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#AFI, #AFIFEST, Feature Film, Hollywood

The AFI FEST Interview: BUSTER’S MAL HEART Director Sarah Adina Smith

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Sarah Adina Smith’s sophomore feature is the story of Jonah, a man who has been split in two by grief — one who lives in the woods and another who is trapped at sea — with each incarnation looking for a reckoning with God. Actor Rami Malek delivers an exceptional performance, playing fractured parts of the same man and imbuing each persona with a wholly different performance. Kate Lyn Sheil and DJ Qualls round out the cast, as Jonah’s sensitive wife and a drifter who contributes to Jonah’s downward spiral, respectively. Director/writer Smith expertly crafts a darkly humorous and touching film that explores the nuances of the human condition with elements of conspiracy theory and quantum entanglement. BUSTER’S MAL HEART is a visceral, mind-bending mystery that will keep you pondering long after it turns your world upside down.

AFI spoke with Smith about the film.

AFI: This film deals with some pretty complex ideas — identity fracturing, parallel realities. Talk about how the premise of this screenplay came to you.

Sarah Adina Smith: The idea for BUSTER’S MAL HEART grew pretty naturally out of [my 2014 film] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM. Both movies propose a cosmology, seen through the eyes of a so-called “insane” character.

Suppose that your soul is a traveler along the path of everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. THE MIDNIGHT SWIM shows us a character becoming conscious of that path.  BUSTER’S MAL HEART takes it one step farther, showing us a character who rebels against that path.

THE MIDNIGHT SWIM was about a woman who was never fully at peace with being born, who chooses a conscious death. She’s the psychological equivalent of an astronaut — boldly launching herself into the darkness, surrendering herself to fate with eyes open. She successfully achieves conscious reincarnation. Her journey is an illumination of the path of eternal recurrence — the ceaseless unfolding of space-time that churns out the magnificent picture show we call “reality.”

BUSTER’S MAL HEART is about a character who feels in his bones that there’s something essentially messed up about the great machine of the universe. The protagonist, Jonah, rebels against God, or lack thereof. He refuses to be a player in a game where he didn’t create or consent to the rules. He was born with a bad heart; that was his Fate. But he found love — tangible love — through his wife and daughter…and refused to let go. BUSTER’S MAL HEART puts forth the idea that love can defy the laws of the universe. That love has the power to rip space-time a new one.

We are all in pursuit of peace. We want release from a cycle that has no end. Because Hell is real, kinda. Hell is the dark factory that processes energy and creates all the beautiful events in the world. I am grateful for Hell because here I am, enjoying these momentary glimpses of “Heaven.” (The beautiful picture show of passing cataclysms.)

For the vast majority of eternity other than the tiny blip of our existence, we are the fuel that runs that factory. Our bodies are no different than the fire of every sun that was ever born…all energy that ever materialized longs to escape.  We know for certain that we will die. That our bodies will become fuel for the great machine. The good news is that history repeats itself. The better news is that it’s never fully the same. We’ll rise again from the muck and live another blip.

Jonah is a man who wants release from the whole comedy show. He wants to be truly free. But freedom doesn’t mean anything if you’re enclosed by a cage with no walls. It isn’t possible.  Buster’s heart cries out for a reckoning with God or gods or even just nature. He demands it. And he succeeds in calling that trial to session through the sheer power of his heart.

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AFI: Why did you choose the film’s very specific setting — both in Montana and in the years leading up to the millennium?

SAS: One half of Jonah charges up the mountain seeking a reckoning with his maker, but encounters only the void. The other half tries to escape a reckoning with his maker down south, and is washed to sea, forced into a conversation he doesn’t want to have.

I chose Montana because it’s the place where Americans go to find themselves in solitude and seek a conversation with the divine. We also shot in the ocean off the coast of Mexico. I specifically wanted to shoot in Mexico because it’s the place where (archetypically) Americans go to run away from their sins and avoid fate.

AFI: How did Rami Malek come on board the project?

SAS: Casting the lead role was the biggest challenge because I was set on casting a Latino actor for the role, which I had written to be bilingual in Spanish and English. My producers and financiers felt equally strongly that we should cast a native Spanish speaker. We spent about six months trying to find the right fit and kept striking out on availability. It finally became clear that if we were going to make the film in 2015, we needed to broaden our search.

