Sundance 2023: ‘The Disappearance of Shere Hite’ Directed by Nicole Newnham
U.S. Documentary Competition
The Hite Report, a groundbreaking study of female sexuality, remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976. The Hite Report brought the female orgasm out of unspoken shadows into the light of day by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Shere Hite’s findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender and sex.
Drawn from anonymous survey responses, the book challenged restrictive conceptions of sex and opened a dialogue in popular culture around women’s pleasure. Its charismatic author, Shere Hite, a feminist sex researcher and former model, became the public messenger of women’s secret confessions. With each subsequent bestseller, she engaged television titans in unforgettably explicit debates about sexuality while suffering the backlash her controversial findings provoked. But who remembers Shere Hite today? What led to her erasure?
The takeaway of The Hite Report was that female expression of sexuality should not be defined by patriarchal power. This idea deeply offended the male establishment and consequently, the media made as much of their wounded ideas of themselves as of the book itself whose authentic and anonymous findings were treated with intense controversy.
The astonishing beauty of Shere Hite herself lies outside of the cliche perameters of the “scholarly” (i.e., “homely) woman. And so her methodical research was called “unscientific” and was called into question (and answered smartly by her). Her background as a working-class, bisexual, former nude model with photographs appearing in Playboy did not sit well with the offended and offensive men who interviewed her on top TV shows after the book became a runaway success. All of her many identities are displayed in the movie.
Digging into exclusive archives, as well as Hite’s personal journals and the original survey responses, filmmaker Nicole Newnham transports viewers back to the 70s, a time of great societal transformation around sexuality (See Fairyland, about queer life in San Francisco, also playing here in Sundance,for another take on the 70s and Food and Country about the coming of age of California cuisine in the 70s under the guiding hands of Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters of Chez Panisse). Newnham’s revelatory portrait brings us to reconsider a pioneer who broke the ground for our current conversations about gender, sexuality, and autonomy. Her story also is a timely, cautionary tale of what too often happens to women who dare speak out.
Nicole Newnham is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary director and producer and four-time Sundance alum. She co-directed Crip Camp (2020) with Jim LeBrecht. Crip Camp was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Sundance U.S. Documentary Audience Award. Newnham’s other documentary directing credits include the Emmy-nominated films The Revolutionary Optimists, Sentenced Home, and The Rape of Europa.
U.S. Sales and Distribution: Josh Braun, Submarine Entertainment
There is no international sales agent. Maggie Pisacane at WME is the producers rep along with Josh Braun.
Directed and Produced By: Nicole Newnham (Crip Camp)
Produced By: Molly O’Brien, R.J. Cutler, Elise Pearlstein, Kimberley Ferdinando, Trevor Smith
Co-Produced By: Erica Fink, Eleanor West
Executive Produced By: Elizabeth Fischer, Liz Cole, Noah Oppenheim, Andy Berg, Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman
116 minutes
Film FestivalsWomenDocumentaryGenderSundance...
U.S. Documentary Competition
The Hite Report, a groundbreaking study of female sexuality, remains one of the bestselling books of all time since its publication in 1976. The Hite Report brought the female orgasm out of unspoken shadows into the light of day by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Shere Hite’s findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender and sex.
Drawn from anonymous survey responses, the book challenged restrictive conceptions of sex and opened a dialogue in popular culture around women’s pleasure. Its charismatic author, Shere Hite, a feminist sex researcher and former model, became the public messenger of women’s secret confessions. With each subsequent bestseller, she engaged television titans in unforgettably explicit debates about sexuality while suffering the backlash her controversial findings provoked. But who remembers Shere Hite today? What led to her erasure?
The takeaway of The Hite Report was that female expression of sexuality should not be defined by patriarchal power. This idea deeply offended the male establishment and consequently, the media made as much of their wounded ideas of themselves as of the book itself whose authentic and anonymous findings were treated with intense controversy.
The astonishing beauty of Shere Hite herself lies outside of the cliche perameters of the “scholarly” (i.e., “homely) woman. And so her methodical research was called “unscientific” and was called into question (and answered smartly by her). Her background as a working-class, bisexual, former nude model with photographs appearing in Playboy did not sit well with the offended and offensive men who interviewed her on top TV shows after the book became a runaway success. All of her many identities are displayed in the movie.
