A snapshot of the most exciting voices working in American and international cinema today––and with a strong focus on newcomers––the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival returns this week, taking place March 13-17.
As always, the annual festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making this series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. Check out our top picks below, along with the exclusive premiere of the festival trailer.
Arthur&Diana (Sara Summa)
A lo-fi siblings road trip movie shot with a mix of MiniDV, Betacam, and 16mm, Sara Summa’s Arthur&Diana marks an interesting, mostly successful gamble of personal storytelling, in which Summa stars alongside her-real brother, Robin Summa. Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “As such, we glean...
As always, the annual festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making this series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. Check out our top picks below, along with the exclusive premiere of the festival trailer.
Arthur&Diana (Sara Summa)
A lo-fi siblings road trip movie shot with a mix of MiniDV, Betacam, and 16mm, Sara Summa’s Arthur&Diana marks an interesting, mostly successful gamble of personal storytelling, in which Summa stars alongside her-real brother, Robin Summa. Jared Mobarak said in his TIFF review, “As such, we glean...
- 3/11/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Museum of the Moving Image is pleased to announce the complete lineup for the 13th edition of First Look, the Museum's festival of new and innovative international cinema, which will take place in person March 13–17, 2024. Each year, First Look offers a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, gallery installations, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of filmmaking. This year's festival introduces New York audiences to more than three dozen works from around the world. The guiding ethos of First Look is openness, curiosity, and discovery, aiming to expose audiences to new art, artists to new audiences, and everyone to different methods, perspectives, interrogations, and encounters. For five consecutive days the festival takes over MoMI's two theaters, as well as other rooms and galleries throughout the Museum—with in-person appearances and dialogue integral to the experience. Each night concludes with one of five...
- 2/14/2024
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
An Emmy-nominated documentary cinematographer with credits including “Procession” and “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Robert Kolodny puts his expert eye for shooting nonfiction to playful narrative use in his feature directing debut “The Featherweight.” A meticulously designed, gutsily played biopic of world champion featherweight boxer Guglielmo Papaleo, better known as Willie Pep — covering not his 1940s glory days but his faltering attempt at a comeback two decades later — the film is convincingly fashioned as a candid all-access documentary, a promotional puff piece curdling before our eyes into an unintended study of mental breakdown.
So convincingly, in fact, that uninformed viewers chancing upon “The Featherweight” on the festival circuit may wonder exactly what it is they’re watching, not least if — in a realization of Pep’s own glumly stated fears — they have no idea who this once-celebrated sportsman was. Kolodny puts nary a foot wrong in his precise replication...
So convincingly, in fact, that uninformed viewers chancing upon “The Featherweight” on the festival circuit may wonder exactly what it is they’re watching, not least if — in a realization of Pep’s own glumly stated fears — they have no idea who this once-celebrated sportsman was. Kolodny puts nary a foot wrong in his precise replication...
- 9/20/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
There’s a story that Willie Pep, the protagonist of Robert Kolodny’s feature debut The Featherweight, likes to tell. It’s about a match with a kid, who, so awed by the boxing champion, asks for an autograph. The request flummoxes Willie. “I say, ‘Kid, get away from me, we’re boxing tonight. What are people going to think?’” The crowd came to see a fight, he reminds the junior. They need to put on a show.
As Willie (played by James Madio) talks about this moment, he gesticulates and pulls his audience — a small group of friends — to play supporting roles. It’s clear why the boxer likes to recount this tale. Nostalgia tempts him. It directs his moods, prompts his long monologues and drives Willie, at age 42, to stage a comeback.
The Featherweight is a fictionalized account of the real-life two-time featherweight champion’s attempts to get back in the ring.
As Willie (played by James Madio) talks about this moment, he gesticulates and pulls his audience — a small group of friends — to play supporting roles. It’s clear why the boxer likes to recount this tale. Nostalgia tempts him. It directs his moods, prompts his long monologues and drives Willie, at age 42, to stage a comeback.
The Featherweight is a fictionalized account of the real-life two-time featherweight champion’s attempts to get back in the ring.
- 9/3/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
‘The Featherweight’ Review: Robert Kolodny’s Debut Film Is as Agile as Its Irrepressible Protagonist
When the English soccer star Harry Kane finally decided to leave his childhood club Tottenham Hotspur and the Premier League this summer, much of England was up in arms. In doing so, Kane appeared to sacrifice his realistic attempt at breaking the division’s all-time goalscoring record. A couple more seasons, pundits said, would have done the trick. Immortality, and certainly a statue, would have come.