But it was really important to me that we cast an actor of color in the role because the character Jonah feels like an outsider in an otherwise very white community. We made a new list and pretty quickly we all realized that Rami Malek was at the very top. This is before MR. ROBOT came out, so I had only seen his work in SHORT TERM 12 and THE PACIFIC, but I thought he was incredibly compelling.

Plus, I did a tarot card reading and the cards don’t lie. I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Rami’s a disciplined craftsman and his own toughest critic. He’s one of the hardest working, most inventive and gracious actors I’ve ever met.

AFI: You have a knack for casting great character actors in your films, like Beth Grant in THE MIDNIGHT SWIM and Toby Huss and Lin Shaye in BUSTER’S MAL HEART. How does that casting process work for you?

SAS: Oh man, thank you for saying that. I really love casting. I had the great pleasure of working with the casting director Samy Burch on this movie and she brought so many beautiful ideas to the table.

Toby Huss had been on my radar from HALT AND CATCH FIRE. He has this natural charisma that I find very compelling — he’s playful and serious at the same time. Kind of a jester in the very best and most honorable sense of the word.

I believe it was my producer Travis Stevens who brought Lin Shaye to my attention. Lin’s such a terrific fit for the role. She’s an extremely dedicated actress, fiercely intelligent and a truly wonderful person. In the moment of a scene, Lin is all heart, which is a joy to watch.

AFI: We’ve had the chance to watch you grow as a filmmaker. What lessons did you learn on [AFI FEST 2014 Breakthrough Award winner] THE MIDNIGHT SWIM that you carried over to BUSTER’S MAL HEART?

SAS: THE MIDNIGHT SWIM taught me to trust my instincts, to stay open to surprises and to carry the heavy weight of a feature on my shoulders from start to finish.

I had a really hard moment in the middle of editing THE MIDNIGHT SWIM — kind of a heart of darkness. Because I had lived through it once, I knew it would likely come again on BUSTER. It did come, I was just more prepared to deal with it this time around. I learned to have more faith in the process and to release myself just a bit to fate, over which I have very little control.

BUSTER’S MAL HEART screens at AFI FEST 2016 on Wednesday, November 16, as part of New Auteurs.

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Cannes Film Festival, Hollywood, Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival

FILM REVIEW: Laurence Anyways (Dolan, 2012): Canada

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Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.

affiche_bigViewed during the Santa Barbara International Film. Laurence Anyways, is a visual feast as Canadian director, Xavier Dolan, tells a love story between two highly charged individuals, Fred, played by Suzanne Clement a fashionable female film and television producer, and Laurence, played by Melvil Poupad, an up and coming successful, thirty-something in his own right who has decided he wants to be a woman and that he’s always wanted to be a woman. Imagine that!

While definitely viewed as a game-changer  Laurence’s decision to become a woman  isn’t really the central focus of the film despite the amount of attention Dolan provides for it as we see Laurence first few awkward moments and then his full on embodiment and womanly maturation.  Nevertheless, the film wouldn’t have the soul to evolve without the essence of Fred as his fiance. Despite all the hype about the film being a caricature of a transvestite it’s a real love story between Fred and Laurence that takes place over the course of the ten years we are privy to in Mr. Dolan’s long tale.girlfriend for this film is really a portrait of their relationship over the course of ten years. They play wonderfully off each other, immediately conjuring intimate undercurrent  relationship squabbles, shared amusements, and deep understanding of one another and each ones  personal and emotional needs.

Laurence isn’t gay per se, yet Fred unequivocally states she wants to be  with a man. Respectfully and with tremendous courage both Laurence and Fred try to go with it. Also of interest to note about Laurence  – his mother, played by Nathalie Baye,  hated her son but now loves her daughter. Poupad really seems to capture the very assertive yet conflicted nature of Laurence as he meanders emotionally revealing deep scarring in his psyche. Yet by the end of the film it’s become obvious Suzanne Clements has literally stolen the show with her round-robin buildup of intense emotional pandering to the man she so deeply loves and it’s her eyes that treat the viewer to Laurance’s transformation.

