Ezra Edelman, director and producer of 'O.J.:Made In America' will give a keynote at Aidc 2017..
The 30th installment of the Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) has attracted a variety of international producers as its headline speakers.
They include head of Passion Pictures John Battsek (One Day In September); vice president of the Tribeca Film Institute Amy Hobby (What Happened, Miss Simone?) and Ezra Edelman, director and producer of O.J.: Made In America.
Edelman and Battsek will deliver the opening session about using sports documentary as a way to explore power and racial discrimination. Hobby will appear in conversation about the experiences of documentary filmmakers on the festival and awards circuit.
All three will also participate as mentors in the Access@Aidc mentorship program..
Other conference sessions announced so far include:
– Revolution or Evolution?, a session about the future of .serious gaming. and virtual reality documentary with Navid Khonsari,...
The 30th installment of the Australian International Documentary Conference (Aidc) has attracted a variety of international producers as its headline speakers.
They include head of Passion Pictures John Battsek (One Day In September); vice president of the Tribeca Film Institute Amy Hobby (What Happened, Miss Simone?) and Ezra Edelman, director and producer of O.J.: Made In America.
Edelman and Battsek will deliver the opening session about using sports documentary as a way to explore power and racial discrimination. Hobby will appear in conversation about the experiences of documentary filmmakers on the festival and awards circuit.
All three will also participate as mentors in the Access@Aidc mentorship program..
Other conference sessions announced so far include:
– Revolution or Evolution?, a session about the future of .serious gaming. and virtual reality documentary with Navid Khonsari,...
- 11/8/2016
- by Staff Writer
- IF.com.au
0:00 - Intro 1:50 - Review: 21 Jump Street 28:50 - Headlines: Michael Bay’s Tmnt Will Be Aliens?, New Garbage Pail Kids Movie, Leprechaun Reboot, Walmart Launches DVD to Digital Conversion Program, Dark Shadows Trailer 50:50 - Other Stuff We Watched: 30 Rock Season 4 and 5, Scrubs Season 5, Roll Tide/War Eagle, Unguarded, The Fab Five, Marion Jones: Press Pause, The Boys of Fall, My Breakfast with Blassie, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, Recoil, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wiebo's War, Contact, Hall Pass, Semi-Pro, Carlito's Way 1:18:30 - Junk Mail: The Expendables 2 Could Be Rated R After All, Woody Allen and Midnight in Paris, Interactive Smartphone Games in Cinemas, The Arbor, Top 100 Movies 1:37:35 - Celebrity Apprentice Recap 1:41:25 - This Week's DVD Releases 1:43:30 - Outro
Film Junk Podcast Episode #362: 21 Jump Street by Filmjunk on Mixcloud
» Download...
Film Junk Podcast Episode #362: 21 Jump Street by Filmjunk on Mixcloud
» Download...
- 3/20/2012
- by Sean
- FilmJunk
Another week, another Monday. So it’s time for the rundown of DVDs and Blu-rays hitting stores online and offline this week. It’s another packed week, with plenty of movies waiting to take you money, so let us breakdown the new releases and highlight what you should – and shouldn’t – be buying from today, January 30th 2012.
Pick Of The Week
Rolling Thunder (Blu-ray)
After spending eight years in a Vietcong prison camp, Major Charles Rane (William Devane, 24) returns home to a small town in Texas to be greeted as a hero with a Cadillac convertible and couple thousand dollars in silver coins, one for each day of his imprisonment. Struggling to go back to his former life, Rane faces another ordeal as a gang of thugs set their sights on his cash prize… Now living only for vengeance, he heads to Mexico to exact his own brand of justice on the fleeing crooks.
Pick Of The Week
Rolling Thunder (Blu-ray)
After spending eight years in a Vietcong prison camp, Major Charles Rane (William Devane, 24) returns home to a small town in Texas to be greeted as a hero with a Cadillac convertible and couple thousand dollars in silver coins, one for each day of his imprisonment. Struggling to go back to his former life, Rane faces another ordeal as a gang of thugs set their sights on his cash prize… Now living only for vengeance, he heads to Mexico to exact his own brand of justice on the fleeing crooks.
