The Slamdance Film
Festival announced winners of their "Sparkys" Friday January 26 at closing night
ceremonies at the Silver Mine. Slamdance screens the winning films Saturday
at the Silver Mine and Sunday in Salt Lake City at Brewvies. Winners receive
a bronzed dog statue.
And the Sparkys
Go to:
Jury Award for
Best Feature
Hybrid by Monteith McCollum
Best Short
Boundaries directed by Greg Durbin
Audience Choice
Award, Best Feature
American Chai by Anu...
The winners of the 2001 Sundance Film Festival were announced in an awards ceremony
January 27, 2001 in Park City, Utah. Henry Bean's The
Believer, the dramatic tale of a religious boy-turned-Nazi skinhead
won the Grand Jury Prize, while Zhang Yimou's festival hit The
Road Home won the World Cinema audience award. The winning films will
screen Sunday, January 28 in Park City.
Dramatic Grand Jury Prize
The Believer by Henry Bean
Documentary
Grand Jury P...
Sundance Film
Festival
Thursday, January 25
The disturbingly
controversial and emotional documentary Raw Deal: A Question of Consent,
about the rape of stripper at a fraternity initiation party, is perhaps the
toughest and yet most important film to see here as the festival slides toward
the finish line with no breakaway movie or mega-bidding war relieving the week's
ennui.
Festival Founder Robert Redford (who is away shooting a film in Europe) has
...
Slamdance Film
Festival
Thursday, January 25
We gave nine filmmakers
$99 dollars each to make digital shorts. Or at least that was the plan. We recently
learned that we never forked over the money," said Slamdance programmer Paul
Rachman as he introduced the new '$99 shorts' program.
Despite their total lack of funds, the nine artists (all Slamdance alumni) made
their films, which can be seen online. The results are mixed, but good overall.
The Third...
Rotterdam International
Film Festival
Friday, January 26
Like Locarno, Rotterdam
is heavily weighted with Asian features. Full of brooding yakuza, sword-wielding
wizards, gun-toting lolitas and high voltage avengers, Friday the 26th was Japanese
Day at the Rotterdam Film Festival, featuring 4 exciting films in the Main Programme:
Another Battle by Junji Sakamoto, Battle Royale by Kinji Fukasaku,
Ko-rei by Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Gojoe by Sogo Ishii.
Let us begin right ...
After a decidedly
slow start, this year's Sundance Film Festival finally caught fire with several
high profile announcements of acquisitions. Miramax Films grabbed actor Todd
Fields' debut feature In
The Bedroom starring Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson. The film, which
chronicles the breakdown of a long marriage has been praised by festival-goers
for its superb acting and the dexterity of Fields' direction.
IFC Films, the new distribution division of pay cable chan...
Regina Richardson
won the Screenplay Prize at this year's Moondance Film Festival for her work,
Child in the Well. The story follows a feisty youngster, fleeing a pre-arranged
marriage in medieval England, who falls under the influence of a mysterious brigand,
a wise crone, a mad child, and a bull of the purest evil. The stageplay winner
was Carolyn Gage, for Sappho in Love. The Moondance International Film
Festival 2001 was held January 19-21, in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, USA. Th...
Screenwriter-producer-director
Ernest Lehman has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
"Ernest Lehman
has written and produced some of the most memorable films ever made," said Academy
President Robert Rehme. "He is not only a prolific screenwriter, but an accomplished
novelist, journalist and motion picture producer, whose films rank as genuine
classics." Lehman has been nominated six times for Academ...
Artisan Entertainment
has signed a North American distribution deal for the Sundance documentary Raw
Deal: A Question of Consent, reported Daily Variety. Directed by
22-year old Billy Corben, Raw Deal exposes the story of Lisa Gier King,
a 27-year-old stripper in Gainesville, Florida who filed rape charges after
a performance at the Delta Chi fraternity on the University of Florida campus.
The controversy arises when King herself is charged and arrested for filing
a f...
The largest manhunt in the US since the 1930s has led to even bigger numbers
in terms of book and movie rights. According to Variety, St. Martin's Press
has inked a two-book deal with crime author Gary C. King to write the story
of the "Texas Seven," which began when seven convicts escaped from a Texas prison
on December 13 and ended when the last two surrendered in Colorado on January
24. The first book will be called "The Texas Seven: A True Story of Murder
and a D...
Caught in a legal
battle between its producer and German distributor, The Pledge has been
stricken from the playlist at the Berlin Intl. Film Festival. Producer Franchise
Pictures and film-rights company Intertainment are suing one another over the
Sean Penn-directed film in a Los Angeles court, each claiming fraud and breech
of contract on the part of the other. Neither claims responsibility for the
film being pulled from its competition slot at the Feb. 7-18 event. Penn...
