Hedge Funds into Festivals: Future Frames — Generation Next of European Cinema at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023Can U.S. companies be viewing international film festivals in a new light that foretells a new source of financing for the festivals which are facing the same cutbacks as all other cultural initiatives as post-Covid inflation and arming big wars take the lion’s share of capital?
Sydney Levine
Published in
SydneysBuzz The Blog
·5 min read·4 days ago
Three important new players are eyeing ten emerging European film directors as they launch their careers in the film industry at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the 8th edition of Future Frames — Generation Next of European Cinema organized by the European Film Promotion and Kviff. The selected participants, chosen among film students and graduates, will showcase their films to the festival audience and engage in an intensive program that will introduce them to the film industry and media in a way that goes beyond the borders of Europe.
The final 10, chosen by Kviff’s artistic director Karel Och and his team of programmers follow a two-part schedule, starting with an online pre-program of pitching training and industry meetings. During the festival, Efp introduces the young directors and their films to the public, film industry and press. The three-day on-site event running from 2 July is rounded off by this year’s mentor, the acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska who will provide an exclusive private master class for the young filmmakers.
*** click here for more information about you might be selected ***
The new financing infusion comes from future-seeing U.S.- and U.K.-based bigtime cultural business for this year’s Future Frames program
A new partnership with leading multi-national lottery operator Allwyn as well as U.S.-based talent agency UTA and management company Range Media Partners will provide feedback and guidance to the filmmakers. One participant will ultimately be selected who will receive a special scholarship sponsored by Allwyn to go to Los Angeles and learn from the best in the film industry.
UTA’s partnership with the Karlovy Vary Film Festival may be explained in part by the agency’s partner Rena Ronson. The first woman to run an independent financing, packaging and sales department at an agency as sole head, she now co-heads UTA Independent Film Group. In reading her in-depth interview with Screen International, readers will learn what gives Rena her special international view of film, something sorely lacking in most U.S. major players.
U.S. based venture capital as invested in Range Media Partners is also aiming outward from the U.S. The largest startup in Hollywood’s talent representation sector in years, Rmp was launched in late summer 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Its founders and partners, two former agents from CAA, Peter Micelli and Jack Whigham, have an ambitious vision for the management, production and business development side of the industry. With financial backing coming former Wall Street hedge funder Steven A. Cohen’ who reached a $1.2 billion settlement of insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013, his private equity firm, Point72, has been a valued advisor but has no day-to-day role in running the agency. Their combined vision sees going beyond classic booking roles in TV shows and movies into the empire-building of business development and venture capital investments. Range Media now has nearly 150 staffers thanks to the financial backing from Point72 and it has expanded quickly through another partnership with A+E Networks that gives it a boost in content production and distribution.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska
In an exclusive master class entitled “How to make your first movie“, Agnieszka Smoczyńska will talk about her experiences and encourage the young directors to follow their ideas and go their own ways. Smoczyńska will present her highly-acclaimed first feature film, The Lure, a mixture of musical and horror film.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska debuted in 2015 with The Lure– genre-bending, horror-musical mashup which won awards around the world, at dozens of international festivals, including Sundance Film Festival Porto, Sofia, Montreal, Vilnius. The Lure is a part of the prestigious Criterion Collection and was theatrically released in US via Janus Film. Her second feature film Fugue premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week. In 2023, it was released in US theaters. In 2022, her English-language debut, The Silent Twins starring Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Smoczyńska took part in the European Cinema: Ten Women Filmmakers to Watch program. She was also a winner of the Global Filmmaking Award sponsored by the Sundance Institute. In 2022 she was among five directors to watch at Cannes Film Festival.
About Allwyn
Announced as a main partner of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in April 2023, Allwyn, a leading multi-national lottery operator, will support the Future Frames initiative for three years. As a main partner of Kviff, Allwyn will host the Allwyn Future Frames Lounge on site and bring the ten emerging European talents together with industry leaders, including overseas talent agency UTA and management company Range Media Partners.
“We look forward to welcoming all the talented directors to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival this year, selected as part of the Future Frames initiative. We are also very much looking forward to welcoming one of the ten directors on the newly established scholarship to Hollywood, introduced this year in partnership with UTA and Range Media. Changing lives is core to our mission and we are very pleased to be affording talented directors the opportunity to work with the very best in the film industry,” said Pavel Turek, Allwyn’s Chief Officer of Global Brand, Corporate Communication, and Csr.
This year’s group not only has experience in festivals, but the 10 also includes two award winners such as Germany’s Sophia Mocorrea who won the Short Film Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and received a Special Mention at this year’s Berlinale with her film The Kidnapping of the Bride in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section. The Netherlands’ Joris Tobé’s Frantic Attempts won the Knf Award for Best Graduation Project at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2022. Other films from this year’s Berlinale include The Shift by Denmark’s Amalie Maria Nielsen (Generation Kplus) and Spain’s Christian Avilés’ Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays(Berlinale Shorts). Heart Fruit by Kim Allamand celebrated its world premiere in the Pardi Di Domani section at the Locarno Film Festival last year.
For more details of the selected 10, click here.
Also chosen are Czech Republic’s Anna Izabela Wowra for Stuck Together, Italy’s Giulia Regini for Cut From the Same Cow, Lithuania’s Rinaldas Tomaševičius for 15, Portugal’s Inês Pedrosa e Melo for Home, Revised, Slovak Republic’s Monika Mahútová for Standing Still and Switzerland’s Kim Allamand for Heart Fruit.
MoviesInternational FilmFilm FestivalsWomen In FilmFilm Financing...
Sydney Levine
Published in
SydneysBuzz The Blog
·5 min read·4 days ago
Three important new players are eyeing ten emerging European film directors as they launch their careers in the film industry at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the 8th edition of Future Frames — Generation Next of European Cinema organized by the European Film Promotion and Kviff. The selected participants, chosen among film students and graduates, will showcase their films to the festival audience and engage in an intensive program that will introduce them to the film industry and media in a way that goes beyond the borders of Europe.
The final 10, chosen by Kviff’s artistic director Karel Och and his team of programmers follow a two-part schedule, starting with an online pre-program of pitching training and industry meetings. During the festival, Efp introduces the young directors and their films to the public, film industry and press. The three-day on-site event running from 2 July is rounded off by this year’s mentor, the acclaimed Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska who will provide an exclusive private master class for the young filmmakers.
*** click here for more information about you might be selected ***
The new financing infusion comes from future-seeing U.S.- and U.K.-based bigtime cultural business for this year’s Future Frames program
A new partnership with leading multi-national lottery operator Allwyn as well as U.S.-based talent agency UTA and management company Range Media Partners will provide feedback and guidance to the filmmakers. One participant will ultimately be selected who will receive a special scholarship sponsored by Allwyn to go to Los Angeles and learn from the best in the film industry.
UTA’s partnership with the Karlovy Vary Film Festival may be explained in part by the agency’s partner Rena Ronson. The first woman to run an independent financing, packaging and sales department at an agency as sole head, she now co-heads UTA Independent Film Group. In reading her in-depth interview with Screen International, readers will learn what gives Rena her special international view of film, something sorely lacking in most U.S. major players.
U.S. based venture capital as invested in Range Media Partners is also aiming outward from the U.S. The largest startup in Hollywood’s talent representation sector in years, Rmp was launched in late summer 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Its founders and partners, two former agents from CAA, Peter Micelli and Jack Whigham, have an ambitious vision for the management, production and business development side of the industry. With financial backing coming former Wall Street hedge funder Steven A. Cohen’ who reached a $1.2 billion settlement of insider trading charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013, his private equity firm, Point72, has been a valued advisor but has no day-to-day role in running the agency. Their combined vision sees going beyond classic booking roles in TV shows and movies into the empire-building of business development and venture capital investments. Range Media now has nearly 150 staffers thanks to the financial backing from Point72 and it has expanded quickly through another partnership with A+E Networks that gives it a boost in content production and distribution.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska
In an exclusive master class entitled “How to make your first movie“, Agnieszka Smoczyńska will talk about her experiences and encourage the young directors to follow their ideas and go their own ways. Smoczyńska will present her highly-acclaimed first feature film, The Lure, a mixture of musical and horror film.
Agnieszka Smoczyńska debuted in 2015 with The Lure– genre-bending, horror-musical mashup which won awards around the world, at dozens of international festivals, including Sundance Film Festival Porto, Sofia, Montreal, Vilnius. The Lure is a part of the prestigious Criterion Collection and was theatrically released in US via Janus Film. Her second feature film Fugue premiered at the Cannes Critics’ Week. In 2023, it was released in US theaters. In 2022, her English-language debut, The Silent Twins starring Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Smoczyńska took part in the European Cinema: Ten Women Filmmakers to Watch program. She was also a winner of the Global Filmmaking Award sponsored by the Sundance Institute. In 2022 she was among five directors to watch at Cannes Film Festival.
About Allwyn
Announced as a main partner of Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in April 2023, Allwyn, a leading multi-national lottery operator, will support the Future Frames initiative for three years. As a main partner of Kviff, Allwyn will host the Allwyn Future Frames Lounge on site and bring the ten emerging European talents together with industry leaders, including overseas talent agency UTA and management company Range Media Partners.
“We look forward to welcoming all the talented directors to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival this year, selected as part of the Future Frames initiative. We are also very much looking forward to welcoming one of the ten directors on the newly established scholarship to Hollywood, introduced this year in partnership with UTA and Range Media. Changing lives is core to our mission and we are very pleased to be affording talented directors the opportunity to work with the very best in the film industry,” said Pavel Turek, Allwyn’s Chief Officer of Global Brand, Corporate Communication, and Csr.
This year’s group not only has experience in festivals, but the 10 also includes two award winners such as Germany’s Sophia Mocorrea who won the Short Film Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival and received a Special Mention at this year’s Berlinale with her film The Kidnapping of the Bride in the Perspektive Deutsches Kino section. The Netherlands’ Joris Tobé’s Frantic Attempts won the Knf Award for Best Graduation Project at the Netherlands Film Festival in 2022. Other films from this year’s Berlinale include The Shift by Denmark’s Amalie Maria Nielsen (Generation Kplus) and Spain’s Christian Avilés’ Daydreaming So Vividly About Our Spanish Holidays(Berlinale Shorts). Heart Fruit by Kim Allamand celebrated its world premiere in the Pardi Di Domani section at the Locarno Film Festival last year.
For more details of the selected 10, click here.
Also chosen are Czech Republic’s Anna Izabela Wowra for Stuck Together, Italy’s Giulia Regini for Cut From the Same Cow, Lithuania’s Rinaldas Tomaševičius for 15, Portugal’s Inês Pedrosa e Melo for Home, Revised, Slovak Republic’s Monika Mahútová for Standing Still and Switzerland’s Kim Allamand for Heart Fruit.
MoviesInternational FilmFilm FestivalsWomen In FilmFilm Financing...
- 7/10/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Each month we choose a German film or series currently available to stream, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German film.
In honor of the upcoming Academy Awards, our film for March is Germany’s most recent Oscar nominee, Never Look Away, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Never Look Away follows thirty years in the life of artist Kurt Barnert (a character loosely based on Gerhard Richter). From a childhood witnessing Nazi Germany to life in post-war East Berlin.
Watch the trailer here.
The Kino! Film Salon will take place on Sunday, March 13th, at 11am — 12pm Pst, 2pm — 3pm Est, 8pm — 9pm Cet.
To join us, please RSVP at https://bit.ly/neverlookawaykinorsvp and the Zoom link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event. Please don’t share this link directly (but do encourage your friends to RSVP!); our capacity is limited and admission will be on a first-come-first-served basis.
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday, March 13th!
Best,
Telescope Film and the German Film Office
Host: Sydney Levine consults, interviews and writes about filmmakers and the film industry. She has taught international film business at universities including UCLA, Chapman, The New School of Social Research, and the University of Television and Film Munich, as well as at festivals including the Cannes Producers Workshop, and Berlinale Talents. She created FilmFinders, the film industry’s first database, which was acquired by IMDb. She currently lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. https://blogs.sydneysbuzz.com/
Kino! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film, in partnership with the German Film Office.
In honor of the upcoming Academy Awards, our film for March is Germany’s most recent Oscar nominee, Never Look Away, directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.
Never Look Away follows thirty years in the life of artist Kurt Barnert (a character loosely based on Gerhard Richter). From a childhood witnessing Nazi Germany to life in post-war East Berlin.
Watch the trailer here.
The Kino! Film Salon will take place on Sunday, March 13th, at 11am — 12pm Pst, 2pm — 3pm Est, 8pm — 9pm Cet.
To join us, please RSVP at https://bit.ly/neverlookawaykinorsvp and the Zoom link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event. Please don’t share this link directly (but do encourage your friends to RSVP!); our capacity is limited and admission will be on a first-come-first-served basis.
We look forward to seeing you on Sunday, March 13th!
Best,
Telescope Film and the German Film Office
Host: Sydney Levine consults, interviews and writes about filmmakers and the film industry. She has taught international film business at universities including UCLA, Chapman, The New School of Social Research, and the University of Television and Film Munich, as well as at festivals including the Cannes Producers Workshop, and Berlinale Talents. She created FilmFinders, the film industry’s first database, which was acquired by IMDb. She currently lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. https://blogs.sydneysbuzz.com/
Kino! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film, in partnership with the German Film Office.
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
03 March 2014 by Sydney Levine in SydneysBuzz
The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), Italy’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Inspirational and awe-inspiring are the words that come to mind first when I think about the great movie just out of Italy, The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) from acclaimed director Paolo Sorrentino ( Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place) with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello.
I could watch this film over and over again and still be inspired by the beauty of Rome and the depth of its flaneur, the hero of this film, journalist Jep Gambardella as played by the incomparable Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Il Divo). In fact, after interviewing Paolo Sorrentino recently at the Chateau Marmont, I feel compelled to watch it again in order to understand the ending’s reference to what might have been the subject of the original and only book Jeb ever wrote which was perhaps (according to Paolo) “about the love he had for the girl — and you can see that at the end of the movie”.
During my interview, I tried not to discuss how the film carries echoes of the classic works of Federico Fellini as Sorrentino had already gone on record stating that, “Roma and La Dolce Vita are works that you cannot pretend to ignore when you take on a film like the one I wanted to make. They are two masterpieces and the golden rule is that masterpieces should be watched but not imitated. I tried to stick to that. But it’s also true that masterpieces transform the way we feel and perceive things.”
A dazzling tour through modern day Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella gives us feelings for grandeur whose beauty can lead to death, to dangerous adventures leading nowhere and to a certain level of sadness. When his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The stripper daughter of his old friend and nightclub owner represents a simpler normality as does his housekeeper. Both are touchstones to a reality he has abandoned since becoming a permanent fixture in Rome’s literary and social circles after the legendary success of his one and only novel. Armed with a roguish charm, he has seduced his way through the city’s lavish night life for decades.
As an interviewer for popular press, his curiosity about everything is satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. He finds his yearning for simplicity is sparked when he rather cynically interviews a saintly nun and more importantly, he finds the seed for his next book in the simple, normal lives of ordinary people and in the fragility of those snobbish, superficial, gossiping “friends” with whom he has spent too much time weaving a uselessly complicated life of nothingness, living in a world which makes no sense.
There are many literary references in the film — Flaubert who wanted to write a book about nothing, Proust whose masterpiece “capitalizes on his own biography”, Celine whose opening line to his novel Journey to the End of the Night is also the film’s opening line.
This quote from Celine is a declaration of intent that I followed in turn in the film. It comes down to saying: there’s reality, but everything is invented too. Invention is necessary in cinema, just to attain the truth.
What is it about the Flaubert references?
Flaubert said he wanted to write a book about nothing. This gave him the right to write about the frivolous, gossip, nothing and it acquired a literary standing. Nothingness becomes life. It takes on a life of its own and life’s nothingness is its beauty.
Jeb is living it among awkward, weak people, even hateful people. This is life and all of it belongs to The Great Beauty. The immediacy of the beauty of Rome is obvious, but the subterranean part — like these horrible people around him, you realize they are are also so vulnerable and fragile and that gives them and him the redeeming grace of beauty. The communist writer is emblematic.
Are you an intellectual?
I don’t like to think that I am. I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.
What do you do in your free time?
I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind. I watch a lot of football. And I tend to my family. I have two children aged 10 and 16 who keep me very busy.
Do you find that the Italian character is theatrical?
In my hometown (Naples), the people are extraordinarily theatrical. Orson Welles himself, on seeing Neapolitan actor Eduardo de Felipo said that he was the greatest actor in the world.
Whatever you say about it, Italy has an extraordinary pool of actors of every sort. They are all very different, from many different backgrounds, but all with often under-exploited potential, all just waiting to find good characters.
Tony Servillo is also from Naples, like I am. He is an actor I can ask anything of, because he is capable of doing absolutely everything. I can now move forward with him with my eyes closed, not only as far as work goes, but also in terms of our friendship, a friendship which over time becomes more joyful, lighter yet deeper at the same time.
Tony Servillo is quoted as saying about Sorrentino:
We have something in common which we both cultivate, and that’s a taste for mystery. That has something to do with esteem, with a sense of irony and self-mockery, with certain similar sources of melancholy, and certain subjects or themes of reflection. These affinities are renewed each time we meet, as if it were the first time, without there being any need for a closer relationship between one film and the next. We meet and it’s as if we’ve never been apart. And that means there’s a deep friendship between us, and that’s what so great.
Thank you Paolo for this interview. I wish you all the luck in winning not only the Nomination but also the prize of the Academy Award.
I also want to draw the reader’s attention to the fabulous photography of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the music of Lele Marchitel, who juxtaposes original music with repertory music of sacred and profane, pop music reflecting the city itself and to the extraordinary pool of actors, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi and Galatea Ranzi, Massimo de Francovich, Roberto Herlitzka and Isabella Ferrari.
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called this visually spectacular film “an outlandishly entertaining hallucination”, and according to Variety’s Jay Weissberg it’s an “astonishing cinematic feast”.
This rapturous highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Competition was acquired for U.S. by Janus Films who will release it theatrically in N.Y. on November 15, L.A. on November 22, expanding to other cities on November 29, with a home video release from the Criterion Collection.
“We were swept away by this gorgeous, moving film at Cannes”, said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection and a partner in Janus Films. “Sorrentino is one of the most exciting directors working today, and Toni Servillo gives another majestic, multilayered performance.”
The deal to distribute Sorrentino’s film in the U.S. was struck with international distributor Pathé. “Janus has over the years become a valued partner in the promotion of Pathé’s heritage in the U.S. through its releases of our library titles, and we are, of course, thrilled to once again partner up with this company for the release of this film which represents the finest of Italian cinema today and at the same time pays a respectful homage to its nation’s cinematic past”, said Muriel Sauzay, Evp, International Sales.
For more information on the film visit Here
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was recently award the European Film Academy award for its editing by Cristiano Travaglioli. Since its Cannes debut, it has sold to Australia — Palace Films , Austria — Filmladen , Benelux — Abc — Cinemien , Brazil — Mares Filmes Ltda. , Canada — Mongrel Media, Métropole Films Distribution , Czech Republic — Film Europe, Denmark — Camera Film A/S , Estonia -Must Käsi, France — Canal + , Germany — Dcm , Greece — Feelgood Entertainment, Hong Kong (China) — Edko Films Ltd , Israel — United King Films, Italy — Medusa Distribuzione, Norway — As Fidalgo Film Distribution , Portugal — Lusomundo, Russia — A-One Films , Slovak Republic — Film Europe (Sk) , Switzerland — Pathe Films Ag , United Kingdom — Curzon Film World...
The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza), Italy’s Submission for the Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film
Inspirational and awe-inspiring are the words that come to mind first when I think about the great movie just out of Italy, The Great Beauty (La Grande Bellezza) from acclaimed director Paolo Sorrentino ( Il Divo, The Consequences of Love, This Must be the Place) with a screenplay by Sorrentino and Umberto Contarello.
I could watch this film over and over again and still be inspired by the beauty of Rome and the depth of its flaneur, the hero of this film, journalist Jep Gambardella as played by the incomparable Toni Servillo (Gomorrah, Il Divo). In fact, after interviewing Paolo Sorrentino recently at the Chateau Marmont, I feel compelled to watch it again in order to understand the ending’s reference to what might have been the subject of the original and only book Jeb ever wrote which was perhaps (according to Paolo) “about the love he had for the girl — and you can see that at the end of the movie”.
During my interview, I tried not to discuss how the film carries echoes of the classic works of Federico Fellini as Sorrentino had already gone on record stating that, “Roma and La Dolce Vita are works that you cannot pretend to ignore when you take on a film like the one I wanted to make. They are two masterpieces and the golden rule is that masterpieces should be watched but not imitated. I tried to stick to that. But it’s also true that masterpieces transform the way we feel and perceive things.”
A dazzling tour through modern day Rome through the eyes of Jep Gambardella gives us feelings for grandeur whose beauty can lead to death, to dangerous adventures leading nowhere and to a certain level of sadness. When his 65th birthday coincides with a shock from the past, Jep finds himself unexpectedly taking stock of his life, turning his cutting wit on himself and his contemporaries, and looking past the extravagant nightclubs, parties, and cafés to find Rome in all its glory: a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
The stripper daughter of his old friend and nightclub owner represents a simpler normality as does his housekeeper. Both are touchstones to a reality he has abandoned since becoming a permanent fixture in Rome’s literary and social circles after the legendary success of his one and only novel. Armed with a roguish charm, he has seduced his way through the city’s lavish night life for decades.
As an interviewer for popular press, his curiosity about everything is satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. He finds his yearning for simplicity is sparked when he rather cynically interviews a saintly nun and more importantly, he finds the seed for his next book in the simple, normal lives of ordinary people and in the fragility of those snobbish, superficial, gossiping “friends” with whom he has spent too much time weaving a uselessly complicated life of nothingness, living in a world which makes no sense.
There are many literary references in the film — Flaubert who wanted to write a book about nothing, Proust whose masterpiece “capitalizes on his own biography”, Celine whose opening line to his novel Journey to the End of the Night is also the film’s opening line.
This quote from Celine is a declaration of intent that I followed in turn in the film. It comes down to saying: there’s reality, but everything is invented too. Invention is necessary in cinema, just to attain the truth.
What is it about the Flaubert references?
Flaubert said he wanted to write a book about nothing. This gave him the right to write about the frivolous, gossip, nothing and it acquired a literary standing. Nothingness becomes life. It takes on a life of its own and life’s nothingness is its beauty.
Jeb is living it among awkward, weak people, even hateful people. This is life and all of it belongs to The Great Beauty. The immediacy of the beauty of Rome is obvious, but the subterranean part — like these horrible people around him, you realize they are are also so vulnerable and fragile and that gives them and him the redeeming grace of beauty. The communist writer is emblematic.
Are you an intellectual?
I don’t like to think that I am. I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.
What do you do in your free time?
I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind. I watch a lot of football. And I tend to my family. I have two children aged 10 and 16 who keep me very busy.
Do you find that the Italian character is theatrical?
In my hometown (Naples), the people are extraordinarily theatrical. Orson Welles himself, on seeing Neapolitan actor Eduardo de Felipo said that he was the greatest actor in the world.
Whatever you say about it, Italy has an extraordinary pool of actors of every sort. They are all very different, from many different backgrounds, but all with often under-exploited potential, all just waiting to find good characters.
Tony Servillo is also from Naples, like I am. He is an actor I can ask anything of, because he is capable of doing absolutely everything. I can now move forward with him with my eyes closed, not only as far as work goes, but also in terms of our friendship, a friendship which over time becomes more joyful, lighter yet deeper at the same time.
Tony Servillo is quoted as saying about Sorrentino:
We have something in common which we both cultivate, and that’s a taste for mystery. That has something to do with esteem, with a sense of irony and self-mockery, with certain similar sources of melancholy, and certain subjects or themes of reflection. These affinities are renewed each time we meet, as if it were the first time, without there being any need for a closer relationship between one film and the next. We meet and it’s as if we’ve never been apart. And that means there’s a deep friendship between us, and that’s what so great.
Thank you Paolo for this interview. I wish you all the luck in winning not only the Nomination but also the prize of the Academy Award.
I also want to draw the reader’s attention to the fabulous photography of cinematographer Luca Bigazzi and the music of Lele Marchitel, who juxtaposes original music with repertory music of sacred and profane, pop music reflecting the city itself and to the extraordinary pool of actors, Toni Servillo, Carlo Verdone, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Buccirosso, Iaia Forte, Pamela Villoresi and Galatea Ranzi, Massimo de Francovich, Roberto Herlitzka and Isabella Ferrari.
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times called this visually spectacular film “an outlandishly entertaining hallucination”, and according to Variety’s Jay Weissberg it’s an “astonishing cinematic feast”.
This rapturous highlight of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it played in Competition was acquired for U.S. by Janus Films who will release it theatrically in N.Y. on November 15, L.A. on November 22, expanding to other cities on November 29, with a home video release from the Criterion Collection.
“We were swept away by this gorgeous, moving film at Cannes”, said Peter Becker, president of the Criterion Collection and a partner in Janus Films. “Sorrentino is one of the most exciting directors working today, and Toni Servillo gives another majestic, multilayered performance.”
The deal to distribute Sorrentino’s film in the U.S. was struck with international distributor Pathé. “Janus has over the years become a valued partner in the promotion of Pathé’s heritage in the U.S. through its releases of our library titles, and we are, of course, thrilled to once again partner up with this company for the release of this film which represents the finest of Italian cinema today and at the same time pays a respectful homage to its nation’s cinematic past”, said Muriel Sauzay, Evp, International Sales.
For more information on the film visit Here
La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) also screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was recently award the European Film Academy award for its editing by Cristiano Travaglioli. Since its Cannes debut, it has sold to Australia — Palace Films , Austria — Filmladen , Benelux — Abc — Cinemien , Brazil — Mares Filmes Ltda. , Canada — Mongrel Media, Métropole Films Distribution , Czech Republic — Film Europe, Denmark — Camera Film A/S , Estonia -Must Käsi, France — Canal + , Germany — Dcm , Greece — Feelgood Entertainment, Hong Kong (China) — Edko Films Ltd , Israel — United King Films, Italy — Medusa Distribuzione, Norway — As Fidalgo Film Distribution , Portugal — Lusomundo, Russia — A-One Films , Slovak Republic — Film Europe (Sk) , Switzerland — Pathe Films Ag , United Kingdom — Curzon Film World...
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
‘Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery’(‘Beltracchi — Die Kunst der Fälschung’). Wolfgang Beltracchi got away with forging art masterpieces for over 40 years. He may be egotistical and nihilistic, but his genius in undeniable. He managed to fool gallery owners, historians and investors with the stroke of a brush. This documentary follows his last days as a free man.
Join us and our special guest Sunday, February 13, 11:00 am Pst! Director and producer Arne Birkenstock will attend our virtual conversation. There are a lot of topics to discuss and we will receive feedback on first hand. Kino! Film Salon is a monthly online discussion of a German film.
Please RSVP at https://bit.ly/kinorsvpbeltracchi and the Zoom link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event. Please don’t share this link directly (but do encourage your friends to RSVP!); our capacity is limited and admission will be on a first-come-first-served basis.
For nearly 40 years, Wolfgang Beltracchi fooled the international art world and was responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era. An expert in art history, theory and painting techniques, he tracked down the gaps in the oeuvres of great artists — Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Heinrich Campendonk, Andre Derain and Max Pechstein, above all — and filled them with his own works. He and his wife Helene would then introduce them to the art world as originals.
What makes these forgeries truly one-of-a-kind is that they are never mere copies of once-existing paintings, but products of Beltracchi’s imagination, works “in the style of” famous early 20th-century artists. With his forgeries, he fooled renowned experts, curators and art dealers. The auctioneers Sotheby’s and Christie’s were hoodwinked, just like Hollywood star Steve Martin and other collectors throughout the world.
Winner of Best Documentary at the German Film Awards.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Watch the trailer here.
1. We watched Run Lola Run and cheered for the protagonist, an enabler of her boyfriend drug dealer. Do you also cheer for Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi?
2. What made this caper so attractive to the audience?
3. Why do you think it won the German Prize for Best Documentary?
4. Why do you think they emphasized Max Ernst and his “genius” so much?
5. What do you think of Helene and their marriage? She mentions how they met and what she heard about his “profession” and we see their dynamic…what else do you think might or might not be mentioned about their marriage. He makes a comment about giving her a life of adventure.
6. Was this a victimless crime?
7. What do you think about Helene’s stating the dealers were happy to have art to sell
8. What do you think of the art dealer’s comment that his clients lost no money because they all benefitted from the forced sale of Beltracchi’s real estate.
9. Do you resonate with the thrill of lying and getting away with it?
10. Was their punishment commensurate with their crime?
11. What do you make of their current life?
12. This was Arne Birkentock’s third doc. He is now on his 13th. What do you think might have attracted Arne Birkenstock to make this doc?
1. 2021-Vienna Calling (Documentary) (producer) (post-production)
2. 2020 — The New Gospel (producer)
3. 2019 - Just Another Day in Paradise (Documentary) (co-producer)
4. 2019 — Sunset Over Mulholland Drive (Documentary) (producer)
5. 2018 — Dreamaway (Documentary) (co-producer)
6. 2018- Mamacita (Documentary) (producer)
7. 2018- Together Forever — Secrets of 50+ Years of Marriage (Documentary) (producer)
8. 2017 — Exodus (Documentary) (associate producer)
9. 2017- The Congo Tribunal (Documentary) (producer)
10. 2014 — Die Moskauer Prozesse (Documentary) (producer)
11. 2014- Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery (Documentary) (producer)
12. 2010 — Chandani: The Daughter of the Elephant Whisperer (Documentary) (producer)
13. 2005- 12 Tangos — Adios Buenos Aires (Documentary) (producer)
Kino! Film Salon. Each month we choose a German film or series currently available to stream, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German film.
