Transilvania International Film Festival has announced the line-up for its 23rd edition which takes place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania
The 12 features in competition feature several festival favourites including Shuchi Talati’s Indian romance Girls Will Be Girls which won the Sundance audience award in world cinema – dramatic and the Arte international prize at Berlinale.
Scroll down for full line-up
Also competing is Laura Ferres’ The Permanent Picture, best film winner at Valladolid; Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis, which scooped Karlovy Vary jury awards in Fipresci and Europa Cinema Label; and Berlinale Forum premiere The Adamant Girl from Indian director P.S. Vinothraj.
The 12 features in competition feature several festival favourites including Shuchi Talati’s Indian romance Girls Will Be Girls which won the Sundance audience award in world cinema – dramatic and the Arte international prize at Berlinale.
Scroll down for full line-up
Also competing is Laura Ferres’ The Permanent Picture, best film winner at Valladolid; Ernst De Geer’s The Hypnosis, which scooped Karlovy Vary jury awards in Fipresci and Europa Cinema Label; and Berlinale Forum premiere The Adamant Girl from Indian director P.S. Vinothraj.
- 5/16/2024
- ScreenDaily
Moved from its usual December berth last year, the 12th Panama International Film Festival (Iff Panama) runs April 4-7, replete with new industry activities and double the number of films since its previous edition.
True to its mandate to serve as a showcase for Central American and Caribbean cinema, the festival’s program this year includes a bevy of acclaimed films from the region, including two Panamanian Indigenous-themed features, “Bila Burba” and “God is a Woman.”
Recent years has seen the growing international recognition of pics from the region, with Nelson Carlo de los Santos becoming the first Dominican – and first Latin American – filmmaker to snag the best director Silver Bear at the Berlinale for his drama, “Pepe.”
Costa Rican director Antonella Sudasassi Furniss’ sophomore feature, “Memories of a Burning Body,” clinched the Audience Award for best fiction film in the Panorama section of the A-list German festival.
Both are screening at Iff Panama.
True to its mandate to serve as a showcase for Central American and Caribbean cinema, the festival’s program this year includes a bevy of acclaimed films from the region, including two Panamanian Indigenous-themed features, “Bila Burba” and “God is a Woman.”
Recent years has seen the growing international recognition of pics from the region, with Nelson Carlo de los Santos becoming the first Dominican – and first Latin American – filmmaker to snag the best director Silver Bear at the Berlinale for his drama, “Pepe.”
Costa Rican director Antonella Sudasassi Furniss’ sophomore feature, “Memories of a Burning Body,” clinched the Audience Award for best fiction film in the Panorama section of the A-list German festival.
Both are screening at Iff Panama.
- 4/3/2024
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Colombia’s film landscape is undergoing a significant evolution. As streaming platforms grow in the country and international productions leverage Colombia’s tax incentives, new avenues have emerged for filmmakers to venture into uncharted territories.
Selected for San Sebastián’s New Directors competition, Juan Sebastián Quebrada’s “The Other Son” exemplifies this transformation. Franco Lolli’s work has undeniably carved out a niche for stories centred around Colombia’s middle class; Quebrada’s further explores and expands these narratives, opening up new areas for investigation in filmmaking.
In “The Other Son,” we follow the life of Federico (Miguel González) and his brother Simon, who revel in the throes of adolescence. Tragedy strikes when Simon meets an untimely death, plunging from a balcony during a party. As Federico grapples with this loss, he finds himself drawn to Laura (Ilona Almansa), Simon’s girlfriend, seeking solace in their shared grief. Amidst this emotional turmoil,...
Selected for San Sebastián’s New Directors competition, Juan Sebastián Quebrada’s “The Other Son” exemplifies this transformation. Franco Lolli’s work has undeniably carved out a niche for stories centred around Colombia’s middle class; Quebrada’s further explores and expands these narratives, opening up new areas for investigation in filmmaking.
In “The Other Son,” we follow the life of Federico (Miguel González) and his brother Simon, who revel in the throes of adolescence. Tragedy strikes when Simon meets an untimely death, plunging from a balcony during a party. As Federico grapples with this loss, he finds himself drawn to Laura (Ilona Almansa), Simon’s girlfriend, seeking solace in their shared grief. Amidst this emotional turmoil,...
- 12/6/2023
- by Emiliano Granada
- Variety Film + TV
Festival has programmed 75 films from 36 countries.
The Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the full line-up for its 20th edition, which runs from November 24-December 2.
The festival is opening with Richard Linklater’s action comedy Hit Man, starring Glen Powell, and is screening 75 films in total from 36 countries.
Marrakech’s official competition, which comprises first and second feature films, includes Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Cannes Competition title Banel & Adama, Lina Soualem’s Venice Giornate degli Autori documentary Bye Bye Tiberias and Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq’s feature debut Hounds, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
Scroll down for full line-up
Johnny Barrington,...
The Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the full line-up for its 20th edition, which runs from November 24-December 2.
The festival is opening with Richard Linklater’s action comedy Hit Man, starring Glen Powell, and is screening 75 films in total from 36 countries.
Marrakech’s official competition, which comprises first and second feature films, includes Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s Cannes Competition title Banel & Adama, Lina Soualem’s Venice Giornate degli Autori documentary Bye Bye Tiberias and Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq’s feature debut Hounds, which premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
Scroll down for full line-up
Johnny Barrington,...
- 11/2/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Richard Linklater’s action comedy “Hit Man” is set to open the Marrakech International Film Festival, which has announced its lineup of more than 70 films mixing known titles and fresh fare.
The fest is forging ahead with its 20th edition, which will run Nov. 24- Dec.2 in the ancient Moroccan city despite the Israel-Hamas conflict that has caused cancellations of several other fests in the region, as well as the earthquake that hit the country in September.
“Hit Man,” for which organizers declined to specify whether talent will attend, will screen as part of Marrakech’s red carpet gala screenings. Italian director Matteo Garrone is expected to make the trek for the gala of his Venice prizewinning immigration drama “Io Capitano” and Michel Franco will be coming to present another Venice prizewinner, “Memory,” starring Jessica Chastain, who is presiding over the fest’s main jury.
Also expected on hand for...
The fest is forging ahead with its 20th edition, which will run Nov. 24- Dec.2 in the ancient Moroccan city despite the Israel-Hamas conflict that has caused cancellations of several other fests in the region, as well as the earthquake that hit the country in September.
“Hit Man,” for which organizers declined to specify whether talent will attend, will screen as part of Marrakech’s red carpet gala screenings. Italian director Matteo Garrone is expected to make the trek for the gala of his Venice prizewinning immigration drama “Io Capitano” and Michel Franco will be coming to present another Venice prizewinner, “Memory,” starring Jessica Chastain, who is presiding over the fest’s main jury.
Also expected on hand for...
- 11/2/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The 20th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival has announced its selection, opening with Richard Linklater’s comedy Hit Man.
The event, running from November 24 to December 24, will unfold two months after the devastating earthquake in the nearby Atlas Mountains in September, which killed more than 2,000 people.
The management team has decided to push on with the event to support Marrakech, which suffered very little damage and relies heavily on tourism for its livelihood.
Hit Man will play as part of the festival’s six picture red carpet Gala selection which also includes Matteo Garrone’s Italian Oscar entry Me Captain and Michel Franco’s Memory.
Previously announced high-profile guests due to attend this year include Martin Scorsese, who will act as a mentor to emerging filmmakers attending the industry-focused Atlas Workshops, and Jessica Chastain as president of the jury.
She will be joined by Iranian actress and director Zar Amir,...
The event, running from November 24 to December 24, will unfold two months after the devastating earthquake in the nearby Atlas Mountains in September, which killed more than 2,000 people.
The management team has decided to push on with the event to support Marrakech, which suffered very little damage and relies heavily on tourism for its livelihood.
Hit Man will play as part of the festival’s six picture red carpet Gala selection which also includes Matteo Garrone’s Italian Oscar entry Me Captain and Michel Franco’s Memory.
Previously announced high-profile guests due to attend this year include Martin Scorsese, who will act as a mentor to emerging filmmakers attending the industry-focused Atlas Workshops, and Jessica Chastain as president of the jury.
She will be joined by Iranian actress and director Zar Amir,...
- 11/2/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
The line-up includes Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch! starring Ewan McGregor, Taylor Russell and Ellen Burstyn
San Sebastian International Film Festival has unveiled the 11 first and second features competing for the New Directors award.
Among the selection is Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch! starring Ewan McGregor, Taylor Russell and Ellen Burstyn. The film is a co-production between the US, Sweden and Denmark and sees three estranged siblings brought back together by their mother’s bizarre behaviour.
The strand will open with Miang Ling’s second film Carefree Days which follows a 25-year-old woman with a terminal illness who embarks on...
San Sebastian International Film Festival has unveiled the 11 first and second features competing for the New Directors award.
Among the selection is Niclas Larsson’s Mother, Couch! starring Ewan McGregor, Taylor Russell and Ellen Burstyn. The film is a co-production between the US, Sweden and Denmark and sees three estranged siblings brought back together by their mother’s bizarre behaviour.
The strand will open with Miang Ling’s second film Carefree Days which follows a 25-year-old woman with a terminal illness who embarks on...
- 7/27/2023
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Swedish pic Mother, Couch! starring Taylor Russell and Ewan McGregor alongside Ellen Burstyn is one of the titles San Sebastian has set to compete for its New Directors award during its 71st edition, running September 22 — 30.
The film is from the debut feature filmmaker Niclas Larsson and follows three estranged children who are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store. The previously unannounced film is a US – Danish – Swedish co-production. Unlike the other titles announced today, the mystery project had no accompanying image.
Eleven productions from nineteen countries will compete for San Sebastian’s Kutxabank-New Directors Award. Of all the selected movies, seven are debut works, while the rest are second features. The Kutxabank-New Directors Award comes with a 50,000 euro cash prize divided equally between the director and the distributor of the film in Spain. Films in the New Directors section are also...
The film is from the debut feature filmmaker Niclas Larsson and follows three estranged children who are brought together when their mother refuses to move from a couch in a furniture store. The previously unannounced film is a US – Danish – Swedish co-production. Unlike the other titles announced today, the mystery project had no accompanying image.
Eleven productions from nineteen countries will compete for San Sebastian’s Kutxabank-New Directors Award. Of all the selected movies, seven are debut works, while the rest are second features. The Kutxabank-New Directors Award comes with a 50,000 euro cash prize divided equally between the director and the distributor of the film in Spain. Films in the New Directors section are also...
