Suzanne Fletcher and Ann Magnuson in Sara Driver’s Sleepwalk Photo: Nan Goldin
Sara Driver’s spellbinding Sleepwalk, co-written with Kathleen Brennan and Lorenzo Mans, shot by Jim Jarmusch and Frank Prinzi, with a score by Phil Kline, and starring Suzanne Fletcher with Ann Magnuson, Steve Buscemi (coming to the Tribeca Film Festival to present Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s Fargo), Linda Yablonski, Sally Venue (aka Sally Berg), Richard Boes, Ako, Stephen Chen, Tony Todd, Dexter Lee, Harvey Perr, Barbara Klar, Cheryl Dyer, Rebecca Wright, and William Rice (aka Bill Rice) was a New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective pick. Sara also participated in an HBO sponsored live virtual Free Talk, moderated by Wendy Keys. Ed Bahlman (99 Records founder and producer) and I sent in greetings to Sara. The exchange is below our conversation.
Sara Driver on New York City in the Eighties: “When I was making Sleepwalk,...
Sara Driver’s spellbinding Sleepwalk, co-written with Kathleen Brennan and Lorenzo Mans, shot by Jim Jarmusch and Frank Prinzi, with a score by Phil Kline, and starring Suzanne Fletcher with Ann Magnuson, Steve Buscemi (coming to the Tribeca Film Festival to present Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s Fargo), Linda Yablonski, Sally Venue (aka Sally Berg), Richard Boes, Ako, Stephen Chen, Tony Todd, Dexter Lee, Harvey Perr, Barbara Klar, Cheryl Dyer, Rebecca Wright, and William Rice (aka Bill Rice) was a New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective pick. Sara also participated in an HBO sponsored live virtual Free Talk, moderated by Wendy Keys. Ed Bahlman (99 Records founder and producer) and I sent in greetings to Sara. The exchange is below our conversation.
Sara Driver on New York City in the Eighties: “When I was making Sleepwalk,...
- 5/13/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Sônia Braga with her Aquarius director Kleber Mendonça Filho Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of New Directors/New Films, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, Kleber Mendonça Filho spoke with Richard Peña, Ramin Bahrani chatted with Larry Kardish, and Sara Driver will speak with Wendy Keys in the HBO sponsored live virtual Free Talks. Sleepwalk was screened virtually for free in the New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective programme.
Jesmark Scicluna in Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu screens on Sunday, May 9 at 6:00pm
Ramin Bahrani joined Larry Kardish virtually last night for a wonderful in-depth conversation on his career. I sent in the following comment and question which...
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of New Directors/New Films, hosted by Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, Kleber Mendonça Filho spoke with Richard Peña, Ramin Bahrani chatted with Larry Kardish, and Sara Driver will speak with Wendy Keys in the HBO sponsored live virtual Free Talks. Sleepwalk was screened virtually for free in the New Directors/New Films at 50: A Retrospective programme.
Jesmark Scicluna in Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu screens on Sunday, May 9 at 6:00pm
Ramin Bahrani joined Larry Kardish virtually last night for a wonderful in-depth conversation on his career. I sent in the following comment and question which...
- 5/6/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
As with many veterans of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which is being renamed Film at Lincoln Center to mark its 50th Anniversary this week, longtime former executive director Joanne Koch has some stories to tell.
“We tried to get Katharine Hepburn at the Chaplin Gala, and she wrote me and said she’d rather go to the South Pole,” Koch laughs. “But when we honored George Cukor in 1978, she was very nervous, but she came — and the audience went crazy.”
So did the Lincoln Center board chairman George Weissman in 1989, but for another reason. “The New York Film Festival was showing ‘Roger and Me,’ which attacked General Motors, a substantial donor to Lincoln Center. I remember [George] saying, ‘Are you really going to show this film?’ I said yes, and we did.”
Longtime former program director and Nyff selection committee chairman Richard Peña has a slightly different memory of the screening.
