The year is 1986, the setting is New York City, and the AIDS epidemic is running rampant. Our hero David (Samuel H. Levine) is a teenager living in Brighton Beach, going to school while doing his damndest to get his grandfather (the great Ron Rifkin) into a retirement home nearby. The young man has a temper that stems from a budding rebellious streak, the long-gestating product of his strict Russian Jewish upbringing.
Directed by Eric Steel, who co-wrote the script with Daniel Pearle, Minyan is a deeply personal piece of work. Adapted from David Bezmozgis’s short story of the same name, it’s clear Steel is pulling from his own experience in bringing the written word to the big screen. Levine is sufficiently awkward as the lead, manifesting many of David’s growing pains quite literally on camera. This is an unsure soul, whether it be regarding his sexuality, his religion,...
Directed by Eric Steel, who co-wrote the script with Daniel Pearle, Minyan is a deeply personal piece of work. Adapted from David Bezmozgis’s short story of the same name, it’s clear Steel is pulling from his own experience in bringing the written word to the big screen. Levine is sufficiently awkward as the lead, manifesting many of David’s growing pains quite literally on camera. This is an unsure soul, whether it be regarding his sexuality, his religion,...
- 10/19/2021
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
"He isn't a stranger to himself anymore, he can see inside himself." Strand Releasing has unveiled a new US trailer for an indie drama titled Minyan, which originally premiered at last year's Berlin Film Festival. It also played at Outfest last year, and stopped by the New York Jewish Film Festival earlier this year. The film stars Samuel H. Levine as a young Russian Jewish immigrant caught between thrilling private trysts and his repressive family. Set in 1980s Brooklyn, he develops a close friendship with his grandfather's neighbors, two elderly closeted gay men who open his imagination to the possibilities of love and the realities of loss–and explores the East Village where he finds a world teeming with the energy of youth, desire, and risk. The cast includes Ron Rifkin, Christopher McCann, Chris Perfetti, Elizabeth Loyacano, and Zuzanna Szadkowski. Looks like a distinct coming-of-age film with intense passion carefully worked into the story.
- 9/29/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
When grandpa needs a place to live and his congregation needs a tenth man, what’s a good Jewish boy to do? For a mensch like David (Samuel H. Levine), the answer is clear. That’s a rarity in David’s religious Jewish faith — where answers are as hard to come by as Christmas hams. Like the meandering stories his grandfather tells on the walk to shul, Judaism is a faith that meets questions with more questions. In “Minyan,”
The film opens and closes with two deaths, which both set events in motion that bring David closer to knowing himself. The first shot is an elegantly composed family portrait scored to the even drone of the Mourner’s Kaddish, the Jewish call to grief, recited with perfunctory solemnity. After his grandmother’s death, David’s grandfather Josef (a note-perfect Ron Rifkin) must downsize apartments for financial reasons. When a highly...
The film opens and closes with two deaths, which both set events in motion that bring David closer to knowing himself. The first shot is an elegantly composed family portrait scored to the even drone of the Mourner’s Kaddish, the Jewish call to grief, recited with perfunctory solemnity. After his grandmother’s death, David’s grandfather Josef (a note-perfect Ron Rifkin) must downsize apartments for financial reasons. When a highly...
- 2/24/2020
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Ryan Kampe screening all three in the market.
Visit Films heads to the Efm in Berlin this week with a slate bolstered by Sundance acquisitions The Last Shift and Feels Good Man, and Berlin Panorama selection Minyan.
Ryan Kampe and his team will screen all three in Berlin, alongside previously announced punk rock documentary and Generations selection White Riot, Park City premieres Summer White and Dinner In America, and Toronto title Hearts And Bones starring Hugo Weaving.
The Last Shift stars Richard Jenkins and Shane Paul McGhie and screened in the Premieres section. Jenkins plays a fast food worker about...
Visit Films heads to the Efm in Berlin this week with a slate bolstered by Sundance acquisitions The Last Shift and Feels Good Man, and Berlin Panorama selection Minyan.
Ryan Kampe and his team will screen all three in Berlin, alongside previously announced punk rock documentary and Generations selection White Riot, Park City premieres Summer White and Dinner In America, and Toronto title Hearts And Bones starring Hugo Weaving.
