Donald Glover, Jason Momoa, Laura Dern, Woody Harrelson, Ian Somerhalder and Rosario Dawson pen letters to a future generation about climate concerns in the above clip from the documentary Common Ground, which The Hollywood Reporter is debuting exclusively.
The film, written, directed and produced by Kiss the Ground helmers Josh and Rebecca Tickell and premiering at the Tribeca Festival on Thursday, explores the connections between farming, politics and illness as well as the Regenerative Agriculture movement. Glover, Momoa, Dern, Harrelson, Dawson and Somerhalder narrate. In addition to warning the next generation, the famous narrators provide hope for ways to fix broken systems.
“As parents of two young children, Common Ground is not only a love letter to kids, but all of the co-narrators of the film are also writing the letter to their children,” Rebecca Tickell tells THR. “The film, and the letter it depicts, are a commitment that we...
The film, written, directed and produced by Kiss the Ground helmers Josh and Rebecca Tickell and premiering at the Tribeca Festival on Thursday, explores the connections between farming, politics and illness as well as the Regenerative Agriculture movement. Glover, Momoa, Dern, Harrelson, Dawson and Somerhalder narrate. In addition to warning the next generation, the famous narrators provide hope for ways to fix broken systems.
“As parents of two young children, Common Ground is not only a love letter to kids, but all of the co-narrators of the film are also writing the letter to their children,” Rebecca Tickell tells THR. “The film, and the letter it depicts, are a commitment that we...
- 6/8/2023
- by Hilary Lewis
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Exclusive: Legwork Collective, the media company recently formed by Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché director Pamela B. Green, is ramping up its slate, attaching names like Rosario Dawson, Debra Messing, Ken Jeong and Norman Reedus to a new docuseries, as well as Kathy Bates to its Kate Warne detective drama, as it moves forward with projects aiming to explore overlooked figures in history.
The newest project in the works is Catching a Shadow, a docuseries highlighting diverse and exceptional people who broke boundaries in different domains, overcoming personal traumas and the prejudices of their time – much in the vein of Green’s 2018 docu on Guy-Blaché, the mostly unsung first female filmmaker. Zach Barack, Dawson, Jeong, Messing, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Reedus are attached so far to narrate the docuseries, which will feature deep dives into the likes of pioneers including chemist Alice Ball, author William Melvin Kelley, photojournalist Gerda Taro,...
The newest project in the works is Catching a Shadow, a docuseries highlighting diverse and exceptional people who broke boundaries in different domains, overcoming personal traumas and the prejudices of their time – much in the vein of Green’s 2018 docu on Guy-Blaché, the mostly unsung first female filmmaker. Zach Barack, Dawson, Jeong, Messing, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Reedus are attached so far to narrate the docuseries, which will feature deep dives into the likes of pioneers including chemist Alice Ball, author William Melvin Kelley, photojournalist Gerda Taro,...
- 9/1/2021
- by Patrick Hipes
- Deadline Film + TV
Oscar-winning actress will receive award at the opening ceremony of 74th edition.
Oscar-winning actress, director and producer Jodie Foster will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony of the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (July 6-17).
Past recipients include Jeanne Moreau, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Agnès Varda and Alain Delon.
Foster has a long history with the festival. Seven films she has acted in or directed have played in the festival, kicking off with Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which debuted in Competition...
Oscar-winning actress, director and producer Jodie Foster will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or at the opening ceremony of the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (July 6-17).
Past recipients include Jeanne Moreau, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jane Fonda, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Manoel de Oliveira, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Agnès Varda and Alain Delon.
Foster has a long history with the festival. Seven films she has acted in or directed have played in the festival, kicking off with Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, which debuted in Competition...
- 6/2/2021
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none
By Giacomo Selloni
You may be aware of the fact that Christopher Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. Do you also know that he was not Italian? He couldn't read, write or even speak the language. He was either a "Converso" - a Jew who converted to Christianity to avoid Ferdinand and Isabella's Inquisition, or hid his Judaism. He spoke Spanish among other languages including Greek, Latin and, most telling, Ladino - the Spanish equivalent of Yiddish. Letters to his son were written in this language, and the pages contained coded Jewish references. He also knew the world was spherical, his first voyage had calm seas, not dangerous ones and the crew weren't mutineers. [See: Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W. Loewen, The New Press 2nd Edition ©2007 and https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Christopher-Columbus-Secret-Jew.html]
You may be asking "what does this have to do with a review of a film documentary?" The reason is most historians are lazy and habitual plagiarists.
By Giacomo Selloni
You may be aware of the fact that Christopher Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. Do you also know that he was not Italian? He couldn't read, write or even speak the language. He was either a "Converso" - a Jew who converted to Christianity to avoid Ferdinand and Isabella's Inquisition, or hid his Judaism. He spoke Spanish among other languages including Greek, Latin and, most telling, Ladino - the Spanish equivalent of Yiddish. Letters to his son were written in this language, and the pages contained coded Jewish references. He also knew the world was spherical, his first voyage had calm seas, not dangerous ones and the crew weren't mutineers. [See: Lies My Teacher Told Me - James W. Loewen, The New Press 2nd Edition ©2007 and https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Christopher-Columbus-Secret-Jew.html]
You may be asking "what does this have to do with a review of a film documentary?" The reason is most historians are lazy and habitual plagiarists.
- 3/19/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
A narrative feature biopic is in the works about female directing pioneer Alice Guy-Blaché from the director of “Be Natural,” the 2018 documentary that profiled the silent cinema icon.
Guy-Blaché was the first woman to ever direct a film and between 1896 and 1906 was likely the only female director in the world. Across her 25-year career, she directed over 700 short silent films across all genres, and many of her films helped pioneer new sound and color-tinting techniques for other filmmakers. And by 1912 she had founded her own studio on the East Coast and directed the film “A Fool And His Money,” the first film with an all-African-American cast.
