After his satire on the utopia of Gen Y, The Woods, Matthew Lessner returns with a new feature, Automatic at Sea, a psychedelic chamber piece with flair. A boy meets a girl. The boy invites the girl to his family´s private island. He, Peter (David Henry Gerson), is a charismatic wealthy heir. She, Eve (Livia Hiselius), is a not so naive Swedish traveler. After witnessing these first couple of minutes, alarms may ring loudly in your mind to this scenario being a rom-com, or a coming-of-age story, or a mash-up of both. Lessner serves this as an hors d´oeuvre to a big fat red herring. The duo land on the island, with the pretense that a party is going to explode once all the...
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- 1/24/2017
- Screen Anarchy
Matthew Lessner’s first feature film "The Woods" played at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where it made history as the first Kickstarter funded film to premiere at the festival. He is now turning again to Kickstarter to raise his finishing funds for his feature, "Automatic at Sea," which was selected as a finalist in last year's Us In Progress program in Paris. The film is produced by and stars David Henry Gerson, who also worked with Lessner on their 2014 Sundance Audience Award winning short film "Chapel Perilous."
More information on his new campaign can be found Here
"Automatic at Sea" is described as a wildly imaginative, enigmatic, disturbing, and often hilarious dive into the dark side of love/ reality. An immensely talented international team of collaborators spent a month living and working together on the beautiful and storied island of Martha’s Vineyard to bring writer/ director Matthew Lessner's vision to life. The film has been completely shot and edited and is now awaiting final post work which the funds raised through this new campaign will be used.
The project was born when actor/ producer David Henry Gerson attended a screening of writer/ director Matthew Lessner’s first feature film "The Woods" at the Sundance Film Festival. David approached Matthew immediately after the screening and told him that he was interested in helping him make his next film. Matthew enjoyed the flattery and thought David looked like a real-life satyr. Thus began a long, strange, fruitful friendship and collaboration.
“I loved Matthew’s wit and voice in The Woods. The dynamic of the people involved, and the collaborative and immersive way it was made really spoke to me. I immediately knew I wanted to build a project with him, and try to evoke a similar environment of creation,” said David Henry Gerson.
Writer/ director Matthew Lessner added, "Shortly after we met at Sundance, David invited me out to spend some time on Martha's Vineyard to try and develop a new project. I’d never been, but knew that presidents like to hang out there, so I said yes. It was soon agreed that we would make a kind of horror film about the things that were terrifying me most at the time, which were not slashers or monsters, but the inner reaches of my own mind, the unanswerable questions that kept me up at night. Questions like, 'Am I really me?' 'Do I actually exist?' 'Can you ever really know anyone?' 'Why are Snickers so good?' 'Do I really have free will?' ' If so, why can’t I stop thinking about Crystal Pepsi?'
Here's the synopsis: On a whim, Eve (young Swedish traveler) accepts an invitation from Peter (wealthy heir) to vacation on his family’s private island off the coast of New England. As a series of unexpected delays prevent other guests from arriving, Eve discovers that she has little in common with the increasingly erratic Peter and that something is not quite right on this mysterious island. Gradually the idyllic natural beauty of her surroundings dissolves, and Eve finds herself trapped in an unstable reality punctuated by feverish visions, dimensional shifting and secret pizza.
While developing the film we shot a short film called Chapel Perilous as a kind of test collaboration. Aesthetically and tonally it was quite different from the future feature, but it explored some of the same themes. Chapel Perilous went on to premiere at Sundance where it won the Audience Award and wound up online as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Last summer, we had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the Us in Progress, Paris program, screening our work-in-progress edit of "Automatic at Sea" along with 3 other fantastic films. It was an amazing experience and an invaluable learning opportunity.
'Automatic at Sea' is shot and edited, but in order to finish post-production and bring it to theaters your support is essential . ( If you’re not of the film world, post-production might not be something you think much of when enjoying a film, but it is essential to creating a polished finished product, and unfortunately it is not cheap .) The post-production process will include re-assembling the film in the highest quality format available, adding visual effects, color correcting, and sound design (which will be a major and essential part of the final experience).
The only reason this film exists is because all those who have been involved until this point were interested in taking a risk on something new and unique. And now we ask you, stranger, to join us. Won’t you?"
More information on Lessner's new campaign can be found Here.
