CIA’s involvement in the mysterious shooting of Bob Marley.
Each of ReMastered‘s eight installments will roll out monthly on Netflix beginning October 12. Created by the Zimbalist brothers and helmed by directors Kief Davidson, Barbara Kopple, Sara Dosa, Brian Oakes, Stuart Sender, B.J. Perlmutt, Kelly Duane de la Vega and Sam Cullman, each episode seeks to reveal answers about seminal events in the lives of artists such as Bob Marley, Johnny Cash, Jam Master Jay and Sam Cooke. You can watch a first-look clip above.
The episodes include “Who Shot the Sheriff?”which probes the violent political suppression of the roots reggae movement in Jamaica and the CIA’s involvement in the mysterious shooting of Bob Marley.
- 9/24/2018
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
New York City has been the inspiration for many films over the years, and now it’s the inspiration for a new anthology film about the city and the characters who call the city home. “True New York” anthologizes five award-winning short documentaries that focus on people from different corners of the city, from taxi drivers to street performers.
Read More: ‘Welcome to Hitchcock’ Anthology Series Announced by the Alfred Hitchcock Estate
The five films are as follows: 1. Jordan Roth’s “C-Rock” explores a group of Bronx kids who leap off a 100-foot tall cliff into the Harlem River, a dangerous rite of passage going back generations; 2. Joshua Z. Weinstein’s “Taxi Garage” looks inside a Queen taxi depot and follows Johnnie “Spider” Footman, a colorful octogenarian who is New York’s oldest taxi driver; 3. Jeremy Workman’s “One Track Mind” reveals the amazing story of Philip Coppola, who has...
Read More: ‘Welcome to Hitchcock’ Anthology Series Announced by the Alfred Hitchcock Estate
The five films are as follows: 1. Jordan Roth’s “C-Rock” explores a group of Bronx kids who leap off a 100-foot tall cliff into the Harlem River, a dangerous rite of passage going back generations; 2. Joshua Z. Weinstein’s “Taxi Garage” looks inside a Queen taxi depot and follows Johnnie “Spider” Footman, a colorful octogenarian who is New York’s oldest taxi driver; 3. Jeremy Workman’s “One Track Mind” reveals the amazing story of Philip Coppola, who has...
- 11/4/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
American indie film love is on full display at a fest that I’ve coined farm version of Telluride. The 8th edition of the Wassaic Project Film Festival will take off at the tail end of the month and the curators have landed Todd Haynes’ masterwork Safe and a foursome of worthy items (not including a special in-progress feature film screening) for the ’15 edition.
Sundance preemed items in Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)error will be shown alongside SXSW/Cannes profiled Krisha from Trey Edward Shults and Sam Cullman’s Tribeca showcased Art and Craft. The fest runs from July 31st until August 2nd in Wassaic, New York. Pitch up a tent and go watch these features – as well as shorts selected by the Wassaic Project and Jason Sondhi of Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week.
Sundance preemed items in Marielle Heller’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)error will be shown alongside SXSW/Cannes profiled Krisha from Trey Edward Shults and Sam Cullman’s Tribeca showcased Art and Craft. The fest runs from July 31st until August 2nd in Wassaic, New York. Pitch up a tent and go watch these features – as well as shorts selected by the Wassaic Project and Jason Sondhi of Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week.
- 7/20/2015
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Read More: Tribeca Winner 'Zero Motivation' to Screen At The Wassaic Project Film Festival The Wassaic Project has announced its lineup for this year's Wassaic Project Summer Film Festival, which includes Sundance and SXSW feature-length films, as well as shorts selected by the Wassaic Project and Jason Sondhi of Vimeo Staff Picks and Short of the Week. 30 festival attendees will also have the chance to attend a private viewing and discussion with directors and producers of an unknown "work-in-progress" film. In this film workshop, guests will have the chance to learn from the directors and producers' process and see film development first-hand. The 2015 Wassaic Project Film Festival runs July 31-August 2 in Wassaic, New York. Head to the Wassaic Project's website for more information about the event. Check out the synopses of this year's films below, courtesy of the Wassaic Project: Feature Films "Art and Craft" - Director: Sam Cullman "Art.
- 7/20/2015
- by Kaeli Van Cott
- Indiewire
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
For almost 30 years, Mark Landis forged artwork and passed it off as his own to various museums around the country. It wasn’t until Matthew Leininger, a registrar at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, investigated the pieces in 2008 that the forgery was exposed. Leininger dedicated his time to investigating Landis further, and the scale of forgeries was revealed in 2012. Both men are featured in Art and Craft, a documentary about Landis, directed by Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman and co-directed by Mark Becker. Because Landis never sold his work to the museums, only donated the works in what he calls acts of “philanthropy”, he was never prosecuted.
The Hollywood Reporter’s John DeFore said, “The film will appeal to art lovers, but some viewers who can hardly tell their Cezannes from Chagalls will find the story fascinating as well.”
The film was picked by...
Managing Editor
For almost 30 years, Mark Landis forged artwork and passed it off as his own to various museums around the country. It wasn’t until Matthew Leininger, a registrar at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, investigated the pieces in 2008 that the forgery was exposed. Leininger dedicated his time to investigating Landis further, and the scale of forgeries was revealed in 2012. Both men are featured in Art and Craft, a documentary about Landis, directed by Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman and co-directed by Mark Becker. Because Landis never sold his work to the museums, only donated the works in what he calls acts of “philanthropy”, he was never prosecuted.
The Hollywood Reporter’s John DeFore said, “The film will appeal to art lovers, but some viewers who can hardly tell their Cezannes from Chagalls will find the story fascinating as well.”
The film was picked by...
- 12/19/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
This year’s Oscar race could make history with two possible best picture nominees directed by women — Ava DuVernay’s Selma and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken. If both women are nominated for best director, that would also be a historical moment. But though these accomplishments in the narrative field are possible, more women directors are breaking into the documentary categories. Four of the 15 shortlisted documentaries feature women at the helm: Jennifer Grausman (co-directed with Sam Cullman and Mark Becker) with Art and Craft, Tia Lessin (co-directed with Carl Deal) with Citizen Koch, Laura Poitras with Citizenfour and Rory Kennedy with Last Days in Vietnam. Additionally, three of the eight shortlisted documentary shorts feature female directors: Ellen Goosenberg Kent with Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, Aneta Kopacz with Joanna and Lucy Walker with The Lion’s Mouth Opens. More often than not, women directors tend to...
Managing Editor
This year’s Oscar race could make history with two possible best picture nominees directed by women — Ava DuVernay’s Selma and Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken. If both women are nominated for best director, that would also be a historical moment. But though these accomplishments in the narrative field are possible, more women directors are breaking into the documentary categories. Four of the 15 shortlisted documentaries feature women at the helm: Jennifer Grausman (co-directed with Sam Cullman and Mark Becker) with Art and Craft, Tia Lessin (co-directed with Carl Deal) with Citizen Koch, Laura Poitras with Citizenfour and Rory Kennedy with Last Days in Vietnam. Additionally, three of the eight shortlisted documentary shorts feature female directors: Ellen Goosenberg Kent with Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, Aneta Kopacz with Joanna and Lucy Walker with The Lion’s Mouth Opens. More often than not, women directors tend to...
- 12/16/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced its shortlist of films under consideration for inclusion in the best documentary feature category of the Academy Awards next year. A huge 134 titles were submitted, which the Academy’s documentary branch has meticulously whittled down to just 15. Branch members will now decide which of those shortlisted will receive an Oscar nomination. Among the titles in competition are the much-discussed CitizenFour, Life Itself and Last Days In Vietnam – all three of which are widely considered to be frontrunners.
CitizenFour documents the initial meetings between Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden and a small number of journalists – including filmmaker Laura Poitras. Life Itself is a detailed portrait of renowned film critic Roger Ebert, and Last Days In Vietnam examines the withdrawal from Saigon by American forces at the close of the Vietnam War.
Other films selected for further consideration include subject matter such as...
CitizenFour documents the initial meetings between Nsa whistleblower Edward Snowden and a small number of journalists – including filmmaker Laura Poitras. Life Itself is a detailed portrait of renowned film critic Roger Ebert, and Last Days In Vietnam examines the withdrawal from Saigon by American forces at the close of the Vietnam War.
Other films selected for further consideration include subject matter such as...
- 12/5/2014
- by Sarah Myles
- We Got This Covered
Virunga director Orlando von Einsiedel celebrating Leonardo DiCaprio as executive producer at the 21 Club in New York Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Oscar documentary shortlist of 15 films was announced today. The final cut down to five nominations will be announced on January 15, 2015.
Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker's Art And Craft; Ben Cotner and Ryan White's The Case Against 8; Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Citizen Koch; Laura Poitras' Citizenfour; Charlie Siskel and John Maloof's Finding Vivian Maier; Brian Knappenberger's The Internet’s Own Boy; Frank Pavich's Jodorowsky’s Dune; Alan Hicks' Keep On Keepin’ On; Dan Krauss' The Kill Team; Rory Kennedy's Last Days In Vietnam; Steve James' Life Itself; Jesse Moss' The Overnighters; Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt Of The Earth; Nick Broomfield's Tales Of The Grim Sleeper...
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Oscar documentary shortlist of 15 films was announced today. The final cut down to five nominations will be announced on January 15, 2015.
Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker's Art And Craft; Ben Cotner and Ryan White's The Case Against 8; Tia Lessin and Carl Deal's Citizen Koch; Laura Poitras' Citizenfour; Charlie Siskel and John Maloof's Finding Vivian Maier; Brian Knappenberger's The Internet’s Own Boy; Frank Pavich's Jodorowsky’s Dune; Alan Hicks' Keep On Keepin’ On; Dan Krauss' The Kill Team; Rory Kennedy's Last Days In Vietnam; Steve James' Life Itself; Jesse Moss' The Overnighters; Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt Of The Earth; Nick Broomfield's Tales Of The Grim Sleeper...
- 12/2/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Oscars have released their shortlist of the 15 documentary features eligible for the Academy Award that have advanced to the next stage of consideration; the final five will be announced along with all other nominations on January 15. The titles and directors below, with links to our previous coverage as applicable: Art and Craft (Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker) — click here to read a guest post from the directors about completing their film’s score. The Case Against 8 (Benjamin Cotner, Ryan White) — click here to read the directors’ pre-Sundance statement about their film. Citizen Koch (Carl […]...
- 12/2/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Oscars have released their shortlist of the 15 documentary features eligible for the Academy Award that have advanced to the next stage of consideration; the final five will be announced along with all other nominations on January 15. The titles and directors below, with links to our previous coverage as applicable: Art and Craft (Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, Mark Becker) — click here to read a guest post from the directors about completing their film’s score. The Case Against 8 (Benjamin Cotner, Ryan White) — click here to read the directors’ pre-Sundance statement about their film. Citizen Koch (Carl […]...
- 12/2/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Just in time for Halloween, Daniel Radcliffe gets some special powers and couple of appendages growing from his temples in Radius’ Horns, which will be this week’s biggest rollout among specialty newcomers. The title received a warm welcome at a Cinema Society event attended by its stars this week in New York. This week’s newbies are dominated by nonfiction fare, though with some exceptions. Kino Lorber is opening French/Swiss maestro Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye To Language following a successful festival run. It has been critically acclaimed, and the company is expecting it to be a box office winner too. The 2014 Best Documentary winners from South by Southwest and Tribeca are going head-to-head in their theatrical debuts. Radius’ The Great Invisible (SXSW) opened in limited release Wednesday in an exclusively theatrical rollout, and The Orchard is bowing Point And Shoot (Tribeca) in a single NYC run. Submarine Deluxe...
