Combined titles creates librbary of more than 1,600 films.
Kino Lorber has signed a multi-year strategic alliance with Zeitgeist Films run by Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo.
The partners will jointly acquire four to five theatrical titles a year to be marketed and released by Zeitgeist Films.
Kino Lorber will become the exclusive distributor of all Zeitgeist Films titles for the home video and educational markets, as well as all digital media.
The partnership means Zeitgeist’s library of more than 130 titles combines with Kino Lorber’s library of more than 1,500 new and classic films.
Starting in July, Gerstman and Russo...
Kino Lorber has signed a multi-year strategic alliance with Zeitgeist Films run by Nancy Gerstman and Emily Russo.
The partners will jointly acquire four to five theatrical titles a year to be marketed and released by Zeitgeist Films.
Kino Lorber will become the exclusive distributor of all Zeitgeist Films titles for the home video and educational markets, as well as all digital media.
The partnership means Zeitgeist’s library of more than 130 titles combines with Kino Lorber’s library of more than 1,500 new and classic films.
Starting in July, Gerstman and Russo...
- 6/22/2017
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
eOne release The Girl on The Train in cinemas October 6.
Since its acquisition by eOne in 2011, Hopscotch-eOne Anz has become a global player. If speaks to three of the team — Jude Troy, eOne Anz.s Evp, TV Development and Acquisitions, Lucy Hill, eOne Anz.s Head of Acquisitions and Maeva Gatineau, Hopscotch Features. Senior Vice President of Production — about the restructure, the distribution game and the landscape in 2016. What are your roles at eOne?
Hill: I head up acquisitions for eOne Australia and New Zealand, which means that I coordinate for our team, which includes Jude as well as Troy Lum, Sandie Don, Jason Hernandez and Kata [Mandic]. We look at which films we want to buy, primarily for theatrical but also for our home entertainment platforms, the landscape for which is changing massively.
Troy: I joined in 2004 as a small partner at Hopscotch. Troy brought me in, [with] Sandie and Frank Cox at the time,...
Since its acquisition by eOne in 2011, Hopscotch-eOne Anz has become a global player. If speaks to three of the team — Jude Troy, eOne Anz.s Evp, TV Development and Acquisitions, Lucy Hill, eOne Anz.s Head of Acquisitions and Maeva Gatineau, Hopscotch Features. Senior Vice President of Production — about the restructure, the distribution game and the landscape in 2016. What are your roles at eOne?
Hill: I head up acquisitions for eOne Australia and New Zealand, which means that I coordinate for our team, which includes Jude as well as Troy Lum, Sandie Don, Jason Hernandez and Kata [Mandic]. We look at which films we want to buy, primarily for theatrical but also for our home entertainment platforms, the landscape for which is changing massively.
Troy: I joined in 2004 as a small partner at Hopscotch. Troy brought me in, [with] Sandie and Frank Cox at the time,...
- 9/12/2016
- by Harry Windsor
- IF.com.au
eOne release The Girl on The Train in cinemas October 6.
Since its acquisition by eOne in 2011, Hopscotch-eOne Anz has become a global player. If speaks to three of the team — Jude Troy, eOne Anz.s Evp, TV Development and Acquisitions, Lucy Hill, eOne Anz.s Head of Acquisitions and Maeva Gatineau, Hopscotch Features. Senior Vice President of Production — about the restructure, the distribution game and the landscape in 2016. What are your roles at eOne?
Hill: I head up acquisitions for eOne Australia and New Zealand, which means that I coordinate for our team, which includes Jude as well as Troy Lum, Sandie Don, Jason Hernandez and Kata [Mandic]. We look at which films we want to buy, primarily for theatrical but also for our home entertainment platforms, the landscape for which is changing massively.
Troy: I joined in 2004 as a small partner at Hopscotch. Troy brought me in, [with] Sandie and Frank Cox at the time,...
Since its acquisition by eOne in 2011, Hopscotch-eOne Anz has become a global player. If speaks to three of the team — Jude Troy, eOne Anz.s Evp, TV Development and Acquisitions, Lucy Hill, eOne Anz.s Head of Acquisitions and Maeva Gatineau, Hopscotch Features. Senior Vice President of Production — about the restructure, the distribution game and the landscape in 2016. What are your roles at eOne?
Hill: I head up acquisitions for eOne Australia and New Zealand, which means that I coordinate for our team, which includes Jude as well as Troy Lum, Sandie Don, Jason Hernandez and Kata [Mandic]. We look at which films we want to buy, primarily for theatrical but also for our home entertainment platforms, the landscape for which is changing massively.
Troy: I joined in 2004 as a small partner at Hopscotch. Troy brought me in, [with] Sandie and Frank Cox at the time,...
- 9/12/2016
- by Harry Windsor
- IF.com.au
Laurie Anderson has picked a set of films, titled "Laurie Anderson Collection," now streaming on boutique Svod service SundanceNow Doc Club. The artist-filmmaker is currently in the news for her autobiographic Telluride premiere "Heart of a Dog," a cinematic collection of remembrances of her late, beloved, piano-playing, finger-painting dog Lolabelle. The film moves onto to Toronto this weekend before opening Wednesday, October 21. The six films now streaming in her Doc Club collection, including directors Werner Herzog and Guy Maddin, are "5 Broken Cameras," "Ballets Russes," "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," "Exit Through the Gift Shop," "My Winnipeg" and "The Unmistaken Child." Below are her appropriately idiosyncratic notes for each film. Read More: Laurie Anderson's Puppy Love Paean 'Heart of a Dog' Warms Telluride and Venice 5 Broken Cameras (2012) "Here is the desert between Palestine and...
- 9/10/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
Batgirl Yvonne Craig. Batgirl Yvonne Craig dead at 78: Also featured in 'Star Trek' episode, Elvis Presley movies Yvonne Craig, best known as Batgirl in the 1960s television series Batman, died of complications from breast cancer on Monday, Aug. 17, '15, at her home in Pacific Palisades, in the Los Angeles Westside. Craig (born May 16, 1937, in Taylorville, Illinois), who had been undergoing chemotherapy for two years, was 78. Beginning (and ending) in the final season of Batman (1967-1968), Yvonne Craig played both Commissioner Gordon's librarian daughter Barbara Gordon and her alter ego, the spunky Batgirl – armed with a laser-beaming electric make-up kit “which will destroy anything.” Unlike semi-villainess Catwoman (Julie Newmar), Batgirl was wholly on the side of Righteousness, infusing new blood into the series' increasingly anemic Dynamic Duo: Batman aka Bruce Wayne (Adam West) and Boy Wonder Robin aka Bruce Wayne's beloved pal Dick Grayson (Burt Ward). “They chose...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In the movie world, Yves Saint Laurent — the human being, not the brand — is having a moment: Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent, starring the willowy-awkward Pierre Niney, was released last year. Now we have Bertrand Bonello's Saint Laurent, in which the genius designer is played by the slightly more robust Gaspard Ulliel. Saint Laurent focuses on the years 1967 to 1976, when the designer was at his peak, clubbing his nights away with chic pals like Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux (Léa Seydoux and Aymeline Valade) and, by day, mining Forties movie-star style and the Ballets Russes for fashion inspiration. But if you don't know much about Saint Laurent's life, you may find yourself lost: Bonello attempts a fractured...
- 5/6/2015
- Village Voice
DVD Release Date: Sept. 9, 2014
Price: DVD $29.99
Studio: Zeitgeist
Darwin meets Hitchcock in the true-crime tale The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden, a documentary portrait of a 1930s murder mystery that’s as strange and alluring as the famous archipelago itself.
A true-life murder mystery unspools in The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
Fleeing conventional society, a Berlin doctor, Friedrich Ritter, and his younger mistress, the also married Dore Strauch, start a new life on uninhabited Floreana Island. But after the international press sensationalizes the exploits of the island’s “Adam and Eve”, others flock there—including a self-styled Swiss Family Robinson and a gun-toting Viennese Baroness and her two lovers. Things would never be the same.
To bring this incredible story to life, filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (Ballets Russes) interweave newly unearthed home movies of the original settlers, footage of native flora and fauna, testimonies of modern day islanders,...
Price: DVD $29.99
Studio: Zeitgeist
Darwin meets Hitchcock in the true-crime tale The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden, a documentary portrait of a 1930s murder mystery that’s as strange and alluring as the famous archipelago itself.
A true-life murder mystery unspools in The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden
Fleeing conventional society, a Berlin doctor, Friedrich Ritter, and his younger mistress, the also married Dore Strauch, start a new life on uninhabited Floreana Island. But after the international press sensationalizes the exploits of the island’s “Adam and Eve”, others flock there—including a self-styled Swiss Family Robinson and a gun-toting Viennese Baroness and her two lovers. Things would never be the same.
To bring this incredible story to life, filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (Ballets Russes) interweave newly unearthed home movies of the original settlers, footage of native flora and fauna, testimonies of modern day islanders,...
- 9/8/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
The 4th annual Napa Valley Film Festival (Nvff), scheduled for November 12-16, 2014, announced its Narrative and Documentary feature film competition lineups as well as Jury members. The 2014 Festival will screen 22 feature films in competition. The full film program line-up, including out-of-competition special presentations, sneak previews of awards season contenders, and narrative, documentary and animated shorts, will be announced in September.
“Our thoughts are with everyone in the Napa Valley who have suffered losses from the recent earthquake,” said Co-Founder/Artistic Director Marc Lhormer. “We are proud to be part of a community that rallies in support of each other in such a generous and big hearted way. As they say in the business, the show must go on.”
“This is an exceptionally strong year for both the Narrative and Documentary competition programs,” said Program Director Herb Stratford. “These filmmakers have created new works that provoke, inspire, educate and entertain. They are the heart of our program each year, which includes more than 100 new independent films and advance studio screenings, and we are excited to announce their participation in the festival.”
Directors of the Narrative and Documentary films in competition participate in Nvff’s unique Artists-in-Residence Program presented in partnership with the incomparable Meadowood Napa Valley. Directors stay at the luxury resort for six nights during the festival and are treated to special events and workshops with their competition group and industry mentors. Serving as faculty for a set of Master Classes at Nvff 2014 are producer Ted Hope ( Adventureland, 21 Grams); writer/director Joshua Michael Stern (Jobs, Swing Vote) writer/director Joe Carnahan (The Blacklist; The Grey, Smokin’ Aces); producer Pam Koffler (Killer Films); and producer J. Todd Harris ( The Kids are All Right; Bottle Shock); Ryan Harrington (Tribeca Film Institute); producer Jason Berman (Struck by Lightning, Luv); producer Anne Carey (Archer Gray Productions); executives Tom Quinn (RADiUS) and David Glasser (The Weinstein Company). Meadowood Napa Valley will also award $10,000 to the winning filmmakers in both the Narrative and Documentary competition categories at the Closing Night Awards Ceremony on Sunday, November 16.
Narrative Competition Section
Films in the Narrative competition section feature actors Anne Hathaway, Billie Joe Armstrong, Elizabeth Banks, Tate Donovan, Rachael Harris, Zoe Kravitz, Stephen Lang, Leighton Meester, Debra Messing, Dev Patel, Kyra Sedgwick, Chloe Sevigny and Paul Wesley, among others. The 12 films selected include:
"Thank You A Lot"- Music agent and manager Jack Hand has a bad reputation and an even worse track record. He has only two clients left: an indie band on the verge of a breakup and a part-time hip-hop artist. Jack’s future hinges on signing the one person he is barely on speaking terms with — his estranged father, a respected and reclusive country singer/songwriter. "East Side Sushi"- Juana‘s work – preparing fruit for the family’s sidewalk cart – is steady, but hardly her life’s calling. Despite the objections and concerns of her family, Juana decides to pursue her dream of becoming an expert sushi chef, to go where her heart tells her, not where she is expected to be. "Fall To Rise" - Principal dancer Lauren Drake is beautiful, talented and famous. When Lauren is released from her company after being sidelined by an injury, she quickly becomes frustrated with her new domestic lifestyle. At a performance by another dance company, she meets and teams up with Des, a former dancer who is also eager to have a second chance in the dance world. "Little Accidents" (Isa: William Morris Endeavor Entertainment) - In a small West Virginia town reeling from a recent tragic accident in the local mine, a fresh unfortunate incident in the woods leaves a young boy dead. Meanwhile Owen, an injured miner struggling to adjust to his new life aboveground, joins the search for the first boy who is presumed lost in the woods. "Like Sunday, Like Rain" - Reggie Kipper is a sweet, awkward cello prodigy, a composer and overall genius. He’s about to graduate from high school and enroll at MIT — and he’s is only twelve years old. Eleanor Fallon is a 23-year old struggling musician who meets Reggie when she is hired to be his au pair, and the unlikely duo embarks on a summer adventure that neither of them ever expected. "Sun Belt Express"- Allen King, a man living on the Arizona/Mexico border, finds out what his breaking point is when his ex-wife demands money, and his job teaching at a college south of the border evaporates. Allen then finds a unique way to supplant his income by transporting illegal aliens in the trunk of his car. "Sam & Amira" (Isa: Preferred Entertainment) - Sam is an army veteran struggling to assimilate into normal life stateside. He works a variety of odd jobs, tries his hand at stand-up comedy, and is recruited by his cousin into some shady investment dealings. Sam’s already complicated life is made more so by Amira, an Iraqi woman dealing with her own issues who is the daughter of an old army colleague. "Song One" (Isa: Lotus Entertainment) - Estranged from her family, Franny returns home when an accident leaves her brother comatose. Retracing his life as an aspiring singer-songwriter, she tracks down his favorite musician, James Forester. Against the backdrop of Brooklyn’s music scene, Franny and James develop an unexpected relationship and face the realities of their lives. "The Road Within" (Isa: Panorama Media) - Vincent has Tourette Syndrome. When his mother dies, he becomes obsessed with scattering her ashes by the ocean. Too much for his father to handle, Vincent is sent to a residential treatment center in Nevada where he befriends two other “inmates” struggling with their own personal issues. "Kinderwald" - Pennsylvania wilderness, 1885. John Linden, a hard-working German immigrant, is making a go of homesteading with his brother’s widow and her two young sons. John’s visually and spiritually idyllic world is thrown into utter chaos when the two boys go missing while off playing in the woods. "Wildlike" (Isa: Panorama Media) - Mackenzie is a fourteen-year-old girl whose father died last year. When her struggling mother checks herself into a recovery center, Mackenzie is sent from their Seattle home to live with her uncle in Alaska. At first he seems a supportive caretaker, but when his infatuation crosses a sexual line, Mackenzie runs away. With no one else to turn to, she shadows a solitary backpacker, Bartlett, a widowed man with scars of his own, into the beauty and danger of America’s last frontier.