“We tried to get Katharine Hepburn at the Chaplin Gala, and she wrote me and said she’d rather go to the South Pole,” Koch laughs. “But when we honored George Cukor in 1978, she was very nervous, but she came — and the audience went crazy.”
So did the Lincoln Center board chairman George Weissman in 1989, but for another reason. “The New York Film Festival was showing ‘Roger and Me,’ which attacked General Motors, a substantial donor to Lincoln Center. I remember [George] saying, ‘Are you really going to show this film?’ I said yes, and we did.”
Longtime former program director and Nyff selection committee chairman Richard Peña has a slightly different memory of the screening.
- 4/29/2019
- by Gregg Goldstein
- Variety Film + TV
HT2FF – Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival is about to take place for its 7th edition, December 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th just after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. For four days the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor on Long Island’s East End, is booked back-to-back with documentaries of the finest caliber but which are not necessarily premieres.These are films that both deserve and need exposure, hence the festival title, “Take 2”. The audience is enthusiastic and loyal.
Jacqui Lofaro was herself a documentary filmmaker until she started this festival which now consumes her days and nights. Not that she doesn’t have an idea for her next documentary, but, at this moment the festival, is exploding, a case of spontaneous combustion. The festival has taken over her life with screenings throughout the year, such as this spring’s screening of Frieda Lee Mock’s 2013 critically acclaimed film, “Anita”. With a panel of experts the screening was an event playing to a packed house. It didn’t matter that the film had already had its theatrical release. According to Jacqui “that’s what Take 2 is all about. Our mission is simply to show great documentary films to our local East End audience”. This festival reaches out to the community by showing films throughout the year in local libraries as well.
This year, the festival will screen a total of 32 documentaries at the Bay Street Theater. Using only one theater venue makes this festival intimate and very, very easy.
There is a balance in the festival between social issue documentaries and other docs, and between bringing in filmmakers and focusing on community filmmakers. Indeed the first day of the festival is devoted to regional filmmakers with a “Focus on Locals”.
In addition, the festival will feature several sections which are targeted at local youth: Young Voices (short docs made by local middle and high school students), Future Voices (films by Student Filmmakers from the NYC Media Arts Centers) and Emerging Voices (two strong films by recent graduates of the School of Visual Arts Mfa Social Documentary Program, introduced by documentary filmmaker and Sva professor, Deborah Dickson).
The Evening Galas are not red-carpet-celebrity events. Rather they honor documentary filmmakers such as Richard Leacock the inventor of the sound-sync camera or Susan Lacy of American Masters or Chris Hegedus & D A Pennebaker. This year the honors go to Barbara Kopple who has been making ground-breaking docs for 40+ years. Her first film on a devastating coal miners’ strike in Kentucky, “Harlan County USA”, was an Oscar winner, and will screen to this growing audience of doc fans.
This rock-solid festival is not premiere driven. However, this year the festival was offered the New York premiere of Michael Apted’s “Bending the Light” about lens making for photographers and filmmakers, and will also feature the east coast premiere of “The Big Beat”, made by local filmmaker and archivist, Joe Lauro. Also screening is Martin Scorsese’s “Fifty Year Argument”, an HBO documentary about the anniversary of The New York Review of Books.
The closing night film is reserved for the annual Filmmaker’s Choice Award which this year goes to Wendy Keys both filmmaker and former administrator at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her documentary “Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight, “ a warm and insightful view of the iconic American graphic designer of the “I Love New York” campaign and the founder of New York Magazine, will be the feature film.
The enthusiasm and efficiency behind this festival abide with Jacqui to such an extent that I wondered how she did it and wondered about her own docs, made by her company Justice Productions.org. She said they do not have traditional distribution, however, they continuously sell on Amazon’s Create Space, and she is invited to speak and show the film at universities, libraries and other venues where audiences care about social issues. Recently the Reel Recovery Film Festival showed “The Last Fix: An Addicts Passage from Hell to Hope” at the Quad. “The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No,” the recipient of the 2006 prestigious Thurgood Marshall Broadcast Journalism Award aired on national television on the Hallmark Channel’s World of Faith and Values and is still actively requested as well.