What Kane knows, and what his critics appear not to, is what really motivates elite athletes: not stats, glory. The same lust drives Willie Pep (James Madio), the titular featherweight boxer in Robert Kolodny’s nifty debut feature. Aged 42, Pep plots a comeback, six years after hanging up his gloves. Virtually all those around him, including trainer Bill Gore (Stephen Lang) and business manager Bob Kaplan (Ron Livingston), say this is a terrible idea. That his 220-10 win record, unheard of in the sport before or since,...
What Kane knows, and what his critics appear not to, is what really motivates elite athletes: not stats, glory. The same lust drives Willie Pep (James Madio), the titular featherweight boxer in Robert Kolodny’s nifty debut feature. Aged 42, Pep plots a comeback, six years after hanging up his gloves. Virtually all those around him, including trainer Bill Gore (Stephen Lang) and business manager Bob Kaplan (Ron Livingston), say this is a terrible idea. That his 220-10 win record, unheard of in the sport before or since,...
- 9/3/2023
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
Indian activist filmmaker Pa. Ranjith is to begin production later this year on “Vettuvam” (aka “The Hunted”), a linked film and TV series about standing up to injustice and which is largely set in a prison.
The projects are backed by Golden Ratio Films, the film production arm of Vistas Media Capital, and Neelam Studios.
The story involves a rural gangster, who is a modern day Robin Hood to his people, but who turns himself in to the police in order to avoid his enemies. What he finds within the prison system is far worse.
The Tamil-language film will come first, followed by the series. Principal photography will begin in Southern India in August this year, with the plan to release the completed movie in 2023. Producers are Ranjith, Abhayanand Singh, Piiyush Singh, Saurabh Gupta and Aditi Anand. Co-producers are Ashwini Chaudhary and Parul Singh.
The series aimed at broadcast and streaming audiences,...
The projects are backed by Golden Ratio Films, the film production arm of Vistas Media Capital, and Neelam Studios.
The story involves a rural gangster, who is a modern day Robin Hood to his people, but who turns himself in to the police in order to avoid his enemies. What he finds within the prison system is far worse.
The Tamil-language film will come first, followed by the series. Principal photography will begin in Southern India in August this year, with the plan to release the completed movie in 2023. Producers are Ranjith, Abhayanand Singh, Piiyush Singh, Saurabh Gupta and Aditi Anand. Co-producers are Ashwini Chaudhary and Parul Singh.
The series aimed at broadcast and streaming audiences,...
- 5/13/2022
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Singapore-based Indian financier Vistas Media Capital has launched a North American division to be run by film industry vet Ben Waisbren.
The division will look to originate and underwrite investments in entertainment and IP under the stewardship of North America President Waisbren who has been an executive producer on dozens of studio movies including Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Emoji Movie, 300, The Equalizer, and 22 Jump Street.
Waisbren’s expertise is in managing and structuring investments in studio co-financing partnerships, indie production and distribution deals and media private equity. He was a long-time member of the board of directors at Wild Bunch.
The former Winston & Strawn lawyer was previously on the board of Vistas Media Acquisition Company, which is a Nasdaq-listed Spac that recently reverse merged (de-spac) with the leading music streaming platform in the Middle East & North Africa (Mena) region, Anghami, resulting in the first Arab...
The division will look to originate and underwrite investments in entertainment and IP under the stewardship of North America President Waisbren who has been an executive producer on dozens of studio movies including Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Emoji Movie, 300, The Equalizer, and 22 Jump Street.
Waisbren’s expertise is in managing and structuring investments in studio co-financing partnerships, indie production and distribution deals and media private equity. He was a long-time member of the board of directors at Wild Bunch.
The former Winston & Strawn lawyer was previously on the board of Vistas Media Acquisition Company, which is a Nasdaq-listed Spac that recently reverse merged (de-spac) with the leading music streaming platform in the Middle East & North Africa (Mena) region, Anghami, resulting in the first Arab...
- 4/21/2022
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way Productions has teamed with Singapore’s Golden Ratio Films and Canada’s Blisspoint Entertainment to shoot “Pep,” a biopic of legendary mid-20th century featherweight boxer Willie Pep.
The film is poised to begin production in Hartford, Connecticut, Pep’s home-state, with Robert Kolodny directing from a screenplay by Steve Loff.
