Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSOn July 13, SAG-AFTRA issued a strike order, joining the WGA, who have been striking since May. In an incendiary speech, the guild’s president, Fran Drescher, said: “SAG-AFTRA negotiated in good faith and was eager to reach a deal that sufficiently addressed performer needs, but the AMPTP’s responses to the union’s most important proposals have been insulting and disrespectful of our massive contributions to this industry…Until they do negotiate in good faith, we cannot begin to reach a deal.” This Vulture Q&a with Jonathan Handel, author of Hollywood on Strike!: An Industry at War in the Internet Age, delves into the details of the work stoppage.Applications are open for Open City Documentary Festival & Another Gaze’s third annual critics’ workshop, which will take place in early September during the festival.
- 7/19/2023
- MUBI
The Two Sights Review: Joshua Bonnetta Examines the Scottish Outer Hebrides with Soothing Minimalism
To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail, for documentarian Joshua Bonnetta, the Scottish Outer Hebrides is something of a “very silly place.” This is not to denigrate the remote cluster of islands on Scotland’s northern tip, and its inhabitants––far from it. More that, when taken as a whole, Bonnetta has been able to uncover a vast cluster of eccentricity on these sparsely populated lands, where people can see, hear or intuit things others can’t, and then tell of it gladly. Empirical science would question this, of course, but Bonnetta’s interviewees seem to transcend that, and instead carry knowledge more common to the animist practices of early homo sapiens, or maybe another plane of human evolution altogether. To cite a timely cinematic reference point, the desired end-goal of the Bene Gesserit breeding project in Dune, is this ability to intuit the future––the cutting-edge of human...
- 10/22/2021
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
With theatrical exhibition regaining some life as New York City theaters open up at a limited capacity this month, the spring and summer will be an interesting time for the film industry. In terms of the arthouse model, it’ll be curious to see how the Virtual Cinemas that so many theaters have relied on as a revenue stream these past 12 months meld with the more limited capacity standard physical screenings. As we wait and see how these shifts take shape, check out our rundown of the films to check out this month.
14. Sophie Jones (Jessie Barr)
Executive produced by Nicole Holofcener, Jessie Barr’s coming-of-age tale Sophie Jones had a festival run last year, earning acclaim at Deauville Film Festival and more, and now it arrives this month via Oscilloscope Laboratories. Led by the director’s cousin, Jessica Barr, she plays the title character, who struggles with the unexpected...
14. Sophie Jones (Jessie Barr)
Executive produced by Nicole Holofcener, Jessie Barr’s coming-of-age tale Sophie Jones had a festival run last year, earning acclaim at Deauville Film Festival and more, and now it arrives this month via Oscilloscope Laboratories. Led by the director’s cousin, Jessica Barr, she plays the title character, who struggles with the unexpected...
- 3/2/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Art of the Real 2020
Art of the Real, Film at Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of boundary-pushing non-fiction work, is now underway virtually nationwide. Featuring work by Joshua Bonnetta, Sky Hopinka, Hassen Ferhani, Ignacio Agüero, Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki, Sérgio da Costa and Maya Kosa, Jonathan Perel, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens, and more, the slate provides a comprehensive survey for finding new cinematic ways to look at the world.
Where to Stream: Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema
Coded Bias (Shalini Kantayya)
Starting with the work of Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab, Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias is an alarming...
Art of the Real 2020
Art of the Real, Film at Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of boundary-pushing non-fiction work, is now underway virtually nationwide. Featuring work by Joshua Bonnetta, Sky Hopinka, Hassen Ferhani, Ignacio Agüero, Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki, Sérgio da Costa and Maya Kosa, Jonathan Perel, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens, and more, the slate provides a comprehensive survey for finding new cinematic ways to look at the world.
Where to Stream: Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema
Coded Bias (Shalini Kantayya)
Starting with the work of Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab, Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias is an alarming...
- 11/13/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Following its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, Cinema Guild has acquired all North American distribution rights to Joshua Bonnetta’s The Two Sights. Set to make its U.S. premiere next month as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real, the film will then open in theaters in 2021.
The first solo feature from Bonnetta, The Two Sights (An Dà Shealladh) explores the disappearing tradition of second sight in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As we listen to locals’ accounts of haunting experiences—phantom horses, ghost voices and other supernatural phenomena—Bonnetta connects their testimonies with striking 16mm images and a carefully-curated sonic montage of the physical and aural environment of these enchanted islands. The Two Sights is an ethnographic marvel of non-fiction filmmaking that thrills the eyes and ears and invites us into the extra-sensory beyond.
“We’re so excited to...
The first solo feature from Bonnetta, The Two Sights (An Dà Shealladh) explores the disappearing tradition of second sight in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. As we listen to locals’ accounts of haunting experiences—phantom horses, ghost voices and other supernatural phenomena—Bonnetta connects their testimonies with striking 16mm images and a carefully-curated sonic montage of the physical and aural environment of these enchanted islands. The Two Sights is an ethnographic marvel of non-fiction filmmaking that thrills the eyes and ears and invites us into the extra-sensory beyond.
“We’re so excited to...
- 10/28/2020
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Visitors to festival’s Idfa Online Collection webpage surge during global lockdown.
The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is reporting an 18-fold increase in visitors to its ’Idfa Online Collection’ webpage which aggregates links to some 800 films and new media projects from past editions.
Between March 14 and April 14 this year - amid the Covid-19 global lockdown - the festival reported 1.3 million visitors to the webpage, against 70,000 in the same period in 2019.
“We’ve seen close to 1.5 million visits over a four-week period, with tens of thousands of finishes, meaning people watched films to the end, which is always a big...
The International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (Idfa) is reporting an 18-fold increase in visitors to its ’Idfa Online Collection’ webpage which aggregates links to some 800 films and new media projects from past editions.
Between March 14 and April 14 this year - amid the Covid-19 global lockdown - the festival reported 1.3 million visitors to the webpage, against 70,000 in the same period in 2019.
“We’ve seen close to 1.5 million visits over a four-week period, with tens of thousands of finishes, meaning people watched films to the end, which is always a big...
- 4/29/2020
- by 1100388¦Melanie Goodfellow¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
10 Great ‘Small’ Movies You Might Have Missed in the 2010s, From ‘Manakamana’ to ‘The Fits’ (Photos)
The films on this admittedly non-comprehensive list were not distributed by major studios, but by smaller specialty companies. They played for a couple of weeks (or less) in big cities, maybe even just one night in a museum. They weren’t on the multiplex radar at all. But to adventurous film audiences, they were a vital part of any discussion about cinema. They told complex stories ignored by major studios. The dug deeper into abstraction or discomfort. And they pushed at the edges of filmmaking practice in ways that will influence the mainstream in the future.
“Cemetery of Splendor” (2015)
A makeshift hospital on an ancient royal burial ground houses soldiers overcome with a mysterious sleeping sickness. Then they begin psychically communicating with the women who work there. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s oblique, delicate story of historical memory and collective awakening that plays out like a dream.
“Did You Wonder Who Fired The Gun?...
