News

Exclusive: Colin Callender’s Playground has acquired the television rights to award-winning documentary The Dog to develop as a drama series.

Directed by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren, The Dog tells the extraordinary back-story of the late John Wojtowicz, the bank robber whose antics inspired Al Pacino’s character in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon.

An official selection at the SXSW Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, The Dog was lauded by critics upon its release in 2013.

In the film, a Brooklyn bank robbery on a hot August afternoon turns into a hostage crisis and media frenzy, when the mastermind behind the heist proclaims, “I’m Gay” and admits he needs the money for his bride’s gender reassignment surgery.

In the documentary, Berg and Keraudren offer a more complicated portrait of Wojtowicz, artfully chronicling his multiples lives as a Catholic mama’s boy,...

Documentary from Australian war artist George Gittoes centres on street kids in Afghanistan.

Tel Aviv-based sales company Cinephil has acquired the worldwide right to George Gittoes’ Snow Monkey ahead of its international premiere in competition at Idfa (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) (Nov 18-29).

The film is a portrait of daily life in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where art activist Gittoes recruited gangs of war-damaged children to shoot local, Pashto-style films - vibrant, colorful and infused with the violence they experience on a daily basis.

Gittoes will return to Idfa, which runs Nov 18-29, having previously screened Miscreants of Taliwood, shot in Peshawar with Taliban-besieged filmmakers, some of which have helped create Snow Monkey.

Cinephil MD Philippa Kowarsky negotiated the deal with producers Gittoes and Lizzette Atkins of Unicorn Films.

Executive producers are Norway’s Torstein Grude and Bjarte Mørner Tveit for Piraya Film.

Kowarsky said the film “offers an unprecedented understanding of the lives of the people of Jalalabad...

By now you have had the chance to see The Dog, one of Drafthouse Films' most intriguing acquisitions this year. If not, you can watch it online via Amazon or Vimeo. Released in theaters last month, the documentary covers the remarkable character John Wojtowicz, aka "The Dog," inspiration for the 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon about a man who robbed a bank pay for his male lover's gender reassignment surgery. I saw the movie during SXSW earlier this year.

Stunned after watching the intimate portrait from Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren, I made my way to meet them during SXSW, at the end of a hotel hallway across from another room where (ironically) Snoop Dogg was also meeting the press. Here's the transcript of our two-on-one interview.

Slackerwood: John Wojtowicz died in 2006. What work or shooting on the film have you done since then?

Frank Keraudren: The first four years we shot John exclusively,...

August 22nd, 1972 was just another hot summer day in New York City, at least until two men walked into a Brooklyn branch of Chase bank and made a somewhat incompetent attempt to rob it. John “The Dog” Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale were the two would-be robbers, and while you probably don’t recognize their names you’re most likely familiar with their exploits that day. The event — and the botched robbery most definitely became an event complete with hostages, intense media coverage and crowds of cops and civilians — inspired the Al Pacino-led film Dog Day Afternoon just a few years later. Naturale was killed by police as the situation came to a frenzied and suspenseful conclusion, and Wojtowicz went to jail, but The Dog’s story continued to grow well past his eventual release. By his own account, he had attempted the robbery so that his male lover could afford a sex change operation. That...

The Dog

A documentary directed by Allison Berg & Frank Keraudren

USA, 2013

The great advantage of documentaries is their ability to dampen the cinematic white noise and give us a peek into the human condition. In the fantastic documentary, The Dog, we meet a man whose entire life is predicated upon the fundamental need for validation. John Wojtowicz derives his self-worth first through sexual conquest, and then through the comically tragic bank robbery that catapulted him to infamy. John’s extraordinary life is the stuff of fiction, leaving us to wonder where the truth ends and the persona begins. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

On August 22nd, 1972, John Wojtowicz and two accomplices walked into the Chase Manhattan Bank at the corner of East Third and Avenue P in Brooklyn. 14 hours later, John was arrested for robbing the bank and holding 7 employees hostage in order to pay for his male lover’s sex-change operation.

