FIRE IN BABYLON (USA)
America’s twin obsessions with the movies and sports finds voice at the Tribeca Film Festival, particularly with its Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film series. With sports-topic films such as WIN WIN and SOUL SURFER making major waves at the theatrical box office, the commercial viability of the sports story remains a potent one. The films in the series offer a variety of pleasures, both visual and sensual. FIRE IN BABYLON by Stevan Riley is a story of the succe...
In an unprecedented move, The International Press Academy (IPA) has relocated the 15th Satellite Awards presentation as a demonstration of support for UNITE HERE! Local 11. UNITE HERE!, a Union advocate group for hospitality workers, has placed Hyatt Regency Century Plaza on their BOYCOTT WATCH list due to contract disputes with hospitality workers dating back months.In response, IPA has moved its annual awards gala back to its former home at the Grand Salon of the InterContinental Hotel, 2151 A...
The focus returns to documentaries from the US and around the world as the AFI-Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Festival kicked off on Monday evening, June 21. The Festival and International Documentary Conference are the largest events of their kind in the United States, bringing together non-fiction producers, distributors, television executives, film festival programmers and a bevvy of other industry professionals who are passionate about documentaries. Add to that the moti...
Alex Gibney
Last week, Tribeca Film Festival founder Jane Rosenthal jokingly referred to this year's Festival as "The Alex Gibney Film Festival". Gibney, a respected documentarian who won the Oscar for the film TAXI TO THE DARKSIDE, has three films featured at this year's event.
In MY TRIP TO AL-QAEDA, Gibney adapts an acclaimed one-man theater piece by playwright Lawrence Wright to offer a deft and alarming look at...
SONS OF PERDITION
It can be argued that what separates A list film festivals from their colleagues are the number of World Premieres that grace their theaters. No matter what the ultimate reception is for these films, the wanna-see anticipation of films in their first public and industry showings provide a sizzle. At the Tribeca Film Festival, which is entering its first weekend, there are an impressive number of World Premieres that are grabbing attention from the public and in...
"Modoki" is the Japanese word for "similar, yet different." Take for example the Tribeca Film Festival (April 21 to May 2, 2010), and October's New York Film Festival. Both are Manhattan cinema extravaganzas — whose overlaps end there. Populist Tribeca plays teriyaki to artsy NYFF's sashimi.
Nearly four decades the Lincoln Center event's junior, Tribeca was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff as a goad to downtown development in th...
The 31st Portland International Film Festival announces the Oregon Live Audience Award winners. This year's Festival wrapped up its 18 day run Sunday, February 24th after 186 total screenings at multiple theater locations in the downtown cultural district of Portland. This year's Festival was attended by over 30,000 attendees and included 74 features and 38 shorts from over 30 countries.Audience winners included Jan Sverák's EMPTIES (Czech Republic) for Best Feature, followed by THE VISITOR (US...
Monday, October 29--------Former Vice President and possible Presidential candidate Al Gore will give the Keynote Speech at the sympsium A DAY OF DIALOGUE: THE FUTURE OF NON-FICTION FILM. Gore, who recently was a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and whose film AN INCOVENIENT TRUTH (directed by Davis Guggenheim) won the Oscar this past year as Best Documentary, is expected to talk about the current state of the world of documentary and non-fiction reportage and where it is heading in the fu...
Thursday, October 11--------The International Documentary Association (IDA), the most influential professional association devoted to the non-fiction form, has announced its 2007 nominees for the IDA Awards. Films compete in seven categories that includes works produced for theatrical release and for television exposure. The IDA nominations are an accurate reflection of what documentary features wil make the short list for the Academy Award.Nominees for the IDA Award For Feature Films include...
Friday, June 15------The Main Competition section of SILVERDOCS consists of 10 documentary features, all competing for the coveted Sterling Award. The films represent some of the most innovative, provocative and compelling non-fiction films of the year. Jurors determining the prizes include: Liesl Copland, head of acquisitions of Red Envelope Entertainment, the newly created original content division of Netflix; Matt Dentler, the Producer of the South by Southwest Film Conference & Festiva...
The 15th Annual Gotham Awards Winners will be awarded at the ceremony on November 30 in New York City. Executive Director Michelle Byrd said the nominees were selected by three separate nominating committees composed of critics and film programmers. Nominees for a final competitive juried award, Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You (for films yet to receive theatrical distribution), will be announced in early November. A jury of peers will decide the winning selections in all six categori...
