According to Variety, the festival announced this week that on October 24 it will start accepting submissions for the 13th annual event, held June 21 - July 1 2007 in Los Angeles. The entry deadline for short films and music videos is Feb. 9, while the deadline for feature-length narrative and documentary films is March 1. And, if you act now (or at least before January 12) you can even get a discount on your entry fees. Not a bad thing considering the minuscule budgets of most of these films.
Some of last years fest winners include Steve Collins, writer/director of Gretchen, who won for best narrative feature and Amy Berg, writer/director of Deliver Us From Evil, (which our own Kim reviewed) who won for best documentary feature. Both winners received $50,000, money they will probably use to pay off all the credit cards they maxed out to finance their films. Oscar-winning actress and producer Charlize Theron, whose indie credits include Monster and the documentary East of Havana, was also awarded the Spirit of Independence Award for her commitment to artistic independence in film at the event.
Especially of note for aspiring filmmakers looking for exposure is that the Los Angeles Film Festival is a qualifying fest in all categories for not only the Independent Spirit Awards but for the Academy Awards' short film categories as well. So indie filmmakers, dust off those scripts hidden in your drawer, borrow your parents' video camera, gather your friends, find a barn and start shooting because the next Academy Award for short films might just go to you. (And if it does, Cinematical wants a spot in that acceptance speech.)
There's a certain satisfaction in reading about distribution deals for independent films that have caught your interest -- the smaller the film, the greater the satisfaction. Suddenly, there's a real possibility that you might actually get to see the film without having to live in New York or LA. And if you did catch the film at a film festival, and loved it, now you can persuade all your friends to see it too, when the movie arrives in theaters or on DVD. (If you hated it, well, then you can boast to everyone that you saw it already, that was soooo last week, and it's not worth bothering over ... and that's a whole other type of pleasure.)
When Kim reviewed Penelope (pictured right) at TIFF, I was intrigued and hoped I'd get a chance to see the movie. Fortunately, IFC and The Weinstein Company have jointly purchased the North American rights to the film produced by Reese Witherspoon and starring Christina Ricci and James McAvoy. Kim was worried that the movie had no clear audience, but I'm sure that IFC and the Weinsteins will find one. IFC is handling the theatrical distribution, and TWC will handle TV and video rights. My only worry is that Penelope seems to share certain superficial story elements with Gretchen, an Austin-shot feature I enjoyed at SXSW, and I hope that this buy doesn't harm Gretchen's chances at distribution.
In addition, Zeitgeist films has acquired the U.S. distribution rights for the film Into Great Silence, a documentary about the Carthusian Order monastery in the French Alps. Cinematical interviewed the film's director, Philip Groening, at Sundance in January. Zeitgeist faces a challenge: marketing a nearly three-hour documentary that contains almost no dialogue, because the filmmakers respected the monastery's vows of silence. (Perhaps they could persuade Morgan Freeman to record narration? I hope not.) The distributor is planning a release timeframe of next February or March.
You gotta love the Brits and their fabulously raunchy humor. Only from the UK would we have a documentary about disabled male strippers with the perfectly splendid tag line: "They might not have legs, but do they have the balls?" The 24-minute short doc, titled The Crippendales -- a play on the famous Chippendales dancers -- follows Lee Kemp, a wheelchair-bound man with a dream of being a male stripper (hey, we all need a dream) and his efforts to pull together and train a troupe of dancers, all with disabilities, to do the "full monty" in performances at a hen club -- clubs where women go for a "girls' night out" to watch men taking it all off.
Documentary film maker Doug Pray wasn't so sure he wanted to do a film about graffiti. The director of Hype and Scratch had been approached to do a documentary about the subculture of graffiti artists but wasn't interested. That all changed though when he finally spent some time with one of those artists.
The documentary Infamy is being released Tuesday on DVD. The film followed graffiti artists to chronicle what it really took to be a graffiti artist in a major city – it goes way beyond scrawling "I wuz here" on a bathroom stall. Pray's film isn't the first to take a look at the art of graffiti – and here is where I say: Yes, I do think it is art. Almost 25 years ago, Style Wars was the first film to bring graffiti into mainstream pop culture. Well, it looks like no trend is being left unturned because Pray's film is just the first in a line of movies being released on DVD that are about graffiti. Not all of these films are documentaries either, narrative films like The Graffiti Artist and Quality of Life -- both made in 2004, are also getting a second look.
Considered "this ultimate form of urban rebellion," its too early to say whether these films will finally lift graffiti artists in to the mainstream art world or whether it just might be another exercise in mining a subculture for some easy "youth-oriented" dollars.
In her latest documentary, director Tahani Rached takes us deep into the lives of adolescent girls living on the streets of Cairo, a place where violence, sex and drugs are a way of life. Be that as it may, the streets also provide these girls with the two things they cherish most -- freedom and love. From the opening shot of a young teen named Tata galloping down a busy street atop a horse, darting between cars and playfully teasing the plethora of honking horns and distraught motorists around her, we catch a whiff of power, not fatigue. It's this scene that defines the overall tone of These Girls, a film that focuses more on the present, and less on whatever traumatic event forced these children out of their homes and onto the streets.
