Exclusive: A feature documentary about legendary media figure Dan Rather is in the works.
Original Productions, the Fremantle-owned producer of shows such as Deadliest Catch, has teamed up with Knock Down The House producer Wavelength, Anchor Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company on the project.
The doc, which is directed by One9, director of Nas: Time Is Illmatic, and Jessica Sherif, who worked on Dan Rather Reports, will take a close and personal look into Rather’s 60-year career and offer unrestricted access into his journey of becoming one of journalism’s most emphatic forces.
The feature will examine the evolution of American journalism through the personal lens of Rather, who was a witness to the birth of the civil rights movement, Watergate, and the current social upheaval, where he has become a star with millennials. Rather has opened up his personal archives to the filmmakers.
One9, who also produced L.
Original Productions, the Fremantle-owned producer of shows such as Deadliest Catch, has teamed up with Knock Down The House producer Wavelength, Anchor Entertainment and The Kennedy/Marshall Company on the project.
The doc, which is directed by One9, director of Nas: Time Is Illmatic, and Jessica Sherif, who worked on Dan Rather Reports, will take a close and personal look into Rather’s 60-year career and offer unrestricted access into his journey of becoming one of journalism’s most emphatic forces.
The feature will examine the evolution of American journalism through the personal lens of Rather, who was a witness to the birth of the civil rights movement, Watergate, and the current social upheaval, where he has become a star with millennials. Rather has opened up his personal archives to the filmmakers.
One9, who also produced L.
- 4/8/2021
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
It has become a tradition of sorts for the Tribeca Film Festival to open with a documentary about a cherished New York institution, be it a person, event or thing. Last year it was “First Monday in May,” about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual costume gala; previous years have included the “Saturday Night Live” doc “Live From New York” and “Time Is Illmatic,” a film about rapper Nas’ seminal 1994 album “Illmatic.” And on Wednesday night at Radio City Music Hall, the 16th edition of Tribeca kicked off with the doc “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives,” followed.
- 4/20/2017
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival has announced today that it will open its 16th edition with the world premiere of the feature-length documentary “Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives” at Radio City Music Hall on Wednesday, April 19. The premiere will be followed by a special concert that features performances by superstars including Aretha Franklin; Jennifer Hudson; Earth, Wind & Fire and more.
Directed by Chris Perkel, the film is based on Davis’ 2013 bestselling autobiography and chronicles the historic influence of the so-called “Man with the Golden Ears,” tracking his humble beginnings all the way through his dominance in the often cutthroat world of music production and talent discovery.
Read More: Tribeca Film Institute Names Amy Hobby Executive Director — Exclusive
“Directing this film provided a wonderful challenge because Clive Davis stands at the center of a culture-defining array of talent that has shaped the last half century of contemporary music.
Directed by Chris Perkel, the film is based on Davis’ 2013 bestselling autobiography and chronicles the historic influence of the so-called “Man with the Golden Ears,” tracking his humble beginnings all the way through his dominance in the often cutthroat world of music production and talent discovery.
Read More: Tribeca Film Institute Names Amy Hobby Executive Director — Exclusive
“Directing this film provided a wonderful challenge because Clive Davis stands at the center of a culture-defining array of talent that has shaped the last half century of contemporary music.
- 2/2/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Rapper Nas is getting the biopic treatment in “Street Dreams,” a potential new drama series just ordered to pilot at Bet. “Street Dreams” will trace the rise of Nas as a young man growing up in 1990s New York, and his transformation from a young man in the Queensbridge projects to drug dealer to famous rapper. Nas released his first album, “Illmatic,” in 1994 and has released eight albums total, with more than 25 million copies sold worldwide. The rapper was already the subject of a 2014 documentary film, “Nas: Time Is Illmatic,” which chronicled the circumstances leading up to the...
- 2/1/2017
- by Linda Ge
- The Wrap
New York-based indie sales powerhouse Submarine is creating a new documentary centric label in Scandinavia with NonStop Entertainment.
The new label, NonStop Submarine, was unveiled today at Idfa (Nov 18-29). It will distribute 10-15 titles per year theatrically and across digital/streaming platforms, DVD, and TV in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
The deal was negotiated by David Koh, Dan Braun, and Josh Braun on behalf of Submarine along with Jakob Abrahamsson, CEO of NonStop Entertainment.
The initial slate includes Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Chris Burden: Double Bind, Sneakerheadz, Welcome to Leith, and Mavis!.
The companies have a history of working together on titles including Nas: Time Is Illmatic, Dior & I, Cutie & the Boxer, and Searching for Sugar Man.
David Koh, Dan Braun, and Josh Braun of Submarine said in a joint statement, “We have had a very fun and successful collaboration over the years and our filmmakers and producers...
The new label, NonStop Submarine, was unveiled today at Idfa (Nov 18-29). It will distribute 10-15 titles per year theatrically and across digital/streaming platforms, DVD, and TV in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.
The deal was negotiated by David Koh, Dan Braun, and Josh Braun on behalf of Submarine along with Jakob Abrahamsson, CEO of NonStop Entertainment.
The initial slate includes Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, Chris Burden: Double Bind, Sneakerheadz, Welcome to Leith, and Mavis!.
The companies have a history of working together on titles including Nas: Time Is Illmatic, Dior & I, Cutie & the Boxer, and Searching for Sugar Man.
David Koh, Dan Braun, and Josh Braun of Submarine said in a joint statement, “We have had a very fun and successful collaboration over the years and our filmmakers and producers...
- 11/25/2015
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Totally and tragically unconventional, Peggy Guggenheim moved through the cultural upheaval of the 20th century collecting not only not only art, but artists. Her sexual life was -- and still today is -- more discussed than the art itself which she collected, not for her own consumption but for the world to enjoy.
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
Her colorful personal history included such figures as Samuel Beckett, Max Ernst, Jackson Pollock, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp and countless others. Guggenheim helped introduce the world to Pollock, Motherwell, Rothko and scores of others now recognized as key masters of modernism.
In 1921 she moved to Paris and mingled with Picasso, Dali, Joyce, Pound, Stein, Leger, Kandinsky. In 1938 she opened a gallery in London and began showing Cocteau, Tanguy, Magritte, Miro, Brancusi, etc., and then back to Paris and New York after the Nazi invasion, followed by the opening of her NYC gallery Art of This Century, which became one of the premiere avant-garde spaces in the U.S. While fighting through personal tragedy, she maintained her vision to build one of the most important collections of modern art, now enshrined in her Venetian palazzo where she moved in 1947. Since 1951, her collection has become one of the world’s most visited art spaces.
Featuring: Jean Dubuffet, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, Vasil Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Willem de Kooning, Fernand Leger, Rene Magritte, Man Ray, Jean Miro, Piet Mondrian, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Kurt Schwitters, Gino Severini, Clyfford Still and Yves Tanguy.
Lisa Immordino Vreeland (Director and Producer)
Lisa Immordino Vreeland has been immersed in the world of fashion and art for the past 25 years. She started her career in fashion as the Director of Public Relations for Polo Ralph Lauren in Italy and quickly moved on to launch two fashion companies, Pratico, a sportswear line for women, and Mago, a cashmere knitwear collection of her own design. Her first book was accompanied by her directorial debut of the documentary of the same name, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012). The film about the editor of Harper's Bazaar had its European premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, going on to win the Silver Hugo at the Chicago Film Festival and the fashion category for the Design of the Year awards, otherwise known as “The Oscars” of design—at the Design Museum in London.
"Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict" is Lisa Immordino Vreeland's followup to her acclaimed debut, "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel". She is now working on her third doc on Cecil Beaton who Lisa says, "has been circling around all these stories. What's great about him is the creativity: fashion photography, war photography, "My Fair Lady" winning an Oscar."
Sydney Levine: I have read numerous accounts and interviews with you about this film and rather than repeat all that has been said, I refer my readers to Indiewire's Women and Hollywood interview at Tribeca this year, and your Indiewire interview with Aubrey Page, November 6, 2015 .
Let's try to cover new territory here.
First of all, what about you? What is your relationship to Diana Vreeland?
Liv: I am married to her grandson, Alexander Vreeland. (I'm also proud of my name Immordino) I never met Diana but hearing so many family stories about her made me start to wonder about all the talk about her. I worked in fashion and lived in New York like she did.
Sl: In one of your interviews you said that Peggy was not only ahead of her time but she helped to define it. Can you tell me how?
Liv: Peggy grew up in a very traditional family of German Bavarian Jews who had moved to New York City in the 19th century. Already at a young age Peggy felt like there were too many rules around her and she wanted to break out. That alone was something attractive to me — the notion that she knew that she didn't fit in to her family or her times. She lived on her own terms, a very modern approach to life. She decided to abandon her family in New York. Though she always stayed connected to them, she rarely visited New York. Instead she lived in a world without borders. She did not live by "the rules". She believed in creating art and created herself, living on her own terms and not on those of her family.