- 10/31/2014
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline
The film is dizzying in its portrayal of the man (is he simple-minded or a genius?) whose art equals craft and who has supplied many, many museums of artfully forged paintings by masters across the ages. Is he an artist or just a very talented forger? I think his forging is an art in itself.
It fits into a genre of “art films” dealing with eccentric (and lovable) artists (and their collectors or copiers), such as “Tim’s Vermeer”, “Herb and Dorothy: 50 x 50” or “Cutie and the Boxer” or “Bill Cunningham". What types of people these artists are brings viewers to experience an amazing range of distinctive and odd folk. Not only is art (or the love of art in the case of “Herb and Dorothy”) a tough passion, it is based upon tough eccentric personalities whose passions carry them though tough times in which their survival an issue that they choose to overlook even while knowing it is important. Art is their life, not survival.
Mark Landis has been called one of the most prolific art forgers in Us history. His impressive body of work spans thirty years, covering a wide range of painting styles and periods that includes 15th Century Icons, Picasso, and even Walt Disney. And while the copies could fetch impressive sums on the open market, Landis isn’t in it for money. He poses as a philanthropic donor, a grieving executor of a family member’s will, and most recently as a Jesuit priest. Landis has given away hundreds of works over the years to a staggering list of institutions across the United States. When Matthew Leininger, a tenacious registrar who sets out to expose his career as philanthropic forger, Landis is force to confront his false legacy.
It becomes clear that this story is bigger than its art world foundation when Landis opens up about his past, his family and his struggles with mental illness. Afflicted by schizophrenia and multiple behavioral disorders, Landis had been ostracized his whole life as someone struggling with those conditions. His elaborate thirty-year con had become a means to change all that, allowing him to regain control and finally be given respect. He found purpose in philanthropy, which was nothing short of an addiction.
The film starts out questioning authorship and authenticity, but what emerges is a much more intimate human story of obsession and the universal need for community, appreciation, and purpose.
"Art and Craft" is being distributed in the U.S. by Oscilloscope Pictures, in Canada by Blue Ice Docs. International Sales are being handle by Autlook Film Sales.
Director/Producer/Cinematographer
Sam Cullman co-directed, shot and produced the Oscar®-nominated documentary, "If a Tree Falls"and was a Producer and Director of Photography on the Sundance Grand Jury prize-winning "The House I Live in." Previously, his camerawork appeared in dozens of documentaries including "King Con"and "Why We Fight."
Prior to his work in documentary, Cullman had his own background in the arts as a former printmaker and painter.
Director/Producer
Jennifer Grausman directed and produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, "Pressure Cooker."Grausman also co-produced "3 Backyards," and produced six short films. Previously she was the Manager of Exhibition and Film Funding at The Museum of Modern Art. Grausman grew up in the art world – her uncle is a sculptor and her aunt owned a gallery.
Co-Director/Editor
Mark Becker produced, directed and edited the Independent Spirit-nominated documentary "Romantico," and directed and edited the Emmy-nominated film "Pressure Cooker." He has edited several documentaries including "The Lost Boys of Sudan" and "Circo."
"Art and Craft" opens today at the Landmark’s Nuart Theater in West La, the film is also currently playing in NYC.
It fits into a genre of “art films” dealing with eccentric (and lovable) artists (and their collectors or copiers), such as “Tim’s Vermeer”, “Herb and Dorothy: 50 x 50” or “Cutie and the Boxer” or “Bill Cunningham". What types of people these artists are brings viewers to experience an amazing range of distinctive and odd folk. Not only is art (or the love of art in the case of “Herb and Dorothy”) a tough passion, it is based upon tough eccentric personalities whose passions carry them though tough times in which their survival an issue that they choose to overlook even while knowing it is important. Art is their life, not survival.
Mark Landis has been called one of the most prolific art forgers in Us history. His impressive body of work spans thirty years, covering a wide range of painting styles and periods that includes 15th Century Icons, Picasso, and even Walt Disney. And while the copies could fetch impressive sums on the open market, Landis isn’t in it for money. He poses as a philanthropic donor, a grieving executor of a family member’s will, and most recently as a Jesuit priest. Landis has given away hundreds of works over the years to a staggering list of institutions across the United States. When Matthew Leininger, a tenacious registrar who sets out to expose his career as philanthropic forger, Landis is force to confront his false legacy.
It becomes clear that this story is bigger than its art world foundation when Landis opens up about his past, his family and his struggles with mental illness. Afflicted by schizophrenia and multiple behavioral disorders, Landis had been ostracized his whole life as someone struggling with those conditions. His elaborate thirty-year con had become a means to change all that, allowing him to regain control and finally be given respect. He found purpose in philanthropy, which was nothing short of an addiction.
The film starts out questioning authorship and authenticity, but what emerges is a much more intimate human story of obsession and the universal need for community, appreciation, and purpose.
"Art and Craft" is being distributed in the U.S. by Oscilloscope Pictures, in Canada by Blue Ice Docs. International Sales are being handle by Autlook Film Sales.
Director/Producer/Cinematographer
Sam Cullman co-directed, shot and produced the Oscar®-nominated documentary, "If a Tree Falls"and was a Producer and Director of Photography on the Sundance Grand Jury prize-winning "The House I Live in." Previously, his camerawork appeared in dozens of documentaries including "King Con"and "Why We Fight."
Prior to his work in documentary, Cullman had his own background in the arts as a former printmaker and painter.
Director/Producer
Jennifer Grausman directed and produced the Emmy-nominated documentary, "Pressure Cooker."Grausman also co-produced "3 Backyards," and produced six short films. Previously she was the Manager of Exhibition and Film Funding at The Museum of Modern Art. Grausman grew up in the art world – her uncle is a sculptor and her aunt owned a gallery.
Co-Director/Editor
Mark Becker produced, directed and edited the Independent Spirit-nominated documentary "Romantico," and directed and edited the Emmy-nominated film "Pressure Cooker." He has edited several documentaries including "The Lost Boys of Sudan" and "Circo."
"Art and Craft" opens today at the Landmark’s Nuart Theater in West La, the film is also currently playing in NYC.
- 9/26/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Documentary cinema has a lot of stories about the art world. It’s not surprising, really. Readings or lectures about art can be tedious to the average viewer, and fiction film often has trouble jazzing up the subject, but the standard model of doc filmmaking is ideal for conveying facts and concepts while keeping the audience engaged. Still, such films usually struggle to attract an audience, and it’s not hard to figure out why — art is usually seen as a stodgy field, fit only for snobs. And given how deep the ties run between fine art and the whims of the upper class, this is not an entirely unreasonable stereotype. This makes it particularly funny when someone comes along to upset the fruit cart. Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman‘s new film, Art and Craft, demonstrates what happened when museums discovered one forger who only donated and never sold his fakes. In...
- 9/23/2014
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
The 2014 Viennale gets underway on October 23rd and runs to November 6th. The festival has published a preview of their lineup:
Features
Frank (Lenny Abrahamson)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)
Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
Two Day, One Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Li'l Quinguin (Bruno Demont)
Hard to Be a God (Aeksej German)
Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard)
Mambo Cool (Chris Gude)
Amour fou (Jessica Hausner)
The Last Summer of the Rich (Peter Kern)
Time Lapse (Bradley King)
The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid)
Sorrow and Joy (Nils Malmros)
Suddarth (Richie Mehta)
Macondo (Sudabeh Mortezai)
Force Majeure (Ruben Ostlund)
I'm Not Him (Tayfun Pirselimoglu)
Favula (Raúl Perrone)
Buzzard (Joel Potrykus)
A Proletarian Winter's Tale (Julian Radlmaier)
Two Shots Fired (Martín Rejtman)
Mauro (Hernán Rosselli)
The Sad Smell of Flesh (Cristóbal Arteaga Rozas)
Love is Strange (Ira Sachs)
The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy)
Why Don't You Play in Hell?...
Features
Frank (Lenny Abrahamson)
Jauja (Lisandro Alonso)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)
Winter Sleep (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
Two Day, One Night (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Li'l Quinguin (Bruno Demont)
Hard to Be a God (Aeksej German)
Adieu au langage (Jean-Luc Godard)
Mambo Cool (Chris Gude)
Amour fou (Jessica Hausner)
The Last Summer of the Rich (Peter Kern)
Time Lapse (Bradley King)
The Kindergarten Teacher (Nadav Lapid)
Sorrow and Joy (Nils Malmros)
Suddarth (Richie Mehta)
Macondo (Sudabeh Mortezai)
Force Majeure (Ruben Ostlund)
I'm Not Him (Tayfun Pirselimoglu)
Favula (Raúl Perrone)
Buzzard (Joel Potrykus)
A Proletarian Winter's Tale (Julian Radlmaier)
Two Shots Fired (Martín Rejtman)
Mauro (Hernán Rosselli)
The Sad Smell of Flesh (Cristóbal Arteaga Rozas)
Love is Strange (Ira Sachs)
The Tribe (Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy)
Why Don't You Play in Hell?...
- 8/22/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Vienna film festival to include a tribute to Viggo Mortensen and a retrospective on John Ford.Scroll down for list of higlights
Highlights of the 52nd Vienna International Film Festival (Oct 23-Nov 6) have been unveiled, including buzz titles from Cannes and Sundance as well as a tribute to actor Viggo Mortensen and a retrospective on director John Ford.
The feature film programme includes Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria and the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night. Other titles include Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Ruben Ostlund’s Turist and Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank.
In the documentary line-up, highlights include Nick Cave doc 20,000 Days On Earth, from directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard; Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery; and Tessa Louise Salome’s Mr Leos Carax.
The Viennale will pay tribute to American-Danish actor Viggo Mortensen, whose films range from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to David Cronenberg features...
Highlights of the 52nd Vienna International Film Festival (Oct 23-Nov 6) have been unveiled, including buzz titles from Cannes and Sundance as well as a tribute to actor Viggo Mortensen and a retrospective on director John Ford.
The feature film programme includes Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria and the Dardenne brothers’ Two Days, One Night. Other titles include Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, Ruben Ostlund’s Turist and Lenny Abrahamson’s Frank.
In the documentary line-up, highlights include Nick Cave doc 20,000 Days On Earth, from directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard; Frederick Wiseman’s National Gallery; and Tessa Louise Salome’s Mr Leos Carax.
The Viennale will pay tribute to American-Danish actor Viggo Mortensen, whose films range from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to David Cronenberg features...
- 8/22/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
An Official Selection of Tribeca Film Festival and Hot Docs 2014, here’s the first poster and trailer for Art And Craft.
Some of the early reviews have the movie as:
“Jaunty and engaging, an expertly crafted mystery.”
—Chris Barsanti, Pop Matters
“A layered study of mental illness, talent and the museum-industrial complex.”
—Leslie Felperin, The Guardian
Mark Landis has been called one of the most prolific art forgers in Us history. His impressive body of work spans thirty years, covering a wide range of painting styles and periods that includes 15th Century Icons, Picasso, and even Walt Disney. And while the copies could fetch impressive sums on the open market, Landis isn’t in it for money. Posing as a philanthropic donor, a grieving executor of a family member’s will, and most recently as a Jesuit priest, Landis has given away hundreds of works over the years to a...
Some of the early reviews have the movie as:
“Jaunty and engaging, an expertly crafted mystery.”
—Chris Barsanti, Pop Matters
“A layered study of mental illness, talent and the museum-industrial complex.”
