Mickey Cottrell, the beloved indie film publicist and producer who long championed independent cinema dating back to the early days of Sundance, has died at 79. He passed away Monday, January 1, 2024 at Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills, Calif. The news was confirmed by his sister, Suzy Cottrell-Smith, who shared on Facebook, “My adorable, fun, critical, foodie, particular, brilliant, loving brother passed on to the next life early on New Year’s Day. He was smiling when he died. Mickey Cottrell will be missed by many.”
Many of Cottrell’s friends and colleagues shared memories of the veteran PR whiz — who also had many credits as an actor — on Facebook. Cottrell suffered a stroke in 2016, with friends and loved ones raising more than $57,000 to help with medical bills on GoFundMe. He relocated back to Los Angeles in 2019 after recovering from the stroke with his sister in Arkansas.
Cottrell was never afraid to pick up the phone,...
Many of Cottrell’s friends and colleagues shared memories of the veteran PR whiz — who also had many credits as an actor — on Facebook. Cottrell suffered a stroke in 2016, with friends and loved ones raising more than $57,000 to help with medical bills on GoFundMe. He relocated back to Los Angeles in 2019 after recovering from the stroke with his sister in Arkansas.
Cottrell was never afraid to pick up the phone,...
- 1/3/2024
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Mickey Cottrell, a veteran publicist for independent films known as a champion of filmmakers and actors, died Monday at the Motion Picture Hospital in Woodland Hills, his sister Suzy Cottrell confirmed. He was 79.
Cottrell had returned to Los Angeles in 2019 after living with his sister in Arkansas while he recovered from a stroke he suffered in 2016.
His sister remembered him on Facebook, writing, “My adorable, fun, critical, foodie, particular, brilliant, loving brother passed on to the next life early on New Year’s Day. He was smiling when he died. Mickey Cottrell will be missed by many.”
A fixture at film festivals, he was remembered by friends on Facebook as a generous and sassy raconteur, a devoted mentor, the “life of the party” who threw star-studded Sundance parties in the 1990s and an expert on gay Hollywood history.
Cottrell also acted in numerous small roles over the years, including turns...
Cottrell had returned to Los Angeles in 2019 after living with his sister in Arkansas while he recovered from a stroke he suffered in 2016.
His sister remembered him on Facebook, writing, “My adorable, fun, critical, foodie, particular, brilliant, loving brother passed on to the next life early on New Year’s Day. He was smiling when he died. Mickey Cottrell will be missed by many.”
A fixture at film festivals, he was remembered by friends on Facebook as a generous and sassy raconteur, a devoted mentor, the “life of the party” who threw star-studded Sundance parties in the 1990s and an expert on gay Hollywood history.
Cottrell also acted in numerous small roles over the years, including turns...
- 1/2/2024
- by Pat Saperstein
- Variety Film + TV
Shockingly (as the films I adore usually fly under the radar) but deservedly, this year’s winner of the Best International Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs, first-time feature director Christian Einshøj’s The Mountains, proved to be a prime example of my mantra that the smaller and more specific the story, the more universal the reach. Influenced by Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (it thrills me just to type that), and also Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, the doc is equal parts oddball charming and emotionally devastating. As the (very specific) logline puts it: “Armed with 30 years of home video, 75,000 family photos […]
The post “The Result of On-Camera Conversations Spanning 15 Years”: Christian Einshøj on The Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Result of On-Camera Conversations Spanning 15 Years”: Christian Einshøj on The Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 6/14/2023
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Shockingly (as the films I adore usually fly under the radar) but deservedly, this year’s winner of the Best International Feature Documentary Award at Hot Docs, first-time feature director Christian Einshøj’s The Mountains, proved to be a prime example of my mantra that the smaller and more specific the story, the more universal the reach. Influenced by Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March (it thrills me just to type that), and also Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation, the doc is equal parts oddball charming and emotionally devastating. As the (very specific) logline puts it: “Armed with 30 years of home video, 75,000 family photos […]
The post “The Result of On-Camera Conversations Spanning 15 Years”: Christian Einshøj on The Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “The Result of On-Camera Conversations Spanning 15 Years”: Christian Einshøj on The Mountains first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 6/14/2023
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Jonathan Caouette, director of the award-winning autobiographical documentary “Tarnation,” is seeking donations to help cover the expenses of serious medical issues.
Friends of Caouette, including Marie Therese Guirgis, Stephen Winter, Brian Kates, John Cameron Mitchell and Gus Van Sant have helped organize a GoFundMe to help gather donations.
Caouette updated the fundraiser Monday stating that he is nearing a diagnosis of an underlying cause and is awaiting Mri results.
“Over the last several years Jonathan’s health has taken a very bad turn. He’s had a very serious and devastating infection that’s compromised all of his teeth, as well as several other serious and worrying chronic illnesses,” wrote Guirgis in the GoFundMe.
“Jonathan has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital, seen countless doctors, and received a great deal of medical treatment. Besides the excruciating physical pain and accompanying mental anguish, the loss of...
Friends of Caouette, including Marie Therese Guirgis, Stephen Winter, Brian Kates, John Cameron Mitchell and Gus Van Sant have helped organize a GoFundMe to help gather donations.
Caouette updated the fundraiser Monday stating that he is nearing a diagnosis of an underlying cause and is awaiting Mri results.
“Over the last several years Jonathan’s health has taken a very bad turn. He’s had a very serious and devastating infection that’s compromised all of his teeth, as well as several other serious and worrying chronic illnesses,” wrote Guirgis in the GoFundMe.
“Jonathan has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital, seen countless doctors, and received a great deal of medical treatment. Besides the excruciating physical pain and accompanying mental anguish, the loss of...
- 4/19/2023
- by Sophia Scorziello
- Variety Film + TV
Jonathan Caouette, the director whose breakthrough experimental personal doc Tarnation (2004) has proved both tremendously influential but never really matched in terms of formal inventiveness and emotional intensity, is facing significant health challenges, and friends and supporters have launched a GoFundMe to help. Marie Therese Guirgis, Stephen Winter, Brian Kates, John Cameron Mitchell, and Gus Van Sant are behind the fundraiser, which is currently just over midway to its $60,000 goal. Treatment is occurring abroad, and funds raised will go towards “crucial surgeries and medical care, his outstanding medical bills, and his living expenses while he undergoes this long and delicate process […]
The post GoFundMe Launches to Support Tarnation Director Jonathan Caouette’s Medical Expenses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post GoFundMe Launches to Support Tarnation Director Jonathan Caouette’s Medical Expenses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/11/2023
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Jonathan Caouette, the director whose breakthrough experimental personal doc Tarnation (2004) has proved both tremendously influential but never really matched in terms of formal inventiveness and emotional intensity, is facing significant health challenges, and friends and supporters have launched a GoFundMe to help. Marie Therese Guirgis, Stephen Winter, Brian Kates, John Cameron Mitchell, and Gus Van Sant are behind the fundraiser, which is currently just over midway to its $60,000 goal. Treatment is occurring abroad, and funds raised will go towards “crucial surgeries and medical care, his outstanding medical bills, and his living expenses while he undergoes this long and delicate process […]
The post GoFundMe Launches to Support Tarnation Director Jonathan Caouette’s Medical Expenses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post GoFundMe Launches to Support Tarnation Director Jonathan Caouette’s Medical Expenses first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/11/2023
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Jonathan Caouette, the visionary documentarian behind movie memoir “Tarnation,” is currently seeking donations for medical treatment.