Documentary Competition Section
"American Native" - For years, the legend of the Jackson Whites tribe has been told, passed down from generation to generation of New Jersey suburbanites. While the garish stories and tall tales have never been hard to find, the truth behind them has. Accessing the community is not easy; few outsiders have been able to penetrate the insular walls formed from centuries of discrimination. "Botso" - Dr. Botso Korisheli, 91 and still teaching music along with his unique philosophy, has a fascinating and unforgettable life story. Born in the former Soviet State of Georgia, Botso witnessed his father imprisoned under orders from Josef Stalin while his home was taken over by the Kgb. Forced to dig ditches for the Soviet army, Botso was then captured by the Germans. "Flying The Feathered Edge" - Robert A. “Bob” Hoover, age 92, is considered by many to be our greatest living aviator. Nicknamed “The Pilot’s Pilot” by his peers, Bob is largely unknown outside aviation circles despite his staggering array of accomplishments. Following a storied career during WWII as a fighter pilot, Bob continued to serve for years as one of our best test pilots. Mr. Hoover will be in attendance for screenings and Q&As. "Happy Valley" (Isa: Submarine Entertainment) - Few sports dynasties in the modern era have had a larger and longer-lasting profile than college football’s Penn State and its legendary coach Joe Paterno. State College, Pennsylvania, is in the heart of an area known as Happy Valley, ground zero of a proud football tradition for decades. When the shocking sex abuse scandal of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky rocked that town and college in 2011, the impact was unprecedented. "Havana Curveball" - At age 13 and preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, Mica takes to heart his rabbi’s injunction to help “heal the world.” Mica imagines himself a hero for other kids, and hatches a grand plan to send baseballs, bats and gloves to Cuba. Mica knows only that Cubans are poor and love baseball, and that Cuba “saved” his grandpa’s life when he was escaping from Nazi Germany. "States of Grace" - Dr. Grace Dammann’s life was forever altered when a driver crashed head-on into her car on the Golden Gate Bridge. After a seven-week coma and numerous surgeries, Grace miraculously regained consciousness, with her cognitive abilities almost entirely intact, but her body left shattered and severely disabled. "Underwater Dreams" - The epic story of four teenage boys from the Arizona desert who dare to go up against college engineering students from MIT. Inspired by two energetic high school science teachers, the boys build a robot from hardware store parts and enter an underwater robotics competition sponsored by Nasa. "An Honest Liar" - For as long as there have been magicians and illusionists, there have been doubters and debunkers making sure that the general public doesn’t get taken for a ride. One of the greatest illusionists of his era was “The Amazing Randi,” who made the shift from magic and escape acts to exposing the frauds who prey on unsuspecting victims. "Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank" (Isa: Preferred Content) - Few members of the U.S. Congress have ever been as polarizing and revolutionary as Barney Frank has been over the past 40 years. Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank examines the career, passions and legacy of our first openly gay Congressman. This rare and intimate documentary is entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking. "#chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes On A Dictator" (Isa: Preferred Content) - In #chicagoGirl, we meet freedom fighters in the streets of Homs and Damascus along with the stateside collection of exiles working to return Syria to a stable and human rights-respecting country. Will 21st century tools of change stand up to guns and violence and terror in the streets? Narrative Features Jury
Christine Vachon , (Producer, "Boys Don’t Cry," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," "Far From Heaven")
Peter Baxter ( Co-founder/Director Slamdance Film Festival)
Dierk Sinderman (Hollywood Foreign Press Association)
Lisa Truitt ( Producer, James Cameron’s "Deepsea Challenge 3D,""Mysteries of Egypt")
Don Lewis (Producer; Editor Film Threat)
Documentary Features and Shorts Jury
Morgan Neville ("Twenty Feet From Stardom")
Tiffany Shlain ("The Tribe; Connected: An Autobiography About Love," "Death & Technology")
Freida Lee Mock ("Anita. G-Dog,""Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," "Return with Honor")
Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine ("Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,""Ballets Russes").
Narrative Shorts Jury
Joshua Michael Stern ("Jobs,""Swing Vote," "Neverwas")
Ralph Macchio (Actor, "The Karate Kid;" Director, "Across Grace Alley")
Neil Berkeley ("Beauty in Embarrassing;" Founder Brkl)
Animated Shorts
Bill Plympton (The King of Indie Animation)
Adam Glick (Amazon Web Services)
Ryan Tudhope (Atomic Fiction)
About The Napa Valley Film Festival
The Napa Valley Film Festival (Nvff) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Napa, California. The ultimate celebration of film, food and wine, Nvff lights up the picturesque towns of Napa, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga at the most colorful time of year. Nvff features over 100 new independent films and studio sneak previews screening in 12 beautiful venues throughout four walkable villages, as 300 visiting filmmakers interact with audiences at screenings and intimate events. Attendees enjoy film panels & culinary demonstrations, wine tasting pavilions, the spectacular Festival Gala, Celebrity Tributes, Awards Ceremony, and an array of parties, VIP receptions and winemaker dinners and more. For information or to buy passes, visit NapaValleyFilmFest.org...
“Our thoughts are with everyone in the Napa Valley who have suffered losses from the recent earthquake,” said Co-Founder/Artistic Director Marc Lhormer. “We are proud to be part of a community that rallies in support of each other in such a generous and big hearted way. As they say in the business, the show must go on.”
“This is an exceptionally strong year for both the Narrative and Documentary competition programs,” said Program Director Herb Stratford. “These filmmakers have created new works that provoke, inspire, educate and entertain. They are the heart of our program each year, which includes more than 100 new independent films and advance studio screenings, and we are excited to announce their participation in the festival.”
Directors of the Narrative and Documentary films in competition participate in Nvff’s unique Artists-in-Residence Program presented in partnership with the incomparable Meadowood Napa Valley. Directors stay at the luxury resort for six nights during the festival and are treated to special events and workshops with their competition group and industry mentors. Serving as faculty for a set of Master Classes at Nvff 2014 are producer Ted Hope ( Adventureland, 21 Grams); writer/director Joshua Michael Stern (Jobs, Swing Vote) writer/director Joe Carnahan (The Blacklist; The Grey, Smokin’ Aces); producer Pam Koffler (Killer Films); and producer J. Todd Harris ( The Kids are All Right; Bottle Shock); Ryan Harrington (Tribeca Film Institute); producer Jason Berman (Struck by Lightning, Luv); producer Anne Carey (Archer Gray Productions); executives Tom Quinn (RADiUS) and David Glasser (The Weinstein Company). Meadowood Napa Valley will also award $10,000 to the winning filmmakers in both the Narrative and Documentary competition categories at the Closing Night Awards Ceremony on Sunday, November 16.
Narrative Competition Section
Films in the Narrative competition section feature actors Anne Hathaway, Billie Joe Armstrong, Elizabeth Banks, Tate Donovan, Rachael Harris, Zoe Kravitz, Stephen Lang, Leighton Meester, Debra Messing, Dev Patel, Kyra Sedgwick, Chloe Sevigny and Paul Wesley, among others. The 12 films selected include:
"Thank You A Lot"- Music agent and manager Jack Hand has a bad reputation and an even worse track record. He has only two clients left: an indie band on the verge of a breakup and a part-time hip-hop artist. Jack’s future hinges on signing the one person he is barely on speaking terms with — his estranged father, a respected and reclusive country singer/songwriter. "East Side Sushi"- Juana‘s work – preparing fruit for the family’s sidewalk cart – is steady, but hardly her life’s calling. Despite the objections and concerns of her family, Juana decides to pursue her dream of becoming an expert sushi chef, to go where her heart tells her, not where she is expected to be. "Fall To Rise" - Principal dancer Lauren Drake is beautiful, talented and famous. When Lauren is released from her company after being sidelined by an injury, she quickly becomes frustrated with her new domestic lifestyle. At a performance by another dance company, she meets and teams up with Des, a former dancer who is also eager to have a second chance in the dance world. "Little Accidents" (Isa: William Morris Endeavor Entertainment) - In a small West Virginia town reeling from a recent tragic accident in the local mine, a fresh unfortunate incident in the woods leaves a young boy dead. Meanwhile Owen, an injured miner struggling to adjust to his new life aboveground, joins the search for the first boy who is presumed lost in the woods. "Like Sunday, Like Rain" - Reggie Kipper is a sweet, awkward cello prodigy, a composer and overall genius. He’s about to graduate from high school and enroll at MIT — and he’s is only twelve years old. Eleanor Fallon is a 23-year old struggling musician who meets Reggie when she is hired to be his au pair, and the unlikely duo embarks on a summer adventure that neither of them ever expected. "Sun Belt Express"- Allen King, a man living on the Arizona/Mexico border, finds out what his breaking point is when his ex-wife demands money, and his job teaching at a college south of the border evaporates. Allen then finds a unique way to supplant his income by transporting illegal aliens in the trunk of his car. "Sam & Amira" (Isa: Preferred Entertainment) - Sam is an army veteran struggling to assimilate into normal life stateside. He works a variety of odd jobs, tries his hand at stand-up comedy, and is recruited by his cousin into some shady investment dealings. Sam’s already complicated life is made more so by Amira, an Iraqi woman dealing with her own issues who is the daughter of an old army colleague. "Song One" (Isa: Lotus Entertainment) - Estranged from her family, Franny returns home when an accident leaves her brother comatose. Retracing his life as an aspiring singer-songwriter, she tracks down his favorite musician, James Forester. Against the backdrop of Brooklyn’s music scene, Franny and James develop an unexpected relationship and face the realities of their lives. "The Road Within" (Isa: Panorama Media) - Vincent has Tourette Syndrome. When his mother dies, he becomes obsessed with scattering her ashes by the ocean. Too much for his father to handle, Vincent is sent to a residential treatment center in Nevada where he befriends two other “inmates” struggling with their own personal issues. "Kinderwald" - Pennsylvania wilderness, 1885. John Linden, a hard-working German immigrant, is making a go of homesteading with his brother’s widow and her two young sons. John’s visually and spiritually idyllic world is thrown into utter chaos when the two boys go missing while off playing in the woods. "Wildlike" (Isa: Panorama Media) - Mackenzie is a fourteen-year-old girl whose father died last year. When her struggling mother checks herself into a recovery center, Mackenzie is sent from their Seattle home to live with her uncle in Alaska. At first he seems a supportive caretaker, but when his infatuation crosses a sexual line, Mackenzie runs away. With no one else to turn to, she shadows a solitary backpacker, Bartlett, a widowed man with scars of his own, into the beauty and danger of America’s last frontier.
Documentary Competition Section
"American Native" - For years, the legend of the Jackson Whites tribe has been told, passed down from generation to generation of New Jersey suburbanites. While the garish stories and tall tales have never been hard to find, the truth behind them has. Accessing the community is not easy; few outsiders have been able to penetrate the insular walls formed from centuries of discrimination. "Botso" - Dr. Botso Korisheli, 91 and still teaching music along with his unique philosophy, has a fascinating and unforgettable life story. Born in the former Soviet State of Georgia, Botso witnessed his father imprisoned under orders from Josef Stalin while his home was taken over by the Kgb. Forced to dig ditches for the Soviet army, Botso was then captured by the Germans. "Flying The Feathered Edge" - Robert A. “Bob” Hoover, age 92, is considered by many to be our greatest living aviator. Nicknamed “The Pilot’s Pilot” by his peers, Bob is largely unknown outside aviation circles despite his staggering array of accomplishments. Following a storied career during WWII as a fighter pilot, Bob continued to serve for years as one of our best test pilots. Mr. Hoover will be in attendance for screenings and Q&As. "Happy Valley" (Isa: Submarine Entertainment) - Few sports dynasties in the modern era have had a larger and longer-lasting profile than college football’s Penn State and its legendary coach Joe Paterno. State College, Pennsylvania, is in the heart of an area known as Happy Valley, ground zero of a proud football tradition for decades. When the shocking sex abuse scandal of assistant coach Jerry Sandusky rocked that town and college in 2011, the impact was unprecedented. "Havana Curveball" - At age 13 and preparing for his Bar Mitzvah, Mica takes to heart his rabbi’s injunction to help “heal the world.” Mica imagines himself a hero for other kids, and hatches a grand plan to send baseballs, bats and gloves to Cuba. Mica knows only that Cubans are poor and love baseball, and that Cuba “saved” his grandpa’s life when he was escaping from Nazi Germany. "States of Grace" - Dr. Grace Dammann’s life was forever altered when a driver crashed head-on into her car on the Golden Gate Bridge. After a seven-week coma and numerous surgeries, Grace miraculously regained consciousness, with her cognitive abilities almost entirely intact, but her body left shattered and severely disabled. "Underwater Dreams" - The epic story of four teenage boys from the Arizona desert who dare to go up against college engineering students from MIT. Inspired by two energetic high school science teachers, the boys build a robot from hardware store parts and enter an underwater robotics competition sponsored by Nasa. "An Honest Liar" - For as long as there have been magicians and illusionists, there have been doubters and debunkers making sure that the general public doesn’t get taken for a ride. One of the greatest illusionists of his era was “The Amazing Randi,” who made the shift from magic and escape acts to exposing the frauds who prey on unsuspecting victims. "Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank" (Isa: Preferred Content) - Few members of the U.S. Congress have ever been as polarizing and revolutionary as Barney Frank has been over the past 40 years. Compared to What: The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank examines the career, passions and legacy of our first openly gay Congressman. This rare and intimate documentary is entertaining, enlightening and thought-provoking. "#chicagoGirl: The Social Network Takes On A Dictator" (Isa: Preferred Content) - In #chicagoGirl, we meet freedom fighters in the streets of Homs and Damascus along with the stateside collection of exiles working to return Syria to a stable and human rights-respecting country. Will 21st century tools of change stand up to guns and violence and terror in the streets? Narrative Features Jury
Christine Vachon , (Producer, "Boys Don’t Cry," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," "Far From Heaven")
Peter Baxter ( Co-founder/Director Slamdance Film Festival)
Dierk Sinderman (Hollywood Foreign Press Association)
Lisa Truitt ( Producer, James Cameron’s "Deepsea Challenge 3D,""Mysteries of Egypt")
Don Lewis (Producer; Editor Film Threat)
Documentary Features and Shorts Jury
Morgan Neville ("Twenty Feet From Stardom")
Tiffany Shlain ("The Tribe; Connected: An Autobiography About Love," "Death & Technology")
Freida Lee Mock ("Anita. G-Dog,""Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision," "Return with Honor")
Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine ("Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,""Ballets Russes").
Narrative Shorts Jury
Joshua Michael Stern ("Jobs,""Swing Vote," "Neverwas")
Ralph Macchio (Actor, "The Karate Kid;" Director, "Across Grace Alley")
Neil Berkeley ("Beauty in Embarrassing;" Founder Brkl)
Animated Shorts
Bill Plympton (The King of Indie Animation)
Adam Glick (Amazon Web Services)
Ryan Tudhope (Atomic Fiction)
About The Napa Valley Film Festival
The Napa Valley Film Festival (Nvff) is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Napa, California. The ultimate celebration of film, food and wine, Nvff lights up the picturesque towns of Napa, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga at the most colorful time of year. Nvff features over 100 new independent films and studio sneak previews screening in 12 beautiful venues throughout four walkable villages, as 300 visiting filmmakers interact with audiences at screenings and intimate events. Attendees enjoy film panels & culinary demonstrations, wine tasting pavilions, the spectacular Festival Gala, Celebrity Tributes, Awards Ceremony, and an array of parties, VIP receptions and winemaker dinners and more. For information or to buy passes, visit NapaValleyFilmFest.org...
- 8/28/2014
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
Hot! Festival 2014: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture Dixon Place
161A Christie Street, NYC
July 5 through August 2, 2014
Presented with the enormous variety that the creative arts in New York City offer me, I find myself, from time to time, concluding that self-expression is rather highly overrated. Then I encounter something that reverses that whimsical declaration. One such event was a recent press preview of several segments from Hot! Festival 2014: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture. If the five thrilling, outrageous, poignant, and all-in-all utterly engaging presentations I experienced that afternoon is any indication of what this nearly one month festival includes, it behooves you to attend as many of the varied performances as you are able!