- 7/27/2023
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor Title ‘Mother, Couch!’ to Bow at San Sebastian’s New Directors Sidebar
Starring “Bones and All’s” Taylor Russell, Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn, “Mother, Couch!” the feature debut of Sweden’s Niclas Larsson, features in a currently 11-title lineup of San Sebastian’s 2023 New Directors section, the most important sidebar at the highest-profile movie event in the Spanish-speaking world.
Notable in Trey Edward Shults’ raved-reviewed debut “Waves,” Russell stars in “Mother, Couch,” billed as dark dramedy that, produced by Lyrical Media and Suris/Bishop Films, has largely flown under the radar. Though “Mother, Couch!” Is his feature debut, Larsson is a high-profile short filmmaker, his Vatten (2013) earned the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Göteborg, and 2015’s “The Magic Dinner” starred Alicia Vikander and Anna Wintour.
Section’s other highest-profile title is supernatural art house drama “Last Shadow at First Light,” shot between Singapore and Japan and directed by Nicole Midori and described by Variety as examining “the intangible nature...
Notable in Trey Edward Shults’ raved-reviewed debut “Waves,” Russell stars in “Mother, Couch,” billed as dark dramedy that, produced by Lyrical Media and Suris/Bishop Films, has largely flown under the radar. Though “Mother, Couch!” Is his feature debut, Larsson is a high-profile short filmmaker, his Vatten (2013) earned the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Göteborg, and 2015’s “The Magic Dinner” starred Alicia Vikander and Anna Wintour.
Section’s other highest-profile title is supernatural art house drama “Last Shadow at First Light,” shot between Singapore and Japan and directed by Nicole Midori and described by Variety as examining “the intangible nature...
- 7/27/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Barcelona-based Film Factory Entertainment has picked up world sales rights to “El Otro Hijo,” the feature debut of Colombia’s Juan Sebastián Quebrada.
The Evidencia Films production adds to the growing list of Colombian pickups by Film Factory, including last year’s sweeping Premios Platino winner, “Memories of My Father” (“El Olvido que Seremos”) by Fernando Trueba. and Laura Mora’s “Kings of the World,”which competes at the upcoming San Sebastian Film Festival and is part of Toronto’s Industry Select section.
“Film Factory is excited to be on board; Colombian cinema is very strong and we are eager to discover new talents from the country. We believe we found one in Juan Sebastián Quebrada,” Film Factory’s Vicente Canales told Variety.
“El Otro Hijo” is a coming-of-age tale that revolves around a teenager who after the sudden and unexpected death of his younger brother, falls in love with...
The Evidencia Films production adds to the growing list of Colombian pickups by Film Factory, including last year’s sweeping Premios Platino winner, “Memories of My Father” (“El Olvido que Seremos”) by Fernando Trueba. and Laura Mora’s “Kings of the World,”which competes at the upcoming San Sebastian Film Festival and is part of Toronto’s Industry Select section.
“Film Factory is excited to be on board; Colombian cinema is very strong and we are eager to discover new talents from the country. We believe we found one in Juan Sebastián Quebrada,” Film Factory’s Vicente Canales told Variety.
“El Otro Hijo” is a coming-of-age tale that revolves around a teenager who after the sudden and unexpected death of his younger brother, falls in love with...
- 9/10/2022
- by Anna Marie de la Fuente
- Variety Film + TV
Past participants have included ‘Son Of Saul’, ‘The Death Of Cinema and My Father Too’ and ‘Beginning’.
The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl) has unveiled the 12 projects selected for its 9th edition, which is running online for now due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Founded in 2011 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (Jsfs), the lab traditionally selects six international and six Israeli projects.
The lab usually combines residential workshops and remote support but this year most of the programme is expected to take place online.
Participants include UK director Claire Oakley with English Animals, her...
The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab (Jsfl) has unveiled the 12 projects selected for its 9th edition, which is running online for now due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Founded in 2011 under the auspices of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (Jsfs), the lab traditionally selects six international and six Israeli projects.
The lab usually combines residential workshops and remote support but this year most of the programme is expected to take place online.
Participants include UK director Claire Oakley with English Animals, her...
- 11/16/2020
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
He played iconic roles like Frankenstein's monster and Imhotep (aka The Mummy), but Boris Karloff also instilled life in so many other intriguing characters, including Morgan in The Old Dark House, coming to Blu-ray (in a 4K restoration), DVD, and digital platforms this October from the Cohen Film Collection:
Press Release: Charles S. Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group, today announced that the landmark thriller The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff, will be released by the Cohen Film Collection on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms on October 24, 2017. The home video release features the dazzling new 4K digital restoration that was screened to wide acclaim at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.
Based on J.B. Priestley's popular novel Benighted, this legendary classic was directed by James Whale in the fertile period between his Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. In The Old Dark House, Whale puts a surprising spin on...
Press Release: Charles S. Cohen, Chairman and CEO of Cohen Media Group, today announced that the landmark thriller The Old Dark House, starring Boris Karloff, will be released by the Cohen Film Collection on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms on October 24, 2017. The home video release features the dazzling new 4K digital restoration that was screened to wide acclaim at the 2017 Venice Film Festival.
Based on J.B. Priestley's popular novel Benighted, this legendary classic was directed by James Whale in the fertile period between his Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. In The Old Dark House, Whale puts a surprising spin on...
- 9/26/2017
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Exclusive: Gaumont, The Solution pre-buys among deals.
Euro distributor Ascot Elite has finalised deals for German-speaking Europe on a trio of Cannes market titles, including upcoming Jk Simmons (Whiplash) and Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) comedy The Runaround from The Solution.
Due to shoot this summer in Los Angeles, Gavin Wiesen will direct The Runaround from a screenplay by Seth W Owen about a globe-trotting workaholic father who enlists the help of his daughter’s awkward ex to find his girl during a layover in Los Angeles.
From Gaumont, the outfit pre-bought new French drama-comedy Le Coeur en Braille from Cesar-winning actor-director Michel Boujenah.
Set to shoot this August, Pascal Elbe (The Other Son) and Charles Berling (March of the Penguins) are among the cast of the drama based on Pascal Ruten’s novel about the friendship between a cellist who is losing her sight and a young boy who helps her hide the condition from her...
Euro distributor Ascot Elite has finalised deals for German-speaking Europe on a trio of Cannes market titles, including upcoming Jk Simmons (Whiplash) and Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) comedy The Runaround from The Solution.
Due to shoot this summer in Los Angeles, Gavin Wiesen will direct The Runaround from a screenplay by Seth W Owen about a globe-trotting workaholic father who enlists the help of his daughter’s awkward ex to find his girl during a layover in Los Angeles.
From Gaumont, the outfit pre-bought new French drama-comedy Le Coeur en Braille from Cesar-winning actor-director Michel Boujenah.
Set to shoot this August, Pascal Elbe (The Other Son) and Charles Berling (March of the Penguins) are among the cast of the drama based on Pascal Ruten’s novel about the friendship between a cellist who is losing her sight and a young boy who helps her hide the condition from her...
- 6/3/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
I have just returned from Wroclaw, Poland where U.S. in Progress, the American Film Festival's works-in-progress event just wrapped. Held October 22-25, 2014, during the 5th American Film Festival (October 21-26), this was the best selection of filmmakers and films I have seen here to date, and I have been attending this event and its sister event in Paris every year since its inception (except for last October which I missed).
Earnest, attentive and professionally engaged, seeking answers about the best ways to complete the films in order to appeal strategically to festivals and international sales agents, the filmmakers discussed how best to further the success of their present and future films as well as their careers as international filmmakers. These six teams of filmmakers undoubtedly benefited enormously from the Polish and European film professionals who shared their knowledge as everyone watched the six chosen films, networking, sharing meals and drinking and who knows what till all hours in three fully packed days and nights.
Debuting filmmakers from the United States. in the only event of its kind in Europe (except for its sister event held in July at the Champs Elysees Film Festival in Paris) were invited (all expenses paid) to this great European city where the only multiplex for arthouse cinema of its kind is flourishing.
Roman Gutek, founder of this festival and the larger summertime Mobile New Horizons Film Festival, owner of Gutek Distribution, an entrepreneur who loves creating new events and projects, took over the giant theater in the middle of this middle-European, formerly Prussian city a few years ago and has introduced more than cinema to a well-educated (top univerisity here is one of the oldest in Europe) young populace. Other successful events include opera, ballet and monthly film events for 35,000 school children. He is now preparing the cinema component for the upcoming celebration of Wroclaw as the European Capital of Culture 2016.
One of his sons is working with the American Film Festival with its artistic director Ula Śniegowska. The other son is a chef and quite active in the gastronomic success of the city. Polish food is what our grandmothers used to make; one of the finest if not the finest cuisine in Central and Eastern Europe. This year pumpkin held center stage, with delicious dumplings and soups. Coincidentally, that other great culinary and cinema city, San Sebastian, also the inventor of the cinema "works-in-progress" industry model, has instituted a gastronomic exchange through the Polish-Basque Cultural Association Arrano Zuria. The project is promoted by the Donostia San Sebastian 2016 Foundation in charge of the European Capital of Culture 2016 in which chefs from both countries exchange and share recipes of both countries for public feasts.
But I digress...the 2014 U.S. in Progress, Wrocław participants:
Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian of "God Bless the Child" were articulate and full of anecdotes about how their book-ended story featured Robert's own five children in their own home. The first book-end shows the car being driven away by the mother early in the morning thus leaving the 13 year old daughter in charge of four brothers aged 18 months to seven or eight years. The closing book-end is for you, the viewer, to see as it caps off an almost perfect film. Between book-ends, this family, held together by the sweet and loving older sister, spends an almost real-life day together. Genre-defying, docu-like, so loving and so sad, this is not an easy-to-sell film for sales agents because it fits no preset marketing formula. However, I would venture to guess that If an audience were lucky enough to see it, word would spread about how lovingly effective and how unique it is. Rodrigo and Robert have more films in mind as well which are of the type that you want them to succeed in making. The jury unanimously awarded prizes for the completion to this worthy film. It is not "like" it, but still it put me in mind of Whit Stillman's "Boyhood" because the players are real people basically playing themselves.