More information on his new campaign can be found Here
"Automatic at Sea" is described as a wildly imaginative, enigmatic, disturbing, and often hilarious dive into the dark side of love/ reality. An immensely talented international team of collaborators spent a month living and working together on the beautiful and storied island of Martha’s Vineyard to bring writer/ director Matthew Lessner's vision to life. The film has been completely shot and edited and is now awaiting final post work which the funds raised through this new campaign will be used.
The project was born when actor/ producer David Henry Gerson attended a screening of writer/ director Matthew Lessner’s first feature film "The Woods" at the Sundance Film Festival. David approached Matthew immediately after the screening and told him that he was interested in helping him make his next film. Matthew enjoyed the flattery and thought David looked like a real-life satyr. Thus began a long, strange, fruitful friendship and collaboration.
“I loved Matthew’s wit and voice in The Woods. The dynamic of the people involved, and the collaborative and immersive way it was made really spoke to me. I immediately knew I wanted to build a project with him, and try to evoke a similar environment of creation,” said David Henry Gerson.
Writer/ director Matthew Lessner added, "Shortly after we met at Sundance, David invited me out to spend some time on Martha's Vineyard to try and develop a new project. I’d never been, but knew that presidents like to hang out there, so I said yes. It was soon agreed that we would make a kind of horror film about the things that were terrifying me most at the time, which were not slashers or monsters, but the inner reaches of my own mind, the unanswerable questions that kept me up at night. Questions like, 'Am I really me?' 'Do I actually exist?' 'Can you ever really know anyone?' 'Why are Snickers so good?' 'Do I really have free will?' ' If so, why can’t I stop thinking about Crystal Pepsi?'
Here's the synopsis: On a whim, Eve (young Swedish traveler) accepts an invitation from Peter (wealthy heir) to vacation on his family’s private island off the coast of New England. As a series of unexpected delays prevent other guests from arriving, Eve discovers that she has little in common with the increasingly erratic Peter and that something is not quite right on this mysterious island. Gradually the idyllic natural beauty of her surroundings dissolves, and Eve finds herself trapped in an unstable reality punctuated by feverish visions, dimensional shifting and secret pizza.
While developing the film we shot a short film called Chapel Perilous as a kind of test collaboration. Aesthetically and tonally it was quite different from the future feature, but it explored some of the same themes. Chapel Perilous went on to premiere at Sundance where it won the Audience Award and wound up online as a Vimeo Staff Pick.
Last summer, we had the good fortune to be invited to participate in the Us in Progress, Paris program, screening our work-in-progress edit of "Automatic at Sea" along with 3 other fantastic films. It was an amazing experience and an invaluable learning opportunity.
'Automatic at Sea' is shot and edited, but in order to finish post-production and bring it to theaters your support is essential . ( If you’re not of the film world, post-production might not be something you think much of when enjoying a film, but it is essential to creating a polished finished product, and unfortunately it is not cheap .) The post-production process will include re-assembling the film in the highest quality format available, adding visual effects, color correcting, and sound design (which will be a major and essential part of the final experience).
The only reason this film exists is because all those who have been involved until this point were interested in taking a risk on something new and unique. And now we ask you, stranger, to join us. Won’t you?"
More information on Lessner's new campaign can be found Here.
- 11/13/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Best describe as an updated homage to 50′s French cinema, Matthew Lessner’s history with the festival dates back to the showing of his short film By Modern Measure (2008). His second trip came with the experimental, outdoorsy New Frontier programmed feature debut The Woods (2011), which comes with a built-in asterisk of sorts since it was the very first film at Sundance to have used Kickstarter for funding. His third visit Chapel Perilous (2014) claimed the Short Filmmaking Audience Award. Sprinkle some music video directing work with the likes The Dirty Projectors and The Raveonettes and we’ve got a burgeoning filmmaker who works with a biting tongue-in-cheek tonality and a visual range that appears limitless. Recently profiled at the Us in Progress Paris fest, Automatic at Sea proposes a good dose of fantasy with subdued reality (see set pic above).
Gist: On a whim, Eve, a young Swedish traveler (Livia Hiselius...
Gist: On a whim, Eve, a young Swedish traveler (Livia Hiselius...
- 11/11/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
I met David Henry Gerson in Paris last week after seeing his film there at Champs Elysee Film Festival. "Automatic At Sea" competed for finishing funds in the Us In Progress section at the Fest. (Good film, didn't win.)
Us in Progress, Paris
David starred in and produced this film which was directed and written by Matthew Lessner.
In 2011 they were both in Park City in January. Matthew's first feature "The Woods" was in Sundance, New Frontiers section and was distributed in U.S. by Film Movement. It was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday".
