“Kassim The Dream” is the gripping documentary tale of World Champion Boxer, Kassim “The Dream” Ouma and his fight to survive in and out of the ring. Born in Uganda and kidnapped by the rebel army, Kassim began training as a child soldier at age six. When the rebels rose to power, Kassim became an army soldier, forced into a life of victimizing brutality. Finally the young Kassim sees his ticket to freedom within the army’s boxing team and, after 12 years of warfare, escapes to the United States.
Kassim, who rose to become the Junior Middleweight Champion of the World, seems to be a poster boy for the American Dream with his gutter to glory tale, but as the young boxer trains for his next world title fight, past torments weigh heavy on his mind. Desperate to reunite with his family in Uganda, who he has not seen or heard from in 10 years, Kassim realizes that the only way to return safely is with a military pardon from the government responsible for his childhood abduction.
Award winning director Kief Davidson goes head to head with Kassim Ouma, painting the brutal pictures of his childhood within the boxer’s current world. The result is the portrait of a brave young man, struggling to win the fight of his life.
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on March 27, 2009 under Industry, Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
Companies that distribute independent and specialty films seem to be falling like flies lately -Warner Independent Pictures, Yari Film Group, Picturehouse, Paramount Vantage, New Line Cinema and ThinkFilm.
Anchor Bay Entertainment is now entering the less-crowded field with its first release called “The Education of Charlie Banks.” The film which opens today is directed by Limp Bizkit rocker Fred Durst and stars “The Squid and the Whale’s” Jesse Eisenberg.
Other upcoming releases include “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt,” starring Michael Douglas, on May 1 and “Spread,” with Ashton Kutcher, in August. It plans as many as 10 releases annually.
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on March 10, 2009 under Documentary, Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
Image from ‘Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country’
Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Anders Østergaard’s documentary “Burma VJ,” which looks at the 2007 uprising in Myanmar through the cameras of the independent journalist group Democratic Voice of Burma.
Oscilloscope plans a theatrical release this spring, followed by a DVD release in 2010.
Burma VJ is currently doing the film festival circuit, with a win for the World Cinema Documentary Film Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival [via]
Critically acclaimed Australian film, “The Combination,” has been pulled from theaters by distributor Greater Union, after violent outbursts broke out at two screenings in Sydney. The film centers around ethnic Lebanese gangs in Australia, and utilizes news footage from a violent riot in 2005, during which, anyone who appeared Middle Eastern was targeted. These attacks inspired violent retaliation from Sydney’s Middle Eastern community for the two nights following. Star and screenwriter of the film, George Basha, says he is extremely disappointed with the theaters’ decision to pull the film. The film will continue to show in 27 other cinemas around Australia.
A young man travels with his ailing grandmother from America to India, where she was the born. He’s reluctant to go, finding no interest in India and unaware of his roots. When they arrive he is confronted by a chaotic world where everyone has a story. That world is Delhi-6, the nickname for an old city in which he immediately feels unwelcome. The city is filled with vibrant characters, the neighborhood cop with a hitler fetish, the housewives who gossip through a hole in the wall, the legend of “The Monkey Man”. This film is a lighthearted trip back, emphasizing the importance of community, history and culture.
ELEVEN MINUTES
Jay McCarrol, America’s Next Top Designer winner, prepares for his first New York City fashion show amongst a slew of pressure, expectations and problems. This doc follows McCarrol’s struggle to get his clothing line off the ground and is an inside look at the hectic fashion world. Eleven Minutes is also an interesting look into the reality show world and the new type of celebrity that has emerged from it.
MUST READ AFTER MY DEATH
Film maker Morgan Dews was shocked when he discovered a box left by his deceased grandmother titled “Must Read After My Death”. Inside it he found tons of audio recordings, video and photographs documenting her life. This documentary film is Dews attempt to recreate a family’s journey through his grandmothers eyes, a family that was going through turbulent and testing times. The family constantly fought and as the film goes on it’s clear that his grandmother was very unhappy. A strange and chilling film, exposing the intricacies of family and american life.