The Dog tells the oftentimes sad, oftentimes mad story of John Wojtowicz (pronounce wah-toe-witz), the Vietnam vet who became a media celebrity in 1972 when he and a friend robbed a Brooklyn bank and held numerous hostages for ransom in order to get money to give his second wife a sex change operation. Cinephiles will recognize this story as the basis for Sidney Lumet’s 1975 multi-Oscar nominated film Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino playing Wojtowicz (though his character is named Sonny Wortzik). It’s a larger than life Robin Hood story about a man’s need to self-mythologize and his eventual half-tragic downfall, which is tied directly to the Gay Rights Movement of the 1970s and a shrewd personal history that seemed all too weird too be true but too engrossing to be fake.

Shot over the course of a 10-year period, co-directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s documentary...

Directed and produced by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren

With John Wojtowicz, Liz Eden, Theresa Wojtowicz, Carmen Wojtowicz, Stan Thaler, Donnie Fazekas

Any movie geek who has been around for any length of time must have seen Dog Day Afternoon, one of the seminal movies from the 1970s, the movie that put Al Pacino in the top rung of movie actors and one of the classic movies on Sidney Lumet’s resume. Dog Day Afternoon is also one of the most loved and quoted from New York movies.

Movies filmed in New York City are their own special breed, especially crime movies, the French Connection, The Seven Ups, Prince of the City, King of New York, Crazy Joe, The Godfather franchise, a long and distinguished list. Dog Day Afternoon joined that line up in 1975 and recreated a media circus that surrounded a bank robbery that went very wrong on a hot summer day in Brooklyn.

Sidney Lumet's crackling 1975 classic "Dog Day Afternoon" told the incredible true story of man who decides to rob a bank to help pay for his partner's sex change operation. The movie was an instant hit, earning six Oscar nominations (winning Best Screenplay), and catapulted an already ascendant Al Pacino, into the stratosphere. But, Lumet's film was only one part of a much bigger story that is every bit as wild and unbelievable as that long summer day in Brooklyn. Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren's "The Dog" tells the rest of the tale of John Wojtowicz, the man whose attempted bank robbery is just one story in a life filled with even more tall tales and unexpected twists of fate. The documentary chronicles the real life man's gay rights activism, his tough years in prison, the celebrity he found following the release of Lumet's movie and how it changed him,...

The 8th annual Sydney Underground Film Festival is a power-packed event featuring outrageous cult films, provocative documentaries and wild short films that will run September 4-7 at its usual haunt, The Factory Theater.

Opening Night: The fest opens with Housebound, a New Zealand horror comedy by Gerard Johnstone about a woman in trouble with the law who comes to believe that her family home is haunted. The film will be preceded by a performance by Renny Kodgers and a free pizza party; and followed by an after party.

Closing Night: The fest will close with the controversial German teen sex comedy Wetlands directed by David Wendt. The film will then be followed by a late-night after party.

Highlights: Usama Alshaibi‘s must see documentary American Arab — an intimate, socially relevatory and essential film — screens at 4 p.m. on Sept. 6. Read the Underground Film Journal review of American Arab.

Jorge Torres-Torres...

John Wojtowicz is the rare subject whose real life was more complex, more borderline-unbelievable and more gloriously strange than the one presented on the big screen. He was “The Dog,” the wannabe bank robber whose failed heist of a Chase Manhattan Bank in sweltering '70s Brooklyn was the basis for Sidney Lumet’s classic “Dog Day Afternoon.” Portrayed by a peak-of-his-powers Al Pacino (named Sonny Wortzik in the film), Wojtowicz is mostly remembered for the ostensible reason behind the robbery—to pay for his boyfriend’s sex change operation. As the moving, sad, riotously humorous documentary “The Dog” explains, the film only captured traces of Wojtowicz’s personality, and only told bits of his story. 'Afternoon' is a masterpiece, to be sure, but the real dog’s life was even wilder, its central figure an utterly eccentric character. “I’m an angel, but I got horns,” the late Wojtowicz...

