THE TREE INSIDE by Vancouver, B.C.-based filmmakers, Michelle Kim and Rob Leickner (pictured above) is the winner of the Audience Award for “Favorite Narrative Feature” and MAKE MINE COUNTRY by Portland filmmaker, Ian Berry is the winner of the Audience Award for “Favorite Documentary Feature” at the 42nd Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival, which ran from November 12-18, 2015.
Jerzy Sladkowski’s Don Juan won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary and Ukrainian Sheriffs by Roman Bondarchuk won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at the 28th International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA award ceremony.
The prize for the best Dutch documentary went to Ester Gould for A Strange Love Affair with Ego. The festival’s opening film A Family Affair by Tom Fassaert was awarded the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary.
A total of 16 prizes were awarded and three of the winners: Ukrainian Sheriffs, Roundabout in My Head and Sonita were made with financial support from the IDFA Bertha Fund.
Jerzy Sladkowski won the VPRO IDFA Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary for Don Juan (Sweden/Finland). The film is a portrait of 22-year old Oleg, and his mother Marina’s attempts to cure him of his lethargy.
From the jury’s report: “This tender, bittersweet tragicomedy about role-playing within both therapeutic theatre games and family dramas, and the interplay between them, is both subtle and aggressive, speaking volumes about the definitions of normality, abnormality and the dynamics of power and love.”
Furthermore, the jury awarded the IDFA Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary to Ukrainian Sheriffs (Ukraine/Latvia/Germany) by Roman Bondarchuk. The documentary, which was made with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund and was a 2014 IDFAcademy Summer School project, is a tragicomic portrait of two sheriffs in a remote Ukrainian village where, alongside all manner of commonplace situations, political developments also threaten to disturb the peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29qoEzqw5Mk
The IDFA Award for First Appearance was awarded to Salome Machaidze, Tamuna Karumidze and David Meskhi for When the Earth Seems to Be Light (Georgia/Germany).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSQix_-g0fI
The Special Jury Award for First Appearance – in memory of Peter Wintonick – went to Hassen Ferhani’s Roundabout in My Head (Algeria/France/Lebanon/Qatar).
Roundabout in My Head was financially supported by the IDFA Bertha Fund.
Andreas Koefoed won the IDFA Award for Best Mid-Length Documentary for At Home in the World (Denmark).
Samir Mehanovic won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Mid-Length Documentary for The Fog of Srebrenica (Scotland/Bosnia and Herzegovina).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCHdvD7zD4A
The IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling was presented to Jan Rothuizen and Sara Kolster for Drawing Room (the Netherlands).
Ant Hampton received the IDFA DocLab Immersive Non-Fiction Award for Someone Else (Belgium).
The Beeld en Geluid IDFA Award for Dutch Documentary was awarded to A Strange Love Affair with Ego made by Ester Gould.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDeqrlVLLrE
Tom Fassaert received the IDFA Special Jury Award for Dutch Documentary for A Family Affair.
The ARRI IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary went to My Aleppo (USA) by Melissa Langer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4lXDzur4Ts
The Mute’s House (Israel) by Tamar Kay won the IDFA Special Jury Award for Student Documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01CtMn48dgE
This year, the IDFA Award for Best Children’s Documentary was awarded for the first time and went to Ninnoc by Niki Padidar (the Netherlands).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hn3GFvFWsM
The jury decided to also award an honorable mention to Victor Kossakovsky’s Varicella (Norway/Denmark/Sweden/Russia).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOeKWKC2w5o
IDFA DOC U Award for the youth jury’s favorite film was awarded to Sonita by Rokhsareh Ghaem Maghami (Iran). Sonita was made thanks to a financial contribution from the IDFA Bertha Fund.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B47MbpPuz7A
The Oxfam Global Justice Award went to Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina for Walls (Spain).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_kUNh9TpI
Finally, the Alliance of Women Film Journalists’ EDA Award for Best Female-Directed Documentary was awarded to Motley’s Law by Nicole Nielsen Horanyi (Denmark). Motley’s Law was an IDFA Forum project in 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_hfsq5gL-o
IDFA continues until Sunday November 29, 2015, when the winners of the BankGiro Loterij IDFA Audience Award and the IDFA Music Audience Award, for the music documentary will be announced.
Actor Chiwetel Ejiofor will be honored with the Richard Harris Award at this year’s Moët British Independent Film Awards on Sunday December 6th, 2015. Chiwetel Ejiofor is being given the award “in recognition of his exceptional service to the film industry, not just here in the UK but internationally as an ambassador for British film.”
