Exclusive: U.S. distributor Screen Media has acquired international rights to a substantial part of the Moonstone Entertainment library with a 10-year exclusive deal.
The deal will include titles from Noah Baumbach, Timothy Hutton and Alan Rudolph. Screen Media plans to take the 47 library titles to market immediately.
The pact, negotiated by Ernst “Etchie” Stroh on behalf of Moonstone Entertainment and David Fannon and Michael Kosche on behalf of Screen Media, in partnership with Mep, represents the continuation of a long-standing relationship between the two companies.
Established by Etchie Stroh and his wife Yael at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992, producer Moonstone has made films including Alan Rudolph’s Afterglow starring Nick Nolte, Julie Christie (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for this role), Lara Flynn Boyle and Jonny Lee Miller; Mr. Jealousy starring Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra and Peter Bogdanovich; Scott Sanders’ Thick As Thieves starring Alec Baldwin...
The deal will include titles from Noah Baumbach, Timothy Hutton and Alan Rudolph. Screen Media plans to take the 47 library titles to market immediately.
The pact, negotiated by Ernst “Etchie” Stroh on behalf of Moonstone Entertainment and David Fannon and Michael Kosche on behalf of Screen Media, in partnership with Mep, represents the continuation of a long-standing relationship between the two companies.
Established by Etchie Stroh and his wife Yael at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992, producer Moonstone has made films including Alan Rudolph’s Afterglow starring Nick Nolte, Julie Christie (nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for this role), Lara Flynn Boyle and Jonny Lee Miller; Mr. Jealousy starring Eric Stoltz, Annabella Sciorra and Peter Bogdanovich; Scott Sanders’ Thick As Thieves starring Alec Baldwin...
- 5/10/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Six years after terrorists detonated two bombs near the Boston Marathon finish line taking three lives and causing hundreds of injuries, Propagate Content/Electus will make the documentary series Maximum Harm, based on Boston-based investigative journalist Michele McPhee’s book. Aboard to direct are Charles Ferguson, who won an Oscar for the 2008 financial meltdown dissection The Inside Job and his partner Shimon Dotan, who won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize director for Hot House.
McPhee’s book recaptured an unimaginable outcome to Patriots Day, when the city of Boston screeches to a halt annually for celebrations capped by the Boston Marathon. In her book, McPhee leaned heavily into the allegation that lead terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an FBI informant gone rogue, and questioned whether he and brother Dzhokhar actually built the bombs they planted 210 yards apart near the finish of the Boston Marathon. Besides three deaths, the bombs caused...
McPhee’s book recaptured an unimaginable outcome to Patriots Day, when the city of Boston screeches to a halt annually for celebrations capped by the Boston Marathon. In her book, McPhee leaned heavily into the allegation that lead terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev was an FBI informant gone rogue, and questioned whether he and brother Dzhokhar actually built the bombs they planted 210 yards apart near the finish of the Boston Marathon. Besides three deaths, the bombs caused...
- 4/15/2019
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
The Settlers Bond/360 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten, Shockya Grade: A- Director: Shimon Dotan Written by: Shimon Dotan, Oron Adar Cast: Moshe Halbertal, Moshe Levinger, Talia Sasson, Raja Shehadeh, Sarah Nachshon, Yehuda Etzion, Hanamel Dorfman Screened at: Critics’ DVD, NYC, 2/16/17 Opens: March 3, 2017 For the sake of argument, let’s forget about the Jewish gangsters […]
The post The Settlers Review: Riveting commentary, both fierce and simply exploratory appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post The Settlers Review: Riveting commentary, both fierce and simply exploratory appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 2/23/2017
- by Harvey Karten
- ShockYa
With a filmmaking career extending to 35 years, the Romanian-born, Israeli-raised director Shimon Dotan (Repeat Dive, The Finest Hour, You Can Thank Me Later) will bow his latest film in U.S. theaters next month. The Settlers present audiences with the harsh reality that Jewish people who live along the West Bank face today. After earning acclaim following its Sundance Film Festival debut and appearance at New York Film Festival, the U.S. trailer has now arrived.
“Partisans on both sides of the conflict will find plenty to argue with, as would be the case with almost any movie on this topic,” Variety‘s Ben Kenigsberg writes. “The real achievement here is in going beyond the buzzwords of newscasts and talking points to convey a sense of what’s happening on the ground — and to give it a sense of urgency.”
Check out the trailer below and return for our review ahead of the theatrical release.
“Partisans on both sides of the conflict will find plenty to argue with, as would be the case with almost any movie on this topic,” Variety‘s Ben Kenigsberg writes. “The real achievement here is in going beyond the buzzwords of newscasts and talking points to convey a sense of what’s happening on the ground — and to give it a sense of urgency.”
Check out the trailer below and return for our review ahead of the theatrical release.
- 2/19/2017
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
After screening at both last year’s Sundance Film Festival and New York Film Festival, Shimon Dotan’s exceedingly timely look at the world of Israeli settlements — appropriately entitled “The Settlers” — is bound for a theatrical release. With the film, the filmmaker and educator aims for a full examination of not just the current state of the settlements sprinkled around the Occupied Territories, but the history of how things ended up in a such a complicated state.
By the end of the Six-Day War, Israel had tripled its territory, occupying the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Since that time, hundreds of thousands of settlers have made homes in these Occupied Territories, a move that makes a peace agreement with the Palestinians all the more complex. “The Settlers” starts from there and only grows bigger as it moves along.
Read More: Watch: Enter the...
By the end of the Six-Day War, Israel had tripled its territory, occupying the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank. Since that time, hundreds of thousands of settlers have made homes in these Occupied Territories, a move that makes a peace agreement with the Palestinians all the more complex. “The Settlers” starts from there and only grows bigger as it moves along.
Read More: Watch: Enter the...
- 2/10/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
After receiving critical acclaim at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino’s Italian masterpiece, “Call Me by Your Name,” will screen at Berlinale. Based on André Aciman’s beloved 2007 novel of the same name, the drama chronicles a romance between a 17-year old boy and a handsome American intern who is staying at his parents’ cliffside mansion on the Italian Riviera.
In a new clip shared by Berlinale’s website, audiences witness the young man, Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet), first interaction with Oliver (Armie Hammer). Oliver is seen arriving to the Perlman estate and greeted by Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife. Elio is then called down and takes Oliver’s bags to his room.
In the beginning Elio is somewhat distant towards Oliver until then the two begin to spend more time together. Per the website’s film description, “Elio begins to make tentative overtures towards...
In a new clip shared by Berlinale’s website, audiences witness the young man, Elio’s (Timothée Chalamet), first interaction with Oliver (Armie Hammer). Oliver is seen arriving to the Perlman estate and greeted by Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) and his wife. Elio is then called down and takes Oliver’s bags to his room.
In the beginning Elio is somewhat distant towards Oliver until then the two begin to spend more time together. Per the website’s film description, “Elio begins to make tentative overtures towards...
- 2/10/2017
- by Liz Calvario
- Indiewire
Billed as a female-led, Jason Bourne-styled thriller, Michael Apted’s new film “Unlocked” sets burgeoning action star Noomi Rapace as the unwitting key player in a major terrorism plot, with bonus Orlando Bloom to boot.
Read More: Ethan Hawke and Noomi Rapace to Star in Robert Budreau’s Thriller ‘Stockholm’
“Unlocked” follows the story of Alice Racine (Rapace), a CIA interrogator, whose mission becomes compromised after she is tricked into giving terrorists vital information. Her mistake may put an American target in London at risk of a major biological terrorist attack. Alice has to team up with an MI5 agent, played by Bloom, to investigate the infiltration and prevent the attack.
“Unlocked” features a top-notch cast that also includes Michael Douglas, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich.
Read More: Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning Turn on Each Other in ‘The Beguiled’ – Trailer
The thriller is produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Claudia Bluemhuber.
Read More: Ethan Hawke and Noomi Rapace to Star in Robert Budreau’s Thriller ‘Stockholm’
“Unlocked” follows the story of Alice Racine (Rapace), a CIA interrogator, whose mission becomes compromised after she is tricked into giving terrorists vital information. Her mistake may put an American target in London at risk of a major biological terrorist attack. Alice has to team up with an MI5 agent, played by Bloom, to investigate the infiltration and prevent the attack.
“Unlocked” features a top-notch cast that also includes Michael Douglas, Toni Collette, and John Malkovich.
Read More: Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning Turn on Each Other in ‘The Beguiled’ – Trailer
The thriller is produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Claudia Bluemhuber.
- 2/10/2017
- by Yoselin Acevedo
- Indiewire
Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.
– Exclusive: Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up the North American rights to the drama “Green Is Gold,” written and directed by Ryon Baxter and starring Jimmy Baxter, Ryon Baxter and David Fine. The film recently had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the summer, where it won the Audience Award for Best Fiction Feature.
The film follows “a thirteen-year-old boy [who] is forced to live with his estranged brother after their father is sent to prison. Their relationship is soon tested when the older brother’s occupation as a marijuana dealer infringes on his ability not only to raise his brother, but to even take care of himself. However, through constant tribulation, they discover...
– Exclusive: Samuel Goldwyn Films has picked up the North American rights to the drama “Green Is Gold,” written and directed by Ryon Baxter and starring Jimmy Baxter, Ryon Baxter and David Fine. The film recently had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the summer, where it won the Audience Award for Best Fiction Feature.
The film follows “a thirteen-year-old boy [who] is forced to live with his estranged brother after their father is sent to prison. Their relationship is soon tested when the older brother’s occupation as a marijuana dealer infringes on his ability not only to raise his brother, but to even take care of himself. However, through constant tribulation, they discover...
- 9/30/2016
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Plus: Samuel Goldwyn acquires Nerdland; Academy unveils Nicholl Fellows
Gianfranco Rosi’s Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea will screen under the umbrella of Berlinale Spotlight at the 14th Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico next month.
The initiative is part of a dedicated programme backed by the support of the Goethe-Institut that marks the Year Of Germany In Mexico 2016/2017,
The jointly curated selection includes films from all sections of this year’s Berlinale such as Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things To Come and Mahmoud Sabbagh’s Barakah Meets Barakah.
