Investigating the nature of altruism, director Penny Lane turns the camera on herself in Confessions of a Good Samaritan, showing her process as an organ donor navigating the uncomfortable space of “gifting” a part of your body to a stranger. Single, in her early 40s, and financially secure after a decade of building her career, she decides its time to give back to the universe as a way of saying thank you for life ultimately working out.
For Lane, this is a rare work to proceed in a fairly straightforward manner. Extensive self-interviews frame her donation, which was made before Covid disrupted every industry, and Confessions unpacks the history of donations, including a 1984 decree that outlawed the exchange of money or anything of value for a body part. Though most donations are made to family members in need, online exchanges––similar to a dating website––are an option for those...
For Lane, this is a rare work to proceed in a fairly straightforward manner. Extensive self-interviews frame her donation, which was made before Covid disrupted every industry, and Confessions unpacks the history of donations, including a 1984 decree that outlawed the exchange of money or anything of value for a body part. Though most donations are made to family members in need, online exchanges––similar to a dating website––are an option for those...
- 3/25/2023
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
It’s difficult enough for anyone to sort through the artifacts of their deceased parent or grandparent’s home and figure out what to save, what to donate, and what to throw out. These objects often tell the entirety of one’s life—even if, as we discover, they are really just objects to their original owner, junk accumulated over one’s life. The first half Love & Stuff is a personal look at the process of mourning; the latter half, unfortunately, proves to be a little less interesting, despite its symmetry.
Director Judith Hefland has over 25 years of archival materials from her personal documentaries, including her debut feature A Healthy Baby Girl (1997), exploring her relationship with her mother Florence as she comes to terms with the dwindling days she’ll have with her and the aftermath of her passing. Her first feature, revisited here, explores Helfland’s experience having an...
Director Judith Hefland has over 25 years of archival materials from her personal documentaries, including her debut feature A Healthy Baby Girl (1997), exploring her relationship with her mother Florence as she comes to terms with the dwindling days she’ll have with her and the aftermath of her passing. Her first feature, revisited here, explores Helfland’s experience having an...
- 12/3/2020
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Doc NYC Review: ‘After The Murder of Albert Lima’ is an Absurd Yet Compelling Reality-Based Thriller
A mild-mannered personal trainer from Tampa is galvanized into action, turning nearly into a cold-blooded, revenge-seeking gangster in Aengus James’ After the Murder of Albert Lima, a documentary that struggles to escape the trappings of reality TV. Albert Lima, an American businessman, went down to Honduras to collect a debt owed to him by the Coleman brothers. He turns up dead and Oral Coleman, the perpetrator, is later convicted in absentia, hiding in plain sight in a bakery he runs behind a saloon owned by his family.
Albert’s son Paul Lima has spent nearly a decade seeking answers and justice for his father. He’s left with one option: hunt the son of a bitch himself and deliver him to a police station. The investigation grows muddier and muddier through various official and unofficial channels as the police won’t actively seek out Coleman, asking instead an under-resourced U.S. Embassy...
Albert’s son Paul Lima has spent nearly a decade seeking answers and justice for his father. He’s left with one option: hunt the son of a bitch himself and deliver him to a police station. The investigation grows muddier and muddier through various official and unofficial channels as the police won’t actively seek out Coleman, asking instead an under-resourced U.S. Embassy...
- 11/20/2019
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
So it turns out the key to happiness is Zoloft and a gorgeous women 20 years your senior. At least that’s the message in Stefan Sagmeister and Ben Nabors‘ The Happy Film, a quest to, among other things, approach happiness as a design problem. This wouldn’t include designing objects that, in everyday practice, make one happy or expand upon one’s happiness. Largely, the design proposed by Sagmeister is the expression of happiness — which occasionally involves bouncing around the word “happiness,” formed in gelatin and capturing this in slow motion.
While an opening inter-title warns that The Happy Film will not make you happy, it should also come with a warning that what’s to come is a self-indulgent bore as Sagmeister challenges himself to discover happiness through meditation, counseling, and (legal) drugs. Based in New York City, Sagmeiser is best known for his innovative album covers for The Rolling Stones,...
While an opening inter-title warns that The Happy Film will not make you happy, it should also come with a warning that what’s to come is a self-indulgent bore as Sagmeister challenges himself to discover happiness through meditation, counseling, and (legal) drugs. Based in New York City, Sagmeiser is best known for his innovative album covers for The Rolling Stones,...
- 4/18/2016
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
The recipient of the 2014 St. Louis International Film Festival’s Women in Film Award is producer Katie Mustard.
Mustard has two feature films screening at Sliff – Growing Up And Other Lies and I Believe In Unicorns.
She joins previous Women in Film Award winners Yvonne Welbon, Barbara Hammer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Marsha Hunt, Ry Russo-Young, Pamela Yates, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, and Nina Davenport.
Directors Darren Grodsky & Danny Jacobs Growing Up And Other Lies stars Adam Brody (The O.C.), Josh Lawson (House of Lies), Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show), Amber Tamblyn (Two and a Half Men). After living for years as a struggling artist in New York City, Jake is calling it quits and returning home to Ohio. On his last day in the city, he persuades his three oldest friends to help him retrace their greatest adventure together: a walk down the entire length of Manhattan. The film shows Sat.
Mustard has two feature films screening at Sliff – Growing Up And Other Lies and I Believe In Unicorns.
She joins previous Women in Film Award winners Yvonne Welbon, Barbara Hammer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Marsha Hunt, Ry Russo-Young, Pamela Yates, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg, and Nina Davenport.
Directors Darren Grodsky & Danny Jacobs Growing Up And Other Lies stars Adam Brody (The O.C.), Josh Lawson (House of Lies), Wyatt Cenac (The Daily Show), Amber Tamblyn (Two and a Half Men). After living for years as a struggling artist in New York City, Jake is calling it quits and returning home to Ohio. On his last day in the city, he persuades his three oldest friends to help him retrace their greatest adventure together: a walk down the entire length of Manhattan. The film shows Sat.
- 11/18/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Sure, Sunday tends to be overcrowded with high-end TV, including "True Blood," "The Newsroom," "Copper," "Dexter," "Ray Donovan" and more, but what to watch the rest of the time? Every Monday, we bring you five noteworthy highlights from the other six days of the week. "First Comes Love": Broadcast Premiere Monday, July 29 at 9pm on HBO Nina Davenport, the filmmaker whose chronicling of Iraqi film student Muthana Mohmed's internship on "Everything is Illuminated" found her inexorably being dragged into the story herself in 2007's "Operation Filmmaker," turns her camera fully on herself in her new documentary "First Comes Love." The 41-year-old New Yorker documents her journey toward single motherhood when she finds herself entering her 40s with no steady partner in sight and a growing concern that the window during which she can have a child is coming to an end. "Pov": "Neurotypical" Monday, July 29 at 10pm...
- 7/29/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
News
Talking with the Television Critics Association this weekend, NBC revealed it’s working on four mini-series events. That includes a four-hour “updated remake” of Rosemary’s Baby, a movie with Diane Lane playing Hillary Clinton from 1998 to the present (I’m sure conservative pundits will take it in stride and won’t spin wackadoodle conspiracy theories in reaction), a period piece about how Plymouth Rock landed on the Pilgrims (or would they land on Plymouth Rock?) and a remake of Stephen King‘s The Tommyknockers. I think you could do something interesting in remaking Rosemary’s Baby, but it would take more than four hours.
There’s a high bar to reach…
NBC also revealed that they’ve got a figure skating documentary about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in the works, days after Espn revealed it was tackling the story, too. However, NBC promises an exclusive interview with Kerrigan.
Talking with the Television Critics Association this weekend, NBC revealed it’s working on four mini-series events. That includes a four-hour “updated remake” of Rosemary’s Baby, a movie with Diane Lane playing Hillary Clinton from 1998 to the present (I’m sure conservative pundits will take it in stride and won’t spin wackadoodle conspiracy theories in reaction), a period piece about how Plymouth Rock landed on the Pilgrims (or would they land on Plymouth Rock?) and a remake of Stephen King‘s The Tommyknockers. I think you could do something interesting in remaking Rosemary’s Baby, but it would take more than four hours.
There’s a high bar to reach…
NBC also revealed that they’ve got a figure skating documentary about Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding in the works, days after Espn revealed it was tackling the story, too. However, NBC promises an exclusive interview with Kerrigan.
- 7/29/2013
- by Lyle Masaki
- The Backlot
On TV this Monday: Switched at Birth finds a recipe for drama, The Glades takes a risk, water runs low Under the Dome and Top Gear meets… Wolverine? As a supplement to TVLine’s original features (linked within), here are 10 programs to keep on your radar.
8 pm Switched At Birth (ABC Family) | Bay plans a “Deaf Day” to boost biz at Maui, Kansas; Daphne is shocked by what she learns when she runs into Chef Jeff.
8:30 pm Top Gear (BBC America) | The hosts bring relief to flood-stricken areas of Britain; Hugh Jackman (The Wolverine) is The Star in the Reasonably Priced Car.
8 pm Switched At Birth (ABC Family) | Bay plans a “Deaf Day” to boost biz at Maui, Kansas; Daphne is shocked by what she learns when she runs into Chef Jeff.
8:30 pm Top Gear (BBC America) | The hosts bring relief to flood-stricken areas of Britain; Hugh Jackman (The Wolverine) is The Star in the Reasonably Priced Car.
- 7/29/2013
- by Rebecca Iannucci
- TVLine.com
When Nina Davenport, the "Operation Filmmaker" director whose new personal doc, "First Comes Love," premieres on HBO tonight at 9pm, gives birth to her son Jasper at age 41, she does so surrounded by an amusingly large group of friends, including the father of the baby. "I didn't expect the hospital to let so many people into the delivery room," she observes dryly in voiceover. What she isn't accompanied by is a husband. Davenport, finding herself single going into her 40s, decided that if she wanted to have a biological child, she wasn't going to be able to do it in the traditional fashion referenced in the title -- by meeting Mr. Right, marrying him and then getting pregnant. Instead, Davenport enlists a somewhat reluctant gay pal to donate his sperm and the support of various others in her life, including her best friend Amy, to accompany her on her journey toward being a single mother,...
- 7/29/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
All parents should watch Nina Davenport’s fascinating documentary of her journey to become a mother, and how it is hard and rewarding in equal measures to be a single parent.
Following her hit documentary Always A Bridesmaid, Nina Davenport has stepped back behind the camera and is debuting her brand new documentary First Comes Love on HBO on July 29. HollywoodLife.com got an exclusive first look at the poignant and stark documentary, and we can testify that it is a must watch.
‘First Comes Love’: HBO Documentary Is A Must-See
The documentary shows Nina film around six years of her life, where she decides to have a child on her own. This stark and completely honest film shows 41-year-old Nina decide she is sick of the New York dating scene, and decide that she wants to have a child on her own.
Nina enlists the help of her...
Following her hit documentary Always A Bridesmaid, Nina Davenport has stepped back behind the camera and is debuting her brand new documentary First Comes Love on HBO on July 29. HollywoodLife.com got an exclusive first look at the poignant and stark documentary, and we can testify that it is a must watch.
‘First Comes Love’: HBO Documentary Is A Must-See
The documentary shows Nina film around six years of her life, where she decides to have a child on her own. This stark and completely honest film shows 41-year-old Nina decide she is sick of the New York dating scene, and decide that she wants to have a child on her own.
Nina enlists the help of her...
