Be the look of the 53rd Chicago International Film Festival! Cinema/Chicago is again hosting its annual design competition seeking the unique poster to be the key image for this year’s Festival, Oct 12-26, 2017. The winning designer, selected by a panel of Festival officials, will receive a $2,500 cash prize!
The official Festival poster is the signature look of the Chicago International Film Festival each year. Poster submissions should convey the experience of the Festival and be designed with the tagline “BECAUSE LIFE IS A MOVIE” Poster submissions must also conform to Cinema/Chicago’s design and submission guidelines and include the $25/entry fee. Submissions without the required elements (see below) or submission fee will not be considered.
Entries must be submitted by March 31, 2017 at 11:59pm CST. Late entries will not be accepted. Please read the Designer Agreement fully here. Complete rules and details are available here.
Design Guidelines:
All designs must be 27” x 40”, or scale to 27” x 40”
Must be vertically orientated
Design must be easily translated into a variety of mediums (online banners, book covers, etc.)
Design must incorporate the Festival’s official “eyes” logo (available here)
Design must reflect the theme “BECAUSE LIFE IS A MOVIE” and include that text
Design must clearly state: 53rnd Chicago International Film Festival
Design must include the festival dates: October 12-27, 2017
Design must include website: ChicagoFilmFestival.com
Artists must use their own original artwork; Copyrighted characters, images or clip art will not be accepted (with the exception of the Chicago International Film Festival logo)
Submission Guidelines:
All file submissions must be in pdf, jpeg or png format
Entries must be submitted at 300 dpi (CMYK)
File must be no larger than 12MB
Entries must include a completed Submission Form
To submit multiple designs, submit the Form and entry fee for each design
ALMOST HEAVEN (UK, 2017) is a gentle portrait of a young girl coming-of-age and her start into the working world learning an unusual job. The first feature film by British Director Carol Salter will celebrate its world premiere at the section Generation 14plus of the Berlin International Film Festival and is nominated for the overall sections Glashütte Original Documentary Award. The prize will be presented during the official Award Ceremony in the Berlinale Palast. ALMOST HEAVEN is one of 16 documentaries that have been nominated for the Award.
Synopsis
Far from home, afraid of the dark, and terrified of ghosts, young Ying Ling is training to become a mortician in one of China’s largest funeral homes. Charming, cheeky and quirky, Ying Ling spends 24 hours a day with her fellow trainee morticians, living together and working in a basement with no daylight. She learns to perform spa and beauty treatments for the dead, speaking to them softly, watched by their family members. Against this backdrop, she forms a special friendship with a fellow mortician Jin Hau and they share the strangeness of working with the dead together. In their spare time, they go together to arcades and fast food outlets, bantering playfully with each other, a welcome relief from the daily grind at the funeral home. But when Jin Hau suddenly leaves the funeral home, Ying Ling is left to face the harsh realities of the job alone.
ALMOST HEAVEN is a reflection on death and the fragility of life but also a reflection what it is like to be young and alive; a tender elegy to first love, friendship and caring for the dead.
Director: Carol Salter, UK, 2017, 75 Minutes, Color, 5.1
Stay tuned for more on ALMOST HEAVEN!
The Director. Carol Salter is an award winning documentary director and editor who has specialized in making intimate portraits of extraordinary people in other cultures. Her films, e.g. the semi long documentary Mayomi (2008) and the documentary short film Unearthing the Pen (2011) have been presented at many international film festivals winning numerous awards worldwide.
2017 SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES AUDIENCE AND JURY SPARKY PRIZES
STRAD STYLE, directed by Stefan Avalos wins Grand Jury Prize
and Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature
Grand Jury Prize Best Narrative Feature: DIM THE FLUORESCENTS; directed by Daniel Warth
Narrative Feature Audience Award Winner: DAVE MADE A MAZE, directed by Bill Watterson
(PARK CITY, UT – January 26, 2017)– The 23rd Slamdance Film Festival announced the feature and short film recipients of this year’s Sparky awards in the Audience, Jury, and Sponsored Categories. The award winners were announced at the festival’s annual Awards Ceremony at the Treasure Mountain Inn in Park City, UT.
Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves. Previous Slamdance alumni include: Christopher Nolan (THE DARK KNIGHT; MEMENTO), and Claire Carre (EMBERS).
Peter Baxter, President and Co-Founder of Slamdance (Photo via moviebytes.com
“Independent film is made beautiful not by those individual artists that form celebrity culture but by creative collaboration” said Slamdance Co-Founder and President, Peter Baxter. “At Slamdance this year we’ve experienced an entire program of beautiful independent film and the promise of great emerging artists continuing the legacy of what we set out to do. With our awards we honor several filmmakers yet we know and must acknowledge Slamdance has just been made stronger by everyone of them who has taken part.”
Full list of winners:
Jury Awards | Narrative Features
Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize
Dim the Fluorescents
(Canada) World Premiere
Director: Daniel Warth; Screenwriter(s): Miles Barstead, Daniel Warth
Jury statement: “Empathetic, weird and insanely funny, this film delivers its crazy script with guts & panache. It’s a delight–beautifully executed and smart as a whip. The jury is thrilled to present the grand jury prize for best narrative feature to DIM THE FLUORESCENTS.”
Narrative Features Honorable Mention
Kate Can’t Swim
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Josh Helman; Screenwriter(s): Jennifer Allcott, Josh Helman
Jury statement: “Flawless in its execution of portraying real relationships with believably nuanced characters, authentic on-screen chemistry and an engaging story that thrives on what isn’t said.”