Pamela B. Green, who directed, edited, produced and co-wrote the documentary that premiered at Cannes in 2018, will direct the untitled new biopic and write the screenplay with Joan Simon and Cosima Littlewood, who also worked on “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
Guy-Blaché was the first woman to ever direct a film and between 1896 and 1906 was likely the only female director in the world. Across her 25-year career, she directed over 700 short silent films across all genres, and many of her films helped pioneer new sound and color-tinting techniques for other filmmakers. And by 1912 she had founded her own studio on the East Coast and directed the film “A Fool And His Money,” the first film with an all-African-American cast.
Pamela B. Green, who directed, edited, produced and co-wrote the documentary that premiered at Cannes in 2018, will direct the untitled new biopic and write the screenplay with Joan Simon and Cosima Littlewood, who also worked on “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
- 1/11/2021
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Exclusive: The filmmakers behind acclaimed Cannes 2018 documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché are re-teaming on a narrative biopic about their subject, the little-known but remarkable cinema pioneer, who was the first ever female film director, screenwriter, producer, and studio owner.
Active from the late 19th century, Frenchwoman Guy-Blaché was in the room when the Lumière brothers held the first ever cinema screening in Paris in 1895. Inspired by what she saw, the Gaumont secretary went on to become an in-house film-maker at the French studio.
Guy-Blaché would travel to the U.S. where she became artistic director and a co-founder of Solax Studios in Flushing, New York, and a prominent investor in a new studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which was the center of American filmmaking prior to the establishment of Hollywood.
During her career, she made more than 1,000 short and silent films, including comedies, westerns and dramas,...
Active from the late 19th century, Frenchwoman Guy-Blaché was in the room when the Lumière brothers held the first ever cinema screening in Paris in 1895. Inspired by what she saw, the Gaumont secretary went on to become an in-house film-maker at the French studio.
Guy-Blaché would travel to the U.S. where she became artistic director and a co-founder of Solax Studios in Flushing, New York, and a prominent investor in a new studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which was the center of American filmmaking prior to the establishment of Hollywood.
During her career, she made more than 1,000 short and silent films, including comedies, westerns and dramas,...
- 1/11/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Also opening: ‘Just Mercy’, ‘Waves’, ‘A Hidden Life’.
Awards contender Bombshell goes up against franchise reboot Bad Boys For Life at the UK box office this weekend.
Released through Lionsgate, Bombshell tells the true story of several women at Fox News who exposed former CEO Roger Ailes for multiple cases of sexual harassment in 2016.
The film stars Charlize Theron as Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, with Nicole Kidman as fellow host Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as a young producer at the network who is a composite of several people.
Directed by Jay Roach, Bombshell has garnered significant awards attention,...
Awards contender Bombshell goes up against franchise reboot Bad Boys For Life at the UK box office this weekend.
Released through Lionsgate, Bombshell tells the true story of several women at Fox News who exposed former CEO Roger Ailes for multiple cases of sexual harassment in 2016.
The film stars Charlize Theron as Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, with Nicole Kidman as fellow host Gretchen Carlson and Margot Robbie as a young producer at the network who is a composite of several people.
Directed by Jay Roach, Bombshell has garnered significant awards attention,...
- 1/17/2020
- by 1101321¦Ben Dalton¦26¦
- ScreenDaily
“Apollo 11” was the big winner at the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards on Sunday in New York City.
The film took home the award for documentary feature, as well as editing for Todd Douglas Miller and score for Matt Morton. “Apollo 11” was also honored with archival documentary and science/nature documentary prizes.
There was a tie for director between Peter Jackson for “They Shall Not Grow Old,” and Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar for “American Factory.” “They Shall Not Grow Old” also brought home the award for innovative documentary. “American Factory” nabbed the prize for political documentary.
The inaugural D. A. Pennebaker Award, formerly known as the Critics’ Choice lifetime achievement award, was presented to Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker’s longtime collaborator and widow. Michael Apted received the landmark award in honor of his “Up” series.
The ceremony, hosted by “Property Brothers” star Jonathan Scott, was held at Bric in Brooklyn.
The film took home the award for documentary feature, as well as editing for Todd Douglas Miller and score for Matt Morton. “Apollo 11” was also honored with archival documentary and science/nature documentary prizes.
There was a tie for director between Peter Jackson for “They Shall Not Grow Old,” and Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar for “American Factory.” “They Shall Not Grow Old” also brought home the award for innovative documentary. “American Factory” nabbed the prize for political documentary.
The inaugural D. A. Pennebaker Award, formerly known as the Critics’ Choice lifetime achievement award, was presented to Chris Hegedus, Pennebaker’s longtime collaborator and widow. Michael Apted received the landmark award in honor of his “Up” series.
The ceremony, hosted by “Property Brothers” star Jonathan Scott, was held at Bric in Brooklyn.
- 11/11/2019
- by Marc Malkin
- Variety Film + TV
John Chester‘s “The Biggest Little Farm” leads the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards with seven nominations, including Best Documentary Feature and Best Director. Right behind it with six bids apiece are Todd Douglas Miller‘s “Apollo 11” and Peter Jackson‘s “They Shall Not Grow Old.” The other eight films nominated for the top prize are “American Factory,” “The Cave,” “Honeyland,” “The Kingmaker,” “Knock Down the House,” “Leaving Neverland,” “Maiden,” and “One Child Nation.”
Chester’s newest documentary follows his family’s journey as they develop a sustainable farm outside of Los Angeles. As the Ccda nomination leader it follows in the footsteps of last year’s eventual Academy Awards winner “Free Solo” who led this group’s field with six nominations. “Free Solo” may have won at the Oscars and three Ccda awards, but it lost the main prize here to “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?...
Chester’s newest documentary follows his family’s journey as they develop a sustainable farm outside of Los Angeles. As the Ccda nomination leader it follows in the footsteps of last year’s eventual Academy Awards winner “Free Solo” who led this group’s field with six nominations. “Free Solo” may have won at the Oscars and three Ccda awards, but it lost the main prize here to “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?...
- 10/15/2019
- by John Benutty
- Gold Derby
“The Biggest Little Farm” leads nominees for the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, with seven bids, followed by “Apollo 11” and “They Shall Not Grow Old.” “One Child Nation” received five nominations.