"Take Me to the River" the debut feature of Matt Sobel was extraordinarily accomplished for a first-timer. A story about middle-America, a brother and sister find themselves at odds at their large family reunion at the family farm, when their two children are involved in an incident. The "big-city" (not) teenaged boy, the only child of the sister and her city-bred husband, finds his integrity tested in the events that follow. When the professional audience watching this film pointed out similarities to Thomas Vinterberg, Matt was aware and pointed out that his editor, Jacob Secher Schulsinger, was Danish and edited "Nymphomaniac" 1 and 2 as well as this year's Swedish Academy contender, "Force Majeure". On a personal note, we have known Matt for the six years it has taken to complete this film and have watched him as he attended Binger Institute as a post-grad whose college education did not include filmmaking, as he grew personally and professionally. We feel very proud of him and this film which we hope will make it to the top festivals and will be picked up by a top international sales agent to sell to top distributors. Its authenticity is a result of conscious decisions made in the creation of the drama by Matt. A strong and unique film.
"The Homefront" co-directed by Tyler Walker & Fidel Ruiz Healy is another totally unique, stand-alone feature, though it might be put into a genre category of post-apocalyptic, family drama. Only the apocalypse has not yet happened. War is still at a distance while this self-survivalist family of parents and their son and daughter wait it out in their large family house somewhere in Texas. The team of Tyler and Fidel started this when they were 19 years old. Today they are 23 and have more stories in them. It could actually be remade on a grander scale and would attract an audience, given some marketing dollars to get it into play. This is an unexpected story, acclaimed by the jury and awarded post-production prizes including sound and soundtrack composition. Additional links: https://vimeo.com/ruizhealy, http://www.theamericanstandardfilmco.com/
"Nakom" co-directed by Travis Pittman & Kelly Daniela Norris is another of the several co-directed films here attesting to a new generation of filmmakers who work in teams. This team-building is not just in U.S.; I have also seen it in Latin America and the Caribbean that young filmmakers meet in film school or at festivals and go on to create working teams which I think will continue to make films together. In this case Travis and Kelly met in film school and this is their second film together. The first, "Ombras de Azul" is just beginning to make the rounds. They shot it in Cuba. This one they shot in Ghana, in a village in the African plains where Travis spent two years in Peace Corps. It is enacted in the native language with a professionalism that belies the filmmakers' youth. It put me in mind of Tommy Oliver's "Kinyarwanda" which played in Sundance 2011 and whose second film "1982" was also in U.S. in Progress a year or two ago. Tommy has since made three more films.
"Flycatcher" changed its name to "Pangea" as a result of "Foxcatcher". Director Malcolm Murray wrote this with his wife, Liz Tran. HIs previous film, "Bad Posture", completed in 2011, has been written about in New York Times, Village Voice, Filmmaker Magazine, Indiewire, Filmmaker Magazine, Local Iq, Hammer To Nail: Top Ten Films of 2011. It showed at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and he was named in Ten To Watch: Best of Iffr.
"Stinking Heaven", directed by Nathan Silver, reminded me to Lars von Trier's "The Idiots". It stars up-and-coming Keith Poulson who just played in "Listen Up Philip" and is to be seen in several other pictures.
The 2013 U.S. in Progress partners (who also provided the prizes - post-production service packages) include Platige Image, Di Factory, Alvernia and Soundflower Studio. This year, Chimney has joined the ranks, while prizes are also being offered by Producer's Network at Cannes and Ale Kino+ (TV rights acquisition offer).
In 2013, top prizes went to the producers of the film "Sun Belt Express" (dir. Evan Wolf Buxbaum) and "Lake Los Angeles" (dir. Mike Ott). Both films had their world premieres in the U.S. and screened this year in competition as part of the Spectrum section at the American Film Festival.
The best films from the last Paris (during the Champs-Elysees Film Festival) and Wrocław editions constitute the core of Aff repertoire and, after their world premieres, will compete in the Festival's Spectrum section. These include Onur Turkel's "Summer of Blood," Leah Meyerhoff's "I Believe in Unicorns" as well as "Sun Belt Express" and "Lake Los Angeles."
Importantly, reps of the top European distributors and sales agents can see unfinished projects and offer feedback and deals at the early stages of production (before screenings at Sundance or Berlinale) enabling the films to break through to the European market.
The 2014 U.S. in Progress formula is expanded to include a location scouting tour in Lower Silesia (in partnership with the Wrocław Film Commission), as well as a presentation of Polish projects looking for American co-producers. Polish filmmakers are increasingly seeking North American partners and are interested in learning more about new and alternative ways to produce and finance films outside the mainstream system.
For more information about Us in Progress visit Here...
Earnest, attentive and professionally engaged, seeking answers about the best ways to complete the films in order to appeal strategically to festivals and international sales agents, the filmmakers discussed how best to further the success of their present and future films as well as their careers as international filmmakers. These six teams of filmmakers undoubtedly benefited enormously from the Polish and European film professionals who shared their knowledge as everyone watched the six chosen films, networking, sharing meals and drinking and who knows what till all hours in three fully packed days and nights.
Debuting filmmakers from the United States. in the only event of its kind in Europe (except for its sister event held in July at the Champs Elysees Film Festival in Paris) were invited (all expenses paid) to this great European city where the only multiplex for arthouse cinema of its kind is flourishing.
Roman Gutek, founder of this festival and the larger summertime Mobile New Horizons Film Festival, owner of Gutek Distribution, an entrepreneur who loves creating new events and projects, took over the giant theater in the middle of this middle-European, formerly Prussian city a few years ago and has introduced more than cinema to a well-educated (top univerisity here is one of the oldest in Europe) young populace. Other successful events include opera, ballet and monthly film events for 35,000 school children. He is now preparing the cinema component for the upcoming celebration of Wroclaw as the European Capital of Culture 2016.
One of his sons is working with the American Film Festival with its artistic director Ula Śniegowska. The other son is a chef and quite active in the gastronomic success of the city. Polish food is what our grandmothers used to make; one of the finest if not the finest cuisine in Central and Eastern Europe. This year pumpkin held center stage, with delicious dumplings and soups. Coincidentally, that other great culinary and cinema city, San Sebastian, also the inventor of the cinema "works-in-progress" industry model, has instituted a gastronomic exchange through the Polish-Basque Cultural Association Arrano Zuria. The project is promoted by the Donostia San Sebastian 2016 Foundation in charge of the European Capital of Culture 2016 in which chefs from both countries exchange and share recipes of both countries for public feasts.
But I digress...the 2014 U.S. in Progress, Wrocław participants:
Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian of "God Bless the Child" were articulate and full of anecdotes about how their book-ended story featured Robert's own five children in their own home. The first book-end shows the car being driven away by the mother early in the morning thus leaving the 13 year old daughter in charge of four brothers aged 18 months to seven or eight years. The closing book-end is for you, the viewer, to see as it caps off an almost perfect film. Between book-ends, this family, held together by the sweet and loving older sister, spends an almost real-life day together. Genre-defying, docu-like, so loving and so sad, this is not an easy-to-sell film for sales agents because it fits no preset marketing formula. However, I would venture to guess that If an audience were lucky enough to see it, word would spread about how lovingly effective and how unique it is. Rodrigo and Robert have more films in mind as well which are of the type that you want them to succeed in making. The jury unanimously awarded prizes for the completion to this worthy film. It is not "like" it, but still it put me in mind of Whit Stillman's "Boyhood" because the players are real people basically playing themselves.
"Take Me to the River" the debut feature of Matt Sobel was extraordinarily accomplished for a first-timer. A story about middle-America, a brother and sister find themselves at odds at their large family reunion at the family farm, when their two children are involved in an incident. The "big-city" (not) teenaged boy, the only child of the sister and her city-bred husband, finds his integrity tested in the events that follow. When the professional audience watching this film pointed out similarities to Thomas Vinterberg, Matt was aware and pointed out that his editor, Jacob Secher Schulsinger, was Danish and edited "Nymphomaniac" 1 and 2 as well as this year's Swedish Academy contender, "Force Majeure". On a personal note, we have known Matt for the six years it has taken to complete this film and have watched him as he attended Binger Institute as a post-grad whose college education did not include filmmaking, as he grew personally and professionally. We feel very proud of him and this film which we hope will make it to the top festivals and will be picked up by a top international sales agent to sell to top distributors. Its authenticity is a result of conscious decisions made in the creation of the drama by Matt. A strong and unique film.
"The Homefront" co-directed by Tyler Walker & Fidel Ruiz Healy is another totally unique, stand-alone feature, though it might be put into a genre category of post-apocalyptic, family drama. Only the apocalypse has not yet happened. War is still at a distance while this self-survivalist family of parents and their son and daughter wait it out in their large family house somewhere in Texas. The team of Tyler and Fidel started this when they were 19 years old. Today they are 23 and have more stories in them. It could actually be remade on a grander scale and would attract an audience, given some marketing dollars to get it into play. This is an unexpected story, acclaimed by the jury and awarded post-production prizes including sound and soundtrack composition. Additional links: https://vimeo.com/ruizhealy, http://www.theamericanstandardfilmco.com/
"Nakom" co-directed by Travis Pittman & Kelly Daniela Norris is another of the several co-directed films here attesting to a new generation of filmmakers who work in teams. This team-building is not just in U.S.; I have also seen it in Latin America and the Caribbean that young filmmakers meet in film school or at festivals and go on to create working teams which I think will continue to make films together. In this case Travis and Kelly met in film school and this is their second film together. The first, "Ombras de Azul" is just beginning to make the rounds. They shot it in Cuba. This one they shot in Ghana, in a village in the African plains where Travis spent two years in Peace Corps. It is enacted in the native language with a professionalism that belies the filmmakers' youth. It put me in mind of Tommy Oliver's "Kinyarwanda" which played in Sundance 2011 and whose second film "1982" was also in U.S. in Progress a year or two ago. Tommy has since made three more films.
"Flycatcher" changed its name to "Pangea" as a result of "Foxcatcher". Director Malcolm Murray wrote this with his wife, Liz Tran. HIs previous film, "Bad Posture", completed in 2011, has been written about in New York Times, Village Voice, Filmmaker Magazine, Indiewire, Filmmaker Magazine, Local Iq, Hammer To Nail: Top Ten Films of 2011. It showed at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and he was named in Ten To Watch: Best of Iffr.
"Stinking Heaven", directed by Nathan Silver, reminded me to Lars von Trier's "The Idiots". It stars up-and-coming Keith Poulson who just played in "Listen Up Philip" and is to be seen in several other pictures.
