★★★★☆
Ghana-born director John Akomfrah - the creative mind behind 1987's Handsworth Songs and, more recently, The Nine Muses - made a triumphant return last year with The Stuart Hall Project (2013), a multi-layered video essay on the fluidity of identity in 20th century Britain which revolved around its titular cultural theorist. Hall, a working-class Jamaican with consequent links to all manner of countries and races, confesses an innate lack of national identity, and uses this as an entry point to unravel the many complexities of the defunct and shrinking British Empire, as well as those who left 'home' for a new life abroad.
Ghana-born director John Akomfrah - the creative mind behind 1987's Handsworth Songs and, more recently, The Nine Muses - made a triumphant return last year with The Stuart Hall Project (2013), a multi-layered video essay on the fluidity of identity in 20th century Britain which revolved around its titular cultural theorist. Hall, a working-class Jamaican with consequent links to all manner of countries and races, confesses an innate lack of national identity, and uses this as an entry point to unravel the many complexities of the defunct and shrinking British Empire, as well as those who left 'home' for a new life abroad.
- 1/22/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The tidal wave that is K-pop (Korean pop music) has only just begun to crest the shores of the United States, heralded by the juggernaut of quirky rapper Psy's "Gangnam Style." However, widespread mainstream awareness in the U.S. has yet to come for many of the K-pop girl and boy bands (Super Junior, 2NE1) that bring a high-octane, flashy, fizzy brand of pop music that would put One Direction to shame (it doesn't hurt that the groups often boast upwards of seven to ten impossibly attractive young members). The documentary "The Nine Muses of Star Empire," directed by Hark-Joon Lee attempts to go behind the scenes of the K-pop star factory, with an intimate and arresting look at just what goes into this shiny, futuristic pop. Nine Muses are a group of nine models, actresses and singers assembled by entertainment management company Star Empire into a pop group themed around the Greek muses.
- 7/31/2013
- by Katie Walsh
- The Playlist
In Wendy's (MsWOO's) review of John Akomrah's latest work (The Nine Muses) for S&A (Here), she compared it to "attending an opera or perhaps classical music performance," calling it both an intellectual and a visceral experience, as both images and sound "flow over you" and "seep into you," and that "you should find this a deeply moving experience." Having now seen the film myself, finally, I wholeheartedly agree. But in the video clip below, Akomfrah addresses the comparisons Wendy astutely made in her review of The Nine Muses (which uses Homer's The Odyssey as a framework to explore mass migration to post-modern Britain) by talking specifically about the importance of...
- 5/14/2013
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
It’s been a long time since a film has moved me in quite the way that John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses did. It wasn’t that happy, tingly, feel-good feeling you tend to get with some films that has you smiling as you leave the cinema and which you soon forget (the feeling and the actual film) once you’ve brushed the last remnants of popcorn off your clothes, but a deep, cloying, feeling that lingered, and lingers still. At 53, Akomfrah is one of the pioneers of digital cinema in the UK and The Nine Muses is a film that is more feature length art installation than documentary or narrative fiction, and perhaps something that most might expect from a younger generation of...
- 4/2/2013
- by Wendy Okoi-Obuli
- ShadowAndAct
While the Us doc lineup is leaning hard-nose, the international competition is looking a lot more varied, with eight of the twelve slots being filled with world premieres. Running with this year’s international headlines and coming partially from the source itself, Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer will make its debut running between art and politics. Profiling the life and challenges of individuals, The Stuart Hall Project by helmer John Akomfrah (who two years ago released The Nine Muses) and Andy Heathcote The Moo Man. Long a contributor to the non-fiction filler of Entertainment Tonight and Dr. Phil, Marc Silver’s directorial debut, Who is Dayani Cristal? delves into pure cinematic mystery. A trio of Idfa preemed titles in Tinatin Gurchiani’s The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, Qi Zhao’s Fallen City, and Dylan Mohan Gray’s Fire in the Blood. Among the...
- 11/29/2012
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Chicago area filmgoers will have their chance to see John Akomfrah's The Nine Muses soon, when it will screens next week at the Gene Siskel Film Center, located in downtown Chicago, on Thursday Nov. 15, starting at 6Pm. Akomfrah is a filmmaker who should be very familar to regular S & A readers, since we have covered him and his film projects several times, including Nine Muses (Here) and his current project in production Peripeteia (Here). As we prevously stated about Akomfrah he is orginally from Accra, Ghana and moved to the UK as a child. He studied art and sociology in college. At 28, he made his seminal film, Handsworth Songs (1986), about racial and...
