VENICE COMPETITION TITLES ANNOUNCED

By Jason Guerrasio

The Venice Film Festival have announced their slate of competition films vying for the Golden Lion. Included in the list is the opening night film, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan as well as Kelly Reichart‘s Meek’s Cutoff and Sofia Coppola‘s Somewhere.

Also announced are out of competition titles The Town, directed by Ben Affleck; little brother Casey Affleck’s documentary on Joaquin Phoenix, I’m Still Here; and Robert Rodriguez’s Machete.

The festival runs Sept. 1-11.

The full list of titles are below.

“Attenberg,” Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece
“Barney’s Version,” Richard J. Lewis, Canada/Italy
“Black Swan,” Darren Aronofsky, USA
“Black Venus,” Abdellatif Kechiche, France
“Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame,” Tsui Hark, China
“Happy Few,” Antony Cordier, France
“Meek’s Cutoff,” Kelly Reichardt, USA
“Miral,” Julian Schnabel, USA/France/Italy/Israel
“Noi Credevamo,” Mario Martone, Italy
“Norwegian Wood,” Anh Hung… Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #4: “ELEMENTS OF CASTING”

By Scott Macaulay

“Elements of Casting” is the title of the fourth New Breed video from the Los Angeles Film Festival. Look for two more next week, on Monday and Thursday.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 4 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

ONE HUNDRED MORNINGS – WINS DISCOVERY AND DISTRO AWARD

By Lance Weiler

This past winter we continued a tradition that started with the From Here to Awesome experiment, a “day and date” festival concept that helped 22 films reach theaters, living rooms and viewer’s computers in 2008. The WorkBook Project Discovery and Distribution Award gives a filmmaker an amazing prize consisting of a week long theatrical run in LA with social media, street team and PR support. A run where the filmmaker keeps the box office and we help to pull together the independent community in an effort to drive awareness around the film.

Over a 100 films were submitted and today we’re thrilled to announce that One Hundred Mornings is the winner of the 2010 WBPAward for film. The theatrical release will kick off Sept 16th at the Downtown Independent Theater.

About the film

Set in a world upended by a complete breakdown of society, two couples hide

… Read the rest

TORONTO ANNOUNCES TITLES FOR 2010 FEST

By Jason Guerrasio

Titles for the 35th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival were announced today. The mixture of world and North American premieres range from directors like Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden‘s It’s Kind of a Funny Story, to Julian Schnabel‘s Miral to Susanne Bier‘s In A Better World. The full list of titles screening in the Gala and Special Presentations sections are below. TIFF has also announced that the festival, running from Sept. 9 -19, will be extended one day longer this year and in celebration of their 35th year will be running a “TIFF For Free” series were past films that have screened at the fest will be shown at no cost (some of the titles include The Big Chill, Crash and Water). Learn more at the fest’s site.



Galas

The Bang Bang Club, directed by Steven Silver (Canada/South Africa)
(World… Read the rest

A VISIT TO RERUN, BROOKLYN’S LATEST MOVIE VENUE

By Eric Kohn

The history of moviegoing in New York City is exceptional and, according to many people, quintessential as well. Manhattan alone provided a healthy nexus of theatrical activity at the beginning of the 20th century, and in that regard, little has changed. The city continues to host dozens of theaters, including more arthouse venues than almost anywhere else in the world. From the usual specialty releases regularly showcased at the Sunshine and the Angelika to the storied repertory programming at prestigious fixtures like Film Forum and Lincoln Center, New Yorkers have innumerable eclectic opportunities to expand their cinematic horizons.

But movies without distribution have a hard time finding a certified route to these popular establishments. That’s a gap that the new reRun Gastropub Theater, which opened in the back room of reBar in Brooklyn’s hip Dumbo neighborhood on Friday, will help fill: The venue, a 60-seat screening… Read the rest

BIG NEWS FOR DOC MAKERS: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS GRANTS DMCA EXEMPTIONS

By Scott Macaulay

Big news from the Library of Congress today. In their three-year annual review of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, restrictions on documentary makers related to the fair use of copyrighted materials were significantly eased. Attorney Michael C. Donaldson, who assembled the coalition lobbying for these changes and provided pro bono counsel, commented, “Documentary filmmakers have been freed of the high price extracted by rights holders, or the high price of possible criminal prosecution, when they need to reach public domain material or material to be used pursuant to fair use. All they have to do is follow a few simple rules and they can copy such materials from commercially available DVDs.”

Here is a summary of the new regulations provided by Donaldson’s publicists:

Today the Librarian of Congress approved the recommendations of the Copyright Office granting relief to all documentary filmmakers. It granted the International Documentary Association’s request for an

… Read the rest

NEW BREED L.A. #3: “PLANNING FOR DISCOVERIES”

By Scott Macaulay

Here’s the latest in the New Breed series of videos with filmmakers at the Los Angeles Film Festival. This one is called “Planning for Discoveries.” The previous episodes were “Nothing You Have to Have” and “Engineering Serendipity”. Episodes go up Monday and Thursday until all seven are live on the site.

NEW BREED LOS ANGELES – Episode 3 from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

TODAY IS CALL TIME FOR “LIFE IN A DAY”

By Scott Macaulay

In New York City at least, it is unbearably horrible outside. Whatever you do you will be suffering. So why not shoot some footage for Sundance’s “Life in a Day” project? Today, July 24, is the day during which you must shoot, and you have a few days after to send it in. You will definitely be in good company. Joe Berlinger, Marianna Palka, Peter Sollett, Caleb Deschanel, So Yong Kim, and Brad and Todd Barnes have all agreed to participate. Here’s Sundance’s John Cooper with more details. And before shooting, go here for more guidelines, the questions you must answer, and an upload link.

TWO PREMIERES: reRUN and “AUDREY THE TRAIN WRECK”

By Scott Macaulay

Any new New York independent movie theater, one showing not mini-major studio moveovers but recently premiered festival films that don’t have formal distribution, is cause for celebration. But we at Filmmaker are hailing the new reRun for one other reason: it’s in our building. That’s right, after a long day solving the crises of the current indie scene, we can head downstairs and enjoy not only movies but pretzels filled with garlic mashed potatoes, popcorn with duck fat, and microbrews. That’s right, you can eat and drink inside this theater, which is down the hall from reBar. (Menu preview courtesy of Gothamist.). Aaron Hillis, of the Village Voice and GreenCine, is doing the programming, and he’s launching with Frank V. Ross’s Audrey the Train Wreck, produced by Adam Donaghey and Mike Ryan, whose “Straight Talk” on the current state of things kicked up a lot… Read the rest

FLIPBOARD: FIRST TAKE

By Scott Macaulay

I’m finding Flipboard, a new app/web reader that launched this week, kind of cool, but I can’t tell how much I really like it yet. What Flipboard does is create on your iPad a “personal magazine,” displaying an aggregation of different feeds and channels in a design-y format. What makes it more than an aestheticized RSS reader is that it pulls in social as well, turning your Facebook and Twitter feeds into channels that you read like flipbooks. So, open the Flipboard version of your Facebook and the cover image might be a collage of Japanese movie posters that a friend linked to. The first few pages are full of news articles that can be sized-up to reveal the whole text, and along the side of the frame are comments. A few pages later and status reports take on the aura of Jenny Holzerisms as they are displayed within… Read the rest