The Last Shift stars Richard Jenkins and Shane Paul McGhie and screened in the Premieres section. Jenkins plays a fast food worker about...
- 2/17/2020
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
The Changeling Written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley Directed by Jesse Berger Red Bull Theater at the Lucille Nortel Theatre, NYC December 26, 2015-January 24, 2016
Ushering in the New Year, Red Bull Theater brings us a tragic tale of sex in payment for murder. Jesse Berger sure-handedly directs Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's 1622 tragicomedy The Changeling, the main plot of which introduces the noble Beatrice-Joanna (Sara Topham) as she finds a "giddy turning" in herself from Alonzo de Piracqo (John Skelley), to whom her father, Vermandero (Sam Tsoutsouvas), intends her to be married, towards Alsemero (Christian Coulson). In order to "change [her] saint," she eventually enlists the aid of her father's servant De Flores (Manoel Feliciano), whom she professes to abhor and whose skin condition suggests a spatter of blood across his face, to remove the obstacle that is Alonzo.
The changeling of the title can refer to the inconstant Beatrice-Joanna herself,...
Ushering in the New Year, Red Bull Theater brings us a tragic tale of sex in payment for murder. Jesse Berger sure-handedly directs Thomas Middleton and William Rowley's 1622 tragicomedy The Changeling, the main plot of which introduces the noble Beatrice-Joanna (Sara Topham) as she finds a "giddy turning" in herself from Alonzo de Piracqo (John Skelley), to whom her father, Vermandero (Sam Tsoutsouvas), intends her to be married, towards Alsemero (Christian Coulson). In order to "change [her] saint," she eventually enlists the aid of her father's servant De Flores (Manoel Feliciano), whom she professes to abhor and whose skin condition suggests a spatter of blood across his face, to remove the obstacle that is Alonzo.
The changeling of the title can refer to the inconstant Beatrice-Joanna herself,...
- 1/18/2016
- by Leah Richards
- www.culturecatch.com
The second of the “Carte Blanche” double bills began with The Last 15, Antonio Campos’ sophomore short film which followed in the footsteps of Buy It Now (winner of Cinefondation‘s First Prize at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival) and competed for the festival’s 2007’s Palme d’Or. Influenced by the work of master filmmaker Michael Haneke who would ultimately influence Campos’ own filmmaking approach, The Last 15 focuses on the NYC dwelling filled with members of the Kirkland clan (familiar faces in Zoe Lister Jones and Christopher McCann are amongst the actors). With the family home’s ceiling crumbling, Campos displays a collective accumulating individual net worth/debts by utilizing intertitles (think tragic version of the Priceless ad campaign) to detail income, debt, possible financial woes. Twisted and mordant, the short is filled with overlapping spoken dialogue, shut out members hearing but not listening to one another in a controlled chaos setting,...
- 7/6/2013
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The 2013 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas has wrapped up this weekend. Winners for the audience awards at the festival were unveiled, along with the jury prizes given out last week. The big winner - a film called Short Term 12, directed by Destin Cretton, whose feature debut was I Am Not a Hipster, one of my favorite films of last year. Short Term 12 took home the Grand Jury prize for Narrative Feature, and went on to win the Audience Award as well, a similar double win just like with Fruitvale at Sundance earlier this year. As for docs, Josh Greenbaum's The Short Game took home the audience award. Full lists below. 2013 SXSW Film Festival Jury Awards: Narrative Feature Competition: Grand Jury Winner - Short Term 12, Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton Special Jury Recognition for Ensemble Cast - Burma, Featuring: Christopher Abbott, Gaby Hoffmann, Christopher McCann, Dan Bittner,...
- 3/18/2013
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Burma
Directed by Carlos Puga
Written by Carlos Puga
Every family has their own issues, tendencies, and dysfunctions, but that familial bond transcends any sort of disagreement. However, what happens when familial bonds are tested against each other. When trust is betrayed, when parents abandon their children, what is the end result? Carlos Puga’s Burma takes an honest look at abandonment, resentment, and the sometimes unfulfilling sense of reconciliation.