- 1/30/2012
- by Phil
- Nerdly
To celebrate the January 30th release of Cane Toads: The Conquest on DVD and Blu-ray, we are giving away a copy of the film on DVD to 3 lucky winners.
Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History) explores one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes as he follows the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent. Despised by many, venerated by some, the toad has occupied a nation’s consciousness achieving both cult and criminal status. Despite its international origin the cane toad has become uniquely Australian – yet, for a world wrestling with the idea that we have irretrievably altered our own ecosystem, its story holds universal relevance.
Featuring a host of engaging characters as well as thousands of toads, Cane Toads: 3D is a humorous yet thought-provoking journey into the issue of invasive species. Order your copy of Cane Toads: The Conquest now on Amazon
To be...
Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History) explores one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes as he follows the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent. Despised by many, venerated by some, the toad has occupied a nation’s consciousness achieving both cult and criminal status. Despite its international origin the cane toad has become uniquely Australian – yet, for a world wrestling with the idea that we have irretrievably altered our own ecosystem, its story holds universal relevance.
Featuring a host of engaging characters as well as thousands of toads, Cane Toads: 3D is a humorous yet thought-provoking journey into the issue of invasive species. Order your copy of Cane Toads: The Conquest now on Amazon
To be...
- 1/29/2012
- by Phil
- Nerdly
To celebrate the January 30th release of Cane Toads: The Conquest on DVD and Blu-ray, we are giving away a copy of the film on DVD to 3 lucky winners.
Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History) explores one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes as he follows the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent. Despised by many, venerated by some, the toad has occupied a nation’s consciousness achieving both cult and criminal status. Despite its international origin the cane toad has become uniquely Australian – yet, for a world wrestling with the idea that we have irretrievably altered our own ecosystem, its story holds universal relevance.
Featuring a host of engaging characters as well as thousands of toads, Cane Toads: 3D is a humorous yet thought-provoking journey into the issue of invasive species.
Order your copy of Cane Toads: The Conquest now on Amazon.
Click next...
Mark Lewis (Cane Toads: An Unnatural History) explores one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes as he follows the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent. Despised by many, venerated by some, the toad has occupied a nation’s consciousness achieving both cult and criminal status. Despite its international origin the cane toad has become uniquely Australian – yet, for a world wrestling with the idea that we have irretrievably altered our own ecosystem, its story holds universal relevance.
Featuring a host of engaging characters as well as thousands of toads, Cane Toads: 3D is a humorous yet thought-provoking journey into the issue of invasive species.
Order your copy of Cane Toads: The Conquest now on Amazon.
Click next...
- 1/27/2012
- by Competitons
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
In 3D, Mark Lewis explores one of Australia's greatest environmental catastrophes as he follows the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the continent.
Writer-director Mark Lewis makes a sequel to his own BAFTA-award winning 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. This follow-up charts the history of the toad problem and how Australians have tried to find a way of ridding their country of this amphibious pest.
In 1935, the South American cane toad was transported to Australia from Puerto Rico, in order to help tackle the issue of cane beetles attacking the...
Writer-director Mark Lewis makes a sequel to his own BAFTA-award winning 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. This follow-up charts the history of the toad problem and how Australians have tried to find a way of ridding their country of this amphibious pest.
In 1935, the South American cane toad was transported to Australia from Puerto Rico, in order to help tackle the issue of cane beetles attacking the...