The 2013 U.S. in Progress partners (who also provided the prizes - post-production service packages) include Platige Image, Di Factory, Alvernia and Soundflower Studio. This year, Chimney has joined the ranks, while prizes are also being offered by Producer's Network at Cannes and Ale Kino+ (TV rights acquisition offer).
In 2013, top prizes went to the producers of the film "Sun Belt Express" (dir. Evan Wolf Buxbaum) and "Lake Los Angeles" (dir. Mike Ott). Both films had their world premieres in the U.S. and screened this year in competition as part of the Spectrum section at the American Film Festival.
The best films from the last Paris (during the Champs-Elysees Film Festival) and Wrocław editions constitute the core of Aff repertoire and, after their world premieres, will compete in the Festival's Spectrum section. These include Onur Turkel's "Summer of Blood," Leah Meyerhoff's "I Believe in Unicorns" as well as "Sun Belt Express" and "Lake Los Angeles."
Importantly, reps of the top European distributors and sales agents can see unfinished projects and offer feedback and deals at the early stages of production (before screenings at Sundance or Berlinale) enabling the films to break through to the European market.
The 2014 U.S. in Progress formula is expanded to include a location scouting tour in Lower Silesia (in partnership with the Wrocław Film Commission), as well as a presentation of Polish projects looking for American co-producers. Polish filmmakers are increasingly seeking North American partners and are interested in learning more about new and alternative ways to produce and finance films outside the mainstream system.
For more information about Us in Progress visit Here...
- 11/5/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This year’s French Film Festival UK, celebrating its 21st edition, will present Sylvain Chomet’s Attila Marcel as its opening night gala.
The touring event, founded in Scotland, will welcome Chomet to screenings in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow of his first live-action film. His producer Claudie Ossard will also attend.
Attila Marcel, which premiered in Toronto, is about a mute young man being raised by his accentric aunts; a neighbour gives him a magical potion that unlocks his repressed childhood memories.
Richard Mowe, director and co-founder of the Festival, said: “We are delighted that Sylvain who continues as patron of the event, will come back with such a wonderful gift. When we saw him at the ceremony for his honorary degree he promised we would have the premiere of his new film - and he has been as good as his word. We are hosting a gala party for him and the film at the Caledonian...
The touring event, founded in Scotland, will welcome Chomet to screenings in London, Edinburgh and Glasgow of his first live-action film. His producer Claudie Ossard will also attend.
Attila Marcel, which premiered in Toronto, is about a mute young man being raised by his accentric aunts; a neighbour gives him a magical potion that unlocks his repressed childhood memories.
Richard Mowe, director and co-founder of the Festival, said: “We are delighted that Sylvain who continues as patron of the event, will come back with such a wonderful gift. When we saw him at the ceremony for his honorary degree he promised we would have the premiere of his new film - and he has been as good as his word. We are hosting a gala party for him and the film at the Caledonian...
- 10/4/2013
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Faith Connections is a new film by the Director Pan Nalin, an Indian filmmaker living in France which will have its world premiere in the upcoming Tiff Toronto Film Festival Doc section.
The film's background is an amazing Indian pilgrimage ritual which is done only every 12 years and involves 100 million people who gather in a sacred place on the Ganges River to bathe and celebrate religious rituals.
The three interconnected but parallel stories involve a yogi who finds an abandoned baby, a 10 year old orphan who is homeless, and a poor family, villagers, whose 2 year old boy disappears during the pilgrimage and they fear kidnap.
This Indian French co-produciton Faith Connections was being sold and was produced by Raphael Berdugo, it has recently been bought by Sophie Dulac Distribution who acquired the rights for France distribution.
Raphael Berdugo is a very busy guy. His acquired and produced films, sold by his sales agent brand Cite Films are successful, of the highest quality and widely honored. He does his own sales and attends the Markets at Festivals such as Cannes, Tiff Toronto and Berlin.
The Other Son (Fils de l'Autre) 2012 has been picked up for Us by the excellent Us distributor Cohen Media. In Tokyo Ff 2012 it won the Grand Prize and Best Director honors for Lorraine Levy.
Miele 2013 was honored this year at Cannes Film Festival with inclusion in the Certain Regard section.
It concerns Irene, nicknamed 'Honey', she devotes herself to people looking for help, and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. One day she has to cope with Grimaldi and his invisible malaise. Italian Directed by Valeria Golino.
The film received a Special Mention at Cannes by the Ecumenical Jury.
It is currently seeking a Us deal and one interested company, among others, has been the Us giant Participant.
Slightly Sane also is by the above Director Pan Nalin is a tough story set during the chaotic 1947 Partition between India and Pakistan. It involves insane people and a man who goes to an asylum seeking revenge for his wife's death against a locked up rapist there.
Code Name Madeleine is based on a true story, final script is pending. Set during WW2 an Indian girl with a Us mom lives in France and decides to return to Indian high family roots after her dad dies. When the War begins she returns to the UK, is recruited as a spy and sent back to German occupied France.
The film's background is an amazing Indian pilgrimage ritual which is done only every 12 years and involves 100 million people who gather in a sacred place on the Ganges River to bathe and celebrate religious rituals.
The three interconnected but parallel stories involve a yogi who finds an abandoned baby, a 10 year old orphan who is homeless, and a poor family, villagers, whose 2 year old boy disappears during the pilgrimage and they fear kidnap.
This Indian French co-produciton Faith Connections was being sold and was produced by Raphael Berdugo, it has recently been bought by Sophie Dulac Distribution who acquired the rights for France distribution.
Raphael Berdugo is a very busy guy. His acquired and produced films, sold by his sales agent brand Cite Films are successful, of the highest quality and widely honored. He does his own sales and attends the Markets at Festivals such as Cannes, Tiff Toronto and Berlin.
The Other Son (Fils de l'Autre) 2012 has been picked up for Us by the excellent Us distributor Cohen Media. In Tokyo Ff 2012 it won the Grand Prize and Best Director honors for Lorraine Levy.
Miele 2013 was honored this year at Cannes Film Festival with inclusion in the Certain Regard section.
It concerns Irene, nicknamed 'Honey', she devotes herself to people looking for help, and tries to alleviate their suffering even when they make extreme decisions. One day she has to cope with Grimaldi and his invisible malaise. Italian Directed by Valeria Golino.
The film received a Special Mention at Cannes by the Ecumenical Jury.
It is currently seeking a Us deal and one interested company, among others, has been the Us giant Participant.
Slightly Sane also is by the above Director Pan Nalin is a tough story set during the chaotic 1947 Partition between India and Pakistan. It involves insane people and a man who goes to an asylum seeking revenge for his wife's death against a locked up rapist there.
Code Name Madeleine is based on a true story, final script is pending. Set during WW2 an Indian girl with a Us mom lives in France and decides to return to Indian high family roots after her dad dies. When the War begins she returns to the UK, is recruited as a spy and sent back to German occupied France.
- 9/8/2013
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
The St. Louis Jewish Film Festival, held annually at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema (1701 S Lindbergh Blvd #210, St Louis, Mo 63131), is one of the local Jewish community’s most popular and highly attended events of the year. Each year, the festival presents international Jewish films, both documentaries and features that explore universal issues through traditional Jewish values, opposing viewpoints and new perspectives. And each year, the fest packs ‘em in so get there early – it’s first come first serve for seats and those Frontenac theaters aren’t very big. Attendance is always through the roof for this thing, a testament to the group’s marketing and choice of programming. Guest lecturers are brought to the fest to discuss and illuminate the subjects of these films. This year’s St. Louis Jewish Film Festival runs Sunday, June 9th through Thursday June 13th.
The 18th Annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival...
The 18th Annual St. Louis Jewish Film Festival...
- 5/21/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Blood Ties: An Elegant, Yet Familiar New Film from Koreeda
Children switched at birth and discovered years after the error is the well-worn melodramatic scenario that master filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda manages to make potentially one of the most elegantly simplistic entries into said familiar territory with his latest film, Like Father, Like Son. A scenario generously used throughout the history of cinema (and more recent titles like The Other Son and Midnight’s Children come to mind), Koreeda deftly examines a quietly moving nature vs. nurture sequence of events that manages to be generously moving despite feeling familiar when compared to other entries within Koreeda’s impressive oeuvre.
Beginning with his preschool entrance exam, we are introduced to six year old Keita (Keita Ninomiya), who is being interviewed by a panel of adults concerning his family background. We quickly pick up on the fact that Keita and his parents,...
Children switched at birth and discovered years after the error is the well-worn melodramatic scenario that master filmmaker Hirokazu Koreeda manages to make potentially one of the most elegantly simplistic entries into said familiar territory with his latest film, Like Father, Like Son. A scenario generously used throughout the history of cinema (and more recent titles like The Other Son and Midnight’s Children come to mind), Koreeda deftly examines a quietly moving nature vs. nurture sequence of events that manages to be generously moving despite feeling familiar when compared to other entries within Koreeda’s impressive oeuvre.
Beginning with his preschool entrance exam, we are introduced to six year old Keita (Keita Ninomiya), who is being interviewed by a panel of adults concerning his family background. We quickly pick up on the fact that Keita and his parents,...
- 5/17/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
One of the most interesting U.S. Distributors these days is Cohen Media Group. Its films are daring and interesting, ranging from documentaries like Chasing Madoff and Frozen River to multi-award winning Spanish film Blancanieves. Later this month it will release the daring film The Attack based on the best selling novel L'Attentat by renowned Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra.
The Attack, directed by Ziad Doueiri and written by Ziad Doueiri and Joelle Touma won three honors at the recently concluded Col*Coa, the second largest French Film Festival in the world after Cannes. The Col*Coa Audience Award, the Critics Special Prize and the new Coming Soon Award, a prize given in association with Kpcc 89.3, to a film presented with an attached U.S. distributor.
“Stunning.... a film of intelligence and emotional power. Quite apart from its social importance, The Attack is a damn good, pulse-pounding mystery.”Victoria Ellison, La Weekly
“Chilling, brilliantly filmed and inherently fascinating. The film unfolds masterfully, without a single false step. It’s hard to imagine any audience remaining unmoved by this mournful tale. -- Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter
Cohen Media Group's principals are stellar and yet not flamboyantly "Hollywood". Charles Cohen, Chairman and CEO has developed the spectacular Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood as one of his real estate projects. I love how its red glass hull looms over my own neighborhood in West Hollywood and how I can write every day at the beautiful West Hollywood Library whose glass wall compasses the entire Pcd as the view from my seat.
