Il Cinema Ritrovato, a film festival dedicated to the rediscovery of rare and little-known films with a particular focus on cinema origins and the silent movie period, is gearing up for its 3oth edition this June 24th through July 2nd, 2017, with four complete festival sections; the Cinephiles Heaven, the Time Machine, the Space Machine and the Kids and Young Cinema Rediscovered. In addition, a team of film critics headed by Roy Menarini will cover the festival with daily news, interviews, editorials and reviews. A group of young cinephiles, ranging from 16 to 20 years old, will join the editorial board of Cinefilia Ritrovata. Their best contributions will be published on-line.
Cinema Ritrovato is turning thirty this year. It’s been thirty long and yet fast years: memories of our first pioneering editions, when brave movie archivists bring their treasures to our historic single-screen Lumière theater, are still fresh in our minds. Today it takes five screens to show all the movies and Piazza Maggiore can hardly contain our increasingly international, enthusiastic and knowledgeable audience. We want to celebrate our festival with all the love and warmth it deserves, and toast with gratitude to all those who contributed to making Il Cinema Ritrovato grow so fast and impetuously and to be recognized and cherished around the world. And so we will celebrate, in every theater with all the archivists, critics, historians, artists, film-lovers and friends who will join us to present their work, share experiences and simply watch movies. We will celebrate with our time-machine journey, back to 1896 and from there throughout the whole 20th century; And with a space machine that will take us on a journey across European, Latin American, US, Asian and African films. This year’s edition will be full of certainties and surprises: eight days of screenings in five theaters, from morning till night; Eight nights in the world’s most extraordinary cinema in the world, Piazza Maggiore, and three in the magic intimacy of Piazzetta Pasolini; Over four hundred films and twenty programs; Over a hundred and fifty silent films with live music accompaniment and talented composers.
n 2018, Canada will be the next “Country in Focus” at the European Film Market (EFM) of the Berlin International Film Festival. The EFM’s “Country in Focus” programme, launched in 2017, was created to give the film industry and filmmakers of a country the opportunity to introduce themselves in greater depth and highlight certain aspects.
Supported by Telefilm Canada, Canada’s vibrant film scene will present itself from a variety of perspectives at the Berlinale’s EFM 2018. The highlights of the Canadian programme at the market will be published by September. A high number of Canadian producers and other film professionals are expected to attend the festival.
“Canada in Focus” at the EFM is being held on the occasion of “Canada 150”, which marks the 150th anniversary of Confederation in Canada. As an expression of the partnership between the two countries, exchange in the fields of culture, commerce, science and technology is to be intensified.
Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick comments: “For many years now, our relationship with Canada has been excellent and we’re neighbours of the Canadian Embassy at Potsdamer Platz. Sharing this commitment with our Canadian friends from Telefilm Canada at the EFM is a fantastic opportunity to develop our work together even further.”
Telefilm Canada’s Executive Director Carolle Brabant remarks: “We are honoured to be invited as the 2018 ‘Country in Focus’ at the European Film Market in Berlin. ‘Canada in Focus’ is an important global showcase for Canadian creators that will enable Canadian content to reach new audiences and will create new export opportunities for our industry. Canadian cinema has long felt at home at the Berlinale and the EFM. Collaborating in this way will only strengthen our good and longstanding partnership.”
EFM Director Matthijs Wouter Knol says: “The opportunity to focus on and extensively present film countries such as Canada at the market supports not only the EFM’s relationships with individual film industries internationally, but also fosters exchange between the film industries themselves. Canada will have spectacular visibility at the upcoming EFM.”
The EFM will take place from February 15 to 23, 2018 during the 68th Berlin International Film Festival.
AFI DOCS Will Celebrate Academy Award®-Winning Documentarian on June 16
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — MAY 23, 2017, WASHINGTON, DC — The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that AFI DOCS will pay tribute to Laura Poitras — the groundbreaking director of RISK (2016) and the Academy Award®-winning Edward Snowden portrait CITIZENFOUR (2014) — as the festival’s 2017 Charles Guggenheim Symposium honoree.