“Cemetery of Splendor” (2015)
A makeshift hospital on an ancient royal burial ground houses soldiers overcome with a mysterious sleeping sickness. Then they begin psychically communicating with the women who work there. Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s oblique, delicate story of historical memory and collective awakening that plays out like a dream.
“Did You Wonder Who Fired The Gun?...
- 12/11/2019
- by Dave White
- The Wrap
Earlier today the folks at the Northwest Film Center announced the full line-up for this year’s Portland International Film Festival, and have published a Pdf for all to read online. The printed copies will be making their way around town this week.
The Northwest Film Center is proud to reveal the 41st Portland International Film Festival (Piff 41) lineup. This year’s Festival begins on Thursday, February 15th and runs through Thursday, March 1st. Our Opening Night selection is the new comedy The Death of Stalin from writer/director Armando Iannucci (Veep, In the Loop). The film, adapted from the graphic novel by Fabien Nury, stars Steve Buscemi, Olga Kurylenko, Jason Isaacs, and Michael Palin. The Death of Stalin will screen simultaneously on Opening Night at the Whitsell Auditorium, located in the Portland Art Museum (1219 Sw Park Ave) and on two screens at Regal Fox Tower 10 (846 Sw Park Ave).
Check...
The Northwest Film Center is proud to reveal the 41st Portland International Film Festival (Piff 41) lineup. This year’s Festival begins on Thursday, February 15th and runs through Thursday, March 1st. Our Opening Night selection is the new comedy The Death of Stalin from writer/director Armando Iannucci (Veep, In the Loop). The film, adapted from the graphic novel by Fabien Nury, stars Steve Buscemi, Olga Kurylenko, Jason Isaacs, and Michael Palin. The Death of Stalin will screen simultaneously on Opening Night at the Whitsell Auditorium, located in the Portland Art Museum (1219 Sw Park Ave) and on two screens at Regal Fox Tower 10 (846 Sw Park Ave).
Check...
- 1/30/2018
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced the films that will be featured in their New Auteurs and American Independents sections at the upcoming AFI Fest 2017 presented by Audi. Selections include a number of lauded features from around the festival circuit, including Cannes offerings like “I Am Not a Witch,” SXSW favorites like “Gemini” and “Mr. Roosevelt,” the Sundance breakout “Thoroughbreds,” and Joseph Kahn’s Toronto Midnight Madness favorite “Bodied,” among others.
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is designed as the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section includes 11 films, nine of which come from female directors. Similarly, AFI Fest’s American Independents section aims to represent the best of this year’s independent filmmaking. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh...
Highlighting first- and second-time feature film directors, New Auteurs is designed as the festival’s platform for upcoming filmmakers from all over the world to showcase their new films. This year, the section includes 11 films, nine of which come from female directors. Similarly, AFI Fest’s American Independents section aims to represent the best of this year’s independent filmmaking. Pushing boundaries of form and content across narrative and documentary cinema, this section includes 11 films from both fresh...
- 10/16/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
The 55th New York Film Festival will debut a starry roster of documentaries featuring giants of the art and literary worlds as well as Alex Gibney’s postponed “No Stone Unturned,” a critical investigation into the 1994 Loughinisland massacre in Ireland, which was pulled from Tribeca in April.
Other new works include films from directors Abel Ferrara, Sara Driver, Nancy Buirski, Mathieu Amalric, and Barbet Schroeder; Vanessa Redgrave’s directorial debut “Sea Sorrow,” which played at Cannes; and films featuring Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Gay Talese, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jane Goodall, plus stories about racism, American immigration, and the global refugee crisis.
Three documentaries spotlight acclaimed writers, including the world premiere of Griffin Dunne’s “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” returning Nyff filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s tender portrait of her father, “Arthur Miller: Writer,” and the World Premiere of Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s “Voyeur,” tracking journalist Gay Talese...
Other new works include films from directors Abel Ferrara, Sara Driver, Nancy Buirski, Mathieu Amalric, and Barbet Schroeder; Vanessa Redgrave’s directorial debut “Sea Sorrow,” which played at Cannes; and films featuring Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Gay Talese, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jane Goodall, plus stories about racism, American immigration, and the global refugee crisis.
Three documentaries spotlight acclaimed writers, including the world premiere of Griffin Dunne’s “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” returning Nyff filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s tender portrait of her father, “Arthur Miller: Writer,” and the World Premiere of Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s “Voyeur,” tracking journalist Gay Talese...
- 8/23/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
The 55th New York Film Festival will debut a starry roster of documentaries featuring giants of the art and literary worlds as well as Alex Gibney’s postponed “No Stone Unturned,” a critical investigation into the 1994 Loughinisland massacre in Ireland, which was pulled from Tribeca in April.
Other new works include films from directors Abel Ferrara, Sara Driver, Nancy Buirski, Mathieu Amalric, and Barbet Schroeder; Vanessa Redgrave’s directorial debut “Sea Sorrow,” which played at Cannes; and films featuring Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Gay Talese, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jane Goodall, plus stories about racism, American immigration, and the global refugee crisis.
Three documentaries spotlight acclaimed writers, including the world premiere of Griffin Dunne’s “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” returning Nyff filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s tender portrait of her father, “Arthur Miller: Writer,” and the World Premiere of Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s “Voyeur,” tracking journalist...
Other new works include films from directors Abel Ferrara, Sara Driver, Nancy Buirski, Mathieu Amalric, and Barbet Schroeder; Vanessa Redgrave’s directorial debut “Sea Sorrow,” which played at Cannes; and films featuring Joan Didion, Arthur Miller, Gay Talese, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Jane Goodall, plus stories about racism, American immigration, and the global refugee crisis.
Three documentaries spotlight acclaimed writers, including the world premiere of Griffin Dunne’s “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold,” returning Nyff filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s tender portrait of her father, “Arthur Miller: Writer,” and the World Premiere of Myles Kane and Josh Koury’s “Voyeur,” tracking journalist...
- 8/23/2017
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
There is something anachronic about the desert, something eternal, elemental. The desert exists beyond time, beyond idea; it exists as an experience, as a belief, as a test; as a place of exile, of purification, of spirit. Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki's documentary, El Mar La Mar begins in the desert void—in the darkness of a desert night: wind, crickets, footsteps, a howling in the distance. Sounds reach out from the nocturnal desert, creating an amorphous impression of place, a place which thousands of hopeful migrants must traverse in order to reach the promised Zion of the American Dream.This Sonoran desert is the place of the crossing and its obstacle for the thousands moving flowing towards the U.S., a space broken down in El Mar La Mar into its constitutive elements: Sky. Sand. Mountains. Trees. Fire. Bats. Horses. Men. The cacti, the rocks, the natural elements...
- 2/27/2017
- MUBI
Mubi's retrospective Film Is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa is showing January 16 - March 15, 2017 in the United Kingdom and many other countries around the world.Landscape“Film is a theorem that has to arrive at a final point.”—Sergei Loznitsa It’s something of a critical cliché to say that a film or filmmaker is fixated on the notion of time; but there aren’t many contemporary filmmakers who fulfill that description as well as Belarus-born director Sergei Loznitsa. Although best known for his recent work—a trio of documentaries, Maidan (2014), The Event (2015) and Austerlitz (2016)—and a brief foray into fiction—My Joy (2010) and In the Fog (2012)—Loznitsa first started out with a string of documentary features and shorts, five of which are part of Mubi’s ongoing retrospective: “Film is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa.” With a methodical, almost scientific rigor (indicative of Loznitsa’s...
