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Home >> Sandy Mandelberger
Sandy Mandelberger
You maybe have heard of Woodstock.....the pastoral country town, not just the famed music festival. For those in the know, the two should not be confused, since the seminal 1969 music concert happened nearly 50 miles away. But the spirit of those times lives on in Woodstock, New York, where films fill the screen, music rocks the clubs and, oh yes, pot smoke (still) is in the air. Tie-dye still reigns in this Catskills bohemia, and each year the hippies (now entering menopause) joi...
Well, no one ever accused London of hogging too much of the world's great weather. In fact, it can be said that one of the reasons for the imperialistic urges of the British Empire was to find sunny climes and get out of the fucking rain. Well, rain is not a bad thing when it is a celluloid downpour, and that is what is on tap when the 18th edition of the Raindance Film Festival begins in London on Wednesday evening.
This year’s lineup, which includes 69 UK Premieres, is a co...
The revolution in Romanian cinema that began several years ago with the astonishingly original films THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU (2005), 12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST (2006) and 4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS AND 2 DAYS (2007), continues to flex its muscle, with a strong showing at the New York Film Festival, which opened this past weekend.
Three extraordinary films from Romania will be featured at the Festival, New York's most prestigious film event. AURORA, the latest effort from director Cristi Puiu...
Future generations will be in a better position to determine whether the introduction of social networking technology in the first decade of the 20th century was a blessing or a curse. Certainly for the entrepreneurs who created new ways for us to communicate with one another, it has been both. Such is the case for the multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, who founded the internet phenomenon Facebook, but who has lost as much as he has gained in terms of the trust and love of his friends...
Independent Film Week, a multi-layered program of screenings, conferences, co-production networking events and filmmaker pitch sessions has kicked off the New York film season with a vengeance. Under the auspices of the Independent Feature Project (IFP), the venerable filmmakers organization, this year's event involves both professionals and film buffs in a dizzying schedule of activities around the city of New York from September 19 to 23.
The Independent Film Week kicked off w...
Eugene Hernandez, the highly respected and well liked Founder and Editor-in-Chief of indieWIRE is leaving the leading news, information, and networking site to take on what he describes as “a dream job” as Director of Digital Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Hernandez founded indieWIRE in 1996, and has been Editor-in-Chief throughout the site’s near 15-year history. He will leave his current position October 29th, but maintain ties to indieWIRE as a...
HEARTBEATS (Xavier Dolan, Canada)
The hard truth is that even if one devotes oneself to seeing as many as 3 or 4 films per day (my usual average), that one is still only seeing less than 10% of the titles on offer at the Toronto International Film Festival, which concluded this past Sunday. Inevitably, there are those gems that one could not get to and the buzzed titles that conflicted with that Icelandic or Slovakian film that you convinced yourself that you cannot liv...
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is unique among A-list film festivals because it still is a non-competitive event. Unlike its other stellar festival cohorts, including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, San Sebastian and Sundance, TIFF does not bother with the formality of competition juries and all the drama that surrounds their sometimes dubious choices. Instead, the audience determnes the winners, especially of the Cadillac People's Choice Awards, which were announced on Sunday...
The AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL , the first film event in Eastern Europe completely devoted to classic and contemporary American independent works, will take place from October 20 to 24, 2010 in the historic city of Wroclaw, Poland. The Festival is the brainchild of Roman Gutek, a pioneering distributor who has been the prime mover in bringing world cinema to his native Poland in the past two decades.
Roman Gutek has worked as a committed distributor of auteur films in Poland for a...
Julian Schnabel strides two different worlds like a modern-day colossus. As a painter, sculptor and photographer, he has been in the A list of fine arts culture for more than 30 years. For the past decade, he has added "filmmaker extraordinaire" to his resume, becoming one of the most talked-about and lauded film artists of his generation. Painters making films is not completely new (Leger, Kandinsky, Dali and other early modernists did make film expressions, but they wer...
I'M STILL HERE, the not-very-flattering documentary by actor-turned-director Casey Affleck of his brother-in-law and best friend Joaquin Phoenix has been provoking controversy since it world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Is the film, which had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week, a true portrait of the actor's rejection of movie stardom or is it a cleverly planned hoax? The "documentary" of the tumultuous year that saw Joaquin attempt...
The Toronto International Film Festival has become one of the prime meeting places for film professionals from all over the map. So, not only are films seen, bought and sold, but the Festival is also an important place to make important new announcements about upcoming productions and initiatives.
Therefore, it was completely appropriate that the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF), the largest and most ambitious film event in the Middle East, use the Toronto setting to m...