Sl: Is there a link between her and your previous doc on Diana Vreeland?
Liv: The link between Vreeland and Guggenheim is their mutual sense of reinvention and transformation. That made something click inside of me as I too reinvented myself when I began writing the book on Diana Vreeland .
Can you talk about the process of putting this one together and how it differed from its predecessor?
Liv: The most challenging thing about this one was the vast amount of material we had at our disposal. We had a lot of media to go through — instead of fashion spreads, which informed The Eye Has To Travel, we had art, which was fantastic. I was spoiled by the access we had to these incredible archives and footage. I'm still new to this, but it's the storytelling aspect that I loved in both projects. One thing about Peggy that Mrs. Vreeland didn't have was a very tragic personal life. There was so much that happened in Peggy's life before you even got to what she actually accomplished. And so we had to tell a very dense story about her childhood, her father dying on the Titanic, her beloved sister dying — the tragic events that fundamentally shaped her in a way. It was about making sure we had enough of the personal story to go along with her later accomplishments.
World War II alone was such a huge part of her story, opening an important art gallery in London, where she showed Kandinsky and other important artists for the first time. The amount of material to distill was a tremendous challenge and I hope we made the right choices.
Sl: How did you learn make a documentary?
Liv: I learned how to make a documentary by having a good team around me. My editors (and co-writers)Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng were very helpful.
Research is fundamental; finding as much as you can and never giving up. I love the research. It is my "precise time". Not just for interviews but of footage, photographs never seen before. It is a painstaking process that satisfies me. The research never ends. I was still researching while I was promoting the Diana Vreeland book. I love reading books and going to original sources.
The archives in film museums in the last ten years has changed and given museums a new role. I found unique footage at Moma with the Elizabeth Chapman Films. Chapman went to Paris in the 30s and 40s with a handheld camera and took moving pictures of Brancusi and Duchamps joking around in a studio, Gertrude Stein, Leger walking down the street. This footage is owned by Robert Storr, Dean of Yale School of Art. In fact he is taking a sabbatical this year to go through the boxes and boxes of Chapman's films. We also used " Entre'acte" by René Clair cowritten with Dadaist Francis Picabia, "Le Sang du poet" of Cocteau, Hans Richter "8x8","Gagascope" and " Dreams That Money Can Buy" produced by Peggy Guggenheim, written by Man Ray in 1947.
Sl: How long did it take to research and make the film?
Liv: It took three years for both the Vreeland and the Guggenheim documentary.
It was more difficult with the Guggenheim story because there was so much material and so much to tell of her life. And she was not so giving of her own self. Diana could inspire you about a bandaid; she was so giving. But Peggy didn't talk much about why she loved an artist or a painting. She acted more. And using historical material could become "over-teaching" though it was fascinating.
So much had to be eliminated. It was hard to eliminate the Degenerate Art Show, a subject which is newly discussed. Stephanie Barron of Lacma is an expert on Degenerate Art and was so generous.
Once we decided upon which aspects to focus on, then we could give focus to the interviews.
There were so many of her important shows we could not include. For instance there was a show on collages featuring William Baziotes , Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell which started a more modern collage trend in art. The 31 Women Art Show which we did include pushed forward another message which I think is important.
And so many different things have been written about Peggy — there were hundreds of articles written about her during her lifetime. She also kept beautiful scrapbooks of articles written about her, which are now in the archives of the Guggenheim Museum.
The Guggenheim foundation did not commission this documentary but they were very supportive and the film premiered there in New York in a wonderful celebration. They wanted to represent Peggy and her paintings properly. The paintings were secondary characters and all were carefully placed historically in a correct fashion.
Sl: You said in one interview Guggenheim became a central figure in the modern art movement?
Liv: Yes and she did it without ego. Sharing was always her purpose in collecting art. She was not out for herself. Before Peggy, the art world was very different. And today it is part of wealth management.
Other collectors had a different way with art. Isabelle Stewart Gardner bought art for her own personal consumption. The Gardner Museum came later. Gertrude Stein was sharing the vision of her brother when she began collecting art. The Coen sisters were not sharing.
Her benevolence ranged from giving Berenice Abbott the money to buy her first camera to keeping Pollock afloat during lean times.
Djuana Barnes, who had a 'Love Love Love Hate Hate Hate' relationship with Peggy wrote Nightwood in Peggy's country house in England.
She was in Paris to the last minute. She planned how to safeguard artwork from the Nazis during World War II. She was storing gasoline so she could escape. She lived on the Ile St. Louis with her art and moved the paintings out first to a children's boarding school and then to Marseilles where it was shipped out to New York City.
Her role in art was not taken seriously because of her very public love life which was described in very derogatory terms. There was more talk about her love life than about her collection of art.
Her autobiography, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict (1960) , was scandalous when it came out — and she didn't even use real names, she used pseudonyms for her numerous partners. Only after publication did she reveal the names of the men she slept with.
The fact that she spoke about her sexual life at all was the most outrageous aspect. She was opening herself up to ridicule, but she didn't care. Peggy was her own person and she felt good in her own skin. But it was definitely unconventional behavior. I think her sexual appetites revealed a lot about finding her own identity.
A lot of it was tied to the loss of her father, I think, in addition to her wanting to feel accepted. She was also very adventurous — look at the men she slept with. I mean, come on, they are amazing! Samuel Beckett, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, and she married Max Ernst. I think it was really ballsy of her to have been so open about her sexuality; this was not something people did back then. So many people are bound by conventional rules but Peggy said no. She grabbed hold of life and she lived it on her own terms.
Sl: You also give Peggy credit for changing the way art was exhibited. Can you explain that?
Liv: One of her greatest achievements was her gallery space in New York City, Art of This Century, which was unlike anything the art world has seen before or since in the way that it shattered the boundaries of the gallery space that we've come to know today — the sterile white cube. She came to be a genius at displaying her collections...
She was smart with Art of the Century because she hired Frederick Kiesler as a designer of the gallery and once again surrounded herself with the right people, including Howard Putzler, who was already involved with her at Guggenheim Jeune in London. And she was hanging out with all the exiled Surrealists who were living in New York at the time, including her future husband, Max Ernst, who was the real star of that group of artists. With the help of these people, she started showing art in a completely different way that was both informal and approachable. In conventional museums and galleries, art was untouchable on the wall and inside frames. In Peggy's gallery, art stuck out from the walls; works weren't confined to frames. Kiesler designed special chairs you could sit in and browse canvases as you would texts in a library. Nothing like this had ever existed in New York before — even today there is nothing like it.
She made the gallery into an exciting place where the whole concept of space was transformed. In Venice, the gallery space was also her home. Today, for a variety of reasons, the home aspect of the collection is less emphasized, though you still get a strong sense of Peggy's home life there. She was bringing art to the public in a bold new way, which I think is a great idea. It's art for everybody, which is very much a part of today's dialogue except that fewer people can afford the outlandish museum entry fees.
Sl: What do you think made her so prescient and attuned ?
Liv: She was smart enough to ask Marcel Duchamp to be her advisor — so she was in tune, and very well connected. She was on the cutting edge of what was going on and I think a lot of this had to do with Peggy being open to the idea of what was new and outrageous. You have to have a certain personality for this; what her childhood had dictated was totally opposite from what she became in life, and being in the right place at the right time helped her maintain a cutting edge throughout her life.
Sl: The movie is framed around a lost interview with Peggy conducted late in her life. How did you acquire these tapes?
Liv: We optioned Jacqueline Bogard Weld’s book, Peggy : The Wayward Guggenheim, the only authorized biography of Peggy, which was published after she died. Jackie had spent two summers interviewing Peggy but at a certain point lost the tapes somewhere in her Park Avenue apartment. Jackie had so much access to Peggy, which was incredible, but it was also the access that she had to other people who had known Peggy — she interviewed over 200 people for her book. Jackie was incredibly generous, letting me go through all her original research except for the lost tapes.
We'd walk into different rooms in her apartment and I'd suggestively open a closet door and ask “Where do you think those tapes might be?" Then one day I asked if she had a basement, and she did. So I went through all these boxes down there, organizing her affairs. Then bingo, the tapes showed up in this shoebox.
It was the longest interview Peggy had ever done and it became the framework for our movie. There's nothing more powerful than when you have someone's real voice telling the story, and Jackie was especially good at asking provoking questions. You can tell it was hard for Peggy to answer a lot of them, because she wasn't someone who was especially expressive; she didn't have a lot of emotion. And this comes across in the movie, in the tone of her voice.