- 2/26/2017
- MUBI
Desolate, dangerous and disputed: a film about the boundary in the Sonoran desert could have been a record of tragedy. Instead, Joshua Bonnetta and Jp Sniadecki opted to let the landscape come to the fore
The Sonoran desert is a piece of the American landscape that has evolved as if to edit humanity out of existence. Populated by spiked plants, poisonous insects, rattlesnakes and one of America’s few native big cats, the jaguar, its arid terrain stretches along the Us-Mexican border over a total of 260,000 sq km.
Crossing this wildnerness on foot takes three to five days, and during the summer, daytime temperatures regularly exceed 40°C (104°F). The Us border patrol is alleged to have retrieved 6,029 human remains from this stretch in southern Arizona since the 1990s. The bodies of thousands of others who have tried to enter the Us through the desert may have been bleached away by...
The Sonoran desert is a piece of the American landscape that has evolved as if to edit humanity out of existence. Populated by spiked plants, poisonous insects, rattlesnakes and one of America’s few native big cats, the jaguar, its arid terrain stretches along the Us-Mexican border over a total of 260,000 sq km.
Crossing this wildnerness on foot takes three to five days, and during the summer, daytime temperatures regularly exceed 40°C (104°F). The Us border patrol is alleged to have retrieved 6,029 human remains from this stretch in southern Arizona since the 1990s. The bodies of thousands of others who have tried to enter the Us through the desert may have been bleached away by...
- 2/15/2017
- by Philip Oltermann
- The Guardian - Film News
As a critic, especially if you cover the festival circuit, befriending filmmakers is both a pleasant matter of course and a recurring cause for minor ethical quandaries. When they release a new film, do you avoid writing about it? And if not, will you be able to remain critical even if you dislike it, potentially severing a friendship?It’s therefore with some trepidation that I approached Railway Sleepers by Sompot Chidgasornpongse, whom I’d met in 2014 on the set of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour, where he was the 1st Assistant Director (since starting out as an intern on The Adventure of Iron Pussy, Sompot has worked on the majority of Apichatpong’s films). He first told me about his film on the ride back from the shoot one day, during a discussion about the Dardennes’ Two Days, One Night. He wanted to see the Dardennes’ film to...
- 2/14/2017
- MUBI
World premieres include Barrage, starring Isabelle Huppert and her daughter Lolita Chammah.Scroll down for full list
This year’s Forum programme at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 9-19), which highlights avant garde and experimental works, will feature 47 films, including 29 world premieres.
These include the premiere of Laura Schroeder’s Barrage, which stars Isabelle Huppert alongside her daughter Lolita Chammah in the story of a young woman who returns to Luxembourg after a 10-year absence to spend time with her estranged child. Huppert plays the grandmother, who has fostered the young girl during that absence.
Read: ‘Barrage’, starring Isabelle Huppert and daughter Lolita, finds sales home
Having its international premiere at Forum this year will be Golden Exits, the new feature from American filmmaker Alex Ross Perry. His previous credits include Queen Of Earth, which premiered at Berlin in 2015. His latest tells the story of a young Australian woman who comes to New York for a few months...
This year’s Forum programme at the Berlin Film Festival (Feb 9-19), which highlights avant garde and experimental works, will feature 47 films, including 29 world premieres.
These include the premiere of Laura Schroeder’s Barrage, which stars Isabelle Huppert alongside her daughter Lolita Chammah in the story of a young woman who returns to Luxembourg after a 10-year absence to spend time with her estranged child. Huppert plays the grandmother, who has fostered the young girl during that absence.
Read: ‘Barrage’, starring Isabelle Huppert and daughter Lolita, finds sales home
Having its international premiere at Forum this year will be Golden Exits, the new feature from American filmmaker Alex Ross Perry. His previous credits include Queen Of Earth, which premiered at Berlin in 2015. His latest tells the story of a young Australian woman who comes to New York for a few months...
- 1/19/2017
- by tom.grater@screendaily.com (Tom Grater)
- ScreenDaily
The 67th Berlin International Film Festival announced 43 additions to its 2017 roster today, including Alex Ross Perry’s “Golden Exits,” Joshua Z. Weinstein’s “Menashe,” and Amman Abbasi’s “Dayveon,” and rounding out much of the festival’s main line-up.
Read More: Berlinale 2017 Will Premiere ‘Logan,’ ‘Trainspotting: T2,’ and Hong Sangsoo’s Latest
Known for its robust variety of programming, the festival previously announced new films from Aki Kaurismaki, Oren Moverman, Sally Potter, Agnieszka Holland, and Sebastian Lelio. More commercial fare includes the international premiere of Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” sequel, and the world premiere of James Mangold’s addition to the Wolverine franchise, “Logan.”
Read More: 5 Exciting Films in the 2017 Berlin Film Festival Competition Lineup
The films of the 47th Forum are:
2 + 2 = 22 [The Alphabet] by Heinz Emigholz, Germany – Wp
Adiós entusiasmo (So Long Enthusiasm) of Vladimir Durán, Argentina / Colombia – Wp
At Elske Pia (Pia Loving) by Daniel Joseph Borgmann, Denmark – Wp...
Read More: Berlinale 2017 Will Premiere ‘Logan,’ ‘Trainspotting: T2,’ and Hong Sangsoo’s Latest
Known for its robust variety of programming, the festival previously announced new films from Aki Kaurismaki, Oren Moverman, Sally Potter, Agnieszka Holland, and Sebastian Lelio. More commercial fare includes the international premiere of Danny Boyle’s “Trainspotting” sequel, and the world premiere of James Mangold’s addition to the Wolverine franchise, “Logan.”
Read More: 5 Exciting Films in the 2017 Berlin Film Festival Competition Lineup
The films of the 47th Forum are:
2 + 2 = 22 [The Alphabet] by Heinz Emigholz, Germany – Wp
Adiós entusiasmo (So Long Enthusiasm) of Vladimir Durán, Argentina / Colombia – Wp
At Elske Pia (Pia Loving) by Daniel Joseph Borgmann, Denmark – Wp...
- 1/18/2017
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Last year, 2.5 billion people traveled by rail across the wild expanse of China. With each passing year the country continues to sink massive amounts of money into the high speed infrastructure – this year alone the China Railway Corp. plans to spend a whopping $121.5 billion toward construction and expansion. In The Iron Ministry, the latest feature production from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, director/editor/cameraman J.P. Sniadecki attempts to convey what those numbers look like from the inside out. Riding tracks throughout China throughout 2011 and on through 2013 with the camera rolling, Sniadecki’s curious findings flow with affectionate intrigue and an instinctive eye for beauty in the mundane.
The Iron Ministry joins an immense body of train-centric documentary cinema, from its birth back at the beginnings of film itself by way of the Lumière brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat through D.A. Pennebaker’s mid-century short Daybreak Express...
The Iron Ministry joins an immense body of train-centric documentary cinema, from its birth back at the beginnings of film itself by way of the Lumière brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat through D.A. Pennebaker’s mid-century short Daybreak Express...
