The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has, ever since 1927, been giving out awards to the best movies, directors, actors, and other artisans throughout the industry. Or at least, they've been giving awards to the ones that can win an annual popularity contest.
Say what you will about the Oscars and their credibility — they were, after all, invented to bust unions, not celebrate the art of cinema — but for nearly 100 years they have done a great job of raising the visibility of motion pictures which, on a long enough timeline, were otherwise destined to fade into obscurity. For every "Casablanca" or "Titanic," blockbuster films that have seemingly permanently invaded the public consciousness, there's a "Cavalcade" or a "The Greatest Show on Earth," which haven't made nearly as much of a cultural footprint, and which are more likely to be seen by modern audiences specifically because they won the Best Picture Oscar,...
Say what you will about the Oscars and their credibility — they were, after all, invented to bust unions, not celebrate the art of cinema — but for nearly 100 years they have done a great job of raising the visibility of motion pictures which, on a long enough timeline, were otherwise destined to fade into obscurity. For every "Casablanca" or "Titanic," blockbuster films that have seemingly permanently invaded the public consciousness, there's a "Cavalcade" or a "The Greatest Show on Earth," which haven't made nearly as much of a cultural footprint, and which are more likely to be seen by modern audiences specifically because they won the Best Picture Oscar,...
- 1/18/2023
- by William Bibbiani
- Slash Film
“I spent a lot of time reviewing the silent films for crowd scenes –the way extras move, evolve, how the space is staged and how the cameras capture it, the views used,” Nolan said earlier this year when it came to the creation of his WWII epic Dunkirk, referencing films such as Intolerance, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Greed, as well as the films of Robert Bresson.
Throughout the entire month of July, if you’re in the U.K., you are lucky enough to witness a selection of these influences in a program at BFI Southbank. Featuring all screenings in 35mm or 70mm — including a preview of Dunkirk over a week before it hits theaters — there’s classics such as Greed, Sunrise, and The Wages of Fear, as well as Alien, Speed, and even Tony Scott’s final film.
Check out Nolan’s introduction below, followed by...
Throughout the entire month of July, if you’re in the U.K., you are lucky enough to witness a selection of these influences in a program at BFI Southbank. Featuring all screenings in 35mm or 70mm — including a preview of Dunkirk over a week before it hits theaters — there’s classics such as Greed, Sunrise, and The Wages of Fear, as well as Alien, Speed, and even Tony Scott’s final film.
Check out Nolan’s introduction below, followed by...
- 5/25/2017
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Running from 1-31 July, BFI Southbank are delighted to present a season of films which have inspired director Christopher Nolan’s new feature Dunkirk (2017), released in cinemas across the UK on Friday 21 July.
Christopher Nolan Presents has been personally curated by the award-winning director and will offer audiences unique insight into the films which influenced his hotly anticipated take on one of the key moments of WWII.
The season will include a special preview screening of Dunkirk on Thursday 13 July, which will be presented in 70mm and include an introduction from the director himself.
Christopher Nolan is a passionate advocate for the importance of seeing films projected on film, and as one of the few cinemas in the UK that still shows a vast amount of celluloid film, BFI Southbank will screen all the films in the season on 35mm or 70mm.
In 2015 Nolan appeared on stage alongside visual artist...
Christopher Nolan Presents has been personally curated by the award-winning director and will offer audiences unique insight into the films which influenced his hotly anticipated take on one of the key moments of WWII.
The season will include a special preview screening of Dunkirk on Thursday 13 July, which will be presented in 70mm and include an introduction from the director himself.
Christopher Nolan is a passionate advocate for the importance of seeing films projected on film, and as one of the few cinemas in the UK that still shows a vast amount of celluloid film, BFI Southbank will screen all the films in the season on 35mm or 70mm.
In 2015 Nolan appeared on stage alongside visual artist...
- 5/24/2017
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Dorothy Davenport becomes a judge and later State Governor in socially conscious thriller about U.S. women's voting rights. Women suffrage movie 'Mothers of Men': Will women's right to vote lead to the destruction of The American Family? Directed by and featuring the now all but forgotten Willis Robards, Mothers of Men – about women suffrage and political power – was a fast-paced, 64-minute buried treasure screened at the 2016 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, held June 2–5. I thoroughly enjoyed being taken back in time by this 1917 socially conscious drama that dares to ask the question: “What will happen to the nation if all women have the right to vote?” One newspaper editor insists that women suffrage would mean the destruction of The Family. Women, after all, just did not have the capacity for making objective decisions due to their emotional composition. It...
