Bangladeshi filmmaker Nuhash Humayun’s “Pett Kata Shaw” won best international feature at the 31st Raindance Film Festival’s jury awards. British documentary filmmaker Kit Vincent won best U.K. feature for his debut feature “Red Herring.”
Some 75% of this year’s features are debuts and debut features swept the board at the jury awards with all eight award-winning films being debuts.
Michael Pitt won best performance for British actor Jack Huston‘s directorial debut “Day of the Fight.” Fisnik Maxville was named best director for his debut feature “The Land Within,” which previously won awards at Tallinn Black Nights, Galway Film Fleadh and PriFest. Catalan directors Alejandro Rojas and Sebastián Vasquez won the discovery award for their debut feature “Upon Entry.”
Chelsea Greene, Rob Grobman and Edivan Guajajara’s “We Are Guardians” won best documentary while David Wyte won best cinematography for “All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White.
Some 75% of this year’s features are debuts and debut features swept the board at the jury awards with all eight award-winning films being debuts.
Michael Pitt won best performance for British actor Jack Huston‘s directorial debut “Day of the Fight.” Fisnik Maxville was named best director for his debut feature “The Land Within,” which previously won awards at Tallinn Black Nights, Galway Film Fleadh and PriFest. Catalan directors Alejandro Rojas and Sebastián Vasquez won the discovery award for their debut feature “Upon Entry.”
Chelsea Greene, Rob Grobman and Edivan Guajajara’s “We Are Guardians” won best documentary while David Wyte won best cinematography for “All the Colours of the World Are Between Black and White.
- 11/3/2023
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa)
Six years after directing his last feature, Dustin Guy Defa returns with The Adults, a film of complicated shared histories and gradually revealing inner lives. With his relatively sprawling Person to Person, Defa followed a wide array of characters over five interweaving storylines. This time he focuses on one family and, closer still, on an unmistakable feeling: that of moving out and growing up, only to return home and realize all that delicately assembled adulthood was merely a façade. Playing out across a leafy town in upstate New York, The Adults follows a trio of siblings as they reunite: the brother who went away and the sisters who did not. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream:...
The Adults (Dustin Guy Defa)
Six years after directing his last feature, Dustin Guy Defa returns with The Adults, a film of complicated shared histories and gradually revealing inner lives. With his relatively sprawling Person to Person, Defa followed a wide array of characters over five interweaving storylines. This time he focuses on one family and, closer still, on an unmistakable feeling: that of moving out and growing up, only to return home and realize all that delicately assembled adulthood was merely a façade. Playing out across a leafy town in upstate New York, The Adults follows a trio of siblings as they reunite: the brother who went away and the sisters who did not. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream:...
- 9/8/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Mubi has announced its lineup of streaming offerings for September, including the exclusive streaming premieres for Rebecca Zlotowski’s Other People’s Children; and Lola Quivoron’s Rodeo; and Rotting in the Sun by Sebastián Silva, whose work is highlighted in a series that also includes The Maid, Life Kills Me, and Nasty Baby.
Additional selections include a mini-retro of last year’s TIFF (Pacifiction and the newest film by Sophy Romvari among them), 10 by Pedro Almodóvar, and David Lynch’s rare 1988 short The Cowboy and the Frenchman, starring Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Nance.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
September 1
Volver, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Matador, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Dark Habits, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Law of Desire, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
High Heels, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Kika, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Live Flesh,...
Additional selections include a mini-retro of last year’s TIFF (Pacifiction and the newest film by Sophy Romvari among them), 10 by Pedro Almodóvar, and David Lynch’s rare 1988 short The Cowboy and the Frenchman, starring Harry Dean Stanton and Jack Nance.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
September 1
Volver, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Matador, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Dark Habits, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Law of Desire, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
High Heels, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Kika, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Live Flesh,...
- 8/31/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Now in its 12th edition, the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival brings together a varied, eclectic lineup of cinema from all corners of the world––including a number of films still seeking distribution, making the series perhaps one of your only chances to see these works on the big screen. With the five-day festival kicking off Wednesday, March 15, we’re delighted to exclusively premiere the festival trailer and we’ve also gathered eight essential films to check out. Watch and read on below.
