By Patrick Shanley
Managing Editor
This year’s best documentary feature nominees continues a long trend of music docs being recognized by the Academy, as two music-related films have earned nominations at this year’s Oscars.
Amy, which tells the story of late songstress Amy Winehouse in her own words through never-before-seen archival footage and unreleased tracks and is nominated for best doc this year, earned nominations for the Queer Palm and Golden Eye awards at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for director Asif Kapadia.
Filmmaker Liz Garbus earned the second nomination of her career with the Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? The film focuses on the life of iconic R&B singer Nina Simone and her life as a singer, mother, and civil rights activist. Garbus earned her first Oscar nomination in 1998 for her documentary The Farm: Angola, USA.
Music-related docs have been a hot topic for the Academy in years past,...
Managing Editor
This year’s best documentary feature nominees continues a long trend of music docs being recognized by the Academy, as two music-related films have earned nominations at this year’s Oscars.
Amy, which tells the story of late songstress Amy Winehouse in her own words through never-before-seen archival footage and unreleased tracks and is nominated for best doc this year, earned nominations for the Queer Palm and Golden Eye awards at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for director Asif Kapadia.
Filmmaker Liz Garbus earned the second nomination of her career with the Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? The film focuses on the life of iconic R&B singer Nina Simone and her life as a singer, mother, and civil rights activist. Garbus earned her first Oscar nomination in 1998 for her documentary The Farm: Angola, USA.
Music-related docs have been a hot topic for the Academy in years past,...
- 1/22/2016
- by Patrick Shanley
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Keep on Keepin’ On, director Alan Hicks’ debut film, follows four years of the friendship and mentorship between jazz legend and trumpeter Clark Terry, who played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and taught a young Quincy Jones how to play, and Justin Kauflin, a talented 23-year-old blind pianist. The two musicians support each other as Terry begins to lose his eyesight due to health issues and as Kauflin deals with stage fright as a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. The film is one of 15 films on the Oscar documentary shortlist, five of which will be nominated on Jan. 15.
The Academy is particularly fond of music-related documentaries, nominating 17 since 1942, with eight winning. Keep on Keepin’ On could join the following Oscar-nominated films:
Festival (1967)
Director Murray Lerner’s black-and-white documentary offers a glimpse into three years (1963-1966) of the Newport Folk Festival, which...
Managing Editor
Keep on Keepin’ On, director Alan Hicks’ debut film, follows four years of the friendship and mentorship between jazz legend and trumpeter Clark Terry, who played with Count Basie and Duke Ellington and taught a young Quincy Jones how to play, and Justin Kauflin, a talented 23-year-old blind pianist. The two musicians support each other as Terry begins to lose his eyesight due to health issues and as Kauflin deals with stage fright as a semi-finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition. The film is one of 15 films on the Oscar documentary shortlist, five of which will be nominated on Jan. 15.
The Academy is particularly fond of music-related documentaries, nominating 17 since 1942, with eight winning. Keep on Keepin’ On could join the following Oscar-nominated films:
Festival (1967)
Director Murray Lerner’s black-and-white documentary offers a glimpse into three years (1963-1966) of the Newport Folk Festival, which...
- 1/8/2015
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
Managing Editor
Directed by John Maloof and Charlie Siskel, Finding Vivian Maier documents Maloof’s journey to discover more about Vivian Maier after purchasing a box of her negatives in 2007. He began the search a few years later, after he realized the negatives consisted of some of the best undeveloped street photography of the 20th century. After some searching, it was revealed that Maier was a career-nanny who had died in 2009.
Since the documentary is in serious contention for a best documentary feature Oscar, we thought we’d check to see how many other photography-related films have managed to resonate with the Academy’s documentary branch and land a nomination in the same category. We found six.
The Naked Eye (1956)
Directed by two-time Oscar winner Louis Clyde Stoumen, this documentary celebrates photography through history by looking at pioneers in the field, such as Margaret Bourke-White. Though he covers works by multiple photographers,...
- 11/7/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
Ahead of its 55th outing, Alastair Dant goes back to 1995 to work out what first got him hooked on the BFI London film festival
As per much of our second year at Ucl, Phil and I sat cross-legged beneath the Japanese table in our Camden flat, scheming. The table was heated; a luxury that suited our mode of repose. Conversation typically ranged between which half-cocked Britpop band had been lurking in our local or who'd won most games of pool. On this occasion, a more important matter was at hand: the table bore the programme for the 1995 BFI London film festival.
It's not clear where we got it. It could have been a record shop counter or a Soho cafe. What mattered was how neatly this event celebrated student life. It slipped easily into a schedule of late lectures and misspent afternoons. It coaxed us with the promise of world cinema and cheap matinee tickets.
As per much of our second year at Ucl, Phil and I sat cross-legged beneath the Japanese table in our Camden flat, scheming. The table was heated; a luxury that suited our mode of repose. Conversation typically ranged between which half-cocked Britpop band had been lurking in our local or who'd won most games of pool. On this occasion, a more important matter was at hand: the table bore the programme for the 1995 BFI London film festival.
It's not clear where we got it. It could have been a record shop counter or a Soho cafe. What mattered was how neatly this event celebrated student life. It slipped easily into a schedule of late lectures and misspent afternoons. It coaxed us with the promise of world cinema and cheap matinee tickets.