- 7/1/2016
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
10. Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948)
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
Directed by: Max Ophuls
To be honest, the relationship at the center of “Letter from an Unknown Woman” barely even exists. It’s more of a longing from one side than the other. But the ways Ophuls structures the film qualifies it for this list. For the run of the story, we hear a voiceover, explaining the moments in these two characters’ lives. Lisa (Joan Fontaine) is a teenager who becomes obsessed with a pianist who lives in her building named Stefan (Louis Jordan). She only meets him once, but maintains her love for him. After her mother announces they will be moving, Lisa runs away, but sees Stefan with another woman. Lisa becomes a respectable woman and is proposed to by a young, family-focused military officer, whom she turns down, still in love with Stefan, a man she has barely met. Years later, she...
- 12/2/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings and first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM (photo: Emil Jannings in 'The Last Command') First Best Actor Academy Award winner Emil Jannings in The Last Command, first Best Actress Academy Award winner Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, and sisters Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge are a few of the silent era performers featured this evening on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its Silent Monday presentations. Starting at 5 p.m. Pt / 8 p.m. Et on November 17, 2014, get ready to check out several of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s. Following the Jean Negulesco-directed 1943 musical short Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties -- believe me, even the most rabid anti-gay bigot will be able to enjoy this one -- TCM will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) one of the two movies that earned...
- 11/18/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Howard Hughes movies (photo: Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in 'The Aviator') Turner Classic Movies will be showing the Howard Hughes-produced, John Farrow-directed, Baja California-set gangster drama His Kind of Woman, starring Robert Mitchum, Hughes discovery Jane Russell, and Vincent Price, at 3 a.m. Pt / 6 a.m. Et on Saturday, November 8, 2014. Hughes produced a couple of dozen movies. (More on that below.) But what about "Howard Hughes movies"? Or rather, movies -- whether big-screen or made-for-television efforts -- featuring the visionary, eccentric, hypochondriac, compulsive-obsessive, all-American billionaire as a character? Besides Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays a dashing if somewhat unbalanced Hughes in Martin Scorsese's 2004 Best Picture Academy Award-nominated The Aviator, other actors who have played Howard Hughes on film include the following: Tommy Lee Jones in William A. Graham's television movie The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977), with Lee Purcell as silent film star Billie Dove, Tovah Feldshuh as Katharine Hepburn,...
- 11/6/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sunrise
Scenario by Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Hermann Sudermann
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1927
William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made,...
Scenario by Carl Mayer, from an original theme by Hermann Sudermann
Directed by F.W. Murnau
USA, 1927
William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made,...
- 1/17/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Think silent films reached a high point with The Artist? The pre-sound era produced some of the most beautiful, arresting films ever made. From City Lights to Metropolis, Guardian and Observer critics pick the 10 best
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
• Top 10 teen movies
• Top 10 superhero movies
• Top 10 westerns
• Top 10 documentaries
• Top 10 movie adaptations
• Top 10 animated movies
• More Guardian and Observer critics' top 10s
10. City Lights
City Lights was arguably the biggest risk of Charlie Chaplin's career: The Jazz Singer, released at the end of 1927, had seen sound take cinema by storm, but Chaplin resisted the change-up, preferring to continue in the silent tradition. In retrospect, this isn't so much the precious behaviour of a purist but the smart reaction of an experienced comedian; Chaplin's films rarely used intertitles anyway, and though it is technically "silent", City Lights is very mindful of it own self-composed score and keenly judged sound effects.
At its heart,...
- 11/22/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Louise Brooks in Prix de Beauté: 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival Louise Brooks will kick off the 2013 San Francisco Silent Film Festival. At 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 17, the Sfsff will screen Augusto Genina’s Prix de Beauté aka Beauty Prize at the Castro Theater. Released in 1930 — when talkies had already become established in much of the moviemaking world — the French-made Prix de Beauté came out in both sound and silent versions, a widely common practice in those days as many theaters had yet to get wired for sound. Needless to say, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival’s Prix de Beauté print is the silent version, recently restored by the Cineteca di Bologna. (Photo: Louise Brooks in Prix de Beauté.) Prix de Beauté, which marked the last time Louise Brooks starred in a feature film, tells the story of a typist who enters a beauty contest — much to her...
- 7/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Rome burns, whereas Nero merely suffers a bit of nitrate decomposition.