Dog Eat Dog: Berg & Keraudren’s Doc an Intriguing Portrait of a Famous Bank Robber

Destined to be a compelling double feature event with Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film, Dog Day Afternoon, Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s documentary The Dog examines the life of the real life bank robber, John Wojtowicz. Though it may be a unique pathway for a younger generation to be exposed to the classic film, it will surely be fans of the Oscar nominated Al Pacino headliner that should take an immediate interest. As scandalous and tawdry as Wojtowicz’s famed crime was made out to be, this behind the scenes account, which follows Wojtowicz and several friends and family members through the significant aftereffects of the robbery, his whole story is definitely unique enough for this strikingly compiled portrait of a man relayed through conversation. What inspired the Lumet film is still intact here,...

John Wojtowicz may be the perfect embodiment of Maslow's ideal of self-actualization. The inspiration for Al Pacino's character in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon and now subject of Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren's fascinating documentary The Dog, Wojtowicz was many things: soldier, bank robber, libertine, and both "Goldwater Republican" and "McCarthy peacenik." Through it all, however, he was a lover. And it was his love of Ernest Aron (later Elizabeth Eden) that spurred him to realize, in his own words, "On Aug. 22, 1972, I had to do something."

That "something" was robbing a Brooklyn branch of Chase Manhattan with accomplices Sal Naturale and (briefly) Robert Westenberg. Fifteen hours later, Naturale was dead and Wojtowicz was in custody, facing a 20-y...

On August 22, 1972, a man named John Wojtowicz attempted to rob a bank in Brooklyn to pay for his lover’s sex-change operation—at least, that is what has been long believed. The bungled heist would later inspire Sidney Lumet’s classic 1975 film Dog Day Afternoon, which starred Al Pacino as “Sonny Wortzik” and John Cazale as his fellow robber, Sal. Now, four decades on, Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren have made The Dog, a documentary which relates the real, incredible true story of that August day, and what happened to Wojtowicz afterwards.

The Dog premieres in theaters on Aug. 8 and...

Lover. Husband. Soldier. Activist. Mama’s Boy. Bank Robber.

Drafthouse Films has released the new trailer for The Dog – an intimate portrait of the vivacious John Wojtowicz, the inspiration behind Al Pacino’s character in Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-Nominated Dog Day Afternoon.

Coming of age in the 1960s, John Wojtowicz took pride in being a pervert. His libido was excessive even by the libertine standards of the era, with multiple wives and lovers, both women and men.

In August, 1972, he attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to finance his lover’s sex reassignment surgery. The attempted heist resulted in a fourteen-hour hostage situation that was broadcast on TV. Three years later, Pacino portrayed his character instigating the unforgettable crime on the big screen. The award-winning film had a profound influence on Wojtowicz, and when he emerged from prison six years later, he became known as “The Dog.”

Filmed over the...

For fans of Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-nominated film “Dog Day Afternoon,” Drafthouse Films’ latest feature, “The Dog,” will be a must-see, particularly because “The Dog” will focus on the real life inspiration for Al Pacino’s character, John Wojtowicz. Wojtowicz was a character all on his own, making him a great documentary subject for directors Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren. In fact, “The Dog” has been called “The best documentary about a human being ever made” by Next Projection and a “[s]urprisingly sad portrait of a sexually liberated man held captive by his past, forever chasing and trying to rewrite his own legend” by Variety. Here’s more about the film: “Coming of [ Read More ]

The post Drafthouse Films’ The Dog Coming to VOD Aug. 15 appeared first on Shockya.com.

QFest St. Louis continues with The Dog at 7:00 pm Wednesday April 30th.

