Christoph Rainer
RBC and the Toronto International Film Festival announced the winners of the 2013 RBC Emerging Filmmakers Competition. Christoph Rainer, Vienna, Austria is the national winner and received $20,000 prize. In Christoph Rainer’s film REQUIEM FOR A ROBOT, Rob, a worn out robot with a corrupt memory, drowns his sorrows of his ‘screwed’ existence in alcohol and asks himself the essential question: what did he do wrong?
Joanna Hogg’s Exhibition
Richard Curtis, Paul Greengrass, Agnieszka Holland and Frederick Wiseman have been selected to participate in the HBO Directors Dialogues and the popular HBO On Cinema conversation will feature James Gray at the upcoming 2013 New York Film Festival. The festival also announced the selection of Joanna Hogg and Fernando Eimbcke as the two filmmakers whose work will be screened and celebrated as NYFF’s Emerging Artists this year, as well as the selections for NYFF’s Shorts Programs.
The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Honorary Awards to Angela Lansbury, Steve Martin and Piero Tosi, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Angelina Jolie. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s 5th Annual Governors Awards on Saturday, November 16, at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.
FOREV
The 24th annual New Orleans Film Festival, taking place at venues across New Orleans October 10th- October 17th, 2013, announced the Narrative and Documentary Competition feature film selections that will compete for the grand jury prize. The twelve competing films include five world premieres and three U.S. premieres. The rest are Southern premieres. Several of the films have connections to Louisiana: Molly Green (one of the two directors of FOREV) is a New Orleans native; THE WHOLE GRITTY CITY is about marching bands in New Orleans; a significant portion of SEARCHING FOR BILL was filmed in Southern Louisiana; and Zack Godshall, a previous winner of the Louisiana Filmmaker of the Year award, is a Louisiana resident and his film profiles the coastal Louisiana town of Leeville.
Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab (CAIRO 678) has been selected for the San Francisco Film Society’s sixth Artist in Residence program, October 1 – 15. Diab’s schedule will include a screening of his debut feature film CAIRO 678, described as feminist drama exploring sexual harassment in Egypt.
BREAK UP MAN (Schlussmacher)
The Milwaukee Film Festival which runs September 26 – October 10, 2013, announced the entire film line-up of 240 films – 103 features and 137 shorts – from 44 different countries. The festival opens with the North American premiere of the German film BREAK UP MAN (Schlussmacher). BREAK UP MAN tells the very funny tale of Paul Voigt, a charming and ambitious professional who works for a ‘relationship break-up’ agency. A master at delivering bad news to husbands and wives on behalf of partners lacking the courage to say ‘it’s all over’. Paul is on the verge of a big promotion and seems to be staring at nothing less than a fabulously successful future. That is until he meets Toto, a needy and neurotic client who decides to cling to cool-and-calm Paul for dear life. Before long it’s Paul who needs counseling as his work performance nosedives and his romance with stunner Natalie heads in a similar direction.
Chan-wook Park’s STOKER, which stars Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska
Finland’s largest film festival, Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy, is scheduled to run for the 26th time from September 19th to 29th, 2013. This year the festival showcases a record number of films – 339 in total. For the first time in its history, HIFF also shows films in Espoo, where the nominees for the Nordic Council Film Prize will be screened in Kino Tapiola.
With no disrespect intended to any ladies reading this, it’s been said that no story carries the emotional impact of a story about the relationship between a father and his son. From the days of the Bible and mythology, countless stories have used that relationship as a basis for emotional conflict, from fantasy films like Star Wars and Field of Dreams to biographical films like Walk the Line. Indeed, it is because of that last film that the documentary MY FATHER AND THE MAN IN BLACK exists.
The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) has unveiled the lineup for its Points North Documentary Forum. Now in its fifth year, the Forum has quickly become the largest gathering in New England of filmmakers, key decision makers and thought leaders in the documentary field. The three-day conference program runs concurrently with the festival from September 27 – 29, 2013 at the historic Camden Opera House in Camden, Maine, and Union Hall in Rockport, Maine. This year’s program will feature a wide range of panel discussions, workshops, case studies, networking events and two public pitch sessions. Points North is dedicated to providing independent documentary filmmakers with unique opportunities for both professional development and creative inspiration, helping build a vibrant regional filmmaking community while sustaining a conversation about new directions in nonfiction storytelling.
The Toronto International Film Festival added Shane Salerno’s SALINGER to the lineup of films screening at this year’s festival. The documentary follows elusive author and literary legend J.D. Salinger, one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century, who brought the world The Catcher in the Rye.
Totally detached from society, as a matter of personal choice Abigail Harm is as anti-social and introverted as they come. Her only human interaction from day to day is that of her commitment to the service of reading to clients whom she sees at their home, as she reads from their favorite novels or other materials of choice. As the famous Korean folktale would have it, one which tells of love, true love, the ever lasting kind which results from the taming of a deer, who is appears robe-less in need of consolation. One most unexpected evening a gentleman in need of food and temporary shelter appears in Abigail’s home. Over a meal she prepares, the man questions Abigail’s understanding of love, to which she admits her only experience with it was through her parents, as an infant. His one wish for Abigail becomes that she truly gets to feel what love is. He enlightens her to the myth of ‘The Woodcutter and the Nymph’ impressing upon her the importance of keeping her eyes open to her true love which is forthcoming. In a matter of days, Abigails entire existence is revamped via this revelation, and literal appearance of a man in need of her as she is in need of he.
COSTA DA MORTE by Lois Patiño
The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the complete lineup for the 17th edition of Views from the Avant-Garde (VIEWS), taking place from October 3-7, 2013, during the New York Film Festival (NYFF). The popular yearly touchstone for experimental film returns with curator Mark McElhatten at the helm, and will contain 35+ programs in glorious Super-8, 16 mm and 35mm film and HD formats. Many familiar faces will return, and VIEWS will also feature 45 new artists and several mini-retrospectives of several of these artists including, Aura Satz, Lois Patiño, Sandro Aguilar, and Jean-Paul Kelly. Views will also offer special tributes to the late Stom Sogo and Anne Robertson whose work is a testimony to the power of a Cinema that is fearless, confidential and inextinguishable.