Undoubtedly, Dolan is establishing himself as a filmmaker and editor of quite some skill, having won awards at Cannes and at Toronto, and here takes on the costume design as well. Granted often said the clothes don’t make the man but in Laurence Anyways, the costumes illuminate the characters and raise them to a level of such visual delight I would venture to say these costumes help make the characters and assuredly radiate their inner  light. In addition, Dolan seems to  handle the  obvious story beats with a crisp, elegant, and understated style and permeates the screen with an eye for color, pattern, and composition and with a solid dose of fetishism. He also cuts a mean musical score here as well using Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to accompany a superb montage of raw emotion as the causality of the  relationship implodes.

The film runs at 2:45 minutes. In my opinion, the story needs a little more brevity. Still, I give it a strong endorsement as it hits a home run with the 80’s nostalgia, the actor’s powerful performance levels,  the gorgeous cinematography, and the colorful characters magnified so profoundly by the  extraordinary costume design. Highly recommended.

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Hollywood

VIZIO and the American Film Institute Collaborate to Showcase the Intersection of Art and Technology at AFI FEST 2016

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RVINE, Calif., Nov. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — VIZIO, Inc. announced today its third-year of collaboration with the American Film Institute, highlighted by a sponsorship of AFI FEST 2016 presented by Audi. With a joint mission to celebrate the art of filmmaking, the partnership between AFI and VIZIO connects cinema and technology to enhance the home entertainment experience. This year, VIZIO will showcase its complete VIZIO SmartCast line-up, including the VIZIO SmartCast™ P-Series™ Ultra HD HDR Home Theater Display collection, in the VIZIO Lounge at The Hollywood Roosevelt during the festival. The displays feature High Dynamic Range with Dolby Vision™ and HDR10 content support, culminating in a cinema-like entertainment experience at home.

VIZIO will host the Special Closing Night Gala Presentation of AFI FEST, featuring a red carpet celebration and screening of Patriots Day, directed by Peter Berg.  The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Benoist and Michelle Monaghan and depicts an account of Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis’ actions in the events leading up to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the aftermath, which includes a city-wide manhunt to find the terrorists behind it. The Special Closing Night Gala Presentation of Patriots Day will take place at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on Thursday, November 17 at 7:00pm.

(Excerpt from release http://www.prnewswire.com)

#SBIFF, Documentary, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

FILM CAPSULE: Exit Through The Gift Shop (Banksy, 2010): USA, UK

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Viewed by Larry Gleeson, during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

exit-through-the-gift-shopExit Through The Gift Shop, a documentary film about the underground street art world, formerly known as graffiti, tells the story of a French-American, second-hand clothier, Thierry Guetta, and his drive to explore the underground street art movement. Tabbed as the biggest counter-cultural movement since punk rock, the underground movement’s street artists were using stickers, stencil, markers, spray paints in creating their pieces.

The film opens to a catchy pop tune by Richard Hawley, “Tonight the Streets Are Ours,” a tune reminiscent of a Frankie Valle number.

 

Guetta quickly begins telling his story. He buys lots of second hand and/or irregular clothing and resales them at upwards of 800% markups.Guetta’s

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Thierry Guetta

appearance, mannerisms, and speech establish him, without a doubt, as a huckster. Soon, Guetta delves into his experiences with a video camera and the dawning of the underground street art movement.

Guetta’s cousin, known as “Space Invader,” for his tiles that resemble the character from the video game by the same name, allows Guettato record Space Invader’s work. Along the way Guetta is introduced to other street artists such as Neckface, Swoon, Cheez Coma  and Shephard Fairey, the world’s most prolific graffiti artist for his use of pro wrestling’s 7’4″, 450 pound Andre “the Giant’s” mug on a piece of work with OBEY plastered upon walls everywhere. Shephard Fairey also takes credit  for the iconic Obama image.

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Fairey allows Guetta to accompany him around the world as they place art work in major metropolitan cities of New York and Paris and to document the art work that more often than not is gone the next morning. Guetta envisions making the definitive documentary of the street art movement and likes the element of danger that came with climbing illegally to tops of buildings and defacing the buildings’ walls.

Throughout Guetta and Shephard Fairey’s exploits one name kept surfacing – Banksy. In a ‘Who is John Galt’ manner, the world begin asking, “Who is Banksy?” According to Guetta, Shephard Fairey called one day out of the blue and informed Guettathat Banksy was “here”. Guetta abruptly dropped what he was doing and sped to meet the elusive Banksy.