Fremont (Babak Jalali)
In Fremont, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is often alone. She lives in a small apartment in Fremont, California, commuting each day to her job in a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. She has a single friend that works there with her. Donya splits time between her apartment, the factory, and a therapist’s office, in hopes of receiving sleeping pills.
Fremont (Babak Jalali)
In Fremont, Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is often alone. She lives in a small apartment in Fremont, California, commuting each day to her job in a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco. She has a single friend that works there with her. Donya splits time between her apartment, the factory, and a therapist’s office, in hopes of receiving sleeping pills.
- 3/9/2023
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Each December, we invite Notebook contributors to pair a new release with an older film they watched for the first time that year, creating a “fantasy double feature.” In practice, this offers something like a collective viewing diary, speaking to the breadth of moving-image art and the imagination of our writers. Even a quick scroll through this year’s doubles—dreamed up and defended by over 60 Notebook contributors—reveals an inspired bounty. Where else would you find Ulrike Ottinger on a bill with Adam Curtis or Jackass Forever?Our annual poll, now in its fifteenth year, is less about anointing the best than it is about bottling the year’s energy. What unexpected resonances arise between the past and present?CONTRIBUTORSArun A.K. | Jennifer Lynde Barker | Juan Barquin | Margaret Barton-Fumo | Rafaela Bassili | Joshua Bogatin | Anna Bogutskaya | Danielle Burgos | Adrian Curry | Frank Falisi | The Ferroni Brigade | Soham Gadre | Lawrence Garcia | Sean...
- 1/6/2023
- MUBI
TÁR (Todd Field).VENICEAwardsTop 10: Leonardo Goi1. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)2. No Bears (Jafar Panahi)3. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)4. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)5. The Kiev Trial (Sergei Loznitsa)6. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)9. Athena (Romain Gavras)10. TÁR (Todd Field)Coverageby Leonardo GoiDispatch 1: White Noise (Noah Baumbach), Bardo (or a False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths) (Alejandro González Iñárritu), TÁR (Todd Field)Dispatch 2: A Couple (Frederick Wiseman), Athena (Romain Gavras), Argentina, 1985 (Santiago Mitre)Dispatch 3: Master Gardener (Paul Schrader), The Whale (Darren Aronofsky), The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)Dispatch 4: The Kiev Trial (Sergei Loznitsa), Saint Omer (Alice Diop), Blonde (Andrew Dominik)Dispatch 5: No Bears (Jafar Panahi), Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)TORONTOTop 10: Daniel Kasman (Unranked)All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)Eventide (Sharon Lockhart)The Fabelmans (Steven Spielberg)F1ghting Looks Different 2 Me Now (Fox Maxy)How...
- 9/30/2022
- MUBI
The Maiden (Graham Foy).Welcome to Festival Chatroom, a transcribed festival-wrap conversation. After the Toronto International Film Festival came to a close, Notebook's Daniel Kasman and Chloe Lizotte invited three guests—critic Juan Barquin, programmer Inney Prakash, and filmmaker Sophy Romvari—to share their highlights and reflections over Slack. Read on for their conversation, covering standout experimental shorts, breakout Canadian filmmakers, and the "pocket universe" of the festival.Chloe Lizotte (Notebook): How are you all doing? Has the dust settled, memories cleared?Sophy Romvari: I feel like I’m recovering from three TIFFs instead of one—very sleepy!Inney Prakash: I'm okay. I always crash a little after coming home from a fest. Ideally I'd hop from one to the next without stopping, escaping the realities of everyday life entirely. But that's no way to live. (Or is it?)Sophy: I would perish.Danny Kasman (Notebook): For me,...
- 9/26/2022
- MUBI
While we’re in the middle of the fall festival season, with Telluride, Venice, and TIFF in the rearview, and NYFF, BFI London, and AFI Fest on the horizon, it’s time to round up some of our early favorites. We’ve polled our contributors from Venice and TIFF to share their top picks, which one can see below along with our ongoing coverage here.