Arturo Ambrosio, prolific producer (1313 titles on the IMDb) and specialist in early twentieth century epics of the ancient world (his career climaxed with a 1925 Quo Vadis? but also included the 1913 Last Days of Pompeii (I've seen it: a corker!) pulled out all the stops when releasing his 1909 Nerone (Nero; or The Fall of Rome). Almost three hundred and fifty prints were struck (I believe that's around the same number as accompanied the Us release of the Roland Emmerich Godzilla, to give you an idea) and the movie was accompanied by a sixteen page promotional booklet. That's more than one page per shot in the actual movie, which, being from 1909, is a bit skimpy by the standards of our modern super-films, weighing in at fourteen minutes and averaging one shot per minute.
Above: Home cinema, ancient Roman style.
The most interesting moment,...
Arturo Ambrosio, prolific producer (1313 titles on the IMDb) and specialist in early twentieth century epics of the ancient world (his career climaxed with a 1925 Quo Vadis? but also included the 1913 Last Days of Pompeii (I've seen it: a corker!) pulled out all the stops when releasing his 1909 Nerone (Nero; or The Fall of Rome). Almost three hundred and fifty prints were struck (I believe that's around the same number as accompanied the Us release of the Roland Emmerich Godzilla, to give you an idea) and the movie was accompanied by a sixteen page promotional booklet. That's more than one page per shot in the actual movie, which, being from 1909, is a bit skimpy by the standards of our modern super-films, weighing in at fourteen minutes and averaging one shot per minute.
Above: Home cinema, ancient Roman style.
The most interesting moment,...
- 4/4/2013
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
The Mumbai Film Festival (October 18 – 25, 2012) is the largest film festival in India with over 100,000 attending. The Festival is 14 years old itself but Reliance Big Entertainment, the company that backs both Dreamworks and Im Global, one of U.S.’s foremost international sales agents, has backed this festival for the last 4 years and the result is a scaled up festival. It is part of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image, a not for profit trust founded in 1997 by Indian Film Industry personalities led by renowned filmmaker late Hrishikesh Mukherji. Its 220 films are all free.
Parenthetically, though not part of the festival itself, Mumbai is "'in the news" with the Tiff's City-to-City program focusing on Mumbai. This was organized by Cameron Bailey directly with filmmakers in Mumbai and is not a Mumbai Film Festival program…Also of interest is that Mumbai also hosts India's largest international Queer Film Festival For Everyone which was held in May of this year with the Alliance Francaise de Bombay.
The Mumbai Film Festival also works with Unifance and French Rendez-Vous.
Sections include Discovery, Retrospective - this year to feature 50 years of the Cannes Critics Week, International Competition which awards $200,000 to a first feature.
Three new developments are taking place this year.
1. To celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema, the festival is launching a new competition for Indian films (called 'India Gold') with cumulative cash rewards of around $30,000 Us. The winners will be selected by an international jury to be announced.
2. The festival is moving to historic South Bombay. The festival, previously held mostly in the Juhu and Andheri districts of Mumbai – where Bollywood is located - will now take place in the south of the city, the historic center of old colonial Bombay with amazing Victorian landmarks – train station, court house, with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Ncpa) and Inox Theatre as the main venues. The retrospective of restored films will be screened in a third theater - a historic art deco theater named the Liberty Cinema – so named because it was built in 1949, the year of India's independence from Britain. For more information on the Liberty see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Cinema
3. The Spotlight on Film Restoration and Preservation. For the first time, a section of the festival (programmed by Ian Birnie, U.S. Representative for the Mumbai Film Festival) will be devoted to screenings of restored classic films with a particular focus on Twentieth Century Fox. Screenings will be introduced by various archivists all of whom are leading experts in the field. A panel will bring together Western archivists and their Indian counterparts and the discussion will focus on the economic challenges and new technologies that are changing the future of film preservation.
