Tuesday, January 2-----One of the highlights of the upcoming Sundance Film Festival is the annual Salt Lake City Gala, to be held on Friday, January 19th. This year, the Festival will present the US Premiere of AWAY FROM HER, the directorial debut of Canadian actress Sarah Polley.
Polley, best known for her work in such recent films as THE SWEET HEREAFTER (1997), THE LAW OF ENCLOSURES (2000) and her Genie Award-winning performance in MY LIFE WITHOUT ME (2003), co-wrote the screenplay with n...
Thursday, December 28----With documentary films experiencing a commercial and critical peak, the stakes have never been higher (and the rewards greater) for the sixteen American Independent documentary features competing at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Considering the box office clout of such films as AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and THE MARCH OF THE PENGUINS in the past year, one can expect some of the most ferocious bidding wars will be unleashed for distribution rights to many of these fil...
Tuesday, December 26----The Sundance Film Festival will see sixteen World Premieres compete in the Festival's prestigious Independent Dramatic Feature Film Competition. It is further evidence of the Festival's critical role as a festival of discovery that all the films in this sixteen-film competition are world premieres, unseen by all but a few close associates and the Festival's programming committee. The anticipation is high, as are the stakes for film distributors in the weeks leading up to...
"Sweet Mud" is the highest scoring film in Israel this year and one of the foreign films contenders.
It is rumored to be selected for Berlin Panorama. Could well be the sweet surprise hit of next year"
Bruno Chatelin
Sweet Mud: (Israel, 2006, 97 Minutes, color) has been written and directed by Dror Shaul
While the Israeli kibbutz has been idealized as a paragon of utopian movements, Sweet Mud tells a darker, more nuanced tale of a community ill equipped to cope with individuality and deviatio...
Thursday, December 21----If another indication of the growing influence of non-fiction film was needed, the prestigious Sundance Film Festival has decided to open its ten-day celebration of indie and international cinema with a documentary film. CHICAGO 10, a factual and fanciful look at the infamous trial of organizers of the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in the summer of 1968, a turning point in America’s evaluation of the Vietnam War, will open the Festiv...
The continued expansion of film festivals and their financial support by public authorities is well known. There are clear economic and political benefits derived from investing in cultural events since more visitors come to the venue of the festival and support the local economy through expenditures on lodging, meals, local products and other leisure activities. Further, support for the arts is an appealing political activity since there are no controversies involved and provides prestige for ...
Friday, December 15----Nominations for the Golden Globe Awards were announced yesterday morning in Los Angeles. The Awards, given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a membership group of less than 100 international journalists whose beat is coverage of Hollywood and the American film scene, has grown in stature over the past few years, making them almost the most stellar in a glut of end-of-the-year honors. Now broadcast on a major television network in the US and seen via satellite t...
The continued expansion of film festivals and their financial support by public authorities is well known. There are clear economic and political benefits derived from investing in cultural events since more visitors come to the venue of the festival and support the local economy through expenditures on lodging, meals, local products and other leisure activities. Further, support for the arts is an appealing political activity since there are no controversies involved and provides prestige for ...
COMRADES IN DREAMS by Uli Gaulke (producer: Flying Moon Filmproduktion/Potsdam) can be seen in the World Cinema Competition - Documentaries section at the most important North American festival for the independent scene, the Sundance International Film Festival. In addition, two more German-international co-productions will be screened in the World Cinema Competition - Dramatic section, the German-Belgian co-production KHADAK by Jessica Woodworth and Peter Brosens (German co-producer: MA.JA.DE/L...
The 2007 Sundance Film Festival announced today that the Opening Night Film for the upcoming Festival is the world premiere of CHICAGO 10, written and directed by Brett Morgen. CHICAGO 10 is an innovative documentary that combines historical storytelling, archival footage, animation and music to tell the story about the 1968 anti-war protests around the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that resulted in the famous Chicago Conspiracy Trial in 1969. The 2007 Sundance Film Festival runs Jan...
Interviews with Alec Morgan (Writer/Director) Hunt Angels (AUS) and DB Sweeney (Actor/Writer/Director) of Dirt Nap (USA)
Industry News
Sundance Institute unveils the competition program for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival
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Ghost House Pictures for 30 Days webisodes
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Movie Memorabilia Auctions on ebay @ darkworld71
Event Wrap
Stockholm International Film Festival ...
Wednesday, November 29----The Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) announced today the 12 finalists for the 2007 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards. These annual awards recognize emerging artists in international cinema and are presented to film directors from four global regions (Europe, Latin America, the United States and Japan) to support them in realizing their next projects. The four winners, selected by members of an international jury, will be announce...
Wednesday, November 29----Alan Berliner, the American documentarian who is the Special Guest of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA), will be giving a Master Class on his approach to filmmaking today. In honor of Berliner's presence in Amsterdam, here is part two of an Interview conducted last week by Online Festival Dailies Editor Sandy Mandelberger with the man himself.