In a GoFundMe page set up by producers Marie Therese Guirgis, John Cameron Mitchell, Gus Van Sant, and Stephen Winter, Caouette’s chronic condition has been detailed.
“Over the last several years Jonathan’s health has taken a very bad turn,” Guirgis wrote. “He’s had a very serious and devastating infection that’s compromised all of his teeth, as well as several other serious and worrying chronic illnesses. Jonathan has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital, seen countless doctors, and received a great deal of medical treatment. Besides the excruciating physical pain and accompanying mental anguish, the loss of Jonathan’s teeth and the brutal infection in his mouth has meant that he’s been unable to work or even really leave the house. He’s had to...
In a GoFundMe page set up by producers Marie Therese Guirgis, John Cameron Mitchell, Gus Van Sant, and Stephen Winter, Caouette’s chronic condition has been detailed.
“Over the last several years Jonathan’s health has taken a very bad turn,” Guirgis wrote. “He’s had a very serious and devastating infection that’s compromised all of his teeth, as well as several other serious and worrying chronic illnesses. Jonathan has spent the last few years in and out of the hospital, seen countless doctors, and received a great deal of medical treatment. Besides the excruciating physical pain and accompanying mental anguish, the loss of Jonathan’s teeth and the brutal infection in his mouth has meant that he’s been unable to work or even really leave the house. He’s had to...
- 2/7/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Mubi is kicking off the new year with a selection of our 2021 highlights, including some of which haven’t picked up proper distribution yet. Most notably, their own release, Alexandre Koberidze’s dazzling What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?, will premiere along with a New Voices in Georgian Cinema series. Also arriving is Salomé Jashi’s Taming the Garden, Ana Katz’s The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet, Alex Camilleri’s Luzzu, and Nino Martínez Sosa’s Liborio.
As part of a series of first films, they’ll also feature works from Janicza Bravo, Noah Baumbach, Garrett Bradley, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Terry Gilliam, and more. A double bill of Federico Fellini classics, Nights of Cabiria and The White Sheik, will also come to the platform.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
January 1 | Kicking & Screaming | Noah Baumbach | First Films First
January...
As part of a series of first films, they’ll also feature works from Janicza Bravo, Noah Baumbach, Garrett Bradley, Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Terry Gilliam, and more. A double bill of Federico Fellini classics, Nights of Cabiria and The White Sheik, will also come to the platform.
Check out the lineup below and get 30 days free here.
January 1 | Kicking & Screaming | Noah Baumbach | First Films First
January...
- 12/17/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Stars: Asia Argento, Franco Nero, Jonathan Caouette, Nick Daly, Ninetto Davoli, Giulia Di Quilio, Monica Guerritore, Rade Serbedzija | Written by Michele Civetta, Joseph Schuman | Directed by Michele Civetta
Sometimes I feel a little sorry for low budget horror film makers today. Dial it back 30 years, you could make an incompetent piece of cinema, but put in enough hokey bloodletting, regardless of how laughably unrealistic those sausage string guts were, and you might well have a money-spinning film on your hands. Even objectively poor films like Driller Killer managed to (very deliberately) whip up enough conservative anger to ensure that a poorly made, dull film became widely seen, and naturally far more successful as a result.
Today, blood is not nearly enough. Some of the films I see today with a 15 certificate would have faced heavy censure back in the Mary Whitehouse days of video nasties. A time when films would...
Sometimes I feel a little sorry for low budget horror film makers today. Dial it back 30 years, you could make an incompetent piece of cinema, but put in enough hokey bloodletting, regardless of how laughably unrealistic those sausage string guts were, and you might well have a money-spinning film on your hands. Even objectively poor films like Driller Killer managed to (very deliberately) whip up enough conservative anger to ensure that a poorly made, dull film became widely seen, and naturally far more successful as a result.
Today, blood is not nearly enough. Some of the films I see today with a 15 certificate would have faced heavy censure back in the Mary Whitehouse days of video nasties. A time when films would...
- 7/9/2021
- by Chris Thomas
- Nerdly
David Wojnarowicz, a key figure of the 1980s art movement that flowered in the pavement cracks of New York’s pre-gentrified East Village, died of AIDS in 1992 at age 37. But Chris McKim’s defiantly alive collage documentary, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, is so charged with the words and images of the multimedia artist it could almost be considered self-portraiture, often recalling Jonathan Caouette’s remarkable docu-narrative hybrid Tarnation. Assembled from the photographs, paintings and audio and video journals that Wojnarowicz recorded for most of his life, this impassioned personal testament should continue the work of the Whitney Museum’s ...
- 11/9/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
David Wojnarowicz, a key figure of the 1980s art movement that flowered in the pavement cracks of New York’s pre-gentrified East Village, died of AIDS in 1992 at age 37. But Chris McKim’s defiantly alive collage documentary, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, is so charged with the words and images of the multimedia artist it could almost be considered self-portraiture, often recalling Jonathan Caouette’s remarkable docu-narrative hybrid Tarnation. Assembled from the photographs, paintings and audio and video journals that Wojnarowicz recorded for most of his life, this impassioned personal testament should continue the work of the Whitney Museum’s ...
- 11/9/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The coronavirus pandemic is still going on, and shutdowns are being lifted oh so gently. That generally means two things: go outside with a mask on while strafing away from passersby on the sidewalk, or stay in and watch stuff. Luckily, The Criterion Channel has announced its June 2020 lineup, which is full of things old and new.
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
- 5/20/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
Few filmmakers are so acutely skilled at bringing the interior lives and personal pains of young men to life as “Tarnation” filmmaker Jonathan Caouette, who so memorably did just that with his own lauded feature debut: the 2003 documentary “Tarnation.” Since the introduction of both “Tarnation” and Caouette to the indie film scene, the filmmaker has spent most of his creative time working on both music-centric offerings, like co-directing the festival-focused “All Tomorrow’s Parties,” and continuing to reexamine his own experiences through deeply personal docs, like “Walk Away Renee,” which again focused on his relationship with his mother.