Programming covers a retrospective of filmmaker and actor Reinhold Schünzel, who directed Viktor Und Viktoria in 1933 before he emigrated to the Us in 1937, and selections by special guest Sebastian Schipper
Morelia runs from October 21-30. Click here for full details.
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired North American rights from UTA Independent Film Group to Tribeca selection Nerdland and will screen at this weekend’s Beyond Fest this weekend...
Gianfranco Rosi’s Golden Bear winner Fire At Sea will screen under the umbrella of Berlinale Spotlight at the 14th Morelia International Film Festival in Mexico next month.
The initiative is part of a dedicated programme backed by the support of the Goethe-Institut that marks the Year Of Germany In Mexico 2016/2017,
The jointly curated selection includes films from all sections of this year’s Berlinale such as Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things To Come and Mahmoud Sabbagh’s Barakah Meets Barakah.
Programming covers a retrospective of filmmaker and actor Reinhold Schünzel, who directed Viktor Und Viktoria in 1933 before he emigrated to the Us in 1937, and selections by special guest Sebastian Schipper
Morelia runs from October 21-30. Click here for full details.
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired North American rights from UTA Independent Film Group to Tribeca selection Nerdland and will screen at this weekend’s Beyond Fest this weekend...
- 9/29/2016
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Bond/360 has acquired the U.S. rights to The Settlers, Shimon Dotan’s documentary chronicling the lives of Israeli settlers who have been living on the West Bank since the end of the Six-Day War in 1967. The pic bowed this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Bond/360 plans a spring 2017 theatrical release beginning at New York’s Film Forum and then a nationwide expansion. Bond/360 COO Elizabeth Sheldon struck the deal with Tel Aviv-based Cinephil’s Philippa Kowarsky ahead…...
- 9/29/2016
- Deadline
Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters and Life Itself director Steve James's latest, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, in the New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Films by Steve James, Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens (on Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds), Errol Morris (on Elsa Dorfman), Bill Morrison, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Raoul Peck, Kasper Collin (on Lee Morgan), Sam Pollard, Aaron Brookner (on William Burroughs and Robert Wilson documentarian Howard Brookner), Olatz López Garmendia, Shimon Dotan, Mohamed Siam, Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger (on Wendy Whelan), Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker will shine in the New York Film Festival Spotlight on Documentary section.
Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th was announced earlier as the Opening Night Gala film, Gimme Danger's Jim Jarmusch appears in Brookner's Uncle Howard and Sacro Gra director Gianfranco Rosi has his latest Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) screening in the Main Slate program.
Chaired by Festival Director Kent Jones,...
Films by Steve James, Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens (on Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds), Errol Morris (on Elsa Dorfman), Bill Morrison, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Raoul Peck, Kasper Collin (on Lee Morgan), Sam Pollard, Aaron Brookner (on William Burroughs and Robert Wilson documentarian Howard Brookner), Olatz López Garmendia, Shimon Dotan, Mohamed Siam, Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger (on Wendy Whelan), Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker will shine in the New York Film Festival Spotlight on Documentary section.
Ava DuVernay’s documentary The 13th was announced earlier as the Opening Night Gala film, Gimme Danger's Jim Jarmusch appears in Brookner's Uncle Howard and Sacro Gra director Gianfranco Rosi has his latest Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) screening in the Main Slate program.
Chaired by Festival Director Kent Jones,...
- 8/25/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Film Society of Lincoln Center today announced the complete Spotlight on Documentary lineup for the 54th New York Film Festival, which begins on September 30 and ends on October 16. Among the more prominent selections are “Hoop Dreams” director Steve James’ “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” and Errol Morris’ “The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography,” among others; already announced titles for this year’s edition of Nyff, the 54th, include Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea,” Maren Ade’s “Toni Erdmann” and Kelly Reichardt’s “Certain Women.” Find the full list of documentaries below.
Read More: Nyff Reveals Main Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Manchester By the Sea,’ ‘Paterson’ and ‘Personal Shopper’
“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” (Steve James)
“The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography” (Errol Morris)
“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds” (Alexis Bloom & Fisher Stevens)
“The Cinema Travellers” (Shirley Abraham & Amit Madheshiya”)
“Dawson City: Frozen Times” (Bill Morrison)
“Hissen Habré,...
Read More: Nyff Reveals Main Slate of 2016 Titles, Including ‘Manchester By the Sea,’ ‘Paterson’ and ‘Personal Shopper’
“Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” (Steve James)
“The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography” (Errol Morris)
“Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds” (Alexis Bloom & Fisher Stevens)
“The Cinema Travellers” (Shirley Abraham & Amit Madheshiya”)
“Dawson City: Frozen Times” (Bill Morrison)
“Hissen Habré,...
- 8/24/2016
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Documentary festival announces winners.
Cameraperson, a documentary about the career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, has won the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15).
Johnson, who also directs the film, is the Us cinematographer behind Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour and Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War among many others.
The award, supported by Screen International and Broadcast, comes with a cash prize of £2,000 ($2,800).
The jury described the film as “a work that´s both expansive and intimate, formally ambitious and morally humble”.
“Though this filmmaker has travelled the world to tell others stories, her real...
Cameraperson, a documentary about the career of cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, has won the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15).
Johnson, who also directs the film, is the Us cinematographer behind Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning Edward Snowden doc Citizenfour and Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War among many others.
The award, supported by Screen International and Broadcast, comes with a cash prize of £2,000 ($2,800).
The jury described the film as “a work that´s both expansive and intimate, formally ambitious and morally humble”.
“Though this filmmaker has travelled the world to tell others stories, her real...
- 6/14/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Shimon Dotan: 'It's nothing else than a powder keg. And as often with historic changes, it could blow up overnight.
"It's a story of conflict, of passion, of envy, of territory - the same elements that feed the Bible," documentarian Shimon Dotan tells me when we meet during Sundance Film Festival to discuss his latest film The Settlers. The Romanian-born filmmaker, who moved to Israel as a child and served in the military there before forging a cinematic career, now lives in New York, where he teaches at Cuny - but still takes a keen interest in Israel "because it's a part of my life it's a part of my identity".
The idea for the film - which traces the settler movement from its origins through to the current day situation - came which he was making his previous documentary Hot House in the region. Travelling to the West...
"It's a story of conflict, of passion, of envy, of territory - the same elements that feed the Bible," documentarian Shimon Dotan tells me when we meet during Sundance Film Festival to discuss his latest film The Settlers. The Romanian-born filmmaker, who moved to Israel as a child and served in the military there before forging a cinematic career, now lives in New York, where he teaches at Cuny - but still takes a keen interest in Israel "because it's a part of my life it's a part of my identity".
The idea for the film - which traces the settler movement from its origins through to the current day situation - came which he was making his previous documentary Hot House in the region. Travelling to the West...
- 6/10/2016
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Tasters of the films in competition at this week’s Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Click here to see the full competition line-ups.
Opening FilmWhere To Invade Next - Michael Moore Grand JuryJim: The James Foley Story - Brian Oakes Brothers - Wojciech Staron The Settlers - Shimon Dotan Bobby Sands: 66 Days - Brendan J Byrne Presenting Princess Shaw - Ido Haar City 40 - Samira Goetschel Tempestad - Tatiana Huezo The Land of the Enlightened - Pieter-Jan De Pue Notes On Blindness - Peter Middleton, James Spinney Environmental JurySeed: The Untold Story - Taggart Siegel, Jon Betz Kivalina - Gina Abatemarco Freightened - The Real Price of Shipping - Denis Delestrac...
Click here to see the full competition line-ups.
Opening FilmWhere To Invade Next - Michael Moore Grand JuryJim: The James Foley Story - Brian Oakes Brothers - Wojciech Staron The Settlers - Shimon Dotan Bobby Sands: 66 Days - Brendan J Byrne Presenting Princess Shaw - Ido Haar City 40 - Samira Goetschel Tempestad - Tatiana Huezo The Land of the Enlightened - Pieter-Jan De Pue Notes On Blindness - Peter Middleton, James Spinney Environmental JurySeed: The Untold Story - Taggart Siegel, Jon Betz Kivalina - Gina Abatemarco Freightened - The Real Price of Shipping - Denis Delestrac...
- 6/9/2016
- ScreenDaily
Members of Grand Jury Award also revealed, which will be supported by Screen International and Broadcast.
Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, is to be honoured at Sheffield Doc/Fest next month.
The Us exec, who first joined HBO in 1979 where she has produced more than 1,000 documentaries, will receive the festival’s first Creative Leadership Award.
The honour has been launched by Doc/Fest to highlight an influential individual’s contribution to the international documentary industry.
Doc/Fest will also present its inaugural Award for Unsung Hero in Factual TV to Jan Tomalin, the managing director of Media Law Consultancy who has advised a significant number of the UK’s top documentary makers, companies and broadcasters.
Both will be presented at the Doc/Fest Award Ceremony on June 14.
Grand Jury
Doc/Fest has also revealed the names of those who will bestow the Grand Jury Award, which is supported by Screen International and sister title Broadcast...
Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films, is to be honoured at Sheffield Doc/Fest next month.
The Us exec, who first joined HBO in 1979 where she has produced more than 1,000 documentaries, will receive the festival’s first Creative Leadership Award.
The honour has been launched by Doc/Fest to highlight an influential individual’s contribution to the international documentary industry.
Doc/Fest will also present its inaugural Award for Unsung Hero in Factual TV to Jan Tomalin, the managing director of Media Law Consultancy who has advised a significant number of the UK’s top documentary makers, companies and broadcasters.
Both will be presented at the Doc/Fest Award Ceremony on June 14.
Grand Jury
Doc/Fest has also revealed the names of those who will bestow the Grand Jury Award, which is supported by Screen International and sister title Broadcast...
- 5/25/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
As the main topic of this year’s festival, Docaviv will feature a select group of thought-provoking films about a world that is changing with the collapse of physical and social boundaries, growing economic disparities, the waves of refugees and immigrants, civil wars, international terrorism, and the ultimate undoing of social solidarity.