- 11/8/2012
- by Sergio
- ShadowAndAct
The Last Angel of History is a John Akomfrah, intensely cerebral, classic (although we could probably say that about most of his films; this one is less what I'd call *purely poetic* than say The Nine Muses); it tends to rate highly among those who've seen most of Akomfrah's body of work, and that rarely screens anymore. An engaging examination of the relationships between Pan-African culture, music, science fiction, intergalactic travel, and computer technology, the Afrofuturist work, for awhile, wasn't even available to the public as a commercial purchase. If you wanted to own it, you'd have had to be an educational institution, willing to spend $300...
- 10/26/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
One of several S&A 2012 Toronto Interntational Film Festival highlights... British/Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah's lats work, titled Peripeteia, which stars Monique Cunningham, and Trevor Mathison (who appeared in Akomfrah's previous work, The Nine Muses). A quick recap... the description of the film reads: A moving visualization of two characters drawn in the 16th century by Albrecht Dürer - a black male and female whose stories have been ‘lost to the winds of history’. British filmmaker John Akomfrah imagines the lives of a black man and woman who appear in a sixteenth-century drawing by German...
- 10/24/2012
- by Courtney
- ShadowAndAct
One of several S&A 2012 Toronto Interntational Film Festival highlights... British/Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah's latest work, titled Peripeteia. As noted in a previous post, a Google search reveals practically nothing about this new project; his IMDb page doesn't even list it, last I checked. I suppose we'll learn more in coming weeks. But consider the mystery a little less of one with today's reveal: first, I've learned that it's actually Not a feature length work. It's an 18-minute short film that stars Monique Cunningham, Trevor Mathison (who appeared in Akomfrah's last work, The Nine Muses); an secondly, the...
- 8/15/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
It was in March that we alerted you to British/Ghanaian filmmaker John Akomfrah's latest work since last year's The Nine Muses - discussed and reviewed it on the old S&A site Here. And it looks like he's completely done with the film, as I just learned that it will make its world premiere at the Toronto Interntational Film Festival next month. Titled Peripeteia, it was first screened during the European Cultural Foundation (Ecf) awards cerermony earlier this year, where Akomfrah was on hand to receive the prestigious Princess Margriet Award. The attending 350 guests were said to be delighted by what they saw. ...
- 8/14/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
After nearly a decade of focusing his energy on music history television docs, director John Akomfrah has returned to one of his favorite topics, the struggles of minorities, and more specifically here, the wave of immigrants that arrived in the wake of the British Nationality Act of 1948, which was meant to supplement the need for workers post-World War II. Though the subject sounds straightforward, The Nine Muses buries its primary ideas in an avant-garde kaleidoscope of high brow canonical literature, found archival footage, and gorgeously composed, yet strangely haunting images of faceless travelers among the frozen landscape of modern day Alaska. There is something akin to brilliance within, but this repetitive medley of literary legend and immigrant alienation is too dense for its own good.
The film is structured around Homer’s epic tale and the assemblage of inspirational goddesses, the Nine Muses, each taking a chapter within the film.
The film is structured around Homer’s epic tale and the assemblage of inspirational goddesses, the Nine Muses, each taking a chapter within the film.
- 6/26/2012
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
★★★☆☆ From acclaimed British filmmaker John Akomfrah comes The Nine Muses (2010), a mesmerising hybrid of documentary, installation piece and visual essay that never quite feels as strong as the sum of its parts. Utilising Homeric epic The Odyssey as an anchor-of-sorts, Akomfrah seeks to parallel the myth of lost hero Odysseus with everything from Britain's post-war mass immigration to the Alaskan glacial wastes, to varying degrees of success.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 4/23/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
Toronto’s Images Festival celebrates it’s 25th anniversary on April 12-21 at theaters, galleries and other venues all over the city. They are celebrating with a massive event with films and videos, live performances, installations, artist talks and other events.
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
Below is the lineup for Images’ specific film screening events and some live performances. The fest’s Opening Night film is John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which takes a poetic look at the immigrant experience, particularly through using images of Caribbean and African migrants in the 1950s and ’60s.