The American participants are:
Schawn Belston, Senior VP, Library and Technical Services, Twentieth Century Fox
Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation
Mike Pogorzelski, Director, The Academy Film Archive
Douglas Laible, Managing Director, World Cinema Foundation
TheTwentieth Century Fox Archive will present 8 films spanning 40 years in the 'Fox Classics' series. Note: all were restored in-house at Fox, and by Fox in association with the Academy Film Archive (Afa) and with The Film Foundation (Ff)
Sunrise (1928/b&w/94 min.) dir: F.W. Murnau; w /George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston.(Fox/Afa)
How Green Was My Valley(1941/b&w/118 min.) dir: John Ford; w/ Walter Pigeon, Maureen O'Hara. (Fox/Afa)
Laura (1944/b&w/88 min.) dir: Otto Preminger; w/ Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb. (Fox in-house)
Leave Her to Heaven(1945/color/110 min.) dir: John Stahl; w/ Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953/color/91 min.) dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell.(Fox in-house)
Wild River(1960/color/110 min./CinemaScope) dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
The Leopard (1963/color/187 min.) dir: Luchino Visconti; w/ Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale.(Fox/Ff/Cineteca di Bologna)
Two for the Road(1967/color/110 min./Panavision) dir: Stanley Donen; w/ Audey Hepburn, Albert Finney. (Fox/Afa)
In addition to the Fox titles, 7 additional restored films will be screened.
The Academy Film Archive will present two recent restorations from their ongoing project to restore all the films by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray:
Charulata(1964/b&w/117 min.) w/ Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee.
The Chess Players (1977/color/129 min.) w/ Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi
The Film Foundation will present two recent restorations:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945/color/163 min.) dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; w/ Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984/color/ ??? min.) dir: Sergio Leone; w/ Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern.
The World Cinema Foundation will present its new restoration of a classic Indian film:
Kalpana (1948/b&w/155 min.)
The Cineteca Bologna will present two restored Italian silent classics as part of an Italian Cinema retrospective.
Sections of the Festival
Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition of films dealing with any aspect of life in Mumbai and targeted to the Mumbai Youth below 25 years was introduced in 2008.
An International Competition for the First Feature Film of directors with the award money of Us $ 150,000 (Us $ 100,000 for the Best Film and Us $ 50,000 for the Jury Grand Prize) was introduced in 2009. The UK Film 'White Lightn'in won the 2011 Best Film Award and Austria-Italy co-production La Pivillina won the Jury Grand Prize.
The Audience Choice Award carrying U.S. $ 20,000 for any film participating in the Festival, (excepting the Retrospectives and Tribute sections) was introduced in 09 as well. The Indian Film 'Road to Sangam' won this award.
International Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos.
A new initiative Mumbai Young Critics was introduced in '09 as well. 24 college students selected from more than 80 aspirants recommended by the colleges in Mumbai went through a workshop conducted by the German writer and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte for three days before the Festival. This group watched the films in the festival, wrote about them in Festival publications and newspapers and also selected a film for the Mumbai Young Critics Award.
Last year the festival showcased over 200 films from 60 countries across various sections at its three venues- Cinemax Versova, Cinemax Sion and Metro Big Cinemas.
The festival hosts a special section ‘4me Rendez-Vous’, in collaboration with Unifrance, Embassy of France in India and Consulate General of France in Mumbai. The section screens the best of New French Cinema, which last year included ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, ‘The Conquest’ and ‘Declaration of War’ amongst others.
Last year's highlight was the special presentation by Lee Yong Kwan, Director, Busan International Film Festival, who presented a selection of the latest Asian Films from Busan.
Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the legendary actor Morgan Freeman. Olivia Harrison widow of George Harrison presented the documentary film “George Harrison: Living in the material World”.
The Festival strengthened and consolidated its academic activities with an Indo-German Script Development Workshop scheduled from 11th to the 13th of October just ahead of the festival opening. Speakers at the workshop included the renowned directors Dani Levy, Thorsten Schulz, Screenwriters Anjum Rajabali and Sooni Taraporevala amongst others.
This year's Festival continues to facilitate cinema business with the Mumbai Film Mart, created 'by' the industry, 'for' the industry, 'in' the industry hub - Mumbai, the Film Capital of India. The Mumbai Film Mart saw participation from the biggest Entertainment Industry players, both from India and abroad. In the three days, over 2,000 meeting requests were received, 400 meetings were carried out face to face, while an equal number took place among the senior decision makers from leading film production houses, buyers, sellers, festival programmers and independent filmmakers as they milled around and networked with each other.
Among the many firsts, the Mart attracted all the forthcoming big ticket films such as ‘Ra One’, ‘Don 2’, ‘Rockstar’, ‘Ricky Behl v/s Ladies’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘DesiBoyz’ , tabled for acquisition and distribution in the non-traditional markets for Indian Cinema in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, France and Latin America. The focus on these countries attracted leading buyers that included Huayi Brothers Media Corp. (China), NikkatsuCorp.(Japan), Happinet Corp.(Japan), Showbox (Korea), Apex Entertainment (Korea), Cj Entertainment (Korea), Top Films (Ukraine), Novo films (France), Rapid Eye (Germany), Im Global (USA), amongst many others.