- 2/16/2016
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Access to the best of contemporary Chinese independent cinema has been a constant challenge for audiences unable to attend the adventurous film festivals that are the main conduit for these films and filmmakers to the world outside of China. This August a new initiative began—partially crowdfunded on Kickstarter—called Cinema on the Edge, introducing a range of essential, recent independent productions from the mainland across several cinemas in New York City. Mubi is partnering with Cinema on the Edge to extend its theatrical exhibitions to the online world, showing a selection of their films online in the Us, allowing audiences outside of New York to explore what is happening right now in indie Chinese filmmaking. These Chinese films will be premiering on Mubi over the next ten days.Our selection includes:Cut Out The Eyes (Xu Tong, 2014)Er Housheng is a blind musician who travels Inner Mongolia with his...
- 9/15/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The centerpiece of New York Magazine's fall preview is Lane Brown's wide-ranging interview with Quentin Tarantino. Also in today's roundup: Richard Brody on how Joe Swanberg and his generation have changed the relationship between actor and director; Fabian Cantieri talks with Tag Gallagher, author of essential books on John Ford and Roberto Rossellini; Eric Hynes on J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry; Dan Callahan on Ruth Chatterton; and we mark the passing of Pierre Jansen, known primarily to cinephiles for his work with Claude Chabrol. » - David Hudson...
- 8/24/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
The centerpiece of New York Magazine's fall preview is Lane Brown's wide-ranging interview with Quentin Tarantino. Also in today's roundup: Richard Brody on how Joe Swanberg and his generation have changed the relationship between actor and director; Fabian Cantieri talks with Tag Gallagher, author of essential books on John Ford and Roberto Rossellini; Eric Hynes on J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry; Dan Callahan on Ruth Chatterton; and we mark the passing of Pierre Jansen, known primarily to cinephiles for his work with Claude Chabrol. » - David Hudson...
- 8/24/2015
- Keyframe
To many, the name J.P. Sniadecki doesn’t ring much of a bell. Even to many storied cinephiles, the young documentarian and his work is a relatively blank spot on their selective film canvas. However, with films like Leviathan and Manakamana, the team at Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab have become some of non-fiction cinema’s most interesting and truly beloved voices. Sniadecki, along with directors like Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel (the latter of which Sniadecki teamed with on the film People’s Park), have risen to the absolute top of the documentary world with their engrossing and experimental motion pictures.
And now it’s time for Sniadecki to go it alone.
With The Iron Ministry comes the latest film out of the Hsel collective, and it’s yet another confounding achievement. Shot over the span of three years on various trains in China, the film is a definitive...
And now it’s time for Sniadecki to go it alone.
With The Iron Ministry comes the latest film out of the Hsel collective, and it’s yet another confounding achievement. Shot over the span of three years on various trains in China, the film is a definitive...
- 8/21/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Just like Leviathan and Manakamana before it, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry is another striking sensory cinema experience. Closely associated with Havard Sensory Ethnography Lab and its esteemed Colleagues - Julien Castraing-Taylor, Verena Paravel, Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez and others, Sniadecki continues exploring the cinematic medium to its new height with the film which takes place entirely on the moving trains in China.Sniadecki, fluent in Mandarin, has been making films in China since 2010. Chaiquian, his first film explored the changing landscape of China and its 'floating people' - mass workers' migration from rural areas to the cities, followed by People's Park - a breathtaking single take film strolling through the Chengdu park, then Yumen, a docu-hybrid taking place in the ghost city of the...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 8/19/2015
- Screen Anarchy
At Twitch, Christopher Bourne suggests that for "the last decade or so, China has been the source of some of the most provocative, innovative and artful independent fiction films and documentaries being made today." But those that are independently made "cannot be legally shown in China, because they are made outside of the official film system." The Beijing Independent Film Festival has struggled to keep from being shut down, so producer Karen Chien, critic Shelly Kraicer and filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki are bringing the best of the fest to New York. The program, screening at various venues from tomorrow through September 13, features Ai Weiwei's Ping’an Yueqing, Jia Zhitan’s I Want To Be a People’s Representative, Cong Feng's Stratum I: The Visitors, Yang Mingming’s Female Directors and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
At Twitch, Christopher Bourne suggests that for "the last decade or so, China has been the source of some of the most provocative, innovative and artful independent fiction films and documentaries being made today." But those that are independently made "cannot be legally shown in China, because they are made outside of the official film system." The Beijing Independent Film Festival has struggled to keep from being shut down, so producer Karen Chien, critic Shelly Kraicer and filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki are bringing the best of the fest to New York. The program, screening at various venues from tomorrow through September 13, features Ai Weiwei's Ping’an Yueqing, Jia Zhitan’s I Want To Be a People’s Representative, Cong Feng's Stratum I: The Visitors, Yang Mingming’s Female Directors and more. » - David Hudson...
- 8/6/2015
- Keyframe
With 20 days to go, the Kickstarter launched by producer/distributor Karin Chien, critic/curator Shelly Kraicer, and filmmaker/anthropologist J.P. Sniadecki has already hit its initial target goal for the purpose of organizing a series showcasing some of the best films shown at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. These works — including People’s Park, a personal favorite film of the last few years co-directed by Sniadecki and Libbie Cohn — were all once screened at the Festival, which was shut down completely last year by Chinese authorities. (You can read more about that here.) The initial funding goals focused on bringing over […]...
- 7/16/2015
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
With 20 days to go, the Kickstarter launched by producer/distributor Karin Chien, critic/curator Shelly Kraicer, and filmmaker/anthropologist J.P. Sniadecki has already hit its initial target goal for the purpose of organizing a series showcasing some of the best films shown at the Beijing Independent Film Festival. These works — including People’s Park, a personal favorite film of the last few years co-directed by Sniadecki and Libbie Cohn — were all once screened at the Festival, which was shut down completely last year by Chinese authorities. (You can read more about that here.) The initial funding goals focused on bringing over […]...
- 7/16/2015
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Rushes collects news, articles, images, videos and more for a weekly roundup of essential items from the world of film.Above: Nastassja Kinski & Jean-Pierre Léaud are on the poster for the 2015 Venice Film Festival.At the New York Times, A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis are in dialogue reflecting on feminism and summer movies.There's a new festival in the works from producer/distributor Karin Chien, critic/curator Shelly Kraicer, and filmmaker/anthropologist J.P. Sniadecki: "Cinema on the Edge! Bestof the Beijing Indie Film Festival." With the 2014 Biff thwarted, these three are essentially transposing the festival and its films to New York this summer. They've launched a Kickstarter to support the venture.Above: Lauren Bacall in a 1943 issue of Harper's Bazaar. Via bettybecallbeauty.Film Comment's latest issue is out, and much of it is available to read online, including Kent Jones on Horse Money, reports from Cannes and Tribeca,...
- 7/8/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Organisers behind a New York-based festival highlighting films from the Beijing Independent Film Festival (Biff) that fell foul of local authorities have turned to Kickstarter.
Cinema On The Edge: Best Of The Beijing Independent Film Festival 2012-2014 is scheduled to run from August 7-September 13 at museums and theatres across New York.