Jared Harris, son of Richard Harris, commented: “I am so happy this award is going to Chiwetel. Although the recipients of this award have all been embraced by the establishment, they all came from outside it, fought their way in on the strength of their talent, claimed their place and changed the status quo. A journey which describes Chiwetel’s career perfectly. His talent is immense, it has brought him deserved worldwide recognition, and he is in his prime! I hope this award inspires British filmmakers to take advantage of him and build films around his talent.”
In 1996, Chiwetel caught the attention of Stephen Spielberg who cast him in Amistad opposite Morgan Freeman and Anthony Hopkins. In 2002, he was nominated for his first major awards: the BIFA for Most Promising Newcomer and for Best Actor, which he won, for his performance in Stephen Frears’ thriller Dirty Pretty Things. Chiwetel’s transatlantic career continued with roles in Richard Curtis’ Love Actually, Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda and Julian Jarrold’s Kinky Boots, which drew another BIFA nomination. Chiwetel has worked with a spectacular roll-call of directors in the UK and US including Ridley Scott (American Gangster, The Martian), David Mamet (Redbelt), Tom Hooper (Red Dust), Spike Lee (Inside Man), and Alfonso Cuarón in the Oscar nominated Children of Men. 2014 was a memorable year for Chiwetel and saw him star in Steve McQueen’s Oscar winning US-UK co-production Twelve Years a Slave. Chiwetel’s performance as Solomon Northup gained him Oscar, Golden Globe and SAG nominations and won him a Best Actor BAFTA. Later in the year Chiwetel also starred in Half of a Yellow Sun based on the highly acclaimed novel of the same title, the film also starred Thandie Newton and Joseph Mawle. This year Chiwetel was elevated from OBE to CBE for his services to drama and has seen him feature in a raft of acclaimed films and stage performances, including Everyman, Rufus Norris’ inaugural play as Artistic Director of The National Theatre. As well as that astonishing stage performance, 2015 has seen Chiwetel appear in blockbuster The Martian and the soon-to-be-released thriller Secret in Their Eyes with Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman as well as John Hillcoat’s heist crime thriller Triple Nine with Kate Winslet, Casey Affleck and Aaron Paul. He is currently shooting Marvel’s Doctor Strange with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton.The Richard Harris Award was introduced in 2002 in honor of Richard Harris and recognizes outstanding contribution to British film by an actor. Previous winners have been John Hurt, David Thewlis, Bob Hoskins, Jim Broadbent, Daniel Day-Lewis, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Julie Walters and Emma Thompson in 2014.
Spotlight director Tom McCarthy (seated, far right) will be presented with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award at the annual Awards Gala of the upcoming 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). The 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival runs January 1 to 11, 2016.
“Tom McCarthy’s latest feature is the critically acclaimed Spotlight, a remarkable film that creates cinematic tension between two institutions, as The Boston Globe investigates the Catholic Church,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For his expert storytelling of this subject matter, The Palm Springs International Film Festival is proud to present Tom McCarthy with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award.”
Spotlight is a film about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning team of investigative journalists, who in 2002 shocked the city and the world by exposing the Catholic Church’s systematic cover-up of widespread pedophilia perpetrated by more than 70 local priests. Presented by Open Road Films, Spotlight was co-written by McCarthy and Josh Singer, produced by Michael Sugar, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin and Blye Pagon, and stars Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d’Arcy James and Billy Crudup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgnrwwiIDlI
McCarthy’s list of filmmaking credits include The Station Agent, (which won a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay and two Independent Spirit Awards) Win Win, The Visitor, The Cobbler, and Up (which earned him an Oscar® nomination for Best Original Screenplay).
Past recipients of the Sonny Bono Visionary Award include filmmakers Tom Hooper, Danny Boyle, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater and Michel Hazanavicius.
The 2015 African Diaspora International Film Festival taking place from November 27 through December 13, in Manhattan, will showcase a selection of films coming from the Caribbean and about Caribbean people out of the Caribbean.
The Black British Film Program is comprised of a selection of four films about the presence of Black people in the UK with a very strong Caribbean flavor in front and behind the camera.
Let The Music Talk by Yvonne Deutchmann is a 1981 musical documentary never screened in the USA before. It tells the story of black music in Britain, from the calypso of Lord Kitchener arriving on the SS Windrush in 1948, gospel choirs, griots from Grenada, steel pans in schools and at the Notting Hill Carnival, jazz, Afro-rock, soul-funk with the Real Thing, reggae with Misty in Roots and Eddy Grant.
