Lorena Lourenco, whose film Pedagogy showed last year in Cannes at the Short Film Conrner, grew up in Rio de Janeiro and moved to Los Angeles to attend USC's School of Cinematic Arts. Today she works as a Directing Consultant for Thank You For Your Service, produced by Steven Spielberg, written and directed by Jason Hall (American Sniper) and edited by Oscar nominee Jay Cassidy (Into the Wild, Silver Linings Playbook). Lorena is destined for a bright fut...
Adrian and Danielle Rubi-Dentzel are living a life I admire. The pair moved to Paris, started a food blog (www.thetrailofcrumbs.com), which got them noticed by illustrious Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" team, who they worked with and hit it off, then were inspired to make their own movie and poached Bourdain's DP Ethan Mills, raised money on kickstarter, and made it happen. I caught the friendly couple at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in January where the...
LES MAUVAISES HERBES, directed by Louis Bélanger and written by Louis Bélanger, Alexis Martin, and starring Alexis Martin, Gilles Renaud, Emmanuelle Lussier-Martinez, Luc Picard... is my new favorite movie!! And as of the time of the Santa Barbara Film Festival, it has no U.S. distribution yet. WTF?!
I got up at 7:45 am for the 8:30 screening. It was a full house - the movie had its world premiere in Santa Barbara that weekend. I want everyone to see this movie! I laughed ha...
The panels at the Santa Barbara International Film Fest include talent and crew from some of the year's best movies and they're always one of my favorite parts of the festival. This year's Movers and Shakers Panel included: Finola Dwyer of Brooklyn, Steve Golin of Spotlight, Ed Guiney of Room, Jeremy Kleiner of The Big Short, and Mary Parent of The Revenant.
Here are some takeaways:
Weather Problems:While filming The Revenant in Canada...
Surely all parents have a deep love for their children. Alex Smith has something even more, or perhaps he is just more capable of showing that love. On Friday at the Santa Barbara Film Fest I went to see THE CHALLENGE, a documentary directed by Peter Williams out of the UK. In the story, Alex Smith trains for and competes in an Ironman, an incredible feat. As if that's not enough for a story on its own, Smith is doing it with his son Harrison in tow, all to raise awareness for a fatal ver...
Last night, the 31st annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival opened with the much awaited, THE LITTLE PRINCE!
I love this festival not just because it's set in a paradise-like beach community, or just because my friend and fellow Reno native Mike Albright does a damn good job programming it. I like to think because of Santa Barbara's proximity to Los Angeles it has a lot of filmmakers, film professionals, and film fanatics who are either a bit more chill than their more south...
Director Micah Van Hove and cast of "Menthol."
If you ever wondered if it would be interesting if you recorded your friends partying the answer is… kind of. Mumblecore is defined by Urban Dictionary as “A genre of independent films in which the characters are involved in a personal crisis. Known for their realistic point of view, these movies are the eyes of the just-out-of-college generation.” As we sat down for the full-house world premiere of MENTHOL ...
Last summer I saw Middle of Nowhere and was introduced to Sundance "Best Director" award winner Ava DuVernay at the Los Angeles International Film Festival. Since then DuVernay has directed a 30 for 30 ESPN documentary about Venus Williams, a few delicious kicka** shorts, network series TV, and was recently named director for the upcoming MLK biopic “Selma, among other things. Her keynote speech at Film Independent Forum was an empowering call to action! ...It centered ...
Sixteen years ago when Michael Trent and Leslee Scallon’s feature length crime drama thriller didn’t get into any of the industry festivals, feeling slighted by being passed up for not having any big names attached, they decided to found a film festival. Trent’s idea would bring together the forces of filmmakers who weren’t getting play on the festival circuit just because there were no big names attached. Nine months later they had 300 submissions, and had sere...
Some movies are important. Some movies are really good. Miriam Kruishoop’s Crosstown is both. Last week the film had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival. It is the story of an illegal immigrant family in LA. I sighed in exasperation, I got the chills, I cried. I have not been this moved by a film since seeing Ava DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere last summer.
"Crosstown is a story about two marginalized families dealing with the brutal realities about what ...
The 28th Annual SBIFF came to a close on Sunday, February 3rd.
The 11 day festival screened nearly 200 hundred films, hosted various Academy Award nominees and brought out the latest creative forces in independent films, world wide.
In an assembly such as this, the genre's were eclectic from sexual adventures (An Awkward Sexual Adventure) to meditation (Retreat), extreme sports (Discovering Mavericks) to nature (Revolution). Features and shorts, both live and animated fille...
Documentary filmmaker David Kennard first came to LA in the seventies, when he worked with Carl Sagan on Cosmos, the biggest documentary series that had ever been done any where in the world at that time (which I just found out from Wikipedia was as of 2009 the most widely watched PBS series in the world!) From stars to wine, Kennard's latest film, A Year in Burgundy, had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last weekend. I had the chance to sit ...
((photo cred: SBIFF)
The director’s panel at SBIFF this year was quite the line-up! In attendance were: Tom Hooper, Les Miserables; Rich Moore, Wreck-it Ralph; David O Russell, Silver Linings Playbook; Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild; Malik Bendjelloul, Searching for Sugar Man; and Mark Andrews of Brave.