Our film for February is Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, directed by Arne Birkenstock.
The Kino! Film Salon will take place on Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11am — 12pm Pst, 2pm — 3pm Est, 8pm — 9pm Cet.
Host: Sydney Levine consults, interviews and writes about filmmakers and the film industry. She has taught international film business at universities including UCLA, Chapman, The New School of Social Research, and the University of Television and Film Munich, as well as at festivals including the Cannes Producers Workshop, and Berlinale Talents. She created FilmFinders, the film industry’s first database, which was acquired by IMDb. She currently lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. https://blogs.sydneysbuzz.com/
Kino! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film in partnership with the German Film Office.
Genre Crime, Documentary, HistoryGermany, 20141h 33mDirector Arne BirkenstockStarring Wolfgang Beltracchi, Helene Beltracchi
Available on Kanopy, a free streaming service of U.S. public libraries:
Documentaries > Politics & Current Affairs
Documentaries > Art & Artists
Social Sciences > Law & Criminal Justice
The Arts > Visual Art
Social Sciences > Race & Class Studies
Documentaries...
Join us and our special guest Sunday, February 13, 11:00 am Pst! Director and producer Arne Birkenstock will attend our virtual conversation. There are a lot of topics to discuss and we will receive feedback on first hand. Kino! Film Salon is a monthly online discussion of a German film.
Please RSVP at https://bit.ly/kinorsvpbeltracchi and the Zoom link will be emailed to you 24 hours before the event. Please don’t share this link directly (but do encourage your friends to RSVP!); our capacity is limited and admission will be on a first-come-first-served basis.
For nearly 40 years, Wolfgang Beltracchi fooled the international art world and was responsible for the biggest art forgery scandal of the postwar era. An expert in art history, theory and painting techniques, he tracked down the gaps in the oeuvres of great artists — Max Ernst, Fernand Leger, Heinrich Campendonk, Andre Derain and Max Pechstein, above all — and filled them with his own works. He and his wife Helene would then introduce them to the art world as originals.
What makes these forgeries truly one-of-a-kind is that they are never mere copies of once-existing paintings, but products of Beltracchi’s imagination, works “in the style of” famous early 20th-century artists. With his forgeries, he fooled renowned experts, curators and art dealers. The auctioneers Sotheby’s and Christie’s were hoodwinked, just like Hollywood star Steve Martin and other collectors throughout the world.
Winner of Best Documentary at the German Film Awards.
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Watch the trailer here.
1. We watched Run Lola Run and cheered for the protagonist, an enabler of her boyfriend drug dealer. Do you also cheer for Wolfgang and Helene Beltracchi?
2. What made this caper so attractive to the audience?
3. Why do you think it won the German Prize for Best Documentary?
4. Why do you think they emphasized Max Ernst and his “genius” so much?
5. What do you think of Helene and their marriage? She mentions how they met and what she heard about his “profession” and we see their dynamic…what else do you think might or might not be mentioned about their marriage. He makes a comment about giving her a life of adventure.
6. Was this a victimless crime?
7. What do you think about Helene’s stating the dealers were happy to have art to sell
8. What do you think of the art dealer’s comment that his clients lost no money because they all benefitted from the forced sale of Beltracchi’s real estate.
9. Do you resonate with the thrill of lying and getting away with it?
10. Was their punishment commensurate with their crime?
11. What do you make of their current life?
12. This was Arne Birkentock’s third doc. He is now on his 13th. What do you think might have attracted Arne Birkenstock to make this doc?
1. 2021-Vienna Calling (Documentary) (producer) (post-production)
2. 2020 — The New Gospel (producer)
3. 2019 - Just Another Day in Paradise (Documentary) (co-producer)
4. 2019 — Sunset Over Mulholland Drive (Documentary) (producer)
5. 2018 — Dreamaway (Documentary) (co-producer)
6. 2018- Mamacita (Documentary) (producer)
7. 2018- Together Forever — Secrets of 50+ Years of Marriage (Documentary) (producer)
8. 2017 — Exodus (Documentary) (associate producer)
9. 2017- The Congo Tribunal (Documentary) (producer)
10. 2014 — Die Moskauer Prozesse (Documentary) (producer)
11. 2014- Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery (Documentary) (producer)
12. 2010 — Chandani: The Daughter of the Elephant Whisperer (Documentary) (producer)
13. 2005- 12 Tangos — Adios Buenos Aires (Documentary) (producer)
Kino! Film Salon. Each month we choose a German film or series currently available to stream, watch it independently, and come together for a hosted conversation with other fans of German film.
Our film for February is Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery, directed by Arne Birkenstock.
The Kino! Film Salon will take place on Sunday, February 13, 2022 at 11am — 12pm Pst, 2pm — 3pm Est, 8pm — 9pm Cet.
Host: Sydney Levine consults, interviews and writes about filmmakers and the film industry. She has taught international film business at universities including UCLA, Chapman, The New School of Social Research, and the University of Television and Film Munich, as well as at festivals including the Cannes Producers Workshop, and Berlinale Talents. She created FilmFinders, the film industry’s first database, which was acquired by IMDb. She currently lives in Berlin and Los Angeles. https://blogs.sydneysbuzz.com/
Kino! Film Salon is a production of Telescope Film in partnership with the German Film Office.
Genre Crime, Documentary, HistoryGermany, 20141h 33mDirector Arne BirkenstockStarring Wolfgang Beltracchi, Helene Beltracchi
Available on Kanopy, a free streaming service of U.S. public libraries:
Documentaries > Politics & Current Affairs
Documentaries > Art & Artists
Social Sciences > Law & Criminal Justice
The Arts > Visual Art
Social Sciences > Race & Class Studies
Documentaries...
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
- 2/5/2022
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
With panelists Anja Marquardt (The Girlfriend Experience Season 3, Villa Aurora Filmmaker-in-residence 2016), Nora Fingscheidt (System Crasher/German Oscar® Entry International Feature Film 2020, MFG Star 2020) and Julia von Heinz (And Tomorrow The Entire World /German Oscar® Entry International Feature Film 2021), Villa Aurora will host this panel to be moderated by Sydney Levine, International Consultant and Director of the Women in Cinema Conference of the Dhaka International Film Festival.
Continue reading on SydneysBuzz The Blog »...
Continue reading on SydneysBuzz The Blog »...
- 4/13/2021
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Fifth Annual Asian World Film Festival November 6–14, Announces Expanded Two Day Industry Forum Schedule and Content
by TV News Desk Oct. 28, 2019
The 2019 Awff Industry Forum schedule has been announced by Asian World Film Festival Director, Georges N. Chamchoum, and Rick Ambros, Awff Executive Board Member, who will moderate the panels. Experts from all areas of film including financing, streaming, development & production, legal and international co-production will be in attendance. Those who attend the Industry Forums will learn more about the current state of film on an international scale and what the future of the entertainment industry looks like from top industry insiders on panels at each of the forums.
James Farrell
Headlined by James Farrell, Head of International Originals at Amazon Studios, the global streaming panel will examine how the voracious appetite for online content is changing the dynamics of the entertainment business. The future of film finance will...
by TV News Desk Oct. 28, 2019
The 2019 Awff Industry Forum schedule has been announced by Asian World Film Festival Director, Georges N. Chamchoum, and Rick Ambros, Awff Executive Board Member, who will moderate the panels. Experts from all areas of film including financing, streaming, development & production, legal and international co-production will be in attendance. Those who attend the Industry Forums will learn more about the current state of film on an international scale and what the future of the entertainment industry looks like from top industry insiders on panels at each of the forums.
James Farrell
Headlined by James Farrell, Head of International Originals at Amazon Studios, the global streaming panel will examine how the voracious appetite for online content is changing the dynamics of the entertainment business. The future of film finance will...
- 11/5/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This Power Point Presentation gives actual links to events and organizations for filmmakers with a short film so that they can further their own careers and find distribution outlets for their shorts. It is unique, invaluable and affordable!
Sydney Levine has been in the international film business since 1975. In 1977, 20th Century Fox International hired her as the first woman in international distribution. She worked in shorts acquisitions and international distribution from 1978 to 1980, before moving to international feature film acquisitions for U.S. distribution until 1988. From 1988 to 2008 her own company, FilmFinders, tracked rights for film buyers of all indie feature films worldwide. In 2008 she sold her company and database to IMDb, an Amazon company.
She continues working with the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Corner, often giving the opening presentation, with the Kisakes Short Film Festival in Istanbul and to give presentations about shorts at various other world events.
This Power...
Sydney Levine has been in the international film business since 1975. In 1977, 20th Century Fox International hired her as the first woman in international distribution. She worked in shorts acquisitions and international distribution from 1978 to 1980, before moving to international feature film acquisitions for U.S. distribution until 1988. From 1988 to 2008 her own company, FilmFinders, tracked rights for film buyers of all indie feature films worldwide. In 2008 she sold her company and database to IMDb, an Amazon company.
She continues working with the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Corner, often giving the opening presentation, with the Kisakes Short Film Festival in Istanbul and to give presentations about shorts at various other world events.
This Power...
- 5/13/2019
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
By Sydney Levine & Peter BelsitoThe film follows Steve Bannon from when he left his Trump affiliation in summer 2017 to recent months.
Much gentler than the Erroll Morris’ picture American Dharma which nobody wanted to pick up for distribution because his insane brilliance is there for everyone to cringe upon seeing, this fly on the wall portrayal of Bannon sometimes is spread too thin with activities of a dangerous man constantly on the move and whose entire being is dedicated to pushing forward his vision.
Producer of The Brink, Marie Therese Guirgis, worked with Steve Bannon when he was head of the Us film distribution company Wellspring. They kept in touch and over many years and requests, she finally persuaded him to make this movie.
Review by Peter Belsito:
The director/ cinematographer, Alison Klayman, had seemingly free access to the man and his meetings.
I think a film about a character...
Much gentler than the Erroll Morris’ picture American Dharma which nobody wanted to pick up for distribution because his insane brilliance is there for everyone to cringe upon seeing, this fly on the wall portrayal of Bannon sometimes is spread too thin with activities of a dangerous man constantly on the move and whose entire being is dedicated to pushing forward his vision.
Producer of The Brink, Marie Therese Guirgis, worked with Steve Bannon when he was head of the Us film distribution company Wellspring. They kept in touch and over many years and requests, she finally persuaded him to make this movie.
Review by Peter Belsito:
The director/ cinematographer, Alison Klayman, had seemingly free access to the man and his meetings.
I think a film about a character...
- 3/22/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The 17th Dhaka International Film Festival’ (Diff) was held in Dhaka 10 to 18 January 2019 along with the 5th annual Conference of Women of Cinema. Words cannot begin to describe my second experience there. Next year I will attend again as the Director of the Women’s Conference as we move ahead with new ideas.
The Festival, organized by Rainbow Film Society, is dedicated to the promotion of a healthy cine culture in Bangladesh and to celebrating the global mainstream in film and its social relevance. It is also a great place to network with some fabulous up and coming Bengali talent and to meet professionals in the business from parts of the world you do not normally get to meet.
Ahmed Muztabla Zamal, Director of Diff
Casual conversations about about such topics as how Turkistan and Mongolia work together (or do not!)*, the different provinces of India and their filmmakers’ feelings of identity,...
The Festival, organized by Rainbow Film Society, is dedicated to the promotion of a healthy cine culture in Bangladesh and to celebrating the global mainstream in film and its social relevance. It is also a great place to network with some fabulous up and coming Bengali talent and to meet professionals in the business from parts of the world you do not normally get to meet.
Ahmed Muztabla Zamal, Director of Diff
Casual conversations about about such topics as how Turkistan and Mongolia work together (or do not!)*, the different provinces of India and their filmmakers’ feelings of identity,...
- 2/22/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Palm Springs International Film Festival: Michael Lerman, Artistic Director InterviewedI caught up with a very, very busy Michael Lerman today, Christmas Eve. Asked what at the moment was occupying his mind he said he was making sure the juries were in place and that the Q&A schedule was on track.
The ten-day Festival will screen 223 films from 78 countries, including 48 premieres from January 3–14, 2019.
The line-up includes a focus on cinema from France, India and Mexico, Premieres, Talking Pictures, Book to Screen, Special Presentations, Flos: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions, Gay!L.A., Local Spotlight, Modern Masters, True Stories, World Cinema Now, a 30-film retrospective of selections from past festivals (free screenings sponsored by Desert Care Network and National Endowment for the Arts), and more.
Sydney Levine: The Palm Springs Film Festival is often dubbed as “gays and grays”, is that your audience?
Michael Lerman: I have never heard that phrase before…...
The ten-day Festival will screen 223 films from 78 countries, including 48 premieres from January 3–14, 2019.
The line-up includes a focus on cinema from France, India and Mexico, Premieres, Talking Pictures, Book to Screen, Special Presentations, Flos: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions, Gay!L.A., Local Spotlight, Modern Masters, True Stories, World Cinema Now, a 30-film retrospective of selections from past festivals (free screenings sponsored by Desert Care Network and National Endowment for the Arts), and more.
Sydney Levine: The Palm Springs Film Festival is often dubbed as “gays and grays”, is that your audience?
Michael Lerman: I have never heard that phrase before…...
- 12/28/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Palm Springs International Ff 2019: ‘Waldheim Waltz’ directed by Ruth Beckermann‘The Waldheim Waltz’, a film about truth and lies or “alternative facts” shows exactly how a dishonest man can rise to power. This documentary by director Ruth Beckermann, one of contemporary Europe’s finest documentarians premiered in Berlin’s Forum section in 2018 where it won the Glashütte Original Documentary Award. Us Distribution by Menemsha marks it immediately as a film which will be watched in Us for many years to come.Ruth Beckermann. photo by Lukas Beck‘The Waldheim Waltz’, screening at this year’s Palm Springs Film Festival was released in New York on October 19 and in Los Angeles in November 19. The film has received 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. It was Austria’s submission for Academy Award consideration for Best Foreign Language Film and was also submitted for Best Doc Oscar nomination.By concealing two years of his wartime service,...
- 12/24/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Director Erik Poppe, Producer Stein B. Kvae, lead actress, Andrea Berntzen and a survivor of the Utoya massacre, attended the Golden Globe screening of “U-July 22” this week in Los Angeles.
When I watched ‘‘U-July 22’ at El Gouna Ff in October, I knew that Paul Greengrass’s film dealing with the same subject was receiving rave notices and I wanted to see the Norwegian version of the event.
Norwegian director Erik Poppe’s depiction of the 2011 terror attack on the Utøya island concentrates on the survivors’ stories, while Greengrass focuses on Anders Breivik, the right-wing gunman and his trial.
Testimonies and known facts
U — July 22 is written on the basis of testimonies and known facts, but for the sake of the victims and their relatives, characters and individual experiences are fictitious.
Most important for us at this moment is to ensure that those affected by the terror are given the opportunity...
When I watched ‘‘U-July 22’ at El Gouna Ff in October, I knew that Paul Greengrass’s film dealing with the same subject was receiving rave notices and I wanted to see the Norwegian version of the event.
Norwegian director Erik Poppe’s depiction of the 2011 terror attack on the Utøya island concentrates on the survivors’ stories, while Greengrass focuses on Anders Breivik, the right-wing gunman and his trial.
Testimonies and known facts
U — July 22 is written on the basis of testimonies and known facts, but for the sake of the victims and their relatives, characters and individual experiences are fictitious.
Most important for us at this moment is to ensure that those affected by the terror are given the opportunity...
- 11/13/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Tuesday 8 — Thursday 17 May 2018
Industry Workshops
Workshops and more
The Marché du Film is inaugurating a series of workshops specifically designed to bring participants together to share their experiences. From May 9–11, by taking an active part in the events participants will learn the ropes of film production, financing and distribution from film industry experts.
Three days. 11 workshops. Film industry experts will share their knowledge and tackle subjects ranging from Low Budget Filmmaking — presented by Katriel Schory on Friday May 11 — to Film Financing in an Entrepreunerial Age — by Paul Miller on Friday May 11. Full program available here.
Tours of the Market will take place with Sydney Levine (myself) three times for participants. The Marché du Film in partnership Stage 32 also offers Industry Workshops participants access to two webinars. Stage 32 has been recognized by Forbes magazine as the leading source for educating film industry professionals through their Next Level webinars, classes and labs.
Industry Workshops
Workshops and more
The Marché du Film is inaugurating a series of workshops specifically designed to bring participants together to share their experiences. From May 9–11, by taking an active part in the events participants will learn the ropes of film production, financing and distribution from film industry experts.
Three days. 11 workshops. Film industry experts will share their knowledge and tackle subjects ranging from Low Budget Filmmaking — presented by Katriel Schory on Friday May 11 — to Film Financing in an Entrepreunerial Age — by Paul Miller on Friday May 11. Full program available here.
Tours of the Market will take place with Sydney Levine (myself) three times for participants. The Marché du Film in partnership Stage 32 also offers Industry Workshops participants access to two webinars. Stage 32 has been recognized by Forbes magazine as the leading source for educating film industry professionals through their Next Level webinars, classes and labs.
- 4/25/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Purchase This Powerpoint Presentation HereThis Power Point Presentation gives actual links to events and organizations for filmmakers with a short film so that they can further their own careers and find distribution outlets for their shorts. It is unique, invaluable and affordable!
Sydney Levine has been in the international film business since 1975. In 1977, 20th Century Fox International hired her as the first woman in international distribution. She worked in shorts acquisitions and international distribution from 1978 to 1980, before moving to international feature film acquisitions for U.S. distribution until 1988. From 1988 to 2008 her own company, FilmFinders, tracked rights for film buyers of all indie feature films worldwide. In 2008 she sold her company and database to IMDb, an Amazon company.
She continues working with the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Corner, often giving the opening presentation, with the Kisakes Short Film Festival in Istanbul and to give presentations about shorts at various other world events.
Sydney Levine has been in the international film business since 1975. In 1977, 20th Century Fox International hired her as the first woman in international distribution. She worked in shorts acquisitions and international distribution from 1978 to 1980, before moving to international feature film acquisitions for U.S. distribution until 1988. From 1988 to 2008 her own company, FilmFinders, tracked rights for film buyers of all indie feature films worldwide. In 2008 she sold her company and database to IMDb, an Amazon company.
She continues working with the Cannes Film Festival’s Short Corner, often giving the opening presentation, with the Kisakes Short Film Festival in Istanbul and to give presentations about shorts at various other world events.
- 4/14/2018
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Dan was one of the most influential figures in the entire indie Art House Business. One of the Fathers both as an exhibitor and distributor. A true pioneer on so many levels.Dan TAlbot
On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 2:50 Pm, Gary Meyer wrote:
I just got word from Bill Thompson of the passing of Dan Talbot. A funeral is set for Sunday but no other details.It is a sad day for our community. As one of the icons and innovators of art cinema, Dan kept on going right up to the end.We enjoyed a dinner with Toby and Dan in late spring discussing the Koreada film they had just seen at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.This adds to the reasons why they were not renewing the lease on the theater.More details as they come in but if you did not read this Spring 2017 Cineaste article it is a good one.
On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 2:50 Pm, Gary Meyer wrote:
I just got word from Bill Thompson of the passing of Dan Talbot. A funeral is set for Sunday but no other details.It is a sad day for our community. As one of the icons and innovators of art cinema, Dan kept on going right up to the end.We enjoyed a dinner with Toby and Dan in late spring discussing the Koreada film they had just seen at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas.This adds to the reasons why they were not renewing the lease on the theater.More details as they come in but if you did not read this Spring 2017 Cineaste article it is a good one.
- 12/29/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
We saw Soderbergh’s new film today and it is a gem.
by Peter Belsito and Sydney Levine, editor
Supposedly he wrote, shot and directed Logan Lucky although the writing credit goes to Rebecca Blunt, that is conjectured to be a pseudonym.
Logan Lucky
The movie is a low key, understated, hilarious, heist film with many characters who are mostly working class (mean Southern here). The principals devise an incredibly complex heist scheme that is a joy to watch and so funny that they could actually pull it off.
These shrewd ‘hillbilly’ types (West Virginia) go after the concession stand dollars at a huge fan car racetrack event (Coca-Cola 600 Nascar race). These dollars are moved to an underground vault through a large system of air tubes (pneumatics) and our crew figures out how to intercept and take the money in a variety of extremely clever and hilarious maneuvers. Timing is...
by Peter Belsito and Sydney Levine, editor
Supposedly he wrote, shot and directed Logan Lucky although the writing credit goes to Rebecca Blunt, that is conjectured to be a pseudonym.
Logan Lucky
The movie is a low key, understated, hilarious, heist film with many characters who are mostly working class (mean Southern here). The principals devise an incredibly complex heist scheme that is a joy to watch and so funny that they could actually pull it off.
These shrewd ‘hillbilly’ types (West Virginia) go after the concession stand dollars at a huge fan car racetrack event (Coca-Cola 600 Nascar race). These dollars are moved to an underground vault through a large system of air tubes (pneumatics) and our crew figures out how to intercept and take the money in a variety of extremely clever and hilarious maneuvers. Timing is...
- 8/21/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
While in Cannes this year, at the Dutch Reception, I sat next to a young Asian woman and a new friend from India I had just met while in Tehran at the Fajr Film Festival. We three all shared the experience of inventing databases which were beyond IMDb’s purvue and were fulfilling an unmet need of the growing industry.
Networking at its finest took place as I introduced the two women to each other and was able to find some important financial backing for one out of the Middle East.
Ellis Driessen of Dutch Film Fund, Weerada Sucharitkul CEO Founder Filmdoo, Sydney Levine, Monica Wahl of Saccf
Monica Wahl’s Southasian Children’s Cinema Forum (Saccf) has spawned Kidsfilmnet, a user-generated online database of children’s films, professionals, activities and events created by and for all those interested in making, screening and viewing of children’s films in Southasia.
Networking at its finest took place as I introduced the two women to each other and was able to find some important financial backing for one out of the Middle East.
Ellis Driessen of Dutch Film Fund, Weerada Sucharitkul CEO Founder Filmdoo, Sydney Levine, Monica Wahl of Saccf
Monica Wahl’s Southasian Children’s Cinema Forum (Saccf) has spawned Kidsfilmnet, a user-generated online database of children’s films, professionals, activities and events created by and for all those interested in making, screening and viewing of children’s films in Southasia.
- 7/27/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Opening in L.A. and other cities June 16, “Stefan Zweig: Farewell to Europe” is a stylishly accomplished and intellectually well thought out character study of a man who was the most popular author in the world in the 1920s and 1930s and who, today, is nearly forgotten. Told through six windows of 20 minutes each, this unique storytelling technique gives the film an immediacy as each part of Stefan Zweig’s life plays out in real time.
Stefan Zweig’s books have been made into 23 movies around the world, including his novel, Letter from an Unknown Woman, which was adapted to the screen in 1948 by Max Ophüls and starred Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdain. His writings have also inspired Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel”.
Having just read his memoir, The World of Yesterday and having been on my own private search for what it means to have to leave your...
Stefan Zweig’s books have been made into 23 movies around the world, including his novel, Letter from an Unknown Woman, which was adapted to the screen in 1948 by Max Ophüls and starred Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdain. His writings have also inspired Wes Anderson’s “Grand Budapest Hotel”.
Having just read his memoir, The World of Yesterday and having been on my own private search for what it means to have to leave your...
- 6/14/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
By Peter Belsito and Sydney Levine
Invited by the local Film Commission in Cagliari, we got an eye popping tour of this busy ever interesting society. For an island just a bit smaller than Sicily, it has a surprisingly vibrant sense of cinema with several types of film and literary festivals around the island.
The Film4Climate Film Festival, a global initiative of the World Bank’s Connect4Climate, is creating a global network to advance environmental sustainability, the inclusion of social messages in film and creative visual storytelling and green filmmaking. Its shorts have created awareness around the world and is bringing Sardinia into the world’s consciousness as it chooses green film and general ecological sustainability as its modus operandi .
Alghero by Peter Adama
Due to the great variety of landscapes, neighborhoods, ancient ruins and differing villages literally hundreds of films are shot here yearly by international crews.
Invited by the local Film Commission in Cagliari, we got an eye popping tour of this busy ever interesting society. For an island just a bit smaller than Sicily, it has a surprisingly vibrant sense of cinema with several types of film and literary festivals around the island.
The Film4Climate Film Festival, a global initiative of the World Bank’s Connect4Climate, is creating a global network to advance environmental sustainability, the inclusion of social messages in film and creative visual storytelling and green filmmaking. Its shorts have created awareness around the world and is bringing Sardinia into the world’s consciousness as it chooses green film and general ecological sustainability as its modus operandi .
Alghero by Peter Adama
Due to the great variety of landscapes, neighborhoods, ancient ruins and differing villages literally hundreds of films are shot here yearly by international crews.
- 6/12/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Arab Cinema Center is launching the Critics Awards to promote and support Arab cinema internationally. The winners will be for Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Actor.
The 26 member jury includes prominent Arab and foreign critics from 15 countries from around the world. Egyptian film critic Ahmed Shawky is serving as manager of the Critics Awards.
Film analyst Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Mad Solutions, the company in charge of organizing the Arab Cinema Center’s events and also the first Pan Arab independent distributor and PR company of Arabic content to and from the Arab world, said: “The Critics Awards marks a first-time initiative that encompasses film critics from all over the world dedicated to Arab films within the strategy of Arab Cinema Center to add initiatives and events to every large-scale international film festival around the world.”
He added: “This is the first new addition...
The 26 member jury includes prominent Arab and foreign critics from 15 countries from around the world. Egyptian film critic Ahmed Shawky is serving as manager of the Critics Awards.
Film analyst Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Mad Solutions, the company in charge of organizing the Arab Cinema Center’s events and also the first Pan Arab independent distributor and PR company of Arabic content to and from the Arab world, said: “The Critics Awards marks a first-time initiative that encompasses film critics from all over the world dedicated to Arab films within the strategy of Arab Cinema Center to add initiatives and events to every large-scale international film festival around the world.”
He added: “This is the first new addition...
- 4/16/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
A 25-strong jury of critics will present five prizes to Arabic feature films that have played at international festivals.
The Arab Cinema Center (Acc) will launch the inaugural edition of the annual Arab Critics Awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May.
Comprising of 25 film critics from 15 countries, the jury will crown the best Arab film productions in the following categories: best film, best director, best writer, best actress, and best actor.
The nominations for the awards will be selected according to the following criteria:
The films premiered in international film festivals outside of the Arab world during 2016At least one of the production companies must be Arab, regardless of its method or percentage of participation in the filmThe films must be feature-length films, fiction or documentary
Egyptian film critic Ahmed Shawky has been appointed as manager of the inaugural awards and its ceremony.
Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Mad Solutions (which organises the Arab Cinema...
The Arab Cinema Center (Acc) will launch the inaugural edition of the annual Arab Critics Awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May.
Comprising of 25 film critics from 15 countries, the jury will crown the best Arab film productions in the following categories: best film, best director, best writer, best actress, and best actor.
The nominations for the awards will be selected according to the following criteria:
The films premiered in international film festivals outside of the Arab world during 2016At least one of the production companies must be Arab, regardless of its method or percentage of participation in the filmThe films must be feature-length films, fiction or documentary
Egyptian film critic Ahmed Shawky has been appointed as manager of the inaugural awards and its ceremony.
Alaa Karkouti, CEO of Mad Solutions (which organises the Arab Cinema...
- 1/31/2017
- by tom.grater@screendaily.com (Tom Grater)
- ScreenDaily
Congratulations to “Jackson The Film” for winning this year’s Cicae — Art Cinema Award! The 3-member jury, which was made up of Oscar®-winning screenwriter and producer Diana Ossana (“Brokeback Mountain”), Urszula Śniegowska, Artistic Director of the American Film Festival in Wroclaw Poland and Sydney Levine, industry blogger (SydneysBuzz), chose Maisie Crow’s “Jackson”, stating that “Jackson is an essential film and one that presents a riveting microcosm in the universal battle for women’s rights everywhere.”
“Jackson”
This film is so important. Our bodies belong to us, not to the State of Mississippi or to the Federal Government or to the Nation of Poland or whatever governing body makes abortion a crime! The Loft Film Festival has awarded the Cicae Prize so that this organization of international arthouse theaters will show this important film!
Congrats to The Rebound for taking home this year’s Audience Choice Award! This is...
“Jackson”
This film is so important. Our bodies belong to us, not to the State of Mississippi or to the Federal Government or to the Nation of Poland or whatever governing body makes abortion a crime! The Loft Film Festival has awarded the Cicae Prize so that this organization of international arthouse theaters will show this important film!
Congrats to The Rebound for taking home this year’s Audience Choice Award! This is...
- 11/16/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Congrats to “The Rebound” for taking home this year’s Audience Choice Award!
“The Rebound”
Congratulations to “Jackson The Film” for winning this year’s Cicae — Art Cinema Award! The 3-member jury, which was made up of Oscar®-winning screenwriter and producer Diana Ossana (“Brokeback Mountain”), Urszula Śniegowska, Artistic Director of the American Film Festival in Wroclaw Poland and Sydney Levine, industry blogger (SydneysBuzz), chose Maisie Crow’s “Jackson”, stating that “Jackson is an essential film and one that presents a riveting microcosm in the universal battle for women’s rights everywhere.”