Within the framework of this theme the program does not only include documentaries about terror and refugees, but also about a fragmented society which is losing its solidarity. Both in Israel and elsewhere the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening, and so are the frustrations and the unrest. Israeli and international titles correlating to these themes can be found throughout the entire festival program:
“Death in the terminal” - Directors Tali Shemesh (“The Cemetery Club”) and Assaf Surd
A tense, minute-by-minute, Rashomon-style account of a tragic day. On October 18, 2015, a terrorist armed with a gun and a knife entered Beersheba’s bus terminal. Within 18 minutes Omri Levy, a soldier was killed and Abtum Zarhum, Eritrean immigrant asylum seeker, was lynched after being mistaken for a terrorist.
“The Settlers” - Premiered in Sundance, Director Shimon Dotan.
A far-reaching, comprehensive look at the Jewish settlement enterprise in the West Bank. It examines the origins of the settlement movement and the religious and ideological visions that propelled it, while providing an intimate look at the people at the center of the greatest geopolitical challenge now facing Israel and the international community. (Isa Contact: Cinephil)
“Town on a Wire” - premiered at Cph: Dox Dir: Uri Rosenwaks
While Tel Aviv is thriving, just ten minutes away lies the town of Lod, right in the backyard of Israel’s bustling urban center. Unlike its affluent neighbor, Lod is a city that suffers from the blight of racism, crime, and sheer desperation. Can it be saved? Is there some way to bring hope to Lod’s Arab and Jewish residents?
“Foucoammare”/ “Fire at Sea” - by Gianfranco Rosi - winner of Golden Bear, Berlinale 2016 -every day the inhabitants of the Italian Island Lampedusa are confronted with the flight of refugees to Europe . These people long for peace and freedom and often only their dead bodies are pulled out of the water. (Contact Isa: Doc & Film Int’l. U.S.: Kino Lorber)
“Between fences” – by Avi Mograbi -. In an Israeli detention center asylum-seekers from Eritrea and Sudan can’t be sent back to their own countries, but have no prospects in Israel either thanks to the country’s policies. Chen Alon and Avi Mograbi, initiate a theatre workshop to give these people the opportunity to address their own experiences of forced migration and discrimination and to confront an Israeli society that views them as dangerous infiltrators.
“A Syrian Love Story” – by Sean McAllister -You can’t be Che Guevara and a mother Amer tells Raghda, but maybe she can't do it any other way. After years of struggle, life without her homeland and the revolution has no meaning for her. It is hard to determine what is more demanding in this bold film: the revolution, or the search for inner peace. (Contact Isa: Cat & Docs)
“Homo Sapiens” – by Nikolaus Geyrhalter - what does humanity leave behind when its gone? It sometimes seems as if the mark that humans leave on this planet will last forever. The truth is that the iron, bricks, cement, and steel – the human traces everywhere abandoned and forgotten – are erased by the forces of nature. This unusually beautiful film may lack people and words, but that leaves even more room for thought.(Contact Isa: Autlook)
“Land of the Enlightened” – Premiered at Sundance Ff 2016. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them. (Contact Isa: Films Boutique)
“Flickering Truth” - Premiered at Toronto Ff 2015. Director Pietra Brettkelly (The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins) directs this harrowing, compelling film about the power of cinema to preserve our history and in so doing potentially change our futures. (Contact Isa: Film Sales Company)
“Requiem for the American Dream” - Directed by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott. In ten chilling but lucid chapters, Noam Chomsky, one of the great intellectuals of our time, analyzes the “system,” which allows wealthy capitalists to seize the reins of government and turn those without wealth into a passive herd, willing to forego power, solidarity, and democracy itself. (U.S.: Gravitas. Contact Isa: Films Transit)
The festival will open with a first film by Israeli director Roman Shumunov
“Babylon Dreamers” Directed by Roman Somonob. An intimate report about a troupe of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, from one of Ashdod’s poorest neighborhoods; they struggle to survive facing harsh conditions - poverty, mental illness, and broken families. They channel their anger and cling to their dream of attending and winning the International Breakdance Championship.
Israeli Competition
Some 70 Israeli films produced over the last year were submitted out of which 13 films have been selected for the Israeli Competition. They will be competing for the largest cash prize for documentary filmmaking in Israel 70,000 Nis (Us$ 15,000). Other awards in the competition include the Mayor’s Prize for the Most Promising Filmmaker, the Prize for Editing, the Prize for Cinematography, the Prize for Research, and the Prize for Original Score.
"The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev," directors Tal Barda, Noam Pinchas -Tajikistan’s answer to the Jackson Family. A modern-day Shakespearean tale about a famous Tajik musical family, controlled by their charismatic patriarch-grandfather - Papa Alaev.
"A Tale of Two Balloons" by Zohar Wagner - The tale of a women who thought a pair of perfect breasts would help her find true love. But when that love came along, those perfect breasts had to go.
"Aida's Secrets," director Alon Schwarz - At 68, Izak learns he has a brother he never knew about. As part of the discoveries about the family, the film uncovers the story of the Displaced Persons camps- the vibrant and often wild social life that flourished immediately after WW2.
"Child Mother" by Yael Kipper and Ronen Zaretzky - The story of elderly women born in Morocco and Yemen, who were married off when they were still little girls. Only now, as they enter the final chapter of their lives, do they openly face their past and the ways it still affects them and their families.
"The Last Shaman" directed by Raz Degan - Inspired by an article he read, James decides to travel to the Amazon rainforests, in search of a shaman whom he thinks can save him from a clinical depression that haunts him.
"The Patriarch's Room" by Danae Elon -The bizarre imprisonment of the former head of the Greek Orthodox Church in a tiny monastic cell in Jerusalem’s Old City leads to a fascinating journey in search of the truth, penetrating the remote world of the priesthood. The complex and unfamiliar picture that emerges is revealed here, on camera, for the very first time.
"Poetics of the Brain" by Nurith Aviv –weaving associative links between her personal biographical stories and neuroscientists’ accounts of their work. They discuss topics such as memory, bilingualism, reading, mirror neurons, smell, traces of experience.
"Shalom Italia," by Tamar Tal Anati (winner of Docaviv for Life in Stills) -Three Italian Jewish brothers set off on a journey through Tuscany, in search of a cave where they hid as children to escape the Nazis. Their quest, full of humor, food and Tuscan landscapes, straddles the boundary between history and myth, both of which really, truly happened.
"Week 23" by Ohad Milstein - Rahel, the daughter of a Swiss bishop, is coping with a difficult pregnancy in Israel. One of the identical twins she is carrying has died in utero, and now poses an almost certain threat to its sibling. The doctors are unequivocal about it. They tell Rahel that she should abort the surviving fetus and end her pregnancy.
"The Settlers" by Shimon Dotan; Town On A Wire directed by Uri Rosenwaksand Eyal Blachson; Death in the Terminal by Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry, and Babylon Dreamers by Roman Shumunov.
The Members of the selection committee included Sinai Abt, artistic director of the Docaviv Film Festival; director Reuven Brodsky, winner of Docaviv in 2012 for his film Home Movie and of Honorable Mention at Docaviv in 2015 and film editor Ayelet Ofarim.
Twelve films have been selected for the International Competition, which will open with the The Happy Film by Stefan Seigmeister. Also competing are Jerzy Sladkowski’s Don Juan, winner of the Idfa Award; Author: The J.T. LeRoy Story about the imaginary cult figure who became the darling of New York society and nightlife, picked up by Amazon at Sundance as its first doc title. Another festival favorite is A Flickering Truth and Sean McAllister's daring award winning documentary A Syrian Love Story.
The Depth of Field Competition will open with LoveTrue by director Alma Har’el, who will be a juror for the Israeli Film Competition. This is the Competition’s third year, held in conjunction with the Film Critics’ Forum that will award films for an outstanding and daring artistic vision. Other films that will be screened as part of the competition include Sundance winners Kate Plays Christine by Robert Greene, and Pieter-Jan De Pue’s hybrid documentary The Land of the Enlightened; other titles that will be shown are Hotel Dallas by wife and husband artist duo Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang, The Hong Kong Trilogy by noted cinematographer Christopher Doyle , and the musical- turned into documentary London Road by Rufus Norris and Alecky Blythe.
The Masters Section, a new category in the festival, highlighting new films by world renowned directors will be opened by Fire at Sea by director Gianfranco Rosi, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale. Avi Mograbi’s Between Fences will be accompanied by a play by the Holot Legislative Theater, with a cast of actors that includes Israelis and African asylum seekers.
Other films in this section include amongst others Junun, Paul Thomas Anderson’s portrayal of a musical project involving Shye Ben-Tzur and Jonny Greenwood, Homo Sapiens by director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine by director Alex Gibney, To the Desert by director Judd Neeman, Unlocking the Cage by directors D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, De Palma by co-director Noah Baumbach and He Named Me Malala by David Guggenheim.
The Panorama selection of films will include amongst others the moving Strike a Pose, by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan about the dancers who accompanied Madonna on her “Blond Ambition” tour, Roger Ross Williams ‘Life, Animated depicting the remarkable story of an autistic boy, who learned how to communicate with his surroundings through Disney films, Those Who Jump about an African refugee who films attempts by other refugees to jump the barbed wire border fence in North Africa and Louis Theroux: My Scientology Film.
This year’s Arts Section will include Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville; I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman, which was produced shortly before her tragic death, Listen to Me, Marlon, which tells the story of Marlon Brando through the audio recordings he made throughout his life, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, the salacious story of art collector Peggy Guggenheim, Koudelka Shooting Holy Land, Gilad Baram’s film about famous Czech photographer Josef Koudelka’s travels along the Separation Fence, and more.
Seven films produced by the top film schools in Israel were selected to compete in the annual Student Film Competition. The prize for the competition was donated by the Gottesman family in memory of Ruti Gottesman, a leading supporter of Docaviv and of documentary.
The Members of the selection committee included Karin Ryvind Segal, programming director for Docaviv, Hila Avraham, curator and expert on film and audiovisual media preservation and screenwriter Danny Rosenberg, whose work includes the films My Father’s House , Susia and the television series Johnny and the Knights of the Galilee.