Critic and curator Shelly Kraicer, filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki and dGenerate Films founder Karen Chien have corralled 18 films from the likes of Ai Weiwei, Li Luo and Zou Xueping.
The films will screen in the Us for the first time and are among a selection programmed by the Beijing Independent Film Festival (Biff, pictured) that have met with resistance from Chinese officials over the last three years.
Biff top brass were forced to cancel the festival in 2014 after men claiming to be villagers prevented filmmakers and members of the public from entering the Beijing suburb of Songzhuang where the event takes place. The films were...
Cinema On The Edge: Best Of The Beijing Independent Film Festival 2012-2014 is scheduled to run from August 7-September 13 at museums and theatres across New York.
Critic and curator Shelly Kraicer, filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki and dGenerate Films founder Karen Chien have corralled 18 films from the likes of Ai Weiwei, Li Luo and Zou Xueping.
The films will screen in the Us for the first time and are among a selection programmed by the Beijing Independent Film Festival (Biff, pictured) that have met with resistance from Chinese officials over the last three years.
Biff top brass were forced to cancel the festival in 2014 after men claiming to be villagers prevented filmmakers and members of the public from entering the Beijing suburb of Songzhuang where the event takes place. The films were...
- 7/8/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Above: the 2015 Crossroads Film Festival kicks off on Friday, April 10th, and features Paul Clipson's Hypnosis Display with a live soundtrack by Grouper. Check out the rest of the amazing lineup here. Like everyone, we're devastated that David Lynch will not be directing the Twin Peaks revival season after all. Above: the latest issue of La Furia Umana is online now and includes an intriguing survey of "What's (Not) Cinema Becoming?"From the new issue of The Brooklyn Rail: pieces on Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry, and an interview with Xin Zhou.For Cinema Scope, Jordan Cronk writes on this year's True/False Film Festival. There are two incredible websites for you to browse from La Cinématheque Francaise: one on Pier Paolo Pasolini, and one on Michelangelo Antonioni. For his blog Following Film, Christoph Huber writes on "The Siodmak Variations":...
- 4/10/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Held last month on March 24-29, the Ann Arbor Film Festival handed out awards to a gaggle of experimental films and filmmakers.
The big winner of the fest was Sicilian filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova for his fiction/documentary hybrid film The Creation of Meaning, which won the overall Best of the Festival award. The film tells the story of a WWII survivor who lives as a shepherd in the Tuscan Alps.
The Best Narrative Film award went to Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan’s Episode of the Sea, a neo-realist drama focused on the struggles of a tiny inland fishing community in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Best Documentary Film award went to longtime collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat for their Speculation Nation, which examines the current housing crisis in Spain.
Other winners include Alexandre Larose (Most Technically Innovative Film); Jenni Olson (Best Lgbt Film); Kevin Jerome Everson (Handcrafted...
The big winner of the fest was Sicilian filmmaker Simone Rapisarda Casanova for his fiction/documentary hybrid film The Creation of Meaning, which won the overall Best of the Festival award. The film tells the story of a WWII survivor who lives as a shepherd in the Tuscan Alps.
The Best Narrative Film award went to Lonnie van Brummelen & Siebren de Haan’s Episode of the Sea, a neo-realist drama focused on the struggles of a tiny inland fishing community in the Netherlands. Meanwhile, the Best Documentary Film award went to longtime collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat for their Speculation Nation, which examines the current housing crisis in Spain.
Other winners include Alexandre Larose (Most Technically Innovative Film); Jenni Olson (Best Lgbt Film); Kevin Jerome Everson (Handcrafted...
- 4/7/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
In the new La Furia Umana: a symposium on the future of cinema plus articles on Harun Farocki, Jerry Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. The new Brooklyn Rail features pieces on Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God and J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry, exhibitions of work by Michael Snow and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa and an interview with John Giorno. Also today: With Mad Max: Fury Road opening next month, a Ballardian primer to the Mad Max Universe; Jonathan Rosenbaum on Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Aleksandr Dovzhenko and Leni Riefenstahl; Robert Greene on Steve James's Hoop Dreams and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom; and lots more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/6/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
In the new La Furia Umana: a symposium on the future of cinema plus articles on Harun Farocki, Jerry Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice. The new Brooklyn Rail features pieces on Tsai Ming-liang's Rebels of the Neon God and J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry, exhibitions of work by Michael Snow and cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa and an interview with John Giorno. Also today: With Mad Max: Fury Road opening next month, a Ballardian primer to the Mad Max Universe; Jonathan Rosenbaum on Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Aleksandr Dovzhenko and Leni Riefenstahl; Robert Greene on Steve James's Hoop Dreams and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom; and lots more. » - David Hudson...
- 4/6/2015
- Keyframe
The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
- 3/24/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Films will be competing for nearly $40,000 in total prizes in various narrative and documentary categories.
San Francisco Film Society has unveiled the films in competition for this year’s Golden Gate Awards (Gga).
Films from 20 countries will compete for nearly $40,000 in total prizes at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, running April 23-May 7.
The winners of the Gga New Directors Prize and the Gga Documentary Feature will each receive $10,000, while the Gga Bay Area Documentary Feature winner will receive $5,000. Independent juries will select the winners in all categories with the winners announced on May 6.
In addition, the Gga will include competitors in six short film categories. These films will be announced on March 31.
The full list of nominees is as follows:
2015 Gga New Directors Prize (Narrative Feature) COMPETITIONBota, Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci, Albania/Italy/Kosovo – North American PremiereEl Cordero, Juan Francisco Olea, ChileCourt, Chaitanya Tamhane, India A Few Cubic Meters of Love, Jamshid Mahmoudi, Iran/AfghanistanFlapping...
San Francisco Film Society has unveiled the films in competition for this year’s Golden Gate Awards (Gga).
Films from 20 countries will compete for nearly $40,000 in total prizes at this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival, running April 23-May 7.
The winners of the Gga New Directors Prize and the Gga Documentary Feature will each receive $10,000, while the Gga Bay Area Documentary Feature winner will receive $5,000. Independent juries will select the winners in all categories with the winners announced on May 6.
In addition, the Gga will include competitors in six short film categories. These films will be announced on March 31.
The full list of nominees is as follows:
2015 Gga New Directors Prize (Narrative Feature) COMPETITIONBota, Iris Elezi, Thomas Logoreci, Albania/Italy/Kosovo – North American PremiereEl Cordero, Juan Francisco Olea, ChileCourt, Chaitanya Tamhane, India A Few Cubic Meters of Love, Jamshid Mahmoudi, Iran/AfghanistanFlapping...
- 3/11/2015
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
Iffr reveals Big Screen Awards nominees and the complete line-up for its Bright Future and Spectrum strands, including world premieres from the Us, China and the Netherlands.
Second Coming, starring Idris Elba and Nadine Marshall, has been named as one of 10 films up for the Big Screen Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) (Jan 21 - Feb 1).
The UK film, written and directed by Debbie Tucker Green, will be vying for a prize of €10,000 ($12,000) awarded specifically to support theatrical distribution of the film in The Netherlands
The 10 nominees are from Iffr’s Bright Future and Spectrum programmes with the winner chosen by a specially selected audience jury. Other titles include Lisandro Alonso’s Cannes Fipresci winner Jauja and Carlos Vermut’s San Sebastian winner Magical Girl.