Pep, born Guglielmo Papaleo, had an extraordinarily long career spanning 26 years and nearly 2,000 rounds as a professional. Set in 1965, the film charts one of Pep’s comebacks, as he finds himself riddled with debt while supporting a wife half his age and a drug addict son in a single-family home.
“Band of Brothers” actor James Madio stars in the title role as Pep, alongside co-stars Keir Gilchrist (“Atypical”) who will play the role of Pep’s son, Billy Jr., and Ron Livingston (“Office Space”) as Pep’s business manager, Bob Kaplan. No female leads have yet been confirmed.
The film is poised to begin production in Hartford, Connecticut, Pep’s home-state, with Robert Kolodny directing from a screenplay by Steve Loff.
Pep, born Guglielmo Papaleo, had an extraordinarily long career spanning 26 years and nearly 2,000 rounds as a professional. Set in 1965, the film charts one of Pep’s comebacks, as he finds himself riddled with debt while supporting a wife half his age and a drug addict son in a single-family home.
“Band of Brothers” actor James Madio stars in the title role as Pep, alongside co-stars Keir Gilchrist (“Atypical”) who will play the role of Pep’s son, Billy Jr., and Ron Livingston (“Office Space”) as Pep’s business manager, Bob Kaplan. No female leads have yet been confirmed.
- 10/14/2021
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Willie Pep Boxing Biopic Starring James Madio, Keir Gilchrist & Ron Livingston Set To Enter The Ring
Exclusive: Willie Pep biopic Pep, starring James Madio (Band of Brothers), Keir Gilchrist (Atypical) and Ron Livingston (Office Space), will go before cameras next month, in the famed boxer’s hometown of Hartford, Ct.
Robert Kolodny (the cinematographer behind Netflix’s Procession) is directing the film from a script by Steve Loff, with Madio starring as the featherweight champion who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
Pep is roundly considered one of the greatest fighters of all time. He knocked plenty of opponents out, but was brilliant defensively. The latter helped, given Pep fought professionally over 200 times over 26 years. Legend has it that he won the third round of his 1946 bout against Jackie Graves without throwing a single punch.
The sports drama picks up with Pep in 1965, after the limelight has faded. Living with his Italian immigrant parents, a wife half his age and a drug-addled...
Robert Kolodny (the cinematographer behind Netflix’s Procession) is directing the film from a script by Steve Loff, with Madio starring as the featherweight champion who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
Pep is roundly considered one of the greatest fighters of all time. He knocked plenty of opponents out, but was brilliant defensively. The latter helped, given Pep fought professionally over 200 times over 26 years. Legend has it that he won the third round of his 1946 bout against Jackie Graves without throwing a single punch.
The sports drama picks up with Pep in 1965, after the limelight has faded. Living with his Italian immigrant parents, a wife half his age and a drug-addled...
- 9/29/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
With spiralling plots and returning characters retreading old ground, Broadchurch’ second series is really starting to flounder…
This review contains spoilers.
Increasingly, Broadchurch’s second run is starting to feel less like a drama in its own right, and more like a set of specially filmed DVD extras to accompany the first series. Previously unseen Broadchurch trial footage! Hear witness testimony from your favourite characters! Click here for the juicy alternate killer! Exclusive documentary special: what really happened in Sandbrook…
As such, it’s diverting for rabid fans, but not compelling enough to stand alone.
That sense was compounded this week by the return of Susan Wright (Pauline Quirke), who threw one of plumber Nige’s spanners in the works by testifying that it was her estranged son and not Joe Miller she saw placing Danny’s body on the beach. Why land her boy in it? Either Susan still thinks he did it,...
This review contains spoilers.
Increasingly, Broadchurch’s second run is starting to feel less like a drama in its own right, and more like a set of specially filmed DVD extras to accompany the first series. Previously unseen Broadchurch trial footage! Hear witness testimony from your favourite characters! Click here for the juicy alternate killer! Exclusive documentary special: what really happened in Sandbrook…
As such, it’s diverting for rabid fans, but not compelling enough to stand alone.
That sense was compounded this week by the return of Susan Wright (Pauline Quirke), who threw one of plumber Nige’s spanners in the works by testifying that it was her estranged son and not Joe Miller she saw placing Danny’s body on the beach. Why land her boy in it? Either Susan still thinks he did it,...
- 1/27/2015
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
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