Each year, the AFI DOCS Charles Guggenheim Symposium honors a master of the nonfiction art form. Taking place at the Newseum on June 16, the Symposium will include an in-depth conversation with Poitras along with clips from her acclaimed works. Poitras’ latest film RISK, a six-year project following WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, was released by Neon on May 5 and will air on Showtime this summer. Poitras’ impressive documentary catalog also includes THE OATH (2010), MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY (2006) and FLAG WARS (2003).
“Poitras has the extraordinary instinct and ability to put her camera in the heart of history as it unfolds, regardless of the risk,” said Michael Lumpkin, Director, AFI DOCS. “Using her keen eye, Poitras reveals worlds just beyond what we can see. We are honored to celebrate her remarkable career and dedication to the documentary form.”
Poitras’ first feature-length documentary, FLAG WARS, was nominated for an Emmy® and won a Peabody Award, cementing her stature as a top-notch documentarian from the outset. Next, she was nominated for a Best Documentary Feature Academy Award® for MY COUNTRY, MY COUNTRY, the first installment in her post-9/11 trilogy. In 2015, Poitras won the Academy Award® for CITIZENFOUR. That same year, Poitras co-founded Field of Vision, an entity that commissions and creates original short-form nonfiction films about global events.
Poitras joins a renowned list of Guggenheim Symposium honorees: Charles Guggenheim (2003), Barbara Kopple (2004), Martin Scorsese (2006), Jonathan Demme (2007), Spike Lee (2008), Albert Maysles (2009), Frederick Wiseman (2010), Chris Hegedus and D A Pennebaker (2011), Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (2012), Errol Morris (2013), Alex Gibney (2014), Stanley Nelson (2015) and Werner Herzog (2016).
AFI DOCS is proud to have AT&T return as this year’s Presenting Sponsor. Passes and tickets to AFI DOCS, including the Charles Guggenheim Symposium, are now on sale at AFI.com/afidocs.
ABOUT AFI DOCS
AFI DOCS is the American Film Institute’s annual documentary festival in Washington, DC. Presenting the year’s best documentaries, AFI DOCS is the only festival in the U.S. dedicated to screenings and events that connect audiences, filmmakers and policy leaders in the heart of our nation’s government. The AFI DOCS advisory board includes Ken Burns, Davis Guggenheim, Chris Hegedus, Werner Herzog, Rory Kennedy, Barbara Kopple, Spike Lee, Errol Morris, Stanley Nelson, D A Pennebaker, Agnès Varda and Frederick Wiseman. Now in its 15th year, the festival will be held June 14–18, 2017, in landmark Washington, DC, venues and at the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD. Visit AFI.com/AFIDOCS and connect on twitter.com/AFIDOCS, facebook.com/AFIDOCS, youtube.com/AFI and instagram.com/AmericanFilmInstitute.
ABOUT AT & T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions around the globe connect with leading entertainment, business, mobile and high speed internet services. We offer the nation’s best data network* and the best global coverage of any U.S. wireless provider.** We’re one of the world’s largest providers of pay TV. We have TV customers in the U.S. and 11 Latin American countries. Nearly 3.5 million companies, from small to large businesses around the globe, turn to AT&T for our highly secure smart solutions.
AT&T Products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. Additional information about AT&T products and services is available at about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at facebook.com/att and YouTube at youtube.com/att.
*Claim based on the Nielsen Certified Data Network Score. Score includes data reported by wireless consumers in the Nielsen Mobile Insights survey, network measurements from Nielsen Mobile Performance and Nielsen Drive Test Benchmarks for Q3+Q4 2016 across 121 markets.
