Monthly Archives: February 2017

#SBIFF, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

#SBIFF VANGUARD Eschews the spirit of the festival: Watch the acceptance speech!

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams were celebrated for their remarkable roles in Kenneth Lonergan’s deeply poignant Manchester by the Sea and were feted with a tribute at the Arlington Theatre in Santa Barbara Sunday night.

Watch the video as Affleck, Williams and Lonergan share their collective experiences during the course of the past year as they accept the Santa Barbara International Film Festival Cinema Vanguard Award.

I fully expect to see more  “remarkable” performances in the near future from these talented actors!

The Cinema Vanguard Award was created in recognition of actors who have forged their own path – taking artistic risks and making a significant and unique contribution to film. Previous honorees include Rooney Mara, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, Amy Adams, Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, Nicole Kidman,Christoph Waltz, Vera Farmiga, Stanley Tucci, Peter Sarsgaard, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ryan Gosling.

(Source: sbiff.org)

Chicago Film Festival

Chicago Film Fest CineYouth Challenge 2017 – Entries Now Open

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

CineYouth Film Challenge
Do you know an aspiring young filmmaker? We’ve got a great opportunity for students ages 10-18 to participate in a single day filmmaking experience. Join us for CineYouth Film Challenge on Saturday, April 22, at Columbia College Chicago, where students will collaborate on making a short film from start to finish. The completed films will go on to screen at CineYouth Festival, May 4-6.
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The Film Challenge is generously supported by sponsor Allstate Insurance and partner Columbia College Chicago.

(Source: Chicago Press Office)

Santa Barbara International Film Festival

THE BERLINALE REMEMBERS JOHN HURT

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

The Berlin International Film Festival is presenting a special screening to commemorate the recently deceased actor John Hurt. Since the 1990s he had attended the Berlinale with regularity and starred in twelve films presented at the festival.

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The British actor is considered one of the most brilliant performers of the stage and screen in the last 50 years. Early in his career he gained international acclaim as a character actor. His roles in Midnight Express (dir: Alan Parker, 1978) and The Elephant Man (dir: David Lynch, 1980), for which he garnered Oscar nominations, firmly established him at the top of the league in Hollywood. Younger audiences are acquainted with Hurt from his portrayal of Mr. Ollivander in the Harry Potter films. Currently moviegoers in Germany can see him in Jackie (dir: Pablo Larraín).

Berlinale entries with John Hurt that screened, for instance in the Competition include The Commissioner (dir: George Sluizer, 1998), V for Vendetta (dir: James McTeigue, out of competition in 2006), and Jayne Mansfield’s Car (dir: Billy Bob Thornton, 2012). John Nossiter’s Resident Alien (1991) and Owning Mahowny by Richard Kwietniowski (2003) were shown in the Panorama.

In memory of John Hurt, the Berlin International Film Festival will present An Englishman in New York by Richard Laxton. In 2009 Hurt received the Teddy Award for his outstanding performance in this film. It will screen in CinemaxX 6 at 6.00 pm on Friday, February 17.

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(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

Venice International Film Festival

Tampopo (1985)

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The role of food in our daily lives extends beyond its vital function of sustenance. Its variety of tastes, shapes, and colours are central and even symbolic in numerous social gatherings. Memories…

Source: Tampopo (1985)

#Berlinale, #BIFF, Berlinale Goes Kiez

Berlinale Goes Kiez: The Festival in Neighbourhood Cinemas

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Once again the Berlinale Goes Kiez special series is bringing the glamour of the festival to Berlin’s very diverse neighborhoods and the city of Potsdam. The Berlinale will screen at seven select arthouse cinemas known for participating in and contributing to cultural life in their respective neighborhoods.

In Neukölln a new cinema  w o l f  will be opening its doors for the first time with the Berlinale. And in the Wrangelkiez, one of Kreuzberg’s most upbeat neighborhoods, the Red Carpet will again be rolled out at the newly converted and enlarged EISZEIT cinema.

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From February 11 to 17, 2017, a selection of films from the official Berlinale program will be shown in neighborhoods, ranging from Berlin-Weißensee to beyond the city limits in Potsdam-Babelsberg. Each evening one arthouse cinema will be turned into a festival venue.

Members of film teams have already announced their intention to present their works personally and discuss them with audiences after the screenings. At each neighborhood cinema a prominent film personality will serve as its patron.