The International Jury will be responsible choosing the winners out of 14 films, all first features of debut filmmakers around the world, awarding them with a huge cash prize. This way we would like to recognize and encourage the first time filmmakers, going in line with the festival theme of discovery.
Apart from the main international section, there are many other sections including the world cinema, Indian Frame, New Faces in Indian Cinema, Documentaries etc. Please do check out their website www.mumbaifilmfest.com for more information. Last year, it screened about 220 films from 60 countries.
Composition of Mami:
Shyam Benegal, Eminent Filmmaker – Chairman
Amit Khanna, producer, lyricist and Chairman of Reliance Entertainment
Amol Palekar, acclaimed actor-director
Ashutosh Gowarikar (Oscar Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film for Lagaan)
Farhan Akhtar, one of the youngest directors and actor
Jaya Bachchan, acclaimed and award winning actress
Karan Johar, director-producer of some of the most successful films at the box office
Ramesh Sippy, well known filmmaker of Sholay fame
Shabana Azmi, renowned actress who has won acclaim and awards Internationally
Yash Chopra, producer-director, doyen of the Hindi film industry.
Narayan is the Director and head programmer, Anu is second in command.
And there is a selection committee that screens all the competition films – industry people and critics in Mumbai.
About Reliance Big Entertainment
Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd. (Rbel) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, with a significant presence in film entertainment (film production, distribution, and exhibition), broadcasting and new media ventures.
Rbel's motion picture brand, Reliance Big Pictures ( www.reliancebigpictures.com ) has built a impressive film production slate in Hindi, English & other Indian languages, which it markets and distributes worldwide. Following Reliance Big Picturess association with Im Global, the company now benefits from an international sales team with an excellent reputation and global presence dedicated to selling its Bollywood and regional language slate. Going into production in November is the $45 million ðDreddð, which Reliance Big Entertainment is co-financing with Im Global.
In Hollywood, Reliance Big Pictures has partnered with Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider on the formation of DreamWorks Studios and hasdevelopment deals with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films, Jim Carrey's Jc 23 Entertainment, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus'1492 Pictures, Tom Hanksð Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures, Brett Ratnerðs Rat Entertainment,Julia Robertsð Red Om Films and Brian Grazer and Ron Howardðs Imagine Entertainment.
Also worth noting: the competition section of the festival is for first features and carries a Grand prize of Us$100,000 and a Jury prize of Us$50,000.00, with a percentage of the money of allocated to the sales agent who submitted the film. With 14 features, the odds are better than most lotteries… This was last year's lineup http://www.mumbaifilmfest.com/Mami/films_list.php The Salesman, one of the films their U.S. Representative Programmer, Ian Bernie (former longtime Lacma programmer) selected, won the Jury Award and Best Actor.
Parenthetically, though not part of the festival itself, Mumbai is "'in the news" with the Tiff's City-to-City program focusing on Mumbai. This was organized by Cameron Bailey directly with filmmakers in Mumbai and is not a Mumbai Film Festival program…Also of interest is that Mumbai also hosts India's largest international Queer Film Festival For Everyone which was held in May of this year with the Alliance Francaise de Bombay.
The Mumbai Film Festival also works with Unifance and French Rendez-Vous.
Sections include Discovery, Retrospective - this year to feature 50 years of the Cannes Critics Week, International Competition which awards $200,000 to a first feature.
Three new developments are taking place this year.
1. To celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema, the festival is launching a new competition for Indian films (called 'India Gold') with cumulative cash rewards of around $30,000 Us. The winners will be selected by an international jury to be announced.
2. The festival is moving to historic South Bombay. The festival, previously held mostly in the Juhu and Andheri districts of Mumbai – where Bollywood is located - will now take place in the south of the city, the historic center of old colonial Bombay with amazing Victorian landmarks – train station, court house, with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (Ncpa) and Inox Theatre as the main venues. The retrospective of restored films will be screened in a third theater - a historic art deco theater named the Liberty Cinema – so named because it was built in 1949, the year of India's independence from Britain. For more information on the Liberty see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Cinema
3. The Spotlight on Film Restoration and Preservation. For the first time, a section of the festival (programmed by Ian Birnie, U.S. Representative for the Mumbai Film Festival) will be devoted to screenings of restored classic films with a particular focus on Twentieth Century Fox. Screenings will be introduced by various archivists all of whom are leading experts in the field. A panel will bring together Western archivists and their Indian counterparts and the discussion will focus on the economic challenges and new technologies that are changing the future of film preservation.