David Katz (@davidfabiankatz)
1. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
2. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)
5. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
6. Love Life (Kôji Fukada)
7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)
9. In Viaggio (Gianfranco Rosi)
10. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks)
1. Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
2. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
5. Athena (Romain Gavras)
6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach)
7. The Banshees of Inisherin...
David Katz (@davidfabiankatz)
1. Saint Omer (Alice Diop)
2. Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. Master Gardener (Paul Schrader)
5. The Whale (Darren Aronofsky)
6. Love Life (Kôji Fukada)
7. Blonde (Andrew Dominik)
8. A Couple (Frederick Wiseman)
9. In Viaggio (Gianfranco Rosi)
10. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks)
1. Bones and All (Luca Guadagnino)
2. Other People’s Children (Rebecca Zlotowski)
3. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)
4. The Eternal Daughter (Joanna Hogg)
5. Athena (Romain Gavras)
6. White Noise (Noah Baumbach)
7. The Banshees of Inisherin...
- 9/21/2022
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
TIFF announced its Short Cuts section today comprised of 39 live-action narrative, documentary, and animated short films from directors repping 18 countries.
Further broken down, the section includes 21 World Premieres and 15 North American Premieres presented in 20 different languages from countries such as Portugal, China, Colombia, Mongolia, Kenya, Ukraine, US, UK, and Canada.
“We’re thrilled to be returning with one of our strongest ever selections of short films by directors from all over the world,” says Jason Anderson, International Programmer for Short Cuts. “We’re always amazed by the breadth, depth, and diversity of the talents working in short-form cinema, whether they’re filmmakers who we’ve already had the privilege of presenting at TIFF or emerging storytellers who we can’t wait to introduce to our audiences. And however different these new works may be, what they share is an incredible sense of clarity and economy – these are films that don...
Further broken down, the section includes 21 World Premieres and 15 North American Premieres presented in 20 different languages from countries such as Portugal, China, Colombia, Mongolia, Kenya, Ukraine, US, UK, and Canada.
“We’re thrilled to be returning with one of our strongest ever selections of short films by directors from all over the world,” says Jason Anderson, International Programmer for Short Cuts. “We’re always amazed by the breadth, depth, and diversity of the talents working in short-form cinema, whether they’re filmmakers who we’ve already had the privilege of presenting at TIFF or emerging storytellers who we can’t wait to introduce to our audiences. And however different these new works may be, what they share is an incredible sense of clarity and economy – these are films that don...
- 8/17/2022
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Toronto International Film Festival has revealed its Short Cuts lineup, featuring 39 live-action narrative, documentary, and animated shorts films from 18 countries.
Presented by TikTok, the program represents a blend of returning filmmakers and newcomers. Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Pupille,” co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón, will make its Canadian premiere at the festival. Honor Swinton Byrne of “The Souvenir,” which screened at TIFF in 2018, stars in Hazel McKibbin’s “She Always Wins.” Actor Kiawentiio of 2020 TIFF awardee “Beans” is back, this time in Asia Youngman’s “N’xaxaitkw.” Other TIFF alum with new shorts in the program are Sarah McCarthy, Mbithi Masya, Matthew Rankin, Carol Nguyen, Karen Chapman, and Sophy Romvari.
Award-winning animated shorts that made the cut include “The Flying Sailor” and “Ice Merchants.” On the documentary side, “Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles” by Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, “Anastasia” by Sarah McCarthy of the U.K., and “Quiet Minds Silent Streets” by Toronto...
Presented by TikTok, the program represents a blend of returning filmmakers and newcomers. Alice Rohrwacher’s “Le Pupille,” co-produced by Alfonso Cuarón, will make its Canadian premiere at the festival. Honor Swinton Byrne of “The Souvenir,” which screened at TIFF in 2018, stars in Hazel McKibbin’s “She Always Wins.” Actor Kiawentiio of 2020 TIFF awardee “Beans” is back, this time in Asia Youngman’s “N’xaxaitkw.” Other TIFF alum with new shorts in the program are Sarah McCarthy, Mbithi Masya, Matthew Rankin, Carol Nguyen, Karen Chapman, and Sophy Romvari.