The Berlinale Goes Kiez series will also begin with the official opening film of this year’s Berlinale. Django (Competition) by Etienne Comar will kick off the evening at the Bundesplatz-Kino in Wilmersdorf. Local moviegoers can expect a long and interesting evening, as shortly before midnight a film from the Berlinale Classics program will be presented as well: the digitally restored version of George A. Romero’s horror classic Night of the Living Dead.

For the first time NATIVe, the Berlinale special series on Indigenous cinema, has been invited to participate in Berlinale Goes Kiez. At the EISZEIT cinema in Kreuzberg, two films from Canada will represent this year’s special region of focus, the Artic.
At the  w o l f  in Neukölln, Berlinale Goes Kiez and Berlinale Talents will launch their first collaboration. In public talks titled “Local Heroes: Community Cinema Reloaded”, innovative international cinema operators will discuss with the audience ways to curate, finance, and involve the neighborhood in local movie theatres.

 

Berlinale-Festival Director Dieter Kosslick: “Our ‘local heroes’ are neighborhood cinemas in Berlin and Brandenburg that are open to topics important to the community and foster an on-going dialogue through the stories presented on their screens.”

 

Advance sales start on February 6, 2017; tickets will also be available at the respective cinemas.

Neighbourhood cinemas and programme

Saturday, February 11 at Bundesplatz-Kino, Wilmersdorf
6.00 pm Competition
Django by Etienne Comar

9.00 pm Competition
Teströl és lélekröl (On Body and Soul) by Ildikó Enyedi

11.45 pm Berlinale Classics
Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero

Sunday, February 12 at Toni & Tonino, Weißensee
3.30 pm Generation Kplus
Die Häschenschule – Jagd nach dem Goldenen Ei (Rabbit School – Guardians of the Golden Egg) by Ute von Münchow-Pohl

6.30 pm Competition
Wilde Maus (Wild Mouse) by Josef Hader

9.30 pm Perspektive Deutsches Kino
Back for Good by Mia Spengler

Monday, February 13 at Odeon, Schöneberg
6.30 pm Berlinale Special Gala
Le jeune Karl Marx (The Young Karl Marx) by Raoul Peck

9.30 pm Competition
Una mujer fantástica (A Fantastic Woman) by Sebastián Lelio

Tuesday, February 14 at  w o l f  , Neukölln
4.30 pm Talents Go Kiez
“Local Heroes: Community Cinema Reloaded”
Public talk (in English)

6.30 pm Panorama Special
Tiger Girl by Jakob Lass

9.30 pm Forum
Chemi bednieri ojakhi (My Happy Family) by Nana & Simon

Wednesday, February 15 at Thalia Programmkino, Potsdam-Babelsberg
6.30 pm Competition
Toivon tuolla puolen (The Other Side of Hope) by Aki Kaurismäki

9.30 pm Competition
Beuys by Andres Veiel

Thursday, February 16 at City Kino Wedding
in Centre Français de Berlin, Wedding
6.30 pm Forum
Tiere (Animals) by Greg Zglinski

9.30 pm Berlinale Shorts Go Kiez
Fishing Is Not Done On Tuesdays by Lukas Marxt, Marcel Odenbach
Kometen (The Comet) by Victor Lindgren
Everything by David OReilly
Estás vendo coisas (You are seeing things) by Bárbara Wagner, Benjamin de Burca
Os Humores Artificiais (The Artificial Humors) by Gabriel Abrantes

Friday, February 17 at EISZEIT cinema, Kreuzberg
6.30 pm Culinary Cinema Goes Kiez
Theater of Life by Peter Svatek
After the screening menu at Markthalle Neun

9.00 pm NATIVe Goes Kiez
Tungijuq by Félix Lajeunesse, Paul Raphaël
Angry Inuk by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril

Berlinale Goes Kiez is supported by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. Its complete programme can be found at http://www.berlinale.de. Please contact Uschi Feldges for more information ().

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(Source: Berlinale Press Office)

#AFI, #AFIFEST, #SBIFF, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival

Drafthouse Films acquires “R100”

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

R100 one was a midnight favorite at the American Film Institute’s AFIFEST 2013. I ventured out with a Japanese exchange student/cohort. We were in stitches and the audience was rollicking. I went on to review the film initially at the Santa Barbara City College SBCC Film and Media Studies site before posting it here earlier this year. In addition, at a recent Art Cinema Seminar/Class led by Santa Barbara International Film Festival Program Director Michael Albright, R1oo, received noteworthy mention. This is a film I highly recommend from a nationally renowned and esteemed Japanese director, Hitosi Matsumoto. Please enjoy the excerpt from Austin360.com!