Next up: a smart marrying of his interests, care of a brand-new music video for Nyles Lannon (formerly known as N. Lannon), which uses memory, inventive filmmaking, and a clear love for music to tell a story about one boy growing up and, per the song’s own title, “hiding” in some complex ways.
Next up: a smart marrying of his interests, care of a brand-new music video for Nyles Lannon (formerly known as N. Lannon), which uses memory, inventive filmmaking, and a clear love for music to tell a story about one boy growing up and, per the song’s own title, “hiding” in some complex ways.
- 2/27/2019
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Amanda Seyfried as Mary in First Reformed Sundance London has announced additions to its programme, including Paul Shrader's First Reformed, starring Amanda Seyfried and Ethan Hawke.
The festival - which will run from May 31 to June 3 at Picturehouse Central in London has also announced a programme selection entitled Films That Made Me, which will feature movies that inspured the work of Jennifer Fox, Debra Granik and Desiree Akhavan - all of whom have films screening at the event.
Thriller First Reformed stars Hawke as a Reform church pasotr forced to confront his tormented past. It is an unusual addition to the programme in that it did not screen at Sundance in January.
The Films That Made Me selection sees The Tale director Fox select Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation from 2003. Granik, whose Leave No Trace will screen at the festival, has chosen Celine Sciamma's 2014 film Girlhood and The Miseducation Of Cameron Post helmer Akhavan.
The festival - which will run from May 31 to June 3 at Picturehouse Central in London has also announced a programme selection entitled Films That Made Me, which will feature movies that inspured the work of Jennifer Fox, Debra Granik and Desiree Akhavan - all of whom have films screening at the event.
Thriller First Reformed stars Hawke as a Reform church pasotr forced to confront his tormented past. It is an unusual addition to the programme in that it did not screen at Sundance in January.
The Films That Made Me selection sees The Tale director Fox select Jonathan Caouette's Tarnation from 2003. Granik, whose Leave No Trace will screen at the festival, has chosen Celine Sciamma's 2014 film Girlhood and The Miseducation Of Cameron Post helmer Akhavan.
- 4/28/2018
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
New additions include a ‘Films That Made Me’ strand featuring Jennifer Fox, Debra Granik and Desiree Akhavan.
Sundance London (May 31-June 3) has topped up its programme ahead of its sixth edition, which will be held at Picturehouse Central in London.
The new additions include the UK premiere of First Reformed, Paul Schrader’s thriller about a pastor experiencing a crisis of faith, starring Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise).
Unlike most Sundance London titles, it did not screen in Utah this January, instead premiering at Venice Film Festival in August 2017. Hawke will be present for an extended introduction before the film.
Also...
Sundance London (May 31-June 3) has topped up its programme ahead of its sixth edition, which will be held at Picturehouse Central in London.
The new additions include the UK premiere of First Reformed, Paul Schrader’s thriller about a pastor experiencing a crisis of faith, starring Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise).
Unlike most Sundance London titles, it did not screen in Utah this January, instead premiering at Venice Film Festival in August 2017. Hawke will be present for an extended introduction before the film.
Also...
- 4/27/2018
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Karen Guthrie documents the surprise return of her estranged father, and reveals much about family dynamics in the process
This exceptionally candid documentary – perhaps the closest British equivalent to Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation – transforms the camera into a therapeutic tool to reassess a complex family history. Recalled home to Largs after her mother suffers a stroke, film-maker Karen Guthrie encounters a surprise houseguest: her estranged father, Ian, returning to the fold years after starting an affair while working in Djibouti in north-east Africa. Given the relation between director and subjects, we expect the heightened intimacy, but here the subsequent silences, awkward small talk and sudden emotional outpourings have been stitched into an epic chamber play. There have been few more perceptive and empathetic non-fiction portraits of the hold a particular kind of patrician male can exert over those around them. Some scenes, inevitably, make painful viewing, but Guthrie proves fearless...
This exceptionally candid documentary – perhaps the closest British equivalent to Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation – transforms the camera into a therapeutic tool to reassess a complex family history. Recalled home to Largs after her mother suffers a stroke, film-maker Karen Guthrie encounters a surprise houseguest: her estranged father, Ian, returning to the fold years after starting an affair while working in Djibouti in north-east Africa. Given the relation between director and subjects, we expect the heightened intimacy, but here the subsequent silences, awkward small talk and sudden emotional outpourings have been stitched into an epic chamber play. There have been few more perceptive and empathetic non-fiction portraits of the hold a particular kind of patrician male can exert over those around them. Some scenes, inevitably, make painful viewing, but Guthrie proves fearless...
- 11/5/2015
- by Mike McCahill
- The Guardian - Film News
Patching together portraits of his beloved Portland streets, bits of Shakespeare’s Henry IV via Welles’ tumultuous Chimes at Midnight, and vignettes of a narcoleptic vagabond hustler whose motherless anxieties send him travelling through time and space in shimmeringly nostalgic deep sleep, Gus Van Sant‘s My Own Private Idaho is a wildly original amalgam of cultural references and personal investments that transcend a mere tip of the hat. Riding high in the wake of Drugstore Cowboy‘s Hollywood success, Van Sant convinced River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves, two rising Tinseltown heart-throbs, to take a serious risk, committing themselves, against the loudly voiced opinions of their agents, to a pair of overtly homosexual roles in a film that opens with an off-screen blowjob. After River was awarded the prizes for Best Actor from the Venice International Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Awards and the National Society of Film Critics Awards...
- 10/20/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
The premiere post-tiff destination (September 20-25th) in the film community and a major leg up for narrative and non-fiction films in development, the Independent Filmmaker Project (Ifp) announced a whopping 140 projects selected for the Project Forum at the upcoming Ifp Independent Film Week. Made up of several sections (Rbc’s Emerging Storytellers program, No Borders International Co-Production Market and Spotlight on Documentaries), we find latest updates from the likes of docu-helmers Doug Block (112 Weddings) and Lana Wilson (After Tiller), and among the narrative items we find headliners in Andrew Haigh (coming off the well received 45 Years), Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls and Madame Bovary), Terence Nance (An Oversimplification of Her Beauty), Lawrence Michael Levine (Wild Canaries), Jorge Michel Grau (We Are What We Are), Eleanor Burke and Ron Eyal (Stranger Things) and new faces in Sundance’s large family in Charles Poekel (Christmas, Again) and Olivia Newman (First Match). Here...