Sl: Larry Gagosian has one of the best descriptions of Peggy in the movie — "she was her own creation." Would you agree, and if so why?
Liv: She was very much her own creation. When he said that in the interview I had a huge smile on my face. In Peggy's case it stemmed from a real need to identify and understand herself. I'm not sure she achieved it but she completely recreated herself — she knew that she did not want to be what she was brought up to be. She tried being a mother, but that was not one of her strengths, so art became that place where she could find herself, and then transform herself.
Nobody believed in the artists she cultivated and supported — they were outsiders and she was an outsider in the world she was brought up in. So it's in this way that she became her own great invention. I hope that her humor comes across in the film because she was extremely amusing — this aspect really comes across in her autobiography.
Sl: Finally, what do you think is Peggy Guggenheim's most lasting legacy, beyond her incredible art collection?
Liv: Her courage, and the way she used it to find herself. She had this ballsiness that not many people had, especially women. In her own way she was a feminist and it's good for women and young girls today to see women who stepped outside the confines of a very traditional family and made something of her life. Peggy's life did not seem that dreamy until she attached herself to these artists. It was her ability to redefine herself in the end that truly summed her up.
About the Filmmakers
Stanley Buchtal is a producer and entrepreneur. His movies credits include "Hairspray", "Spanking the Monkey", "Up at the Villa", "Lou Reed Berlin", "Love Marilyn", "LennoNYC", "Bobby Fischer Against the World", "Herb & Dorothy", "Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", "Sketches of Frank Gehry", "Black White + Gray: a Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe", among numerous others.
David Koh is an independent producer, distributor, sales agent, programmer and curator. He has been involved in the distribution, sale, production, and financing of over 200 films. He is currently a partner in the boutique label Submarine Entertainment with Josh and Dan Braun and is also partners with Stanley Buchthal and his Dakota Group Ltd where he co-manages a portfolio of over 50 projects a year (75% docs and 25% fiction). Previously he was a partner and founder of Arthouse Films a boutique distribution imprint and ran Chris Blackwell's (founder of Island Records & Island Pictures) film label, Palm Pictures. He has worked as a Producer for artist Nam June Paik and worked in the curatorial departments of Anthology Film Archives, MoMA, Mfa Boston, and the Guggenheim Museum. David has recently served as a Curator for Microsoft and has curated an ongoing film series and salon with Andre Balazs Properties and serves as a Curator for the exclusive Core Club in NYC.
David recently launched with his partners Submarine Deluxe, a distribution imprint; Torpedo Pictures, a low budget high concept label; and Nfp Submarine Doks, a German distribution imprint with Nfp Films. Recently and upcoming projects include "Yayoi Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots", "Burden: a Portrait of Artist Chris Burden", "Dior and I", "20 Feet From Stardom", "Muscle Shoals", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Rats NYC", "Nas: Time Is Illmatic", "Blackfish", "Love Marilyn", "Chasing Ice", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Cutie and the Boxer"," Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Wolfpack, "Meru", and "Station to Station".
Dan Braun is a producer, writer, art director and musician/composer based in NYC. He is the Co-President of and Co-Founder of Submarine, a NYC film sales and production company specializing in independent feature and documentary films. Titles include "Blackfish", "Finding Vivian Maier", "Muscle Shoals", "The Case Against 8", "Keep On Keepin’ On", "Winter’s Bone", "Nas: Time is Illmatic", "Dior and I" and Oscar winning docs "Man on Wire", "Searching for Sugarman", "20 Ft From Stardom" and "Citizenfour". He was Executive Producer on documentaries "Kill Your Idols", (which won Best NY Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival 2004), "Blank City", "Sunshine Superman", the upcoming feature adaptations of "Batkid Begins" and "The Battered Bastards of Baseball" and the upcoming horror TV anthology "Creepy" to be directed by Chris Columbus.
He is a producer of the free jazz documentary "Fire Music", and the upcoming documentaries, "Burden" on artist Chris Burden and "Kusama: a Life in Polka Dots" on artist Yayoi Kusama. He is also a writer and consulting editor on Dark Horse Comic’s "Creepy" and "Eerie 9" comic book and archival series for which he won an Eisner Award for best archival comic book series in 2009.
He is a musician/composer whose compositions were featured in the films "I Melt With You" and "Jean-Michel Basquiat, The Radiant Child and is an award winning art director/creative director when he worked at Tbwa/Chiat/Day on the famous Absolut Vodka campaign.
John Northrup (Co-Producer) began his career in documentaries as a French translator for National Geographic: Explorer. He quickly moved into editing and producing, serving as the Associate Producer on "Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel" (2012), and editing and co-producing "Wilson In Situ" (2014), which tells the story of theatre legend Robert Wilson and his Watermill Center. Most recently, he oversaw the post-production of Jim Chambers’ "Onward Christian Soldier", a documentary about Olympic Bomber Eric Rudolph, and is shooting on Susanne Rostock’s "Another Night in the Free World", the follow-up to her award-winning "Sing Your Song" (2011).
Submarine Entertainment (Production Company) Submarine Entertainment is a hybrid sales, production, and distribution company based in N.Y. Recent and upcoming titles include "Citizenfour", "Finding Vivian Maier", "The Dog", "Visitors", "20 Feet from Stardom", "Searching for Sugar Man", "Muscle Shoals", "Blackfish", "Cutie and the Boxer", "The Summit", "The Unknown Known", "Love Marilyn", "Marina Abramovic the Artist is Present", "Chasing Ice", "Downtown 81 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Wild Style 30th Anniversary Remastered", "Good Ol Freda", "Some Velvet Morning", among numerous others. Submarine principals also represent Creepy and Eerie comic book library and are developing properties across film & TV platforms.
Submarine has also recently launched a domestic distribution imprint and label called Submarine Deluxe; a genre label called Torpedo Pictures; and a German imprint and label called Nfp Submarine Doks.
Bernadine Colish has edited a number of award-winning documentaries. "Herb and Dorothy" (2008), won Audience Awards at Silverdocs, Philadelphia and Hamptons Film Festivals, and "Body of War" (2007), was named Best Documentary by the National Board of Review. "A Touch of Greatness" (2004) aired on PBS Independent Lens and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her career began at Maysles Films, where she worked with Charlotte Zwerin on such projects as "Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser", "Toru Takemitsu: Music for the Movies" and the PBS American Masters documentary, "Ella Fitzgerald: Something To Live For". Additional credits include "Bringing Tibet Home", "Band of Sisters", "Rise and Dream", "The Tiger Next Door", "The Buffalo War" and "Absolute Wilson".
Jed Parker (Editor) Jed Parker began his career in feature films before moving into documentaries through his work with the award-winning American Masters series. Credits include "Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart", "Annie Liebovitz: Life Through a Lens", and most recently "Jeff Bridges: The Dude Abides".
Other work includes two episodes of the PBS series "Make ‘Em Laugh", hosted by Billy Crystal, as well as a documentary on Met Curator Henry Geldzahler entitled "Who Gets to Call it Art"?
Credits
Director, Writer, Producer: Lisa Immordino Vreeland
Produced by Stanley Buchthal, David Koh and Dan Braun Stanley Buchthal (producer)
Maja Hoffmann (executive producer)
Josh Braun (executive producer)
Bob Benton (executive producer)
John Northrup (co-producer)
Bernadine Colish (editor)
Jed Parker (editor)
Peter Trilling (director of photography)
Bonnie Greenberg (executive music producer)
Music by J. Ralph
Original Song "Once Again" Written and Performed By J. Ralph
Interviews Featuring Artist Marina Abramović Jean Arp Dore Ashton Samuel Beckett Stephanie Barron Constantin Brâncuși Diego Cortez Alexander Calder Susan Davidson Joseph Cornell Robert De Niro Salvador Dalí Simon de Pury Willem de Kooning Jeffrey Deitch Marcel Duchamp Polly Devlin Max Ernst Larry Gagosian Alberto Giacometti Arne Glimcher Vasily Kandinsky Michael Govan Fernand Léger Nicky Haslam Joan Miró Pepe Karmel Piet Mondrian Donald Kuspit Robert Motherwell Dominique Lévy Jackson Pollock Carlo McCormick Mark Rothko Hans Ulrich Obrist Yves Tanguy Lisa Phillips Lindsay Pollock Francine Prose John Richardson Sandy Rower Mercedes Ruehl Jane Rylands Philip Rylands Calvin Tomkins Karole Vail Jacqueline Bograd Weld Edmund White
Running time: 97 minutes
U.S. distribution by Submarine Deluxe
International sales by Hanway...