QFest St. Louis, the annual gay and Lesbian Film Festival presented by Cinema St. Louis, kicks off this weekend. It runs through May 1st and all films will be screened at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in The Loop, University City, Mo)

QFest uses the art of contemporary gay cinema to spotlight the lives of Lgbtq people and celebrate queer culture. The 2014 event features an eclectic slate of contemporary Lgbtq-themed feature films, documentaries, and shorts. Tickets are now on sale for all shows.

The Dog screens at 7:00pm Wednesday April 30th

John Wojtowicz took pride in being a pervert. Coming of age in the 1960s, his libido was excessive even by the libertine standards of the era, with multiple wives and lovers, both women and men. In August 1972, he attempted to rob a Brooklyn bank to finance his lover’s sex-reassignment surgery.

Drafthouse Films is building a strong slate of quality documentaries, and The Dog is a fine addition to that collection.

Filmmakers Allison Berg and Francois Keraudren, who brought their previous film Witches in Exile to SXSW in 2004, have completed an 11-year project to document the life of John Wojtowicz, aka "The Dog," who became famous in 1971 for robbing a Chase Manhattan bank in order to pay for gender reassignment surgery for his lover. The event served as inspiration for the 1975 Sidney Lumet film Dog Day Afternoon.

Beginning with his early years, The Dog covers a journey to Vietnam and a return to post-war Stonewall New York during the birth of the gay rights movement, revealing a fascinating character who refuses to play by any rules but his own. Wojtowicz is a force of nature, who describes himself as "an angel with horns," who does not drink, smoke, or gamble, reserving sex as his only vice.

Sundance just ended, and we are already preparing for the next big film festival, South By Southwest. Not too long ago, the festival announced a few of the films premiering this year, but now they’ve announced the main slate. The midnight selections and some inevitable late-breaking additions are still to be announced, but this should be more than enough to get you excited. Along with many World Premieres, and Sundance favorites like Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and Gareth Evans’ The Raid 2, the line up also includes an anniversary screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and an extended Q&A screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel with Wes Anderson. SXSW 2014 runs March 7 through 15 in Austin, Texas. Check out the line up after the jump.

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Narrative Feature Competition

Eight world premieres, eight unique ways to celebrate the art of storytelling. Selected from 1,324 films submitted to SXSW 2014. Films screening in Narrative...

Today the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced a diverse features lineup for this year’s Festival, the 21st edition and running March 7 – 15, 2014 in Austin, Texas. The 2014 program expands on SXSW tradition of embracing a range of genres and span of budgets, featuring a wealth of vision from experienced and developing filmmakers alike.

For more information visit http://sxsw.com/film.

Listed in the announcement are 115 of the features that will screen over the course of nine days at SXSW 2014. The lineup below includes 68 films from first-time filmmakers, and consists of 76 World Premieres, 10 North American Premieres and 7 U.S. Premieres. These films were selected from a record 2,215 feature-length film submissions composed of 1,540 U.S. and 675 international feature-length films. With a record number of 6,482 submissions total, the overall increase was 14% over 2013. The Midnighters feature section and the Short Film program will be announced on February 5, with the complete...

After announcing earlier this month that Jon Favreau’s Chef and the Veronica Mars movie will be making their world debuts at SXSW this year, the festival has revealed its full line-up, including further very promising world premieres, alongside appearances from some of the year’s most high-profile films.

The Midnight programme will be announced early next month, along with the Shorts line-up, and the complete Conference slate a little later as well.

Led by Seth Rogen and Zac Efron, Nicholas Stoller’s anticipated R-rated comedy, Neighbors, will be making its world debut at the festival, notably marked out as a ‘work-in-progress’ ahead of its theatrical release in May.

David Gordon Green’s acclaimed Joe will make its Us premiere, having bowed at Venice and then Toronto last year. Early reviews have Nicolas Cage giving one of the finest performances of his career, with Tye Sheridan (Mud) excellent alongside him.