Award-winning animated shorts that made the cut include “The Flying Sailor” and “Ice Merchants.” On the documentary side, “Liturgy of Anti-Tank Obstacles” by Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, “Anastasia” by Sarah McCarthy of the U.K., and “Quiet Minds Silent Streets” by Toronto...
- 8/17/2022
- by Harper Lambert
- The Wrap
Rarely one finds a friend on the Criterion Channel—discounting the parasitic relationship we form with filmmakers, I mean—but it’s great seeing their March lineup give light to Sophy Romvari, the <bias>exceptionally talented</bias> filmmaker and curator whose work has perhaps earned comparisons to Agnès Varda and Chantal Akerman but charts its own path of history and reflection. It’s a good way to lead into an exceptionally strong month, featuring as it does numerous films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the great Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara, newfound cult classic Arrebato, and a number of Criterion editions.
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
- 2/21/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Last year, we reported on the formation of the exciting new platform Exquisite Shorts, which takes a unique approach to curation and distribution. Founded by Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, the platform is run entirely by filmmakers, one of which will select a short film from a pool of submissions. The film will screen for free online for two weeks, then the director of the selected film will select another film to screen, and so forth. We’re now pleased to announce the second film to be selected, Ryan McGlade’s Hoss, curated by Pablo Hernando, whose Solar Noise was the first selection on Exquisite Shorts.
A Programmer’s Choice Award winner at Bushwick Film Festival, and selection at Nashville Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Maryland Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, and more, here’s the logline: “In a small rural town after mass one Sunday, Hoss goes to the...
A Programmer’s Choice Award winner at Bushwick Film Festival, and selection at Nashville Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, Maryland Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, and more, here’s the logline: “In a small rural town after mass one Sunday, Hoss goes to the...
- 12/17/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
We last covered Exquisite Shorts, the shorts film program launched by Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, when the platform announced that submissions were now open. Now Exquisite Shorts has premiered its first short, as curated by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval (Lingua Franca). From the platform: After several months of research and feedback from other filmmakers, a website was built from scratch and submissions opened for just $5 per film on an independent platform (avoiding FilmFreeway). The first film in the program is Pablo Hernando’s Solar Noise. This selection was made by filmmaker Isabel Sandoval, who was asked to make the inaugural pick for the program. You can […]
The post Exquisite Shorts Premieres First Filmmaker-Selected Short, Curated by Isabel Sandoval first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Exquisite Shorts Premieres First Filmmaker-Selected Short, Curated by Isabel Sandoval first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 12/1/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
We’re excited to announce that Cinephile Game Night will return for our next episode Monday, July 12th at 8pm Et / 5pm Pt with Letterboxd. The lineup includes Letterboxd’s Gemma Gracewood, Matthew Buchanan, Dominic Corry, Aaron Yap, Mitchell Beaupre, and Matt Kolowski. We’ll also be joined by Film Intuition founder and Watch With Jen podcast host Jen Johans, as well as filmmaker Sophy Romvari whose latest short, Still Processing, you can watch right now on Mubi.
In case you didn’t have a chance to check out the show: Cinephile Game Night is a series where film critics, podcasters, filmmakers, and more go head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by the Film Stage crew, including Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, Dan Mecca, and Cinephile creator Cory Everett, each episode features a rotating guest list of cinephiles from your favorite pop-culture podcasts and websites.
Each episode features...
In case you didn’t have a chance to check out the show: Cinephile Game Night is a series where film critics, podcasters, filmmakers, and more go head-to-head to see who is the ultimate cinephile. Hosted by the Film Stage crew, including Jordan Raup, Conor O’Donnell, Dan Mecca, and Cinephile creator Cory Everett, each episode features a rotating guest list of cinephiles from your favorite pop-culture podcasts and websites.
Each episode features...