The American participants are:
Schawn Belston, Senior VP, Library and Technical Services, Twentieth Century Fox
Margaret Bodde, Executive Director, The Film Foundation
Mike Pogorzelski, Director, The Academy Film Archive
Douglas Laible, Managing Director, World Cinema Foundation
TheTwentieth Century Fox Archive will present 8 films spanning 40 years in the 'Fox Classics' series. Note: all were restored in-house at Fox, and by Fox in association with the Academy Film Archive (Afa) and with The Film Foundation (Ff)
Sunrise (1928/b&w/94 min.) dir: F.W. Murnau; w /George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston.(Fox/Afa)
How Green Was My Valley(1941/b&w/118 min.) dir: John Ford; w/ Walter Pigeon, Maureen O'Hara. (Fox/Afa)
Laura (1944/b&w/88 min.) dir: Otto Preminger; w/ Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb. (Fox in-house)
Leave Her to Heaven(1945/color/110 min.) dir: John Stahl; w/ Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953/color/91 min.) dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell.(Fox in-house)
Wild River(1960/color/110 min./CinemaScope) dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet. (Fox/Afa/Ff)
The Leopard (1963/color/187 min.) dir: Luchino Visconti; w/ Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, Claudia Cardinale.(Fox/Ff/Cineteca di Bologna)
Two for the Road(1967/color/110 min./Panavision) dir: Stanley Donen; w/ Audey Hepburn, Albert Finney. (Fox/Afa)
In addition to the Fox titles, 7 additional restored films will be screened.
The Academy Film Archive will present two recent restorations from their ongoing project to restore all the films by the great Indian director Satyajit Ray:
Charulata(1964/b&w/117 min.) w/ Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee.
The Chess Players (1977/color/129 min.) w/ Sanjeev Kumar, Saeed Jaffrey, Shabana Azmi
The Film Foundation will present two recent restorations:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945/color/163 min.) dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger; w/ Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984/color/ ??? min.) dir: Sergio Leone; w/ Robert DeNiro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern.
The World Cinema Foundation will present its new restoration of a classic Indian film:
Kalpana (1948/b&w/155 min.)
The Cineteca Bologna will present two restored Italian silent classics as part of an Italian Cinema retrospective.
Sections of the Festival
Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition of films dealing with any aspect of life in Mumbai and targeted to the Mumbai Youth below 25 years was introduced in 2008.
An International Competition for the First Feature Film of directors with the award money of Us $ 150,000 (Us $ 100,000 for the Best Film and Us $ 50,000 for the Jury Grand Prize) was introduced in 2009. The UK Film 'White Lightn'in won the 2011 Best Film Award and Austria-Italy co-production La Pivillina won the Jury Grand Prize.
The Audience Choice Award carrying U.S. $ 20,000 for any film participating in the Festival, (excepting the Retrospectives and Tribute sections) was introduced in 09 as well. The Indian Film 'Road to Sangam' won this award.
International Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos.
A new initiative Mumbai Young Critics was introduced in '09 as well. 24 college students selected from more than 80 aspirants recommended by the colleges in Mumbai went through a workshop conducted by the German writer and film critic Daniel Kothenschulte for three days before the Festival. This group watched the films in the festival, wrote about them in Festival publications and newspapers and also selected a film for the Mumbai Young Critics Award.
Last year the festival showcased over 200 films from 60 countries across various sections at its three venues- Cinemax Versova, Cinemax Sion and Metro Big Cinemas.
The festival hosts a special section ‘4me Rendez-Vous’, in collaboration with Unifrance, Embassy of France in India and Consulate General of France in Mumbai. The section screens the best of New French Cinema, which last year included ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, ‘The Conquest’ and ‘Declaration of War’ amongst others.
Last year's highlight was the special presentation by Lee Yong Kwan, Director, Busan International Film Festival, who presented a selection of the latest Asian Films from Busan.
Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on the legendary actor Morgan Freeman. Olivia Harrison widow of George Harrison presented the documentary film “George Harrison: Living in the material World”.
The Festival strengthened and consolidated its academic activities with an Indo-German Script Development Workshop scheduled from 11th to the 13th of October just ahead of the festival opening. Speakers at the workshop included the renowned directors Dani Levy, Thorsten Schulz, Screenwriters Anjum Rajabali and Sooni Taraporevala amongst others.