The Story of Lovers Rock by Menelik Shabazz – a favorite of ADIFF – tells the story of Lovers Rock as a musical genre and gives a voice to the Caribbean descendant people who created that music and culture in the UK.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiJof_zx2Uk
Honeytrap by Rebecca Johnson plays out as a tragedy. It tells a story of fifteen-year-old Layla (Jessica Sula – Skins), a beautiful and naive Trinidadian girl who, freshly arrived from her native land, quickly embarks on a journey of love, sex, hip hop and violence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTyYCB_OyL0
“Second Coming” by Debbie Tucker Green is an emotional and intimate drama about a woman in a London family who faces a dilemma with her husband (Idris Elba) and the tensions and communication issues associated with her situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LdB5mYbGz8
Other films in the festival have a Caribbean flavor including NY Premiere and festival Centerpiece “Cu-Bop: Cuba – New York Music Documentary” by Japanese filmmaker Shinishi Takahashi. Separated by an ocean, two Cuban jazz musicians continue to perform in spite of the difficulties they face. César López is recognized as Cuba’s premier saxophonist, having founded his landmark jazz band, the Havana Ensemble, in his native country. The gifted young pianist Axel Tosca lives in New York City, the leader of (U)NITY, a band which fuses Afro-Cuban culture with modern jazz and hip-hop. With this documentary for all music lovers, first-time filmmaker Shinichi Takahashi explores the African roots of Cuban jazz and documents what happens when expats return to the source of their inspiration. The screening will be followed by a concert with Axel Tosca and his band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVOO4ag_4EU
Shot in Haiti and Bangladesh, “A Journey of a Thousand Miles” tells us a story of two countries that are embarked in a mutual discovery of sorts. A contingent of Muslim, Bangladeshi policewomen is deployed in Haiti to serve as UN Peacekeepers to maintain peace after the 2010 earthquake. We then learn, as the camera follows three of these Muslims women, about life in Haiti and Bangladesh and the challenges faced by the population in both countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAR3SXSme6c
“Black / Nwa,” a “Hood” film set in Montreal, Canada that chronicles the lives of four people – including several youths of Haitian descent – living in a neighborhood plagued by poverty and violence, aspiring to freedom and happiness.
“Sand Dollars” (pictured in main image above) by Laura Amelia Guzman and Israel Cardenas is a film from the Dominican Republic submitted to the Oscar competition in the foreign film category. “Sand Dollars” is the story of Noeli (Yanet Mojica) whose love affair with Anne (Geraldine Chaplin) a woman double her age, is a rare subject in films.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HeEPnn7ioE
The award-winning Israeli horror film JeruZalem will be released in the US on January 22nd, 2016 via Epic Pictures Releasing. The film world premiered at the 2015 Fantasia International Film Festival and, among other awards, was recognized with the Audience Award and Best Editing Award at the 2015 Jerusalem Film Festival.
A unique, point-of-view style horror film directed by Doron and Yoav Paz, JeruZalem follows Rachel (played by Jane the Virgin star Yael Grobglas), and her friend Sarah (Danielle Jadelyn), two American girls on vacation in Jerusalem. The two follow Kevin (Yon Tumarkin), a mysterious and handsome anthropology student, into the heart of the Old City. The party is cut short when a biblical prophecy comes to pass on the night of Yom Kippur and Jerusalem’s gate to hell is opened, releasing an epic apocalypse. Trapped between the ancient walls of the holy city, the trio must survive long enough to find a way out as the fury of hell is unleashed upon them.
Shooting on location amongst the monuments of Jerusalem’s Old City, The Paz Brothers directed the film utilizing a custom-made camera mount to capture some of the holy’s city’s ancient architecture, religious landmarks and historical sites. The film features extensive point-of-view footage, shown from the perspective of Sarah’s Google Glass-type smart eyewear, as she uses the glasses’ GPS, facial recognition and other apps to navigate the city and identify potentially threatening strangers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EhqqJpDNSw
“The Paz Brothers first feature, Phobidilia, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was the Israeli film that ignited the genre wave from that country. With their second feature, JeruZalem, they have created a remarkable, cinematic film that demands to be seen in theaters,” commented Epic Pictures CEO Patrick Ewald. “We’re thrilled to bring the film to audiences across the country.”