Special Guests attending the Festival:
Award winning Director Ondi Timoner, will be attending the Israeli premiere of her film Russell Brand: A Second Coming. Her Sundance-winning film Dig! will be among the music documentaries screened at the Tel Aviv Port. In conjunction with the Film Department of Beit Berl College, Timoner will also be conducting a special master class for students, professionals, and amateurs.
This year’s festival will include a special tribute to acclaimed director Nikolaus Geyrhalter who will be attending the festival with his recent Homo Sapiens. This year’s festival will also include two previous films of his, Our Daily Bread and Abendland,.
International jury members attending the festival include:
Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen, Director of the Idfa industry office; Gary Kam, producer of Planet of Snail; film director Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach; LoveTrue) ; Nilotpal, Director of Docedge Kolkata, Sascha Lara Bleuler, Director of the Human Rights Film Festival in Zurich, and film director Tatiana Brandrup.
The Israeli jurors include:
Director Dror Moreh, director and producer Barak Heymann, director Robby Elmaliah, producer Elinor Kowarsky, photographer David Adika, and film editor Tal Rabiner.
Around town. A record number of twelve screening venues spread out across Tel Aviv will offer free screenings. These are: Habima Square, the Beit Danny Community Center, the Hatikvah neighborhood, the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa, the rooftop of Tel Aviv City Hall, WeWork, Levinsky Park, Bar Kayma, Beit Romano, the Nalaga’at Center, Picnic Little Italy-Sarona Tel Aviv, and Artport.
Outdoors. The Tel Aviv Port will continue to host the festival this year, with outdoor screenings of music films with guest deejays from KZRadio. Films to be screened at the port include Janis: Little Girl Blue, The Reflektor Tapes about the band Arcade Fire, P.T Andersoan’s Junun about the musical collaboration between Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, Nigel Godrich, and a dozen Indian musicians.
Festival Firsts. DocaviVR: a collaboration between Docaviv and Steamer, Israel’s first Interactive and Virtual Reality Film Festival, presents original documentary projects from Israel and around the world, created especially for viewing with Vr gear. The event will take place at Beit Romano. A cinema will pop up in one of Tel Aviv’s trendy hubs, with 25 stations equipped with Vr gear.
The Docommunity conference aims to promote dcomentary across the country by bringing together cultural coordinators and artistic directors from across the country to introduce them to the latest documentary films from Israel and around the world.
The Platform for Alternative Documentation at Artport art space: A performative piece that brings together film artists, social activists, and researchers studying the various aesthetic, social, and philosophical aspects of documentation. Curated by Laliv Melamed and Gilad Reich.
Young audiences. For the first time, films from The Next Doc will be screened, a special initiative of Docaviv, the Second Channel, and the New Fund for Film and Television, which led to the production of three films created especially for a teenage audience.
Docaviv will also be hosting the final event of Docu Young, at which films by students in residential schools, who participated in film workshops , will be screened.
The Docyouth Competition will feature the best documentary films produced by students in high school film programs throughout the country. For the first time, voting for this year’s competition will be held online and open to high school students across the country.
Among the Screenings of docs for kids are Victor Kosakovsky’s “Varicella”, and “Landfilharmonic”.
Over the course of the festival, 110 films will be screened.
Within the framework of this theme the program does not only include documentaries about terror and refugees, but also about a fragmented society which is losing its solidarity. Both in Israel and elsewhere the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening, and so are the frustrations and the unrest. Israeli and international titles correlating to these themes can be found throughout the entire festival program:
“Death in the terminal” - Directors Tali Shemesh (“The Cemetery Club”) and Assaf Surd
A tense, minute-by-minute, Rashomon-style account of a tragic day. On October 18, 2015, a terrorist armed with a gun and a knife entered Beersheba’s bus terminal. Within 18 minutes Omri Levy, a soldier was killed and Abtum Zarhum, Eritrean immigrant asylum seeker, was lynched after being mistaken for a terrorist.
“The Settlers” - Premiered in Sundance, Director Shimon Dotan.
A far-reaching, comprehensive look at the Jewish settlement enterprise in the West Bank. It examines the origins of the settlement movement and the religious and ideological visions that propelled it, while providing an intimate look at the people at the center of the greatest geopolitical challenge now facing Israel and the international community. (Isa Contact: Cinephil)
“Town on a Wire” - premiered at Cph: Dox Dir: Uri Rosenwaks
While Tel Aviv is thriving, just ten minutes away lies the town of Lod, right in the backyard of Israel’s bustling urban center. Unlike its affluent neighbor, Lod is a city that suffers from the blight of racism, crime, and sheer desperation. Can it be saved? Is there some way to bring hope to Lod’s Arab and Jewish residents?
“Foucoammare”/ “Fire at Sea” - by Gianfranco Rosi - winner of Golden Bear, Berlinale 2016 -every day the inhabitants of the Italian Island Lampedusa are confronted with the flight of refugees to Europe . These people long for peace and freedom and often only their dead bodies are pulled out of the water. (Contact Isa: Doc & Film Int’l. U.S.: Kino Lorber)
“Between fences” – by Avi Mograbi -. In an Israeli detention center asylum-seekers from Eritrea and Sudan can’t be sent back to their own countries, but have no prospects in Israel either thanks to the country’s policies. Chen Alon and Avi Mograbi, initiate a theatre workshop to give these people the opportunity to address their own experiences of forced migration and discrimination and to confront an Israeli society that views them as dangerous infiltrators.
“A Syrian Love Story” – by Sean McAllister -You can’t be Che Guevara and a mother Amer tells Raghda, but maybe she can't do it any other way. After years of struggle, life without her homeland and the revolution has no meaning for her. It is hard to determine what is more demanding in this bold film: the revolution, or the search for inner peace. (Contact Isa: Cat & Docs)
“Homo Sapiens” – by Nikolaus Geyrhalter - what does humanity leave behind when its gone? It sometimes seems as if the mark that humans leave on this planet will last forever. The truth is that the iron, bricks, cement, and steel – the human traces everywhere abandoned and forgotten – are erased by the forces of nature. This unusually beautiful film may lack people and words, but that leaves even more room for thought.(Contact Isa: Autlook)
“Land of the Enlightened” – Premiered at Sundance Ff 2016. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them. (Contact Isa: Films Boutique)
“Flickering Truth” - Premiered at Toronto Ff 2015. Director Pietra Brettkelly (The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins) directs this harrowing, compelling film about the power of cinema to preserve our history and in so doing potentially change our futures. (Contact Isa: Film Sales Company)
“Requiem for the American Dream” - Directed by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott. In ten chilling but lucid chapters, Noam Chomsky, one of the great intellectuals of our time, analyzes the “system,” which allows wealthy capitalists to seize the reins of government and turn those without wealth into a passive herd, willing to forego power, solidarity, and democracy itself. (U.S.: Gravitas. Contact Isa: Films Transit)
The festival will open with a first film by Israeli director Roman Shumunov
“Babylon Dreamers” Directed by Roman Somonob. An intimate report about a troupe of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, from one of Ashdod’s poorest neighborhoods; they struggle to survive facing harsh conditions - poverty, mental illness, and broken families. They channel their anger and cling to their dream of attending and winning the International Breakdance Championship.
Israeli Competition
Some 70 Israeli films produced over the last year were submitted out of which 13 films have been selected for the Israeli Competition. They will be competing for the largest cash prize for documentary filmmaking in Israel 70,000 Nis (Us$ 15,000). Other awards in the competition include the Mayor’s Prize for the Most Promising Filmmaker, the Prize for Editing, the Prize for Cinematography, the Prize for Research, and the Prize for Original Score.
"The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev," directors Tal Barda, Noam Pinchas -Tajikistan’s answer to the Jackson Family. A modern-day Shakespearean tale about a famous Tajik musical family, controlled by their charismatic patriarch-grandfather - Papa Alaev.
"A Tale of Two Balloons" by Zohar Wagner - The tale of a women who thought a pair of perfect breasts would help her find true love. But when that love came along, those perfect breasts had to go.
"Aida's Secrets," director Alon Schwarz - At 68, Izak learns he has a brother he never knew about. As part of the discoveries about the family, the film uncovers the story of the Displaced Persons camps- the vibrant and often wild social life that flourished immediately after WW2.
"Child Mother" by Yael Kipper and Ronen Zaretzky - The story of elderly women born in Morocco and Yemen, who were married off when they were still little girls. Only now, as they enter the final chapter of their lives, do they openly face their past and the ways it still affects them and their families.
"The Last Shaman" directed by Raz Degan - Inspired by an article he read, James decides to travel to the Amazon rainforests, in search of a shaman whom he thinks can save him from a clinical depression that haunts him.
"The Patriarch's Room" by Danae Elon -The bizarre imprisonment of the former head of the Greek Orthodox Church in a tiny monastic cell in Jerusalem’s Old City leads to a fascinating journey in search of the truth, penetrating the remote world of the priesthood. The complex and unfamiliar picture that emerges is revealed here, on camera, for the very first time.
"Poetics of the Brain" by Nurith Aviv –weaving associative links between her personal biographical stories and neuroscientists’ accounts of their work. They discuss topics such as memory, bilingualism, reading, mirror neurons, smell, traces of experience.
"Shalom Italia," by Tamar Tal Anati (winner of Docaviv for Life in Stills) -Three Italian Jewish brothers set off on a journey through Tuscany, in search of a cave where they hid as children to escape the Nazis. Their quest, full of humor, food and Tuscan landscapes, straddles the boundary between history and myth, both of which really, truly happened.
"Week 23" by Ohad Milstein - Rahel, the daughter of a Swiss bishop, is coping with a difficult pregnancy in Israel. One of the identical twins she is carrying has died in utero, and now poses an almost certain threat to its sibling. The doctors are unequivocal about it. They tell Rahel that she should abort the surviving fetus and end her pregnancy.
"The Settlers" by Shimon Dotan; Town On A Wire directed by Uri Rosenwaksand Eyal Blachson; Death in the Terminal by Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry, and Babylon Dreamers by Roman Shumunov.
