Film Festival Circuit
Malcolm Venville’s 44 Inch Chest
SEFF Secures Spanish Releases for all Competition Winners
03/09/2010
With the release of Malcolm Venville’s 44 Inch Chest on Friday 3 September, Seville European Film Festival has remained true to its commitment of ensuring that every Festival prizewinning film is secured a domestic release. The policy is an extension of the festival’s support for films, ensuring that filmmakers are given every help they can in securing a life for their films beyong the festival ciruit.
The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Seville European Film Festival 2009. It was written by the writers of Sexy Beast, Luis Mellis and David Scinto, and starred John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson and Ian McShane.
44 Inch Chest is the last festival winning film to open commercially in Spain.The first was Garbo, which was awarded the Gold Giraldillo in the Eurodoc section. Last February saw the opening of Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, while a month later, Jessica Hausner’s Lourdes opened. Later, in July, Urszula Antoniak’s Nothing Personal opened.
All the awards at the Seville European Film Festival are intended to support a films’ distribution. The winners must open in Spain within a period of twelve months.
For more information on the 2010 festival, which runs from 5-13 November, go to: www.festivaldesevilla.com.
Ghent to Open with Madly in Love and World Soundtrack Discovery Nominees Announced
02/09/2010
The 37th edition of the Ghent Film Festival, which runs from 12-23 October, will open with Hilde Van Mieghem’s romantic comedy, Madly in Love. The film looks at the lives of four strong woman, from a teenager and her mother to her aunt and older sister who are all looking for happiness, albeit of very different kinds. It stars Veerle Dobbelaere, Wine Dierickx, Marie Vinck, Aline Van Hulle, Koen De Bouw, Koen De Graeve, Kevin Janssens, Jan Decleir and Huub Stapel. It is Van Mieghem’s third feature, after The Kiss in 2004 and Love Belongs To Everyone in 2006. The film was produced by Caviar and is distributed by Kinepolis Film Distribution. It will open theatrically from 8 December 2010.
Hilde Van Mieghem is the 7th Belgian director to open the Ghent Film Festival. Previous invitees have included Robbe De Hert, Stijn Coninx, Erik Van Looy and Felix van Groeningen.
In addition to 100 feature films and 30 short films Ghent Film Festival also presents a special exhibition about Jacques Tati in the Caermersklooster Provincial Cultural Centre, a one-off concert by masterful composer John Barry on 21 October in Kuipke Gent and the 10th World Soundtrack Awards on 23 October in Kuipke Gent.
The World Soundtrack Awards have also announced the group of nominees who will vie for the coveted Discovery of the Year Award, which has previously been won by Klaus Badelt, Antonio Pinto, Craig Armstrong, Michael Giacchino and Gustavo Santaolalla. Last year, The Reader composer Nico Muhly picked up the award.
This year’s nominees are:
Abel Korzeniowski - A Single Man
Hélène Muddiman - Skin
Atticus Ross - Book of Eli
Clinton Shorter - District 9
Sergey Yevtushenko - The Last Station
The Awards will take place on 23 October 2010.
For more information about Ghent Film Festival go to: www.filmfestival.be.
For more information about the World Soundtrack Awards, go to: www.worldsoundtrackacademy.com.
Jim Jarmusch and Docs aplenty at RIFF 2010
01/09/2010
One of American Independent cinema’s icons, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch will attend this year’s Reykjavik International Film Festival, which runs from 23 September – 3 October. The director of Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Broken Flowers and The Limits of Control, will be present for screenings of his work, as well as a special showing of his 1981 film, You are Not I, which he directed with his wife, Sara Driver, who will also be present.
Over 100 films will screen at RIFF this year, with 98 titles confirmed so far. Of these, 13 titles will feature as part of the Doc Focus. The featured titles are:
About Face: The Story Of Gwendellin Bradshaw (USA, 2009)
On a chilly Alaskan summer night in 1980, 10 month old Gwendellin Bradshaw was placed on top of a campfire by her mentally distraught mother. Given a 50-50 chance of surviving, she barely made it. Now 24 years later, Gwen is left with figuring out how to live with her physical and emotional scars and believes that finding mom is central to her healing. Her journey is an emotional path which leads her to find her own beauty and purpose in life.
Addicted In Afghanistan (UK, 2009)
1 million Afghans are estimated to be addicted to drugs, especially heroin. Alarmingly, 40% of these are women and children. "Addicted in Afghanistan" is an intimate observational documentary that explores the heart-breaking reality behind the headlines as seen through the eyes of Jabar & Zahir, two 15 year old drug addicts living in Kabul. "Addicted in Afghanistan" is an intimate and uncompromising portrayal, filmed over a year, of the day to day struggles of a new generation of children addicted to heroin, trying to find their way in the new Afghanistan.
Everyday But Sunday (UK/Ethiopia, 2009)
Hiwot Beyene is 12 years old and dreams of becoming a doctor. She lives in a small Ethiopian village with her parents and brothers in a two-room hut. Every morning she walks for an hour and a half to school to learn about farming, hygiene and health. After school, Hiwot spends hours on household chores till the evening, when she steals an hour to do her homework.
The Genius And The Boys (Sweden, 2009)
Carleton Gajdusek won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of prions – the particles that would emerge as the cause of Mad Cow disease – while working with a cannibal tribe on New Guinea. He was a star scientist. Over his years working amongst the tribes of the South Seas, he adopted 57 kids, bringing them to a new life in Washington DC. But, at the height of his career, rumors began to spread he was a pedophile. Gajdusek would argue that if sex with children was okay in their own cultures, he wasn’t wrong to join in. Gajdusek himself participates in the film, as well as some of the men and women who came to know him closely as children. The film also features Gajdusek’s own – never before released – films.
