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...
September 25th, 2010 § Leave a Comment“Waiting for Mark Zuckerberg”Article by Sharon AbellaIronically, Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary, “Waiting for Superman”, a film about America’s failing school systems, opened the same week that co-founder of “Facebook”, Mark Zuckerberg, is about to have his reputation tarnished as a result of the way he was portrayed in the film “Social Network”. Just days before the film’s premiere at “The New York Film Festival”, Mark do...
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...
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...
It may only be July, but already news is beginning to filter out about one of the major events of the Fall film season. The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced that THE SOCIAL NETWORK, the newest fiilm from Oscar-nominated director David Fincher has been selected as the Opening Night film for the 48th Annual New York Film Festival.
The Festival will open at the recently refurbished Alice Tully Hall on the evening of Friday September 24th. The announcement is the first in ...
Times Square may have dodged a car bomb, but now another explosive event is being planned for New York's theater district that's sure to go off. Expect sizzle and smoke August 12 to 19, 2010, when the New York City International Film Festival gets its launch in tourism ground zero.
I just came back from two hours with the man who's behind the plot. Manhattan already has the New York Film Festival and the Tribeca and Gen Art -- whoops, not Gen Art -- and 50 or so other movie pageants, but ...
Do you remember when you were a little kid and you heard that the circus was coming to town? For me, it is a warm and still excitable feeling. Well, as a jaded adult, such simple pleasures are not supposed to create a sense of excitement (been there, done that) but the arrival (sound the trumpets!!!) of the Tribeca Film Festival this week is cause for circus-like jubilation. OK, let's get the jaded criticism out of the way.....the Tribeca Film Festival, formed 9 years ago as a stimulus for the d...
Do you remember when you were a little kid and you heard that the circus was coming to town? For me, it is a warm and still excitable feeling. Well, as a jaded adult, such simple pleasures are not supposed to create a sense of excitement (been there, done that) but the arrival (sound the trumpets!!!) of the Tribeca Film Festival this week is cause for circus-like jubilation.
OK, let's get the jaded criticism out of the way.....the Tribeca Film Festival, formed 9 years ago as a sti...
Do you remember when you were a little kid and you heard that the circus was coming to town? For me, it is a warm and still excitable feeling. Well, as a jaded adult, such simple pleasures are not supposed to create a sense of excitement (been there, done that) but the arrival (sound the trumpets!!!) of the Tribeca Film Festival this week is a cause for circus-like jubilation.
OK, let's get the jaded criticism out of the way.....the Tribeca Film Festival, formed 9 years ago as a ...
by Marla Lewin
I attended the Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas and there were many interesting talks and panels presented. Most were aimed directly at teaching how to run and program a film festival. The most important function of the event however was to provide networking opportunities for festival directors and programmers to meet with their peers in a casual environment. We will be posting more reports from this event shortly. First up is a talk by Rajendra Roy Chief Curator ...
Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, announced today that esteemed Newsweek film critic David Ansen is joining the organization as Artistic Director of the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival.
Senior Programmer Doug Jones has been promoted to Associate Director of Programming for the Los Angeles Film Festival.
"As a consummate movie lover, David is one of the finest critics thinking, watching, and writin...
It doesn’t get much better than this…..the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which presents the New York Film Festival each Fall, is in the midst of a revelatory review of one of the major film movements of the 20th century, presenting a list of acknowledged classics along with previously unknown (at least to me) gems. ITALIAN NEOREALISM AND THE BIRTH OF MODERN CINEMA is an exhaustive look at the cinema that flourished in Italy in the post-war period and that still remains a high poi...
Interview with New York Film Festival Program Director Richard Pena By Maria Esteves - October 26, 2009 Dedicated to the loving memory of Florence Perlow Shientag (September 9, 1908 - October 7, 2009)As Lincoln Center celebrates it's 50th Anniversary (October 15, 2009 - January 16, 2010), Richard Pena (RP) program director and chairman of the selection committee at The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Italian Neorealism and the Birth of Modern Cinema at the Walter Reade Theater, October 3...
By Maria Esteves - October 26, 2009Dedicated to the loving memory of Florence Perlow Shientag (September 9, 1908 - October 7, 2009)As Lincoln Center celebrates it's 50th Anniversary (October 15, 2009 - January 16, 2010), Richard Pena (RP) program director and chairman of the selection committee at The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Italian Neorealism and the Birth of Modern Cinema at the Walter Reade Theater, October 30 - November 24, 2009. Pena discovered his love of film early in l...