- 7/22/2015
- by admin
- IONCINEMA.com
Throwback
Stars: Shawn Brack, Anthony Ring, Melanie Serafin, Vernon Wells, Warren Clements, Andy Bramble | Written and Directed by Travis Bain
There’s seems to be a renaissance in Ozploitation for the bigfoot movie (more commonly known as the Yowie down under), a genre which had, until very recently, died a slow an painful death, becoming as extinct as the very creatures themselves. Of course, if you’ve been reading our reviews here on Nerdly, you’ll know all about There’s Something in the Pilliga – the brilliantly funny “drunk Aussie’s versus Yowie” flick that played last Novembers MonsterFest. Well now we have another example of the genre with Throwback.
The film sees two pest exterminators head into the bush to search for the legendary lost treasure of the bushranger, Thunderclap Newman . The pair find their bounty but what they didn’t count on was an encounter with Australia’s mythical Yowie,...
Stars: Shawn Brack, Anthony Ring, Melanie Serafin, Vernon Wells, Warren Clements, Andy Bramble | Written and Directed by Travis Bain
There’s seems to be a renaissance in Ozploitation for the bigfoot movie (more commonly known as the Yowie down under), a genre which had, until very recently, died a slow an painful death, becoming as extinct as the very creatures themselves. Of course, if you’ve been reading our reviews here on Nerdly, you’ll know all about There’s Something in the Pilliga – the brilliantly funny “drunk Aussie’s versus Yowie” flick that played last Novembers MonsterFest. Well now we have another example of the genre with Throwback.
The film sees two pest exterminators head into the bush to search for the legendary lost treasure of the bushranger, Thunderclap Newman . The pair find their bounty but what they didn’t count on was an encounter with Australia’s mythical Yowie,...
- 2/21/2015
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Hemogobble: Turkel’s Latest Assay into Misanthropy
Indie filmmaker Onor Turkel seems determined to remain hilariously unlikeable as his self-effacing, self-directed on-screen alter ego with his latest feature, Summer of Blood, a title which just so happens to formulate the acronym Sob. A pathetic, socially defunct scion of selfishness that recalls the comedic weirdness of performers such as Eric Wareheim or Tim Heidecker, Turkel’s protagonist is often impossible to like (even if we’re supposed to find him entertaining). Of course, the irony Turkel plays with here as he tinges his film with genre, is that he only becomes humane when he transforms into something inhuman.
Lumpy, unkempt and emotionally distant, we meet Eric Sparrow (Turkel) having dinner with longtime girlfriend Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman). She hands him a ring, which is meant to be a proposal, though she doesn’t quite receive the answer she’d been expecting,...
Indie filmmaker Onor Turkel seems determined to remain hilariously unlikeable as his self-effacing, self-directed on-screen alter ego with his latest feature, Summer of Blood, a title which just so happens to formulate the acronym Sob. A pathetic, socially defunct scion of selfishness that recalls the comedic weirdness of performers such as Eric Wareheim or Tim Heidecker, Turkel’s protagonist is often impossible to like (even if we’re supposed to find him entertaining). Of course, the irony Turkel plays with here as he tinges his film with genre, is that he only becomes humane when he transforms into something inhuman.
Lumpy, unkempt and emotionally distant, we meet Eric Sparrow (Turkel) having dinner with longtime girlfriend Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman). She hands him a ring, which is meant to be a proposal, though she doesn’t quite receive the answer she’d been expecting,...
- 10/17/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Perched at the top of this week’s flock of specialty film debuts is Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance), a possible Oscar contender starring Michael Keaton. Though it’s a limited release, Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s complex film about a fading action-hero trying to reclaim his mojo on Broadway nevertheless combines elements of a superhero franchise that could tap fans well beyond the art house.
It’s part of yet another big flock of specialty film debuts coming this weekend, including the controversy-minded Sundance award-winner Dear White People, William H. Macy‘s directorial debut Rudderless, Kristen Stewart‘s Camp X-Ray, Jason Schwartzman‘s Listen Up Philip, The Golden Era, Summer Of Blood, and one great revival, Alain Resnais’ 1959 landmark Hiroshima Mon Amour.
To get a sense of Fox Searchlight’s ambitions for Birdman, the film closed the New York Film Festival last weekend to strong reviews, but then...
It’s part of yet another big flock of specialty film debuts coming this weekend, including the controversy-minded Sundance award-winner Dear White People, William H. Macy‘s directorial debut Rudderless, Kristen Stewart‘s Camp X-Ray, Jason Schwartzman‘s Listen Up Philip, The Golden Era, Summer Of Blood, and one great revival, Alain Resnais’ 1959 landmark Hiroshima Mon Amour.
To get a sense of Fox Searchlight’s ambitions for Birdman, the film closed the New York Film Festival last weekend to strong reviews, but then...
- 10/16/2014
- by David Bloom
- Deadline
Exclusive: New Europe Film Sales signs the Tribeca Film Festival Viewpoints opening film - vampire comedy Summer of Blood by Onur Tukel.
Polish company New Europe Film Sales has picked up Onur Tukel’s vampire comedy Summer of Blood, the opening film of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival’s Viewpoints section.
The Us film tells the story of egocentric Eric Sparrow, who turns into a sex god after being bitten by a vampire.
The film stars actor-writer-director Tukel in the main role and includes cameos from New York indie film directors Alex Karpovsky and Jonathan Caouette.
Tukel previously acted in Michael Tully’s Septien and Alex Karpovsky’s Red Flag among others. His previous feature was 2012 ensemble comedy Richard’s Wedding.
Summer of Blood will receive its world premiere this month at Tribeca as the opening film of the Viewpoints section. New Europe will handle all rights outside North America, where Xyz is...
Polish company New Europe Film Sales has picked up Onur Tukel’s vampire comedy Summer of Blood, the opening film of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival’s Viewpoints section.
The Us film tells the story of egocentric Eric Sparrow, who turns into a sex god after being bitten by a vampire.
The film stars actor-writer-director Tukel in the main role and includes cameos from New York indie film directors Alex Karpovsky and Jonathan Caouette.
Tukel previously acted in Michael Tully’s Septien and Alex Karpovsky’s Red Flag among others. His previous feature was 2012 ensemble comedy Richard’s Wedding.
Summer of Blood will receive its world premiere this month at Tribeca as the opening film of the Viewpoints section. New Europe will handle all rights outside North America, where Xyz is...