—Leslie Felperin, The Guardian
Mark Landis has been called one of the most prolific art forgers in Us history. His impressive body of work spans thirty years, covering a wide range of painting styles and periods that includes 15th Century Icons, Picasso, and even Walt Disney. And while the copies could fetch impressive sums on the open market, Landis isn’t in it for money. Posing as a philanthropic donor, a grieving executor of a family member’s will, and most recently as a Jesuit priest, Landis has given away hundreds of works over the years to a...
- 7/17/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Exclusive: Art forger Mark Landis has been plying his talents for three decades, creating masterful knock-offs of some of the greatest painted works in history and skirting the law by donating his forgeries to museums and collections around the world – for free. His work, psyche, and motivations, along with the efforts of one dogged museum registrar to bring him down in the name of authenticity, are the subject of Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman’s upcoming documentary Art and Craft. Oscilloscope Laboratories picked up the film in March before it premiered at Tribeca and now Deadline’s got the exclusive trailer […]...
- 7/17/2014
- Deadline
Art and Craft
From Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker comes a fascinating look into the life and work of notorious art forger Mark Landis, who, for over 30 years, has duped museums across the country into accepting phony paintings. The secret to such a long career? Landis doesn’t sell; he donates (often in the name of his made-up deceased sister’s estate), so the FBI and irate curators everywhere are powerless to prosecute him for what he considers “philanthropy.” Opposite Landis, the filmmakers consult Matthew Leininger, a former registrar obsessed with seeking revenge on the forger. Yet with all his personal issues (schizophrenia, alcoholism, and a Norman Bates-like obsession with his late mother, to name a few), Landis always looms front and center. A talented artist who can replicate everything from Peanuts sketches to portraits from Picasso’s blue period, you wouldn’t be the first to wonder...
From Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman, and Mark Becker comes a fascinating look into the life and work of notorious art forger Mark Landis, who, for over 30 years, has duped museums across the country into accepting phony paintings. The secret to such a long career? Landis doesn’t sell; he donates (often in the name of his made-up deceased sister’s estate), so the FBI and irate curators everywhere are powerless to prosecute him for what he considers “philanthropy.” Opposite Landis, the filmmakers consult Matthew Leininger, a former registrar obsessed with seeking revenge on the forger. Yet with all his personal issues (schizophrenia, alcoholism, and a Norman Bates-like obsession with his late mother, to name a few), Landis always looms front and center. A talented artist who can replicate everything from Peanuts sketches to portraits from Picasso’s blue period, you wouldn’t be the first to wonder...
- 5/7/2014
- by Misa Shikuma
- SoundOnSight
Art and Craft
Directed by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman
Co-directed by Mark Becker
USA, 2014
Mark Landis is a con artist. The documentary about his odd life, Art and Craft, makes that abundantly clear. But Landis hasn’t spent a day in jail in his life and probably never will, because he doesn’t separate people from their money or anything else of monetary value. He doesn’t commit theft or fraud or assault; despite having successfully conned the Smithsonian Institution, he has broken no federal law in 30 years of work. It’s an almost irresistible hook for a documentary: what does Landis do, and how does he get away with it? The movie practically makes itself.
What Landis does is this: he makes copies of famous works of art – by everyone from Picasso to Peanuts creator Charles Schultz – and donates them to museums as though they were the real thing.
Directed by Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman
Co-directed by Mark Becker
USA, 2014
Mark Landis is a con artist. The documentary about his odd life, Art and Craft, makes that abundantly clear. But Landis hasn’t spent a day in jail in his life and probably never will, because he doesn’t separate people from their money or anything else of monetary value. He doesn’t commit theft or fraud or assault; despite having successfully conned the Smithsonian Institution, he has broken no federal law in 30 years of work. It’s an almost irresistible hook for a documentary: what does Landis do, and how does he get away with it? The movie practically makes itself.
What Landis does is this: he makes copies of famous works of art – by everyone from Picasso to Peanuts creator Charles Schultz – and donates them to museums as though they were the real thing.
- 4/18/2014
- by Mark Young
- SoundOnSight
Philanthropy, mental health, and art forgery all take center stage in Sam Cullman's and Jennifer Grausman's documentary "Art and Craft." It's not just about money for Mark Landis, the orchestrater of a 30-year con, and this exploration is a multi-layered look beyond art alone. Tell us about yourselves: Cullman: I grew up in New York City, the child of a movie buff mother and a sporty dad. Their passions rubbed off on me, but I always thought I’d be painter. When I picked up my first video camera in my senior year of college things changed dramatically. Grausman: A native New Yorker, I grew up aspiring to work in the art world. And after studying art history in undergrad, I worked in fundraising at my favorite museum – MoMA. While I was there though, I realized that what I really wanted to do was make movies and so...
- 4/17/2014
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
The art world is no stranger to tales that are almost too unreal to be believed, but co-directors Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman have found another one in "Art And Craft," with the documentary making its premiere at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. The film chronicles the life and artwork of Mark Landis, one of the most prolific art forgers in U.S. history, as he is finally exposed as a fraud and must confront the legacy of his 30-year con. The twist? Landis has never done it for the money, instead donating his fakes to museums across the country. A diagnosed schizophrenic, Landis learns he might have an “addiction to philanthropy,” but there is no denying his skill. And in this exclusive clip, he reveals some of the tricks he used to pull off the replicas that fooled experts. Oscilloscope Laboratories will release the film later this year, but...
- 4/15/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
If Tim’s Vermeer found traces of lenses and mirrors in the painting process, Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman’s Art and Craft looks to set aside the smoke and mirrors of the undertaking. Deadline reports that Oscilloscope, a distrib co. that pretty much works with a 50/50 fiction/non-fiction slate, acquired the rights to the doc just prior to its Tribeca Film Fest showing and will put the film out theatrically later in the year.
Gist: Following a prolific (and still-active) art forger who donates his work to museums instead of selling it, Art and Craft uncovers a curious story of obsession and understanding at the intersection of art, philanthropy and mental health.
Worth Noting: Previous creds for Cullman include the Oscar-nominated co-director of 2011′s If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (see trailer below), and in the Jennifer Grausman camp, she directed the Emmy-nominated Pressure Cooker.
Gist: Following a prolific (and still-active) art forger who donates his work to museums instead of selling it, Art and Craft uncovers a curious story of obsession and understanding at the intersection of art, philanthropy and mental health.
Worth Noting: Previous creds for Cullman include the Oscar-nominated co-director of 2011′s If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (see trailer below), and in the Jennifer Grausman camp, she directed the Emmy-nominated Pressure Cooker.
- 3/26/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired the North American rights to "Art And Craft," a documentary with crime-caper undertones from Sam Cullman and Jennifer Grausman. The film will have its world premiere at next month's Tribeca Film Festival, with Oscilloscope planning a theatrical release in late summer/early fall. Here's the synopsis per the company: "Art And Craft" is the story of the charismatic, complex Mark Landis, perhaps the most prolific art forger in Us history. For over 30 years, he's duped curators throughout the country with precise imitations of a vast range of works, from fifteenth century masterpieces to Picasso. His actions are mysterious to many — while he could fetch millions on the open market, he donates his counterfeits for free, going so far as to pose in such guises as a Jesuit priest or a philanthropic donor. Enter Matthew Leininger, a registrar from Cincinnati who was conned by Landis years ago...
- 3/26/2014
- by Emerson Gordon
- Indiewire
Art and Craft follows prolific art forger Mark Landis just at the moment his elaborate 30-year con is exposed. What follows is a guest blog by filmmakers Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker about a central consideration in making this film. Art and Craft is in the final days of a Kickstarter campaign to raise finishing funds, including monies needed to mix the score they write about here. When we first read The New York Times story about Mark Landis in 2011, we were immediately intrigued — what kind of art forger donates his work to museums instead of […]...
- 3/6/2014
- by Art and Craft
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Art and Craft follows prolific art forger Mark Landis just at the moment his elaborate 30-year con is exposed. What follows is a guest blog by filmmakers Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker about a central consideration in making this film. Art and Craft is in the final days of a Kickstarter campaign to raise finishing funds, including monies needed to mix the score they write about here. When we first read The New York Times story about Mark Landis in 2011, we were immediately intrigued — what kind of art forger donates his work to museums instead of […]...
- 3/6/2014
- by Art and Craft
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
By the looks of it, the Tribeca Film Festival might finally be growing out of their awkward teenage phase and moving into a new era where the nab more than just Sundance and SXSW festival rejects. Artistic Director Frederic Boyer has managed to nab some noteworthy American indie projects such as Lou Howe’s Gabriel (see pic above), Keith Miller’s Five Star, Adam Rapp’s Loitering with Intent, and Tristan Patterson’s Electric Slide.
On the docu front, we’ve got the latest from the likes of notable documentarians Marshall Curry and Jessica Yu. Think Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round meets child solider movie for Curry’s awesomely titled Point and Shoot — where the Libyan rebel army take hold of Curry’s subject. Yu moves from water shortage in Last Call at the Oasis (read our review) to the biggest pandemic of all; Misconception looks at the consequences...
On the docu front, we’ve got the latest from the likes of notable documentarians Marshall Curry and Jessica Yu. Think Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round meets child solider movie for Curry’s awesomely titled Point and Shoot — where the Libyan rebel army take hold of Curry’s subject. Yu moves from water shortage in Last Call at the Oasis (read our review) to the biggest pandemic of all; Misconception looks at the consequences...
- 3/4/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced half its slate for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. “Variously inspired by individual interests and experience and driven by an intense sensibility of style, the array of new filmmaking voices in this year’s competition is especially impressive and I think memorable,” said Frederic Boyer, Tribeca’s artistic director. “The range of American subcultures and international genres represented here are both eclectic and wide reaching.”
On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...
On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...
- 3/4/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Tribeca Film Festival top brass have announced (4) the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections and Viewpoints titles, comprising 47 of the 89 features that will screen at the festival over April 16-27.
The World Narrative Feature Competition will open with the world premiere of Lou Howe’s Gabriel starring Rory Culkin, while the corresponding documentary category kicks off with the world premiere of Frédéric Tcheng’s Dior And I (pictured).
Viewpoints opens with the world premiere of Onur Tukel’s Summer Of Blood and the section includes the North American premiere of Diao Yinan’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Black Coal, Thin Ice as well as the Us premiere of David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.
All three sections will commence on April 17. As previously announced, the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival will open with documentary Time Is Illmatic a day earlier.
Overall the festival will screen features from 32 countries including 55 world premieres, six international premieres, 12 North American...
The World Narrative Feature Competition will open with the world premiere of Lou Howe’s Gabriel starring Rory Culkin, while the corresponding documentary category kicks off with the world premiere of Frédéric Tcheng’s Dior And I (pictured).
Viewpoints opens with the world premiere of Onur Tukel’s Summer Of Blood and the section includes the North American premiere of Diao Yinan’s Berlin Golden Bear winner Black Coal, Thin Ice as well as the Us premiere of David Mackenzie’s Starred Up.
All three sections will commence on April 17. As previously announced, the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival will open with documentary Time Is Illmatic a day earlier.
Overall the festival will screen features from 32 countries including 55 world premieres, six international premieres, 12 North American...
- 3/4/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress; at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. "Art and Craft" Tweetable Logline: When one of the most prolific art forgers in Us history is finally exposed, he must confront the legacy of his 30-year con. Elevator Pitch: Art And Craft follows prolific art forger Mark Landis at the very moment his thirty-year ruse is exposed. What at first glance seems like a generous act of philanthropy turns out to be one of the most widespread and unusual cases of deception ever known in the art world. Production TeamDirector, Producer, Cinematographer — Sam Cullman co-directed, shot and produced the Oscar®-nominated documentary, If a Tree Falls, and was a Producer and Director of Photography on the Sundance...
