Posted by editor@vimooz.com on July 27, 2009 under Documentary, Film Festival, Politics | 
Hackers have defaced the website of the Melbourne Film Festival over a documentary about exiled separatist leader Rebiya Kadeer accused by China of plotting riots.
Messages attacking Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer, along with images of the Chinese flag, were posted on the festival’s site over the weekend.
Festival director Richard Moore said the intruders were using a Chinese IP address and he had reported the matter to police.
Mr Moore said the attacks came after pressure from the Chinese Government to remove the film from the festival.
“This has been going on… since obviously the call from a Chinese consular official who told me in no uncertain terms that I was urged to withdraw this particular documentary,” Mr Moore told the BBC.
The Australian documentary, titled The 10 Conditions of Love, follows Ms Kadeer’s family as she campaigns for China’s Uighur population.
Three Chinese directors have withdrawn from the festival in protest against the film.
Read more …
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on July 24, 2009 under Screenwriting |
The San Francisco Film Society announced this week an exciting new partnership with William R. Hearst III that will launch the second SFFS screenwriting initiative, the newest element of the Film Society’s rapidly expanding Filmmaker Services program.
The Hearst Screenwriting Grant of $15,000 will be given to a mid-career screenwriter who has been a practicing writer for at least five years and who has previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. The grant is open to writers residing in the United States whose project expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to the subject. Priority will be given to writers whose previous short or feature screenplays have been produced as an independent film. This grant is supported by a gift from William R. Hearst III.
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Posted by editor@vimooz.com on July 20, 2009 under drama |
Here Media acquired the international sales rights (excluding North America) to the new drama, “Toe to Toe,” from writer/director Emily Abt. “Toe to Toe” was produced by Emily Abt, for Pureland Pictures, Inc. and Susan Leber of Suzie Q Productions. Regent Worldwide Sales will handle international sales on behalf of Here Media, Inc.
Abt was recently selected as one of Variety Magazine’s ‘Top 10 Directors to Watch’, Abt is an award-winning filmmaker whose social-issue documentary background informs her fiction work. Abt’s first film, TAKE IT FROM ME, was about the human impact of welfare reform and aired on PBS’ prestigious P.O.V series. ALL OF US, her second documentary feature, captured a young doctor’s battle against the disproportionate rate of HIV among black women and premiered on the Showtime Network as their 2008 World AIDS Day film. TOE TO
TOE, which she wrote, directed and co-produced, is Abt’s first narrative feature and premiered in Dramatic Competition at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Abt is represented by Charles King at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment and Ava Greenfield. She is managed by Jeremy Bell and Lindsay Williams of The Gotham Group.
“Toe to Toe” features performances from newcomers Louisa Krause and Sonequa Martin. Read more of this article »
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on under Documentary, Film Festival |
The Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci have announced the recipients selected for the 2009 Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund which provides finishing finances to documentary filmmakers whose projects promote social change and illuminate issues in need of deeper coverage currently missing from mainstream media. In the second year of the fund, seven projects have been selected from 350 submissions from 41 countries to receive a total of $100,000, to be administered by the Tribeca Film Institute (TFI).
The projects were selected by a committee consisting of Dan Cogan, Abigail Disney, Philip Gourevitch, Julia Ormond and Sam Pollard who chose the recipients from finalists previously selected by TFI. The projects that will receive funding are:
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Posted by editor@vimooz.com on July 19, 2009 under Film Festival |
Saudi Arabia’s only film festival, “Jeddah film festival” was called off hours before it was to open on Saturday, festival sources said, as powerful Islamic conservatives battle a popular push for more entertainment in the country.
Organisers of the Jeddah film festival were told late on Friday by the city authorities they could not go ahead, even though the event had been heralded as a highlight of the city’s summer festival launched on Thursday, they said.
The week-long festival was to have featured a competition between eight Gulf feature films — two from Saudi Arabia itself — and show dozens more shorts by local and regional filmmakers.