A stunning dance scene from “Diaghilesque” opened the presentation -- a beautiful re-imagining of the style of Ballets Russes in Paris from early in the last century. Choreographed by Faux Pas Le Fae,...
161A Christie Street, NYC
July 5 through August 2, 2014
Presented with the enormous variety that the creative arts in New York City offer me, I find myself, from time to time, concluding that self-expression is rather highly overrated. Then I encounter something that reverses that whimsical declaration. One such event was a recent press preview of several segments from Hot! Festival 2014: The NYC Celebration of Queer Culture. If the five thrilling, outrageous, poignant, and all-in-all utterly engaging presentations I experienced that afternoon is any indication of what this nearly one month festival includes, it behooves you to attend as many of the varied performances as you are able!
A stunning dance scene from “Diaghilesque” opened the presentation -- a beautiful re-imagining of the style of Ballets Russes in Paris from early in the last century. Choreographed by Faux Pas Le Fae,...
- 7/7/2014
- by Jay Reisberg
- www.culturecatch.com
The Academy has announced the new class of invited members for 2014 and, as is typical, many of which are among last year's nominees, which includes Barkhad Abdi, Michael Fassbender, Sally Hawkins, Mads Mikkelsen, Lupita Nyong'o and June Squibb in the Actors branch not to mention curious additions such as Josh Hutcherson, Rob Riggle and Jason Statham, but, okay. The Directors branch adds Jay and Mark Duplass along with Jean-Marc Vallee, Denis Villeneuve and Thomas Vinterberg. I didn't do an immediate tally of male to female additions or other demographics, but at first glance it seems to be a wide spread batch of new additions on all fronts. The Academy is also clearly attempting to aggressively bump up the demographics as this is the second year in a row where they have added a large number of new members, well over the average of 133 new members from 2004 to 2012. As far as...
- 6/26/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 271 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.
Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.
“This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”
The 2014 invitees are:
Actors
Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,...
Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.
“This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”
The 2014 invitees are:
Actors
Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,...
- 6/26/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave were two of the 271 artists and industry leaders invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which determines nominations and winners at the annual Oscars. The entire list of Academy membership—which numbers about 6,000—isn’t public information so the annual invitation list is often the best indication of the artists involved in the prestigious awards process. It’s worth noting that invitations need to be accepted in order for artists to become members; some artists, like two-time Best Actor winner Sean Penn, have declined membership over the years.
- 6/26/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Pop quiz: What do Chris Rock, Claire Denis, Eddie Vedder and Josh Hutcherson all have in common? Answer: They could all be Oscar voters very soon. The annual Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences invitation list always makes for interesting reading, shedding light on just how large and far-reaching the group's membership is -- or could be, depending on who accepts their invitations. This year, 271 individuals have been asked to join AMPAS, meaning every one of them could contribute to next year's Academy Awards balloting -- and it's as diverse a list as they've ever assembled. Think the Academy consists entirely of fusty retired white dudes? Not if recent Best Original Song nominee Pharrell Williams takes them up on their offer. Think it's all just a Hollywood insiders' game? Not if French arthouse titans Chantal Akerman and Olivier Assayas join the party. It's a list that subverts expectation at every turn.
- 6/26/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
Inhospitable locations are prompt to be the source of legends and enigmatic theories. For most people the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, are only relevant due to their biodiversity made universally famous by none other than Darwin. His findings are studied by millions of children around the world as feasible proof of evolution. What they don't teach in school is the human history of this exuberant archipelago. One chapter in particular within this short, but surely captivating account of people settling there, is rather intriguing. As if pulled from the pages of a crime novel, what filmmakers Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine found is a story that involves deceit, deviant romances, and possibly even murder.
In 1929, Freidrich Ritter, a German doctor and a fan of Nietzsche's ideology, decides to leave his wife and head for the islands, his only companion was Dore Strauch, a woman who was enticed by the idea of leaving civilized society for the emptiness of an untouched paradise. Soon after their arrival to the uninhabited Floreana island, the pair discovers life in the wilderness is a serious endeavor. With Ww II lurking on the horizon, it wasn't long before other Germans decided to follow on their footsteps, thus when the Wittmer family arrived, Ritter's ideal solitude was disturbed. Still, it appears as if the two groups would manage to share the space, but when a third party settles in, an Austrian woman claiming to be a Baroness and her two lovers, conflict unravels leaving behind a trail of mysterious events - unsolved to this date. Such is the premise of Geller and Goldfine's documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, which compiles archive footage, interviews, and narrations by the likes of Cate Blanchett , Sebastian Koch , and Diane Kruger This highly entertaining, darkly comedic, and well-crafted real-life melodrama tells a story almost impossible to believe. The directors shared with us the challenges and the huge undertaking that this project required, as well as their individual perceptions on such an incredible and, until now, hidden anecdote that adds to the allure the islands evoke.
Aguilar: How did you get involved with this fascinating and insane project?
Dayna: We were asked by a friend way back in 1998 to do camera and sound work on a sort of Darwin-type science project down in the Galapagos. We went not knowing anything about the islands except that Darwin had used them for his experiments and they had lots of really cool animals on them. Certainly not knowing that anyone lived there, because there is actually no indigenous people on the islands. Anyone that’s there now has emigrated, or their parents have emigrated, from some other place. While we were down there on our little boat traveling from island to island, one night we picked a book off the tiny little library shelf in the boat, and it was about the human history of the islands. We were like “Wow there is enough human history to fill a book?”. Then, even more cool was chapter 3 or 4, which was called “Murder in Paradise.”
Aguilar: What a title
Dan: [Laughs] Dayna loves her true crime books, so from that moment on, the fixation began for the rest of our trip around the islands that time
Dayna: Basically at that moment I sort of grabbed this little chapter and I said “Dan you’ve got to read this, it’s just so wacky” Then our naturalist guide, who had lived in the islands forever and knows everyone, he said to us “Well guess what you guys, the old lady [Margret] is still alive” This was back in 1998, she didn’t die until 2000. At that moment I became obsessed, I was like “We are in the islands for two weeks, there is no way we can’t go to Floreana and meet this woman,” but what we didn’t know at that point was that the way it works in the Galapagos, you got this very specific itinerary that’s attached to each boat and our boat was not supposed to go to Floreana.
Dan: The project we were working on, the science foundation project that we were shooting, had very specific animals and variations of species that our friend Doug needed, and none of them were the ones particular to Floreana. That’s why it wasn’t on the itinerary, and you can’t bend the itinerary once you get going, unless your boat breaks down in front of the island, which is what happened [Laughs]
Dayna: Literally every morning we’d wake up and I’d say, “So today Doug we are going to Floreana right? We are gonna go meet Margret Wittmer”, and it got to be kind of a joke but I know we were pissing off our friend Doug who hired us. He would roll his eyes [Laughs]. Finally almost towards the very end of our two weeks, the boat literally broke down in front of Floreana. We had to get off, we even got to take showers on the island, and we got to have tea with Margret.
Aguilar: What did she say? Was she open to speak about what happened to the Baroness?
Dan: She was mostly talking about how president Roosevelt came to visit because there was an airbase built in Galapagos during World War II to protect the Panama Canal. She was proud of that and kept talking about it, and then would wander into some different topics. In a moment where there was just a little bit of quiet in the conversation we all looked around for a beat, that’s when she blurted out apropos of nothing “En la boca cerrada no entran moscas”.We saw Miguel Mosquera, who was our naturalist on that trip, and who became our location manager for all the subsequent trips for our film, and his eyes popped out wide. I said, “What did she say?” because at the time neither Dayna nor I spoke Spanish, we’ve subsequently started to learn. After we left, Dayna and I said “ Miguel what did she just say?” and he translated for us: “A closed mouth admits no flies.” We thought, “Oh my God, she is toying with the reputation and the legacy, and teasing people about it”. Whether she did that because it was just her way to antagonize people because she was sick of being asked or because she has a devilish sense of humor. I think it's the latter because certainly her son and daughter, Rolf and Floreanita, have very sly senses of humor, so I think they inherited it from her.
Dayna: I think she was sort of playing with the visitors that came to the island. By that point and time she was in her 90s and so many years had gone by. There is no way she would’ve talked about it explicitly, but I think she really did get a kick out of it. She knew that when a visitor came to the island, front and foremost in their mind was “Ok what happened to the Baroness?” [Laughs]. Although no one would ask her about it at that point, I think it was her way of sort of joking around with us,
Aguilar: The search behind the film must have been extensive, how difficult was to find the footage and making a film out of a story hidden away for so long?
Dan: What happened is that, even though we were at that point fascinated with the story, there was no way to tell it without any kind of visual material. We were starting another movie called Ballets Russes, so we just thought “All right we’ll let it be for now” Then when the same friend Doug was starting a different science education project, he was working with a USC professor who also had brought his students down to Galapagos over the years. Of course because he was at USC, he happened to know of the archive in Doheny Library of all that footage. So our friend Doug, who we definitely owe a cocktail or two for this [Laughs], said “You guys have got to get down to USC and talked to this professor, Bill McComas, and see if you can get access because the archive is falling apart. There may be gold in there” We did, we started talking to the archivist, and then the university gave thumps up for us to take the footage with us and try to save it because they didn’t have the means to do it. We took that big risk, financially at least, and once we started seeing what was on those reels we thought “Ok, now we’ve got something going, we got a way to tell the story” I think that’s one reason why the story hadn’t been told for all those years, because you need to see those people in that situation to believe it! This story is so crazy you’d say “No, no that could’ve never happened.”
Aguilar: It is very ironic that people that wanted to be left alone and be isolated had so much footage of themselves and pictures. It feels as if they wanted to be noticed.
Dayna: It was one of those weird unfathomable ironies. First of all, we did use a little bit of an “artistic light,” basically all the footage or 99% of it was actually shot by Captain Allan Hancock and his cameraman. What he did is, once he and his crew of scientists landed on the island in 1931 and discovered Friedrich and Dore, he started asking them to reenact their lives for the camera. We always sort of say “Who knows, maybe he was inspired by Nanook of the North", because Robert J. Flaherty went in and actually had his protagonist go through his life again. Hancock asked them to reenact what they were doing, and he took photos and filmed, it was actually shot originally on 35 mm nitrate, which doesn’t exist any longer. Luckily he made a bunch of 16mm safety prints which were what we found in the archive. Once they got to the island, Friedrich, Dore, the Wittmers, certainly the baroness and her lovers, they were all pretty proud of the fact that they had managed to create these lives in this very unfriendly terrain, and they were willing to show it off. The other irony is that not only did they pose for the cameras, but they all brought typewriters. In Friedrich Ritter’s case it made sense because he really did want to go into seclusion so he could write the great philosophical manifesto.
Dan: Part of it is, I think, that in those days everyone wrote letters, and I suppose the odds of a typewritten letter getting there across all the moisture in the oceans might have been better than one written with a pen.Margret ultimately wrote a memoir, Dore Strauch wrote a memoir, they also wrote letters, Ritter wrote articles for magazine and newspapers around the world, John Garth, the scientist on the Velero, kept his journal. We wound up with a wealth of first person expressions that could be used to form this script where the characters come to life through their own words in writing. In our case we put them in opposition to each other and it didn’t take much work because they all had their own point of view, and sometimes insinuated that the other one was responsible for what was going on down there. That became more or less a screenwriter adaptation job, not adapting one book, but adapting 2 books, 2 sets of journals, and who knows how many articles, and letters. Dayna and I, and our fellow writer Celeste Schaefer Snyder, bit by bit went through the murder mystery story and tried to give everyone voice, and also keep it kind of fun and suspenseful.
Aguilar: With all the sexual tension and intrigue, this could have easily been a narrative drama. As a documentary, how did you balance the interviews with current islanders, the first person narratives, the footage, and all the other different sources to create something cohesive?
Dayna: It’s funny, Hollywood had been trying to make it as a fiction forever. The reason why it hasn't happened yet, although scripts have been flying around for over 20 years, is that it is such a complicated story, and there are so many characters. Each one is worthy of their own script, certainly they are all larger than life. That was really what took us the longest, I would say we worked with Bill Weber, our editor, for about two years. We went down so many dead ends, I can’t even tell you, we had so many work-in-progress screenings, scratch our heads, rewrote, re-cut, tried different balances of one character vs. another, or vs. the islanders perspective.
Dan: I think one thing that was important in setting each character onto the island was that we wanted to give them at least some moments where they could state clearly, and with real seriousness, why they were going and what their first impressions were like. Then that way, when things begin to verge toward the melodramatic or darkly humorous, there was already a foundation where you understood these people weren’t just cartoon characters. They had thought this through as much as they could and were trying to do something with a good spirit behind them. Even the Baroness, though her notions of the hotel or certainly her ability to fulfill the notion of the hotel was suspect from the beginning.
Aguilar: Even though you focus on this set of characters, the islands themselves have a mystifying personality and they appear to affect the people in them. Was this idea part of your creative process?
Dayna: Thank you so much, that’s exactly how we felt!. You are right when that woman tries to get away from the island it kind of sucks her back, in much the same way that Lorenz was sucked back and landed on Marchenta Isaland. In many ways the fact that the island had a drought, a really severe drought one of the worst in decades, we deeply believe it led to whatever happened to the Baroness and Phillipson. It’s funy, when were just starting to do the project, the series Lost was playing. Lost really did have the island as a character, and as we were watching the early episodes were chuckling and saying “It’s not so far from reality”
Dan: I wouldn’t have been surprised if we got into a backroom in a hotel and found the Dharma machine and someone was punching in the numbers every 90 minutes [Laughs]. Talking about the island reaching out, it turned out that Margery Simkin, who was our casting director on the movie, was in the Galapagos in 1986, her boat broke down, and she met Margret Wittmer in an unscheduled stop on Flroreana also. Maybe there is something about those islands, the fact that they’ve been uninhabited for so long, or that they are sitting over a volcanic hotspot. I don’t know what kind of lore you want to assign to it, but I agree with you, there is something weirdly mystical and prehistoric about the whole place.
Aguilar: Through their writing and the footage, both of you essentially met these characters, what are your thoughts on these characters who wanted to get away and begin again some place new?
Dayan: They each had different reasons. One of the things that sort of drew me to the project on a philosophical and emotional level was that I’m not sure there is anyone who hasn’t had that, momentary at least, dream of forsaking everything and going off to live on some deserted island somewhere. Everyone has his or her own reasons for wanting to do that at any specific moment. What was so interesting is that each of those people or collective groups in the film, had their own very specific reasons for going. In a way, each had its own very specific notions of what paradise might look like. One of the things that we talked about between us since the beginning of the project is that the film is about what could happen if you do take that leap? You leave society and you go in pursuit of your own little deserted island, in search of paradise. But when you get there, someone else is already situated on that same island and their notion of paradise clashes explicitly with your notion of paradise. What do you do?...
In 1929, Freidrich Ritter, a German doctor and a fan of Nietzsche's ideology, decides to leave his wife and head for the islands, his only companion was Dore Strauch, a woman who was enticed by the idea of leaving civilized society for the emptiness of an untouched paradise. Soon after their arrival to the uninhabited Floreana island, the pair discovers life in the wilderness is a serious endeavor. With Ww II lurking on the horizon, it wasn't long before other Germans decided to follow on their footsteps, thus when the Wittmer family arrived, Ritter's ideal solitude was disturbed. Still, it appears as if the two groups would manage to share the space, but when a third party settles in, an Austrian woman claiming to be a Baroness and her two lovers, conflict unravels leaving behind a trail of mysterious events - unsolved to this date. Such is the premise of Geller and Goldfine's documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, which compiles archive footage, interviews, and narrations by the likes of Cate Blanchett , Sebastian Koch , and Diane Kruger This highly entertaining, darkly comedic, and well-crafted real-life melodrama tells a story almost impossible to believe. The directors shared with us the challenges and the huge undertaking that this project required, as well as their individual perceptions on such an incredible and, until now, hidden anecdote that adds to the allure the islands evoke.