Jury statement: “For capturing a journey of passion and commitment, honesty and the triumph of one vision against all odds.’
Documentary Feature Honorable Mention
The Modern Jungle
(Mexico/USA)
Director(s) & Screenwriter(s): Charles Fairbanks, Saul Kak
Jury statement: “For its beautiful cinematography, for a compassionate journey into a dangerous and uncharted world.”
Documentary Short Grand Jury Prize
Moriom
(Switzerland)
Director(s): Francesca Scalisi, Mark Olexa
Jury statement: “For an arresting portrayal dramatically shot of human trauma and its consequence.”
Documentary Short Honorable Mention
Irregulars
(Italy)
Director: Fabio Palmieri
Jury statement: “For its visionary take on the dehumanized face of immigration.”
Jury Awards – Narrative Shorts/Animated Shorts
Narrative Shorts Grand Jury Prize
No Other Way To Say It
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tim Mason
Jury statement: “Brave new voice, that found the magical combination to create the complete short film. “It’s Good There’s no other way to say it.”
Narrative Shorts Honorable Mention
Oh What a Wonderful Feeling
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: François Jaros
Jury statement: “Powerful storytelling that found a way to lean away from the stereotypes and consider the humans within the context, with a technical savvy and social responsibility this film reminds us to witness everyone and to see their power.”
Animated Shorts Grand Jury Prize
Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw)
(USA)
Renee Zhan
Jury statement: “For its brilliant, and nuanced portrait of power and control and the pain that this artists creates. This honest voice found a way to share a very private moment with a flawless combination of oppressed levity”
Animated Shorts Honorable Mention
My Father’s Room
(South Korea) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Nari Jang
Jury statement: “This heartbreaking portrait of a girl’s broken relationship and the lifelong effects of growing up with an abusive father found a way to sear into its audience to look at the root of pain, asking us to reflect if we could ever escape its cloud. A complete and touching film.”
Jury Awards – Experimental Shorts/Anarchy Shorts
Experimental Shorts Grand Jury Prize
UpCycles
(USA)
Director: Ariana Gerstein
Jury statement: “We are impressed by the unusual and meticulous process involved in making UpCycles. We are even more affected that the process never overshadowed the pure visual delight of experiencing this experimental film.”
Experimental Shorts Honorable Mention
Blua
(Colombia)
Director and Screenwriter: Carolina Charry Quintero
Jury statement: “We were surprised by the unexpected shifts between the documentary, narrative, and experimental moments in Blua, and we look forward to seeing the path the filmmaker takes with her future work.”
Anarchy Shorts Grand Jury Prize
Ape Sodom
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Jury statement: “While we were impressed by the strange and fully realized world of this film, we were more impressed by seeing how many objects someone could shove up their ass at one time. Ape Sodom not only lived up to its name — it embodies the spirit of anarchy.”
Anarchy Shorts Honorable Mention
Horseshoe Theory
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jonathan Daniel Brown
Jury statement: “At a time when America is more divided than ever, this film gives us the hope that two opposing sides can set aside their differences, come together, work together, fall in love… and cum together.”
Spirit of Slamdance Award Winner:
Neighborhood Food Drive
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jerzy Rose; Screenwriter(s): Halle Butler, Mike Lopez, Jerzy Rose
Audience Awards
Audience Award for Narrative Feature:
Dave Made a Maze
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Bill Watterson; Screenwriter(s): Steven Sears, Bill Watterson
Audience Award for Documentary Feature:
Strad Style
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Stefan Avalos
Audience Award for Beyond Feature:
Future ‘38
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Jamie Greenberg
ABOUT SLAMDANCE
Slamdance is a community, a year-round experience, and a statement. Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers who were tired of relying on a large, oblique system to showcase their work, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves. This year’s event concluded January 26th, 2017.
(Source: Press release provided by After Bruce PR and Marketing)
For many years now, the Berlin International Film Festival has been committed to documentary film and diverse documentary forms. This was evident not only in the programmes of the different sections, initiatives and special series but also in the European Film Market (EFM).
Thanks to the support of Glashütte Original, watch manufacturer from Saxony, the Berlin International Film Festival is launching a new award, the Glashütte Original Documentary Award.
The Glashütte Original Documentary Award is endowed with € 50,000, funded by Glashütte Original. The prize money will be split between the film’s director and producer. A total of 16 documentary entries from the current programmes of the Competition, Berlinale Special, Panorama, Forum, Generation and Perspektive Deutsches Kino sections are nominated for the Glashütte Original Documentary Award.
The prize will be presented during the official Award Ceremony in the Berlinale Palast on February 18. In addition to the prize money, Glashütte Original will also provide the trophy, which will be finely crafted in the company’s manufactory in Saxony.
A three-member jury will pick the winner:
Daniela Michel (Photo by Fabrizio Maltese)
Daniela Michel (Mexico)
Born in Mexico City, Daniela Michel is a film critic and founding director of the Morelia International Film Festival, an annual event launched in 2003 to support a new generation of Mexican filmmakers. After studying filmmaking she received a degree in English Literature. She has curated retrospectives of Mexican cinema in and outside Mexico. Michel has also served on the Jury for the “Un Certain Regard” and “La Semaine de la Critique” sections of the Cannes Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, the Sundance Film Festival, the Locarno International Film Festival, the San Sebastian International Film Festival, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the Sarajevo Film Festival, among other festivals, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation’s Media Arts Fellowships and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.