The winners will be presented their awards at a gala, hosted by Property Brothers’ Jonathan Scott, on Nov. 10 at Bric in Brooklyn.
The awards honor documentaries released in theaters, on TV and on major digital platforms, as determined by the voting of qualified Cca members.
A new honor, the D.A. Pennebaker Award, will be presented to Frederick Wiseman. Michael Apted will receive the landmark award for his work on the “Up” series of films, with “63 Up” opening this year.
“As the film and television industry constantly evolves, documentaries remain a vibrant creative art form that entertains as well as informs,” said Cca CEO Joey Berlin. “We are proud that our awards event has become a...
The winners will be presented their awards at a gala, hosted by Property Brothers’ Jonathan Scott, on Nov. 10 at Bric in Brooklyn.
The awards honor documentaries released in theaters, on TV and on major digital platforms, as determined by the voting of qualified Cca members.
A new honor, the D.A. Pennebaker Award, will be presented to Frederick Wiseman. Michael Apted will receive the landmark award for his work on the “Up” series of films, with “63 Up” opening this year.
“As the film and television industry constantly evolves, documentaries remain a vibrant creative art form that entertains as well as informs,” said Cca CEO Joey Berlin. “We are proud that our awards event has become a...
- 10/14/2019
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
‘Biggest Little Farm’, Peter Jackson, ‘Apollo 11′ Top Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards Nominations
Farm animals, the historic moon landing and World War I veterans back to vivid life top the nominations for the fourth annual Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.
The Biggest Little Farm leads this year with seven nominations, including Best Documentary Feature, John Chester for Best Director and noms for Best Cinematography, Editing, Score, Narration and Science/Nature Documentary.
Recognized with six nominations each are Apollo 11 and They Shall Not Grow Old. The nominations for Apollo 11 are Best Documentary Feature, Todd Douglas Miller for Best Director, plus Editing, Score, Archival Documentary and Science/Nature Documentary, The nominations for They Shall Not Grow Old are Best Documentary Feature, Peter Jackson for Best Director, Editing, Score, Archival Documentary and Most Innovative Documentary.
One Child Nation received five nominations: Best Documentary Feature, Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang for Best Director, along with Editing, Narration, and Political Documentary.
The Cave, Honeyland, American Factor, Aquarela...
The Biggest Little Farm leads this year with seven nominations, including Best Documentary Feature, John Chester for Best Director and noms for Best Cinematography, Editing, Score, Narration and Science/Nature Documentary.
Recognized with six nominations each are Apollo 11 and They Shall Not Grow Old. The nominations for Apollo 11 are Best Documentary Feature, Todd Douglas Miller for Best Director, plus Editing, Score, Archival Documentary and Science/Nature Documentary, The nominations for They Shall Not Grow Old are Best Documentary Feature, Peter Jackson for Best Director, Editing, Score, Archival Documentary and Most Innovative Documentary.
One Child Nation received five nominations: Best Documentary Feature, Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang for Best Director, along with Editing, Narration, and Political Documentary.
The Cave, Honeyland, American Factor, Aquarela...
- 10/14/2019
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Slate deal includes ‘The Perfect Candidate’ and ‘Happy as Lazzaro’.
The UK’s Modern Films has struck a slate deal with Amazon Prime Video, comprising 10 female-led features and documentaries.
The films, which include Haifaa Al Mansour’s Venice Competition title The Perfect Candidate and Alice Rohrwacher’s Cannes best screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro, will be made available on the streaming platform following their theatrical release.
The Perfect Candidate, about a young Saudi doctor who becomes the first woman to run for office in her local city elections, is set for release in the UK and Ireland in spring 2020 and...
The UK’s Modern Films has struck a slate deal with Amazon Prime Video, comprising 10 female-led features and documentaries.
The films, which include Haifaa Al Mansour’s Venice Competition title The Perfect Candidate and Alice Rohrwacher’s Cannes best screenplay winner Happy As Lazzaro, will be made available on the streaming platform following their theatrical release.
The Perfect Candidate, about a young Saudi doctor who becomes the first woman to run for office in her local city elections, is set for release in the UK and Ireland in spring 2020 and...
- 10/4/2019
- by 1100453¦Michael Rosser¦9¦
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: UK-based production and distribution outfit Modern Films has struck a slate deal with Amazon Prime Video for the latter to stream ten of its female-led features.
The films include Haifaa Al Mansour’s 2019 Venice Competition title The Perfect Candidate, which was recently submitted by Saudi Arabia to the 2020 International Oscar race, Sacha Polak’s gritty British drama Dirty God, which was a festival hit this year, and Kim Longinotto’s Sundance documentary Shooting The Mafia.
Amazon has licensed UK and Ireland steaming rights from Modern on the slate and will launch each title following its theatrical release in the territory. Some of the films included from the Modern Films library which have already been in UK cinemas are available on the platform this week.
The license on each title ranges from 12-24 months, with the deal set to run its course by October 1, 2021.
Also included are: Alice Rohrwacher’s...
The films include Haifaa Al Mansour’s 2019 Venice Competition title The Perfect Candidate, which was recently submitted by Saudi Arabia to the 2020 International Oscar race, Sacha Polak’s gritty British drama Dirty God, which was a festival hit this year, and Kim Longinotto’s Sundance documentary Shooting The Mafia.
Amazon has licensed UK and Ireland steaming rights from Modern on the slate and will launch each title following its theatrical release in the territory. Some of the films included from the Modern Films library which have already been in UK cinemas are available on the platform this week.
The license on each title ranges from 12-24 months, with the deal set to run its course by October 1, 2021.
Also included are: Alice Rohrwacher’s...
- 10/4/2019
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options–not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)
On July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin embarked on a historic lunar odyssey, successfully landing on the moon and then returning to Earth. Free of talking heads, reenactments, and newly-recorded narration, the new documentary Apollo 11 takes viewers on this nine-day journey, constructed from astounding, never-before-seen 65mm Panavision, 35mm, and 16mm footage, as well as audio culled from over 18,000 hours of tapes. A perhaps initially unintended result when Nasa handed over this remarkably pristine footage to director Todd Douglas Miller, his documentary is also a fascinating time capsule of this specific era. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu...