The festival has welcomed Karen Arikian (former Exec. Dir of the Hamptons International Film Festival and currently the Us rep for the Berlin International Film Festival) on board as Creative Advisor, and Jacqui has put together an Industry Advisory Board of top film and television professionals. Jacqui describes board meetings at the Paley Center for Media (Board Member, Ron Simon, is Paley’s Curator for TV and Radio) taking place in the Chairman’s office around Paley’s own round leather desk. As Jacqui puts it: “Now that’s a place of inspiration”.
Industry Advisory Board:
Julie Anderson - Executive Producer, Documentaries and Development at PBS/Wnet; former producer at Espn; documentary filmmaker at HBO Sports; executive at HBO Original Documentary Programming.
Karen Arikian - Founded her independent consulting company with offices in Germany and New York for clients including BAFTA, Toronto International Film Festival, Hamburg Media School; Us Delegate to (Berlinale) Berlin International Film Festival.
Susan Lacy - Founded "Pentimento Productions" in 2014, with a film to premiere on HBO, the first in an exclusive multi-picture deal with HBO Documentary Films; former creator, director & executive producer of 200 documentaries for the PBS “American Masters” series.
Don Lenzer - Documentary director and cinematographer whose credits can be found on five Academy Award winning feature documentaries and numerous public television programs; co-directed and shot the Emmy Award winning Great Performances documentary "Itzhak Perlman; In The Fiddler's House."
Susan Margolin - President of Docurama and Special Acquisitions at Cinedigm. She oversees the recently launched Docurama Channel as well as the Docurama brand of award winning documentary films across all platforms including theatrical, home entertainment, and digital distribution.
Nigel Noble - Producer, director and Academy Award winner for the documentary short, “Close Harmony;" producer and director of films and video for theaters, television, not-for-profits, major businesses with works earning nominations and accolades from the Director’s Guild of America, Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival.
Roger Sherman - Director, producer and cinematographer of documentaries that have won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award and two Academy award nominations. He is a co-founder of Florentine Films with Ken Burns.
Ron Simon - Curator of television and radio for The Paley Center for Media; an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, New York University and Hunter College; judge on the George Foster Peabody committee; member editorial board of Television Quarterly.
Jacqui Lofaro was herself a documentary filmmaker until she started this festival which now consumes her days and nights. Not that she doesn’t have an idea for her next documentary, but, at this moment the festival, is exploding, a case of spontaneous combustion. The festival has taken over her life with screenings throughout the year, such as this spring’s screening of Frieda Lee Mock’s 2013 critically acclaimed film, “Anita”. With a panel of experts the screening was an event playing to a packed house. It didn’t matter that the film had already had its theatrical release. According to Jacqui “that’s what Take 2 is all about. Our mission is simply to show great documentary films to our local East End audience”. This festival reaches out to the community by showing films throughout the year in local libraries as well.
This year, the festival will screen a total of 32 documentaries at the Bay Street Theater. Using only one theater venue makes this festival intimate and very, very easy.
There is a balance in the festival between social issue documentaries and other docs, and between bringing in filmmakers and focusing on community filmmakers. Indeed the first day of the festival is devoted to regional filmmakers with a “Focus on Locals”.
In addition, the festival will feature several sections which are targeted at local youth: Young Voices (short docs made by local middle and high school students), Future Voices (films by Student Filmmakers from the NYC Media Arts Centers) and Emerging Voices (two strong films by recent graduates of the School of Visual Arts Mfa Social Documentary Program, introduced by documentary filmmaker and Sva professor, Deborah Dickson).