Posted by Robert Samardick on February 10, 2009 under Documentary, Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
Old Partner, a Korean documentary that premiered at Sundance, is set to break two box office records. The producers spent no money on television advertising yet remarkably the film is projected to bring in $728,000, making it the highest grossing Indie AND Documentary film in Korean history. The plot follows an old frail farmer and his trusty Ox, a 40-year old beast who he pampers like a child. The film has left most major studios stunned, surviving solely on word of mouth for advertising. The film also gives hope for other Korean Independent companies who have been paid little attention to in the past. More about the farmer and the ox.
“Human life does not appear to be sustainable,” we are convincingly reminded by Werner Herzog in his 53rd film—the first to be nominated for an Oscar. The slyly named Encounters at the End of the World finds Herzog taking the death panic of the species for a ride through the Antarctic tundra. The company, as fans of his movies would expect, is as cold and as beautiful as the view.
If you haven’t seen a Herzog movie, it’s hard to pinpoint why exactly you should see one. They are strange, stubbornly esoteric little artifacts of cinema, filled with a dark, rebellious spirit that is by turns compelling and overwrought. “I didn’t want to make a film about fluffy penguins,” he narrates at the opening of the Antarctica film, and for a moment we feel like we’re caught one-on-one with some hip, brooding German art student at a party. He’s pretty sure of himself, and he seems interesting enough, but it’s hard to ignore that nagging little voice in our heads telling us how full of shit he is. Non-commercial filmmaking, existential void, apocalypse soon. We get it.
That’s his off-camera reputation working against him, I suppose, but it’s not like he tries to hide it. His eccentricity—a gentler word than the probably more accurate ‘megalomania’—is easily as well known as his work. Very often, film students find out that he put lives in danger to haul a ship over a mountain, or that he once pulled a gun on his movie’s star to prevent him from deserting a set, long before they’ve seen Fitzcarraldo or Aguirre: The Wrath of God. It may be that he’s better at being a filmmaker than he is at making films.
But he is pretty darn good at making films. Grizzly Man, his last documentary, was a knockout. Blending interviews and insightful, meandering narration with the subject’s own footage, the film recounts the odd life and tragic death of Timothy Treadwell, a naturalist who lived with grizzly bears. Herzog’s penetrating, deeply empathetic gaze reveals the beauty of his subject, which is the best you can say about a documentary treatment. It also reveals Herzog, and his themes are nothing if not consistent: here is another example of human folly, of the cruel limitations of nature, of the core of uncertainty that bla bla bla bla bla. Life is indeed absurd, and so indeed is Herzog.
Antarctica, as it turns out, is a great place to discover both of these things. The surroundings, like the offbeat characters who find themselves there, are well-suited to a bit of sententiousness. There’s the banker from Oregon turned Peace Corps worker in Guatemala turned bus driver in Antarctica; the graduate student in linguistics now living in the only place on earth without a native language; the self-described professional dreamer. “The universe dreams through us,” he says about humanity, and it’s startling to be reminded how hard some of us try to carry out that dream.
With awe we watch the divers of this tundra cutting a hole in the ice and swimming around underneath. It’s a place so quiet, so beautiful, populated by such marvelous creatures, that it earns its nickname ‘The Cathedral’ even without the gothic chanting we hear on the soundtrack. The colorful, translucent jellyfish we observe with fascination emit strange sounds, we find out from a scientist who studies them. We get to hear those sounds at a few places in the film. They’re not quite right somehow. The scientist mentions that they don’t even sound organic, and she’s right. They sound like laser beams, or electronica. They sound absurd.
Somebody makes the joke at one point that all the people who aren’t tied down wind up at the bottom of the earth. This is a place that most of us never see or even think about, a world of desolation and loneliness, where all points converge, and where warmth is the exception, not the rule. It’s the place we’re usually trying to pretend doesn’t exist, which is the absurd part. It’s the end of the world.