Not sure if there is a Short Term 12 equivalent in this year’s Narrative Feature Comp, but on paper SXSW programmers are serving up a mean (and the usual lean group of 8 out of a whopping 1,324 film entries) for the upcoming competitiuon of eight which includes notable entries (that we’ve been tracking for a good time now) such as Zachary Wigon’s The Heart Machine, John Magary’s The Mend, Leah Meyerhoff’s I Believe in Unicorns and Lawrence Michael Levine’s Wild Canaries. Undoubtedly one of the most anticipated docs of the year, on the non-fiction side we find Margaret Brown’s The Great Invisible. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the other sections (notable world preems in We’ll Never Have Paris and Faults (see Mary Elizabeth Winstead above), some Sundance items with Texan connections and other nuggets.

Narrative Feature Competition

Eight world premieres, eight...

Selection opens with a documentary about what motivates Somali pirates and includes the European premiere of 20,000 Days on Earth, starring Nick Cave, and 10 world premieres.Scroll down for full list

The Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 6-16) has unveiled the 16 films that will make up the documentary section of its Panorama strand.

This year’s Panorama Dokumente comprises 16 films, including ten world premieres, and will open on Feb 7 with the world premiere of Dutch co-production The Last Hijack by Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting. The film depicts what motivates piracy in Somalia.

The topic of Africa, which is also reflected in the Ethiopian fictional feature Difret, is also central to Swedish filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson in Concerning Violence. This commentary on Africa’s decolonisation, cites Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of the Earth” - and Us singer Lauryn Hill lends these texts her voice.

Olsson previously presented The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 about the Afro-American civil rights...

Finding the right archival material for your documentary can be an enormous and daunting undertaking -- one that, if you don't go about it the right way, may not pay off. Panelists on the "Dig Into Archives" panel at Doc NYC yesterday highlighted the most important things to keep in mind when researching and trying to secure the rights to archival material. The panelists included Frank Keraudren, co-director, "The Dog," Shola Lynch, director, "Free Angela and all Political Prisoners," Tom Jennings, director, "Mlk: The Assassination Tapes" and Scott Norman, content manager, NBC News Archives. Judith Aley, who has worked as an archival researcher on "When the Levees Broke," "Sicko" and "The Tillman Story," among other documentaries, moderated. "Free Angela Davis" tells the story of how Angela Davis' radical political stance wrongly implicated her in a kidnapping attempt and landed her on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" list. The final...

A life and a psychological state so complex, that if John Wojtowicz’s entire life were put into film, Dog Day Afternoon would account for about 5 minutes worth. The more they plunged into their subject matter, the more helmers Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren’s found that the the likeable smuck’s lifestory is just as sprawled out as Dicaprio’s Frank Abagnale character in Catch Me if You Can. Today, THR reports that Drafthouse & Cinedigm have teamed on the Tiff-preemed The Dog. A release is being circled for next summer.

Gist: This chronicles the true story of John Wojtowicz, who robbed a bank in 1972 to finance his male lover’s sex-reassignment surgery. Wojtowicz, working with two other men, held Chase Manhattan bank employees hostage for 14 hours. In 1975, Al Pacino would play a fictionalized version of Wojtowicz in Sidney Lumet’s Academy Award-winning film.

Worth Noting: Dog Day Afternoon won...

Dog Day Afternoon is one of the quintessential New York City films of the ‘70s, and documentary The Dog, which tells the true story of the life of bank robber and libertine John Wojtowicz, is every bit as funny and oddly touching as Sidney Lumet’s celebrated depiction of the robbery that made Wojtowicz infamous.

Wojtowicz was born in New York City in 1945. He served in Vietnam and was married to Carmen Bifulco in 1967, but his rampant libido and bisexuality meant that they didn’t stay married for long, separating in 1969 after having two children together. He met Ernest Aron in 1971, and the two were married (although not legally) in April 1971 in Greenwich Village. On 22nd August 1972, Wojtowicz, Salvatore Naturale and Robert Westenberg attempted to rob the Chase Manhattan Bank at the corner of East 3rd Street and Avenue P in Gravesend, Brooklyn. Wojtowicz’s motivation for the robbery, as portrayed in Dog Day Afternoon,...