Digging into exclusive archives, as well as Hite’s personal journals and the original survey responses, filmmaker Nicole Newnham transports viewers back to the 70s, a time of great societal transformation around sexuality (See Fairyland, about queer life in San Francisco, also playing here in Sundance,for another take on the 70s and Food and Country about the coming of age of California cuisine in the 70s under the guiding hands of Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters of Chez Panisse). Newnham’s revelatory portrait brings us to reconsider a pioneer who broke the ground for our current conversations about gender, sexuality, and autonomy. Her story also is a timely, cautionary tale of what too often happens to women who dare speak out.
Nicole Newnham is an Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary director and producer and four-time Sundance alum. She co-directed Crip Camp (2020) with Jim LeBrecht. Crip Camp was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Sundance U.S. Documentary Audience Award. Newnham’s other documentary directing credits include the Emmy-nominated films The Revolutionary Optimists, Sentenced Home, and The Rape of Europa.
U.S. Sales and Distribution: Josh Braun, Submarine Entertainment
There is no international sales agent. Maggie Pisacane at WME is the producers rep along with Josh Braun.
Directed and Produced By: Nicole Newnham (Crip Camp)
Produced By: Molly O’Brien, R.J. Cutler, Elise Pearlstein, Kimberley Ferdinando, Trevor Smith
Co-Produced By: Erica Fink, Eleanor West
Executive Produced By: Elizabeth Fischer, Liz Cole, Noah Oppenheim, Andy Berg, Eli Holzman, Aaron Saidman
116 minutes
Film FestivalsWomenDocumentaryGenderSundance...
- 2/11/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
The sequel to Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth will open the Sundance Film Festival on January 19th, the former vice president announced Friday.
The documentary "follows Gore as he continues his decades-long fight to build a more sustainable future for our planet," Variety reports.
Following its Sundance premiere, the film – the title hasn't been announced – will be released to theaters later in 2017 through a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures.
"Now more than ever we must rededicate ourselves to solving the climate crisis," Gore said in a statement.
The documentary "follows Gore as he continues his decades-long fight to build a more sustainable future for our planet," Variety reports.
Following its Sundance premiere, the film – the title hasn't been announced – will be released to theaters later in 2017 through a distribution deal with Paramount Pictures.
"Now more than ever we must rededicate ourselves to solving the climate crisis," Gore said in a statement.
- 12/10/2016
- Rollingstone.com
All this week, IndieWire will be rolling out our annual Fall Preview, including offerings that span genres, a close examination of some of the year’s biggest breakouts, all the awards contenders you need to know about now and special attention to all the new movies you need to get through a jam-packed fall movie-going season. Check back every day for a new look at the best the season has to offer, and clear your schedule, because we’re going to fill it right up.
“White Girl,” September 2
Writer-director Elizabeth Wood exploded onto the filmmaking scene when her controversial debut “White Girl” shocked audiences at the Sundance Film Festival. A fearless portrait of young female sexuality, the film stars “Homeland’s” Morgan Saylor as Leah, a college student who becomes involved with a young drug dealer during the last two weeks of summer in New York City. When the cops...
“White Girl,” September 2
Writer-director Elizabeth Wood exploded onto the filmmaking scene when her controversial debut “White Girl” shocked audiences at the Sundance Film Festival. A fearless portrait of young female sexuality, the film stars “Homeland’s” Morgan Saylor as Leah, a college student who becomes involved with a young drug dealer during the last two weeks of summer in New York City. When the cops...
- 8/17/2016
- by Kate Erbland, David Ehrlich, Graham Winfrey, Steve Greene, Chris O'Falt and Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Academy invitee Eddie Redmayne in 'The Theory of Everything.' Academy invites 322 new members: 'More diverse and inclusive list of filmmakers and artists than ever before' The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has offered membership to 322 individuals "who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures." According to the Academy's press release, "those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy's membership in 2015." In case all 322 potential new members say an enthusiastic Yes, that means an injection of new blood representing about 5 percent of the Academy's current membership. In the words of Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs (as quoted in the press release), in 2015 "our branches have recognized a more diverse and inclusive list of filmmakers and artists than ever before, and we look forward to adding their creativity, ideas and experience to our organization." In recent years, the Academy membership has...