- 11/18/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Nas: Time Is Illmatic is not the average "making of" documentary since it explores the creation of "Illmatic" - a classic East Coast hip hop album - from a personal perspective, approaching rapper Nas' origin and his experiences of growing up in New York public housing (Queensbridge). Two decades after its original release, "Illmatic" (Nas' debut album) is considered by such current stars as Pharrell and Alicia Keys as one of the greatest records of all time. But more than presenting the usual dose of talking heads praising the iconic rapper, Nas: Time Is Illmatic, just like the album itself, manages to expose what it means to grow up as an African American in a forgotten place of the United States, where crime, drugs and...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 9/1/2015
- Screen Anarchy
Though a relatively young genre, it's arguable that hip hop has been one of the most wide-reaching forms of music in recent memory. The culture is a global phenomenon, giving voice not just to youth, but to those who wouldn't ordinarily have a creative outlet. The upcoming documentary, "Shake The Dust," takes a global look at hip hop and how it continues to touch lives. Executive produced by Nas (who also contributes music, along with Talib Kweli and Common), and directed by Adam Sjoberg, the film travels to Colombia, Yemen, Uganda, Cambodia, and beyond, telling the stories of rappers, DJs, and b-boys, and how hip hop has made an impact. As you'll see in this clip, some young kids take their moves to the streets of Sana'a, uncertain how they'll be received in a region where hip hop is still very much underground. But once they show their skills, it...
- 5/7/2015
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Maris Curran’s Five Nights in Maine, starring David Oyelowo, also among selection.
Tribeca Film Institute (Tfi) has unveiled the 15 projects selected for the 12th annual Tribeca All Access (Taa) programme.
The programme supports film-makers from statistically underrepresented communities and will grant support for each of the projects, as well as offer year-round support, guidance and resources to help the film-makers complete them.
Taa film-makers are also welcomed into the Taa Alumni programme which supports their present and future work. This year will see Taa and Taa Alumni award a total of $200,000 in grant money.
The projects include Haifaa Al Mansour’s Be Safe I Love You and Maris Curran’s Five Nights in Maine, starring David Oyelowo.
Alongside the Taa programme, Tfi has also selected two members of the Lgbt film-making community as special fellows to attend its annual market during Tribeca Film Festival: writer/director Ingrid Jungermann for Women Who Kill and writer/director [link=nm...
Tribeca Film Institute (Tfi) has unveiled the 15 projects selected for the 12th annual Tribeca All Access (Taa) programme.
The programme supports film-makers from statistically underrepresented communities and will grant support for each of the projects, as well as offer year-round support, guidance and resources to help the film-makers complete them.
Taa film-makers are also welcomed into the Taa Alumni programme which supports their present and future work. This year will see Taa and Taa Alumni award a total of $200,000 in grant money.
The projects include Haifaa Al Mansour’s Be Safe I Love You and Maris Curran’s Five Nights in Maine, starring David Oyelowo.
Alongside the Taa programme, Tfi has also selected two members of the Lgbt film-making community as special fellows to attend its annual market during Tribeca Film Festival: writer/director Ingrid Jungermann for Women Who Kill and writer/director [link=nm...
- 3/19/2015
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
The Foundation for the Advancement of African-Americans in Film (Faaaf) announced its nominees for the 15th Annual Black Reel Awards Wednesday morning. Justin Simien's "Dear White People" and Ava DuVernay's "Selma" led the way with 10 nominations each. They were joined by "Belle," "Beyond the Lights" and "Top Five" in the organization's best picture category. Check out the full list of nominees below. Winners will be announced on Feb. 22, 2015. And learn more about what's going on this season at The Circuit. Motion Picture Outstanding Motion Picture "Belle" "Beyond the Lights" "Dear White People" "Selma" "Top Five" Outstanding Actor Chadwick Boseman, "Get on Up" David Oyelowo, "Selma" Nate Parker, "Beyond the Lights" Chris Rock, "Top Five" Denzel Washington, "The Equalizer" Outstanding Actress Rosario Dawson, "Top Five" Gugu Mbatha-Raw, "Belle" Gugu Mbatha-Raw, "Beyond the Lights" Tessa Thompson, "Dear White People" Quvenzhané Wallis, "Annie" Outstanding Supporting Actor Nelsan Ellis, "Get On Up" David Oyelowo,...
- 12/17/2014
- by Kristopher Tapley
- Hitfix
★★★☆☆In the attempt to present a life on film, there will always be parts that are left out. The camera cannot capture every minute detail of a person’s life, and that’s an understanding audiences will usually approach with. Where biopics may attempt to cram in all the information necessary, documentaries rarely try; they aim to capture real life without truncating events to fit a neat runtime, but rather honing in a moment and building a story out from there. The documentary as celebration of a milestone means that the viewer can reminisce and engage with the subject in a contemplative and intrigued manner. This is exactly where we are put with director One9’s Nas: Time Is Illmatic (2014).
- 12/15/2014
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
The Academy has announced the 15-wide documentary shortlist and apart from one title, it's is a very high-profile group of names. At least they are if you follow the world of documentary. I had discussed with a friend recently that last year's field may go down as the greatest in the category's history, but depending on how the branch votes this year they may just surpass it. I have already seen nine of the 15 and can vouch for almost all of them. Let's take a look.
Art and Craft The Case Against 8 (review) Citizen Koch Citizenfour (podcast | Glenn's review) Finding Vivian Maier The Internet's Own Boy Jodorowsky's Dune Keep On Keepin' On The Kill Team Last Days in Vietnam (review)
Life Itself The Overnighters The Salt of the Earth Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nyff review | AFI review) Virunga
There are some big names in here. Apart from the...
Art and Craft The Case Against 8 (review) Citizen Koch Citizenfour (podcast | Glenn's review) Finding Vivian Maier The Internet's Own Boy Jodorowsky's Dune Keep On Keepin' On The Kill Team Last Days in Vietnam (review)
Life Itself The Overnighters The Salt of the Earth Tales of the Grim Sleeper (Nyff review | AFI review) Virunga
There are some big names in here. Apart from the...
- 12/2/2014
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Cph:dox has broken its own audience record for the 12th consecutive year.
This year’s tally was 83,900 visitors, up 20% from 70,100 last year. Of those, 3,586 were online views.
There were 1,356 delegate industry visitors.
Tine Fischer, festival director at Cph:dox, said: “Cph:dox has both audience- and industry-wise experienced an outstanding year. We are extremely happy, but hands down the most important thing that has happened this year without comparison, is that the festival has really taken the documentary into an active social and political space with its new project Megatrends. The project is not limited to journalistic criticism and analysis, but puts more focus on how we can get an active dialogue going on some of the most important global issues and challenges. The interaction, innovation and strengthening of an active democratic dialogue have been the objectives and we think it has had a flying start. The project is intended as a recurring initiative and we are looking forward...
This year’s tally was 83,900 visitors, up 20% from 70,100 last year. Of those, 3,586 were online views.
There were 1,356 delegate industry visitors.
Tine Fischer, festival director at Cph:dox, said: “Cph:dox has both audience- and industry-wise experienced an outstanding year. We are extremely happy, but hands down the most important thing that has happened this year without comparison, is that the festival has really taken the documentary into an active social and political space with its new project Megatrends. The project is not limited to journalistic criticism and analysis, but puts more focus on how we can get an active dialogue going on some of the most important global issues and challenges. The interaction, innovation and strengthening of an active democratic dialogue have been the objectives and we think it has had a flying start. The project is intended as a recurring initiative and we are looking forward...
- 11/25/2014
- by wendy.mitchell@screendaily.com (Wendy Mitchell)
- ScreenDaily
Whoopsy. I forgot to share this list... Herewith the films that could be up for Best Documentary Feature this year. We'll get a finalist of 15 at some point next month followed by 5 nominees in January "until we crown A Winnah!" If we've reviewed the titles, you'll notice their pretty color which you can then click on to read about them. The magic of the internet. You can also see the animated and documentary Oscar charts here.
The 134 Semi-Finalists
A-c
Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, Algorithms, Alive Inside, All You Need Is Love, Altina, America: Imagine the World without Her, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Anita, Antarctica: A Year on Ice, Art and Craft, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, The Barefoot Artist, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Before You Know It, Bitter Honey, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi,...
The 134 Semi-Finalists
A-c
Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, Algorithms, Alive Inside, All You Need Is Love, Altina, America: Imagine the World without Her, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Anita, Antarctica: A Year on Ice, Art and Craft, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, The Barefoot Artist, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Before You Know It, Bitter Honey, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi,...
- 11/3/2014
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
One hundred thirty-four features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 87th Academy Awards. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December.