- 7/6/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
One Shot is a series that seeks to find an essence of cinema history in one single image of a movie. The series Awakenings: Three By Stephen Cone is playing on Mubi in many countries. Sophy Romvari's Still Processing is also playing on Mubi in many countries.Tim: Y'all gonna be alright?Tim's Sister: Probably. Tim: Probably? Tim's Sister: Yeah, probably. Tim: Just say yes. —Dialogue excerpt from The Wise KidsThere is a sense of searching within all of Stephen Cones' films that is deeply palpable, so sticky from the summer heat, it’s impossible for the viewer to not feel it. In The Wise Kids, Cone balances ever so delicately the plight of the three main characters as they begin various transformations, all of which are treated with the same level of humanity and care. The lack of judgment is profound given the levels of pain and oppression...
- 7/6/2021
- MUBI
As an accomplished filmmaker whose shorts have played True/False, HotDocs, the Toronto International Film Festival, and New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, Sophy Romvari understands the short film market. Unfortunately, it’s a pretty small one. Not only are there limited opportunities for shorts to be seen outside the insular but prestigious scope of the festival circuit, but there are even fewer opportunities to monetize the work. For now, however, Romvari has cooked up a solution to the former, and hopes to eventually figure out the latter as well.
Her Exquisite Shorts Program is “a space that allows filmmakers an opportunity to highlight work they care about, are inspired by, or that they simply believe deserves a platform,” according to a shiny new website, which Romvari launched earlier this month. “Our unique process of curation will encourage communication and support between filmmakers, as the baton is passed...
Her Exquisite Shorts Program is “a space that allows filmmakers an opportunity to highlight work they care about, are inspired by, or that they simply believe deserves a platform,” according to a shiny new website, which Romvari launched earlier this month. “Our unique process of curation will encourage communication and support between filmmakers, as the baton is passed...
- 5/27/2021
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Sophy Romvari's Still Processing is playing exclusively on Mubi starting May 20, 2021 in many countries."Two poetries are now competing, a cooked and a raw," announced Robert Lowell upon winning the National Book Award in 1960 for Life Studies. He characterized cooked poetry as “marvelously expert” yet "laboriously concocted," almost as if the only place for it were graduate seminars. The raw poetry meanwhile is not found in classrooms, it is not to be studied, it is meant to be “declaimed,” a brief inflammatory appearance to fade out. Raw poetry is “huge blood-dripping gobbets of unseasoned experience,” it is read aloud at midnight and while it avoids the pedantry of the cooked, the assumption is that it courts scandal, produced purely to arouse the disgust of its listeners. Robert Lowell, in his own way, tried to imagine himself (obliquely) as not so cooked to be tough and tasteless but not so...
- 5/19/2021
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Killers of the Flower Moon (2021)From Osage News, the first official image from Martin Scorsese’s upcoming Killers of the Flower Moon, featuring Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio. Recommended VIEWINGFollowing the release of his series The Underground Railroad, Barry Jenkins has also released The Gaze, a 50-minute non-narrative video piece that captures the show's background actors in moments of stillness. The film challenges the notion of the "white gaze" by pursuing what Jenkins refers to as "the Black gaze; or the gaze distilled." Shudder has released an official trailer for George A. Romero's The Amusement Park, a restoration of the long-lost 1973 film. Originally a commissioned work by the Lutheran Society, The Amusement Park was shelved for its terrifying depiction of elder abuse. The film will premiere on Shudder on June 8. Over at Ecstatic Static,...
