Posts Tagged 'Sophie Fiennes'

TWELVE MORE FEATURES ANNOUNCED FOR MARYLAND FILM FESTIVAL 2013!

Published April 16, 2013 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Good Ol' Freda production still horizontal

GOOD OL’ FREDA

Maryland Film Festival is proud to announce a dozen more titles for our 2013 edition, bringing the total number of features revealed to 36 thus far.  Our fifteenth annual festival, which will take place May 8-12 in downtown Baltimore, has expanded to 5 days and will include approximately 50 features and 9 shorts programs.  We will also present a silent classic with an original score performed live by the Alloy Orchestra and a favorite film selected and hosted by legendary director John Waters!

The diverse round of titles announced today includes work from Finland, Mexico, Austria, and Israel, and such titles as Zach Clark’s holiday-themed, darkly comic White Reindeer; Alex Winter’s riveting look at the rise and fall of Napster, Downloaded; Jessica Oreck’s experiential documentary about a family of reindeer herders, Aatsinki; and Calvin Reeder’s surreal, horror-tinged mindbender about a mysterious loner, The Rambler.

More MFF 2013 lineup announcements are coming soon! If you haven’t seen them yet, make sure to check the 24 features we announced last week! For all the latest information, continue to visit this blog, and follow us at facebook.com/MarylandFilmFestival and on Twitter, @MdFilmFestival.

Today’s announced features for Maryland Film Festival 2013 are:

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16 ACRES

16 Acres (Richard Hankin) From the editor and co-producer of Capturing the Friedmans comes this riveting and nuanced documentary look at the rebuilding of Ground Zero—one of the most architecturally, politically, and emotionally complex urban renewal projects in history.

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AATSINKI: THE STORY OF ARCTIC COWBOYS

Aatsinki: The Story of Arctic Cowboys (Jessica Oreck) One year in the life of a family of reindeer herders in Finnish Lapland yields an immersive study of hard work, hard earned leisure, and an intricate bond between man and nature. From the director of Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.

Before You Know It (P J Raval) This observational documentary raises the curtain on a profoundly neglected segment of the LGBT community, its senior population, as three gay men residing in very different regions of the U.S. face new life challenges.

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BLUEBIRD

Bluebird (Lance Edmands) In the frozen woods of an isolated Maine logging town, one woman’s tragic mistake shatters the balance of the community, resulting in profound and unexpected consequences.

Downloaded (Alex Winter) With remarkable insight and access, this documentary tells the story of the rise and fall of Napster, taking a close look at the internet mavericks and musicians involved and the lasting global impact of peer-to-peer file sharing.

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HERE COMES THE DEVIL

Here Comes the Devil  (Adrián García Bogliano) From Mexico comes this horror film concerning disappeared children and panicked parents, offering ever-escalating thrills as it heads to increasingly bloody, diabolical, and even psychedelic territory.

Fill the Void (Rama Burshtein) This drama set in Tel Aviv’s Orthodox community centers around 18-year-old Shira, who faces unexpected life challenges when her older sister dies.

Good Ol’ Freda (Ryan White) Freda Kelly was just a shy Liverpudlian teenager when she was asked to work for a local band hoping to make it big. That band was The Beatles, and Freda was their devoted secretary and friend for 11 years; this documentary tells her story—and the story of the world’s most famous band through her eyes.

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MUSEUM HOURS

Museum Hours (Jem Cohen) From the director of Benjamin Smoke and Instrument comes this gentle and expertly crafted drama about a Vienna museum guard and the friendship he forms with a woman visiting town to care for a sick friend.

THE RAMBLER_Lindsay Pulsipher and Dermot Mulroney shooting_photo by Juliana Halvorson

THE RAMBLER

The Rambler (Calvin Reeder) Dermot Mulroney, Lindsay Pulsipher, and Natasha Lyonne star in the latest psychotronic vision from the director of The Oregonian, in which a mysterious loner, newly released from prison, sets out on a journey filled with bizarre characters and warped experiences.

We Always Lie to Strangers (AJ Schnack and David Wilson) A documentary story of family, community, music and tradition, built over five years and set against the backdrop of Branson, Missouri, one of the biggest tourist destinations in America.

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WHITE REINDEER

White Reindeer (Zach Clark) After an unexpected tragedy, Suzanne searches for the true meaning of Christmas during one sad, strange December in suburban Virginia. From the director of Vacation! and Modern Love Is Automatic.