Apollo 11 (Todd Douglas Miller)
On July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin embarked on a historic lunar odyssey, successfully landing on the moon and then returning to Earth. Free of talking heads, reenactments, and newly-recorded narration, the new documentary Apollo 11 takes viewers on this nine-day journey, constructed from astounding, never-before-seen 65mm Panavision, 35mm, and 16mm footage, as well as audio culled from over 18,000 hours of tapes. A perhaps initially unintended result when Nasa handed over this remarkably pristine footage to director Todd Douglas Miller, his documentary is also a fascinating time capsule of this specific era. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu...
- 7/26/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
By Glenn Dunks
For a film about a little-known name of early silent cinema, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché sure does come out of the gates swinging. Swinging and sweeping and swooping and spinning and kicking and ecstatically careening through the streets of Paris. The opening passages of Pamela B. Green’s revelatory documentary are so frenetically paced that it’s almost exhausting. When I posited that none other than Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was an inspiration, the film’s own Twitter feed confirmed it. Indeed.
And it’s not just the opening, too. The entirety of this film is surprisingly fast-paced, often editing its collage of film clips, archival video, contemporary exploration and talking heads into a dizzying soup of cinematic nostalgia...
For a film about a little-known name of early silent cinema, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché sure does come out of the gates swinging. Swinging and sweeping and swooping and spinning and kicking and ecstatically careening through the streets of Paris. The opening passages of Pamela B. Green’s revelatory documentary are so frenetically paced that it’s almost exhausting. When I posited that none other than Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was an inspiration, the film’s own Twitter feed confirmed it. Indeed.
And it’s not just the opening, too. The entirety of this film is surprisingly fast-paced, often editing its collage of film clips, archival video, contemporary exploration and talking heads into a dizzying soup of cinematic nostalgia...
- 5/8/2019
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
How does someone like Alice Guy-Blaché become forgotten in time? Director Pamela B. Green answers this question while doing her damnedest to rectify the error in the arresting documentary Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché. Narrated by Jodie Foster and featuring interview snippets from a slew of impressive female filmmakers, many learn about Alice Guy for the first time (!) while others express a limited knowledge of her accomplishments.
Born in 1873, young Alice Guy split her young life between Chile and France, eventually becoming a typist to support her family after her father’s death. She would find a solid gig at Gaumont in the 1890s as a secretary, working directly with those who were experimenting with motion pictures. Green highlights that Guy was there at the “surprise” screening at which the Lumière Brothers presented La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) in 1895. Inspired by all of this,...
Born in 1873, young Alice Guy split her young life between Chile and France, eventually becoming a typist to support her family after her father’s death. She would find a solid gig at Gaumont in the 1890s as a secretary, working directly with those who were experimenting with motion pictures. Green highlights that Guy was there at the “surprise” screening at which the Lumière Brothers presented La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory) in 1895. Inspired by all of this,...
- 4/22/2019
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
There are moments in Pamela B. Green’s “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché,” a documentary on the pioneering filmmaker, where the form and construction of the film feel oppressively didactic, the ideas presented with a trying-too-hard energy as if to appeal to a child or a particularly checked-out student who thinks classic films are those made pre-Y2K.
Director Green and her co-writer Joan Simon are undeniably fighting an uphill battle if their goal is to get younger people interested in a movie about the first woman filmmaker. Perhaps it’s no wonder why they feature faces like Andy Samberg among the myriad interview subjects who become walk-on cameos — “Recognize this person?!” — more than substantial conveyors of information. Despite these misfires, the breadth of detail about not just film and Guy-Blaché’s body of work but also the actual process of how a woman’s work gets erased is jaw-dropping,...
Director Green and her co-writer Joan Simon are undeniably fighting an uphill battle if their goal is to get younger people interested in a movie about the first woman filmmaker. Perhaps it’s no wonder why they feature faces like Andy Samberg among the myriad interview subjects who become walk-on cameos — “Recognize this person?!” — more than substantial conveyors of information. Despite these misfires, the breadth of detail about not just film and Guy-Blaché’s body of work but also the actual process of how a woman’s work gets erased is jaw-dropping,...
- 4/20/2019
- by April Wolfe
- The Wrap
Comedies, docs and a Bollywood title are among the Easter and Passover weekend’s packed roster of new specialty releases. The heavy number of limited openers comes just ahead of next weekend’s rollout of Avengers: Endgame, which will mark mostly a pause for new specialties. Terry Gilliam’s long-awaited The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce, begins its regular theatrical run following a one-night showing in hundreds of locations around the country last week. The Film Arcade is bowing fellow comedy Family, starring Taylor Schilling and directed by feature first-timer Laura Steinel. Counterprogramming the religious holiday weekend, Magnolia is opening Sundance doc Hail Satan? with an exclusive New York run before heading to L.A. next weekend. Zeitgeist Films/Kino Lorber is launching doc Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché by Pamela B. Green and narrated by Jodie Foster exclusively in L.
- 4/19/2019
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline Film + TV
Jodie Foster already has more than 90 combined acting and directing credits to her name, and she’s not slowing down anytime soon.
At Tuesday’s premiere of the upcoming documentary “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache,” Foster discussed her current ambitions as a budding director, as well as her long term goals to evolve as an actress in her later years.
“I’m pretty focused on the behind-the-scenes now,” Foster said. “Sometimes I’ll make more movies as a director and sometimes more as an actor. I would say this is a more director-heavy moment, but I’m for sure going to be acting a lot when I’m 70 and 80. I’m really excited about that, actually.”
Foster, who executive produced and narrates the doc about Guy-Blache’s accomplishments as a pioneering filmmaker, also reflected on her own start as a director when women were scarcely seen behind the camera.
At Tuesday’s premiere of the upcoming documentary “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache,” Foster discussed her current ambitions as a budding director, as well as her long term goals to evolve as an actress in her later years.