- 5/12/2021
- MUBI
Last year, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) launched the concept and a campaign for a new online short film platform. The Exquisite Shorts Program is designed to create a new model for short film exhibition. After a development period, the website and submissions are now live and ready to receive short films. Every film that screens in the program will be selected from submissions made through the website. The first short film will be selected by acclaimed Lingua Franca filmmaker, Isabel Sandoval. Here’s a refresher on how the program works: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short […]
The post Exquisite Shorts Program, A New Online Platform, Opens Submissions first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Exquisite Shorts Program, A New Online Platform, Opens Submissions first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/7/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Last year, Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) launched the concept and a campaign for a new online short film platform. The Exquisite Shorts Program is designed to create a new model for short film exhibition. After a development period, the website and submissions are now live and ready to receive short films. Every film that screens in the program will be selected from submissions made through the website. The first short film will be selected by acclaimed Lingua Franca filmmaker, Isabel Sandoval. Here’s a refresher on how the program works: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short […]
The post Exquisite Shorts Program, A New Online Platform, Opens Submissions first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Exquisite Shorts Program, A New Online Platform, Opens Submissions first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/7/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
It was long before the worst of times that short-form filmmaking constituted a battle whose success rate we might call Sisyphean; or, quoting New Cinema Club co-founder Tymon Brown, “No one sees these things. The hardest part of making a movie is getting it seen. Nobody gives a shit about your project you broke your back for. There’s so many movies made with ‘a lot of hard work’ and ‘a lot of love’ and they go nowhere.” But having connections with New Cinema Club—the monthly, New York-based program of four-to-five shorts by fresh, young, diverse filmmakers and a post-screening Q & A—over the past couple years bears especially bitter fruit: their first event, in September 2018, sold out Brooklyn’s hip and emphatically happening movie-themed bar Videology, turning away something like 90 people who traveled on a Wednesday night for work with no imaginable reputation. Movies were greeted in a...
- 8/12/2020
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
While film festivals are a vital birthplace for new work, offering an opportunity for filmmakers to connect with audiences and gain attention in the hopes of a wider reach of their films, one director is rethinking this model with a new initiative. Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari is launching Exquisite Shorts, which takes a unique approach to curation and distribution. Currently raising initial funds on Indiegogo, the platform will be run entirely by filmmakers, one of which will select a short film from a pool of submissions. The film will screen for free online for two weeks, then the director of the selected film will select another film to screen, and so forth.
“Exquisite Shorts seeks to provide an alternative kind of curation and distribution of short films with a model that celebrates filmmaker’s perspectives,” Romvari says. “There will be no singular vision or curator, but rather bi-weekly screenings selected entirely by filmmakers,...
“Exquisite Shorts seeks to provide an alternative kind of curation and distribution of short films with a model that celebrates filmmaker’s perspectives,” Romvari says. “There will be no singular vision or curator, but rather bi-weekly screenings selected entirely by filmmakers,...
- 8/10/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) has announced the launch of a new online short festival. Exquisite Shorts is designed to create a new model for shorts filmmakers, paying them for their work while enabling the public to watch for free. The newly launched crowdfunding campaign explains how online screenings will work: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short film from a pool of submissions that they love, that inspired them, or that they feel could use a platform. The filmmaker making the selection will record a video introduction that will play prior to their selected film, which will […]...
- 7/29/2020
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari (who’s previously written for Filmmaker) has announced the launch of a new online short festival. Exquisite Shorts is designed to create a new model for shorts filmmakers, paying them for their work while enabling the public to watch for free. The newly launched crowdfunding campaign explains how online screenings will work: Filmmaker 1 → Picks a short film from a pool of submissions that they love, that inspired them, or that they feel could use a platform. The filmmaker making the selection will record a video introduction that will play prior to their selected film, which will […]...
- 7/29/2020
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
"There are no particular limitations to the different breeds." Would you clone your dog? If it meant they'd be around forever? After originally premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in 2018, Aeon has debuted the short film Norman, Norman online to watch. "Co-starring the Canadian filmmaker Sophy Romvari, her beloved 16-year-old Shih Tzu Norman, and the Us singer and dog-cloning proponent Barbra Streisand, Norman, Norman follows Romvari as she falls into a YouTube hole on the promises, perils and prohibitive cost of pet cloning." This an effective short that plays without any dialogue or conversation, an experiential film that makes us wonder while YouTube videos play in the background. Click on the image below to watch. Thanks to Aeon for debuting this online. Description (via Tiff): "As her 16-year-old Shih Tzu nestles next to her, a young woman spends a night surfing the internet and pondering the ethics of genetic replication,...
- 2/4/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
‘The Eyeslicer’: Cult Variety Streaming Series Shifts Offline With New Festival and More — Exclusive
Cult variety TV show “The Eyeslicer” is gearing up for its second season, one that will move the streaming series into the terrestrial world with a brand new mini film festival, taking place in Brooklyn from September 14 to 17. The brainchild of creators Dan Schoenbrun and Vanessa McDonnell, the episodic series invites some of independent film’s most exciting directors to embrace their weird and experimental side in making a variety of short content, which is then weaved into thematic episodes.