This year's Festival continues to facilitate cinema business with the Mumbai Film Mart, created 'by' the industry, 'for' the industry, 'in' the industry hub - Mumbai, the Film Capital of India. The Mumbai Film Mart saw participation from the biggest Entertainment Industry players, both from India and abroad. In the three days, over 2,000 meeting requests were received, 400 meetings were carried out face to face, while an equal number took place among the senior decision makers from leading film production houses, buyers, sellers, festival programmers and independent filmmakers as they milled around and networked with each other.
Among the many firsts, the Mart attracted all the forthcoming big ticket films such as ‘Ra One’, ‘Don 2’, ‘Rockstar’, ‘Ricky Behl v/s Ladies’, ‘The Dirty Picture’, ‘DesiBoyz’ , tabled for acquisition and distribution in the non-traditional markets for Indian Cinema in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Germany, France and Latin America. The focus on these countries attracted leading buyers that included Huayi Brothers Media Corp. (China), NikkatsuCorp.(Japan), Happinet Corp.(Japan), Showbox (Korea), Apex Entertainment (Korea), Cj Entertainment (Korea), Top Films (Ukraine), Novo films (France), Rapid Eye (Germany), Im Global (USA), amongst many others.
The International Jury will be responsible choosing the winners out of 14 films, all first features of debut filmmakers around the world, awarding them with a huge cash prize. This way we would like to recognize and encourage the first time filmmakers, going in line with the festival theme of discovery.
Apart from the main international section, there are many other sections including the world cinema, Indian Frame, New Faces in Indian Cinema, Documentaries etc. Please do check out their website www.mumbaifilmfest.com for more information. Last year, it screened about 220 films from 60 countries.
Composition of Mami:
Shyam Benegal, Eminent Filmmaker – Chairman
Amit Khanna, producer, lyricist and Chairman of Reliance Entertainment
Amol Palekar, acclaimed actor-director
Ashutosh Gowarikar (Oscar Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film for Lagaan)
Farhan Akhtar, one of the youngest directors and actor
Jaya Bachchan, acclaimed and award winning actress
Karan Johar, director-producer of some of the most successful films at the box office
Ramesh Sippy, well known filmmaker of Sholay fame
Shabana Azmi, renowned actress who has won acclaim and awards Internationally
Yash Chopra, producer-director, doyen of the Hindi film industry.
Narayan is the Director and head programmer, Anu is second in command.
And there is a selection committee that screens all the competition films – industry people and critics in Mumbai.
About Reliance Big Entertainment
Reliance Big Entertainment Ltd. (Rbel) is the flagship media and entertainment arm of India's Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, with a significant presence in film entertainment (film production, distribution, and exhibition), broadcasting and new media ventures.
Rbel's motion picture brand, Reliance Big Pictures ( www.reliancebigpictures.com ) has built a impressive film production slate in Hindi, English & other Indian languages, which it markets and distributes worldwide. Following Reliance Big Picturess association with Im Global, the company now benefits from an international sales team with an excellent reputation and global presence dedicated to selling its Bollywood and regional language slate. Going into production in November is the $45 million ðDreddð, which Reliance Big Entertainment is co-financing with Im Global.
In Hollywood, Reliance Big Pictures has partnered with Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider on the formation of DreamWorks Studios and hasdevelopment deals with Nicolas Cage's Saturn Films, Jim Carrey's Jc 23 Entertainment, George Clooney's Smokehouse Productions, Chris Columbus'1492 Pictures, Tom Hanksð Playtone Productions, Brad Pitt's Plan B Entertainment, Jay Roach's Everyman Pictures, Brett Ratnerðs Rat Entertainment,Julia Robertsð Red Om Films and Brian Grazer and Ron Howardðs Imagine Entertainment.
Also worth noting: the competition section of the festival is for first features and carries a Grand prize of Us$100,000 and a Jury prize of Us$50,000.00, with a percentage of the money of allocated to the sales agent who submitted the film. With 14 features, the odds are better than most lotteries… This was last year's lineup http://www.mumbaifilmfest.com/Mami/films_list.php The Salesman, one of the films their U.S. Representative Programmer, Ian Bernie (former longtime Lacma programmer) selected, won the Jury Award and Best Actor.
