Exclusive: Wellington Love has started the w/Love production company, and already has an inaugural slate of projects lined up.
After more than three decades working in various film business capacities — including distribution, festival direction, and publicity — Love made the leap into producing as co-producer of Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), for which Andra Day was an Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe Award winner.
His latest producing project is Daniel Peddle’s feature documentary Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later. Peddle’s follow-up to his groundbreaking documentary The Aggressives will debut on Paramount+ with the Paramount+ with Showtime Plan on Saturday, March 30th. Beyond the Aggressives revisits principals from the previous feature, uniting two generations of queer Bipoc in conversation and in action. Beyond the Aggressives is nominated for Outstanding Documentary Feature at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards. View exclusive clip below.
Love reflects,...
After more than three decades working in various film business capacities — including distribution, festival direction, and publicity — Love made the leap into producing as co-producer of Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), for which Andra Day was an Academy Award nominee and a Golden Globe Award winner.
His latest producing project is Daniel Peddle’s feature documentary Beyond the Aggressives: 25 Years Later. Peddle’s follow-up to his groundbreaking documentary The Aggressives will debut on Paramount+ with the Paramount+ with Showtime Plan on Saturday, March 30th. Beyond the Aggressives revisits principals from the previous feature, uniting two generations of queer Bipoc in conversation and in action. Beyond the Aggressives is nominated for Outstanding Documentary Feature at this year’s GLAAD Media Awards. View exclusive clip below.
Love reflects,...
- 3/26/2024
- by Valerie Complex
- Deadline Film + TV
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
The Animal Kingdom (Thomas Cailley)
In The Animal Kingdom, an Un Certain Regard-selected science-fiction romp from France, human-animal mutations are the new norm. Director Thomas Cailley begins things in media res with a familiar disaster-movie scene: François (Romain Duris) and Émile (Paul Kircher)––father and son, respectively––are stuck in traffic, making chit-chat, when something slowly begins capturing the attention of other drivers. An ambulance across the way begins to rumble. Then a man with a large winged arm bursts out, causing some damage before scurrying down a tunnel. Only mildly ruffled, François exchanges a jaded aphorism with another driver over: “Strange times.” – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
The ever-evolving nature of fame and infamy gets examined in Dream Scenario,...
The Animal Kingdom (Thomas Cailley)
In The Animal Kingdom, an Un Certain Regard-selected science-fiction romp from France, human-animal mutations are the new norm. Director Thomas Cailley begins things in media res with a familiar disaster-movie scene: François (Romain Duris) and Émile (Paul Kircher)––father and son, respectively––are stuck in traffic, making chit-chat, when something slowly begins capturing the attention of other drivers. An ambulance across the way begins to rumble. Then a man with a large winged arm bursts out, causing some damage before scurrying down a tunnel. Only mildly ruffled, François exchanges a jaded aphorism with another driver over: “Strange times.” – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
The ever-evolving nature of fame and infamy gets examined in Dream Scenario,...
- 3/15/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
When Robbie Robertson and The Band performed their final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in November 1976, it was clearly an ending for the group, as expressed in the title of the 1978 film Martin Scorsese made about the event, “The Last Waltz.” While that movie — by virtually any imaginable criteria, the greatest rock and roll film ever made — documented a farewell, it itself represented a new beginning: a collaboration between Scorsese and Robertson that would last nearly 50 years and yield an astonishing series of masterpieces including “Raging Bull,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and most recently “Killers of the Flower Moon,” for which Robertson — who died last August at the age of 80 — posthumously scored an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score.
Robertson’s work in “Killers” is the apotheosis of his partnership with Scorsese, a score that exhibits the passion, variety, and depth of expression familiar from Robertson...
Robertson’s work in “Killers” is the apotheosis of his partnership with Scorsese, a score that exhibits the passion, variety, and depth of expression familiar from Robertson...
- 2/13/2024
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Photo credit: ©BAFTA/Vivek Vadoliya, 2023
BAFTA Breakthrough is a wonderful Netflix-supported initiative that celebrates the very best of young talent. In its 10th year, the alumni boasts the likes of Florence Pugh, Tom Holland and Letitia Wright – and this year comes a whole host of exciting new names. One of which caught our eye especially, which is Vivian Oparah, who shone in Peckham-set rom-com Rye Lane, which enamoured viewers with its spring-time release. We discuss what it means to her to be named as a BAFTA Breakthrough artist, and naturally we look back to Rye Lane, to talk about shooting the film, and the lasting, indelible impact it has left. She also looks ahead to a future that we’re gonna consider pretty damn bright.
Watch the full interview with Vivian Oparah here:
See below for the full list of this year’s stars:
UK Breakthroughs (20):
Adjani Salmon,...
BAFTA Breakthrough is a wonderful Netflix-supported initiative that celebrates the very best of young talent. In its 10th year, the alumni boasts the likes of Florence Pugh, Tom Holland and Letitia Wright – and this year comes a whole host of exciting new names. One of which caught our eye especially, which is Vivian Oparah, who shone in Peckham-set rom-com Rye Lane, which enamoured viewers with its spring-time release. We discuss what it means to her to be named as a BAFTA Breakthrough artist, and naturally we look back to Rye Lane, to talk about shooting the film, and the lasting, indelible impact it has left. She also looks ahead to a future that we’re gonna consider pretty damn bright.
Watch the full interview with Vivian Oparah here:
See below for the full list of this year’s stars:
UK Breakthroughs (20):
Adjani Salmon,...
- 11/30/2023
- by Stefan Pape
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Cinema Eye Honors, a group the recognizes excellence in the artistry and craft of nonfiction filmmaking, announced the nominees for its 17th annual awards on Thursday, November 16th. The seven films nominated for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature are “20 Days in Mariupol,” “32 Sounds,” “The Eternal Memory,” “Four Daughters,” “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project,” “Kokomo City,” and “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.” Ceh will present the winners at the annual awards ceremony to be held on January 12, 2024.
Leading the pack with six overall nominations is “Kokomo City,” a debut film from director D. Smith about the lives of four black trans sex workers. Smith was nominated for Outstanding Debut and Outstanding Direction. The film’s other three nominations were for Cinematography and Sound Design, as well as among The Unforgettables selection.
See Key dates for Best Documentary Feature contenders
Also earning nominations for their debut film was Mstyslav Chernov...
Leading the pack with six overall nominations is “Kokomo City,” a debut film from director D. Smith about the lives of four black trans sex workers. Smith was nominated for Outstanding Debut and Outstanding Direction. The film’s other three nominations were for Cinematography and Sound Design, as well as among The Unforgettables selection.
See Key dates for Best Documentary Feature contenders
Also earning nominations for their debut film was Mstyslav Chernov...
- 11/17/2023
- by John Benutty
- Gold Derby
Isabel Herguera’s upcoming feature debut “Sultana’s Dream” will be divided into three parts, San Sebastián-born animation artist said at Annecy.
“Innocently enough, I thought it would make things much easier. It didn’t,” she deadpanned, comparing the process to walking a tightrope.
“You don’t know if you are going to fall or not.”
In the film, Inés, a Spanish artist living in India, stumbles upon “Sultana’s Dream” – a story by real-life feminist thinker Rokeya Hossain, written in 1905. It describes Ladyland, a place where women rule the country while men live in seclusion, responsible for household chores.
“Here, we do the logical thing. It’s men that pose a danger to women, not the other way around,” it was explained in the clip presented at the fest, to the applause of the audience.
Each part comes with its own visual style, said Herguera.
While Inés’ journey is rendered in 2D,...
“Innocently enough, I thought it would make things much easier. It didn’t,” she deadpanned, comparing the process to walking a tightrope.
“You don’t know if you are going to fall or not.”
In the film, Inés, a Spanish artist living in India, stumbles upon “Sultana’s Dream” – a story by real-life feminist thinker Rokeya Hossain, written in 1905. It describes Ladyland, a place where women rule the country while men live in seclusion, responsible for household chores.
“Here, we do the logical thing. It’s men that pose a danger to women, not the other way around,” it was explained in the clip presented at the fest, to the applause of the audience.
Each part comes with its own visual style, said Herguera.
While Inés’ journey is rendered in 2D,...
- 6/15/2023
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ and ‘Beau Is Afraid’ both opening.
Universal’s high-octane Fast X is the leading opener at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, starting in 653 cinemas – more than any previous title in the Fast And Furious franchise.
Directed by Louis Leterrier, Fast X sees Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto and his family targeted by the vengeful son of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes.
The previous widest opening for a Fast And Furious film was 2019’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw – a spin-off to the main franchise - which started in 618 sites with £6.4m, ending on £20.7m.
Universal’s high-octane Fast X is the leading opener at the UK-Ireland box office this weekend, starting in 653 cinemas – more than any previous title in the Fast And Furious franchise.
Directed by Louis Leterrier, Fast X sees Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto and his family targeted by the vengeful son of drug kingpin Hernan Reyes.
The previous widest opening for a Fast And Furious film was 2019’s Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw – a spin-off to the main franchise - which started in 618 sites with £6.4m, ending on £20.7m.
- 5/19/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
New to Streaming: Pacifiction, R.M.N., Millennium Mambo, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV & More
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Chez Jolie Coiffure (Rosine Mbakam)
A vérité vignette of a small, expat-owned hair salon in Brussels’ African Quarter. Award-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam’s sophomore feature explores displacement, resilience, and the small economies migrants build to temper ties to their homelands, through mid-braid gossip and humble confessions.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Giving Birth to a Butterfly (Theodore Schaefer)
We meet Diana Dent (Annie Parisse) readying matching wedding gowns soon revealed as not her own. She’s mending them to sell online—a necessity considering her bull-headed and controlling husband Daryl (Paul Sparks) is hell-bent on putting their life savings towards a dream of creating his own restaurant. That means no money for Drew (Owen Campbell) or Danielle’s (Rachel Resheff) college.
Chez Jolie Coiffure (Rosine Mbakam)
A vérité vignette of a small, expat-owned hair salon in Brussels’ African Quarter. Award-winning Cameroonian filmmaker Rosine Mbakam’s sophomore feature explores displacement, resilience, and the small economies migrants build to temper ties to their homelands, through mid-braid gossip and humble confessions.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Giving Birth to a Butterfly (Theodore Schaefer)
We meet Diana Dent (Annie Parisse) readying matching wedding gowns soon revealed as not her own. She’s mending them to sell online—a necessity considering her bull-headed and controlling husband Daryl (Paul Sparks) is hell-bent on putting their life savings towards a dream of creating his own restaurant. That means no money for Drew (Owen Campbell) or Danielle’s (Rachel Resheff) college.
- 5/19/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Documentary shows the awe-inspiring vocation of this avant garde disruptor, who foresaw the internet and meme culture’s importance in the 1970s
Nam June Paik was a Korean video art pioneer, experimentalist and avant garde disruptor whose amazing, anarchic career – which flourished in 1960s and 70s New York – is recounted in this amusing and engaging documentary, the title of which is taken from one of his works: a luminous disc on a screen, telling us we gaze at the TV in the submissive way we once stared at the moon.
Minari’s Steven Yeun provides the voiceover for the artist’s own words and, among other things, this film shows us how exhausting it must be to do what he did: to insist, for decades, that his art, an art which bore no resemblance to anything that had gone before, had validity and meaning, while always being on the verge of poverty and physical breakdown.
Nam June Paik was a Korean video art pioneer, experimentalist and avant garde disruptor whose amazing, anarchic career – which flourished in 1960s and 70s New York – is recounted in this amusing and engaging documentary, the title of which is taken from one of his works: a luminous disc on a screen, telling us we gaze at the TV in the submissive way we once stared at the moon.
Minari’s Steven Yeun provides the voiceover for the artist’s own words and, among other things, this film shows us how exhausting it must be to do what he did: to insist, for decades, that his art, an art which bore no resemblance to anything that had gone before, had validity and meaning, while always being on the verge of poverty and physical breakdown.
- 5/17/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
By Glenn Charlie Dunks
Let’s be honest. Artist bio-docs are a dime a dozen. Many artists have received the treatment, even though documentary is (almost as if entirely by the medium’s nature) a not particularly good artform of its own within which to interrogate the life of somebody like Nam June Paik. Despite video being so integral to his work, much of its impact inevitably comes from being able to see his work flicker in front of your face rather than on the TV screen. Screens within screens.
For that reason I suspect Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV would be really great to see theatrically. Where the kaleidoscopic colours and swirling digital artistry could be brought to life in as immersive a way as they probably possibly could beyond seeing them in the technological flesh.