The Loft Film Fest was originally published in SydneysBuzz The Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
“The Rebound”
Congratulations to “Jackson The Film” for winning this year’s Cicae — Art Cinema Award! The 3-member jury, which was made up of Oscar®-winning screenwriter and producer Diana Ossana (“Brokeback Mountain”), Urszula Śniegowska, Artistic Director of the American Film Festival in Wroclaw Poland and Sydney Levine, industry blogger (SydneysBuzz), chose Maisie Crow’s “Jackson”, stating that “Jackson is an essential film and one that presents a riveting microcosm in the universal battle for women’s rights everywhere.”
The Loft Film Fest was originally published in SydneysBuzz The Blog on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
- 11/16/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
On Wednesday, November 9 to Sunday, November 13, the Loft Cinema presents the seventh annual Loft Film Fest, featuring appearances by an amazing array of acclaimed filmmakers and a stellar program of world, North American, Southwest and Arizona premieres selected from prestigious festivals around the globe, including Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and more.
Playing at this well-known, though rather out-of-the-way film festival in Tucson, Arizona are exciting new films starring such big screen favorites as Gael Garcia Bernal in “Neruda”, the possible Oscar Winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Catherine Deneuve in “The Brand New Testament” one of the funniest and most original stories I have ever seen; Michael Fassbender in “Trespass Against Us”, Adam Smith’s gangster film, so far unknown in the U.S., — except that whatever Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German actor, is in is always astounding.
Catherine Deneuve in “The Brand New Testament”
Opening night features the North...
Playing at this well-known, though rather out-of-the-way film festival in Tucson, Arizona are exciting new films starring such big screen favorites as Gael Garcia Bernal in “Neruda”, the possible Oscar Winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Catherine Deneuve in “The Brand New Testament” one of the funniest and most original stories I have ever seen; Michael Fassbender in “Trespass Against Us”, Adam Smith’s gangster film, so far unknown in the U.S., — except that whatever Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German actor, is in is always astounding.
Catherine Deneuve in “The Brand New Testament”
Opening night features the North...
- 11/2/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Wednesday, November 9 — Sunday, November 13Presented by Desert Diamond Casinos & Entertainment
This November, The Loft Cinema presents the seventh annual Loft Film Fest, featuring appearances by an amazing array of acclaimed filmmakers and a stellar program of world, North American, Southwest and Arizona premieres selected from prestigious festivals around the globe, including Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and more!
Playing at this well-known, though rather out-of-the-way film festival in Tucson, Arizona are exciting new films starring such big screen favorites as Gael Garcia Bernal in “Neruda”, the possible Oscar Winner for Best Foreign Language Film), Catherine Deneuve in “Brand New Testament” one of the funniest and most original stories I have ever seen; Michael Fassbender in “Trespass Against Us”, a complete unknown except that whatever Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German actor, is in is always astounding, John Malkovich, another great actor, too rarely seen, in “Dominion” about the last days of the...
This November, The Loft Cinema presents the seventh annual Loft Film Fest, featuring appearances by an amazing array of acclaimed filmmakers and a stellar program of world, North American, Southwest and Arizona premieres selected from prestigious festivals around the globe, including Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, Venice and more!
Playing at this well-known, though rather out-of-the-way film festival in Tucson, Arizona are exciting new films starring such big screen favorites as Gael Garcia Bernal in “Neruda”, the possible Oscar Winner for Best Foreign Language Film), Catherine Deneuve in “Brand New Testament” one of the funniest and most original stories I have ever seen; Michael Fassbender in “Trespass Against Us”, a complete unknown except that whatever Michael Fassbender, the Irish-German actor, is in is always astounding, John Malkovich, another great actor, too rarely seen, in “Dominion” about the last days of the...
- 11/1/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
2nd Annual Asian World Film Festival Opens in Culver City October 24: Best of Asian World CinemaExecutive Director, Georges N. Chamchoum
This is the first festival of its kind to play in the United States, giving audiences the unique opportunity to see films from Japan and Turkey and everywhere in-between. The festival is held at the height of the awards season to give these Asian filmmakers maximum exposure. The festival’s Executive Director, Georges N. Chamchoum is announcing films from 51 countries which are eligible. Greater recognition to the region’s wealth of filmmakers will strengthen ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries.
All films selected by their countries as Oscar® or Golden Globes® contenders are automatically invited. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizes these showings as the required official screenings for their members who vote on the Golden Globes®. At last year’s inaugural event some 30 films from 27 countries participated.
This is the first festival of its kind to play in the United States, giving audiences the unique opportunity to see films from Japan and Turkey and everywhere in-between. The festival is held at the height of the awards season to give these Asian filmmakers maximum exposure. The festival’s Executive Director, Georges N. Chamchoum is announcing films from 51 countries which are eligible. Greater recognition to the region’s wealth of filmmakers will strengthen ties between the Asian and Hollywood film industries.
All films selected by their countries as Oscar® or Golden Globes® contenders are automatically invited. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizes these showings as the required official screenings for their members who vote on the Golden Globes®. At last year’s inaugural event some 30 films from 27 countries participated.
- 10/18/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This report will inform you and back you up as you make the important decisions your job demands. Armed with information and links on all the current U.S. distributors and their most recent acquisitions, you can judge where and with whom your film belongs and what you should be acquiring, thus gaining the edge over the competition who is either scatter shooting or relying on word of mouth.
Know what U.S. distributors are acquiring, what projects are in play and what companies are in the mix. This report is useful not only for producers looking for U.S. distribution but for distributors and international sales agents in the U.S. or any of the other 60 international territories worldwide.
This report listing U.S. distributors gives the most recent pickups for North America or the U.S. from January through September 2016. The report includes links by title to Cinando...
Know what U.S. distributors are acquiring, what projects are in play and what companies are in the mix. This report is useful not only for producers looking for U.S. distribution but for distributors and international sales agents in the U.S. or any of the other 60 international territories worldwide.
This report listing U.S. distributors gives the most recent pickups for North America or the U.S. from January through September 2016. The report includes links by title to Cinando...
- 10/11/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Winners of Trinidad + Tobago Film Festival 2016
“Before The Rooster Crows” (“Antes que cante el gallo”) (trailer here) of Puerto Rico won top prize for Best Feature Narrative, and “The Cutlass” from Trinidad + Tobago won People’s Choice Award for Best Feature Narrative. Port of Spain, Trinidad was the place where the ttff awards prizes were granted Tuesday 27 September.
Watch the ttff trailer here.
People’S Choice Awards
TT$5,000 each / Sponsored by Flow
Best Feature Film — Narrative: “The Cutlass” — Darisha Beresford
Best Feature Film–Documentary: “Landfill Harmonic” — Brad Allgood + Graham Townsley...
“Before The Rooster Crows” (“Antes que cante el gallo”) (trailer here) of Puerto Rico won top prize for Best Feature Narrative, and “The Cutlass” from Trinidad + Tobago won People’s Choice Award for Best Feature Narrative. Port of Spain, Trinidad was the place where the ttff awards prizes were granted Tuesday 27 September.
Watch the ttff trailer here.
People’S Choice Awards
TT$5,000 each / Sponsored by Flow
Best Feature Film — Narrative: “The Cutlass” — Darisha Beresford
Best Feature Film–Documentary: “Landfill Harmonic” — Brad Allgood + Graham Townsley...
- 9/28/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
“About three years ago, a 20-year-old boy was murdered in Santiago because he was gay. He was tortured for hours: his legs broken, a swastika carved on his stomach using shattered bottles, a piece of his ear torn out. By coincidence, that young boy was a fan of my work as a musician and I knew who he was because we’d spoken a couple of times. I met his family and they urged me to continue “speaking on behalf of boys like him”, not usually represented in the media or even art: in short, a gay and poor kid.”
This is what motivated Alex Anwandter, a widely acclaimed Chilean musician to make “You’ll Never Be Alone”/ “Nunca vas a estar solo”. However, he adds,
“This story, however, shifts its focus onto the father of the boy. This is my way of saying: it was not one boy, it’s many boys and girls, and women and men. And the life we should examine more carefully is not the boys’, it’s the rest of us. We who allow this to repeat over and over.”
Born in Santiago, Chile in 1983 Alex’s career as a musician started in 2005 to immediate and widespread acclaim in Chile and South America. His first four albums were released to critical and commercial recognition and subsequent touring the U.S., Europe and Latin America, becoming one of Chile's most renowned artists.
Growing up as a big cinephile, Alex Anwandter took to directing music videos for his own projects and other artists in 2005.
Named by Time Magazine as an artist “poised for U.S. stardom”, his music
and videos have been featured everywhere from Billboard to Vice Magazine and MTV, with NPR celebrating his video for “Cómo puedes vivir contigo mismo?”, an homage to “Paris is Burning”, for its courageous message of equality and non-discrimination.
In 2012 Alex Anwandter started preparing a new phase in his career.
Moved by the murder of young Daniel Zamudio, a gay boy murdered in a hate-crime in Santiago and fan of his work, Anwandter wrote his first script “You’ll Never Be Alone”. The film won both Sanfic’s and FICGuadalajara Work in Progress sections in 2015. In 2016 at its World Premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama it won the Teddy Award’s Special Jury Prize and went on to win Ficg’s Premio Maguey, its top Lgbt Award.
In Guadalajara I caught up with the producer, Isabel Orellana Guarello of Araucaria Cine and asked her the following questions:
Sydney Levine: How did you finance “You’ll Never Be Alone”?
Isabel Orellana Guarello: We financed the shooting with private investment and sponsorship provided by the Recoleta Municipality of Santiago and the association with the film school of University of Development ( Escuela de Cine Udd) and Ortega Maniques.
After the shooting we obtained help from the Postproduction Fund supported by Council for the Arts & Culture of Chile (Cnca).There was also an important amount of investment provided by 5Am Producciones & Araucaria Cine, the companies that produced the film.
Sl: Did you participate in pre-markets, workshops, etc.?
Iog: The film participated in two competitions of work in progress, one in Sanfic October 2014, just 2 months after we wrapped the shooting, and which we won. And after that the film participated at Films in Progress at FICGuadalajara,where we won two prizes provided by Retina HD and Red Melissa.
Also the project participated at Sanfic Net and Industry Days of Locarno Film Festival both in 2014 and 2015 as part of the catalogue of projects of Araucaria Cine.
Sl: How did you choose your actors?
Iog: For the main character of Juan we directly contacted Sergio Hernandez, whom we loved from previous collaborations with Raul Ruiz and Sebastián Lelio.
It happened in the same way with other cast members such as Edgardo Bruna (the boss of Juan), Antonia Zegers (the doctor) Camila Hirane (the bank executive).
For the young cast we did an open call organized by Ivan Parra Reinoso, We searched in several acting schools and finally reached out to Andrew Bargsted (Pablo) and her real-life best friend Astrid Roldan (Mari). Both had an amazing chemistry between them.
In the open casting call we also found Jaime Leiva (Felix, Pablo's lover) and Benjamín Westfall (Martin, the leader of the Nazi gang).
All together, they created an amazing casting of which we're very proud.
Sl: How did the producers come on board, and particularly Daniel Dreifuss (my friend)?
Iog: I met Daniel Dreifuss at Sanfic Net in 2014. I pitched the project to him since I felt he could connect with this story and he definitely did. Then he finally came on board as Executive Producer of the film in 2015.
Sl: Does the film have Chilean distribution and if so what is the plan?
Iog: The film has already secured Chilean distribution and we're expecting soon to have the specific release dates. The film is gaining a lot of attention back in Chile and audiences are waiting for it after its success at the Berlinale and Guadalajara.
Does it have an international sales agent?
Iog: Yes, the international sales are handled by Wide Management, a French company. We actually met them at Films in Progress 2014!
Sl: How did you come to this project?
Iog: I came on board in February 2014, after meeting Alex through a common friend.
When I read the script - that he'd been working for 2 years already- I was profoundly moved by it. We started working right away. The shooting was in July 2014, so everything was pretty fast.
Sl: Does this depict Chile today?
Iog: Unfortunately yes. Just the same day we received the Teddy Jury Award at Berlinale, a Chilean transgender boy was shot and killed in San Bernardo, Santiago. His name was Marcelo Lepe.
These homophobic killings will continue to occur if there is not deeper reflection about our society and our actions. That's why we made “You'll Never Be Alone”.
Sl: Will this film go toward changing the situation?
Iog: We hope so. We still believe that cinema can make strong change of hearts and minds. So we're eager to show the film in Chile and also Latin America, and hopefully open some debates around the issues of homophobia and social injustice depicted in the film.
We also have a plan with the Municipality of Recoleta to show the film at high schools inside their Sexual Diversity Program, when we complete our commercial release.
It's very important to us that the film is discussed inside Chile and we're making all our best efforts for that to happen.
Sl: What are your current and next projects?
Iog: The director Alex Anwandter is currently releasing his new album "Amiga" in April. So new music videos and songs are coming up from him.
About me as producer, Araucaria Cine is currently producing a feature documentary with director Roberto Collio (“White Death”) and Rodrigo Robledo, named “Petit Frère” which will compete at Focus Chile in Visions du Reel 2016. Also I'm developing a feature doc with Maria Jesus Valenzuela, “Interna." Both projects were funded by the Council of the Arts & Culture and Corfo Chile.
This is what motivated Alex Anwandter, a widely acclaimed Chilean musician to make “You’ll Never Be Alone”/ “Nunca vas a estar solo”. However, he adds,
“This story, however, shifts its focus onto the father of the boy. This is my way of saying: it was not one boy, it’s many boys and girls, and women and men. And the life we should examine more carefully is not the boys’, it’s the rest of us. We who allow this to repeat over and over.”
Born in Santiago, Chile in 1983 Alex’s career as a musician started in 2005 to immediate and widespread acclaim in Chile and South America. His first four albums were released to critical and commercial recognition and subsequent touring the U.S., Europe and Latin America, becoming one of Chile's most renowned artists.
Growing up as a big cinephile, Alex Anwandter took to directing music videos for his own projects and other artists in 2005.
Named by Time Magazine as an artist “poised for U.S. stardom”, his music
and videos have been featured everywhere from Billboard to Vice Magazine and MTV, with NPR celebrating his video for “Cómo puedes vivir contigo mismo?”, an homage to “Paris is Burning”, for its courageous message of equality and non-discrimination.
In 2012 Alex Anwandter started preparing a new phase in his career.
Moved by the murder of young Daniel Zamudio, a gay boy murdered in a hate-crime in Santiago and fan of his work, Anwandter wrote his first script “You’ll Never Be Alone”. The film won both Sanfic’s and FICGuadalajara Work in Progress sections in 2015. In 2016 at its World Premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama it won the Teddy Award’s Special Jury Prize and went on to win Ficg’s Premio Maguey, its top Lgbt Award.
In Guadalajara I caught up with the producer, Isabel Orellana Guarello of Araucaria Cine and asked her the following questions:
Sydney Levine: How did you finance “You’ll Never Be Alone”?
Isabel Orellana Guarello: We financed the shooting with private investment and sponsorship provided by the Recoleta Municipality of Santiago and the association with the film school of University of Development ( Escuela de Cine Udd) and Ortega Maniques.
After the shooting we obtained help from the Postproduction Fund supported by Council for the Arts & Culture of Chile (Cnca).There was also an important amount of investment provided by 5Am Producciones & Araucaria Cine, the companies that produced the film.
Sl: Did you participate in pre-markets, workshops, etc.?
Iog: The film participated in two competitions of work in progress, one in Sanfic October 2014, just 2 months after we wrapped the shooting, and which we won. And after that the film participated at Films in Progress at FICGuadalajara,where we won two prizes provided by Retina HD and Red Melissa.
Also the project participated at Sanfic Net and Industry Days of Locarno Film Festival both in 2014 and 2015 as part of the catalogue of projects of Araucaria Cine.
Sl: How did you choose your actors?
Iog: For the main character of Juan we directly contacted Sergio Hernandez, whom we loved from previous collaborations with Raul Ruiz and Sebastián Lelio.
It happened in the same way with other cast members such as Edgardo Bruna (the boss of Juan), Antonia Zegers (the doctor) Camila Hirane (the bank executive).
For the young cast we did an open call organized by Ivan Parra Reinoso, We searched in several acting schools and finally reached out to Andrew Bargsted (Pablo) and her real-life best friend Astrid Roldan (Mari). Both had an amazing chemistry between them.
In the open casting call we also found Jaime Leiva (Felix, Pablo's lover) and Benjamín Westfall (Martin, the leader of the Nazi gang).
All together, they created an amazing casting of which we're very proud.
Sl: How did the producers come on board, and particularly Daniel Dreifuss (my friend)?
Iog: I met Daniel Dreifuss at Sanfic Net in 2014. I pitched the project to him since I felt he could connect with this story and he definitely did. Then he finally came on board as Executive Producer of the film in 2015.
Sl: Does the film have Chilean distribution and if so what is the plan?
Iog: The film has already secured Chilean distribution and we're expecting soon to have the specific release dates. The film is gaining a lot of attention back in Chile and audiences are waiting for it after its success at the Berlinale and Guadalajara.
Does it have an international sales agent?
Iog: Yes, the international sales are handled by Wide Management, a French company. We actually met them at Films in Progress 2014!
Sl: How did you come to this project?
Iog: I came on board in February 2014, after meeting Alex through a common friend.
When I read the script - that he'd been working for 2 years already- I was profoundly moved by it. We started working right away. The shooting was in July 2014, so everything was pretty fast.
Sl: Does this depict Chile today?
Iog: Unfortunately yes. Just the same day we received the Teddy Jury Award at Berlinale, a Chilean transgender boy was shot and killed in San Bernardo, Santiago. His name was Marcelo Lepe.
These homophobic killings will continue to occur if there is not deeper reflection about our society and our actions. That's why we made “You'll Never Be Alone”.
Sl: Will this film go toward changing the situation?
Iog: We hope so. We still believe that cinema can make strong change of hearts and minds. So we're eager to show the film in Chile and also Latin America, and hopefully open some debates around the issues of homophobia and social injustice depicted in the film.
We also have a plan with the Municipality of Recoleta to show the film at high schools inside their Sexual Diversity Program, when we complete our commercial release.
It's very important to us that the film is discussed inside Chile and we're making all our best efforts for that to happen.
Sl: What are your current and next projects?
Iog: The director Alex Anwandter is currently releasing his new album "Amiga" in April. So new music videos and songs are coming up from him.
About me as producer, Araucaria Cine is currently producing a feature documentary with director Roberto Collio (“White Death”) and Rodrigo Robledo, named “Petit Frère” which will compete at Focus Chile in Visions du Reel 2016. Also I'm developing a feature doc with Maria Jesus Valenzuela, “Interna." Both projects were funded by the Council of the Arts & Culture and Corfo Chile.
- 4/7/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Sydney Levine, expert in Iberoamerican film business and financing, is presenting her book at the Guadalajara International Film Festival (Ficg) today March 8, 2016 at 4:00 Pm at “Primer Piso Bar,” which is located across from festival's main venue. The address is Pedro Moreno 947 Esq. Escorza Col. Centro Guadalajara, Jalisco.
You can order the book now Here
As we watch a new Iberoamerican audiovisual community organizing itself across the world, we need to know the general history and current landscape of how production and distribution of Latin American films operates in Latin America and the world. This book makes this landscape accessible to those involved in film. It is organized by chapters on each Latin American country. The main focus of every chapter is on current developments in their national cinema industry, on films originating there and how these films are financed. Film education as well as a look at exhibition is also included. Included is a chapter on other countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East inasmuch as they are involved with "Iberoamerican" films as well as a chapter on North America and its relationship to "Iberoamerican" films.
In addition to a hard book copy (in English and in an abridged Spanish language version) online access will help readers stay up to date on developments . The online versions of this book at SydneysBuzz.com/LatinoBuzz will help the readers by themselves to update
Filmmakers, companies, and film students from Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia interested in co-productions with Latin American countries will find this indispensable for understanding the current and developing business financial environment in all of Latin America country by country.
Here is the book's table of contents:
Table of Contents
1. Argentina
2. Bolivia
3. Brazil
4. Chile
5. Colombia
6. Costa Rica
7. Cuba
8. Dominican Republic
9. Ecuador
10. El Salvador
11. Guatemala
12. Honduras
13. Mexico
14. Nicaragua
15. Panama
16. Paraguay
17. Peru
18. Puerto Rico
19. Uruguay
20. Venezuela
21. Canada and U.S.
22. Europe
SpainGermanyFranceSwedenNorwayAcp23. Australia, Africa, Asia, Arab and the Middle East
24. Issues to Keep an Eye On
CollectionsOnline and Streaming PlatformsMore 25. Appendices
· Market and Festival Calendar
· Important links, websites and blog
· Bibliography of relevant articles in trades and other publications...
You can order the book now Here
As we watch a new Iberoamerican audiovisual community organizing itself across the world, we need to know the general history and current landscape of how production and distribution of Latin American films operates in Latin America and the world. This book makes this landscape accessible to those involved in film. It is organized by chapters on each Latin American country. The main focus of every chapter is on current developments in their national cinema industry, on films originating there and how these films are financed. Film education as well as a look at exhibition is also included. Included is a chapter on other countries in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and the Middle East inasmuch as they are involved with "Iberoamerican" films as well as a chapter on North America and its relationship to "Iberoamerican" films.
In addition to a hard book copy (in English and in an abridged Spanish language version) online access will help readers stay up to date on developments . The online versions of this book at SydneysBuzz.com/LatinoBuzz will help the readers by themselves to update
Filmmakers, companies, and film students from Latin America, North America, Europe and Asia interested in co-productions with Latin American countries will find this indispensable for understanding the current and developing business financial environment in all of Latin America country by country.
Here is the book's table of contents:
Table of Contents
1. Argentina
2. Bolivia
3. Brazil
4. Chile
5. Colombia
6. Costa Rica
7. Cuba
8. Dominican Republic
9. Ecuador
10. El Salvador
11. Guatemala
12. Honduras
13. Mexico
14. Nicaragua
15. Panama
16. Paraguay
17. Peru
18. Puerto Rico
19. Uruguay
20. Venezuela
21. Canada and U.S.
22. Europe
SpainGermanyFranceSwedenNorwayAcp23. Australia, Africa, Asia, Arab and the Middle East
24. Issues to Keep an Eye On
CollectionsOnline and Streaming PlatformsMore 25. Appendices
· Market and Festival Calendar
· Important links, websites and blog
· Bibliography of relevant articles in trades and other publications...
- 3/8/2016
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Sundance World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winner, “Sand Storm” was written and directed by Elite Zexer. She and Lamis Ammar, the actress playing the oldest daughter in a family of girls who is an independent college educated woman, and I spoke at Sundance about the experience of making their first film together.
Taking place in a Bedouin village in Israel, the film opens as Layla is driving a car with her father to their home in the desert. She reveals her grades are not as high as her father wants as he teaches her how to drive. They arrive home as wedding festivities are being prepared by Layla’s mother Jalila who must host her husband Suliman’s marriage to a second, much younger wife. During the celebration, Jalila discovers that her eldest daughter Layla has a boyfriend at her university—a strictly forbidden liaison that would shame the family. As she tries to contain Layla’s situation by clamping down on her, her daughter, possessed of a boundless spirit, sees a different life for herself thereby causing chaos and strife within the family.
Sydney Levine: How did you come up with this story?
Elite Zexer: My mother is a photographer and shot Bedouin villages for several years and brought me along with her. We also became very good friends with some of the Bedouins, visiting each other at our homes. About eight years ago, I escorted an 18-year-old to her arranged marriage ceremony to a man she had never met and she told me had a boyfriend in college. She said, “For my daughter, it will be different.”
When I made a short about a different culture (Bedouin) I liked the process and the Bedouins asked me when I would make another film.
What film background do you have?
Elite Zexer: I have two degrees in film. I graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bfa in film and an Mfa in film directing. I made a short “Take Note” which won the Best Fiction Film Award at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, and “Tasnin” which went to over 120 film festivals around the world and won several international awards. I also directed the documentary “Fire Department Bnei Brak” before I directed “Sand Storm”, my first feature.
How did you put this film together?
Elite Zexer: Four years ago I wrote a script trying to write from the Bedouin point of view as much as possible, of course knowing my own pov would also be there. I applied to the two public film funds in Israel and to two private funds. It happened so quickly that only one year ago, in January 2015 I was already in pre-production. The rough cut was done by August. We went to First Look at Locarno and we won the prize. John Nein from Sundance was a juror there, and so we have now come to Sundance.
It all felt like it was blessed from the sky. Everything fell into place all the time. It was always just right. Even when we ran out of time and had only 5 minutes to shoot the last scene, that turned out to be the best and strongest scene in the film.
We thought, “It just has to work!” and it did!
And how about you, Lamis?
Lamis Ammar: This was my first feature. I studied theater in Haifa and I like cinema. This is the most interesting and challenging role I have played. I met the woman and seeing the finished film on the screen confirmed in a real and truthful way what my heart told me when I met her.
What do you think about the film?
I just saw it yesterday for the first time and I must see it again to understand all the details.
I knew before about the Bedouin in the south, but I am a Palestinian from Haifa so while there are some similarities, there are also many differences. It was a big process just to learn the accent even though we share a language.
Every time I see the Bedouin and learn more about them, I feel I want to be a part of them and to help in any way I can. This strong young teenage university student is different from the others in her community. Her father treats her as a liberated Bedouin but, for a female, the situation is very complicated.
As the writer of this interview, I want to point out certain background issues which, though they seem to have no direct connection to the story, are key to how the politics and policies of the Israeli government have created a marginal society for the Bedouins in spite of all the past support the Bedouins have given to the state of Israel. It is easy to say “just look at the culture” as if it bore no relation to the larger societal and political realities.
In my experience speaking with people from Israel/ Palestine I find the Bedouin and Palestinian stories to be international. Even as far away as Cuba, Cubans refer to people from the east of their island as “Palestinians” because of their outsider status in Havana.
The fact that Layla is a student in the university is very unusual in the Palestinian Bedouin society. It’s not acceptable -- not because the men don’t allow it, but because the Bedouin themselves refuse to be part of the Israeli society. They often do not know Hebrew, the official language of Israel. This reminds me of U.S. Native Americans whose languages have never been recognized officially by our government. Many Navajo (I don’t know about other tribes) do not speak English and their marginalization is astounding to anyone who visits the “reservations”; it is truly visiting another nation as far removed from the U.S.A. as the Bedouin are from the U.S.A.
To attend an Israeli University, everyone must speak and study in Hebrew. The Israeli occupation of the Bedouin ancestral lands influences everyone’s social knowledge and lifestyle. The Bedouin used to live freely in their own land until they were forced to leave for other places or to the city. Some Bedouin stay put, but the act of staying makes them more conservative than previously.
Some of their villages are unrecognized by the Israeli authorities and are under permanent threat of being demolished in order to create new Israeli settlements. Bedouin teenagers have been shot by the Israel police forces and there have been no trials for the police action. This is a story that we in the U.S. have been hearing daily about our own citizens who happen to be African-American. We also hear about it in France with their North African-French youth. We call it police brutality but although the Palestinian Bedouins demonstrate daily, but no one hears them.
This film takes one by surprise. The mother’s controlled passion and impatience seethe through her. You can see it in the set of her mouth and in the way she moves. Her daughters share her passion for life and one feels the pain of their predicament. Their incredible strength sustains them and a glimmering light of hope shines through the storm.
The situation described above is the underlying and unspoken theme of the movie. It seeps through everything, one's clothing and household and in the very grittiness of one's teeth, like sand in a sand storm.
Director/Writer Elite Zexer
Cast member Lamis Ammar, Ruba Blal-Asfour, Haitham Omari, Khadija Alakel, Jalal Masarwa
Producers Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg
Director of Photography Shai Peleg
Editor Ronit Porat
Total Running Time: 87 Minutes
International Sales: Beta Cinema...
Taking place in a Bedouin village in Israel, the film opens as Layla is driving a car with her father to their home in the desert. She reveals her grades are not as high as her father wants as he teaches her how to drive. They arrive home as wedding festivities are being prepared by Layla’s mother Jalila who must host her husband Suliman’s marriage to a second, much younger wife. During the celebration, Jalila discovers that her eldest daughter Layla has a boyfriend at her university—a strictly forbidden liaison that would shame the family. As she tries to contain Layla’s situation by clamping down on her, her daughter, possessed of a boundless spirit, sees a different life for herself thereby causing chaos and strife within the family.
Sydney Levine: How did you come up with this story?
Elite Zexer: My mother is a photographer and shot Bedouin villages for several years and brought me along with her. We also became very good friends with some of the Bedouins, visiting each other at our homes. About eight years ago, I escorted an 18-year-old to her arranged marriage ceremony to a man she had never met and she told me had a boyfriend in college. She said, “For my daughter, it will be different.”
When I made a short about a different culture (Bedouin) I liked the process and the Bedouins asked me when I would make another film.
What film background do you have?
Elite Zexer: I have two degrees in film. I graduated from Tel Aviv University with a Bfa in film and an Mfa in film directing. I made a short “Take Note” which won the Best Fiction Film Award at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, and “Tasnin” which went to over 120 film festivals around the world and won several international awards. I also directed the documentary “Fire Department Bnei Brak” before I directed “Sand Storm”, my first feature.
How did you put this film together?
Elite Zexer: Four years ago I wrote a script trying to write from the Bedouin point of view as much as possible, of course knowing my own pov would also be there. I applied to the two public film funds in Israel and to two private funds. It happened so quickly that only one year ago, in January 2015 I was already in pre-production. The rough cut was done by August. We went to First Look at Locarno and we won the prize. John Nein from Sundance was a juror there, and so we have now come to Sundance.
It all felt like it was blessed from the sky. Everything fell into place all the time. It was always just right. Even when we ran out of time and had only 5 minutes to shoot the last scene, that turned out to be the best and strongest scene in the film.
We thought, “It just has to work!” and it did!
And how about you, Lamis?