The Evening Galas are not red-carpet-celebrity events. Rather they honor documentary filmmakers such as Richard Leacock the inventor of the sound-sync camera or Susan Lacy of American Masters or Chris Hegedus & D A Pennebaker. This year the honors go to Barbara Kopple who has been making ground-breaking docs for 40+ years. Her first film on a devastating coal miners’ strike in Kentucky, “Harlan County USA”, was an Oscar winner, and will screen to this growing audience of doc fans.
This rock-solid festival is not premiere driven. However, this year the festival was offered the New York premiere of Michael Apted’s “Bending the Light” about lens making for photographers and filmmakers, and will also feature the east coast premiere of “The Big Beat”, made by local filmmaker and archivist, Joe Lauro. Also screening is Martin Scorsese’s “Fifty Year Argument”, an HBO documentary about the anniversary of The New York Review of Books.
The closing night film is reserved for the annual Filmmaker’s Choice Award which this year goes to Wendy Keys both filmmaker and former administrator at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Her documentary “Milton Glaser: To Inform & Delight, “ a warm and insightful view of the iconic American graphic designer of the “I Love New York” campaign and the founder of New York Magazine, will be the feature film.
The enthusiasm and efficiency behind this festival abide with Jacqui to such an extent that I wondered how she did it and wondered about her own docs, made by her company Justice Productions.org. She said they do not have traditional distribution, however, they continuously sell on Amazon’s Create Space, and she is invited to speak and show the film at universities, libraries and other venues where audiences care about social issues. Recently the Reel Recovery Film Festival showed “The Last Fix: An Addicts Passage from Hell to Hope” at the Quad. “The Empty Chair: Death Penalty Yes or No,” the recipient of the 2006 prestigious Thurgood Marshall Broadcast Journalism Award aired on national television on the Hallmark Channel’s World of Faith and Values and is still actively requested as well.
The festival has welcomed Karen Arikian (former Exec. Dir of the Hamptons International Film Festival and currently the Us rep for the Berlin International Film Festival) on board as Creative Advisor, and Jacqui has put together an Industry Advisory Board of top film and television professionals. Jacqui describes board meetings at the Paley Center for Media (Board Member, Ron Simon, is Paley’s Curator for TV and Radio) taking place in the Chairman’s office around Paley’s own round leather desk. As Jacqui puts it: “Now that’s a place of inspiration”.
Industry Advisory Board:
Julie Anderson - Executive Producer, Documentaries and Development at PBS/Wnet; former producer at Espn; documentary filmmaker at HBO Sports; executive at HBO Original Documentary Programming.
Karen Arikian - Founded her independent consulting company with offices in Germany and New York for clients including BAFTA, Toronto International Film Festival, Hamburg Media School; Us Delegate to (Berlinale) Berlin International Film Festival.
Susan Lacy - Founded "Pentimento Productions" in 2014, with a film to premiere on HBO, the first in an exclusive multi-picture deal with HBO Documentary Films; former creator, director & executive producer of 200 documentaries for the PBS “American Masters” series.
Don Lenzer - Documentary director and cinematographer whose credits can be found on five Academy Award winning feature documentaries and numerous public television programs; co-directed and shot the Emmy Award winning Great Performances documentary "Itzhak Perlman; In The Fiddler's House."
Susan Margolin - President of Docurama and Special Acquisitions at Cinedigm. She oversees the recently launched Docurama Channel as well as the Docurama brand of award winning documentary films across all platforms including theatrical, home entertainment, and digital distribution.
Nigel Noble - Producer, director and Academy Award winner for the documentary short, “Close Harmony;" producer and director of films and video for theaters, television, not-for-profits, major businesses with works earning nominations and accolades from the Director’s Guild of America, Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival.
Roger Sherman - Director, producer and cinematographer of documentaries that have won an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award and two Academy award nominations. He is a co-founder of Florentine Films with Ken Burns.
Ron Simon - Curator of television and radio for The Paley Center for Media; an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, New York University and Hunter College; judge on the George Foster Peabody committee; member editorial board of Television Quarterly.