Eccentric New Yorker John Wojtowicz was turned into an iconic figure when Al Pacino played the unorthodox bank robber in 1975's "Dog Day Afternoon." Director Sidney Lumet's daylong saga, in which Wojtowicz took a bank hostage in the hopes of raising money for his transsexual lover's sex change operation, hardly exaggerated the actual 1972 event, but only captured one piece of a much larger story. "The Dog," directors Alison Berg and Frank Keraudren's decade-plus effort to chronicle Wojtowicz in the years leading up to his death from cancer in 2006, capably fills in the gaps in his bizarre life. Working as both an unofficial "Dog Day" sequel and unconventional overview of New York gay culture from the past 40 years, "The Dog" combines archival footage, still photographs, and testaments from many of those who knew Wojtowicz well to construct a vivid account of his strange trajectory. But "The Dog" derives its...

The real-life incident of a man robbing a bank to fund his lover’s sex-change operation was immortalized in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino winning an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Sonny Wortzik. However the true story of John Wojtowicz — the man on whom Wortzik was based — remains all but unknown. The remarkable tale of that robbery and of Wojtowicz’s life after he emerged from prison is chronicled in Allison Berg & Frank Keraudren’s documentary The Dog, which the pair shot over the course of over a decade, starting in 2002. It has its […]...

The real-life incident of a man robbing a bank to fund his lover’s sex-change operation was immortalized in Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic Dog Day Afternoon, with Al Pacino winning an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Sonny Wortzik. However the true story of John Wojtowicz — the man on whom Wortzik was based — remains all but unknown. The remarkable tale of that robbery and of Wojtowicz’s life after he emerged from prison is chronicled in Allison Berg & Frank Keraudren’s documentary The Dog, which the pair shot over the course of over a decade, starting in 2002. It has its […]...

The 38th Toronto International Film Festival has released an incredible guest list of celebrated talent from around the globe. Filmmakers expected to present their world premieres in Toronto include: Catherine Breillat, Nicole Garcia, Pawel Pawlikowski, Bertrand Tavernier, Steve McQueen, Godfrey Reggio, Denis Villeneuve, Bill Condon, Jean-Marc Vallée, John Wells, Ralph Fiennes, Richard Ayoade, Atom Egoyan, Matthew Weiner, John Carney, Jason Reitman, Jason Bateman, Yorgos Servetas, Liza Johnson, Megan Griffiths, Fernando Eimbcke, Alexey Uchitel, Johnny Ma, Biyi Bandele, Rashid Masharawi, Paul Haggis, Ron Howard, Eli Roth, Álex de la Iglesia, Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, John Ridley, and Justin Chadwick.

The Festival also welcomes thousands of producers and other industry professionals bringing films to us.

The following filmmakers and artists are expected to attend the Toronto International Film Festival:

Ahmad Abdalla, Hany Abu-Assad, Yuval Adler, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Alexandre Aja, Bruce Alcock, Gianni Amelio, Thanos Anastopoulos, Madeline Anderson, Nimród Antal, Louise Archambault,...

.Nobody would ever do what I did,. declares John Wojtowicz, the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning crime drama Dog Day Afternoon. .Nobody would ever rob a bank to cut off a guy.s dick to get him a sex change operation. That.s why they made a movie about it.. This is an accurate and frank summarization of the iconic 1975 crime-drama. But in the trailer above the self-professed crook and lover tells us the Sidney Lumet film that starred Al Pacino playing Wojtowicz.s brash yet charismatic doppelganger Sonny Wortzik was just the tip of the iceberg of his outrageous tale. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. In 2001, documentarians Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren watched Dog Day Afternoon and noticed the end titles said Sonny got twenty years in jail, meaning his real-life counterpart would be released in 2002. Fascinated, the pair sought him out, eager to hear his side...