The nominees are:
I Swear I’ll Leave This Town, Danial AragãoJauja, Lisandro AlonsoKey House Mirror, Michael NoerThe Lesson, Kristina Grozeva, Petar ValchanovMagical Girl, Carlos VermutA...
Second Coming, starring Idris Elba and Nadine Marshall, has been named as one of 10 films up for the Big Screen Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Iffr) (Jan 21 - Feb 1).
The UK film, written and directed by Debbie Tucker Green, will be vying for a prize of €10,000 ($12,000) awarded specifically to support theatrical distribution of the film in The Netherlands
The 10 nominees are from Iffr’s Bright Future and Spectrum programmes with the winner chosen by a specially selected audience jury. Other titles include Lisandro Alonso’s Cannes Fipresci winner Jauja and Carlos Vermut’s San Sebastian winner Magical Girl.
The nominees are:
I Swear I’ll Leave This Town, Danial AragãoJauja, Lisandro AlonsoKey House Mirror, Michael NoerThe Lesson, Kristina Grozeva, Petar ValchanovMagical Girl, Carlos VermutA...
- 1/7/2015
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Edited by Adam Cook
Above: One of the best short films of the year, Person to Person, directed by Dustin Guy Defa for The New Yorker.
The surprise trailer for Terrence Malick's new film, Knight of Cups, dropped this week, as did news it would premiere at the Berlinale in 2015. Above: no, Godard's Goodbye to Language didn't top Film Comment's Best of 2014 list, it finished 2nd to Richard Linklater's Boyhood, but at this rate we'll be leading with pictures from Boyhood every week with how many lists it's topping. Below are Film Comment's Top 10 of 2014 as well as their Top 10 Undistributed films of 2014. They have larger lists for your perusal here and here.
"1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, USA)
2. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, USA)
4. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland)
5. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, UK)
6. Stranger By the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, France)
7. Citizenfour (Laura Poitras,...
Above: One of the best short films of the year, Person to Person, directed by Dustin Guy Defa for The New Yorker.
The surprise trailer for Terrence Malick's new film, Knight of Cups, dropped this week, as did news it would premiere at the Berlinale in 2015. Above: no, Godard's Goodbye to Language didn't top Film Comment's Best of 2014 list, it finished 2nd to Richard Linklater's Boyhood, but at this rate we'll be leading with pictures from Boyhood every week with how many lists it's topping. Below are Film Comment's Top 10 of 2014 as well as their Top 10 Undistributed films of 2014. They have larger lists for your perusal here and here.
"1. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, USA)
2. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
3. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, USA)
4. Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland)
5. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, UK)
6. Stranger By the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, France)
7. Citizenfour (Laura Poitras,...
- 12/30/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The Iron Ministry
Directed by J.P. Sniadecki
USA, 2014
The first few minutes of The Iron Ministry are a black screen overlaid with the sound of train machinery. The darkness goes on long enough that some patrons were muttering over whether or not the picture was being projected correctly. Gradually, however, images come into view, though hazy and out of focus; hard to identify. The gears and bellows of the train pulsate and throb. They don’t look mechanical. It looks like the workings of grey, diseased organs. The first sign of human activity is a closeup of cigarette butts sloshing in a water-filled nook. And then people themselves finally enter the picture, mites living in the larger host body of the train.
China has an extensive railway network, and it’s only spiderwebbed outwards in recent years, connecting the eastern part of the country to the remote mines of Tibet,...
Directed by J.P. Sniadecki
USA, 2014
The first few minutes of The Iron Ministry are a black screen overlaid with the sound of train machinery. The darkness goes on long enough that some patrons were muttering over whether or not the picture was being projected correctly. Gradually, however, images come into view, though hazy and out of focus; hard to identify. The gears and bellows of the train pulsate and throb. They don’t look mechanical. It looks like the workings of grey, diseased organs. The first sign of human activity is a closeup of cigarette butts sloshing in a water-filled nook. And then people themselves finally enter the picture, mites living in the larger host body of the train.
China has an extensive railway network, and it’s only spiderwebbed outwards in recent years, connecting the eastern part of the country to the remote mines of Tibet,...
- 11/9/2014
- by Dan Schindel
- SoundOnSight
Chicago – The 2014 edition, the 50th Chicago International Film Festival, kicks off tonight on October 9th. The premiere film will be “Miss Julie,” an adaptation of the August Strindberg play adapted and directed by Liv Ullmann. The first weekend promises a scintillating variety of cinema indulgences.
HollywoodChicago.com contributors Nick Allen and Patrick McDonald have been sampling the festival offerings, and provide this preview to cover the first four days of the event. The depth and breadth of the films is a reminder to participate in the variety of the Festival, especially if interested in a particular country, for their cinema is a glimpse into their culture. Each capsule is designated with Na (Nick Allen) or Pm (Patrick McDonald), to indicate the author.
Opening Night “Miss Julie”
Jessica Chastain in ‘Miss Julie’
Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival
Liv Ullmann, the legendary Swedish actress – and muse to director Ingmar Bergman – directs her fifth feature film,...
HollywoodChicago.com contributors Nick Allen and Patrick McDonald have been sampling the festival offerings, and provide this preview to cover the first four days of the event. The depth and breadth of the films is a reminder to participate in the variety of the Festival, especially if interested in a particular country, for their cinema is a glimpse into their culture. Each capsule is designated with Na (Nick Allen) or Pm (Patrick McDonald), to indicate the author.
Opening Night “Miss Julie”
Jessica Chastain in ‘Miss Julie’
Photo credit: Chicago International Film Festival
Liv Ullmann, the legendary Swedish actress – and muse to director Ingmar Bergman – directs her fifth feature film,...
- 10/9/2014
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
With so few events during which to premiere new and important avant-garde films in North America—among them, the recently wrapped Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Fest, and the San Francisco Cinematheque's Crossroads series—the shift that has occurred at this year's New York Film Festival is one well worth noting. This weekend, the inaugural Projects program will debut. Previously known as "Views from the Avant-Garde" and programmed by Mark McElhatten and Gavin Smith (though last year's titanic program was done by McElhatten alone), this sidebar more akin to a festival-inside-a-festival of film and video works has been re-named "Projections" and in its first year is programmed by a returned Smith, Film Society of Lincoln Center's Director of Programming Dennis Lim, and Aily Nash.
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
The section encompasses 13 programs over a single weekend during the festival, including a handful of feature length films and numerous shorts,...
- 10/4/2014
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
This story first appeared in the Oct. 10 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Foxcatcher Centered on an astonishing turn by Steve Carell, Bennett Miller's beautifully modulated, fact-based wrestling drama has a great deal on its mind about America's privileged class and how sublimated urges can assert themselves in the most unsavory ways. -- Todd McCarthy The Iron Ministry American director J.P. Sniadecki's latest anthropological study of the world's most populous nation takes the form of a pungently immersive, frequently surprising semi-experimental documentary about traveling on Chinese trains. -- Neil Young See more 35 of 2014's Most Anticipated Movies
read more...
read more...