- 2/7/2014
- by Indiewire
- Indiewire
It’s that time again. The biggest American film festival is upon us, and this year the Ioncinema crew will be descending on Park City with eight feet on the ground and eight eyes on Park City’s various and plentiful screens. Eric Lavallee, Nicholas Bell, Caitlin Coder and I will be covering just about every inch of this year’s festival here at Ioncinema.com, as well as on that ever increasingly vibrant instanews network – Twitter. Be sure to follow @ioncinema and, as stated above, my personal handle @Rectangular_Eye, as we’ll be tweeting throughout the festival with breaking news, reviews, and sightings, all the while trying to keep up with the massive amount of content sure to be coming from this year’s Sundance filmmakers themselves, most of which have their own Twitter accounts and are listed at length below (minus the world & short programs). Whether you...
- 1/16/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Part two in this year’s Sundance Twitterverse series, we are bringing you direct contact with most of next year’s Oscar short list. No one on this list is repped more than the No No: A Dockumentary (@dockumentary) crew, who are all sporting profile pics from the film on their feeds.
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory – @AliveInsideFilm
Editor Manuel Tsingaris – @MTsingaris
Composer Itall Shur – @ItaalShur
All the Beautiful Things – @ATBThingsMovie
Director John Harkrider – @pathetic100
Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart
Cinematographer Naiti Gámez – @naitigamez
The Case Against 8 – @TheCaseAgainst8
Co-Director Ben Cotner – @bcotner
Producer Rebekah Fergusson – @R_Films
Composer Blake Neely – @cowonthewall
Cesar’s Last Fast – @CesarsLastFast
Co-Director Richard Ray Perez – @BraveNewRick
Producer Molly O’Brien – @mobworks
Editor Lewis Erskine – @EditorSavant
Editor Carla Gutierrez – @CarlitaGu
Cinematographer James Chressanthis – @NoSubtitles
E-team - @ETeamFilm
Subject: Human Rights Watch – @hrw
Co-Director Katy Chevigny – @mightychevs
Co-Director...
U.S. Documentary Competition
Alive Inside: A Story of Music & Memory – @AliveInsideFilm
Editor Manuel Tsingaris – @MTsingaris
Composer Itall Shur – @ItaalShur
All the Beautiful Things – @ATBThingsMovie
Director John Harkrider – @pathetic100
Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart
Cinematographer Naiti Gámez – @naitigamez
The Case Against 8 – @TheCaseAgainst8
Co-Director Ben Cotner – @bcotner
Producer Rebekah Fergusson – @R_Films
Composer Blake Neely – @cowonthewall
Cesar’s Last Fast – @CesarsLastFast
Co-Director Richard Ray Perez – @BraveNewRick
Producer Molly O’Brien – @mobworks
Editor Lewis Erskine – @EditorSavant
Editor Carla Gutierrez – @CarlitaGu
Cinematographer James Chressanthis – @NoSubtitles
E-team - @ETeamFilm
Subject: Human Rights Watch – @hrw
Co-Director Katy Chevigny – @mightychevs
Co-Director...
- 1/16/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
The San Francisco Film Society has announced the contenders for the 2013 Sffs Documentary Film Fund awards totalling $100,000.
The finallists are: John Fiege for Above All Else; Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman for Art And Craft; Anne Bogart and Holly Morris for The Babushkas Of Chernobyl; Darius Clark Monroe for Evolution Of A Criminal; Jamie Meltzer for Freedom Fighters; Anne De Mare and Kristen Kelly for Homestretch; and Catherine Gund for How To Become An Extreme Action Hero.
The list continues with Geeta Patel and Ravi V Patel for One In A Billion; Hillevi Loven for Radical Love; Amir Soltani and Chihiro Wimbush for Redemption; Tracy Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo for Rich Hill; Andrew James for Street Fighting Man; and Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber for Tomorrow We Disappear.
The contenders were selected from more than 200 applicants and winners will be announced in late July.
The Sffs Documentary Film Fund has distributed $100,000 annually and was set up...
The finallists are: John Fiege for Above All Else; Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman for Art And Craft; Anne Bogart and Holly Morris for The Babushkas Of Chernobyl; Darius Clark Monroe for Evolution Of A Criminal; Jamie Meltzer for Freedom Fighters; Anne De Mare and Kristen Kelly for Homestretch; and Catherine Gund for How To Become An Extreme Action Hero.
The list continues with Geeta Patel and Ravi V Patel for One In A Billion; Hillevi Loven for Radical Love; Amir Soltani and Chihiro Wimbush for Redemption; Tracy Tragos and Andrew Droz Palermo for Rich Hill; Andrew James for Street Fighting Man; and Jimmy Goldblum and Adam Weber for Tomorrow We Disappear.
The contenders were selected from more than 200 applicants and winners will be announced in late July.
The Sffs Documentary Film Fund has distributed $100,000 annually and was set up...
- 6/17/2013
- ScreenDaily
The San Francisco Film Society has announced the 13 finalists for the 2013 Sffs Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $100,000, which support feature-length documentary films in post-production. Finalists were selected from more than 200 applicants; full list below. The winners will be announced in late July. More info on the film funds is here.2013 Documentary Film Fund Finalists:Above All Else — John Fiege, director/producerAbove All Else is the remarkable story of how one man’s struggle to protect his family from the Keystone Xl pipeline transformed the fight against climate change in America. For more information visit aboveallelsefilm.com. Art and Craft — Jennifer Grausman and Sam Cullman, co-director/producersExamining the curious story of a prolific art forger who isn't in it for the money—but chooses instead to donate his work to museums—Art and Craft uncovers one of the most intriguing cases of deception in art history. Filmed at the moment his ruse is exposed,...
- 6/17/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Vol. I Issue 6
Send us links to your sizzle reels and film sites.
Note: See Issues 1, 2, 3, and 4 for reviews and clips of the Academy documentary films and short films. Additional reviews of the documentary features follow in this issue.
Best documentary feature
5 Broken Cameras Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
The Gatekeepers Nominees to be determined *See note below
How to Survive a Plague Nominees to be determined
The Invisible War Nominees to be determined
Searching for Sugar Man Nominees to be determined
Best documentary short subject
Inocente Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Kings Point Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
Mondays at Racine Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
Open Heart Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
Redemption Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill
Best animated short film
Adam and Dog Minkyu Lee
Fresh Guacamole Pes
Head over Heels Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare David Silverman
Paperman John Kahrs
Best live action short film
Asad Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
Buzkashi Boys Sam French and Ariel Nasr
Curfew Shawn Christensen
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
Henry Yan England
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) from a documentary
Before My Time from The documentary feature Chasing Ice Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
Note: *Nominees to be determined* The Documentary Brand gives the nomination to the individual(s) most involved in the key creative aspects of the filmmaking process. A maximum of two persons may be designated as nominees, one of whom must be the credited director who exercised directorial control, and the other of whom must have a producer or director credit. If a producer is named, that individual must have performed a major portion of the producing functions, in accordance with Academy producer criteria. No more than two statuettes will normally be given in the Documentary Feature category. All individuals with a “Producer” or “Produced by” credit on films that reach the semifinal round will automatically be vetted.
The Documentary Branch Executive Committee will determine which producers, if any, are eligible to receive an Oscar. In the unlikely event of a dispute, filmmakers may appeal the committee’s decision. In extremely rare circumstances, a third statuette may be awarded.
Production companies or persons with the screen credit of executive producer, co-producer or any credit other than director or producer shall not be eligible as nominees for the motion picture.
DGA Documentary Award Nominations
Kirby Dick The Invisible War
This is Mr. Dick’s first DGA Award nomination.
Malik Bendjelloul Searching For Sugar Man
This is Mr. Bendjelloul’s first DGA Award nomination.
Lauren Greenfield The Queen of Versailles
This is Ms. Greenfield’s first DGA Award nomination.
David France How To Survive A Plague
This is Mr. France’s first DGA Award nomination.
Alison Klayman Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry
This is Ms. Klayman’s first DGA Award nomination.
Two Academy Nominated Documentary Features
& One Academy Short Listed Documentary Reviewed
The Gatekeepers, directed by Dror Moreh
Documentary Feature Nominee
Six former heads of Israel’s domestic secret service agency, the Shin Bet, share their insights and reflect publicly on their actions and decisions in The Gatekeepers, a film by Dror Moreh. These six heads of the Shin Bet stood at the center of Israel's decision-making process in all matters pertaining to security. They worked closely with every Israeli prime minister, and their assessments and insights had—and continue to have—a profound impact on Israeli policy. The Gatekeepers is an exclusive account of their successes and failures.
I find The Gatekeepers remarkable. Not for its craft but for its concept and vision. Imagine
J Edger Hoover talking about his tenure at the FBI, his successes and his failures, his interactions with the Presidents and members of Congress, and his critical self-evaluation of his mission and how his agency’s work affected our nation. Imagine. Dror Moreh accomplished this feat when he convinced these six surviving members of the Shin Bet, to speak on camera.
The film provides a historical perspective of Israel that is both candid and critical of the successive governments in this rare Middle Eastern democracy. The Shin Bet was created in 1949 by David Ben-Gurion’s government to focus on the internal affairs of Israel and evolved into dealing with counterterrorism and intelligence gathering in the West Bank and Gaza.
These intelligence heads, like ours, report to the President/Prime Minister. They are not part of the military complex. It is this context that gives this work its power. We hear the story of Israel’s struggle to protect itself from both its internal and external enemies; the bombers, terrorists, agents and others who worked to destroy this small country. These men are not glamorous or like the fictional heads of the spy agencies we have seen in James Bond and Bourne films. They are bald or balding grandfather-types. Articulate, highly educated, calm and yet we know that they protected Israel from its enemies even if they had them killed.
This is one of the strongest of the nominated docs. It raises significant issues of personal responsibilities. Despite the lack of oversight we don’t feel that this is an organization gone amuck like the Catholic Church not protecting children or the Us Military not protecting its members from sexual harassment. We see these articulate men as guardians and protectors of their nation steadfastly doing their duty within the confines of their moral beliefs. What is scary about The Gatekeepers is that clearly there could have been abuses and wrongs done by the Shin Bet if these six had less character or their mission was redefined by the government without regard to moral or ethical standards. The film on reflection is troubling for regardless of how the spectator might feel about Israel it forces us to look at this conflict through the lenses of these six guardians and we can only wonder what they don’t tell us about what they did in the name of their country.
Credits:
Director: Dror Moreh
Camera: Avner Shahaf
Producers: Dror Moreh, Estelle Fialon, Philippa Kowarsky
Co Producer: Anna Van Der Wee
Sound: Amos Zipori
Sound Design: Aex Claude
Music: Ab Ovo, Jérôme Chassagnard, Régis Baillet
Editor: Oron Adar
Production Companies: Dror Moreh Productions, Les Films du Poisson, Cinephil
In Co-Production with: Mac Guff, Wild Heart Productions, Arte France, Iba, Ndr, Rtbf
With the support of: Cnc, Media, Région Ile-de-France, Procirep, Angoa, The Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts – Cinema Project
Distribution: Sony Classics
Trailer: http://www.sonyclassics.com/thegatekeepers/
The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki
Short Listed Documentary Feature for Academy Award nomination
The House I Live In looks at how America has waged war on some of its poorest citizens, costing countless lives, destroying families, and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. It posits that over the last forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for more than 45 million arrests and shows how America became the world’s largest jailer, damaging poor communities at home and abroad. Yet today drugs are cheaper, purer and more available than ever before. It shows that drug abuse is a public health issue. Despite this, it is treated by our society as a criminal matter and a vast machine has been created that feeds on the men and women who are incarcerated. Because of this, the prisoners are not offered help or a cure for their underlying problems, so they return to prison in a never ending cycle.