Sandy Mandelberger (SM): In your newest film WIDE AWAKE, which is screening at IDFA, you deal very...
Saturday/Sunday, November 25/26----The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced the "short list" of feature documentaries that will compete for Best Documentary honors at the 79th Academy Awards in February, 2007. The AMPAS Documentary Screening Committee viewed 81 eligible documentary features, shortening the list to 16 contenders. From this group will come the 5 films that will be compete for the final Best Documentary Oscar. Films on the "short list" include such r...
Innovative American documentary filmmaker Alan Berliner will be a Special Guest of the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (idfa), the leading showcase and market for non-fiction film. The Festival, which brings together film, television and industry professionals, as well as a local enthusiastic audience, opens on November 23 in the beautiful city of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Berliner has been chosen as a Master of Documentary and will give a special lecture on his varied film...
Interview with Chris Gore (founder of Film Threat and author of Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide) and My Big Fat Independent Film (Producer) and Filmmaker of the week is Amy Berg (Director) of Deliver Us From Evil (feature length documentary
Industry News
American Film Market (Los Angelos) on 1st - 8th November
YouTube Starts the Cleanese
Bana Gets tough again
Rent your own office on main street during Sundance @ The Eating Establishment
Wrap
Australian Internationa...
John Cameron Mitchell InterviewHas Shortbus changed your attitude to sex?I don't know yet. I've been so busy that I haven't had any.One thing that interests me about your career is that you're very grounded in the theatre. How important do you think this background has been to your work?I think that the way that I work is based on the theatre education that I've had, certainly with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which was a play originally. I took a bit from rock 'n' roll, a bit from theatre; we dev...
The 2006 HIGH FALLS FILM FESTIVAL celebrates its sixth wonderful year of honoring the cinematic achievements of women around the world. This unique and exciting festival will take place in Rochester, New York, November 8-13, 2006. The Festival has grown exponentially to become one of the vital cultural assets in Western New York. This international festival of films made with women taking an integral place behind the camera draws people from around the country and globe to this stimulating eve...
33rd Northwest Film & Video FestivalShorts and Feature FilmsShowing November 10-November 18After months of diligent endeavors to unearth all the Northwest filmmakers with new and exciting work, The Northwest Film & Video Festival, presented by the Northwest Film Center, received over 350 submissions from moving image artists peppered across the region. The theme of this year's Festival "Film Made Me Do It" draws on the sometimes heroic, sometimes pathetic lengths to which filmmakers must often t...
VISIONFEST 06: The Other Festival (VF06), which runs October 25-29, 2006, at Tribeca Cinemas (corner of Varick and Laight streets in New York City), announces its complete line-up for this year with 47 films, originating from 10 different states, kicking off with the New York Premiere of the award-winning feature, the little Death, by Morgan K. Nichols. Recently featured as the ‘closing night’ selection of the Atlanta Film Festival, the film also picked up acting honors for its lead player,...
Monday, October 9---With just one week to go until the start of the 2nd Turks & Caicos International Film Festival, Sandy Mandelberger, the Festivals Editor for FEST21.COM, sat down with Festival Co-Director Jasmine Guy to discuss this year’s event.
Jasmine Guy is an actress, director and producer who began as a child star in Hollywood. She has received several Image Award nominations for her television performances in such series as DEAD LIKE ME (2003), AMERICA'S DREAM (1996) and MELRO...
Saturday, October 7----The Woodstock Film Festival, which opens this coming Thursday, has announced that its Centerpiece Film will be the latest work from acclaimed Danish director Susanne Bier. AFTER THE WEDDING will be screened as a US Premiere on Saturday evening, October 14 at the Tinker Street Cinema. The film will be released later this year by arthouse distributor IFC Films.
The film tells the story of Jacob Petersen, a man who has dedicated his life to helping street children in Ind...
The Open Society Institute and Sundance Institute today announced a series of 19 international documentaries that will be screened at Film Forum in New York City, October 26-29, 2006. The Soros/Sundance Documentary Fund: A 10th Anniversary Film Series, showcases provocative social justice and human rights documentaries made with support from the fund. These works attest to the rich artistic and political expression of the filmmakers and demonstrate the power of cinematic storytelling to bring a...
FEST21.COM AND INTERNATIONAL MEDIA RESOURCES COLLABORATE ON NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL DAILIESFEST21.COM, the portal website launched at the Cannes Film Festival, by FILMFESTIVALS.COM and published by MM2 Editions is collaborating with INTERNATIONAL MEDIA RESOURCES to produce Online Dailies coverage of the NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL, one of the most important film showcases in the United States.The Dailies site will be dedicated to coverage of all aspects of the Festival, including film coverage, direct...