Lamis Ammar: This was my first feature. I studied theater in Haifa and I like cinema. This is the most interesting and challenging role I have played. I met the woman and seeing the finished film on the screen confirmed in a real and truthful way what my heart told me when I met her.
What do you think about the film?
I just saw it yesterday for the first time and I must see it again to understand all the details.
I knew before about the Bedouin in the south, but I am a Palestinian from Haifa so while there are some similarities, there are also many differences. It was a big process just to learn the accent even though we share a language.
Every time I see the Bedouin and learn more about them, I feel I want to be a part of them and to help in any way I can. This strong young teenage university student is different from the others in her community. Her father treats her as a liberated Bedouin but, for a female, the situation is very complicated.
As the writer of this interview, I want to point out certain background issues which, though they seem to have no direct connection to the story, are key to how the politics and policies of the Israeli government have created a marginal society for the Bedouins in spite of all the past support the Bedouins have given to the state of Israel. It is easy to say “just look at the culture” as if it bore no relation to the larger societal and political realities.
In my experience speaking with people from Israel/ Palestine I find the Bedouin and Palestinian stories to be international. Even as far away as Cuba, Cubans refer to people from the east of their island as “Palestinians” because of their outsider status in Havana.
The fact that Layla is a student in the university is very unusual in the Palestinian Bedouin society. It’s not acceptable -- not because the men don’t allow it, but because the Bedouin themselves refuse to be part of the Israeli society. They often do not know Hebrew, the official language of Israel. This reminds me of U.S. Native Americans whose languages have never been recognized officially by our government. Many Navajo (I don’t know about other tribes) do not speak English and their marginalization is astounding to anyone who visits the “reservations”; it is truly visiting another nation as far removed from the U.S.A. as the Bedouin are from the U.S.A.
To attend an Israeli University, everyone must speak and study in Hebrew. The Israeli occupation of the Bedouin ancestral lands influences everyone’s social knowledge and lifestyle. The Bedouin used to live freely in their own land until they were forced to leave for other places or to the city. Some Bedouin stay put, but the act of staying makes them more conservative than previously.
Some of their villages are unrecognized by the Israeli authorities and are under permanent threat of being demolished in order to create new Israeli settlements. Bedouin teenagers have been shot by the Israel police forces and there have been no trials for the police action. This is a story that we in the U.S. have been hearing daily about our own citizens who happen to be African-American. We also hear about it in France with their North African-French youth. We call it police brutality but although the Palestinian Bedouins demonstrate daily, but no one hears them.
This film takes one by surprise. The mother’s controlled passion and impatience seethe through her. You can see it in the set of her mouth and in the way she moves. Her daughters share her passion for life and one feels the pain of their predicament. Their incredible strength sustains them and a glimmering light of hope shines through the storm.
The situation described above is the underlying and unspoken theme of the movie. It seeps through everything, one's clothing and household and in the very grittiness of one's teeth, like sand in a sand storm.
Director/Writer Elite Zexer
Cast member Lamis Ammar, Ruba Blal-Asfour, Haitham Omari, Khadija Alakel, Jalal Masarwa
Producers Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg
Director of Photography Shai Peleg
Editor Ronit Porat
Total Running Time: 87 Minutes
International Sales: Beta Cinema...
- 2/2/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Rights Roundup is the most comprehensive listing of licensing of film rights at the current markets. It lists the current International Sales Agents (ISAs) alphabetically, A through Z, and their reported sales at the current fall markets – in this case the Afm, Toronto, San Sebastian, Venice, Telluride, and Locarno Film Festivals of the Fall 2015.
You can order the Fall Rights Roundup Here
The International Sales Agents (ISAs) are listed alphabetically and the sales are those reported to SydneysBuzz or to other trades. The author makes no claim to be comprehensive or even 100% correct. Titles show which distributors have licensed rights along with the countries and territories of the distributors as they are reported. When prices have been mentioned (rarely), they are included.
International sales agents and distributors link to their own company websites and include links as well to Cinando and IMDbPro. Titles link to Cinando. If Cinando is not appropriate or does not have the title, then titles will link to IMDbPro in order to assist professional research when more information is needed. Occasionally they will link to the Festival because the former are not available. Subscriptions to these other databases are required. Subscribers to Screen International will also have access to Screenbase. Cineuropa.org (free) will also be referenced occasionally as will Film New Europe (free). In theory, all of these online databases list rights held by distributors though, in fact, each in its own unique way is missing information or contains errors.
Toronto by Numbers
Also included is a compendium of the Tiff 2015’s 401 features from 60+ countries of origin from the Caribbean, Africa and African Diaspora, Middle East, Asian, Southeast Asia, Israel, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Eastern Europe.
Going into the festival, 98 (70 in 2014) had U.S. distribution. 271 – 66% (212 titles/ 59% in 2014) titles had international sales agents attached. 54 (40 in 2014) had producer reps looking to find U.S. distribution and sometimes international sales representation as well. Of the producer reps, CAA had 21 titles, Wme and UTA had 8 each; Cinetic had 6, Submarine had 4. Ronna Wallace’s Eastgate and the agencies Gersh, Paradigm and ICM each had 1.
You can order more reports online at http://www.SydneysBuzz.com/Reports.
Your questions, comments, etc. are welcome!
Sydney Levine
Sydney [At] SydneysBuzz.com...
You can order the Fall Rights Roundup Here
The International Sales Agents (ISAs) are listed alphabetically and the sales are those reported to SydneysBuzz or to other trades. The author makes no claim to be comprehensive or even 100% correct. Titles show which distributors have licensed rights along with the countries and territories of the distributors as they are reported. When prices have been mentioned (rarely), they are included.
International sales agents and distributors link to their own company websites and include links as well to Cinando and IMDbPro. Titles link to Cinando. If Cinando is not appropriate or does not have the title, then titles will link to IMDbPro in order to assist professional research when more information is needed. Occasionally they will link to the Festival because the former are not available. Subscriptions to these other databases are required. Subscribers to Screen International will also have access to Screenbase. Cineuropa.org (free) will also be referenced occasionally as will Film New Europe (free). In theory, all of these online databases list rights held by distributors though, in fact, each in its own unique way is missing information or contains errors.
Toronto by Numbers
Also included is a compendium of the Tiff 2015’s 401 features from 60+ countries of origin from the Caribbean, Africa and African Diaspora, Middle East, Asian, Southeast Asia, Israel, Turkey, Australia and New Zealand, U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Eastern Europe.
Going into the festival, 98 (70 in 2014) had U.S. distribution. 271 – 66% (212 titles/ 59% in 2014) titles had international sales agents attached. 54 (40 in 2014) had producer reps looking to find U.S. distribution and sometimes international sales representation as well. Of the producer reps, CAA had 21 titles, Wme and UTA had 8 each; Cinetic had 6, Submarine had 4. Ronna Wallace’s Eastgate and the agencies Gersh, Paradigm and ICM each had 1.
You can order more reports online at http://www.SydneysBuzz.com/Reports.
Your questions, comments, etc. are welcome!
Sydney Levine
Sydney [At] SydneysBuzz.com...
- 12/9/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Doha Film Institute flew me in via Istanbul to attend the Ajyal Youth Film Festival. My first time in Doha Qatar, I am stunned by the luxury of it all. The area is filled with large buildings, modern and yet very Arabic in style, from the huge gleaming glass and steel airport with its marble floors and empty, at least at 1:30 Am. Awaiting in the posh Al Mira Lounge for my drive to take me to the St. Regis Hotel -- again -- huge, with its arches and arabesque style towers, to the people, elegantly enshrouded women in black and men in gleaming white.
After a day to recuperate from my 24 hour flight, we, the press, had a welcome dinner and the next day was devoted to “The Idol” Opening Night Film’s press screening and press conference and to Opening Night itself with a lovely party and a band playing American movie tunes.
"Designed to inspire, and it works!" This Palestine/ UK/ Qatar/ Dubai/ Abu Dhabi/ Netherlands coproduction "The Idol" premiered at Toronto’s Tiff this September. After Doha, it won Antalya's Best Director Award before going on to Dubai Film Festival. This is a feel-good movie which gives a human voice to the Palestinian dilemma without being political or religious. It’s pure heart.
Read my interview with Hany Abu-Assad during Tiff.
“The Idol” was coproduced by Image Nation of Abu Dhabi, Enjaaz -- a Dubai Film Market initiative -- Doha Film institute with support from the Netherlands Film Fund. Mbc (Middle East Broadcasting Company) also coproduced and is handling the film’s release in the Middle East and North Africa. September’s Hans de Wolf was the Dutch coproducer and is distributing it in Benelux.
Speaking in Doha with producers Ali Jaafar, Amira Diab in the patio of Al Jazeera Press Center I was given an in-depth look at the origin of this production which will be seen across the Arab lands both theatrically and through Mbc. Mbc was the first to come on board when producer Ali pitched them the idea of making a movie of the phenomenal success story of Mohammed Assaf, a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza and whose voice became the voice of the nation when he won the Arab Idol contest in 2013.
Sydney Levine: Where did you come from? IMDb only lists one credit for you and that’s for “The Idol”.
Ali Jaafar: I was executive director of Tarak Ben Ammar’s Quinta Communications' film division for five years. The company co-produced Rachid Bouchareb’s Oscar Nominated “Outside The Law’”; Julian Schnabel’s “Miral”; Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Black Gold” aka “Day of the Falcon” starring Antonio Banderas, Tahar Rahim and Freida Pinto, which was distributed by Warner Bros and Universal Pictures and was Doha Film Institute’s first film investment and the first major film to shoot in Qatar. It was an attempt to tell an epic Arabian story for the international audience. Filming took place in Tunisia during the Jasmine Revolution that led to the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Filming finished on schedule and on budget with no interference, but it was a very difficult time for such a film to break out.
Quinta also co-produced “Where Do We Go Now” by Nadine Labaki known first for Caramel (2007) and more recently for Rio, I Love You(2014). “Where Do We Go Now” was the first Arabic film to win the prestigious Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Sl: How did you hook up with “The Idol”?
Ali: When the major pop TV show Arab Idol awarded its top prize to Mohammed Assaf, the next morning the media went wild. It was during the toughest time yet in the Arab world, with Tunisia’s Revolution igniting insurgencies in Libya, Egypt, Palestine. It was a great story. I spoke to Mbc suggesting they make a movie about it. They said yes and were onboard from the very beginning.
This was my first movie as a producer. I learned so much from Tarak. One of the things I learned was to have the best partners and Mbc was just that. They offered critical support, PR support all the way through filming, support in releasing and guidance in what works in the Middle East region.
Mbc helped with script development. Sameh Zoabi wrote the first two drafts of the film. With the Number One Media (Mbc) company on board, I was able to enlist others to help as well.
Sl: How did you get Hany on board as director?
Ali: Hany was my number one choice as director, but during my first year working on “The Idol”, he was busy promoting “Omar” and lining up a project with a big U.S. studio. He was a friend and I was hoping he might at least co-produce; he read the script and gradually, one year later we met in London. He said that the American movie had been pushed back one year so he was available, but he needed to start in January – which gave me three months to put it together.
Sl: Amira, so you’re Hany’s wife…where were you working before this film?
Amira: I had been living in London but we’re now living in L.A. My background is in financing.
Ali: Yes she brought in a major part of the financing on the film too.
Amira: I met Hany who said we need more women producers and the timing was right. When Ali called Hany, Hany brought me in to meet Ali. I spent a lot of time on the set with the line producer Baher Agbariya who became a coproducer. I also worked on the rewrite and worked with the kids.
Sl: And is it true that TV does not usually show movies? That is what I heard someone say during the Q&A.
Ali: This film is an important bridge in a very crowded marketplace. Cinema is more challenging for breaking out of borders. Usually what is Lebanese stays in Lebanon, what is Jordanian stays in Jordan, etc. Films do not easily cross borders – except for Egyptian films. And usually independent films are more arthouse rather than commercial. “The Idol” about a big pop star has breakout potential.
Sl: When Hany came on board, what did he do first?
Ali: He worked on the script, strengthening the relationship between the sister and brother, adding some elements.
Hany insisted on shooting on location in both Beirut and Cairo for the exterior scenes set in those cities so that the film would look and feel real. He was only given a three day permit to film in Gaza. Set in the devastated landscapes of a Gaza still reeling from the month-long bombardment in 2014, Abu-Assad and his crew were still able to find great moments of beauty and surprise. The Gaza Parkour Team, for example, supplies its amazing acrobatic display in the most surprising way in one moment, proving that art can thrive in even the most challenging of situations.
That desire for authenticity is also why Hany insisted on finding and employing real kids from Gaza to act in the film. The crew did a Gaza-wide search, holding casting sessions and rehearsals in schools across the area. Ultimately, the production was blessed to find four amazing Gazan children to star in the film, all first time actors, and all incredible natural performers.
The first half of the film takes place in a war-torn Gaza city which, for Mohammed Assaf, his sister Nour and their best friends Ahmad and Omar. is a playground where they freely ride their bikes, play music, football and dare to dream big. Their band might play on second hand, beat-up instruments but their ambitions are sky-high. Their ambition is to play at the world famous Cairo Opera Hall.
The world around Mohammed shatters. Through it all, however, he retains the hope that his voice will somehow deliver him from the pain that surrounds him and bring joy to others. He sings at weddings, he drives a taxi to pay for his university studies. Even as the siege around Gaza intensifies, the prison around them ever more forbidding, Mohammed knows he has a rare gift, the ability to make people smile and forget their anxieties about day to day living.
Sl: How did eOne become your international sales agent?
Ali: The international sales agent was critical for us as filmmakers. We had interest from a number of established European sales agents who would’ve done a good job but when EOne expressed their strong passion for the project it provided us with a great opportunity to position the film in a more commercial space in the marketplace.
EOne’s arthouse arm Seville took it to Afm and they presold almost all the territories, even China and Australia based on the powerful package of the script, Mbc, Hany and a great story.
Sl: I know international sales by Seville were made before Tiff to some 20 territories including Benelux (September Films -- the former Wild Bunch Benelux), France (TF1), Germany (Koch), Japan (New Select), Hong Kong (Edko), Hungary (Mtva), Australia (Umbrella), Latin America (California Filmes), Portugal (Outsider Films), South Africa (Times Media) Switzerland (Praesens), China (Beijing Xiangjiang YiHua Films), India (PVR), Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (Red Pictures), Taiwan (Spring International), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery Films), Romania (Independenta), South Korea (Kaon Contents & Media) and Airlines (Captive). eOne will directly release the film in Spain. Mbc will distribute throughout the Middle East, including Palestine and North Africa.
Ali: We filmed “The Idol” with no advance publicity outside of the Middle East. When it premiered at Tiff, we announced the sales. After it premiered in Toronto we sealed the American deal with Adopt Films which had released Hany’s film “Omar” and a U.K. deal. That concluded world sales to every territory.
Sl: Where will it play next?
Ali: After Toronto it played London, Warsaw and Torino Film Festivals. It will go on to play in Turkey and Dubai Film Festivals. Eagle will release the film on December 24th in the Gulf states (Gcc) and on January 14th in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan). On the 21st it opens in Egypt. Mbc will release on its pan-Arab television network.
Also in January Rotterdam Film Festival will screen it Its U.S. release by Adopt will be sometime between spring and summer.
After a day to recuperate from my 24 hour flight, we, the press, had a welcome dinner and the next day was devoted to “The Idol” Opening Night Film’s press screening and press conference and to Opening Night itself with a lovely party and a band playing American movie tunes.
"Designed to inspire, and it works!" This Palestine/ UK/ Qatar/ Dubai/ Abu Dhabi/ Netherlands coproduction "The Idol" premiered at Toronto’s Tiff this September. After Doha, it won Antalya's Best Director Award before going on to Dubai Film Festival. This is a feel-good movie which gives a human voice to the Palestinian dilemma without being political or religious. It’s pure heart.
Read my interview with Hany Abu-Assad during Tiff.
“The Idol” was coproduced by Image Nation of Abu Dhabi, Enjaaz -- a Dubai Film Market initiative -- Doha Film institute with support from the Netherlands Film Fund. Mbc (Middle East Broadcasting Company) also coproduced and is handling the film’s release in the Middle East and North Africa. September’s Hans de Wolf was the Dutch coproducer and is distributing it in Benelux.
Speaking in Doha with producers Ali Jaafar, Amira Diab in the patio of Al Jazeera Press Center I was given an in-depth look at the origin of this production which will be seen across the Arab lands both theatrically and through Mbc. Mbc was the first to come on board when producer Ali pitched them the idea of making a movie of the phenomenal success story of Mohammed Assaf, a Palestinian who grew up in Gaza and whose voice became the voice of the nation when he won the Arab Idol contest in 2013.
Sydney Levine: Where did you come from? IMDb only lists one credit for you and that’s for “The Idol”.
Ali Jaafar: I was executive director of Tarak Ben Ammar’s Quinta Communications' film division for five years. The company co-produced Rachid Bouchareb’s Oscar Nominated “Outside The Law’”; Julian Schnabel’s “Miral”; Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Black Gold” aka “Day of the Falcon” starring Antonio Banderas, Tahar Rahim and Freida Pinto, which was distributed by Warner Bros and Universal Pictures and was Doha Film Institute’s first film investment and the first major film to shoot in Qatar. It was an attempt to tell an epic Arabian story for the international audience. Filming took place in Tunisia during the Jasmine Revolution that led to the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Filming finished on schedule and on budget with no interference, but it was a very difficult time for such a film to break out.
Quinta also co-produced “Where Do We Go Now” by Nadine Labaki known first for Caramel (2007) and more recently for Rio, I Love You(2014). “Where Do We Go Now” was the first Arabic film to win the prestigious Audience Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Sl: How did you hook up with “The Idol”?
Ali: When the major pop TV show Arab Idol awarded its top prize to Mohammed Assaf, the next morning the media went wild. It was during the toughest time yet in the Arab world, with Tunisia’s Revolution igniting insurgencies in Libya, Egypt, Palestine. It was a great story. I spoke to Mbc suggesting they make a movie about it. They said yes and were onboard from the very beginning.
This was my first movie as a producer. I learned so much from Tarak. One of the things I learned was to have the best partners and Mbc was just that. They offered critical support, PR support all the way through filming, support in releasing and guidance in what works in the Middle East region.
Mbc helped with script development. Sameh Zoabi wrote the first two drafts of the film. With the Number One Media (Mbc) company on board, I was able to enlist others to help as well.
Sl: How did you get Hany on board as director?
Ali: Hany was my number one choice as director, but during my first year working on “The Idol”, he was busy promoting “Omar” and lining up a project with a big U.S. studio. He was a friend and I was hoping he might at least co-produce; he read the script and gradually, one year later we met in London. He said that the American movie had been pushed back one year so he was available, but he needed to start in January – which gave me three months to put it together.
Sl: Amira, so you’re Hany’s wife…where were you working before this film?
Amira: I had been living in London but we’re now living in L.A. My background is in financing.
Ali: Yes she brought in a major part of the financing on the film too.
Amira: I met Hany who said we need more women producers and the timing was right. When Ali called Hany, Hany brought me in to meet Ali. I spent a lot of time on the set with the line producer Baher Agbariya who became a coproducer. I also worked on the rewrite and worked with the kids.
Sl: And is it true that TV does not usually show movies? That is what I heard someone say during the Q&A.
Ali: This film is an important bridge in a very crowded marketplace. Cinema is more challenging for breaking out of borders. Usually what is Lebanese stays in Lebanon, what is Jordanian stays in Jordan, etc. Films do not easily cross borders – except for Egyptian films. And usually independent films are more arthouse rather than commercial. “The Idol” about a big pop star has breakout potential.
Sl: When Hany came on board, what did he do first?
Ali: He worked on the script, strengthening the relationship between the sister and brother, adding some elements.
Hany insisted on shooting on location in both Beirut and Cairo for the exterior scenes set in those cities so that the film would look and feel real. He was only given a three day permit to film in Gaza. Set in the devastated landscapes of a Gaza still reeling from the month-long bombardment in 2014, Abu-Assad and his crew were still able to find great moments of beauty and surprise. The Gaza Parkour Team, for example, supplies its amazing acrobatic display in the most surprising way in one moment, proving that art can thrive in even the most challenging of situations.
That desire for authenticity is also why Hany insisted on finding and employing real kids from Gaza to act in the film. The crew did a Gaza-wide search, holding casting sessions and rehearsals in schools across the area. Ultimately, the production was blessed to find four amazing Gazan children to star in the film, all first time actors, and all incredible natural performers.
The first half of the film takes place in a war-torn Gaza city which, for Mohammed Assaf, his sister Nour and their best friends Ahmad and Omar. is a playground where they freely ride their bikes, play music, football and dare to dream big. Their band might play on second hand, beat-up instruments but their ambitions are sky-high. Their ambition is to play at the world famous Cairo Opera Hall.
The world around Mohammed shatters. Through it all, however, he retains the hope that his voice will somehow deliver him from the pain that surrounds him and bring joy to others. He sings at weddings, he drives a taxi to pay for his university studies. Even as the siege around Gaza intensifies, the prison around them ever more forbidding, Mohammed knows he has a rare gift, the ability to make people smile and forget their anxieties about day to day living.
Sl: How did eOne become your international sales agent?
Ali: The international sales agent was critical for us as filmmakers. We had interest from a number of established European sales agents who would’ve done a good job but when EOne expressed their strong passion for the project it provided us with a great opportunity to position the film in a more commercial space in the marketplace.
EOne’s arthouse arm Seville took it to Afm and they presold almost all the territories, even China and Australia based on the powerful package of the script, Mbc, Hany and a great story.
Sl: I know international sales by Seville were made before Tiff to some 20 territories including Benelux (September Films -- the former Wild Bunch Benelux), France (TF1), Germany (Koch), Japan (New Select), Hong Kong (Edko), Hungary (Mtva), Australia (Umbrella), Latin America (California Filmes), Portugal (Outsider Films), South Africa (Times Media) Switzerland (Praesens), China (Beijing Xiangjiang YiHua Films), India (PVR), Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore (Red Pictures), Taiwan (Spring International), Former Yugoslavia (Discovery Films), Romania (Independenta), South Korea (Kaon Contents & Media) and Airlines (Captive). eOne will directly release the film in Spain. Mbc will distribute throughout the Middle East, including Palestine and North Africa.
Ali: We filmed “The Idol” with no advance publicity outside of the Middle East. When it premiered at Tiff, we announced the sales. After it premiered in Toronto we sealed the American deal with Adopt Films which had released Hany’s film “Omar” and a U.K. deal. That concluded world sales to every territory.
Sl: Where will it play next?
Ali: After Toronto it played London, Warsaw and Torino Film Festivals. It will go on to play in Turkey and Dubai Film Festivals. Eagle will release the film on December 24th in the Gulf states (Gcc) and on January 14th in the Levant (Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan). On the 21st it opens in Egypt. Mbc will release on its pan-Arab television network.
Also in January Rotterdam Film Festival will screen it Its U.S. release by Adopt will be sometime between spring and summer.
- 12/3/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Much larger in sponsorships, this year's Napa Valley Film Festival (November 11-15) has become so popular that the main road between Napa, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga is jammed and the smaller theaters are playing to Sro crowds. The St.Helena Cameo Cinema is the longest running single screen theater in the United States, going back to 1913 and “featuring 400 seats, 150 opera chairs, a modern stage and two standing sets".
Culinary, wine and film mix well here. This year we were invited to dine with second-generation vintner Ron Nicholsen, at his estate, Kelham Vineyards, where chief Tyler Rodde from Oenotri, the southern Italian restauranteur from the town of Napa served us his finest food. And at every screening, the best of wines are tasted, In the morning we could (and I did once) practice yoga on the vineyard banks of the river running through the valley. Afternoon and evenings wine pours freely and people mix as they go to movies or to the parties and receptions. My big discovery was White Stone Wine grown on the shores of the mighty Lake Roosevelt in the shadows of Whitestone Rock. I award it for its white chalky stone accent on its bold red wines.
Jury and audience awards were given to the winners at the Uptown Theatre on Sunday, November 15, 2015. The Festival had screened 120 new independent films in 12 unique screening venues in the four postcard-perfect towns of Napa, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga.
David Glasser, COO and President of The Weinstein Company presented awards on behalf of the third annual Lexus Short Film Series. Lexus’ Media Director Teri Hill and TWC announced the four winners, Alexis Michalik, Byoung-Gon Moon, Damian Walshe-Howling and Pippa Bianco. Look for my blog about this event.
The Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature went to “The King of New Orleans”.
The Special Jury Award for Authenticity in Narrative Feature Storytelling went to “ Life in Color”.
The Full List of Juried Awards is Below: Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature presented by Taken Wine Company, and with a $10,000 cash prize courtesy ofMeadowood Napa Valley, went to “ The King of New Orleans”. Jury Award for Best Screenplay presented by Italics Winegrowers went to “ Tumbledown”. Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast presented by Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley went to “ Jane Wants a Boyfriend”. Member of the ensemble, Louisa Krause, also won the Audience Award for Favorite Actress. Audience Award for Favorite Actress presented by Eleven Eleven Wines went to for her work in the film "Jane Wants a Boyfriend." Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature presented by Trinchero Napa Valley, and with a $10,000 cash prize courtesy ofMeadowood Napa Valley, went to "Romeo is Bleeding." Jury Award for Best Narrative Short presented by Wolf Family Vineyards went to "It’s Perfect Here." Honorable Mention went to "Birthday." Jury Award for Best Documentary Short presented by Priest Ranch went to "Elder." Honorable Mentions go to: "Code Oakland, Une Passion d’or et de feu" (A Passion of Gold and Fire) , and "Riding the Highline."
Jury Award for Best Lounge Feature presented by Ca’ Momi Winery went to "Night Owls." Jury Award for Best Lounge Short presented by Modus Operandi Cellars went to "A Man Wakes Up." Honorable Mention went to "Ci: A Tedd Talkumentary." Special Jury Award – Courage in Documentary Feature Filmmaking presented by Rombauer Vineyards went to " Life Under Siege: Exploring Gaza’s Secret Tunnels." Special Jury Award – Authenticity in Narrative Feature Story-Telling presented by The Hess Collection Winery went to "Life in Color." Special Jury Award – Acting in a Lounge Feature Film went to sisters Aly Michalka and Aj Michalka for their work in the film "Weepah Way For Now." A Full List of a Audience Awards is Below: Audience Award for Favorite Actor presented by Caldwell Vineyard went to David Jensen for his work in the film "The King of New Orleans." Audience Award for Favorite Actress presented by Eleven Eleven Wines went to Louisa Krause for her work in the film "Jane Wants a Boyfriend." Audience Award for Favorite Documentary Feature presented by Grgich Hills Estate went to "Landfillharmonic." Audience Award for Favorite Documentary Short presented by Kelham Vineyards and Winery went to "Ron Taylor: Dr. Baseball." Audience Award for Favorite Narrative Feature presented by Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. went to "Friends and Romans." Audience Award for Favorite Narrative Short presented by Favia Erickson Winegrowers went to "Sin Frontera." The Runner-Ups for Narrative Shorts presented by Matthiasson Wines are "Playdate" and "Birthday." Audience Award for Favorite Short Feature presented by Beaulieu Vineyard went to "Sketch." Lexus Short Films winning filmmakers received their awards presented by Alpha Omega Winery, Merryvale Vineyards, Raymond Vineyards and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.
Juries Narrative Features Jury: Sydney Levine, Morrie Warshawski, Ralph Macchio
Documentary Features and Shorts Jury: Dierk Sindermann, Marcia Jarmel, Sheri Linden
Narrative Shorts Jury: Alonso Duralde, Neil Berkeley, Lissa Gibbs
Documentary Shorts Jury: Ken Schneider, Brandon Carroll, Jenni Olson
The Lounge Jury: Gren Wells, Evy Warshawski, Elvis Mitchell
Each of the festival winners received a large format wine bottle from one of the festival’s esteemed Vintner Circle winery partners. For the first time The Lounge Features and Shorts were up for the Juried and Audience Awards. The winners of the Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature jury were awarded $10,000, presented by Meadowood Napa Valley.
Culinary, wine and film mix well here. This year we were invited to dine with second-generation vintner Ron Nicholsen, at his estate, Kelham Vineyards, where chief Tyler Rodde from Oenotri, the southern Italian restauranteur from the town of Napa served us his finest food. And at every screening, the best of wines are tasted, In the morning we could (and I did once) practice yoga on the vineyard banks of the river running through the valley. Afternoon and evenings wine pours freely and people mix as they go to movies or to the parties and receptions. My big discovery was White Stone Wine grown on the shores of the mighty Lake Roosevelt in the shadows of Whitestone Rock. I award it for its white chalky stone accent on its bold red wines.
Jury and audience awards were given to the winners at the Uptown Theatre on Sunday, November 15, 2015. The Festival had screened 120 new independent films in 12 unique screening venues in the four postcard-perfect towns of Napa, Yountville, St. Helena and Calistoga.
David Glasser, COO and President of The Weinstein Company presented awards on behalf of the third annual Lexus Short Film Series. Lexus’ Media Director Teri Hill and TWC announced the four winners, Alexis Michalik, Byoung-Gon Moon, Damian Walshe-Howling and Pippa Bianco. Look for my blog about this event.
The Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature went to “The King of New Orleans”.
The Special Jury Award for Authenticity in Narrative Feature Storytelling went to “ Life in Color”.