- 10/2/2011
- by Paul Logan
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
This update of the cult documentary about the cane toads that have overrun Australia is a fun, if oddball, ride
The Australians never saw them coming. In a single hop, the platoon of 102 cane toads recruited to battle sugar cane grub in 1935 became an army of 1.5bn, poisoning everything in their wake. "It's a war," says the mayor of Katherine, the Northwest Territory town the toads breached in 2001. This is a 3D update/retread of the 1988 doco Cane Toads: An Unnatural History; there's carnage and carrion, but it's director Mark Lewis's focus on this war's heroes that give his chirpy doc its bounce. Here's Kev, specialist in stuffed toad tableaux, and there's Dairy Queen, the giant toad saved from service by a girl determined to keep it as a pet. Best of all is Wally – a dog that Od'd on toad licking. Says his owner: "He doesn't really do much [sic] doggie things now.
The Australians never saw them coming. In a single hop, the platoon of 102 cane toads recruited to battle sugar cane grub in 1935 became an army of 1.5bn, poisoning everything in their wake. "It's a war," says the mayor of Katherine, the Northwest Territory town the toads breached in 2001. This is a 3D update/retread of the 1988 doco Cane Toads: An Unnatural History; there's carnage and carrion, but it's director Mark Lewis's focus on this war's heroes that give his chirpy doc its bounce. Here's Kev, specialist in stuffed toad tableaux, and there's Dairy Queen, the giant toad saved from service by a girl determined to keep it as a pet. Best of all is Wally – a dog that Od'd on toad licking. Says his owner: "He doesn't really do much [sic] doggie things now.
- 9/29/2011
- by Henry Barnes
- The Guardian - Film News
This Friday sees the release of Cane Toads 3D: The Conquest, a documentary film about one of Australia’s greatest environmental catastrophes, and the lengths that people are willing to go to try and stop, the troublesome cane toad. To celebrate its release we take a look at some of the stand out films that see humans take on the animal world and the species that have inspired these environmental thrillers.
1) Arachnophobia (1990) – Man vs Spider
One of those movies you used to moan about being on TV all the time until they stopped showing it on TV all the time, Arachnophobia tackles the source one of human natures most common fears – the spider. A killer spider hitches a ride in a coffin from a South American rainforest to a small Us town in the coffin and begins mating with indigenous spiders to create a breed that’s venom causes instant death.
1) Arachnophobia (1990) – Man vs Spider
One of those movies you used to moan about being on TV all the time until they stopped showing it on TV all the time, Arachnophobia tackles the source one of human natures most common fears – the spider. A killer spider hitches a ride in a coffin from a South American rainforest to a small Us town in the coffin and begins mating with indigenous spiders to create a breed that’s venom causes instant death.
- 9/29/2011
- by Phil
- Nerdly
Brought to Australia in 1935 to protect sugar cane crops from a beetle pest, the cane toad rapidly spread and has now become a major threat to native wildlife.
Writer-director Mark Lewis first looked at the issue of the creature's introduction in his often-humorous 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, which was nominated for a BAFTA for best short film and is used in school science lessons.
He now returns to the topic with a sequel Cane Toads 3D: The Conquest, showing how the rogue amphibians have multiplied alarmingly in the two decades since his first work.
The new film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and is said to be Australia's first 3D digital production, hops into UK cinemas on September 30.
The trailer is included in our video feed on the right of the page, and is also embedded below.
Here's the official description:
"Mark Lewis explores one of...
Writer-director Mark Lewis first looked at the issue of the creature's introduction in his often-humorous 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, which was nominated for a BAFTA for best short film and is used in school science lessons.
He now returns to the topic with a sequel Cane Toads 3D: The Conquest, showing how the rogue amphibians have multiplied alarmingly in the two decades since his first work.
The new film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival and is said to be Australia's first 3D digital production, hops into UK cinemas on September 30.
The trailer is included in our video feed on the right of the page, and is also embedded below.
Here's the official description:
"Mark Lewis explores one of...