- 10/4/2014
- by THR Staff
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
From the Film Society of Lincoln Square This thrilling new film from J.P. Sniadecki (People’s Park, Foreign Parts), shot over three years during a series of train journeys across China, begins with metal: the sounds and sights of gears, wheels on tracks and linked railway cars meshing, crunching, and grinding. We are gradually introduced to the people who ride and work on the cars, with their luggage, their produce, the products they’re hawking, the goods they’re transporting. People are crammed into every corner of every train car, with the exception of a first-class compartment from which the filmmaker is barred. At one point, Sniadecki follows a food vendor from one [ Read More ]
The post New York Film Festival 2014: The Iron Ministry Gets New Clips appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post New York Film Festival 2014: The Iron Ministry Gets New Clips appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 9/7/2014
- by Rudie Obias
- ShockYa
J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry premiered in competition in Locarno last week and, in a dispatch to the House Next Door, Michael Pattison notes that "the focus is upon the claustrophobic clutter of China's economy-class train carriages that rattle along one of the largest rail networks in the world. Filming between 2011 and 2013, Sniadecki perhaps had too much material for his own good, and the process of trimming it all into a cohesive whole has resulted in something at once suitably chaotic and frustratingly unwieldy—but it's sometimes a marvelous and frequently alarming snapshot of the country's militantly upheld class divide." We've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 8/20/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry premiered in competition in Locarno last week and, in a dispatch to the House Next Door, Michael Pattison notes that "the focus is upon the claustrophobic clutter of China's economy-class train carriages that rattle along one of the largest rail networks in the world. Filming between 2011 and 2013, Sniadecki perhaps had too much material for his own good, and the process of trimming it all into a cohesive whole has resulted in something at once suitably chaotic and frustratingly unwieldy—but it's sometimes a marvelous and frequently alarming snapshot of the country's militantly upheld class divide." We've got more reviews and the trailer. » - David Hudson...
- 8/20/2014
- Keyframe
Opening Night – World Premiere
Gone Girl
David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m
David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...
Gone Girl
David Fincher, USA, 2014, Dcp, 150m
David Fincher’s film version of Gillian Flynn’s phenomenally successful best seller (adapted by the author) is one wild cinematic ride, a perfectly cast and intensely compressed portrait of a recession-era marriage contained within a devastating depiction of celebrity/media culture, shifting gears as smoothly as a Maserati 250F. Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) goes missing on the day of their fifth anniversary. Neil Patrick Harris is Amy’s old boyfriend Desi, Carrie Coon (who played Honey in Tracy Letts’s acclaimed production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) is Nick’s sister Margo, Kim Dickens (Treme, Friday Night Lights) is Detective Rhonda Boney, and Tyler Perry is Nick’s superstar lawyer Tanner Bolt. At once a grand panoramic vision of middle America, a uniquely disturbing exploration of the fault lines in a marriage,...
- 8/20/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The New York Film Festival has announced 15 titles lined up for its Spotlight on Documentary. Nyff 52, running from September 26 through October 12, will feature new films by Frederick Wiseman, Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi, Albert Maysles, Joshua Oppenheimer, Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht, Ed Pincus and Lucia Small, J.P. Sniadecki, Debra Granik, Robert Kenner, Jung Yoon-suk, Ethan Hawke, Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan, Gabe Polsky, Arthur Jafa and Marah Strauch. » - David Hudson...
- 8/19/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
The New York Film Festival has announced 15 titles lined up for its Spotlight on Documentary. Nyff 52, running from September 26 through October 12, will feature new films by Frederick Wiseman, Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi, Albert Maysles, Joshua Oppenheimer, Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht, Ed Pincus and Lucia Small, J.P. Sniadecki, Debra Granik, Robert Kenner, Jung Yoon-suk, Ethan Hawke, Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan, Gabe Polsky, Arthur Jafa and Marah Strauch. » - David Hudson...
- 8/19/2014
- Keyframe
Just steps from the outdoor screen and the 8,000 seats that have been set up on the Piazza Grande where the 67th Locarno International Film Festival will open on 6 August, I sat down with Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian to talk about films of the past and present, the American independent film line-up, Roman Polanski and Agnès Varda.
The Festival
Kouguell: This is your second year as Artistic Director. What changes will we see at the Festival this year?
Chatrian: “Last year, I didn’t want to change the Festival that much because I felt, and still feel, that the structure is good and fits the goals -- to continue on the same path with (both) the history of cinema and new films. This year’s selection of new films will have more surprises than last year. The main competition last year was composed of mainly quite well-known directors; this year there is a good balance of first-time, lesser known and established directors.”
Kouguell: Are there any current trends in filmmaking that you have found in this year’s films?
Chatrian: “Cinema as an art form has more than one direction. Luckily there are filmmakers willing to take different directions and we see this here at this year’s Festival. I’m always a little bit concerned when some critics say, ‘the new cinema will be this or that’ -- what I can say is that cinema -- especially through young filmmakers -- seems quite vibrant and not a dead art form.”
On American Indie Films at the Festival
Chatrian: “We try to provide a complete panorama of American indie cinema but we are not concerned about being exhaustive. Locarno is a good festival to help the career of a director. One of the purposes of the Locarno Film Festival is to discover new talent. I’m happy to have back -- they were discovered by Locarno -- American indie directors Alex Ross Perry ( "Listen Up Philip"), Joel Potrykus ("Buzzard") and J.P. Sniadecki with his documentary "The Iron Ministry".”
The other American films include "Single Stream" directed by Ernst Karel, Toby Kim Lee and Pawel Wojtasik, "Songs from the North" by Soon-Mi Yoo, the "Tony Longo Trilogy" directed by indie cinema veteran Thom Anderson, "Creep" (Patrick Brice’s first feature- length genre film), "Thirst" a short narrative film directed by Rachel McDonald, and the fiction feature "Christmas Again" directed by Charles Poekel.
On Roman Polanski
Kouguell: Some might feel that inviting Roman Polanski to the Festival is a controversial choice. What are your thoughts on this?
Chatrian: “I’m aware of this. I don’t want to hurt anyone. When I had the chance to invite him to do a master class for the young filmmakers at the Locarno Summer Academy, it was a chance to gain an inside angle of this director. That’s the purpose of the festival -- we exchange ideas; Polanksi can give his film knowledge to other people. One side is justice and one is the filmmaker. He is a great creator of moving images and for me, not controversial, simple as that. He is willing to share his ideas with young directors. If anyone else wants to take him and bring him to justice this is not the right place to do it because we are a film festival.”
On Honoring Agnès Varda with The Pardo d’onore Swisscom Award
Chatrian: “It is important to pay tribute to her as a woman director, and as a major figure in modern and independent cinema. Varda and I discussed the titles to choose to screen at the Festival. As you see there are well known films -- and others not as known [like] the 2011 documentary television series Agnès de ci de là Varda.
“What is interesting in her work is that she is absolutely free to choose topics, format, length, and style. She is free to switch from documentaries to fiction -- to work with big stars or not, to reflect on her own experience. Through her work we can see and experience a number of important movements in the 20th Century -- the American Blank Panthers (Huey), the women’s movement, "The Gleaners and I," " Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma," and more. Varda allows me and the Festival to watch cinema as language; she allows the festival to retell important stories of the past years. At age 86 she is full of energy and willing to exchange her experience with the audience.”