- 10/4/2011
- by Alastair Dant
- The Guardian - Film News
The Heineken Audience Award is all about you, Festival-goers, and which movies make you laugh, cry, gasp, and applaud. Last year's big winner was the crowd-pleaser City Island, which was released in NYC and La on March 19, thanks to Anchor Bay. The second and third place winners were both documentaries, Racing Dreams and Midgets vs. Mascots. Racing Dreams also took home the Best Documentary Feature Award, sponsored by Bialla and Associates, and DreamWorks is planning to adapt it. Meanwhile, the fourth place winner, Departures, took home the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2009! Previous winners have leaned heavily towards documentaries, including War Child (2008), We Are Together (2007), Cats of Mirikitani (2006), Street Fight (2005), and Every Mother's Son in 2004. The 2003 award was split between a feature, Together, and the documentary Keeping Time: The Life, Music and Photography of Milt Hinton. (You can download the full list of ...
- 4/24/2010
- TribecaFilm.com
World premiering at the Playboy Jazz Film Festival and opening Friday at Laemmle's Monica, Jean Bach's excellent documentary illuminates the history and lasting legacy of a "magic moment" in 1958 -- when "Esquire"'s Art Kane photographed 60 of jazz music's "big dogs" one summer morning in Harlem.
A treat for jazz aficionados and a dandy historical jam session for the curious, "A Great Day in Harlem" combines recent interviews with those subjects in the photo still alive, liberal use of the famous black-and-white still and others taken by Kane that day, home movie footage shot by Mona and Milt Hinton, and great film clips of performances to support the verbal storytelling.
Starting with Kane's account of how the photograph came about, with support from then-Esquire art director Robert Benton, Bach weaves together the memories of the late Dizzy Gillespie plus Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer and many others -- including Taft Jordan Jr., one of the now-grown boys seated on the curb with Count Basie -- and thoroughly recounts the events of the "Great Day".
Amazingly, it was Kane's first pro gig as a photog and the early-morning session resembled a social gathering until everything came together just right. Controlling the group was "near impossible" and Kane used a rolled-up newspaper as a megaphone. His assistant did not even know how to load film.
But the moment is undeniably powerful, as the group stands on the steps of a 125th Street tenement and sidewalk with locals looking on. The mood seems casual and the composition unpretentious, evoking but not overstating the subjects' "hard life surrendered to art."
Bach and co-writers Susan Peehl and Matthew Seig wisely follow the leads of their talkative subjects. Stories about those in the photo no longer among the living are both laudatory and personal.
The soundtrack is heavenly and supports Art Blakey's conclusion that these jazz greats were "literary figures," using drums, trombones, trumpets and saxophones to imaginatively capture the experience of living.
A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM
A Jean Bach Production
Flo-Bert Ltd.
New York Foundation for the Arts
Producer Jean Bach
Co-producer Matthew Seig
Writers Jean Bach, Susan Peehl, Matthew Seig
Director of photography Steve Petropoulos
Editor Susan Peehl
Narrator Quincy Jones
With Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, Marian McPartland, Mona Hinton, Robert Benton, Horace Silver, Art Blakey
Color/Stereo
Running time -- 60 minutes
No MPAA Rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
A treat for jazz aficionados and a dandy historical jam session for the curious, "A Great Day in Harlem" combines recent interviews with those subjects in the photo still alive, liberal use of the famous black-and-white still and others taken by Kane that day, home movie footage shot by Mona and Milt Hinton, and great film clips of performances to support the verbal storytelling.
Starting with Kane's account of how the photograph came about, with support from then-Esquire art director Robert Benton, Bach weaves together the memories of the late Dizzy Gillespie plus Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer and many others -- including Taft Jordan Jr., one of the now-grown boys seated on the curb with Count Basie -- and thoroughly recounts the events of the "Great Day".
Amazingly, it was Kane's first pro gig as a photog and the early-morning session resembled a social gathering until everything came together just right. Controlling the group was "near impossible" and Kane used a rolled-up newspaper as a megaphone. His assistant did not even know how to load film.
But the moment is undeniably powerful, as the group stands on the steps of a 125th Street tenement and sidewalk with locals looking on. The mood seems casual and the composition unpretentious, evoking but not overstating the subjects' "hard life surrendered to art."
Bach and co-writers Susan Peehl and Matthew Seig wisely follow the leads of their talkative subjects. Stories about those in the photo no longer among the living are both laudatory and personal.
The soundtrack is heavenly and supports Art Blakey's conclusion that these jazz greats were "literary figures," using drums, trombones, trumpets and saxophones to imaginatively capture the experience of living.
A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM
A Jean Bach Production
Flo-Bert Ltd.
New York Foundation for the Arts
Producer Jean Bach
Co-producer Matthew Seig
Writers Jean Bach, Susan Peehl, Matthew Seig
Director of photography Steve Petropoulos
Editor Susan Peehl
Narrator Quincy Jones
With Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, Art Farmer, Marian McPartland, Mona Hinton, Robert Benton, Horace Silver, Art Blakey
Color/Stereo
Running time -- 60 minutes
No MPAA Rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 9/28/1994
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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