**Global coverage claim based on offering discounted voice and data roaming; LTE roaming; and voice roaming in more countries than any other U.S. based carrier. International service required. Coverage not available in all areas. Coverage may vary per country and be limited/restricted in some countries.
(Source: Press release courtesy of Gabrielle Flamand, AFI DOCS PR, and Liza Ameen, American Film Institute)
Forum Features Spotlight on Virtual Reality, Canadian Docs,
Impact of Conservative Docs, Nonfiction Podcasts and More
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE — MAY 22, 2017, WASHINGTON, DC — The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced the 2017 AFI DOCS Forum. Open to festival filmmakers and all passholders, the four-day AFI DOCS Forum will take place June 15–18 at the AFI DOCS Festival Hub at the District Architecture Center in Washington, DC. The Forum will present a variety of networking and professional development events for filmmakers, industry professionals and those with a passion for nonfiction storytelling. Highlights include an examination of the rising surge of conservative documentaries, virtual reality presentations, talks on funding, female-focused docs and much more.
Michael Lumpkin (Photo via thr.com)
“We are excited to present a thought-provoking program of panels and presentations to attendees of the AFI DOCS Forum,” said Michael Lumpkin, Director of AFI DOCS. “Filmmakers and documentary film-lovers will convene to discuss the state of the industry, the latest trends and address the issues facing nonfiction storytellers today. The Forum offers the unique opportunity to connect filmmakers and industry insiders outside of the movie theater.”
The Forum will offer presentations examining topics such as nonfiction storytelling in a “post-truth” world; emerging trends in documentary funding; and the latest programs to support women-centered initiatives in documentary filmmaking.
Additional Forum programming includes a panel with AFI DOCS Canadian filmmakers to discuss Canada’s role in creating the documentary form; a panel with short-documentary filmmakers and funders to discuss and support the model; a session with NPR on nonfiction podcasts; and a documentary case study and screening of the St. Louis PBS affiliate Nine Network documentary GENTLEMEN OF VISION (DIR Frank Popper). Attendees will also have the opportunity to hear from distribution experts as they discuss the latest industry trends.
The Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday returns to AFI DOCS for a special program with filmmaker Michael Pack (THE FALL OF NEWT GINGRICH) to discuss how conservative documentaries connect with viewers, their impact on politics and the connection between production values and policy. Hornaday will also join the Forum for a book signing and conversation on her latest book “Talking Pictures.”
This year, the Forum will offer a special VR program at the Festival Hub and the Newseum, open to all AFI DOCS passholders. The program will include a VR Exhibition to view the best and latest in virtual reality, as well as a panel exploring how VR emerged as a powerful storytelling platform in documentary filmmaking.
The AFI DOCS Forum is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NBCUniversal and the International Documentary Association. For more information about the AFI DOCS Forum, please visit AFI.com/afidocs.
The 15th edition of AFI DOCS will run June 14–18 in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD. AT&T proudly returns this year as Presenting Sponsor of the festival. AT&T’s continued support enables AFI DOCS to connect audiences, policymakers and storytellers in the heart of our national government.
ABOUT AFI DOCS
AFI DOCS is the American Film Institute’s annual documentary festival in Washington, DC. Presenting the year’s best documentaries, AFI DOCS is the only festival in the U.S. dedicated to screenings and events that connect audiences, filmmakers and policy leaders in the heart of our nation’s government. The AFI DOCS advisory board includes Ken Burns, Davis Guggenheim, Chris Hegedus, Werner Herzog, Rory Kennedy, Barbara Kopple, Spike Lee, Errol Morris, Stanley Nelson, D A Pennebaker, Agnès Varda and Frederick Wiseman. Now in its 15th year, the festival will be held June 14–18, 2017, in landmark Washington, DC, venues and at the historic AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, MD. Visit AFI.com/AFIDOCS and connect on twitter.com/AFIDOCS, facebook.com/AFIDOCS, youtube.com/AFI and instagram.com/AmericanFilmInstitute.