The fest will close with a live score by alt-rock band Yo La Tengo accompanying the avant-garde scientific underwater films by French documentary filmmaker Jean Painlevé. Yo La Tengo has been performing “Sounds of Science” since they were commissioned for the project by the San Francisco Film Festival in 2001.
In between these two events is a lineup of feature-length experimental works,...
- 4/9/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Our critics' picks of this week's openings, plus your last chance to see and what to book now
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this week
Theatre
• Reasons to be Cheerful
Raucous, rude and really rather joyful, the Graeae theatre company's musical – set in 1979 as Thatcher comes to power, and inspired by the music of Ian Dury – is terrific fun. It's good to have it back. New Wolsey, Ipswich (01473 295 900), until 18 February, then touring.
• The Recruiting Officer
Josie Rourke's first show as the Donmar's new artistic director is a revival of an early 18th-century comedy. Mackenzie Crook, Mark Gatiss and Nancy Carroll are part of a strong cast. All eyes will be watching. Donmar, London WC2 (0844 871 7624), until 14 April.
Film
• A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg)
Freud, Jung and their patient-acquaintance Sabina Spielrein ignite psychological problems. On general release.
Dance
• Blanca Li...
• Which cultural events are in your diary this week? Tell us in the comments below
Opening this week
Theatre
• Reasons to be Cheerful
Raucous, rude and really rather joyful, the Graeae theatre company's musical – set in 1979 as Thatcher comes to power, and inspired by the music of Ian Dury – is terrific fun. It's good to have it back. New Wolsey, Ipswich (01473 295 900), until 18 February, then touring.
• The Recruiting Officer
Josie Rourke's first show as the Donmar's new artistic director is a revival of an early 18th-century comedy. Mackenzie Crook, Mark Gatiss and Nancy Carroll are part of a strong cast. All eyes will be watching. Donmar, London WC2 (0844 871 7624), until 14 April.
Film
• A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg)
Freud, Jung and their patient-acquaintance Sabina Spielrein ignite psychological problems. On general release.
Dance
• Blanca Li...
- 2/13/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
John Akomfrah's "commitment to a radicalism both of politics and of cinematic form finds expression in all his films," writes Sukhdev Sandhu in a profile for the Guardian. "Seven Songs for Malcolm X (1993) draws on the photographer James Van Der Zee's The Harlem Book of the Dead and Sergei Paradjanov's The Color of Pomegranates (1968) to fashion a probing, internationalist vision of the black radical leader that is far removed from the conventional hero projected in Spike Lee's biopic the previous year; The Last Angel of History (1995) advanced the concept of the 'data thief' as part of its argument about science-fiction elements in the music of Sun Ra, George Clinton and Lee Scratch Perry. Akomfrah's new film, The Nine Muses, is a multilayered, gorgeously shot and affecting work that interweaves archival footage of black and Asian people traveling to and working in Britain with moody, elliptical shots of...
- 1/22/2012
- MUBI
Akomfrah's Handsworth Songs attracted a huge audience when shown in the wake of last summer's riots. His new film, The Nine Muses, uses Homer to explore mass migration to Britain
John Akomfrah, widely recognised as one of Britain's most expansive and intellectually rewarding film-makers, has never been afraid of a battle. Back in the 1970s, when he was barely out of his teens, he tried to screen Derek Jarman's homoerotic Sebastiane at the film club of the Southwark further education college, where he was studying. "There were rows. Black kids were throwing chairs everywhere. They were saying 'you can't show this'. So we stopped the film and had a discussion: what do you mean, 'We can't show this film'? It was clear there were forms of propriety for black spectatorship. Rather than run back into the field, I thought: let's just accelerate it. Let's push these boundaries a little bit more.
John Akomfrah, widely recognised as one of Britain's most expansive and intellectually rewarding film-makers, has never been afraid of a battle. Back in the 1970s, when he was barely out of his teens, he tried to screen Derek Jarman's homoerotic Sebastiane at the film club of the Southwark further education college, where he was studying. "There were rows. Black kids were throwing chairs everywhere. They were saying 'you can't show this'. So we stopped the film and had a discussion: what do you mean, 'We can't show this film'? It was clear there were forms of propriety for black spectatorship. Rather than run back into the field, I thought: let's just accelerate it. Let's push these boundaries a little bit more.