David's film showed then in Slamdance. A documentary, " Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes" showed a Warhol period screen test of his future star Ultra Violet and included an interview. She died recently and in the film discussed her art and connection to Mormonism.
David liked Matthew's film then and describes it as summing up his generation. 'The Obama-era-over-socially-networked generation. The generation is overwhelmed by options. The children of the '90's bear a darkness under the surface. The FaceBook feed, scrolling not landing, the big issues are not dealt with.'
So they worked together in "Automatic At Sea". The film is contemplative, dreamlike, even poetic. It has three characters in a beach house, David and two young women. There is no story and it is a study of characters and their interaction. David says of his character there, 'he can do anything but therefore does nothing'. I told David of my reactions to the film and we began discussing his views on acting which I found very interesting.
He comes from the Washington DC area and was raised there. He began acting very young and even had a stage at his family home. He remembered Henry Winkler's advice to actors. 'Before acting, get an education.'
In New York he studied Method acting at the Drama Academy. In La he studied with Sandra Secat. 'Acting is deep and personal to me, using dreams and the subconscious. It is complicated and powerful, as the actor is powerless. I want to do roles I believe in and that create opportunities.'
He goes on, 'Film has responsibility. It occupies minds for a few hours and therefore film needs to inspire. Actors in film need to create poetic art, to give voice to emotional issues, to encourage action. This becomes the question for a film character overwhelmed by responsibility.'
In Sundance '14 he had a short, 13 minutes, the L.A .based " Chapel Perilous ”. David was lead actor and producer. It won an Audience Award and was by the same team that did the feature. It is about war and the earth's destruction. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role in “Automatic at Sear", in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged.
His future? David says, 'I want to keep acting and always be looking at other options'.
About "Automatic at Sea"
Writer/director Matthew Lessner and producer David Henry Gerson presented "Automatic at Sea". Their short film " Chapel Perilous " previously won the 2014 Audience Award at Sundance. Matthew's previous feature "The Woods", distributed by Film Movement, premiered in the New Frontier Program at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday". Producer David Henry Gerson also starred and to my eye and in my opinion is one of the few mature (adult vs. boy-type) male leads in this new generation of actors. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role, in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged.
Us in Progress, Paris
David starred in and produced this film which was directed and written by Matthew Lessner.
In 2011 they were both in Park City in January. Matthew's first feature "The Woods" was in Sundance, New Frontiers section and was distributed in U.S. by Film Movement. It was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday".
David's film showed then in Slamdance. A documentary, " Ultra Violet for Sixteen Minutes" showed a Warhol period screen test of his future star Ultra Violet and included an interview. She died recently and in the film discussed her art and connection to Mormonism.
David liked Matthew's film then and describes it as summing up his generation. 'The Obama-era-over-socially-networked generation. The generation is overwhelmed by options. The children of the '90's bear a darkness under the surface. The FaceBook feed, scrolling not landing, the big issues are not dealt with.'
So they worked together in "Automatic At Sea". The film is contemplative, dreamlike, even poetic. It has three characters in a beach house, David and two young women. There is no story and it is a study of characters and their interaction. David says of his character there, 'he can do anything but therefore does nothing'. I told David of my reactions to the film and we began discussing his views on acting which I found very interesting.
He comes from the Washington DC area and was raised there. He began acting very young and even had a stage at his family home. He remembered Henry Winkler's advice to actors. 'Before acting, get an education.'
In New York he studied Method acting at the Drama Academy. In La he studied with Sandra Secat. 'Acting is deep and personal to me, using dreams and the subconscious. It is complicated and powerful, as the actor is powerless. I want to do roles I believe in and that create opportunities.'
He goes on, 'Film has responsibility. It occupies minds for a few hours and therefore film needs to inspire. Actors in film need to create poetic art, to give voice to emotional issues, to encourage action. This becomes the question for a film character overwhelmed by responsibility.'
In Sundance '14 he had a short, 13 minutes, the L.A .based " Chapel Perilous ”. David was lead actor and producer. It won an Audience Award and was by the same team that did the feature. It is about war and the earth's destruction. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role in “Automatic at Sear", in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged.
His future? David says, 'I want to keep acting and always be looking at other options'.
About "Automatic at Sea"
Writer/director Matthew Lessner and producer David Henry Gerson presented "Automatic at Sea". Their short film " Chapel Perilous " previously won the 2014 Audience Award at Sundance. Matthew's previous feature "The Woods", distributed by Film Movement, premiered in the New Frontier Program at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday". Producer David Henry Gerson also starred and to my eye and in my opinion is one of the few mature (adult vs. boy-type) male leads in this new generation of actors. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role, in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged.