- 11/11/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The New York Film Festival's Live series, which features free-to-the-public discussions with filmmakers and film industry professionals, will this year include directors Sally Potter (our Toh! interview is here), Cristian Mungiu, Lee Daniels and Barry Levinson, and actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Greta Gerwig. A conversation with recently-resigned longtime Fox chairman Tom Rothman on the making of Ang Lee's "The Life of Pi" is also a highlight of the talk series. Full schedule below. Nyff Live Schedule: Saturday, September 29 6:00Pm: Apple Store, SoHo Meet the Filmmaker: Barry Levinson (The Bay). 7:00Pm: Amphitheater Nyff Live: 50 Years of Film Culture with the Nyff Selection Committee: Melissa Anderson, Scott Foundas, Amy Taubin, Todd McCarthy, Wendy Keys, Philip Lopate, David Ansen. (Moderated by James Schamus, CEO, Focus Features) Sunday, September 30 7:00Pm: Amphitheater Nyff Live: Discussion on Life Of Pi...
- 9/27/2012
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Rating: 2.5/5
Director: Wendy Keys
We’ve all seen it, we may even have a t-shirt of it– the famous I Heart NY design. But for those of us outside of the art world, we may not know where the design comes from, and more importantly, the designer behind it. The documentary Milton Glaser: To Inform And Delight tells the story of the incredibly talented and influential graphic designer and artist, Milton Glaser. Glaser is the designer behind behind such campaigns as the Bob Dylan album cover, the DC Bullet logo and also the famous I Heart NY logo for New York City. Yet the documentary is not without its flaws, which almost overshadow the great story of a great designer.
Read more on DVD Review: Milton Glaser: To Inform And Delight…...
Director: Wendy Keys
We’ve all seen it, we may even have a t-shirt of it– the famous I Heart NY design. But for those of us outside of the art world, we may not know where the design comes from, and more importantly, the designer behind it. The documentary Milton Glaser: To Inform And Delight tells the story of the incredibly talented and influential graphic designer and artist, Milton Glaser. Glaser is the designer behind behind such campaigns as the Bob Dylan album cover, the DC Bullet logo and also the famous I Heart NY logo for New York City. Yet the documentary is not without its flaws, which almost overshadow the great story of a great designer.
Read more on DVD Review: Milton Glaser: To Inform And Delight…...
- 5/11/2010
- by Lauren Lester
- GordonandtheWhale
Toronto -- The 28th International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA) in Montreal is to kick off March 18 with Canadian director Anne-Marie Tougas' "Vivre Avec L'Art... Un Art de Vivre," and close with "Views on Vermeer -- 12 Short Stories," from Dutch director Hans Pool.
In all, FIFA will unspool 230 films from 23 countries during its 10-day run to March 28.
Among the 43 films in competition in Montreal are French director Gerald Caillat's L'Art de Chopin, "David Hockney: A Bigger Picture," from British-based director Bruno Wollheim, and German directors Werber Kohne and Andre Schaefer's "King of Spies -- John Le Carre," a portrait of the popular suspense writer.
Also screening at FIFA is "Juliette Binoche Dans Les Yeux," a biopic of the French actress by sister and French director Marion Stalens, and U.S. director Wendy Keys' "Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight."
The FIFA competition jury comprises German filmmaker Uli Aumueller,...
In all, FIFA will unspool 230 films from 23 countries during its 10-day run to March 28.
Among the 43 films in competition in Montreal are French director Gerald Caillat's L'Art de Chopin, "David Hockney: A Bigger Picture," from British-based director Bruno Wollheim, and German directors Werber Kohne and Andre Schaefer's "King of Spies -- John Le Carre," a portrait of the popular suspense writer.
Also screening at FIFA is "Juliette Binoche Dans Les Yeux," a biopic of the French actress by sister and French director Marion Stalens, and U.S. director Wendy Keys' "Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight."
The FIFA competition jury comprises German filmmaker Uli Aumueller,...
- 3/1/2010
- by By Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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