Partner Edmondo Schwartz personifies the modern hybrid of both entrepreneur and financer. His interests encompass the real estate, entertainment, restaurant and financing fields. He is currently President of Ems Enterprises, a full service real estate firm; General Partner of The Saike Group, an investment-banking firm; and President of Burritos International, a restaurant concept development company, which owns, operates, and develops fast food restaurants. In the past, Schwartz has also served as President of Empire Pictures, a distributor of foreign and independent films in the theatrical, DVD and television markets throughout the United States. Mr. Schwartz currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Bergen Performing Arts Center. He is a former board member of the Make a Wish foundation of Metro New York and was involved with City Meals on Wheels.
On the filmic side of this company, partner Steve Scheffer served over twenty-five years as a senior executive at Home Box Office (HBO) primarily as President of Film Programming responsible for overseeing the acquisition of all motion pictures for HBO as well as HBO’s investments in and production of theatrical films. Prior to HBO, Scheffer held executive positions at Time Life Films, Allied Artists, Polydor Records, MGM and Columbia Pictures.
President Daniel Battsek most recently was President of National Geographic Films, where he acquired projects for development/production, operated a boutique theatrical domestic distribution arm for art-house titles and documentaries including the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, and oversaw National Geographic large-screen and IMAX projects. Prior to joining National Geographic, Mr. Battsek served at Miramax Films, where as head of international he established a very positive image and reputation for himself. He was instrumental in acquiring, green-lighting or distributing such renowned and award winning films as Tsotsi (Best Foreign Language Oscar), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Queen, Happy-Go-Lucky, No Country for Old Men (Best Feature Film Oscar) and There Will Be Blood.
And worker bee, Gary Ruben, Executive Vice President at the Cohen Media Group, has headed his own company and began his career in the first days of video, working with Media Home Entertainment as head of acquisitions so many years ago. Over 25 years of experience in the motion picture and television business, he formed and ran First Independent Pictures, a specialty distribution company, was Executive Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions for Artisan Entertainment, was at October Films, where he held the position of VP, Ancillary Distribution and Library Acquisitions.
A new addition is John Kochman who is helping Cmg with French films. He is also Unifrance's long-time New York-based director.
Cohen Media Group has Blancanieves now in U.S. release and coming soon are The Artist and the Model by Fernando Trueba and sold to them by 6 Sales, The Attack, In the House by Francois Ozon and also screening at Col*Coa, Terraferma, You Will Be My Son. Past films included The Other Son, The Thief of Bagdad, Tristana, Farewell, My Queen; The Lady, Delicacy, Chasing Madoff, Frozen River, My Afternoons with Margueritte, Oranges and Sunshine.
The Attack directed by Ziad Doueiri is a Lebanese feature, an intense drama about an Israeli-Palestinian man whose life is shattered after discovering the secrets his wife has kept from him. Co-written by Joelle Touma and the film's director Ziad Doueiri, the film stars Ali Sulliman (Paradise Now) and Reymonde Amsellem. It was in the Official Selection: 2012 Telluride Film Festival, Official Selection 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received Special Mention of the Jury at the 2012 San Sebastian Film Festival and was the Winner of the Golden Star (Best Film) at the 2012 Marrakech International Film Festival.
The Attack, directed by Ziad Doueiri and written by Ziad Doueiri and Joelle Touma won three honors at the recently concluded Col*Coa, the second largest French Film Festival in the world after Cannes. The Col*Coa Audience Award, the Critics Special Prize and the new Coming Soon Award, a prize given in association with Kpcc 89.3, to a film presented with an attached U.S. distributor.
“Stunning.... a film of intelligence and emotional power. Quite apart from its social importance, The Attack is a damn good, pulse-pounding mystery.”Victoria Ellison, La Weekly
“Chilling, brilliantly filmed and inherently fascinating. The film unfolds masterfully, without a single false step. It’s hard to imagine any audience remaining unmoved by this mournful tale. -- Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter
Cohen Media Group's principals are stellar and yet not flamboyantly "Hollywood". Charles Cohen, Chairman and CEO has developed the spectacular Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood as one of his real estate projects. I love how its red glass hull looms over my own neighborhood in West Hollywood and how I can write every day at the beautiful West Hollywood Library whose glass wall compasses the entire Pcd as the view from my seat.
Partner Edmondo Schwartz personifies the modern hybrid of both entrepreneur and financer. His interests encompass the real estate, entertainment, restaurant and financing fields. He is currently President of Ems Enterprises, a full service real estate firm; General Partner of The Saike Group, an investment-banking firm; and President of Burritos International, a restaurant concept development company, which owns, operates, and develops fast food restaurants. In the past, Schwartz has also served as President of Empire Pictures, a distributor of foreign and independent films in the theatrical, DVD and television markets throughout the United States. Mr. Schwartz currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Bergen Performing Arts Center. He is a former board member of the Make a Wish foundation of Metro New York and was involved with City Meals on Wheels.
On the filmic side of this company, partner Steve Scheffer served over twenty-five years as a senior executive at Home Box Office (HBO) primarily as President of Film Programming responsible for overseeing the acquisition of all motion pictures for HBO as well as HBO’s investments in and production of theatrical films. Prior to HBO, Scheffer held executive positions at Time Life Films, Allied Artists, Polydor Records, MGM and Columbia Pictures.
President Daniel Battsek most recently was President of National Geographic Films, where he acquired projects for development/production, operated a boutique theatrical domestic distribution arm for art-house titles and documentaries including the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, and oversaw National Geographic large-screen and IMAX projects. Prior to joining National Geographic, Mr. Battsek served at Miramax Films, where as head of international he established a very positive image and reputation for himself. He was instrumental in acquiring, green-lighting or distributing such renowned and award winning films as Tsotsi (Best Foreign Language Oscar), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Queen, Happy-Go-Lucky, No Country for Old Men (Best Feature Film Oscar) and There Will Be Blood.
And worker bee, Gary Ruben, Executive Vice President at the Cohen Media Group, has headed his own company and began his career in the first days of video, working with Media Home Entertainment as head of acquisitions so many years ago. Over 25 years of experience in the motion picture and television business, he formed and ran First Independent Pictures, a specialty distribution company, was Executive Vice President, Sales and Acquisitions for Artisan Entertainment, was at October Films, where he held the position of VP, Ancillary Distribution and Library Acquisitions.
A new addition is John Kochman who is helping Cmg with French films. He is also Unifrance's long-time New York-based director.
Cohen Media Group has Blancanieves now in U.S. release and coming soon are The Artist and the Model by Fernando Trueba and sold to them by 6 Sales, The Attack, In the House by Francois Ozon and also screening at Col*Coa, Terraferma, You Will Be My Son. Past films included The Other Son, The Thief of Bagdad, Tristana, Farewell, My Queen; The Lady, Delicacy, Chasing Madoff, Frozen River, My Afternoons with Margueritte, Oranges and Sunshine.
The Attack directed by Ziad Doueiri is a Lebanese feature, an intense drama about an Israeli-Palestinian man whose life is shattered after discovering the secrets his wife has kept from him. Co-written by Joelle Touma and the film's director Ziad Doueiri, the film stars Ali Sulliman (Paradise Now) and Reymonde Amsellem. It was in the Official Selection: 2012 Telluride Film Festival, Official Selection 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received Special Mention of the Jury at the 2012 San Sebastian Film Festival and was the Winner of the Golden Star (Best Film) at the 2012 Marrakech International Film Festival.
- 4/22/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The always-popular Austin Jewish Film Festival is back with a selection of stimulating films. The fest starts tomorrow night (Saturday, April 13) and runs through Friday, April 19 at Regal Arbor. Tickets and festival badges are still available, and some noon screenings are free.
Austin Film Society is co-sponsoring two of the fest's movies this year:
The Other Son (pictured above) (Lorraine Levy, France/Israel, 2012) is a powerful, yet hopeful, portrait of two young men -- one Palestinian, one Israeli -- switched at birth. They learn to transcend cultural, national and religious boundaries after they meet. [screening info]Out in the Dark (Michael Mayer, Israel, 2012) joins the growing list of well-made Israeli films exploring gay life in Israel. In this film, we see the difficulties of love between a young Palestinian student and a slightly older Israeli lawyer. In a well-acted but tough role as a homophobic cop, new Austin resident Alon Pdut proves...
Austin Film Society is co-sponsoring two of the fest's movies this year:
The Other Son (pictured above) (Lorraine Levy, France/Israel, 2012) is a powerful, yet hopeful, portrait of two young men -- one Palestinian, one Israeli -- switched at birth. They learn to transcend cultural, national and religious boundaries after they meet. [screening info]Out in the Dark (Michael Mayer, Israel, 2012) joins the growing list of well-made Israeli films exploring gay life in Israel. In this film, we see the difficulties of love between a young Palestinian student and a slightly older Israeli lawyer. In a well-acted but tough role as a homophobic cop, new Austin resident Alon Pdut proves...
- 4/12/2013
- by Chale Nafus
- Slackerwood
Though an interesting concept for its allowance of demonstrating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two families, Lorraine Levy's The Other Son (or Le fils de l'autre) finds most of its success as a story of two men figuring out how much of one's identity comes from genetics versus environment. Despite a bit of melodrama stirred up to unnecessarily create more strife from the film's child swap than really makes sense, The Other Son stays on track and gives both boys the room required to think things through and come to terms with their newfound heritages and decide how they're going to affect their lives. Mehdi Dehbi and Jules Sitruk shoulder weight of the film with a lot of support from the couples playing their families (with Emmanuelle Devos doing more than her fair share - if only because most of the story happens on the Israel side...
- 4/11/2013
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
Chicago – Remember that episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” where Rob and Laura Petrie become convinced that the baby they took home from the hospital is not their own? Imagine if they were right and that 18 years had passed before they came to this crushing realization. And imagine if the birth parents weren’t a kindly black couple, and instead the Petrie’s sworn enemies?
That’s what occurs, more or less, in Lorraine Levy’s deeply moving French drama, “The Other Son,” in which two sets of parents—one Israeli, the other Palestinian—learn that they’ve been mistakenly raising each others’ child. Instead of devolving into a knee-jerk melodrama where speechifying compensates for character depth, Levy’s film unfolds into a warmly humanistic, richly empathetic portrait of families learning to transcend the boundaries of their culture. Since Levy is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, she’s able to bring a clear-eyed,...