Eugene Jarecki, whose previous films looked at the military industrial complex (Why We Fight and The Trials of Henry Kissinger), won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance in both 2005 and 2010. The film tackles difficult material. Material that has been in scores of documentaries and television shows over the years. Yet Jarecki, using his personal experience, a wealth of interviews and strong case studies, builds a compelling case for changing the sentencing guidelines for crack (and cocaine) and for dealing with both addiction and the underlying causes of addiction. Jarecki is a skillful filmmaker who has picked a vast and complex subject and has created a work that while rich in content moves along at a good pace although it might have been stronger if it had tried to do less. The film editor Paul Frost and the composer Robert Miller do an excellent job building strong sequences with evocative music. It was nicely shot by Sam Cullman and Derek Hallquist. Richard Abramowitz’s Abramorama handled the distribution and was successful getting the work out which is never easy for such an issue oriented film.
Credits:
Director, Producer, Screenwriter: Eugene Jarecki
Producers: Melinda Shopsin, Sam Cullman, Christopher St. John
Executive Producers: Eugene Jarecki, Nick Fraser, Joslyn Barnes, Danny Glover, Russell Simmons, Roy Ackerman, John Legend, Sally Jo Feifer, Nick Fraser
Camera: Sam Cullman, Derek Hallquist
Sound: Matthew Freed, Art Jaso
Music: Robert Milller
Editor: Paul Frost
Production Companies: Charlotte Street Films, Zdf Enterprises, Independent Television Services, BBC, Aljazeera Documentary Channel, Vpro, Special Broadcasting Service Corporation, Louverture Films, Nhk
Distribution (Us): Abramorama Entertainment, Snag Films
How to Survive a Plague, directed by David France
Documentary Feature Nominee
How to Survive a Plague by writer and filmmaker David France tells the story of how two coalitions came together to lobby for effective treatments and funding for treatments of AIDS in the late 1980s when it was evident that the Us government and its health and other agencies were not being very effective dealing with the AIDS epidemic. The coalitions, Act Up and Tag (Treatment Action Group) helped to make AIDS more treatable. While there is still no cure for AIDS and thousands of people globally still die from the virus, it is now possible to prolong life with treatments that have been developed.
Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With access to never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and '90s, filmmaker David France puts the viewer smack in the middle of the controversial actions, the heated meetings, the heartbreaking failures, and the exultant breakthroughs. Faced with their own mortality an improbable group of young men and women, many of them HIV-positive took on Washington and the medical establishment.
While there have been a handful of outstanding films dealing with the AIDS epidemic including Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter and Silverlake Life, to name a few, How to Survive a Plague picks up on the story begun in the landmark Common Threads and updates the struggle, looking at the quest to find a treatment and possibly a cure for this vicious disease. The film weaves together stories of activism and shows how a small determined group can effect change not just nationally but globally. While the film is not as well made as Common Threads or Dr. Peter, it’s powerful. The archival footage manages to capture some of the key figures of Act Up and Tag showing actions as they take place. Instead of relying on talking heads to tell this amazing story, it is presented with footage shot as the story unfolded. This footage and its solid editing distinguishes this film from so many of the works that have tried to tell this story.
Few documentaries have such powerful antagonists, the government, incompetence, a lack of urgency on the part of the medical community and fear. Throw in homophobia and it is evident that the dramatic actions of these heroes saved hundreds of thousands of possible victims from this mostly sexually spread plague.
My only serious criticism of this documentary is its failure to be clearer that the plague continues, that there is no cure for HIV/AIDS and that the community continues to give a false sense of hope. Currently the Cdc states:
” ..estimates that 1,148,200 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 207,600 (18.1%) who are unaware of their infection1. Over the past decade, the number of people living with HIV has increased, while the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. Still, the pace of new infections continues at far too high a level—particularly among certain groups.
HIV Incidence(new infections): The estimated incidence of HIV has remained stable overall in recent years, at about 50,000 new HIV infections per year.2 Within the overall estimates, however, some groups are affected more than others. Msm (men who have sex with men) continue to bear the greatest burden of HIV infection, and among races/ethnicities, African Americans continue to be disproportionately affected.”
This information could have been contained in the last few minutes of this powerful work, to inspire and warn the audience that testing is critical and that safe sex is still the only way to contain AIDS.
The Filmmaker
David France, Director, Producer
David France is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about AIDS since 1982 and today is one of the best-known chroniclers of the epidemic. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, GQ, and New York magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and has received the National Headliner Award and the GLAAD Media Award, among others. Several films have been inspired by his work, most recently the Emmy-nominated Showtime film Our Fathers, for which he received a WGA nomination. He is at work on a major history of AIDS, due from Alfred A. Knopf in 2013. Based on decades of reporting, How to Survive a Plague is his directorial debut.
Credits
Director: David France
Writers: David France, Todd Woody Richman, Tyler H. Walk
Producers: David France, Howard Gertler
Executive Producers: Dan Cogan, Joy A. Tomchin
Co-Producer: Todd Woody Richman
Camera: Derek Wieshahn
Sound: Stuart Deutsch, Topher Reifeiss
Original Music: Stuart Bogie
Editor: Todd Woody Richman, Tyler H. Walk
Production Companies: Public Square Films, Ninety Thousand Words
Distribution (Us): Sundance Selects
Short Notes and Update:
The International Documentary Association in Los Angeles presents Doc U: The Doc Reporter
Navigating the Intersection of Documentary and Journalism
Moderated by: Karin Skellwagen (The Brooks Institute)
With Panelists:
Sarah Burns (The Central Park Five)
Michael Donaldson (Partner, Donaldson & Callif)
David France (How To Survive A Plague)
For information: http://doc-u-jan-2013-la.eventbrite.com/
Sundance Announces 2013 International Documentary Competition:
Fallen City/ China (Director: Qi Zhao) — Fallen City spans four years to reveal how three families who survived the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to embark on a journey searching for hope, purpose, identity, and to rebuild their lives in a new China torn between tradition and modernity. North American Premiere
Fire in the Blood/ India (Director: Dylan Mohan Gray) — In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Western governments and pharmaceutical companies blocked low-cost antiretroviral drugs from reaching AIDS-stricken Africa, causing 10 million or more unnecessary deaths. An improbable group of people decided to fight back. North American Premiere
Google and the World Brain/ Spain, United Kingdom (Director: Ben Lewis) — In the most ambitious Internet project ever conceived, Google is working to scan every book in the world. Google says it is building a library for mankind. But some are trying to stop it, claiming that Google may have other intentions. World Premiere
The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear/ Georgia, Germany (Director: Tinatin Gurchiani) — A film director casting a 15-23-year-old protagonist visits villages and cities to meet people who answer her call. She follows those who prove to be interesting enough through various dramatic and funny situations. North American Premiere
The Moo Man/ United Kingdom (Directors: Andy Heathcote, Heike Bachelier) — A year in the life of heroic farmer Steve, scene stealing Ida (queen of the herd), and a supporting cast of 55 cows. When Ida falls ill, Steve’s optimism is challenged and their whole way of life is at stake. World Premiere
Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer/ Russian Federation, United Kingdom (Directors: Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin) — Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial: the three young artists or the society they live in? World Premiere
A River Changes Course/ Cambodia, U.S.A. (Director: Kalyanee Mam) — Three young Cambodians struggle to overcome the crushing effects of deforestation, overfishing, and overwhelming debt in this devastatingly beautiful story of a country reeling from the tragedies of war and rushing to keep pace with a rapidly expanding world. World Premiere
Salma/ United Kingdom, India (Director: Kim Longinotto) — When Salma, a young girl in South India, reached puberty, her parents locked her away. Millions of girls all over the world share the same fate. Twenty-five years later, Salma has fought her way back to the outside world. World Premiere
The Square (Al Midan)/ Egypt, U.S.A. (Director: Jehane Noujaim) — What does it mean to risk your life for your ideals? How far will five revolutionaries go in defending their beliefs in the fight for their nation? World Premiere
The Stuart Hall Project/ United Kingdom (Director: John Akomfrah) — Antinuclear campaigner, New Left activist and founding father of Cultural Studies, this documentary interweaves 70 years of Stuart Hall’s film, radio and television appearances, and material from his private archive to document a memorable life and construct a portrait of Britain’s foremost radical intellectual. World Premiere
The Summit/ Ireland, United Kingdom (Director: Nick Ryan) — Twenty-four climbers converged at the last stop before summiting the most dangerous mountain on Earth. Forty-eight hours later, 11 had been killed or simply vanished. Had one, Ger McDonnell, stuck to the climbers' code, he might still be alive. International Premiere
Who is Dayani Cristal?/ United Kingdom (Director: Marc Silver) — An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for its identity leads us across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo. World Premiere. Day One Film
Producer’s Guild Announces Nominations for the Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures and Non-Fiction Television:
A People Uncounted(Urbinder Films)
Producers: Marc Swenker, Aaron Yeger
The Gatekeepers(Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Estelle Fialon, Philippa Kowarsky, Dror Moreh
The Island President(Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Producers: Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen
The Other Dream Team(The Film Arcade)
Producers: Marius Markevicius, Jon Weinbach
Searching For Sugar Man(Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
Nominations for the Award for Outstanding Producer of
Non-Fiction Television:
American Masters(PBS)
Producers: Prudence Glass, Susan Lacy, Julie Sacks
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations(Travel Channel)
Producers: Anthony Bourdain, Christopher Collins, Lydia Tenaglia, Sandy Zweig
Deadliest Catch(Discovery Channel)
Producers: Thom Beers, Jeff Conroy, Sean Dash, John Gray, Sheila McCormack, Bill Pruitt, Decker Watson
Inside the Actors Studio(Bravo)
Producers: James Lipton, Shawn Tesser, Jeff Wurtz
Shark Tank(ABC)
Producers: Rhett Bachner, Becky Blitz, Mark Burnett, Bill Gaudsmith, Yun Lingner, Brien Meagher, Clay Newbill, Jim Roush, Laura Skowlund, Paul Sutera, Patrick Wood
BAFTA Short and Documentary Feature Nominations (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, London)
Documentary Feature
The ImposterBart Layton, Dimitri Doganis
Marley Kevin Macdonald, Steve Bing, Charles Steel
McCullin David Morris, Jacqui Morris
Searching for Sugar Man Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
West of Memphis Amy Berg
Short Animation
Here to Fall Kris Kelly, Evelyn McGrath
I’m Fine Thanks Eamonn O'Neill
The Making of Longbird Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson
Short Film
The Curse Fyzal Boulifa, Gavin Humphries
Good Night Muriel d'Ansembourg, Eva Sigurdardottir
Swimmer Lynne Ramsay, Peter Carlton, Diarmid Scrimshaw
Tumult Johnny Barrington, Rhianna Andrews
The Voorman Problem Mark Gill, Baldwin Li
The Broadcast Film Critics Association (Bfca)
Documentary Feature Nominations
Bully
The Imposter
Queen of Versailles
Searching for Sugar Man (Winner)
The Central Park Five
West of Memphis
________________________________________________________________________
Credits: Editing by Jessica Just for SydneysBuzz
________________________________________________________________________
Block Doc Workshops in Los Angeles February 2013 Ida Doc U
The International Documentary Association will be hosting Documentary Funding and Documentary Tune-Up Workshops with Block on February 9/10. http://www.documentary.org/news/february-documentary-producing-workshops-mitchell-block
Mitchell Block specializes in conceiving, producing, marketing & distributing independent features & consulting. He is an expert in placing both completed works into distribution & working with producers to make projects fundable. He conducts regular workshops in film producing in Los Angeles and most recently in Maine, Russia and in Myanmar (Burma).