The Members of the selection committee included Sinai Abt, artistic director of the Docaviv Film Festival; director Reuven Brodsky, winner of Docaviv in 2012 for his film Home Movie and of Honorable Mention at Docaviv in 2015 and film editor Ayelet Ofarim.
Twelve films have been selected for the International Competition, which will open with the The Happy Film by Stefan Seigmeister. Also competing are Jerzy Sladkowski’s Don Juan, winner of the Idfa Award; Author: The J.T. LeRoy Story about the imaginary cult figure who became the darling of New York society and nightlife, picked up by Amazon at Sundance as its first doc title. Another festival favorite is A Flickering Truth and Sean McAllister's daring award winning documentary A Syrian Love Story.
The Depth of Field Competition will open with LoveTrue by director Alma Har’el, who will be a juror for the Israeli Film Competition. This is the Competition’s third year, held in conjunction with the Film Critics’ Forum that will award films for an outstanding and daring artistic vision. Other films that will be screened as part of the competition include Sundance winners Kate Plays Christine by Robert Greene, and Pieter-Jan De Pue’s hybrid documentary The Land of the Enlightened; other titles that will be shown are Hotel Dallas by wife and husband artist duo Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang, The Hong Kong Trilogy by noted cinematographer Christopher Doyle , and the musical- turned into documentary London Road by Rufus Norris and Alecky Blythe.
The Masters Section, a new category in the festival, highlighting new films by world renowned directors will be opened by Fire at Sea by director Gianfranco Rosi, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale. Avi Mograbi’s Between Fences will be accompanied by a play by the Holot Legislative Theater, with a cast of actors that includes Israelis and African asylum seekers.
Other films in this section include amongst others Junun, Paul Thomas Anderson’s portrayal of a musical project involving Shye Ben-Tzur and Jonny Greenwood, Homo Sapiens by director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine by director Alex Gibney, To the Desert by director Judd Neeman, Unlocking the Cage by directors D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, De Palma by co-director Noah Baumbach and He Named Me Malala by David Guggenheim.
The Panorama selection of films will include amongst others the moving Strike a Pose, by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan about the dancers who accompanied Madonna on her “Blond Ambition” tour, Roger Ross Williams ‘Life, Animated depicting the remarkable story of an autistic boy, who learned how to communicate with his surroundings through Disney films, Those Who Jump about an African refugee who films attempts by other refugees to jump the barbed wire border fence in North Africa and Louis Theroux: My Scientology Film.
This year’s Arts Section will include Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville; I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman, which was produced shortly before her tragic death, Listen to Me, Marlon, which tells the story of Marlon Brando through the audio recordings he made throughout his life, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, the salacious story of art collector Peggy Guggenheim, Koudelka Shooting Holy Land, Gilad Baram’s film about famous Czech photographer Josef Koudelka’s travels along the Separation Fence, and more.
Seven films produced by the top film schools in Israel were selected to compete in the annual Student Film Competition. The prize for the competition was donated by the Gottesman family in memory of Ruti Gottesman, a leading supporter of Docaviv and of documentary.
The Members of the selection committee included Karin Ryvind Segal, programming director for Docaviv, Hila Avraham, curator and expert on film and audiovisual media preservation and screenwriter Danny Rosenberg, whose work includes the films My Father’s House , Susia and the television series Johnny and the Knights of the Galilee.
Special Guests attending the Festival:
Award winning Director Ondi Timoner, will be attending the Israeli premiere of her film Russell Brand: A Second Coming. Her Sundance-winning film Dig! will be among the music documentaries screened at the Tel Aviv Port. In conjunction with the Film Department of Beit Berl College, Timoner will also be conducting a special master class for students, professionals, and amateurs.
This year’s festival will include a special tribute to acclaimed director Nikolaus Geyrhalter who will be attending the festival with his recent Homo Sapiens. This year’s festival will also include two previous films of his, Our Daily Bread and Abendland,.
International jury members attending the festival include:
Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen, Director of the Idfa industry office; Gary Kam, producer of Planet of Snail; film director Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach; LoveTrue) ; Nilotpal, Director of Docedge Kolkata, Sascha Lara Bleuler, Director of the Human Rights Film Festival in Zurich, and film director Tatiana Brandrup.
The Israeli jurors include:
Director Dror Moreh, director and producer Barak Heymann, director Robby Elmaliah, producer Elinor Kowarsky, photographer David Adika, and film editor Tal Rabiner.
Around town. A record number of twelve screening venues spread out across Tel Aviv will offer free screenings. These are: Habima Square, the Beit Danny Community Center, the Hatikvah neighborhood, the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa, the rooftop of Tel Aviv City Hall, WeWork, Levinsky Park, Bar Kayma, Beit Romano, the Nalaga’at Center, Picnic Little Italy-Sarona Tel Aviv, and Artport.
Outdoors. The Tel Aviv Port will continue to host the festival this year, with outdoor screenings of music films with guest deejays from KZRadio. Films to be screened at the port include Janis: Little Girl Blue, The Reflektor Tapes about the band Arcade Fire, P.T Andersoan’s Junun about the musical collaboration between Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood, Nigel Godrich, and a dozen Indian musicians.
Festival Firsts. DocaviVR: a collaboration between Docaviv and Steamer, Israel’s first Interactive and Virtual Reality Film Festival, presents original documentary projects from Israel and around the world, created especially for viewing with Vr gear. The event will take place at Beit Romano. A cinema will pop up in one of Tel Aviv’s trendy hubs, with 25 stations equipped with Vr gear.
The Docommunity conference aims to promote dcomentary across the country by bringing together cultural coordinators and artistic directors from across the country to introduce them to the latest documentary films from Israel and around the world.
The Platform for Alternative Documentation at Artport art space: A performative piece that brings together film artists, social activists, and researchers studying the various aesthetic, social, and philosophical aspects of documentation. Curated by Laliv Melamed and Gilad Reich.
Young audiences. For the first time, films from The Next Doc will be screened, a special initiative of Docaviv, the Second Channel, and the New Fund for Film and Television, which led to the production of three films created especially for a teenage audience.
Docaviv will also be hosting the final event of Docu Young, at which films by students in residential schools, who participated in film workshops , will be screened.
The Docyouth Competition will feature the best documentary films produced by students in high school film programs throughout the country. For the first time, voting for this year’s competition will be held online and open to high school students across the country.
Among the Screenings of docs for kids are Victor Kosakovsky’s “Varicella”, and “Landfilharmonic”.
Over the course of the festival, 110 films will be screened.
- 5/11/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Competition titles revealed; retrospectives of Ken Loach and Chantal Akerman; speakers include HBO documentaries president Sheila Nevins and revered filmmaker Da Pennebaker. Scroll down for competition films
Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15) has unveiled the programme for its 23rd edition, including 160 feature and short documentaries, an alternate realities line-up and a series of on-stage interviews and debates with major filmmakers and industry figures.
As previously announced, Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next will open the festival with the Us documentarian in attendance at Doc/Fest for the first time since 1998.
The UK premiere and Q&A will be live streamed to 114 cinemas across the UK through distributor Dogwoof. It marks the second time Doc/Fest has streamed its opening, following Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets in 2014.
There are a total of 27 world premieres, 15 international, 19 European and 52 UK premieres with documentaries from 49 countries including Mexico, Cuba, China and Peru.
Competition titles...
Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15) has unveiled the programme for its 23rd edition, including 160 feature and short documentaries, an alternate realities line-up and a series of on-stage interviews and debates with major filmmakers and industry figures.
As previously announced, Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next will open the festival with the Us documentarian in attendance at Doc/Fest for the first time since 1998.
The UK premiere and Q&A will be live streamed to 114 cinemas across the UK through distributor Dogwoof. It marks the second time Doc/Fest has streamed its opening, following Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets in 2014.
There are a total of 27 world premieres, 15 international, 19 European and 52 UK premieres with documentaries from 49 countries including Mexico, Cuba, China and Peru.
Competition titles...
- 5/5/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Competition titles revealed; retrospectives of Ken Loach and Chantal Akerman; speakers include HBO documentaries president Sheila Nevins and legendary filmmaker Da Pennebaker.Scroll down for competition films
Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15) has unveiled the programme for its 23rd edition, including 160 feature and short documentaries, an alternate realities line-up and a series of on-stage interviews and debates with major filmmakers and industry figures.
As previously announced, Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next will open the festival with the Us documentarian in attendance at Doc/Fest for the first time since 1998.
The UK premiere and Q&A will be live streamed to 114 cinemas across the UK through distributor Dogwoof. It marks the second time Doc/Fest has streamed its opening, following Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets in 2014.
There are a total of 27 world premieres, 15 international, 19 European and 52 UK premieres with documentaries from 49 countries including Mexico, Cuba, China and Peru.
Competition titles...
Sheffield Doc/Fest (June 10-15) has unveiled the programme for its 23rd edition, including 160 feature and short documentaries, an alternate realities line-up and a series of on-stage interviews and debates with major filmmakers and industry figures.
As previously announced, Michael Moore’s Where To Invade Next will open the festival with the Us documentarian in attendance at Doc/Fest for the first time since 1998.
The UK premiere and Q&A will be live streamed to 114 cinemas across the UK through distributor Dogwoof. It marks the second time Doc/Fest has streamed its opening, following Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets in 2014.
There are a total of 27 world premieres, 15 international, 19 European and 52 UK premieres with documentaries from 49 countries including Mexico, Cuba, China and Peru.
Competition titles...
- 5/5/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: A total of 110 films will screen at the festival, including recent Golden Bear-winner Fuocoammare and a selection of Israeli docs.
Topics including immigration and instability in the West Bank region will be highlighted at this year’s Docaviv international documentary festival (May 19-28) in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Among the 2016 programme is Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear-winning Fuocoammare, Shimon Dotan’s Sundance premiere The Settlers and Sean McAllister’s BAFTA-nominated A Syrian Love Story.
The festival will open with Babylon Dreamers [pictured], about a group of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who, despite struggling to survive in tough circumstances in Israeli city Ashdod, decide to pursue their dream of entering the International Breakdance Championships.