- 6/27/2014
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
The Champs Elysees Film Festival's in partnership with U.S. in Progress awarded the U.S. in Progress Prize to "Creative Control" Director and the film's star, Benjamin Dickinson, and Producers Craig Shilowich, Melody Roscher, Zachary Mortensen and Mark de Pace. Dickenson's first feature film "First Winter" premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival.
"Creative Control", a dark sci-fi comedy is the near-future story of four Brooklynites whose tech-obsessed lifestyles get the better of them. Anxious, ambitious ad executive starts a chain reaction of destruction when he becomes obsessed with his best friend's free-spirited girlfriend while working on a campaign for a new generation of Augmented Reality Glasses. The life-like avatar he creates of her becomes too life-like as the blurred boundary between reality and fantasy spreads into an out-of-control space where everyone's public, private and imaginary lives implode.
Benjamin Dickenson grew up in Wheaton, Illinois and moved to New York in 1999 to attend Nyu's undergraduate film program. After graduation he and some friends from school started Waverly Films in a warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Benjamin started directing music videos for Dfa record artists such as LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and the Juan Maclean. He has since made videos for Q-Tip and Reggie Watts, the "disinformationist" who c is currently appearing on the IFC television series "Comedy Bang! Bang" which began airing on June 8, 2012 and was renewed for a third season which will premiere in 2014. He has also directed commercials for Google, The Ford Motor Corporation, BMW, MTV and Guitar Hero.
Producer Marc de Pace is a partner at Ghost Robot, another Bushwick production company. In 2011 Mark produced Benjamin's "First Winter"released by Film Movement. He exec produced Michael Cera's short film "Brazzaville Teen-Ager" and Joey Garfield's feature film "A Love Letter for You". HIs producing credits also include music videos for Bjork, The Rapture and Grizzly Bear and ads for Google, Toshiba and At&T.
U.S. in Progress Paris took place during the third edition of the Champs Elysées Film Festival in Paris, on June 11-12 2014. The program presented 4 U.S. indie films in post-production to European sales agents, distributors and festival programmers in order to achieve completion and to foster the circulation and distribution of American indie films in Europe. The event has doubled the amount of submissions this year and is quickly achieving a winning track record.
The trajectories of the directing/ writing/ producing/ acting teams of the other three contenders are all trending distinctively upward:
Writer/director Matthew Lessner and producer David Henry Gerson presented "Automatic at Sea". Their short film "Chapel Perilous" previously won the 2014 Audience Award at Sundance. Matthew's previous feature "The Woods", distributed by Film Movement, premiered in the New Frontier Program at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday". Producer David Henry Gerson also starred and to my eye and in my opinion is one of the few mature (adult vs. boy-type) male leads in this new generation of actors. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role, in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged, as shown in the shorts he wrote and directed "Broken Badge" about a NYPD officer and American Standard about a veteran returning home from Afghanistan to his illegal immigrant girlfriend.
"Eugenia and John" directed by Hossein Keshavarz whose film "Dog Sweat" was released by Indiepix to critical acclaim in 2011 and which the New York Times called "polished; the young actors warmly believable" and NPR called "astonishingly gutsy" screened his second film, "Eugenia and John", produced by Mryam Azadi, Chad Burris and Amy Durning, stars Wesley Tunison and Venecia Troncoso who has the distinction of having starred in the Sundance hit, "Mosquita y Mari".
"Winning Dad" was written, directed and produced by Arthur Allen with producers Julia Bruk and Case Barden. This Lgbt romance is the debut feature of a young man whose career path after graduating St. John's College in Maryland, is as entertaining as his film. After supporting himself for several years in the Seattle Theater Community (and washing windows at the Space Needle), in 2008 he joined the United States Merchant Marines where he wrote "winning Dad" aboard the Usns Gilliland. On leaving, he was recruited by the Washington United for Marriage Coalition as part of its Speaker's Bureau to campaign for marriage equality in Washington State. In 2012 he began working for an Arabic translation company and represented the United States at the second Baghdad International Translation conference in Baghdad, Iraq.