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
“Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq”
“Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case”
“Algorithms”
“Alive Inside”
“All You Need Is Love”
“Altina”
“America: Imagine the World without Her”
“American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”
“Anita”
“Antarctica: A Year on Ice”
“Art and Craft”
“Awake: The Life of Yogananda”
“The Barefoot Artist”
“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”
“Before You Know It”
“Bitter Honey”
“Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity”
“Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi”
“Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart”
“The Case against 8”
“Cesar’s Last Fast”
“Citizen Koch”
“CitizenFour”
“Code Black”
“Concerning Violence”
“The Culture High”
“Cyber-Seniors”
“DamNation”
“Dancing in Jaffa”
“Death Metal Angola”
“The Decent One”
“Dinosaur 13”
“Do You Know What My Name Is?...
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
“Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq”
“Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case”
“Algorithms”
“Alive Inside”
“All You Need Is Love”
“Altina”
“America: Imagine the World without Her”
“American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”
“Anita”
“Antarctica: A Year on Ice”
“Art and Craft”
“Awake: The Life of Yogananda”
“The Barefoot Artist”
“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”
“Before You Know It”
“Bitter Honey”
“Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity”
“Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi”
“Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart”
“The Case against 8”
“Cesar’s Last Fast”
“Citizen Koch”
“CitizenFour”
“Code Black”
“Concerning Violence”
“The Culture High”
“Cyber-Seniors”
“DamNation”
“Dancing in Jaffa”
“Death Metal Angola”
“The Decent One”
“Dinosaur 13”
“Do You Know What My Name Is?...
- 11/2/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Citizenfour, Life Itself, Red Army, Warsaw Uprising among long-list contenters for the 87th Academy Awards.
The Salt Of The Earth, Happy Valley, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Food Chains and Point And Shoot are also named.
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
20,000 Days On Earth
Afternoon Of A Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
Algorithms
Alive Inside
All You Need Is Love
Altina
America: Imagine The World Without Her
American Revolutionary: The Evolution Of Grace Lee Boggs
Anita
Antarctica: A Year On Ice
Art And Craft
Awake: The Life Of Yogananda
The Barefoot Artist
The Battered Bastards Of Baseball
Before You Know It
Bitter Honey
Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity
Botso The Teacher From Tbilisi
Captivated The Trials Of Pamela Smart
The Case Against 8
Cesar’s Last Fast
Citizen Koch
Citizenfour
Code Black
Concerning Violence
The Culture High
Cyber-Seniors
Damnation
Dancing In Jaffa
Death Metal Angola
The...
The Salt Of The Earth, Happy Valley, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Food Chains and Point And Shoot are also named.
The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:
20,000 Days On Earth
Afternoon Of A Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
Algorithms
Alive Inside
All You Need Is Love
Altina
America: Imagine The World Without Her
American Revolutionary: The Evolution Of Grace Lee Boggs
Anita
Antarctica: A Year On Ice
Art And Craft
Awake: The Life Of Yogananda
The Barefoot Artist
The Battered Bastards Of Baseball
Before You Know It
Bitter Honey
Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity
Botso The Teacher From Tbilisi
Captivated The Trials Of Pamela Smart
The Case Against 8
Cesar’s Last Fast
Citizen Koch
Citizenfour
Code Black
Concerning Violence
The Culture High
Cyber-Seniors
Damnation
Dancing In Jaffa
Death Metal Angola
The...
- 10/31/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released its list of 134 film vying for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar at the 87th Annual Academy Awards in February. A number of the nonfic hopefuls have yet to get their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Those that don’t will be cut from the contention. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December. Oscar noms will be revealed January 15, and ABC will broadcast Hollywood’s Big Night live on February 22 from the Dolby Theatre.
Here are the docu feature submissions:
Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
Algorithms
Alive Inside
All You Need Is Love
Altina
America: Imagine the World without Her
American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
Anita
Antarctica: A Year on Ice
Art and Craft
Awake: The Life of Yogananda
The Barefoot Artist
The Battered Bastards of Baseball...
Here are the docu feature submissions:
Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq
Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case
Algorithms
Alive Inside
All You Need Is Love
Altina
America: Imagine the World without Her
American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs
Anita
Antarctica: A Year on Ice
Art and Craft
Awake: The Life of Yogananda
The Barefoot Artist
The Battered Bastards of Baseball...
- 10/31/2014
- by The Deadline Team
- Deadline
One hundred thirty-four features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 87th Academy Awards®. Several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category's other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December. Films submitted in the Documentary Feature category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories. The 87th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 5:30 a.m. Pt in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar...
- 10/31/2014
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
The rapper is touring with a documentary about the making of his famous debut.
Twenty years after the release of Nas' classic debut, Illmatic -- widely considered one of the best and most influential rap albums ever made -- the rapper is making a victory lap tour with shows that are half movie premiere, half concert.
Directed by One9 and written by Erik Parker, the documentary Nas: Time is Illmatic is more than a look back at a famous moment in music -- it's a heartfelt look into Nasir Jones' family and New York City in the late 1980s.
Flashback: See 19-Year-Old Kanye West Freestyle Rap
A young, lyrical genius from Queensbridge, in 1994 Nas made an album filled with rage and longing for a better life, chronicling the conflicting emotions felt by a community rife with poverty, drugs and crime in the city's housing projects. Nas' rhymes didn't only paint a vivid picture of what...
Twenty years after the release of Nas' classic debut, Illmatic -- widely considered one of the best and most influential rap albums ever made -- the rapper is making a victory lap tour with shows that are half movie premiere, half concert.
Directed by One9 and written by Erik Parker, the documentary Nas: Time is Illmatic is more than a look back at a famous moment in music -- it's a heartfelt look into Nasir Jones' family and New York City in the late 1980s.
Flashback: See 19-Year-Old Kanye West Freestyle Rap
A young, lyrical genius from Queensbridge, in 1994 Nas made an album filled with rage and longing for a better life, chronicling the conflicting emotions felt by a community rife with poverty, drugs and crime in the city's housing projects. Nas' rhymes didn't only paint a vivid picture of what...
- 10/21/2014
- Entertainment Tonight
The festival’s 25th edition will feature a contribution from Ai Weiwei and competition titles including Whiplash, Nightcrawler and Foxcatcher.
The Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 5-16) is to present its Achievement Award to Us actress Uma Thurman.
The Kill Bill star will will visit Stockholm to receive the prestigious Bronze Horse and meet the audience during an exclusive “Face2Face”.
Thurman will also take part in the inauguration ceremony, which will include the unveiling of an ice sculpture by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Weiwei was a Stockholm jury member last year but since he wasn’t allowed to leave China, he sent an empty chair named ”The Chair for Non-attendance” as symbol of his absence.
He is still not allowed to leave China so will send a design that will be portrayed in the form of a large ice sculpture symbolising this years’ Spotlight theme - Hope.
Brazil
The festival will focus this year on Brazil...
The Stockholm International Film Festival (Nov 5-16) is to present its Achievement Award to Us actress Uma Thurman.
The Kill Bill star will will visit Stockholm to receive the prestigious Bronze Horse and meet the audience during an exclusive “Face2Face”.
Thurman will also take part in the inauguration ceremony, which will include the unveiling of an ice sculpture by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Weiwei was a Stockholm jury member last year but since he wasn’t allowed to leave China, he sent an empty chair named ”The Chair for Non-attendance” as symbol of his absence.
He is still not allowed to leave China so will send a design that will be portrayed in the form of a large ice sculpture symbolising this years’ Spotlight theme - Hope.
Brazil
The festival will focus this year on Brazil...
- 10/16/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The documentary on legendary rapper, Nas' making of the 1994 landmark debut album "Illmatic," titled "Nas: Time Is Illmatic," will expand its theatrical run to Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, DC, Detroit, Houston, Philly, Phoenix, and more cities this coming weekend, after last weekend's limited opening. Throughout October: Nas will also be touring with the film and performing following screenings throughout October. Go to nasirjones.com/events for more details on that. "Nas: Time Is Illmatic" is also available on demand, iTunes, and other VOD providers. Twenty years after the release of Nas's groundbreaking debut album...
- 10/8/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Jimmy Fallon holds three things sacred: his family, his freedom and board games. On Tuesday night's episode of The Tonight Show, the comedian-host focused on the latter – but instead of bringing out his guests for a round of Clue or Risk, he explored ridiculous board game "stinkers" for a hilarious new segment called "Do Not Game." The funniest bit – available above – finds Fallon and Roots frontman Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter trying out the Vanilla Ice Electronic Rap game, which allows players to rap random phrases over a "beatbox machine."
It's...
It's...