The 13-episode Season 2 of “The Eyeslicer” will feature work from over 70 filmmakers, offerings that the co-creators describe as “a deep-dive into the strange, dark heart of our contemporary American hellscape, while also being an optimistic celebration of independent art-making within said hellscape.”
Starting with this new season, the internet will no longer be the series’ principal platform, but it will instead use a unique, zine-inspired mini-festival in Brooklyn and the...
The 13-episode Season 2 of “The Eyeslicer” will feature work from over 70 filmmakers, offerings that the co-creators describe as “a deep-dive into the strange, dark heart of our contemporary American hellscape, while also being an optimistic celebration of independent art-making within said hellscape.”
Starting with this new season, the internet will no longer be the series’ principal platform, but it will instead use a unique, zine-inspired mini-festival in Brooklyn and the...
- 8/1/2019
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
Infinite Fest is a monthly column by festival programmer and film critic Eric Allen Hatch, author of the recent “Why I Am Hopeful” article for Filmmaker Magazine, tackling the state of cinema as expressed by North American film festivals.RukusI didn’t go to Indie Memphis Film Festival last year, but I’m not going to let that stop me from calling it an important event. The festival, now headed into its 22nd year, has long been on my list to check out, up there with Sarasota, Cucalorus, and Sidewalk in terms of southern regional fests colleagues held in high regard that I haven't yet made it down for. I won't be repeating that mistake in 2019.I’ve been addicted to film festivals, both as an attendee and programmer, for twenty-plus years—long enough to recognize, and filter accordingly, the post-coital glow one often encounters at festival’s end on social media.
- 1/14/2019
- MUBI
Norman NormanThe First Look Festival at the Museum of the Moving Image, located in the New York borough of Queens, has historically showcased a brave program that puts attention primarily on experimental, outsider and newcomer art. For example, last year it showed Let the Summer Never Come Again, a 202-minute long Georgian film shot on a first generation cellphone camera, and Colo, Teresa Villaverde’s latest exploration on the Portuguese economic and moral crisis, alongside Prototype, Blake William’s truly experimental 3D feature debut. Now in its 8th edition, First Look has managed to double its bet in terms of discovering new alleyways in which to find where the cinema of the future might come from.This is clear from the decisions made by Eric Hynes, MoMI curator, and David Schwartz, the festival founder, as the only films that might come from established filmmakers are the ones that are on...
- 1/11/2019
- MUBI
Below you will find an index of our coverage from the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) in 2018, as well as our favorite films.Top Picksdaniel KASMANFeatures:1. What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (Roberto Minervini)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Monrovia, Indiana (Frederick Wiseman)4. Green Book (Peter Farrelly)5. aKasha (hajooj kuka)6. Rojo (Benjamin Naishtat)7. Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)8. Belmonte (Federico Veiroj)9. If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)10. Hidden Man (Jiang Wen)Shorts:1. Blue (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)2. Arena (Björn Kämmerer)3. Polly One (Kevin Jerome Everson)4. Colophon (Nathaniel Dorsky)5. Please step out of the frame. (Karissa Hahn)6. Wall Unwalled (Lawrence Abu Hamdan)7. Ada Kaleh (Helena Wittmann)8. Alitplano (Malena Szlam)9. Norman Norman (Sophy Romvari)10. Hoarders without Borders, 1.0 (Jodie Mack)Kelley DONG1. "I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians" (Radu Jude)2. High Life (Claire Denis)3. Our Time (Carlos Reygadas)4. Our Body (Han Ka-Ram)5. A Star is Born (Bradley Cooper...
- 9/25/2018
- MUBI
“The Eyeslicer,” one of independent television’s boldest players, is hitting the road this fall with a new Halloween special chock full of great mind-blowing short films, including the Sundance award-nominated “Great Choice,” starring Carrie Coon.