That’s what occurs, more or less, in Lorraine Levy’s deeply moving French drama, “The Other Son,” in which two sets of parents—one Israeli, the other Palestinian—learn that they’ve been mistakenly raising each others’ child. Instead of devolving into a knee-jerk melodrama where speechifying compensates for character depth, Levy’s film unfolds into a warmly humanistic, richly empathetic portrait of families learning to transcend the boundaries of their culture. Since Levy is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, she’s able to bring a clear-eyed,...
- 3/27/2013
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Frozen River producer Charles S. Cohen has acquired rights to Ben MacIntyre‘s bestseller Double Cross: The True Story Of The D-Day Spies, with plans for his production-distribution company Cohen Media Group to turn it into an international miniseries for cable and broadcast. The final installment of MacIntyre’s World War II trilogy is based on the efforts of five Allied operatives who specialized in turning German spies into double agents. They greatly aided the success of the D-Day assault and eventual Allied victory. The first two books in the trilogy from MacIntyre, an editor at the Times Of London, were Agent Zigzag and Operation Mincemeat; Crown published Double Cross in July. Stephen Dembitzer negotiated the rights deal on behalf of Cohen and CAA’s Robert Bookman on behalf of MacIntyre. On the feature film side, Cohen Media recently released Lorraine Levy’s The Other Son, starring Emmanuelle Devos and Pascal Elbe,...
- 11/13/2012
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
As Susan Sontag noted, "Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future."
Ben Affleck's Argo and Lorraine Levy's The Other Son, both centered in the Middle East, put to use the past to comment on the present and, in a sense, predict the future, with seesawing views of optimism.
Affleck, who turned 40 this past August, has apparently channeled his aging testosterone away from tabloid-worthy lasciviousness and toward life-affirming artistry. After Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and now Argo, there is no longer any doubt that the star of Chasing Amy and the Oscar-winning co-screenwriter of Good Will Hunting is now permanently ensconced among the A-list of American directors.
Argo, a recreation of a loony, covert CIA plot to rescue six Americans from Iran during the Carter era, is a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat-grabbing thriller that works even if you already know the ending.
Ben Affleck's Argo and Lorraine Levy's The Other Son, both centered in the Middle East, put to use the past to comment on the present and, in a sense, predict the future, with seesawing views of optimism.
Affleck, who turned 40 this past August, has apparently channeled his aging testosterone away from tabloid-worthy lasciviousness and toward life-affirming artistry. After Gone Baby Gone, The Town, and now Argo, there is no longer any doubt that the star of Chasing Amy and the Oscar-winning co-screenwriter of Good Will Hunting is now permanently ensconced among the A-list of American directors.
Argo, a recreation of a loony, covert CIA plot to rescue six Americans from Iran during the Carter era, is a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat-grabbing thriller that works even if you already know the ending.
- 11/1/2012
- by Brandon Judell
- www.culturecatch.com
Anand Gandhi’s debut feature Ship Of Theseus won the Best Artistic Contribution Award for its Director of Photography Pankaj Kumar at the Tokyo International Film Festival that concluded on 28th October 2012. The Grand Prix of the festival went to The Other Son a film directed by Lorraine Levy who also received the best director prize. The audience award went to Flashback Memories 3D directed by Tetsuaki Matsue. Here is the complete awards list and the statements of the winners and the Jury comments Read More...
- 10/30/2012
- Bollywood Trade
Lorraine Levy's Palestinian/Israeli drama, "The Other Son," won the Tokyo Sakura Grand Prix, the top award at the 25th Tokyo International Film Festival, on Sunday night. Levy also took home the best director honors at the festival, which marks the final go-round for festival chairman, Tom Yoda. The special jury prize went to Kang Yi-kwan's "Juvenile Offender." Seo Young-joo, who stars in the film, was awarded the best actor prize. The best actress award went to Neslihan Atagul for "Araf -- Somewhere in Between." Tetsuaki Matsui's "Flashback Memories 3D," about a...
- 10/29/2012
- by Liza Foreman
- The Wrap
The Palestine/Israel conflict is at the center of the well-meaning but predictable switched-at-birth drama The Other Son, a French-Israeli co-production. At times, it’s a moving and inspirational film but it’s also clumsy and a bit dull. Joseph (Jules Sitruk), is an 18-year-old musician about to join the Israeli army for his mandatory military service. He lives at home in a middle class suburb of Tel Aviv with his parents, French doctor Orith (Emmanuelle Devos) and Israel army commander Alon Silbers (Pascal Elbe). When Joseph gets his blood test for the military service, it’s revealed that these are not his biological parents after all. It turns out that during the Gulf War, Joseph was evacuated from a clinic along with another baby, and the two were given back to the wrong families. Oops! While Palestinian Joseph went to Tel Aviv with the Silbers, their actual Jewish son,...
- 10/26/2012
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
With elections around the corner, candidates are reminding voters how important principles of faith and family have made them capable to lead. But what happens when the two are so much in conflict that you doubt your own identity? In The Other Son (Le Fils de Lautre), director Lorraine Levy shows a world where a shift in family can challenge and perhaps create a new kind of faith....
- 10/25/2012
- Pastemagazine.com
Parents have an infinite amount of fears when raising their children in the modern-day world. And who can blame them? This place is a mess! But to be fair, some places are messier than others. For example, uh, how about the Middle East?
Based on the above references/opinions, the perfect storm occurs in the French flick, The Other Son . Two boys, both at 18 years of age, find out they were switched at birth during the... Read more on Examiner.com...
Based on the above references/opinions, the perfect storm occurs in the French flick, The Other Son . Two boys, both at 18 years of age, find out they were switched at birth during the... Read more on Examiner.com...
- 10/22/2012
- by Joe Belcastro, Tampa Movie Examiner
- Tampa Film Examiner
Changelings: Israel Vs. Palestine Gets Nature Vs. Nurture Fable in Levy’s Latest
The age old Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets a dramatic facelift in French writer/director Lorraine Levy’s latest film, The Other Son. This tale of babies switched at birth is basically a fable that one imagines would seem to be a more tragic nightmare scenario in its land of origin than less volatile shores. However, the dramatic arc is not, of course, the switcheroo, but rather that the switch involves an Israeli and Palestinian baby. Now, after eighteen years, the mistake gets discovered, exposing results like those expected of a grand social experiment.
Joseph (Jules Sitruk), a nearly eighteen year old aspiring musician is about to enter into his mandatory military duty with the air force. His mother, the French born physician Orith (Emmanuelle Devos), notices that the blood test results from his physical examinations cannot possibly be correct.
The age old Israeli-Palestinian conflict gets a dramatic facelift in French writer/director Lorraine Levy’s latest film, The Other Son. This tale of babies switched at birth is basically a fable that one imagines would seem to be a more tragic nightmare scenario in its land of origin than less volatile shores. However, the dramatic arc is not, of course, the switcheroo, but rather that the switch involves an Israeli and Palestinian baby. Now, after eighteen years, the mistake gets discovered, exposing results like those expected of a grand social experiment.
Joseph (Jules Sitruk), a nearly eighteen year old aspiring musician is about to enter into his mandatory military duty with the air force. His mother, the French born physician Orith (Emmanuelle Devos), notices that the blood test results from his physical examinations cannot possibly be correct.
- 10/22/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
To my friends and readers: We are about to conclude the Jewish High Holidays which began 10 days ago with Rosh Hashanah and ends tomorrow with Yom Kippur. In the spirit of this season, I must ask everyone, if I have offended any of you, whether knowingly or unknowingly, I ask your forgiveness. If I have not published articles I promised you I would, please forgive me. I meant to when I said I would but have so many other commitments and things I must do. I am sure that the article is not forgotten and I may get to it in the coming year. But I ask forgiveness for overreaching and for commitments and promises I have not kept.
By the way this free ranging stream of consciousness blog will go, it could also be called Jews in the News, the “News” being New Years and New York, and of course films. Imagining this as a new feature, and because it might only run once a year, I am going to use it here as a platform to mention everyone on my mind as they come up as a sort of New Year’s wrap up of things left undone.
To begin, I am writing about all the people and things I saw and did in New York and, again, I hope friends I don’t mention will forgive me. Like Lynda Hansen whom I did see at New York Film Society's Walter Reade Theater…or Wanda Bershan whom I saw across the room at a press screening or Gary Crowdes the editor-in-chief of Cineaste Magazine and whom I meant to greet but didn’t. I saw so many old New York friends and acquaintances and because it was New Years and a time of reflection, I revisited what were my circumstances when I left it in 1985 to return to L.A.
When I first moved to New York in 1980 to work for ABC Video Enterprises, I had spent 5 years practicing Orthodox Judaism. Being in New York represented the apotheosis of all things Jewish (outside of Israel, whose films and festivals will be the subject of another blog - excuse me Katriel Schory of the Israeli Film Fund and Alesia Weston the new director of the Jerusalem Film Festival). In New York, even those who were not Jewish by religion seemed Jewish to me by virtue of living in New York. When I realized this, my own Orthdoxy fell away from me as if I were shedding a cloak. I understood that my Jewish self was Jewish no matter what life style I would live. And I liked the New York life style most of all.
After Tiff 12 (Toronto International Film Festival 2012), Peter and I came for a week of relaxation to New York City. What a city! So New York, in-your-face, loud, crowded, lots of horns honking, and people: People. The best. We saw our friends, we saw New York with New Eyes.
We arrived by train from the airport, straight to our apartment! What great rapid transit, even if it is old and ugly, so blackened by dirt and age. I noticed new decorations on some walls of some stations, some works were better than others. I wish we had such a quick easy way to zoom around our fair city of L.A.
We stayed in an apartment in Chelsea – that of our daughter’s mother-in-law who lives half the year in the apartments built by the Amalgamated Ladies Garment Union. (The other half she spends in Truro.) Such history! Coincidently these are the very apartments I had wanted to live in when I was leaving NYC in 1985.
We were invited to a screening by Hisami Kuroiwa, whose friendship goes back to our early days in Cannes, or back to the days she produced Smoke and Blue in the Face with my other old friend Peter Newman. Araf (Venice Ff, Tokyo Ff, Isa: The Match Factory), which she associate produced, will be presented at the New York Film Festival (NYFF50), September 28 – October 14. The press screening at the new Walter Reade Theater was a great treat. The film’s director, Yesim Ustaoglu, ♀, who also directed Journey to the Sun and Pandora’s Box spoke via Skype at the press Q&A afterward.