If these four films are not quality enough to show the success of U.S. in Progress, the paths of the other films they have shown over the three years included Sundance film 2013's winning film "Ping Pong Summer" directed by Michael Tully and starring Susan Sarandon, Amy Sedaris, John Hannah, Judah Friedlander, and Lea Thompson was picked up for domestic distribution by Millennium and Gravitas and is currently in release theatrically in U.S. The premium international sales agent, Films Boutique, has sold it to France, Germany and Russia.
The former U.S. in Progress films, "Ping Pong Summer", "Sun Belt Express", Summer of Blood" by Onur Tukel whose film "Richard's Wedding" also showed in U.S. in Progress, are also showing at the Champs-Elysees Film Festival, the only film festival in Paris. This year Ceff is also hosting The Paris Coproduction Village with 12 feature films in development from Italy, U.S., Israel, The Philippines, Romania, Sri Lanka and U.S., Germany, Chile and Argentina, Thailand, Turkey, Italy and Canada, and Australia. It is also hosting the four-month Paris residents of the Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation, a dozen young directors whose selection is based on the quality of their shorts or first feature film and on the merits of their project currenlty in development their motivation.
The Champs Elysees is alive with the energy infused by the top level of fresh new talent, meeting for cocktails if not over dinner and lunch every evening in the terrace of Publicis at the top the the Champs Elysees, overlooking the Arc de Triumph. ...
"Creative Control", a dark sci-fi comedy is the near-future story of four Brooklynites whose tech-obsessed lifestyles get the better of them. Anxious, ambitious ad executive starts a chain reaction of destruction when he becomes obsessed with his best friend's free-spirited girlfriend while working on a campaign for a new generation of Augmented Reality Glasses. The life-like avatar he creates of her becomes too life-like as the blurred boundary between reality and fantasy spreads into an out-of-control space where everyone's public, private and imaginary lives implode.
Benjamin Dickenson grew up in Wheaton, Illinois and moved to New York in 1999 to attend Nyu's undergraduate film program. After graduation he and some friends from school started Waverly Films in a warehouse in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Benjamin started directing music videos for Dfa record artists such as LCD Soundsystem, The Rapture and the Juan Maclean. He has since made videos for Q-Tip and Reggie Watts, the "disinformationist" who c is currently appearing on the IFC television series "Comedy Bang! Bang" which began airing on June 8, 2012 and was renewed for a third season which will premiere in 2014. He has also directed commercials for Google, The Ford Motor Corporation, BMW, MTV and Guitar Hero.
Producer Marc de Pace is a partner at Ghost Robot, another Bushwick production company. In 2011 Mark produced Benjamin's "First Winter"released by Film Movement. He exec produced Michael Cera's short film "Brazzaville Teen-Ager" and Joey Garfield's feature film "A Love Letter for You". HIs producing credits also include music videos for Bjork, The Rapture and Grizzly Bear and ads for Google, Toshiba and At&T.
U.S. in Progress Paris took place during the third edition of the Champs Elysées Film Festival in Paris, on June 11-12 2014. The program presented 4 U.S. indie films in post-production to European sales agents, distributors and festival programmers in order to achieve completion and to foster the circulation and distribution of American indie films in Europe. The event has doubled the amount of submissions this year and is quickly achieving a winning track record.
The trajectories of the directing/ writing/ producing/ acting teams of the other three contenders are all trending distinctively upward:
Writer/director Matthew Lessner and producer David Henry Gerson presented "Automatic at Sea". Their short film "Chapel Perilous" previously won the 2014 Audience Award at Sundance. Matthew's previous feature "The Woods", distributed by Film Movement, premiered in the New Frontier Program at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011 and was shortlisted for Independent Spirit and Gotham Awards. The San Francisco Film Society has awarded him two grants for his upcoming feature "Terror Tuesday". Producer David Henry Gerson also starred and to my eye and in my opinion is one of the few mature (adult vs. boy-type) male leads in this new generation of actors. Manly, threatening and aloof in his role, in life he is also smart (a graduate of Colombia University with a bachelor's degree in English Literature and currently attending the American Film Institute) and engaged, as shown in the shorts he wrote and directed "Broken Badge" about a NYPD officer and American Standard about a veteran returning home from Afghanistan to his illegal immigrant girlfriend.
"Eugenia and John" directed by Hossein Keshavarz whose film "Dog Sweat" was released by Indiepix to critical acclaim in 2011 and which the New York Times called "polished; the young actors warmly believable" and NPR called "astonishingly gutsy" screened his second film, "Eugenia and John", produced by Mryam Azadi, Chad Burris and Amy Durning, stars Wesley Tunison and Venecia Troncoso who has the distinction of having starred in the Sundance hit, "Mosquita y Mari".