The Full List of Juried Awards is Below: Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature presented by Taken Wine Company, and with a $10,000 cash prize courtesy ofMeadowood Napa Valley, went to “ The King of New Orleans”. Jury Award for Best Screenplay presented by Italics Winegrowers went to “ Tumbledown”. Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast presented by Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley went to “ Jane Wants a Boyfriend”. Member of the ensemble, Louisa Krause, also won the Audience Award for Favorite Actress. Audience Award for Favorite Actress presented by Eleven Eleven Wines went to for her work in the film "Jane Wants a Boyfriend." Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature presented by Trinchero Napa Valley, and with a $10,000 cash prize courtesy ofMeadowood Napa Valley, went to "Romeo is Bleeding." Jury Award for Best Narrative Short presented by Wolf Family Vineyards went to "It’s Perfect Here." Honorable Mention went to "Birthday." Jury Award for Best Documentary Short presented by Priest Ranch went to "Elder." Honorable Mentions go to: "Code Oakland, Une Passion d’or et de feu" (A Passion of Gold and Fire) , and "Riding the Highline."
Jury Award for Best Lounge Feature presented by Ca’ Momi Winery went to "Night Owls." Jury Award for Best Lounge Short presented by Modus Operandi Cellars went to "A Man Wakes Up." Honorable Mention went to "Ci: A Tedd Talkumentary." Special Jury Award – Courage in Documentary Feature Filmmaking presented by Rombauer Vineyards went to " Life Under Siege: Exploring Gaza’s Secret Tunnels." Special Jury Award – Authenticity in Narrative Feature Story-Telling presented by The Hess Collection Winery went to "Life in Color." Special Jury Award – Acting in a Lounge Feature Film went to sisters Aly Michalka and Aj Michalka for their work in the film "Weepah Way For Now." A Full List of a Audience Awards is Below: Audience Award for Favorite Actor presented by Caldwell Vineyard went to David Jensen for his work in the film "The King of New Orleans." Audience Award for Favorite Actress presented by Eleven Eleven Wines went to Louisa Krause for her work in the film "Jane Wants a Boyfriend." Audience Award for Favorite Documentary Feature presented by Grgich Hills Estate went to "Landfillharmonic." Audience Award for Favorite Documentary Short presented by Kelham Vineyards and Winery went to "Ron Taylor: Dr. Baseball." Audience Award for Favorite Narrative Feature presented by Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. went to "Friends and Romans." Audience Award for Favorite Narrative Short presented by Favia Erickson Winegrowers went to "Sin Frontera." The Runner-Ups for Narrative Shorts presented by Matthiasson Wines are "Playdate" and "Birthday." Audience Award for Favorite Short Feature presented by Beaulieu Vineyard went to "Sketch." Lexus Short Films winning filmmakers received their awards presented by Alpha Omega Winery, Merryvale Vineyards, Raymond Vineyards and Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars.
Juries Narrative Features Jury: Sydney Levine, Morrie Warshawski, Ralph Macchio
Documentary Features and Shorts Jury: Dierk Sindermann, Marcia Jarmel, Sheri Linden
Narrative Shorts Jury: Alonso Duralde, Neil Berkeley, Lissa Gibbs
Documentary Shorts Jury: Ken Schneider, Brandon Carroll, Jenni Olson
The Lounge Jury: Gren Wells, Evy Warshawski, Elvis Mitchell
Each of the festival winners received a large format wine bottle from one of the festival’s esteemed Vintner Circle winery partners. For the first time The Lounge Features and Shorts were up for the Juried and Audience Awards. The winners of the Best Narrative Feature and Best Documentary Feature jury were awarded $10,000, presented by Meadowood Napa Valley.
- 11/25/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Napa Valley Film Festival kicked off with (what else?) a wine movie. “Somm: Into the Bottle," the second documentary exploring the Exclusive Court of Master Sommeliers. To be distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films, "Somm: Into the Bottle", as told through the eyes of the world’s greatest sommeliers and winemakers, raises the curtain on the seldom-seen world that surrounds the wine we drink and gives viewers close-up access to the most accomplished sommeliers in the world and to some of the most prestigious winemakers working today. By opening some of the world’s most rare bottles of wine, the viewer understands how a wine ages and just what happens in a cellar.
At the festival’s gala opening night party, filled with vintners pouring their wines accompanied by some of the best restaurants in the world supplying bite size hors d’oevres, Peter Goldwyn pointed out that the film is already number 22 on iTunes because of the fan base built up by Jason Wise’s previous film, “Somm” in which four sommeliers attempt to pass the prestigious Master Sommelier exam, a test with one of the lowest pass rates in the world. As Peter circulated through the crowd of the local bourgeoisie and filmmakers like Eric Troung whose 30 minute short is also screening here, I felt right at home…I love seeing new friends and old at these events.
So far, as a jury member, I have seen one film, “Life in Color” directed, written and produced by Katherine Emmer, along with producers Jason Berman, Anne Carey, Lance Johnson and Giles Clark and starring, as a lovable slob who grows up, Josh McDermitt, Katharine Emmer herself who could play a spoiled rich girl as well as the miserably inattentive nanny she plays in this movie, Adam Lustick a really perfect button-down successful comedian buddy of Josh, Fortune Feimster and Jim O’Heir. Katharine's directorial feature film debut, “Life in Color”, world premiered at South by Southwest 2015. It won Best of Fest - The L.E.S. Prix D'Or at The Lower East Side Film Festival 2015 in New York City.
I am now about to see the second film, “Tumbledown," directed by Sean Mewshaw, produced by Aaron Gilbert, Kristin Hahn and Margo Hand, written by Desi Van Til and Sean Mewshaw and starring Jason Dudikis, Rebecca Hall, Blythe Danner (!), Dianna Agron, Griffin Dunne (“Dallas Buyers Club” and “After Hours”!) son of Dominick Dunne and older brother of Dominique Dunne, Joe Manganiello and Richard Masur. Starz will release the film stateside. Director-writer Sean Mewshaw was raised in Rome, Italy and spent a decade in L.A. working on film sets where he was mentored by some of his heroes. He made a short starring Frances McDomand (one of my favorite actors btw), then moved to Portland, Maine with his wife Desi (who cowrote “Tumbledown”), where he directs theater wile developing film projects. “Tumbledown is his feature debut.
End of Day One and Beginning of Day Two, signing off, Sydney Levine, working in her suite at the Embassy Suites with my partner Peter Belsito sitting on the other side of the table after he hosted a pitch session with Scott Mandille.
At the festival’s gala opening night party, filled with vintners pouring their wines accompanied by some of the best restaurants in the world supplying bite size hors d’oevres, Peter Goldwyn pointed out that the film is already number 22 on iTunes because of the fan base built up by Jason Wise’s previous film, “Somm” in which four sommeliers attempt to pass the prestigious Master Sommelier exam, a test with one of the lowest pass rates in the world. As Peter circulated through the crowd of the local bourgeoisie and filmmakers like Eric Troung whose 30 minute short is also screening here, I felt right at home…I love seeing new friends and old at these events.
So far, as a jury member, I have seen one film, “Life in Color” directed, written and produced by Katherine Emmer, along with producers Jason Berman, Anne Carey, Lance Johnson and Giles Clark and starring, as a lovable slob who grows up, Josh McDermitt, Katharine Emmer herself who could play a spoiled rich girl as well as the miserably inattentive nanny she plays in this movie, Adam Lustick a really perfect button-down successful comedian buddy of Josh, Fortune Feimster and Jim O’Heir. Katharine's directorial feature film debut, “Life in Color”, world premiered at South by Southwest 2015. It won Best of Fest - The L.E.S. Prix D'Or at The Lower East Side Film Festival 2015 in New York City.
I am now about to see the second film, “Tumbledown," directed by Sean Mewshaw, produced by Aaron Gilbert, Kristin Hahn and Margo Hand, written by Desi Van Til and Sean Mewshaw and starring Jason Dudikis, Rebecca Hall, Blythe Danner (!), Dianna Agron, Griffin Dunne (“Dallas Buyers Club” and “After Hours”!) son of Dominick Dunne and older brother of Dominique Dunne, Joe Manganiello and Richard Masur. Starz will release the film stateside. Director-writer Sean Mewshaw was raised in Rome, Italy and spent a decade in L.A. working on film sets where he was mentored by some of his heroes. He made a short starring Frances McDomand (one of my favorite actors btw), then moved to Portland, Maine with his wife Desi (who cowrote “Tumbledown”), where he directs theater wile developing film projects. “Tumbledown is his feature debut.
End of Day One and Beginning of Day Two, signing off, Sydney Levine, working in her suite at the Embassy Suites with my partner Peter Belsito sitting on the other side of the table after he hosted a pitch session with Scott Mandille.
- 11/15/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The 5th edition of the Us in Progress co-production forum was held on October 22-23, 2015, during the 6 th American Film Festival in Wrocław. Director Shaz Bennett and producers Melanie Miller and Diane Becker acquired the most awards and therefore emerged as Us in Progress winners for "Alaska is a Drag".
Us in Progress is an industry event that aims to strengthen the trans-Atlantic film industry collaborations and partnerships and help European film professionals establish working relationships with new emerging American filmmakers. The event is a bi-annual program conducted at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris during the summer before kicking-off in Wroclaw at Aff during the fall.
At the 6th American Film Festival, six films in various stages of post-production have conducted private screenings for film industry professionals, including Laurent Danielou (Loco Films), Mathieu Delaunay (Memento Films), Oda Schaeffer (k5), Silje Grimsdal (Trust Nordisk), and festival programmers from Edinburgh, Locarno, Tribeca, and a jury composed of yours truly, Sydney Levine, and Polish post-producers, to compete for post-production and promotional packages. In addition to the filmmaking duo, Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, two films have earned significant post-production awards - "Actor Martinez" by Nathan Silver and Mike Ott and "The Loner" by Daniel Y-Li Grove.
Here is a detailed listing of the awards:
"Alaska is a Drag" by Shaz Bennett, produced by Melanie Millerwill received:
post-production services up to the value of €10.000 (e.g. color grading or conforming, master Dcp, master Hdcam Sr, master Blu-ray, master DVD) from Chimney Poland, based in Warsaw; part of Chimney Groupa score composed by Maciej Zielinski from Soundflower Studiofinal mix 5.1 sound post-production to the value of $20.000 Euro (including rental of sound mixing studio with Thx and Dolby Premier certificates) from Toya Studios an offer to acquire Polish TV rights from Ale Kino+Several years ago, the filmmakers also received a couple of grants to develop the script from Clever in San Francisco (Cheryl Dunye’s company) and Naked Angels.
The script was developed through several programs at Sundance, Film Independent and Fox as well as the AFI Directing Workshop for Women.
"The Loner" by Daniel Grove and produced by Reza Sixo Safai received:
digital post-production services up to the value of €10.000 (excluding 35mm processing/scan; including conforming, color grading, grain/noise management, finishing, mastering, simple VFX, Dcp and other file based master from Fixafilm based in Warsaw and free registration to Producers' Network at Cannes 2016. "Actor Martinez" (working title) by Mike Ott and Nathan Silver (produced by Britta Erickson) received a second acquisition offer by Ale Kino+
Selected projects participating in last year's Us in Progress Wrocław or 2015 Us in Progress Paris were included in the Aff program: "Take Me to the River," dir. Matt Sobel (Polish premiere); "Stinking Heaven" (dir. Nathan Silver); "Ma" (dir. Celia Rowlson-Hall) and Reza Safai and Daniel Y Grove-produced "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" returned to the Aff to let the audiences benefit from the creators' attendance.
For the missing color correction, sound mix, VFX, and other deliverables for Bennett's and Miller's "Alaska is a Drag", the Us in Progress prize adds significant value in the finishing stage of post-production. The organizers and programmers of Us in Progress, Ula Śniegowska (artistic director of Aff), Adeline Monzier and Marie Zeniter (Black Rabbit Film), and Chantal Lian (Champs-Elysées Film Festival), look forward to following all the participating unfinished projects, and the future work and collaborations of all Us in Progress filmmakers.
More about Us in Progress and American Film Festival on www.americanfilmfestival.pl.
Us in Progress is an industry event that aims to strengthen the trans-Atlantic film industry collaborations and partnerships and help European film professionals establish working relationships with new emerging American filmmakers. The event is a bi-annual program conducted at the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris during the summer before kicking-off in Wroclaw at Aff during the fall.
At the 6th American Film Festival, six films in various stages of post-production have conducted private screenings for film industry professionals, including Laurent Danielou (Loco Films), Mathieu Delaunay (Memento Films), Oda Schaeffer (k5), Silje Grimsdal (Trust Nordisk), and festival programmers from Edinburgh, Locarno, Tribeca, and a jury composed of yours truly, Sydney Levine, and Polish post-producers, to compete for post-production and promotional packages. In addition to the filmmaking duo, Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, two films have earned significant post-production awards - "Actor Martinez" by Nathan Silver and Mike Ott and "The Loner" by Daniel Y-Li Grove.
Here is a detailed listing of the awards:
"Alaska is a Drag" by Shaz Bennett, produced by Melanie Millerwill received:
post-production services up to the value of €10.000 (e.g. color grading or conforming, master Dcp, master Hdcam Sr, master Blu-ray, master DVD) from Chimney Poland, based in Warsaw; part of Chimney Groupa score composed by Maciej Zielinski from Soundflower Studiofinal mix 5.1 sound post-production to the value of $20.000 Euro (including rental of sound mixing studio with Thx and Dolby Premier certificates) from Toya Studios an offer to acquire Polish TV rights from Ale Kino+Several years ago, the filmmakers also received a couple of grants to develop the script from Clever in San Francisco (Cheryl Dunye’s company) and Naked Angels.
The script was developed through several programs at Sundance, Film Independent and Fox as well as the AFI Directing Workshop for Women.
"The Loner" by Daniel Grove and produced by Reza Sixo Safai received:
digital post-production services up to the value of €10.000 (excluding 35mm processing/scan; including conforming, color grading, grain/noise management, finishing, mastering, simple VFX, Dcp and other file based master from Fixafilm based in Warsaw and free registration to Producers' Network at Cannes 2016. "Actor Martinez" (working title) by Mike Ott and Nathan Silver (produced by Britta Erickson) received a second acquisition offer by Ale Kino+
Selected projects participating in last year's Us in Progress Wrocław or 2015 Us in Progress Paris were included in the Aff program: "Take Me to the River," dir. Matt Sobel (Polish premiere); "Stinking Heaven" (dir. Nathan Silver); "Ma" (dir. Celia Rowlson-Hall) and Reza Safai and Daniel Y Grove-produced "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night" returned to the Aff to let the audiences benefit from the creators' attendance.
For the missing color correction, sound mix, VFX, and other deliverables for Bennett's and Miller's "Alaska is a Drag", the Us in Progress prize adds significant value in the finishing stage of post-production. The organizers and programmers of Us in Progress, Ula Śniegowska (artistic director of Aff), Adeline Monzier and Marie Zeniter (Black Rabbit Film), and Chantal Lian (Champs-Elysées Film Festival), look forward to following all the participating unfinished projects, and the future work and collaborations of all Us in Progress filmmakers.
More about Us in Progress and American Film Festival on www.americanfilmfestival.pl.
- 11/6/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
I have spent two days at a great new film residency program in Mexico. Tepoztlan is a village an hour out of Mexico City and home to many filmmakers and artists. Pueblo Magico offers a three week workshop for first and second time filmmakers. It was founded by Flavio Florencio whose own first feature, the award winning transgender doc “Made in Bangkok” will screen at the Palm Springs Film Festival this coming January.
Read more about “Made in Bangkok” when covered at Guadalajara Film Festival L.A.
“I launched this residency because I realized there was a need for such a space for budding filmmakers where they can be free of distractions and pressure,” said its founder, Flavio Florencio. Florencio also founded the Human Rights Film Festival and the African Film Festivals, Africalal in Mexico.
Within 48 hours after opening the first call for entries for the three week workshop (October 17 to November 5), 120 projects from a dozen countries were received and reviewed by the selection committee that included Florencio, Guanajauto Festival Programming Director Nina Rodriguez and cinematographer Maria Secco. “The projects were so interesting that we have accepted more than the requisite eight this year,” said Florencio.
Projects of the 10 residents included eight fiction features and two docs, the bulk of them debuts. Five projects were from Mexico:
The two favorites (voting was by mentors who also attended the event) include the debut film project of Florian Seufert (Germany), the fiction feature, “Dragonflies Don’t Die”. Florian gathered his family to celebrate his parents 30th anniversary and his own 28th birthday on the same day. The footage already shot shows an atmospheric and mysterious world set within the ordinary confines of the large family celebration.
The “runner up” is the second fiction feature of Mauricio Lopez Fernandez (Chile), “La Jauria” in which a pack of dogs kill a herd of cows in a remote Andean hamlet, forcing village elders to make a sacrifice for the future of their youth. The film is still in early development. Mauricio's short film "La Santa" (2012) premiered at Berlinale Shorts and was a finalist for the Teddy Award. His first feature film, "The Guest" ("La Visita") won Best Picture and Best Actress at the Rencontres du cinema Sud-American de Marseilles et Region 2015 and was nominated Best Latin American Film at San Sebastian Film Festival 2015..
The winner receives post-production services, prestige, honor and glory!
Other debuts included:
Faride Schroeder (Mexico)
“Por el Amor a mi Madre” (fiction)
A young teen realizes her mother is an imperfect and vulnerable human being. Faride has served as second assistant director on “The Noble Family” and “Soy Negro” now in post.
Luis Horacio Pineda (Mexico)
“La Cosecha de los Naranjos” (fiction)
A group of teens affected by a fire 15 years ago in the nursery school Guarderia ABC seek revenge upon those responsible for it.
Luis now lives in Los Angeles where he is seeking to establish roots.
Alexander Albrecht (Switzerland)
“Brooklyn Treehouse” (fiction)
This is the story of four young creatives who come to New York; and through their experience of sharing an apartment with a eccentric French artist, they are pushed to make decisions about their own lives.
Produced by Edher Campos from Machete Producciones ("La Jaula de Oro", "Año Bisiesto")
Veronika Mliczewska (Poland)
“Where the Grass is Greener” (fiction)
A Jamaican dreams of living in Ethiopia while an Ethiopian family sends their son to London to seek a better life.
Antonella Sudasassi (Costa Rica)
“El Despertar de la Hormigas” (fiction)
A young mother who questions what she wants for the first time starts taking birth control pills without telling her husband. Pitting her will against social expectations and the fear of being discovered slowlysubmerge her into a state of psychosis with hallucinatory episodes that portray her feeling of guilt, her relationship with her body and sexuality.
Those with second film projects:
Mak Chun Kit (Singapore)
“Huruma” (docu)
Documentarian Mak Chun Kit returns to Tanzania eight years after he volunteered in an orphanage to find out how his friends there have fared.
Pablo Perez Lombardini (Mexico)
“Los Suenos de Geronimo” (fiction)
A seven-year-old boy runs away to seek answers about his father’s death and comes upon a haunted village in the desert.
Maria Fernanda Galindo (Mexico)
“Defensores” (docu)
Two women fight to defend the rights of a group of women who seek the escape the misogyny of their communities.
The program will be offered three times a year for three weeks at a time. The next one is scheduled for March 2016. “We’d like to focus on American indie filmmakers then, as few applied this time,” said Florencio.
In our time, the idea of slowing down is ever more attractive, more important and more difficult. This is a program which offers time for that. “ Pueblo Magico offers its residents a less frenetic pace and a less impersonal approach to developing their projects, with time to enjoy the beauty of their surroundings, visit the pueblo and hang out with mentors,” he added. The serious business of relaxation was led by yogi Namhari teaching meditation and yoga.
It is not by chance that the filmmakers find their needs fulfilled. Their needs are determined first and then the right mentors are found just for them. “If necessary, we’ll find not just film professionals but scientists, shamans or whatever sources they need,” said Florencio.
Mentors this session included Mexican producers Laura Imperiale,Christian Valdelievre and Nicolas Celis; screenwriter Carlos Contreras; Danish directing and acting coach Birgitte Staermose, festival pros/ consultants Mara Fortes, Christine Davila and Blanca Granados and yours truly, Sydney Levine, giving the closing presentation about the international film circuit, what it is exactly and how to enter its charmed circle of networking and screening opportunities.
A Master Class was given by Fernando Trueba, producer of the 2000 classic doc “Calle 54”, writer of the beautiful “Belle Epoque”, writer and director of the fabulous animated music feature “ Chico and Rita”. Residents also made a trip to D.F. for a private screenwriting session with Guillermo Arriaga.
The master class of Nicolas Celis who has formed a coproduction entity with trend setter Jim Stark (producer of Jim Jarmusch’s first films and films of Icelandic filmmaker Fredrik Fredrikson) will be the subject of an upcoming blog.
And soon, a call will be made to first and second time American indie filmmakers to come this March to Tepoztlan.
Read more about “Made in Bangkok” when covered at Guadalajara Film Festival L.A.
“I launched this residency because I realized there was a need for such a space for budding filmmakers where they can be free of distractions and pressure,” said its founder, Flavio Florencio. Florencio also founded the Human Rights Film Festival and the African Film Festivals, Africalal in Mexico.
Within 48 hours after opening the first call for entries for the three week workshop (October 17 to November 5), 120 projects from a dozen countries were received and reviewed by the selection committee that included Florencio, Guanajauto Festival Programming Director Nina Rodriguez and cinematographer Maria Secco. “The projects were so interesting that we have accepted more than the requisite eight this year,” said Florencio.
Projects of the 10 residents included eight fiction features and two docs, the bulk of them debuts. Five projects were from Mexico:
The two favorites (voting was by mentors who also attended the event) include the debut film project of Florian Seufert (Germany), the fiction feature, “Dragonflies Don’t Die”. Florian gathered his family to celebrate his parents 30th anniversary and his own 28th birthday on the same day. The footage already shot shows an atmospheric and mysterious world set within the ordinary confines of the large family celebration.
The “runner up” is the second fiction feature of Mauricio Lopez Fernandez (Chile), “La Jauria” in which a pack of dogs kill a herd of cows in a remote Andean hamlet, forcing village elders to make a sacrifice for the future of their youth. The film is still in early development. Mauricio's short film "La Santa" (2012) premiered at Berlinale Shorts and was a finalist for the Teddy Award. His first feature film, "The Guest" ("La Visita") won Best Picture and Best Actress at the Rencontres du cinema Sud-American de Marseilles et Region 2015 and was nominated Best Latin American Film at San Sebastian Film Festival 2015..
The winner receives post-production services, prestige, honor and glory!
Other debuts included:
Faride Schroeder (Mexico)
“Por el Amor a mi Madre” (fiction)
A young teen realizes her mother is an imperfect and vulnerable human being. Faride has served as second assistant director on “The Noble Family” and “Soy Negro” now in post.
Luis Horacio Pineda (Mexico)
“La Cosecha de los Naranjos” (fiction)
A group of teens affected by a fire 15 years ago in the nursery school Guarderia ABC seek revenge upon those responsible for it.
Luis now lives in Los Angeles where he is seeking to establish roots.
Alexander Albrecht (Switzerland)
“Brooklyn Treehouse” (fiction)
This is the story of four young creatives who come to New York; and through their experience of sharing an apartment with a eccentric French artist, they are pushed to make decisions about their own lives.
Produced by Edher Campos from Machete Producciones ("La Jaula de Oro", "Año Bisiesto")
Veronika Mliczewska (Poland)
“Where the Grass is Greener” (fiction)
A Jamaican dreams of living in Ethiopia while an Ethiopian family sends their son to London to seek a better life.
Antonella Sudasassi (Costa Rica)
“El Despertar de la Hormigas” (fiction)
A young mother who questions what she wants for the first time starts taking birth control pills without telling her husband. Pitting her will against social expectations and the fear of being discovered slowlysubmerge her into a state of psychosis with hallucinatory episodes that portray her feeling of guilt, her relationship with her body and sexuality.
Those with second film projects:
Mak Chun Kit (Singapore)
“Huruma” (docu)
Documentarian Mak Chun Kit returns to Tanzania eight years after he volunteered in an orphanage to find out how his friends there have fared.
Pablo Perez Lombardini (Mexico)
“Los Suenos de Geronimo” (fiction)
A seven-year-old boy runs away to seek answers about his father’s death and comes upon a haunted village in the desert.
Maria Fernanda Galindo (Mexico)
“Defensores” (docu)
Two women fight to defend the rights of a group of women who seek the escape the misogyny of their communities.
The program will be offered three times a year for three weeks at a time. The next one is scheduled for March 2016. “We’d like to focus on American indie filmmakers then, as few applied this time,” said Florencio.
In our time, the idea of slowing down is ever more attractive, more important and more difficult. This is a program which offers time for that. “ Pueblo Magico offers its residents a less frenetic pace and a less impersonal approach to developing their projects, with time to enjoy the beauty of their surroundings, visit the pueblo and hang out with mentors,” he added. The serious business of relaxation was led by yogi Namhari teaching meditation and yoga.
It is not by chance that the filmmakers find their needs fulfilled. Their needs are determined first and then the right mentors are found just for them. “If necessary, we’ll find not just film professionals but scientists, shamans or whatever sources they need,” said Florencio.
Mentors this session included Mexican producers Laura Imperiale,Christian Valdelievre and Nicolas Celis; screenwriter Carlos Contreras; Danish directing and acting coach Birgitte Staermose, festival pros/ consultants Mara Fortes, Christine Davila and Blanca Granados and yours truly, Sydney Levine, giving the closing presentation about the international film circuit, what it is exactly and how to enter its charmed circle of networking and screening opportunities.
A Master Class was given by Fernando Trueba, producer of the 2000 classic doc “Calle 54”, writer of the beautiful “Belle Epoque”, writer and director of the fabulous animated music feature “ Chico and Rita”. Residents also made a trip to D.F. for a private screenwriting session with Guillermo Arriaga.
The master class of Nicolas Celis who has formed a coproduction entity with trend setter Jim Stark (producer of Jim Jarmusch’s first films and films of Icelandic filmmaker Fredrik Fredrikson) will be the subject of an upcoming blog.
And soon, a call will be made to first and second time American indie filmmakers to come this March to Tepoztlan.
- 11/6/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Alaska Is A Drag director Shaz Bennett and producer Melanie Miller were the big winners at Us in Progress at the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland.
The fifth edition of Us in Progress, an industry event that showcases in-progress Us films to European film professionals, screened six films in various stages of post-production.
Alaska Is A Drag now receives post-production services worth €10.000 at Chimney Poland in Warsaw; a sound mix from Toya Studios; a score compsed by Soundflower Studio; and a TV rights deal with Ale Kino+.
The film is about an aspiring superstar, Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) and his twin sister Tristen (Maya Washington), who are stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska.
Attendees at Us in Progress included Laurent Danielou (Loco Films), Mathieu Delaunay (Memento), Oda Schaeffer (K5), Silje Grimsdal (TrustNordisk), and festival programmers from Edinburgh, Locarno and Tribeca.
A jury composed of Sydney Levine and Polish post-producer awarded packages to [link...
The fifth edition of Us in Progress, an industry event that showcases in-progress Us films to European film professionals, screened six films in various stages of post-production.
Alaska Is A Drag now receives post-production services worth €10.000 at Chimney Poland in Warsaw; a sound mix from Toya Studios; a score compsed by Soundflower Studio; and a TV rights deal with Ale Kino+.
The film is about an aspiring superstar, Leo (Martin L. Washington Jr.) and his twin sister Tristen (Maya Washington), who are stuck working in a fish cannery in Alaska.
Attendees at Us in Progress included Laurent Danielou (Loco Films), Mathieu Delaunay (Memento), Oda Schaeffer (K5), Silje Grimsdal (TrustNordisk), and festival programmers from Edinburgh, Locarno and Tribeca.
A jury composed of Sydney Levine and Polish post-producer awarded packages to [link...
- 11/5/2015
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
The American Film Festival is building families. The 6th edition (October 20-25, 2015) of the Wroclaw, Poland film fest was better than any of the previous four I have attended as a jury member for the Us in Progress section. Networking with the USiP filmmakers, past participants Matt Sobel (“Take Me to the River”),Leah Meyerhoff (“I Believe in Unicorns”),Reza Sixo Safai (“A Girl Walks Home at Night Alone”) and whose present project “ The Loner” (he produced and stars in it, Daniel Grove directed) won at USiP, etc. mingled with Indie Star Awardees David Gordon Green and Hal Hartley and other filmmakers like Jenner Furst ("Welcome to Leith") invited to present their films and to eat and party together over five days and four nights which lasted until the wee hours of the morning.
African American Women's classics also showed for the first time ever to appreciative Polish audiences. Though luckily for them, but a sad miss for the audiences, every one of the filmmakers was too busy with other work to attend. The selected films brought rarely before scenes of life in America to a new public.
You can be sure Ava DuVernay was invited, and you can be equally certain that she was very busy with multiple projects.
When I was in Trinidad, I heard from the film's distributor, Michelle Materre, a well known lecturer and film curator whose film series and discussion group, Creatively Speaking, takes place at the N.Y. Film Society’s Lincoln Center and in L.A. that Julie Dash was busy working on a TV series or a doc. I hope one of you reading this will email me a more news of her, because since her film “Daughters of the Dust” premiered at Sundance in 1991, her fan base has grown and eagerly awaits more stories from her. For those who missed her instant classic at Sundance, "Daughters of the Dust" presents a transgenerational saga set on the fictitious island of Ibo's Landing in 1902 about a young woman's quest for identity. Guichees, or Gullahs, aka the Georgia Sea Islanders are U.S.'s most African community still living today off the Georgia and South Carolina coast. The film was presented to the audience as a radical feminist manifesto and landmark of independent American cinema.