- 7/26/2013
- by Eleanore Hutch
- HollywoodLife
Tell enough guys the premise of auteur-of-the-self Nina Davenport's HBO doc First Comes Love, and at least a couple will confirm through their reactions just why First Comes Love matters. The inevitable carping: "Two hours about this unmarried woman's decision to have a baby? How narcissistic!" Or: "A fortyish Manhattanite getting pregnant on her own is supposed to be news? I know four!" In the film—which is wise, warm, funny, open, and more interested in life as it's actually lived than any other to debut this summer—that sort of why bother? is trumped by her own father. "Send for the abortionist!" he cries after Davenport tells him she's pregnant. A couple seconds later, it becomes clear he's not joking.
No more narcissistic than Proust, and...
No more narcissistic than Proust, and...
- 7/24/2013
- Village Voice
The traditional television season is over and we're now in glorious summer -- but what was once a TV dead zone full of reruns and disposable reality fare freeing people to actually go outside is now packed with new and returning series and docs (not to mention the season finales of "Game of Thrones" on June 9 and "Mad Men" on June 23). Hell, all that sun is bad for your skin anyway -- here's a guide to what's on this summer. HBO's Summer Doc Series: June 10-August 12, HBO HBO has a new documentary every Monday night this summer, starting with Sundance selection "Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer" on June 10 and ending with "Americans in Bed" on August 12. Being HBO, many of the films are fresh from festival premieres and come from major directors like Nina Davenport, Josh Fox and Liz Garbus. Check out the lineup. "Futurama": June 19-September 4, Comedy Central...
- 5/31/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
HBO Documentary Films announced its summer lineup today, ten weeks of nonfiction film that include 2013 Sundance selections "The Crash Reel," "Gideon's Army" and "Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer" and work from directors Nina Davenport, Josh Fox, Liz Garbus and others. The films air on HBO on Monday nights, kicking off on June 10th with Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin's feature about Russia's best known feminist art collective. Here's the full lineup, with descriptions courtesy of HBO. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer (June 10), an official selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it received the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Punk Spirit, tells the story of Nadia, Masha and Katia of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot. In Feb. 2012, they performed a 40-second “punk prayer” inside Russia’s main cathedral, which led to their arrest on charges of religious hatred, followed by a trial that reverberated around...
- 5/1/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival has announced the winners of its 2013 edition, which ran this past weekend. Joe Full list of winners below, with descriptions and statements provided by the festival: The Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award The Reva and David Logan Grand Jury Award was presented to American Promise directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson. This personal film follows the directors’ son and his best friend from their first day of kindergarten through high school graduation, and how their lives diverge. This award is sponsored by The Reva and David Logan Foundation. The Jury, Greg Barker, Nina Davenport, and Tia Lessin, stated: “We chose this film – which spans twelve years in the lives of two African American families – for the elegance and honesty with which filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson tell the story of their son Idris and his best friend Seun growing up in Brooklyn.
- 4/8/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
Thom Powers is a friend of ours in the business and amazes us by his acumen, generosity, range of activities and devotion to what many of us consider the most frequently relevant, creative and earth changing form of feature length cinema - the documentary. I came upon this fascinating dialogue on his website (link below) where he ruminated most eloquently about what actually went on at Sundance business wise with documentaries. Fascinating. Please check out his 'Stranger Than Fiction' website which is of great value to any filmmaker wanting clarity on the business of documentary film. Two fascinating reports (for example) listed on the site among others were these two - Guide to Documentary Buyers at Tiff and Guide to Documentary Sales Agents at Tiff. Every docu filmmaker should start here. Thom Powers has been an International Documentary Programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival® since 2006. He is also responsible for Mavericks, the Festival’s discussion series with cinema innovators. Powers is the Artistic Director for the weekly documentary series, “Stranger than Fiction” at Manhattan’s IFC Center and for the Doc NYC festival in November. He also consults on programming for the Miami International Film Festival. He has directed documentaries for HBO and PBS; and is a founding member of the documentary production company Sugar Pictures. He teaches documentary courses at New York University’s School of Continuing Professional Studies and the School of Visual Arts. He is a co-founder of the Cinema Eye Honors, an annual award for documentary excellence; and the Garrrett Scott Development Grant. He has served as a juror for Sundance, SXSW, Cph: Dox and DocAviv festivals; as well as the Emmy, Ida and Independent Spirit Awards. He has written extensively on documentary filmmaking for The Boston Globe, Real Screen, and Filmmaker Magazine. Stranger than Fiction Exclusive documentary film screenings, hosted by Raphaela Neihausen and Thom Powers. Winter Season: Jan 8 - Feb 26, 2013 IFC Center 323 Sixth Ave. @ West Third St.
A Conversation With Thom Powers on the Sundance Film Festival
by Rahul Chadha | Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
For most people on the indie film circuit, the Sundance Film Festival marks the start of the new year. Park City is where filmmakers go to earn buzz for their projects, get some press and maybe even ink a distribution deal. On Jan. 30 I spoke with Thom Powers about the documentary films at Sundance that garnered the most chatter and the biggest checks, among other subjects.
[Q&A has been edited for content and clarity]
Rahul Chadha: It seemed like so much of the press attention around Sundance was focused on sales. The Hollywood Reporter said that four docs sold for at least seven figures and I read a report that Blackfish elicited a bidding war from four or five distributors. Did you get the sense that sales were better this year, and if so, why do you think that was?
Thom Powers: Some of those figures are slightly inflated. I know at least one of those films that is being reported as a million dollar sale is a little under a million dollars. But the fact remains that there were some very strong doc sales, and notably the emergence of a new player in The Weinstein Company’s RADiUS brand run by Tom Quinn and Jason Janego. Tom previously worked for Magnolia, where he worked on several successful docs such as Food Inc. and Man On Wire. Months ago RADiUS announced involvement in the new Errol Morris film about Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, due out later this year. Tom told me they would be very selective about docs which left me unprepared for their recent buying streak. Their first Sundance acquisition was the opening night title 20 Feet From Stardom, set in the music industry that gives it a solid commercial hook. Then RADiUS acquired Inequality For All, which struck me as less obvious. But if you imagine it following in the footsteps of An Inconvenient Truth you can see the commercial appeal. Then they announced Cutie And The Boxer, which has no celebrity connection and on the surface feels less obviously commercial, although it had strong word of mouth. So it seems RADiUS is trying out a wide range of docs and it’s good for the industry to have a new player in the mix. In addition to their strong showing, there was notable acquisitions by mainstay distributors including Sundance Selects, which bought Dirty Wars and The Summit, and Magnolia Pictures, which bought Blackfish.
Chadha: It seemed like Submarine had a strong presence this year.
Powers: For years Submarine–run by Josh Braun and his brother Dan–has been the dominant doc sales agent making the biggest doc deals at both Sundance and Toronto. There are certainly other big sales agents, including Cinetic and big agencies like Wme, CAA, UTA, or ICM taking on the occasional doc. But no one carries as big a slate of high prestige documentaries as Submarine. This year their lineup included 20 Feet From Stardom, Blackfish, The Summit, Dirty Wars and Cutie And The Boxer, all of which were high-profile deals. Their slate includes other films that have yet to announce deals, including God Loves Uganda, Muscle Shoals, Who Is Dayani Cristal? and Citizen Koch.
Chadha: Do you think this underscores that filmmakers really do need a sales agent at a festival the level of Sundance?
Powers: I think for a film that has real theatrical potential a sales agent is key. For a film that may find it tougher in the American marketplace, such as many of the docs in the world competition that may not be competing for deals – any subtitled film has a harder time in this marketplace – for those films I don’t know that a sales agent necessarily helps for the kinds of smaller deals that may or may not be offered.
Chadha: Do you think that as digital becomes an increasingly important distribution channel that festivals will take on a new importance?
Powers: I do. In an old model, the way a film would imprint itself on the public’s consciousness is to get a theatrical run. But now there are more documentaries and more films in general being released than ever before. There are weeks when the New York Times is reviewing 15 films, so it’s harder to leave an impression on the public. A lot of these films are seeing their financial future on digital platforms. Because viewers aren’t hearing as much about films in theatrical release, I think the festival circuit is going to have increasing importance for the life of a film.
Chadha: There were a few films at Sundance that dealt with the legacy of 9/11. You mentioned Dirty Wars but there was The World According To Dick Cheney and Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington and We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks.
Powers: Yes that thematic cluster absolutely stood out. The legacy of 9/11 and the response to it through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other kinds of counter-terrorism actions played out in other countries, remains a key subject for documentary makers to grapple with. I think the distance of 12 years from 9/11 gives us time to reflect. In the film Manhunt about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, there’s a clear connection. The World According To Dick Cheney is about the chief architect of post-9/11 counter-terrorism actions. It came in for criticism that the filmmakers weren’t hard enough on Dick Cheney, weren’t asking tough enough questions. And while I shared some of those frustrations, I certainly learned a lot about Cheney’s career from watching it.
Chadha: Anthony Kaufman recently wrote a piece that singled out Dirty Wars and the Alex Gibney film We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks as two films that he thought might presage a wave of films by left-leaning filmmakers that are critical of Obama and his policies? Do you agree with that assessment or see a similar trend?
Powers: It’s a smart observation. Dirty Wars – which is one of the films I was most impressed by at Sundance – takes a long view of American foreign policy after 9/11 in the hands of the journalist at the center of that film, Jeremy Scahill, who’s best known for his book on Blackwater, and who now has a new book coming out that ties into this film. Alex Gibney’s Wikileaksfilm looks at the harsh response of the Obama administration to Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who had leaked the headline grabbing documents to Wikileaks. Those two films make an interesting contrast to documentaries of the past decade which comfortably coincided with a liberal critique of the Bush administration. I’m thinking of docs like Farhenheit 9/11 or No End In Sight that liberals rallied behind to point a finger at their political opponents. These new films force a more uncomfortable confrontation with an administration that those same liberals helped get elected.
Chadha: You previously mentioned to me that you thought that filmmakers screening unfinished films at Sundance were taking a risk. Why is that?
Powers: For some reason at Sundance, more than other festivals that I’m aware of, you find filmmakers rushing to screen works that sometimes aren’t completed. In my seven years of programming at Toronto, I’m not aware of any documentaries that went back for serious editing after their premiere – other than those presented as works-in-progress. But at Sundance every year there seems to be a few films that push the deadline so hard that they get taken back to the edit room afterwards. A notable example a couple of years ago was The Interrupters which played at Sundance in a version close to three hours before getting re-edited and having nearly an hour of material taken out of it. The question is, how much does that hurt a film, to have its first presentation before critics and industry be a version of itself that’s not the best. You can point to The Interrupters as a positive example. A lot of people, myself included, appreciated the long version of that film, and it didn’t diminish our interest at all. A fresh example this year was The Square, Jehane Noujaim’s film about the last two years of protest in Egypt around Tahrir Square. In this case the film arrived without any credits on it and Jehane told audiences that she was going back into the edit room. Normally that would sound to me like a challenging strategy. However, The Square came away from Sundance with an audience award. There’s clearly a power to that film, and a power that touched me watching that film, that transcended any rough edges that it contained. So I’ve just given two examples of films that made it work for them. I wouldn’t want to call out films where I think that strategy has not worked. But there certainly are cases and I’d strongly caution filmmakers not to assume that they’ll be the happy exceptions if they’re rushing their films for a festival deadline.
Chadha: There was a lot of talk this year about how well-represented women were on the doc side. I was wondering why you think this difference exists between the doc side and the fictional narrative side, where women still are underrepresented?
Powers: You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating. Because there have been more prominent female doc makers, dating back to Barbara Kopple winning an Academy Award in the mid-70s, they’ve become role models for other women.
Chadha: What lost opportunities do you think filmmakers are struggling through at Sundance in terms of self-promotion? I know you’re a big proponent of filmmakers using Twitter.