In the case of Tata, she's been calling the streets home since age six, and has since become somewhat of a leader to this pack of rebellious teens. She has an edge that none of the other girls carry, yet they all share the same weakness -- men. Throughout the film, the girls share their concerns and fears of being kidnapped by random men to be held in a shack as some sort of sexual hostage. However, it's not the rape that bothers them -- they're more afraid of these men scarring their face, an act that's considered a major insult and perhaps the worst possible thing that could happen to a girl on the streets of Cairo.
If I were to tell you that Stephen Hawking was set to star in an IMAX film that's being described as "Groundhog Day meets Star Trek," would you think I was off my rocker a bit? Well, that's exactly what the world-renowned physicist plans to do, and production is currently in its early stages. Pic, called Beyond the Horizon, will focus on some of Hawking's own theories, most notably the big bang.
Hawking will star and narrate the film, which appears to have a pretty basic storyline. Apparently, a newspaper (which covers religious affairs) reporter (Lina Patel) approaches Hawking for an interview, as she's writing a story "about cosmology and the meaning of existence to commemorate the work of Albert Einstein and his special theory of relativity." Although at first a skeptic when it comes to stuff like the big bang, she will soon be seduced by Hawking's beliefs and, well, I'll leave the rest up to your imagination. Hawking is partnering with Leonard Mlodinow (fellow physicist and Star Trek writer) on the project which aims to "make Hawking and his wheelchair appear to come right out of the screen into the audience." Why do I find that image to be the slightest bit scary?
Note: This review originally ran during the Toronto International Film Festival. It is being rerun now in conjunction with the film's opening this weekend. - ed
A child being sexually molested by a trusted adult is bad enough; when the molester is the Catholic priest from the parish the child has grown up with, the horror is magnified that much more. Not only is there all the usual shattering of trust and innocence that is the inevitable fallout of a child victimized by a predator, but the child's spiritual faith is shattered as well. In her powerful documentary Deliver Us From Evil, Amy Berg delves headfirst into the murky waters of pedophilia in the Catholic priesthood and the Church's culpability in covering it up, as told through the stories of three of the hundreds of victims of Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, known to the families who trusted him as "Father Ollie."
What makes Berg's film both amazing and incredibly wrenching is that she was able to interview Father O'Grady extensively for the film. Almost as if he's using the camera as his own private confessional booth, O'Grady talks candidly about his problem -- being sexually attracted to children -- and how he used the position of spiritual trust granted him by the Church's authority to molest and rape the children of his parishes. You can't help but be chilled watching O'Grady -- an innocuous-looking older man now, with white hair and twinkling eyes, smile as he talks about getting sexually aroused by young children in their underwear, and smirk as he discusses being forgiven his sins by confessing them to another priest, as if his victims were chalkboards he could scribble all over and then erase.
It's difficult to find opportunities to watch short documentaries -- your best bet is to catch them at film festivals or occasionally on public television. It's too bad, because many documentary subjects are best served by a shorter format than the traditional feature-length. I know documentary filmmakers who have scrabbled to find material to stretch their film to a running time longer than necessary, perhaps weakening the film in the process, because they know that they've got a better chance of a bigger audience with a longer film.
So it's no surprise that you might not see any familiar titles in the Documentary Short Subject shortlist that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released on Wednesday. I can't predict which might win the Oscar, or even which ones might make the cut as official nominees in January, because I've had no chance to see any of the films.
The eight films on the Oscar shortlist are The Blood of Yingzhou District,Dear Talula, The Diary of Immaculée, Phoenix Dance, Recycled Life, Rehearsing a Dream, A Revolving Door, and Two Hands. To make it easier for those of us who are interested in these films, documentary filmmaker A.J. Schnack has listed the directors and summaries for each film, and links to the films' websites (when applicable). The ones that sound most interesting to me so far are Phoenix Dance, about a dancer who loses a leg and is determined to keep dancing (Disney, this could be a great feature for you!), Dear Talula, a personal doc from a filmmaker who discovers she has breast cancer, and Recycled Life, about the huge Guatemala City dump. But I'd love the chance to watch all of these short documentaries at some point. Have you seen any of them?
Don't worry; he's not dead (his career, now, that's open for discussion ... but I digress). The actor who 99% of the population know as "the guy from Blade Runner" has had a documentary made about his life -- no, really, a whole movie!
Written and directed by Simone de Vries, (Kinky Friedman: Proud to Be an Asshole from El Paso) Blond, Blue Eyes premiered last week at the Dutch Film Festival, and follows Hauer through a bizarre array of locations ranging from a farm in the Netherlands to his personal yacht (Rutger Haur has a yacht? I guess residuals from Buffy the Vampire Slayer still come in after all).
Hauer is currently working on his autobiography, so here's hoping there's at least one anecdote from the set of Blind Fury. The man also plans to direct a feature about Dutch banker Wally van Hall who saved thousands during WWII. (Think of it as Schindler's List, but with windmills.)