- 7/1/2015
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
©Renzo Piano Building Workshop/©Studio Pali Fekete architects/©A.M.P.A.S.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this week that the Los Angeles City Council, in a unanimous vote, approved plans for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Construction will begin this summer, and ceremonial groundbreaking festivities will occur this fall.
“I am thrilled that Los Angeles is gaining another architectural and cultural icon,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “My office of economic development has worked directly with the museum’s development team to ensure that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will create jobs, support tourism, and pay homage to the industry that helped define our identity as the creative capital of the world.”
“We are grateful to our incredible community of supporters who have helped make this museum a reality,” said Dawn Hudson, the Academy’s CEO. “Building this museum has been an Academy...
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this week that the Los Angeles City Council, in a unanimous vote, approved plans for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Construction will begin this summer, and ceremonial groundbreaking festivities will occur this fall.
“I am thrilled that Los Angeles is gaining another architectural and cultural icon,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “My office of economic development has worked directly with the museum’s development team to ensure that the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures will create jobs, support tourism, and pay homage to the industry that helped define our identity as the creative capital of the world.”
“We are grateful to our incredible community of supporters who have helped make this museum a reality,” said Dawn Hudson, the Academy’s CEO. “Building this museum has been an Academy...
- 6/27/2015
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Strangely dropping a press release on a historic day where the nation's attention is elsewhere, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed their annual list of new member invitees this morning. For those who criticize the makeup of the Academy there was some good news and the stark realization the organization still has a long way to go. The Academy has spent the last eight to 10 years attempting to diversify its membership and this year's class mostly reflects that. There are significantly more invitees of Asian and African-American descent, but the male to female disparity is still depressing. Out of the 25 potential new members of the Actor's Branch only seven are women. And, no, there isn't really an acceptable way for the Academy to spin that sad fact. Additionally, It's important to realize the 322 people noted in the release have only been invited to join Hollywood's most exclusive club.
- 6/26/2015
- by Gregory Ellwood
- Hitfix
All that Glitters: Curtis Traps Compelling Kernel in Avalanche of Schmaltz
British television alum Simon Curtis graduated to feature filmmaking in 2011 with the incredibly problematic My Week with Marilyn. Apparently, whatever its faults, they were easy to overlook, as the film nabbed a number of critics’ choice awards, along with prestigious BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. Unfortunately, his penchant for mawkishness has showed no sides of abatement in his follow-up feature, Woman in Gold, also based on compelling true events but at least portraying subjects that feel imbued with less drastic measures of caricature since they aren’t ingrained in cultural pop subconscious with such sacred fury.
In the late 1990s, the Austrian government began to revamp its art restitution laws in reference to victims of WWII. Upon the death of her sister, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), an elderly Los Angeles shop keeper who had fled Austria sixty years prior to escape the Nazis,...
British television alum Simon Curtis graduated to feature filmmaking in 2011 with the incredibly problematic My Week with Marilyn. Apparently, whatever its faults, they were easy to overlook, as the film nabbed a number of critics’ choice awards, along with prestigious BAFTA and Academy Award nominations. Unfortunately, his penchant for mawkishness has showed no sides of abatement in his follow-up feature, Woman in Gold, also based on compelling true events but at least portraying subjects that feel imbued with less drastic measures of caricature since they aren’t ingrained in cultural pop subconscious with such sacred fury.
In the late 1990s, the Austrian government began to revamp its art restitution laws in reference to victims of WWII. Upon the death of her sister, Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren), an elderly Los Angeles shop keeper who had fled Austria sixty years prior to escape the Nazis,...
- 3/31/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
According to the latest aggregation of opinions on Rotten Tomatoes, George Cloone's "The Monuments Men" hasn’t fared very well with most of my critical brethren. But I find myself inclined to give it an appreciative thumb’s up, if not a full-throated roar of approval. And not just because, as a minor-league history buff, I am reflexively fascinated by accounts of efforts to retrieve art masterpieces plundered by Adolf Hitler's minions during World War II.Clooney's movie -- which really makes me want to take another look at the documentaries "The Rape of Europa" and "The Architecture of Doom" -- is an intelligent and entertaining mix of stranger-than-fiction fact and respectfully plausible invention, adapted by Clooney and co-scriptwriter Grant Heslov from Robert M. Edsel’s "The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, And the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History." It’s a tale of unlikely heroes -- art experts,...