- 9/21/2011
- by David Bentley
- The Geek Files
They might seem unlikely stars for a 3D film, but for Cane Toads: The Conquest director Mark Lewis it was a natural choice. He tells Ed Gibbs about Australia's love-hate relationship with this unwanted intruder
They ran over them with cars, bashed them with cricket bats, took swings at them with golf clubs – and nothing made any difference. Their lethal toxic venom ensured that anything that ate them came off second best. Some people boiled them, others made pets of them, and at least one (musician Tim Finn) wrote a song about them. The cane toad, Australia's plague species, was immortalised in a 1987 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. Now, some 25 years on, the toads are back – bigger and badder than ever, in Cane Toads: The Conquest, Australia's first-ever 3D film.
At least part of the reason behind the unexpected success of Mark Lewis's original film – with a domestic...
They ran over them with cars, bashed them with cricket bats, took swings at them with golf clubs – and nothing made any difference. Their lethal toxic venom ensured that anything that ate them came off second best. Some people boiled them, others made pets of them, and at least one (musician Tim Finn) wrote a song about them. The cane toad, Australia's plague species, was immortalised in a 1987 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. Now, some 25 years on, the toads are back – bigger and badder than ever, in Cane Toads: The Conquest, Australia's first-ever 3D film.
At least part of the reason behind the unexpected success of Mark Lewis's original film – with a domestic...
- 9/20/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Cane Toads: The Conquest, a new 3D film by Mark Lewis, tracks the unstoppable journey of the toad across the Australian continent and asks whether these invaders can ever gain respect
• Interactive: Australian cane toads meet their match
Reconciling with a long-standing enemy is hard, especially when they are venomous, decimate the local population and number more than 1.5 billion.
However, there is alternate take on the story of cane toads in Australia, as explored by Cane Toads: The Conquest, which featured at the Sundance Film Festival last year and is gearing up for a UK release following positive reception in Australia.
The documentary, which claims to be the first non-fiction film to be shown in 3D, is the creation of Mark Lewis, an ABC journalist turned director. It is a reboot, rather than a standard sequel, to Lewis's first treatise on the subject, 1988's cult hit Cane Toads: An Unnatural History.
• Interactive: Australian cane toads meet their match
Reconciling with a long-standing enemy is hard, especially when they are venomous, decimate the local population and number more than 1.5 billion.
However, there is alternate take on the story of cane toads in Australia, as explored by Cane Toads: The Conquest, which featured at the Sundance Film Festival last year and is gearing up for a UK release following positive reception in Australia.
The documentary, which claims to be the first non-fiction film to be shown in 3D, is the creation of Mark Lewis, an ABC journalist turned director. It is a reboot, rather than a standard sequel, to Lewis's first treatise on the subject, 1988's cult hit Cane Toads: An Unnatural History.
- 6/16/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Amphibians don’t have the most prolific history in cinema. There was a croakingly bad (sorry) but equally quite enjoyable horror swamp roam called Frogs, which headlined a seventies serious Sam Elliott attempting to defend a family (aptly named, the Crockett’s) from a spread of malevolent lily pad hoppers. But apart from this brief foray into slimy froggy madness toads have been pretty quiet on the filmic waterfront.
That was until veteran Aussie documentarian Mark Lewis decided to release his 1988 doc Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, which looked into the botched 1930s attempt to introduce Hawaiian sugar-cane fed toads as counter pests in Oz.
Now Lewis is back with Cane Toads: The Conquest, the 23 years in the making follow up doco-horror that has just been released in Australia and which looks at the subsequent environmental ramifications of the titular unstoppable critters – who have spread over the Australian state of Queensland,...
That was until veteran Aussie documentarian Mark Lewis decided to release his 1988 doc Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, which looked into the botched 1930s attempt to introduce Hawaiian sugar-cane fed toads as counter pests in Oz.
Now Lewis is back with Cane Toads: The Conquest, the 23 years in the making follow up doco-horror that has just been released in Australia and which looks at the subsequent environmental ramifications of the titular unstoppable critters – who have spread over the Australian state of Queensland,...