When a filmmaker draws on his own experience to the extent that Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson has done in his wonderful memory film MAMMA GOGO, the intimacy of the revelations is almost disarmingly intimate. The prolific director, probably the best known from his native country and one of the most consistent in Scandinavia cinema, takes his audience on a personal journey as the film’s protagonist, a filmmaker himself, becomes immersed in the downward spiral of his mothe...
I'M STILL HERE, the not-very-flattering documentary by actor-turned-director Casey Affleck of his brother-in-law and best friend Joaquin Phoenix has been provoking controversy since it world premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Is the film, which had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this week, a true portrait of the actor's rejection of movie stardom or is it a cleverly planned hoax?
The "documentary" of the tumultuous y...
French filmmakers, film stars and business professionals are everywhere here at the Toronto International Film Festival, giving this year's a definite French accent. This is a long-running love story, with this city's film buffs in l'amour fou with French cinema, during TIFF and throughout the year.
The Gala Presentations at the Festival, arguably the most prestigious section, boasts four French titles: LAST NIGHT, a US/French co-production by debut helmer Massy Tadjedin, with a st...
It has been a difficult few months for the British film industry. Not only has the economic recession made the film business even more challenging, but the controversy surrounding the shuttering of the UK Film Council has been acriminious, amidst charges of economic abuse and political favoritism. Even the venerable London Film Festival, which unspools next month, losts its main corporate sponsors and had to scramble to find replacements.
However, based on the bounty of British film...
Sofia Coppola walked away with the top prize at the Venice Film Festival this past weekend, winning the Golden Lion for her new film SOMEWHERE. The film, which inexplicably did not make the cut at the Toronto or New York film festivals (festival envy?), stars Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning in a dramatic story of a father who tries to connect with his daughter after years of neglect. The fact that the dad is also a famous actor adds spice to this satire of Hollywood's self-obession and...
Manoel De Oliveira (Portugal)
The Toronto International Film Festival has always had a love affair with European cinema and this year, in its 35th anniversary year, is no different. Nearly half of the films presented here this week are European or have European co-production partners. The European Film Promotion organization is assisting nearly 50 European sales companies with their presence here in order to assist the films in finding North American distribution here.
More in ...
The courage to live one's truth....that is the potent theme of BEGINNERS, an emotional drama that had its world premiere on Saturday evening at the Toronto International Film Festival. American director Mike Mills, who made an assured debut in 2005 with the festival hit THUMBSUCKER handily mixes comedy and tragedy and guides his cast of top flight actors to convincing and moving performances.
Drawing on his own background as a graphic designer and artist who has exhibited extensively ...
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), one of the largest and most important film events in the world, unveils its permanent home today with a day long “block party”. The Festival, which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, was once centered in the chic Yorkville neighborhood, north of the urban center. This year, however, the Festival has moved to the city’s Entertainment District, home to its live theaters and the city’s most trendy district, about t...
Yesterday was September 11th, and again I find myself in the city of Toronto, as I did in 2001......when the planes crashed, the towers fell, the buildings burned and America lost its innocence. It was a very strange place to be back then, in the midst of covering a film festival, while one's city was in chaos. For those of us from New York, there was a shared concern about the loss of loved ones, the security of our friends and family and the frustrations of not being able to place p...
With roughly half of the films premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival tracing back to Europe (either as co-productions or stand-alones from their country of origin), Europe certainly has a strong presence here. This has been enhanced by the inauguration of the Producers Lab Toronto, a new initiative by European Film Promotion (www.efp-online.com), the pan-European promotion agency and the Ontario Media Development Corporation (www.omdc.on.ca), wit...
PASSIONE (John Turturro, Italy)
As the Venice International Film Festival enters its final weekend, the annual overlap between it and the Toronto International Film Festival, which opened this past Thursday, is most keenly felt. It is no secret that the two festivals are major rivals for world premieres and the attention of the world press. Venice's appeal is well, that's it is Venice...one of the world's most glamorous destinations. Toronto, a city that put the ugh in urban, is m...
Woody Allen and Anthony Hopkins
For you stargazers, here is a list of the films that feature top rank film directors and acting talents that are premiering this week at the Toronto International Film Festival (and the talent that is here):
127 HOURS (Danny Boyle, Director; James Franco, Actor)
AMIGO (John Sayles, Director; Chris Cooper, Actor)
ANOTHER YEAR (Mike Leigh, Director; Jim Broadbent, Actor)
THE BANG BANG CLUB (Ryan Phillipe, Actor)
BARNEY...
It is known as the playground of the rich and famous. In fact, it is the preferred summer holiday destination for U.S. Presidents (including Barack Obama and his family just two weeks ago). It is the tony enclave of Martha's Vineyard, an island off Cap Cod, Massachussets, that is hosting its 5th annual film festival this weekend.
The Festival is showcasing some of the strongest films from the festival circuit, bringing top flight independent and international films to both locals ...
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