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Editor’s note: This article was originally published September 26, 2013.

Drafthouse Films, the film distribution arm of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, has acquired of North American rights to Japanese director Hitoshi Matsumoto’s “R100,” a lunatic tale of male self-destruction. R100 premiered at Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section and made its US premiere at Fantastic Fest last weekend. A VOD/Digital and theatrical release is planned for 2014.

It is not suprising that Drafthouse is picking this one up. Drafthouse and Fest founder Tim League introduced the completely gaga “R100” himself, nothing that it was the last film booked but that League, a huge Matsumoto fan, wasn’t going to let it get away. “If you don’t like this movie, you are (expletive) stupid,” League said…

fl20131006cub“R100” (The title is itself a play on the Japanese movie ratings R-15 and R-18) is an almost early-Woody Allen-esque comedy (think “Without Feathers” era or “What’s Up, Tigher Lilly?”) about Takafumi Katayama (Nao Ohmori, the star of “Ichi The Killer” fame) whose life has gone a bit pear-shaped. His department store job is mindless, his father-in-law is helping Katayama raise his young son while his wife is in a coma in the hospital and things are just looking kind of rough for the guy (the color palette for much of the film is all browns, tans and neutrals, washed out and quite 70’s looking in spots).

No wonder the guy feels the need to contact a dominatrix service and gets more than he bargained for. To wit: he never knows exactly when the doms (called “Queens,” each with a special, uh, talent) are going to show up to beat or humiliate him. At first, things seem to go fine. Then the wheels start to come off and things start to get very, very strange.

Matsumoto masterfully switches tones, almost from scene to scene. There are quiet, tender scenes that could hail from an earnest indie movie. There is old school silent movie boffo comedy. There are a couple of solid runs at the fourth wall. As League noted in his introduction, Matsumoto takes his time to set up a joke, but the payoffs are tremendous. And it features the best use of the “Ode to Joy” since “Raising Arizona.”

(Source: Excerpted from austin360.com)
#AFI, Featured

Martin Scorsese on the Making of SILENCE

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

The one and only Martin Scorsese visited the AFI Campus recently to discuss making his spiritual epic SILENCE (an AFI AWARDS 2016 Official Selection), the master filmmaker’s decades-long labor of love that explores apostasy and crises of faith in 17th-century Japan. The film features Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as Jesuit missionaries dispatched to Japan to locate a fellow priest gone rogue, played by Liam Neeson.

“Obviously, these themes and ideas and concepts are very much the foundation of my life. The formation began, in a way, at a very early age, so I’ve never really lost interest in that or the urge to keep searching,” Scorsese told AFI Conservatory Fellows, referencing his religious films THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988) and KUNDUN (1997). SILENCE is based on Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel of the same name. “Reading the book… The whole idea of this apostasy, why did it seem like a victory rather than a defeat?” Scorsese said, explaining one of the film’s central questions.

Watch a clip below in which Scorsese discusses how he was forced to re-think how to film a particular scene in SILENCE.

 

Scorsese also discussed the future of cinema with Fellows. “I do feel that cinema, for the first hundred years, has been within this proscenium…but that doesn’t mean it has to stay that way,” he said. “You have this unlimited technology; you can do anything. I’m the product of a certain place in time. You’re younger, it’s very different, and it’s up to you to reinvent it and use any form you want… The one thing that keeps you human is your story, and it has to be from a personal vision. It has to come from a personal truth that is different from making a product.”

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(Source: afi.com)

Directors Guild of America

DGA 69th ANNUAL AWARDS WINNERS

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Los Angeles – The winners of the Directors Guild of America Outstanding Directorial Achievement Awards for 2016 were announced during the 69th Annual DGA Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. Damien Chazelle won the DGA’s Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for La La Land.

Actor Jane Lynch hosted the ceremony before an audience of more than 1,200 guests. Presenters included (in alphabetical order): Amy Adams, Michael Apted, Casey Affleck, Paris Barclay, Martha Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Billy Crudup, Michael Fassbender, America Ferrera, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ryan Gosling, Taylor Hackford, Tony Hale, Alex R. Hibbert, Gale Anne Hurd, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicole Kidman, Christine Lahti, Helen Mirren, Mandy Moore, Kevin Nealon, Christopher Nolan, Sarah Paulson, Gene Reynolds, Trevante Rhodes, Ashton Sanders, John Singleton, Emma Stone, Milo Ventimiglia, and Kerry Washington.

