Sony Pictures Classics announced that they have acquired the rights in North America, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand to Take Shelter. The film is written and directed by Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories) and stars Academy Award® nominee Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Shea Whigham, Katy Mixon and Kathy Baker. The film is in dramatic competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Take Shelter is produced by Tyler Davidson under his Strange Matter Films banner, and Sophia […]
Launching a new chapter with a new executive director, the official lineup of the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF), produced and presented by Miami Dade College (MDC), was announced today replete with Red Carpet Gusman Galas, Premieres, Competition Categories and Awards, REEL Education Seminars and other special presentations that make up the Festival,s showcase of more than 100 films from 40 countries during the 10-day event, which runs March 4-13, 2011. The Festival launches on […]
One day before the start of the Sundance Film Festival, a program of the Sundance Institute, and its gathering of independent filmmakers from around the world, the Ford Foundation announced a five-year, $50 million initiative to help find and support a new generation of filmmakers whose works address urgent social issues. The new initiative, called JustFilms, will invest $10 million a year over the next five years to support and expand the community of filmmakers […]
The Sundance Film Festival hasn’t even started yet and another documentary film has reportedly been acquired. Reelmovienews is reporting that the documentary The Greatest Movie Ever Sold which is set to premiere Saturday at the festival has been acquired by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions for distribution in U.S. and Canada. Acclaimed filmmaker and master provocateur Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) returns to the Sundance Film Festival with tongue-in-cheek perfection as he examines the world of […]
Just days before its premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema documentary competition, HBO announced that it has picked up all domestic rights to the documentary Project Nim. Project Nim is directed by James Marsh and produced by Simon Chinn, the team behind the Oscar winning documentary Man on Wire. From the Oscar-winning team behind Man on Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who, in the 1970s, became the […]
Talk about a preemptive strike, Roadside Attractions has acquired 2011 Sundance Film Festival opening night drama “The Music Never Stopped.” Based on Oliver Sacks’s case study “The Last Hippie,” director Jim Kohlberg’s first feature explores a family divided by the culture clash of the 1960s. Almost 20 years after their teenage son Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci) ran away from home, Henry (J.K. Simmons) and Helen Sawyer (Cara Seymour) learn that he has turned up in […]
The Librarian of Congress named 25 motion pictures—Hollywood classics, documentaries and innovative shorts reflecting genres from every era of American filmmaking—to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Spanning the period 1891-1996, the films named to the registry included the black independent film “Cry of Jazz,” Luis Valdez’s “I Am Joaquin” and John Huston’s war documentary “Let There Be Light,” which was banned by the War Department for 35 years. This year’s selections […]
Eric Escobar has been selected to receive this year’s San Francisco Film Society/Hearst Screenwriting Grant for the continuing development of his script East County. The Hearst Screenwriting Grant of $15,000 is given to a mid-career American screenwriter whose project expresses both a unique personal perspective and an artistic approach to the subject. The grant is open to those who have been practicing writers for at least five years and who have previously written a minimum of […]
Nominees for the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for outstanding performances in 2010 in five film and eight primetime television categories and for the SAG honors for film and television stunt ensembles were announced this morning in Los Angeles. ‘The King’s Speech’ and ‘The Fighter’ lead the field with 4 nominations each, followed by ‘Black Swan’ and ‘The Kids Are All Right’ with 3 nominations each. ‘Winter’s Bone’ was not left out, picking up […]
The 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards nominations were announced this morning and The Kings Speech lead the field with 7 nominations followed by The Fighter and the critics’ favorite The Social Network with 6 nominations. The 68th Annual Golden Globe® Awards will air LIVE coast-to-coast on Sunday, January 16, 2011 on NBC from 5:00-8:00 p.m. (PST) /8:00-11:00 p.m. (EST) from the Beverly Hilton Hotel with host Ricky Gervais. The complete list of nominations: BEST MOTION […]
The 22nd annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present David O. Russell with the Director of the Year Award at its Awards Gala. Past Director of the Year honorees include Alexander Payne, Jason Reitman, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Anthony Minghella, Sean Penn and Ang Lee. Russell earned critical acclaim early in his career when he wrote and directed his first feature film, Spanking the Monkey. This film premiered at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, […]
Lucy Walker’s ‘Waste Land’ took the top 2010 IDA Documentary Award, ‘IDA PARE LORENTZ AWARD’ as well as the the IDA Award for Best Documentary Feature. Waste Land follows renowned artist Vik Muniz as he journeys from his home in Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world’s largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio. There, he photographs an eclectic band of catadores–self-designated pickers of recyclable materials. Muniz’s initial objective was […]