Powers: I continue to be surprised by filmmakers who spend thousands of dollars on a publicist, but don’t take more advantage of social media which isfree. The Sundance docs that I saw making strong use of Twitter were Sound City which had 20,000 followers at the end of the festival; and 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film which had 15,000 followers. Then there’s a sharp drop-off. Films such as After Tiller, Dirty Wars and American Promise had around 1,500 followers each – they are getting off to a good start. Whenever possible, filmmakers need to begin their Twitter strategy well before their first festival in order to accumulate followers who can spread what’s happening at the festival.
Chadha: Which film were you most surprised by, and why?
Powers: It’s a reality of film festivals that you can’t see everything. You’re dividing your time between seeing films and utilizing that unique space to have meetings with people that you can’t otherwise. There were around 40 docs at Sundance and I’ve now seen roughly half. I think the film Blood Brother that won the audience prize and the jury prize took a lot of people by surprise because there was hardly any chatter about it in the corridors where press and industry exchange tips. It shows you that in a big festival, things can always surprise you.
I think certain filmmakers going into Sundance or other big festivals should consider screening more for press and tastemakers before the festival. The traditional wisdom has always been the opposite: to not screen for anyone prior, let your film be seen by an audience, and generate the buzz from there. That works for a film like Supersize Me – where the description made people put it on their priority list. But for a film that doesn’t have an obvious hook – including a lot of the films in the world documentary competition – those filmmakers might be better served trying to strategically screen for certain press and tastemakers so they can enter the festival with people already talking about them.
Chadha: Are there any films that are now on your “can’t miss” list?
Powers: Some of my favorite Sundance titles I’ve programmed for the Miami International Film Festival, which just announced its line-up last week. They include 20 Feet From Stardom, Blackfish, Gideon’S Army, The Crash Reel, Valentine Road, Which Way To The Front Line From Here? and Who Is Dayani Cristal?. There were many other strong films at Sundance that I look forward to showing at the Montclair Film Festival and Stranger Than Fiction. The Square I admire a lot. Muscle Shoals really took me by surprise. It played late in the festival and didn’t gain as much buzz as I thought it deserved. The director, who I believe is a first time director, made all kinds of smart creative decisions. Another film that went under the radar but made a big impression on me was The Stuart Hall Project about the U.K.-based black intellectual Stuart Hall. The film is wholly constructed out of archival sources, primarily from the BBC.
Chadha: What were the lessons about funding that came out of Sundance?
Powers: Sundance is a good survey of how docs are getting funded. This year reflects the important influence of Kickstarter. Recently Kickstarter introduced a tag for its projects that have a Sundance affiliation, and skimming that list I was impressed to see that Inequality For All had raised $83,000 and American Promise had raised $50,000 on Kickstarter. Other documentaries raised more modest sums. What’ so significant about Kickstarter is that those filmmakers did not need to wait around for a grant application committee to give them a green light. They could take matters into their own hands. Other funding players who were prominent are the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Institute and the Ford Foundation which last year announced a $50 million commitment through the Just Films program. That Ford initiative supported projects like Gideon’S Army, Valentine Road, American Promise, Who Is Dayani Cristal?, God Loves Uganda and Citizen Koch.
Another important player is the equity group Impact Partners, who for several years have had a strong showing of their catalog at Sundance. This year their involvement included American Promise, The Crash Reel, Who Is Dayani Cristal? and Pandora’S Promise. The last group that I would mention is Cinereach, who were the heroes of Sundance last year for their funding of Beasts Of The Southern Wild, and who were back this year with four docs: Cutie And The Boxer, Citizen Koch, God Loves Uganda, and Narco Cultura.
When you look at the kinds of films that are showing up at Sundance, you see the names of some key producers re-occurring. This year the producer Julie Goldman, whose recent Sundance titles include Buck was back with three projects – Gideon’S Army, Manhunt and God Loves Uganda. The producer John Battsek from the U.K. who last year came with Searching For Sugar Man, was back this year with The Summit and Manhunt. And Jess Search, also based in the U.K., who is the founder of Britdoc and the Good Pitch had her name attached to the films Dirty Wars and Who Is Dayani Cristal? Clearly those producers and others like them have a good eye for spotting what makes a strong documentary in development. Those producers perform a variety of roles for filmmakers, whether it’s connecting them to financial support or supplying editorial perspective or connecting them to the other kind of industry players who can take a project further.
Chadha: Going back to Kickstarter for a minute, do you think films that have success on Kickstarter have the added benefit of showing to grantmaking institutions that their films are viable and that there’s an audience for them?
Powers: Absolutely. One bit of industry news this past week was that the HotDocs Forum, which has been a key place for documentaries to raise money, mainly in the broadcast world, announced that they will now accept projects on the basis of a certain amount of funds raised on Kickstarter. It used to be that you had to demonstrate a portion of your budget, like a quarter, was already being supported by a broadcaster or other traditional grantmaking institution. This change in policy signals the way in which Kickstarter funding is being taken more seriously.
In the case of The Square, the producers launched a Kickstarter campaign at Sundance to help finish their film. That seems like a very smart strategy for other filmmakers to consider. When you’re at a film festival, you have a rapt and enthused audience and if you can point them to a Kickstarter campaign, that’s a great way to leverage that enthusiasm. Even if you don’t need finishing funds, it’s a way to get outreach funds. I also saw the team from The Square selling t-shirts. After one screening they came away with few hundred dollars of cash in hand, which can help defray costs of attending a festival. These are strategies that filmmakers like Gary Hustwit have long practiced, emulating the way rock musicians sell t-shirts and posters at live performances. The film community has been slow to catch on. Maybe filmmakers are so busy getting their films made that they don’t have time to think about merchandise. But every bit of revenue helps.
Chadha: Any final thoughts?
Powers: We’ve talked about theatrical and digital distribution and new trends in crowdfunding. But it has to be said that the most long-standing and reliable place for documentary makers to get money is the broadcast world. HBO, which usually has a strong presence at Sundance, had the most overwhelming presence that I can remember, coming with six feature length documentaries. Plus during Sundance HBO bought Pussy Riot-a Punk Prayer. When you consider that HBO also has the film that was the 2012 winner at Idfa, Alan Berliner’s First Cousin Once Removed, and had two films at the Toronto festival – Mea Maxima Culpa by Alex Gibney and First Comes Love by Nina Davenport – that’s an impressive slate of films. There was news generated by other broadcasters getting active in the documentary field, including Showtime, which came with The World According To Dick Cheney. Just before Sundane, The New York Times reported about Showtime’s announcement of several documentaries in progress, including a film about Richard Pryor by Marina Zenovich, who made the Roman Polanski film, that I am personally looking forward to. In addition, CNN made an announcement during Sundance about a slate of feature-length docs, including a film by Alex Gibney. Another major player in that realm is A&E IndieFilms, which didn’t have any films in Sundance this year, but they’re already attached to Errol Morris’s Donald Rumsfeld documentary coming out later this year. All in all, the year is off to a good start.
Link to the original article here...
A Conversation With Thom Powers on the Sundance Film Festival
by Rahul Chadha | Sunday, February 3rd, 2013
For most people on the indie film circuit, the Sundance Film Festival marks the start of the new year. Park City is where filmmakers go to earn buzz for their projects, get some press and maybe even ink a distribution deal. On Jan. 30 I spoke with Thom Powers about the documentary films at Sundance that garnered the most chatter and the biggest checks, among other subjects.
[Q&A has been edited for content and clarity]
Rahul Chadha: It seemed like so much of the press attention around Sundance was focused on sales. The Hollywood Reporter said that four docs sold for at least seven figures and I read a report that Blackfish elicited a bidding war from four or five distributors. Did you get the sense that sales were better this year, and if so, why do you think that was?
Thom Powers: Some of those figures are slightly inflated. I know at least one of those films that is being reported as a million dollar sale is a little under a million dollars. But the fact remains that there were some very strong doc sales, and notably the emergence of a new player in The Weinstein Company’s RADiUS brand run by Tom Quinn and Jason Janego. Tom previously worked for Magnolia, where he worked on several successful docs such as Food Inc. and Man On Wire. Months ago RADiUS announced involvement in the new Errol Morris film about Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, due out later this year. Tom told me they would be very selective about docs which left me unprepared for their recent buying streak. Their first Sundance acquisition was the opening night title 20 Feet From Stardom, set in the music industry that gives it a solid commercial hook. Then RADiUS acquired Inequality For All, which struck me as less obvious. But if you imagine it following in the footsteps of An Inconvenient Truth you can see the commercial appeal. Then they announced Cutie And The Boxer, which has no celebrity connection and on the surface feels less obviously commercial, although it had strong word of mouth. So it seems RADiUS is trying out a wide range of docs and it’s good for the industry to have a new player in the mix. In addition to their strong showing, there was notable acquisitions by mainstay distributors including Sundance Selects, which bought Dirty Wars and The Summit, and Magnolia Pictures, which bought Blackfish.
Chadha: It seemed like Submarine had a strong presence this year.
Powers: For years Submarine–run by Josh Braun and his brother Dan–has been the dominant doc sales agent making the biggest doc deals at both Sundance and Toronto. There are certainly other big sales agents, including Cinetic and big agencies like Wme, CAA, UTA, or ICM taking on the occasional doc. But no one carries as big a slate of high prestige documentaries as Submarine. This year their lineup included 20 Feet From Stardom, Blackfish, The Summit, Dirty Wars and Cutie And The Boxer, all of which were high-profile deals. Their slate includes other films that have yet to announce deals, including God Loves Uganda, Muscle Shoals, Who Is Dayani Cristal? and Citizen Koch.
Chadha: Do you think this underscores that filmmakers really do need a sales agent at a festival the level of Sundance?
Powers: I think for a film that has real theatrical potential a sales agent is key. For a film that may find it tougher in the American marketplace, such as many of the docs in the world competition that may not be competing for deals – any subtitled film has a harder time in this marketplace – for those films I don’t know that a sales agent necessarily helps for the kinds of smaller deals that may or may not be offered.
Chadha: Do you think that as digital becomes an increasingly important distribution channel that festivals will take on a new importance?
Powers: I do. In an old model, the way a film would imprint itself on the public’s consciousness is to get a theatrical run. But now there are more documentaries and more films in general being released than ever before. There are weeks when the New York Times is reviewing 15 films, so it’s harder to leave an impression on the public. A lot of these films are seeing their financial future on digital platforms. Because viewers aren’t hearing as much about films in theatrical release, I think the festival circuit is going to have increasing importance for the life of a film.
Chadha: There were a few films at Sundance that dealt with the legacy of 9/11. You mentioned Dirty Wars but there was The World According To Dick Cheney and Which Way Is The Front Line From Here? The Life And Time Of Tim Hetherington and We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks.
Powers: Yes that thematic cluster absolutely stood out. The legacy of 9/11 and the response to it through wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other kinds of counter-terrorism actions played out in other countries, remains a key subject for documentary makers to grapple with. I think the distance of 12 years from 9/11 gives us time to reflect. In the film Manhunt about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, there’s a clear connection. The World According To Dick Cheney is about the chief architect of post-9/11 counter-terrorism actions. It came in for criticism that the filmmakers weren’t hard enough on Dick Cheney, weren’t asking tough enough questions. And while I shared some of those frustrations, I certainly learned a lot about Cheney’s career from watching it.
Chadha: Anthony Kaufman recently wrote a piece that singled out Dirty Wars and the Alex Gibney film We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks as two films that he thought might presage a wave of films by left-leaning filmmakers that are critical of Obama and his policies? Do you agree with that assessment or see a similar trend?