Other films included in the series, curated by Ula Sniegowsk and a young film academic Ewa Drygalska, included Katherine Collins' (who tragically died of cancer at age 46) 1982 film "Losing Ground", Tanya Hamilton's "Night Catches Us", the popular and fabulous " The Secret Life of Bees" another Sundance premiering film, by Gina Prince-Blythewood (2008), Dee Rees' 2012 Sundance film "Pariah" and her recent HBO (who incidentally is an important sponsor of the festival with a showcase of its own films) fictional doc "Bessie" starring the one and only Queen Latifah, and Ava DuVernay's "Middle of Nowhere" and "Selma".
While we're on the subject of African American movies, the Spike Lee mentored new talent Michael Larnell, was here with my favorite "Next" generation film " Cronies".
Us in Progress had two out of six selected films about African Americans, the Four Award winning "Alaska Is a Drag" directed by former L.A. and Sundance Festival worker, debuting director Shaz Bennett, produced by Melanie Miller and Diane Becker; and "The Alchemist Cookbook" written and directed by Joel Potrykus. Other films included "Dope", documentarians' Albert Maysles' " In Transit", Nick Broomfield's "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" and Frederick Wiseman's "In Jackson Heights", Mark Silver's "3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets", sleeper hit "Tangerine" by Sean Baker, "Field Niggas" a nocturnal portrait of Harlem by Khalik Allah, David Gordon Green's “George Washington", and last, but by no means least, Clint Eastwood's "Bird" as part of his extensive retrospective.
This festival is held in the largest Arthouse multiplex in Europe, built and owned (as is the festival itself, along with New Horizons Film Festival in July and several others) by arthouse film distributor and entrepreneur Roman Gutek.
Fabulous. Written by Sydney Levine in her hotel room at The Monopole where an opera rehearsal wafts through the morning air of a sunny, dry 50*F metropolis mixing with the sound of the streetcar. This has been a fabulous experience topped off by a fabulous tour of the city and today a visit to Europe's most fabulous zoo and aquarium.
African American Women's classics also showed for the first time ever to appreciative Polish audiences. Though luckily for them, but a sad miss for the audiences, every one of the filmmakers was too busy with other work to attend. The selected films brought rarely before scenes of life in America to a new public.
You can be sure Ava DuVernay was invited, and you can be equally certain that she was very busy with multiple projects.
When I was in Trinidad, I heard from the film's distributor, Michelle Materre, a well known lecturer and film curator whose film series and discussion group, Creatively Speaking, takes place at the N.Y. Film Society’s Lincoln Center and in L.A. that Julie Dash was busy working on a TV series or a doc. I hope one of you reading this will email me a more news of her, because since her film “Daughters of the Dust” premiered at Sundance in 1991, her fan base has grown and eagerly awaits more stories from her. For those who missed her instant classic at Sundance, "Daughters of the Dust" presents a transgenerational saga set on the fictitious island of Ibo's Landing in 1902 about a young woman's quest for identity. Guichees, or Gullahs, aka the Georgia Sea Islanders are U.S.'s most African community still living today off the Georgia and South Carolina coast. The film was presented to the audience as a radical feminist manifesto and landmark of independent American cinema.
Other films included in the series, curated by Ula Sniegowsk and a young film academic Ewa Drygalska, included Katherine Collins' (who tragically died of cancer at age 46) 1982 film "Losing Ground", Tanya Hamilton's "Night Catches Us", the popular and fabulous " The Secret Life of Bees" another Sundance premiering film, by Gina Prince-Blythewood (2008), Dee Rees' 2012 Sundance film "Pariah" and her recent HBO (who incidentally is an important sponsor of the festival with a showcase of its own films) fictional doc "Bessie" starring the one and only Queen Latifah, and Ava DuVernay's "Middle of Nowhere" and "Selma".
While we're on the subject of African American movies, the Spike Lee mentored new talent Michael Larnell, was here with my favorite "Next" generation film " Cronies".
Us in Progress had two out of six selected films about African Americans, the Four Award winning "Alaska Is a Drag" directed by former L.A. and Sundance Festival worker, debuting director Shaz Bennett, produced by Melanie Miller and Diane Becker; and "The Alchemist Cookbook" written and directed by Joel Potrykus. Other films included "Dope", documentarians' Albert Maysles' " In Transit", Nick Broomfield's "Tales of the Grim Sleeper" and Frederick Wiseman's "In Jackson Heights", Mark Silver's "3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets", sleeper hit "Tangerine" by Sean Baker, "Field Niggas" a nocturnal portrait of Harlem by Khalik Allah, David Gordon Green's “George Washington", and last, but by no means least, Clint Eastwood's "Bird" as part of his extensive retrospective.
This festival is held in the largest Arthouse multiplex in Europe, built and owned (as is the festival itself, along with New Horizons Film Festival in July and several others) by arthouse film distributor and entrepreneur Roman Gutek.
Fabulous. Written by Sydney Levine in her hotel room at The Monopole where an opera rehearsal wafts through the morning air of a sunny, dry 50*F metropolis mixing with the sound of the streetcar. This has been a fabulous experience topped off by a fabulous tour of the city and today a visit to Europe's most fabulous zoo and aquarium.
- 10/28/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Toronto International Film Festival is celebrating its 40th anniversary this September. Tiff has become the most important international film festival in North America. It is a festival for the people of Toronto as well as for the film professionals who gather here for the first big event on the yearly film circuit of festivals and markets which culminates in May with the greatest film festival/ market of all, the Cannes International Film Festival and Marché.
Tiff’s red carpet Galas kick off the Academy Award Oscar Campaigns. The most important film distributors, international sales agents, producers, financiers, agents and festival programmers come to do business, buying and selling the newest of world cinema available at any festival. They gather and meet at the Hyatt which is where festival headquarters, the marketplace and conferences are held. The Hyatt itself is just around the corner from the multiplex where most of the movies are screened for the industry. Public screenings are around the city. Buyers also attend them because the Canadian public loves movies and offers a good sense of how the movies will be received publicly.
Helga Stephenson was Executive Director of the Festival from 1986 to 1996.
When she began many things in our world were changing - the financial crash of 1987, AIDS, Tiananmen Square in China, the Gulf War, genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Films were exploring new meanings for modern values. Native voices were just being heard, Latin American filmmakers were just emerging…
She is also founder and co-chair of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (https://ff.hrw.org/about).
She has been CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television since May 26, 2011. Her aim at the Academy is to make the Genies and the TV awards (the equivalents of the Oscars and Emmys in the U.S.) achieve the status of being engraved in the minds of every Canadian.
Did you always know you wanted to be in film?
Generationally, film was the major art form for sure. When at McGill University (Bachelor of Arts, 1969), I went to Robert Lantos’s Erotic Film Festival. We came from a generation where if it flickered on the screen, it was fabulous.
Films in the 70s both in and out of Hollywood were bursting on the screen. It was good-bye to Doris Day and hello “Bonnie and Clyde”. The screen was responding most strongly to my generation.
But there was no way then to make a living from film and so I became a PR person specializing in the arts, “a girl job” which got my foot in door.
My entry into film and TV was in 1976. Before that I was a fan. The world of film was almost exclusively male.
How did you break in?
I got there in spite of being a woman.
I moved to Toronto in the fall of 1976 from Havana where I had been teaching English in Cuso, the Canadian version of the Peace Corp.
I started an independent PR company called Sro with Maureen O’Donnell and Bob Ramsay and by our third year we were the PR company that took care of the Festival. We started the Fest’s first receptions at Cannes.
I volunteered to fundraise for the Festival and in 1982 I became Director of Communications.
At that time the classics divisions of the studios started up and women began getting jobs at the studios -- Linda Beath, Carol Greene, Mj Pekos, Donna Gigliotti. This was in the late 70s, early 80s …they were known in Cannes as “The Pink Mafia”. The numbers of women in business on Croisette in Cannes grew yearly: Aline Perry, Carole Myer, Claudie Cheval, Michele Halberstadt. No longer were they confined to PR and assistant positions or “D girls” like Marcia Nasitir who was already a veteran when we began. 20th Century Fox hired Sydney Levine, the first woman in international distribution in 1975. Agencies also began hiring women where earlier Sue Mengers and Ina Bernstein were the only female agents.
For Toronto, it was a very big leap for the Board to hire a woman. There were big arguments; it didn’t want a woman; it didn’t see how a publicity girl could jump out of the box even though she had negotiated most the deals with Hollywood.
How did they finally hire you?
I had a quite few advocates; people admired my work and they liked me. They were just not used to the idea of women in leadership positions. I had to be patient. Mounting an attack would not work. After they hired me, there was no looking back.
How did you feel throughout this? Did you feel inferior to men?
I never felt inferior; sometimes I felt locked out but I managed a style that that allowed them to allow me into the conversation.
How did you do this?
My style was very direct, even gruff, like the men.
How has it changed today?
40 years later in Canada, the business is predominately female. All three major TV networks are now run by women (Bell Media, Shaw Media and CBC). At my meetings with networks there may be 20 people in a room - mostly women. The whole market place has changed. Even banks concentrate on women, or on gays. It’s not through goodness of heart but by profit motives.
There is a huge cadre of female producers - very successful ones.
Where are the men?
I don’t know, in wealth management maybe.
How did this happen?
It seemed sudden. When I returned to the industry after raising my child,
I was shocked to see the cultural workplace was predominately women. Of course it is not perfect and to be exclusively female would be no good.
All the “culture” organizations are non-profit and encourage diversity rather than white male dominance across the board. Big corporate sponsors and networks are mostly women today in leadership positions.
I never expected to see this change happen so fast.
What were your biggest challenges in moving ahead in your career?
Balance between life and work is always very tricky especially as a single mother. I tipped toward my child and left the industry to care for her.
When I was not doing too much I brought Human Rights Watch to Canada to appease my conscience. This was 10 years ago. I wanted to feel I was doing my part to make the world a better place. I needed to know I was doing something.
What motivated you to start the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival?
They wanted to do a Film Festival, so I chaired it and found that it went back to my roots in Cuso.
Can you tell us more about it?
In the films we covered four or five years ago there was a spate of migrant films. It was so clear and obvious that what is happening today was coming. If people had been paying attention, today’s horrible situation could have been avoided. U.S. and Europe today look like a gated community.
Everyone came here for a better life. The entire continent was founded by immigrants…not anymore. This post-colonial mess all is based on anti-immigration sentiment of the current powers.
Then I became involved with establishing Reykjavik Film Festival because I was Icelandic. Joni Sigivattson the Hollywood producer suggested me for the role. Reykjavik is another film festival run by a woman.
How does it happen you are Icelandic? I thought you were Quebecoise.
I was born and raised in Montreal. My great grandmother divorced my great grandfather and came to Canada with my grandfather.
What about today’s women in the film industry both in the creative and business sides?
In film, males remain dominant.
There is still more to go on creative side than on the business side. Women directors are not where they should be, but they’re climbing.
Today there is an interesting study of Women in Media in Canada. Kay Armitrage (a former programmer of Tiff and an academic) has statistics which are not rosy.
But, a woman runs Telefilm Canada, and a woman is chair of the biggest bank. There are lots of women in very important positions in and out of the cultural sector.
Is the Academy taking any action on affirmative action or women’s parity?
It already has a predominately female staff. The Board is 60-40 male-female. It offers lots of professional seminars for and by women.
What about Tiff?
The Festival was great from day one. Linda Beath brought in the cadre of programmers – the best in world. It was the Festival of Festivals. It did not care about status of the film, but it did have world premiers. Classics divisions of the major studios and then video buyers came for the best films in the world and they loved the great audiences who made big hits so it became a great vehicle for testing the market. It became the gateway for foreign films to the U.S. niche market. That activity surged in spite of Tiff not wanting to have a market. The Market started in spite of itself and markets demand fresh product.
It is still not a formal market, but to appeal to the public, industry and press, it became more important to get the newer films.
The rapidity of information and reactions have created a new reality today. Now because of social media and the internet, it’s best to show films never seen anywhere before. Tiff still shows films that are not necessarily world premieres but obviously gives preference to WPs. And it still shows the best films in the world as it has always done. This is the key to its success over the years.
I notice about 20% of the directors are women at this year’s Festival.
There are Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese, Palestinian, Tunisian and Lebanese; Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is an Israel-u.S. coproduction. She’s one of nine U.S. directors. France has six, Canada five, Australia four, India three, U.K. three, Israel and Austria have two Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and Pakistan have one women-directed film each.
I don’t know yet which films I favor; I’ll have to see them.
There are also In-Depth Conversations with Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Sarah Silverman. This year’s Industry Conference includes a series of "no-holds-barred" conversations about gender in the media to cover topics such as "Financing Female-Led Films" and "Uncovering Unconscious Bias"...
Tiff’s red carpet Galas kick off the Academy Award Oscar Campaigns. The most important film distributors, international sales agents, producers, financiers, agents and festival programmers come to do business, buying and selling the newest of world cinema available at any festival. They gather and meet at the Hyatt which is where festival headquarters, the marketplace and conferences are held. The Hyatt itself is just around the corner from the multiplex where most of the movies are screened for the industry. Public screenings are around the city. Buyers also attend them because the Canadian public loves movies and offers a good sense of how the movies will be received publicly.
Helga Stephenson was Executive Director of the Festival from 1986 to 1996.
When she began many things in our world were changing - the financial crash of 1987, AIDS, Tiananmen Square in China, the Gulf War, genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Films were exploring new meanings for modern values. Native voices were just being heard, Latin American filmmakers were just emerging…
She is also founder and co-chair of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (https://ff.hrw.org/about).
She has been CEO of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television since May 26, 2011. Her aim at the Academy is to make the Genies and the TV awards (the equivalents of the Oscars and Emmys in the U.S.) achieve the status of being engraved in the minds of every Canadian.
Did you always know you wanted to be in film?
Generationally, film was the major art form for sure. When at McGill University (Bachelor of Arts, 1969), I went to Robert Lantos’s Erotic Film Festival. We came from a generation where if it flickered on the screen, it was fabulous.
Films in the 70s both in and out of Hollywood were bursting on the screen. It was good-bye to Doris Day and hello “Bonnie and Clyde”. The screen was responding most strongly to my generation.
But there was no way then to make a living from film and so I became a PR person specializing in the arts, “a girl job” which got my foot in door.
My entry into film and TV was in 1976. Before that I was a fan. The world of film was almost exclusively male.
How did you break in?
I got there in spite of being a woman.
I moved to Toronto in the fall of 1976 from Havana where I had been teaching English in Cuso, the Canadian version of the Peace Corp.
I started an independent PR company called Sro with Maureen O’Donnell and Bob Ramsay and by our third year we were the PR company that took care of the Festival. We started the Fest’s first receptions at Cannes.
I volunteered to fundraise for the Festival and in 1982 I became Director of Communications.
At that time the classics divisions of the studios started up and women began getting jobs at the studios -- Linda Beath, Carol Greene, Mj Pekos, Donna Gigliotti. This was in the late 70s, early 80s …they were known in Cannes as “The Pink Mafia”. The numbers of women in business on Croisette in Cannes grew yearly: Aline Perry, Carole Myer, Claudie Cheval, Michele Halberstadt. No longer were they confined to PR and assistant positions or “D girls” like Marcia Nasitir who was already a veteran when we began. 20th Century Fox hired Sydney Levine, the first woman in international distribution in 1975. Agencies also began hiring women where earlier Sue Mengers and Ina Bernstein were the only female agents.
For Toronto, it was a very big leap for the Board to hire a woman. There were big arguments; it didn’t want a woman; it didn’t see how a publicity girl could jump out of the box even though she had negotiated most the deals with Hollywood.
How did they finally hire you?
I had a quite few advocates; people admired my work and they liked me. They were just not used to the idea of women in leadership positions. I had to be patient. Mounting an attack would not work. After they hired me, there was no looking back.
How did you feel throughout this? Did you feel inferior to men?
I never felt inferior; sometimes I felt locked out but I managed a style that that allowed them to allow me into the conversation.
How did you do this?
My style was very direct, even gruff, like the men.
How has it changed today?
40 years later in Canada, the business is predominately female. All three major TV networks are now run by women (Bell Media, Shaw Media and CBC). At my meetings with networks there may be 20 people in a room - mostly women. The whole market place has changed. Even banks concentrate on women, or on gays. It’s not through goodness of heart but by profit motives.
There is a huge cadre of female producers - very successful ones.
Where are the men?
I don’t know, in wealth management maybe.
How did this happen?
It seemed sudden. When I returned to the industry after raising my child,
I was shocked to see the cultural workplace was predominately women. Of course it is not perfect and to be exclusively female would be no good.
All the “culture” organizations are non-profit and encourage diversity rather than white male dominance across the board. Big corporate sponsors and networks are mostly women today in leadership positions.
I never expected to see this change happen so fast.
What were your biggest challenges in moving ahead in your career?
Balance between life and work is always very tricky especially as a single mother. I tipped toward my child and left the industry to care for her.
When I was not doing too much I brought Human Rights Watch to Canada to appease my conscience. This was 10 years ago. I wanted to feel I was doing my part to make the world a better place. I needed to know I was doing something.
What motivated you to start the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival?
They wanted to do a Film Festival, so I chaired it and found that it went back to my roots in Cuso.
Can you tell us more about it?
In the films we covered four or five years ago there was a spate of migrant films. It was so clear and obvious that what is happening today was coming. If people had been paying attention, today’s horrible situation could have been avoided. U.S. and Europe today look like a gated community.
Everyone came here for a better life. The entire continent was founded by immigrants…not anymore. This post-colonial mess all is based on anti-immigration sentiment of the current powers.
Then I became involved with establishing Reykjavik Film Festival because I was Icelandic. Joni Sigivattson the Hollywood producer suggested me for the role. Reykjavik is another film festival run by a woman.
How does it happen you are Icelandic? I thought you were Quebecoise.
I was born and raised in Montreal. My great grandmother divorced my great grandfather and came to Canada with my grandfather.
What about today’s women in the film industry both in the creative and business sides?
In film, males remain dominant.
There is still more to go on creative side than on the business side. Women directors are not where they should be, but they’re climbing.
Today there is an interesting study of Women in Media in Canada. Kay Armitrage (a former programmer of Tiff and an academic) has statistics which are not rosy.
But, a woman runs Telefilm Canada, and a woman is chair of the biggest bank. There are lots of women in very important positions in and out of the cultural sector.
Is the Academy taking any action on affirmative action or women’s parity?
It already has a predominately female staff. The Board is 60-40 male-female. It offers lots of professional seminars for and by women.
What about Tiff?
The Festival was great from day one. Linda Beath brought in the cadre of programmers – the best in world. It was the Festival of Festivals. It did not care about status of the film, but it did have world premiers. Classics divisions of the major studios and then video buyers came for the best films in the world and they loved the great audiences who made big hits so it became a great vehicle for testing the market. It became the gateway for foreign films to the U.S. niche market. That activity surged in spite of Tiff not wanting to have a market. The Market started in spite of itself and markets demand fresh product.
It is still not a formal market, but to appeal to the public, industry and press, it became more important to get the newer films.
The rapidity of information and reactions have created a new reality today. Now because of social media and the internet, it’s best to show films never seen anywhere before. Tiff still shows films that are not necessarily world premieres but obviously gives preference to WPs. And it still shows the best films in the world as it has always done. This is the key to its success over the years.
I notice about 20% of the directors are women at this year’s Festival.
There are Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese, Palestinian, Tunisian and Lebanese; Natalie Portman’s directorial debut is an Israel-u.S. coproduction. She’s one of nine U.S. directors. France has six, Canada five, Australia four, India three, U.K. three, Israel and Austria have two Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Ethiopia, Norway, Sweden, New Zealand, and Pakistan have one women-directed film each.
I don’t know yet which films I favor; I’ll have to see them.
There are also In-Depth Conversations with Julianne Moore, Salma Hayek, Sarah Silverman. This year’s Industry Conference includes a series of "no-holds-barred" conversations about gender in the media to cover topics such as "Financing Female-Led Films" and "Uncovering Unconscious Bias"...
- 9/10/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This insanely inventive collection of deranged stories questions violence and revenge from a comedic angle. Besides being a complete riot that packs in uproarious humor, Damian Szifron’s film demonstrates his ability to create a cohesive film out of diverse vignettes united by the dark side of human nature. From start to finish, “Wild Tales” is truly a savagely fun trip.
Within the carefully constructed codes of conduct that most of us abide by, acting on impulse and the unpredictability of human nature are not welcomed. We are trained to rationalize our negative emotions in order to keep our civilization from collapsing into an ocean of chaos and anarchy. Obey the system and play by the rules.
Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Wild Tales"
Of course, there are times in our lives when these parameters become obsolete and we give in to rage, violence, and revenge. It’s a terrifying quality of our species, but sometimes we believe getting retribution is the only way to quench our anger.
In the Oscar-nominated film “Wild Tales” (Relatos Salvajes), Damián Szifron’s deranged ode to madness, we are confronted with the animal instincts that we so desperately try to hide - until we can’t. Betrayal, injustice, and even the need to avenge a loved one, drive Szifron’s characters into losing control. With pitch black comedy that is as universal as the situations it explores, his film is a hilarious and smart vehicle for sharp social commentary.
Following it's premiere in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, "Wild Tales" continued to play at international festival and became a box-office smash in Argentina. Eventually, the film was selected as the country's official entry for the 87th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. It went on to become one of the 5 final nominees out of 83 submissions.
This past February Szifron's audacious work was theatrically released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics. "Wild Tales" manged to gross over $3 million at the box office, an incredible feat for an international film.
Now this Almodovar-produced film is available on Blu-Ray and DVD, and it comes with two marvelous bonus features. One is a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at the challenging pace of shooting six different stories, and the other is a candid and thoughtful conversation with Szifron during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Both features really provide insight on a filmmaker that's bound to become a defining industry player both in Hollywood and Latin America.
Special Features:
-Wild Shooting: Creating the Film
-A Special Evening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Dámian Szifron...
Within the carefully constructed codes of conduct that most of us abide by, acting on impulse and the unpredictability of human nature are not welcomed. We are trained to rationalize our negative emotions in order to keep our civilization from collapsing into an ocean of chaos and anarchy. Obey the system and play by the rules.
Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Wild Tales"
Of course, there are times in our lives when these parameters become obsolete and we give in to rage, violence, and revenge. It’s a terrifying quality of our species, but sometimes we believe getting retribution is the only way to quench our anger.
In the Oscar-nominated film “Wild Tales” (Relatos Salvajes), Damián Szifron’s deranged ode to madness, we are confronted with the animal instincts that we so desperately try to hide - until we can’t. Betrayal, injustice, and even the need to avenge a loved one, drive Szifron’s characters into losing control. With pitch black comedy that is as universal as the situations it explores, his film is a hilarious and smart vehicle for sharp social commentary.
Following it's premiere in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, "Wild Tales" continued to play at international festival and became a box-office smash in Argentina. Eventually, the film was selected as the country's official entry for the 87th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. It went on to become one of the 5 final nominees out of 83 submissions.
This past February Szifron's audacious work was theatrically released in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics. "Wild Tales" manged to gross over $3 million at the box office, an incredible feat for an international film.
Now this Almodovar-produced film is available on Blu-Ray and DVD, and it comes with two marvelous bonus features. One is a fantastic behind-the-scenes look at the challenging pace of shooting six different stories, and the other is a candid and thoughtful conversation with Szifron during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Both features really provide insight on a filmmaker that's bound to become a defining industry player both in Hollywood and Latin America.
Special Features:
-Wild Shooting: Creating the Film
-A Special Evening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Dámian Szifron...
- 6/16/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Last year Sydney Levine reported from Panama City where the first edition of the Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema took place to celebrate the eclectic and rising film industries in the region. 25 countries participated with a total of 70 films, which amounted to an incredible debut for the then newly introduced awards.
In order to expand the event's visibility and to provide exposure for the filmmakers and their works, TNT has joined Egeda (Audiovisual Producers' Rights Management Entity) this year for second annual Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema. Last year's hosts, Mexican actress & singer Alessandra Rosaldo (@alexrosaldo) and CNN en Español’s Juan Carlos Arciniegas (@JuanCarlosCNN), return to helm the event. Mexican TV host and journalist Rafa Sarmiento ( @rafalitosarmi) will be in charge of the commentaries during the event.
The Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema identify the best Latin American productions, as well as those from Spain and Portugal, in nine creative categories and four technical awards including Best Latin American Fiction Film, Best Documentary, Best Animated Film, Best Latin American Fiction Opera Prima, Best Direction, Best Performance by an Actor, Best Performance by an Actress, Best Script, Best Original Score, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Sound and Best Cinematography, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mariano Cesar, TNT Vice President and Channel Manager, said, “TNT is one of the leading cable channels in Latin America because it offers its audiences the best live events from the entertainment industry, such as the Oscars®, the Golden Globe® and the Grammys®. The addition of the Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema to our programming will complement this. We are confident that our audiences will enjoy this prestigious award show.”
Miguel Angel Benzal, CEO of Egeda and the Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema declared, “In less than a year these awards, in collaboration with Fipca (Iberoamerican Federation of Film and Audiovisual Producers), have been established as the reference point of quality and success of our cinema. For the ceremony taking place on July 18th at Starlite in Marbella, Spain, we are expecting that audiences, in the over 50 countries that the show will be broadcasted in, will join in support to recognize the amazing talent of actors, producers, directors, screenwriters and all the other talent that take part in the creative process of filmmaking. We feel very privileged to partner with TNT for the broadcasting and promotion of the awards in Latin America, because of its leadership position in the region.”
In addition to the main event, audiences will be able to enjoy an exclusive 30 minute Pre-Show from the Red Carpet, broadcasted on both TNT and CNN en Español. The Pre-Show will be hosted by Argentine filmmaker, journalist and producer Axel Kuschevatzky (@AxelKuschevatzk ) and Dominican host of CNN en Español, Mariela Encarnación ( @MarielaCNN).
The Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema and the Pre-Show will air live for Latin America on Saturday July 18 th at 4.30Pm (Arg / Ch) / 2.30Pm (Mex / Col / Pan) / 3Pm (Ven). The ceremony and Pre-Show will air again the same day at 10:00 pm(Arg / Mex / Col / Ch / Pan / Ecu / Ven). 9pm (Cr / Gua). 8pm (Pe). Midnight (Ch – exclusive DirecTV). 9.30pm (Pe – exclusive DirecTV). Feed TNT HD (tntgo.tv).
In order to expand the event's visibility and to provide exposure for the filmmakers and their works, TNT has joined Egeda (Audiovisual Producers' Rights Management Entity) this year for second annual Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema. Last year's hosts, Mexican actress & singer Alessandra Rosaldo (@alexrosaldo) and CNN en Español’s Juan Carlos Arciniegas (@JuanCarlosCNN), return to helm the event. Mexican TV host and journalist Rafa Sarmiento ( @rafalitosarmi) will be in charge of the commentaries during the event.
The Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema identify the best Latin American productions, as well as those from Spain and Portugal, in nine creative categories and four technical awards including Best Latin American Fiction Film, Best Documentary, Best Animated Film, Best Latin American Fiction Opera Prima, Best Direction, Best Performance by an Actor, Best Performance by an Actress, Best Script, Best Original Score, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Sound and Best Cinematography, plus a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mariano Cesar, TNT Vice President and Channel Manager, said, “TNT is one of the leading cable channels in Latin America because it offers its audiences the best live events from the entertainment industry, such as the Oscars®, the Golden Globe® and the Grammys®. The addition of the Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema to our programming will complement this. We are confident that our audiences will enjoy this prestigious award show.”
Miguel Angel Benzal, CEO of Egeda and the Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema declared, “In less than a year these awards, in collaboration with Fipca (Iberoamerican Federation of Film and Audiovisual Producers), have been established as the reference point of quality and success of our cinema. For the ceremony taking place on July 18th at Starlite in Marbella, Spain, we are expecting that audiences, in the over 50 countries that the show will be broadcasted in, will join in support to recognize the amazing talent of actors, producers, directors, screenwriters and all the other talent that take part in the creative process of filmmaking. We feel very privileged to partner with TNT for the broadcasting and promotion of the awards in Latin America, because of its leadership position in the region.”
In addition to the main event, audiences will be able to enjoy an exclusive 30 minute Pre-Show from the Red Carpet, broadcasted on both TNT and CNN en Español. The Pre-Show will be hosted by Argentine filmmaker, journalist and producer Axel Kuschevatzky (@AxelKuschevatzk ) and Dominican host of CNN en Español, Mariela Encarnación ( @MarielaCNN).
The Premios Platino of Iberoamerican Cinema and the Pre-Show will air live for Latin America on Saturday July 18 th at 4.30Pm (Arg / Ch) / 2.30Pm (Mex / Col / Pan) / 3Pm (Ven). The ceremony and Pre-Show will air again the same day at 10:00 pm(Arg / Mex / Col / Ch / Pan / Ecu / Ven). 9pm (Cr / Gua). 8pm (Pe). Midnight (Ch – exclusive DirecTV). 9.30pm (Pe – exclusive DirecTV). Feed TNT HD (tntgo.tv).
- 5/26/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Festival favorite "Manos Sucias" is a story about two estranged brothers Delio (Cristian James Advincula) & Jacobo (Jarlin Javier Martinez), one an aspiring rapper and the other a more grounded fisherman who find themselves wrapped up in narco trafficking. Set in the impoverished but culturally rich port town of Buenaventura, Colombia, director Josef Kubota Wladyka draws rich performances from first time actors and the community, while Alan Blanco’s camera paints the stark beauty of Buenaventura with stunning reality. The film will recall 2012’s "Una Noche" by Lucy Mulloy (probably not a coincidence that "Manos Sucias" Ex-Prod. Spike Lee presented that film also) and 2014’s "Fishing Without Nets" by Cutter Hodierne in that all of them as filmmakers, present gritty realities of the everyday life of people at crossroads yet personally told their stories affectionately. With use of a perfect rhythm "Manos Sucias" portrays a little seen piece of Colombia.