“I’m pretty focused on the behind-the-scenes now,” Foster said. “Sometimes I’ll make more movies as a director and sometimes more as an actor. I would say this is a more director-heavy moment, but I’m for sure going to be acting a lot when I’m 70 and 80. I’m really excited about that, actually.”
Foster, who executive produced and narrates the doc about Guy-Blache’s accomplishments as a pioneering filmmaker, also reflected on her own start as a director when women were scarcely seen behind the camera.
- 4/10/2019
- by Christi Carras
- Variety Film + TV
Considering how packed the fall slate can be, distributors often hold their stranger, bolder films for a spring release when they have the opportunity to better thrive. That’s certainly the case this April, when some of the most daring releases will hit theaters, along with some promising studio fare, must-see documentaries, and more.
Matinees to See: The Wind (4/5), Suburban Birds (4/5), Pet Sematary (4/5), Sauvage/Wild (4/10), Dogman (4/12), Teen Spirit (4/12), Girls of the Sun (4/12), Wild Nights with Emily (4/12), Rafiki (4/19), Little Woods (4/19), Carmine Street Guitars (4/24), Jt LeRoy (4/26), and The White Crow (4/26)
15. Mary Magadalene (Garth Davis; April 12)
Chalk this one up to mere curiosity more than anything else. The downfall of The Weinstein Company meant that a number of films were left by the wayside, waiting to be picked up by other distributors. One that has taken awhile is Mary Magdalene, a Biblical drama from Garth Davis (Lion). After getting an Easter-timed released elsewhere last year,...
Matinees to See: The Wind (4/5), Suburban Birds (4/5), Pet Sematary (4/5), Sauvage/Wild (4/10), Dogman (4/12), Teen Spirit (4/12), Girls of the Sun (4/12), Wild Nights with Emily (4/12), Rafiki (4/19), Little Woods (4/19), Carmine Street Guitars (4/24), Jt LeRoy (4/26), and The White Crow (4/26)
15. Mary Magadalene (Garth Davis; April 12)
Chalk this one up to mere curiosity more than anything else. The downfall of The Weinstein Company meant that a number of films were left by the wayside, waiting to be picked up by other distributors. One that has taken awhile is Mary Magdalene, a Biblical drama from Garth Davis (Lion). After getting an Easter-timed released elsewhere last year,...
- 4/1/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
A documentary on the first female multi-hyphenate in cinema’s long history has unveiled its trailer. Pamela B. Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, narrated by Jodie Foster, is a feature documentary that studies the full scope of the life and work of screenwriter, producer and studio owner Alice Guy-Blaché. The film opens in Los Angeles on April 19 and New York on April 26 via Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber ahead of a nationwide rollout.
The docu features interviews with Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Andy Samberg, Evan Rachel Wood, Lake Bell and Julie Delpy, among others. The pic played premiered last spring at Cannes, where Deadline’s Pete Hammond raved about it.
Guy-Blaché achieved fame and financial success before being shut out from the industry she helped create. Over the span of her career, she wrote, produced or directed 1,000 films,...
The docu features interviews with Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Andy Samberg, Evan Rachel Wood, Lake Bell and Julie Delpy, among others. The pic played premiered last spring at Cannes, where Deadline’s Pete Hammond raved about it.
Guy-Blaché achieved fame and financial success before being shut out from the industry she helped create. Over the span of her career, she wrote, produced or directed 1,000 films,...
- 3/9/2019
- by Bruce Haring
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Zeitgeist Films in association with Kino Lorber announced today that it has acquired North American rights for Pamela B. Green’s documentary, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
Narrated by Jodie Foster, the film centers on the life and accomplishments of the world’s first female filmmaker and had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Classics section, and also screened at the Telluride, New York, Deauville, BFI London film festivals. It recently joined the Documentary Feature Oscar race, and after a qualifying run this year will be rolled out in theaters by Zeitgeist in early 2019, followed later in the year by VOD and home video releases via Kino Lorber.
The terrific and enlightening documentary, which I first wrote about for Deadline after seeing its emotional world premiere in Cannes, plays like a detective biopic in tracing the career and legacy of this...
Narrated by Jodie Foster, the film centers on the life and accomplishments of the world’s first female filmmaker and had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Classics section, and also screened at the Telluride, New York, Deauville, BFI London film festivals. It recently joined the Documentary Feature Oscar race, and after a qualifying run this year will be rolled out in theaters by Zeitgeist in early 2019, followed later in the year by VOD and home video releases via Kino Lorber.
The terrific and enlightening documentary, which I first wrote about for Deadline after seeing its emotional world premiere in Cannes, plays like a detective biopic in tracing the career and legacy of this...
- 11/16/2018
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Academy Award Submission for Best Feature Documentary: ‘Be Natural: The Untold Story Of Alice Guy-Blaché’by Peter Belsito and Sydney Levine‘Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché’ deserves much more attention as her real life story was, and still is, a history-changer.
Filmmaker Pamela B. Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a timely, exhilarating rediscovery of a forgotten woman. Guy-Blaché, who made her initial film in 1896 Paris, was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors to make a narrative film. Be Natural follows her rise from Gaumont secretary to her appointment as head of production at Gaumont a year later, then her career in France and the United States as a writer, director, and/or producer of 1,000 films, both feature-length and shorts, as well as the founder of her own studio. An earlier cut of the film premiered...
Filmmaker Pamela B. Green’s Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché is a timely, exhilarating rediscovery of a forgotten woman. Guy-Blaché, who made her initial film in 1896 Paris, was not only the first female filmmaker, but one of the first directors to make a narrative film. Be Natural follows her rise from Gaumont secretary to her appointment as head of production at Gaumont a year later, then her career in France and the United States as a writer, director, and/or producer of 1,000 films, both feature-length and shorts, as well as the founder of her own studio. An earlier cut of the film premiered...
- 11/13/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Considering the esteemed level of curation at the New York Film Festival, which begins this Friday at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, a comprehensive preview could mostly consist of the entire schedule.
There’s the gala slots, Main Slate selections, two films from Film Twitter phenom Hong Sang-soo, and much more, as well as a delectable line-up of restorations.