Tom Hooper talked about his “visceral connection” to the story of Les Miserables like a “moth to a flame.” What really draws him to the story is how it ...
Saturday in Santa Barbara writers of the year's prominent movies gathered to talk in the annual “It Starts with the Script” panel. In attendance were Stephen Chbosky: "Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Roman Coppola: “Moonrise Kingdom,” John Gatins: “Flight,” Rian Johnson: “Looper,” and David Magee: of “Life of Pi.”
I love film festivals for these kinds of events that let us in; so close to the perspectives of peop...
Sarah Burns and husband/ fellow director David McMahon were in attendance at AFI fest last week to present their new film that they co-directed along with documentary master Ken Burns, CENTRAL PARK FIVE. “This film will make you angry,” said AFI moderator upon introducing the film. “It shows how important it is to look back at history.”
...
"Making a film is like having half a conversation - until you see it with the audience," says Director Sally Potter. Potter and stars were in attendance Wednesday night at AFI Fest on Hollywood Boulevard. Potter’s GINGER AND ROSA, set in the backdrop of 1962 London, is a tale of two best friends born in hospital beds in 1945, the same year the first nuclear bomb was dropped. If this movie is about one thing, it's the feeling of the world as a teenager, the journey from bein...
Stunning ELECTRICK CHILDREN is Rebecca Thomas' debut feature film, surprising as that may be. The movie tells the story of 15 year-old Rachel, played wonderfully by Julia Garner, who lives on a fundamentalist Mormon homestead in the Utah desert, just outside Las Vegas. On her 15th birthday Rachel must answer routine questions about her life, recorded on tape deck. Fascinated with the tape deck, later that night she creeps into the basement to find it.
When she discovers a rock mus...
Halfway through the first scene (he writes long scenes) of Sorkin's NEWSROOM I thought, "This show could change the world." I am a Sorkin fan, and an idealist, but that's besides the point. In the same way that THE WEST WING made Americans feel apart of what was happening in Washington, NEWSROOM does too. It takes place in a newsroom in Washington, and not only that but it's set during the real events of the day beginning on April 20, 2010. I feel like this kind of pseudo-inside look...
“I’m really nervous,” said Duvernay as she introduced the film. “Maybe it’s because this is my hometown. Maybe it’s because there are over 1,000 of us here...But it’s probably the Angela Bassett factor.” Bassett showed up just to support the film.
DuVernay is the first African American to win the Sundance award for Best Directing.
"Stephanie Allain is a doer," said DuVernay. "She said, 'This is a small story, but it&rsquo...
Last night at the Los Angeles Film Festival I almost went to a gala screening of BRAVE. Pixar is God, but I'm so glad I went to see the last screening of CRAZY AND THIEF instead! Wow it was inspiring and beautiful.
I mean, it has baby subtitles. That's right, the baby language of a 2 year-old translated clearly for the audience via subtitles throughout the 50 minute piece. If there weren't subtitles none of us would have any idea what Thief says, at all. How does the director know? He's ...
Last night at the Los Angeles Film Festival Seeking a Friend for the End of the World premiered. A glowing cast (Ms. Knightly is knewly engaged, Carell looked tan and happy) posed for pictures on the red carpet in downtown Los Angeles to support the film, along with Director Lorene Scafaria, who looked quite stunning herself. Plus a few others.
Once we had all sat down, Scafaria introduced the film to the large audience: "It's about the power of having one very good friend.&...
"His work features an undercurrent of faith and malice you just can't shake out of your head." Great film composer Danny Elfman was introduced at the LA Film Festival Saturday night with such ideas as, "His work brings the life of the mind to the screen."
As an 18-year old, Elfman's first performance was in Paris, where he followed his brother. Together they were in Le Grand Magic Circus, an avant-garde musical theater group. "It was a crazy experience that put t...
Game Changers: Where Should Films be Going? A panel including Ceán Chaffin, Michael de Luca, Mark Johnson, Doug Wick, and moderator Michael Shamberg opened Day 2 of the Produced by Conference by attempting to answer that question.
Ceán Chaffin (Producer & partner of David Fincher- Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Social Network, The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo): "We don't have tentpole movies." The audience is harder and harder to find. "We mak...
Christopher Nolan & Emma Thomas were humble and introspective in front of the eager audience at as they opened Produced by 2012 last weekend. Nolan and Thomas worked together in England before bringing their first film Following to the US in 1998, at a time in the US when there was a "movement of cheap films that secured distribution through the festival circuit." They submitted it to the Sundance Film Festival, didn't make it, but there met a programmer from the San Francisco In...
Martin Scorsese was honored Monday
night at the Santa Barbara International Film
Festival. Sir Ben Kingsley was in attendance as well, to award Scorsese
with the American Riviera Award.
Here
are some tidbits from the gentle evening in Santa Barbara paradise, 90 miles outside of Los Angeles.
Upon
the stage before Scorsese came on moderator Leonard Maltin said, "I like to talk to a man who likes to talk." Soon enough I realized how TRUE this is about the greatest
living ...