Powers: It’s a smart observation. Dirty Wars – which is one of the films I was most impressed by at Sundance – takes a long view of American foreign policy after 9/11 in the hands of the journalist at the center of that film, Jeremy Scahill, who’s best known for his book on Blackwater, and who now has a new book coming out that ties into this film. Alex Gibney’s Wikileaksfilm looks at the harsh response of the Obama administration to Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who had leaked the headline grabbing documents to Wikileaks. Those two films make an interesting contrast to documentaries of the past decade which comfortably coincided with a liberal critique of the Bush administration. I’m thinking of docs like Farhenheit 9/11 or No End In Sight that liberals rallied behind to point a finger at their political opponents. These new films force a more uncomfortable confrontation with an administration that those same liberals helped get elected.
Chadha: You previously mentioned to me that you thought that filmmakers screening unfinished films at Sundance were taking a risk. Why is that?
Powers: For some reason at Sundance, more than other festivals that I’m aware of, you find filmmakers rushing to screen works that sometimes aren’t completed. In my seven years of programming at Toronto, I’m not aware of any documentaries that went back for serious editing after their premiere – other than those presented as works-in-progress. But at Sundance every year there seems to be a few films that push the deadline so hard that they get taken back to the edit room afterwards. A notable example a couple of years ago was The Interrupters which played at Sundance in a version close to three hours before getting re-edited and having nearly an hour of material taken out of it. The question is, how much does that hurt a film, to have its first presentation before critics and industry be a version of itself that’s not the best. You can point to The Interrupters as a positive example. A lot of people, myself included, appreciated the long version of that film, and it didn’t diminish our interest at all. A fresh example this year was The Square, Jehane Noujaim’s film about the last two years of protest in Egypt around Tahrir Square. In this case the film arrived without any credits on it and Jehane told audiences that she was going back into the edit room. Normally that would sound to me like a challenging strategy. However, The Square came away from Sundance with an audience award. There’s clearly a power to that film, and a power that touched me watching that film, that transcended any rough edges that it contained. So I’ve just given two examples of films that made it work for them. I wouldn’t want to call out films where I think that strategy has not worked. But there certainly are cases and I’d strongly caution filmmakers not to assume that they’ll be the happy exceptions if they’re rushing their films for a festival deadline.
Chadha: There was a lot of talk this year about how well-represented women were on the doc side. I was wondering why you think this difference exists between the doc side and the fictional narrative side, where women still are underrepresented?
Powers: You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating. Because there have been more prominent female doc makers, dating back to Barbara Kopple winning an Academy Award in the mid-70s, they’ve become role models for other women.
Chadha: What lost opportunities do you think filmmakers are struggling through at Sundance in terms of self-promotion? I know you’re a big proponent of filmmakers using Twitter.
Powers: I continue to be surprised by filmmakers who spend thousands of dollars on a publicist, but don’t take more advantage of social media which isfree. The Sundance docs that I saw making strong use of Twitter were Sound City which had 20,000 followers at the end of the festival; and 99% – The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film which had 15,000 followers. Then there’s a sharp drop-off. Films such as After Tiller, Dirty Wars and American Promise had around 1,500 followers each – they are getting off to a good start. Whenever possible, filmmakers need to begin their Twitter strategy well before their first festival in order to accumulate followers who can spread what’s happening at the festival.
Chadha: Which film were you most surprised by, and why?
Powers: It’s a reality of film festivals that you can’t see everything. You’re dividing your time between seeing films and utilizing that unique space to have meetings with people that you can’t otherwise. There were around 40 docs at Sundance and I’ve now seen roughly half. I think the film Blood Brother that won the audience prize and the jury prize took a lot of people by surprise because there was hardly any chatter about it in the corridors where press and industry exchange tips. It shows you that in a big festival, things can always surprise you.
I think certain filmmakers going into Sundance or other big festivals should consider screening more for press and tastemakers before the festival. The traditional wisdom has always been the opposite: to not screen for anyone prior, let your film be seen by an audience, and generate the buzz from there. That works for a film like Supersize Me – where the description made people put it on their priority list. But for a film that doesn’t have an obvious hook – including a lot of the films in the world documentary competition – those filmmakers might be better served trying to strategically screen for certain press and tastemakers so they can enter the festival with people already talking about them.
Chadha: Are there any films that are now on your “can’t miss” list?
Powers: Some of my favorite Sundance titles I’ve programmed for the Miami International Film Festival, which just announced its line-up last week. They include 20 Feet From Stardom, Blackfish, Gideon’S Army, The Crash Reel, Valentine Road, Which Way To The Front Line From Here? and Who Is Dayani Cristal?. There were many other strong films at Sundance that I look forward to showing at the Montclair Film Festival and Stranger Than Fiction. The Square I admire a lot. Muscle Shoals really took me by surprise. It played late in the festival and didn’t gain as much buzz as I thought it deserved. The director, who I believe is a first time director, made all kinds of smart creative decisions. Another film that went under the radar but made a big impression on me was The Stuart Hall Project about the U.K.-based black intellectual Stuart Hall. The film is wholly constructed out of archival sources, primarily from the BBC.
Chadha: What were the lessons about funding that came out of Sundance?
Powers: Sundance is a good survey of how docs are getting funded. This year reflects the important influence of Kickstarter. Recently Kickstarter introduced a tag for its projects that have a Sundance affiliation, and skimming that list I was impressed to see that Inequality For All had raised $83,000 and American Promise had raised $50,000 on Kickstarter. Other documentaries raised more modest sums. What’ so significant about Kickstarter is that those filmmakers did not need to wait around for a grant application committee to give them a green light. They could take matters into their own hands. Other funding players who were prominent are the Sundance Institute, the Tribeca Institute and the Ford Foundation which last year announced a $50 million commitment through the Just Films program. That Ford initiative supported projects like Gideon’S Army, Valentine Road, American Promise, Who Is Dayani Cristal?, God Loves Uganda and Citizen Koch.
Another important player is the equity group Impact Partners, who for several years have had a strong showing of their catalog at Sundance. This year their involvement included American Promise, The Crash Reel, Who Is Dayani Cristal? and Pandora’S Promise. The last group that I would mention is Cinereach, who were the heroes of Sundance last year for their funding of Beasts Of The Southern Wild, and who were back this year with four docs: Cutie And The Boxer, Citizen Koch, God Loves Uganda, and Narco Cultura.
When you look at the kinds of films that are showing up at Sundance, you see the names of some key producers re-occurring. This year the producer Julie Goldman, whose recent Sundance titles include Buck was back with three projects – Gideon’S Army, Manhunt and God Loves Uganda. The producer John Battsek from the U.K. who last year came with Searching For Sugar Man, was back this year with The Summit and Manhunt. And Jess Search, also based in the U.K., who is the founder of Britdoc and the Good Pitch had her name attached to the films Dirty Wars and Who Is Dayani Cristal? Clearly those producers and others like them have a good eye for spotting what makes a strong documentary in development. Those producers perform a variety of roles for filmmakers, whether it’s connecting them to financial support or supplying editorial perspective or connecting them to the other kind of industry players who can take a project further.
Chadha: Going back to Kickstarter for a minute, do you think films that have success on Kickstarter have the added benefit of showing to grantmaking institutions that their films are viable and that there’s an audience for them?
Powers: Absolutely. One bit of industry news this past week was that the HotDocs Forum, which has been a key place for documentaries to raise money, mainly in the broadcast world, announced that they will now accept projects on the basis of a certain amount of funds raised on Kickstarter. It used to be that you had to demonstrate a portion of your budget, like a quarter, was already being supported by a broadcaster or other traditional grantmaking institution. This change in policy signals the way in which Kickstarter funding is being taken more seriously.
In the case of The Square, the producers launched a Kickstarter campaign at Sundance to help finish their film. That seems like a very smart strategy for other filmmakers to consider. When you’re at a film festival, you have a rapt and enthused audience and if you can point them to a Kickstarter campaign, that’s a great way to leverage that enthusiasm. Even if you don’t need finishing funds, it’s a way to get outreach funds. I also saw the team from The Square selling t-shirts. After one screening they came away with few hundred dollars of cash in hand, which can help defray costs of attending a festival. These are strategies that filmmakers like Gary Hustwit have long practiced, emulating the way rock musicians sell t-shirts and posters at live performances. The film community has been slow to catch on. Maybe filmmakers are so busy getting their films made that they don’t have time to think about merchandise. But every bit of revenue helps.
Chadha: Any final thoughts?
Powers: We’ve talked about theatrical and digital distribution and new trends in crowdfunding. But it has to be said that the most long-standing and reliable place for documentary makers to get money is the broadcast world. HBO, which usually has a strong presence at Sundance, had the most overwhelming presence that I can remember, coming with six feature length documentaries. Plus during Sundance HBO bought Pussy Riot-a Punk Prayer. When you consider that HBO also has the film that was the 2012 winner at Idfa, Alan Berliner’s First Cousin Once Removed, and had two films at the Toronto festival – Mea Maxima Culpa by Alex Gibney and First Comes Love by Nina Davenport – that’s an impressive slate of films. There was news generated by other broadcasters getting active in the documentary field, including Showtime, which came with The World According To Dick Cheney. Just before Sundane, The New York Times reported about Showtime’s announcement of several documentaries in progress, including a film about Richard Pryor by Marina Zenovich, who made the Roman Polanski film, that I am personally looking forward to. In addition, CNN made an announcement during Sundance about a slate of feature-length docs, including a film by Alex Gibney. Another major player in that realm is A&E IndieFilms, which didn’t have any films in Sundance this year, but they’re already attached to Errol Morris’s Donald Rumsfeld documentary coming out later this year. All in all, the year is off to a good start.
Link to the original article here...
- 2/19/2013
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
This year’s Toronto was competing in my psyche with the recent loss of my mother. My focus was less on finding the greatest of films this year. I hear from others that the festival offered a good mix, if not the most outstanding, selection of films. Personally, I am discovering that a new community has opened its arms to me and the films that are standing out most for me are by women and about women. My community, those women who have lost their mothers, is sharing a unique and profound rite of passage whose meaning continuously unfolds.
In Toronto I was hyper aware of the women and their position in this corner of the world I inhabit. Canadian women, Helga Stephenson, Director Emerita of the Toronto Film Festival, predecessor to Piers Handling; Michele Maheux, Executive Director and COO of Tiff ever since I've known her which has been a long time; Linda Beath who headed United Artists when I was beginning my career and who has since moved to Europe where she teaches at Eave (European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs), Kay Armitrage, programmer of the festival for 24 years and professor at University of Toronto, are all women to helped me envisage myself as a professional in the film business, and they are still as vibrant and active as when we met more than 25 years ago. Carolle Brabant, Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director continues Canada’s female lineage as does Karen Thorne-Stone, the President and CEO of Ontario Media Development Corporation.
18 films currently are in a large part attributable to Omdc; they include Nisha Pahuja’s doc The World Before Her (contact Cinetic) (Best Doc Feature of 2012 Tribeca Ff), Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz (Isa: TF1), Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (Isa: FilmNation), Anita Doron’s The Lesser Blessed, (Isa: EOne) Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable (Isa: Myriad), Alison Rose’s doc, Following the Wise Men.
Tiff’s new program for year-round support of mid-level Canadian filmmakers, Studio, under the directorship of Hayet Benkara is bringing industry mentorship to 16 filmmakers with experience, shorts in the festival circuit, features in development. Exactly half of these filmmakers are women. This was a conscious move on Hayet’s part. She said there is always such a predominance of males without thinking about it that she decided to bring balance.