Aguilar: How did you get involved with this fascinating and insane project?
Dayna: We were asked by a friend way back in 1998 to do camera and sound work on a sort of Darwin-type science project down in the Galapagos. We went not knowing anything about the islands except that Darwin had used them for his experiments and they had lots of really cool animals on them. Certainly not knowing that anyone lived there, because there is actually no indigenous people on the islands. Anyone that’s there now has emigrated, or their parents have emigrated, from some other place. While we were down there on our little boat traveling from island to island, one night we picked a book off the tiny little library shelf in the boat, and it was about the human history of the islands. We were like “Wow there is enough human history to fill a book?”. Then, even more cool was chapter 3 or 4, which was called “Murder in Paradise.”
Aguilar: What a title
Dan: [Laughs] Dayna loves her true crime books, so from that moment on, the fixation began for the rest of our trip around the islands that time
Dayna: Basically at that moment I sort of grabbed this little chapter and I said “Dan you’ve got to read this, it’s just so wacky” Then our naturalist guide, who had lived in the islands forever and knows everyone, he said to us “Well guess what you guys, the old lady [Margret] is still alive” This was back in 1998, she didn’t die until 2000. At that moment I became obsessed, I was like “We are in the islands for two weeks, there is no way we can’t go to Floreana and meet this woman,” but what we didn’t know at that point was that the way it works in the Galapagos, you got this very specific itinerary that’s attached to each boat and our boat was not supposed to go to Floreana.
Dan: The project we were working on, the science foundation project that we were shooting, had very specific animals and variations of species that our friend Doug needed, and none of them were the ones particular to Floreana. That’s why it wasn’t on the itinerary, and you can’t bend the itinerary once you get going, unless your boat breaks down in front of the island, which is what happened [Laughs]
Dayna: Literally every morning we’d wake up and I’d say, “So today Doug we are going to Floreana right? We are gonna go meet Margret Wittmer”, and it got to be kind of a joke but I know we were pissing off our friend Doug who hired us. He would roll his eyes [Laughs]. Finally almost towards the very end of our two weeks, the boat literally broke down in front of Floreana. We had to get off, we even got to take showers on the island, and we got to have tea with Margret.
Aguilar: What did she say? Was she open to speak about what happened to the Baroness?
Dan: She was mostly talking about how president Roosevelt came to visit because there was an airbase built in Galapagos during World War II to protect the Panama Canal. She was proud of that and kept talking about it, and then would wander into some different topics. In a moment where there was just a little bit of quiet in the conversation we all looked around for a beat, that’s when she blurted out apropos of nothing “En la boca cerrada no entran moscas”.We saw Miguel Mosquera, who was our naturalist on that trip, and who became our location manager for all the subsequent trips for our film, and his eyes popped out wide. I said, “What did she say?” because at the time neither Dayna nor I spoke Spanish, we’ve subsequently started to learn. After we left, Dayna and I said “ Miguel what did she just say?” and he translated for us: “A closed mouth admits no flies.” We thought, “Oh my God, she is toying with the reputation and the legacy, and teasing people about it”. Whether she did that because it was just her way to antagonize people because she was sick of being asked or because she has a devilish sense of humor. I think it's the latter because certainly her son and daughter, Rolf and Floreanita, have very sly senses of humor, so I think they inherited it from her.
Dayna: I think she was sort of playing with the visitors that came to the island. By that point and time she was in her 90s and so many years had gone by. There is no way she would’ve talked about it explicitly, but I think she really did get a kick out of it. She knew that when a visitor came to the island, front and foremost in their mind was “Ok what happened to the Baroness?” [Laughs]. Although no one would ask her about it at that point, I think it was her way of sort of joking around with us,
Aguilar: The search behind the film must have been extensive, how difficult was to find the footage and making a film out of a story hidden away for so long?
Dan: What happened is that, even though we were at that point fascinated with the story, there was no way to tell it without any kind of visual material. We were starting another movie called Ballets Russes, so we just thought “All right we’ll let it be for now” Then when the same friend Doug was starting a different science education project, he was working with a USC professor who also had brought his students down to Galapagos over the years. Of course because he was at USC, he happened to know of the archive in Doheny Library of all that footage. So our friend Doug, who we definitely owe a cocktail or two for this [Laughs], said “You guys have got to get down to USC and talked to this professor, Bill McComas, and see if you can get access because the archive is falling apart. There may be gold in there” We did, we started talking to the archivist, and then the university gave thumps up for us to take the footage with us and try to save it because they didn’t have the means to do it. We took that big risk, financially at least, and once we started seeing what was on those reels we thought “Ok, now we’ve got something going, we got a way to tell the story” I think that’s one reason why the story hadn’t been told for all those years, because you need to see those people in that situation to believe it! This story is so crazy you’d say “No, no that could’ve never happened.”
Aguilar: It is very ironic that people that wanted to be left alone and be isolated had so much footage of themselves and pictures. It feels as if they wanted to be noticed.
Dayna: It was one of those weird unfathomable ironies. First of all, we did use a little bit of an “artistic light,” basically all the footage or 99% of it was actually shot by Captain Allan Hancock and his cameraman. What he did is, once he and his crew of scientists landed on the island in 1931 and discovered Friedrich and Dore, he started asking them to reenact their lives for the camera. We always sort of say “Who knows, maybe he was inspired by Nanook of the North", because Robert J. Flaherty went in and actually had his protagonist go through his life again. Hancock asked them to reenact what they were doing, and he took photos and filmed, it was actually shot originally on 35 mm nitrate, which doesn’t exist any longer. Luckily he made a bunch of 16mm safety prints which were what we found in the archive. Once they got to the island, Friedrich, Dore, the Wittmers, certainly the baroness and her lovers, they were all pretty proud of the fact that they had managed to create these lives in this very unfriendly terrain, and they were willing to show it off. The other irony is that not only did they pose for the cameras, but they all brought typewriters. In Friedrich Ritter’s case it made sense because he really did want to go into seclusion so he could write the great philosophical manifesto.
Dan: Part of it is, I think, that in those days everyone wrote letters, and I suppose the odds of a typewritten letter getting there across all the moisture in the oceans might have been better than one written with a pen.Margret ultimately wrote a memoir, Dore Strauch wrote a memoir, they also wrote letters, Ritter wrote articles for magazine and newspapers around the world, John Garth, the scientist on the Velero, kept his journal. We wound up with a wealth of first person expressions that could be used to form this script where the characters come to life through their own words in writing. In our case we put them in opposition to each other and it didn’t take much work because they all had their own point of view, and sometimes insinuated that the other one was responsible for what was going on down there. That became more or less a screenwriter adaptation job, not adapting one book, but adapting 2 books, 2 sets of journals, and who knows how many articles, and letters. Dayna and I, and our fellow writer Celeste Schaefer Snyder, bit by bit went through the murder mystery story and tried to give everyone voice, and also keep it kind of fun and suspenseful.
Aguilar: With all the sexual tension and intrigue, this could have easily been a narrative drama. As a documentary, how did you balance the interviews with current islanders, the first person narratives, the footage, and all the other different sources to create something cohesive?
Dayna: It’s funny, Hollywood had been trying to make it as a fiction forever. The reason why it hasn't happened yet, although scripts have been flying around for over 20 years, is that it is such a complicated story, and there are so many characters. Each one is worthy of their own script, certainly they are all larger than life. That was really what took us the longest, I would say we worked with Bill Weber, our editor, for about two years. We went down so many dead ends, I can’t even tell you, we had so many work-in-progress screenings, scratch our heads, rewrote, re-cut, tried different balances of one character vs. another, or vs. the islanders perspective.
Dan: I think one thing that was important in setting each character onto the island was that we wanted to give them at least some moments where they could state clearly, and with real seriousness, why they were going and what their first impressions were like. Then that way, when things begin to verge toward the melodramatic or darkly humorous, there was already a foundation where you understood these people weren’t just cartoon characters. They had thought this through as much as they could and were trying to do something with a good spirit behind them. Even the Baroness, though her notions of the hotel or certainly her ability to fulfill the notion of the hotel was suspect from the beginning.
Aguilar: Even though you focus on this set of characters, the islands themselves have a mystifying personality and they appear to affect the people in them. Was this idea part of your creative process?
Dayna: Thank you so much, that’s exactly how we felt!. You are right when that woman tries to get away from the island it kind of sucks her back, in much the same way that Lorenz was sucked back and landed on Marchenta Isaland. In many ways the fact that the island had a drought, a really severe drought one of the worst in decades, we deeply believe it led to whatever happened to the Baroness and Phillipson. It’s funy, when were just starting to do the project, the series Lost was playing. Lost really did have the island as a character, and as we were watching the early episodes were chuckling and saying “It’s not so far from reality”
Dan: I wouldn’t have been surprised if we got into a backroom in a hotel and found the Dharma machine and someone was punching in the numbers every 90 minutes [Laughs]. Talking about the island reaching out, it turned out that Margery Simkin, who was our casting director on the movie, was in the Galapagos in 1986, her boat broke down, and she met Margret Wittmer in an unscheduled stop on Flroreana also. Maybe there is something about those islands, the fact that they’ve been uninhabited for so long, or that they are sitting over a volcanic hotspot. I don’t know what kind of lore you want to assign to it, but I agree with you, there is something weirdly mystical and prehistoric about the whole place.
Aguilar: Through their writing and the footage, both of you essentially met these characters, what are your thoughts on these characters who wanted to get away and begin again some place new?
Dayan: They each had different reasons. One of the things that sort of drew me to the project on a philosophical and emotional level was that I’m not sure there is anyone who hasn’t had that, momentary at least, dream of forsaking everything and going off to live on some deserted island somewhere. Everyone has his or her own reasons for wanting to do that at any specific moment. What was so interesting is that each of those people or collective groups in the film, had their own very specific reasons for going. In a way, each had its own very specific notions of what paradise might look like. One of the things that we talked about between us since the beginning of the project is that the film is about what could happen if you do take that leap? You leave society and you go in pursuit of your own little deserted island, in search of paradise. But when you get there, someone else is already situated on that same island and their notion of paradise clashes explicitly with your notion of paradise. What do you do?...
- 4/17/2014
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Titan books recently released A Dance in Blood Velvet, the follow-up to Freda Warrington’s vampire novel, A Taste of Blood Wine, and we have the first chapter for Daily Dead readers to check out:
“For the love of her vampire suitor, Karl, Charlotte has forsaken her human life. Now her only contact with people is when she hunts them down to feed. The one light in the shadows is the passion that burns between her and Karl. A love that it seems will last for eternity – until Karl’s former lover, the beautiful Katerina, returns from her grave in the icy depths of the Weisskalt to reclaim her life… and Karl.”
Excerpt:
Chapter One: The Blood-crystal Ring
He knew only her first name: Charlotte.
When he’d first met her at the concert, she seemed an averagely pretty young woman; medium height, slim rather than fashionably thin, nothing extraordinary.
“For the love of her vampire suitor, Karl, Charlotte has forsaken her human life. Now her only contact with people is when she hunts them down to feed. The one light in the shadows is the passion that burns between her and Karl. A love that it seems will last for eternity – until Karl’s former lover, the beautiful Katerina, returns from her grave in the icy depths of the Weisskalt to reclaim her life… and Karl.”
Excerpt:
Chapter One: The Blood-crystal Ring
He knew only her first name: Charlotte.
When he’d first met her at the concert, she seemed an averagely pretty young woman; medium height, slim rather than fashionably thin, nothing extraordinary.
- 4/11/2014
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
A good historical documentary should tell an interesting story in a cohesive way and arouse our interest, even if we know nothing about the subject matter. The Galapagos Affair does just that, without resorting to cheesy dramatic reenactments. The only question is why no one has tackled this juicy material until now. Filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (who made the wonderful Ballets Russes) stumbled onto this mother lode while on assignment in the Galapagos Islands in the late 1990s. In pursuing the story, which dates back to the early 1930s, they found the key to a compelling presentation: a cache of home movie footage depicting all the central characters. They also cast a...
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[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...
- 4/4/2014
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
You hear it all the time: Quality a bit soft. Not a lot of Big Titles. Not a lot of Big News. But Americans were buying all the same, and to quote Screen International: “The current market is focused on smart money and smart deals, not volume of product”. Business at Afm was also solid though unspectacular. Moreover, the pre-buying of projects may be below the radar of this $3 billion business of international film buying and selling. TrustNordisk’s CEO Rikke Ennis says that 70% of their films are pre-sold. As you look at the upcoming Winter Rights Roundup due out in two weeks from SydneysBuzz.com/Reports, you will notice many of the films have been pre-buys this market and many films screening were already pre-sold during Afm in November.
And for all the complaints about Berlin, many sales agents set up private screenings before the market kicked off. What is that about?
Beki Probst, who has run the Efm since 1988, responded to the many media reports of a quieter market in an interview with ScreenDaily which sounds almost the same as the one she gave in 2009.
Quoting her current statement which I take the liberty of quoting here as it appears in Screen:
“I think that there was a good movement of business this year,” she said. In the opinion of Probst, there had been a muddying of the distinction between the Efm and the more general term of the ‘market’.
“Daphné Kapfer of Europa International representing 35 sales agents said that it was a very good Berlin, and Glen Basner of FilmNation commented that it was ‘the best Berlin’.
“Even Harvey Weinstein came just for 24 hours to sign a $7m check, and Aloft was bought by Sony Pictures Classics.
“It’s the players, and not the market, that is important. The players come here if they have the right line-up. All we can do is provide the best infrastructure, but what happens after that is up to them.”
"Sales agents were not sitting idle at their stands if one takes the example of one company in the Martin Gropius Bau: the CEO met with 90 buyers and the members of staff responsible for marketing had no less than 180 meetings in addition to ad-hoc discussions at events in the evenings."
Coproductions are the engine driving the business these days.
This year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market ended after two-and-a-half days with awards handed out to projects from Kazakhstan and Belgium.
The €6,000 Arte International Prize went to Kazakh film-maker Emir Baigazin’s planned second feature The Wounded Angel, the second part of a trilogy after his Silver Bear-winning Harmony Lessons. The €1.2m Almaty-based Kazakhfilm Jsc production has already attracted France’s Capricci Production as a co-producer and has backing in place from the Doha Film Institute and the Hubert Bals Fund.
The €10,000 Vff Talent Highlight Pitch Award was presented to Belgian director Bavo Defurne for his romantic dramedy Souvenir. The €2m co-production by Oostende-based Indeed Films with Belgium’s Frakas Productions and Germany’s Karibufilm already has backing from Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Cinefinance and public broadcaster Vrt/ Een.
India-Norway’s $55 million film to be directed by Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance)’s The Indian Bride is an exciting example of an unusual pairing of countries.
Bavaria and Senator’s joint venture Bavaria Pictures’ The Postcard Killers to be directed by Mexican director Everardo Gout shows the international expansion of talent.
The Hungary-Austria-Germany co-production of Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity, or U.K.-Lithuania action comedy Redirected being sold by Content brings unusual European partners together.