Let’s be honest. Artist bio-docs are a dime a dozen. Many artists have received the treatment, even though documentary is (almost as if entirely by the medium’s nature) a not particularly good artform of its own within which to interrogate the life of somebody like Nam June Paik. Despite video being so integral to his work, much of its impact inevitably comes from being able to see his work flicker in front of your face rather than on the TV screen. Screens within screens.
For that reason I suspect Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV would be really great to see theatrically. Where the kaleidoscopic colours and swirling digital artistry could be brought to life in as immersive a way as they probably possibly could beyond seeing them in the technological flesh.
- 3/30/2023
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
One of the highlights of Sundance Film Festival this year was Amanda Kim’s documentary Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, which examined the life and work of the avant-garde Korean artist who helped to shape American art as it relates to technological advances. Executive produced by Steven Yeun, who reads the artist’s writings throughout the film, it’ll now arrive in the theaters next week and the first trailer has landed.
John Fink said in his Sundance review, “‘I use technology in order to hate it properly,’ pioneering video artist and self-identified cultural terrorist Nam June Paik says while explaining his playful, boundary-breaking work. A Ph.D. holder who speaks 20 languages––almost all quite badly––Paik is known as the father of video art, fantasizing early on about converting the medium of television into something other than passive work. It often broke the rules, incorporating onstage nudity,...
John Fink said in his Sundance review, “‘I use technology in order to hate it properly,’ pioneering video artist and self-identified cultural terrorist Nam June Paik says while explaining his playful, boundary-breaking work. A Ph.D. holder who speaks 20 languages––almost all quite badly––Paik is known as the father of video art, fantasizing early on about converting the medium of television into something other than passive work. It often broke the rules, incorporating onstage nudity,...
- 3/17/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In the age of social media-centered video content creation, who was the first to do it? Many millennial or Gen Z-ers may say it all started when Jawed Karim uploaded “Me at the zoo” on Youtube in 2005, but the father of video art is actually Korean artist Nam June Paik, who predicted a future in which “everybody will have his own TV channel.”
Read More: ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Review [Sundance]
Paik was born in Seoul, Korea, but found himself in Germany as an adult to pursue his interest in avant-garde music, composition, and performance.
Continue reading ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Exclusive Trailer: Amanda Kim’s Directorial Debut Focuses On The Father of Video Art at The Playlist.
Read More: ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Review [Sundance]
Paik was born in Seoul, Korea, but found himself in Germany as an adult to pursue his interest in avant-garde music, composition, and performance.
Continue reading ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Exclusive Trailer: Amanda Kim’s Directorial Debut Focuses On The Father of Video Art at The Playlist.
- 3/15/2023
- by Jamie Rogers
- The Playlist
Hello Dankness.First the chaos of Trump’s little era, then the grief of the pandemic, and now cinema is becoming indistinguishable from the internet. The newest work from Australian duo Soda Jerk devises an ultra-endurance meme sequence for these times. Hello Dankness, which screened at this year’s Berlinale Panorama, explores the madness of US politics in the age of social media—or, rather, the reeling feeling of it, revisiting the major news stories bridging the Trump and Biden administrations through over 550 pirated audio and visual clippings.Currently based in New York, Soda Jerk consists of siblings Dominique and Dan Angeloro; they are major artists in their home country, with serious institutional support and a burgeoning international reputation for experimental image-making from the frontlines of dystopia. The early incandescence of gallery works like After the Rainbow (2009)—a deeply affective reflection on stardom, loss of self and Judy Garland’s...
- 3/8/2023
- MUBI
“I use technology in order to hate it properly,” pioneering video artist and self-identified cultural terrorist Nam June Paik says while explaining his playful, boundary-breaking work. A Ph.D. holder who speaks 20 languages––almost all quite badly––Paik is known as the father of video art, fantasizing early on about converting the medium of television into something other than passive work. It often broke the rules, incorporating onstage nudity, politics (including the satirization of John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination), and the embrace of the future. For Paik, a student who lived history––he escaped Seoul at the beginning of the Korean War to study music in West Germany in the late 1950s––it’s the artist’s role to think about the future.
Lovingly constructed by Amanda Kim, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV is a seminal biography of an artist often dangling on the edge...
Lovingly constructed by Amanda Kim, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV is a seminal biography of an artist often dangling on the edge...
- 2/8/2023
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
Seminal video artist Nam June Paik and his extensive roster of iconic collaborators are the subject of Amanda Kim’s documentary Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV. Utilizing archival footage and interviews with Paik’s contemporaries, the film also features Steven Yeun reading excerpts from Paik’s journals and artistic statements to bring the revolutionary creative to life anew. Cinematographer Nelson Walker discusses how he approached lensing the project, which began remotely due to Covid protocols. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What […]
The post “I Was Basically Operating as a One Man Band”: Dp Nelson Walker on Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Was Basically Operating as a One Man Band”: Dp Nelson Walker on Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/6/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Seminal video artist Nam June Paik and his extensive roster of iconic collaborators are the subject of Amanda Kim’s documentary Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV. Utilizing archival footage and interviews with Paik’s contemporaries, the film also features Steven Yeun reading excerpts from Paik’s journals and artistic statements to bring the revolutionary creative to life anew. Cinematographer Nelson Walker discusses how he approached lensing the project, which began remotely due to Covid protocols. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What […]
The post “I Was Basically Operating as a One Man Band”: Dp Nelson Walker on Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “I Was Basically Operating as a One Man Band”: Dp Nelson Walker on Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/6/2023
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
I remember the first time I became conscious of Nam June Paik’s existence. I was still a high school student, starting to figure out my interest in art history. My teacher had assigned us to particular sculptures in the Samsung Leeum Museum to write about. Then there I was, at the tender age of sixteen, face-to-face with “My Faust-Communication, 1989-1991” – a Gothic portal enshrining a gridded stack of videos. Little did I know that this encounter would mark the first of many to come.
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance’s US Documentary Competition. Its distribution is now handled by Dogwoof and Greenwich Entertainment, and the film will begin its US theatrical release on 24 March 2023.
It seemed like I found him in every art-related corner of my world. I ran into him in other exhibitions at...
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance’s US Documentary Competition. Its distribution is now handled by Dogwoof and Greenwich Entertainment, and the film will begin its US theatrical release on 24 March 2023.
It seemed like I found him in every art-related corner of my world. I ran into him in other exhibitions at...
- 2/2/2023
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Every so often, you’ll see a portrait-of-the-artist documentary that’s so beautifully made, about a figure of such unique fascination, whose art is so perfectly showcased by the documentary format, that when it’s over you can’t believe the film hadn’t existed until now. It feels, in its way, essential. “Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is like that. Directed by Amanda Kim, it’s a tantalizing portrait of Nam June Paik, the revolutionary Korean-born video artist who, in the late ’60s and ’70s, did nothing less than invent an art form.
When he was first becoming famous, about 50 years ago, you’d go to see a Nam June Paik installation at someplace like the Museum of Modern Art, and it would seem quirky and exotic — a tower of stacked TV screens, all flashing what looked like the squiggly visual equivalent of feedback. It was weird and kind of gripping,...
When he was first becoming famous, about 50 years ago, you’d go to see a Nam June Paik installation at someplace like the Museum of Modern Art, and it would seem quirky and exotic — a tower of stacked TV screens, all flashing what looked like the squiggly visual equivalent of feedback. It was weird and kind of gripping,...
- 1/26/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The avant-garde video artist Nam June Paik gets his own adulatory portrait in Amanda Kim’s documentary “Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV.” An act of biographical recovery that also, somehow, flattens a controversial artist, Kim’s film provides just enough contextual information to maintain interest, even if it’s never as radical as its titular subject.
Read More: 25 Most Anticipated Films At The Sundance Film Festival
Moving succinctly from birth to death, Kim provides a broad overview of Paik’s history and aesthetic interests.
Continue reading ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Review: The Founder Of Video Art Gets A Documentary That is Never As Radical As Its Subject [Sundance] at The Playlist.
Read More: 25 Most Anticipated Films At The Sundance Film Festival
Moving succinctly from birth to death, Kim provides a broad overview of Paik’s history and aesthetic interests.
Continue reading ‘Nam June Paik: Moon Is The Oldest TV’ Review: The Founder Of Video Art Gets A Documentary That is Never As Radical As Its Subject [Sundance] at The Playlist.
- 1/26/2023
- by Christian Gallichio
- The Playlist
2023 Sundance Film Festival Announces Lineup of 99 Feature Films Top L–R: Bravo, Burkina!, Girl, Polite Society, Mami Wata. Center L–R: Going Varsity in Mariachi, The Accidental Getaway Driver, Deep Rising, Cassandro. Bottom L–R: The Pod Generation, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV, The Eternal Memory. Find Out Why All Eyes Are On Independents In-Person Ticket Packages Now On Sale; Online Ticket Package Sales Begin December 13 Park City, Utah, December 7, 2022 — Today the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the comprehensive slate of independent films selected across the feature film categories for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The 2023 Festival will take place January 19–29, 2023, in person in Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Sundance Resort, along with a selection of films available online across the country January 24–29, 2023. Festivalgoers will once again return to theaters to discover this upcoming year’s most impactful independent stories. In-Person Ticket Packages are currently on sale through December 16, Online Ticket Packages go on sale December 13 at 10 a.m. Mt, and single film tickets go on sale January 12 at 10 a.m. Mt. Setting the scene, Day One Features will open the Festival in Park City: 11 features, plus a Shorts program, will illustrate the scope of Festival work across genre and form. Day One Features are birth/rebirth, L’Immensità, It’s Only Life After All, Kim’s Video, Little Richard: I Am Everything, The Longest Goodbye, The Pod Generation, Radical, Shayda, Sometimes I Think About Dying, and Run Rabbit Run. In addition, on January 19, the Institute will host the inaugural Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance presented by IMDbPro. The celebration will kick off the Festival welcoming everyone back together again while raising funds for the Institute’s critical year-round artist support. The evening will honor Ryan Coogler, Nikyatu Jusu, W. Kamau Bell, and more whose journeys have been connected to Sundance throughout the years. In addition, in-person attendees will get to experience a robust offering of talks and events during the Festival, with more details to be announced. Films will become available online during the second half of the Festival — beginning January 24 — and will include all Competition titles (U.S. Dramatic, U.S. Documentary, World Cinema Dramatic, World Cinema Documentary, and Next), as well as exciting work across other sections of the feature film program, Indie Episodic Program, and Shorts Program. Audiences can enjoy the selection of films exclusively on the Sundance Film Festival online platform — those that will be available online are noted below. The online offering reinforces the Institute’s commitment to accessibility by allowing audiences coast to coast to take part in the discovery of captivating stories. The Shorts and Indie Episodic lineups for the 2023 Sundance Film Festival will be announced on December 13. “Maintaining an essential place for artists to express themselves, take risks, and for visionary stories to endure and entertain is distinctly Sundance,” said Robert Redford, Sundance Institute Founder and President. “The Festival continues to foster these values and connections through independent storytelling. We are honored to share the compelling selection of work at this year’s Festival from distinct perspectives and unique voices.” “As a program of the Sundance Institute, the Festival provides a place for artists globally to connect with audiences around a shared and inclusive experience of discovery,” said Joana Vicente, Sundance Institute CEO. “These filmmakers reflect the world around us through bold and thrilling storytelling. It is critical for the arts to foster dialogue, especially during unprecedented times — these stories are needed to provoke discussion, share diverse viewpoints, and challenge us. We are delighted to welcome this group of passionate artists to the Festival and look forward to celebrating the films together with audiences.” “The program for this year’s Festival reiterates the relevancy of trailblazing work serving as an irreplaceable source for original stories that resonate and fuel creativity and dialogue,” said Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “In so many ways this year’s slate reflects the voices of communities around the world who are speaking out with urgency and finally being heard. Across our program, impactful storytelling by fearless artists continues to provide space for the community to come together to be entertained, challenged, and inspired.” The 2023 Sundance Film Festival’s Salt Lake City Opening Night Gala Film is Blueback, premiering at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center on January 20. The upcoming Festival will expand its presence in Salt Lake City, providing more places to take part in the thrilling experience, including at The Megaplex Theatres at The Gateway. Also announced today, The Pod Generation, screening in the Premieres section, has been named the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, an annual award given to an artist with the most outstanding depiction of science and technology in a feature film. The slate announced to date includes Slam and The Doom Generation, which are featured in the From the Collection section bringing archival screenings back into focus as part of the Festival. The Sundance Film Festival is an artist program of the Sundance Institute. Proceeds earned through Festival ticket sales go to uplifting and developing emerging artists on a year-round basis through focused labs, direct grants, fellowships, residencies, and more. The full slate of works announced today, along with the From the Collection films previously announced, includes 101 feature-length films representing 23 countries. The 2023 program is made up of 32 of 115 (28%) feature film directors who are first-time feature filmmakers, and 17 of the feature films and projects announced today were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs. World premieres make up 93, or 94%, of the Festival’s 99 feature films announced today. These films were selected from 15,855 submissions, including 4,061 feature-length films. Of the 4,061 feature film submissions, 1,662 were from the U.S., and 2,399 were international. Director demographics are available in an editor’s note below. U.S. Dramatic Competition Presenting 12 world premieres of fiction feature films, the Dramatic Competition offers audiences a first look at groundbreaking new voices in American independent film. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Nanny, Coda, Passing, Minari, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, The Farewell, Clemency, Eighth Grade, and Sorry to Bother You. The Accidental Getaway Driver / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Sing J. Lee, Screenwriter: Christopher Chen, Producers: Kimberly Steward, Basil Iwanyk, Andy Sorgie, Brendon Boyea, Joseph Hiếu) — During a routine pickup, an elderly Vietnamese cab driver is taken hostage at gunpoint by three recently escaped Orange County convicts. Based on a true story. Cast: Hiệp Trần Nghĩa, Dustin Nguyen, Dali Benssalah, Phi Vũ, Gabrielle Chan. World Premiere. Available online. All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Raven Jackson, Producers: Maria Altamirano, Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak) – A decades-spanning exploration of a woman’s life in Mississippi and an ode to the generations of people, places, and ineffable moments that shape us. Cast: Charleen McClure, Moses Ingram, Kaylee Nicole Johnson, Reginald Helms Jr., Sheila Atim, Chris Chalk. World Premiere. Available online. Fair Play / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Chloe Domont, Producers: Leopold Hughes, Ben LeClair, Tim White, Trevor White, Allan Mandelbaum) — An unexpected promotion at a cutthroat hedge fund pushes a young couple’s relationship to the brink, threatening to unravel far more than their recent engagement. Cast: Phoebe Dynevor, Alden Ehrenreich, Eddie Marsan. World Premiere. Available online. Fancy Dance / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Erica Tremblay, Screenwriter: Miciana Alise, Producers: Deidre Backs, Heather Rae, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Tommy Oliver) — Following her sister’s disappearance, a Native American hustler kidnaps her niece from the child’s white grandparents and sets out for the state powwow in hopes of keeping what is left of their family intact. Cast: Lily Gladstone, Isabel Deroy-Olson, Ryan Begay, Shea Whigham, Audrey Wasilewski. World Premiere. Available online. Magazine Dreams / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Elijah Bynum, Producers: Jennifer Fox, Dan Gilroy, Jeffrey Soros, Simon Horsman) — An amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection as his relentless drive for recognition pushes him to the brink. Cast: Jonathan Majors, Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page, Harriet Sansom Harris. World Premiere. Available online. Mutt / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, Producers: Alexander Stegmaier, Stephen Scott Scarpulla, Jennifer Kuczaj, Joel Michaely) — Over the course of a single hectic day in New York City, three people from Feña’s past are thrust back into his life. Having lost touch since transitioning from female to male, he navigates the new dynamics of old relationships while tackling the day-to-day challenges of living life in between. Cast: Lío Mehiel, Cole Doman, MiMi Ryder, Alejandro Goic. World Premiere. Available online. The Persian Version / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Maryam Keshavarz, Producers: Anne Carey, Ben Howe, Luca Borghese, Peter Block, Corey Nelson) — When a large Iranian-American family gathers for the patriarch’s heart transplant, a family secret is uncovered that catapults the estranged mother and daughter into an exploration of the past. Toggling between the United States and Iran over decades, mother and daughter discover they are more alike than they know. Cast: Layla Mohammadi, Niousha Noor, Kamand Shafieisabet, Bella Warda, Bijan Daneshmand, Shervin Alenabi. World Premiere. Available online. Shortcomings / U.S.A. (Director: Randall Park, Screenwriter: Adrian Tomine, Producers: Margot Hand, Randall Park, Hieu Ho, Jennifer Berman, Howard Cohen, Eric d’Arbeloff) — Following Ben, Miko, and Alice as they navigate a range of interpersonal relationships and traverse the country in search of the ideal connection. Cast: Justin H. Min, Sherry Cola, Ally Maki, Debby Ryan, Tavi Gevinson, Sonoya Mizuno. World Premiere. Available online. Sometimes I Think About Dying / U.S.A. (Director: Rachel Lambert, Screenwriters: Kevin Armento, Stefanie Abel Horowitz, Katy Wright-Mead, Producers: Alex Saks, Daisy Ridley, Dori Rath, Lauren Beveridge, Brett Beveridge) — Fran likes to think about dying. It brings sensation to her quiet life. When she makes the new guy at work laugh, it leads to more: a date, a slice of pie, a conversation, a spark. The only thing standing in their way is Fran herself. Cast: Daisy Ridley, Dave Merheje, Parvesh Cheena, Marcia DeBonis, Meg Stalter, Brittany O’Grady. World Premiere. Available online. Day One The Starling Girl / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Laurel Akira Parmet, Producers: Kevin Rowe, Kara Durrett) — Seventeen-year-old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community, but everything changes when her magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church. Cast: Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Jimmi Simpson, Wrenn Schmidt, Austin Abrams, Jessamine Burgum. World Premiere. Available online. Theater Camp / U.S.A. (Directors and Screenwriters: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Screenwriters: Noah Galvin, Ben Platt, Producers: Erik Feig, Samie Kim Falvey, Julia Hammer, Ryan Heller, Will Ferrell, Jessica Elbaum) — When the beloved founder of a run-down theater camp in upstate New York falls into a coma, the eccentric staff must band together with the founder’s crypto-bro son to keep the camp afloat. Cast: Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Noah Galvin, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Ayo Edebiri. World Premiere. Available online. A Thousand and One / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: A.V. Rockwell, Producers: Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Lena Waithe, Rishi Rajani, Brad Weston) — Convinced it’s one last, necessary crime on the path to redemption, unapologetic and free-spirited Inez kidnaps 6-year-old Terry from the foster care system. Holding on to their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability in New York City. Cast: Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, Aaron Kingsley Adetola. World Premiere. Available online. U.S. Documentary Competition World-premiere American documentaries that illuminate the ideas, people, and events that shape the present day. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Fire of Love, Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Boys State, Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution, Apollo 11, Knock Down the House, One Child Nation, American Factory, Three Identical Strangers, and On Her Shoulders. Aum: The Cult at the End of the World / U.S.A. (Directors and Producers: Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto, Producers: Dan Braun, Josh Braun, Rick Brookwell) — On the morning of March 20, 1995, a deadly nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway sent the nation and its people into chaos. This exploration of Aum Shinrikyo, the cult responsible for the attack, involves the participation of those who lived through the horror as it unfolded. World Premiere. Available online. Bad Press / U.S.A (Directors: Rebecca Landsberry-Baker, Joe Peeler, Producers: Conrad Beilharz, Garrett F. Baker, Tyler Graim) — When the Muscogee Nation suddenly begins censoring its free press, a rogue reporter fights to expose her government’s corruption in a historic battle that will have ramifications for all of Indian country. World Premiere. Available online. The Disappearance of Shere Hite / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Nicole Newnham, Producers: Molly O’Brien, R.J. Cutler, Elise Pearlstein, Kimberley Ferdinando, Trevor Smith) — Shere Hite’s 1976 bestselling book, The Hite Report, liberated the female orgasm by revealing the most private experiences of thousands of anonymous survey respondents. Her findings rocked the American establishment and presaged current conversations about gender, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. So how did Shere Hite disappear? World Premiere. Available online. Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project / U.S.A. (Directors and Producers: Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson, Producer: Tommy Oliver) — Intimate vérité, archival footage, and visually innovative treatments of poetry take us on a journey through the dreamscape of legendary poet Nikki Giovanni as she reflects on her life and legacy. World Premiere. Available online. Going Varsity in Mariachi / U.S.A. (Directors: Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn, Producers: James Lawler, Luis A. Miranda, Jr., Julia Pontecorvo) — In the competitive world of high school mariachi, the musicians from the South Texas borderlands reign supreme. Under the guidance of coach Abel Acuña, the teenage captains of Edinburg North High School’s acclaimed team must turn a shoestring budget and diverse crew of inexperienced musicians into state champions. World Premiere. Available online. Joonam / U.S.A. (Director: Sierra Urich, Producer: Keith Wilson) — Spurred by a provocative family memory and a lifetime of separation from the country her mother left behind, a young filmmaker delves into her mother and grandmother’s complicated pasts and her own fractured Iranian identity. World Premiere. Available online. Little Richard: I Am Everything / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Lisa Cortés, Producers: Robert Friedman, Liz Yale Marsh, Caryn Capotosto) — This celebration of Little Richard reveals the Black queer origins of rock ’n’ roll, finally exploding the whitewashed canon of American pop music. Through archival and performance footage, the revolutionary icon’s life unspools with all of its switchbacks and contradictions. World Premiere. Available online. Day One Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Amanda Kim, Producers: Amy Hobby, David Koh, Mariko Munro, Jennifer Stockman, Jesse Wann) — The quixotic journey of Nam June Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, who revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and prophesied both the fascist tendencies and intercultural understanding that would arise from the interconnected metaverse of today’s world. World Premiere. Available online. A Still Small Voice / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Luke Lorentzen, Producer: Kellen Quinn) — An aspiring hospital chaplain begins a yearlong residency in spiritual care, only to discover that to successfully tend to her patients, she must look deep within herself. World Premiere. Available online. The Stroll / U.S.A. (Directors: Kristen Lovell, Zackary Drucker, Producer: Matt Wolf) — The history of New York’s Meatpacking District, told from the perspective of transgender sex workers who lived and worked there. Filmmaker Kristen Lovell, who walked “The Stroll” for a decade, reunites her community to recount the violence, policing, homelessness, and gentrification they overcame to build a movement for transgender rights. World Premiere. Available online. Victim/Suspect / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Nancy Schwartzman, Producers: Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Alice Henty, Rachel de Leon, Amanda Pike) — Investigative journalist Rae de Leon travels nationwide to uncover and examine a shocking pattern: Young women tell the police they’ve been sexually assaulted, but instead of finding justice, they’re charged with the crime of making a false report, arrested, and even imprisoned by the system they believed would protect them. World Premiere. Available online. World Cinema Dramatic Competition Fiction projects from emerging artists around the world offer fresh perspectives and inventive styles. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Brian and Charles, Hive, Luzzu, The Souvenir, The Guilty, Monos, Yardie, The Nile Hilton Incident, and Second Mother. Animalia / France, Morocco, Qatar (Director and Screenwriter: Sofia Alaoui, Producers: Margaux Lorier, Toufik Ayadi, Christophe Barral) — A young, pregnant woman finds emancipation as aliens land in Morocco. Cast: Oumaïma Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou. World Premiere. Available online. Bad Behaviour / New Zealand (Director and Screenwriter: Alice Englert, Producers: Molly Hallam, Desray Armstrong) — Lucy, a former child actor, seeks enlightenment at a retreat led by spiritual leader Elon while she navigates her close yet turbulent relationship with her stunt-performer daughter, Dylan. Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Whishaw, Alice Englert, Ana Scotney, Dasha Nekrasova, Marlon Williams. World Premiere. Available online. Girl / U.K. (Director and Screenwriter: Adura Onashile, Producers: Rosie Crerar, Ciara Barry) — Eleven-year-old Ama and her mother, Grace, take solace in the gentle but isolated world they obsessively create. Ama’s growing up threatens the boundaries of their tenderness and forces Grace to reckon with a past she struggles to forget. Cast: Déborah Lukumuena, Danny Sapani, Le’Shantey Bonsu, Liana Turner. World Premiere. Available online. Heroic / Mexico, Sweden (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: David Zonana, Producers: Michel Franco, Eréndira Núñez Larios) — Luis, an 18-year-old boy with Indigenous roots, enters the Heroic Military College in hopes of ensuring a better future. There, he encounters a rigid and institutionally violent system designed to turn him into a perfect soldier. Cast: Santiago Sandoval Carbajal, Fernando Cuautle, Mónica del Carmen, Esteban Caicedo, Carlos Gerardo García, Isabel Yudice. World Premiere. Available online. Mamacruz / Spain (Director and Screenwriter: Patricia Ortega, Screenwriter: José Ortuño, Producer: Olmo Figueredo) — With the help of her newly emigrated daughter, a religious grandmother learns how to use the internet. However, an accidental encounter with pornography poses a dilemma for her. Cast: Kiti Mánver. World Premiere. Available online. Mami Wata / Nigeria (Director and Screenwriter: C.J. “Fiery” Obasi, Producer: Oge Obasi) — When the harmony in a village is threatened by outside elements, two sisters must fight to save their people and restore the glory of a mermaid goddess to the land. Cast: Evelyne Ily, Uzoamaka Aniunoh, Kelechi Udegbe, Emeka Amakeze, Rita Edochie, Tough Bone. World Premiere. Available online. La Pecera / Puerto Rico, Spain (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Glorimar Marrero Sánchez, Producers: Amaya Izquierdo, José Esteban Alenda) — As her cancer spreads, Noelia’s ultimate decision is to return to her native Vieques, Puerto Rico, and claim her freedom to decide her own fate. She reunites with her friends and family, who are still dealing with the contamination of the U.S. Navy after sixty years of military practices. Cast: Isel Rodríguez, Modesto Lacén, Magali Carrasquillo, Maximiliano Rivas, Anamín Santiago, Idenisse Salamán. World Premiere. Available online. Scrapper / U.K. (Director and Screenwriter: Charlotte Regan, Producer: Theo Barrowclough) — Georgie is a dreamy 12-year-old girl who lives happily alone in her London flat, filling it with magic. Out of nowhere, her estranged father turns up and forces her to confront reality. Cast: Harris Dickinson, Lola Campbell, Alin Uzun, Ambreen Razia, Olivia Brady, Aylin Tezel. World Premiere. Available online. Shayda / Australia (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Noora Niasari, Producer: Vincent Sheehan) — Shayda, a brave Iranian mother, finds refuge in an Australian women’s shelter with her 6-year-old daughter. Over Persian New Year, they take solace in Nowruz rituals and new beginnings, but when her estranged husband re-enters their lives, Shayda’s path to freedom is jeopardized. Cast: Zar Amir Ebrahimi, Osamah Sami, Leah Purcell, Jillian Nguyen, Mojean Aria, Selina Zahednia. World Premiere. Available online. Day One Slow / Lithuania, Spain, Sweden (Director and Screenwriter: Marija Kavtaradze, Producer: Marija Razgute) — Dancer Elena and sign language interpreter Dovydas meet and form a beautiful bond. As they dive into a new relationship, they must navigate how to build their own kind of intimacy. Cast: Greta Grinevičiūtė, Kęstutis Cicėnas. World Premiere. Available online. Sorcery / Chile, Mexico, Germany (Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Murray, Screenwriter: Pablo Paredes, Producers: Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Rocío Jadue, Nicolás Celis) — On the remote island of Chiloé in the late 19th century, an Indigenous girl named Rosa lives and works with her father on a farm. When the foreman brutally turns on Rosa’s father, she sets out for justice, seeking help from the king of a powerful organization of sorcerers. Cast: Valentina Véliz, Daniel Antivilo, Sebastian Hulk, Daniel Muñoz. World Premiere. Available online. When It Melts / Belgium (Director and Screenwriter: Veerle Baetens, Screenwriter: Maarten Loix, Producers: Bart Van Langendonck, Ellen Havenith, Jacques-Henri Bronckart) — Many years after a sweltering summer that spun out of control, Eva returns to the village she grew up in with an ice block in the back of her car. In the dead of winter, she confronts her past and faces up to her tormentors. Cast: Charlotte De Bruyne, Rosa Marchant. World Premiere. Available online. World Cinema Documentary Competition Documentaries by some of the boldest global filmmakers capturing the world today. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include All That Breathes, Flee, Honeyland, Sea of Shadows, Shirkers, This Is Home, Last Men in Aleppo, and Hooligan Sparrow. 5 Seasons of Revolution / Germany, Syria, Netherlands, Norway (Director: Lina, Producer: Diana El Jeiroudi) — An aspiring video journalist in her 20s finds herself already facing self-reckoning. Born in Damascus, Syria, Lina starts to report on the events around her until she is compelled to become a war reporter and, later, the unexpected narrator of her own destiny. World Premiere. Available online. 20 Days in Mariupol / Ukraine (Director and Producer: Mstyslav Chernov, Producers: Michelle Mizner, Raney Aronson-Rath, Derl McCrudden) — As the Russian invasion begins, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol struggle to continue their work documenting the war’s atrocities. World Premiere. Available online. Against the Tide / India (Director and Producer: Sarvnik Kaur, Producer: Koval Bhatia) — Two friends, both Indigenous fishermen, are driven to desperation by a dying sea. Their friendship begins to fracture as they take very different paths to provide for their struggling families. World Premiere. Available online. The Eternal Memory / Chile (Director and Producer: Maite Alberdi, Producers: Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Rocío Jadue) — Augusto and Paulina have been together for 25 years. Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Both fear the day he no longer recognizes her. World Premiere. Available online. Fantastic Machine / Sweden, Denmark (Directors and Producers: Axel Danielson, Maximilien Van Aertryck) — From the first camera to 45 billion cameras worldwide today, the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity’s unique obsession with the camera’s image and the social consequences that lay ahead. World Premiere. Available online. Iron Butterflies / Ukraine, Germany (Director: Roman Liubyi, Producers: Andrii Kotliar, Volodymyr Tykhyy, David Armati Lechner, Isabelle Bertolone, Trini Götze) — In summer 2014, sunflower fields and coal mines in eastern Ukraine turned into a 12 square kilometer crime scene. A multi-layered investigation into the downing of flight MH17, in which a butterfly-shaped shrapnel was found in the pilot’s body, implicated the state responsible for a war crime that remains unpunished. World Premiere. Available online. Is There Anybody Out There? / U.K. (Director: Ella Glendining, Producer: Janine Marmot) — While navigating daily discrimination, a filmmaker who inhabits and loves her unusual body searches the world for another person like her, and explores what it takes to love oneself fiercely despite the pervasiveness of ableism. World Premiere. Available online. The Longest Goodbye / Israel, Canada (Director and Producer: Ido Mizrahy, Producers: Nir Sa’ar, Paul Cadieux) — Social isolation affects millions of people, even Mars-bound astronauts. A savvy NASA psychologist is tasked with protecting these daring explorers. World Premiere. Available online. Day One Milisuthando / South Africa (Director and Screenwriter: Milisuthando Bongela, Producer: Marion Isaacs) — Set in past, present, and future South Africa — an invitation into a poetic, memory-driven exploration of love, intimacy, race, and belonging by the filmmaker, who grew up during apartheid but didn’t know it was happening until it was over. World Premiere. Available online. Pianoforte / Poland (Director: Jakub Piątek, Producer: Maciej Kubicki) — Young pianists take part in the legendary International Chopin Piano Competition. A unique chance of a lifetime, portrayed from backstage and set to Chopin’s music. World Premiere. Available online. Smoke Sauna Sisterhood / Estonia, France, Iceland (Director: Anna Hints, Producer: Marianne Ostrat) — In the darkness of a smoke sauna, women share their innermost secrets and intimate experiences, washing off the shame trapped in their bodies and regaining their strength through a sense of communion. World Premiere. Available online. Twice Colonized / Greenland, Denmark, Canada (Director: Lin Alluna, Producers: Emile Hertling Péronard, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, Stacey Aglok MacDonald, Bob Moore) — Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has long fought for the rights of her people. When her son suddenly dies, Aaju embarks on a journey to reclaim her language and culture after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation. But can she both change the world and mend her own wounds? World Premiere. Available online. Next Visionary works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling populate this program. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include A Love Song, Riotsville, USA, The Infiltrators, Searching, Skate Kitchen, A Ghost Story, and Tangerine. Next is presented by Adobe. Bravo, Burkina! / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Walé Oyéjidé, Producers: Giulia Alagna, Heather Barnes) — A Burkinabé boy flees his village and migrates to Italy. When disillusioned by heartbreak and haunted by memories of home, he travels through time in hope of regaining all he has lost. Cast: Alain Tiendrebeogo, Mousty Mbaye, Noel Minougou, Aissata Deme, Afissatou Coulibaly. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Divinity / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Eddie Alcazar, Producer: Steven Soderbergh) — Two mysterious brothers abduct a mogul during his quest for immortality. Meanwhile, a seductive woman helps them launch a journey of self-discovery. Cast: Stephen Dorff, Moises Arias, Jason Genao, Karrueche Tran, Bella Thorne, Scott Bakula. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Fremont / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Babak Jalali, Screenwriter: Carolina Cavalli, Producers: Marjaneh Moghimi, Sudnya Shroff, Rachael Fung, George Rush, Chris Martin, Laura Wagner) — Donya works for a Chinese fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. Formerly a translator for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, she struggles to put her life back in order. In a moment of sudden revelation, she decides to send out a special message in a cookie. Cast: Anaita Wali Zada, Jeremy Allen White, Gregg Turkington. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Kim’s Video / U.S.A. (Directors, Screenwriters, and Producers: David Redmon, Ashley Sabin, Producers: Deborah Smith, Dale Smith, Francesco Galavotti, Rebecca Tabasky) — Playing with the forms and tropes of various cinema genres, the filmmaker sets off on a quest to find a legendary lost video collection of 55,000 movies in Sicily. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Day One King Coal / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Elaine McMillion Sheldon, Producers: Shane Boris, Diane Becker, Peggy Drexler) — The cultural roots of coal continue to permeate the rituals of daily life in Appalachia even as its economic power wanes. The journey of a coal miner’s daughter exploring the region’s dreams and myths, untangling the pain and beauty, as her community sits on the brink of massive change. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Kokomo City / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: D. Smith, Producers: Harris Doran, Bill Butler) — Four Black transgender sex workers explore the dichotomy between the Black community and themselves, while confronting issues long avoided. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. To Live and Die and Live / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Qasim Basir, Producers: Nina Yang Bongiovi, Forest Whitaker, Amin Joseph, Dana Offenbach, Samantha Basir) — Muhammad returns home to Detroit to bury his stepfather and is thrust into settling his accounts, but Muhammad’s struggles with depression and addiction may finish him before he finishes the task. Cast: Amin Joseph, Skye P. Marshall, Omari Hardwick, Cory Hardrict, Dana Gourrier, Maryam Basir. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. The Tuba Thieves / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Alison O’Daniel, Producer: Rachel Nederveld, Wendy Ettinger, Maida Lynn, Su Kim, Maya E. Rudolph) — From 2011 to 2013, tubas were stolen from Los Angeles high schools. This is not a story about thieves or missing tubas. Instead, it asks what it means to listen. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Young. Wild. Free. / U.S.A (Director: Thembi L. Banks, Screenwriters: Juel Taylor, Tony Rettenmaier, Producers: Charles D. King, James Lopez, Poppy Hanks, Tommy Oliver, Baron Davis, Tracy “Twinkie” Byrd) — High school senior Brandon is drowning in responsibilities when his world is turned upside down after being robbed at gunpoint by the girl of his dreams. Cast: Algee Smith, Sanaa Lathan, Sierra Capri, Mike Epps. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Midnight From horror and comedy to works that defy genre classification, these films will keep you wide awake, even at the most arduous hour. Films that have premiered in this category in recent years include Fresh, Hereditary, Mandy, Relic, Assassination Nation, and The Babadook. birth/rebirth / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Laura Moss, Screenwriter: Brendan J. O’Brien, Producers: Mali Elfman, David Grove Churchill Viste) — A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead. Cast: Marin Ireland, Judy Reyes, A.J. Lister, Breeda Wool. World Premiere. Fiction. Day One In My Mother’s Skin / Philippines (Director and Screenwriter: Kenneth Dagatan, Producers: Bradley Liew, Bianca Balbuena, Huang Junxiang, Stefano Centini) — Stranded in the Philippines during World War II, a young girl finds that her duty to protect her dying mother is complicated by her misplaced trust in a beguiling, flesh-eating fairy. Cast: Beauty Gonzalez, Felicity Kyle Napuli, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, James Mavie Estrella, Angeli Bayani. World Premiere. Fiction. Infinity Pool / Canada (Director and Screenwriter: Brandon Cronenberg, Producers: Karen Harnisch, Andrew Cividino, Christian Piovesan, Noah Segal, Rob Cotterill, Anita Juka) — James and Em are enjoying an all-inclusive beach vacation when a fatal accident exposes the resort’s perverse subculture of hedonistic tourism, reckless violence, and surreal horrors. Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, Cleopatra Coleman. World Premiere. Fiction. My Animal / Canada (Director: Jacqueline Castel, Screenwriter: Jae Matthews, Producers: Andrew Bronfman, Michael Solomon) — Heather, an outcast teenage goalie in a small northern town, falls for newcomer Jonny, an alluring but tormented figure skater. As their relationship deepens, Heather’s growing desires clash with her darkest secret, forcing her to control the animal within. Cast: Bobbi Salvör Menuez, Amandla Stenberg, Stephen McHattie, Heidi von Palleske, Cory Lipman, Joe Apollonio. World Premiere. Fiction. Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Andrew Bowser, Producers: Clark Baker, Michael Mobley, Olivia Taylor Dudley) — Onyx joins a group of fellow occultists to attend a dark ritual at the mansion of their idol, Bartok. Suspecting Bartok’s nefarious intentions, Onyx is suddenly immersed in a world of monsters, mystery, and mayhem. Cast: Andrew Bowser, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Jeffrey Combs, Ralph Ineson, Rivkah Reyes, T.C. Carson. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Polite Society / U.K. (Director and Screenwriter: Nida Manzoor, Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Olivier Kaempfer, John Pocock) — Aspiring martial artist Ria Khan believes she must save her older sister, Lena, from her impending marriage. With the help of her friends, Ria attempts to pull off the most ambitious of all wedding heists in the name of independence and sisterhood. Cast: Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri. World Premiere. Fiction. Run Rabbit Run / Australia (Director: Daina Reid, Screenwriter: Hannah Kent, Producers: Sarah Shaw, Anna McLeish) — As a fertility doctor, Sarah has a firm understanding of the cycle of life. However, when she is forced to make sense of the increasingly strange behavior of her young daughter, Sarah must challenge her own beliefs and confront a ghost from her past. Cast: Sarah Snook, Lily Latorre, Damon Herriman, Greta Scacchi. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Day One Talk to Me / Australia (Director and Screenwriter: Danny Philippou, Director: Michael Philippou, Screenwriter: Bill Hinzman, Producers: Samantha Jennings, Kristina Ceyton) — When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an ancient embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill. Until one of them goes too far and opens the door to the spirit world. Cast: Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, Alexandra Jensen, Joe Bird, Zoe Terakes, Otis Dhanji. International Premiere. Fiction. Premieres A showcase of world premieres of some of the most highly anticipated fiction and documentary films of the coming year. Fiction films that have screened in Premieres include Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Promising Young Woman, Kajillionaire,The Report, Late Night, and The Big Sick. Past documentary films include The Dissident, Lucy and Desi, On the Record, and Miss Americana. Cassandro / U.S.A (Director and Screenwriter: Roger Ross Williams, Screenwriters: David Teague, Julián Herbert, Producers: Gerardo Gatica, Todd Black, David Bloomfield, Ted Hope, Julie Goldman) — Saúl Armendáriz, a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, rises to international stardom after he creates the character Cassandro, the “Liberace of Lucha Libre.” In the process, he upends not just the macho wrestling world, but also his own life. Cast: Gael García Bernal, Roberta Colindrez, Perla De La Rosa, Joaquín Cosío, Raúl Castillo. World Premiere. Fiction. Cat Person / France, U.S.A (Director: Susanna Fogel, Screenwriter: Michelle Ashford, Producers: Helen Estabrook, Jeremy Steckler) — College student Margot meets 33-year-old Robert at the movie theater where she works. After a casual flirtation at the concession stand, they carry on conversations through texts. As their perceptions of each other collide, events spiral out of control. Based on The New Yorker short story by Kristen Roupenian. Cast: Emilia Jones, Nicholas Braun, Geraldine Viswanathan, Hope Davis, Fred Melamed, Isabella Rossellini. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Deep Rising / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Matthieu Rytz) — The fate of the planet’s last untouched wilderness, the deep ocean, is under threat as a secretive organization is about to allow massive extraction of seabed metals to address the world’s energy crisis. Narrated by Jason Momoa. World Premiere. Documentary. The Deepest Breath / U.K, Ireland (Director and Screenwriter: Laura McGann, Producers: John Battsek, Sarah Thomson, Jamie D’Alton, Anne McLoughlin) — A champion freediver and expert safety diver seemed destined for one another despite the different paths they took to meet at the pinnacle of the freediving world. A look at the thrilling rewards — and inescapable risks — of chasing dreams through the depths of the ocean. World Premiere. Documentary. Drift / France, U.K, Greece (Director and Producer: Anthony Chen, Screenwriters: Susanne Farrell, Alexander Maksik, Producers: Peter Spears, Emilie Georges, Naima Abed, Cynthia Erivo, Solome Williams) — Jacqueline, a young refugee, lands alone and penniless on a Greek island where she tries to survive, then to cope with her past. While gathering her strength, she begins a friendship with a rootless tour guide and together they find the resilience to forge ahead. Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah, Suzy Bemba. World Premiere. Fiction. Eileen / U.S.A (Director and Producer: William Oldroyd, Screenwriters and Producers: Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh, Producers: Anthony Bregman, Stefanie Azpiazu, Peter Cron) — Set during a bitter 1964 Massachusetts winter, young secretary Eileen becomes enchanted by the glamorous new counselor at the prison where she works. Their budding friendship takes a twisted turn when Rebecca reveals a dark secret — throwing Eileen onto a sinister path. Based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s award-winning novel. Cast: Thomasin McKenzie, Anne Hathaway, Shea Whigham, Marin Ireland, Owen Teague. World Premiere. Fiction. Fairyland / U.S.A (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Andrew Durham, Producers: Sofia Coppola, Megan Carlson, Siena Oberman, Greg Lauritano, Laure Sudreau) — Set against the backdrop of San Francisco’s vibrant cultural scene in the 1970s and ’80s, chronicling a father-daughter relationship as it evolves from an era of bohemian decadence to the heartbreaking AIDS crisis. Based on the best-selling memoir Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father by Alysia Abbott. Cast: Scoot McNairy, Emilia Jones, Geena Davis, Cody Fern, Adam Lambert, Maria Bakalova. World Premiere. Fiction. Food and Country / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Laura Gabbert, Producers: Ruth Reichl, Paula P. Manzanedo, Caroline Libresco) — America’s policy of producing cheap food at all costs has long hobbled small independent farmers, ranchers, and chefs. Worried for their survival, trailblazing food writer Ruth Reichl reaches out across political and social divides to uncover the country’s broken food system and the innovators risking it all to transform it. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Invisible Beauty / U.S.A (Directors: Bethann Hardison, Frédéric Tcheng, Producer: Lisa Cortés) — Fashion revolutionary Bethann Hardison looks back on her journey as a pioneering Black model, modeling agent, and activist, shining a light on an untold chapter in the fight for racial diversity. World Premiere. Documentary. It’s Only Life After All / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Alexandria Bombach, Producers: Kathlyn Horan, Jess Devaney, Anya Rous) — Blending 40 years of home movies, film archives, and intimate present-day vérité, a poignant reflection from Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of iconic folk rock duo Indigo Girls. A timely look into the obstacles, activism, and life lessons of two queer friends who never expected to make it big. World Premiere. Documentary. Day One Jamojaya / U.S.A (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Justin Chon, Screenwriter: Maegan Houang, Producers: Alan Pao, David Matheny, Joseph Dang, Alex Chi, Yama Cibulka, Shaun Sanghani) — A father-son relationship is put to the test when an up-and-coming rapper at the crossroads of his career decides to let go of his manager, who is also his father. This decision forces them to confront the past and figure out what they want of each other. Cast: Brian Imanuel, Yayu A.W. Unru, Kate Lyn Sheil, Henry Ian Cusick, Anthony Kiedis. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Judy Blume Forever / U.S.A (Directors and Producers: Davina Pardo, Leah Wolchok, Producers: Sara Bernstein, Justin Wilkes, Marcella Steingart) — The radical honesty of the books by young adult fiction pioneer Judy Blume changed the way millions of readers understood themselves, their sexuality, and what it meant to grow up, but also led to critical battles against book banning and censorship. World Premiere. Documentary. Landscape With Invisible Hand / U.S.A (Director and Screenwriter: Cory Finley, Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner) — When Earth is taken over by aliens who control the economy, a pair of teenagers come up with a plan to save their family. Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Asante Blackk, Kylie Rogers, Josh Hamilton, Michael Gandolfini, William Jackson Harper. World Premiere. Fiction. A Little Prayer / U.S.A (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Angus MacLachlan, Producers: Lauren Vilchik, Max A. Butler) — In the South, a man tests the limits of patriarchal interference to protect his daughter-in-law when he discovers that his son is having an affair. Cast: David Strathairn, Jane Levy, Celia Weston, Will Pullen, Anna Camp, Dascha Polanco. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Murder in Big Horn / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Razelle Benally, Director: Matthew Galkin, Producers: Ivan Macdonald, Ivy Macdonald) — The deaths of a group of Native American women in rural Montana are the focus as Native families, journalists, and local law enforcement reveal a violent crisis set in motion almost 200 years ago. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Passages / France (Director and Screenwriter: Ira Sachs, Screenwriter: Mauricio Zacharias, Producers: Saïd Ben Saïd, Michel Merkt) — An intimate examination of attraction and emotional abuse between men and women. Cast: Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, Adèle Exarchopoulos. World Premiere. Fiction. Plan C / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Tracy Droz Tragos) — A hidden grassroots organization doggedly fights to expand access to abortion pills across the United States keeping hope alive during a global pandemic and the fall of Roe v. Wade. World Premiere. Documentary. The Pod Generation / Belgium, France, U.K (Director and Screenwriter: Sophie Barthes, Producers: Geneviève Lemal, Yann Zenou, Nadia Kamlichi, Martin Metz) — In a not-so-distant future, amid a society madly in love with technology, tech giant Pegazus offers couples the opportunity to share their pregnancies via detachable artificial wombs or pods. And so begins Rachel and Alvy’s wild ride to parenthood in this brave new world. Cast: Emilia Clarke, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rosalie Craig, Vinette Robinson, Jean-Marc Barr. World Premiere. Fiction. Day One Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields / U.S.A (Director: Lana Wilson, Producers: Christine O’Malley, Jack Turner) — A galvanizing look at actor, model, and icon Brooke Shields as she transforms from sexualized young girl to a woman discovering her power. Holding a mirror up to a society that objectifies women and girls, her story shows the perils and triumphs of gaining agency in a hostile world. World Premiere. Documentary. Radical / U.S.A (Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Zalla, Producers: Ben Odell, Eugenio Derbez, Joshua Davis) — In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries a radical new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential… and maybe even their genius. Based on a true story. Cast: Eugenio Derbez, Daniel Haddad, Jenifer Trejo, Mia Fernanda Solis, Danilo Guardiola. World Premiere. Fiction. Day One Rotting in the Sun / U.S.A (Director and Screenwriter: Sebastian Silva, Screenwriter: Pedro Peirano, Producer: Jacob Wasserman) — After filmmaker Sebastian Silva goes missing in Mexico City, social media celebrity Jordan Firstman begins searching for him, suspecting that the cleaning lady in Sebastian’s building may have something to do with his disappearance. Cast: Jordan Firstman, Catalina Saavedra, Sebastian Silva. World Premiere. Fiction. Rye Lane / U.K (Director: Raine Allen-Miller, Screenwriters: Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, Producers: Yvonne Isimeme Ibazebo, Damian Jones) — Two twenty-somethings reeling from bad breakups deal with their nightmare exes and connect over the course of an eventful day in South London. Cast: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah. World Premiere. Fiction. Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie / U.S.A (Director and Producer: Davis Guggenheim, Producers: Jonathan King, Annetta Marion, Will Cohen) — The improbable tale of a short kid from a Canadian army base who became the darling of 1980s Hollywood — only to find the course of his life altered by a stunning diagnosis. What happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease? World Premiere. Documentary. You Hurt My Feelings / U.S.A (Director and Screenwriter: Nicole Holofcener, Producers: Stefanie Azpiazu, Anthony Bregman) — A novelist’s longstanding marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book. Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Owen Teague, Arian Moayed. World Premiere. Fiction. New Frontier Films New Frontier champions artists who engage in experimental storytelling at the crossroads of film, art, performance, and media technology, showcasing cutting-edge work that explores and evolves cinema culture in today’s rapidly changing landscape. New Frontier is presently in a process of reimagination. This year, we return to our roots to offer a lineup of resonant experimental films. A Common Sequence / U.S.A (Directors and Producers: Mary Helena Clark and Mike Gibisser, Producer: Graciela Guerrero-Reyes) — An interconnected look at tradition, colonialism, property, faith, and science, as seen through labor practices that link an endangered salamander, mass-produced apples, and the evolving fields of genomics and machine learning. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Gush / U.S.A (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Fox Maxy) — An embodied rumination of both male and female power, healing and haunting, all within an apocalyptic world. A transformation that courses through unknown terror to untamed collective joy. Cast: Michel Sayegh, Ruth Fish, Sergio Mejia, Littlebear Sanchez, No’aash Iswut Peltier, Suavitel Paper. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Last Things / U.S.A, Portugal, France (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Deborah Stratman, Producers: Anže Peržin, Gaëlle Boucand) — Evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks. A humid take on minerals, where sci-fi meets sci-fact. The geo-biosphere is a place of evolutionary possibility, where humans disappear but life endures. World Premiere. Documentary. Available online. Spotlight A tribute to the cinema we love from throughout the past year. Films that have played in this category in recent years include The Worst Person in the World, The Biggest Little Farm, Birds of Passage, The Rider, Ida, and The Lobster. The Eight Mountains / Italy and Belgium (Directors and Screenwriters: Felix van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch, Producers: Mario Gianani, Lorenzo Gangarossa) — Pietro spends his childhood summers in the same secluded Italian mountain village where Bruno was raised, in which they form a decades-long friendship. Over the years, their paths diverge as Bruno remains faithful to the mountain while Pietro comes and goes from the city. Cast: Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Filippo Timi, Elena Lietti. Fiction. Available online. L’Immensità / Italy (Director and Screenwriter: Emanuele Crialese, Screenwriter: Francesca Manieri, Vittorio Moroni, Producer: Lorenzo Gangarossa, Mario Gianani — Clara has relocated to Rome with Felice and their three children. From their new apartment, Clara sees a city in transition: an old society washed away by an emerging middle class. The paint is fresh, the appliances are new, but expectations around family, desire, and gender remain traditional as ever. Cast: Penélope Cruz, Vincenzo Amato, Luana Giuliani, Patrizio Francioni, Maria Chiara Gorett, Penelope Nieto Conti. North American Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Day One Joyland / Pakistan (Director and Screenwriter: Saim Sadiq, Producers: Apoorva Guru Charan, Sarmad Sultan Khoosat, Sabiha Sumar, Lauren Mann) — As the Ranas, a happily patriarchal joint family, yearn for the birth of a baby boy to continue the family line, their youngest son secretly joins an erotic dance theater and falls for an ambitious trans starlet. Their impossible love story illuminates the entire family’s desire for a sexual rebellion. Cast: Ali Junejo, Rasti Farooq, Alina Khan, Sarwat Gilani, Sania Saeed, Salmaan Peerzada. Fiction. Available online. Other People’s Children / France (Director and Screenwriter: Rebecca Zlotowski, Producers: Frederic Jouve, Marie Lecoq — Rachel is 40 years old with no children. She loves her life: her high school students, her friends, her guitar lessons. When she falls in love with Ali, she becomes attached to Leila, his 4-year-old daughter. She loves her like her own, but to love other people’s children is risky. Cast: Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira-Goncalves, Yamée Couture, Michel Zlotowski. U.S. Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) / U.K. (Director: Anton Corbijn, Screenwriter, and Producer: Trish D Chetty, Producers: Ged Doherty, Colin Firth) — An inside look at the studio responsible for some of the most iconic and recognizable album covers of all time. From Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon to Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, the studio ruled the ’70s. Documentary. Available online. Kids This section of the Festival is especially for our youngest independent film fans. Films that have played in this category in recent years include The Elephant Queen, Science Fair, My Life as a Zucchini, The Eagle Huntress, and Shaun the Sheep. Aliens Abducted My Parents and Now I Feel Kinda Left Out / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Jake Van Wagoner, Screenwriter and Producer: Austin Everett, Producers: Micah Merrill, Maclain Nelson, Jeremy Prusso) — Itsy is new in town and her life seems over until she meets her space-obsessed neighbor Calvin, who believes his parents were abducted by aliens. An aspiring journalist, Itsy decides to write an exposé on Calvin but ends up discovering much more. Cast: Emma Tremblay, Jacob Buster, Will Forte, Elizabeth Mitchell, Kenneth Cummins, Matt Biedel. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online. The Amazing Maurice / Germany, U.K. (Director: Toby Genkel, Screenwriter: Terry Rossio, Producers: Emely Christians, Andrew Baker, Robert Chandler) — A streetwise cat and his gang of rats who come up with a perfect money-making scheme. Based on the novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Sir Terry Pratchett. Cast: Hugh Laurie, Emilia Clarke, Himesh Patel, Gemma Arterton. North American Premiere. Fiction. Available online. Blueback / Australia (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Robert Connolly, Producers: Liz Kearney, James Grandison) — An intimate mother-daughter relationship is forged by the women’s keen desire to protect the inhabitants of the pristine blue oceans on the Australian coast where they live. Adapted from Tim Winton’s bestselling and critically acclaimed novella. Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Eric Bana, Radha Mitchell, Ilsa Fogg, Liz Alexander, Ariel Donoghue. U.S. Premiere. Fiction. Salt Lake City Opening Night Gala Film The Sundance Film Festival® The Sundance Film Festival, a program of the nonprofit, Sundance Institute, is the pre-eminent gathering of original storytellers and audiences seeking new voices and fresh perspectives. Since 1985, hundreds of films launched at the Festival have gone on to gain critical acclaim and reach new audiences worldwide. The Festival has introduced some of the most groundbreaking films and episodic works of the past three decades, including Fire of Love, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Flee, Coda, Passing, Summer Of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, O.J.: Made in America, On The Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Top of the Lake, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Precious, The Cove, Little Miss Sunshine, An Inconvenient Truth, Napoleon Dynamite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Reservoir Dogs and sex, lies, and videotape. The program consists of fiction and nonfiction features and short films, series and episodic content, emerging media, and performances, as well as conversations, and other events. The Festival takes place both in person in the state of Utah and online, connecting audiences across the U.S. to bold new artists and films. The 2023 Festival takes place January 19–29. Be a part of the Festival at Sundance Film Festival and follow the Festival at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The Festival is a program of the nonprofit Sundance Institute. To date, 2023 Festival sponsors include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, AMC+, Chase Sapphire®, Adobe; Leadership Sponsors – Audible, Directv, Netflix, Omnicom Group, Shutterstock, Stacy’s Pita Chips, United Airlines, Xrm Media; Sustaining Sponsors – Canada Goose, Canon U.S.A., Inc., DoorDash, Dropbox, World of Hyatt®, IMDb, Lyft, MacRo, Rabbit Hole Bourbon & Rye, Stanley, University of Utah Health, White Claw Hard Seltzer; Media Sponsors – IndieWire, Los Angeles Times, NPR, Variety, Vulture, The Wall Street Journal. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. festival.sundance.org Sundance Institute As a champion and curator of independent stories, the nonprofit Sundance Institute provides and preserves the space for artists across storytelling media to create and thrive. Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. Sundance Collab, a digital community platform, brings a global cohort of working artists together to learn from each other and Sundance Advisors and connect in a creative space, developing and sharing works in progress. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences and artists to ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported and showcased such projects as Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Coda, Flee, Passing, Clemency, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Zola, On The Record, Boys State, The Farewell, Honeyland, One Child Nation, The Souvenir, The Infiltrators, Sorry to Bother You, Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Hereditary, Call Me By Your Name, Get Out, The Big Sick, Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, City So Real, Top of the Lake, Between the World & Me, Wild Goose Dreams and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. # # # Editor Note: Director Demographics The data we are sharing reflects information provided directly by the artists. Some artists chose not to self-identify in all data areas. U.S. Competition: Dramatic: 61% or 8 of the 13 directors in this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition identify as women; 61% or 8 of the 13 identify as people of color; 23% or 3 of the 13 identify as LGBTQ+. Documentary: 63% or 10 of the 16 directors in this year’s U.S. Documentary Competition identify as women; 63% or 10 of the 16 identify as people of color; 13% or 2 of the 16 identify as LGBTQ+; 6% or 1 of the 16 identify as a person with a disability. World Competition: Dramatic: 58% or 7 of the 12 directors in the World Dramatic Competition identify as women; 50% or 6 of the 12 identify as people of color; 25% or 3 out of 12 directors identify as LGBTQ+. Documentary: 46% or 6 of the 13 directors in the World Documentary Competition identify as women; 38% or 5 of the 13 as people of color; 23% or 3 of the 13 identify as LGBTQ+; 8% or 1 of the 13 identify as a person with a disability. Feature Film Submissions: Of the 4,061 feature film submissions, 1,662 were from the U.S. and 2,399 were international; 1,105 (27%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as women; 91 (2%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as nonbinary individuals; 1,676 (41%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as people of color; 547 (13%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as LGBTQ+. All Features: Of the 101 feature films announced so far, 54 (53%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as women; 5 (5%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as nonbinary individuals; 46 (45%) were directed by one or more filmmakers who identify as people of color; 20 (20%) by one or more filmmakers who identify as LGBTQ+; 3 (3%) by one or more filmmakers who identifies as a person with a disability.
- 1/24/2023
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Dogwoof has picked up Amanda Kim’s documentary on the contemporary artist Nam June Paik for world sales, excluding North America and South Korea.
“Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is set to world premiere on Jan. 22 at Sundance as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition.
Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and invented the video synthesizer. He is credited with coining the term “electronic super highway,” which was the title of one of his most famous works that involved more than 300 TV sets.
The film will trace Paik’s life from childhood as he traveled across the world. He fled to Japan from his native Korea at the outbreak of the Korean War, before moving to Germany and subsequently to New York City where he settled in 1964.
The film will include...
“Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is set to world premiere on Jan. 22 at Sundance as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition.
Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and invented the video synthesizer. He is credited with coining the term “electronic super highway,” which was the title of one of his most famous works that involved more than 300 TV sets.
The film will trace Paik’s life from childhood as he traveled across the world. He fled to Japan from his native Korea at the outbreak of the Korean War, before moving to Germany and subsequently to New York City where he settled in 1964.
The film will include...
- 1/9/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
This year promises a revealing look at celebrities, scams and art on the big and small screen
As in years past, the calendar ahead for 2023 documentary remains patchwork at the moment. But it’s already sketched in with celebrity projects, overdue re-examinations (on artist Nam June Paik and sex researcher Shere Hite) and rushed-to-completion projects on headlining scams (multiple films on the collapse of crypto exchange Ftx.)
Will 2023 finally be the year of the long-gestating Rihanna documentary? With more sure to be announced in the coming months – not to mention many docuseries in the works – here are 10 of the most anticipated documentary films of 2023:...
As in years past, the calendar ahead for 2023 documentary remains patchwork at the moment. But it’s already sketched in with celebrity projects, overdue re-examinations (on artist Nam June Paik and sex researcher Shere Hite) and rushed-to-completion projects on headlining scams (multiple films on the collapse of crypto exchange Ftx.)
Will 2023 finally be the year of the long-gestating Rihanna documentary? With more sure to be announced in the coming months – not to mention many docuseries in the works – here are 10 of the most anticipated documentary films of 2023:...
- 1/6/2023
- by Adrian Horton
- The Guardian - Film News
BTS’ Rm discussed the serendipitous origins of his love of art and finding inspiration in his own collection of mostly Korean artists in a new interview with The New York Times.
Over the past few years, the 27-year-old singer/rapper has established himself as an avid art fan, astute collector, and generous patron. He loaned a terra cotta sculpture of a horse by the Korean artist Kwon Jin-kyu to the Seoul Museum of Art for a recent exhibit and donated about 84,000 to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art...
Over the past few years, the 27-year-old singer/rapper has established himself as an avid art fan, astute collector, and generous patron. He loaned a terra cotta sculpture of a horse by the Korean artist Kwon Jin-kyu to the Seoul Museum of Art for a recent exhibit and donated about 84,000 to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art...
- 8/24/2022
- by Jon Blistein
- Rollingstone.com
An unclassifiable filmic object that sprang out of a long-distance creative partnership, A Woman Escapes brings directors Sofia Bohdanowicz, Burak Çevik, and Blake Williams together in an intimate and playful collaboration that mingles different formats, aesthetics, and experiences. In a nod to Robert Bresson’s classic A Man Escaped (1956), the film accounts the flight of a young woman—Bohdanowicz’s regular persona Audrey Benac, played by Deragh Campbell—from an emotionally paralyzing grieving process. We witness Audrey’s life being deeply impacted by the death of her elderly friend Juliane, whose apartment, along with its souvenirs, shared memories, and some images, are left behind to the devastated young woman. In the minuscule kitchen of this time-worn Parisian apartment, Audrey sits and vainly ruminates on the past while feeling speechless, lethargic, and trapped in an eternal stagnation. When Audrey’s friends Burak and Blake—also fictional personas of Çevik and Williams...
- 8/18/2022
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSian Heder's Coda took home the Best Picture award at the 94th Academy Awards, Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car took Best International Feature, and Jane Campion won Best Director for The Power of the Dog. Find more of this year's Oscars winners here. We're saddened by the loss of Japanese filmmaker Shinji Aoyama, who recently died at the age of 57. Most revered for his 2000 film Eureka, about a trio who embark on a road trip after surviving a bus hijacking, Aoyama continued his humanist exploration of violence, family, and generation gaps in films like Desert Moon (2001) and Sad Vacation (2007), the loose sequel to Eureka. He was also a prolific novelist and critic, with his novelization of Eureka awarded the Yukio Mishima prize in 2001. Il Cinema Ritrovato has announced the programs of this year's festivities,...