Herzog’s voice is never very far from this film, so we hear a lot of editorializing. In his dry, German-accented English, he expresses his contempt for ATM machines in the tundra, new age philosophy, and blockbusters about fluffy penguins. He lingers with unrestrained schadenfreude on a hapless group of trainees with buckets on their heads trying to learn how to survive a whiteout in Antarctica. He films scientists watching bad disaster movies from the fifties, intones on the unending series of catastrophes that make up natural history, and with practiced disinterest, informs us that “we seem to be next”. He shows us a wooden sign for all the divers out there with the hand-carved phrase “To sink into bliss.” It’s all pretty absurd, but it’s all pretty beautiful too, which is a good way of describing this life. And maybe it’s beautiful precisely because it’s so absurd.
Posted by Robert Samardick on January 27, 2009 under New Release, Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
After stomping the 2008 festival circuit, Medicine for Melancholy makes its theatrical release. It is the first film from director Barry Jenkins and has already established him as a filmmaker to watch out for. The plot follows two San Francisco residents as they navigate through the sticky politics of a one-night stand. Awkward and tender, the film captures that messy morning (and day) after while throwing class and race issues into the mix. With a smooth visual style and insightful content to back it up, Medicine is the perfect hook-up. Read The New York Times review.
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on January 12, 2009 under Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
Emily Hubley’s feature debut, The Toe Tactic, will have its theatrical premiere at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The film had its premiere at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, and was included in the 2008 New Directors/New Films festival.
In The Toe Tactic, a young woman named Mona Peek experiences delayed grief over the death of her father when she learns that her childhood home has been sold. In moving between live action and animation, her emotional plight and the lives of her neighbors are played out as an esoteric card game by four capricious dogs. Over the following days, the dogs mystify an unknowing Mona by stealing things, impersonating people, and intervening with fate. Winsome newcomer Lily Rabe interacts with animated forms that push, pull, and caress their real-life cohabitants through a journey of renewal. [via]
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on December 24, 2008 under New Release, Theatrical Release | Comments are off for this article
The Secret of the Grain
In Arabic and French, with English subtitles. Running time: 151 minutes. Not Rated.
At the French Mediterranean port of Sète, divorced father Slimane Beiji (Habib Boufares), a tired sixty year old, is about to be retrenched from his tiring shipyard job. What with that and his broken family situation, he feels a failure, sharing life with his mistress Lilia (Leila D’Issernio) and her daughter Rym (Hafsia Herzi). He ambitiously takes over a wrecked tug with the aim of setting up his own port-side restaurant, eagerly supported by the enthusiastic Rym, with his ex-wife Souad (Bouraouia Marzouk) doing the cooking – including her speciality, the fish couscous. Opening night, however, brings out the best and worst in all of them. [via]
Mother Courage and Her Children
Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. This film is not rated.
In the summer of 2006, Meryl Streep took a time out from making movies, and she took on the role of a lifetime: the lead in Bertolt Brecht’s classic anti-war play Mother Courage and Her Children. And for the first time she allowed a camera crew to document her rehearsal process. Theater of War not only takes us back-stage with one of the greatest actresses of our time, it also takes us back in time, uncovering the story of Brecht’s flight from the Nazis, his years in exile, and his eventual return to Germany where he first staged Mother Courage. Along the way, Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner and others explore the terrifying theme of Brecht’s masterpiece: why does history repeat itself in an endless cycle of violence and warfare? [via]
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A young man travels with his ailing grandmother from America to India, where she was the born. He’s reluctant to go, finding no interest in India and unaware of his roots. When they arrive he is confronted by a chaotic world where everyone has a story. That world is Delhi-6, the nickname for an old city in which he immediately feels unwelcome. The city is filled with vibrant characters, the neighborhood cop with a hitler fetish, the housewives who gossip through a hole in the wall, the legend of “The Monkey Man”. This film is a lighthearted trip back, emphasizing the importance of community, history and culture.