U.S. born Damian John Harper’s coproduction with the German producers, brothers Jakob and Jonas Weydemann, on Los Angeles will be followed by In the Middle of the River now being developed with Zdf’s Das Kleine Fernsehspiel unit.
Shoreline’s The Infinite Man produced with Australia’s Hedone Productions in association with Bonsai Films with investment from South Australia Film Corporation through its Filmlab funding initiative, development assistance from Screen Australia is also a new sort of pairing.
Film and Music Entertainment (F&Me), Bac Films, 20 Steps Productions and Bruemmer & Herzog’s The President is shooting in Tbilisi, Georgia and is being directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Italian-Canadian producer Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s Sights of Death starring Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen is directed by Allessandro Capone in Rome.
The Spain-u.K. co-production Second Origin is based on the best selling Catalan novel Mecanoscrit Del Segon Orgen.
The Golden Bear Winner Black Coal, Thin Ice is a Boneyard Entertainment (New York & Hong Kong) co-production with Boneyard Entertainment China (Bec), Omnijoi Media (Jiangsu, China), China Film co-production.
A sign of the times is the Swedish Film in Berlin advertisement which lists all Swedish co-productions:
In Competition: In Order of DisappearanceOut of Competition: NymphomaniacBerlinale Special: Someone You Love Generation Kplus: A Christmoose StoryPerspektive Deutsches Kino: Lamento
All are with European co-producers as is Antboy a Danish-German co-production.
One of my favorites is Gallows Hill, being sold by Im Global and already picked up by IFC for U.S. Starring Twilight actor Peter Facinelli, U.K. actress Sophia Myles, Nathalia Ramos and Colombian model and actress Carolina Guerra, it was entirely financed from within Colombia by television network Rcn’s affiliate Five 7 Media which produced with Peter Block's A Bigger Boat, David Higgins and Angelique Higgins' Launchpad Productions and Andrea Chung. The screenplay was written by Rich D’Ovidio ( The Call, Thir13en Ghosts) about a widower who takes his children on a trip to their mother’s Colombian hometown.
Another interesting combo is the Australian-Singapore co-production Canopy being sold by Odin’s Eye which was acquired by Kaleidoscope for U.K., by Kinosmith for Canada and Odin’s Eye itself for Australia. After its Tiff 2013 premiere, Monterrey acquired U.S. rights.
Cathedrals of Culture, was produced by Wim Wenders’ production company: Neue Road Movies in Germany and co-produced by Final Cut For Real (Denmark), Lotus Film (Austria), Mer Film (Norway), Les Films d'Ici 2 (France), Sundance Productions / RadicalMedia (U.S.), Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg In collaboration with Arte (Germany and France) and Wowow (Japan).
Grand Budapest Hotel is a co-production of Scott Rudin in U.S. and Studio Babelsburg in Germany.
Wouldn't you say there had to be an awful lot of business going on? If only the media knew where to look for it. Instead, they moan the same old tired tune, "Quality a bit soft. Not a lot of Big Titles. Not a lot of Big News". Oh well...
Efm Coproduction Market
Asian producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon, who was pitching the Hong Kong comedy Grooms by writer-director Arvin Chen at the Berlin Coproduction Market, announced that Germany’s augenschein filmproduktion will be a coproducer on Singaporean director Boo Junfeng’s second feature Apprentice. The film has already received backing from France’s World Cinema Support, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw of Germany and Germany's second network, Zdf’s Das kleine fernsehspiel unit. It also has Cinema Defacto as its French co-producer. Junfeng’s first film, Sandcastle, was screened at the Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2010.
Cologne-based augenschein, who produced Maximilian Leo’s My Brother’s Keeper, the opening film of this year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino and is handled internationally by Media Luna, is currently in post-production on Romanian filmmaker Florin Serban’s Box, his second feature after the 2010 Berlinale Competition film If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle.
Argentinian filmmaker Santiago Mitre whose debut The Student established him as one of the brightest and most courted young directors in Latin America was in the Co-production Market with his untitled second feature which France’s Full House connected to along with Argentina’s Union de los Rio, Argentine broadcast network Telefe, Ignacio Viale and the ubiquitous Lita Stantic.
Full House was also at the Coproduction Market with Peter Webber’s Fresh about a young thief learning the art of pickpocketing in Bogota, Colombia. It will be co-produced with Rcn affiliate Five 7 Media and 4Direcciones in Colombia and by Webber himself.
Raymond van der Kaaij, the producer of Tamar van den Dop’s Panorama title Supernova, is now financing Sundance winner Ernesto Contreras’ next feature I Dream In Another Language. The Spanish-English language project will be produced with Mexico-based Agencia Sha, and it is now casting the American lead according to producer van der Kaaij of Revolver Amsterdam. Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the winner of the Sundance-Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, I Dream has already received support from Imcine in Mexico. Shooting is scheduled in Mexico for the end of 2014.
Revolver is now editing Bodkin Ras, the debut film of Iranian-Dutch director Kaweh Modiri, an English-language documentary-thriller set in North Scotland. The Dutch-Belgian-u.K. coproduction is set for release at the end of 2014.
Finnish film-maker Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa’s is editing his latest feature They Have Escaped, which Revolver coproduced with Helsinki Film.
Trend of smart art genres
Another continuing trend, which began with Xyz and Celluloid Nightmares and continued with Memento, is the character-driven art genre films with tight budgets, like the Danish coming-of-age-werewolf-romance, When Animals Dream, directed by first timer Jonas Arnby, sold by Gaumont to Radius-twc for No. Americ. The Scandinavians, formerly making a mark with "Nordic Noir" are now making what they call "Nordic Twilight".
Trend of remake rights
Another trend is that of remake rights. Film Sharks reports it makes more from selling remake rights than from licensing distribution rights.
The Intouchables is selling remake rights to more countries than only India as is the sale of Other Angle’s Babysitting remake rights. Negotiations are underway with Russia, Italy and Germany.
Fruit Chan is considering an English language remake of his 2004 cult horror film Dumplings.
The market is bit too calm?…Then let us look at Cannes…
Usually by Afm you can begin the Tipped for Cannes List (which Gilles Jacob detested), but even that is a little on the quiet side. I begin to question whether all media fueled news is accurate: the slow sales being reported, the lack of pre-Cannes buzz… Is the media really investigating deeply?
Of all the trades, while Screen has the most international news and deepest analyses, Variety reports things no other trade is covering. But…still the non-news of a quiet market persists as if it were headline news. We always hear this and we are still in an economic slump, so what we wish for is not apparent, but this is not news.
Tipped for Cannes
Tipped for Cannes are Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home staring Gong Li and to be sold by Wild Bunch, Stealth’s First Law starring Mads Mikkelsen (Cannes 2012 Best Actor Award for The Hunt); Self Made (Boreg) by Shira Geffen and to be sold by Westend, shot in Hebrew and Arabic by the production and sales team behind Oscar nominated 2011 drama Footnote, the second film after Geffen’s 2007 debut Jellyfish which won the Cannes Camera d’Or. MK2’s Clouds of Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas and starring Juliette Binoche, Chloe Grace Moretz and Kristen Stewart, and Naomi Kawase’s Still the Water will be delivered in time for Cannes. Pyramide International is plannng for Leviathan, a modern retelling of the biblical story which deals with some of Russia’s most important social issues to be ready for Cannes. It is directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and produced by Alexander Rodnyansky (Stalingrad) as their followup to Elena. Gaumont-cj co-production, The Target, the Korean remake of Fred Cavaye’s action thriller Point Blank will be ready in time for Cannes.
Rumors and truths about people changing positions
Rumors about Dieter Kosslick replacing Berlin’s Culture Secretary who resigned after a tax evasion scandal in which he admitted to stashing $575,000 in a Swiss bank account…Charlotte Mickie has left eOne and knowing her, she is bound to find something good elsewhere as she's too good to lose...StudioCanals Harold van Lier now leads eOne’s newly ramped international sales team and Montreal based Anick Poirier leads its subsidiary label, Seville International. Jeff Nuyts is leaving Intramovies. Nigel Sinclair and Guy East seem to be leaving Exclusive Media the company they founded as discussions with partners from Dasym Investment Strategies Bv move forward. Kevin Hoiseth from Voltage Pictures has joined International Film Trust as their director of international sales...and of course, Nadine de Barros has founded her own company, Fortitude, and was holding court at the Ritz Carlton the buzziest spot outside of the Martin Gropius Bau.
What I Saw and What I Thought
For what it's worth, here is my limited list of screenings of films seen only in the last 3 days of the festival when I was no longer "working". I am including some I actually saw at Sundance.
First and foremost -- and to be written about further in a "thought piece" as I term the articles I think long about before writing and to include my interview with the director Goran Hugo Olsson's (The Black Power Mixtapes winner of Sundance 2011 World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award) -- Concerning Violence (Isa: Films Boutique, U.S.: Cinetic), based on Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and seen at Sundance this year next to Stanley Nelson's outstanding Freedom Summer (PBS) and Greg Barker's We Are The Giant (Submarine), is a call to action for new societal models ringing out loud and clear.
Golden Bear Winner, Black Coal, Thin Ice by Diao Yinan, a Chinese noir, lacked the momentum and substance I would have expected in a winning film, though it was a fascinating way to see today's urban China. Had I been on the jury, I would have chosen the Best Director Award winning Boyhood (Isa: IFC) by Richard Linklater. But perhaps because James Schamus, an American who loves Chinese films, was President of the Jury, there might have arisen a question of disinterested objectivity. I would have to hear what jurists Barbara Broccoli, Trine Dyrhom, Chistoph Waltz, Tony Leung, Greta Gerwig, Mitra Farahani and Michel Gondry would have to say about the deliberations.
Speaking of jury prizes, it was a surprise the much acclaimed '71 (Isa: Protagonist, now headed by our dear Mike Goodridge) won nothing, and good Alain Renais' Life of Riley (Isa: Le Pacte) received recognition. I found Christophe Gans' La belle et la bete (Beauty and the Beast) (Isa: Pathe) an overproduced unwieldy special effects-ridden mess, even though it was exec-produced by Jérôme Seydoux who also produced the masterpiece La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty), and starred his granddaughter Lea Seydoux. I'll stand by Cocteau's versoin. I heard Claudia Llosa (Milk of Sorrow)'s Aloft was also not widely admired.
About the best actress winning film The Little House (Isa: Shochiku could have marketed it more widely), I heard nothing at all, though it sounds really good. Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross) (Isa: Beta) by brother and sister team Anna and Dietrich Brueggemann (any relation to our own Tom Brueggeman?) had a satisfying denouement and was quite engrossing with moments of humor lightening the heavy weight of the cross carried by 14 year old Maria played by Lea van Acken, a picture face out of a George de la Tour painting (Magdeline with a Smoking Flame or A Piece of Art). Macondo (Isa: Films Boutique - again! ) by Sudabeh Mortezai of Austria was a window on a world never seen before and very engrossing although the coming of age story was one we have seen before.
Not sorry to say I missed The Monuments Men and Nymphomaniac Volume I, but sorry that I missed Beloved Sisters (Isa: Global Screen) of Dominik Graf, The Grand Budapest Hotel (will see it in U.S.), Argentinian Benjamin Naishat's History of Fear (Isa: Visit) -- I'll catch it in Carthegena, Guadalajara or San Sebastian I'm sure, Jack, In Order of Disappearance which sounds like the sleeper hit of the festival, Argentinan (again!) La tercera orilla (The Third Side of the River), Lou Ye's Tui Na (Blind Massage) and Rachid Bouchareb's Two Men in Town (Isa: Pathe - again!), which I heard was rather flat which is not surprising, for when non-Americans try to make an American genre, it usually misses a certain verve, but still is such an interesting subject for him to tackle, Zwischen Welten (Inbetween Worlds) (Isa: The Match Factory) from Germany, another "American" subject, but here about a German soldier in Afghanistan, not an American one.
Among the Berlinale Specials, I wish I had seen Nancy Buirski's Afternoon of a Faun which everyone said was good (Isa: Cactus Three the doc production company of Krysanne Katsoolis and Caroline Stevens) and Volker Schloendorff's 1969 Brecht piece Baal starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. I did see his Diplomacy (Isa: Gaumont) which was a great treat, erudite, intimate and reminiscent of the novels of Sandor Marai (Embers and Casanova in Bolzano). Wish I could have seen Wim Wenders' Cathedrals of Culture (Isa: Cinephil), Diego Luna's Cesar Chavez (Isa: Mundial) and In the Courtyard aka Dans la cours (Isa: Wild Bunch) starring Catherine Deneuve and The Kidnapping of Michel Houllebecq (Isa: Le Pacte - again!!). I will see The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (Isa: The Film Sales Company) by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, produced by Jonathan Dana, Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller and Celeste Schaefer Snyder (Ballets Russes), back home. The Turning (Isa: Level K), an experimental omnibus produced by my favorite Australian producer, Robert Connelly who also directed in part and Maggie Myles, is also a must-see as is Errol Morris' companion piece to The Fog of War, The Unknown Known (Isa: HanWay) and Houssein Amini's Two Faces of January (Isa: StudioCanal) starring my favorites Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst. We Come as Friends (Isa: Le Pacte), by Hubert Sauper whose earlier film Darwin's Destiny astounded me, was worth watching although so often his films plunge one into a hopeless helplessness. Fresh from Sundance, it was raising controversy and the story of the Sudan is worth knowing. His particular and peculiar Pov is valuable. Watermark (Isa: Entertainment One), another social issue worth knowing about will have to wait for a more propitious time. Personally I'm hoping Israel's current venture into desalination of water will lead the world into peace and that I will rejoice watching the doc about that.
Difret (Isa: Films Boutique - again!), fresh from Sundance where I saw it was really good and it sold well. I got to hang out with the team at the Panorama party. Gueros (Isa: Mundial - again!), was a disappointment -- too like The Year of the Nail (though different) in tone. But what a great company Canana is!
Panorama's Finding Vivian Maier (Isa: HanWay - again!) is brilliantly interesting. It is about to be released in U.S. by IFC. I highly recommend seeing this documentary about an eccentric, unknown photographer. It premiered at Tiff 2013. Fresh from Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (Isa: Submarine) was a treasure; Velvet Terrorists was about the oddest piece I have ever seen. About three former opponents of the Czechoslovakian Soviet Regime, each has continued to enjoy blowing up things. One is still training the next generation in urban guerilla warfare. They are otherwise unremarkable, sweet even, but twisted. What an odd documentary.
A quick look at the Market Films I have seen: of the 400+ premieres: Zero -- no I did see German Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Two Lives (Isa: Beta), and I will soon be home to celebrate its nomination at the famous Villa Aurora, the former home of German expatriate writer Leon Feuchtwanger. So many more films look sooooo attractive! A pity I may never get to see them. I would need all the time in the world, and I have so little. I have so much and yet I want more!
And for all the complaints about Berlin, many sales agents set up private screenings before the market kicked off. What is that about?
Beki Probst, who has run the Efm since 1988, responded to the many media reports of a quieter market in an interview with ScreenDaily which sounds almost the same as the one she gave in 2009.
Quoting her current statement which I take the liberty of quoting here as it appears in Screen:
“I think that there was a good movement of business this year,” she said. In the opinion of Probst, there had been a muddying of the distinction between the Efm and the more general term of the ‘market’.
“Daphné Kapfer of Europa International representing 35 sales agents said that it was a very good Berlin, and Glen Basner of FilmNation commented that it was ‘the best Berlin’.