Carol directed by Todd Haynes lead nominations for the 2016 Spirit Awards with 6 nods including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Female Lead for both Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, Best Sreenplay and Best Cinematography. The other nominees for Best Feature included Anomalisa, Beasts of No Nation, Spotlight and Tangerine.
Spotlight was selected to receive the Robert Altman Award, which is bestowed upon one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast. The Altman Award was created in 2008 in honor of legendary director Robert Altman who was known for creating extraordinary ensemble casts.
“Spotlight is a remarkable film that excels on every level, but the Nominating Committee thought it was especially deserving of the Robert Altman Award,” said Welsh. “The film is beautifully cast with every member of the ensemble working together to tell the story of the Boston Globe investigating allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church.”
Winners will be announced at the Spirit Awards on Saturday, February 27, 2016.
2016 FILM INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARD NOMINATIONS
BEST FEATURE
(Award given to the Producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.)
Anomalisa
Producers: Duke Johnson, Charlie Kaufman, Dino Stamatopoulos, Rosa Tran
Beasts of No Nation
Producers: Daniel Crown, Idris Elba, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Amy Kaufman, Daniela Taplin Lundberg, Riva Marker
Carol
Producers: Elizabeth Karlsen, Christine Vachon, Stephen Woolley
Spotlight
Producers: Blye Pagon Faust, Steve Golin, Nicole Rocklin, Michael Sugar
Tangerine
Producers: Sean Baker, Karrie Cox, Marcus Cox, Darren Dean, Shih-Ching Tsou
BEST FIRST FEATURE – Award given to the director and producer.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Director: Marielle Heller
Producers: Miranda Bailey, Anne Carey, Bert Hamelinck, Madeline Samit
James White
Director: Josh Mond
Producers: Max Born, Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin, Melody Roscher, Eric Schultz
Manos Sucias
Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Producers: Elena Greenlee, Márcia Nunes
Mediterranea
Director: Jonas Carpignano
Producers: Jason Michael Berman, Chris Columbus, Jon Coplon, Christoph Daniel, Andrew Kortschak, John Lesher, Ryan Lough, Justin Nappi, Alain Peyrollaz, Gwyn Sannia, Marc Schmidheiny, Victor Shapiro, Ryan Zacarias
Songs My Brothers Taught Me
Director/Producer: Chloé Zhao
Producers: Mollye Asher, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Angela C. Lee, Forest Whitaker
JOHN CASSAVETES AWARD – Given to the best feature made for under $500,000. Award given to the writer, director and producer. Executive Producers are not awarded.
Advantageous
Writer/Director/Producer: Jennifer Phang
Writer/Producer: Jacqueline Kim
Producers: Robert Chang, Ken Jeong, Moon Molson, Theresa Navarro
Christmas, Again
Writer/Director/Producer: Charles Poekel
Heaven Knows What
Directors: Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie
Writers: Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
Producers: Oscar Boyson, Sebastian Bear McClard
Krisha
Writer/Director/Producer: Trey Edward Shults
Producers: Justin R. Chan, Chase Joliet, Wilson Smith
Out of My Hand
Writer/Director: Takeshi Fukunaga
Writer/Producer: Donari Braxton
Producer: Mike Fox
BEST DIRECTOR
Sean Baker; Tangerine
Cary Joji Fukunaga; Beasts of No Nation
Todd Haynes; Carol
Duke Johnson & Charlie Kaufman; Anomalisa; Tom McCarthy
Spotlight; David Robert Mitchell
It Follows
BEST SCREENPLAY
Charlie Kaufman; Anomalisa
Donald Margulies; The End of the Tour
Tom McCarthy & Josh Singer; Spotlight
Phyllis Nagy; Carol
S. Craig Zahler; Bone Tomahawk
BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Jesse Andrews; Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Jonas Carpignano; Mediterranea
Emma Donoghue; Room
Marielle Heller; The Diary of a Teenage Girl
John Magary, Story by Russell Harbaugh and Myna Joseph; The Mend
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Cary Joji Fukunaga; Beasts of No Nation
Michael Gioulakis; It Follows
Ed Lachman; Carol
Reed Morano; Meadowland
Joshua James Richards; Songs My Brothers Taught Me
BEST EDITING
Ronald Bronstein and Benny Safdie; Heaven Knows What
Tom McArdle; Spotlight
Nathan Nugent; Room
Julio C. Perez IV; It Follows
Kristan Sprague; Manos Sucias
BEST FEMALE LEAD
Cate Blanchett; Carol
Brie Larson; Room
Rooney Mara; Carol
Bel Powley; The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Kitana Kiki Rodriguez; Tangerine
BEST MALE LEAD
Christopher Abbott; James White
Abraham Attah; Beasts of No Nation
Ben Mendelsohn; Mississippi Grind
Jason Segel; The End of the Tour
Koudous Seihon; Mediterranea
BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Robin Bartlett; H.