- 1/21/2012
- by Sukhdev Sandhu
- The Guardian - Film News
Haywire (15)
(Steven Soderbergh, 2011, Us) Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender. 93 mins
Soderbergh flexes his action muscles for a change, and why not? Since he can do just about anything and get just about anyone. Pro-fighter Carano certainly convinces in the many punch-ups – she could have Salt and Hanna any day – and she's wisely given little space for acting in between them. It's a slick enough succession of foot chases, double-crosses and close-quarters violence, but it still lives in the shadow of the Bourne movies.
Coriolanus (15)
(Ralph Fiennes, 2011, UK) Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Gerard Butler. 123 mins
Fiennes trims Shakespeare's martial play and grafts it on to a modern, Balkan-like setting, where his war hero is too proud or noble to play the political game. Veteran thesps help it along.
W.E. (15)
(Madonna, 2011, UK) Andrea Riseborough, Abbie Cornish, James D'Arcy. 119 mins
What could have drawn Madonna to this tale...
(Steven Soderbergh, 2011, Us) Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender. 93 mins
Soderbergh flexes his action muscles for a change, and why not? Since he can do just about anything and get just about anyone. Pro-fighter Carano certainly convinces in the many punch-ups – she could have Salt and Hanna any day – and she's wisely given little space for acting in between them. It's a slick enough succession of foot chases, double-crosses and close-quarters violence, but it still lives in the shadow of the Bourne movies.
Coriolanus (15)
(Ralph Fiennes, 2011, UK) Ralph Fiennes, Vanessa Redgrave, Gerard Butler. 123 mins
Fiennes trims Shakespeare's martial play and grafts it on to a modern, Balkan-like setting, where his war hero is too proud or noble to play the political game. Veteran thesps help it along.
W.E. (15)
(Madonna, 2011, UK) Andrea Riseborough, Abbie Cornish, James D'Arcy. 119 mins
What could have drawn Madonna to this tale...
- 1/21/2012
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
John Akomfrah's film-poem is a beguiling and often moving study in landscape and memory, comparable in spirit to Terence Davies's Of Time and the City. Loosely constructed around the nine muses of Greek legend (dance, music, tragedy, etc) it intermingles Alaskan landscapes hushed and blanketed in snow with extraordinary archive images of immigrant Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. No conventional narrative intrudes: impressionistic fragments of verse and quotation light the way, principally Anton Lesser reciting from Homer's Odyssey, with selections of Shakespeare and Milton, Beckett and Joyce picked out like distant constellations. The musical accompaniment is similarly eclectic, a mélange of old-school folk, gospel, classical and modern (Arvo Pärt figures prominently). The Nine Muses is less personal, more polemical than Davies's film, though their portrayals of Britain in mid-century have much in common. It is worth watching alone for the faces of children and adults just arrived in the country,...
- 1/20/2012
- The Independent - Film
This week Jason Solomons meets British actor James D'Arcy to discuss his role in Madonna's directing debut W.E. Cast alongside rising star Andrea Riseborough, James discusses the myth and reality behind Edward VIII's love affair with Wallis Simpson and what drove him to abdicate from the throne.
Jason meets film-maker and writer John Akomfrah, whose new film The Nine Muses reframes Homer's Odyssey to encompass the 20th and 21st century experience of migration and identity. They talk about Akomfrah's idiosyncratic and innovative style of film-making which uses contemporary scenes mixed with archive footage and a musical soundscape.
Guardian film writer Xan Brooks joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases, including Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, Jonah Hill in The Sitter and Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood's J Edgar.
Subscribe for free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed...
Jason meets film-maker and writer John Akomfrah, whose new film The Nine Muses reframes Homer's Odyssey to encompass the 20th and 21st century experience of migration and identity. They talk about Akomfrah's idiosyncratic and innovative style of film-making which uses contemporary scenes mixed with archive footage and a musical soundscape.
Guardian film writer Xan Brooks joins Jason to review some of this week's other releases, including Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, Jonah Hill in The Sitter and Leonardo DiCaprio in Clint Eastwood's J Edgar.
Subscribe for free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed...