Laura Poitras (Photo by Jan Sturman
Laura Poitras (USA)
Laura Poitras, who was born in the USA, first studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and then The New School in New York. Her work crosses the boundaries of documentary film, journalism, and art. In 2006 she began her 9/11 Trilogy with the film My Country, My Country, for which she received her first Oscar nomination. This was followed by The Oath (2010), which like My Country, My Country, was shown in the Berlinale’s Forum section. With CITIZENFOUR, the third part of her trilogy, Poitras won the Academy Award for Best Documentary in 2015. With this film about Edward Snowden, she also took home awards from the German Film Prize, the Director’s Guild of America, and BAFTA. Her reporting on NSA surveillance has appeared in Der Spiegel, The Guardian, and the Washington Post, and received a Pulitzer Prize and the Nannen Prize for Press Freedom. In 2016, she mounted her first solo museum exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She is co-creator of the visual journalism project, Field of Vision.
Samir (Photo courtesy of Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion)
Samir (Iraq / Switzerland)
Samir was born in Bagdad and moved with his family to Switzerland when he was seven years old. In the 1980s, after studying at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and training to be a typesetter, he began working as a cameraman, director, and screenwriter. Over the years he has made more than 40 short and full-length films. In 1994, he – and documentary filmmaker Werner Schweizer and producer Karin Koch – took over Dschoint Ventschr (spoken like Joint Venture) Filmproduktion, which concentrates on promoting young Swiss talents. Samir has directed both fiction and documentary films for the cinema and television – including Snow White (2005), which received multiple awards – as well as many stage productions. His documentary Iraqi Odyssey was screened in the Berlinale Panorama in 2015 and submitted by Switzerland for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
The following films are nominated for the Glashütte Original Documentary Award:
Competition (1)
Beuys – Germany
By Andres Veiel
Berlinale Special (1)
La libertad del diablo (Devil’s Freedom) – Mexico
By Everardo González
Panorama (5)
Belinda – France
By Marie Dumora
El Pacto de Adriana – Chile
By Lissette Orozco
Erase and Forget – United Kingdom
By Andrea Luka Zimmerman
Fünf Sterne (Five Stars) – Germany
By Annekatrin Hendel
Istiyad Ashbah (Ghost Hunting) – France / Palestine/ Switzerland / Qatar
By Raed Andoni
Forum (5)
For Ahkheem – USA
By Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest
Maman Colonelle (Mama Colonel) – Democratic Republic of Congo / France
By Dieudo Hamadi
El mar la mar – USA
By Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki
Mzis qalaqi (City of the Sun) – Georgia / USA / The Netherlands / Qatar
By Rati Oneli
Tigmi n Igren (House in the Fields) – Morocco / Qatar
By Tala Hadid
Generation (3)
Almost Heaven – United Kingdom
By Carol Salter
Shkola nomer 3 (School Number 3) – Ukraine / Germany
By Yelizaveta Smith, Georg Genoux
Soldado (Soldier) – Argentina
By Manuel Abramovich
Perspektive Deutsches Kino (1)
Eisenkopf (Ironhead) – Germany
By Tian Dong
All nominated films will celebrate their world premiere at the Berlinale 2017.
CAMBRIDGE, MA (January 26th, 2017) – The Hasty Pudding Theatricals, the oldest theatrical organization in the United States, welcomed Oscar winning actress, OCTAVIA SPENCER (who was nominated for a second Oscar earlier this week), to Harvard University, where she received her Woman of the Year award.
The Woman of the Year is the Hasty Pudding Theatricals oldest honor, bestowed annually on performers who have made lasting and impressive contributions to the world of entertainment. Established in 1951, Woman of the Year has been given to many notable and talented entertainers, including Meryl Streep, Debbie Reynolds, Mary Tyler Moore, Julia Roberts, Jodie Foster, Dame Helen Mirren, and most recently Kerry Washington.
Octavia Spencer, the Hasty Puddings 2017 Woman of the Year parades through Cambridge, Mass. (Photo credit: Getty Images)
The Woman of the Year festivities, presented by RELATED, began with a parade through the streets of Cambridge. The weather was uncharacteristically warm for Cambridge in January. Following the parade, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals hosted a celebratory roast for the actress at Farkas Hall, the Hasty Pudding’s historic home in the heart of Harvard Square since 1888. Before she was able to receive her pot, Ms. Spencer had to work her way off the “naughty list”, which she was placed on due to her roles in the Bad Santa movies. First she referenced her infamous pie scene from The Help by choosing one of three people to pie in the face. Her choice was a Hasty Pudding member dressed as Presidential Counselor, Kellyanne Conway. She also proved her fealty to her alma mater, Auburn University, by tackling an archrival, University of Alabama fan onstage. Due to her fondness for pink nail polish, she was charged with giving another Cast member a makeover with an oversize tube of nail polish. Finally, she rounded out her roast by singing a duet of James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” in reference to her role in Get on Up.
A press conference followed the presentation, which was the first to be live-streamed free and to the public via the Hasty Pudding’s Facebook (www.facebook.com/thehastypudding), as it happened. To close out the festivities, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals members performed several musical numbers from the group’s upcoming 169th production, Casino Evil.
The Hasty Pudding Theatricals will celebrate their 51st Man of the Year, RYAN REYNOLDS, on Friday February 3rd, 2017. The traditional roast and Pudding Pot ceremony will take place at Farkas Hall, as well as the Opening night of HPT 169: Casino Evil.