ABOUT AT & T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions around the globe connect with leading entertainment, business, mobile and high speed internet services. We offer the nation’s best data network* and the best global coverage of any U.S. wireless provider.** We’re one of the world’s largest providers of pay TV. We have TV customers in the U.S. and 11 Latin American countries. Nearly 3.5 million companies, from small to large businesses around the globe, turn to AT&T for our highly secure smart solutions.
AT&T Products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc. Additional information about AT&T products and services is available at about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at facebook.com/att and YouTube at youtube.com/att.
*Claim based on the Nielsen Certified Data Network Score. Score includes data reported by wireless consumers in the Nielsen Mobile Insights survey, network measurements from Nielsen Mobile Performance and Nielsen Drive Test Benchmarks for Q3+Q4 2016 across 121 markets.
**Global coverage claim based on offering discounted voice and data roaming; LTE roaming; and voice roaming in more countries than any other U.S. based carrier. International service required. Coverage not available in all areas. Coverage may vary per country and be limited/restricted in some countries.
(Sources: afi.com, press release courtesy of Gabrielle Flamand, AFI DOCS PR, and Liza Ameen, American Film Institute)
The story behind the studio that produced “Moonlight” and “It Comes At Night”, as told by Barry Jenkins, Sofia Coppola, James Franco, Robert Pattinson, and the founders of A24 themselves.
There are more glamorous things to be, in Hollywood, than an independent distribution company. For instance, an actress. Or a director. Or a screenwriter. Key grip. Maybe even that guy with a two-way radio who keeps you from walking through a movie set. Film-distribution companies tend to be important but invisible: They buy finished films, cut trailers, make posters, and put movies into movie theaters—or, more often these days, dump them onto VOD, never to be heard from again. There are exceptions to this rule, such as Miramax, the company that upended indie cinema in the ’90s, backing then unknown filmmakers like Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino. And there are studio subdivisions, like Fox Searchlight, that have consistently guided films like 12 Years a Slave and Birdman to Academy Awards and box office success over the past twenty years. But in general distribution is like plumbing: unseen, unnoticed, and notable only when it malfunctions.
So it was strange, if you were a moviegoer in 2013, to see the A24 logo pop up again and again before movies as varied and weird as Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring, James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now and Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III. It wasn’t just that, for a new distribution company, it seemed to have a level of taste and an instinct for cool that is atypical in Hollywood. It was also that A24 was releasing these films not with a sigh and a shrug, but with panache, style, and humor: bright neon colors, guerrilla marketing tactics, and in the case of James Franco’s Britney Spears-loving gangster character from Spring Breakers, an actual Oscar campaign. The company, improbably, was based in New York, not Los Angeles. Its trio of founders—Daniel Katz, David Fenkel, and John Hodges, who’d known each other through years of work in New York’s indie movie circuit—rarely granted interviews. If you were paying attention, you had to wonder: Who were these strange upstart New Yorkers who were making Hollywood a little bit great again?
That was 2013. Four short years later, the company’s first original production, Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In between, A24 went from being a tiny, disorganized room of eight or so people to being the place where big stars like Robert Pattinson and Scarlett Johansson go to make small, strange movies, and auteurs like Jonathan Glazer and Denis Villeneuve go to make deeply personal films unmolested by studio notes or clueless executives. We spoke with the company’s friends, collaborators, and employees to make sense of how A24 became the most interesting, creative, and reliable film company of the 21st century.
Robert Pattinson(actor, ‘The Rover,’ ‘Good Time’): It’s crazy that there is an article about a distribution company. That’s completely nuts.
Harmony Korine(director, ‘Spring Breakers’): They have balls.
Barry Jenkins(director, ‘Moonlight’): A24’s the kind of company where they say, “Yeah, they don’t need to know what it’s about. They just need to know how it feels.”