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Guetta immediately put himself at Banksy’s disposal escorting Banksy to all the Los Angeles hotspots. Impressed, Banksy invited Guetta to London, England, as Banksy wanted to begin “showing” his work. Guetta accepted and captured Banksy’s telephone booth “modification” and counterfeit Princess Diana currency during a three day art show on skid row featuring a painted elephant (which garnered media attention due to animal rights activists). Street art was now a hot commodity. And a Banksy piece was a welcomed piece in any modern art collection.

Meanwhile, Guetta was creating his own identifiable image titled Mr. Brainwash. Here the film shifts as Guetta is inept at filmmaking. Banksy talks Guetta into parting with the street art footage so a real documentary can be made. The remainder of the film deals with Guetta creating questionable works of art and his wheeler-dealer antics with his own Mr. Brainwash, “Life is Beautiful” art show, while Banksy provides insightful, and often comedic commentary.

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In my opinion the film is a must see. Banksy appears hooded and speaks in a distorted voice in Exit Through the Gift Shop, a hood-wink name for this film. Recommended.

 

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Hollywood

The AFI FEST Interview: Peter Bogdanovich on Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE

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Ranked at the top of AFI’s list of the greatest films of all time, Orson Welles’ portrait of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane (a thinly veiled stand-in for William Randolph Hearst) is brilliant, blistering and beautiful. The story moves through the tragedies and triumphs of Kane’s life, from a happy childhood in snowy Colorado cut short; to a towering ascendance in the newspaper industry; a dysfunctional marriage with a tone-deaf wife he tries desperately to mold into a great opera singer; and a cloistered existence in his palatial home, Xanadu. Welles’ superb cast, many from his own Mercury Theatre, is made up of some of the most vibrant stars of the 1940s, including Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane and, of course, Welles himself, who perfectly captures the aging Kane with a deft mix of sensitivity and ferocity. Gregg Toland’s innovative cinematography is now the stuff of legend, putting the deep focus technique on the map with shot after shot of crisply layered foreground and background images. If this is your first or 100th time seeing this landmark film, make sure to catch it at AFI FEST 2016 in a restored DCP, courtesy of Warner Bros. Classics.

The screening will be followed by an AFI Master Class with Welles expert Peter Bogdanovich, who spoke to AFI about CITIZEN KANE ahead of AFI FEST.

AFI: CITIZEN KANE turns 75 this year. Why do we still talk about it today?screen-shot-2016-11-09-at-9-33-57-pm

Peter Bogdanovich: It’s a landmark film, not just Orson Welles’ best film but a masterpiece. It was a masterpiece then in 1941 and still is. It’s a brilliant symphony, and is exciting to watch. Everything about it is dynamic, and that very dynamism is the camouflage for the extremely sad story Welles tells. You’re not moved to tears by CITIZEN KANE really, except as a kind of thrillingly done film.

AFI: What was it like seeing the film for the first time, in 1955?

PB: I was 16, and I was quite bowled over by it. I thought it was brilliant. I’ve seen it, I think, 10 or 12 times since then. I saw it the other day on television briefly. You can’t resist it. Everything about it is brilliant. The performances are amazing, and Orson himself, his performance is extraordinary. People spend so much time talking about the direction that they don’t notice how brilliant that performance is. It was everybody’s first film, which makes it even more extraordinary. It’s amazing to realize that all those people had never made a movie before.

AFI: Would you say that much of contemporary cinema is indebted to the style and direction of CITIZEN KANE?

PB: It’s funny because it’s not that extraordinary in terms of the technique. He used a pretty simple technique in many ways. A lot of long takes. The scene goes on, and you don’t notice how long it goes without a cut. That wasn’t that common, though a lot of filmmakers in that period did do shots like that, but not to the degree that Orson did. Years later, I said to him, “What do you think is the difference between doing a scene in one shot or in many cuts?” He said, “Well, we used to say that’s what distinguished the men from the boys.” The whole thing, the construction of the story, the flashback structure — it wasn’t any one thing that was unusual. It was the whole production. It’s a very depressing story. There’s not a shred of hope at the end. It’s all very downbeat, but the style of the film, the way he made it, the overlapping dialogue, the flashback structure, some surprising camera angles — the whole thing made a tremendous impression if you were sensitive to what he was doing.

AFI: How was the film received in 1941, versus years later when you first saw it?