"Winning Dad" was written, directed and produced by Arthur Allen with producers Julia Bruk and Case Barden. This Lgbt romance is the debut feature of a young man whose career path after graduating St. John's College in Maryland, is as entertaining as his film. After supporting himself for several years in the Seattle Theater Community (and washing windows at the Space Needle), in 2008 he joined the United States Merchant Marines where he wrote "winning Dad" aboard the Usns Gilliland. On leaving, he was recruited by the Washington United for Marriage Coalition as part of its Speaker's Bureau to campaign for marriage equality in Washington State. In 2012 he began working for an Arabic translation company and represented the United States at the second Baghdad International Translation conference in Baghdad, Iraq.
If these four films are not quality enough to show the success of U.S. in Progress, the paths of the other films they have shown over the three years included Sundance film 2013's winning film "Ping Pong Summer" directed by Michael Tully and starring Susan Sarandon, Amy Sedaris, John Hannah, Judah Friedlander, and Lea Thompson was picked up for domestic distribution by Millennium and Gravitas and is currently in release theatrically in U.S. The premium international sales agent, Films Boutique, has sold it to France, Germany and Russia.
The former U.S. in Progress films, "Ping Pong Summer", "Sun Belt Express", Summer of Blood" by Onur Tukel whose film "Richard's Wedding" also showed in U.S. in Progress, are also showing at the Champs-Elysees Film Festival, the only film festival in Paris. This year Ceff is also hosting The Paris Coproduction Village with 12 feature films in development from Italy, U.S., Israel, The Philippines, Romania, Sri Lanka and U.S., Germany, Chile and Argentina, Thailand, Turkey, Italy and Canada, and Australia. It is also hosting the four-month Paris residents of the Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation, a dozen young directors whose selection is based on the quality of their shorts or first feature film and on the merits of their project currenlty in development their motivation.
The Champs Elysees is alive with the energy infused by the top level of fresh new talent, meeting for cocktails if not over dinner and lunch every evening in the terrace of Publicis at the top the the Champs Elysees, overlooking the Arc de Triumph. ...
- 6/14/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Benjamin Dickinson’s dark sci-fi comedy took the top prize at the Us In Progress independent showcase in Paris on Wednesday (11).
The event, hosted by the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, aims to connect upcoming films from the Us independent scene with distributors and sales agents in Europe.
It is Dickinson’s second feature film after his debut First Winter, about a group of Brooklynite yoga students attending a retreat in an old house in upstate New York, which premiered in Tribeca.
In Creative Control, Dickinson has set the tale in the heart of Brooklyn’s creative community. The director stars as an ambitious young ad executive working on a campaign for a new generation of augmented reality glasses.
He loses his own hold on reality after he creates a life-like avatar of his fashion photographer best-friend’s girlfriend, played by up and coming actress Alexia Rasmussen (pictured). The youthful ensemble cast also features Nora Zehetner and Dan Gill.
Shot...
The event, hosted by the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, aims to connect upcoming films from the Us independent scene with distributors and sales agents in Europe.
It is Dickinson’s second feature film after his debut First Winter, about a group of Brooklynite yoga students attending a retreat in an old house in upstate New York, which premiered in Tribeca.
In Creative Control, Dickinson has set the tale in the heart of Brooklyn’s creative community. The director stars as an ambitious young ad executive working on a campaign for a new generation of augmented reality glasses.
He loses his own hold on reality after he creates a life-like avatar of his fashion photographer best-friend’s girlfriend, played by up and coming actress Alexia Rasmussen (pictured). The youthful ensemble cast also features Nora Zehetner and Dan Gill.
Shot...
- 6/11/2014
- ScreenDaily
As year-end rituals go, remembering those we've lost over the past twelve months is the solemn twin of list-making, though it's often no less an act of celebration. In the new issue of the Brooklyn Rail, Charles Bernstein and Susan Bee look back on the life of George Kuchar, "one of the most creative, original, and influential filmmakers of our time, straddling two generations of North American iconoclasts, from Stan Brakhage, Ken Jacobs, Rudy Burckhardt, Kenneth Anger, and Michael Snow to Warren Sonbert, Ernie Gehr, Abigail Child, and Henry Hills. Often collaborating with his twin brother, Mike, George Kuchar started making films as a Bronx teenager, and the brothers' early films already show the ingenuity, exuberance, and do-it-yourself charm that would pervade scores of their subsequent films."