- 6/2/2011
- by Oliver Pfeiffer
- Obsessed with Film
With 1988's Cane Toads: An Unnatural History, Australian documentary filmmaker Mark Lewis (The Natural History of the Chicken) introduced Sundance audiences to the cane toad--an amphibian imported Down Under in 1935 to control sugar cane larvae. Of course, the cane toad did nothing of the kind, and turned out to be a remarkably adaptable--and toxic--creature, capable of killing dogs and pets with its poison glands. This time with Cane Toads: The Conquest, Lewis celebrates the toad as he tries to restore the balance by suggesting it's not all the toad's fault. He takes us from the toad 16 million years ago, through Puerto Rico and Hawaii to Australia and the evolution of the new and improved 3- D "Ava-Toad." The movie is hilarious. Folks try to ...
- 1/30/2010
- Thompson on Hollywood
We know the Sundance Film Festival can handle 3D movies, as evidenced with 2008's U2 3D and this year's most popular documentary, Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. But isn't it time for some of Park City's fiction film veterans to embrace the format and make some game changers for the indie world?
Kevin Smith could turn his breakout film into a trilogy with Clerks 3D, while I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Quentin Tarantino does something in three dimensions. Actually, a few years ago Qt reportedly told Total Film he's interested in doing a 3D porn film. But he'll apparently be beaten to the punch by Gaspar Noé, who is at the fest this year with his latest, Enter the Void (read our review of it here).
Noé is notorious for making films depicting graphic sex (see the controversial Irreversible), and according to Hollywood Wiretap his next...
Kevin Smith could turn his breakout film into a trilogy with Clerks 3D, while I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Quentin Tarantino does something in three dimensions. Actually, a few years ago Qt reportedly told Total Film he's interested in doing a 3D porn film. But he'll apparently be beaten to the punch by Gaspar Noé, who is at the fest this year with his latest, Enter the Void (read our review of it here).
Noé is notorious for making films depicting graphic sex (see the controversial Irreversible), and according to Hollywood Wiretap his next...
- 1/28/2010
- by Christopher Campbell
- Cinematical
I wish there was a trailer I could share with you to show off Cane Toads: The Conquest. This 3D documentary, which premiered last night at Sundance, is director Mark Lewis' return to the subject of his film Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. I'm a sucker for oddball nature docs, and with the exception of The Hellstrom Chronicle (which needs a DVD release, like, now) they don't come much more oddball than Cane Toads. In lieu of a trailer, here's a roundup of info and a few enthusiastic reactions to the film. Why do people like the movie so much? Perhaps because it features "the first 3-D dog acid trip sequence in cinema history." I'm not making that up. Read on! The basics: In 1935, 102 cane toads were imported from Hawaii to Australia. The idea was to control a beetle that decimates sugar cane crops. What no one considered at...
- 1/28/2010
- by Russ Fischer
- Slash Film
Over twenty years after Mark Lewis dazzled audiences with his "Cane Toads: An Unnatural History", the director is back with a 3D sequel of sorts entitled "Cane Toads: The Conquest" - or as Lewis put it prior to the world premiere screening - ‘Avatoads’.
This time around, Lewis takes a giant leap forward as he revs up the technology, once again tracking the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent, from lush north Queensland through to the Northern Territory and as far west as the outlying regions of Western Australia.
Loathed and detested by many, and even adored by some, the ingenious director takes the audience into both the early history [a very early history precedes the opening credits with a hilarious sequence] and a take on these pesky toads from various perspectives.
Lewis is not a dry documentarian by any means, as evidenced in a film that includes a hallucinatory dog with LSD-type visions to a wonder dog that returns from the dead.
This time around, Lewis takes a giant leap forward as he revs up the technology, once again tracking the unstoppable march of the cane toad across the Australian continent, from lush north Queensland through to the Northern Territory and as far west as the outlying regions of Western Australia.
Loathed and detested by many, and even adored by some, the ingenious director takes the audience into both the early history [a very early history precedes the opening credits with a hilarious sequence] and a take on these pesky toads from various perspectives.