- 10/8/2014
- Rollingstone.com
Foreign films and a doc scored well in the Specialty arena this weekend. That isn’t something I get to write very often but it’s a pleasure when it happens. China Lion‘s Breakup Buddies, Tribeca Film‘s music doc Nas: Time Is Illmatic and Bollywood heavyweight Bang Bang all pulled in solid numbers when they debuted this weekend among U.S. speciality films.
By contrast, the weekend’s most notable U.S. indie debut, Jason Reitman‘s Men, Women & Children, took a dive in its first limited runs, while Radius-twc’s music documentary Keep On Keepin’ On again lived up to its name, gathering momentum in its third week.
That so-so start came even though Paramount seemingly did everything right for Men, Women & Children after a premiere at Toronto. The company created a marketing campaign that targeted both social networking-savvy young audiences and the traditional movie-going crowd. The...
By contrast, the weekend’s most notable U.S. indie debut, Jason Reitman‘s Men, Women & Children, took a dive in its first limited runs, while Radius-twc’s music documentary Keep On Keepin’ On again lived up to its name, gathering momentum in its third week.
That so-so start came even though Paramount seemingly did everything right for Men, Women & Children after a premiere at Toronto. The company created a marketing campaign that targeted both social networking-savvy young audiences and the traditional movie-going crowd. The...
- 10/5/2014
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline
“Life’s a bitch and then you die,” rapper Nasir Jones spit on Illmatic, his groundbreaking 1994 debut album. A grim, cynical statement, Nas was simply following the tradition of hip-hop—reflecting your environment back to the audience. As Chuck D of Public Enemy once said, rap music was the “CNN for black people.” And so with Illmatic, Nas’ now-landmark record, the rapper changed the game, broadcasting his pains, frustrations, ugly truths and hardships to a nation of listeners through a filter of lyrically dense, angry, blunt rhymes and jazz-inflected boom-bap beats. “It was real. He spoke the truth,” Alicia Keys says in a new documentary, seemingly still taken aback by Nas’ unflinching approach. Directed by multimedia artist One9, written by Erik Parker and produced by One9, Parker, and Anthony Saleh, “Nas: Time Is Illmatic” is a look back on the now-cherished, seminal hip-hop record, but also focuses deeply on of the environment that created it.
- 10/3/2014
- by Rodrigo Perez
- The Playlist
Excitement was mounting at New York City's Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night, as celebrities took a trip down the red carpet and memory lane with the premiere of Time Is Illmatic, the Nas documentary from One9 and Erik Parker. "I actually have a tingling sensation, it's kind of weird." Today's Tamron Hall told The Hollywood Reporter. "I truly see this as a work of art. His creative process, what he delivered, what he continues to deliver. It's almost as if you want to talk into this cave of artistry and just be wrapped around it." The film,
read more...
read more...
- 10/1/2014
- by Ted Simmons
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
For someone who's at work before sunrise, Michael Strahan sure knows how to party! The Live with Kelly and Michael and Good Morning America co-host burned the midnight oil on Tuesday, jamming with friends at New York City's popular Lavo nightclub. The party, celebrating Tribeca Films's premiere of Nas: Time Is Illmatic, a documentary on the life and career of rapper Nas, got started around 9:30 p.m. "Strahan arrived around 10 p.m. with a male friend and two ladies in tow," a partygoer tells People. The group was greeted with Hennessy V.S. cocktails and shown to a table...
- 10/1/2014
- by Janine Rayford Rubenstein, @JanineRayford
- PEOPLE.com
For someone who's at work before sunrise, Michael Strahan sure knows how to party! The Live with Kelly and Michael and Good Morning America co-host burned the midnight oil on Tuesday, jamming with friends at New York City's popular Lavo nightclub. The party, celebrating Tribeca Films's premiere of Nas: Time Is Illmatic, a documentary on the life and career of rapper Nas, got started around 9:30 p.m. "Strahan arrived around 10 p.m. with a male friend and two ladies in tow," a partygoer tells People. The group was greeted with Hennessy V.S. cocktails and shown to a table...
- 10/1/2014
- by Janine Rayford Rubenstein, @JanineRayford
- PEOPLE.com
The documentary on legendary Mc Nas’ making of the 1994 landmark debut album "Illmatic," "Nas: Time Is Illmatic," will hit movie theaters across America on October 2, 2014 for a one-night-only special showing of the film. Audiences nationwide will have the rare opportunity to experience the story behind one of hip-hop’s most influential albums of all-time on the big screen. "Nas: Time Is Illmatic" will become available on demand, iTunes, and other VOD providers starting Friday, October 3 and the film will first release theatrically in New York and Los Angeles starting on October 1 distributed by Tribeca...
- 9/16/2014
- by Press Release
- ShadowAndAct
Fury (David Ayer)
[via the BFI]
The programme for the 58th BFI London Film Festival launched today, with Festival Director Clare Stewart presenting this year’s rich and diverse selection of films and events. The lineup includes highly anticipated fall titles including David Ayer’s Fury, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, the Sundance smash Whiplash, Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women and Children and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild.
As Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, it introduces the finest new British and international films to an expanding London and UK-wide audience, offering a compelling combination of red carpet glamour, engaged audiences and vibrant exchange. The Festival provides an essential profiling opportunity for films seeking global success at the start of the Awards season, promotes the careers of British and...
[via the BFI]
The programme for the 58th BFI London Film Festival launched today, with Festival Director Clare Stewart presenting this year’s rich and diverse selection of films and events. The lineup includes highly anticipated fall titles including David Ayer’s Fury, Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher, the Sundance smash Whiplash, Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language 3D, The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women and Children and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Wild.
As Britain’s leading film event and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, it introduces the finest new British and international films to an expanding London and UK-wide audience, offering a compelling combination of red carpet glamour, engaged audiences and vibrant exchange. The Festival provides an essential profiling opportunity for films seeking global success at the start of the Awards season, promotes the careers of British and...
- 9/3/2014
- by John
- SoundOnSight
Tribeca Film will release One9’s "Time Is Illmatic," which had its world premiere as the opening night film of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival, this fall. Written by Erik Parker and produced by One9, Parker, and Anthony Saleh, the film follows the trajectory of Nas’ 1994 landmark debut album, "Illmatic" - widely considered one of the most important and revolutionary albums in hip-hop. Tribeca Film is planning a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in October, along with performances from Nas in select cities. Additionally an educational youth screening series will complement the release. "Time Is Illmatic" traces...
- 9/2/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Can documentaries about famous rap groups and albums be a new thing please? A few years ago we got the excellent "Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels Of A Tribe Called Quest," detailing the fascinating and incredible story of the highly influential hip hop group, and now comes "Nas: Time Is Illmatic," another snapshot of a rapper who has inspired a generation of artists. Directed by One9 (huh?) and featuring the participation of Nas, Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, L.E.S., DJ Premier, Pharrell Williams, Alicia Keys and more, the movie goes twenty years back in time to 1994, when Illmatic dropped and turned heads everywhere. The doc chronicles Nas' influences, his life story and career—which saw him signing to major label at 20 years old—and how he developed his unique artistic voice. "Nas: Time Is Illmatic" arrives in select theaters beginning October 1st and on nationwide VOD...
- 8/29/2014
- by Kevin Jagernauth
- The Playlist
Nas is hitting the road with the album that started it all. The rapper will take stages across North America this fall for a tour that coincides with screenings of his Tribeca Film documentary, Nas: Time Is Illmatic, it was announced Tuesday. The tour will kick off on Oct. 2 in Rochester and close in Oakland on Oct. 19. At each stop, he will perform Illmatic — his ten-track 1994 debut that has been lauded as one of the most influential and important albums of hip hop — from start to finish. The slew of performances mirror the post-screening concert
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- 8/12/2014
- by Ashley Lee
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Submarine has sold a raft of territories on Tribeca opener Time Is Illmatic.
Deals have closed for Australia and New Zealand (Madman), the UK (Dogwoof), Germany (Nfp Films), Italy (Feltrinelli), Scandinavia (NonStop) and Japan (Parco).
David Koh, Dan Braun and Josh Braun negotiated the deals for Submarine.
Multimedia artist One9 directed Time Is Illmatic, about the influences that led the celebrated hip-hop star Nas to record the album Illmatic.
Deals have closed for Australia and New Zealand (Madman), the UK (Dogwoof), Germany (Nfp Films), Italy (Feltrinelli), Scandinavia (NonStop) and Japan (Parco).
David Koh, Dan Braun and Josh Braun negotiated the deals for Submarine.
Multimedia artist One9 directed Time Is Illmatic, about the influences that led the celebrated hip-hop star Nas to record the album Illmatic.