Then a look at some more of the Canadian talent here brings me to the Birks Diamonds celebration of seven Canadian women: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, Manon Briand, Anita Doron, Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children), Kate Melville, and Ruba Nadda which honored each with a Birks diamond pendant in a reception hosted by Shangri-La Hotel and Telefilm Canada where 300 guests mingled and caught up with each other. The pre-eminence of women was again made so apparent to me.
Talking to publicist Jim Dobson at Indie PR at the reception of Jordanian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir whose film When I Saw You was so evocative of the 60s, a time of worldwide freedom and even optimism among the fedayeem in Jordan looking to resist the Expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine; he said that all five of his clients here are women directors, “I had When I Saw You, (Isa: The Match Factory), Satellite Boy (Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmare), Hannah Arendt (The Match Factory), Inch'allah (Isa: eOne), English Vinglish (Isa: Eros Int')."
Of the 289 features here at Tiff, Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood is trying to zero in on the women directors, so watch her blogs More Women-Directed Films Nab Deals out of Tiff, Tiff Preview: Women Directors to Watch and Tiff Preview: The Female Directing Masters Playing at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival.
Add to this the upcoming Sundance initiative on women directors that Keri Putnam is heading up (more on that later!) and I am feeling heartened by the consciousness of women, directors and otherwise, out there. That is saying a lot since last season in Cannes with the pathetic number of women directors showing up in the festival and sidebars this past spring.
Here is the Female Factor for Tiff 12 which scores an A in my book:
Gala Presentations - 6 out of 20 = c. 30% which is way above the usual 13% which has been the average up until Cannes upended that with its paltry 2%..2 of these were opening night films.
Mira Nair The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Also showed in Venice. Isa: K5. Picked up for U.S. and Canada by IFC. Shola Lynch Free Angela & All Political Prisoners. Isa: Elle Driver Deepa Mehta Midnight’s Children. Isa: FilmNation already sold to Roadshow for Australia/ N.Z., Unikorea for So. Korea, DeaPlaneta for Spain. Ruba Nadda Inescapable. Isa: Myriad. Canada: Alliance. Liz Garbus Love, Marilyn. Isa: StudioCanal. HBO picked up No. American TV rights. Madman has Australia. Gauri Shinde English Vinglish. Isa: Eros International.
Masters – 0 – Could we say that women directors have not been around that long or shown such longevity as the men? Lina Wertmiller was a long time ago. I don’t even know if she is still alive. Ida Lupino was an anomaly. Who else was there in those early days? Alice Guy-Blaché ?
Special Presentations - 13 out of 70 = 19%
Everybody Has A Plan - Argentina/ Germany/ Spain - Ana Piterbarg - Isa: Twentieth Century Fox International - U.S.: Ld Entertainment, U.K.: Metrodome Lines Of Wellington - Also in Venice, San Sebastian Ff - Portugal - Valeria Sarmiento - Isa: Alfama Films. Germany: Ksm Cloud Atlas--Germany - Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski - Isa: Focus Int'l. - U.S. and Canada: Warner Bros. , Brazil - Imagem, Finland - Future Film, Eastern Europe - Eeap, Germany X Verleih, Greece - Odeon, Iceland - Sensa, India - PVR, So. Korea - Bloomage, Benelux - Benelux Film Distributors, Inspire, Slovenia - Cenemania, Sweden - Noble, Switzerland - Ascot Elite, Taiwan - Long Shong, Turkey - Chantier Inch'allah – Canada - Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette - Isa and Canada: Entertainment One Films Hannah Arendt – Germany – Margarethe von Trotta – Isa: The Match Factory Imogine – U.S. – Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini - Isa: Voltage. U.S.: Lionsgate/ Roadside Attractions acquired from UTA, Netherlands: Independent Ginger and Rosa – U.K. – Sally Potter – Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. contact Cinetic Love is All You Need – Also played in Venice) Denmark – Susanne Bier – Isa: TrustNordisk - U.S. : Sony Pictures Classics, Canada: Mongrel, Australia - Madman, Brazil - Art Films, Bulgaria - Pro Films, Colombia - Babilla Cine, Czech Republic - Aerofilms, Finland - Matila Rohr Nordisk, Germany - Prokino, Hungary - Cirko, Italy - Teodora, Japan - Longride, Poland - Gutek, Portugal - Pepperview Lore – Australia/ Germany/ U.K. – Cate Shortland – Isa: Memento. U.S.: Music Box, France: Memento, Germany - Piffl, Hong Hong - Encore Inlight, So. Korea - Line Tree, Benelux - ABC/ Cinemien, U.K., Artificial Eye Dreams for Sale – Japan – Miwa Nishkawa – Isa: Asmik Ace Stories We Tell – Canada – Sarah Polley - Isa: Nfb. U.K.: Artificial Eye Liverpool – Canada – Marion Briand - Isa: Max Films. Canada: Remstar Venus and Serena – U.S./ U.K. – Michelle Major, Maikin Baird. Producer's Rep: Cinetic
Mavericks - 3 out of 7 “Conversations With” were with women (43%)
Discovery 11 out of 27 = 40% which includes The-Hottest-Public Ticket for the Israeli Film directly below (a Major Buzz Film Among its Public)
Fill the Void by Rama Burshtein, a first-time-ever Hasidic woman director Kate Melville’s Picture Day Alice Winocour Augustine - Isa: Kinology 7 Cajas by Tana Schembori from Paraguay - Isa: Shoreline Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die from Sweden, Serbia and Croatia - Isa: Yellow Affair Oy Rola Nashef’s Detroit Unleaded France’s Sylive Michel’s Our Little Differences Contact producer Pallas Film Russian censored film Clip from Serbia by Maja Milos - Isa: Wide sold to Kmbo for France, Maywin for Sweden, Artspoitation for U.S. Satellite Boy by Australian Catriona McKenzie - Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmares Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot - Isa: TF1 sold to Magnolia for U.S., Intercontinental for Hong Kong, Cien for Mexico, Vendetta for New Zealand Veteran Korean-American Grace Lee’s Janeane from Des Moines.
Tiff Docs 7 out of 29 = 24% - Women traditionally have directed a greater portion of docs
Christine Cynn (codirector ) The Act of Killing - Isa: Cinephil Janet Tobias No Place on Earth - Isa: Global Screen Sarah Burns (codirector) The Central Park Five Isa: PBS sold to Sundance Select for U.S. Treva Wurmfeld Shepard & Dark - Contact Tangerine Entertainment Nina Davenport First Comes Love - Contact producer Marina Zenovich Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out - Isa: Films Distribution Halla Alabdalla As If We Were Catching a Cobra (Comme si nous attraptions un cobra) about the art of caricature in Egypt and Syria! Halla is Syrian herself, studied science and sociology in Syria and Paris - Isa: Wide
Contemporary World Cinema 11 out of 61 = 18%
Children of Sarajevo by Aida Begic, Sarajevo - Isa: Pyramide Baby Blues by Katarzyna Rostaniec, Poland. Contact producer The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky by Yuki Tanada, Japan - Isa: Toei Comrade Kim Goes Flying by Anja Daelemans (co-director), Belgium/ No. Korea. The first western financed film out of No. Korea Three Worlds by Catherine Corsini, France - Isa: Pyramide sold to Lumiere for Benelux, Pathe for Switzerland Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay, U.S. - Contact Paradigm Talent Agency The Lesser Blessed by Anita Doron, Canada - Isa: eOne Watchtower by Pelin Esmer, Turkey/ France/ Germany- Isa: Visit Films Jackie by Antoinette Beumer, Netherlands - Isa: Media Luna When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir, Palestine,/ Jordan/ Greece All that Matters is Past by Sara Johnsen, Norway- Isa: TrustNordisk
Tiff Kids 0 out of 5. Any meaning to this???
City To City – Mumbai 0 Out Of 10 Any meaning to this???
Vanguard 2 out of 15 = 13% (the average for most festivals)
90 Minutes– Norway – Eva Sorhaug - Isa: Level K Peaches Does Herself – Germany - Peaches. Contact producer. See Indiewire review.
Midnight Madness 0 out of 9 which is fine with me, thank you. This is a boy's genre or a date-night genre for girls and boys with a plan for the night.
In Toronto I was hyper aware of the women and their position in this corner of the world I inhabit. Canadian women, Helga Stephenson, Director Emerita of the Toronto Film Festival, predecessor to Piers Handling; Michele Maheux, Executive Director and COO of Tiff ever since I've known her which has been a long time; Linda Beath who headed United Artists when I was beginning my career and who has since moved to Europe where she teaches at Eave (European Audio Visual Entrepreneurs), Kay Armitrage, programmer of the festival for 24 years and professor at University of Toronto, are all women to helped me envisage myself as a professional in the film business, and they are still as vibrant and active as when we met more than 25 years ago. Carolle Brabant, Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director continues Canada’s female lineage as does Karen Thorne-Stone, the President and CEO of Ontario Media Development Corporation.
18 films currently are in a large part attributable to Omdc; they include Nisha Pahuja’s doc The World Before Her (contact Cinetic) (Best Doc Feature of 2012 Tribeca Ff), Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz (Isa: TF1), Deepa Mehta’s Midnight’s Children (Isa: FilmNation), Anita Doron’s The Lesser Blessed, (Isa: EOne) Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable (Isa: Myriad), Alison Rose’s doc, Following the Wise Men.
Tiff’s new program for year-round support of mid-level Canadian filmmakers, Studio, under the directorship of Hayet Benkara is bringing industry mentorship to 16 filmmakers with experience, shorts in the festival circuit, features in development. Exactly half of these filmmakers are women. This was a conscious move on Hayet’s part. She said there is always such a predominance of males without thinking about it that she decided to bring balance.
Then a look at some more of the Canadian talent here brings me to the Birks Diamonds celebration of seven Canadian women: Anais Barbeau-Lavalette, Manon Briand, Anita Doron, Deepa Mehta (Midnight’s Children), Kate Melville, and Ruba Nadda which honored each with a Birks diamond pendant in a reception hosted by Shangri-La Hotel and Telefilm Canada where 300 guests mingled and caught up with each other. The pre-eminence of women was again made so apparent to me.
Talking to publicist Jim Dobson at Indie PR at the reception of Jordanian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir whose film When I Saw You was so evocative of the 60s, a time of worldwide freedom and even optimism among the fedayeem in Jordan looking to resist the Expulsion of the Palestinians from Palestine; he said that all five of his clients here are women directors, “I had When I Saw You, (Isa: The Match Factory), Satellite Boy (Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmare), Hannah Arendt (The Match Factory), Inch'allah (Isa: eOne), English Vinglish (Isa: Eros Int')."
Of the 289 features here at Tiff, Melissa Silverstein at Women and Hollywood is trying to zero in on the women directors, so watch her blogs More Women-Directed Films Nab Deals out of Tiff, Tiff Preview: Women Directors to Watch and Tiff Preview: The Female Directing Masters Playing at the 2012 Toronto Film Festival.
Add to this the upcoming Sundance initiative on women directors that Keri Putnam is heading up (more on that later!) and I am feeling heartened by the consciousness of women, directors and otherwise, out there. That is saying a lot since last season in Cannes with the pathetic number of women directors showing up in the festival and sidebars this past spring.
Here is the Female Factor for Tiff 12 which scores an A in my book:
Gala Presentations - 6 out of 20 = c. 30% which is way above the usual 13% which has been the average up until Cannes upended that with its paltry 2%..2 of these were opening night films.