It got great reviews in its original release, except in The New York Times. [Critic] Bosley Crowther didn’t care for it much. He thought the central character was shallow. It couldn’t play in a lot of theaters because the Hearst organization had blacklisted it. So, as Orson said, they couldn’t make money if they couldn’t get a theater. That’s why it failed. Orson suggested they open it in tents around the country. It was not shown for many years, but it was brought back to New York in 1955, to a small art house, and that’s where I first saw it. That’s when it started to gain this reputation.

READ MORE: 15 Facts About Orson Welles’ CITIZEN KANE — America’s Greatest Film Turns 75

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AFI: You had a close relationship with Welles for many years. How did he feel about the film?

PB: He didn’t want to talk about it much. Orson did THE DAVID FROST SHOW [as guest host] in 1970  and I was there. He had a guest, [author] Norman Mailer, and after the show they went to Frankie and Johnnie’s in Manhattan and I joined them for dinner. We sat down and Norman said to Orson, “There’s a great shot in CITIZEN KANE…” and Orson said, “Oh, no, Norman, not CITIZEN KANE.” Norman looked perplexed for a minute and then said, “Oh, yeah, I guess it’s like me and ‘The Naked and the Dead,’” meaning that both Norman and Orson were plagued by the notoriety of their first effort. It was the only picture that anybody ever talked to him about, and he was irritated about it because he’d made other pictures that nobody saw. It depressed him actually. It was a struggle to get him to talk about KANE. Reluctantly he talked about it; I would trick him into it sometimes.

AFI: When Welles began CITIZEN KANE, did he know he was making a masterpiece?

PB: I couldn’t say. I think he thought he was making a pretty good picture. The thing about CITIZEN KANE is it’s very cold, and there are moments that are touching, but they’re few and far between. It’s not an emotional picture. KANE is relentlessly negative, but what makes it exciting is the way it’s told, and the way it’s acted and the way it’s done, really. It’s almost as though he’s saying that it’s only through art that we can really survive. The artistry of the picture is what gives it its lift, because if you examine the story, it’s pretty bleak.

AFI: How has CITIZEN KANE influenced your own seminal work?

PB: I can’t say I was influenced by CITIZEN KANE directly. I was influenced by Orson’s thinking, and things he said to me. But I wasn’t particularly influenced by the film. I wasn’t influenced by the technique of it as much as by the youthful spirit of it. I was influenced by a general feeling of fearlessness. CITIZEN KANE was nominated for Best Picture, but what won was HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY by John Ford, an emotional film about the dissolution of a family. CITIZEN KANE is a cold film about the dissolution and tragedy of a man who loses everything, including his soul.

CITIZEN KANE screens AFI FEST on Sunday, November 13, at 1:30 p.m.

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(Source: http://www.blog.afi.com)

#SBIFF, Santa Barbara International Film Festival

FILM CAPSULE: A Life Begins (Monty, 2010): Canada

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Reviewed by Larry Gleeson.

img_5876Viewed during the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) 2011.