The
FIPA concluded Saturday night by awarding Daniel Vigne's Fatou la Malienne
(France) with its prestigious Golden Fipa for Best Television Fiction which
has been bestowed in the past to such works as Erick Zonca's Le petit Voleur
and Peter Kosminski's Warriors. The Silver Fipa and Golden Fipa for
Best Male Performance went to Michael Verhoeven's Enthüllung einer Ehe
(Germany). The jury of the Series and Serials section chose to single out veteran
directors Nina Com...
Attendees at the screenings of Patrice Chereau's Intimacy were taken
aback when ticket-takers demanded proof that they were at least 21 years old.
The ID check was prompted by the graphic sexual nature of the film, which concerns
a long-running affair between two virtual strangers. Asked why the rules for
entry were stricter than if the film received an X-Rating (no under 18 admitted),
Festival Co-Director Nicole Guillemet was quoted as saying "Maybe it's too much,
but on...
In a crowded city bus on a hot summer day, the passengers appear tired and
grumpy. A baby is constantly crying. When a teenager dressed in punk clothes
gets on and looks around for a seat, he finds averted glances and a few scowls.
Finally, the woman holding the baby grundgingly moves over to allow the boy
to sit down. It is then that he starts singing "Amazing Grace" in a beautiful
voice. After a few moments, he is joined by about 10 passengers.
...
When Meng Ong got
the call that his feature had been selected for the Sundance Film Festival,
he thought it was a prank call. "I didn't believe it. I thought it was
really my friend playing a joke on me."
The truth is often
said in jest, and sure enough, Ong had been selected for the American Spectrum
section of the Sundance Film Festival 201. Although Ong was hardly a stranger
to the festival circuit -- he's had shorts and videos at the Clermont-Ferrand,
MIX, and S...
Barbara Peacock studied Fine Arts at The Boston University School for
Fine Arts, and photography and filmmaking at The School for the Museum of Fine
Arts / Tufts. She received an Arts Lottery Grant for her photographic study
entitled A Portrait of Lowell and more recently, an Arts Council
Grant for her next short film Final Stage.
Barbara´s early street photography days gradually turned to commercial photography
and portraiture. Her photography has been displayed in n...
World premiere at The Tahoe International Film Festival, April
2000
Screened at Santa Monica Film Festival, May 2000
Screened at Tampere Film Film Festival, April 2000
...
p>The movie is a funny story about two flies. But it is only a metaphor about
all of us, who think that their problems are bigger than they really are.
...
Slamdance Film
Festival
Wednesday, January 24
Slamdance began
today with the U.S. premiere of Swedish filmmaker Alexa Wolf's documentary The
Shocking Truth (59 mins, color, subtitled), which takes on the international
porn industry. It purports to explore the destructive effects of making pornography
on the 'performers' involved. The film's basic thesis is that porn stars have
been abused as children, are delusional about their choice to participate, and
are further...
Sundance Film
Festival
Wednesday, January 24
A tiny dusting
of snow fall teased the crowd in Park City today with just enough promise of
wintry drifts and good skiing to start everyone making plans for skipping screenings
tomorrow. Not surprisingly, the mood has shifted with the arrival of the hard-core
LA contingent, and most Park City denizens would love for the festival crowd
to simply get up on the slope and stay there.
At the theaters, audiences are stil...
Jan Tomanek graduated at High Art School in Prague in 1996. Since 1999
he is studying at Prague's Academy of Fine Art at the studio of "New Media".
He engages in making of short 3D animated movies and combined movies with real
actors. In year 1997 he created his first short movie Perpetuum mobile.
It was a story about human's curiosity and cupidity. In 1999 he produce the
two short movies with real actors and one 3D animated story about two living
glasses. In these da...
Rotterdam International
Film Festival
Thursday, January 25
When walking the
streets in a Dutch city, one must be very careful to look in all directions
at a crosswalk, not only for car traffic but also keep a watchful eye on cable
cars and the bicycle lanes. It's a real art to not get run over. Once inside
the Doelen Centre - the festival hub, one can navigate normally on the four
floors by escalator.
The top floor houses
the press mailboxes and service center comp...
Beyond the Ocean, Tony Pemberton’s first feature film will be screened in the Forum, at the coming Berlin Film Festival 2001.
The screening will take place at the CINESTAR 4, on Wednesday, February 14 at 11 :30 am.
...
Sony Pictures Classics, which is having its best year yet with the chart smashing
release of Golden Globe winner Ang Lee's Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, has announced a pick up of Haiku Tunnel,
a comedy film screening in the American Spectrum, co-directed and written by
the brother team of Jacob and Josh Kornbluth. The film is a riotous comedy about
a neurotic male secretary (played by Josh Kornbluth) whose failure to mail out
some important letters brings him face-...
Focus shifted away from the films screening here to the announcements that AOL
Time Warner, whose merger was completed just last week, has announced an austere
across the board staff cut at its various divisions, including specialty distributors
New Line Cinema and Fine Line Features. The company will about 2400 jobs in
total, nearly three percent of the newly merged company's total work force.
New Line Cinema, which has had a disappointing year at the box office is takin...