- 5/20/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Time is Illmatic, a music documentary on the seminal New York rapper Nas, has been a hot seller at the Cannes film market, with sales group Submarine closing deals for most of Europe along with Japan and Australia. Tribeca Film Enterprises recently picked up the doc — directed and produced by multimedia artist One9 — for North America. Review: Time Is Illmatic: Tribeca Review The film follows the creation and release of Nas’ 1994 debut album, Illmatic, considered by some to be the most important and influential hip-hop record of all time. The deals, negotiated by David Koh, Dan Braun
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- 5/20/2014
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Tribeca Film has announced its acquisition of North American rights to One9’s Time Is Illmatic, which had its world premiere as the opening night film of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary is directed by multimedia artist, One9, written by Erik Parker and produced by One9, Parker, and Anthony Saleh. It follows the trajectory of Nas’ 1994 landmark debut album, Illmatic-- widely considered one of the most important and revolutionary albums in hip-hop. Tribeca Film is planning a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in October, along with performances from Nas in select cities. Additionally an educational youth screening series will complement...
- 5/14/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Tribeca Film has acquired North American rights to "Time Is Illmatic," the Nas documentary which which had its world premiere as the opening night of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. The documentary is directed by multimedia artist, One9, written by Erik Parker, and produced by One9, Parker, and Anthony Saleh. It follows the trajectory of Nas’ 1994 landmark debut album, "Illmatic," which is widely considered to be one of the most important albums in hip-hop. Tribeca Film is planning a day-and-date release in October along with performances by Nas in select cities. The company is also planning educational youth screening series to complement the release. In his review of the film when it premiered at Tribeca, Eric Kohn wrote, "The debut feature of multimedia artist One9 does justice to the record's significance for the hordes of fans that have consumed it over the course of a generation." "I want to thank Robert De Niro,...
- 5/13/2014
- by Paula Bernstein
- Indiewire
Tribeca Film has acquired North American rights to Time Is Illmatic, the documentary by the artist One9 which recounts the creation of Nas’ classic 1994 hip-hop album Illmatic. The film had its world premiere as the opening night selection at the recent Tribeca Film Festival. Tribeca Film is planning a simultaneous theatrical and VOD release in October along with performances by Nas in selected cities. Written by Erik Parker, the doc was produced by One9, Parker and Anthony Saleh. It received support from The Ford Foundation’s Just Films and Tribeca Film Institute’s Tribeca All Access program. Photos: Tribeca: Nas, Alicia
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- 5/13/2014
- by Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Top brass at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff) said more than 400,000 people attended the 13th annual event.
Tff ran form April 16-27 and hosted close to 400 screenings and panels for a reported 95%-plus attendance.
All in all 89 features and 57 shorts from 40 countries screened for more than 120,000 film-goers and panel attendees.
In a first for the festival and with the support of sponsor At&T, more than 8,000 tickets were distributed on April 25 for a whole day of free screenings.
“The response to the films and all of our events throughout our 13th edition has been incredible. We have some of the best audiences in the world and it was great to see them embrace the filmmakers, creators and our new Innovation Week over the last 12 days,” said festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal.
The Nas documentary Time Is Illmatic (pictured) opened the festival.
Tff ran form April 16-27 and hosted close to 400 screenings and panels for a reported 95%-plus attendance.
All in all 89 features and 57 shorts from 40 countries screened for more than 120,000 film-goers and panel attendees.
In a first for the festival and with the support of sponsor At&T, more than 8,000 tickets were distributed on April 25 for a whole day of free screenings.
“The response to the films and all of our events throughout our 13th edition has been incredible. We have some of the best audiences in the world and it was great to see them embrace the filmmakers, creators and our new Innovation Week over the last 12 days,” said festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal.
The Nas documentary Time Is Illmatic (pictured) opened the festival.
- 4/28/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Last year the Tribeca Film Festival opened with Mistaken For Strangers, a sideways documentary view of The National followed by a performance from the band. Attendees moved from screening venue to a separate show space, but this year both opening night parts were combined at Madison Square Garden’s Beacon Theater. First came One9′s Time Is Illmatic, a history of Nas’ seminal 1994 album, then the 20th anniversary performance. You can go here to read Brandon Harris’ take on the movie (which plays once more on Friday). Ten years in the making, One9′s debut documentary tracks the making of the instant […]...
- 4/21/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Last year the Tribeca Film Festival opened with Mistaken For Strangers, a sideways documentary view of The National followed by a performance from the band. Attendees moved from screening venue to a separate show space, but this year both opening night parts were combined at Madison Square Garden’s Beacon Theater. First came One9′s Time Is Illmatic, a history of Nas’ seminal 1994 album, then the 20th anniversary performance. You can go here to read Brandon Harris’ take on the movie (which plays once more on Friday). Ten years in the making, One9′s debut documentary tracks the making of the instant […]...
- 4/21/2014
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Tribeca Film Festival hosted the premiere of X/Y, a film starring husband and wife duo Ryan Piers Williams and America Ferrera.
X/Y is the second feature collaboration for the couple – Ferrera starred in Williams’ directorial debut The Dry Land (2010) – but Williams said that he was surprised by Ferrera’s desire to play Sylvia, the film’s lead character.
“I didn’t write the role with her in mind, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to cast her, honestly. When America expressed interest in playing the role, I was really surprised and excited by that,” Williams told EW.
Ferrera added that, at first lead, she didn't like Sylvia, nor did she have any desire to play her.
"I judged her and I didn't like her. But I realized that if someone wrote the facts of the worst things I've done in my life, I might not come off as likeable.
X/Y is the second feature collaboration for the couple – Ferrera starred in Williams’ directorial debut The Dry Land (2010) – but Williams said that he was surprised by Ferrera’s desire to play Sylvia, the film’s lead character.
“I didn’t write the role with her in mind, and I didn’t know whether I wanted to cast her, honestly. When America expressed interest in playing the role, I was really surprised and excited by that,” Williams told EW.
Ferrera added that, at first lead, she didn't like Sylvia, nor did she have any desire to play her.
"I judged her and I didn't like her. But I realized that if someone wrote the facts of the worst things I've done in my life, I might not come off as likeable.
- 4/21/2014
- Uinterview
The Festival began, Wednesday, April 16, with one film about, Nas (a hip hop artist), called Time Is Illmatic.
Thursday, April 17, however, was a movie lovers candy store. In One Day, the topics ranged from rock stars/Super Duper Alice Cooper, sports/When the Garden Was Eden, fashion/Dior and I ,drug deals/the Spike Lee executively produced, Manos Sucias, hot dogs/Famous Nathan,Montana/Fishtail, and finally, a film in the World Documentary Competition, Virunga.
Bordering on Rwanda and Uganda,Virunga is a 7,800 square kilometer National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Established in 1925, it is Africa’s first National Park, as well as, a Unesco-designated World Heritage Site since 1979.
The wildlife population, especially, the mountain gorillas (only 800 left worldwide), are under attack by illegal hunters and rebels, the Lra, Kivu, and Ituri fighting within the Congo Civil War. Not only is the park valuable from an environmental stand point, but as a mineral resource as well.
In 2010, oil was discovered in Virunga, and Soco and Iccn, the former, an international oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in London, listed on the London Stock Exchange, illegally forced their way in to search for the precious commodity, and were not about to let anything stand in their way. All parties involved are playing with forces that are very powerful and extremely dangerous.
While the movie premiered tonight, April 17, this past Tuesday, April 15th, Belgian national, and the director of Virunga National Park, Emmanuel de Merode, was shot by three gunmen while driving through the park. He and park rangers appeared many times in the documentary. Director, Orlando von Einsiedel, stated the bullets missed Emmanuel’s major organs and spinal cord, and he is listed in stable condition.
Howard Buffett (Howard G. Buffett Foundation), and author of ‘Threatened Kingdom: The Story of the Mountain Gorilla,’ stated, Virunga is one of the most beautiful and most dangerous places on Earth. This film is about choices and heros. The choice is putting our time and effort into preserving a world treasure, and a resource for so many, Or watch the mineral resources in the park get exploited. The choice is clear.”
The goal now is to raise public awareness.
Visit http://virungamovie.com/ to learn more and get involved.
Watch Virunga at Tribeca Film Festival
on 4/20 at 3:45pm
4/23 at 7:00pm
or 4/25 at 3:45pm
Visit http://tribecafilm.com/festival/ for tickets and locations of screenings.
Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema...
Thursday, April 17, however, was a movie lovers candy store. In One Day, the topics ranged from rock stars/Super Duper Alice Cooper, sports/When the Garden Was Eden, fashion/Dior and I ,drug deals/the Spike Lee executively produced, Manos Sucias, hot dogs/Famous Nathan,Montana/Fishtail, and finally, a film in the World Documentary Competition, Virunga.