- 3/30/2022
- MUBI
Maverick artist Nam June Paik will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary that will highlight unseen footage and archival materials. The currently untitled production will be completed in 2022. Oscar nominee and “Minari” star Steven Yeun and hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy have joined the project as executive producers.
Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...
Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...
- 12/15/2021
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Donna Smith’s 2W Network in the US will co-produce the adaptation with Korea’s Yulmae Entertainment.
Korean director Im Sang-soo (The Housemaid) is set to make his Hollywood feature debut with a film adaptation of art world crime novel Soho Sins by Richard Vine.
Donna Smith’s 2W Network in the US is producing the US-Korea co-production with newcomer Yulmae Entertainment in Korea.
Im’s latest feature, Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness, was selected for the Cannes 2020 ‘The Faithful’ category and is waiting for an appropriate time for release in the pandemic. He made previous outings to Cannes...
Korean director Im Sang-soo (The Housemaid) is set to make his Hollywood feature debut with a film adaptation of art world crime novel Soho Sins by Richard Vine.
Donna Smith’s 2W Network in the US is producing the US-Korea co-production with newcomer Yulmae Entertainment in Korea.
Im’s latest feature, Heaven: To The Land Of Happiness, was selected for the Cannes 2020 ‘The Faithful’ category and is waiting for an appropriate time for release in the pandemic. He made previous outings to Cannes...
- 1/11/2021
- by Jean Noh
- ScreenDaily
As a New Yorker who has long prided my ability to namecheck most of the experimental art pioneers of the 1960s, I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of Steina and Woody Vasulka before watching Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir’s The Vasulka Effect. Sure, I knew of The Kitchen, the legendary performance space the couple founded in 1971. And of course I was familiar with the work of the sound and visual visionaries that the Soho (now West Chelsea) institution provided a platform for — from Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson to Nam June Paik and Bill Viola. I’d just never connected a […]
The post “They Live and Breathe Video, So We Just Completely Fit in with the Fixtures”: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir on her Doc NYC-debuting The Vasulka Effect first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “They Live and Breathe Video, So We Just Completely Fit in with the Fixtures”: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir on her Doc NYC-debuting The Vasulka Effect first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 11/11/2020
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
As a New Yorker who has long prided my ability to namecheck most of the experimental art pioneers of the 1960s, I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of Steina and Woody Vasulka before watching Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir’s The Vasulka Effect. Sure, I knew of The Kitchen, the legendary performance space the couple founded in 1971. And of course I was familiar with the work of the sound and visual visionaries that the Soho (now West Chelsea) institution provided a platform for — from Philip Glass and Laurie Anderson to Nam June Paik and Bill Viola. I’d just never connected a […]
The post “They Live and Breathe Video, So We Just Completely Fit in with the Fixtures”: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir on her Doc NYC-debuting The Vasulka Effect first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “They Live and Breathe Video, So We Just Completely Fit in with the Fixtures”: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir on her Doc NYC-debuting The Vasulka Effect first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 11/11/2020
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Following its successful retrospective dedicated to Taiwanese documentary cinema in 2017, Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival decided to focus on South Korea this time, securing “99.9% of the original program” after the event was forced to move online due to the pandemic.
“Our colleagues in South Korea told us that this is the most comprehensive retrospective of these films and the first one that’s really trying to show its development,” programmer of experimental documentaries Andrea Slováková tells Variety. “We talk a lot about South Korean cinema, but not about its documentaries.”
“Transparent Landscape: South Korea” includes 22 short and feature-length films, from the works of artist Nam June Paik to “Over Me” by Chang-jae Lim, Yun-tae Kim’s “Wet Dream” and 1924’s “Livestock Industry of Korea,” clocking in at just seven minutes. But while the country’s fictional output has been getting international recognition thanks to the likes of Kim Ki-duk,...
“Our colleagues in South Korea told us that this is the most comprehensive retrospective of these films and the first one that’s really trying to show its development,” programmer of experimental documentaries Andrea Slováková tells Variety. “We talk a lot about South Korean cinema, but not about its documentaries.”
“Transparent Landscape: South Korea” includes 22 short and feature-length films, from the works of artist Nam June Paik to “Over Me” by Chang-jae Lim, Yun-tae Kim’s “Wet Dream” and 1924’s “Livestock Industry of Korea,” clocking in at just seven minutes. But while the country’s fictional output has been getting international recognition thanks to the likes of Kim Ki-duk,...
- 10/31/2020
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
“Nine Days” takes a ludicrous premise and plays it straight. Writer-director Edson Oda’s innovative drama revolves around the tireless plight of Will (Winston Duke), a jaded middle-manager trapped in a purgatorial cycle of interviewing souls for the opportunity of life. Oda’s script is rich with bold ideas, beginning with the surreal notion of entire lives unfolding through VHS tapes and climaxes with a hyperbolic recitation of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself.” It’s an enchanting fantasy bookended with genuine emotional beats. Somewhere in between them, however, it settles into a dreary slog bogged down by repetitive existential blather over the course of two hours, as if enmeshed in a soul-searching journey of its own.
. The opening act has a striking immersive quality as the purgatorial setting gradually comes together. Spending tireless hours in a dimly-lit house surrounded by emptiness in every direction, Will watches the lives of...
. The opening act has a striking immersive quality as the purgatorial setting gradually comes together. Spending tireless hours in a dimly-lit house surrounded by emptiness in every direction, Will watches the lives of...
- 1/28/2020
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
For the 40th anniversary of the nonprofit arts organization Electronic Arts Intermix, a leading resource and archive of digital and video art, special screenings were programmed throughout one week in April of 2011. Though these programs included works by artists like Nam June Paik and Gary Hill, the standout title of these is Shigeko Kubota's Rock Video: Cherry Blossom (1986), which glows in a warm pink with flashes of sky blue and gold. Following a 1-minute introduction by Takeshi Murata, the screen splits into a grid of squares, each refracting a different dimension of a blossom tree. Kubota's digitized floral arrangement renders nature as synthetic and contingent as the logos on a flashing billboard that act as the film's frame. When seen from the perspective of a passerby, everything appears to blur into a single advertisement.
- 4/27/2019
- MUBI
Turn Turn Turn by Jud Yalkut (1965-1966)
Jud Yalkut’s main contribution to the 1960s underground film scene was his cinematic documentation of multi-media installations and performance art “happenings.” One of his earliest contributions to this field was Turn Turn Turn, completed in either 1965 or 1966.
In 1965, Yalkut had joined the multimedia collective Usco, which the book Rock ‘N’ Film by David E. James describes as a group influenced by Marshal McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller and Meher Baba that created installations “designed to expand human consciousness to states of mystical awareness.” The name Usco is a shortening of the phrase “Company of Us” or “Us Company.”
According to the first Canyon Cinema Cooperative catalog, issued in December 1966, Yalkut describes Turn Turn Turn:
Sound by Usco
A kinetic alchemy of the light and electronic works of Nicholas Schoffer, Julio Le Parc, Usco, and Nam June Paik. An experiment in McLuhan’s “the medium...
Jud Yalkut’s main contribution to the 1960s underground film scene was his cinematic documentation of multi-media installations and performance art “happenings.” One of his earliest contributions to this field was Turn Turn Turn, completed in either 1965 or 1966.
In 1965, Yalkut had joined the multimedia collective Usco, which the book Rock ‘N’ Film by David E. James describes as a group influenced by Marshal McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller and Meher Baba that created installations “designed to expand human consciousness to states of mystical awareness.” The name Usco is a shortening of the phrase “Company of Us” or “Us Company.”
According to the first Canyon Cinema Cooperative catalog, issued in December 1966, Yalkut describes Turn Turn Turn:
Sound by Usco
A kinetic alchemy of the light and electronic works of Nicholas Schoffer, Julio Le Parc, Usco, and Nam June Paik. An experiment in McLuhan’s “the medium...
- 4/28/2018
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Breathdeath by Stan Vanderbeek (1963).
At the Exprmntl 3 film competition at Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium in 1963, Breathdeath tied for 2nd place with Gregory Markopoulos‘s Twice a Man. Both men took home $2,000 in prize money.
In An Introduction to the American Underground Film, Sheldon Renan classifies Breathdeath as a “protest film,” which was a minority of underground film genre at the time. Renan also describes Breathdeath as a “collage of film technique” and considers it Vanderbeek’s best film. Throughout the book, Renan gives different completion years, both 1963-64 and just 1964. Although, in the film’s on-screen text, Vanderbeek gave the film a 1963 copyright. (See below.) (Stephen Dwoskin’s Film Is also gives Breathdeath a completion year of 1964; as does the film’s listing on the Film-makers’ Coop website.)
According to a document published in Scott MacDonald’s Canyon Cinema, in 1970, Breathdeath was one of five films acquired by the Australian National Library’s study collection.
At the Exprmntl 3 film competition at Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium in 1963, Breathdeath tied for 2nd place with Gregory Markopoulos‘s Twice a Man. Both men took home $2,000 in prize money.
In An Introduction to the American Underground Film, Sheldon Renan classifies Breathdeath as a “protest film,” which was a minority of underground film genre at the time. Renan also describes Breathdeath as a “collage of film technique” and considers it Vanderbeek’s best film. Throughout the book, Renan gives different completion years, both 1963-64 and just 1964. Although, in the film’s on-screen text, Vanderbeek gave the film a 1963 copyright. (See below.) (Stephen Dwoskin’s Film Is also gives Breathdeath a completion year of 1964; as does the film’s listing on the Film-makers’ Coop website.)
According to a document published in Scott MacDonald’s Canyon Cinema, in 1970, Breathdeath was one of five films acquired by the Australian National Library’s study collection.
- 10/8/2017
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Fierce, committed and above all, tough — these are the words that collaborators use to describe producer Robin O’Hara, a longtime fixture of the New York independent film scene, who died suddenly last week after complications from cancer treatment.
When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.
As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”
Echoing Wu,...
When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.
As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”
Echoing Wu,...
- 3/20/2017
- by Anthony Kaufman
- Indiewire
There may be no idea more contemporary than a demented character using the internet in the reckless pursuit of fame. Writer-director Rob Mockler’s debut, “Like Me,” distills that motif to a ferocious young woman so compelled to create online sensations that they drive her insane. It’s an obvious conceit and doesn’t offer new insights, but Mockler transforms the material into a solid thriller with an edgy vision of millennial lunacy, sketching out a psychopath unique to the viral video age.
That would be Kiya (Addison Timlin), a mysterious prankster first seen recording a convenience store clerk late at night as she puts a gun to his head and he begs for his life. The video instantly takes off, generating heated debates across the web and Mockler’s stylish montage captures the overlapping conversations with a knack for featuring the disorienting chaos of modern discourse.
Meanwhile, Kiya watches...
That would be Kiya (Addison Timlin), a mysterious prankster first seen recording a convenience store clerk late at night as she puts a gun to his head and he begs for his life. The video instantly takes off, generating heated debates across the web and Mockler’s stylish montage captures the overlapping conversations with a knack for featuring the disorienting chaos of modern discourse.
Meanwhile, Kiya watches...
- 3/17/2017
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
With eight items up for acquisition Saturday at Lacma’s annual Collectors Committee dinner, there was one that struck an obvious chord with a number of industry players who would vote on which artworks to make part of the museum’s permanent collection. “My favorite piece is the video collection. I’m a visual guy,” Will Ferrell told The Hollywood Reporter about a selection of 150 videos from the 1970s featuring artists like Nam June Paik, Mike Kelley and John Baldessari. At $350,000, it also was the favorite of Steve Tisch and Bryan Lourd of CAA. Needless to say, the collection quickly
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- 4/17/2016
- by Jordan Riefe
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Starring William Hurt, the five-hour director’s cut of Wim Wenders’s 1991 global road-trip movie seems even more miraculous than the leaner original
The end of the world won’t come from a nuclear blast, but from an abundance of selfies. That’s part of the message gleaned from Wim Wenders’s Until the End of the World, the 1991 film that is only now getting a Us theatrical release for its full, almost-five-hour version. Back when smartphones, Gps devices and open European borders were considered sci-fi, the two-and-a-half-hour version of this futurist’s detective story was impressive. But this movie has always had its eye on the future’s potential.
The multinational co-production was enormous in its scope, especially considering the director’s roots as an arthouse film-maker. Budgeted at more than $20m (£13m) and shot all over the world, it was conceived as the “ultimate road picture”. It was...