Araf in Turkish means “somewhere in between”. The Somewhere in Between in the film is a 24-hour restaurant halfway between Ankara and Istanbul. The young girl whose first job it is; her friend – an “older” woman, not much older than herself who becomes her guide to adulthood; the girl’s childhood friend who works there as a teaboy and whose mother is not much older than the other two women and a truck driver who comes through en route, are the protagonists in this piece which brings to life a very distant place where the people’s most intimate issues are very much like our own to the degree that all the women share the same life issues of sex, love, work and family today in a world where traditions are giving way to the exigencies of modern life.
The issues are so much the same as what we are facing today, namely, our own bodies and all that entails. Parenthetically, these are the same issues in The Patience Stone (Isa: Le Pacte), which takes my prize for the Best Female Film at Tiff 12.
Both of these films deeply affected me in my own ways. When I say “affected”, what I mean is that some thought comes into my head which seems unrelated to the film but comes so suddenly and vividly to me and illuminates some part of my life. When this happens to me during a film, I know the film is really good because it is affecting a subconscious part of me and of something of concern to me. A thought comes to me which makes my life come together in a new way and I sometimes feel transformed by the experience. This is my criteria for what makes a good film. Of course story, script, direction, cast, music, costume and art decoration also count, but in the end, it is the emotional impact a film has upon me as a passive viewer which makes it a winning film for me. The same pertains to me for all art, whether painting, architecture (Wow factor here for NYC on the architecture front!) , sculpture, music, dancing, etc.
We were given a week’s guest pass to The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers by Alan Adelson whose documentary about James Joyce's hero, Leo Bloom in Ulysses, In Bed with Ulysses, is an exciting new film which I hope to see in the upcoming festival circuit. At the dinner, prepared and served by Alan and his wife Katie Taverna, an editor, who also has a new documentary about to surface, I was astounded by their home - so New York. Only in New York could someone live in Tribeca’s 19th century warehouse district in such an architecturally unique home amid such astounding works of art. Docu filmmaker, Deborah Schaffer and her late dear husband, the N.Y. architecht, Larry Bagdanow, introduced us to Alan several years ago. He also publishes Jewish Heritage Press, and he gave me a beautiful book entitled, The Last Bright Days: A Young Woman’s life in a Lithuanian Shtetl on the Eve of the Holocaust . Beile Delechy who, along with her brother, were the photographers for a small town called Kararsk in Lithuania, brought her photographs with her when she left Europe for the U.S. in 1938. They show the everyday reality for Jews and Lithuanians during the 1930s. Published by Jewish Heritage and Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, this book embodies my own aspirations. If I could have my books on my family published in such a way as this, I would die happy.
Speaking of Lithuania and this blog, being Jews in the News, must also cover some other Eastern European news because like New York, its innate character still seems Jewish, even though there are very few Jews there. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in the subject however, among the third generation since the Shoah.
Kaunas International Film Festival’s Tomas Tangmark, who heads distribution for the festival, is also a filmmaker whom I met at Wroclaw’s American Film Festival last November. By now his 12 minute short films should have wrapped. In Cannes, when we met again, he showed me his financial plan for “Breshter Bund – A Union Forever” which has received Development Support from the Swedish Film Institute and money from Swedish TV, has a production budget of around €25,000. It is about the workers at the Vindsberg factory in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania in 1896. Influenced by the current events in the world, the workers at the factory organize a strike. Their demand is a 10-hour working day. Whether they win, or lose, the outcome could change The Russian Empire. It was to shoot on location in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania in Yiddish this year.
This 12 minute short is only 1 of the 2 Yiddish language films we have heard about. Peter also heard about a feature which will be entirely in Yiddish. Thank you Coen Brothers whose A Serious Man opened the way!
When I was in Cannes this past year, I heard about Jewish Alley (Judengasse) at The Short Film Corner. Unfortunately Blancke Degenhardt Schuetz Film Produktion GmbH did not include any contact information on the brochure I picked up. Judengassse tells of the ordeal that the Jewish family Blumenfeld undergoes from 1933 to 1938. It is shot in B&W from a single camera position and presents the Holocaust and thoughts for the coexistence of different cultures in our modern society.
Also in Cannes I was so sorry to miss Raphael Berdugo’s second film since he left his company, Roissy Films, in the hands of EuropaCorp in 2008. The Other Son (Le fils de l’Autre) (Isa: La Cite, U.S.: Cohen Media Group) directed by Lorraine Levy ♀ about a man preparing to join the Israeli army who discovers he is not his parents’ biological son. In fact, he was inadvertently switched at birth with the son of a Palestinian family from the West Bank.
Returning to the subject of Eastern Europe in Cannes, Odessa comes to mind. Odessa cinema tradition began in 1894, a year and a half before the Lumiere brothers showed on the Boulevard des Capucines and its first studio opened in 1907. Serge Eisenstein made Odessa legend. On the very place where Battleship Potemkin was filmed, the Odessa Film Festival holds an open-air screening for 12,000 with a view of the sea. During their first year, there were 30,000 attendees. By year three, there were 100,000. It takes place in an opera house on a level of that in Vienna, but their emperor did not pay as in Austria; the people themselves paid for the building. There are $15,000 cash prizes giving for Best Film, Best, Director, and Best Actor. Tomboy won last year. It has a small market for Russian and Ukrainian films, a pitch session and a “summer school” where the students live in tents at attend master classes and a sort of Talent Campus. There is good food by the sea! Don’t you want to attend? I’m hoping to find a way to go, especially after Ilya Dyadik, the program director, so graciously showed me all that goes on there and introduced me to Denis Maslikov, the Managing Director of the Ukrainian Producers Association. It takes place in July.
Estonia is another country on my mind. During Tiff A Lady in Paris (Isa: Pyramide) warmed my soul. Starring Jeanne Moreau, and costarring Laine MÄGI, an actress who reminds me of Katie Outinen, (Kaurimaki's favorite actress) the film was about women and love and oh so French! How could you not love the imperious Jeanne Moreau wearing Chanel and being won over by an Eastern European drudge who, under Moreau’s tutelage transforms herself in a vividly chic woman. And ,Patrick Pineau, who plays the owner of of those upscale cafes you like to have lunch in when in Paris, only needs to take one small step toward Laine, and oh la la, you too fall in love with him!
Edith Sepp, the film advisor for the Estonian Ministry of Culture, met us originally at the Vilnius Film Festival in Lithuania and we had a lot of fun hanging out there. We already had a connection to Estonia because the Estonian American documentary The Singing Revolution was our client’s film. We introduced our client to Richard Abramowitz in 2006 who did extraordinarily well with the film’s theatrical release. Edith invited us to their Cannes reception at Plage des Palmes and we continued our conversation. At Tiff 12 and Karlovy Vary, their film Mushrooming screened, but the one I am really eager to see is In the Crosswind. It shot through four seasons. The director is a 23 year old young man and this is his first film. It cost 700,000 Euros which went into historical costumes, extras and a new technology he is creating to make a profound drama about the relocation of whole populations by the Soviets, a theme which has shaped European history. I hope to see it in Berlin…or Cannes…or Venice.. The film is a sort of documentary story, somewhat similar to Waltz with Bashir, but it is old in live action and with still photography. During Cannes, they were seeking 200,000 Euros to complete the film. There is much to say about both of the Eastern European countries with their new generation of articulate and talented filmmakers. I hope they will be the subject of another blog or two in the coming year.
One last note on Eastern European films. A veteran Czech producer, Rudolf Biermann whom we know since the early days of Karlovy Vary's freedom from the Soviet bloc, is still producing young, fresh comedies like the one one that showed at Tiff 12, The Holy Quaternity by Jan Hrebejk (Isa: Montecristo). This romp brings marital sex which has become boring to a new and simple solution between two couples who have been best friends throughout their marriage. It's risque and sweet and plays with two generations' differing views on the sex games we play for fun.
But I have digressed from New York...And now I must go to Yom Kippur services for the rest of today. This blog will be continued tomorrow!! Watch for Part II which will be about New York!
By the way this free ranging stream of consciousness blog will go, it could also be called Jews in the News, the “News” being New Years and New York, and of course films. Imagining this as a new feature, and because it might only run once a year, I am going to use it here as a platform to mention everyone on my mind as they come up as a sort of New Year’s wrap up of things left undone.
To begin, I am writing about all the people and things I saw and did in New York and, again, I hope friends I don’t mention will forgive me. Like Lynda Hansen whom I did see at New York Film Society's Walter Reade Theater…or Wanda Bershan whom I saw across the room at a press screening or Gary Crowdes the editor-in-chief of Cineaste Magazine and whom I meant to greet but didn’t. I saw so many old New York friends and acquaintances and because it was New Years and a time of reflection, I revisited what were my circumstances when I left it in 1985 to return to L.A.
When I first moved to New York in 1980 to work for ABC Video Enterprises, I had spent 5 years practicing Orthodox Judaism. Being in New York represented the apotheosis of all things Jewish (outside of Israel, whose films and festivals will be the subject of another blog - excuse me Katriel Schory of the Israeli Film Fund and Alesia Weston the new director of the Jerusalem Film Festival). In New York, even those who were not Jewish by religion seemed Jewish to me by virtue of living in New York. When I realized this, my own Orthdoxy fell away from me as if I were shedding a cloak. I understood that my Jewish self was Jewish no matter what life style I would live. And I liked the New York life style most of all.
After Tiff 12 (Toronto International Film Festival 2012), Peter and I came for a week of relaxation to New York City. What a city! So New York, in-your-face, loud, crowded, lots of horns honking, and people: People. The best. We saw our friends, we saw New York with New Eyes.
We arrived by train from the airport, straight to our apartment! What great rapid transit, even if it is old and ugly, so blackened by dirt and age. I noticed new decorations on some walls of some stations, some works were better than others. I wish we had such a quick easy way to zoom around our fair city of L.A.
We stayed in an apartment in Chelsea – that of our daughter’s mother-in-law who lives half the year in the apartments built by the Amalgamated Ladies Garment Union. (The other half she spends in Truro.) Such history! Coincidently these are the very apartments I had wanted to live in when I was leaving NYC in 1985.