That film will compete in the festival’s Israeli competition, which offers a prize of $18.5k (70k Ils), alongside 12 other titles including films about arranged marriages in Morocco and Yemen (Child Mother), depression-curing shamans in the Amazon rainforest (The Last Shaman), and three...
Topics including immigration and instability in the West Bank region will be highlighted at this year’s Docaviv international documentary festival (May 19-28) in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Among the 2016 programme is Gianfranco Rosi’s Berlin Golden Bear-winning Fuocoammare, Shimon Dotan’s Sundance premiere The Settlers and Sean McAllister’s BAFTA-nominated A Syrian Love Story.
The festival will open with Babylon Dreamers [pictured], about a group of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who, despite struggling to survive in tough circumstances in Israeli city Ashdod, decide to pursue their dream of entering the International Breakdance Championships.
That film will compete in the festival’s Israeli competition, which offers a prize of $18.5k (70k Ils), alongside 12 other titles including films about arranged marriages in Morocco and Yemen (Child Mother), depression-curing shamans in the Amazon rainforest (The Last Shaman), and three...
- 4/19/2016
- ScreenDaily
Documentary Dp Philippe Bellaiche has worked steadily on more than 30 documentary features and shorts over the past 16 years. On The Settlers, the Israel/Palestine documentary from Shimon Dotan, he had his first encounter with physical violence. Below, Bellaiche speaks about the film’s evolving structure, the region’s landscapes and getting assaulted by a group of young men while on a shoot. Dotan and Bellaiche’s previous film together, Hot House, won the Special Jury Prize in the World Documentary program at Sundance 2007. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being […]...
- 1/31/2016
- by Soheil Rezayazdi
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Documentary Dp Philippe Bellaiche has worked steadily on more than 30 documentary features and shorts over the past 16 years. On The Settlers, the Israel/Palestine documentary from Shimon Dotan, he had his first encounter with physical violence. Below, Bellaiche speaks about the film’s evolving structure, the region’s landscapes and getting assaulted by a group of young men while on a shoot. Dotan and Bellaiche’s previous film together, Hot House, won the Special Jury Prize in the World Documentary program at Sundance 2007. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being […]...
- 1/31/2016
- by Soheil Rezayazdi
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Read More: Sundance Announces Premieres and Documentary Premieres, Including New Films From Kelly Reichardt, Werner Herzog and Whit Stillman Award-winning director Shimon Dotan returns to Sundance this year with his new documentary "The Settlers." Dotan previously won the Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Award for his documentary "Hot House" in 2007. Dotan's film is the first of its kind as it looks at the historical, religious and personal ramifications of Israeli citizens expanding communities into the already-occupied territories of the West Bank, where they frequently come into direct conflict with the region's Palestinian inhabitants. These settlers have been viewed by some as fulfilling the righteous vanguard of modern Zionism, and by others as overzealous squatters who are inhibiting the possibility of peace. Throughout the documentary, Dotan follows both extremes between the debate for continued inhabitancy and immediate withdrawal of the Jewish...
- 1/22/2016
- by Kristen Santer
- Indiewire
Germany is well represented at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival with films by both debutants and returning filmmakers. Scattered around the festival's program, German films are among the most daring productions and co-productions that will premier this week in Park City to eager audiences.
Here is a list of German films at Sundance this year:
German Productions
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
"Wild"
by Nicolette Krebitz
Producer: Heimatfilm
World sales: The Match Factory
Press contact: Required Viewing, Steven Raphael
Us Dramatic Competition
"Morris from America"
by Chad Hartigan (De/Us)
German producers: Lichtblick Media & Indi Film
World sales: Visit Films
Press contact: Brigade Marketing, Adam Kersch
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
"Halal Love (And Sex)"
by Assad Fouladkar (De/Lb)
German producer: Razor Film
World sales: Films Distribution
Press contacts: Required Viewing, Steven Raphael & Denise Sinelov
World Cinema Documentary Competition
"Sonita"
by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (De/Ir/Ch)
German producer: Tag/Traum
World sales: Cat & Docs
Press contact: Entertainment Communications, David C. Magdael
German Co-productions
World Cinema Documentary Competition
"The Light of the Enlightened"
by Pieter-Jan de Pue (Be/Nl/Ie/De)
"The Settlers"
by Shimon Dotan (Fr/CA/Il/De)
Documentary Premieres
"Eat That Question- Frank Zappra in His Own Word"
by Thorsten Schütte (Fr/De)
Spotlight
"Cemetery of Splendour"
by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Th/Gb/De/Fr/My)
"Land of Mine"
by Martin Zandvliet (Dk/De)...
Here is a list of German films at Sundance this year:
German Productions
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
"Wild"
by Nicolette Krebitz
Producer: Heimatfilm
World sales: The Match Factory
Press contact: Required Viewing, Steven Raphael
Us Dramatic Competition
"Morris from America"
by Chad Hartigan (De/Us)
German producers: Lichtblick Media & Indi Film
World sales: Visit Films
Press contact: Brigade Marketing, Adam Kersch
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
"Halal Love (And Sex)"
by Assad Fouladkar (De/Lb)
German producer: Razor Film
World sales: Films Distribution
Press contacts: Required Viewing, Steven Raphael & Denise Sinelov
World Cinema Documentary Competition
"Sonita"
by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (De/Ir/Ch)
German producer: Tag/Traum
World sales: Cat & Docs
Press contact: Entertainment Communications, David C. Magdael
German Co-productions
World Cinema Documentary Competition
"The Light of the Enlightened"
by Pieter-Jan de Pue (Be/Nl/Ie/De)
"The Settlers"
by Shimon Dotan (Fr/CA/Il/De)
Documentary Premieres
"Eat That Question- Frank Zappra in His Own Word"
by Thorsten Schütte (Fr/De)
Spotlight
"Cemetery of Splendour"
by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Th/Gb/De/Fr/My)
"Land of Mine"
by Martin Zandvliet (Dk/De)...
- 1/22/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Kate Plays ChristineThe lineup for the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, taking place between January 21 -31, has been announced.U.S. Dramatic COMPETITIONAs You Are (Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, USA): As You Are is the telling and retelling of a relationship between three teenagers as it traces the course of their friendship through a construction of disparate memories prompted by a police investigation. Cast: Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton, Amandla Stenberg, John Scurti, Scott Cohen, Mary Stuart Masterson. World Premiere The Birth of a Nation (Nate Parker, USA): Set against the antebellum South, this story follows Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher whose financially strained owner, Samuel Turner, accepts an offer to use Nat’s preaching to subdue unruly slaves. After witnessing countless atrocities against fellow slaves, Nat devises a plan to lead his people to freedom. Cast: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Aja Naomi King, Jackie Earle Haley, Gabrielle Union, Mark Boone Jr. World PremiereChristine (Antonio Campos,...
- 12/7/2015
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Titles include Tallulah starring Ellen Page and Allison Janney, and Chad Hartigan’s Morris From America (pictured); Next strand also announced.Scroll down for full list
Sundance Institute has announced the 65 films selected for the Us Competition, World Competition and out-of-competition Next categories set to screen at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival (Jan 21-31) in Park City.
Us Dramatic Competition selections include Sian Heder’s Tallulah with Ellen Page and Allison Janney; Antonio Campos’ Christine; Clea DuVall’s feature directorial debut The Intervention; and Richard Tanne’s Southside With You, about Barack Obama’s first date with the First Lady.
Among the Us Documentary Competition selections are: Holy Hell by undisclosed; Jeff Feuerzeig’s Author: The Jt LeRoy Story; and Sara Jordenö’s Kiki.
The World Cinema Dramatic Competition entries include: Belgica (Belgium-France-Netherlands), Felix van Groeningen’s follow-up to The Broken Circle Breakdown; Manolo Cruz and Carlos del Castillo’s Between Sea And Land (Colombia); and Nicolette Krebitz’s Wild...
Sundance Institute has announced the 65 films selected for the Us Competition, World Competition and out-of-competition Next categories set to screen at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival (Jan 21-31) in Park City.
Us Dramatic Competition selections include Sian Heder’s Tallulah with Ellen Page and Allison Janney; Antonio Campos’ Christine; Clea DuVall’s feature directorial debut The Intervention; and Richard Tanne’s Southside With You, about Barack Obama’s first date with the First Lady.
Among the Us Documentary Competition selections are: Holy Hell by undisclosed; Jeff Feuerzeig’s Author: The Jt LeRoy Story; and Sara Jordenö’s Kiki.
The World Cinema Dramatic Competition entries include: Belgica (Belgium-France-Netherlands), Felix van Groeningen’s follow-up to The Broken Circle Breakdown; Manolo Cruz and Carlos del Castillo’s Between Sea And Land (Colombia); and Nicolette Krebitz’s Wild...
- 12/2/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
It’s been a couple months since the last edition of What’s Up Doc? placed Michael Moore’s surprise world premiere of Where To Invade Next at the top of this list and in the meantime much shuffling has taken place and much time has been spent on various new endeavors (namely my Buffalo-based film series, Cultivate Cinema Circle). Finally taking its rightful place at the top, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hagedus’ Unlocking the Cage is in the midst of being scored by composer James Lavino, according to Lavino’s own personal site. Though the project has been taking shape at its own leisurely pace, I’d expect to see the film making its festival debut in early 2016.
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
- 11/5/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
The fall festival rush is upon us. Locarno is currently ramping up. Venice has released their line-up and Thom Powers and the Toronto International Film Festival team have dropped a bomb with a previously unannounced new feature from powerhouse docu-provocateur Michael Moore. It is truly a miracle that the production of a film such as Moore’s upcoming Where To Invade Next (see still above) managed to go completely undetected by the filmmaking community until it was literally announced to world premiere at one of the largest film festivals in the world. Programmed as a one of the key films in the Special Presentations section at Tiff, the film sees Moore telling “the Pentagon to ‘stand down’ — he will do the invading for America from now on.” Also announced to premiere at Tiff was Avi Lewis’ This Changes Everything, which has slowly been rising up this list, as well as...