A Life Begins, part of the SBIFF’s Focus on Quebec, follows first time film director Michel Monty as he tells a heartfelt story based on his real life experiences.
The film is set in Montreal during the early 1960’s. Monty opens the film with a tracking shot as he follows the action of Etienne Langevin’s father, switches to a POV of Etienne Langevin legs to a matching medium close up, equivocating Etienne’s close attentiveness to his father’s persona. Several scenes show Etienne mimicking his father’s actions and movements. To Etienne his father, Dr. Jacques Langevin, is worthy of such hero worship. The audience is treated to an intimate, playful bedroom scene between Dr. Langevin and his wife Louise, played by the soul-capturing beauty, Julie Le Breton. Monty goes to a close-up of an ear. Anticipation builds. Lips move-in. No words are uttered. We hear the banter of well adjusted seemingly normal children. It appears as though we are witnessing the interactions of a highly functional, representational Quebec family.
However, we quickly come to find out, Dr. Langevin is robbing the pharmacy to feed his out-of-control drug addiction. To his family Dr. Jacques is a model father figure. We see the family out for a joyous Sunday drive with the top down in a used red convertible the Doctor recently purchased. The kids throw their arms up in the air – roller-coaster style foreshadowing the cacophony of events that will transpire in this dramatic film.
Dr. Langevin’s father, seems to be hypercritical of his son and happens to be the hospital’s president. He confronts Dr. Langevin and regretfully tells his son he is fired. Dr. Langevin is unable to disclose to his lovely wife his addiction to drugs and the fact he has been fired because of his drug addiction. The next morning Dr. Langevin, having spent the night in a alcohol fueled and drug-induced stupor clamors up the basement stairs and goes into cardiac arrest dying as the youngest child playfully fires imaginary gunshots into his father.
Louise distraught and financially strapped sells the family house and moves into an apartment with her three children. She goes off to work leaving Etienne home alone. Etienne is an inquisitive young man and has found his father’s stash of morphine, uppers and downers. He begins experimenting with the drugs and a tumultuous life surfaces. Louise trudges on displaying depth and strength of character.
In the Q & A that followed the screening Monty shared that in the family he was the youngest child and that Etienne was his older brother. He chose to tell the story through his brother’s eyes as he felt that his brother had the loneliest time after their father’s passing. Interesting to note that the famous song by rock and roll legend Harry Nilson, “One is the Loneliest Number,” played as the credits rolled.
The film was Monty’s first venture into filmmaking. He was able to shoot the film in 28 days. Due to budgetary and time constraints Monty created a shot list allowing for 2-4 shots per scene for coverage.
I really enjoyed this film. The acting was excellent with limited dialogue. As a result, actions, by Director Monty’s design, told the story. Warm-heartedly recommended.

Jewish Film Festival

Broad variety of films in annual Boston Jewish Film Festival

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Jody Feinberg, The Patriot Ledger

On a day that honors Veterans, the Boston Jewish Film Festival will screen an inspirational documentary about fighters pursing peace.

“I often ask myself where are the peacemakers,” said Jaymie Saks, executive director of the film festival. “This film celebrates people on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict who are able to overcome their differences to come together for peace.”

Featuring former Israeli soldiers and former Palestinian political prisoners, “Disturbing the Peace” is one of 38 documentary, feature and short films that will be shown through Nov. 21 at theatres in Boston, Cambridge and the suburbs.

In its 28th year, this year’s film festival has a strong focus on films about prejudice, anti-Semitism and justice, thanks to a $100,000 grant from the Cummings Foundation. Identified as part of the Cummings Social Justice Film Series, these films reveal personal, social and political change in a troubled world.

Films on these topics have always been a crucial piece of our festival, but this time we had our eye out specifically for films that touch on these subjects,” Saks said.

Selecting films from Israel, Argentina, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany and other counties, the festival gives audiences opportunities to hear directors and actors speak and answer questions at screenings. About 12,000 people are expected to attend.Many films have a lighter focus, such as “On the Map,” the story of the 1977 Israeli basketball team that beat the Soviets and won the European Cup. It’s appropriately shown just outside Gillette Stadium at Showcase Cinema in Patriot Place.

“It’s called the “Miracle on Hardwood,” Israel’s version of the “Miracle on Ice,” Saks said. “They were the underdog and it’s an exciting story not just about basketball but about Israel.”

Winning awards at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and the Jerusalem Film Festival, the comedy “One Week and A Day” is about a father who copes with the death of his son by smoking his medical marijuana.

And the film “The Last Laugh” features Mel Brooks, Sarah Silverman and other comedians exploring the Jewish sense of humor and will be followed by a conversation with the director and Robert Edwards, author of “The Big Book of Jewish Humor.”

The festival also has series on family friendly films, Israeli television hits, and short works about innovative risk-takers.

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A scene from Freedom to Marry

In the Cummings Social Justice Film Series, the documentary “Freedom to Marry” tells the story of the long fight for marriage equality, specifically in Massachusetts. In another film on inequality, “Sand Storm,” a young Bedouin woman in Israel struggles to define herself within her traditional family.

Many feature and documentary films offer a new look at the Holocaust. “Cloudy Sunday” tells the little-known story of what happened in Greece, through a fictionalized love story, and another, “A Grain of Truth” is a murder-mystery that reveals the history of Polish anti-Semitism.

“It’s important to keep talking about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism in new ways with a contemporary lens,” Saks said.

That is literally what happens in “Germans and Jews,” a documentary about the evolution of facing the truth about the Holocaust.

Other films reveal unexpected heroes and villains, as truths get revealed about the roles people played in the Holocaust.