TO LIVE STREAM the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ Man of Year press conference, viewers can tune in at 8:30 p.m. EST on Friday, February 3rd via the Hasty Pudding’s Facebook www.facebook.com/thehastypudding
TO PURCHASE TICKETS to the Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 169th production, Casino Evil, contact the HPT Box Office at 617-495-5205 or order online at www.hastypudding.org/buy- tickets. The show will be performed at Harvard University’s historic Farkas Hall, located at 12 Holyoke Street, from February 3rd until March 5th. The company then travels to New York to perform at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College on March 10th and 11th (call 212-772-4448 for tickets), followed by performances on March 15th-17th at Hamilton City Hall in Bermuda.
ABOUT THE HASTY PUDDING INSTITUTE OF 1770
The Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770’s philanthropic mission is to provide educational and developmental support in all aspects of the performing arts for the underprivileged, to encourage satire and comedy, and to cultivate young talent around the world. The Institute is comprises the Hasty Pudding Club (the oldest social club in the United States), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals (the third oldest theater group in the world, after the Comédie-Française and the Oberammergau Passion Players) and the Harvard Krokodiloes (the foremost collegiate a cappella group in the United States). Over the last two centuries, it has grown into a premiere performing arts organization, a patron of the arts and comedy, and an advocate for satire and discourse as tools for change worldwide.
Nomination for the Glashütte Original Documentary Award at Berlin Film Festival
FOR AHKEEM (USA, 2017) is the coming-of- age story of an extraordinary young girl who never gives up as she strives to balance school, family, and trauma within the challenging world of being a Black teenager in America. This feature documentary by Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest will celebrate its world premiere at the section Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival and is nominated for the overall sections Glashütte Original Documentary Award. The prize will be presented during the official Award Ceremony in the Berlinale Palast. FOR AHKEEM is one of 16 documentaries that have been nominated for the Award.
Beginning one year before the fatal police shooting of a Black teenager in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, FOR AHKEEM is the coming-of-age story of Daje Shelton, a Black 17-year-old girl in North St. Louis. She fights for her future as she is placed in an alternative high school and navigates the marginalized neighborhoods, biased criminal justice policies and economic devastation that have set up many Black youth like her to fail. After she is expelled from her public high school, a juvenile court judge sends Daje to the court-supervised Innovative Concept Academy, which offers her one last chance to earn a diploma. Over two years we watch as Daje struggles to maintain focus in school, attends the funerals of friends killed around her, falls in love with a classmate named Antonio, and navigates a loving-but-tumultuous relationship with her mother.
As Antonio is drawn into the criminal justice system and events in Ferguson just four miles from her home seize the national spotlight, Daje learns she is pregnant and must contend with the reality of raising a young Black boy.
Through Daje’s intimate coming of age story, FOR AHKEEM illuminates challenges that many Black teenagers face in America today, and witnesses the strength, resilience, and determination it takes to survive.
Since 2006, when it introduced the GWFF Best First Feature Award, the Berlinale has been even more committed to supporting the next generation of film makers. The award is endowed with 50,000 Euros, donated by the GWFF (Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrecht), a society dedicated to safeguarding film and television rights. The prize money is to be split between the producer and the director of the winning film. Additionally, the director will be awarded with a high-quality viewfinder as both a useful instrument and memorable trophy.
Festival Director Dieter Kosslick and the heads of the Competition, Panorama, Forum, Generation and Perspektive Deutsches Kino sections have nominated a total of 16 directorial debuts. The winners will be announced at the official Award Ceremony in the Berlinale Palast on February 18.
A three-person jury will decide on the GWFF Best First Feature Award:
Jayro Bustamante (Photo credit: berlinale.de)
Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala)
In 2015 with his debut feature, Ixcanul, Jayro Bustamante was the first Guatemalan director invited to participate in the Competition of the Berlinale. Cast with amateur actors from the region of the Kaqchikel Maya, the film won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize. Ixcanul went on to screen at 60 other film festivals, including those in Karlovy Vary, Jerusalem, Telluride, Toronto, Biarritz, Cartagena, Mumbai, Guadalajara, Ghent, and San Sebastián, and took home 52 awards. What is more, Ixcanul was the second Guatemalan movie ever submitted for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Jayro Bustamante, who had previously studied in Paris and Rome, as well as directed commercials for Ogilvy & Matter, has also made a variety of short, documentary, and animated films. Currently he is working on his next two full-length feature films: Temblores and Los tenis de barrondo.
Clotilde Courau (Photo credit: Roch Armando)
Clotilde Courau (France)
Clotilde Courau began her acting career at 16 and performed on stage while still at acting school. For her screen debut in Jacques Doillon’s The Little Gangster, which ran in the Berlinale Competition in 1991, she received the European Film Award and her first nomination for a César. Ever since, Clotilde Courau has been an established star of French cinema. She is known for films such as Elisa (dir: Jean Becker, 1995); The Bait (dir: Bertrand Tavernier, 1995); the opening film of the Berlinale 2007, La vie en rose (dir: Olivier Dahan); and In the Shadow of Women (dir: Philippe Garrel, 2015). She has also starred in international productions, e.g. in Paul Mazursky’s The Pickle (1993) and Rod Lurie’s Deterrence (1999). Courau regularly performs on the stage: recently she played in “Piaf, l’être intime”, which she also directed. Her latest film Le Ciel attendra by Marie Castille Mention-Schaar will open in German cinemas in 2017.
Mahmoud Sabbagh (Photo credit: Ahmed Mater)
Mahmoud Sabbagh (Saudi Arabia)
Born in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) in 1983, author, director and producer Mahmoud Sabbagh presented his debut feature, Barakah Meets Barakah, in the Berlinale’s Forum section in 2016. There this remarkably humorous film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. It went on to be screened at, e.g., the Toronto International Film Festival, and ultimately entered the race – only the second Saudi Arabian film ever to do so – for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. For some years now, Sabbagh, who has a degree in documentary filmmaking from New York’s Columbia University, has been considered one of the pioneers of a new independent generation of filmmakers in his country. Among other works, he has directed and penned a documentary on the controversial poet Hamza Shehata as well as the highly-regarded online TV series Cash.