- 8/7/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s been a surprisingly interesting month of moving and shaking in terms of doc development. Just a month after making his first public funding pitch at Toronto’s Hot Docs Forum, legendary doc filmmaker Frederick Wiseman took to Kickstarter to help cover the remaining expenses for his 40th feature film In Jackson Heights (see the film’s first trailer below). Unrelentingly rigorous in his determination to capture the American institutional landscape on film, his latest continues down this thematic rabbit hole, taking on the immensely diverse New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights as his latest subject. According to the Kickstarter page, Wiseman is currently editing the 120 hours of rushes he shot with hopes of having the film ready for a fall festival premiere (my guess would be Tiff, where both National Gallery and At Berkeley made their North American debut), though he’s currently quite a ways away from his $75,000 goal.
- 7/6/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Well folks, after a rather long and brutal winter (at least for me here in Buffalo), we are finally heading into the wonderful warmth of summer, but with that blast of sunshine and steamy humidity comes the mid-year drought of major film fests. After the Sheffield Doc/Fest concludes on June 10th and AFI Docs wraps on June 21st, we likely won’t see any major influx in our charts until Locarno, Venice, Telluride and Tiff announce their line-ups in rapid succession. In the meantime, we can look forward to the intriguing onslaught of films making their debut in Sheffield, including Brian Hill’s intriguing examination of Sweden’s most notorious serial killer, The Confessions of Thomas Quick, and Sean McAllister’s film for which he himself was jailed in the process of making, A Syrian Love Story, the only two films world premiering in the festival’s main competition.
- 6/1/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
It should come as no surprise that Cannes Film Festival will play host to Kent Jones’s doc on the touchstone of filmmaking interview tomes, Hitchcock/Truffaut (see photo above). The film has been floating near the top of this list since it was announced last year as in development, while Jones himself has a history with the festival, having co-written both Arnaud Desplechin’s Jimmy P. and Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage To Italy, both of which premiered in Cannes. The film is scheduled to screen as part of the Cannes Classics sidebar alongside the likes of Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman, in Her Own Words, which will play as part of the festival’s tribute to the late starlet, and Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna’s Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (see trailer below). As someone who grew up watching road races with my dad in Watkins Glen,...
- 5/1/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Now that the busy winter fest schedule of Sundance, Rotterdam and the Berlinale has concluded, we’ve now got our eyes on the likes of True/False and SXSW. While, True/False does not specialize in attention grabbing world premieres, it does provide a late winter haven for cream of the crop non-fiction fare from all the previously mentioned fests and a selection of overlooked genre blending films presented in a down home setting. This year will mark my first trip to the Columbia, Missouri based fest, where I hope to catch a little of everything, from their hush-hush secret screenings, to selections from their Neither/Nor series, this year featuring chimeric Polish cinema of decades past, to a spotlight of Adam Curtis’s incisive oeuvre. But truth be told, it is SXSW, with its slew of high profile world premieres being announced, such as Alex Gibney’s Steve Jobs...
- 2/27/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Turkey or no turkey, these next couple of days lucky filmmakers who’ve been selected to screen as part of the Sundance Film Festival will get the invitation notice straight from John Cooper and the Park City programming team, and thus, those that we’re betting have made the cut have also inched up the list a bit. One of those that seem an obvious choice to premiere at the fest is director Steve Hoover and producer Danny Yourd’s Crocodile Gennadiy. Following up their Grand Jury Prize winning Blood Brother with incredible turnaround time, our new most anticipated film tracks the delicate operations of Gennadiy Mokhnenko, a Ukrainian activist, orphanage manager and savior of countless children whose addict parents favor injected cold medicine and alcohol over them. Part heartwrenching domestic drama, part sleuth thriller, the film looks to use the Ukrainian uprising as a backdrop to highlight its protagonist...
- 11/27/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
They often get quite a bit less attention than their fictional brethren, and it doesn’t help that many films fly under the radar while development and filming is underway. To chart this course with a little more precision, I’m launching Ioncinema.com’s latest feature, What’s Up Doc?, our monthly Top 50 Most Anticipated films, a sort of hitlist and/or snapshot of the most alluring, the most promising documentary film projects from the established documentarian guard, the new crop of future voices or the fiction filmmakers who on occasion dip their toes in the form. Curated by me, Jordan M. Smith, you’ll find docu items that are in their beginning stages to being moments away from their film festival berth. Like any such list, we can expect film items to fluctuate in ranking, with the cut-off being publicly items — such recent examples include Laura Poitras’s white hot Edward Snowden project,...
- 10/23/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
On the heels of the 39th edition of the Toronto Int. Film Festival (Sept 4-14), Ifp’s Independent Film Week is where a plethora of fiction, non-fiction and new this year, web-based series from the likes of Desiree Akhavan and Calvin Reeder find future coin. Sectioned off as projects at the very beginning of financing to those that are nearing completion, there happens to be tons of Sundance alumni in the names below. Among those that caught our attention we have Medicine for Melancholy‘s Barry Jenkins’ sophomore feature, produced by Bad Milo!‘s Adele Romanski, Moonlight is about “two Miami boys navigate the temptations of the drug trade and their burgeoning sexuality in this triptych drama about black queer youth”. Concussion‘s Stacie Passon digs into the thriller genre with Strange Things Started Happening. Produced by vet Mary Jane Skalski (Mysterious Skin), this is about “a woman who has...
- 7/24/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Filmmaker Michael Galinsky has been named one of thirteen Guggenheim Fellows in film and video for 2012.
For the past 88 years, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships to scholars, artists, and scientists in a variety of different disciplines in the creative arts, humanities, natural and social sciences. Out of nearly 3,000 applicants in 2012, 181 fellows were chosen.
Galinsky’s most recent film was the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which he co-directed with Suki Hawley. Seven years in the making, the doc focused on the struggles of a group of Brooklyn residents to prevent their homes from being demolished by an aggressive developer hoping to build a new sports complex with the help of a compliant city government.
Battle for Brooklyn was named runner-up for Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s Movie of the Year for 2011.
Galinsky is also one-third of Rumur, a multimedia production studio and distributor that...
For the past 88 years, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has awarded fellowships to scholars, artists, and scientists in a variety of different disciplines in the creative arts, humanities, natural and social sciences. Out of nearly 3,000 applicants in 2012, 181 fellows were chosen.
Galinsky’s most recent film was the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which he co-directed with Suki Hawley. Seven years in the making, the doc focused on the struggles of a group of Brooklyn residents to prevent their homes from being demolished by an aggressive developer hoping to build a new sports complex with the help of a compliant city government.
Battle for Brooklyn was named runner-up for Bad Lit: The Journal of Underground Film’s Movie of the Year for 2011.
Galinsky is also one-third of Rumur, a multimedia production studio and distributor that...
- 4/24/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Watching TV With The Red Chinese is based on a Luke Whisnant young-adult novel that co-writer/director Shimon Dotan (Diamond Dogs) seems to have fed into a blender. The film begins in garbled flickers of animation giving way to live-action footage, a portentous voiceover (“Everywhere there’s meaning, order, shared knowledge”), a doctor’s interview, and home-video clips. The timeline jitters out of order, dropping viewers into a scenario it takes far longer than necessary to discover is straightforward and self-seriously soap operatic. Ryan O’Nan stars as a New York-dwelling English teacher who befriends three Chinese exchange students who ...
- 1/19/2012
- avclub.com
- The 2007 Sundance Film Festival Award-Winners are: The Grand Jury Prize: Documentary:Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) - Jason Kohn The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic:Padre Nuestro - Christopher ZallaThe World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary Enemies Of Happiness (Vores Lykkesfjender) - Eva Mulvad and Anja Al Erhayem. The World Cinema Jury Prize: Dramatic:sweet Mud (Adama Meshugaat) Dror Shaul The Audience Award: Documentary: Hear And Now Irene Taylor BrodskyThe Audience Award: Dramatic:Grace Is Gone James C. StrouseThe World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary In The Shadow Of The Moon David SingtonThe World Cinema Audience Award: DramaticJohn Carney ONCEThe Directing Award: Documentary - Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine War/Dance The Directing Award: Dramatic Jeffrey Blitz - Rocket ScienceThe Excellence in Cinematography Awards – Dramatic: Benoit Debie for JoshuaThe Excellence in Cinematography Awards – Documentary: Heloisa Passos for Manda Bala (Send A Bullet)Documentary Editing Award: Hibah Sherif Frisina, Charlton McMillian, and Michael Schweitzer
- 1/28/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
- Quick Links Complete Film Listing: Premieres: Dramatic Comp: Docu Comp: World Dramatic Comp: Spectrum: Park City at Midnight: New Frontier: Short Film Programs January 18 to 28, 2007 Counting Down: updateCountdownClock('January 18, 2007'); ⢠"Acidente" (Brazil), directed by Cao Guimaraes and Pablo Lobato, an experimental, poetic expression of everyday life culled from images of 20 cities in Menas Gerais, Brazil. ⢠"Bajo Juarez, The City Is Devouring Its Daughters" (Mexico), directed by Alejandra Sanchez, an examination of the societal corruption backdropping the many cases of sexual abuse and murders of women in a Mexican industrial border town. ⢠"Cocalero" (Bolivia), directed by Alejandro Landes, which follows the campaign of Aymaran Indian Evo Morales to becomed the first indigenous president of Bolivia. World premiere. ⢠"Comrades In Dreams" (Germany), directed by Uli Gaulke, a look at four people in different parts of the world who bring cinema to locals. ⢠"Crossing the Line" (U.
- 1/18/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
The Cooperbergs of Montreal -- an irreverent Jewish clan facing a major crisis -- are an encyclopedia of familial woes led by a hideously critical and intolerant matron played with gusto by Ellen Burstyn.
Overacting and endless, stage-bound group angst is the norm in acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan's scabrous comedy that closed the 10th Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival on Sunday to decidedly mixed reception. The English-language production also features Amanda Plummer, Mary McDonnell and Genevieve Bujold, but its chances for significant theatrical distribution are slim.
Written by Montreal-born playwright Oren Safdie, "You Can Thank Me Later" is claustrophobically set in a hospital room where the family waits for the outcome of a man undergoing serious surgery. Dotan tries to break up the goings-on with black-and-white cutaways to the various siblings and their families talking frankly with presumably several therapists. There's also lots of frantic, spontaneous sex in bathrooms and cars.