It's getting closer to Halloween, and that means scary movies. Of course, I love scary movies and I watch them all year long, but I watch them with a purpose in October. Most critics don't bother with scary movies, or pre-judge them, and that has led to the recent rash of horror films being withheld from the press. It goes without saying, also, that the studios know they're making bad movies by playing it safe with their remakes and sequels, rather than rolling the dice on a new idea. Most of the current horror movies have this in common: they're remakes or sequels, they were withheld from the press, and they flopped.
Hmm. I wonder if this is a pattern that ought to be avoided in the future?
Despite being directed by Neil LaBute -- a filmmaker whose entire reputation was established by critics who singled out his great debut In the Company of Men (1997) -- The Wicker Man remake (233 screens) was withheld from those same critics, and it has officially flopped, returning only $23 million on a $40 million budget.
Deliver Us From Evil, director Amy Berg's scathing indictment of Father Oliver O'Grady, a pedophiliac priest who was transferred around northern California for over 20 years while he preyed on young children in his parishes, has created quite a furor in Los Angles and revived interest in the actions of Cardinal Roger Mahony, who directly supervised O'Grady for five of the years he was actively molesting young children. In the film, O'Grady, who now lives in Ireland after being deported from the United States upon completion of a prison sentence for the molestation of two young boys, says that he was able to abuse children for so long in part because of the actions of Cardinal Mahony, who now heads the Los Angeles Archdiocese -- the largest in the country.
William Hodgman, top deputy of the target crimes division in Los Angeles, said in the report in the New York Times that the doc "will fuel ongoing consideration as to whether Cardinal Mahony and others engaged in criminal activity." Michael Hennigan, an attorney for the archdiocese, fired back that "If Mr. Hodgman is suggesting in any way that the cardinal is the subject of a criminal investigation, he is being irresponsible and in our judgment is committing prosecutorial misconduct."
Before the aGLIFF screening of For the Love of Dolly, aGLIFF director Lonny Stern posed a question for the audience to consider while watching the film: "Is Dolly Parton the sweetest, nicest person in the world, or the world's largest enabler?" The answer isn't evident after watching this documentary that examines extreme Dolly Parton fandom. Like many contemporary documentaries, the film selects a few representatives on which to focus, and follows these five different people for a year in their assorted quests to get closer to Dolly.
The five fans all have their different ways of loving Dolly. Harrell and Patric are a couple whose house is stuffed full of Dolly likenesses -- the guys claim they had one bedroom that was off-limits to Dolly paraphernalia for awhile, but "she just crept in." Harrell designs and creates dolls in Dolly's likeness, from stitching the intricate costumes to modeling and painting the faces. Melisa and Jeanette devise new butterfly costumes every year to wear to a big parade featuring Dolly in person. Melisa moved to Nashville so she could keep tabs on Dolly and follow her around, and only takes jobs that allow her a flexible schedule to pursue the singer. Jeanette has built a little cabin based on a sliver of wood she stole from Dollywood, that she calls her "Tennessee Mountain home." The floor is stained with a likeness of Dolly and one of Jeanette's favorite dogs. We see video of Jeanette cleaning off Dolly's Walk-of-Fame star, then covering it in lipsticked kisses. David crochets little flyswatters and other knickknacks for Dolly, and has photos and posters of her plastered all over his bedroom.
Some days, when you're on week two of the head cold/flu bug/plague from hell and your head feels like it's going to explode from some point directly behind your right eyeball, your ability to come up with a witty blog post title gets diminished. I figure lots of other people out there are sick too -- at least I know they are here in Seattle, because the Safeway keeps running out of and restocking the Theraflu and Triaminic, and they've added a great big display of Kleenex, Gatorade and chicken noodle soup at the front of the store. When you're feeling crummy, the one thing you can do to pass the time is sit your ass on the couch, wrap up in your favorite warm and fuzzy blankie, zone out on cold medicine and internet-surf. And we, dear Cinematical readers, are here to serve you in your hour of need. You don't have to think too hard about which other film sites to check out. Just read on, we've rounded up some of the coolest film stuff out there for you right here. And there's nothing like a big group hug to make you feel better, right? So read on ...
You know how I feel about the proliferation of film festivals all over the globe, but as this particular one happens to be in my own backyard, I guess I can make an exception ... this time. Which film festival gets this special treatment? Why, it's the Film Independent Los Angeles Film Festival of course.
There's a certain satisfaction in reading about distribution deals for independent films that have caught your interest -- the smaller the film, the greater the satisfaction. Suddenly, there's a real possibility that you might actually get to see the film without having to live in New York or LA. And if you did catch the film at a film festival, and loved it, now you can persuade all your friends to see it too, when the movie arrives in theaters or on DVD. (If you hated it, well, then you can boast to everyone that you saw it already, that was soooo last week, and it's not worth bothering over ... and that's a whole other type of pleasure.)
You gotta love the Brits and their fabulously raunchy humor. Only from the UK would we have a documentary about 
Documentary film maker 
If I were to tell you that 
Rutger, we hardly knew you.
Deliver Us From Evil, director Amy Berg's scathing indictment of Father Oliver O'Grady, a pedophiliac priest who was transferred around northern California for over 20 years while he preyed on young children in his parishes, has created quite a furor in Los Angles and 