- 2/10/2014
- by Joe Leydon
- Thompson on Hollywood
Some people have tired of our glut of World War II films. On the one hand, I sympathize. But on the other hand, WWII was such an expansive conflict that it generated thousands of stories that are well worth telling. The trick is that we should make fewer movies in the Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers mold and more about other aspects of the war. The Monuments Men seems like an admirable effort to do just that, but the film has not been well-received. On the one hand, this is a shame, since the movie dramatizes a fascinating part of the war, one that many people don’t know about. But on the other hand, as usual, documentaries have beaten fiction to the punch in telling this tale. So if The Monuments Men is a letdown, you can learn about the exact same thing with The Rape of Europa. The...
- 2/8/2014
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
credit: Sara Wood / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Is it too soon for George Clooney to win back-to back Oscars?
In what will undoubtedly be a major awards season player and possible Best Picture winner, Columbia Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that The Monuments Men, a Smokehouse production directed by and starring George Clooney, has started production in Berlin, Germany. Due in theaters on December 18th, the action-thriller is written by Clooney & Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Clooney and Heslov also produce the film through their Smokehouse Productions. It is their first production since winning the Academy Award® for Best Picture for their work on Argo.
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history,The Monuments Men focuses on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by Fdr with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces...
Is it too soon for George Clooney to win back-to back Oscars?
In what will undoubtedly be a major awards season player and possible Best Picture winner, Columbia Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox announced today that The Monuments Men, a Smokehouse production directed by and starring George Clooney, has started production in Berlin, Germany. Due in theaters on December 18th, the action-thriller is written by Clooney & Grant Heslov, based on the book by Robert M. Edsel with Bret Witter. Clooney and Heslov also produce the film through their Smokehouse Productions. It is their first production since winning the Academy Award® for Best Picture for their work on Argo.
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history,The Monuments Men focuses on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by Fdr with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces...
- 3/5/2013
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
In early February this year, Mohamed Nasheed, the first democratically elected (in 2008) president of the republic of Maldives, a tiny nation consists of 1,200 islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, was forced to resign in a military coup by the loyalists to Maumood Abdul Gayoom, the former president. This bizarre and tragic turn of event needs the world's attention because Nasheed's victory over Gayoom, an autocrat who ruthlessly ruled the country for 30 years, precedes the Egypt Revolt and the Arab Spring. The Island President's release couldn't have come at any more opportune time than now.Filmmaker Jon Shenk (Lost Boys of Sudan, The Rape of Europa) documents with unprecedented access, Nasheed's first year in the office as the beacon in the fight...
- 3/26/2012
- Screen Anarchy
I like this title, so I found the news.
During our recent interview with Ellis Perez, the Director General of the Dominican Republic's film organization DGCine which you can read tomorrow, he mentioned an interesting factoid about Dr. Aside from its being the site of Christopher Columbus' second landing in 1492 and his naming the country Hispanola, its being the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, its sharing 1/3 of the island with Haiti, and its reign of terror by the dictator Trujillo from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, there was one good act performed by El Jefe. That was his open-door policy which accepted Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war. In 1939 Trujillo took in German and Austrian Jewish refugees and gave them a safe haven in Puerto Plata province's town Sosua where many still live or have returned after being educated abroad. Another coincidental connection of the Dr to the Jews is that the current President Leonel Fernandez spent most of his childhood and teenaged years in Washington Heights during its transition from being a German Jewish neighborhood to becoming the Dominican neighborhood it is today.
And speaking of New York, here is a second Jews in the News item which also includes a doc about Sosua!
The New York-based Foundation for Jewish Culture has granted finishing funds to six documentaries.
Finishing funds ranging between $12,000 and $40,000 have recently been granted to six documentaries. The funds are designed to enable the filmmakers to pay licence fees for music and archival footage, complete additional editing and shooting and build audience awareness through outreach and engagement strategies.
The grants fall under the Foundation’s Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film which supports projects expanding understanding of the Jewish experience. 80 projects made applications this year and the final six recipients were selected by a panel including Moma’s Sally Berger, filmmaker Nicole Opper, film critic George Robinson and Daniella Tourgeman from the Jerusalem Cinematheque/ Israel Film Archive.
