The first annual Baja International Film Festival, to be held November 14-17 in Cabo, Mexico, has announced the inaugural year’s award recipients.. Award’s will be presented to two-time Academy Award-nominee Edward Norton, Academy Award –nominee Virginia Madsen, iconic filmmaker and former President of the Directors Guild of America Michael Apted, celebrated actor Diego Luna, Academy Award-winner Melissa Leo,  acclaimed director Nicolas Echevarria, and  Academ...

 Monday, April 30-------While the narrative offerings at the Tribeca Film Festival remain an oil-and-water mix of glossy Hollywood product and uneven independent fare, the documentaries on tap are refreshingly nimble and powerful. Three docs seen this past weekend illustrate the top-flight work being done by non-fiction masters and newcomers at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.The master is UK director Michael Apted, who is one of the rare filmmakers who have simultaneously invigorating c...

 Sunday, April 29-------While the narrative offerings at the Tribeca Film Festival remain an oil-and-water mix of glossy Hollywood product and uneven independent fare, the documentaries on tap are refreshingly nimble and powerful. Three docs seen this past weekend illustrate the top-flight work being done by non-fiction masters and newcomers at this year's Tribeca Film Festival.The master is UK director Michael Apted, who is one of the rare filmmakers who have simultaneously invigorating c...

Film festivals come in various shapes, sizes, formats and orientations. The currently ongoing 22nd installment of the Santa Barbara Film Festival is a bit off-beat in certain aspects. Lasting eleven days and presenting some 200 films it is certainly not small -- more like "medium to large." In terms of importance, however, while it is not considered to be quite in the same class as the North-American majors, Sundance, Telluride, Chicago, New York, Toronto and Montreal, it can nevertheless ce...

Director Michael Apted ("Nell") began documenting the lives of 14 children in 1964 and has returned to them every seven years since. The first film, "7UP", produced for British television, began as an examination of the class system. These kids were from both upper and lower income families; they were either spoon fed or forced to struggle day by day just to survive. The thesis was originally to discover what kind of benefit or hindrance this class system would inspire in their development as ad...

The 2007 Santa Barbara International Film Festival announces their slate of films for the 22nd installment. The festival, which welcomes Chrysler and The New Yorker as Premiere Sponsors, takes place over 11 days beginning Thursday, January 25, through Sunday, February 4, and will feature 22 World Premieres, 18 US Premieres, and introduce films from 40 countries. “This is the most ambitious and most diverse line up of events and films the Festival has ever had,” commented SBIFF Director Ro...

Tuesday, November 28---Director Michael Apted swung into Amsterdam for a brief junket, mainly to introduce the screening of his latest film MARRIED IN AMERICA 2, the second entry in his ambitious series about being married in america. The film had its world premiere at IDFA on Sunday evening. Following the same methodology that he has used in his very successful 7 UP series (which has been following the same group of people every seven years since they were seven), MARRIED IN AMERICA 2 follow...

Friday, November 24---Among the more than 2000 international guests expected at the International Documentary Filmfestival Amsterdam (IDFA), which opened last evening, are veteran directors Michael Apted and Jennifer Fox, both of whom have new film projects making their debuts at the event. Michael Apted, whose career has embraced both narrative and documentary features, will be giving a Press Conference on Monday, November 27 at the Salon de Balie, IDFA's headquarters. Apted will be represen...

Thursday, October 5----Certainly one of the most unique film series of all time has been the "UP" series of documentaries that have chronicled the lives of 12 protagonists at age 7 through to their current age of 49. The series, which began with the landmark television documentary 7 UP, made by Granada Television in 1964, and continues with the newest entry 49 UP, has been the on-going obsession of UK director Michael Apted. He worked on the first film as a researcher, but starting with 7 PLU...

Wednesday, June 7---Inspired by the seminal 7 UP films of British director Michael Apted, which followed the same group of youngsters at ages 7, 14 and 21, the SILVERDOCS AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival will present the premiere of 21 UP AMERICA, directed by Christopher Quinn. The film is the third installment in a series that has recorded the same subjects at ages 7 and 14, and now turns its focus on what it is like to be 21 in America today. The film provides a provocative case s...

Expanded stories in Moving Pictures Nov 11 issue- Mifed Conference (Nov 10) on next fall Markets conflict situation.Conference was packed with media and attended by MIFED execs and Minister Urbani asking for a cease fire with “other” Market.Too bad conference was not held in English.- The Scheherazade conflictThe Michael Apted film Scheherazade is at the center of a bizarre conflict between Recorded Picture company and Franchise Pictures- 11 deals closed at MIFED by Tuchin EntertainmentFilm...