So rather than single all of these out for our preview, we’re looking at a handful of under-the-radar highlights from across the festival. Check them out below and return for our coverage.
Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
Best known for his five-hour drama Happy Hour, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi returned this year with the more palatable Asako I & II, clocking in at a mere 120 minutes. Following its bow in competition at Cannes Film Festival, the film will make its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival. Based on Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel,...
There’s the gala slots, Main Slate selections, two films from Film Twitter phenom Hong Sang-soo, and much more, as well as a delectable line-up of restorations.
So rather than single all of these out for our preview, we’re looking at a handful of under-the-radar highlights from across the festival. Check them out below and return for our coverage.
Asako I & II (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
Best known for his five-hour drama Happy Hour, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi returned this year with the more palatable Asako I & II, clocking in at a mere 120 minutes. Following its bow in competition at Cannes Film Festival, the film will make its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival. Based on Tomoka Shibasaki’s novel,...
- 9/24/2018
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
The Cannes Film Festival’s Jury President Cate Blanchett and the Camera d’Or Jury President Ursula Meier put on a good front for the festival but still, Competition had only three out of 21 films directed by women while Un Certain Regard had eight out of 18 (44%) and Short Films in Competition had two out of eight (25%). Cinefondation had eight of 17 shorts (47%) by women; Critics’ Week four out of seven (57%) while Critics’ Week Shorts had three out of ten (30%). Directors’ Fortnight had five out of 20 (25%) and Directors’ Fortnight Shorts had four out of 11 (36%).International key women players of the film industry — directors, crew members, actresses, producers, screenwriters, sales agents, distributors, talent agents, editors — climbed the steps of the Cannes Film Festival.
Among them, Cate Blanchett and Agnès Varda read a collective statement.
Of the eight Special Screenings of the festival none was by a woman. Cannes Classics showed six out of 33 (18%) by women.
Among them, Cate Blanchett and Agnès Varda read a collective statement.
Of the eight Special Screenings of the festival none was by a woman. Cannes Classics showed six out of 33 (18%) by women.
- 6/1/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
There’s an alarming degree of disingenuousness, or perhaps merely naiveté, permeating “Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.” To begin with, there’s that title, “The Untold Story,” which ignores a number of earlier documentaries not to mention the significant amount of scholarship on pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché. Also omitted is any mention of the 2009 Gaumont and Kino DVD box sets that made 66 of her films available. These are what can be called inconvenient truths, for Pamela B. Green, director of “Be Natural,” is on a mission to discover why — supposedly — no one has ever heard of Alice Guy-Blaché.
As Green tells it, the reason is pure and simple: Because she was a woman, Guy-Blaché was written out of the history books. That’s not entirely wrong. Alice Guy, as she was then known, was present at the very start of the film industry and played a crucial...
As Green tells it, the reason is pure and simple: Because she was a woman, Guy-Blaché was written out of the history books. That’s not entirely wrong. Alice Guy, as she was then known, was present at the very start of the film industry and played a crucial...
- 5/31/2018
- by Jay Weissberg
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes ’18 Review by Peter BelsitoThis may be the best film I saw at Cannes and is largely unknown as is its subject. The female director this film is about largely invented filmmaking as we know it and directed 1000 plus films of all types beginning in the 1890s and continuing for 20 years in Europe and the Us. She was then shuffled aside by the industry and her role and contributions then ignored.
This new film about her was directed, edited and co-written (with Joan Simon) by Emmy-nominated Pamela B. Green and largely funded with Kickstarter and sympathetic movers and shakers like Redford (whose Wildwood Enterprises is listed as a production company) and the late Hefner, a film aficionado.
It would seem irresistible, and even prominently features Academy President John Bailey (charmingly going in search of one of the first movie cameras) among its many interviewees and participants.
But who is Alice...
This new film about her was directed, edited and co-written (with Joan Simon) by Emmy-nominated Pamela B. Green and largely funded with Kickstarter and sympathetic movers and shakers like Redford (whose Wildwood Enterprises is listed as a production company) and the late Hefner, a film aficionado.
It would seem irresistible, and even prominently features Academy President John Bailey (charmingly going in search of one of the first movie cameras) among its many interviewees and participants.
But who is Alice...
- 5/29/2018
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
When title sequence director Pamela B. Green first came upon the story of Alice Guy-Blaché, she was in disbelief that the 19th-century filmmaking pioneer was so little known, and was inspired to make her first documentary: Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché.
“I just couldn’t believe I’d never heard of her,” she said in an interview at Deadline’s Cannes studio. “I never went to film school, but I don’t think you need to go to film school to know about this person. She should be famous because she’s a business woman and an artist.”
Nor did Green realize at first how tough it would be to uncover the details of Guy-Blaché’s life. “If I could go back in time,” she said, “I would shoot myself because it’s so much work. There were so many times that I wanted to give up because of the funding,...
“I just couldn’t believe I’d never heard of her,” she said in an interview at Deadline’s Cannes studio. “I never went to film school, but I don’t think you need to go to film school to know about this person. She should be famous because she’s a business woman and an artist.”
Nor did Green realize at first how tough it would be to uncover the details of Guy-Blaché’s life. “If I could go back in time,” she said, “I would shoot myself because it’s so much work. There were so many times that I wanted to give up because of the funding,...
- 5/15/2018
- by Antonia Blyth
- Deadline Film + TV
I have seen the most pertinent, timely, touching and inspiring movie in Cannes this year, and for my money the best in the fest. So why do I feel hardly anyone saw it, even if among its executive producers are Robert Redford, Hugh Hefner and John Ptak, and features a who’s who of on-camera participants?
So why is no one talking about it? Try to find a review of it in the trades or anywhere and you will have to search hard. Those critics apparently would rather rush to see the new Lars von Trier or the Gaspar Noe, than give notice to this incredible woman who not only started it all for her gender in movies, but really pioneered it for everyone — man or woman. This film needs to be seen and distributed, and after blowing off the main competition film and attending its one — and only — screening...