“Even Harvey Weinstein came just for 24 hours to sign a $7m check, and Aloft was bought by Sony Pictures Classics.
“It’s the players, and not the market, that is important. The players come here if they have the right line-up. All we can do is provide the best infrastructure, but what happens after that is up to them.”
"Sales agents were not sitting idle at their stands if one takes the example of one company in the Martin Gropius Bau: the CEO met with 90 buyers and the members of staff responsible for marketing had no less than 180 meetings in addition to ad-hoc discussions at events in the evenings."
Coproductions are the engine driving the business these days.
This year’s Berlinale Co-Production Market ended after two-and-a-half days with awards handed out to projects from Kazakhstan and Belgium.
The €6,000 Arte International Prize went to Kazakh film-maker Emir Baigazin’s planned second feature The Wounded Angel, the second part of a trilogy after his Silver Bear-winning Harmony Lessons. The €1.2m Almaty-based Kazakhfilm Jsc production has already attracted France’s Capricci Production as a co-producer and has backing in place from the Doha Film Institute and the Hubert Bals Fund.
The €10,000 Vff Talent Highlight Pitch Award was presented to Belgian director Bavo Defurne for his romantic dramedy Souvenir. The €2m co-production by Oostende-based Indeed Films with Belgium’s Frakas Productions and Germany’s Karibufilm already has backing from Flanders Audiovisual Fund, Cinefinance and public broadcaster Vrt/ Een.
India-Norway’s $55 million film to be directed by Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance)’s The Indian Bride is an exciting example of an unusual pairing of countries.
Bavaria and Senator’s joint venture Bavaria Pictures’ The Postcard Killers to be directed by Mexican director Everardo Gout shows the international expansion of talent.
The Hungary-Austria-Germany co-production of Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity, or U.K.-Lithuania action comedy Redirected being sold by Content brings unusual European partners together.
U.S. born Damian John Harper’s coproduction with the German producers, brothers Jakob and Jonas Weydemann, on Los Angeles will be followed by In the Middle of the River now being developed with Zdf’s Das Kleine Fernsehspiel unit.
Shoreline’s The Infinite Man produced with Australia’s Hedone Productions in association with Bonsai Films with investment from South Australia Film Corporation through its Filmlab funding initiative, development assistance from Screen Australia is also a new sort of pairing.
Film and Music Entertainment (F&Me), Bac Films, 20 Steps Productions and Bruemmer & Herzog’s The President is shooting in Tbilisi, Georgia and is being directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf.
Italian-Canadian producer Andrea Iervolino and Monika Bacardi’s Sights of Death starring Danny Glover, Daryl Hannah, Rutger Hauer, Stephen Baldwin and Michael Madsen is directed by Allessandro Capone in Rome.
The Spain-u.K. co-production Second Origin is based on the best selling Catalan novel Mecanoscrit Del Segon Orgen.
The Golden Bear Winner Black Coal, Thin Ice is a Boneyard Entertainment (New York & Hong Kong) co-production with Boneyard Entertainment China (Bec), Omnijoi Media (Jiangsu, China), China Film co-production.
A sign of the times is the Swedish Film in Berlin advertisement which lists all Swedish co-productions:
In Competition: In Order of DisappearanceOut of Competition: NymphomaniacBerlinale Special: Someone You Love Generation Kplus: A Christmoose StoryPerspektive Deutsches Kino: Lamento
All are with European co-producers as is Antboy a Danish-German co-production.
One of my favorites is Gallows Hill, being sold by Im Global and already picked up by IFC for U.S. Starring Twilight actor Peter Facinelli, U.K. actress Sophia Myles, Nathalia Ramos and Colombian model and actress Carolina Guerra, it was entirely financed from within Colombia by television network Rcn’s affiliate Five 7 Media which produced with Peter Block's A Bigger Boat, David Higgins and Angelique Higgins' Launchpad Productions and Andrea Chung. The screenplay was written by Rich D’Ovidio ( The Call, Thir13en Ghosts) about a widower who takes his children on a trip to their mother’s Colombian hometown.
Another interesting combo is the Australian-Singapore co-production Canopy being sold by Odin’s Eye which was acquired by Kaleidoscope for U.K., by Kinosmith for Canada and Odin’s Eye itself for Australia. After its Tiff 2013 premiere, Monterrey acquired U.S. rights.
Cathedrals of Culture, was produced by Wim Wenders’ production company: Neue Road Movies in Germany and co-produced by Final Cut For Real (Denmark), Lotus Film (Austria), Mer Film (Norway), Les Films d'Ici 2 (France), Sundance Productions / RadicalMedia (U.S.), Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg In collaboration with Arte (Germany and France) and Wowow (Japan).
Grand Budapest Hotel is a co-production of Scott Rudin in U.S. and Studio Babelsburg in Germany.
Wouldn't you say there had to be an awful lot of business going on? If only the media knew where to look for it. Instead, they moan the same old tired tune, "Quality a bit soft. Not a lot of Big Titles. Not a lot of Big News". Oh well...
Efm Coproduction Market
Asian producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon, who was pitching the Hong Kong comedy Grooms by writer-director Arvin Chen at the Berlin Coproduction Market, announced that Germany’s augenschein filmproduktion will be a coproducer on Singaporean director Boo Junfeng’s second feature Apprentice. The film has already received backing from France’s World Cinema Support, the Film- und Medienstiftung Nrw of Germany and Germany's second network, Zdf’s Das kleine fernsehspiel unit. It also has Cinema Defacto as its French co-producer. Junfeng’s first film, Sandcastle, was screened at the Critics’ Week in Cannes in 2010.
Cologne-based augenschein, who produced Maximilian Leo’s My Brother’s Keeper, the opening film of this year’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino and is handled internationally by Media Luna, is currently in post-production on Romanian filmmaker Florin Serban’s Box, his second feature after the 2010 Berlinale Competition film If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle.
Argentinian filmmaker Santiago Mitre whose debut The Student established him as one of the brightest and most courted young directors in Latin America was in the Co-production Market with his untitled second feature which France’s Full House connected to along with Argentina’s Union de los Rio, Argentine broadcast network Telefe, Ignacio Viale and the ubiquitous Lita Stantic.
Full House was also at the Coproduction Market with Peter Webber’s Fresh about a young thief learning the art of pickpocketing in Bogota, Colombia. It will be co-produced with Rcn affiliate Five 7 Media and 4Direcciones in Colombia and by Webber himself.
Raymond van der Kaaij, the producer of Tamar van den Dop’s Panorama title Supernova, is now financing Sundance winner Ernesto Contreras’ next feature I Dream In Another Language. The Spanish-English language project will be produced with Mexico-based Agencia Sha, and it is now casting the American lead according to producer van der Kaaij of Revolver Amsterdam. Developed at the Sundance Screenwriters Lab and the winner of the Sundance-Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award, I Dream has already received support from Imcine in Mexico. Shooting is scheduled in Mexico for the end of 2014.
Revolver is now editing Bodkin Ras, the debut film of Iranian-Dutch director Kaweh Modiri, an English-language documentary-thriller set in North Scotland. The Dutch-Belgian-u.K. coproduction is set for release at the end of 2014.
Finnish film-maker Jukka-Pekka Valkeapaa’s is editing his latest feature They Have Escaped, which Revolver coproduced with Helsinki Film.
Trend of smart art genres
Another continuing trend, which began with Xyz and Celluloid Nightmares and continued with Memento, is the character-driven art genre films with tight budgets, like the Danish coming-of-age-werewolf-romance, When Animals Dream, directed by first timer Jonas Arnby, sold by Gaumont to Radius-twc for No. Americ. The Scandinavians, formerly making a mark with "Nordic Noir" are now making what they call "Nordic Twilight".
Trend of remake rights
Another trend is that of remake rights. Film Sharks reports it makes more from selling remake rights than from licensing distribution rights.
The Intouchables is selling remake rights to more countries than only India as is the sale of Other Angle’s Babysitting remake rights. Negotiations are underway with Russia, Italy and Germany.
Fruit Chan is considering an English language remake of his 2004 cult horror film Dumplings.
The market is bit too calm?…Then let us look at Cannes…
Usually by Afm you can begin the Tipped for Cannes List (which Gilles Jacob detested), but even that is a little on the quiet side. I begin to question whether all media fueled news is accurate: the slow sales being reported, the lack of pre-Cannes buzz… Is the media really investigating deeply?
Of all the trades, while Screen has the most international news and deepest analyses, Variety reports things no other trade is covering. But…still the non-news of a quiet market persists as if it were headline news. We always hear this and we are still in an economic slump, so what we wish for is not apparent, but this is not news.
Tipped for Cannes
Tipped for Cannes are Zhang Yimou’s Coming Home staring Gong Li and to be sold by Wild Bunch, Stealth’s First Law starring Mads Mikkelsen (Cannes 2012 Best Actor Award for The Hunt); Self Made (Boreg) by Shira Geffen and to be sold by Westend, shot in Hebrew and Arabic by the production and sales team behind Oscar nominated 2011 drama Footnote, the second film after Geffen’s 2007 debut Jellyfish which won the Cannes Camera d’Or. MK2’s Clouds of Sils Maria by Olivier Assayas and starring Juliette Binoche, Chloe Grace Moretz and Kristen Stewart, and Naomi Kawase’s Still the Water will be delivered in time for Cannes. Pyramide International is plannng for Leviathan, a modern retelling of the biblical story which deals with some of Russia’s most important social issues to be ready for Cannes. It is directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev and produced by Alexander Rodnyansky (Stalingrad) as their followup to Elena. Gaumont-cj co-production, The Target, the Korean remake of Fred Cavaye’s action thriller Point Blank will be ready in time for Cannes.
Rumors and truths about people changing positions
Rumors about Dieter Kosslick replacing Berlin’s Culture Secretary who resigned after a tax evasion scandal in which he admitted to stashing $575,000 in a Swiss bank account…Charlotte Mickie has left eOne and knowing her, she is bound to find something good elsewhere as she's too good to lose...StudioCanals Harold van Lier now leads eOne’s newly ramped international sales team and Montreal based Anick Poirier leads its subsidiary label, Seville International. Jeff Nuyts is leaving Intramovies. Nigel Sinclair and Guy East seem to be leaving Exclusive Media the company they founded as discussions with partners from Dasym Investment Strategies Bv move forward. Kevin Hoiseth from Voltage Pictures has joined International Film Trust as their director of international sales...and of course, Nadine de Barros has founded her own company, Fortitude, and was holding court at the Ritz Carlton the buzziest spot outside of the Martin Gropius Bau.
What I Saw and What I Thought
For what it's worth, here is my limited list of screenings of films seen only in the last 3 days of the festival when I was no longer "working". I am including some I actually saw at Sundance.
First and foremost -- and to be written about further in a "thought piece" as I term the articles I think long about before writing and to include my interview with the director Goran Hugo Olsson's (The Black Power Mixtapes winner of Sundance 2011 World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award) -- Concerning Violence (Isa: Films Boutique, U.S.: Cinetic), based on Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth and seen at Sundance this year next to Stanley Nelson's outstanding Freedom Summer (PBS) and Greg Barker's We Are The Giant (Submarine), is a call to action for new societal models ringing out loud and clear.
Golden Bear Winner, Black Coal, Thin Ice by Diao Yinan, a Chinese noir, lacked the momentum and substance I would have expected in a winning film, though it was a fascinating way to see today's urban China. Had I been on the jury, I would have chosen the Best Director Award winning Boyhood (Isa: IFC) by Richard Linklater. But perhaps because James Schamus, an American who loves Chinese films, was President of the Jury, there might have arisen a question of disinterested objectivity. I would have to hear what jurists Barbara Broccoli, Trine Dyrhom, Chistoph Waltz, Tony Leung, Greta Gerwig, Mitra Farahani and Michel Gondry would have to say about the deliberations.
Speaking of jury prizes, it was a surprise the much acclaimed '71 (Isa: Protagonist, now headed by our dear Mike Goodridge) won nothing, and good Alain Renais' Life of Riley (Isa: Le Pacte) received recognition. I found Christophe Gans' La belle et la bete (Beauty and the Beast) (Isa: Pathe) an overproduced unwieldy special effects-ridden mess, even though it was exec-produced by Jérôme Seydoux who also produced the masterpiece La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty), and starred his granddaughter Lea Seydoux. I'll stand by Cocteau's versoin. I heard Claudia Llosa (Milk of Sorrow)'s Aloft was also not widely admired.
About the best actress winning film The Little House (Isa: Shochiku could have marketed it more widely), I heard nothing at all, though it sounds really good. Kreuzweg (Stations of the Cross) (Isa: Beta) by brother and sister team Anna and Dietrich Brueggemann (any relation to our own Tom Brueggeman?) had a satisfying denouement and was quite engrossing with moments of humor lightening the heavy weight of the cross carried by 14 year old Maria played by Lea van Acken, a picture face out of a George de la Tour painting (Magdeline with a Smoking Flame or A Piece of Art). Macondo (Isa: Films Boutique - again! ) by Sudabeh Mortezai of Austria was a window on a world never seen before and very engrossing although the coming of age story was one we have seen before.
Not sorry to say I missed The Monuments Men and Nymphomaniac Volume I, but sorry that I missed Beloved Sisters (Isa: Global Screen) of Dominik Graf, The Grand Budapest Hotel (will see it in U.S.), Argentinian Benjamin Naishat's History of Fear (Isa: Visit) -- I'll catch it in Carthegena, Guadalajara or San Sebastian I'm sure, Jack, In Order of Disappearance which sounds like the sleeper hit of the festival, Argentinan (again!) La tercera orilla (The Third Side of the River), Lou Ye's Tui Na (Blind Massage) and Rachid Bouchareb's Two Men in Town (Isa: Pathe - again!), which I heard was rather flat which is not surprising, for when non-Americans try to make an American genre, it usually misses a certain verve, but still is such an interesting subject for him to tackle, Zwischen Welten (Inbetween Worlds) (Isa: The Match Factory) from Germany, another "American" subject, but here about a German soldier in Afghanistan, not an American one.
Among the Berlinale Specials, I wish I had seen Nancy Buirski's Afternoon of a Faun which everyone said was good (Isa: Cactus Three the doc production company of Krysanne Katsoolis and Caroline Stevens) and Volker Schloendorff's 1969 Brecht piece Baal starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Margarethe von Trotta. I did see his Diplomacy (Isa: Gaumont) which was a great treat, erudite, intimate and reminiscent of the novels of Sandor Marai (Embers and Casanova in Bolzano). Wish I could have seen Wim Wenders' Cathedrals of Culture (Isa: Cinephil), Diego Luna's Cesar Chavez (Isa: Mundial) and In the Courtyard aka Dans la cours (Isa: Wild Bunch) starring Catherine Deneuve and The Kidnapping of Michel Houllebecq (Isa: Le Pacte - again!!). I will see The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (Isa: The Film Sales Company) by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller, produced by Jonathan Dana, Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller and Celeste Schaefer Snyder (Ballets Russes), back home. The Turning (Isa: Level K), an experimental omnibus produced by my favorite Australian producer, Robert Connelly who also directed in part and Maggie Myles, is also a must-see as is Errol Morris' companion piece to The Fog of War, The Unknown Known (Isa: HanWay) and Houssein Amini's Two Faces of January (Isa: StudioCanal) starring my favorites Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst. We Come as Friends (Isa: Le Pacte), by Hubert Sauper whose earlier film Darwin's Destiny astounded me, was worth watching although so often his films plunge one into a hopeless helplessness. Fresh from Sundance, it was raising controversy and the story of the Sudan is worth knowing. His particular and peculiar Pov is valuable. Watermark (Isa: Entertainment One), another social issue worth knowing about will have to wait for a more propitious time. Personally I'm hoping Israel's current venture into desalination of water will lead the world into peace and that I will rejoice watching the doc about that.