The following 16 films are nominated for the GWFF Best First Feature Award:
Competition(2)
Django – France
By Etienne Comar
With Reda Kateb, Cécile de France, Alex Brendemühl, Ulrich Brandhoff
Wilde Maus – Austria
By Josef Hader
With Josef Hader, Pia Hierzegger, Georg Friedrich, Jörg Hartmann, Denis Moschitto
Panorama(2)
Kaygı (Inflame) – Turkey
By Ceylan Özgün Özçelik
With Algı Eke, Özgür Çevik
Pieles(Skins) – Spain
By Eduardo Casanova
With Ana Polvorosa, Candela Peña, Carmen Machi, Macarena Gómez, Secun de la Rosa, Jon Kortajarena, Antonio Duran “Morris”, Eloi Costa
Forum(3)
Adiós entusiasmo(So Long Enthusiasm) – Argentina / Colombia
By Vladimir Durán
With Camilio Castiglione, Mariel Fernandez, Laila Maltz, Martina Juncadella, Verónica Llinás
Casa Roshell – Mexico / Chile
By Camila José Donoso
With Roshell Terranova, Liliana Alba, Lia García, Diego Alberico, Cristian Aravena
Motza el hayam (Low Tide) – Israel / France
By Daniel Mann
With Gal Hoyberger, Susanne Gschwendtner, Amnon Wolf, Eran Ivanir, Oleg Levin
Generation(5)
As duas Irenes(Two Irenes) – Brazil
By Fabio Meira
With Priscila Bittencourt, Isabela Torres
Butterfly Kisses – United Kingdom
By Rafael Kapelinski
With Theo Stevenson, Liam Whiting
Estiu 1993(Summer 1993) – Spain
By Carla Simón
With Laia Artigas, Paula Robles
Freak Show – USA
By Trudie Styler
With Alex Lawther, Abigail Breslin
Wallay – France / Burkina Faso / Qatar
By Berni Goldblat
With Makan Nathan Diarra, Ibrahim Koma
Perspektive Deutsches Kino (4)
Back for Good – Germany
By Mia Spengler
With Kim Riedle, Juliane Köhler, Leonie Wesselow, Nicki von Tempelhoff
Die beste aller Welten(The Best Of All Worlds) – Germany / Austria
By Adrian Goiginger
With Verena Altenberger, Jeremy Miliker, Lukas Miko, Michael Pink
Millennials – Germany
By Jana Bürgelin
With Anne Zohra Berrached, Leonel Dietsche, Jan Koslowski, Anna Herrmann
Die Tochter(Dark Blue Girl) – Germany
By Mascha Schilinski
With Helena Zengel, Karsten Antonio Mielke, Artemis Chalkidou
All nominated films will celebrate their world premiere at the Berlinale 2017.
Winners of Commissioning Grant, Episodic Storytelling Grant and Lab Fellowship Revealed
Park City, Utah — At a reception during the 2017 Sundance Film Festival today, the beneficiaries of $60,000 in grants from Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation were revealed. Doron Weber, the Vice President of Programs at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, announced the winners: Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime won the Feature Film Prize; Adam Benic’s Levittown (Sundance Institute | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Episodic Storytelling Grant); Darcy Brislin and Dyana Winkler’s Bell (Sundance Institute | Sloan Lab Fellowship); and Jamie Dawson and Howard Gertler’s Untitled Smallpox Eradication Project (Sundance Institute | Sloan Commissioning Grant).
The reception was preceded by an all-female panel on women in science and their onscreen portrayals (or lack thereof), with discussion of half a dozen films about women in science that were supported and championed by Sloan, including the hit film Hidden Figures. These activities are part of the Sundance Institute Science-In-Film Initiative, which is made possible by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute (Photo via Sundance.org)
“Support for these artists and their projects is more timely than ever,” said Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, “Telling nuanced, human stories about science and technology is the most effective way to drive understanding of the forces that play such a major role in shaping our world today.”
“We are thrilled to partner with Sundance for the 14th year in a row and award the 2017 Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance to Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie
Doron Weber, Vice President at the Sloan Foundation (Photo via Sloan.org)
Prime,” said Doron Weber, Vice President at the Sloan Foundation. “With cool intelligence, wit and poignancy — allied to a deft directorial hand and a stellar cast — Almereyda explores the emotional landscape of artificial intelligence and dramatizes the emerging impact of intelligent machines on our most intimate human relationships. Sloan is also delighted to award three new screenwriting grants at Sundance focusing on scientists and inventors who helped shape the modern world as part of our “non-profit movie studio for science ” and a national development pipeline which has resulted in 20 feature films to date.”
Marjorie Prime: Winner of Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize
Marjorie Prime has been awarded the 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize and will receive a $20,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to outstanding feature films focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.
Marjorie Prime / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Michael Almereyda) — In the near future—a time of artificial intelligence—86-year-old Marjorie has a handsome new companion who looks like her deceased husband and is programmed to feed the story of her life back to her. What would we remember, and what would we forget, if given the chance? Cast: Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Lois Smith, Tim Robbins.
The jury presented the award to the film for its “imaginative and nuanced depiction of the evolving relationship between humans and technology, and its moving dramatization of how intelligent machines can challenge our notions of identity, memory and mortality”
As previously announced, this year’s Alfred P. Sloan jury members are: Heather Berlin, Tracy Drain, Nell Greenfieldboyce, Nicole Perlman and Jennifer Phang.