- 4/3/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
After causing something of a sensation with his debut feature Tarnation, director Jonathan Caouette went and got himself all weirded up for his subsequent Chloe Sevigny starring short film All Flowers In Time. How weird? Well, here's the official synopsis:"I am not from this place" declares a French cowboy. An old toothless man asks, "Do you know why you're here?". These shape shifting personalities infect young children with an evil signal in the form of a Dutch TV show. The red eyed girls and boys believe they can now become other people and monsters much to their delight.Yep, this is essentially Caouette doing the sort of thing David Lynch hasn't done for quite some time now and doing it quite well. The short was fairly...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 11/26/2013
- Screen Anarchy
The 26th Annual Mix NYC, New York's Queer Experimental Film Festival is taking Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood by storm all week. After opening earlier this week with a program of the best in queer film and video work and some performance and installation pieces, the festival rages on into the weekend. The festival, which was started by the filmmaker Jim Hubbard and the writer Sarah Schulman, has a long indie film history. It's been a part of recent indie film history as the launching pad for Jonathan Caouette when he was finishing up "Tarnation." Caouette will be back with two new shorts before the Saturday screening of Jason Ryan Yamas's "Not Me, Murphy." Read More: Que(e)ries: Talking To The Organizers Of Mix NYC, The Queer Film Festival That Does It Like Nobody Else Every year, the festival's venue, all dressed up with decorations and installations, is part of the allure,...
- 11/15/2013
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
Nothing Human Loves Forever: Cassavetes’ Feature Debut Gloriously Vintage
Xan Cassavetes joins the family directorial legacy with her feature debut, Kiss of the Damned, a deliciously vintage throwback to the erotic horror output of the Hammer studio heyday. Previously, this Cassavetes was responsible for a 2004 documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and her fiction debut seems considerably removed both from her own work and that of the familial output. A visual feast with a killer sound design, she manages to invoke Stephanie Rothman and Jean Rollin, where naughty immortal creatures from the dark side explore a bloodlust as inextinguishable as their sexual desires.
Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful, lovelorn vampire residing in a remote mansion in the Connecticut countryside spends her nights hunting animals in the surrounding woods and watching vintage cinema. The residence belongs to Xenia (Anna Mougalalis), an actress and older, wiser vampire, but the estate...
Xan Cassavetes joins the family directorial legacy with her feature debut, Kiss of the Damned, a deliciously vintage throwback to the erotic horror output of the Hammer studio heyday. Previously, this Cassavetes was responsible for a 2004 documentary Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession, and her fiction debut seems considerably removed both from her own work and that of the familial output. A visual feast with a killer sound design, she manages to invoke Stephanie Rothman and Jean Rollin, where naughty immortal creatures from the dark side explore a bloodlust as inextinguishable as their sexual desires.
Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful, lovelorn vampire residing in a remote mansion in the Connecticut countryside spends her nights hunting animals in the surrounding woods and watching vintage cinema. The residence belongs to Xenia (Anna Mougalalis), an actress and older, wiser vampire, but the estate...
- 5/1/2013
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Throughout the week, Indiewire will feature remembrances of Roger Ebert from across the industry. Yesterday, we ran thoughts from filmmakers. Today, we're focusing on the indie executives. Ryan Werner, freelance consultant/formerly IFC Films: Last week as I was leaving my job at IFC Films, I received an email from Roger Ebert from the hospital wishing me well. I'll treasure it forever. Like most people my age who grew up in the suburbs, I realized movies were something more than entertainment from Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. I remember the first time I saw Roger Ebert holding court at the Cannes Film Festival in the American Pavilion. It was as thrilling as seeing Catherine Deneuve or Quentin Tarantino. Many years later I'd travel to his film festival in 2004 with Jonathan Caouette's one-of-a-kind film "Tarnation." It was a great moment where you felt Ebert's blessing upon the work you were doing.
- 4/9/2013
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
DVD Release Date: April 30, 2013
Price: DVD $24.98
Studio: IFC Films
Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette follows up his 2003 documentary Tarnation with another movie about him and his mentally ill mother, Walk Away Renee.
In the earlier film, Caouette culled together snapshots, Super-8 footage, answering machine messages, video diaries and early short films to document his growing up with a schizophrenic mother. In Walk Away Renee, Caouette films his road trip to move his mother from Texas to New York, which both tightens and tests their bond.
Along the way, they tackle roadblocks including Renee’s mood-stabilizing medications and get glimpses of moments from their past. As Renee fights to maintain a grip on reality, Caouette is faced with deciding between sanity and mortality, familial devotion and personal survival.
Again, Caouette mixes film types, using candid home movies, split-screen verite musical montage, hallucinatory psychedelia and both real and imagined dramas.
Screened in a brief run in theaters,...
Price: DVD $24.98
Studio: IFC Films
Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette follows up his 2003 documentary Tarnation with another movie about him and his mentally ill mother, Walk Away Renee.
In the earlier film, Caouette culled together snapshots, Super-8 footage, answering machine messages, video diaries and early short films to document his growing up with a schizophrenic mother. In Walk Away Renee, Caouette films his road trip to move his mother from Texas to New York, which both tightens and tests their bond.
Along the way, they tackle roadblocks including Renee’s mood-stabilizing medications and get glimpses of moments from their past. As Renee fights to maintain a grip on reality, Caouette is faced with deciding between sanity and mortality, familial devotion and personal survival.
Again, Caouette mixes film types, using candid home movies, split-screen verite musical montage, hallucinatory psychedelia and both real and imagined dramas.
Screened in a brief run in theaters,...
- 4/5/2013
- by Sam
- Disc Dish
What follows is an exchange between Josh Timmermann (a fellow critic and Vancouver resident, who you may recall from this) and I, wherein we discuss the Vancouver International Film Festival and its individual parts, a chance to color outside the lines a bit and discuss the ins and outs of our festival experiences.
Context!
Above: Granville 7 Theatre, Viff's primary venue.
Adam Cook: I’ve been attending Viff since 2008—and you’ve been attending since 2007—so it seems kind of safe to say we’re well on our way to being veterans of the festival; although, this claim is humbled when encountering someone like Chuck Stephens—a member of this year’s Dragons & Tigers jury—who has been coming (from out of town, no less) for something like twenty years. However, five years of Viff-going has equipped me with a knack for knowing how to approach the festival, how to navigate the programming—and,...
Context!
Above: Granville 7 Theatre, Viff's primary venue.
Adam Cook: I’ve been attending Viff since 2008—and you’ve been attending since 2007—so it seems kind of safe to say we’re well on our way to being veterans of the festival; although, this claim is humbled when encountering someone like Chuck Stephens—a member of this year’s Dragons & Tigers jury—who has been coming (from out of town, no less) for something like twenty years. However, five years of Viff-going has equipped me with a knack for knowing how to approach the festival, how to navigate the programming—and,...