The humor runs the gambit from hoary characterizations -- the artist whose paintings are incomprehensible, the Don Juan who scores easily but also gets caught regularly, the controlling mother who plays favorites -- to ineffective running gags like the broken hospital TV set that only shows documentaries about World War II and the Holocaust.
Ultimately turning serious but never fully engaging as an ensemble hate-in to begin with, "You Can Thank Me Later" is no "Happiness" or "Celebration". Wacky-tacky farce one minute and static bitchfest the next, there's no reward for watching the talented cast struggle with dubious material that is so indifferently mounted. The film could benefit from a new score and the cutting of at least 10 minutes.
Plummer as the lone daughter in the family plays yet another dizzy scaredy-cat, while McDonnell as the separated wife and secret lover of second son Eli (Ted Levine) has no particularly memorable moments. Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") stands out because his relatively calm and rational character is the most appealing, while Mark Blum struggles to get laughs as the successful, oversexed eldest son.
Burstyn sinks her chops into the role of blitzing mother Cooperberg, but her stagey performance combined with Amnon Solomon's blase cinematography does not make for an endearingly wicked character. She's too much in our faces and in the faces of the messed-up brood of wimps she terrorizes.
Macha Grenon shows some spunk as the righteously vicious wife of Blum's smug opportunist, while Bujold's Mystery Woman is a sketchy enigma who figures in the bizarre wrap-up -- which includes vital information about Plummer's character that's inexplicably withheld, completing one's befuddlement and frustration with this misconceived project.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Danehip Entertainment
A Dotan-Anbar/Cinequest Films production
Director: Shimon Dotan
Producers: Shimon Dotan, Netaya Anbar
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Director of photography: Amnon Salomon
Production designer: Michael Devine
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Costume designer: Renee April
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Eli: Ted Levine
Edward: Mark Blum
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Overacting and endless, stage-bound group angst is the norm in acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan's scabrous comedy that closed the 10th Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival on Sunday to decidedly mixed reception. The English-language production also features Amanda Plummer, Mary McDonnell and Genevieve Bujold, but its chances for significant theatrical distribution are slim.
Written by Montreal-born playwright Oren Safdie, "You Can Thank Me Later" is claustrophobically set in a hospital room where the family waits for the outcome of a man undergoing serious surgery. Dotan tries to break up the goings-on with black-and-white cutaways to the various siblings and their families talking frankly with presumably several therapists. There's also lots of frantic, spontaneous sex in bathrooms and cars.
The humor runs the gambit from hoary characterizations -- the artist whose paintings are incomprehensible, the Don Juan who scores easily but also gets caught regularly, the controlling mother who plays favorites -- to ineffective running gags like the broken hospital TV set that only shows documentaries about World War II and the Holocaust.
Ultimately turning serious but never fully engaging as an ensemble hate-in to begin with, "You Can Thank Me Later" is no "Happiness" or "Celebration". Wacky-tacky farce one minute and static bitchfest the next, there's no reward for watching the talented cast struggle with dubious material that is so indifferently mounted. The film could benefit from a new score and the cutting of at least 10 minutes.
Plummer as the lone daughter in the family plays yet another dizzy scaredy-cat, while McDonnell as the separated wife and secret lover of second son Eli (Ted Levine) has no particularly memorable moments. Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") stands out because his relatively calm and rational character is the most appealing, while Mark Blum struggles to get laughs as the successful, oversexed eldest son.
Burstyn sinks her chops into the role of blitzing mother Cooperberg, but her stagey performance combined with Amnon Solomon's blase cinematography does not make for an endearingly wicked character. She's too much in our faces and in the faces of the messed-up brood of wimps she terrorizes.
Macha Grenon shows some spunk as the righteously vicious wife of Blum's smug opportunist, while Bujold's Mystery Woman is a sketchy enigma who figures in the bizarre wrap-up -- which includes vital information about Plummer's character that's inexplicably withheld, completing one's befuddlement and frustration with this misconceived project.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Danehip Entertainment
A Dotan-Anbar/Cinequest Films production
Director: Shimon Dotan
Producers: Shimon Dotan, Netaya Anbar
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Director of photography: Amnon Salomon
Production designer: Michael Devine
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Costume designer: Renee April
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Eli: Ted Levine
Edward: Mark Blum
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 105 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/21/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A stagey talkathon involving a dysfunctional Jewish family squabbling while their patriarch undergoes a life-threatening operation, Shimon Dotan's Canadian feature will no doubt suffer comparisons to Woody Allen and Neil Simon.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to its forebears, lacking the big laughs to succeed as comedy and sufficient emotion to work as drama. The film, boasting an impressive cast, was given its world premiere at last year's Montreal World Film Festival, where it played in competition.
The screenwriter, Oren Safdie, is a widely produced playwright, and this effort has the feel of a stage play adapted to the screen. Much of the action takes place in a hospital room, where the Cooperberg family is waiting to hear the results of their father's surgery. Shirley Cooperberg (Ellen Burstyn) is the officious and demanding mother, and her children include Susan (Amanda Plummer), a bohemian abstract artist confused about to her role in life; Eli (Ted Levine), a failed writer who has taken over the family business; and Edward (Mark Blum), a theatrical producer whose womanizing is about to cost him his marriage. Also present in the room, acting as a mostly silent witness, is the hospital's television repairman (Roch Lafortune).
As the family nervously waits, various age-old tensions rise to the surface as Shirley is unable to hide her disappointment over the way her children turned out and they, in turn, rail over the courses their lives have taken. Framed by a series of scenes depicting various therapy sessions undertaken by the principals, the plot also includes flashbacks in which we are introduced to other characters, including Eli's ex-wife (Mary McDonnell) and his teenage son (Jacob Tierney).
In between the bitter arguments and anguished monologues, the characters also engage in various shenanigans. Edward relentlessly pursues an enigmatic and sexy nurse (Genevieve Brouillette); Susan has sexual encounters with a female gallery owner and the TV repairman; and a mysterious nun (Genevieve Bujold) pops up periodically.
The film has its moments, both comic and otherwise, but too often the dialogue and characterizations have an artificial feel that not even this group of talented performers can bring to life. Veering uneasily between naturalism and absurdism -- a late sequence involving the nun's getting hit by the family's car is particularly loopy -- too often the dialogue revolves around such less-than-burning issues as whether or not the siblings were breast-fed as infants and what really happened to Edward's pet goldfish three decades ago.
A running element throughout the film involves a school bus accident, albeit one with less fateful results than in "The Sweet Hereafter".
The performances are a mixed bag. Burstyn is uncharacteristically heavy-handed as the matriarch, and Plummer does her usual shtick in what must be her thousandth weird role to date. Ted Levine and Mark Blum, on the other hand, are given the opportunity to display a greater range than usual, and are more than up to the task. McDonnell also does fine, sensitive work, and Lafortune displays sharp comic timing in what could have been a throwaway role.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Equinox Entertainment
Director: Shimon Dotan
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Producers: Netaya Anbar, Shimon Dotan
Director of photography: Ammon Salomon
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Music: Takashi Kako
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Eli: Ted Levine
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Edward: Mark Blum
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to its forebears, lacking the big laughs to succeed as comedy and sufficient emotion to work as drama. The film, boasting an impressive cast, was given its world premiere at last year's Montreal World Film Festival, where it played in competition.
The screenwriter, Oren Safdie, is a widely produced playwright, and this effort has the feel of a stage play adapted to the screen. Much of the action takes place in a hospital room, where the Cooperberg family is waiting to hear the results of their father's surgery. Shirley Cooperberg (Ellen Burstyn) is the officious and demanding mother, and her children include Susan (Amanda Plummer), a bohemian abstract artist confused about to her role in life; Eli (Ted Levine), a failed writer who has taken over the family business; and Edward (Mark Blum), a theatrical producer whose womanizing is about to cost him his marriage. Also present in the room, acting as a mostly silent witness, is the hospital's television repairman (Roch Lafortune).
As the family nervously waits, various age-old tensions rise to the surface as Shirley is unable to hide her disappointment over the way her children turned out and they, in turn, rail over the courses their lives have taken. Framed by a series of scenes depicting various therapy sessions undertaken by the principals, the plot also includes flashbacks in which we are introduced to other characters, including Eli's ex-wife (Mary McDonnell) and his teenage son (Jacob Tierney).
In between the bitter arguments and anguished monologues, the characters also engage in various shenanigans. Edward relentlessly pursues an enigmatic and sexy nurse (Genevieve Brouillette); Susan has sexual encounters with a female gallery owner and the TV repairman; and a mysterious nun (Genevieve Bujold) pops up periodically.
The film has its moments, both comic and otherwise, but too often the dialogue and characterizations have an artificial feel that not even this group of talented performers can bring to life. Veering uneasily between naturalism and absurdism -- a late sequence involving the nun's getting hit by the family's car is particularly loopy -- too often the dialogue revolves around such less-than-burning issues as whether or not the siblings were breast-fed as infants and what really happened to Edward's pet goldfish three decades ago.
A running element throughout the film involves a school bus accident, albeit one with less fateful results than in "The Sweet Hereafter".
The performances are a mixed bag. Burstyn is uncharacteristically heavy-handed as the matriarch, and Plummer does her usual shtick in what must be her thousandth weird role to date. Ted Levine and Mark Blum, on the other hand, are given the opportunity to display a greater range than usual, and are more than up to the task. McDonnell also does fine, sensitive work, and Lafortune displays sharp comic timing in what could have been a throwaway role.
YOU CAN THANK ME LATER
Equinox Entertainment
Director: Shimon Dotan
Screenwriter: Oren Safdie
Producers: Netaya Anbar, Shimon Dotan
Director of photography: Ammon Salomon
Editor: Netaya Anbar
Music: Takashi Kako
Color/stereo
Cast:
Shirley: Ellen Burstyn
Eli: Ted Levine
Susan: Amanda Plummer
Edward: Mark Blum
Diane: Mary McDonnell
Linda: Macha Grenon
Joelle: Genevieve Bujold
Running time -- 110 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 1/11/1999
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.