Mira Nair The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Also showed in Venice. Isa: K5. Picked up for U.S. and Canada by IFC. Shola Lynch Free Angela & All Political Prisoners. Isa: Elle Driver Deepa Mehta Midnight’s Children. Isa: FilmNation already sold to Roadshow for Australia/ N.Z., Unikorea for So. Korea, DeaPlaneta for Spain. Ruba Nadda Inescapable. Isa: Myriad. Canada: Alliance. Liz Garbus Love, Marilyn. Isa: StudioCanal. HBO picked up No. American TV rights. Madman has Australia. Gauri Shinde English Vinglish. Isa: Eros International.
Masters – 0 – Could we say that women directors have not been around that long or shown such longevity as the men? Lina Wertmiller was a long time ago. I don’t even know if she is still alive. Ida Lupino was an anomaly. Who else was there in those early days? Alice Guy-Blaché ?
Special Presentations - 13 out of 70 = 19%
Everybody Has A Plan - Argentina/ Germany/ Spain - Ana Piterbarg - Isa: Twentieth Century Fox International - U.S.: Ld Entertainment, U.K.: Metrodome Lines Of Wellington - Also in Venice, San Sebastian Ff - Portugal - Valeria Sarmiento - Isa: Alfama Films. Germany: Ksm Cloud Atlas--Germany - Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski - Isa: Focus Int'l. - U.S. and Canada: Warner Bros. , Brazil - Imagem, Finland - Future Film, Eastern Europe - Eeap, Germany X Verleih, Greece - Odeon, Iceland - Sensa, India - PVR, So. Korea - Bloomage, Benelux - Benelux Film Distributors, Inspire, Slovenia - Cenemania, Sweden - Noble, Switzerland - Ascot Elite, Taiwan - Long Shong, Turkey - Chantier Inch'allah – Canada - Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette - Isa and Canada: Entertainment One Films Hannah Arendt – Germany – Margarethe von Trotta – Isa: The Match Factory Imogine – U.S. – Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini - Isa: Voltage. U.S.: Lionsgate/ Roadside Attractions acquired from UTA, Netherlands: Independent Ginger and Rosa – U.K. – Sally Potter – Isa: The Match Factory. U.S. contact Cinetic Love is All You Need – Also played in Venice) Denmark – Susanne Bier – Isa: TrustNordisk - U.S. : Sony Pictures Classics, Canada: Mongrel, Australia - Madman, Brazil - Art Films, Bulgaria - Pro Films, Colombia - Babilla Cine, Czech Republic - Aerofilms, Finland - Matila Rohr Nordisk, Germany - Prokino, Hungary - Cirko, Italy - Teodora, Japan - Longride, Poland - Gutek, Portugal - Pepperview Lore – Australia/ Germany/ U.K. – Cate Shortland – Isa: Memento. U.S.: Music Box, France: Memento, Germany - Piffl, Hong Hong - Encore Inlight, So. Korea - Line Tree, Benelux - ABC/ Cinemien, U.K., Artificial Eye Dreams for Sale – Japan – Miwa Nishkawa – Isa: Asmik Ace Stories We Tell – Canada – Sarah Polley - Isa: Nfb. U.K.: Artificial Eye Liverpool – Canada – Marion Briand - Isa: Max Films. Canada: Remstar Venus and Serena – U.S./ U.K. – Michelle Major, Maikin Baird. Producer's Rep: Cinetic
Mavericks - 3 out of 7 “Conversations With” were with women (43%)
Discovery 11 out of 27 = 40% which includes The-Hottest-Public Ticket for the Israeli Film directly below (a Major Buzz Film Among its Public)
Fill the Void by Rama Burshtein, a first-time-ever Hasidic woman director Kate Melville’s Picture Day Alice Winocour Augustine - Isa: Kinology 7 Cajas by Tana Schembori from Paraguay - Isa: Shoreline Gabriela Pichler’s Eat Sleep Die from Sweden, Serbia and Croatia - Isa: Yellow Affair Oy Rola Nashef’s Detroit Unleaded France’s Sylive Michel’s Our Little Differences Contact producer Pallas Film Russian censored film Clip from Serbia by Maja Milos - Isa: Wide sold to Kmbo for France, Maywin for Sweden, Artspoitation for U.S. Satellite Boy by Australian Catriona McKenzie - Isa: Celluloid Dreams/ Nightmares Ramaa Mosley’s The Brass Teapot - Isa: TF1 sold to Magnolia for U.S., Intercontinental for Hong Kong, Cien for Mexico, Vendetta for New Zealand Veteran Korean-American Grace Lee’s Janeane from Des Moines.
Tiff Docs 7 out of 29 = 24% - Women traditionally have directed a greater portion of docs
Christine Cynn (codirector ) The Act of Killing - Isa: Cinephil Janet Tobias No Place on Earth - Isa: Global Screen Sarah Burns (codirector) The Central Park Five Isa: PBS sold to Sundance Select for U.S. Treva Wurmfeld Shepard & Dark - Contact Tangerine Entertainment Nina Davenport First Comes Love - Contact producer Marina Zenovich Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out - Isa: Films Distribution Halla Alabdalla As If We Were Catching a Cobra (Comme si nous attraptions un cobra) about the art of caricature in Egypt and Syria! Halla is Syrian herself, studied science and sociology in Syria and Paris - Isa: Wide
Contemporary World Cinema 11 out of 61 = 18%
Children of Sarajevo by Aida Begic, Sarajevo - Isa: Pyramide Baby Blues by Katarzyna Rostaniec, Poland. Contact producer The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky by Yuki Tanada, Japan - Isa: Toei Comrade Kim Goes Flying by Anja Daelemans (co-director), Belgium/ No. Korea. The first western financed film out of No. Korea Three Worlds by Catherine Corsini, France - Isa: Pyramide sold to Lumiere for Benelux, Pathe for Switzerland Middle of Nowhere by Ava DuVernay, U.S. - Contact Paradigm Talent Agency The Lesser Blessed by Anita Doron, Canada - Isa: eOne Watchtower by Pelin Esmer, Turkey/ France/ Germany- Isa: Visit Films Jackie by Antoinette Beumer, Netherlands - Isa: Media Luna When I Saw You by Annemarie Jacir, Palestine,/ Jordan/ Greece All that Matters is Past by Sara Johnsen, Norway- Isa: TrustNordisk
Tiff Kids 0 out of 5. Any meaning to this???
City To City – Mumbai 0 Out Of 10 Any meaning to this???
Vanguard 2 out of 15 = 13% (the average for most festivals)
90 Minutes– Norway – Eva Sorhaug - Isa: Level K Peaches Does Herself – Germany - Peaches. Contact producer. See Indiewire review.
Midnight Madness 0 out of 9 which is fine with me, thank you. This is a boy's genre or a date-night genre for girls and boys with a plan for the night.
- 9/21/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The work of David Redmon and Ashley Sabin first came on my radar when they arrived in Hartford, Ct to promote their eye-opening documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China, tracing both the production and disposal of Mardi Gras beads. Recently I chatted with Redmon regarding his latest documentary Girl Model, which he co-directed with Sabin and I reviewed at Tiff. Girl Model has screened at festivals internationally including the One World Human Rights International Documentary Festival and you can read our conversation from SXSW below as the film is now in theaters.
Tfs: We met back in Hartford (at Real Art Ways) a few years ago and I was wondering what role cities with vibrant art communities that house these Micro Cinemas in often non-traditional venues (galleries, bars, libraries, coffee shops) play for you as filmmakers and distributors (via Carnavlesque Films)?
David Redmon: It’s even more necessary than before,...
Tfs: We met back in Hartford (at Real Art Ways) a few years ago and I was wondering what role cities with vibrant art communities that house these Micro Cinemas in often non-traditional venues (galleries, bars, libraries, coffee shops) play for you as filmmakers and distributors (via Carnavlesque Films)?
David Redmon: It’s even more necessary than before,...
- 9/5/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Above: Ernie Gehr's Auto-Collider Xv.
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
The vast bulk of Tiff's 2012 has been announced and listed here, below. We'll be updating the lineup with the previous films announced, as well as updating links to specific films for more information on them in the coming days. Of particular note is that the Wavelengths and Visions programs have been combined to create what is undoubtedly the most interesting section of the festival. Stay tuned, too, for our own on the ground coverage of Tiff.
Galas
A Royal Affair (Nikolai Arcel, Demark/Sweden/Czech Republic/Germany)
Argo (Ben Affleck, USA)
The Company You Keep (Robert Redford, USA)
Dangerous Liaisons (Hur Jin-ho, China)
Emperor (Peter Webber, Japan/USA)
English Vinglish (Gauri Shinde, India)
Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch)
Great Expectations (Mike Newell, UK)
Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, UK)
Inescapable (Ruba Nadda, Canada)
Jayne Mansfield's Car (Billy Bob Thorton, USA/Russia)
Looper (Rian Johnson,...
- 8/22/2012
- MUBI
The 37th Toronto International Film Festival® will roll out the red carpet for hundreds of guests from the four corners of the globe in September. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Rian Johnson, Noah Baumbach, Deepa Mehta, Derek Cianfrance, Sion Sono, Joss Whedon, Neil Jordan, Lu Chuan, Shola Lynch, Barry Levinson, Yvan Attal, Ben Affleck, Marina Zenovich, Costa-Gavras, Laurent Cantet, Sally Potter, Dustin Hoffman, Francois Ozon, David O. Russell, David Ayer, Pelin Esmer, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Andrew Adamson, Michael McGowan, Bahman Ghobadi, Ziad Doueiri, Alex Gibney, Stephen Chbosky, Eran Riklis, Edward Burns, Bernard Émond, Zhang Yuan, Michael Winterbottom, Mike Newell, Miwa Nishikawa, Margarethe Von Trotta, David Siegel, Scott McGehee, Gauri Shinde, Goran Paskaljevic, Baltasar Kormákur, J.A. Bayona, Rob Zombie, Peaches and Paul Andrew Williams.
Actors expected to attend include: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jackie Chan, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Robert Redford,...
Actors expected to attend include: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jackie Chan, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Bill Murray, Robert Redford,...
- 8/21/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Toronto – On July 31st, the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival announced its second wave of features and documentaries to be added to this year’s already promising lineup.
The ‘Midnight Madness’ programme, which showcases up and coming genre films, will return for a second year, with The Raid winning the inaugural audience choice award in 2011.
Tiff Programmer Colin Geddes says that the audience should expect “everything from outrageous horror comedies to mock-doc-eco-apocalypse thrillers, featuring trans-dimensional bugs, lewd Catholic priests, meat monsters and dog-snapping psychopaths that will animate the Ryerson Theatre when the clock chimes 12.”
Returning for its fourth edition this year is the ‘City to City’ programme, which puts a spotlight on filmmakers working and living in a certain city, introducing audiences to local independent films from around the world. This year’s city of choice is Mumbai.
Artistic Director Cameron Bailey says, “Mumbai’s cinema today is entirely...
The ‘Midnight Madness’ programme, which showcases up and coming genre films, will return for a second year, with The Raid winning the inaugural audience choice award in 2011.
Tiff Programmer Colin Geddes says that the audience should expect “everything from outrageous horror comedies to mock-doc-eco-apocalypse thrillers, featuring trans-dimensional bugs, lewd Catholic priests, meat monsters and dog-snapping psychopaths that will animate the Ryerson Theatre when the clock chimes 12.”
Returning for its fourth edition this year is the ‘City to City’ programme, which puts a spotlight on filmmakers working and living in a certain city, introducing audiences to local independent films from around the world. This year’s city of choice is Mumbai.
Artistic Director Cameron Bailey says, “Mumbai’s cinema today is entirely...
- 8/1/2012
- by Justin Li
- SoundOnSight
Toronto – On July 31st, the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival announced its second wave of features and documentaries to be added to this year’s already promising lineup.