- 11/8/2012
- by Adam Cook
- MUBI
Twenty-five years ago, filmmaker Jim Hubbard and writer Sarah Schulman started the Mix NYC festival for queer experimental film. Over time, the festival has been crucial to the careers of many queer filmmakers. Jonathan Caouette debuted "Tarnation" at the festival. Mix was the fiscal sponsor for Sandi DuBowski's documentary "Trembling Before G-d." Todd Haynes, Jennie Livingston and Christine Vachon have all screened works there. MoMA's Chief Film Curator Rajendra Roy is a former Director of the festival. In its 25th year, the roaming festival rages on in a location in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn (near the Atlantic Avenue train hub). In addition to the annual week of screenings, Mix also runs the Act Up Oral History Project (still maintained by Hubbard and Schulman, which recently was used to assemble the feature film "United in Anger," directed by Hubbard), a preservation program, and a production...
- 11/6/2012
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
It's my birthday today, which means naturally I'm looking at movie listings for tonight and tomorrow. Should I finally see Argo, convince my husband to watch Cloud Atlas with me or give Wreck-It Ralph a chance? After reading Chale's Austin Polish Film Festival previews (parts one and two), I'm tempted to spend the weekend at The Marchesa. Otherwise, tonight's an unusually poor night for special screenings unless I want to go to a Dumb and Dumber quote-along, and considering I walked out of that movie when I saw it in a theater I'll pass. Besides, my husband keeps promising he's taking me to a fancy dinner at McDonald's.
On Saturday and Sunday, Alamo Ritz brings back its 70mm series with Cleopatra, that gorgeous flop with Elizabeth Taylor in the title role. And while I'm not a big cocktail girl, I do dearly love A Fish Called Wanda, which Alamo is...
- 11/2/2012
- by Jette Kernion
- Slackerwood
Along with Jonathan Caouette, Ingrid Kopp, Thom Powers, Esther Robinson, Morgan Spurlock, and John Vanco I’ll be co-hosting a benefit screening of John Maringouin’s Big River Man on Tuesday, September 4, at the IFC Center at 7:30Pm. All proceeds will go towards the filmmaker’s surgery fund and an urgently needed lung operation. Additionally, IFC will be donating an additional 50% of the box towards the fund as well as 100% of all income from membership sales and renewals purchased that evening. I’ve posted about Maringouin’s situation previously, and, with days left, the fund still needs monies to reach its $60,000 goal, which will enable a down payment on Maringouin’s surgery.
Here’s information on Big River Man and Maringouin:
In February 2007 Martin Strel began an insane attempt to be the first person to swim the entire length of the world’s most dangerous river, the mighty Amazon.
Here’s information on Big River Man and Maringouin:
In February 2007 Martin Strel began an insane attempt to be the first person to swim the entire length of the world’s most dangerous river, the mighty Amazon.
- 8/31/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Title: Walk Away Renee Director: Jonathan Caouette In 2004 Jonathan Caouette made a film, “Tarnation,” about his tumultuous upbringing with his maternal grandparents and fractured, on-and-off-again relationship with his disturbed mother, Renee LeBlanc, who suffered from psychosis after undergoing shock treatments in her adolescence following a period of time being paralyzed. The movie, which screened at Sundance and Cannes, became something of a media sensation for being edited on free iMovie software on a Mac and having a budget of only a couple hundred dollars (though subsequently brushed up sonically prior to a theatrical release), but it was no parlor trick. An intense and unsettling autobiographical bricolage, the movie had important things [ Read More ]...
- 8/9/2012
- by bsimon
- ShockYa
"Walk Away Renee," which debuted at Cannes 2011, is Jonathan Caouette's follow-up to his much-lauded 2003 documentary "Tarnation." The film is playing at Los Angeles' Outfest on Saturday, July 21 and is already available on SundanceNow. Our exclusive clip and trailers are below. The filmmaker's mother, Renee Leblanc, is front and center in both of his video memoirs. As a child, she was given electroshock therapy and as an adult, lives with acute bipolar and schizoaffective disorder. In "Walk Away Renee," the latest psychiatric facility is not working out and Caouette decides to drive his mother cross country from Houston to New York. She loses her medication and the relationship between mother and son veers in both touching and tragic directions, with both souls exposed through footage Caouette creatively weaves together with metaphysical overtones. The film itself it quite a ride, immersive and boldly personal. The exclusive clip we...
- 7/20/2012
- by Sophia Savage
- Thompson on Hollywood
Director: Jonathan Caouette It would be difficult to deny that our society does not know how to deal with mental illness. Without proper treatment, the mentally ill often end up unable to hold down steady employment. If they do not have loved ones to watch after them, they usually become homeless or find themselves imprisoned. The worst cases kill themselves or others -- travesties that could have been avoided if our society focused more on their treatment. I should also clarify that by treatment I do not mean medicating them into a near-comatose state, because armies of over-medicated zombies does not do anyone any good except for the health care industry.
- 7/20/2012
- by Don Simpson
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
Jonathan Caouette made a name for himself some years back with his debut feature "Tarnation," a manic, prodding look into his family, created on the cheap using home videos and the trusty iMovie program. His stock blew up, and a successful screening at the Sundance Film Festival eventually lead to him helming the "All Tomorrow's Parties" documentary and a personal horror short "All Flowers In Time."
But the story about Caouette and his mother Renee Leblanc wasn't over, and the director revisited this for "Walk Away Renee," a documentary that serves as a sequel/proper-ending to his astonishingly affecting first film. You can check out "Walk Away Renee" right now online at SundanceNow, and in preparation for its release we spoke to Jonathan about its germination, the difficulty of making a work so intimate, and what he's up to for his next project.
Isn't That The Title Of...
Fans of...
But the story about Caouette and his mother Renee Leblanc wasn't over, and the director revisited this for "Walk Away Renee," a documentary that serves as a sequel/proper-ending to his astonishingly affecting first film. You can check out "Walk Away Renee" right now online at SundanceNow, and in preparation for its release we spoke to Jonathan about its germination, the difficulty of making a work so intimate, and what he's up to for his next project.
Isn't That The Title Of...
Fans of...
- 6/29/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
I’ve been struggling to find a metaphor for the very special, not to mention most unusual, connection between director Jonathan Caouette and Renee Leblanc, his mentally ill and frequently institutionalized mother and the subject of his most recent film, Walk Away Renee. The closest I could come is really a parallel, and it lies within Caouette’s body of work. In his 2010 surreal short All Flowers in Time, a beautiful young woman, played by Chloe Sevigny, has an indefinable relationship with an adolescent boy. In a bizarre world where young people’s eyes can turn glowing red, the two seem to be close, in what way we do not know. At certain points, they look at each other with their neon-looking eyes, make faces, and giggle, but, above all, a supernormal affection emanates from this experimental narrative.