In the feature “Origin of Violence,” a young French professor has his world turned upside down when he discovers a truth about his father while on a research trip to Buchenwald. In the documentary, “Keep Quiet,” an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier radically changes when he discovers his grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor. And in the documentary “Kozalchic Affair,” a Jewish collaborator turns out to be more complicated than he seems.

Revealing deep courage and conviction, the documentary “Karski and the Lords of Humanity” is the story of a Polish underground courier, who risked his life to visit the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi transit camp in order to deliver eyewitness accounts to the Allied powers. As described in the festival program guide, “His testimonies are some of the most important accounts we have today – and his efforts stand as an example of heroism in the face of atrocity.”

(Source:www.milforddailynews.com)

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Feature Film, Hollywood

The AFI FEST Interview: Tributee Annette Bening, Star of 20TH CENTURY WOMEN

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Annette Bening has triumphed on both stage and screen since the 1980s. Early in her career, she scored a Tony® nomination for her Broadway debut in COASTAL DISTURBANCES. She has four Academy Award® nominations to her name, for THE GRIFTERS (1990), AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999), BEING JULIA (2004) and THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010), plus an Emmy® nomination in 2006 for MRS. HARRIS.

This year, AFI FEST highlights her role as a single mother in 1979 Santa Barbara in Mike Mills’ 20TH CENTURY WOMEN — one of her best performances yet. As Dorothea, Bening is a force of nature, channeling a smart, resourceful woman who anchors a rambling bohemian house with a slew of perfectly era-specific itinerants. Additionally, in RULES DON’T APPLY, the festival’s Opening Night Gala directed by and starring Bening’s husband Warren Beatty, she brings her sparkling charisma to a crucial supporting role.

AFI spoke with Bening about her films in the festival.

AFI: What initially attracted you to the character of Dorothea, and how did you join the project of 20TH CENTURY WOMEN?

Annette Bening: Mike Mills called and asked me to read the screenplay; we then met and had dinner. We talked extensively about his ideas, his mom and the character of Dorothea. Shortly after that he asked me to play Dorothea, and we’ve been talking about her ever since.

AFI: The film has an excellent and varied supporting cast, all of whom orbit around Dorothea in different ways. Can you talk about what it was like working with Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, Elle Fanning and Lucas Jade Zumann?

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AB: We were a tight and loving ensemble, thanks to Mike Mills putting us together in rehearsal in immediate and imaginative ways.  We danced, improv’d, did specific acting exercises and got to know each other. It was challenging and penetrative work, where we searched ourselves and each other to find the hearts of the characters. Hopefully that shows on the screen.

AFI: Does Mike Mills’ vision of 1979 resonate with your experience of it? 

AB: I was 19 in 1979, and for me, Mike is contextualizing that time in his own unique way.

AFI: One of the many great things about 20TH CENTURY WOMEN is how it grapples with the idea of confusing and contradictory expectations about femininity and masculinity. As an actress, was it exciting to tackle this?

AB: In rehearsal and preparation, intellectual ideas are naturally at play. In performance, these ideas become nascent for me, and I’m trying to listen, respond and be in the immediate moment with my fellow actors.

AFI: You have a supporting role in the festival’s Opening Night Gala, RULES DON’T APPLY, written and directed by and starring your husband, Warren Beatty. Do you two have a collaborative relationship when working together on set?

AB: Working on RULES DON’T APPLY with my husband was for me a dream come true. He’s a great director, enjoying his actors with zeal and humor. He’s demanding and exacting in the best way and even let me improvise a little, and that’s my favorite thing.

20TH CENTURY WOMEN screens on Wednesday, November 16, as a Gala Tribute; RULES DON’T APPLY screens on Thursday, November 10, as the Opening Night Gala.

Telluride, Toronto International Film Festival

Critically Acclaimed Film ‘Moonlight’ Coming to U.K., Ireland

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Reuters and Variety

Altitude Film Distribution has acquired distribution rights in the U.K. and Ireland to Barry Jenkins’ critically acclaimed movie “Moonlight,” which is expected to be an awards contender. Altitude will release the film in early February, allowing the pic to be eligible for the BAFTAs.

screen-shot-2016-11-09-at-9-39-32-amAltitude chief Will Clarke said: “‘Moonlight’ is one of those life-affirming films that immerses you in its universal themes and kaleidoscopic view of life, but told with such emotional intimacy, delicacy and beauty that no one could fail to be moved in a way that is surprising and unforgettable. It is pure cinema and a milestone in independent film.”