James Franco(actor, ‘Spring Breakers,’ ‘The Adderall Diaries’): This is one of the things they’re great at: taking something small and delicate and giving it the kind of support that other people can’t.
Sofia Coppola(director, ‘The Bling Ring’): I really like those guys. They don’t have the personality of movie executives.
Asif Kapadia(director, ‘Amy’): I suppose most filmmakers have had bad experiences in the past where you do all the hard work, and then these guys in slick suits come along and they’re like, “We know what we’re doing now! We’ll handle it!” And if it works, it’s them; if it doesn’t work, it’s all your fault anyway. And I felt with these guys it was a dialogue. I felt like we were all on the same team.
James Ponsoldt(director, ‘The Spectacular Now,’ ‘The End of the Tour’): I’ve heard people refer to Miramax. There’s music labels I can think of as well. Where it’s like: I’m in. I just trust, you know, Drag City or Merge or SST or Dischord. There’s aesthetic and political values to the people behind the company. It’s super inspiring.
Denis Villeneuve(director, ‘Enemy’): I never saw them as businessmen.
Colin Farrell(actor, ‘The Lobster,’ ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’): They have such a great eye for these small little films and rich and unique stories that may have not found it to the big screen if it wasn’t for them.
Sasha Lane(actress, ‘American Honey’): They were like, “You guys are who you are and we’re not going to change that.” No one had to be perfected for anything. No one cared about our language or our clothes.
Daniel Radcliffe(actor, ‘Swiss Army Man’): I’ve had experiences on films in the past where they get bought by somebody who sees something in it that they like, which is nice, but it also happens to be not—and is sometimes antithetical to—what the people who made the film wanted it to be. When you can get a distribution company that likes the film for the same reasons that people that made it like the film—I’ve found that rare. They’re one of the few companies that have shown that indie films can still be viable.
Alex Garland(director, ‘Ex Machina’): They make things work that according to standard procedures really shouldn’t work. And I’m not saying they’re magicians. I think what they’ve understood is there’s a sufficient number of people out there who want more challenging or different material. And they’re aiming at them.
Brie Larson(actress, ‘Room,’ ‘The Spectacular Now’): A24 has the unique ability to find and champion authentic narratives that cut to the core in a raw and honest way.
Patrick Stewart(actor, ‘Green Room’): [The premiere of ‘Green Room’] was at the Toronto Film Festival’s Midnight Madness. And although it describes itself as Midnight Madness, the film didn’t start until close to one o’clock in the morning. And, I mean, there was one moment in the movie when my character was booed and hissed so vociferously, I felt as though I was in a Roman arena and my life was at stake. And I was ready to say: “It was me! It was me! And I was just acting! That was just acting!” It was not like being in a cinema. It was like being in some kind of arena. So, um, well done, A24!
Noah Sacco(head of acquisitions and production, A24): I think some of our biggest movies had no stars in them at the time of release—Ex Machina, Moonlight, The Witch, Room, The Spectacular Now.
David Fenkel(co-founder, A24): We find movies [for which] our perspective, our system, our people, can act to make it something special. If it’s gonna be released the same way by another company, we usually don’t go after it.
Daniel Katz(co-founder, A24): We used to always talk about “Oh, there’s gotta be a better way.”
John Hodges(co-founder and co-head of TV, A24): It was one of those conversations where it was always like, “How would we do it differently?” And it was usually fueled by beer and things scribbled down on napkins and a lot of bravado.
Katz: Some of it was probably misplaced, don’t you agree?
Behind the headlines of Ferguson, MO, is 17-year-old Daje “Boonie” Shelton, a young woman from nearby North St. Louis struggling to make it to graduation, a goal further complicated by an unexpected pregnancy. Intimate and affecting, FOR AHKEEM is a delicately told coming-of-age story that underscores the complexities of race and class in America.
Co-directed by Jeremy S. Levine and Landon Van Soest, FOR AHKEEM screens at AFI DOCS on Thursday, June 15, and Friday, June 16. AFI spoke with Van Soest about the film.