- 1/19/2012
- by Jason Solomons, Xan Brooks, Jason Phipps
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆ A highly cerebral and often entrancing experience, John Akomfrah's 2010 film The Nine Muses is a truly refreshing meditation on the search for identity in a complex, globalised society. Composed of archive footage intertwined with original material shot in the chilliest parts of Alaska, the film takes its inspiration from Homer's epic poem The Odyssey to explore the journey of thousands of black and Asian migrants that travelled to the UK during 1949-1970.
Read more »...
Read more »...
- 1/19/2012
- by CineVue
- CineVue
After seducing me earlier this year at Sundance, John Akomfrah‘s existential The Nine Muses has remained about as enigmatic and elusive as it was at the festival, appropriately reflecting the film itself.
Now we have a longer, more informative (if you can call it that) trailer for the film, which did have a week-long theatrical run in New York City this fall at the Moma.
Check out the trailer below (via Shadow and Act):
Utilizing archival footage, literary passages from the likes of Homer and Joyce and astounding original footage shot in an icy nowhere, Akomfrah asks unanswerable questions about identity and where someone comes from. In an interview with the filmmaker after the Sundance screening, I asked about his inclusion of James Joyce, an Irishmen who lived most of his life outside of Ireland, into the piece.
Here’s what he had to say:
“Joyce, because of...
Now we have a longer, more informative (if you can call it that) trailer for the film, which did have a week-long theatrical run in New York City this fall at the Moma.
Check out the trailer below (via Shadow and Act):
Utilizing archival footage, literary passages from the likes of Homer and Joyce and astounding original footage shot in an icy nowhere, Akomfrah asks unanswerable questions about identity and where someone comes from. In an interview with the filmmaker after the Sundance screening, I asked about his inclusion of James Joyce, an Irishmen who lived most of his life outside of Ireland, into the piece.
Here’s what he had to say:
“Joyce, because of...
- 11/23/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
By yesterday afternoon, word was out that the New York Film Festival's surprise film later that evening would be Hugo, introduced by Martin Scorsese himself. Of course, it's a work-in-progress, with color correction, a proper score and evidently much more still on the to-do list. "Scorsese and his Aviator screenwriter John Logan have adapted Brian Selznick's acclaimed novel-comic hybrid The Invention of Hugo Cabret as a pure tribute to not only cinema, but also the endangered legacies of its earliest practitioners," writes Movieline's St VanAirsdale before laying out an array of first impressions: "Surprises are fun, but the jury is out." IFC's Matt Singer: "The film's schmaltzy trailer may have left some die-hard Marty fans scratching their heads why Mr Mean Streets would make a heartwarming family film, but Hugo is actually the Scorsesiest Scorsese movie in years." The Playlist finds Hugo to be "one of his most deeply personal films.
- 10/11/2011
- MUBI
"The Nine Muses is the kind of nonfiction film I actively hope for," writes Chuck Bowen in Slant: "a picture of intuitive, free-associational power that cuts far deeper emotionally than a dry recitation of dates and facts could ever hope to. Filmmaker John Akomfrah's conceit is unusually ambitious and, yes, even a little baffling, as he's structured his subject — the racism, dislocation, and isolation that arose from the primarily African and Irish emigration to Britain in the late 1940s through the 1960s — as a parallel to Homer's The Odyssey, which also, of course, concerns a long journey rife with considerable loss and ambiguity."
"The title Nine Muses derives from its overarching structural conceit, a series of chapter headings dedicated to each of the ancient Greek muses," explains Paul Brunick in the New York Times. "Excerpts lifted from landmarks of Western literature, running from the epic tradition of Homer...
"The title Nine Muses derives from its overarching structural conceit, a series of chapter headings dedicated to each of the ancient Greek muses," explains Paul Brunick in the New York Times. "Excerpts lifted from landmarks of Western literature, running from the epic tradition of Homer...
- 10/6/2011
- MUBI
Maddening, sexy, disorientating – the work of the late Derek Jarman is as breathtaking and relevant as it ever was
This year's Edinburgh film festival may have been discussed in tones usually reserved for particularly gloomy wakes, but in the name of karma it only seems fair to note what it's done right. So consider this a compliment on the decision to invite guest curator Gus Van Sant to programme a short season devoted to the late Derek Jarman. Because while there's a steady stream of interest in Jarman's work via the DVD arm of the British Film Institute, there's also the vague but unshakable feeling that his name now enters the world's conversations as much in connection with his wondrous Dungeness garden as his films.