The fund has supported the completion of over 80 films since 1996 including Waltz With Bashir, Budrus, William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe and The Rape Of Europa.
The winning projects are:
· Sosua: Dare To Dance Together directed and produced by Peter Miller and Renee Silverman, which follows Jewish and Dominican teenagers over the course of the year as they create a musical theatre piece about German Jews finding refuge in the Dominican Republic in the late 1930s.
How To Re-Establish A Vodka Empire directed by Dan Edelstyn, which traces the history of the film-maker’s Jewish grandmother who fled the Bolshevik revolution and settled in strife-torn Belfast.
· Miss World directed by Cecilia Peck (Shut Up And Sing), which is the story of Israeli beauty pageant queen Linor Abargil and her crusade to combat sexual violence against women.
· My Father Evgeni directed and produced by Andrei Zagdansky, follows the filmmaker’s history working with his father for the Kiev Popular Science Film Studios.
· The Return directed and produced by Adam Zucker (Greensboro: Closer To The Truth), which follows four young Polish women who were raised Catholic only to discover that they were born Jewish.
· Watchers Of The Sky directed by Edet Belzberg (Children Underground) which interweaves stories of four visionaries with the journey of lawyer Raphael Lemkin who drafted and pushed through the Un Genocide Convention.
During our recent interview with Ellis Perez, the Director General of the Dominican Republic's film organization DGCine which you can read tomorrow, he mentioned an interesting factoid about Dr. Aside from its being the site of Christopher Columbus' second landing in 1492 and his naming the country Hispanola, its being the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, its sharing 1/3 of the island with Haiti, and its reign of terror by the dictator Trujillo from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, there was one good act performed by El Jefe. That was his open-door policy which accepted Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war. In 1939 Trujillo took in German and Austrian Jewish refugees and gave them a safe haven in Puerto Plata province's town Sosua where many still live or have returned after being educated abroad. Another coincidental connection of the Dr to the Jews is that the current President Leonel Fernandez spent most of his childhood and teenaged years in Washington Heights during its transition from being a German Jewish neighborhood to becoming the Dominican neighborhood it is today.
And speaking of New York, here is a second Jews in the News item which also includes a doc about Sosua!
The New York-based Foundation for Jewish Culture has granted finishing funds to six documentaries.
Finishing funds ranging between $12,000 and $40,000 have recently been granted to six documentaries. The funds are designed to enable the filmmakers to pay licence fees for music and archival footage, complete additional editing and shooting and build audience awareness through outreach and engagement strategies.
The grants fall under the Foundation’s Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film which supports projects expanding understanding of the Jewish experience. 80 projects made applications this year and the final six recipients were selected by a panel including Moma’s Sally Berger, filmmaker Nicole Opper, film critic George Robinson and Daniella Tourgeman from the Jerusalem Cinematheque/ Israel Film Archive.
The fund has supported the completion of over 80 films since 1996 including Waltz With Bashir, Budrus, William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe and The Rape Of Europa.
The winning projects are:
· Sosua: Dare To Dance Together directed and produced by Peter Miller and Renee Silverman, which follows Jewish and Dominican teenagers over the course of the year as they create a musical theatre piece about German Jews finding refuge in the Dominican Republic in the late 1930s.
How To Re-Establish A Vodka Empire directed by Dan Edelstyn, which traces the history of the film-maker’s Jewish grandmother who fled the Bolshevik revolution and settled in strife-torn Belfast.
· Miss World directed by Cecilia Peck (Shut Up And Sing), which is the story of Israeli beauty pageant queen Linor Abargil and her crusade to combat sexual violence against women.
· My Father Evgeni directed and produced by Andrei Zagdansky, follows the filmmaker’s history working with his father for the Kiev Popular Science Film Studios.
· The Return directed and produced by Adam Zucker (Greensboro: Closer To The Truth), which follows four young Polish women who were raised Catholic only to discover that they were born Jewish.
· Watchers Of The Sky directed by Edet Belzberg (Children Underground) which interweaves stories of four visionaries with the journey of lawyer Raphael Lemkin who drafted and pushed through the Un Genocide Convention.
