The Green Prince
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced their nominees for the 26th annual awards in the categories of documentary, TV series/specials and digital series. Nominees for the Award for Outstanding Producer of Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures include The Green Prince (Music Box Films), Life Itself (Magnolia Pictures), Merchants of Doubt (Sony Pictures Classics), Particle Fever (Abramorama/BOND 360) and Virunga (Netflix).
Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang, directed by Colin Offland
The Slamdance Film Festival earlier today unveiled its narrative and documentary competition lineups for the upcoming festival taking place January 23 to 29, 2015. The Slamdance feature competition is limited to films made with budgets under $1 million and made by first-time directors. Films include Dennis Rodman’s Big Bang in Pyongyang, directed by Colin Offland, described as “an intimate behind the scenes look at Dennis Rodman’s unlikely friendship with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and the staging of the most controversial game of basketball the world has never seen.”
BIRDMAN
The International Press Academy (IPA) announced its nominations for the 19th Annual Satellite Awards in the Motion Pictures and Television categories. BIRDMAN dominated the list with 10 nominations including Best Film and Best Director for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. Other films nominated for Best Film include BOYHOOD, GONE GIRL, LOVE IS STRANGE, MR. TURNER, SELMA, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, THE IMITATION GAME, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, and WHIPLASH. The winners of the 19th Annual Satellite™ Awards will be announced in a ceremony held on February 15, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.
BronzeLens Film Festival (BronzeLens) 2014 winners were announced at the BronzeLens Awards Show ceremony held at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis where the ‘Best of Festival’ filmmakers in their perspective categories received top honors. Award winning film categories included the Feature, Documentary, International, Short, Documentary Short, Student, Webisodes as well as Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Overall and the Audience Awards.
Miami International Film Festival (MiamiFF) unveiled the official poster for the 32nd edition, featuring legendary writer, producer and director Orson Welles strolling the Miami Beach boardwalk in 1943. Adding a layer of Welles-ian mystery, the photographer of this remarkable 70-year-old image is unknown. So whodunit? The festival invites the public to help solve this mystery as it gears up for its international film premieres and festival activities taking place March 6 – 15, 2015.
“The Big Beat” chronicles the life of the legendary rhythm and blues singer-songwriter, Antoine “Fats” Domino
The seventh annual Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival (HT2FF) kicks off Thursday, December 4, and runs through Sunday, December 7, at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. The Opening Night Film is the New York premiere of “The Big Beat,” directed by local resident Joe Lauro, a filmmaker of music documentaries, chronicles the life of the legendary rhythm and blues singer-songwriter, Antoine “Fats” Domino, from his childhood roots in the music mecca of New Orleans to his defining partnership with pioneer music producer Dave Bartholomew. Beautifully told through interviews and archival footage, the film celebrates a man whose musical style and sensibility influenced many artists of the 60’s and 70’s and landed him on the Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
British actor Eddie Redmayne “The Theory of Everything” was awarded the exclusive ‘Maserati Award’ at the 32nd Turin Film Festival. Representing the House of the Trident, Luca Dal Monte, Director of External Relations and Press at Maserati, presented Eddie Redmayne with the ‘Maserati Award’ for Best Breakthrough Actor. The young actor was chosen for his performance in the film “The Theory of Everything”, in which he demonstrated extraordinary versatility.
Of Men and War by Laurent Bécue-Renard
Laurent Bécue-Renard won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the 2014 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), for Of Men and War (France / Switzerland). The film is about a group of American Iraq veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Director Bécue-Renard follows the group for many years during therapy sessions in a clinic for veterans. The jury presented the Special Jury Award to Something Better to Come (Denmark / Poland) by Hanna Polak, who for fourteen years followed young girl Yula and those who share her fate, living in the biggest waste tip in Europe, just outside Moscow.
Meredith Monk’s Girlchild Diary
The lineup is unveiled for the 43rd edition of the dance-centric film festival, Dance on Camera, taking place January 30 – February 3 in New York City. The festival opens with the U.S. Premiere of Girlchild Diary, which offers an intimate look at Meredith Monk, a daring composer, singer, filmmaker, choreographer, and director who this year is celebrating her 50th season of creating and performing work in New York. The festival closes with Richard Raymond’s searing Desert Dancer, a dramatic musical feature set against the 2009 riots against the Iranian regime, based on the true story of Afshin Ghaffarian, who dreamed of being a ballet dancer despite a government ban and formed an underground dance group. The film stars Freida Pinto, Reece Ritchie, and Tom Cullen and is choreographed by Akram Khan, who created the opening ceremonies of the recent London Olympic Games.
ZERO MOTIVATION, directed by Talya Lavie and winner of six Israeli “Oscars” plus the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, will open at Film Forum in NYC on December 3rd and the Nuart Theater in Los Angeles on January 16 , 2015. A national release will follow.
Girlhood
The 25th Stockholm International Film Festival set many records including female award winners, with French director Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood winning the top prize. The film is a tale of class identity and belonging. It fills a gap among the stories that are traditionally told about Paris. The award for Best First Film went to July Jung for A Girl at my Door. Ninja Thyberg won the 1 Km Film scholarship with her short film Hot Chicks. The price enables the director to make a new short film which will be screened during the 2015 Film Festival.
For the first time, more than twenty years after his death, the first fully-authorized feature documentary on Kurt Cobain, legendary lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Nirvana, “the flagship band of Generation X,” will be released. Titled, KURT COBAIN: MONTAGE OF HECK, the documentary film is scheduled for international release in 2015, and will debut exclusively on HBO in the U.S. Cobain’s daughter Frances Bean Cobain is executive producer, but no Courtney Love.