More from Clara Pais in the freely downloadable December issue of One + One, which also features Diamuid Hester on Jacques Tati, Donna K on Brent Green,...
More from Clara Pais in the freely downloadable December issue of One + One, which also features Diamuid Hester on Jacques Tati, Donna K on Brent Green,...
- 12/11/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 6/26.
"The golden age of New York moviegoing is now," argues Ao Scott in the New York Times. "Two events in the coming days offer confirmation of this hunch." Tonight "in Brooklyn the BAMcinemaFest opens with Weekend, Andrew Haigh's bracing, present-tense exploration of sex, intimacy and love, the first of 26 features that will play, along with 24 short films, over the next 10 days. And Friday is the official opening night of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, a charming two-screen jewel box carved (by the architect David Rockwell) out of garage and office space at Lincoln Center." He touches on the Museum of the Moving Image and the reRun Gastropub Theater as well, before returning to BAMcinemaFEST: "Not everything in the lineup is quite so perfectly realized as Weekend, but the range and generosity of the sampling make it hard to go wrong. Even the misfires and train wrecks are interesting,...
"The golden age of New York moviegoing is now," argues Ao Scott in the New York Times. "Two events in the coming days offer confirmation of this hunch." Tonight "in Brooklyn the BAMcinemaFest opens with Weekend, Andrew Haigh's bracing, present-tense exploration of sex, intimacy and love, the first of 26 features that will play, along with 24 short films, over the next 10 days. And Friday is the official opening night of the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, a charming two-screen jewel box carved (by the architect David Rockwell) out of garage and office space at Lincoln Center." He touches on the Museum of the Moving Image and the reRun Gastropub Theater as well, before returning to BAMcinemaFEST: "Not everything in the lineup is quite so perfectly realized as Weekend, but the range and generosity of the sampling make it hard to go wrong. Even the misfires and train wrecks are interesting,...
- 6/26/2011
- MUBI
Victoria Westcott, a budding film producer from Victoria (British Columbia), wants to convince you to finance her first film Locked in a Garage Band on Kickstarter.com, a web site that allows artists to get funds for their project. Between two breaths, Ms. Westcott took the time to talk to The Cultural Post.
For this film about a garage band on the cusp of a breakup that inadvertently gets locked in a garage for a day, Victoria Westcott participates as a producer while her sister, Jennifer, will direct and write the story. “My sister, Jennifer, is a professional photographer with an M.A. in History. Since she won the 2009 Praxis Screenwriting Competition, I trust someone who is much better than me in writing.”
The two sisters once tried to get a $25,000 investment from Brett Wilson, a judge/investor on the venture capitalist reality show Dragons’ Den: “It was a contest...
For this film about a garage band on the cusp of a breakup that inadvertently gets locked in a garage for a day, Victoria Westcott participates as a producer while her sister, Jennifer, will direct and write the story. “My sister, Jennifer, is a professional photographer with an M.A. in History. Since she won the 2009 Praxis Screenwriting Competition, I trust someone who is much better than me in writing.”
The two sisters once tried to get a $25,000 investment from Brett Wilson, a judge/investor on the venture capitalist reality show Dragons’ Den: “It was a contest...
- 2/14/2011
- by anhkhoido@gmail.com (Anh Khoi Do)
- The Cultural Post
Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats) Trailer Honestly, I hope this movie ends with all three of them deciding to partake in ritualistic suicide. There was a...
- 1/29/2011
- by Christopher Stipp
- Slash Film
Alumni of the Sundance Institute, a global nonprofit that supports independent film and theater, now have a new support system from popular crowd-funding platform Kickstarter.
The collaboration, announced at the Sundance Film Festival today, will see Kickstarter providing promotional, educational, and branding support for Sundance through an online resource hub--a "central location to explore case studies and best practices, in addition to live workshops and training opportunities with Institute staff, alumni, industry experts and key partners," according to the institute. In return, Sundance will curate alumni projects on Kickstarter, rally fans to support these projects, and showcase Kickstarter-funded works on a monthly basis.
Kickstarter gives creative projects an opportunity to get off the ground through community funding. If someone has, say, a book that they need $5,000 to finish, they can set up a page describing the project and requesting funds. Interested users can donate as much money as they would like,...
The collaboration, announced at the Sundance Film Festival today, will see Kickstarter providing promotional, educational, and branding support for Sundance through an online resource hub--a "central location to explore case studies and best practices, in addition to live workshops and training opportunities with Institute staff, alumni, industry experts and key partners," according to the institute. In return, Sundance will curate alumni projects on Kickstarter, rally fans to support these projects, and showcase Kickstarter-funded works on a monthly basis.