- 3/4/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up U.S. rights to "The Island President" and plans a February 2012 release, the company announced Monday. Jon Shenk ("Lost Boys of Sudan") directed the documentary. Richard Berge and Bonni Cohen ("The Rape of Europa") produced it. "The Island President" won the Audience Award for a documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year. In a written statement, Samuel Goldwyn's head of acquisitions, Peter Goldwyn, said, "We are ecstatic to release this extraordinary and inspirational film. After incredibly successful screenings in Telluride and Toronto, we are...
- 11/7/2011
- by Joshua L. Weinstein
- The Wrap
Breathe easy. This is not a lecture on art history or merely the story of some millionaire's art collection. The marketing people wisely portray the film as a caper movie, a heist thriller, and documentarian Don Argott's profits by this focus. This is not to say that "The Art of the Steal" is a sequel to Jules Dassin's "Topkapi," no, not by a long shot.
As a disclaimer, let me say that when it comes to art, I'm a philistine, a know-nothing, a guy who once looked at Andy Warhol's 1962 painting "Campbell's Soup Cans" and who, until I read the title underneath the exhibit had no idea what it was. But I do know from documentaries and, like my philosophy of art, I know what I like. (Hint: anything by Michael Moore.)
The Art Of The Steal
IFC Films/ Sundance Selects
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey...
As a disclaimer, let me say that when it comes to art, I'm a philistine, a know-nothing, a guy who once looked at Andy Warhol's 1962 painting "Campbell's Soup Cans" and who, until I read the title underneath the exhibit had no idea what it was. But I do know from documentaries and, like my philosophy of art, I know what I like. (Hint: anything by Michael Moore.)
The Art Of The Steal
IFC Films/ Sundance Selects
Reviewed for Arizona Reporter by Harvey...
- 2/4/2010
- Arizona Reporter
- A lingering strike haven't kept the Writers Gild of America from naming the noms for the Best Original, Adapted Screenplays and Best Documentary screenplays of the year. A quick overview of the noms below shows that studio-based indie division delivered in quantity and quality. Here are the noms below for those who create narratives on paper. Winners are announced on February 9th. Original Screenplay"Juno" - Written by Diablo Cody, Fox Searchlight"Michael Clayton" - Written by Tony Gilroy, Warner Bros. Pictures"The Savages" - Written by Tamara Jenkins, Fox Searchlight"Knocked Up" - Written by Judd Apatow, Universal Pictures"Lars and the Real Girl" - Written by Nancy Oliver, MGM Adapted Screenplay"No Country For Old Men" - Screenplay by Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, Based on the Novel by Cormac McCarthy, Miramax"There Will Be Blood" - Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson, Based on the Novel Oil by Upton Sinclair,
- 1/11/2008
- IONCINEMA.com
Nominees for the Writers Guild of America Awards have been announced, with a few suprises and notable omissions. Original Screenplay nods went to four comedies -- Juno, Knocked Up, Lars and the Real Girl, and The Savages -- and one drama, Michael Clayton, while the films up for Adapted Screenplay are four critical favorites -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men, and There Will Be Blood -- and one surprising left-field contender, the thriller Zodiac, released back in March. Missing from contention were such high-profile films as Atonement, Charlie Wilson's War, and Sweeney Todd, which were also passed over for the Directors Guild of America awards. Documentary nominees were The Camden 28, Nanking, No End in Sight, The Rape of Europa, Sicko and Taxi to the Dark Side. The WGA Awards will be handed out on Saturday, February 9th.
- 1/10/2008
- WENN
NEW YORK -- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday unveiled the 15 films on its 2007 documentary feature Oscar shortlist.
Four ThinkFilm releases made the cut, a record for the company and one of the biggest lineups ever for any distributor. They are Tony Kaye's abortion epic Lake of Fire, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's World War II expose Nanking, Alex Gibney's Iraq War study Taxi to the Dark Side and Sean Fine and Andrea Nix's look at a Ugandan musical competition War/Dance.
The biggest boxoffice hit among the bunch by far is Michael Moore's health-care expose Sicko, from the Weinstein Co., but other high-profile releases were left off the list. Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains and Amir Bar-Lev's child prodigy study My Kid Could Paint That from Sony Pictures Classics were expected to make the cut but didn't. Other notable absentees were Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's look at Darfur, The Devil Came on Horseback; Picturehouse's gamers study The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters; and ThinkFilm's space-themed In the Shadow of the Moon.
