Saturday, September 6------Coming off of a shopping spree of acquisitions at the Cannes Film Festival, New York-based specialty distributor IFC Films is screening an unprecedented seven films at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. With most US distributors in retrenchment mode (or some being shuttered completely), IFC's day-and-date release of films in theaters and via Video On Demand has given them the financial clout to fill the need for an expanding pipeline of new product.That...

The Film Independent Spirit Awards, held in a tent on the beach at Santa Monica on Saturday, are kind of the “indie Oscars”. Some of the nominees and winners are also up for Oscar gold, but there are refreshingly new names and talents on the roster, from films that have received little or no distribution. The Awards Ceremony, which is broadcast live on cable networks AMC and IFC, gives these newcomers a chance to get some name recognition, and in the case of many, an open door to agents and ...

Sunday, February 24-----The Film Independent Spirit Awards, held in a tent on the beach at Santa Monica on Saturday, are kind of the “indie Oscars”. Some of the nominees and winners are also up for Oscar gold, but there are refreshingly new names and talents on the roster, from films that have received little or no distribution. The Awards Ceremony, which is broadcast live on cable networks AMC and IFC, gives these newcomers a chance to get some name recognition, and in the case of many, an...

Juno, The Savages, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly shared top category honors at the 2008 Film Independent’s SpiritAwards, making the highly anticipated annual event into a celebration of the diverse films that captured the public’s attention this year.  Once, Crazy Love, Talk to Me, The Lookout, August Evening, and I’m Not There also received awards at the event. The 2008 Film Independent’s Spirit Awards were held Saturday, February 23, in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. T...

The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival ended last evening with a gala premiere screening of the Festival Closing Night Film, MIDNIGHT CLEAR, with director Dallas Jenkins and actor Stephen Baldwin in attendance. Prior to the screening, Gregory von Hausch, erstwhile Festival Director and the charismatic on-stage presence for the event, announced the major winners in a variety of categories.Winning Best Film honors was the French film THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, by painter-turned-di...

 Monday, November 12--------The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival ended last evening with a gala premiere screening of the Festival Closing Night Film, MIDNIGHT CLEAR, with director Dallas Jenkins and actor Stephen Baldwin in attendance. Prior to the screening, Gregory von Hausch, erstwhile Festival Director and the charismatic on-stage presence for the event, announced the major winners in a variety of categories.Winning Best Film honors was the French film THE DIVING BELL AND THE BU...

The director Julian Schnabel talks about films that inspired him and the challenges he faced in adapting the script for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.Let's start from your new new film, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I've read somewhere that it took about 200,000 of Bauby's blinks to write the whole book and writing down each word took approximately 2 minutes. What were your first thoughts when you decided to adapt the script? Well, I didn’t know all those facts, but I know that once...

 Thursday, October 18-------THE DIVIING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, the latest film from painter-turned-director Julian Schnabel has won the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Feature Film Prize, which will be presented at the Hamptons International Film Festival this weekend. For the 8th consecutive year, the $25,000 cash prize is being awarded to a feature-length film that explores science and technology themes in fresh, innovative ways and depicts scientists and engineers in a realistic and compelling...

Tuesday, October 2--------For those who actually attended the famous Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969 (or just claim to) or have visited it in their dreams, the word "Woodstock" evokes a fabled time of flower power, sexual revolution, drug-fueled ectasy and a time when youth culture subsumed the status quo. It is becoming increasingly harder to find that spirit of the Sixties in contemporary America (where we have our own Vietnam, but nary a student protest), but that freewhee...

Tuesday, October 2--------For those who actually attended the famous Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969 (or just claim to) or have visited it in their dreams, the word "Woodstock" evokes a fabled time of flower power, sexual revolution, drug-fueled ectasy and a time when youth culture subsumed the status quo. It is becoming increasingly harder to find that spirit of the Sixties in contemporary America (where we have our own Vietnam, but nary a student protest), but that freewhee...

 Friday, September 28-------The 45th edition of the New York Film Festival, one of New York's most coveted cultural events, opens tonight with the US Premiere of THE DARJEELING LIMITED, directed by Wes Anderson. The film, which stars Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman and Owen Wilson, traces the fractured journey of three American brothers on a spiritual quest in India. The trio, who have not spoken to each other in a year, set off on a train voyage across India with a plan to find themselves and ...

Presented in Competition at this 60th Cannes Festival, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is Julian Schnabel's third feature-length film, following Basquiat (1996) and Before Night Falls (2000). The film is an adaptation of the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, whose life changed completely in 1995 when he had a massive stroke. The 43-year-old journalist, father of two children, spent twenty days in a deep coma. When he woke up, he found the damage to his brain stem had resulted in a rare form of...