In July 2014, Sydney Levine of SydneysBuzz wrote of the film's genesis as the firs U.S.-Colombian coproduction of its kind and its subsequent international sales when she discovered the film at Cartagena. Read more here.
LatinoBuzz spoke to writer/director Josef Kubota Wladyka, co-writer/cinematographer Alan Blanco and producers Elena Greenlee & Marcia Nunes on this collective managed to bring the film to fruition.
LatinoBuzz: Latin American cinema seems to be exploring the Afro-Latino experience more than before. Was this one of the themes you had in mind when writing the screenplay?
Josef : Buenaventura is more than 85% African descent. After spending time talking to the community, gracious enough to share their stories and experiences with us, it became clear that there is a lot of racism and violence towards the Afro-Colombians. It was important for us to touch on these larger themes by using an intimate story of two estranged brothers. The heart of the story is the relationship between Jacobo and Delio, and the choices they must make.
Márcia : I still think there aren't enough films made about the Afro-Latino experience, and minority experiences in general in the Us and abroad. It's important that we as filmmakers and audience members seek out these stories and keeping pushing for a wider frame of representation.
LatinoBuzz: How important was Spike Lee's involvement and what was the best advice he gave going into production?
Josef : Spike’s involvement was extremely important because having an iconic filmmaker like himself associated with your project opens so many doors, especially in Colombia. He read our script and revisions, and gave his insight on how to make the movie happen. Having been an advocate and mentor to the project over the years, we showed him a fine cut of the film. At that point, he felt comfortable coming on board as our presenter and as an executive producer. Spike has long been a supporter of up-and-coming filmmakers and continues to be an inspiration to us. His best piece of advice was simple… “Get it done, by any means necessary.”
LatinoBuzz: This is your first feature - did anyone say “Maybe shooting in the jungles of Buenaventura, Colombia with unknown actors is not the way to go right now?”
Alan : The script for this film was based on over 6 years of research that Joe carried out on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. Even so we heard a lot of people say that shooting in Colombia was too risky and we definitely considered shooting in other places. We even scouted Puerto Rico and discovered that as a team our top priority was to making a film that represented this story authentically.
Josef: We wanted to make the film with people who live the story every day, to the show the real faces, and the real places where this goes on. Most of the locations are unknown to the world and this is a part of the drug trade that is rarely explored in the media. We hope the film leaves audiences thinking and asking questions, particularly about the global nature of these conflicts and how this is an economy that might seem far away and exotic but actually interconnects people from all over the world. If it hadn’t been done in Buenaventura, it simply wouldn’t be the same movie.
LatinoBuzz: How much local support was there for "Manos Sucias"? How did you ensure the production didn’t look like an occupation?
Márcia : As an official Colombia-us co-production we had the support of the Colombian Ministry of Culture and Film Commission, which allowed us to tap into the local tax incentives.
Elena: Once we decided to film in Buenaventura the big question became access, not just to locations, but to people, information, resources. We were outsiders and needed to be invited into the world as guests. An “occupation” was never an option; some of the communities we worked in are places where the police and “official authorities” do not go. So access was built on relationships that Joe had begun forming over years of research, which deepened once we were on the ground in pre-production and people saw that we weren't all talk, that we were serious about making a film. In negotiating with the local communities we were upfront about the kind of subject matter we wanted to tackle, but also about wanting to offer a collaboration that was beneficial for everyone. They expressed a lot of interest in exchanging skills and we decided to offer a free filmmaking workshop, working with available resources like cellphones and small photo cameras. Through that process, we filled out our cast and crew with local people, about half of our crew and almost 100% of our actors were from Buenaventura and their support and contributions were immeasurable.
LatinoBuzz: How much happened on set in the moment rather than what was on paper?
Josef: There was a lot that happened in the moment, but it was only possible because we prepared so much. We did a lot of rehearsing and test shooting on locations during pre-production. This was a key element because it allowed us to be free on set. In Buenaventura, things can change at any moment so we always had to be ready to embrace the circumstances that were presented to us. We did do some improvising but after all the editing most of the scenes ended up close to what was scripted.
LatinoBuzz: What was either the most beautiful moment in the shoot that made you feel everything will turn out fine.
Alan: I’ll never forget shooting the campfire scene with just Jarly and Cristian (Jacobo and Delio). First off, it was the first starry night I’d ever seen in Buenaventura. It’s one of the most humid places in the world and constantly overcast; which, by the way, helped a lot with the photography. The scene is about estranged brothers rediscovering each other. The actors are amazing in the scene. For them to perform so well, in an intimate scene amidst the action and turmoil of the story, and under the stress and challenges of production was just unforgettable. I consider it a privilege to have executed that scene with the crew and actors.
LatinoBuzz: Tell me about the look of the film. Was there a particular film or filmmaker you used as a point of reference?
Alan: While we knew we had a lot of limitations, we always wanted to have a strong artistic point of view for the look of the film. This started back in New York with our preliminary storyboarding and continued as we did camera tests to see the technical limitations we'd face. Geared with that information, we developed a lot of strategies around lens choices and camera movement. In a way this is a road movie, the blocking and shooting of the scenes in the boat needed to be varied in order not to be monotonous.
Josef: We strived to emphasize the visual irony of the vastness of the ocean with the claustrophobia of the boat. We always wanted to have a sense of urgency and immediacy like in many of the Dardenne brothers' films we love. We used many films as references from Hitchcock’s "Lifeboat" and "The Wages of Fear," to "Lawrence of Arabia." Above all else, we knew we wanted to shoot in a way that gave the performers the space to give their best work.
What do you think this moment in their lives meant to the people of Buenaventura?
Alan : I think it’s hard to say. Many of us are still figuring that out for ourselves and I’m not sure I could be so bold as to speculate on their feelings. I can tell you that these are complex people living in a complex situation all with the same capacities for joy and sorrow as anyone else in the world. The experiences we shared while filming helped us to learn more about each other, and also helped me learn how to salsa dance badly. (Thank you, Stefania!) We formed friendships with the cast, crew, and other people in Buenaventura and believe that this film is a testament to those friendships. We hope those moments of working on this project mean as much to them as they do to us.
LatinoBuzz: You obviously immersed yourself in the local culture with the people, dialect, music etc – what sense of void did you and the crew feel once you wrapped production and left Buenaventura to begin the post production process?
Josef: There certainly was a sense of emptiness or even loss right after shooting. While no day was ever predicable, you do develop a sense of routine, of eating meals together, laughing at half-translated dirty jokes, and working all day and dancing all night. Getting back to the States, there was a lot of work to fill the void. The turnaround for the film was pretty quick and editing started almost right away. In a lot of ways, the film never stops moving even now. Now, I don’t think it’s a void. Making the film changed us and that feeling now is one of change, not emptiness.
LatinoBuzz: What’s the next story?
Alan and Joe are working on various new projects, still in early stages of development. Elena and Márcia are working on a film about a psychedelic drug researcher who gets mixed up in the dark side of the Ayahuasca tourism industry in the Amazon, which will shoot on location in the coming year. We're all still interested in exploring little seen corners of the world and bringing them to light on the big screen.
The film opens April 3rd at Cinema Village in NYC. Dig the official "Manos Sucias" website at: http://www.manossuciasmovie.com/ & screening times Here!
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
In July 2014, Sydney Levine of SydneysBuzz wrote of the film's genesis as the firs U.S.-Colombian coproduction of its kind and its subsequent international sales when she discovered the film at Cartagena. Read more here.
LatinoBuzz spoke to writer/director Josef Kubota Wladyka, co-writer/cinematographer Alan Blanco and producers Elena Greenlee & Marcia Nunes on this collective managed to bring the film to fruition.
LatinoBuzz: Latin American cinema seems to be exploring the Afro-Latino experience more than before. Was this one of the themes you had in mind when writing the screenplay?
Josef : Buenaventura is more than 85% African descent. After spending time talking to the community, gracious enough to share their stories and experiences with us, it became clear that there is a lot of racism and violence towards the Afro-Colombians. It was important for us to touch on these larger themes by using an intimate story of two estranged brothers. The heart of the story is the relationship between Jacobo and Delio, and the choices they must make.
Márcia : I still think there aren't enough films made about the Afro-Latino experience, and minority experiences in general in the Us and abroad. It's important that we as filmmakers and audience members seek out these stories and keeping pushing for a wider frame of representation.
LatinoBuzz: How important was Spike Lee's involvement and what was the best advice he gave going into production?
Josef : Spike’s involvement was extremely important because having an iconic filmmaker like himself associated with your project opens so many doors, especially in Colombia. He read our script and revisions, and gave his insight on how to make the movie happen. Having been an advocate and mentor to the project over the years, we showed him a fine cut of the film. At that point, he felt comfortable coming on board as our presenter and as an executive producer. Spike has long been a supporter of up-and-coming filmmakers and continues to be an inspiration to us. His best piece of advice was simple… “Get it done, by any means necessary.”
LatinoBuzz: This is your first feature - did anyone say “Maybe shooting in the jungles of Buenaventura, Colombia with unknown actors is not the way to go right now?”
Alan : The script for this film was based on over 6 years of research that Joe carried out on the Pacific Coast of Colombia. Even so we heard a lot of people say that shooting in Colombia was too risky and we definitely considered shooting in other places. We even scouted Puerto Rico and discovered that as a team our top priority was to making a film that represented this story authentically.
Josef: We wanted to make the film with people who live the story every day, to the show the real faces, and the real places where this goes on. Most of the locations are unknown to the world and this is a part of the drug trade that is rarely explored in the media. We hope the film leaves audiences thinking and asking questions, particularly about the global nature of these conflicts and how this is an economy that might seem far away and exotic but actually interconnects people from all over the world. If it hadn’t been done in Buenaventura, it simply wouldn’t be the same movie.
LatinoBuzz: How much local support was there for "Manos Sucias"? How did you ensure the production didn’t look like an occupation?
Márcia : As an official Colombia-us co-production we had the support of the Colombian Ministry of Culture and Film Commission, which allowed us to tap into the local tax incentives.
Elena: Once we decided to film in Buenaventura the big question became access, not just to locations, but to people, information, resources. We were outsiders and needed to be invited into the world as guests. An “occupation” was never an option; some of the communities we worked in are places where the police and “official authorities” do not go. So access was built on relationships that Joe had begun forming over years of research, which deepened once we were on the ground in pre-production and people saw that we weren't all talk, that we were serious about making a film. In negotiating with the local communities we were upfront about the kind of subject matter we wanted to tackle, but also about wanting to offer a collaboration that was beneficial for everyone. They expressed a lot of interest in exchanging skills and we decided to offer a free filmmaking workshop, working with available resources like cellphones and small photo cameras. Through that process, we filled out our cast and crew with local people, about half of our crew and almost 100% of our actors were from Buenaventura and their support and contributions were immeasurable.
LatinoBuzz: How much happened on set in the moment rather than what was on paper?
Josef: There was a lot that happened in the moment, but it was only possible because we prepared so much. We did a lot of rehearsing and test shooting on locations during pre-production. This was a key element because it allowed us to be free on set. In Buenaventura, things can change at any moment so we always had to be ready to embrace the circumstances that were presented to us. We did do some improvising but after all the editing most of the scenes ended up close to what was scripted.
LatinoBuzz: What was either the most beautiful moment in the shoot that made you feel everything will turn out fine.
Alan: I’ll never forget shooting the campfire scene with just Jarly and Cristian (Jacobo and Delio). First off, it was the first starry night I’d ever seen in Buenaventura. It’s one of the most humid places in the world and constantly overcast; which, by the way, helped a lot with the photography. The scene is about estranged brothers rediscovering each other. The actors are amazing in the scene. For them to perform so well, in an intimate scene amidst the action and turmoil of the story, and under the stress and challenges of production was just unforgettable. I consider it a privilege to have executed that scene with the crew and actors.
LatinoBuzz: Tell me about the look of the film. Was there a particular film or filmmaker you used as a point of reference?
Alan: While we knew we had a lot of limitations, we always wanted to have a strong artistic point of view for the look of the film. This started back in New York with our preliminary storyboarding and continued as we did camera tests to see the technical limitations we'd face. Geared with that information, we developed a lot of strategies around lens choices and camera movement. In a way this is a road movie, the blocking and shooting of the scenes in the boat needed to be varied in order not to be monotonous.
Josef: We strived to emphasize the visual irony of the vastness of the ocean with the claustrophobia of the boat. We always wanted to have a sense of urgency and immediacy like in many of the Dardenne brothers' films we love. We used many films as references from Hitchcock’s "Lifeboat" and "The Wages of Fear," to "Lawrence of Arabia." Above all else, we knew we wanted to shoot in a way that gave the performers the space to give their best work.
What do you think this moment in their lives meant to the people of Buenaventura?
Alan : I think it’s hard to say. Many of us are still figuring that out for ourselves and I’m not sure I could be so bold as to speculate on their feelings. I can tell you that these are complex people living in a complex situation all with the same capacities for joy and sorrow as anyone else in the world. The experiences we shared while filming helped us to learn more about each other, and also helped me learn how to salsa dance badly. (Thank you, Stefania!) We formed friendships with the cast, crew, and other people in Buenaventura and believe that this film is a testament to those friendships. We hope those moments of working on this project mean as much to them as they do to us.
LatinoBuzz: You obviously immersed yourself in the local culture with the people, dialect, music etc – what sense of void did you and the crew feel once you wrapped production and left Buenaventura to begin the post production process?
Josef: There certainly was a sense of emptiness or even loss right after shooting. While no day was ever predicable, you do develop a sense of routine, of eating meals together, laughing at half-translated dirty jokes, and working all day and dancing all night. Getting back to the States, there was a lot of work to fill the void. The turnaround for the film was pretty quick and editing started almost right away. In a lot of ways, the film never stops moving even now. Now, I don’t think it’s a void. Making the film changed us and that feeling now is one of change, not emptiness.
LatinoBuzz: What’s the next story?
Alan and Joe are working on various new projects, still in early stages of development. Elena and Márcia are working on a film about a psychedelic drug researcher who gets mixed up in the dark side of the Ayahuasca tourism industry in the Amazon, which will shoot on location in the coming year. We're all still interested in exploring little seen corners of the world and bringing them to light on the big screen.
The film opens April 3rd at Cinema Village in NYC. Dig the official "Manos Sucias" website at: http://www.manossuciasmovie.com/ & screening times Here!
Written by Juan Caceres . LatinoBuzz is a feature on SydneysBuzz that highlights Latino indie talent and upcoming trends in Latino film with the specific objective of presenting a broad range of Latino voices. Follow [At]LatinoBuzz on Twitter and Facebook...
- 4/1/2015
- by Juan Caceres
- Sydney's Buzz
EdgeLight Films, (Elf), is a new and innovative Southern California based film production company, formed by a group of women filmmakers from both the Indie and Studio worlds. The mission is to make movies in all genres, that inspire the imagination, reveal truths, move the heart and to excellence in story telling.
One of the primary goals is to extend the reach to women filmmakers around the globe, making feature films, documentaries and short films, written, directed and produced by women, in association with the supportive male colleagues.
EdgeLight Films is dedicated to closing the pay gap between male and female talent. No leading actress will be paid less than her leading male counterpart of equal talent and billing position.
EdgeLight Films has gained the support of actor/director Rose McGowan who stated “This is a company whose ethos I wholeheartedly believe in.”
According to founder J.R. Niles, ''We want to make films that leave people inspired to reach higher, and at the same time creating more opportunities for women in film.” Niles currently has two short narrative films going out to festivals and joining her on her newest feature films, Bonds of Redemption and 51 Christopher Street, are the renowned Production Designer Jon Hutman and Cinematographer Amy Vincent.
In addition, EdgeLight has gained the support of producers, talent agents, managers, international film consultants like Sydney Levine and myself, and Director/Producer Salome Breziner.
The newest members of the EdgeLight Films producing team include, from "House of Cards" casting, Kimberly Skyrme, from the Chaplin Showcase of the Topanga Film Festival, Miranda Robin and Getty Photographer Nomi Ellenson.
J.R. Niles, a musician and recording artist in her own right, is joined in the music department by film and TV composer Bret Levick, who heads up the department. He will be a part of a broad make-up of music industry greats, including hit singer/songwriter Wendy Waldman, Jazz Singer Stacy Sullivan, film and TV Actress and Broadway Star Anastasia Barzee. EdgeLight has four features and two documentaries in development for 2015, 16 and 17.
You can learn more about this empowering company Here...
One of the primary goals is to extend the reach to women filmmakers around the globe, making feature films, documentaries and short films, written, directed and produced by women, in association with the supportive male colleagues.
EdgeLight Films is dedicated to closing the pay gap between male and female talent. No leading actress will be paid less than her leading male counterpart of equal talent and billing position.
EdgeLight Films has gained the support of actor/director Rose McGowan who stated “This is a company whose ethos I wholeheartedly believe in.”
According to founder J.R. Niles, ''We want to make films that leave people inspired to reach higher, and at the same time creating more opportunities for women in film.” Niles currently has two short narrative films going out to festivals and joining her on her newest feature films, Bonds of Redemption and 51 Christopher Street, are the renowned Production Designer Jon Hutman and Cinematographer Amy Vincent.
In addition, EdgeLight has gained the support of producers, talent agents, managers, international film consultants like Sydney Levine and myself, and Director/Producer Salome Breziner.
The newest members of the EdgeLight Films producing team include, from "House of Cards" casting, Kimberly Skyrme, from the Chaplin Showcase of the Topanga Film Festival, Miranda Robin and Getty Photographer Nomi Ellenson.
J.R. Niles, a musician and recording artist in her own right, is joined in the music department by film and TV composer Bret Levick, who heads up the department. He will be a part of a broad make-up of music industry greats, including hit singer/songwriter Wendy Waldman, Jazz Singer Stacy Sullivan, film and TV Actress and Broadway Star Anastasia Barzee. EdgeLight has four features and two documentaries in development for 2015, 16 and 17.
You can learn more about this empowering company Here...
- 3/17/2015
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
Generally we have come to learn that studio releases that hit theaters in the first few months of the year are usually not their best offers. They use the first trimester as dumping ground for projects that were never meant to become hits, but with which they hope to make a quick buck. Clichéd horror flicks, bad romantic comedies, and dismally mediocre animated features that could never compete with summer blockbusters. Yet, for all the terrible films slated by industry giants there is an equal abundance of great independent and international productions that manage to get a space in the crowded marketplace.
This year, the films that stood out among these numerous, smaller options have been mostly dark comedies, which push the boundaries in all sorts of unique directions for the audience repulsion and delight. Although the films below have already opened, it’s never too late to let you know about them in case they slipped through the cracks. Believe me, any of them will leave you thinking, “What did I just watch?” in the best possible way.
"Buzzard"
Opened March 6th
Directed by Joel Potrykus
Brace yourself for one of the strangest, most infuriating, hilarious, and boldest cinematic experiences of the year. Absolute slacker Marty Jackitansky (He will remind you the last name is not Polish!) survives by playing the system in any way possible. Cashing other people’s checks, returning stolen goods from his job for cash, or complaining to the big corporations in order to get coupons. His petty scheme soon catches up with him, but with every successful deceit he exposes the dangerous complacency we all accept. Marty’s other hobbies include manufacturing a glove that resembles Freddy Krueger’s claws and hanging out with his friend Derek (played by Potrykus himself) in the “party zone,” which is what the latter has baptize his basement. It’s as deranged as it sounds, and it’s great.
*Playing in select theaters now and also available on VOD
Read More: Interview with Filmmaker Joel Potrykus on "Buzzard"
"Maps to the Stars"
Opened February 27th
Directed by David Cronenberg
Hollywood is a fickle place and Cronenberg has a brilliantly maniacal way of portraying this world in his latest work. Recent Oscar-winner Julianne Moore stars as Havana Segrand, a washed up actress whose only wish is to play the same role her mother did in a remake of a movie from decades ago. Moore won the Best Actress Award at last year's Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work here. In the Canadian director’s collection of fame-hungry misfits there is also Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird) a prepubescent, spoiled actor who hasn’t even finished junior high but has already been to rehab more than once; Jerome (Robert Pattinson), a limousine driver who, of course, is also an aspiring actor and screenwriter; Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), a wellness guru and author with more internal issues than he can help heal; and Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), Havana’s disfigured new assistant who has come to Los Angeles with ulterior motives. The acid humor, unapologetic observations, and its absurdly self-absorbed characters make of “Maps to the Stars” a spot-on parody of the worst qualities of the film industry.
*Playing in theaters now across the U.S
"The Voices"
Opened February 6th
Directed by Marjane Satrapi
Playing Jerry, the most charming serial killer you’ll ever meet, Ryan Reynolds gives the best performance of his career in Marjane Satrapi’s wonderfully insane horror comedy. The timid factory worker has a history of mental health issues that are hidden under a façade of kindness. At home, Jerry talks to his pets: Mr. Whiskers, a devilishly cheeky cat, and Bosco, his good-natured dog. What’s particular about the ordeal is that they talk back and discuss with him his murderous intentions. Adding to his already outstanding work as the lovable, if unstable young man, Reynolds also voices both of animals as well. Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver, and Gemma Arterton are among the targets of Jerry’s madness in a disturbingly comedic fashion. Stay tuned after the film for one of the most ridiculous credit sequences ever.
*Available on VOD and still playing in a few theaters across the country
Read More: Interview: Marjane Satrapi on her murderous comedy "The Voices"
"What We Do in the Shadows"
Opened February 13th
Directed by Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi
Get ready to die of laughter with this masterful mockumentary that capitalizes on the general public’s obsession with reality shows and the allure of vampirism and its promise of eternal life. Four ancient bloodsuckers share a house in Wellington, New Zealand and decide to let a crew film their day-to-day routines as vampires living in the modern world. What ensues are a series of intelligently written occurrences that transform every known convention about these creatures of the night into hysterical gags. Everything from their hunting tactics, to their feuds with the local pack of werewolves, and even their endearing relationship with a human they do not wish to devour. “Flight of the Conchords” creator Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi co-wrote, co-directed, and star in the film as Vladislav and Viago respectively. This has to be the funniest film of the year hands down.
*Playing in theaters now across the U.S
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Opened February 20th
Directed by Damián Szifrón
In this Argentine deranged and inventive ode to madness we are confronted with the animal instincts that we so desperately try to hide - until we can’t. Betrayal, injustice, and even the need to avenge a loved one, drive Szifron’s characters into losing control. With pitch black comedy that is as universal as the situations it explores, his film is a hilarious and smart vehicle for sharp social commentary. Besides being a complete riot that packs in uproarious humor, the film demonstrates the director’s ability to create a cohesive film out of diverse vignettes united by the dark side of human nature. From start to finish “Wild Tales” is truly a savagely fun trip. The film premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film this yea.
*Playing in select theaters now across the U.S and expanding in upcoming weeks
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Wild Tales," Business and Pleasure
Read More: Interview: Damian Szifron on the Oscar-nominated "Wild Tales"...
This year, the films that stood out among these numerous, smaller options have been mostly dark comedies, which push the boundaries in all sorts of unique directions for the audience repulsion and delight. Although the films below have already opened, it’s never too late to let you know about them in case they slipped through the cracks. Believe me, any of them will leave you thinking, “What did I just watch?” in the best possible way.
"Buzzard"
Opened March 6th
Directed by Joel Potrykus
Brace yourself for one of the strangest, most infuriating, hilarious, and boldest cinematic experiences of the year. Absolute slacker Marty Jackitansky (He will remind you the last name is not Polish!) survives by playing the system in any way possible. Cashing other people’s checks, returning stolen goods from his job for cash, or complaining to the big corporations in order to get coupons. His petty scheme soon catches up with him, but with every successful deceit he exposes the dangerous complacency we all accept. Marty’s other hobbies include manufacturing a glove that resembles Freddy Krueger’s claws and hanging out with his friend Derek (played by Potrykus himself) in the “party zone,” which is what the latter has baptize his basement. It’s as deranged as it sounds, and it’s great.
*Playing in select theaters now and also available on VOD
Read More: Interview with Filmmaker Joel Potrykus on "Buzzard"
"Maps to the Stars"
Opened February 27th
Directed by David Cronenberg
Hollywood is a fickle place and Cronenberg has a brilliantly maniacal way of portraying this world in his latest work. Recent Oscar-winner Julianne Moore stars as Havana Segrand, a washed up actress whose only wish is to play the same role her mother did in a remake of a movie from decades ago. Moore won the Best Actress Award at last year's Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work here. In the Canadian director’s collection of fame-hungry misfits there is also Benjie Weiss (Evan Bird) a prepubescent, spoiled actor who hasn’t even finished junior high but has already been to rehab more than once; Jerome (Robert Pattinson), a limousine driver who, of course, is also an aspiring actor and screenwriter; Dr. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack), a wellness guru and author with more internal issues than he can help heal; and Agatha Weiss (Mia Wasikowska), Havana’s disfigured new assistant who has come to Los Angeles with ulterior motives. The acid humor, unapologetic observations, and its absurdly self-absorbed characters make of “Maps to the Stars” a spot-on parody of the worst qualities of the film industry.
*Playing in theaters now across the U.S
"The Voices"
Opened February 6th
Directed by Marjane Satrapi
Playing Jerry, the most charming serial killer you’ll ever meet, Ryan Reynolds gives the best performance of his career in Marjane Satrapi’s wonderfully insane horror comedy. The timid factory worker has a history of mental health issues that are hidden under a façade of kindness. At home, Jerry talks to his pets: Mr. Whiskers, a devilishly cheeky cat, and Bosco, his good-natured dog. What’s particular about the ordeal is that they talk back and discuss with him his murderous intentions. Adding to his already outstanding work as the lovable, if unstable young man, Reynolds also voices both of animals as well. Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver, and Gemma Arterton are among the targets of Jerry’s madness in a disturbingly comedic fashion. Stay tuned after the film for one of the most ridiculous credit sequences ever.
*Available on VOD and still playing in a few theaters across the country
Read More: Interview: Marjane Satrapi on her murderous comedy "The Voices"
"What We Do in the Shadows"
Opened February 13th
Directed by Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi
Get ready to die of laughter with this masterful mockumentary that capitalizes on the general public’s obsession with reality shows and the allure of vampirism and its promise of eternal life. Four ancient bloodsuckers share a house in Wellington, New Zealand and decide to let a crew film their day-to-day routines as vampires living in the modern world. What ensues are a series of intelligently written occurrences that transform every known convention about these creatures of the night into hysterical gags. Everything from their hunting tactics, to their feuds with the local pack of werewolves, and even their endearing relationship with a human they do not wish to devour. “Flight of the Conchords” creator Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi co-wrote, co-directed, and star in the film as Vladislav and Viago respectively. This has to be the funniest film of the year hands down.
*Playing in theaters now across the U.S
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Opened February 20th
Directed by Damián Szifrón
In this Argentine deranged and inventive ode to madness we are confronted with the animal instincts that we so desperately try to hide - until we can’t. Betrayal, injustice, and even the need to avenge a loved one, drive Szifron’s characters into losing control. With pitch black comedy that is as universal as the situations it explores, his film is a hilarious and smart vehicle for sharp social commentary. Besides being a complete riot that packs in uproarious humor, the film demonstrates the director’s ability to create a cohesive film out of diverse vignettes united by the dark side of human nature. From start to finish “Wild Tales” is truly a savagely fun trip. The film premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film this yea.
*Playing in select theaters now across the U.S and expanding in upcoming weeks
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Wild Tales," Business and Pleasure
Read More: Interview: Damian Szifron on the Oscar-nominated "Wild Tales"...
- 3/13/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
The 2015 Art House Convergence meetings were held January 19-22 in Midway Utah's close together Homestead and Zermatt Resorts. Taking place 3 days before the nearby Sundance Film Festival kicked off in Park City over 500 people came together for spirited discussion about what we all love most - cinema and its place and future in America.
As we all know 'art house cinemas' have a special role in promoting and exhibiting the films we like best - documentaries, experimental, political works, international films and films about gays, women, Latinos and other minorities. Among the attendees this year were dozens of reps from regional film festivals that base their schedules in local art houses.
Under the umbrella of the Sundance Institute the Convergence began 10 years ago with 25 delegates. , The first 2 years was a gathering of 12 Art Houses specially invited to attend Sundance Ff. Eight years ago, to quote Ah Convergence Conference Founder from Michigan Russ Collins, "we began the Art House Convergence, a conference to allow every interested independent cinema the opportunity to participate" in the unique learning experiences and camaraderie felt by all who attended the original meetings and also now today's much larger, more inclusive schedule of talks, meetings.
Sydney Levine and I attended this year and were really energized and amazed by the range and passion of the topics. From analyzing the business model of independent film exhibition in various theaters and locales, to analyzing audience demographics, marketing services under new technologies, building audiences, and topics such as outreach to children, minority groups and women.
The first panel I attended was Monday morning January 19 in Salt lake City (before getting buses up to Midway) and I have to say I was amazed that they openly spoke of their mission in the indie art houses as community organizers. This panel was about relations with local government (Salt Lake City here) towards obtaining public funding for theaters and event programs.
The Ah Convergence also maintains a cordial and supportive relations ship with the Sundance Institute which has graciously supported it since the beginning. Keri Putnam, who oversees all programs of the Institute gave a provocative talk Tuesday evening challenging the Ah Convergence to expand its thinking and activities. Sundance Fest Head John Cooper attended as did Head programmer Trevor Groth.