Not to mention his posthumous place in the landscape of British cinema. As with so much of the eternal debate around Jarman, I can't escape...
This year's Edinburgh film festival may have been discussed in tones usually reserved for particularly gloomy wakes, but in the name of karma it only seems fair to note what it's done right. So consider this a compliment on the decision to invite guest curator Gus Van Sant to programme a short season devoted to the late Derek Jarman. Because while there's a steady stream of interest in Jarman's work via the DVD arm of the British Film Institute, there's also the vague but unshakable feeling that his name now enters the world's conversations as much in connection with his wondrous Dungeness garden as his films.
Not to mention his posthumous place in the landscape of British cinema. As with so much of the eternal debate around Jarman, I can't escape...
- 6/24/2011
- by Danny Leigh
- The Guardian - Film News
John Akomfrah’s name should be familiar, as it’s one that’s been mentioned several times on this blog (most recently as the director of The Nine Muses which we’ve profiled and reviewed) From March 29th through April 11th. All events are Free and open to the public. Although an RSVP is required at 212-998-4222.
More details of each program, courtesy of the Nyu’s Africana Studies department website, follows below, where all the info resides. I plan intend to attend as my schedule allows (h/t Aiac)...
More details of each program, courtesy of the Nyu’s Africana Studies department website, follows below, where all the info resides. I plan intend to attend as my schedule allows (h/t Aiac)...
- 3/8/2011
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
After over 100 combined viewing hours, 9 days, 5 theaters, many sleepless nights, and nearly 100 posts, our first Sundance Film Festival has come to an end. Raffi Asdourian, Daniel Mecca, and I (Jordan Raup) want to share our personal favorites from the 2011 fest. Check out our top ten below and a complete wrap-up underneath.
The Best
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (review)
The one film that really stole my heart at Sundance was Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, the inspiring and heartwarming story of Kevin Clash, the voice and genius behind one of the world’s most iconic children’s personality. Taking you from his childhood ambitions to a chance encounter with Jim Henson, it’s hard not to be bowled over by the remarkable story of the charismatic Clash. If you grew up watching Sesame Street, then seek out Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey for an...
The Best
Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (review)
The one film that really stole my heart at Sundance was Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey, the inspiring and heartwarming story of Kevin Clash, the voice and genius behind one of the world’s most iconic children’s personality. Taking you from his childhood ambitions to a chance encounter with Jim Henson, it’s hard not to be bowled over by the remarkable story of the charismatic Clash. If you grew up watching Sesame Street, then seek out Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey for an...
- 2/2/2011
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Certainly not a Sundance starlet like Elizabeth Olsen or a storied Sundance vet like Miranda July, British filmmaker John Akomfrah has been making critically-lauded films for two decades – mostly under the public radar. Finally, after years of producing documentaries for companies like the BBC, Akomfrah found himself in a position to make the film he’s wanted to make since the beginning of his career, The Nine Muses: an emotional, abstract look at the intense period of migration to England after World War II up until the 1960s. This rush of diversity spread just as much racial prejudice, forcing those migrants to assimilate to a way of life in England they would never fully fell comfortable being a part of.
The Film Stage spoke with Akomfrah about getting the money, time and material to make this dream project come to life, and how he feels now that it’s...
The Film Stage spoke with Akomfrah about getting the money, time and material to make this dream project come to life, and how he feels now that it’s...
- 1/29/2011
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Diving head first into identity crisis and refusing to come up for air, John Akomfrah‘s experimental docu-essay The Nine Muses asks us to question our own identity and the genesis of such a question. The director uses Homer’s The Odyssey as a narrative tool, the blind man’s prose fading in to guide the film along on its long journey with no real place to call home. The Nine Muses, much like Homer’s epic, finds meaning in the journey itself rather than the ultimate conclusion.
Homer’s not the only ghost in the room. Akomfrah employs the words of other great artists who struggled with this very same question of identity, from faith-torn John Milton to expatriate Irishman James Joyce to self-imprisoned Emily Dickinson. These deep thinkers drowned in their own internalizations. Akomfrah dares us to do the same.
His platform for such an observation is the...