AFI: What led you to pursue documentary filmmaking?
LVS: A passion for cinema and personal storytelling, paired with a desire to expose systemic injustice. Documentary has a unique ability to immerse viewers in another person’s reality and humanize stories that are otherwise relatively cold headlines.
AFI: What inspired you to tell this story?
LVS: Really it was meeting an incredible, resilient young woman named Daje, or Boonie, who was battling for her future against challenges that impact so many young people in our country. We’ve been working with a few education non-profits in New York for years, and recognizing all of the forces contributing to the “School-to-Prison Pipeline” in our country was infuriating. We set out to tell a deeply personal story about what it means to live your life when so many social systems have set you up to fail, and to develop a cinematic experience that would resonate with audiences on an emotional level.
AFI: How did you find the subjects in your film?
LVS: Our executive producer Jeff Truesdell has a longstanding relationship with the school and its founder Judge Jimmy Edwards. We were immediately taken by this amazing, grassroots effort to break a well-entrenched cycle of under-education and incarceration, and amazed by the heroic effort of the faculty and staff. We knew that we wanted to tell the story from the students’ viewpoint, to explore the pressures on people actively confronting the system. We interviewed 30 or 40 students at the school and started filming with a handful of them, when Boonie literally walked into our frame and sort of stole the show. She jumped out to us immediately through her candor, humor, heart and a clear desire for self-expression that was vital to us. As outsiders to the community, we knew from the outset that we would need a strong partner to tell the story, and Boonie proved to be all we could hope for.
AFI: What was a particular obstacle you faced while making the film?
LVS: We were dealing with delicate circumstances among a group of young people who fundamentally distrust outside authorities. So whatever success we have had in portraying intimate moments in the lives of our characters was earned through years of trust-building and support. While the film can appear to be observational, we were anything but flies on the wall. We were actually deeply involved in Boonie’s life and she became a huge part of ours. The production really turned a corner when Boonie trusted us enough to open her personal writing and journal entries and we began actively working together to craft the narration. Having her as a true collaborator was central to our process. Her writing really became the heart and soul of the movie.
AFI: How do you want audiences to walk away from the film?
LVS: First and foremost, we hope audiences connect with Boonie. We want people to experience all of the ups and downs of teen love, the loss of close friends, the joy of motherhood, academic struggles, etc., as she grows into the incredible, resilient young woman she is today. We hope her story illustrates the incredible challenges imposed on young black kids like Boonie to navigate marginalized neighborhoods, failing schools, biased criminal justice policies and economic devastation that have set up so many black youth in America to fail. We hope viewers are inspired to confront the immense challenges we face as a nation and join the fight to create a more equitable society.
AFI: Why is DC a valuable location to screen FOR AHKEEM?
LVS: Legislation at the national and state level is needed urgentlyto address problems in our schools and justice centers that disproportionally affect the lives of black youth in marginalized neighborhoods. Washington, DC, is ground zero for activism to reform zero-tolerance policies in schools, minimum sentencing policies in courts, the age of juvenile offenders in adult courts and the overcrowding of our prison system that all of these policies contribute to. We hope the film can find an audience with people in government who can take direct action to right these wrongs, including the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice, but also organizations already advocating for these changes such as The Sentencing Project, Campaign for Youth Justice and the Coalition for Juvenile Justice — to name a few.
About AFI DOCS
AFI DOCS is the nation’s documentary film festival known for showcasing the best in documentary filmmaking from the US and around the world.
AFI DOCS is also the only film festival in the United States that offers the unique opportunity to connect film audiences with national opinion leaders, filmmakers and intriguing film subjects. With conversations and experiences you won’t experience at any other film festival, AFI DOCS harnesses the power of this important art form and its potential to inspire change.
Screenings during this annual five-day event take place in landmark venues in Washington, DC and the world-class AFI Silver Theatre, the independent film hub of the metropolitan region.