Poster Girl, produced by Block was nominated for a Documentary Academy Award and selected by the Ida as the Best Doc Short 2011. It was also nominated for two Emmy Awards and aired on HBO. He is an executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Carrier, a 10-hour series that he conceived & co-created. Block is a graduate of Tisch School and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Television Academy, a founding member of BAFTA-la and has been teaching at USC School of Cinematic Arts since 1979. Currently Block teaches a required class in the USC Peter Stark Producing Program.
______________________________________________________________________
©2013Mwb All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved. All information and designs on the Sites are copyrighted material owned by Block. Reproduction, dissemination, or transmission of any part of the material here without the express written consent of the owner is strictly prohibited.All other product names and marks on Block Direct, whether trademarks, service marks, or other type, and whether registered or unregistered, is the property of Block.
Send us links to your sizzle reels and film sites.
Note: See Issues 1, 2, 3, and 4 for reviews and clips of the Academy documentary films and short films. Additional reviews of the documentary features follow in this issue.
Best documentary feature
5 Broken Cameras Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
The Gatekeepers Nominees to be determined *See note below
How to Survive a Plague Nominees to be determined
The Invisible War Nominees to be determined
Searching for Sugar Man Nominees to be determined
Best documentary short subject
Inocente Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine
Kings Point Sari Gilman and Jedd Wider
Mondays at Racine Cynthia Wade and Robin Honan
Open Heart Kief Davidson and Cori Shepherd Stern
Redemption Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill
Best animated short film
Adam and Dog Minkyu Lee
Fresh Guacamole Pes
Head over Heels Timothy Reckart and Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly
Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare David Silverman
Paperman John Kahrs
Best live action short film
Asad Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura
Buzkashi Boys Sam French and Ariel Nasr
Curfew Shawn Christensen
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw) Tom Van Avermaet and Ellen De Waele
Henry Yan England
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song) from a documentary
Before My Time from The documentary feature Chasing Ice Music and Lyric by J. Ralph
Note: *Nominees to be determined* The Documentary Brand gives the nomination to the individual(s) most involved in the key creative aspects of the filmmaking process. A maximum of two persons may be designated as nominees, one of whom must be the credited director who exercised directorial control, and the other of whom must have a producer or director credit. If a producer is named, that individual must have performed a major portion of the producing functions, in accordance with Academy producer criteria. No more than two statuettes will normally be given in the Documentary Feature category. All individuals with a “Producer” or “Produced by” credit on films that reach the semifinal round will automatically be vetted.
The Documentary Branch Executive Committee will determine which producers, if any, are eligible to receive an Oscar. In the unlikely event of a dispute, filmmakers may appeal the committee’s decision. In extremely rare circumstances, a third statuette may be awarded.
Production companies or persons with the screen credit of executive producer, co-producer or any credit other than director or producer shall not be eligible as nominees for the motion picture.
DGA Documentary Award Nominations
Kirby Dick The Invisible War
This is Mr. Dick’s first DGA Award nomination.
Malik Bendjelloul Searching For Sugar Man
This is Mr. Bendjelloul’s first DGA Award nomination.
Lauren Greenfield The Queen of Versailles
This is Ms. Greenfield’s first DGA Award nomination.
David France How To Survive A Plague
This is Mr. France’s first DGA Award nomination.
Alison Klayman Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry
This is Ms. Klayman’s first DGA Award nomination.
Two Academy Nominated Documentary Features
& One Academy Short Listed Documentary Reviewed
The Gatekeepers, directed by Dror Moreh
Documentary Feature Nominee
Six former heads of Israel’s domestic secret service agency, the Shin Bet, share their insights and reflect publicly on their actions and decisions in The Gatekeepers, a film by Dror Moreh. These six heads of the Shin Bet stood at the center of Israel's decision-making process in all matters pertaining to security. They worked closely with every Israeli prime minister, and their assessments and insights had—and continue to have—a profound impact on Israeli policy. The Gatekeepers is an exclusive account of their successes and failures.
I find The Gatekeepers remarkable. Not for its craft but for its concept and vision. Imagine
J Edger Hoover talking about his tenure at the FBI, his successes and his failures, his interactions with the Presidents and members of Congress, and his critical self-evaluation of his mission and how his agency’s work affected our nation. Imagine. Dror Moreh accomplished this feat when he convinced these six surviving members of the Shin Bet, to speak on camera.
The film provides a historical perspective of Israel that is both candid and critical of the successive governments in this rare Middle Eastern democracy. The Shin Bet was created in 1949 by David Ben-Gurion’s government to focus on the internal affairs of Israel and evolved into dealing with counterterrorism and intelligence gathering in the West Bank and Gaza.
These intelligence heads, like ours, report to the President/Prime Minister. They are not part of the military complex. It is this context that gives this work its power. We hear the story of Israel’s struggle to protect itself from both its internal and external enemies; the bombers, terrorists, agents and others who worked to destroy this small country. These men are not glamorous or like the fictional heads of the spy agencies we have seen in James Bond and Bourne films. They are bald or balding grandfather-types. Articulate, highly educated, calm and yet we know that they protected Israel from its enemies even if they had them killed.
This is one of the strongest of the nominated docs. It raises significant issues of personal responsibilities. Despite the lack of oversight we don’t feel that this is an organization gone amuck like the Catholic Church not protecting children or the Us Military not protecting its members from sexual harassment. We see these articulate men as guardians and protectors of their nation steadfastly doing their duty within the confines of their moral beliefs. What is scary about The Gatekeepers is that clearly there could have been abuses and wrongs done by the Shin Bet if these six had less character or their mission was redefined by the government without regard to moral or ethical standards. The film on reflection is troubling for regardless of how the spectator might feel about Israel it forces us to look at this conflict through the lenses of these six guardians and we can only wonder what they don’t tell us about what they did in the name of their country.
Credits:
Director: Dror Moreh
Camera: Avner Shahaf
Producers: Dror Moreh, Estelle Fialon, Philippa Kowarsky
Co Producer: Anna Van Der Wee
Sound: Amos Zipori
Sound Design: Aex Claude
Music: Ab Ovo, Jérôme Chassagnard, Régis Baillet
Editor: Oron Adar
Production Companies: Dror Moreh Productions, Les Films du Poisson, Cinephil
In Co-Production with: Mac Guff, Wild Heart Productions, Arte France, Iba, Ndr, Rtbf
With the support of: Cnc, Media, Région Ile-de-France, Procirep, Angoa, The Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts – Cinema Project
Distribution: Sony Classics
Trailer: http://www.sonyclassics.com/thegatekeepers/
The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki
Short Listed Documentary Feature for Academy Award nomination
The House I Live In looks at how America has waged war on some of its poorest citizens, costing countless lives, destroying families, and inflicting untold damage on future generations of Americans. It posits that over the last forty years, the War on Drugs has accounted for more than 45 million arrests and shows how America became the world’s largest jailer, damaging poor communities at home and abroad. Yet today drugs are cheaper, purer and more available than ever before. It shows that drug abuse is a public health issue. Despite this, it is treated by our society as a criminal matter and a vast machine has been created that feeds on the men and women who are incarcerated. Because of this, the prisoners are not offered help or a cure for their underlying problems, so they return to prison in a never ending cycle.
Eugene Jarecki, whose previous films looked at the military industrial complex (Why We Fight and The Trials of Henry Kissinger), won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance in both 2005 and 2010. The film tackles difficult material. Material that has been in scores of documentaries and television shows over the years. Yet Jarecki, using his personal experience, a wealth of interviews and strong case studies, builds a compelling case for changing the sentencing guidelines for crack (and cocaine) and for dealing with both addiction and the underlying causes of addiction. Jarecki is a skillful filmmaker who has picked a vast and complex subject and has created a work that while rich in content moves along at a good pace although it might have been stronger if it had tried to do less. The film editor Paul Frost and the composer Robert Miller do an excellent job building strong sequences with evocative music. It was nicely shot by Sam Cullman and Derek Hallquist. Richard Abramowitz’s Abramorama handled the distribution and was successful getting the work out which is never easy for such an issue oriented film.
Credits:
Director, Producer, Screenwriter: Eugene Jarecki
Producers: Melinda Shopsin, Sam Cullman, Christopher St. John
Executive Producers: Eugene Jarecki, Nick Fraser, Joslyn Barnes, Danny Glover, Russell Simmons, Roy Ackerman, John Legend, Sally Jo Feifer, Nick Fraser
Camera: Sam Cullman, Derek Hallquist
Sound: Matthew Freed, Art Jaso
Music: Robert Milller
Editor: Paul Frost
Production Companies: Charlotte Street Films, Zdf Enterprises, Independent Television Services, BBC, Aljazeera Documentary Channel, Vpro, Special Broadcasting Service Corporation, Louverture Films, Nhk
Distribution (Us): Abramorama Entertainment, Snag Films
How to Survive a Plague, directed by David France
Documentary Feature Nominee
How to Survive a Plague by writer and filmmaker David France tells the story of how two coalitions came together to lobby for effective treatments and funding for treatments of AIDS in the late 1980s when it was evident that the Us government and its health and other agencies were not being very effective dealing with the AIDS epidemic. The coalitions, Act Up and Tag (Treatment Action Group) helped to make AIDS more treatable. While there is still no cure for AIDS and thousands of people globally still die from the virus, it is now possible to prolong life with treatments that have been developed.
Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With access to never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and '90s, filmmaker David France puts the viewer smack in the middle of the controversial actions, the heated meetings, the heartbreaking failures, and the exultant breakthroughs. Faced with their own mortality an improbable group of young men and women, many of them HIV-positive took on Washington and the medical establishment.
While there have been a handful of outstanding films dealing with the AIDS epidemic including Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt, The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter and Silverlake Life, to name a few, How to Survive a Plague picks up on the story begun in the landmark Common Threads and updates the struggle, looking at the quest to find a treatment and possibly a cure for this vicious disease. The film weaves together stories of activism and shows how a small determined group can effect change not just nationally but globally. While the film is not as well made as Common Threads or Dr. Peter, it’s powerful. The archival footage manages to capture some of the key figures of Act Up and Tag showing actions as they take place. Instead of relying on talking heads to tell this amazing story, it is presented with footage shot as the story unfolded. This footage and its solid editing distinguishes this film from so many of the works that have tried to tell this story.
Few documentaries have such powerful antagonists, the government, incompetence, a lack of urgency on the part of the medical community and fear. Throw in homophobia and it is evident that the dramatic actions of these heroes saved hundreds of thousands of possible victims from this mostly sexually spread plague.
My only serious criticism of this documentary is its failure to be clearer that the plague continues, that there is no cure for HIV/AIDS and that the community continues to give a false sense of hope. Currently the Cdc states:
” ..estimates that 1,148,200 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 207,600 (18.1%) who are unaware of their infection1. Over the past decade, the number of people living with HIV has increased, while the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. Still, the pace of new infections continues at far too high a level—particularly among certain groups.
HIV Incidence(new infections): The estimated incidence of HIV has remained stable overall in recent years, at about 50,000 new HIV infections per year.2 Within the overall estimates, however, some groups are affected more than others. Msm (men who have sex with men) continue to bear the greatest burden of HIV infection, and among races/ethnicities, African Americans continue to be disproportionately affected.”