Homer’s not the only ghost in the room. Akomfrah employs the words of other great artists who struggled with this very same question of identity, from faith-torn John Milton to expatriate Irishman James Joyce to self-imprisoned Emily Dickinson. These deep thinkers drowned in their own internalizations. Akomfrah dares us to do the same.
His platform for such an observation is the...
- 1/21/2011
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
Among all the hype that surrounds and engulfs the Sundance Film Festival, there’s The Nine Muses, experimental documentarian John Akomfrah‘s Odyssey-influenced essay about the migration to Britain after World War II, among many other things. The film is split into 9 chapters, grabbing pieces of writers such as Dante, Beckett and James Joyce to explore identity and place.
What does all this mean exactly?
Figure it out yourself by clicking here (embed on its way, apologies). And don’t forget the poster below:
This little campaign should further excite festival goers and separate itself from the slew of features premiering over the next two weeks. Akomrah’s been making films for a while now, and this one looks about as personal as one can get.
What do you think of the trailer? Do you know John Akomrah’s work?
E-mail Dan Mecca and be sure to follow him on Twitter.
What does all this mean exactly?
Figure it out yourself by clicking here (embed on its way, apologies). And don’t forget the poster below:
This little campaign should further excite festival goers and separate itself from the slew of features premiering over the next two weeks. Akomrah’s been making films for a while now, and this one looks about as personal as one can get.
What do you think of the trailer? Do you know John Akomrah’s work?
E-mail Dan Mecca and be sure to follow him on Twitter.
- 1/21/2011
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
I've always been a sucker for classical mythology; here's an exclusive poster and trailer for The Nine Muses, which played Venice and London (here's a review); it screens Friday morning at Sundance. John Akomfrah’s documentary essay (which is an expansion of the art installation Mnemosyne at the public gallery in West Bromwich) uses Homer's Odyssey--about Odysseus's long voyage home after the Trojan War--as an a allegorical sci-fi fable about the history of mass migration to postwar Britain. The filmmaker divides the movie into nine overlapping musical chapters, using archival material and the writings of such Masters as Dante, Samuel Beckett, Emily Dickinson and James Joyce. It's hard to describe: see the footage below.
- 1/21/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Sundance Film Festival announced the in competition film line-up for the film festival running January 20th through January 30th 2011 in Park City, Utah.
Today the festival has announced the line-up for the non-competition films and there is one hell of a line-up! There are a ton of great films that will be premiering at the festival, and if you're going you have a lot of great films to choose from!
Each film has an incredible cast and a great story. These films include Cedar Rapids, about a man traveling to an insurance conference, featuring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Sigourney Weaver; Kevin Smith's Red State, about a group of misfits encounter extreme fundamentalism in Middle America; The Details, about domestic tensions spawned by raccoons with Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert; I Melt With You, starring Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay,...
Today the festival has announced the line-up for the non-competition films and there is one hell of a line-up! There are a ton of great films that will be premiering at the festival, and if you're going you have a lot of great films to choose from!
Each film has an incredible cast and a great story. These films include Cedar Rapids, about a man traveling to an insurance conference, featuring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Sigourney Weaver; Kevin Smith's Red State, about a group of misfits encounter extreme fundamentalism in Middle America; The Details, about domestic tensions spawned by raccoons with Tobey Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney, Ray Liotta, Dennis Haysbert; I Melt With You, starring Thomas Jane, Jeremy Piven, Rob Lowe, Christian McKay,...
- 12/2/2010
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
Well, yesterday, we saw the full list of films in-competition; today, we get to see those titles that have been selected for Sundance 2011′s out-of-competition lineup.
And as I said with yesterday’s post, I’ll be going over the complete list, highlighting titles that need to be, taking into consideration this blog’s specific interests. The only title that immediately stands out is Brit John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which MsWOO positively reviewed, after seeing it at the London Film Festival in October. Read her review Here.
But look for future posts profiling any other titles I deem worthy. I’ve applied for press credentials to attend next year’s festival. I won’t know until the 23rd of this month, whether I’ve been granted press access or not. If I am, I will attend the festival; and if I’m not, well, I probably won’t.
And as I said with yesterday’s post, I’ll be going over the complete list, highlighting titles that need to be, taking into consideration this blog’s specific interests. The only title that immediately stands out is Brit John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses, which MsWOO positively reviewed, after seeing it at the London Film Festival in October. Read her review Here.