Kickstarter gives creative projects an opportunity to get off the ground through community funding. If someone has, say, a book that they need $5,000 to finish, they can set up a page describing the project and requesting funds. Interested users can donate as much money as they would like,...
- 1/26/2011
- by Ariel Schwartz
- Fast Company
Park City -- I felt about the characters in "The Woods" the same way I do whenever I see posters promoting MTV's new "Skins" series: In no way do I want to be friends with these people. Director Matthew Lessner takes a satirical lens to modern, well-meaning hipsters, vaguely aware of international strife and macro-environmentalism, who have thrust themselves into the woods to start their lives all over again. There's pop culture references and products galore -- along with all the riches of American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and the local Goodwill combined. But the score and soundtrack is less pronounced and more...
- 1/26/2011
- Hitfix
As the Sundance Film Festival welcomes its first crowdfunded film tonight, Brian Ries takes a look at the rise of websites that make it easier than ever to get free cash from total strangers online.
Matthew Lessner has a lot of strangers to thank.
Related story on The Daily Beast: Who Spends the Most?
As the clock strikes midnight tonight inside Park City's Holiday Village Cinemas on the second day of the Sundance Film Festival, his indie satire The Woods will make its premiere in front of a sold-out crowd.
It nearly didn't happen.
It was late summer, in 2009, and Lessner was running out of money as he neared the completion of his film. His credit was drying up, too. So he turned to a website called Kickstarter.com. "With your help and support (whoever you may be) we hope to make the dream of finishing and releasing-what we believe...
Matthew Lessner has a lot of strangers to thank.
Related story on The Daily Beast: Who Spends the Most?
As the clock strikes midnight tonight inside Park City's Holiday Village Cinemas on the second day of the Sundance Film Festival, his indie satire The Woods will make its premiere in front of a sold-out crowd.
It nearly didn't happen.
It was late summer, in 2009, and Lessner was running out of money as he neared the completion of his film. His credit was drying up, too. So he turned to a website called Kickstarter.com. "With your help and support (whoever you may be) we hope to make the dream of finishing and releasing-what we believe...
- 1/21/2011
- by Brian Ries
- The Daily Beast
Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Institute announced that 12 short films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, as well as eight classic short films from Institute alumni and earlier Festivals will be available in the You Tube Screening Room. The first launch date is January 6, 2011 and will continue to release through February 3, 2011.
Each YouTube Screening Room series is scheduled to run for a span of six weeks.
”We are thrilled to be able to share a selection of short films free online on the YouTube Screening Room with the broader public,” said Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “The Screening Room will offer just a sample of the diversity and originality of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Shorts Program, as well as a taste of Institute history.”
The YouTube Screening room (www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom) is a curated wing of YouTube that focuses on independent films.
Short Films from Directors with Feature...
Sundance Institute announced that 12 short films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, as well as eight classic short films from Institute alumni and earlier Festivals will be available in the You Tube Screening Room. The first launch date is January 6, 2011 and will continue to release through February 3, 2011.
Each YouTube Screening Room series is scheduled to run for a span of six weeks.
”We are thrilled to be able to share a selection of short films free online on the YouTube Screening Room with the broader public,” said Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming. “The Screening Room will offer just a sample of the diversity and originality of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival Shorts Program, as well as a taste of Institute history.”
The YouTube Screening room (www.youtube.com/ytscreeningroom) is a curated wing of YouTube that focuses on independent films.
Short Films from Directors with Feature...
- 1/6/2011
- by NewsDesk
- DearCinema.com
Though I secretly wish that I could just dump in favor of the huge tentpole world preems that are the focus of our site, the New Frontier Section is unfortunately the section that I rarely venture into. Publicists would be kind enough to push me to reconsider this decision. As we previously reported, Lynn Hershman Leeson's Tiff debuted doc will be showing up at the fest, below we have Matthew Lessner's wacko The Woods (see trailer) promises several laughs and Sundance 2011 appears to be Rutger Hauer year - as he is coming to the fest with not one (Hobo with a Shotgun), but The Mill & the Cross as well. Jess + Moss /U.S.A. (Director: Clay Jeter; Screenwriters: Clay Jeter and Debra Jeter) Jess (18) and Moss (12) are second cousins who have spent their summers together since either of them can remember. Without immediate families that they can relate to,...
- 12/2/2010
- IONCINEMA.com
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