Aside from Taxi, other films covering the Iraq War that made the list included Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's Body of War, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight and Richard Robbins' Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.
Features about other wars made the cut, too, including Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham's World War II art study The Rape of Europa.
Virtually all films on the list were topical, including Tricia Regan's look at special-needs children, Autism: The Musical...
Four ThinkFilm releases made the cut, a record for the company and one of the biggest lineups ever for any distributor. They are Tony Kaye's abortion epic Lake of Fire, Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman's World War II expose Nanking, Alex Gibney's Iraq War study Taxi to the Dark Side and Sean Fine and Andrea Nix's look at a Ugandan musical competition War/Dance.
The biggest boxoffice hit among the bunch by far is Michael Moore's health-care expose Sicko, from the Weinstein Co., but other high-profile releases were left off the list. Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains and Amir Bar-Lev's child prodigy study My Kid Could Paint That from Sony Pictures Classics were expected to make the cut but didn't. Other notable absentees were Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg's look at Darfur, The Devil Came on Horseback; Picturehouse's gamers study The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters; and ThinkFilm's space-themed In the Shadow of the Moon.
Aside from Taxi, other films covering the Iraq War that made the list included Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro's Body of War, Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight and Richard Robbins' Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience.
Features about other wars made the cut, too, including Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham's World War II art study The Rape of Europa.
Virtually all films on the list were topical, including Tricia Regan's look at special-needs children, Autism: The Musical...
- 11/20/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Menemsha Films
NEW YORK -- A fascinating and relatively unexplored topic is examined in The Rape of Europa, detailing the Nazis' systematic pillaging of art works throughout the continent.
Based on the book by Lynn Nicholas, and written, produced and directed by Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham, the film should secure a rightful honored place among the myriad documentaries about World War II. It is playing at New York's Paris and Angelika theaters.
The film explores the subject from many provocative angles, including the psychological one of whether Hitler's rapacious appetite for masterworks was fueled by his own frustrated artistic ambitions. More interestingly, the moral question is raised as to whether it was worth risking human lives to protect the artworks, as the U.S. military's Monuments Men, several of whom are interviewed here, were assigned to do.
The straightforward docu, narrated in elegant and unemotional tones by actress Joan Allen, presents a fairly chronological view of the struggle as the Nazis systematically looted great works of art in such cities as Paris, Florence and St. Petersburg. The film opens and closes with one case in particular, Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which eventually was returned to its rightful owners and sold for about $135 million.
It also well details the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens to protect their national heritage, from the virtual emptying of the Louvre (the brief segment concerning the difficulty of moving the famed Winged Victory statue is itself engrossing) to the curators of the Hermitage hiding themselves and their treasures in a freezing underground passage.
The extensive archival footage is at times almost comically appalling, like the footage depicting the transformation of Goering's homey, wood-paneled hunting lodge into a gaudy, overstuffed museum.
NEW YORK -- A fascinating and relatively unexplored topic is examined in The Rape of Europa, detailing the Nazis' systematic pillaging of art works throughout the continent.
Based on the book by Lynn Nicholas, and written, produced and directed by Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham, the film should secure a rightful honored place among the myriad documentaries about World War II. It is playing at New York's Paris and Angelika theaters.
The film explores the subject from many provocative angles, including the psychological one of whether Hitler's rapacious appetite for masterworks was fueled by his own frustrated artistic ambitions. More interestingly, the moral question is raised as to whether it was worth risking human lives to protect the artworks, as the U.S. military's Monuments Men, several of whom are interviewed here, were assigned to do.
The straightforward docu, narrated in elegant and unemotional tones by actress Joan Allen, presents a fairly chronological view of the struggle as the Nazis systematically looted great works of art in such cities as Paris, Florence and St. Petersburg. The film opens and closes with one case in particular, Klimt's portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, which eventually was returned to its rightful owners and sold for about $135 million.
It also well details the heroic efforts of ordinary citizens to protect their national heritage, from the virtual emptying of the Louvre (the brief segment concerning the difficulty of moving the famed Winged Victory statue is itself engrossing) to the curators of the Hermitage hiding themselves and their treasures in a freezing underground passage.
The extensive archival footage is at times almost comically appalling, like the footage depicting the transformation of Goering's homey, wood-paneled hunting lodge into a gaudy, overstuffed museum.
- 10/11/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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