Marin Ireland; Glass Chin
Jennifer Jason Leigh; Anomalisa
Cynthia Nixon; James White
Mya Taylor; Tangerine
BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Kevin Corrigan; Results
Paul Dano; Love & Mercy
Idris Elba; Beasts of No Nation
Richard Jenkins; Bone Tomahawk
Michael Shannon; 99 Homes
ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD – Given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast.
Spotlight
Director: Tom McCarthy
Casting Directors:Kerry Barden and Paul Schnee
Ensemble Cast: Billy Crudup, Paul Guilfoyle, Neal Huff, Brian d’Arcy James, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, Jamey Sheridan, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci
BEST DOCUMENTARY – Award given to the director and producer.
(T)ERROR
Directors/Producers: Lyric R. Cabral & David Felix Sutcliffe
Producer: Christopher St. John
Best of Enemies
Directors/Producers: Robert Gordon and Morgan Neville
Heart of a Dog
Director/Producer: Laurie Anderson
Producer: Dan Janvey
The Look of Silence
Director:Joshua Oppenheimer
Producer: Signe Byrge Sørensen
Meru
Directors/Producers: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Producer: Shannon Ethridge
The Russian Woodpecker
Director/Producer: Chad Gracia
Producers: Ram Devineni, Mike Lerner
BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM – Award given to the director.
Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia); Director: Ciro Guerra
Girlhood (France); Director: Céline Sciamma
Mustang (France, Turkey); Director: Deniz Gamze Ergüven
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Sweden); Director: Roy Andersson
Son of Saul (Hungary); Director: László Nemes
19th ANNUAL PIAGET PRODUCERS AWARD – The 19th annual Producers Award, sponsored by Piaget, honors emerging producers who, despite highly limited resources, demonstrate the creativity, tenacity and vision required to produce quality, independent films. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Piaget.
Darren Dean
Mel Eslyn
Rebecca Green and Laura D. Smith
22nd ANNUAL KIEHL’S SOMEONE TO WATCH AWARD – The 22nd annual Someone to Watch Award, sponsored by Kiehl’s Since 1851, recognizes a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant funded by Kiehl’s Since 1851.
God Bless the Child; Directors: Robert Machoian & Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck
King Jack; Director: Felix Thompson
Songs My Brothers Taught Me; Director: Chloé Zhao
21st TRUER THAN FICTION AWARD – The 21st annual Truer Than Fiction Award is presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition. The award includes a $25,000 unrestricted grant.
Among the Believers; Directors: Mohammed Ali Naqvi and Hemal Trivedi
Incorruptible; Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
A Woman Like Me; Directors: Elizabeth Giamatti and Alex Sichel
Mustang directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven has been voted winner of the Audience Award at the 2015 Stockholm International Film Festival. Mustang was also awarded with an Aluminium Horse for Best Script, written by Alice Winocour, director of Maryland, and Deniz Gamze Ergüven.
Early summer in a village in Northern Turkey. Five free-spirited teenaged sisters splash about on the beach with their male classmates. Though their games are merely innocent fun, a neighbor passes by and reports what she considers to be illicit behavior to the girls’ family. The family overreacts, removing all “instruments of corruption,” like cell phones and computers, and essentially imprisoning the girls, subjecting them to endless lessons in housework in preparation for them to become brides. As the eldest sisters are married off, the younger ones bond together to avoid the same fate. The fierce love between them empowers them to rebel and chase a future where they can determine their own lives in Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s debut, a powerful portrait of female empowerment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5nyY8E6CPg
Following films received the most votes:
1. Mustang
2. Wolfpack
3. Suffragette
4. Carol
5. Angry Indian Goddesses
6. Virgin Mountain
7. Mediterranea
8. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
9. Taxi Teheran
10. Louder than bombs
Barney Thomson, described as “a uniquely twisted comedic thriller” written by Richard Cowan and Colin McLaren and directed by “Once Upon a Time” star Robert Carlyle – his first feature film directorial effort, is headed to US theaters. Gravitas Ventures will release the film on demand on February 2, 2016, and in theaters on March 11, 2016.