Presenting 28 feature and documentary productions the 47th edition of the New York Film Festival running from September 25 through October 11, certainly retained its standing as the premier US showcase for the international films and for presenting the best emerging and recognized international film directors. Culled this year mostly from other festivals the NYFF had few films from the United States (THE ART OF THE STEAL, Don Argott; SWEETGRASS, Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaign-Taylor; L...
With the continued appeal of Bollywood and last year’s Oscar win by SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the history of Indian cinema is en vogue. This year as part of its Masterworks section, the New York Film Festival is offering the first compete New York retrospective of the works of Indian film artist Guru Dutt. Born in 1925, Dutt was an Indian film director, producer and actor, who is often credited with ushering in the golden era of Hindi cinema. He made quintessential 1950s and 1960s classics such ...
Oscar, meet Precious........the Academy Awards have just gotten their first blast of ghetto love with the rising tides surrounding the urban drama PRECIOUS: Based On A Novel By Sapphire by producer-turned-director Lee Daniels. The film, a major hit out of Sundance and screening as the Centerpiece Film this past weekend at the New York Film Festival, is getting some of the hottest reviews of the year and positioning its director, screenwriter, actors and techicians into the Oscar gold circle. The...
Guru Dutt in PYAASA (1957)
With the continued appeal of Bollywood and last year’s Oscar win by SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the history of Indian cinema is en vogue. This year as part of its Masterworks section, the New York Film Festival is offering the first compete New York retrospective of the works of Indian film artist Guru Dutt.
Born in 1925, Dutt was an Indian film director, producer and actor, who is often credited with ushering in the golden era of...
Penelope Cruz in BROKEN EMBRACES (Spain)
The New York Film Festival, which enters its final weekend today, has presented a program with a large emphasis on European cinema. With a strong showing of films from Portugal (http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/filmnewyork/a_peek_at_portugese_cinema_at_nyff) and
France (http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/filmnewyork/the_french_invasion_of_new_york), the Festival finds that contemporary European cinema from other nations not only has...
It's been nearly five years since Todd Solondz, one of American independent cinema's most respected (and controversial) auteurs, has been seen at a film festival. His last film PALINDROMES (2004) premiered at the Venice Film Festival but was roundly hissed by most film critics and its subsequent release was very anemic. After his earlier successes, including his debut WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995), the heartfelt and uncomfortably intimate HAPPINESS (1998) and the less well receive...
Oscar, meet Precious........the Academy Awards have just gotten their first blast of ghetto love with the rising tides surrounding the urban drama PRECIOUS: Based On A Novel By Sapphire by producer-turned-director Lee Daniels. The film, a major hit out of Sundance and screening as the Centerpiece Film this past weekend at the New York Film Festival, is getting some of the hottest reviews of the year and positioning its director, screenwriter, actors and techicians into the Oscar gold ...
TREES OF SYNTAX
The New York Film Festival, which features the latest works from established masters, also is a vehicle for introducing curious audiences to more challenging work by new film artists. This weekend, the Festival is hosting its annual avant-garde showcase that holds some of this event's most memorable programming.
The 13th edition of VIEWS FROM THE AVANT GARDE will showcase features eleven programs. A total of 61 works will be presented, 21 by artists being s...
The horrors of war and the toll that it takes on both civilians and the soldiers themselves are film topics that, unfortunately, never go out of style. While it can be argued that audiences tend to stay away from such strong fare, a film that brings the audience to the center of the action and that involves it emotionally has a better chance to transcend the grimness of the material and make an impact with what is often a reluctant public.
LEBANON, the new Israeli film by Samuel M...
The New York Film Festival provides extraordinary access to some of world cinema's most interesting film talents via the HBO Films Directors Dialogue Series. Among those who are participating (all of whom have films in the festival proper):
MARCO BELLOCCHIO
With a career that spans the heyday of 60s Italian art cinema (Fists in the Pocket, China is Near) to religion (My Mother’s Smile, NYFF 2002) to political drama (Good Morning, Night, NYFF 2003 and this year’s Vincere), Marco B...
The New York Film Festival provides extraordinary access to some of world cinema's most interesting film talents via the HBO Films Directors Dialogue Series. Among those who are participating (all of whom have films in the festival proper): MARCO BELLOCCHIO With a career that spans the heyday of 60s Italian art cinema (Fists in the Pocket, China is Near) to religion (My Mother’s Smile, NYFF 2002) to political drama (Good Morning, Night, NYFF 2003 and this year’s Vincere), Marco Bellocchio ha...