Difret (Isa: Films Boutique - again!), fresh from Sundance where I saw it was really good and it sold well. I got to hang out with the team at the Panorama party. Gueros (Isa: Mundial - again!), was a disappointment -- too like The Year of the Nail (though different) in tone. But what a great company Canana is!
Panorama's Finding Vivian Maier (Isa: HanWay - again!) is brilliantly interesting. It is about to be released in U.S. by IFC. I highly recommend seeing this documentary about an eccentric, unknown photographer. It premiered at Tiff 2013. Fresh from Sundance where it won a Special Jury Prize, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter (Isa: Submarine) was a treasure; Velvet Terrorists was about the oddest piece I have ever seen. About three former opponents of the Czechoslovakian Soviet Regime, each has continued to enjoy blowing up things. One is still training the next generation in urban guerilla warfare. They are otherwise unremarkable, sweet even, but twisted. What an odd documentary.
A quick look at the Market Films I have seen: of the 400+ premieres: Zero -- no I did see German Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Two Lives (Isa: Beta), and I will soon be home to celebrate its nomination at the famous Villa Aurora, the former home of German expatriate writer Leon Feuchtwanger. So many more films look sooooo attractive! A pity I may never get to see them. I would need all the time in the world, and I have so little. I have so much and yet I want more!
- 2/27/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I started the day with cold leftover coffee and the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction documentary, "Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden," by the celebrated Bay Area documentarians Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller ("Ballets Russes"). I cannot imagine picking up and moving to a deserted island even today, much less in the 1930s, when three disparate groups of people fled Europe for life on an uninhabited bay on one of the smallest islands of the Galapagos. Apparently all it takes for Trouble in Paradise is two groups -- there's a Nietzschean couple vs. a more homely family unit -- but when the bizarre menage-a-trois of a self-styled Baroness and her two boy toys move in, all hell breaks lose, ending in mysterious disappearances, apparent murder and death by misadventure. The starry voice-overs (Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Josh Radnor, Connie Nielsen) already suggest the cast for a mini-series. We're told that Zeitgeist, the distributors who picked.
- 9/5/2013
- by Meredith Brody
- Thompson on Hollywood
Among the unexpected title mentions in today’s highly anticipated Telluride line-up unveiling, Ballets Russes docu pairing Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller will reteam with indie outfitter Zeitgeist Films once again on The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden – which on paper sounds like a fascinatingm anthropological murder mystery in what appears to have been egomaniacal playground. THR reports that Zeitgeist is planning a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles in early Spring 2014 and we wouldn’t be surprised if the film is showcased at major Docu fests such as Doc NYC and Ifda.
Gist: Co-written by Celeste Schaefer Snyder with Goldfine/Gellar, the doc is set in the Galapagos Islands in the 1930s, following a few individuals who settled on the remote island seeking their own distinct and sometimes clashing notions of Eden.
Worth Noting: The docu utilizes a narration team comprised of Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger,...
Gist: Co-written by Celeste Schaefer Snyder with Goldfine/Gellar, the doc is set in the Galapagos Islands in the 1930s, following a few individuals who settled on the remote island seeking their own distinct and sometimes clashing notions of Eden.
Worth Noting: The docu utilizes a narration team comprised of Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger,...
- 8/28/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The thing about Pierre Monteux's May 29, 1913 premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, is that it's not just the anniversary of the first time a famous piece was played in public. It's the anniversary of the most famous scandal in music history (and ballet history).
The audience was so violently divided in their opinions of the performance that there was an actual riot; there are widely disparate accounts of the evening, and some say the police removed some audience members, so contentious did things become. The orchestra was bombarded with projectiles, and the audience's vocal disapproval (combined with Rite supporters' vocal disapproval of the anti-Rite faction's demonstrations) drowned out the music often enough that the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, had to spend much of the performance standing in the wings shouting directions to the dancers,...
The audience was so violently divided in their opinions of the performance that there was an actual riot; there are widely disparate accounts of the evening, and some say the police removed some audience members, so contentious did things become. The orchestra was bombarded with projectiles, and the audience's vocal disapproval (combined with Rite supporters' vocal disapproval of the anti-Rite faction's demonstrations) drowned out the music often enough that the choreographer, Vaslav Nijinsky, had to spend much of the performance standing in the wings shouting directions to the dancers,...
- 5/30/2013
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
A major star of the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, he was celebrated for his romantic roles
Frederic Franklin, who has died aged 98, was one of the best loved figures in the dance world. Always genial, always helpful, he possessed a razor-sharp memory of all the ballets he had appeared in. Franklin played an important part in the preservation of many early ballets by George Balanchine, and in 2002 was able to reconstruct episodes from Devil's Holiday, a ballet created by Frederick Ashton in 1939, never revived since and never seen on stage by Ashton.
Franklin, known as Freddie, was a major star of the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, forming a memorable and long-lasting partnership with the ballerina Alexandra Danilova; her champagne personality and his good looks and charisma combined to stunning effect. This was especially true in such ballets as Léonide Massine's Le Beau Danube and especially Gâité Parisienne. But Franklin also danced...
Frederic Franklin, who has died aged 98, was one of the best loved figures in the dance world. Always genial, always helpful, he possessed a razor-sharp memory of all the ballets he had appeared in. Franklin played an important part in the preservation of many early ballets by George Balanchine, and in 2002 was able to reconstruct episodes from Devil's Holiday, a ballet created by Frederick Ashton in 1939, never revived since and never seen on stage by Ashton.
Franklin, known as Freddie, was a major star of the post-Diaghilev Ballets Russes, forming a memorable and long-lasting partnership with the ballerina Alexandra Danilova; her champagne personality and his good looks and charisma combined to stunning effect. This was especially true in such ballets as Léonide Massine's Le Beau Danube and especially Gâité Parisienne. But Franklin also danced...
- 5/7/2013
- by Judith Cruickshank
- The Guardian - Film News
DVD Release Date: May 21, 2013
Price: DVD $19.95
Studio: Microcinema
The Joffrey Ballet performs The Rites of Spring in Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes.
Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes is a 2013 documentary film presented by Washingtno’s National Gallery of Art.
The impresario Serge Diaghilev was the creator and driving force of the Ballets Russes, where he persuaded, cajoled, and charmed the greatest talents of the early twentieth century to join his company. Artists (Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse), composers (Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie), choreographers (Michel Fokine and George Balanchine), and dancers (Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova) all collaborated to realize Diaghilev’s dream of a seamless fusion of the arts. The spectacular productions of the Ballets Russes dazzled audiences and revolutionized modern dance.
Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes, narrated by Tilda Swinton, includes footage of revivals of Ballets Russes performances by the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet.
Price: DVD $19.95
Studio: Microcinema
The Joffrey Ballet performs The Rites of Spring in Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes.
Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes is a 2013 documentary film presented by Washingtno’s National Gallery of Art.
The impresario Serge Diaghilev was the creator and driving force of the Ballets Russes, where he persuaded, cajoled, and charmed the greatest talents of the early twentieth century to join his company. Artists (Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse), composers (Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie), choreographers (Michel Fokine and George Balanchine), and dancers (Vaslav Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova) all collaborated to realize Diaghilev’s dream of a seamless fusion of the arts. The spectacular productions of the Ballets Russes dazzled audiences and revolutionized modern dance.
Serge Diaghilev and The Ballet Russes, narrated by Tilda Swinton, includes footage of revivals of Ballets Russes performances by the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet.
- 4/30/2013
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Ed Burns, whose debut film The Brothers McMullen premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, was announced today as a jury member for next month’s Sundance in Park City, Utah. Burns joins documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, executive Tom Rothman and 16 others named to five juries that will award prizes at independent film’s most high-profile showcase.
Short Film Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Jan. 22, with feature film awards announced at a separate ceremony on Jan. 26. The festival runs this year from Jan. 17-27.
Click below for the entire Sundance jury list:
U.S. Documentary Jury
Liz Garbus is a prolific documentary filmmaker.
Short Film Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Jan. 22, with feature film awards announced at a separate ceremony on Jan. 26. The festival runs this year from Jan. 17-27.
Click below for the entire Sundance jury list:
U.S. Documentary Jury
Liz Garbus is a prolific documentary filmmaker.
- 12/19/2012
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Len Lye's deliriously jazzy 1930s animation for the Post Office Savings Bank shows public information films needn't be dull
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The colours might look late-60s-psychedelic; some of the interaction between graphics and the human figure (at approx 1.40, for example) seems comparable with the experiments made by contemporary digital artists such as Klaus Obermaier. But this short animation, Rainbow Dance, was actually created back in 1936 as an advert for the Post Office Savings Bank. Between 1933 and 1940 the Gpo (now the Royal Mail) ran a film unit which produced dozens of short public-information films. The most famous was Night Mail with music by Benjamin Britten and words by Wh Auden, but while that was a classic black-and-white vision of Britain, avant-garde mainly in its combination of music and poetry, Len Lye's Rainbow Dance was one of several extravagantly experimental animations on which...
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
The colours might look late-60s-psychedelic; some of the interaction between graphics and the human figure (at approx 1.40, for example) seems comparable with the experiments made by contemporary digital artists such as Klaus Obermaier. But this short animation, Rainbow Dance, was actually created back in 1936 as an advert for the Post Office Savings Bank. Between 1933 and 1940 the Gpo (now the Royal Mail) ran a film unit which produced dozens of short public-information films. The most famous was Night Mail with music by Benjamin Britten and words by Wh Auden, but while that was a classic black-and-white vision of Britain, avant-garde mainly in its combination of music and poetry, Len Lye's Rainbow Dance was one of several extravagantly experimental animations on which...
- 11/30/2012
- by Judith Mackrell
- The Guardian - Film News
Our critics' picks of this week's openings, plus your last chance to see and what to book now
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
I Dreamed a Dream
SuBo is played by Elaine C Smith in this new musical based on the life of the Britain's Got Talent sensation, who has given her personal endorsement to this money-spinner – sorry, show. Theatre Royal, Newcastle (0844 811 2121), until 31 March, then touring.
Fierce festival
Birmingham gets ready for boundary-busting performances from UK and international performers, including Ann Liv Young, Playgroup and Graeme Miller. The festival takes place in unusual spaces all across the city, including the soon to be demolished library and under Spaghetti Junction. Various locations, Birmingham, Thursday to 8 April.
Film
The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross)
Suzanne Collins's teen bestseller is turned into an exciting dystopian thriller. Jennifer Lawrence stars.
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
I Dreamed a Dream
SuBo is played by Elaine C Smith in this new musical based on the life of the Britain's Got Talent sensation, who has given her personal endorsement to this money-spinner – sorry, show. Theatre Royal, Newcastle (0844 811 2121), until 31 March, then touring.
Fierce festival
Birmingham gets ready for boundary-busting performances from UK and international performers, including Ann Liv Young, Playgroup and Graeme Miller. The festival takes place in unusual spaces all across the city, including the soon to be demolished library and under Spaghetti Junction. Various locations, Birmingham, Thursday to 8 April.
Film
The Hunger Games (dir. Gary Ross)
Suzanne Collins's teen bestseller is turned into an exciting dystopian thriller. Jennifer Lawrence stars.
- 3/25/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Our critics' picks of this week's openings, plus your last chance to see and what to book now
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
The Master and Margarita
Bulgakov's poetic maelstrom is transferred from page to stage by Simon McBurney and Complicite. The devil is abroad in a godless Ussr. Barbican, London EC2 (0845 120 7550), to 7 April.
Anne Boleyn
The Globe goes out on tour with Howard Brenton's delightful and intelligent look at English Protestantism and the woman who furthered its cause. New Alexandra, Birmingham (0844 871 3011), 20-24 March, then touring.
Filumena
Samantha Spiro stars as the canny Neapolitan woman who has been a mistress for 25 years but is determined to be a wife. Michael Attenborough directs this new version of Eduardo de Filippo's lively comedy. Almeida, London N1 (012 7359 4404), to 12 May.
Film
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan...
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this weekTheatre
The Master and Margarita
Bulgakov's poetic maelstrom is transferred from page to stage by Simon McBurney and Complicite. The devil is abroad in a godless Ussr. Barbican, London EC2 (0845 120 7550), to 7 April.
Anne Boleyn
The Globe goes out on tour with Howard Brenton's delightful and intelligent look at English Protestantism and the woman who furthered its cause. New Alexandra, Birmingham (0844 871 3011), 20-24 March, then touring.
Filumena
Samantha Spiro stars as the canny Neapolitan woman who has been a mistress for 25 years but is determined to be a wife. Michael Attenborough directs this new version of Eduardo de Filippo's lively comedy. Almeida, London N1 (012 7359 4404), to 12 May.
Film
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan...
- 3/18/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Feb. 28, 2012
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Alan Bates (l.) and George De La Pena star in Nijinsky.
The lives, the loves and the madness of the legendary and mercurial Russian ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky are chronicled in Herbert Ross’s 1980 film Nijinksy.
Portrayed in the film by George De La Pena (One Last Dance), Nijinsky was the most celebrated dancer of the early 20th century. But offstage, he was in turmoil, torn between the beautiful ballerina he married and the domineering mentor he loved.
Alan Bates (The Sum of All Fears) plays Sergei Diaghilev, Nijinsky’s mentor and lover who’s the impresario and founder of Ballets Russes. The increasing tension between these powerful egos, exacerbated by homosexual desire and jealousy, becomes triangular when the young ballerina Romola de Pulsky (Leslie Browne, The Turning Point) tries to draw the mentally unstable Nijinsky away from Diaghilev.
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Alan Bates (l.) and George De La Pena star in Nijinsky.
The lives, the loves and the madness of the legendary and mercurial Russian ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky are chronicled in Herbert Ross’s 1980 film Nijinksy.
Portrayed in the film by George De La Pena (One Last Dance), Nijinsky was the most celebrated dancer of the early 20th century. But offstage, he was in turmoil, torn between the beautiful ballerina he married and the domineering mentor he loved.
Alan Bates (The Sum of All Fears) plays Sergei Diaghilev, Nijinsky’s mentor and lover who’s the impresario and founder of Ballets Russes. The increasing tension between these powerful egos, exacerbated by homosexual desire and jealousy, becomes triangular when the young ballerina Romola de Pulsky (Leslie Browne, The Turning Point) tries to draw the mentally unstable Nijinsky away from Diaghilev.
- 12/1/2011
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Ahead of its world premiere at this year's SXSW, Zeitgeist Films has acquired distribution rights to "Something Ventured," directed by Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller ("Ballets Russes"). The documentary takes a look at the early investors behind the techonology that created companies like Appel, Intel and Cisco to tell the story of how the industry went on to become what it is today. Zeitgeist plans to release "Something Ventured" into ...
- 2/23/2011
- Indiewire
In which Jafar Panahi was jailed and we tried to get in the festive spirit
The big story
The award-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi was jailed for six years after the Iranian authorities found him guilty of "propaganda against the system". A vocal supporter of the green uprising that followed Iran's disputed 2009 election, Panahi has also been banned from directing or producing films for 20-years. Writing on the film blog, Peter Bradshaw paid tribute to Panahi's life and work and called for "a protest retrospective" at the BFI Southbank. Elsehwere cinema organisations posted an online petition, protesting the film-maker's innocence and calling for his immediate release. The likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Juliette Binoche and Francis Ford Coppola have already spoken out in Panahi's defence.