The film, which also stars Emma Thompson (Saving Mr. Banks), Ray Winstone (Hugo), and Tom Courtenay (The Golden Compass), premiered earlier this year at the opening night of Edinburgh Film Festival and has gone on to be a commercial and critical success in the UK. The film recently won “Beast Feature Film” from BAFTA Scotland, while Emma Thompson won the BAFTA Scotland award for “Best Actress.”
Deemed “deliciously macabre” by the UK’s Daily Telegraph, the film tells the titular tale of Barney Thomson (Carlyle), an awkward, shy Glasgow barber, living a life of desperate mediocrity. His mother (Thompson) offers little encouragement, as she is far too self-absorbed, chain-smoking between absurd social outings in her animal print wardrobe. Little does Barney know how his stale and stagnant life is about to go from 0 to 60 in mere seconds when he accidentally enters the dark, grotesque, and comically absurd life of a serial killer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADcvH4B_LbA
The film was adapted by Richard Cowan and Colin McLaren from the first book in “The Barbershop Seven” series by Douglas Lindsay. Cowan also served as a producer on Barney Thomson along with Holly Brydson, Brian Coffey, Kaleena Kiff, and John G. Lenic. Doug Apatow and Kirk D’Amico are the executive producers.
The 2015 Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival (HT2FF) kicks off Thursday, December 3, and runs for four days, through Sunday, December 6, 2015, all at the Bay Street Theater and Arts Center in Sag Harbor, featuring award-winning films and directors.
The 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Brie Larson with the Breakthrough Performance Award at its Awards Gala. The Festival runs January 1 to 11, 2016.
“Brie Larson breathes vibrant life into the character of Ma from Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel Room. Larson delivers a performance of great warmth, deep reserves of courage and strong empathy as a committed parent determined to make sure her son is taken care of under unimaginable circmstances,” said Film Festival Chairman Harold Matzner. “For this stand-out performance, it is an honor to present her with the 2016 Breakthrough Performance Award.”
Both highly suspenseful and deeply emotional, Room is a unique and touching exploration of the boundless love between a mother and her child. After 5-year-old Jack and his Ma escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery: the outside world. As he experiences all the joy, excitement, and fear that this new adventure brings, he holds tight to the one thing that matters most of all—his special bond with his loving and devoted Ma. Based on the award-winning bestseller by Emma Donoghue, the film is directed by Lenny Abrahamson and stars Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Joan Allen and William H. Macy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C6fZ-fwDws
Past recipients of the Breakthrough Performance Award include Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Hudson, Felicity Huffman, Lupita Nyong’o, David Oyelowo, Rosamund Pike and Jeremy Renner. In the years they were honored, Cotillard, Hudson and Nyong’o went on to receive Academy Awards®, while Huffman, Pike and Renner received nominations.
Downriver, a chilling mystery feature film from award-winning writer/director Grant Scicluna which premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival is set to be released in the US. Breaking Glass plans a theatrical and VOD/DVD release for Summer 2016, but no specific date is available.
A young ex-con encounters secrets from the past and danger in the present when he returns to the rural Australian community to discover the truth behind a crime he supposedly committed when he was a child.
A moody thriller awash in grim secrets and slowly surfacing revelations, this first feature from Australian writer-director Grant Scicluna exhibits a formal elegance and thematic maturity we would normally expect from a fully developed auteur. Reminiscent of Winter’s Bone or Jane Campion’s miniseries Top of the Lake, Downriver courageously deals with loss, identity, trauma, and hard-won redemption.
James (Reef Ireland) has just been released from prison after serving time for drowning a little boy when he himself was just a child. The boy’s body was never found, and James, guilt-ridden and still haunted by questions about what really happened that day, returns to the rural community where the crime took place and undertakes a quest to find the body. Along the way, he is confronted by bullies and sexual predators from his past, and the punishment he risks by breaking parole now pales next to the threat of violence from the shadowy characters emerging all around him.
Downriver boasts a bold sense of place: under the surface of its seemingly sleepy milieu lies a hidden network of abuse and exploitation, blackmail and desire. Scicluna maintains the suspense with spellbinding layers of flashbacks and dialogue, creating a tense atmosphere that’s amplified by the riveting performances from Ireland, Tom Green, and Kerry Fox in the role of James’ tormented guardian. Downriver takes us to some dark places, but it does so in pursuit of those brutal truths that aren’t so easily washed away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs47n0m48n4