Asked to explain his and his mother’s amazing rapport, Caouette, now 39, responds,...
Asked to explain his and his mother’s amazing rapport, Caouette, now 39, responds,...
- 6/28/2012
- by Howard Feinstein
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Doc Talk is a bi-weekly column devoted to documentary cinema, typically featuring an essay concentrated on a currently relevant topic for discussion followed by critic picks for new theatrical and home video releases. This week’s focus is a response to a specific new doc, the latest film from Jonathan Caouette, which screened this evening at BAMcinemaFest in NYC and is now available streaming online at Sundance Now. Documentaries shot in real time are often dependent on serendipity. And sadly the accidental “blessing” that filmmakers hope for tends to be of a misfortunate nature. That’s just how a lot of plots come about for observational works -- not that verite documentarians have always been after stories of catalysts and conclusions. But I do hear...
Read More...
Read More...
- 6/28/2012
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s follow-up/sequel to Tarnation, is having its big day today, with both the “real-world” premiere of the new cut of the film playing at BAMcinemaFest tonight, and also its simultaneous online premiere through SundanceNOW’s Doc Club.
Howard Feinstein had an excellent, long chat with Caouette which just went live on the Filmmaker site, and we’re also very pleased to have an exclusive clip from Walk Away Renee which captures one of the more experimental moments from Caouette’s portrait of the relationship between himself and his mentally ill mother, Renee LeBlanc.
… Read the rest...
Howard Feinstein had an excellent, long chat with Caouette which just went live on the Filmmaker site, and we’re also very pleased to have an exclusive clip from Walk Away Renee which captures one of the more experimental moments from Caouette’s portrait of the relationship between himself and his mentally ill mother, Renee LeBlanc.
… Read the rest...
- 6/27/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Born out of a truck load of home videos, answering machine recordings, and photographs, Jonathan Caouette's 2003 autobiographical "Tarnation" was a dearly personal and often frightening no-holds-barred look into a family torn apart by a tortured past. Cobbled together with iMovie before YouTube was even a twinkle in a vlogger's eye, the film bleeds honesty and its fearless look at the subjects (including the director himself) can be downright terrifying at times. But it wasn't just a family arguing or bitterly digging into old wounds -- Caouette had a manic, assaulting editing style and a penchant for some truly disturbing experimental sequences, an aesthetic that exhibited their emotional states in a fresh, genuinely perturbing way. A hit at the Sundance Film Festival, the movie went on to gather a number of ecstatic supporters and thrust the director into the spotlight. We're now in 2012, and after helming documentary "All Tomorrow's Parties...
- 6/27/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
When Jonathan Caouette made his feature debut "Tarnation," he took the indie world by storm. The miniscule dollar figure he made it for (before preparing it for a festival and theatrical runs) made headlines, and Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell came on board as Executive Producers, eager to usher the film into the world. For almost a decade, Caouette has been sitting with the footage of his life -- footage of his grandparents, his boyfriend, his son, and, most notably, his mother Renée Leblanc. Throughout both "Tarnation" and "Walk Away Renée," Caouette shows the tender love between himself and his mother. Some moments in both films turn less than tender; Leblanc came into mental illness after sustained electroshock therapy earlier in life. Now, lithium, which can be lethal, is the only thing that stabilizes her. Indiewire caught up with Caouette in anticipation of the film's North American...
- 6/26/2012
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
Back in 2003, Jonathan Caouette dug through years of home video and answering machine recordings to assemble his debut feature film, the incredibly intimate documentary “Tarnation.” Focusing on his childhood and relationship with a schizophrenic mother (suffering from such disorders due to shock therapy), the movie was an intense punch to the gut, a frenetic autobiography that exposed a rather frightening and ugly side of family. After dabbling in other projects (including music festival doc "All Tomorrow's Parties" and the short film "All Flowers In Time" with Chloë Sevigny), Caouette has returned to the well with “Walk Away Renee,” a sequel which follows the director and his mother as they road trip to her new home in a New York-based assisted-living facility. Things are complicated after the duo discovers that most of the Renee’s medication has been lost and the prescriptions cannot be replenished until they reach her new home.
- 6/22/2012
- by Christopher Bell
- The Playlist
Jonathan Sehring, President of Sundance Selects and its digital sister, SundanceNOW and Thom Powers, curator for SundanceNOW.s Doc Club, announced on Thursday that director Jonathan Caouette.s documentary Walk Away Renee will have its North American premiere as part of the website.s new Svod (Subscriber Video-on-Demand) program Doc Club. The film, which premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and is the follow-up to Caouette.s 2004 groundbreaking hit Tarnation, will be released simultaneous with its North American Premiere on Wednesday, June 27th at BAMcinemaFest 2012. Doc Club subscribers will be able to download or stream the film as part of the June offerings entitled Up Close And Personal or the film can be rented on SundanceNOW for $6.99.
In Walk Away Renee, Caouette embarks on a road trip to move his mentally ill motherRenee across the country. As they encounter roadblocks in the present, we begin to flash back to moments from the past,...
In Walk Away Renee, Caouette embarks on a road trip to move his mentally ill motherRenee across the country. As they encounter roadblocks in the present, we begin to flash back to moments from the past,...
- 5/21/2012
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
When discussing the lineup at the upcoming BAMcinemaFEST a while back, I noted that a new cut of Walk Away Renee, Jonathan Caouette’s long-awaited follow-up to Tarnation, would be playing as part of the festival on June 27. While that’s exciting news on its own, now comes word of a very savvy move by IFC to capitalize on the interest in the film by giving the film a simultaneous online premiere on SundanceNOW’s Doc Club, the Svod (Subscriber Video-on-Demand) series curated by documentary maven Thom Powers.
“Walk Away Renee makes a perfect headliner for the June [Doc Club] theme of ‘Up Close and Personal,’” said Powers. “Jonathan Caouette directs with such intimacy that viewers feel like a member of his family. I was blown away by this film at Cannes last year and look forward to sharing it with a greater audience.”
“Walk Away Renee was developed from equal parts love,...
“Walk Away Renee makes a perfect headliner for the June [Doc Club] theme of ‘Up Close and Personal,’” said Powers. “Jonathan Caouette directs with such intimacy that viewers feel like a member of his family. I was blown away by this film at Cannes last year and look forward to sharing it with a greater audience.”
“Walk Away Renee was developed from equal parts love,...
- 5/18/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Today the full lineup for BAMCinemafest has been unveiled, including the opening and closing night films. (The initial slate of titles was announced just over a month ago.) The fest will be bookended by comedian Mike Birbiglia’s Sundance charmer Sleepwalk with Me and Rock ‘n’ Roll Exposed: The Photography of Bob Gruen, the latest doc from British musician and filmmaker Don Letts (Dancehall Queen).