The film revolves around three siblings: Christian (Christopher Abbott) the wayward, drug abusing writer, Susan (Gaby Hoffmann) the overbearing mother and wife, and Win (Dan Bittner) the successful and hopeful children’s writer. They are all living distant lives until their annual family reunion rolls around. Christian is at an all time low, having blown an interview, and then his father (Christopher McCann), having left them nine years ago, returns promising to have a satisfying reason why he left.
Winner...
Directed by Carlos Puga
Written by Carlos Puga
Every family has their own issues, tendencies, and dysfunctions, but that familial bond transcends any sort of disagreement. However, what happens when familial bonds are tested against each other. When trust is betrayed, when parents abandon their children, what is the end result? Carlos Puga’s Burma takes an honest look at abandonment, resentment, and the sometimes unfulfilling sense of reconciliation.
The film revolves around three siblings: Christian (Christopher Abbott) the wayward, drug abusing writer, Susan (Gaby Hoffmann) the overbearing mother and wife, and Win (Dan Bittner) the successful and hopeful children’s writer. They are all living distant lives until their annual family reunion rolls around. Christian is at an all time low, having blown an interview, and then his father (Christopher McCann), having left them nine years ago, returns promising to have a satisfying reason why he left.
Winner...
- 3/15/2013
- by David Tran
- SoundOnSight
“Burma,” made by first-time feature filmmaker Carlos Puga and winner of the Grand Jury Award for Ensemble Cast at SXSW, looks at a family in crisis. They aren't falling apart, but instead put together, suddenly, awkwardly, and the building blocks hurt. What starts as a generic and even patience-testing drama ultimately grows into a film boasting strong performances and a few unexpectedly open wounds. Christian (Christopher Abbott) is an adrift twentysomething with writer’s block and a cocaine habit. His routine consists of casual hook-ups with college-age girls and general self-sabotage of his potential as a novelist and emotionally functional adult. He is thrown into even deeper chaos with the surprise arrival one night of his estranged father, Dr. Lynn (Christopher McCann), who we learn abandoned Christian and his two siblings and their mother when she was on her deathbed. Dr. Lynn’s unannounced visit is on the eve of...
- 3/13/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Jury Awards for the 2013 SXSW Film Festival were announced tonight, with the major awards going to narrative feature “Short Term 12” and documentary “William and the Windmill.” The eligible films were those in the narrative feature and documentary feature competition categories; the Audience Awards, to be announced March 16, are culled from all feature categories save headliners and special events. A complete list of tonight’s winners is below. Feature Film Jury Awards Documentary Feature Competition Grand Jury Winner: “William and the Windmill,” director: Ben Nabors Special Jury Recognition for Cinematography: “Touba,” Director of Photography Scott Duncan Special Jury Recognition for Directing: “We Always Lie To Strangers,” directors: Aj Schnack & David Wilson Narrative Feature COMPETITIONGrand Jury Winner: “Short Term 12,” director: Destin Daniel Cretton Special Jury Recognition for Ensemble Cast: “Burma”Christopher Abbott, Gaby Hoffmann, Christopher McCann, Dan Bittner, Emily Fleischer, Jacinta Puga, Matt McCarthy, Kelly Aucoin Special Jury Recognition for Acting: Tishuan Scott,...
- 3/13/2013
- backstage.com
South by Southwest (SXSW) is just one of many film festivals, we here at Sound On Sight cover yearly. The fest, which takes place every spring in Austin, Texas, began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size every year. The fest announced the first wave of films back in early January, and the lineup included some highly anticipated films such as The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, Evil Dead, Downloaded and Spring Breakers. Now the full lineup has been announced, and it just might be one of the best lineups the festival has ever programmed.
SXSW takes place March 8-16 in Austin Texas. Here are just some of the films we are excited about.
Narrative Feature Competition – This year’s 8 films were selected from 1,191 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.
Awful Nice
Director/Screenwriter: Todd Sklar, Screenwriter: Alex Rennie
Estranged brothers Jim and Dave must travel to Branson together when...
SXSW takes place March 8-16 in Austin Texas. Here are just some of the films we are excited about.
Narrative Feature Competition – This year’s 8 films were selected from 1,191 submissions. Each film is a World Premiere.
Awful Nice
Director/Screenwriter: Todd Sklar, Screenwriter: Alex Rennie
Estranged brothers Jim and Dave must travel to Branson together when...
- 2/1/2013
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
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