Previous Alfred P. Sloan Prize Winners include: Ciro Guerra, Embrace of the Serpent (2015); Mike Cahill, I Origins (2014); Andrew Bujalski, Computer Chess (2013); Jake Schreier and Christopher Ford, Robot & Frank (2012); Musa Syeed, Valley of Saints (2012); Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, Another Earth (2011); Diane Bell, Obselidia (2010); Max Mayer, Adam (2009); Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2008); Shi-Zheng Chen, Dark Matter (2007); Andrucha Waddington and Elena Soarez, House of Sand (2006); Werner Herzog, Grizzly Man (2005); Shane Carruth, Primer (2004) and Marc Decena, Dopamine (2003). Several past winners have also been awarded Jury Awards at the Festival, including the Grand Jury Prize for Primer, the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Sleep Dealer and the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Obselidia.
To support the development of screenplays with science or technology, Sundance Institute and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation provide three different opportunities for screenwriters through a Commissioning Grant, a Lab Fellowship and an Episodic Storytelling Grant. All provide a cash award to support further development of a screenplay and to retain science advisors, along with overall creative and strategic feedback throughout development.
Sundance Institute / Sloan Commissioning Grant
Jamie Dawson and Howard Gertler will receive a $12,500 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Previous winner’s include Alex Rivera’s La Vida Robot and Robert Edwards’s American Prometheus.
Untitled Smallpox Eradication Project (U.S.A.) / Jamie Dawson (Writer) and Howard Gertler (Producer)
In 1965, the World Health Organization orders a massive operation to eradicate the deadly smallpox virus from the human population. A ragtag band of very different personalities — from ashram hippies to tenacious scientists to tactical bureaucrats — clash and collaborate as they fight to pull off the impossible.
Jamie Dawson is a New York native and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Film Program. He has sold or optioned work to companies such as BCDF Pictures, Manage-ment/Dan Halsted, Formation Entertainment, and Permut Presentations. Projects in development include: The Rabbit Garden, his Black List script about controversial author Jerzy Kosinski (Being There) with producer David Permut and director Janusz Kaminski; and Swan Song, a television series based on the award-winning, cult classic novel by Robert McCammon (Boy’s Life).
Oscar-nominated producer Howard Gertler’s credits include David France’s How to Survive a Plague, which premiered in competition at Sundance 2012 and was released by IFC Films/Sundance Selects; in addition to the Academy Award nomination, the film collected New York Film Critics’ Circle, Peabody, IFP Gotham, IDA and GLAAD Media Awards. He’s both an IFP/Gotham and Film Independent Spirit Award winner, the latter of which he won for producing John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus, which premiered in the official selection in Cannes and was released worldwide. His upcoming films include John Cameron Mitchell’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s How to Talk to Girls at Parties, produced with See-Saw Films, Film4, Ingenious and Screen Yorkshire, to be released by A24 and Studiocanal UK in 2017.
Sundance Institute / Sloan Lab Fellowship
Darcy Brislin and Dyana Winkler will receive a $15,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Previous winners include Logan Kibbens’s Operator, Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter, and Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide to Everything.
Bell (U.S.A.) / Darcy Brislin (Co-Writer) and Dyana Winkler (Co-Writer)
At a pivotal point in history, hearing society began a golden age of communication with the advent of the telephone, while deaf society plummeted into a dark age with the eradication of sign language and spread of eugenics. At the helm of both trajectories stands a single man—Alexander Graham Bell. This project was the recipient of the 2016 Sundance Sloan Commissioning Grant.
A Boston native, Darcy Brislin studied Art History and French at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She received an MFA in screenwriting and directing from EICAR, the International Film School of Paris, where she met co-writer Dyana Winkler. Currently based in Los Angeles, Brislin has written screenplays with Sundance award-winning director Ondi Timoner and has a feature film in development entitled Crown Chasers, with Maria Bello attached to produce.
Dyana Winkler is a writer, director, producer based in Brooklyn. Her most recent film, a feature-length documentary entitled United Skates, is currently in post production and has received awards from the Sundance Institute, New York State Council For the Arts, Fledgling Foundation, Film Independent, Chicken & Egg, IFP, and many more. Winkler met her writing partner, Darcy Brislin, in Paris, France, while completing their MFAs in screenwriting and directing, and discovered their shared passion for casting new light on historical figures. They went on to write their first screenplay Turing, and have teamed up for a second time with Bell, which was the recipient of the 2016 Sundance Sloan Commissioning Grant.
Sundance Institute / Sloan Episodic Storytelling Grant: Levittown
Adam Benic will receive a $12,500 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Levittown (U.S.A.) / Adam Benic (Writer, Creator)
A one-hour drama series about visionary WWII veteran, Lieutenant William Levitt, who on his 40th birthday broke ground on the largest private construction project in American history. Alongside his attorney father and architect brother, Will fights against an antiquated industry to fill the massive postwar housing need, thus building the world’s first mass-produced suburb, Levittown, Long Island.
Adam Benic is a Writers’ Assistant on TNT’s Animal Kingdom, and formerly a Showrunner’s Assistant on Hulu’s Shut Eye, CBS’s Extant, and a graduate of AFI’s MFA Screenwriting program. Adam hails from Long Island, New York where he grew up in a Levitt home.