We look forward to the future of this ambitious, thoughtful and expanding organization. The composition of the meetings was interesting and worth commenting upon here. It seemed half attending were split between theater owners / operators and regional fest attendees. I liked it Very Much that it was / is not dominated by NYC and La movie biz types (ha ha, i.e. like 'us') but rather from thoughtful, experienced people from across the Us. Age wise it seemed well split between older types and younger ones. There were a lot of women there but not as many as men. Sydney raised the point powerfully at a full meeting that it was overwhelmingly (almost all?) white / Anglo types there. Where were the Latinos, Blacks and Asians? This observation was commented on and taken to heart so we'll see how things develop. Also to be discussed is how to attract these minority audiences to the Art Houses and their / all children?
My last comment is this is good for now that we are opening a Us based national discussion on these important topics. We also feel Art House Convergence had an auspicious international outreach. There were dozens of international sales agents and Us distributors in attendance and on panels. Sylvia Cibien from Europe's Art House organization Cicae attended.
I think this meeting showed that we in the Us now are ahead of the curve in organizing this important arena but we must continue to reach out to our colleagues worldwide to discuss all issues. And to support each other in all ways.
Russ Collins repeatedly pointed put this fascinating intriguing statement - "Us theatrical distribution has been stable for the past 50 years now. So?? How does this affect us, our businesses, actions and involvement in the new technologies as they come on line?" Thanks Russ. Worth considering.
As we all know 'art house cinemas' have a special role in promoting and exhibiting the films we like best - documentaries, experimental, political works, international films and films about gays, women, Latinos and other minorities. Among the attendees this year were dozens of reps from regional film festivals that base their schedules in local art houses.
Under the umbrella of the Sundance Institute the Convergence began 10 years ago with 25 delegates. , The first 2 years was a gathering of 12 Art Houses specially invited to attend Sundance Ff. Eight years ago, to quote Ah Convergence Conference Founder from Michigan Russ Collins, "we began the Art House Convergence, a conference to allow every interested independent cinema the opportunity to participate" in the unique learning experiences and camaraderie felt by all who attended the original meetings and also now today's much larger, more inclusive schedule of talks, meetings.
Sydney Levine and I attended this year and were really energized and amazed by the range and passion of the topics. From analyzing the business model of independent film exhibition in various theaters and locales, to analyzing audience demographics, marketing services under new technologies, building audiences, and topics such as outreach to children, minority groups and women.
The first panel I attended was Monday morning January 19 in Salt lake City (before getting buses up to Midway) and I have to say I was amazed that they openly spoke of their mission in the indie art houses as community organizers. This panel was about relations with local government (Salt Lake City here) towards obtaining public funding for theaters and event programs.
The Ah Convergence also maintains a cordial and supportive relations ship with the Sundance Institute which has graciously supported it since the beginning. Keri Putnam, who oversees all programs of the Institute gave a provocative talk Tuesday evening challenging the Ah Convergence to expand its thinking and activities. Sundance Fest Head John Cooper attended as did Head programmer Trevor Groth.
We look forward to the future of this ambitious, thoughtful and expanding organization. The composition of the meetings was interesting and worth commenting upon here. It seemed half attending were split between theater owners / operators and regional fest attendees. I liked it Very Much that it was / is not dominated by NYC and La movie biz types (ha ha, i.e. like 'us') but rather from thoughtful, experienced people from across the Us. Age wise it seemed well split between older types and younger ones. There were a lot of women there but not as many as men. Sydney raised the point powerfully at a full meeting that it was overwhelmingly (almost all?) white / Anglo types there. Where were the Latinos, Blacks and Asians? This observation was commented on and taken to heart so we'll see how things develop. Also to be discussed is how to attract these minority audiences to the Art Houses and their / all children?
My last comment is this is good for now that we are opening a Us based national discussion on these important topics. We also feel Art House Convergence had an auspicious international outreach. There were dozens of international sales agents and Us distributors in attendance and on panels. Sylvia Cibien from Europe's Art House organization Cicae attended.
I think this meeting showed that we in the Us now are ahead of the curve in organizing this important arena but we must continue to reach out to our colleagues worldwide to discuss all issues. And to support each other in all ways.
Russ Collins repeatedly pointed put this fascinating intriguing statement - "Us theatrical distribution has been stable for the past 50 years now. So?? How does this affect us, our businesses, actions and involvement in the new technologies as they come on line?" Thanks Russ. Worth considering.
- 2/3/2015
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
Palm Springs International Film Festival is the most accommodating to the industry, the easiest to get around with a frequent shuttle, the easiest to see great films, the best environment, the best audiences (all the shows are sold out) of festivals.
However, it is strange being surrounded by old people who are all my age. My prejudices against “old people” remains the same as when I considered them to be a part of my mother’s generation. However, some of these “old people” know so much more about the films, and their educated way of making choices of what to see are so much better than mine. I thought I knew everything...what a laugh. They know every director, all their past films, and they painstakingly plan with handwritten schedules and lots of discussion which films they will see.
I have been coming to the festival, almost “dropping in” on it since it is a mere 2 hour drive from L.A. for many years and everyone is always so helpful. It is totally familiar to me; it’s leisurely, very few restaurants (if any) are really great, there is a certain tackiness to the shops And there are always new film adventures and new folks to see.
This year I was happily hanging out the first weekend with Nancy Gerstman from Zeitgeist, and on the second weekend with Fortissimo’s Michael Werner and Tom Davia whose new company CineMaven (www.Cinemaven.com) sounds like a great company for festivals, filmmakers and companies needing acquisition help. We had a great dinner at Spencer’s where the Awards Luncheon was held.
On the recommendation of Mattijs Wouter Knol, the new head of the European Film Market at Berlin – on Facebook as he is now preparing the Efm and was not here – I watched “Clouds of Sils Maria” by Olivier Assayas. Opinions on this film as with most films by Assayas, vary, but mine is that this languid study on acting and real life and how aging and death fit into the mix was a major treat. Like Polanski’s “Venus in Fur”, the alternating currents of acting and real life flow electrically with shocks and illumination included. Rather than aging, let’s call ourselves “ageless” and have an end to confusion about the inevitable life processes.
Like “Winters Sleep," another of my favorite “intellectual cinema” choices, in “Sils Maria”, the interior processes of the protagonists are revealed only in the unfolding of the story.
Kirsten Stewart played an amazing role as the actress’s young assistant in this deeply felt, intellectually worked out study of aging vs. ageless.
By biting off what seems like more than she can chew in consenting to play opposite the great Juliette Binoche who is at the height of her career, a young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) gives Juliette Binoche the resolution to the unhappiness that has been nagging at her throughout the film.
Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. But back then, she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She doesn’t want to play this role but is coaxed by circumstances into playing it and when she discusses it with the young actress who blithely tells her it’s time to move on, she becomes the Eve of “All About Eve” and Juliette “gets” it.
Cinematography is by Yorick Le Saux (“Only Lovers Left Alive," “Potiche," “Carlos”). IFC has North American rights.
Moving on, I can’t wait to see Juliette Binoche in her next role, the Opening Night film of the Berlinale, Isabel Croixet's “Nobody Wants the Night ”. The film co-stars Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”) and Gabriel Byrne (as explorer Robert Peary) and takes place in 1908 in the Arctic and Greenland. (Isa: Elle Driver
The other film I saw that first weekend was “Dancing Arabs” (Isa: The Match Factory) by Eran Riklis who was there to discuss the film as well. He had been a soldier in Israel’s worst war. He witnessed Sadat making peace with Israel. However, when Perez was assassinated, he saw Israel declining into a violent nation as peace became more and more elusive.
Dancing Arabs is a very popular novel in Israel. It is an odd title for this film, but it derives from a saying, “you can't dance at two weddings at the same time”. The film is also loosely based on another novel...Second Person Singular. But after filming a while, the characters took on lives of their own and the novels were more or less forgotten in the process of making the movie.
Lots of questions are left open in this film because there are no answers. In a way, the film is experimental. It opens as a charming family film, but changes and actually becomes almost morbid. People however do change, and the young “genius” living in a small Arab town in Israel/ Palestine becomes a mature man living in Berlin at the end of the story.
This is the first film of the male lead, Tawfeek Barhom. Who plays Eyad. While casting, Riklis said that the young actor told him he had known him since he was ten when he saw him making the movie “The Syrian Bride” in his village. He went to set every day for three weeks, and he knew he wanted to be an actor. On screen he is playing himself, and a lot of the story was true...he lived too long with the Jews, his Arab was no longer good. This he said at a screening held in the north of Israel to an audience of mostly Arabs who do not go to many movies, but were invited by Israel to see the film.
In the film he gives up his education for love of girl and she gives up her love for him for the love of her country. This is how minority relationships often turn out.
Eyad’s father’s reaction to the relationship of his university student son with an Israeli Jewish student is unexpected, but he too is buried by tradition whereas the mother with her small smile gives a ray of hope.
The scriptwriter-novelist, Sayed Kashua is brilliant, and this is a part of his real life. Kashua and Riklis have a love-hate relationship: when Kashua, who based the novel on his own life, saw the fine cut...he fainted. His wife said, “What are you complaining about, did your mother look like that?”
Sayed said complained that his own kids don't speak Arabic anymore, and so he took a sabbatical and is now in Champaign-Urbana at the University of Illinois.
The audience in Israel, judging by the 20 to 30 Facebook comments, they get daily consists of 20% Arabs which is great because they don't normally go to movies. Even a right wing Israeli said he liked the movie. The goes beyond right and left.
It is not a blockbuster, but it doing well. The word “Arab” might keep some people away.
On the second weekend I went to see “Salt of the Earth” (Isa: Ndm), now nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Academy Awards, and “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” by her grandniece Michelle Boyaner.
Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are linked by his son and director Wim Wenders to his life. With his own voice and that of his son, Juliano, they discover the undiscovered in photography and in their own lives.
“Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” is the story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, committed to an asylum in 1925 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Finding Vivian Maier"
In many ways this is similar to “Finding Vivian Maier," which also nominated for an Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category, in that both recover long lost and never acknowledged art which is astoundingly good art. This one goes further into the lesbian relationships of artists Edith and Jane and takes another unexpected step into the psychic world of a medium who actually solves the mystery of why Edith was committed and then forgotten. This is a must-see for art lovers and would make a great fiction film as well.
Another notable aspect of Psiff that is how, just before the Awards begin for Golden Globe and for the Academy, all the big name stars are here for two awards events. One, the opening night gala raises millions for the festival. The other, Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch brunch, brings more stars and that funny speech by Chris Rock (See Video Here).
Read More: Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev on his Oscar-Nominated "Leviathan"
Also remarkable is that, aside from the above Awards and then the final festival awards bestowed, the Golden Globes mirrored the Palm Springs Fest’s awards:
Actress in a drama: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (Isa: Memento) won Psiff’s Achievement Award
Actor in a drama: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything” (Uip) also received the Psiff Desert Palm Achievement Award.
Supporting actor, drama: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Isa: Sierra/ Affinity) received the Psiff Spotlight Award.
Director Richard Linklater, “Boyhood” (Uip/ Paramount) received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.
Foreign Language Film: "Leviathan” (Isa: Pyramide) received the PSiFF Best Foreign Language Film.
Screenplay: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo, “Birdman” (Fox Searchlight), Inarritu received Psiff Director of the Year Award which was bestowed by “Birdman” star Michael Keaton. And the Golden Globe Award for Actor, musical or comedy, went to Michael Keaton for “Birdman”...
However, it is strange being surrounded by old people who are all my age. My prejudices against “old people” remains the same as when I considered them to be a part of my mother’s generation. However, some of these “old people” know so much more about the films, and their educated way of making choices of what to see are so much better than mine. I thought I knew everything...what a laugh. They know every director, all their past films, and they painstakingly plan with handwritten schedules and lots of discussion which films they will see.
I have been coming to the festival, almost “dropping in” on it since it is a mere 2 hour drive from L.A. for many years and everyone is always so helpful. It is totally familiar to me; it’s leisurely, very few restaurants (if any) are really great, there is a certain tackiness to the shops And there are always new film adventures and new folks to see.
This year I was happily hanging out the first weekend with Nancy Gerstman from Zeitgeist, and on the second weekend with Fortissimo’s Michael Werner and Tom Davia whose new company CineMaven (www.Cinemaven.com) sounds like a great company for festivals, filmmakers and companies needing acquisition help. We had a great dinner at Spencer’s where the Awards Luncheon was held.
On the recommendation of Mattijs Wouter Knol, the new head of the European Film Market at Berlin – on Facebook as he is now preparing the Efm and was not here – I watched “Clouds of Sils Maria” by Olivier Assayas. Opinions on this film as with most films by Assayas, vary, but mine is that this languid study on acting and real life and how aging and death fit into the mix was a major treat. Like Polanski’s “Venus in Fur”, the alternating currents of acting and real life flow electrically with shocks and illumination included. Rather than aging, let’s call ourselves “ageless” and have an end to confusion about the inevitable life processes.
Like “Winters Sleep," another of my favorite “intellectual cinema” choices, in “Sils Maria”, the interior processes of the protagonists are revealed only in the unfolding of the story.
Kirsten Stewart played an amazing role as the actress’s young assistant in this deeply felt, intellectually worked out study of aging vs. ageless.
By biting off what seems like more than she can chew in consenting to play opposite the great Juliette Binoche who is at the height of her career, a young Hollywood starlet with a penchant for scandal (Chloë Grace Moretz) gives Juliette Binoche the resolution to the unhappiness that has been nagging at her throughout the film.
Maria Enders is asked to perform in a revival of the play that made her famous twenty years earlier. But back then, she played the role of Sigrid, an alluring young girl who disarms and eventually drives her boss Helena to suicide. Now she is being asked to step into the other role, that of the older Helena. She doesn’t want to play this role but is coaxed by circumstances into playing it and when she discusses it with the young actress who blithely tells her it’s time to move on, she becomes the Eve of “All About Eve” and Juliette “gets” it.
Cinematography is by Yorick Le Saux (“Only Lovers Left Alive," “Potiche," “Carlos”). IFC has North American rights.
Moving on, I can’t wait to see Juliette Binoche in her next role, the Opening Night film of the Berlinale, Isabel Croixet's “Nobody Wants the Night ”. The film co-stars Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”) and Gabriel Byrne (as explorer Robert Peary) and takes place in 1908 in the Arctic and Greenland. (Isa: Elle Driver
The other film I saw that first weekend was “Dancing Arabs” (Isa: The Match Factory) by Eran Riklis who was there to discuss the film as well. He had been a soldier in Israel’s worst war. He witnessed Sadat making peace with Israel. However, when Perez was assassinated, he saw Israel declining into a violent nation as peace became more and more elusive.
Dancing Arabs is a very popular novel in Israel. It is an odd title for this film, but it derives from a saying, “you can't dance at two weddings at the same time”. The film is also loosely based on another novel...Second Person Singular. But after filming a while, the characters took on lives of their own and the novels were more or less forgotten in the process of making the movie.
Lots of questions are left open in this film because there are no answers. In a way, the film is experimental. It opens as a charming family film, but changes and actually becomes almost morbid. People however do change, and the young “genius” living in a small Arab town in Israel/ Palestine becomes a mature man living in Berlin at the end of the story.
This is the first film of the male lead, Tawfeek Barhom. Who plays Eyad. While casting, Riklis said that the young actor told him he had known him since he was ten when he saw him making the movie “The Syrian Bride” in his village. He went to set every day for three weeks, and he knew he wanted to be an actor. On screen he is playing himself, and a lot of the story was true...he lived too long with the Jews, his Arab was no longer good. This he said at a screening held in the north of Israel to an audience of mostly Arabs who do not go to many movies, but were invited by Israel to see the film.
In the film he gives up his education for love of girl and she gives up her love for him for the love of her country. This is how minority relationships often turn out.
Eyad’s father’s reaction to the relationship of his university student son with an Israeli Jewish student is unexpected, but he too is buried by tradition whereas the mother with her small smile gives a ray of hope.
The scriptwriter-novelist, Sayed Kashua is brilliant, and this is a part of his real life. Kashua and Riklis have a love-hate relationship: when Kashua, who based the novel on his own life, saw the fine cut...he fainted. His wife said, “What are you complaining about, did your mother look like that?”
Sayed said complained that his own kids don't speak Arabic anymore, and so he took a sabbatical and is now in Champaign-Urbana at the University of Illinois.
The audience in Israel, judging by the 20 to 30 Facebook comments, they get daily consists of 20% Arabs which is great because they don't normally go to movies. Even a right wing Israeli said he liked the movie. The goes beyond right and left.
It is not a blockbuster, but it doing well. The word “Arab” might keep some people away.
On the second weekend I went to see “Salt of the Earth” (Isa: Ndm), now nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the Academy Awards, and “Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” by her grandniece Michelle Boyaner.
Sebastião Salgado’s photographs are linked by his son and director Wim Wenders to his life. With his own voice and that of his son, Juliano, they discover the undiscovered in photography and in their own lives.
“Packed in a Trunk: The Lost Art of Edith Lake Wilkinson” is the story of artist Edith Lake Wilkinson, committed to an asylum in 1925 and never heard from again. All her worldly possessions were packed into trunks and shipped to a relative in West Virginia where they sat in an attic for 40 years. Edith's great-niece, Emmy Award winning writer and director Jane Anderson, grew up surrounded by Edith's paintings, thanks to her mother who had gone poking through that dusty attic and rescued Edith's work. The film follows Jane in her decades-long journey to find the answers to the mystery of Edith's buried life, return the work to Provincetown and have Edith's contributions recognized by the larger art world.
Read More: Sydney Levine on "Finding Vivian Maier"
In many ways this is similar to “Finding Vivian Maier," which also nominated for an Oscar in the Best Feature Documentary category, in that both recover long lost and never acknowledged art which is astoundingly good art. This one goes further into the lesbian relationships of artists Edith and Jane and takes another unexpected step into the psychic world of a medium who actually solves the mystery of why Edith was committed and then forgotten. This is a must-see for art lovers and would make a great fiction film as well.
Another notable aspect of Psiff that is how, just before the Awards begin for Golden Globe and for the Academy, all the big name stars are here for two awards events. One, the opening night gala raises millions for the festival. The other, Variety’s 10 Directors to Watch brunch, brings more stars and that funny speech by Chris Rock (See Video Here).
Read More: Dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev on his Oscar-Nominated "Leviathan"
Also remarkable is that, aside from the above Awards and then the final festival awards bestowed, the Golden Globes mirrored the Palm Springs Fest’s awards:
Actress in a drama: Julianne Moore, “Still Alice” (Isa: Memento) won Psiff’s Achievement Award
Actor in a drama: Eddie Redmayne, “The Theory of Everything” (Uip) also received the Psiff Desert Palm Achievement Award.
Supporting actor, drama: J.K. Simmons, “Whiplash” (Isa: Sierra/ Affinity) received the Psiff Spotlight Award.
Director Richard Linklater, “Boyhood” (Uip/ Paramount) received the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.
Foreign Language Film: "Leviathan” (Isa: Pyramide) received the PSiFF Best Foreign Language Film.
Screenplay: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo, “Birdman” (Fox Searchlight), Inarritu received Psiff Director of the Year Award which was bestowed by “Birdman” star Michael Keaton. And the Golden Globe Award for Actor, musical or comedy, went to Michael Keaton for “Birdman”...
- 1/17/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Those who follow our content know that the Best Foreign Language Film race is one of the ones we follow closely, if not the closest. Tomorrow morning the five nominees for the Academy Award in this category will be announced bringing the months long journey to an end. The real climax will happen once the winner is announced in February, but for the five lucky finalists, a nomination is already a miraculous feat. It has been a long road in which many factors besides the quality of the films come into play.
The first few submissions were announced in mid-August and from that point on dozens of countries selected a film to participate. That’s the first cut. Each film had to compete against all the other eligible films released in their respective country that year. In some cases the competition might be slight, but in territories with a sizable film industry the selection process is not as clear-cut.
Once the submission deadline arrived, a total of 83 nations had submitted an entry - a record number. Several entries came from countries submitting for the first time. Out of those 83 films I personally managed to watch a little over 60 via festivals, screenings, and screeners. I was able to chat with about 30 of the films’ directors and learn about their personal stories and how differently they each approach the filmmaking process. Every year this is really a lesson on artistic diversity, industry development, and political and social sensitivities from across the globe. It’s truly amazing.
There were many great and memorable films among the entries I was able to watch and I hope all of them get distributions deals eventually. However, as with everything, we all have our favorites. The 12 films listed below are some of the best cinematic works I witness in the past year overall, not only among those in a foreign language. Several of them are among my ten favorite films of the year and others are included in my longer year-end list. “Timbuktu,” “Gett,” “White God,” and hopefully “Tangerines” will be among my 2015 favorites.
It has been a great year for World Cinema. Go out there and see these films. They are all incredible works of art each in its own right.
Read More: Carlos Aguilar's Top 60 Films of 2014
Read More: 83 Submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award
Argentina
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Dir: Damián Szifrón
Language: Spanish
U.S Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film will screen at Sundance 2015 in the Spotlight section later this month. It will open theatrically on February 20, 2015. "Wild Tales" will also be the Miami International Film Festival's Opening Night Film on March 6, 2015.
Read More: Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Wild Tales"
Belgium
"Two Days, One Night" (Deux jours, une nuit)
Dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
Language: French/Arabic
U.S Distribution: Sundance Selects
Isa: Wild Bunch
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (opened Dec. 24, 2014) and L.A. (Opened January 9, 2015)
Read More: The Dardenne Brothers on "Trow Days, One Night" and Marion Cotillard
Canada
"Mommy"
Dir: Xavier Dolan
Language: French/English
U.S Distribution: Roadside Attractions
Isa: Seville International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens Friday January 23, in L.A. and NYC
Estonia
"Tangerines" (Mandariinid)
Dir: Zaza Urushadze
Language: Estonian/Russian
U.S Distribution: None Yet
Isa: Cinemavault
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film doesn't a U.S. distribution deal yet. Hopefully the attention given by both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards will change that soon.
Hungary
"White God" (Fehér isten)
Dir: Kornél Mundruczó
Language: Hungarian/English
U.S Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Isa: The Match Factory
Trailer
Where to Watch? As part of the Spotlight section the film will screen at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The theatrical release is scheduled for March 27, 2015.
Read More: Kornel Mundruczo on "White God"
Israel
"Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem" (Gett: Le Procès de Viviane Amsalem)
Dir: Ronit Elkabetz♀ & Shlomi Elkabetz
Language: Hebrew/French/Arabic
U.S Distribution: Music Box Films
Isa: Films Distribution
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens in L.A. and NYC on February 13, 2015
Read More: Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz on "Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amalem"
Latvia
"Rocks in My Pockets" (Akmeņi manās kabatās)
Dir: Signe Baumane ♀
Language: Latvian
U.S Distribution: Zeitgeist Films
Isa: New Europe Film Sales
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film still has a few theatrical engagements around the country, which can be found on the distributor's site. It will also be released on DVD and digital platforms on January 29, 2015.
Read More: Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Rocks in My Pockets"
Mauritania
"Timbuktu"
Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako
Language: French/Arabic/Bambara/English/Songhay/Tamasheq
U.S Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Isa: Le Pacte
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens in NYC January 28, 2015 and in L.A. January 30, 2015
Poland
"Ida"
Dir: Pawel Pawlikowski
Language: Polish
U.S Distribution: Music Box Films
Isa: Portobello Film Sales
Trailer
Where to Watch? Available on Blu-ray/DVD and digital platforms. It's also available for instant streaming for Netflix subscribers.
Read More: Pawel Pawlikowski on "Ida"
Read More: Review - "Ida"
Russia
"Leviathan" (Левиафан)
Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Language: Russian
U.S Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Isa: Pyramide International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (Opened Dec. 25, 2014) and L.A. (Opened Dec. 31, 2014)
Read More: Andrey Zvyagintsev on "Leviathan"
Sweden
"Force Majeure" (Turist)
Dir: Ruben Östlund
Language: Swedish/English
U.S Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Isa: Coproduction Office (Paris)
Trailer
Where to Watch? Still playing in select theaters around the country. It will be released on Blu-ray/DVD and digital platforms on February 10, 2015.
Read More: Ruben Östlund and Johannes Kuhnke on "Force Majeure"
Turkey
"Winter Sleep" (Kis uykusu)
Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Language: Turkish/English
U.S Distribution: Adopt Films
Isa: Memento Films International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (Opened Dec. 19, 2014). The film opens in select theaters around the country on January 16, 2015 and in L.A. on January 23, 2015.
The first few submissions were announced in mid-August and from that point on dozens of countries selected a film to participate. That’s the first cut. Each film had to compete against all the other eligible films released in their respective country that year. In some cases the competition might be slight, but in territories with a sizable film industry the selection process is not as clear-cut.
Once the submission deadline arrived, a total of 83 nations had submitted an entry - a record number. Several entries came from countries submitting for the first time. Out of those 83 films I personally managed to watch a little over 60 via festivals, screenings, and screeners. I was able to chat with about 30 of the films’ directors and learn about their personal stories and how differently they each approach the filmmaking process. Every year this is really a lesson on artistic diversity, industry development, and political and social sensitivities from across the globe. It’s truly amazing.
There were many great and memorable films among the entries I was able to watch and I hope all of them get distributions deals eventually. However, as with everything, we all have our favorites. The 12 films listed below are some of the best cinematic works I witness in the past year overall, not only among those in a foreign language. Several of them are among my ten favorite films of the year and others are included in my longer year-end list. “Timbuktu,” “Gett,” “White God,” and hopefully “Tangerines” will be among my 2015 favorites.
It has been a great year for World Cinema. Go out there and see these films. They are all incredible works of art each in its own right.
Read More: Carlos Aguilar's Top 60 Films of 2014
Read More: 83 Submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award
Argentina
"Wild Tales" (Relatos Salvajes)
Dir: Damián Szifrón
Language: Spanish
U.S Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Isa: Film Factory Entertainment
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film will screen at Sundance 2015 in the Spotlight section later this month. It will open theatrically on February 20, 2015. "Wild Tales" will also be the Miami International Film Festival's Opening Night Film on March 6, 2015.
Read More: Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Wild Tales"
Belgium
"Two Days, One Night" (Deux jours, une nuit)
Dir: Jean-Pierre Dardenne & Luc Dardenne
Language: French/Arabic
U.S Distribution: Sundance Selects
Isa: Wild Bunch
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (opened Dec. 24, 2014) and L.A. (Opened January 9, 2015)
Read More: The Dardenne Brothers on "Trow Days, One Night" and Marion Cotillard
Canada
"Mommy"
Dir: Xavier Dolan
Language: French/English
U.S Distribution: Roadside Attractions
Isa: Seville International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens Friday January 23, in L.A. and NYC
Estonia
"Tangerines" (Mandariinid)
Dir: Zaza Urushadze
Language: Estonian/Russian
U.S Distribution: None Yet
Isa: Cinemavault
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film doesn't a U.S. distribution deal yet. Hopefully the attention given by both the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards will change that soon.
Hungary
"White God" (Fehér isten)
Dir: Kornél Mundruczó
Language: Hungarian/English
U.S Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Isa: The Match Factory
Trailer
Where to Watch? As part of the Spotlight section the film will screen at this year's Sundance Film Festival. The theatrical release is scheduled for March 27, 2015.
Read More: Kornel Mundruczo on "White God"
Israel
"Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amsalem" (Gett: Le Procès de Viviane Amsalem)
Dir: Ronit Elkabetz♀ & Shlomi Elkabetz
Language: Hebrew/French/Arabic
U.S Distribution: Music Box Films
Isa: Films Distribution
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens in L.A. and NYC on February 13, 2015
Read More: Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz on "Gett, the Trial of Viviane Amalem"
Latvia
"Rocks in My Pockets" (Akmeņi manās kabatās)
Dir: Signe Baumane ♀
Language: Latvian
U.S Distribution: Zeitgeist Films
Isa: New Europe Film Sales
Trailer
Where to Watch? The film still has a few theatrical engagements around the country, which can be found on the distributor's site. It will also be released on DVD and digital platforms on January 29, 2015.
Read More: Sydney Levine's Feature Piece on "Rocks in My Pockets"
Mauritania
"Timbuktu"
Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako
Language: French/Arabic/Bambara/English/Songhay/Tamasheq
U.S Distribution: Cohen Media Group
Isa: Le Pacte
Trailer
Where to Watch? Opens in NYC January 28, 2015 and in L.A. January 30, 2015
Poland
"Ida"
Dir: Pawel Pawlikowski
Language: Polish
U.S Distribution: Music Box Films
Isa: Portobello Film Sales
Trailer
Where to Watch? Available on Blu-ray/DVD and digital platforms. It's also available for instant streaming for Netflix subscribers.
Read More: Pawel Pawlikowski on "Ida"
Read More: Review - "Ida"
Russia
"Leviathan" (Левиафан)
Dir: Andrey Zvyagintsev
Language: Russian
U.S Distribution: Sony Pictures Classics
Isa: Pyramide International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (Opened Dec. 25, 2014) and L.A. (Opened Dec. 31, 2014)
Read More: Andrey Zvyagintsev on "Leviathan"
Sweden
"Force Majeure" (Turist)
Dir: Ruben Östlund
Language: Swedish/English
U.S Distribution: Magnolia Pictures
Isa: Coproduction Office (Paris)
Trailer
Where to Watch? Still playing in select theaters around the country. It will be released on Blu-ray/DVD and digital platforms on February 10, 2015.
Read More: Ruben Östlund and Johannes Kuhnke on "Force Majeure"
Turkey
"Winter Sleep" (Kis uykusu)
Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Language: Turkish/English
U.S Distribution: Adopt Films
Isa: Memento Films International
Trailer
Where to Watch? Currently playing in NYC (Opened Dec. 19, 2014). The film opens in select theaters around the country on January 16, 2015 and in L.A. on January 23, 2015.
- 1/14/2015
- by Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
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