Featuring shorts from the festival circuit by over a dozen American filmmakers, creators Dan Schoenbrun and Vanessa McDonnell, with the support of Sante Fe-based artist collective Meow Wolf, will be bringing the feature-length creation to theaters in 15 cities for “a chaotic journey through the liminal space of the Halloween season” (per the official release), hosted by “nine amateur Elvira impersonators we found on CraigsList.”
“There are so few opportunities for short films to play on the big screen and be released in a loving and holistic way,” Schoenbrun told IndieWire via email. “We’re core believers in Dio (‘do it ourselves’) instead of Diy, and we hope that this is the main thing the...
Featuring shorts from the festival circuit by over a dozen American filmmakers, creators Dan Schoenbrun and Vanessa McDonnell, with the support of Sante Fe-based artist collective Meow Wolf, will be bringing the feature-length creation to theaters in 15 cities for “a chaotic journey through the liminal space of the Halloween season” (per the official release), hosted by “nine amateur Elvira impersonators we found on CraigsList.”
“There are so few opportunities for short films to play on the big screen and be released in a loving and holistic way,” Schoenbrun told IndieWire via email. “We’re core believers in Dio (‘do it ourselves’) instead of Diy, and we hope that this is the main thing the...
- 9/12/2018
- by Liz Shannon Miller
- Indiewire
For those exhausted, jaded, or just plain disinterested in what’s going on in the still-strong, ever-vibrant world of cinema, the True/False Film Festival should provide a powerful remedy. Hosted in Columbia, Missouri and now in its 15th year, True/False has quietly but noticeably attracted a reputation very rare indeed among the many film festivals in the United States. Unfolding over four days with a focus on bold nonfiction cinema which crossfades between straightforward documentaries, the currently trendy but in fact long-existent “hybrid cinema” that blends the (ahem) true and the false, and fiction films that productively flirt with documentary qualities, if the 2018 edition was sole proof, True/False is one of the few film festivals in this country that takes a focused position on what kind of cinema is exciting, valuable, diverse and adventurous. Crucially, through a remarkable trust between programmers and audiences, that sense of adventure...
- 3/9/2018
- MUBI
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.Recommended VIDEOSPerhaps you haven't caught it by now, or simply need reason to watch it again: the first trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis and set in the 1950s London fashion scene.Independent filmmaker Zia Anger, whose provocative short work we're big fans of, offers a stunning video for Zola Jesus' new single.Kinet, the online avant-garde publishing platform co-programmed by Mubi's Kurt Walker, has released their seventh program in the form of an ambitious Halloween-themed omnibus film entitled Aos Sí. It includes new films by Gina Telaroli, Raya Martin, Sophy Romvari, Neil Bahadur, Walker, and many more.At the Toronto International Film Festival, we loved Louis Ck's I Love You Daddy, a dark comedy of artistry and perversion. The film, Ck's first since Pootie Tang, shot...
- 11/1/2017
- MUBI
Dear Danny,
What do we gain from a film festival? As I fly back home, what am I taking away? Memories we made together, yes, work we accomplished, yes, and from the films: is there something different we get out of seeing them the way we did? Something we would not have found at home? What films will stay with us? We can guess but not know for certain. What from those films is now part of us, if anything? I think there are more questions than I’m asking, and multiple answers to each, but during this year’s Berlinale I contemplated in a strictly personal way, “what happens to me at film festivals?” I’m moved a little bit here and there, I learn something occasionally, I recognize beauty I would have otherwise not seen, but what else?
I grew up an only child, and retreated into cinema at a young age,...
What do we gain from a film festival? As I fly back home, what am I taking away? Memories we made together, yes, work we accomplished, yes, and from the films: is there something different we get out of seeing them the way we did? Something we would not have found at home? What films will stay with us? We can guess but not know for certain. What from those films is now part of us, if anything? I think there are more questions than I’m asking, and multiple answers to each, but during this year’s Berlinale I contemplated in a strictly personal way, “what happens to me at film festivals?” I’m moved a little bit here and there, I learn something occasionally, I recognize beauty I would have otherwise not seen, but what else?
I grew up an only child, and retreated into cinema at a young age,...
- 2/18/2015
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
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