The ‘Midnight Madness’ programme, which showcases up and coming genre films, will return for a second year, with The Raid winning the inaugural audience choice award in 2011.
Tiff Programmer Colin Geddes says that the audience should expect “everything from outrageous horror comedies to mock-doc-eco-apocalypse thrillers, featuring trans-dimensional bugs, lewd Catholic priests, meat monsters and dog-snapping psychopaths that will animate the Ryerson Theatre when the clock chimes 12.”
Returning for its fourth edition this year is the ‘City to City’ programme, which puts a spotlight on filmmakers working and living in a certain city, introducing audiences to local independent films from around the world. This year’s city of choice is Mumbai.
Artistic Director Cameron Bailey says, “Mumbai’s cinema today is entirely...
The ‘Midnight Madness’ programme, which showcases up and coming genre films, will return for a second year, with The Raid winning the inaugural audience choice award in 2011.
Tiff Programmer Colin Geddes says that the audience should expect “everything from outrageous horror comedies to mock-doc-eco-apocalypse thrillers, featuring trans-dimensional bugs, lewd Catholic priests, meat monsters and dog-snapping psychopaths that will animate the Ryerson Theatre when the clock chimes 12.”
Returning for its fourth edition this year is the ‘City to City’ programme, which puts a spotlight on filmmakers working and living in a certain city, introducing audiences to local independent films from around the world. This year’s city of choice is Mumbai.
Artistic Director Cameron Bailey says, “Mumbai’s cinema today is entirely...
- 7/31/2012
- by Justin Li
- SoundOnSight
The 2012 Toronto International Film Festival line-up got another boost with today's announcement of the Midnight Madness, Vanguard and Documentary selections which include films from the likes of Barry Levinson, Don Coscarelli, Rob Zombie, Martin McDonagh, Ben Wheatley, Michel Gondry and Alex Gibney and include titles such as Aftershock, Dredd, Seven Psychopaths, Pusher, Sightseers, The We and the I, The Gatekeepers, Finding Nemo 3D, Hotel Transylvania and a Cinemateque selection that includes Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder, Roman Polanski's Tess and Roberto Rossellini's Stromboli. Considering Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master was recently added to the official selection as a Special Presentation I am going to have my hands full when it comes to screenings, but I will definitely make sure to catch McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths, which is one of my most anticipated films of the year. Otherwise, the schedule will determine which ones I check out. The...
- 7/31/2012
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
In terms of documentary film servings in the fall (pre Idfa in November), in the hands of Thom Powers, Tiff’s former Real to Reel section now simply known as Tiff Docs is the equivalent to riding the gravy train. To be housed at the new spanking brand new Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, this year’s docu items included such names/titles as Ken Burns and what looks to be the Telluride preemed The Central Park Five, Julien Temple’s London – The Modern Babylon, Marina Zenovich’s sequel Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, another hot topic subject for Alex Gibney with Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God and an exec produced item from Errol Morris with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing side by side with with the latest from Crossing the Line helmer Daniel Gordon (9.79*) and Operation Filmmaker helmer Nina Davenport (First Comes Love). Here...
- 7/31/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Following up an already stellar initial line-up, the Toronto International Film Festival 2012 has announced additional sections including Midnight Madness, Documentaries and Vanguard. When the clock strikes 12, some titles one will be able to see include the highly anticipated Seven Psychopaths, from In Bruges director Martin McDonagh. There’s also the world premiere of the horror anthology The ABCs of Death, as well as Dredd and Eli Roth‘s Aftershock and new films from Rob Zombie and Barry Levinson.
The documentary section brings new films from Alex Gibney, Ken Burns and an interesting one titled How to Make Money Selling Drugs, featuring interviews with 50 Cent, Eminem and more. Rounding out the Vanguard section is many titles screened elsewhere, including the excellent documentary on The Shining, Room 237, as well as the next from Kill List director Ben Wheatley, Sightseers (Cannes review). We also have Luis Prieto‘s Pusher remake, and Michel Gondry...
The documentary section brings new films from Alex Gibney, Ken Burns and an interesting one titled How to Make Money Selling Drugs, featuring interviews with 50 Cent, Eminem and more. Rounding out the Vanguard section is many titles screened elsewhere, including the excellent documentary on The Shining, Room 237, as well as the next from Kill List director Ben Wheatley, Sightseers (Cannes review). We also have Luis Prieto‘s Pusher remake, and Michel Gondry...
- 7/31/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
Last week, America's indie film community took a long, hard look at its precarious state.
After industry pros flew back home from the Toronto International Film Festival -- heads throbbing from too many drinks, not enough sleep and the lackluster marketplace, where few films were bought and sold -- many headed straight to the Ifp's annual Independent Film Week and Conference, a 31-year-old event where people like Jim Jarmusch, the Coen brothers, Michael Moore, Whit Stillman, Todd Haynes and Todd Solondz first stepped through the industry's door. Capping off the run of whining and redefining was an "Indie Film Summit," a meeting of some 60 significant distributors, producers and other insiders at the Museum of Modern Art, all looking for answers in these tumultuous times, when economic and technological changes have irrevocably shattered the conventional models of making and distributing movies.
For first-time filmmakers entering the business during this moment of upheaval,...
After industry pros flew back home from the Toronto International Film Festival -- heads throbbing from too many drinks, not enough sleep and the lackluster marketplace, where few films were bought and sold -- many headed straight to the Ifp's annual Independent Film Week and Conference, a 31-year-old event where people like Jim Jarmusch, the Coen brothers, Michael Moore, Whit Stillman, Todd Haynes and Todd Solondz first stepped through the industry's door. Capping off the run of whining and redefining was an "Indie Film Summit," a meeting of some 60 significant distributors, producers and other insiders at the Museum of Modern Art, all looking for answers in these tumultuous times, when economic and technological changes have irrevocably shattered the conventional models of making and distributing movies.
For first-time filmmakers entering the business during this moment of upheaval,...
- 10/5/2009
- by Anthony Kaufman
- ifc.com
Operation Filmmaker Directed by: Nina Davenport Cast: Muthana Mohmed, Nina Davenport, Liev Schreiber Running Time: 1 hr 30 min Rating: Unrated Plot: Muthana Mohmed attends film school in Iraq until it is bombed during the invasion of Baghdad in 2003. In an act of charity, Director Liev Schreiber invites him to work as a Pa on the set of Everything is Illuminated. There, instead of stepping up to the challenge, he flounders. After they're done filmming, Mohmed decides he doesn't want to return to Iraq, where conditions have deteriorated. He then struggles to maintain travel visas and support himself financially in Europe. Who’s It For? Viewers who enjoy documentaries where the filmmaker plays a large part. People interested in another perspective on the Iraq war. Those who don't mind cursing. Expectations: The DVD box had a line...
- 1/6/2009
- The Scorecard Review
I almost called this a 'Watch This' post, and then a 'Fan Rant', but either way, the general idea is that I'd recommend all of you to tune in or at least record PBS tonight for the broadcast premiere of Nina Davenport's terrific documentary, Operation Filmmaker, in which a young Iraqi film student is invited to work on the set of Liev Schreiber's Everything is Illuminated and how that experience begins to unravel for all involved -- Davenport included (and that's not to mention appearances from Elijah Wood and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as themselves!).
It's fascinating in the purest trainwreck sense, and deserves to be paired up with Overnight and shown to all fledgling filmmakers as a guide for what Not to do when all manner of opportunities are offered to you in the field. Davenport's correlations to the Iraqi conflict as her subject becomes less and...
It's fascinating in the purest trainwreck sense, and deserves to be paired up with Overnight and shown to all fledgling filmmakers as a guide for what Not to do when all manner of opportunities are offered to you in the field. Davenport's correlations to the Iraqi conflict as her subject becomes less and...
- 12/31/2008
- by William Goss
- Cinematical
By Michael Atkinson
As the Korean New Wave fades and dissipates, from a throng of cultural force fields to a mere battery of individual filmographies, ambitious or withering or otherwise, one director stands as the most passionately embraced and steadily distributed in the tradition of imported art films. Strangely, it's Hong Sang-soo, not Park Chan-wook or Bong Joon-ho, both of whose pulpy trajectories have stalled and didn't, in any event, summon the English-speaking world's eyeballs expected for their psychodramatic hyperbole. Hong's films are not crowd-pleasers, but measured, often uncomfortable meditations on Korean urbanites and their lives of power-boozing, disconnection and romantic failure. Up to now, Hong's great modernist trope was (tellingly, for a Korean) the bifurcation of perspectives. His elusive masterpiece "The Power of Kangwon Province" (1998) is so sneaky about its doubled-up narrative and its delivery of emotional haymakers that you might not realize that it's all about the residue...
As the Korean New Wave fades and dissipates, from a throng of cultural force fields to a mere battery of individual filmographies, ambitious or withering or otherwise, one director stands as the most passionately embraced and steadily distributed in the tradition of imported art films. Strangely, it's Hong Sang-soo, not Park Chan-wook or Bong Joon-ho, both of whose pulpy trajectories have stalled and didn't, in any event, summon the English-speaking world's eyeballs expected for their psychodramatic hyperbole. Hong's films are not crowd-pleasers, but measured, often uncomfortable meditations on Korean urbanites and their lives of power-boozing, disconnection and romantic failure. Up to now, Hong's great modernist trope was (tellingly, for a Korean) the bifurcation of perspectives. His elusive masterpiece "The Power of Kangwon Province" (1998) is so sneaky about its doubled-up narrative and its delivery of emotional haymakers that you might not realize that it's all about the residue...
- 12/30/2008
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
By Aaron Hillis
A documentary cannot withstand the corrosion of time based on compelling subject matter alone. I learned this a few years ago while writing copy for an indie distribution label, whose acquisitions team had a rash tendency to pick up decades-old docs simply because they were Academy Award nominees. Sometimes they were still engaging under all that dust, but more often than not there were traits that dated them worse than the fashions worn within: static talking-head interviews shot practically but uninspiringly against bland or ugly backdrops, a schoolmarm's discipline for the purist limitations of vérité and an exhausting dryness that underscores how little use films are as strict conveyers of data -- of course, Wikipedia wasn't yet invented, so maybe information was enough back then?
Plenty of documentarians today still rely on the same old creative crutches, but in the year 2008, the docs that rubbed up against...
A documentary cannot withstand the corrosion of time based on compelling subject matter alone. I learned this a few years ago while writing copy for an indie distribution label, whose acquisitions team had a rash tendency to pick up decades-old docs simply because they were Academy Award nominees. Sometimes they were still engaging under all that dust, but more often than not there were traits that dated them worse than the fashions worn within: static talking-head interviews shot practically but uninspiringly against bland or ugly backdrops, a schoolmarm's discipline for the purist limitations of vérité and an exhausting dryness that underscores how little use films are as strict conveyers of data -- of course, Wikipedia wasn't yet invented, so maybe information was enough back then?
Plenty of documentarians today still rely on the same old creative crutches, but in the year 2008, the docs that rubbed up against...
- 12/23/2008
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
"Operation Filmmaker" is a documentary that boasts the sort of plot and narrative twists that seem nearly contrived in their deliciousness.
Nina Davenport's portrait of what happens when a young Iraqi refugee is given a helping hand in the form of a job in a Hollywood movie begins as one story, only to fascinatingly meld into another.
The central figure in the film is young, charismatic and handsome Muthana Mohmed, a 25-year-old Baghdad film student featured in an MTV docu several years ago. One of the viewers happened to be Liev Schreiber, then preparing for his feature directorial debut, "Everything Is Illuminated".