- 8/31/2012
- Sydney's Buzz
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled its list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films in celebration of Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to the silent era, The Artist, which won three Golden Globes® Sunday night, including Best Picture . Musical or Comedy, Best Actor . Musical or Comedy for Jean Dujardin and Best Original Score. The Artist also picked up 12 British Academy Film Award nominations. The Weinstein Company will expand its release of The Artist nationwide on Friday.
TCM’s list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films spans from the years 1915 to 1928 and features such remarkable films as D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking (and controversial) The Birth of a Nation (1915), which revolutionized filmmaking techniques; Nanook of the North (1922), a film frequently cited as the first feature-length documentary; Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923); Sergei Eisenstein’s oft-imitated Battleship Potemkin (1925), which took montage techniques to an entirely new level; and Fritz Lang’s...
TCM’s list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films spans from the years 1915 to 1928 and features such remarkable films as D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking (and controversial) The Birth of a Nation (1915), which revolutionized filmmaking techniques; Nanook of the North (1922), a film frequently cited as the first feature-length documentary; Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923); Sergei Eisenstein’s oft-imitated Battleship Potemkin (1925), which took montage techniques to an entirely new level; and Fritz Lang’s...
- 1/18/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
We're picking out your finest responses to our My favourite film series, for which Guardian writers have selected the movies they go back to time and again.
Here's a roundup of how you responded in week four, when the selections were Withnail & I, Rushmore, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Backbeat and In Bruges
"You can't ruin a film by quoting it," said magicman of Withnail & I, the pic that opened the fourth week of our series on our writers' favourite films. But, by God, you can try. A full half of the 447 comments that joined Tim Jonze in raising a glass to Bruce Robinson's ragtag comedy reproduced Withnail's wisdom to the letter. Withnail and Marwood fled the city for an accidental holiday again. Uncle Monty made his intentions forcefully clear once more. Camberwell carrots were rolled, fights were weasled out of. Something's flesh remained. It all happened here,...
Here's a roundup of how you responded in week four, when the selections were Withnail & I, Rushmore, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, Backbeat and In Bruges
"You can't ruin a film by quoting it," said magicman of Withnail & I, the pic that opened the fourth week of our series on our writers' favourite films. But, by God, you can try. A full half of the 447 comments that joined Tim Jonze in raising a glass to Bruce Robinson's ragtag comedy reproduced Withnail's wisdom to the letter. Withnail and Marwood fled the city for an accidental holiday again. Uncle Monty made his intentions forcefully clear once more. Camberwell carrots were rolled, fights were weasled out of. Something's flesh remained. It all happened here,...
- 11/22/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Pamela Hutchinson tops up our writers' favourite film series with a passionate paean to Fw Murnau's monochrome melodrama
• This film review leave you speechless? Feel free to sound off in the comments below
The twist is supposed to arrive at the end of the movie, but Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans pulls the rug from under our feet just a third of the way in. We're suddenly offered a chance of happiness, as the film diverts down an unexpected path. It's a disconcerting but ultimately liberating jolt – as if Humphrey Bogart had stopped following Lauren Bacall around in The Big Sleep and taken that nice librarian out for dinner instead.
Sunrise begins, as so many great films do, with the promise of sex and the threat of violence. Two clandestine lovers meet in the moonlight and dream of committing the perfect murder. But is Man (George O'Brien) really prepared...
• This film review leave you speechless? Feel free to sound off in the comments below
The twist is supposed to arrive at the end of the movie, but Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans pulls the rug from under our feet just a third of the way in. We're suddenly offered a chance of happiness, as the film diverts down an unexpected path. It's a disconcerting but ultimately liberating jolt – as if Humphrey Bogart had stopped following Lauren Bacall around in The Big Sleep and taken that nice librarian out for dinner instead.
Sunrise begins, as so many great films do, with the promise of sex and the threat of violence. Two clandestine lovers meet in the moonlight and dream of committing the perfect murder. But is Man (George O'Brien) really prepared...
- 11/16/2011
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
George O'Brien, Margaret Livingston in F. W. Murnau's Sunrise Election and Sideways director Alexander Payne, whose The Descendants is scheduled to open later this year, will be a guest presenter at the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (Sfsff). According to the Sf Silent Film Festival's press release, Payne "grew up watching silent films that he sent away for from the Blackhawk Films collection." Payne has yet to announced which film he'll introduce. Guy Maddin, Terry Zwigoff, and Pete Docter showed up as guest presenters in previous editions of the festival. Payne's The Descendants stars George Clooney. The filmmaker is currently working on his [...]...
- 6/16/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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