Two Men in Town
The 15th Annual “fiercely independent” Woodstock Film Festival runs Wednesday, October 15, through Sunday, October 19, with more than 150 films, panels, performances and special events. Screenings and events take place in the historic arts colony of Woodstock, NY, and the neighboring towns of Rhinebeck, Rosendale, Saugerties and Kingston, just two hours from New York City in the Hudson Valley Catskills. The festival was founded by filmmakers Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto.
Maps to the Stars
The Canberra International Film Festival opens on October 23 and goes until November 9, featuring 21 Australian Premieres and 20 documentaries. Opening Night film is Maps to the Stars starring Julianne Moore, and Closing Night’s Love is Strange is an ensemble romantic comedy about the fall out after a same sex marriage reveals society’s continued prejudices.
The Fourth Annual Gary International Black Film Festival (GIBFF) taking place this weekend, October 17, 18 and 19, 2014, at Indiana University Northwest Bergland Auditorium, Savannah Hall, in Gary, Indiana, will offer what the festival calls “a powerful lineup of drama, documentary and short films.” The festival opens tonight with THEY DIE BY DAWN, a star-studded film based on the true life African American Cowboys of the old west.
INHERENT VICE
Warner Bros. Pictures’ INHERENT VICE and Paramount Pictures’ THE GAMBLER have been added to the lineup for the 2014 AFI FEST which will take place November 6 through 13 in Hollywood, California. THE GAMBLER directed by Rupert Wyatt will have its World Premiere on Monday, November 10, 2014, and INHERENT VICE written and directed by Academy Award® nominee Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon will play on Saturday, November 8.
Actor Neil Patrick Harris will host the 87th Oscars®, scheduled to air live on ABC on Oscar® Sunday, February 22, 2015. “It is truly an honor and a thrill to be asked to host this year’s Academy Awards. I grew up watching the Oscars and was always in such awe of some of the greats who hosted the show,” said Harris. “To be asked to follow in the footsteps of Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal, Ellen DeGeneres, and everyone else who had the great fortune of hosting is a bucket list dream come true.”
Check out the trailer for The Blind Chess Players of India in ALGORITHMS, a First Run Features film which opens in Los Angeles on October 17 and in New York City on October 24. In India, a group of boys dream of becoming Chess Grandmasters. But this is no ordinary chess and these are no ordinary players. Algorithms, the debut feature documentary from filmmaker Ian McDonald, is a film that transports us into the little known world of Blind Chess. Chess is an ancient and universal game with origins in India.
Robert Redford, Academy Award–winning director, actor, producer, environmentalist, and founder of the Sundance Film Festival and Institute, will be honored by the Film Society of Lincoln Center at the 42nd Annual Chaplin Award Gala held at Lincoln Center on Monday, April 27, 2015.
THE OVERNIGHTERS
Nine films from Mexico, USA and Canada will compete in the Los Cabos Competition at the 2014 Los Cabos International Film FestivalLos Cabos International Film Festival.
In late August 1944, the Allies were advancing on German-occupied Paris. General von Choltitz (Niels Arestrup) the military governor of Paris (a position he held less than three weeks before the events of the film begin) is given orders to destroy Paris and abandon the city. He enlists a French engineer named Jacques Lanvin (Jean-Marc Roulot) to develop a plan to destroy Paris. Lanvin proposes blowing up the city’s many bridges to cause the Seine to flood, which would destroy the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, and the Opera. The remaining city monuments – including the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and Parliament – would be destroyed by explosives. Ironically, Choltitz points out to Lanvin that Paris is Hitler’s favorite city. “So why destroy it?” Lanvin asks. Choltitz responds, “Hitler wanted Berlin to be as beautiful as Paris, and bigger. Now, four years later, Berlin is in ruins, while Paris is as glorious as ever, see? It’s unbearable for him.”
Do I Sound Gay?
DOC NYC, announced the full line-up for its fifth edition, running November 13-20 at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village and Chelsea’s SVA Theatre and Bow Tie Chelsea Cinemas in New York CIty. Representing a dramatic growth from last year’s edition, the 2014 festival will showcase 153 films and events, with over 200 documentary makers and special guests expected in person to present their films to New York City audiences.
The Yes Men Are Revolting
Joining the US premiere of Opening Night Film Do I Sound Gay? as a Gala presentation, is this year’s Closing Night Film, the US premiere of The Yes Men Are Revolting, directed by Laura Nix and The Yes Men. Both films made their debut in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The Guest
The 23rd Philadelphia Film Festival, which begins this week on Thursday, October 16 and continues through Sunday, October 26, have added new films to the event line-up. The Festival will add a midnight screening of Sundance hit The Guest to this year’s Graveyard Shift film category. Advance tickets have sold out for the Festival’s Opening Night Film, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Centerpiece film, The Imitation Game. The October 23rd film screening of Imperial Dreams is also sold out with tickets still remaining for the October 22nd film screening.
Cinedigm has released the trailer for the documentary REMOTE AREA MEDICAL directed by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman which opens in NY on November 28th and nationwide on December 5th. The film was shot during a three-day clinic held at Tennessee’s Bristol Motor Speedway where, some of the country’s sickest individuals finally received health care. Their extraordinary stories create a lasting impression about the state of modern health care in America.