Intrigued by the young man's story, Schreiber flew the young man to Prague to work as an assistant on the film, and also hired filmmaker Davenport to shoot a video docu chronicling Mohmed's experiences.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out as planned. Although initially effusive in his gratefulness, Mohmed soon began chafing at the indignities of his job, which included making vegan snacks and editing a gag reel.
Shirking his responsibilities and eventually alienating nearly everyone involved, Mohmed finds his benefactors shirking him even as he desperately tries to procure a visa to stay in the country. Eventually, he lands a job on the sci-film "Doom", where he charms its star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson into funding him a stint at a London film school.
Although there are times when the proceedings have a certain staged feel -- Mohmed seems to relish growing into his perceived role as a spoiled brat -- "Operation Filmmaker" emerges as an entertaining cautionary tale about the dangers of intemperate do-gooding. While Davenport's suggestion of a metaphor for the follies of the Iraq War seems a bit heavy-handed -- "I was hoping for a happy ending, now I'm just looking for an exit strategy," she declares at one point -- it's also not entirely inaccurate.
Production: Icarus Films. Director/Director of Photography: Nina Davenport. Producers: Nina Davenport, David Schisgall. Music: Sheldon Mirorwitz. Editors: Nina Davenport, Aaron Kuhn. No MPAA rating, 90 minutes.
Nina Davenport's portrait of what happens when a young Iraqi refugee is given a helping hand in the form of a job in a Hollywood movie begins as one story, only to fascinatingly meld into another.
The central figure in the film is young, charismatic and handsome Muthana Mohmed, a 25-year-old Baghdad film student featured in an MTV docu several years ago. One of the viewers happened to be Liev Schreiber, then preparing for his feature directorial debut, "Everything Is Illuminated".
Intrigued by the young man's story, Schreiber flew the young man to Prague to work as an assistant on the film, and also hired filmmaker Davenport to shoot a video docu chronicling Mohmed's experiences.
Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out as planned. Although initially effusive in his gratefulness, Mohmed soon began chafing at the indignities of his job, which included making vegan snacks and editing a gag reel.
Shirking his responsibilities and eventually alienating nearly everyone involved, Mohmed finds his benefactors shirking him even as he desperately tries to procure a visa to stay in the country. Eventually, he lands a job on the sci-film "Doom", where he charms its star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson into funding him a stint at a London film school.
Although there are times when the proceedings have a certain staged feel -- Mohmed seems to relish growing into his perceived role as a spoiled brat -- "Operation Filmmaker" emerges as an entertaining cautionary tale about the dangers of intemperate do-gooding. While Davenport's suggestion of a metaphor for the follies of the Iraq War seems a bit heavy-handed -- "I was hoping for a happy ending, now I'm just looking for an exit strategy," she declares at one point -- it's also not entirely inaccurate.
Production: Icarus Films. Director/Director of Photography: Nina Davenport. Producers: Nina Davenport, David Schisgall. Music: Sheldon Mirorwitz. Editors: Nina Davenport, Aaron Kuhn. No MPAA rating, 90 minutes.
- 6/24/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
As the expression goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. And good intentions are what led actor Liev Schreiber to Muthana Mohmed, a 25-year-old student filmmaker from Baghdad who was featured on an MTV special in 2003. Schreiber was ramping up production on his directorial debut, an adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Everything Is Illuminated, and he saw in Mohmed the living embodiment of the project's intent to bridge the cultural divide. So he and his producers made arrangements for Mohmed to fly to the Czech Republic to work as a production assistant on the film, under the expectation that it would be a gratifying learning experience for Mohmed and his sponsors. With filmmaker Nina Davenport on board to document the occasion, the stage was presumably set for the year's most heartwarming DVD extra. Then, reality came crashing in. As it turns out, Mohmed...
- 6/5/2008
- by Scott Tobias
- avclub.com
- [Note: This interview was originally published during our coverage of the 2007 AFI Festival.] This intriguing documentary about good intentions gone wrong is about Muthana Mohamed, a young Iraqi film student, who has been given a golden opportunity to escape the war and be part of actor/director Liev Schreiber's film (Everything Is Illuminated) in Prague. Operation Filmmaker raises questions about the film maker's responsibility to "real" people in general in an age where reality shows get people to sign away their rights to be part of the Hollywood dream.After his stint as a Pa, Muthana is expected to return to Iraq but as the situation in Iraq worsens, he decides to stay without any money to everybody's obvious disappointment - a Hollywood ending this is not. The cast and crew return to Hollywood without any consideration or responsibility for the young man except for Nina Davenport who was there to document his journey. A filmmaker with a dilemma, Davenport tries
- 6/3/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
By Neil Pedley
Among this week's offerings: The pregnancy comedy goes pre-natal, the fate of all the jungle rests in the hands of the world's most lethargic endangered species, and Dario Argento has a new film, rendering the rest of this list mostly unnecessary.
"Dreams With Sharp Teeth"
Author Harlan Ellison is widely regarded as one of the finest writers of the 20th century. He is also, as this documentary readily highlights, abrasive, petulant, egotistical and prone to fits of belligerent rage. Collecting together more than two decades worth of footage and interviews, "Grizzly Man" producer Erik Nelson lifts the dust jacket off one of literature's genuinely larger than life characters and a man who has filed more lawsuits than the Aclu, proving that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction, even Ellison's sci-fi tales.
Opens in New York.
"The Go-Getter"
On paper, it sounds like the dictionary definition of...
Among this week's offerings: The pregnancy comedy goes pre-natal, the fate of all the jungle rests in the hands of the world's most lethargic endangered species, and Dario Argento has a new film, rendering the rest of this list mostly unnecessary.
"Dreams With Sharp Teeth"
Author Harlan Ellison is widely regarded as one of the finest writers of the 20th century. He is also, as this documentary readily highlights, abrasive, petulant, egotistical and prone to fits of belligerent rage. Collecting together more than two decades worth of footage and interviews, "Grizzly Man" producer Erik Nelson lifts the dust jacket off one of literature's genuinely larger than life characters and a man who has filed more lawsuits than the Aclu, proving that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction, even Ellison's sci-fi tales.
Opens in New York.
"The Go-Getter"
On paper, it sounds like the dictionary definition of...
- 6/2/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
- First Run/Icarus Films have announced the acquisition of an unconventional, docu tale about a good-deed-gone-wrong that was spawned when actor-turned-director Liev Schreiber was filming Everything Is Illuminated. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for “Best Documentary” at the 2007 AFI Fest in Los Angeles (see Ioncinema.com's coverage and interview by Yama Rahimi here), a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival, and a prize from the Rotterdam Film Festival, Nina Davenport's Operation Filmmaker will receive it theatrical debut this summer (June 4th) at NYC's IFC Center with more openings in other cities to follow. The docu takes place in the wake of "Operation Iraqi Freedom," American actor had an idealistic notion: to rescue an Iraqi film student from the rubble of his country and bring him to the West to intern on a Hollywood movie (Everything Is Illuminated). It promised to be a heartwarming tale,
- 1/30/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
- The 2007 AFI Fest ended with the screening of Love in the Time of Cholera and the announcement of this year's winners with the politically correct choice of Munyurangabo, an uneven drama set in Rwanda by a Korean-American director was a surprise given the strong line up this year. The tie between Operation Filmmaker and Afghan Muscles was justified, both were evocative and timely, dealing with an Iraqi film student and the other about Afghan body builders. Winners pictured above are: From left to Right: Jenny Lund (Munyurangabo), Nash Edgerton (Spider), Lauren Greenfield (Kids + Money), Jeffrey Schwarz (Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story), Andreas Mol Dalsgaard (Afghan Muscles), Micheal Addis (Heckler). The line up was one of the strongest in years including many films from Cannes (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Persepolis, Silent Light, Jellyfish, Caramel, Secret Sunshine and others) and Berlin (Irina Palm, The
- 11/13/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
TORONTO -- In a bid to build word-of-mouth for its top picks, the Toronto International Film Festival is holding its first-ever advance press screenings in Los Angeles and New York this week.
A festival spokeswoman said Wednesday that the screenings are designed to give U.S. writers a head start reviewing Toronto titles before the festival's official opening Sept. 6.
Films unspooling at the Wilshire Screening Room in Los Angeles this week include Canadian director Richie Mehta's "Amal", a drama set in India that bows next week in Toronto.
"As a producer of a film, you hope that the press and industry will get out to see the film at the festival. That's not always the case, and the fact that Toronto is pro-active and screening 'Amal' ahead of the festival is a good thing," the film's producer David Miller said Wednesday.
Also screening in Los Angeles is Roger Spottiswoode's Rwandan drama "Shake Hands With the Devil", Avi Nesher's "The Secrets", Arthur Dong's "Hollywood Chinese" and Dutch director Tamar van den Dop's "Blind".
Toronto titles screening in New York this week include Nobuhiro Yamashita's "A Gentle Breeze in the Village", Iranian filmmaker Hana Makhmalbaf's "Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame" and Nina Davenport's "Operation Filmmaker".
It is hoped that the U.S.
A festival spokeswoman said Wednesday that the screenings are designed to give U.S. writers a head start reviewing Toronto titles before the festival's official opening Sept. 6.
Films unspooling at the Wilshire Screening Room in Los Angeles this week include Canadian director Richie Mehta's "Amal", a drama set in India that bows next week in Toronto.
"As a producer of a film, you hope that the press and industry will get out to see the film at the festival. That's not always the case, and the fact that Toronto is pro-active and screening 'Amal' ahead of the festival is a good thing," the film's producer David Miller said Wednesday.
Also screening in Los Angeles is Roger Spottiswoode's Rwandan drama "Shake Hands With the Devil", Avi Nesher's "The Secrets", Arthur Dong's "Hollywood Chinese" and Dutch director Tamar van den Dop's "Blind".
Toronto titles screening in New York this week include Nobuhiro Yamashita's "A Gentle Breeze in the Village", Iranian filmmaker Hana Makhmalbaf's "Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame" and Nina Davenport's "Operation Filmmaker".
It is hoped that the U.S.
- 8/30/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
TORONTO -- Don Cheadle, Woody Allen, Liam Neeson and Michael Douglas are among the names lending star wattage to a group of politically charged documentaries at the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival, organizers said Tuesday.
Unveiling its Real to Reel documentary program, composed entirely of world premieres, Toronto said it has booked Ted Braun's "Darfur Now", a film in which Cheadle and five others issue a call to action to help stop the genocide in Darfur.
Also Toronto-bound is Nina Davenport's "Operation Filmmaker", in which Liv Schreiber invites a young Iraqi film student to intern on the "Everything Is Illuminated" film shoot, and Peter Askin's "Trumbo", which uses spoken-word performances from Neeson, Douglas, Donald Sutherland and Joan Allen to recount the life of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
Other world premieres include Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue's "Body of War", a film about a severely wounded American soldier back from Iraq, and "Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts," a biopic on minimalist composer Philip Glass that features musical collaborations with Chuck Close, Ravi Shankar and Woody Allen.
Unveiling its Real to Reel documentary program, composed entirely of world premieres, Toronto said it has booked Ted Braun's "Darfur Now", a film in which Cheadle and five others issue a call to action to help stop the genocide in Darfur.
Also Toronto-bound is Nina Davenport's "Operation Filmmaker", in which Liv Schreiber invites a young Iraqi film student to intern on the "Everything Is Illuminated" film shoot, and Peter Askin's "Trumbo", which uses spoken-word performances from Neeson, Douglas, Donald Sutherland and Joan Allen to recount the life of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
Other world premieres include Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue's "Body of War", a film about a severely wounded American soldier back from Iraq, and "Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts," a biopic on minimalist composer Philip Glass that features musical collaborations with Chuck Close, Ravi Shankar and Woody Allen.
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