Housing (Italy, 2009)
People clinging, as though shipwrecked, to the walls of a house. This is a prevalent image in certain neighborhoods where a dwelling is the only thing people possess. For over twenty years in Bari no new public housing has been assigned. Meanwhile, three thousand families are on the waiting list. Inevitably, a silent war among the poor has broken out, a war in which squatters lay siege to the lodgings of anyone careless enough to leave home for a few hours too many, whether to visit a relative or to keep a hospital appointment. The squatters mainly target the houses of old or single people. They stake their claim on the basis that they are large families and, once they’re in, it’s difficult to make them leave.
La Casa / The House (Spain/Columbia, 2009)
The Mendez family has been living on occupied land in the hills outside Bogota for forty years. They can be legally evicted at any time. Every day they walk down to the city to collect scrap materials to sell, and leftovers from restaurants to feed their pigs. Victor has been married to Marta for ten years, but his mother Elvira has never approved of her. The conflict between these two women forces Victor to take sides and comes in the way of their efforts to earn a living. Dignity and courage come to the fore in a story about the impossibility of progress and the persistence of dreams for this family of scrap merchants.
Monica And David (USA, 2009)
Monica and David explores the marriage of two adults with Down syndrome and the family who strives to support their needs. Monica and David embody childlike spirits with adult desires; they are aware of their need for assistance, but they are also capable beyond traditional expectations. Behind the couple’s blissful love are two mothers who struggled against an intolerant world and, with this wedding, realize a dream.
All Boys (Finland, 2009)
All Boys is a film about human relationships in the gay porn business and about the production and consumption of porn. When men make gay porn with other men, to other men, who is the abuser and who is the abused?
The Edge Of Dreaming (UK/Scotland, 2009)
The Edge of Dreaming charts every step of that year. The film explores life and death in the context of a warm and loving family, whose happiness is increasingly threatened as the dream seems to be proving true. From the kids reaction to their horses’ death (they taught the dog a new trick - called ‘dead dog’), the film mixes humour, science and married life as Amy attempts to understand what is happening to her.
Today Is Better Than Two Tomorrows (Ireland, 2009)
Filmed over the course of four years in an unknown corner of Laos, Today Is Better than Two Tomorrows tells the simple story of friendship between two boys, Leh and Bo, who leave home at age eleven to become novice monks. Director Anna Rodgers started this film as a young Irish backpacker who happened upon this family and spent years with no crew or translator determined to bring their enchanting story to life. One of the few documentaries to come out of Laos, Today Is Better than Two Tomorrows presents a rare window onto a unique and fading culture.
Which Way Home (USA, 2009)
A feature documentary film that follows unaccompanied child migrants on their journey through Mexico, as they try to reach the United States. These are children like Olga and Freddy, nine-yearold Hondurans, who are desperately trying to reach their parents in the United States; children like Jose, a ten-year-old El Salvadoran, who has been abandoned by smugglers and ends up alone in a Mexican detention center; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise fourteen-year-old Honduran whose mother hopes that he will reach the US and send money back to her. These are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow.
Pilgrimage (Canada, 2009)
A road-movie about movies, renowned docu-maker Peter Wintonick and his 20-year-old media-making daughter Mira, take a trip across film history and media’s future, questioning how different generations view, use or make their own film, images, sound and media.
The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant (USA, 2009)
This short documentary focuses on the workers of the General Motors Assembly Plant in Moraine, Ohio. We meet and follow workers from the announcement that the Plant will be closing, to its last day on December 23, 2008, just two days before Christmas. While the workers are shocked that they will be losing their jobs, we quickly see they are also losing much more: the pride they share in their work, the camaraderie built through the years, and the shared concerns about what their collective futures will hold.
Sheffield Doc/Fest to open with Joan Rivers
01/09/2010
Doc/Fest has announced that it will open this year’s festival, which begins on 3 November, with Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg ‘s entertaining profile of the American comedienne, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. The festival’s director, Heather Croall, commented, ‘as soon as I got word from Sundance about Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work I knew this could make the perfect opening event for Doc/Fest. When I saw it at Tribeca I knew we had to have it! We’re delighted to have the UK premiere of Ricki and Annie’s film and to have Joan Rivers attend with them. With almost 2,000 industry delegates and thousands of general public Doc/Fest is the best possible launch pad for the film in the UK and Europe.’
Stern and Sunberg, who had previously directed The End of America and The Devil Came on Horseback, were equally happy with the invite, ‘we are thrilled to premiere Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work in the UK at Sheffield Doc/Fest. During the course of making the film, we filmed for several weeks in the UK and Joan’s audiences are always a blast! Having Joan with us at the festival is going to make the event all the more special and fun.’
Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work delves into the personal dramas of one of America’s most controversial comedy figures as she battles to retain her position in the top league of comedy performers. The film also offers an exploration into the world of comedy and the process behind it.
The film will also screen on 5 November and there will be a masterclass with the directors. It will screen on More4 as part of the True Stories strand on 9 November.
Sheffield Doc/Fest runs from 3-7 November 2010. Tickets for the festival go on sale from 4 October. For more information, go to: sheffdocfest.com.