The end of the world won’t come from a nuclear blast, but from an abundance of selfies. That’s part of the message gleaned from Wim Wenders’s Until the End of the World, the 1991 film that is only now getting a Us theatrical release for its full, almost-five-hour version. Back when smartphones, Gps devices and open European borders were considered sci-fi, the two-and-a-half-hour version of this futurist’s detective story was impressive. But this movie has always had its eye on the future’s potential.
The multinational co-production was enormous in its scope, especially considering the director’s roots as an arthouse film-maker. Budgeted at more than $20m (£13m) and shot all over the world, it was conceived as the “ultimate road picture”. It was...
- 8/27/2015
- by Jordan Hoffman
- The Guardian - Film News
Art made with technology, no matter how cutting-edge, always has a way of becoming kitsch. Think Nam June Paik’s cathode televisions or Cory Arcangel’s self-consciously obsolete video of hacked Super Mario clouds. A work becomes successful when it can both incorporate the technology and exploit it for its ephemerality. Artist Tabor Robak, born in 1986 and certainly part of a millennial technological cohort, hits a sweet spot.The uniform slickness of Robak’s computer-graphics renderings of sometimes-mundane, sometimes-extraordinary objects and technological interfaces might look recognizable from contemporary video-games. But in reality, they are exponentially more elaborate. Robak models his videos by hand, exploring the medium of CGI the way Michelangelo did marble. It’s an arduous, individual process — one hand on one mouse — but it’s executed in a way possible only in the 21st century. Rather than crunching them himself, Robak sends his enormous files, so large precisely because they’re hand-modeled,...
- 5/7/2015
- by Kyle Chayka
- Vulture
The Ann Arbor Film Festival celebrates its epic 53rd annual edition on March 24-29 with a colossal selection of experimental short films and features.
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
Feature film highlights include the documentary Speculation Nation by regular collaborators Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat, which examines the recent Spanish housing crisis; a new ethnographic doc by Ben Russell, Greetings to the Ancestors, which plunges deep into the culture of South Africa; and Jenni Olson’s grand California study The Royal Road.
Short film highlights include the much anticipated new film by Jennifer Reeder, Blood Below the Skin, a narrative following a week in the dramatic and romantic lives of three teenage girls; a new music video by Mike Olenick called Beautiful Things with music by The Wet Things; new animations by Don Hertzfeldt, World of Tomorrow, and Lewis Klahr, Mars Garden; plus new experimental work by Vanessa Renwick, Peggy Ahwesh and Zachary Epcar.
Special...
- 3/24/2015
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Low City is the combination of producer Abe Seiferth and composer/musician Jeremy Turner and their very talented friends. This may not mean much up front, until you consider Seiferth has been behind the decks for bands like Yeasayer and Reggie Watts; Turner has performed with Arcade Fire, New York's Metropolitan Opera and David Byrne; and their pals are in Bon Iver and Dirty Projectors. I'm in love with Low City's energizing song "Race Up Race Down" and today we premiere the music video by director Dean Winkler (Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Nam June Paik), who describes it as "a visual meditation on global warming." The band's aesthetic "is inspired by the retro-futurism of films like 'Blade Runner,' and Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'"so maybe that's why I feel like I've been on a trip to space.
- 2/18/2015
- by Katie Hasty
- Hitfix
Welcome back to the latest installment of Rolling Stone's Everything Index, where we rank the week's pop-culture power players, none of whom have to wait in line for iPhones. That's what assistants are for.
Speaking of, if you're feeling woozy today, congrats: you've either been infected with iOS 8, or a rare respiratory virus currently terrifying the Midwest. Don't worry, we've got you covered regardless, as both Apple's big announcement and the Ev-D68 enterovirus made this week's countdown. So did One Direction, Taylor Swift and the Olive Garden, two of which...
Speaking of, if you're feeling woozy today, congrats: you've either been infected with iOS 8, or a rare respiratory virus currently terrifying the Midwest. Don't worry, we've got you covered regardless, as both Apple's big announcement and the Ev-D68 enterovirus made this week's countdown. So did One Direction, Taylor Swift and the Olive Garden, two of which...
- 9/9/2014
- Rollingstone.com
Two years ago, almost to the day, I posted a piece about the Mondo poster for Ben Wheatley’s Kill List on the day of that film’s opening. The poster was designed by a new up and coming designer named Jay Shaw whom I interviewed for the piece. At the time he’d been designing posters “for a little over a year.” Two years later and a new Wheatley film, A Field in England, opens today (in between Wheatley made another Mpotw favorite, Sightseers) with an official release poster by Jay Shaw for Drafthouse Films.
In the interim, Shaw has become one of the most exciting and sought after movie poster designers in the country. His work is consistently witty, arresting and superbly executed. His uncharacteristically colorful poster for the psychedelic war story A Field in England nods to the lysergic fever dreams of Jodorowsky (and also has an interesting,...
In the interim, Shaw has become one of the most exciting and sought after movie poster designers in the country. His work is consistently witty, arresting and superbly executed. His uncharacteristically colorful poster for the psychedelic war story A Field in England nods to the lysergic fever dreams of Jodorowsky (and also has an interesting,...
- 2/7/2014
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Big changes are in store for the 5th annual Migrating Forms experimental media festival, which is set to run December 11-17.
Well, that’s the first change: Moving from its traditional spot in March to December. More importantly, though, the fest is moving physical locations. Instead of it’s usual home of the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, this year’s Migrating Forms will be screening at the BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.
The festivities will begin on Dec. 11 with the U.S. premiere of four new short films by media artist Ryan Trecartin. Each film involves a unique cast of characters, including Trecartin’s actual high school classmates and a group of reality TV show hopefuls, navigating their complex social strata.
The rest of the fest will screen challenging feature-length material, such as Drew Tobia’s outrageous See You Next Tuesday; the family drama The Unity of Things by Daniel Schmidt...
Well, that’s the first change: Moving from its traditional spot in March to December. More importantly, though, the fest is moving physical locations. Instead of it’s usual home of the Anthology Film Archives in Manhattan, this year’s Migrating Forms will be screening at the BAMcinématek in Brooklyn.
The festivities will begin on Dec. 11 with the U.S. premiere of four new short films by media artist Ryan Trecartin. Each film involves a unique cast of characters, including Trecartin’s actual high school classmates and a group of reality TV show hopefuls, navigating their complex social strata.
The rest of the fest will screen challenging feature-length material, such as Drew Tobia’s outrageous See You Next Tuesday; the family drama The Unity of Things by Daniel Schmidt...
- 12/9/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Morgan Spurlock's shallow This is Us is no Hard Day's Night – but both films are a sign of their own times. One broke the rules and captured a changing world. The other is competent, puny and gutless
Those of us discreetly looking forward to a theatrically released film featuring One Direction were perhaps hoping for something more captivating and ingenious than a glorified electronic press kit. We wanted something that didn't represent the depthless, scandal-mongering, narrow-minded, pleasure-seeking spirit of the times; the efficient result of a few business meetings, and the occasional quasi-creative one, that would then rely on cultural obedience to generate the babbling publicity necessary for it to be certified an authentic cultural event.
Those foolishly fancying a sudden implausible twist in the life of a plastic pop group, insolently brokered on a spiritless talent show, were perhaps hoping that 1D's hard-working behind-the-scenes masterminds fancied commissioning the...
Those of us discreetly looking forward to a theatrically released film featuring One Direction were perhaps hoping for something more captivating and ingenious than a glorified electronic press kit. We wanted something that didn't represent the depthless, scandal-mongering, narrow-minded, pleasure-seeking spirit of the times; the efficient result of a few business meetings, and the occasional quasi-creative one, that would then rely on cultural obedience to generate the babbling publicity necessary for it to be certified an authentic cultural event.
Those foolishly fancying a sudden implausible twist in the life of a plastic pop group, insolently brokered on a spiritless talent show, were perhaps hoping that 1D's hard-working behind-the-scenes masterminds fancied commissioning the...
- 8/24/2013
- by Paul Morley
- The Guardian - Film News
These days, our knowledge of celebrities too often originates with paparazzi images and snarky quotes by anonymous "insiders." After a while, it's easy to forget that stars are real people. That's why HuffPost Celebrity decided to launch its all-new #nofilter quick-fire question and answer series. Because how well do you know someone until they've shared their guiltiest pleasures?
We all remember Tatyana Ali as Carlton's little sister on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," but this '90s child star isn't so little anymore. The 33-year-old has come a long way from Bel-Air (though she can still rap the show's theme song, duhhh!) and is set to star in Bet's "Second Generation Wayans" -- a scripted comedy that follows the famous Wayans brothers' nephews, Damien and Craig.
Now, just like her older brothers used to on "Fresh Prince," we're doing a little razzing ourselves -- and Ali was more than game to play along.
We all remember Tatyana Ali as Carlton's little sister on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," but this '90s child star isn't so little anymore. The 33-year-old has come a long way from Bel-Air (though she can still rap the show's theme song, duhhh!) and is set to star in Bet's "Second Generation Wayans" -- a scripted comedy that follows the famous Wayans brothers' nephews, Damien and Craig.
Now, just like her older brothers used to on "Fresh Prince," we're doing a little razzing ourselves -- and Ali was more than game to play along.
- 1/15/2013
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
Exclusive: New media artist and director Kenzo Digital has signed with United Talent Agency. The former Wieden & Kennedy creative director will be represented by the agency in film and television. Known for his elaborate and stylized multi-media productions, Digital has worked with the likes of Nike, Kanye West, and most noticeably Beyoncé for both her performance at last year’s Billboard Music Awards and last week’s United Nation’s World Humanitarian Day. Digital’s sample generated coming of age film City Of God’s Son, which included scenes from classic gangster movies and hip-hop videos of the 1990s and appearances by Samuel L. Jackson, Al Pacino and Jay-z among others, was an online viral hit back in 2010. His documentary Jamel Shabazz: Street Photographer chronicled the classic hop-hop snapper. Currently the video director at artist Nam June Paik’s studio, Digital’s work has appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival,...
- 8/28/2012
- by DOMINIC PATTEN
- Deadline TV
Neither of us is old enough to have been fooled by the Trojan Horse (see Wikipedia). But we each have been working in public television decades enough to remember the days when distribution was handled by physically transporting bulky 2-inch videotapes from station to station -- "bicycled" was the word -- and much of the broadcast day and night was devoted to blackboard lectures, string quartets and lessons in Japanese brush painting: The old educational television versions of reality TV.
Yet it also was a time of innovation and creativity. As the system evolved we saw bold experiments like Pbl - the Public Broadcasting Laboratory and Al Perlmutter's The Great American Dream Machine, each a predecessor to the commercial TV magazine shows 60 Minutes and 20/20. The TV Lab, jointly run by David Loxton at Wnet in New York and Fred Barzyk at Wgbh in Boston, nurtured and encouraged the first generation...
Yet it also was a time of innovation and creativity. As the system evolved we saw bold experiments like Pbl - the Public Broadcasting Laboratory and Al Perlmutter's The Great American Dream Machine, each a predecessor to the commercial TV magazine shows 60 Minutes and 20/20. The TV Lab, jointly run by David Loxton at Wnet in New York and Fred Barzyk at Wgbh in Boston, nurtured and encouraged the first generation...
- 3/23/2012
- by Bill Moyers
- Aol TV.
Aug. 11
7:00 p.m.
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, New York 10002
Hosted by: Light Industry
Before settling into their new home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Light Industry presents this screening of the classic TV special from 1967 This Is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is the Massage. The special will be projected in 16mm and introduced by Alex Kitnick, a writer and curator based in New York.
This Is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is the Massage was produced for the radical TV series NBC Experiment in Television, which aired innovative programs on Sunday afternoons, typically profiling or spotlighting a particular creative individual.
This particular episode of the show was directed by Ernest Pintoff and tries its best to present McLuhan’s complex ideas of then-modern media to a broad audience. Light Industry describes the special as thus:
An attempt to articulate McLuhan’s ideas through the language of one of his...
7:00 p.m.
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, New York 10002
Hosted by: Light Industry
Before settling into their new home in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Light Industry presents this screening of the classic TV special from 1967 This Is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is the Massage. The special will be projected in 16mm and introduced by Alex Kitnick, a writer and curator based in New York.
This Is Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is the Massage was produced for the radical TV series NBC Experiment in Television, which aired innovative programs on Sunday afternoons, typically profiling or spotlighting a particular creative individual.
This particular episode of the show was directed by Ernest Pintoff and tries its best to present McLuhan’s complex ideas of then-modern media to a broad audience. Light Industry describes the special as thus:
An attempt to articulate McLuhan’s ideas through the language of one of his...
- 8/4/2011
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
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