Click the links below to view specific categories:

Feature Film First-Time Feature Film
Dramatic Series Movies for Television and Mini-Series
Comedy Series Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Regular
Reality Programs Variety/Talk/News/Sports – Specials
Children’s Programs Commercials
Documentary Achievement & Service Awards

(Source: dga.org)

Oscar

ACADEMY ANNOUNCES 89TH OSCARS GOVERNORS BALL CREATIVE TEAM

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LOS ANGELES, CA – Academy governor Jeffrey Kurland, event producer Cheryl Cecchetto and master chef Wolfgang Puck will return to create this year’s Governors Ball, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ official post-Oscar® celebration, which will immediately follow the 89th Oscars® ceremony on Sunday, February 26. The Ball’s 1,500 invited guests include Oscar winners and nominees, show presenters and other telecast participants

“The theme of this year’s Governors Ball is ‘magical transformation.’ As they enter the Ball, guests will transition from a dazzling sea of red to a tricolor motif of eye-popping gold and red on an infinite blanket of white,” said Kurland. “The unique design of the space has been meticulously created to celebrate Oscar gold.”

As the chair of the Governors Ball, Kurland will oversee the décor, menu and entertainment planning, as well as design the attire to be worn by the evening’s staff. Kurland is an acclaimed costume designer whose feature credits include “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Radio Days,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Inception,” “Beautiful Creatures,” “Tomorrowland” and, most recently, “Ghostbusters.” He received an Oscar nomination for Costume Design for “Bullets over Broadway.” This will be Kurland’s eighth year serving as Governors Ball chair.

Cecchetto, along with her Sequoia Productions team, will work with Kurland to manage every detail pertaining to the event, including décor, entertainment, food and personnel. Sequoia Productions’ clients include the Television Academy, G’Day USA, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Westfield and the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay. This will be Cecchetto’s 28th consecutive year producing the Governors Ball.

For the 23rd consecutive year, legendary chef Wolfgang Puck will set the stage with a Governors Ball menu pairing Hollywood glamour with culinary whimsy. Eric Klein, the new Wolfgang Puck Catering executive chef, worked alongside Puck to create more than 50 imaginative dishes, from one-bite hors d’oeuvres to small-plate entrees that will be passed throughout the evening. New menu items will include Moroccan spiced Wagyu short rib topped with a parmesan funnel cake; taro root tacos with shrimp, mango, avocado and chipotle aioli; gnocchetti with braised mushrooms and cashew cream; lobster corn dogs; made-to-order sushi, custom poke bowls and an array of shellfish; plus a selection of Puck’s signature dishes such as smoked salmon Oscars, chicken pot pie with shaved black truffles, and baked macaroni and cheese. The pastry team of Kamel Guechida, Monica Ng and Jason Lemmonier will offer a dessert menu brimming with innovative and playful desserts served at multiple dessert stations, plus the ultimate dessert buffet featuring Puck’s sought-after 24-karat-gold chocolate Oscars. Wolfgang Puck Catering CEO Carl Schuster will direct more than 900 event staff through the evening’s intricately detailed logistics to deliver guests a true restaurant-style hospitality experience.

The Governors Ball will take place in the Ray Dolby Ballroom on the top level of the Hollywood & Highland Center® immediately following the Oscar telecast.

The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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ABOUT THE ACADEMY

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a global community of more than 7,000 of the most accomplished artists, filmmakers and executives working in film. In addition to celebrating and recognizing excellence in filmmaking through the Oscars, the Academy supports a wide range of initiatives to promote the art and science of the movies, including public programming, educational outreach and the upcoming Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is under construction in Los Angeles.

FOLLOW THE ACADEMY

http://www.oscars.org

http://www.facebook.com/TheAcademy

http://www.youtube.com/Oscars

http://www.twitter.com/TheAcademy

MEDIA CONTACT

Natalie Kojen

nkojen@oscars.org

(Source: Academy Communications Department)

Venice International Film Festival

2017 #SBIFF Cinema Vanguard Award honoring Casey Affleck and Michelle Wiliams

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Source: 2017 #SBIFF Cinema Vanguard Award honoring Casey Affleck and Michelle Wiliams