This information could have been contained in the last few minutes of this powerful work, to inspire and warn the audience that testing is critical and that safe sex is still the only way to contain AIDS.
The Filmmaker
David France, Director, Producer
David France is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about AIDS since 1982 and today is one of the best-known chroniclers of the epidemic. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, GQ, and New York magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and has received the National Headliner Award and the GLAAD Media Award, among others. Several films have been inspired by his work, most recently the Emmy-nominated Showtime film Our Fathers, for which he received a WGA nomination. He is at work on a major history of AIDS, due from Alfred A. Knopf in 2013. Based on decades of reporting, How to Survive a Plague is his directorial debut.
Credits
Director: David France
Writers: David France, Todd Woody Richman, Tyler H. Walk
Producers: David France, Howard Gertler
Executive Producers: Dan Cogan, Joy A. Tomchin
Co-Producer: Todd Woody Richman
Camera: Derek Wieshahn
Sound: Stuart Deutsch, Topher Reifeiss
Original Music: Stuart Bogie
Editor: Todd Woody Richman, Tyler H. Walk
Production Companies: Public Square Films, Ninety Thousand Words
Distribution (Us): Sundance Selects
Short Notes and Update:
The International Documentary Association in Los Angeles presents Doc U: The Doc Reporter
Navigating the Intersection of Documentary and Journalism
Moderated by: Karin Skellwagen (The Brooks Institute)
With Panelists:
Sarah Burns (The Central Park Five)
Michael Donaldson (Partner, Donaldson & Callif)
David France (How To Survive A Plague)
For information: http://doc-u-jan-2013-la.eventbrite.com/
Sundance Announces 2013 International Documentary Competition:
Fallen City/ China (Director: Qi Zhao) — Fallen City spans four years to reveal how three families who survived the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to embark on a journey searching for hope, purpose, identity, and to rebuild their lives in a new China torn between tradition and modernity. North American Premiere
Fire in the Blood/ India (Director: Dylan Mohan Gray) — In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Western governments and pharmaceutical companies blocked low-cost antiretroviral drugs from reaching AIDS-stricken Africa, causing 10 million or more unnecessary deaths. An improbable group of people decided to fight back. North American Premiere
Google and the World Brain/ Spain, United Kingdom (Director: Ben Lewis) — In the most ambitious Internet project ever conceived, Google is working to scan every book in the world. Google says it is building a library for mankind. But some are trying to stop it, claiming that Google may have other intentions. World Premiere
The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear/ Georgia, Germany (Director: Tinatin Gurchiani) — A film director casting a 15-23-year-old protagonist visits villages and cities to meet people who answer her call. She follows those who prove to be interesting enough through various dramatic and funny situations. North American Premiere
The Moo Man/ United Kingdom (Directors: Andy Heathcote, Heike Bachelier) — A year in the life of heroic farmer Steve, scene stealing Ida (queen of the herd), and a supporting cast of 55 cows. When Ida falls ill, Steve’s optimism is challenged and their whole way of life is at stake. World Premiere
Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer/ Russian Federation, United Kingdom (Directors: Mike Lerner, Maxim Pozdorovkin) — Three young women face seven years in a Russian prison for a satirical performance in a Moscow cathedral. But who is really on trial: the three young artists or the society they live in? World Premiere
A River Changes Course/ Cambodia, U.S.A. (Director: Kalyanee Mam) — Three young Cambodians struggle to overcome the crushing effects of deforestation, overfishing, and overwhelming debt in this devastatingly beautiful story of a country reeling from the tragedies of war and rushing to keep pace with a rapidly expanding world. World Premiere
Salma/ United Kingdom, India (Director: Kim Longinotto) — When Salma, a young girl in South India, reached puberty, her parents locked her away. Millions of girls all over the world share the same fate. Twenty-five years later, Salma has fought her way back to the outside world. World Premiere
The Square (Al Midan)/ Egypt, U.S.A. (Director: Jehane Noujaim) — What does it mean to risk your life for your ideals? How far will five revolutionaries go in defending their beliefs in the fight for their nation? World Premiere
The Stuart Hall Project/ United Kingdom (Director: John Akomfrah) — Antinuclear campaigner, New Left activist and founding father of Cultural Studies, this documentary interweaves 70 years of Stuart Hall’s film, radio and television appearances, and material from his private archive to document a memorable life and construct a portrait of Britain’s foremost radical intellectual. World Premiere
The Summit/ Ireland, United Kingdom (Director: Nick Ryan) — Twenty-four climbers converged at the last stop before summiting the most dangerous mountain on Earth. Forty-eight hours later, 11 had been killed or simply vanished. Had one, Ger McDonnell, stuck to the climbers' code, he might still be alive. International Premiere
Who is Dayani Cristal?/ United Kingdom (Director: Marc Silver) — An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for its identity leads us across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo. World Premiere. Day One Film
Producer’s Guild Announces Nominations for the Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures and Non-Fiction Television:
A People Uncounted(Urbinder Films)
Producers: Marc Swenker, Aaron Yeger
The Gatekeepers(Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Estelle Fialon, Philippa Kowarsky, Dror Moreh
The Island President(Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Producers: Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen
The Other Dream Team(The Film Arcade)
Producers: Marius Markevicius, Jon Weinbach
Searching For Sugar Man(Sony Pictures Classics)
Producers: Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
Nominations for the Award for Outstanding Producer of
Non-Fiction Television:
American Masters(PBS)
Producers: Prudence Glass, Susan Lacy, Julie Sacks
Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations(Travel Channel)
Producers: Anthony Bourdain, Christopher Collins, Lydia Tenaglia, Sandy Zweig
Deadliest Catch(Discovery Channel)
Producers: Thom Beers, Jeff Conroy, Sean Dash, John Gray, Sheila McCormack, Bill Pruitt, Decker Watson
Inside the Actors Studio(Bravo)
Producers: James Lipton, Shawn Tesser, Jeff Wurtz
Shark Tank(ABC)
Producers: Rhett Bachner, Becky Blitz, Mark Burnett, Bill Gaudsmith, Yun Lingner, Brien Meagher, Clay Newbill, Jim Roush, Laura Skowlund, Paul Sutera, Patrick Wood
BAFTA Short and Documentary Feature Nominations (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, London)
Documentary Feature
The ImposterBart Layton, Dimitri Doganis
Marley Kevin Macdonald, Steve Bing, Charles Steel
McCullin David Morris, Jacqui Morris
Searching for Sugar Man Malik Bendjelloul, Simon Chinn
West of Memphis Amy Berg
Short Animation
Here to Fall Kris Kelly, Evelyn McGrath
I’m Fine Thanks Eamonn O'Neill
The Making of Longbird Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson
Short Film
The Curse Fyzal Boulifa, Gavin Humphries
Good Night Muriel d'Ansembourg, Eva Sigurdardottir
Swimmer Lynne Ramsay, Peter Carlton, Diarmid Scrimshaw
Tumult Johnny Barrington, Rhianna Andrews
The Voorman Problem Mark Gill, Baldwin Li
The Broadcast Film Critics Association (Bfca)
Documentary Feature Nominations
Bully
The Imposter
Queen of Versailles
Searching for Sugar Man (Winner)
The Central Park Five
West of Memphis
________________________________________________________________________
Credits: Editing by Jessica Just for SydneysBuzz
________________________________________________________________________
Block Doc Workshops in Los Angeles February 2013 Ida Doc U
The International Documentary Association will be hosting Documentary Funding and Documentary Tune-Up Workshops with Block on February 9/10. http://www.documentary.org/news/february-documentary-producing-workshops-mitchell-block
Mitchell Block specializes in conceiving, producing, marketing & distributing independent features & consulting. He is an expert in placing both completed works into distribution & working with producers to make projects fundable. He conducts regular workshops in film producing in Los Angeles and most recently in Maine, Russia and in Myanmar (Burma).
Poster Girl, produced by Block was nominated for a Documentary Academy Award and selected by the Ida as the Best Doc Short 2011. It was also nominated for two Emmy Awards and aired on HBO. He is an executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning PBS series Carrier, a 10-hour series that he conceived & co-created. Block is a graduate of Tisch School and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the Television Academy, a founding member of BAFTA-la and has been teaching at USC School of Cinematic Arts since 1979. Currently Block teaches a required class in the USC Peter Stark Producing Program.
______________________________________________________________________
©2013Mwb All Rights Reserved All Rights Reserved. All information and designs on the Sites are copyrighted material owned by Block. Reproduction, dissemination, or transmission of any part of the material here without the express written consent of the owner is strictly prohibited.All other product names and marks on Block Direct, whether trademarks, service marks, or other type, and whether registered or unregistered, is the property of Block.
- 1/17/2013
- by Mitchell Block
- Sydney's Buzz
The Artist tops off its triumphant run throughout this awards season with a big night at the Oscars. And the winners are... in bold:
Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Directing
The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants, Alexander Payne
Hugo, Martin Scorsese
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
Actor In A Leading Role
Demián Bichir in A Better Life
George Clooney in The Descendants
Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt in Moneyball
Actor In A Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
Nick Nolte in Warrior
Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Actress In A Leading Role
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis in The Help...
Best Picture
The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse
Directing
The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius
The Descendants, Alexander Payne
Hugo, Martin Scorsese
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen
The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
Actor In A Leading Role
Demián Bichir in A Better Life
George Clooney in The Descendants
Jean Dujardin in The Artist
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt in Moneyball
Actor In A Supporting Role
Kenneth Branagh in My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill in Moneyball
Nick Nolte in Warrior
Christopher Plummer in Beginners
Max von Sydow in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Actress In A Leading Role
Glenn Close in Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis in The Help...
- 2/27/2012
- MUBI
Crowded House said it best in the lyrics “Hey now, hey now, don’t dream its over.” Yes, the awards season officialy came to an end tonight at the Hollywood and Highland Center in Hollywood, CA. Tears, jubilation, substance and style were all memorable moments at the 84th Academy Awards hosted by Billy Crystal. With Sacha Baron Cohen’s shenanigans earlier on the red carpet and no huge upsets, Cirque du Soleil’s performance was the highlight of the evening.
The Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year went to “The Artist” produced by Thomas Langmann and Michel Hazanavicius won for Achievement in Directing. The movie becomes the first silent film to take the gold since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago when Wings won.
Christopher Plummer was the winner for a Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in “Beginners”; Octavia Spencer, was the...
The Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year went to “The Artist” produced by Thomas Langmann and Michel Hazanavicius won for Achievement in Directing. The movie becomes the first silent film to take the gold since the original Oscar ceremony 83 years ago when Wings won.
Christopher Plummer was the winner for a Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for his role in “Beginners”; Octavia Spencer, was the...
- 2/27/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, The Artist Best picture * The Artist (The Weinstein Company) A La Petite Reine/Studio 37/La Classe Américaine/Jd Prod/France3 Cinéma/Jouror Productions/uFilm Production, Thomas Langmann, Producer The Descendants (Fox Searchlight) An Ad Hominem Enterprises Production, Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Warner Bros.) A Warner Bros. Pictures Production, Scott Rudin, Producer The Help (Touchstone) A DreamWorks Pictures Production, Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers Hugo (Paramount) A Paramount Pictures and Gk Films Production, Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers Midnight in Paris (Sony Pictures Classics) A Pontchartrain Production, Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers Moneyball (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Columbia Pictures Production, Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers The Tree of Life (Fox Searchlight) A River Road Entertainment Production, Nominees to be determined War Horse (Touchstone) A DreamWorks Pictures Production, Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy,...