So why is no one talking about it? Try to find a review of it in the trades or anywhere and you will have to search hard. Those critics apparently would rather rush to see the new Lars von Trier or the Gaspar Noe, than give notice to this incredible woman who not only started it all for her gender in movies, but really pioneered it for everyone — man or woman. This film needs to be seen and distributed, and after blowing off the main competition film and attending its one — and only — screening...
- 5/14/2018
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Pamela B. Green, best known for her work as a title sequence director and designer, makes her feature debut with Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache, a scrupulously well-researched documentary about one of early cinema's greatest pioneers and the world's first woman filmmaker. A "multihyphenate" talent before such terms were even invented, Paris-born Guy-Blache directed, wrote or produced over a 1,000 films, including some 150 films with synchronized sound. She was the founder of one of the United States' first film studios, but her accomplishments have been shockingly neglected for over a century. Even worse, film historians have...
- 5/13/2018
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Orson Welles will indeed be feted in Cannes this year with Mark Cousins dropping by the Croisette with The Eyes of Orson Welles and German helmer Margarethe von Trotta will celebrate Swedish cinema’s gift to the world with the docu Searching for Ingmar Bergman. Pamela B. Green‘s the Kickstarter funded project Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché will be receiving its world premiere and over a dozen of restored classic films will be acknowledged and when lucky with someone who was part of the film or the film process with The Park Circus folks supplying the festival with…...
- 4/23/2018
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Despite Netflix removing all of its films from the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, Orson Welles will still be represented on the Croisette next month. The festival has announced the official lineup for this year’s Cannes Classics sidebar, and included on the list is the FilmStruck-produced documentary “The Eyes of Orson Welles,” from British documentarian Mark Cousin.
Netflix had originally been set to bring Welles’ unfinished film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” to the festival’s Out of Competition section, but the streaming giant announced it would not be attending the festival in any capacity after Cannes reinstated a rule preventing films without French theatrical distribution from competing for the Palme d’Or. The rule would not have affected “The Other Side of the Wind,” but Netflix wasn’t going to make an exception.
“The Eyes of Orson Welles” includes access to a lifetime of private drawings and paintings by Welles,...
Netflix had originally been set to bring Welles’ unfinished film, “The Other Side of the Wind,” to the festival’s Out of Competition section, but the streaming giant announced it would not be attending the festival in any capacity after Cannes reinstated a rule preventing films without French theatrical distribution from competing for the Palme d’Or. The rule would not have affected “The Other Side of the Wind,” but Netflix wasn’t going to make an exception.
“The Eyes of Orson Welles” includes access to a lifetime of private drawings and paintings by Welles,...
- 4/23/2018
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Also includes Jane Fonda, Alice Guy-Blaché doc, 2001: A Space Odyssey screening.
The line-up for Cannes Classics section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (May 8-19) includes documentaries about Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman and Jane Fonda.
Mark Cousins will present his video essay The Eyes of Orson Welles, which examines the pictorial world of the Citizen Kane director.
Margarethe von Trotta’s Searching For Ingmar Bergman is one of three films to celebrate the centenary of the Swedish master at Cannes, alongside Jane Magnusson’s Bergman – A Year in a Life and a screening of The Seventh Seal.
Jane Fonda will...
The line-up for Cannes Classics section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (May 8-19) includes documentaries about Orson Welles, Ingmar Bergman and Jane Fonda.
Mark Cousins will present his video essay The Eyes of Orson Welles, which examines the pictorial world of the Citizen Kane director.
Margarethe von Trotta’s Searching For Ingmar Bergman is one of three films to celebrate the centenary of the Swedish master at Cannes, alongside Jane Magnusson’s Bergman – A Year in a Life and a screening of The Seventh Seal.
Jane Fonda will...
- 4/23/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
Due to the childish spat between Cannes and Netflix, it means we won’t be seeing the most monumental release of 2018, Orson Welles’ posthumous film The Other Side of the Wind, premiere at the French film festival. However, even if the streaming giant won’t be bringing the film (nor Morgan Neville’s Welles documentary on its making), Cannes will hold the premiere of another Welles-related project.
Announced today as part of the Cannes Classics lineup, Mark Cousins’ The Eyes of Orson Welles, which explores the drawings, paintings, and early works of the Citizen Kane director, will premiere during the festival. Also amongst the lineup is two Ingmar Bergman documentaries tied to his centenary, as well as the previously-announced 70mm unrestored version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Check out the full lineup below, which also includes new restorations of films by Jacques Rivette, Djibril Diop Mambety, Agnès Varda, Vittorio De Sica,...
Announced today as part of the Cannes Classics lineup, Mark Cousins’ The Eyes of Orson Welles, which explores the drawings, paintings, and early works of the Citizen Kane director, will premiere during the festival. Also amongst the lineup is two Ingmar Bergman documentaries tied to his centenary, as well as the previously-announced 70mm unrestored version of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Check out the full lineup below, which also includes new restorations of films by Jacques Rivette, Djibril Diop Mambety, Agnès Varda, Vittorio De Sica,...
- 4/23/2018
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Hannah Bonner Mar 8, 2019
Gender equality continues to be an ongoing issue in Hollywood. We examine why that is and who are 26 voices you should look for.
While Green Book winning Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars was a sour surprise for many viewers, and Olivia Colman’s Best Actress win pure sweetness, the Oscars was glaringly predictable in one key area before the red carpet even unfurled. The absence of women directors (again!) in the Best Director and Best Picture category points to the sustained systematic exclusion of females from two of the most acclaimed, and coveted, prizes in Hollywood.
The Hollywood industry hasn’t cottoned much to female directors. How else do we explain that women account for 4.6 percent of directors of major studio films as of 2015? How else do we explain that it wasn’t until 2010 that a woman won an Oscar for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker...
Gender equality continues to be an ongoing issue in Hollywood. We examine why that is and who are 26 voices you should look for.
While Green Book winning Best Picture at the 2019 Oscars was a sour surprise for many viewers, and Olivia Colman’s Best Actress win pure sweetness, the Oscars was glaringly predictable in one key area before the red carpet even unfurled. The absence of women directors (again!) in the Best Director and Best Picture category points to the sustained systematic exclusion of females from two of the most acclaimed, and coveted, prizes in Hollywood.