Festive round-up
• Blog: your film highlights of 2010
• Video: Jason Solomons and Xan Brooks round-up the year in film
• Pick of the clicks: the year's most...
The big story
The award-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi was jailed for six years after the Iranian authorities found him guilty of "propaganda against the system". A vocal supporter of the green uprising that followed Iran's disputed 2009 election, Panahi has also been banned from directing or producing films for 20-years. Writing on the film blog, Peter Bradshaw paid tribute to Panahi's life and work and called for "a protest retrospective" at the BFI Southbank. Elsehwere cinema organisations posted an online petition, protesting the film-maker's innocence and calling for his immediate release. The likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Juliette Binoche and Francis Ford Coppola have already spoken out in Panahi's defence.
Festive round-up
• Blog: your film highlights of 2010
• Video: Jason Solomons and Xan Brooks round-up the year in film
• Pick of the clicks: the year's most...
- 12/23/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
The Russian impresario had a profound effect on 1920s film-making, yet he never made a movie himself
Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes sparked a revolution in taste after the first world war, taking modernism out of the salon and into the music hall. The splendid exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, currently showing at the V&A, covers the impresario's legacy in music, dance, fashion, painting, and literature; but less well documented is the spell he cast over British film. Michael Powell, who drew on 1920s memories of the Diaghilev milieu for The Red Shoes, was just one among a generation of cineastes who found inspiration in the same source.
Ballet sequences held a special appeal for the likes of Anthony Asquith and Thorold Dickinson, who cast the young Audrey Hepburn as a ballerina in Secret People; but their interest went beyond merely recording dance on film.
Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes sparked a revolution in taste after the first world war, taking modernism out of the salon and into the music hall. The splendid exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, currently showing at the V&A, covers the impresario's legacy in music, dance, fashion, painting, and literature; but less well documented is the spell he cast over British film. Michael Powell, who drew on 1920s memories of the Diaghilev milieu for The Red Shoes, was just one among a generation of cineastes who found inspiration in the same source.
Ballet sequences held a special appeal for the likes of Anthony Asquith and Thorold Dickinson, who cast the young Audrey Hepburn as a ballerina in Secret People; but their interest went beyond merely recording dance on film.
- 12/22/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Remember that one year (2001) when the list-happy AFI (American Film Institute) decided to compete with the Globes and the Oscars in year end prizes? No, that didn't last long. But there's another AFI, The Australian Film Institute, that has been around for a long time and is in no such danger of being a one-off. This year, they're all about the amazing family crime drama Animal Kingdom which they awarded with a record breaking 18 nominations. Sure, the film is in danger of being way overhyped for people who are coming to it late (which is just about everyone given the sorry state of international distribution for dramas of virtually any kind) but for those who can slough off the "omg" raves, I guarantee you'll think it at least an insinuating and well executed crime drama.
AFI Favorites with multiple nominations
Its main competition for the coveted prizes, if you go by nomination counts,...
AFI Favorites with multiple nominations
Its main competition for the coveted prizes, if you go by nomination counts,...
- 10/29/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Animal Kingdom received 18 nominations for this year’s Australian Film Institute Awards, followed by Beneath Hill 60 (12), Bright Star (11), Tomorrow, When the War Began (8), The Tree, Bran Nue Dae (7 each) and The Boys Are Back (4)
The Best Film category will see Animal Kingdom competing against Beneath Hill 60, Bright Star, Bran Nue Dae, The Tree and Tomorrow, When the War Began.
Australia’s top rated drama productions – Packed to the Rafters and Underbellly: The Golden Mile – were both absent from the main Television categories (except for Underbelly‘s two acting nods).
The winners will be revealed on December 10 (Industry Awards) and 11 (main Awards Ceremony) in Melbourne.
This is the full list of nominees:
AFI Members’ Choice Award
Animal Kingdom. Liz Watts. Beneath Hill 60. Bill Leimbach. Bran Nue Dae. Robyn Kershaw, Graeme Isaac. Bright Star. Jan Chapman, Caroline Hewitt. The Boys Are Back. Greg Brenman, Tim White. Tomorrow When The War Began.
The Best Film category will see Animal Kingdom competing against Beneath Hill 60, Bright Star, Bran Nue Dae, The Tree and Tomorrow, When the War Began.
Australia’s top rated drama productions – Packed to the Rafters and Underbellly: The Golden Mile – were both absent from the main Television categories (except for Underbelly‘s two acting nods).
The winners will be revealed on December 10 (Industry Awards) and 11 (main Awards Ceremony) in Melbourne.
This is the full list of nominees:
AFI Members’ Choice Award
Animal Kingdom. Liz Watts. Beneath Hill 60. Bill Leimbach. Bran Nue Dae. Robyn Kershaw, Graeme Isaac. Bright Star. Jan Chapman, Caroline Hewitt. The Boys Are Back. Greg Brenman, Tim White. Tomorrow When The War Began.
- 10/27/2010
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
From ballet to contemporary, dance is enjoying a real upsurge. But for poise, power and poignancy, who has the best moves?
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
- 7/31/2010
- by Luke Jennings
- The Guardian - Film News
Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes
The Films
You have to feel sorry for Britain’s film community. Directors don’t get recognized until they make it to Hollywood, at which point they become absorbed into the American system. Hitchcock and Chaplin were not only English by birth but by nature, predisposed to dry comedy and, certainly in Hitch’s case, dark irony. Yet they’re among the purest examples of Hollywood filmmakers, two of the five most influential directors funded by the American system, and they’re but early examples of America’s way of denying England its own cinematic glory.
As such, the relative obscurity into which Michael Powell and his frequent collaborator, Emeric Pressburger, have fallen is at once tragic and completely foreseeable. In their heyday, the British director and the Hungarian ex-pat screenwriter, operating under the moniker The Archers, could easily have secured work in Hollywood,...
The Films
You have to feel sorry for Britain’s film community. Directors don’t get recognized until they make it to Hollywood, at which point they become absorbed into the American system. Hitchcock and Chaplin were not only English by birth but by nature, predisposed to dry comedy and, certainly in Hitch’s case, dark irony. Yet they’re among the purest examples of Hollywood filmmakers, two of the five most influential directors funded by the American system, and they’re but early examples of America’s way of denying England its own cinematic glory.
As such, the relative obscurity into which Michael Powell and his frequent collaborator, Emeric Pressburger, have fallen is at once tragic and completely foreseeable. In their heyday, the British director and the Hungarian ex-pat screenwriter, operating under the moniker The Archers, could easily have secured work in Hollywood,...
- 7/31/2010
- by Aaron
Jan Kounen’s double-barreled biopic Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky doesn’t start well. For one thing, there’s its book-report title, which seems to promise a rote rehash of its protagonists’ lives without shape or insight. It certainly doesn’t help that the film begins in the most obvious place, with the riotous 1913 première of Stravinsky’s dissonant Rite Of Spring, or that one hapless member of the Ballets Russes is stuck with the line, “Stop it, Nijinsky! Tell him, Diaghilev.” By that point, viewers should be expecting further noteworthy personages to turn up bearing little signs: “Hello ...
- 6/17/2010
- avclub.com
I added several new trailers over the course of the week and for those of you that don't frequent the homepage, the trailer page or keep an eye on the latest trailers added to the site at the bottom of every single page, I have included seven of those trailers in this one post... just for your viewing pleasure. Have at it.
Splice
Superstar genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) specialize in splicing together DNA from different animals to create incredible new hybrids. Now they want to use human DNA in a hybrid that could revolutionize science and medicine. But when the pharmaceutical company that funds their research forbids it, Clive and Elsa secretly conduct their own experiments. The result is Dren, an amazing, strangely beautiful creature of uncommon intelligence and an array of unexpected physical developments. And though, at first, Dren exceeds their wildest dreams, she...
Splice
Superstar genetic engineers Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) specialize in splicing together DNA from different animals to create incredible new hybrids. Now they want to use human DNA in a hybrid that could revolutionize science and medicine. But when the pharmaceutical company that funds their research forbids it, Clive and Elsa secretly conduct their own experiments. The result is Dren, an amazing, strangely beautiful creature of uncommon intelligence and an array of unexpected physical developments. And though, at first, Dren exceeds their wildest dreams, she...
- 4/3/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In 2009, I watched 320 films. Only four featured oldish leading characters ... and that included Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button
In a perfect world, we would all hit our 60s like Meryl Streep in It's Complicated – having affairs, baking croissants and adding extensions to our lovely Santa Barbara homes. Sadly, our dotage is more likely to resemble that of the couple in Tokyo Story, repeatedly given the brush-off by adult children who see them as a nuisance, or of poor old Umberto D, unable to pay his rent.
Statisticians are predicting that, soon, a quarter of the UK population will be more than 60 years old, but we're unlikely ever to see a similar proportion of senior citizens in significant movie roles. In 2009 I watched roughly 320 films. Other than the aforementioned Streep, only three could be said to feature oldish leading characters: Hirokazu Koreeda's Still Walking, 71-year-old Dustin Hoffman getting it on...
In a perfect world, we would all hit our 60s like Meryl Streep in It's Complicated – having affairs, baking croissants and adding extensions to our lovely Santa Barbara homes. Sadly, our dotage is more likely to resemble that of the couple in Tokyo Story, repeatedly given the brush-off by adult children who see them as a nuisance, or of poor old Umberto D, unable to pay his rent.
Statisticians are predicting that, soon, a quarter of the UK population will be more than 60 years old, but we're unlikely ever to see a similar proportion of senior citizens in significant movie roles. In 2009 I watched roughly 320 films. Other than the aforementioned Streep, only three could be said to feature oldish leading characters: Hirokazu Koreeda's Still Walking, 71-year-old Dustin Hoffman getting it on...
- 12/31/2009
- by Anne Billson
- The Guardian - Film News
For one night only, the Paris Opera Ballet arrived in the UK - transmitted live to cinema screens around the country. Sanjoy Roy went to see if watching dance on the big screen could ever match a live performance
One of the hot tickets of this year's centenary celebrations commemorating Diaghilev's Ballets Russes was a recent mixed bill of Diaghilev works by the Paris Opera Ballet. It's an unusual historical programme performed by one of the world's great dance companies – but with the Eurotunnel down and rail and air links in chaos, luckily, fans didn't need to go to Paris: Paris came to them.
Last night, the evening's performance at the Paris Opéra was transmitted live to some 30 cinemas across the UK – the first of what film company Pathé-uk hopes to build into a series of live screenings of major cultural events. While this year's similar scheme for theatre has largely been considered a success,...
One of the hot tickets of this year's centenary celebrations commemorating Diaghilev's Ballets Russes was a recent mixed bill of Diaghilev works by the Paris Opera Ballet. It's an unusual historical programme performed by one of the world's great dance companies – but with the Eurotunnel down and rail and air links in chaos, luckily, fans didn't need to go to Paris: Paris came to them.
Last night, the evening's performance at the Paris Opéra was transmitted live to some 30 cinemas across the UK – the first of what film company Pathé-uk hopes to build into a series of live screenings of major cultural events. While this year's similar scheme for theatre has largely been considered a success,...
- 12/23/2009
- by Sanjoy Roy
- The Guardian - Film News
Igor Stravinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, and George Balanchine are among the great collaborators who worked in Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, where they changed the face of modern ballet and influenced the course of the arts in the 20th century. Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath, a new exhibition at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, draws on diverse materials from the Library's renowned collections to tell the remarkable story of the company and the impresario who founded it.
- 6/22/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
It's "Dance Week" at DeepGlamour--where purple passion reigns--and Dancing with the Stars junkies will find a lot to jab their interests, from the interview with Juliet McMains, author of Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry, to Randall Shinn's recruiting statement to alleviate the man-shortage on the dance floor, to further reflections on the peerless partnership of Fred and Ginger. Of course, every week is "Dance Week" under this humble thatched roof, and last night we legged it down to Nyu's Skirball Center to catch the Martha Graham Dance Company performing program B of its current season. Do go. The Skirball is a terrific place to watch dance--roomy, comfortable, excellent sightlines, unburdened by too many memories mustying the atmosphere with stale reminders of former glories--and the Graham company torque it out as if performing on Greek hilltop between lightning flashes. The word "empowerment" has become such a pervasive banality,...
- 5/14/2009
- Vanity Fair
Whatever you think of Milk, there’s no denying that the Oscar-nominated biopic is putting a long-overdue spotlight on the life of Harvey Milk, allowing much of the mainstream audience to learn about his singular achievements for the very first time.
But why stop there? Now that Milk has proven that stirring gay life stories can appeal to more than just a gay audience, Hollywood should think about making movies about the following legends. We’ll even help them decide which to make first by throwing in a rating of 1-5 Harveys for each story’s eventual Oscar bait-ability. That should help land some big name stars.
Montgomery Clift
Who he was: Gorgeous leading man of the 1950s (From Here to Eternity [1953], A Place in the Sun [1951]) who led a torturously closeted existence in Hollywood. Survived a somewhat disfiguring car accident during the filming of Raintree County (1957) opposite Elizabeth Taylor,...
But why stop there? Now that Milk has proven that stirring gay life stories can appeal to more than just a gay audience, Hollywood should think about making movies about the following legends. We’ll even help them decide which to make first by throwing in a rating of 1-5 Harveys for each story’s eventual Oscar bait-ability. That should help land some big name stars.
Montgomery Clift
Who he was: Gorgeous leading man of the 1950s (From Here to Eternity [1953], A Place in the Sun [1951]) who led a torturously closeted existence in Hollywood. Survived a somewhat disfiguring car accident during the filming of Raintree County (1957) opposite Elizabeth Taylor,...
- 2/5/2009
- by dennis
- The Backlot
Acclaimed ballerina Irina Baronova has died at her home in Australia. She was 89.
The dancer became one of revered choreographer George Balanchine's 'baby ballerinas' after making her debut in Paris, France at the age of 12.
She quickly became an internationally renowned ballet figure, starring in Ballets Russes productions including Bluebeard, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake all over the world.
She also appeared in films like Florian and Yolanda in the early 1940s before she was forced to give up her ballet career when she wed British theatrical agent Cecil Tennant in 1946.
Baronova penned her autobiography, Irina: Ballet, Life + Love in 2005.
The dancer became one of revered choreographer George Balanchine's 'baby ballerinas' after making her debut in Paris, France at the age of 12.
She quickly became an internationally renowned ballet figure, starring in Ballets Russes productions including Bluebeard, The Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake all over the world.
She also appeared in films like Florian and Yolanda in the early 1940s before she was forced to give up her ballet career when she wed British theatrical agent Cecil Tennant in 1946.
Baronova penned her autobiography, Irina: Ballet, Life + Love in 2005.
- 7/3/2008
- WENN
SYDNEY -- Leading Australian independent distributor Hopscotch Films has jumped ahead of its rivals to make a pair of acquisitions in the days leading up to the Toronto International Film Festival, the company announced Monday. The company acquired Australian rights to Sergie Bodrov's Mongol from Beta Entertainment and dance documentary Ballets Russes, which Zeitgeist Films is distributing in the U.S. Hopscotch has previously found success with the acquisition of such hot non-fiction titles as Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Spellbound and Travelling Birds. Ballets Russes will play at Toronto alongside other Hopscotch releases Mrs. Henderson Presents, Transamerica and Live and Become.
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