The Sundance Film Festival®
The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite. The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2017 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, SundanceTV, Chase Sapphire®, and Canada Goose; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, AT&T, DIRECTV, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – American Airlines, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Creators League Studio, Daydream, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, GEICO, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb, Jaunt, Kickstarter, Oculus and the University of Utah Health. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Look for the Official Sponsor seal at their venues at the Festival. sundance.org/festival
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
The New York based Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, founded in 1934, makes grants in science, technology, and economic performance. Sloan’s program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience.
Sloan’s Film Program encourages filmmakers to create more realistic and compelling stories about scientists, science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination. Over the past 15 years, Sloan has partnered with some of the top film schools in the country—including AFI, Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, NYU, UCLA and USC—and established annual awards in screenwriting and film production, along with an annual best-of-the-best Student Grand Jury Prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute. The Foundation also supports screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, the San Francisco Film Society, the Black List, and Film Independent’s Producing Lab and Fast Track program and has helped develop such film projects as Morten Tyldum’s The Imitation Game, Mathew Brown’s The Man Who Knew Infinity, Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter, Rob Meyer’s A Birder’s Guide to Everything, Musa Syeed’s Valley of Saints, and Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess.
The Foundation also has an active theater program and commissions about twenty science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theater and Manhattan Theatre Club, as well as supporting select productions across the country. Recent grants have supported Nick Payne’s Incognito, Frank Basloe’s Please Continue, Deborah Zoe Laufer’s Informed Consent, Lucas Hnath’s Isaac’s Eye, and Anna Ziegler’s Photograph 51, recently on London’s West End.
The Foundation’s book program includes early stage support for Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, now a major motion picture that was awarded the San Francisco Film Society Sloan Science in Cinema Prize in 2016.
(Source: Press release courtesy of Sundance Media Relations)
HOLLYWOOD, Calif./PRNewswire/—Academy Award nominated actress, Angela Bassett, will be honored with the “Reel Icon” award by the American Black Film Institute, at their annual “New, Next, Now Legend” Oscar Week gala for her iconic roles and career achievement as one of cinemas all-time favorite actors, in a poll conducted by American Black Film Institute.
The event will be held at the fabulous Prestons-over-Hollywood at the Hollywood Loews Hotel, on Friday, February 24, and once again brings together actors, producers, writer/directors and top executives, as they celebrate and highlight the years’ accomplishments amid the backdrop of Hollywood’s most glamorous weekend.
ABFI’s theme for the evening “New, Next, Now, Legend” reflects its mission to preserve the cinematic legacy of African American films and films of the global Black experience, while nurturing its current crop of emerging talented writers, directors and artists who give voice to the continued enhancement of the Black experience on film.
“We are excited to bring the excitement and camaraderie of our previous Oscar festivities among industry professionals to Prestons-over-Hollywood, where we can pay well-deserved tribute to an iconic and well respected artist such as Angela Bassett, while fortifying partnerships, old and new, which is always the order of the day at the ABFI gala,” said American Black Film Institute Executive Director Gordon Kenney.
The ultra-chic venue which boasts a glass-enclosed wall-to-wall view of the iconic Hollywood sign and the Hollywood Hills, says it’s delighted to host Hollywood’s elite, in such an exclusive and elegant space, where the venues festivities at this time of year are normally reserved strictly for the Academy and its events. With the theme, “New, Next, Now, Legend,” other artists receiving awards include rising star of Survivor’s Remorse and Independence Day 2, Jessie T. Usher, HBO breakout star Issa Rae, creator and executive Producer of HBO’s hit “Insecure,” Golden Globe nominated director Barry Jenkins, Moonlight’s Naomie Harris, and emerging screen talent Janelle Monae, whose turns in both “Hidden Figures” and “Moonlight” have been garnering critical praise, as a rising screen talent worth watching.
The American Black Film Institute is a non-profit cinematic arts foundation, whose goal is to preserve and promote the legacy of diverse stories of people of color on film, while enhancing their financial viability and broadening their success. With Academy Awards weekend as the backdrop, and a new crop of stars on the rise, the word is out that the 2017 ABFI gala promises to be among the events not to be missed.
The Forum now completes its program with a series of Special Screenings which unearth cinematic gems and engage with film history.
Moroccan director Ahmed Bouanani (1938-2011) faced difficulties of all kinds in trying to get his vision across. Although he himself was only able to complete one feature, he paved the way for the first generation of artistically ambitious filmmakers in his country, whether as a pioneer in working with archive material, as a trailblazer for an independent film aesthetic, or as a literary figure and the author of a history of Moroccan cinema yet to be published to this day.
Ali Essafi, guest of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program in 2016, creates memorial to his compatriot in the documentary Obour al bab assabea (Crossing the Seventh Gate). In lengthy conversations recorded in the last years of Bouanani’s life, who was by then living a secluded life in the mountains, the film reveals an influential chapter in Moroccan film history and draws on the astounding archive that Bouanani left behind.
The Forum has put together the “Autour de Bouanani – Another Moroccan Cinema” program with Ali Essafi’s support. It includes the documentary shorts which Ahmed Bouanani, Mohamed Afifi and others created in the 1960s as newsreels for the Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM), a format they bent to their own artistic will, as well as the short films that the CCM began producing for the newly founded state television in the 1970s.
Bouanani founded the “Sigma 3” collective together with Mohamed Sekkat and Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi, with whom he’d studied at the Paris film school IDHEC. In 1970, the collective produced the feature Wechma (Traces) by Hamid Benani, which is regarded as Morocco’s first arthouse film (and was shown at the very first International Forum of New Cinema in 1971). Bouanani’s artistic influence on the film is significant, as was also the case with the 1978 Alyam, Alyam (Oh the Days!), in which Ahmed El Maanouni created a portrait of a society which the younger generations are turning their back on.