Throughout the year the AFI DOCS FILM SERIES brings audiences in the nation’s capital the best in nonfiction filmmaking. AFI DOCS Advisory Board
Ken Burns
Davis Guggenheim
Chris Hegedus
Werner Herzog
Rory Kennedy
Barbara Kopple
Spike Lee
Errol Morris
Stanley Nelson
D A Pennebaker
Agnès Varda
Frederick Wiseman
103 Films From 28 Countries
Including Three World Premieres and 11 Spotlight Screenings
Will Screen June 14–18 in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD
Tickets to AFI DOCS 2017, happening June 14–18, 2017, in Washington, DC, and Silver Spring, MD, are now available to the public. Highlights from this year’s lineup include AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER; CITY OF GHOSTS; THE REAGAN SHOW; WHITNEY. “CAN I BE ME”; to name a few.
“The 2017 slate of films reflects AFI DOCS’ mission to celebrate powerfully told stories and the people at the heart of them,” said Michael Lumpkin, Director, AFI DOCS. “Documentaries continue to play an important role in our country regardless of partisan lines. No matter your background, these human stories have the power to inform and inspire. We look forward to another year of dynamic nonfiction cinema.”
As previously announced, AT&T — the Presenting Sponsor of AFI DOCS — will host the Opening Night East Coast premiere screening of ICARUS (DIR Bryan Fogel). The festival’s Closing Night Screening will be YEAR OF THE SCAB (DIR John Dorsey). Both films will be screened at the Newseum, the festival’s Official Gala Screening Partner.
The 15th edition of AFI DOCS will showcase 103 films representing 28 countries — including three world premieres, two international premieres, three North American premieres, seven U.S. premieres and five East Coast premieres.
This year’s program includes 11 Spotlight Screenings, a selection of some of the most anticipated documentaries of the year: the world premiere of ATOMIC HOMEFRONT (DIR Rebecca Cammisa), DOLORES (DIR Peter Bratt), AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL: TRUTH TO POWER (DIRS Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk), the U.S. premiere of MAMA COLONEL (DIR Dieudo Hamadi), the international premiere of MOSQUITO (DIR Su Rynard), NEW CHEFS ON THE BLOCK (DIR Dustin Harrison-Atlas), THE REAGAN SHOW (DIRS Pacho Velez, Sierra Pettengill), the U.S. premiere of RECRUITING FOR JIHAD (DIRS Adel Khan Farooq, Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen), RUMBLE: THE INDIANS WHO ROCKED THE WORLD (DIRS Catherine Bainbridge, Alfonso Maiorana), the world premiere of TOUGH GUYS (DIRS Henry Roosevelt, W.B. Zullo) and WHITNEY. “CAN I BE ME” (DIRS Nick Broomfield, Rudi Dolezal). The festival will also feature nine virtual reality films in this year’s program as part of the VR Showcase.
Newly announced films from notable documentarians include ACORN AND THE FIRESTORM (Oscar® nominee Samuel Pollard), CITY OF GHOSTS (Oscar® nominee Matthew Heineman), I AM EVIDENCE (Oscar® nominee Trish Adlesic, Emmy® winner Geeta Gandbhir) and TAKE EVERY WAVE: THE LIFE OF LAIRD HAMILTON (Oscar® nominee Rory Kennedy).
AFI DOCS also will offer special programs for festival filmmakers and audiences as a way to connect with industry and policy leaders, including the AFI DOCS Forum, open to documentary professionals and to festivalgoers, and the Impact Lab, a two-day intensive program designed for filmmakers to create broader social and political change through the power of story and film. More information about these programs will be announced soon.
In addition, AFI DOCS will host the VR Showcase, inviting audiences to participate in immersive virtual reality experiences that represent the cutting edge of documentary storytelling.