Bordering on Rwanda and Uganda,Virunga is a 7,800 square kilometer National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Established in 1925, it is Africa’s first National Park, as well as, a Unesco-designated World Heritage Site since 1979.
The wildlife population, especially, the mountain gorillas (only 800 left worldwide), are under attack by illegal hunters and rebels, the Lra, Kivu, and Ituri fighting within the Congo Civil War. Not only is the park valuable from an environmental stand point, but as a mineral resource as well.
In 2010, oil was discovered in Virunga, and Soco and Iccn, the former, an international oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in London, listed on the London Stock Exchange, illegally forced their way in to search for the precious commodity, and were not about to let anything stand in their way. All parties involved are playing with forces that are very powerful and extremely dangerous.
While the movie premiered tonight, April 17, this past Tuesday, April 15th, Belgian national, and the director of Virunga National Park, Emmanuel de Merode, was shot by three gunmen while driving through the park. He and park rangers appeared many times in the documentary. Director, Orlando von Einsiedel, stated the bullets missed Emmanuel’s major organs and spinal cord, and he is listed in stable condition.
Howard Buffett (Howard G. Buffett Foundation), and author of ‘Threatened Kingdom: The Story of the Mountain Gorilla,’ stated, Virunga is one of the most beautiful and most dangerous places on Earth. This film is about choices and heros. The choice is putting our time and effort into preserving a world treasure, and a resource for so many, Or watch the mineral resources in the park get exploited. The choice is clear.”
The goal now is to raise public awareness.
Visit http://virungamovie.com/ to learn more and get involved.
Watch Virunga at Tribeca Film Festival
on 4/20 at 3:45pm
4/23 at 7:00pm
or 4/25 at 3:45pm
Visit http://tribecafilm.com/festival/ for tickets and locations of screenings.
Article by Sharon Abella
http://1worldcinema.com
One World Cinema...
- 4/19/2014
- by Sharon Abella
- Sydney's Buzz
Chelsea Clinton made her debut as a movie producer Thursday night at the premiere of the documentary Of Many. The film, which screened at the AMC Loews Village 7 in New York as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, drew a crowd that included President Bill Clinton, who was on hand to support his daughter. Story: Nas Documentary 'Time Is Illmatic' Opens Tribeca Film Festival With Album-Length Concert The former president didn't show at the after-party, held at Stream Line Circle, but Hillary Clinton, a likely presidential candidate in 2016, made a surprise appearance. "I thought it was
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- 4/18/2014
- by Tatiana Siegel
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Life’s a bitch and then you die,” rapper Nasir Jones spit on Illmatic, his groundbreaking 1994 debut album. A grim, cynical statement, Nas was simply following the tradition of hip-hop — reflecting your environment back to the audience. As Chuck D of Public Enemy once famously said, rap music was the “CNN for black people.” And so with Illmatic, Nas’ now-landmark ‘90s record, the rapper changed the game, broadcasting his pains, frustrations, ugly truths and hardships to a nation of listeners through a filter of lyrically dense, angry, blunt rhymes and jazz-inflected boom-bap beats. “It was real. He spoke the truth,” Alicia Keys says in the documentary, seemingly still taken aback now by Nas’ unflinching approach. Directed by multimedia artist One9, written by Erik Parker, and produced by One9, Parker, and Anthony Saleh, “Time Is Illmatic” is a look back on the now-cherished and seminal hip-hop record, but also focuses deeply...
- 4/17/2014
- by Rodrigo Perez
- The Playlist
If you’re a working musician who has residential roots to New York City and you happen to have some sort of fraught relationship with your family, the Tribeca Film Festival has a spot for you: Opening Night. Last year, the festival opened with the debut of Mistaken For Strangers, a documentary about the band The National, with a tight focus on the band’s lead singer and his doofus brother as they attempt to coexist on tour together. This year, the festival bowed with the premiere of Time Is Illmatic, another documentary centered on a working musician (in this case, rapper Nas) who has residential roots to the city (he grew up in Queens’ Queensbridge Houses) who happens to have some sort of fraught relationship with his family (though nothing quite so tense as the relationship at the center of last year’s premiere). Time Is Illmatic is pegged to the twenty-year anniversary of Nas’ debut...
- 4/17/2014
- by Kate Erbland
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
New York (AP) — The raw New York lyricism of Nas kicked off the 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival with an exuberant hip-hop beat. Tribeca opened Wednesday night with the premiere of "Time Is Illmatic," a documentary about the creation of Nas' landmark 1994 debut album, "Illmatic." The Queens native Nas followed the screening at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre with a performance of the nine-track album, widely considered a rap classic for its angry but earnest street poetry. Tribeca co-founder Robert De Niro introduced the film as not just about the making of an album, but "about the making of an artist here in our hometown." Whereas many films about an album have stuck largely to the song-writing process and track recording, "Time Is Illmatic," directed by the filmmaker One9, summons the Queensbridge housing projects upbringing of Nas and the forces — his parents, 1980s Queens, early hip-hop — that shaped his music. The...
- 4/17/2014
- by Jake Coyle, AP
- Hitfix
Time Is Illmatic opened the 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday night, just days before the twentieth anniversary of Nas' breakthrough album, Illmatic. While the ten-track 1994 release has been lauded as one of the most influential and important albums of hip hop -- with many artists commenting that they've never put it down -- the rapper himself said the project has allowed him to rediscover his own release with a fresh perspective. Photos: Tribeca: Nas, Alicia Keys Celebrate the Hip-Hop Album at the 'Time Is Illmatic' Premiere "I think when it originally came out, I was so out of
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- 4/17/2014
- by Ashley Lee
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It may have been the most New York moment in years.
Robert De Niro, onstage Wednesday night at the Beacon Theatre, introduced Time Is Illmatic, the new documentary on Nas' 1994 landmark debut Illmatic, to kick off the Tribeca Film Festival. "Twenty years ago, I would've been 20 years too old for this music," quipped the actor and festival co-founder to a boisterous crowd of fans, media and seemingly every important hip-hop figure in mid-Nineties New York.
Nas: My Life in 20 Songs
Unlike music docs that attempt to deify or elevate the obscure — Anvil,...
Robert De Niro, onstage Wednesday night at the Beacon Theatre, introduced Time Is Illmatic, the new documentary on Nas' 1994 landmark debut Illmatic, to kick off the Tribeca Film Festival. "Twenty years ago, I would've been 20 years too old for this music," quipped the actor and festival co-founder to a boisterous crowd of fans, media and seemingly every important hip-hop figure in mid-Nineties New York.
Nas: My Life in 20 Songs
Unlike music docs that attempt to deify or elevate the obscure — Anvil,...
- 4/17/2014
- Rollingstone.com
No modern American music genre reflects its environment better than hip hop, which is why documentaries about its history have proliferated over the years. In some cases, a well-honed treatment of the scene actually has the ability to open up the insulated community to a broader range of listeners, like Ice-t's "Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap," which magnifies the creative process behind various hip hop performers. But others merely stick to their base with less thrilling results for anyone already onboard. It's this category where "Time Is Illmatic," a slim overview of the conditions behind the recording of rapper Nas' seminal debut album "Illmatic" on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, neatly fits in. The debut feature of multimedia artist One9 does justice to the record's significance for the hordes of fans that have consumed it over the course of a generation. But by almost entirely focusing on the album's conception,...
- 4/17/2014
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Time is Illmatic, a music documentary on Nas’ rise to fame and the release 20 years ago of his classic album, Illmatic, opened the Tribeca Film Festival on Wednesday, April 16 at New York’s Beacon Theatre.
In 1994, Nas erupted on the music scene with his debut album, Illmatic, when he was only 20-years-old. Illmatic is associated with a movement that aims to focus rap music on powerful lyrics and wordplay, and Nas is, certainly, still considered one of the best. Illmatic celebrated its official 20th anniversary on Tuesday, April 15. For Nas and the Illmatic filmmaker, the 1994 album is still just as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
“If you look at conditions then and now, not much has changed for the people Nas represented. But so much has changed in the world. What was important for us to tell is that Nas is a genius, but he’s one of...
In 1994, Nas erupted on the music scene with his debut album, Illmatic, when he was only 20-years-old. Illmatic is associated with a movement that aims to focus rap music on powerful lyrics and wordplay, and Nas is, certainly, still considered one of the best. Illmatic celebrated its official 20th anniversary on Tuesday, April 15. For Nas and the Illmatic filmmaker, the 1994 album is still just as relevant today as it was 20 years ago.
“If you look at conditions then and now, not much has changed for the people Nas represented. But so much has changed in the world. What was important for us to tell is that Nas is a genius, but he’s one of...
- 4/17/2014
- Uinterview
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