But look for future posts profiling any other titles I deem worthy. I’ve applied for press credentials to attend next year’s festival. I won’t know until the 23rd of this month, whether I’ve been granted press access or not. If I am, I will attend the festival; and if I’m not, well, I probably won’t.
- 12/2/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
It’s been a long time since a film has moved me in quite the way that John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses did. It wasn’t that happy, tingly, feel-good feeling you tend to get with some films that has you smiling as you leave the cinema and which you soon forget (the feeling and the actual film) once you’ve brushed the last remnants of popcorn off your clothes, but a deep, cloying, feeling that lingered, and lingers still.
At 53, Akomfrah is one of the pioneers of digital cinema in the UK and The Nine Muses is a film that is more feature length art installation than documentary or narrative fiction, and perhaps something that most might expect from a younger generation of Black British artist or filmmaker, such as Steve McQeeen.
A UK Film Council production in association with Smoking Dog Films, The Nine Muses is described as
“…a stylized,...
At 53, Akomfrah is one of the pioneers of digital cinema in the UK and The Nine Muses is a film that is more feature length art installation than documentary or narrative fiction, and perhaps something that most might expect from a younger generation of Black British artist or filmmaker, such as Steve McQeeen.
A UK Film Council production in association with Smoking Dog Films, The Nine Muses is described as
“…a stylized,...
- 10/10/2010
- by MsWOO
- ShadowAndAct
The pearls this year came not from Hollywood but countries and genres off the beaten track
Fact and fiction and the blurring between the two emerged as a central theme at the 67th Venice film festival. The biggest question here on the Lido – other than when the sun would shine on us again – hung over Joaquin Phoenix and the film I'm Still Here, directed by his brother-in-law Casey Affleck, chronicling Phoenix's attempts to become a rapper. I asked Casey, directly – was it a hoax? "There is no hoax," he replied, like a Us president.
But, to my eyes, the whole thing clearly has been and it's impressive how they kept us guessing – and caring – for so long. But I think it's now safe to say that, contrary to the brilliantly propagated rumours, Joaquin Phoenix did not quit acting to take up hip-hop. Rather he immersed himself fully in the role...
Fact and fiction and the blurring between the two emerged as a central theme at the 67th Venice film festival. The biggest question here on the Lido – other than when the sun would shine on us again – hung over Joaquin Phoenix and the film I'm Still Here, directed by his brother-in-law Casey Affleck, chronicling Phoenix's attempts to become a rapper. I asked Casey, directly – was it a hoax? "There is no hoax," he replied, like a Us president.
But, to my eyes, the whole thing clearly has been and it's impressive how they kept us guessing – and caring – for so long. But I think it's now safe to say that, contrary to the brilliantly propagated rumours, Joaquin Phoenix did not quit acting to take up hip-hop. Rather he immersed himself fully in the role...
- 9/11/2010
- by Jason Solomons
- The Guardian - Film News
The full line up for the 54th BFI London Film Festival was announced in the Odeon, Leicester Square this morning, with a number of highly anticipated films set to light up the capital this October.
The festival runs from the 13th to the 28th of October and will begin with Mark Romanek’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting masterpiece Never Let Me Go, and will close with Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours which stars James Franco.
Announcing the roster were Artistic Director Sandra Hebron and the Director of the British Film Institute, Amanda Nevill.
HeyUGuys will be all over the festival this year, it looks like it will be one to remember.
Click here to view the full calendar
The 54Th BFI London Film Festival Programme Launch
London, Wednesday 8 September: The programme for the 54th BFI London Film Festival, launched today by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron, showcases an array of...
The festival runs from the 13th to the 28th of October and will begin with Mark Romanek’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting masterpiece Never Let Me Go, and will close with Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours which stars James Franco.
Announcing the roster were Artistic Director Sandra Hebron and the Director of the British Film Institute, Amanda Nevill.
HeyUGuys will be all over the festival this year, it looks like it will be one to remember.
Click here to view the full calendar
The 54Th BFI London Film Festival Programme Launch
London, Wednesday 8 September: The programme for the 54th BFI London Film Festival, launched today by Artistic Director Sandra Hebron, showcases an array of...
- 9/8/2010
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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