A24 is handling international sales on the film, and is also distributing in the U.S., where it has grossed $1.47 million to date from a limited release. A24 will expand the release in the coming weeks.

“Moonlight,” the second feature from writer-director Jenkins (“Medicine for Melancholy”), was a hit with critics at its premiere at Telluride Film Festival and subsequent festival screenings at Toronto and London.

The pic — about a young gay African-American man growing up in a tough neighborhood of Miami — won the Gotham Special Jury Award for the performances of its cast, including a breakout performance by former athlete Trevante Rhodes (“Westworld”) as the lead character, Chiron. Also starring are Andre Holland (“The Knick”), Janelle Monae (“The Equalizer”), Naomie Harris (“Skyfall”), Ashton Sanders (“Straight Outta Compton”), Jharrel Jerome (“Monster”) and Mahershala Ali (“House of Cards”).

The producers are Jeremy Kleiner, Dede Gardner, and Adele Romansk.

(Source:www.nbcnews.com)

#AFI, #AFIFEST, Feature Film, Hollywood

FILM REVIEW: R100 (Matsumoto, 2013): Japan

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Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed during the AFI Filmfest 2013.

“R100,” directed by Hitoshi Matsumoto, half of the Japanese comedic phenomenon, Downtown, is an absurdist Japanese comedy about an average, everyday family man, Takafumi Katayama, played by Nao Ohmori, leading an average everyday hum-drum, existence who decides one day to join a rather unusual club, a BDSM (Bondage and Discipline Sadism and Masochism) club surreptitiously named “Bondage.” Bondage has some rather interesting rules. For example, all activities must take place outside the club in real life settings, the customers must be submissive at all times and no touching allowed. The “masochist manifesto” promises to lead to “a revelation of the self.” Furthermore, the club” membership is for one year and once entered into cannot be cancelled under any circumstances.

True to its original roots, the club and its employees, a slew  of dominatrices known as “Queens” begin a wide range of orchestrated hi-jinks  upon an unwitting Mr. Takafumi Katayama. He is punched, kicked, whipped until achieving an erotic release visualized by a rippling effect upon Mr. Katayama’s aural body.

At first the practices and the situations have a fairly unobtrusive element but it doesn’t take long before they penetrate Mr. Katayama’s inner circle of family and employer.  The public humiliations and the physical abuse wear heavily on Mr. Katayama as his employer witnesses a particularly offensive restroom scene against the submissive Katayama. The line is crossed when the Bondage bounds Mr. Katayama’s young son.

Deciding enough is enough, Katayama makes the call to terminate his membership. The club, however, has other ideas and begins sending very dangerous and bizarre characters to eliminate Katayama. Here the storyline goes into warp drive with characters and situations passing through absurdity into irrationality. One character, Queen Big Mouth, devours another human being in a snake-like fashion. Another scene shows a group of businessmen producers exiting the theater discussing what they’ve just seen trying to make sense of the director’s over-the-top choices. The film the audience is seeing becomes a rough cut film in post-production. All the while, the screen depiction of a filmmaker director at age 100 exploring his sexual fantasies in a movie theater through a film underscores the absurdity of the  Japanese social mores of acceptable behavior. Point in case, when Mr. Katayama tries to report the club’s unlawful sexual activities to the police, he’s mocked and dismissed handily for getting what seems to be too much of a good thing.

In my opinion, Matsumoto is just throwing the kitchen sink at the audience landing bits and pieces trying to hit the mark with as many patrons as possible. He blends aspects of film noir, slapstick, zen and S&M. It’s not so much quality as it is quantity. Seemingly, being present and in the moment is a requirement for enjoying Matsumoto’s midnight submission, “R100.” Admittedly, I found many of the scenes quite funny and found myself laughing joyously. I also found many scenes that weren’t so funny and found myself scratching my head. So I guess it stands to reason (or does it?) why the show won the Midnight Category at the Toronto International Film Festival. Unfortunately for me, I saw the film on a Monday afternoon, Veterans Day to be more specific. Warmly recommended for mature audiences.