In 1980, Bouanani finally made his only feature as a director. Al-Sarab (The Mirage) is set during the French colonial era and tells the story of a farmer living in poverty who finds a bundle of banknotes in a sack of flour. Yet this unexpected wealth turns out to be more a curse than a blessing. The narrative of this influential film doesn’t bow to any convention, but rather follows the grammar of dreams.
Lead actor Mohamed Habachi, who died in 2013, can also be seen in Hallaq Darb al-Fuqara’ (The Barber of the Poor District) from 1982. This classic of Maghreb Neorealist cinema is the only feature by Mohamed Reggab, another filmmaker from Bouanani’s circle, which denounced the hypocritical alliance between capitalist interests and religion at an early stage.
Nearly all the films will be screened in subtitled 35-mm archive prints, which have been made available by the Centre Cinématographique Marocain. Alyam, Alyam will be showing in a version digitally restored by the Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project. Touda Bouanani, daughter of the filmmaker, will be a guest of the Forum.
South Korea is a country equally rich in cinematic treasures that are both hardly screened abroad and largely forgotten at home. This year, the Forum is showing two classics digitally restored by the Korean Film Archive (KOFA), both of which were made at moments of political upheaval.
1960’s Obaltan (Aimless Bullet) is Yu Hyun-mok’s seventh film and is regarded as his masterpiece. In a Seoul neighbourhood where mostly refugees from the north of the divided country have settled, office worker Cheol-ho lives with his family in hardship. Plagued by toothache, he wanders despondently through the film; it’s others who take the initiative — with tragic consequences. Made between the overthrow of the dictator Rhee Syng-man and the military coup of General Park Chung-hee, the film paints a picture of a society unable to free itself from the clutches of poverty despite all efforts to the contrary.
Twenty years later, at the end of Park Chung-hee’s subsequent dictatorship, Lee Doo-yong created the epic crime thriller Choehuui jeung-in (The Last Witness), in which a reckless police detective stumbles across machinations from the time of the Korean War while investigating a mysterious murder case. It’s a tough-minded odyssey through provincial South Korea, through rain and cold, filth and mud and bitter poverty; through the collective bad conscience of a society. The censors lopped nearly an hour off the running time of Lee’s most daring film, with only the restoration returning this classic its full length of 155 minutes.
Fernando Birri’s ORG is a monstrous, nearly three-hour long film which has only been screened extremely rarely since its 1979 premiere. For the now 91-year-old Birri, this loose adaptation of Thomas Mann’s story “The Transposed Heads” was the result of his experience of exile in Italy. But above all, ORG is an experiment in perception that features over 26,000 cuts and some 700 audio tracks. This mammoth work was partially financed by leading actor Mario Girotti, better known under his stage name Terence Hill. The director bequeathed Arsenal a 35mm print in 1991, which has been digitized as part of the “Living Archive” project.
The film essay Verfluchte Liebe deutscher Film (Doomed Love – A Journey Through German Genre Films) already showed how wild, unpredictable, sensual, daring and taut even German cinema can be. Now Dominik Graf and Johannes F. Sievert continue their archaeological adventure journey to the margins, to the depths and also to the very centre of German film and television production and throw up justified questions along the way: why hasn’t this cinema developed any real audacity with respect to genre? Why aren’t there any young directors following in the footsteps of the rebellious Klaus Lemke, who simply shoots from the hip? Offene Wunde Deutscher Film (Open Wounds – A Journey Through German Genre Films) leaves you wanting more.
Forum Special Screenings 2017
Choehuui jeung-in (The Last Witness) by Lee Doo-yong, Republic of Korea (South Korea) 1980
Obaltan (Aimless Bullet) by Yu Hyun-mok, Republic of Korea (South Korea) 1961
Offene Wunde deutscher Film (Open Wounds – A Journey through German Genre Films) by Dominik Graf, Johannes F. Sievert, Germany – WP
ORG by Fernando Birri, Italy 1979
Autour de Bouanani – Another Moroccan Cinema
Al-Sarab (The Mirage) by Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco 1980
Alyam, Alyam (Oh the Days!) by Ahmed El Maanouni, Morocco 1978
Hallaq Darb al-Fuqara’ (The Barber of the Poor District) by Mohamed Reggab, Morocco 1982
Obour al bab assabea (Crossing the Seventh Gate) by Ali Essafi, Morocco 2017 – WP
Wechma (Traces) by Hamid Benani, Morocco 1970
Short Film Programme I Men Lahm wa Salb (De chair et d’acier) by Mohamed Afifi, Morocco 1959 Tarfaya Aw Masseerat Sha‘er (Tarfaya ou La marche d’un poète) by Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco 1966 Al-‘Awdah li Agadir (Retour à Agadir) by Mohamed Afifi, Morocco 1967 Sitta wa Thaniat ‘Ashar (Six et douze) by Ahmed Bouanani, Abdelmajid R’chich, Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi, Morocco 1968
Short Film Programme II Thakirah Arba’at ‘Ashar (Mémoire 14) by Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco 1971 Al-Boraq (Shining) by Abdelmajid R’chich, Morocco 1972 Al-Manabe’ al-Arba‘a (Les quatre sources) by Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco 1977
Moroccan director Ahmed Bouanani (1938-2011) faced difficulties of all kinds in trying to get his vision across. Although he himself was only able to complete one feature, he paved the way for the first generation of artistically ambitious filmmakers in his country, whether as a pioneer in working with archive material, as a trailblazer for an independent film aesthetic, or as a literary figure and the author of a history of Moroccan cinema yet to be published to this day.