Audience Awards will be bestowed upon films based on the results of ballots cast by festival attendees. The winners of the Audience Awards for Best Feature and Best Short will be announced on Monday, June 19.
Tickets to AFI DOCS 2017 are now available exclusively to AFI members, and will be available to the public starting on May 15. Passes are now on sale to both members (at a discounted rate) and the public at AFI.com/afidocs. To become an AFI member click here.
Goya Award-winning film directed by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivero to hit North American theaters Fall 2017.
by Jennifer Wolfe
NEW YORK — Independent animation distributor GKIDS has acquired the North American distribution rights for the animated feature Birdboy: The Forgotten Children. The film, known internationally by its original Spanish title Psiconautas, los niños olvidados, is directed by Alberto Vázquez and Pedro Rivero, and is based on Vázquez’s graphic novel and award-winning short film, Birdboy.
The film, a darkly comic dystopian fantasy featuring adorable anthropomorphic critters, has been a hit on the festival circuit, with official selections including Annecy, BFI London, Fantasia (where it won the Satoshi Kon Award), and San Sebastian, among others. The film took home Best Animated Feature at the 2016 Goya Awards, Spain’s equivalent of the Oscars (where Vázquez separately won Best Animated Short for his film Decorado), and was one of three nominees for Best Animated Feature at the 2016 European Film Awards. Variety called the film “Remarkable… you’d be hard-pressed to find anything as original or poignant,” while Screen Anarchy called it “A magnificent achievement in animation.”
GKIDS will release the film theatrically in Fall 2017, in both its original Spanish and a new English language version.
“From the first moment we screened the film we knew we had to be involved,” said GKIDS president Dave Jesteadt. “With iconic characters and a storyline that explores universal themes of hope, despair, salvation, and loss with humor and grace, Birdboy pushes the boundaries of animated storytelling in exciting new directions.”
Here’s the official synopsis:
There is light and beauty, even in the darkest of worlds. Stranded on an island in a post-apocalyptic world, teenager Dinky and her friends hatch a dangerous plan to escape in the hope of finding a better life. Meanwhile, her old friend Birdboy has shut himself off from the world, pursued by the police and haunted by demon tormentors. But unbeknownst to anyone, he contains a secret inside him that could change the world forever.
Based on his own graphic novel, Alberto Vázquez’s Birdboy: The Forgotten Children is a darkly comic, mind-bending fantasy. Gorgeous graphic imagery brings to life a surreal and discordant world populated by adorable (and adorably disturbed) animated critters, searching for hope and love amid the ruin.
The film was produced by Farruco Castromán, Carlos Juárez and Luis Tosar.
The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is highlighting the work of four iconic actresses in this year’s Japan Now section. This is one of the special programs planned to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Sakura ANDO, Yu AOI, Hikari MITSUSHIMA and Aoi MIYAZAKI have been chosen as the Muses of Japanese Cinema in honor of the powerful sparks they generate on screen, their collaborations with renowned directors and their increasing international stature.
In addition to the Muses of Japanese Cinema screenings, panel sessions with special guests will also be held.
30th TIFF Visuals by Mika Ninagawa
TIFF is also pleased to unveil striking anniversary visuals by creative director Hiroshi SASAKI and art director Akihiro HAMABE — who served as the creative supervisor and chief art director, respectively, of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics performance at the Rio closing ceremony — in collaboration with acclaimed photographer and film director Mika NINAGAWA, known for her brightly colored photographs.
TIFF is dedicated to discovering and cultivating new filmmakers from around the world, whose work is highlighted in our Competition section, as well as to presenting internationally acclaimed titles during our 10-day festival.
The 30th TIFF will take place from October 25 – November 3, 2017 at Roppongi Hills and other venues in Tokyo.
variety of perspectives at the Berlinale’s EFM 2018. The highlights of the Canadian programme at the market will be published by September. A high number of Canadian producers and other film professionals are expected to attend the festival.