The Hollywood industry hasn’t cottoned much to female directors. How else do we explain that women account for 4.6 percent of directors of major studio films as of 2015? How else do we explain that it wasn’t until 2010 that a woman won an Oscar for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker...
- 2/10/2016
- Den of Geek
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
1976 saw the publication of John Brosnan’s excellent book The Horror People. Written during the summer of 1975, it makes interesting reading 40 years down the line. Those who feature prominently in the book – Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, Jack Arnold, Michael Carreras, Sam Arkoff, Roy Ward Baker, Freddie Francis, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson and Milton Subotsky – were still alive, as were Ralph Bates, Mario Bava, Jimmy Carreras, John Carradine, Dan Curtis, John Gilling, Robert Fuest, Michael Gough, Val Guest, Ray Milland, Robert Quarry and Michael Ripper, all of whom were given a mention. Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney Junior, Michael Reeves and James H Nicholson were not long dead. Hammer, Amicus and American International Pictures were still in existence. George A Romero had yet to achieve his prominence and Stephen King wasn’t even heard of!
Brosnan devoted a chapter to a new British company called Tyburn Films. Founded by the charismatic and ambitious Kevin Francis,...
Brosnan devoted a chapter to a new British company called Tyburn Films. Founded by the charismatic and ambitious Kevin Francis,...
- 7/4/2014
- Shadowlocked
When the project page for Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs' campaign for "Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice-Guy Blache" launched on Kickstarter, it was promising. The film was about a subject that film history nerds knew, the first major female director, and it was an idea that was intriguing to people who had never heard of her. The project featured interviews with people who have large fan bases, like Sir Ben Kingsley, Diablo Cody, Ava Duvernay, and Kevin Macdonald. Yet they couldn't get close to their $200,000 goal. Until a video the team had uploaded to Vimeo was embedded in a post for the site Upworthy on August 22. Here's a look at the project's progression using analytics made available through the site Kicktraq: Upworthy is a site started by former MoveOn executive director (and the author behind "The Filter Bubble") Eli Pariser and former managing editor of The Onion Peter Koechley.
- 9/19/2013
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
Update: The Kickstarter campaign for documentary "Be Natural," on pioneering French female director Alice Guy-Blache, has reached its goal of $200,000. Co-directors Pamela Green and Jarik Van Sluijs have already interviewed a handful of big names for the project, including Robert Redford, Catherine Hardwicke, Julie Taymor, Ava DuVernay and Ben Kingsley. Earlier: More news from the world of Kickstarter. A documentary feature on pioneering French female director Alice Guy-Blache, who helmed one of the first narrative films ever made (1896's "La fee aux choux"), is seeking $200K in additional funding. The doc, titled "Be Natural" by Pamela Green and Jarik Van Sluijs, has some big names appearing as talking heads, including Robert Redford (also acting as executive producer), Julie Delpy, Ben Kingsley and Diablo Cody, with Jodie Foster narrating. The film's Kickstarter page describes its needed funding for, among other things, "2D and 3D CGI recreations of locations, technologies,...
- 8/27/2013
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Alice Guy-Blaché isn’t a name that many members of Hollywood recognize, and that is exactly what co-directors Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs are trying to change.
Green and van Sluijs, along with executive producer Robert Redford, recently reached their Kickstarter goal of $200,000 to make a documentary, titled Be Natural, about Guy-Blaché, the 23 year old who became the first female director in 1896.
As the film’s Kickstarter page explains: “Alice Guy was the first female film director. She would become the first female movie studio owner, and one of the most prominent filmmakers in the industry, making her one...
Green and van Sluijs, along with executive producer Robert Redford, recently reached their Kickstarter goal of $200,000 to make a documentary, titled Be Natural, about Guy-Blaché, the 23 year old who became the first female director in 1896.
As the film’s Kickstarter page explains: “Alice Guy was the first female film director. She would become the first female movie studio owner, and one of the most prominent filmmakers in the industry, making her one...
- 8/26/2013
- by Samantha Highfill
- EW - Inside Movies
Alice Guy-Blaché isn’t a name that many members of Hollywood recognize, and that is exactly what co-directors Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs are trying to change.
Green and van Sluijs, along with executive producer Robert Redford, recently reached their Kickstarter goal of $200,000 to make a documentary, titled Be Natural, about Guy-Blaché, the 23 year old who became the first female director in 1895.
As the film’s Kickstarter page explains: “Alice Guy was the first female film director. She would become the first female movie studio owner, and one of the most prominent filmmakers in the industry, making her one...
Green and van Sluijs, along with executive producer Robert Redford, recently reached their Kickstarter goal of $200,000 to make a documentary, titled Be Natural, about Guy-Blaché, the 23 year old who became the first female director in 1895.
As the film’s Kickstarter page explains: “Alice Guy was the first female film director. She would become the first female movie studio owner, and one of the most prominent filmmakers in the industry, making her one...
- 8/26/2013
- by Samantha Highfill
- EW - Inside Movies
The Kickstarter campaign for "Be Natural," a film about pioneer female filmmaker Alice Guy-Blache, has reached its goal of $200,000. Guy-Blache made her first movie at the end of the 19th century, predating iconic early movies like Edwin S. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" and D.W. Griffith's "Birth of Nation." Filmmakers Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs have begun work on a movie that traces the career of Guy-Blache, her role in the development of cinema and her importance for young women who aspire to direct. They turned to Kickstarter to raise money...
- 8/26/2013
- by Lucas Shaw
- The Wrap
Filmmakers Pamela Green and Jarik van Sluijs have worked on documentaries in various roles including as co-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary Bhutto. Their company, Pic Agency, has produced titles for movies including 42 and The Kingdom, and they have also produced content for award shows, commercials and other productions. “People come to us to add to the story when you can’t turn the camera back on,” says Green. They have specialized in creating new content by combining graphics, stock footage, new footage and editorial. These techniques should be especially useful for their first documentary, Be Natural, about the first female […]...
- 8/26/2013
- by Michael Murie
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
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