The seventh annual Charleston International Film Festival (Charleston IFF) culminated in an Awards Gala where Grape took home the award for Best Film and Amber Karlins was awarded Best Screenplay for Aurora. 3 Mile Limit, written and directed by Craig Newland, took home the Jury Award for Best Feature, while Harry Grows Up and The Lady in Number 6: Music Changed by Life won Jury Awards for Best Short and Best Documentary, respectively.
Shadows of Time by Sambit Banerjee
Russian Roulette by Ben Aston has won the Official Selection Award and Shadows of Time by Sambit Banerjee has won the Community Choice Award in the Short Film Competition for the third Sundance London film and music festival, taking place April 25 to 27, 2014, at The O2:. Both films will screen at the festival and both filmmakers will receive prizes.
A TROPICAL SUNDAY, directed by Fabian Ribezzo
Aspen Shortsfest 2014 was held April 8-13, and over 40 filmmakers from around the world plus other special guests attended. A TROPICAL SUNDAY, directed by Fabian Ribezzo, about four begging and scavenging street kids at a Mozambique amusement park, won the award for Best Drama, and director Tomasz Sliwinski’s documentary OUR CURSE, on what it’s like to be the young parents of a critically ill infant, won the award for Best Documentary.
LIFE INSIDE OUT
The Palm Beach International Film Festival (PBIFF) announced the winners of the 19th edition, which ran April 3 to 10, 2014. The Jury awarded LIFE INSIDE OUT directed by Jill D’Agnencia the prize for Best Feature Film, and FABERGÉ: A LIFE OF ITS OWN directed by Patrick Mark received the award for Best Documentary Feature. The audience voted CATHEDRAL CANYON directed by Paul Davis, winner of Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film and LION ARK directed by Tim Phillips grabbing the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the official poster for the upcoming festival taking place May 14 to 25, 2014. The poster design for the 67th Cannes Film Festival is based on a image taken from Federico Fellini’s 8½, which was presented in the Official Selection in 1963.
OBVIOUS CHILD, directed and written by Gillian Robespierre, and will open in theaters on June 6, 2014, has a new trailer. The comedy film which features a breakout performance by comedian Jenny Slate, premiered earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Varsity Audience Award for Best Feature at Ashland Independent Film Festival.
The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival, announced the winners of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival #6SecFilms competition. Jurors Jerome Jarre, Tiffany Shlain, Julie Klausner, James Curleigh and Bethann Hardison selected four winners from a shortlist of 40 Vines curated by TFF programmers and narrowed down from a field of 536 total entries from 24 countries to name individual winners in the categories of “drama,” “comedy,” “animation” and “genre.” A fifth winner was selected by an online voting audience of 6,000 in the first-ever #6SecFilms Audience Choice award, powered by Pitch’d, a platform for brands to curate their audience’s videos and photos across social networks by hashtag and facilitate voting to find the most popular.
The Special Need
The Dallas International Film Festival announced its 2014 award winners; Hellion, directed by Kat Candler, won the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize and The Special Need directed by Carlo Zoratti, grabbed the Documentary Feature Grand Jury Prize. Hellion is the debut feature from writer/director Kat Candler, based on her short film that screened at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, paints the powerful portrait of a family on the brink of dissolution set against the haunting backdrop of the refineries of Southeast Texas. The Special Need is a documentary film about Enea, an autistic man from Italy who is obsessed with finding a girlfriend. The film follows his struggles in interacting with women, and eventually he and his friends take to the road to find someone for Enea to sleep with.
The poster and official trailer is released for documentary Fed Up, directed by Stephanie Soechtig and executive produced by Katie Couric, that premiered earlier this year at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Fed Up will open in theaters on May 9, 2014. In the film, filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig and TV journalist Katie Couric lead us through this potent exposé that uncovers why—despite media attention, the public’s fascination with appearance, and government policies to combat childhood obesity—generations of American children will now live shorter lives than their parents did.
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely
The Polish drama Ida, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, took the top narrative feature prize at the 2014 Sarasota Film Festival. Shot stunningly in black and white, IDA finds a novice nun coming face-to-face with her family’s past in 1960s Poland. In the documentary category, Happy Valley directed by Amir Bar-Lev won the documentary feature award. In Hapy Valley, director Amir Bar-Lev explores the Jerry Sandusky controversy as it unfolded on the ground, as students, alumni and fans of the program rallied around legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who denied any role in the affair but who lost his job in the wake of the controversy. The thriller Thou Wast Mild and Lovely directed by Josephine Decker won the Independent Vision Prize. Thou Wast Mild and Lovely follows a hired hand whose interactions with the father and daughter who hired him become awful in the most lovely of ways.
What We Do in the Shadows
The Stanley Film Festival (SFF) announced its full line-up and schedule, plus revealed the name of the closing night film. As previously announced, Doc of the Dead will open SFF. The festival, taking place April 24-27, will close with the mockumentary from Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords), What We Do In The Shadows, about a house of vampires trying to get back in touch with modern society.
Watch the new trailer for Sam Fleischner’s Stand Clear of the Closing Doors winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, and set for release by Oscilloscope Laboratories on May 23, 2014. Stand Clear of the Closing Doors stars newcomer Jesus Sanchez-Velez and Andrea Suarez Paz, and follows a thirteen year-old boy who suffers from autism and finds himself lost in the city’s subway system. Due to his status as an illegal immigrant, his desperate mother must find him with whatever little means she has while her son explores and discovers NYC’s countless eccentricities as only an alienated youth could. The danger increases, however, when Hurricane Sandy (which occurred right in the middle of shooting) is set to destroy the city.