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Posted by editor@vimooz.com on under Film Festival, Foreign Film |
British director Ken Loach has withdrawn his film “Looking For Eric” from from the Melbourne International Film Festival because it receives funding from the Israeli government. Loach with the same ultimatum had prompted the Edinburgh International Film Festival in May to return a grant that was to help fund the visit of an Israeli filmmaker. But the Australian festival’s chief executive, Richard Moore, was unequivocal in his response to Loach, whose film had sold out for its scheduled July 30 screening at the festival. “It’s like submitting to blackmail,” Moore said Friday.
The Israeli Embassy in Canberra is helping sponsor the visit of Tatia Rosenthal, the director of “$9.99,” a stop-motion animation based on the short stories of award-winning Israeli author Etgar Keret. The embassy has been funding the festival for years, according to a spokesman.
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on July 17, 2009 under Awards, Documentary |
Nominations for the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy® Awards were announced earlier this week by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS). The News & Documentary Emmy® Awards will be presented on Monday, September 21 at a ceremony at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, located in the Time Warner Center in New York City.
PBS leads the pack for the 30th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards, dominating the field with 41 nominations.
CBS is second with 23 noms, followed by ABC and HBO/Cinemax (13 each), National Geographic (12) and NBC (10).
The hauls for cable news networks CNN and MSNBC are in the single digits, eight and two, respectively. (Fox News doesn’t submit its programs for News Emmys, claiming bias against the conservative network on the part of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ members.)
This year’s Lifetime Achievement honoree is Barbara Walters and CNN Productions-the documentary unit of CNN-will receive the President’s Award for the network’s longstanding commitment to long form documentaries.
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on under Horror |
Actress Mischa Barton, 23, canceled a scheduled appearance at the New York premiere of her new indie film Homecoming, one day after reportedly calling the Los Angeles Police Department with a health problem.
Police were called to Barton’s home at 3 p.m. Wednesday for a “medical issue,” People reports. The star’s rep, Craig Schneider, told EW via a statement: “Ms. Barton was safely transferred to medical treatment for which she remains hospitalized, as per the recommendation of her doctor.” Schnider told People that the LAPD officers were there simply to protect the star. “Police were involved due to Ms. Barton’s celebrity status,” he said, adding that the actress is now “okay and resting.”
Police would not confirm Access Hollywood’s claim that the actress has been placed under involuntary psychiatric hold at an L.A. hospital.
HOMECOMING: Mike (Matt Long) was the star quarterback in a blue-collar small town where football is everything. After receiving a scholarship to Northwestern University, he returns home over Christmas break and everyone is surprised to see him with a new girlfriend, Elizabeth (Jessica Stroup), a pretty rich girl from Chicago. No one is more shocked than Mike’s homecoming queen ex-girlfriend, Shelby (Mischa Barton), who desperately wants Elizabeth out of the picture. After a freak car accident leaves an injured Elizabeth at the mercy of Shelby, all hell breaks loose as Shelby does everything it takes to get Mike back.”
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on under drama |
Jacqueline Bisset’s latest film, “Death in Love,” opens today. Written and directed by Boaz Yakin, the controversial family drama casts Bisset as the rage-filled, sadistic mother of two adult but emotionally stunted boys (Josh Lucas and Lukas Haas).
Her character, simply known as Mother, had been abandoned by her parents during World War II and sent to a Nazi concentration camp where she fell in love with a Nazi doctor who was performing experiments on prisoners. Immigrating to America after the war, she married a handsome but weak-willed man whom she cheated on. Though she loves her sons, she flies into uncontrollable rages around them.
Where did Bisset draw her inspiration from for her role? Her cat.
Read more …
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on under Awards, Documentary |
John Gage spent the summer of 2008 documenting Wisconsin’s Rock River, as it rose and its impact on the landscape and the people who lived closest to the catastrophe.
Gage died in car accident in August 2008, just one week before finishing work on the film he called, “The Flood of 2008.” His father, Howard Gage, finished the work.
Now, almost a year later, that video has won a national Telly Award in the documetary category. The Telly Awards display the best work of advertising agencies, production companies, TV stations, cable companies and corporate video awards.