- 2/27/2012
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
"Hugo" took home the most awards with five, but it didn't earn any of the big awards. "The Artist" took home Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, while Best Actress (in a bit of a surprise, considering Viola Davis' previous wins) went to Meryl Streep, and the Supporting awards went to Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer, both of which have won all awards season.
The full list of movies:
Best Picture
"War Horse"
"The Artist"
"Moneyball"
"The Descendants"
"The Tree of Life"
"Midnight in Paris"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week with Marilyn"
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Demian Bichir, "A Better Life"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Brad Pitt,...
The full list of movies:
Best Picture
"War Horse"
"The Artist"
"Moneyball"
"The Descendants"
"The Tree of Life"
"Midnight in Paris"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Glenn Close, "Albert Nobbs"
Viola Davis, "The Help"
Rooney Mara, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"
Michelle Williams, "My Week with Marilyn"
Best Actor in a Leading Role
Demian Bichir, "A Better Life"
George Clooney, "The Descendants"
Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Gary Oldman, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Brad Pitt,...
- 2/27/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
The Harvey Weinstein-backed sports documentary has won the award for best documentary at this year's Academy Awards
Oscars 2012 coverage continues on our live blog
Undefeated has won the Oscar for best documentary feature at the Academy Award ceremony currently taking place at the in Hollywood. The film, directed by Daniel Lindsay and Tj Martin about a high school American football team in Memphis on a hot streak was an unexpected winner, defeating Wim Wenders' dance film Pina and the war documentary Hell and Back Again.
Undefeated came out top in a lineup that also included Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's film about the West Memphis Three, Paradise Lost 3 : Purgatory and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman.
On the Oscars podium the directors thanked,, among others, legendary producer Harvey Weinstein, who has reportedly struck a...
Oscars 2012 coverage continues on our live blog
Undefeated has won the Oscar for best documentary feature at the Academy Award ceremony currently taking place at the in Hollywood. The film, directed by Daniel Lindsay and Tj Martin about a high school American football team in Memphis on a hot streak was an unexpected winner, defeating Wim Wenders' dance film Pina and the war documentary Hell and Back Again.
Undefeated came out top in a lineup that also included Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's film about the West Memphis Three, Paradise Lost 3 : Purgatory and If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman.
On the Oscars podium the directors thanked,, among others, legendary producer Harvey Weinstein, who has reportedly struck a...
- 2/27/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
The 84th Annual Academy Awards became a rightful homage to French cinema! "The Artist," distributed by The Weinstein company but the creative team is composed mostly of French folks, took home the big prize, the Best Picture award! "The Artist" won a total of 5 Oscars including Jean Dujardin for Best Actor, Michel Hazanavicius for Best Director, Best Costume Design, and Best Original Score.
But "Hugo" also won 5 Oscars, mostly technical and artistic merits, such as Best Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects.
"Hugo," of course, was itself an homage to George Melies, the French illusionist who gave us the trippy "A Trip to the Moon."
Both "The Artist" and "Hugo" led the Oscar nominations with 10 and 11 nods respectively.
There was really no "oh gosh what a surprise" moment of the evening except for Meryl Streep taking home the Best Actress Oscar from the perceived surefire winner Viola Davis of "The Help.
But "Hugo" also won 5 Oscars, mostly technical and artistic merits, such as Best Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects.
"Hugo," of course, was itself an homage to George Melies, the French illusionist who gave us the trippy "A Trip to the Moon."
Both "The Artist" and "Hugo" led the Oscar nominations with 10 and 11 nods respectively.
There was really no "oh gosh what a surprise" moment of the evening except for Meryl Streep taking home the Best Actress Oscar from the perceived surefire winner Viola Davis of "The Help.
- 2/27/2012
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Click to enter!
I am live-blogging the 84th Annual Academy Awards, I will begin when Billy Crystal walks out on stage. Why am I doing this? I watch the Oscars, therefore I know how boring it can be. I will have my laptop on hand so I figure I will bring some praise and cynicism to the party.
Winners will be in Red.
Click ‘Continue Reading’ to enter the Live Blog.
09:39pm
Goodnight everyone, see you at the movies.
09:38pm
It was a good show, celebrating movies never gets old for me. Congrats to The Artist, well deserved.
09:36pm
Damn right you bring that dog on stage.
09:35pm
Best Picture
“The Artist” Thomas Langmann, Producer
“The Descendants” Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” Scott Rudin, Producer
“The Help” Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
“Hugo” Graham King and Martin Scorsese,...
I am live-blogging the 84th Annual Academy Awards, I will begin when Billy Crystal walks out on stage. Why am I doing this? I watch the Oscars, therefore I know how boring it can be. I will have my laptop on hand so I figure I will bring some praise and cynicism to the party.
Winners will be in Red.
Click ‘Continue Reading’ to enter the Live Blog.
09:39pm
Goodnight everyone, see you at the movies.
09:38pm
It was a good show, celebrating movies never gets old for me. Congrats to The Artist, well deserved.
09:36pm
Damn right you bring that dog on stage.
09:35pm
Best Picture
“The Artist” Thomas Langmann, Producer
“The Descendants” Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
“Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” Scott Rudin, Producer
“The Help” Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers
“Hugo” Graham King and Martin Scorsese,...
- 2/26/2012
- by Graham McMorrow
- City of Films
Tomorrow is the day where the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences celebrates the movies. We’ve waited all year and its finally here. By the time host Billy Crystal delivers his last punchline and concludes the 84th Academy Awards, the evening will have seen many celebrity-presenters appear on the Oscar stage at the Kodak Theatre.
Here’s my predictions for Hollywood’s big night.
Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in .A Better Life.
George Clooney in .The Descendants.
Jean Dujardin in .The Artist.
Gary Oldman in .Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Brad Pitt in .Moneyball.
Clooney’s performance was like none other he’s given before and with Slumdog Millionaire, Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), Fox Searchlight is on a roll. However, The Artist’s Dujardin will take home his first Academy Award.
Possible upset – Brad Pitt is an all around good guy...
Here’s my predictions for Hollywood’s big night.
Actor in a Leading Role
Demián Bichir in .A Better Life.
George Clooney in .The Descendants.
Jean Dujardin in .The Artist.
Gary Oldman in .Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Brad Pitt in .Moneyball.
Clooney’s performance was like none other he’s given before and with Slumdog Millionaire, Natalie Portman (Black Swan) and Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), Fox Searchlight is on a roll. However, The Artist’s Dujardin will take home his first Academy Award.
Possible upset – Brad Pitt is an all around good guy...
- 2/26/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
On Wednesday of Oscar Week, the third annual “Docs!” night spotlighted the work of the nominated filmmakers in the Documentary Short Subject and Documentary Feature categories. The program included film clips from all of the nominated documentaries in both categories, followed a panel discussion with each group of nominees. On hand was program host Michael Moore - Oscar-winning director and Documentary Branch governor.
In his intro to the various clips, Moore remarked that nothing compares to watching a film with other fellow Americans in a theater and something that should be experienced together collectively. According to the director, “the public has turned to the documentary genre recently to learn the truth.” I was pleased with his enthusiastic acknowlegement of the Documentary Women filmmakers. “There are more women in the documentary branch than any other branches.”
My personal favorite of the group is God Is Bigger Than Elvis – in 1963 actress Delores Hart,...
In his intro to the various clips, Moore remarked that nothing compares to watching a film with other fellow Americans in a theater and something that should be experienced together collectively. According to the director, “the public has turned to the documentary genre recently to learn the truth.” I was pleased with his enthusiastic acknowlegement of the Documentary Women filmmakers. “There are more women in the documentary branch than any other branches.”
My personal favorite of the group is God Is Bigger Than Elvis – in 1963 actress Delores Hart,...
- 2/23/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Oscar 2012 group photo The nominees for the 2012 Academy Awards pose for a (very, very, very large) group photo at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Oscar Nominees Luncheon, held in Beverly Hills on Monday, February 6, 2012. Here's the link to the full-size Oscar 2012 group photo. Seated (left to right): Matthew Butler, Julie Anderson, Kira Carstensen Tsunami, Mark Bridges, Demián Bichir, Lon Bender, Michael De Luca, Danfung Dennis, Rebecca Cammisa, Joe Berlinger, Bérénice Bejo, Letty Aronson, Max von Sydow, Kirk Baxter and J.C. Chandor. (Photo: Greg Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.) 2nd row (left to right): Erik Aadahl, Ron Bochar, Deb Adair with guest, Amanda Forbis, Stan Chervin, Glenn Close, Jean Dujardin, George Clooney, Chris Columbus, Marshall Curry, Ludovic Bource, Terry George, Patrick Doyon, Gigi Causey, Erik Nash, Jeff Cronenweth, Viola Davis, Siedah Garrett, Dave Giammarco, Lisy Christl, Nick Dudman, Enrico Casarosa, Sam Cullman, Kenneth Branagh, and Scott Benza.
- 2/23/2012
- by D. Zhea
- Alt Film Guide
The 84th Academy Awards will pay homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood. The perceived Oscar frontrunner, .The Artist,. is a black-and-white silent movie, while one of the Oscar Best Picture contenders, .Hugo,. touches upon the life of Georges Méliès and his magical .Trip to the Moon. (1902). Even Marilyn Monroe is being honored via a Best Actress nomination for Michelle Williams who played the icon in .My Week with Marilyn..
Amidst the glamour and the spectacle, this is one of the most unpredictable Oscars in recent memory. There is no clear-cut favorite. Even the awards darling .The Artist. may lose its voice on Oscar night. But I am marching forward to reveal my fearless 2012 Oscar predictions. (Read after the jump for my complete predictions on 24 categories, watch the video for the majors!)
Best Picture
*** "The Artist"
"The Descendants"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Midnight in Paris"
"Moneyball"
"The Tree of Life...
Amidst the glamour and the spectacle, this is one of the most unpredictable Oscars in recent memory. There is no clear-cut favorite. Even the awards darling .The Artist. may lose its voice on Oscar night. But I am marching forward to reveal my fearless 2012 Oscar predictions. (Read after the jump for my complete predictions on 24 categories, watch the video for the majors!)
Best Picture
*** "The Artist"
"The Descendants"
"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"
"The Help"
"Hugo"
"Midnight in Paris"
"Moneyball"
"The Tree of Life...
- 2/17/2012
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Surely someone who destroys property as part of a political protest is a criminal, but are they a terrorist? If a Tree Falls is the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman that addresses that question. Members of the radical environmental activist group the Earth Liberation Front (Elf) were charged and convicted by the Us government for a series of arsons they committed against businesses they contended were destroying the environment. Despite the fact that the group never targeted, threatened, or killed a single human being in any of its actions, the Elf members are officially considered domestic terrorists and have been sentenced to do jail time in a special federal facility created to house terrorists. The films follows Daniel McGowen, one of the Elf members, as he awaits his trial and sentencing for his participation in the arsons.
'If A Tree Falls a Story of the Liberation...
'If A Tree Falls a Story of the Liberation...
- 2/15/2012
- by Film Independent
- Film Independent
With the Oscar-nominated documentary If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, co-directors Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman turned their camera on an issue that is at once historical and current: The Earth Liberation Front (Elf), a '90s environmental activist group made up of once-peaceful protestors who took to committing acts of arson after the non-violent demonstrations they had been participating in were ignored by the government and often met with brutality by the police. Though the film resonates with the protest movements that have sprung up since its release, Curry didn't make the film with any particular agenda—environment, political or otherwise—in mind. Instead, he was intrigued by the story of Daniel McGowan, a former Elf member facing life in prison for his acts of what the government considers terrorism.
- 2/9/2012
- MovieMaker.com
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