Previously Announced Titles for 2013:

12 O’CLOCK BOYS (Lotfy Nathan)

AFTER TILLER (Martha Shane and Lana Wilson)

AUGUSTINE (Alice Winocour)

BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (Peter Strickland)

COMPUTER CHESS (Andrew Bujalski)

DRINKING BUDDIES (Joe Swanberg)

HIT & STAY (Joe Tropea and Skizz Cyzyk)

I AM DIVINE (Jeffrey Schwarz)

I USED TO BE DARKER (Matt Porterfield)

IF WE SHOUT LOUD ENOUGH (Gabriel DeLoach and Zach Keifer)

IT FELT LIKE LOVE (Eliza Hittman)

LEVIATHAN (Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel)

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY (Sophie Fiennes)

PIT STOP (Yen Tan)

POST TENEBRAS LUX (Carlos Reygadas)

PRINCE AVALANCHE (David Gordon Green)

SWIM LITTLE FISH SWIM (Lola Bessis and Ruben Amar)

A TEACHER (Hannah Fidell)

THIS IS MARTIN BONNER (Chad Hartigan)

TOUCHY FEELY (Lynn Shelton)

V/H/S/2 (omnibus)

WATCHTOWER (Pelin Esmer)

WILLOW CREEK (Bobcat Goldthwait)

ZERO CHARISMA (Katie Graham and Andrew Matthews)

First TIFF 2012 Report From The MFF Programming Team

Published September 11, 2012 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Toronto International Film Festival launched their 2012 edition Thursday afternoon with a classy touch, a free 35mm screening of the recently departed master filmmaker Chris Marker’s 1983 film essay Sans Soleil.

While the official opening night film came hours later with the Bruce Willis-starring sci-fi title Looper, the choice to open a festival featuring roughly 300 new titles from 70+ countries with this challenging, subtle repertory work signaled a confirmation of sorts that, amidst increasing celebrity and corporate presence, TIFF still holds “pure cinema” as one of its guiding principles. Indeed, in his moving introductory remarks, TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey evoked the term “pure cinema” specifically, naming Sans Soleil as the single experience that made film central to his life and thanking an almost-capacity and very appreciative crowd for beginning their festival with this early screening.

THE BITTER ASH – (L to R) Director Larry Kent and TIFF Programmer Steve Gravestock.

So if one initially sensed a little friction between this exploratory, dissonant film and the supermodel-laden L’oreal ad that runs before each TIFF film this year, all of that dissipated quickly as Marker’s mesmerizing film took over. Set largely in Japan; featuring exhilarating bursts of synthesized visuals and sound; and tackling issues of technology, memory, and film culture (especially with its poignant revisiting of locations from Hitchcock’s Vertigo), Marker’s film reminds us that the artistic possibilities of film are limited only by personal imagination.

Not incidentally, later that afternoon TIFF also served up a free screening of Roman Polanski’s oft-neglected 1979 period piece Tess. Presumably included in TIFF as an accompaniment to Marina Zenovich’s second Polanski documentary, Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out, the festival offered a stunning digital restoration of the film. Baltimore currently offers few opportunities to view vintage films presented in state-of-the-art digital, and this DCP presentation of Tess highlighted how far the technology has come. One wonders if every restoration will take such care and if every venue’s presentation standards will be this high. But for this one screening at least, a digital print of a title from the vault flickered and danced with the warm, living grain we expect from film.

As the first full day of programming hit us Friday, we jumped into a 10-day spree of 3-5 features apiece per day. Films we’ve seen so far that may be of particular note to MFF fans include:

FRANCES HA – Noah Baumbach’s new character study, co-written with star (and frequent MFF guest) Greta Gerwig and crafted in tribute to both the French New Wave and the Woody Allen films shot in black-and-white with Gordon Willis.

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY – Slavoj Žižek speaks before the screening of PERVERT’S GUIDE at the Isabel Bader Theater.

THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY – Sophie Fiennes’ epic documentary exploration of the philosophical insights of Slavoj Žižek,which uses film history to tackle issues of personal and political conformity, and began with insightful analysis of John Carpenter’s They Live (recently screened in our Gunky’s Basement series).

TIFF 2012: THE PERVERT’S GUIDE TO IDEOLOGY– (L to R) Director Sophie Fiennes (sister of Ralph) and Slavoj Žižek in conversation about their newly completed film.

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE – A surprising new work from Iranian master filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. It follows the story of a young student/call girl as she accidentally entangles a well-respected elderly client into the snare of her personal affairs. The film is set in Tokyo and features outstanding performances by an all-Japanese cast who will be largely unknown to western audiences. Endowed with such fresh and lively filmmaking and story telling, even the most hardened skeptic of Kiarostami’s films will find pleasures here.

PARADISE: LOVE – The latest work by Ulrich Seidl, perhaps best known to our audiences for Dog Days, which John Waters selected to present at MFF in 2004. Seidl’s films can be brutal both in their visual content and their emotional honesty, and he delivered a dark masterpiece of sorts with 2007’s Import/Export. Here, with this first film in a projected “Paradise” trilogy, he looks at middle-aged Austrian women who travel to Kenya to indulge in sexual tourism. Seidl’s eye remains as unflinching as ever, and certainly this film could come across as shocking to those not familiar with his work; but in the context of that body, Paradise: Love felt almost gentle in comparison, at times evoking the wit and humor we might expect from a Todd Solondz or Alexander Payne tackling this subject.

In short: TIFF’s presentation and curatorial skills remain exemplary. Stay tuned, as MFF’s programmers each take in another 40+ films apiece by the end of the week, and we continue to report back here and on the MFF’s Twitter.

–MFF Programming Director Eric Allen Hatch and Programming Administrator Scott Braid

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