We were invited to a screening by Hisami Kuroiwa, whose friendship goes back to our early days in Cannes, or back to the days she produced Smoke and Blue in the Face with my other old friend Peter Newman. Araf (Venice Ff, Tokyo Ff, Isa: The Match Factory), which she associate produced, will be presented at the New York Film Festival (NYFF50), September 28 – October 14. The press screening at the new Walter Reade Theater was a great treat. The film’s director, Yesim Ustaoglu, ♀, who also directed Journey to the Sun and Pandora’s Box spoke via Skype at the press Q&A afterward.
Araf in Turkish means “somewhere in between”. The Somewhere in Between in the film is a 24-hour restaurant halfway between Ankara and Istanbul. The young girl whose first job it is; her friend – an “older” woman, not much older than herself who becomes her guide to adulthood; the girl’s childhood friend who works there as a teaboy and whose mother is not much older than the other two women and a truck driver who comes through en route, are the protagonists in this piece which brings to life a very distant place where the people’s most intimate issues are very much like our own to the degree that all the women share the same life issues of sex, love, work and family today in a world where traditions are giving way to the exigencies of modern life.
The issues are so much the same as what we are facing today, namely, our own bodies and all that entails. Parenthetically, these are the same issues in The Patience Stone (Isa: Le Pacte), which takes my prize for the Best Female Film at Tiff 12.
Both of these films deeply affected me in my own ways. When I say “affected”, what I mean is that some thought comes into my head which seems unrelated to the film but comes so suddenly and vividly to me and illuminates some part of my life. When this happens to me during a film, I know the film is really good because it is affecting a subconscious part of me and of something of concern to me. A thought comes to me which makes my life come together in a new way and I sometimes feel transformed by the experience. This is my criteria for what makes a good film. Of course story, script, direction, cast, music, costume and art decoration also count, but in the end, it is the emotional impact a film has upon me as a passive viewer which makes it a winning film for me. The same pertains to me for all art, whether painting, architecture (Wow factor here for NYC on the architecture front!) , sculpture, music, dancing, etc.
We were given a week’s guest pass to The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers by Alan Adelson whose documentary about James Joyce's hero, Leo Bloom in Ulysses, In Bed with Ulysses, is an exciting new film which I hope to see in the upcoming festival circuit. At the dinner, prepared and served by Alan and his wife Katie Taverna, an editor, who also has a new documentary about to surface, I was astounded by their home - so New York. Only in New York could someone live in Tribeca’s 19th century warehouse district in such an architecturally unique home amid such astounding works of art. Docu filmmaker, Deborah Schaffer and her late dear husband, the N.Y. architecht, Larry Bagdanow, introduced us to Alan several years ago. He also publishes Jewish Heritage Press, and he gave me a beautiful book entitled, The Last Bright Days: A Young Woman’s life in a Lithuanian Shtetl on the Eve of the Holocaust . Beile Delechy who, along with her brother, were the photographers for a small town called Kararsk in Lithuania, brought her photographs with her when she left Europe for the U.S. in 1938. They show the everyday reality for Jews and Lithuanians during the 1930s. Published by Jewish Heritage and Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, this book embodies my own aspirations. If I could have my books on my family published in such a way as this, I would die happy.
Speaking of Lithuania and this blog, being Jews in the News, must also cover some other Eastern European news because like New York, its innate character still seems Jewish, even though there are very few Jews there. There seems to be a resurgence of interest in the subject however, among the third generation since the Shoah.
Kaunas International Film Festival’s Tomas Tangmark, who heads distribution for the festival, is also a filmmaker whom I met at Wroclaw’s American Film Festival last November. By now his 12 minute short films should have wrapped. In Cannes, when we met again, he showed me his financial plan for “Breshter Bund – A Union Forever” which has received Development Support from the Swedish Film Institute and money from Swedish TV, has a production budget of around €25,000. It is about the workers at the Vindsberg factory in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania in 1896. Influenced by the current events in the world, the workers at the factory organize a strike. Their demand is a 10-hour working day. Whether they win, or lose, the outcome could change The Russian Empire. It was to shoot on location in Vilkaviskis, Lithuania in Yiddish this year.
This 12 minute short is only 1 of the 2 Yiddish language films we have heard about. Peter also heard about a feature which will be entirely in Yiddish. Thank you Coen Brothers whose A Serious Man opened the way!
When I was in Cannes this past year, I heard about Jewish Alley (Judengasse) at The Short Film Corner. Unfortunately Blancke Degenhardt Schuetz Film Produktion GmbH did not include any contact information on the brochure I picked up. Judengassse tells of the ordeal that the Jewish family Blumenfeld undergoes from 1933 to 1938. It is shot in B&W from a single camera position and presents the Holocaust and thoughts for the coexistence of different cultures in our modern society.
Also in Cannes I was so sorry to miss Raphael Berdugo’s second film since he left his company, Roissy Films, in the hands of EuropaCorp in 2008. The Other Son (Le fils de l’Autre) (Isa: La Cite, U.S.: Cohen Media Group) directed by Lorraine Levy ♀ about a man preparing to join the Israeli army who discovers he is not his parents’ biological son. In fact, he was inadvertently switched at birth with the son of a Palestinian family from the West Bank.
Returning to the subject of Eastern Europe in Cannes, Odessa comes to mind. Odessa cinema tradition began in 1894, a year and a half before the Lumiere brothers showed on the Boulevard des Capucines and its first studio opened in 1907. Serge Eisenstein made Odessa legend. On the very place where Battleship Potemkin was filmed, the Odessa Film Festival holds an open-air screening for 12,000 with a view of the sea. During their first year, there were 30,000 attendees. By year three, there were 100,000. It takes place in an opera house on a level of that in Vienna, but their emperor did not pay as in Austria; the people themselves paid for the building. There are $15,000 cash prizes giving for Best Film, Best, Director, and Best Actor. Tomboy won last year. It has a small market for Russian and Ukrainian films, a pitch session and a “summer school” where the students live in tents at attend master classes and a sort of Talent Campus. There is good food by the sea! Don’t you want to attend? I’m hoping to find a way to go, especially after Ilya Dyadik, the program director, so graciously showed me all that goes on there and introduced me to Denis Maslikov, the Managing Director of the Ukrainian Producers Association. It takes place in July.
Estonia is another country on my mind. During Tiff A Lady in Paris (Isa: Pyramide) warmed my soul. Starring Jeanne Moreau, and costarring Laine MÄGI, an actress who reminds me of Katie Outinen, (Kaurimaki's favorite actress) the film was about women and love and oh so French! How could you not love the imperious Jeanne Moreau wearing Chanel and being won over by an Eastern European drudge who, under Moreau’s tutelage transforms herself in a vividly chic woman. And ,Patrick Pineau, who plays the owner of of those upscale cafes you like to have lunch in when in Paris, only needs to take one small step toward Laine, and oh la la, you too fall in love with him!
Edith Sepp, the film advisor for the Estonian Ministry of Culture, met us originally at the Vilnius Film Festival in Lithuania and we had a lot of fun hanging out there. We already had a connection to Estonia because the Estonian American documentary The Singing Revolution was our client’s film. We introduced our client to Richard Abramowitz in 2006 who did extraordinarily well with the film’s theatrical release. Edith invited us to their Cannes reception at Plage des Palmes and we continued our conversation. At Tiff 12 and Karlovy Vary, their film Mushrooming screened, but the one I am really eager to see is In the Crosswind. It shot through four seasons. The director is a 23 year old young man and this is his first film. It cost 700,000 Euros which went into historical costumes, extras and a new technology he is creating to make a profound drama about the relocation of whole populations by the Soviets, a theme which has shaped European history. I hope to see it in Berlin…or Cannes…or Venice.. The film is a sort of documentary story, somewhat similar to Waltz with Bashir, but it is old in live action and with still photography. During Cannes, they were seeking 200,000 Euros to complete the film. There is much to say about both of the Eastern European countries with their new generation of articulate and talented filmmakers. I hope they will be the subject of another blog or two in the coming year.
One last note on Eastern European films. A veteran Czech producer, Rudolf Biermann whom we know since the early days of Karlovy Vary's freedom from the Soviet bloc, is still producing young, fresh comedies like the one one that showed at Tiff 12, The Holy Quaternity by Jan Hrebejk (Isa: Montecristo). This romp brings marital sex which has become boring to a new and simple solution between two couples who have been best friends throughout their marriage. It's risque and sweet and plays with two generations' differing views on the sex games we play for fun.
But I have digressed from New York...And now I must go to Yom Kippur services for the rest of today. This blog will be continued tomorrow!! Watch for Part II which will be about New York!
- 9/26/2012
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Title: The Other Son (Le fils de l’autre) Cohen Media Group Director: Lorraine Lévy Screenwriter: Lorraine Lévy, Nathalie Saugeon Cast: Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbé, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi, Areen Omari, Khalifa Natour, Mahmoud Shalabi Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 9/5/12 Opens: October 21, 2012 The other day I posed a question to myself. Osama bin Laden, like hundreds of millions of fellow Muslims, believed that Christians and Jews and most people in the West are infidels. Let’s imagine that bin Laden had been born in Paris of parents who are both French Catholics. What would his religion be? Catholic, of course. Conclusion? What a person believes theologically depends on geography [ Read More ]...
- 9/6/2012
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
Having children switched at birth is difficult enough for the families involved, but imagine if the hospital mix-up wound up unmooring the parents' core beliefs. That's the conceit of "The Other Son," which tells the story of two families -- one Israeli and one Palestinian -- whose sons were accidentally swapped at birth.
Directed by French filmmaker Lorraine Lévy, "The Other Son" stars a multi-national troupe of actors -- Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbé, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi, Areen Omari, Khalifa Natour, Mahmood Shalabi and. Bruno Podalydes -- something Lévy felt should extend to the crew as well.
"We wanted it to be a project that brought people together," the director said in press notes. "I asked our Israeli executive producer to give a copy of the screenplay (translated into English) to each of the crew members. It was very important to me that the electrician or grip working on this...
Directed by French filmmaker Lorraine Lévy, "The Other Son" stars a multi-national troupe of actors -- Emmanuelle Devos, Pascal Elbé, Jules Sitruk, Mehdi Dehbi, Areen Omari, Khalifa Natour, Mahmood Shalabi and. Bruno Podalydes -- something Lévy felt should extend to the crew as well.
"We wanted it to be a project that brought people together," the director said in press notes. "I asked our Israeli executive producer to give a copy of the screenplay (translated into English) to each of the crew members. It was very important to me that the electrician or grip working on this...
- 8/28/2012
- by Christopher Rosen
- Huffington Post
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