Lewis is not a dry documentarian by any means, as evidenced in a film that includes a hallucinatory dog with LSD-type visions to a wonder dog that returns from the dead.
- 1/27/2010
- by Paul Fischer
- Dark Horizons
Sundance-bound and tired of flipping through each film individually on the schedule? Staying comfortably home, but don't want to be left out of the conversation about the indies likely to dominate the discussion for the next year? Well, we've got a guide for you.
We've put together the ultimate cheat sheet to this year's Sundance Film Festival. Although it's useful as a preview to the 113 features this year's fest (every title links to its respective Sundance page), consider it a living, breathing document with Facebook and Twitter links to follow filmmakers and our own Matt Singer (@mattsinger) and Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) as they negotiate the snowy slopes and occasionally treacherous festivalgoing experience that Park City has to offer, not to mention our constantly updated Sundance home page.
Sections: [Spotlight] [Next] [U.S. Dramatic Competition] [U.S. Documentary Competition] [World Cinema Dramatic Competition] [World Cinema Documentary Competition] [New Frontier] [Park City at Midnight]
Sundance Premieres
"Abel" (IMDb)
The Cast: José María Yazpik, Karina Gidi, Carlos Aragon, Christopher Ruiz-Esparza, Gerardo Ruiz-Esparza
Director: Diego Luna
The Gist:...
We've put together the ultimate cheat sheet to this year's Sundance Film Festival. Although it's useful as a preview to the 113 features this year's fest (every title links to its respective Sundance page), consider it a living, breathing document with Facebook and Twitter links to follow filmmakers and our own Matt Singer (@mattsinger) and Alison Willmore (@alisonwillmore) as they negotiate the snowy slopes and occasionally treacherous festivalgoing experience that Park City has to offer, not to mention our constantly updated Sundance home page.
Sections: [Spotlight] [Next] [U.S. Dramatic Competition] [U.S. Documentary Competition] [World Cinema Dramatic Competition] [World Cinema Documentary Competition] [New Frontier] [Park City at Midnight]
Sundance Premieres
"Abel" (IMDb)
The Cast: José María Yazpik, Karina Gidi, Carlos Aragon, Christopher Ruiz-Esparza, Gerardo Ruiz-Esparza
Director: Diego Luna
The Gist:...
- 1/22/2010
- by Stephen Saito
- ifc.com
The world seems to be falling in love with 3-D films. With the 3-D renaissance really beginning on the back of animation films like Up! and Coraline and blockbusters such as Avatar, why not make an Australian documentary about our most famous pest in 3-D? Australia's first 3-D film, Cane Toads: The Conquest, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival later this month. Written and directed by unconventional filmmaker Mark Lewis, The Conquest is the follow up to his 1988 documentary Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. In America for the festival, Lewis said, "Here in Los Angeles there is an extraordinary heat on all aspects of 3-D and everyone seems excited by it.
- 1/21/2010
- FilmInk.com.au
Yesterday we got the list for the films playing in competition at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and today we get the rest of the films that will be featured and there are quite a few that make 2010 look much stronger based on pedigree alone than I have seen in quite some time. Variety has a big write-up detailing the categories and more on the festival right here, but I am just going to offer up the titles and let you sort it all out.
The titles already in the RopeofSilicon database are linked.
Premieres
All films are from the United States unless otherwise noted Abel (Mexico-u.S.), the directorial debut of actor Diego Luna, written by Luna and Agusto Mendoza, about a peculiar young boy who, as he blurs reality and fantasy, takes over the responsibilities of a family man in his father's absence. With Jose Maria Yazpik, Karina Gidi,...
The titles already in the RopeofSilicon database are linked.
Premieres
All films are from the United States unless otherwise noted Abel (Mexico-u.S.), the directorial debut of actor Diego Luna, written by Luna and Agusto Mendoza, about a peculiar young boy who, as he blurs reality and fantasy, takes over the responsibilities of a family man in his father's absence. With Jose Maria Yazpik, Karina Gidi,...
- 12/3/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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