The Locarno International Film Festival offers a vast range of work from the past and present, a diverse selection of shorts, feature-length, narrative and documentary films, and a window onto the future of cinema around the globe.
The Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 6-16, 2014. For more information visit: www.pardo.ch
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide.www.su-city-pictures.com , http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
The Festival
Kouguell: This is your second year as Artistic Director. What changes will we see at the Festival this year?
Chatrian: “Last year, I didn’t want to change the Festival that much because I felt, and still feel, that the structure is good and fits the goals -- to continue on the same path with (both) the history of cinema and new films. This year’s selection of new films will have more surprises than last year. The main competition last year was composed of mainly quite well-known directors; this year there is a good balance of first-time, lesser known and established directors.”
Kouguell: Are there any current trends in filmmaking that you have found in this year’s films?
Chatrian: “Cinema as an art form has more than one direction. Luckily there are filmmakers willing to take different directions and we see this here at this year’s Festival. I’m always a little bit concerned when some critics say, ‘the new cinema will be this or that’ -- what I can say is that cinema -- especially through young filmmakers -- seems quite vibrant and not a dead art form.”
On American Indie Films at the Festival
Chatrian: “We try to provide a complete panorama of American indie cinema but we are not concerned about being exhaustive. Locarno is a good festival to help the career of a director. One of the purposes of the Locarno Film Festival is to discover new talent. I’m happy to have back -- they were discovered by Locarno -- American indie directors Alex Ross Perry ( "Listen Up Philip"), Joel Potrykus ("Buzzard") and J.P. Sniadecki with his documentary "The Iron Ministry".”
The other American films include "Single Stream" directed by Ernst Karel, Toby Kim Lee and Pawel Wojtasik, "Songs from the North" by Soon-Mi Yoo, the "Tony Longo Trilogy" directed by indie cinema veteran Thom Anderson, "Creep" (Patrick Brice’s first feature- length genre film), "Thirst" a short narrative film directed by Rachel McDonald, and the fiction feature "Christmas Again" directed by Charles Poekel.
On Roman Polanski
Kouguell: Some might feel that inviting Roman Polanski to the Festival is a controversial choice. What are your thoughts on this?
Chatrian: “I’m aware of this. I don’t want to hurt anyone. When I had the chance to invite him to do a master class for the young filmmakers at the Locarno Summer Academy, it was a chance to gain an inside angle of this director. That’s the purpose of the festival -- we exchange ideas; Polanksi can give his film knowledge to other people. One side is justice and one is the filmmaker. He is a great creator of moving images and for me, not controversial, simple as that. He is willing to share his ideas with young directors. If anyone else wants to take him and bring him to justice this is not the right place to do it because we are a film festival.”
On Honoring Agnès Varda with The Pardo d’onore Swisscom Award
Chatrian: “It is important to pay tribute to her as a woman director, and as a major figure in modern and independent cinema. Varda and I discussed the titles to choose to screen at the Festival. As you see there are well known films -- and others not as known [like] the 2011 documentary television series Agnès de ci de là Varda.
“What is interesting in her work is that she is absolutely free to choose topics, format, length, and style. She is free to switch from documentaries to fiction -- to work with big stars or not, to reflect on her own experience. Through her work we can see and experience a number of important movements in the 20th Century -- the American Blank Panthers (Huey), the women’s movement, "The Gleaners and I," " Les cent et une nuits de Simon Cinéma," and more. Varda allows me and the Festival to watch cinema as language; she allows the festival to retell important stories of the past years. At age 86 she is full of energy and willing to exchange her experience with the audience.”
The Locarno International Film Festival offers a vast range of work from the past and present, a diverse selection of shorts, feature-length, narrative and documentary films, and a window onto the future of cinema around the globe.
The Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 6-16, 2014. For more information visit: www.pardo.ch
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell presents international workshops and seminars on screenwriting and film. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide.www.su-city-pictures.com , http://su-city-pictures.com/wpblog...
- 8/6/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
Above: Pedro Costa's Horse Money
The Locarno Film Festival has announced their lineup for the 67th edition, taking place this August between the 6th and 16th. It speaks for itself, but, um, wow...
"Every film festival, be it small or large, claims to offer, if not an account of the state of things, then an updated map of the art form and the world it seeks to represent. This cartography should show both the major routes and the byways, along with essential places to visit and those that are more unusual. The Festival del film Locarno is no exception to the rule, and I think that looking through the program you will be able to distinguish the route map for this edition." — Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director
Above: Matías Piñeiro's The Princess of France
Concorso Internazionale (Official Competition)
A Blast (Syllas Tzoumerkas, Greece/Germany/Netherlands)
Alive (Jungbum Park, South Korea)
Horse Money (Pedro Costa,...
The Locarno Film Festival has announced their lineup for the 67th edition, taking place this August between the 6th and 16th. It speaks for itself, but, um, wow...
"Every film festival, be it small or large, claims to offer, if not an account of the state of things, then an updated map of the art form and the world it seeks to represent. This cartography should show both the major routes and the byways, along with essential places to visit and those that are more unusual. The Festival del film Locarno is no exception to the rule, and I think that looking through the program you will be able to distinguish the route map for this edition." — Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director
Above: Matías Piñeiro's The Princess of France
Concorso Internazionale (Official Competition)
A Blast (Syllas Tzoumerkas, Greece/Germany/Netherlands)
Alive (Jungbum Park, South Korea)
Horse Money (Pedro Costa,...
- 7/25/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
The 51st Ann Arbor Film Festival, held back on March 19-24, gave out 20 awards to 28 films, as selected by the three-panel jury of filmmakers Kevin Jerome Everson, Laida Lertxundi and Marcin Gizycki.
The big winner was Penny Lane’s documentary Our Nixon, which took home the Best of the Fest Award. The film, assembled from “home” movies taken by Richard Nixon’s staff has quickly become one of the most talked about indie films of the year so far.
Other winners include Michael Almereyda’s short profile of a Northern England fishing village, Skinningrove, won for Best Documentary Film; Yuri Ancarani’s surgical film Da Vinci won for the Most Technically Innovative Film; and Frédéric Moffet’s meditation on Montgomery Clift, Postface, won for Best Experimental Film.
The full list of winners is below and you can check out the entire lineup of 2013 Ann Arbor Film Festival here.
Ken Burns...
The big winner was Penny Lane’s documentary Our Nixon, which took home the Best of the Fest Award. The film, assembled from “home” movies taken by Richard Nixon’s staff has quickly become one of the most talked about indie films of the year so far.
Other winners include Michael Almereyda’s short profile of a Northern England fishing village, Skinningrove, won for Best Documentary Film; Yuri Ancarani’s surgical film Da Vinci won for the Most Technically Innovative Film; and Frédéric Moffet’s meditation on Montgomery Clift, Postface, won for Best Experimental Film.
The full list of winners is below and you can check out the entire lineup of 2013 Ann Arbor Film Festival here.
Ken Burns...
- 4/1/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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