The Spotlight screening is Benh Zeitlin’s Sundance Grand Prize winner Beasts of the Southern Wild, and other highlights out of the newly announced titles include the Ross brothers’ Tchoupitoulas, Cory McAbee’s Crazy and Thief and Tim Sutton’s Pavilion (all of which I’m very excited to catch up with.)
Speaking about the 2012 lineup, BAMcinématek’s program director Florence Almozini said, “I’m really excited about the fourth edition of BAMcinemaFest as it may be our best yet. I think we’re refining...
The Spotlight screening is Benh Zeitlin’s Sundance Grand Prize winner Beasts of the Southern Wild, and other highlights out of the newly announced titles include the Ross brothers’ Tchoupitoulas, Cory McAbee’s Crazy and Thief and Tim Sutton’s Pavilion (all of which I’m very excited to catch up with.)
Speaking about the 2012 lineup, BAMcinématek’s program director Florence Almozini said, “I’m really excited about the fourth edition of BAMcinemaFest as it may be our best yet. I think we’re refining...
- 5/3/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Today the BAMcinemaFest unveiled a selection of the films that will play at Brooklyn’s Bam between June 20 and July 1. The slate is dominated by titles that premiered in at Sundance, although there are also films here that bowed at Toronto and Cannes last year. The vast majority of the films announced here are also made by New Yorkers — many of them Brooklynites — while Brian M. Cassidy & Melanie Shatzky (named in our 25 New Faces back in 2007) enjoy the rare coup of having two films in the fest: the narrative Francine and the doc The Patron Saints.
Two films worth flagging up are Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act and Jonathan Caouette’s Walk Away Renée. A film critic who has made two previous features, Sallitt (who lives a stone’s throw from Bam) will debut his bold and surprising portrait of an unconventional brother-sister relationship at next month’s Sarasota...
Two films worth flagging up are Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act and Jonathan Caouette’s Walk Away Renée. A film critic who has made two previous features, Sallitt (who lives a stone’s throw from Bam) will debut his bold and surprising portrait of an unconventional brother-sister relationship at next month’s Sarasota...
- 3/29/2012
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
BAMcinématek has announced a first round of titles for its fourth annual BAMcinemaFest, running June 20 through July 1, and we've already placed one of them at the top of our must-see list: The Unspeakable Act, directed by frequent Notebook contributor Dan Sallitt. Here's the official synopsis: "Jackie's romantic feelings for her brother Matthew form the unlikely backdrop against which the milestones of adolescence — choosing a college, losing one's virginity — unspool in film critic Sallitt's long-awaited directorial return, an unnervingly dispassionate take on the last taboo, set in Brooklyn's Ditmas Park."
The other narrative features slated for the 12-day summer festival:
Rick Alverson's The Comedy. A roundup's in the pipeline. Craig Zobel's Compliance. See the Sundance roundup. So Yong Kim's For Ellen. Roundup forthcoming. Brian M Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky's Francine. Likewise. Ry Russo-Young's Nobody Walks. Sundance roundup. Keith Miller's Welcome to Pine Hill. The Slamdance roundup's got the trailer.
The other narrative features slated for the 12-day summer festival:
Rick Alverson's The Comedy. A roundup's in the pipeline. Craig Zobel's Compliance. See the Sundance roundup. So Yong Kim's For Ellen. Roundup forthcoming. Brian M Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky's Francine. Likewise. Ry Russo-Young's Nobody Walks. Sundance roundup. Keith Miller's Welcome to Pine Hill. The Slamdance roundup's got the trailer.
- 3/28/2012
- MUBI
BAMcinemaFest, which in its fourth year has already gained a reputation for hosting the New York premieres of the year's strongest indie fare, has released a list of eleven titles that will premiere at this year's festival. The list of eleven films includes hits from Sundance, Cannes, SXSW, Slamdance and more. Included among the screenings is the Us premiere of Jonathan Caouette's ("Tarnation") second feature, "Walk Away Renee," which got picked up by IFC after its Cannes debut and, like "Tarnation" before it, took a few months to be recut after premiering. Films from So Yong Kim, Ry Russo-Young, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady are amongst the first films to be announced. The festival, which is part of the Brooklyn film mainstay Bam, will run from June 20-July 1, 2012. The announced films, with descriptions provided by Bam, are below: The narrative slate will include: The Comedy (Rick Alverson) NY...
- 3/28/2012
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
Criterion Collection: La Jetée and Sans Soleil [Blu-ray] Movie: Disc: Click here to read the dvd review! "With the former film inspiring a plethora of homages (most notably, Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys) and the latter spawning a style of free-form cinema diary that would later be evoked in films by Agnès Varda and Jonathan Caouette, among many others, Marker's role as a pioneer in the latter half of the 20th century is hardly arguable."...
- 2/15/2012
- IONCINEMA.com
Migrating Forms
Migrating Forms, the premiere festival for experimental media, is now open for entries for their fourth annual edition that will run at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City on May 11-20.
Each year, Migrating Forms programs the most innovative, challenging, medium-defying, unique and flat-out unidentifiable films and videos from all over the world. Work ranges from the artistic documentary to the completely non-narrative filmic experiments to genre-bending narratives and more.
If you feel your film or video belongs in the upper echelon of experimental media-making, then this is the fest to try to get in to.
Early Deadline: Feb. 15, 2012
Entry Fee: $30
Regular Deadline: Mar. 1, 2012
Entry Fee: $40
Final Deadline: Mar. 15, 2012
Entry Fee: $50
Please visit the official Migrating Forms website for more info!
B-movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival
On the other side of the world is one of the more outrageous cult movie fests, the B-movie, Underground...
Migrating Forms, the premiere festival for experimental media, is now open for entries for their fourth annual edition that will run at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City on May 11-20.
Each year, Migrating Forms programs the most innovative, challenging, medium-defying, unique and flat-out unidentifiable films and videos from all over the world. Work ranges from the artistic documentary to the completely non-narrative filmic experiments to genre-bending narratives and more.
If you feel your film or video belongs in the upper echelon of experimental media-making, then this is the fest to try to get in to.
Early Deadline: Feb. 15, 2012
Entry Fee: $30
Regular Deadline: Mar. 1, 2012
Entry Fee: $40
Final Deadline: Mar. 15, 2012
Entry Fee: $50
Please visit the official Migrating Forms website for more info!
B-movie, Underground and Trash Film Festival
On the other side of the world is one of the more outrageous cult movie fests, the B-movie, Underground...
- 2/9/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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