You likely already know that Dog Day Afternoon was based on a true story. But did you know the inspiration for Al Pacino’s character didn’t die until 2006? His name was not Sonny Wortzik, it was John Wojtowicz, and there’s a new documentary about him titled The Dog. Directed by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren, the film is set to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month. The production needs some extra financial help, though, to continue working right up until the event and complete all the finishing touches in time. And for their campaign, Berg and Keraudren have gone with a new crowdfunding outlet called Seed&Spark, which lets you pick specifically what parts of the film you want to donate to from a “wish list.” This project’s options include archival footage and photo licensing ($25-$100 apiece), poster design ($500) and color correction ($25 per portion). Even though Wojtowicz died seven years ago...

The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the biggest film festivals of the year, with filmmakers and audiences from around the world converging for the 10-day event. One particularly interesting aspect of the show is the documentary section; itself a distinct cinematic form, many notable documentaries have screened at the festival over the years, leading many to look forward to what the 2013 incarnation of the festival brings. The first set of documentary screenings were announced today, with a slate that includes films such as:

- At Berkeley, by Frederick Wiseman, an examination of the American post-secondary system through a semester at Berkeley, making its North American premiere

- Beyond The Edge, by Leanne Pooley, an in-depth look at the famous trek of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first people to climb Mt. Everest, making its world premiere

- The Dog, by Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren, examining the life of John Wojtowicz,...

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, one of many Special Presentations at this year's Tiff.

The Toronto International Film Festival has begun to announce its lineup for its 2013 edition, beginning with Gala and Special Presentations. To browse the festival's programming on their web site, visit here.

Gala Presentations

American Dreams in China (Peter Chan, China)

The Art of the Steal (Jonothan Sobol, Canada)

August: Osage County (John Wells, USA)

Cold Eyes (Cho Ui-seok & Kim Byung-seo, Korea)

The Fifth Estate (Bill Condon, USA)

The Grand Seduction (Don McKellar, Canada)

Kill Your Darlings (John Krokidas, USA)

Life of Crime (Daniel Schechter, USA)

The Love Punch (Joel Hopkins, France)

The Lunchbox (Ritesh Batra, India/France/Germany)

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (Justin Chadwick, South Africa)

Parkland (Peter Landesman, USA)

The Railway Man (Jonathan Teplitzky, Australia/UK)

The Right Kind of Wrong (Jeremiah Chechik, Canada)

Rush (Ron Howard, UK/Germany)

Shuddh Desi Romance (Maneesh Sharma, India...

Not too long ago we saw a rather impressive list of films announced for the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival 2013. With titles like Gravity, 12 Years a Slave and The Fifth Estate all set to appear, I simply cannot wait for September to arrive. With all the Oscar contenders flying around though, it’s easy to forget about some of the other films at the festival.

With that in mind, the Midnight Madness lineup has been announced today, showcasing some quality horror/thriller films that will serve as a break from the serious, weighty dramas that popular the majority of the festival lineup.

Amongst the highlights are the world premiere of Ei Roth’s The Green Inferno as well as the next film from Lucky McKee, All Cheerleaders Die.

Additionally, Tiff also revealed their documentary lineup today, which can be seen below along with the Midnight Madness films.

The Toronto International...

Yesterday we looked back at the exquisite documentaries that have graced us with their presence thus far in 2013, but now it is time to look to the Toronto International Film Festival which plays host to the biggest docu titles of the fall festival season. While Sundance tends to be the spring launching pad for politically charged films, Tiff tends to have a broader spectrum of non-fiction fare. This morning, Tiff Docs programmer Thom Powers and the rest of the team at the Lightbox dropped a press release with the list of non-fiction films joining this year’s already stacked lineup.

Unsurprisingly there are a few titles making their way over from Cannes in Frank Pavich’s hilarious and tragic Jodorowsky’s Dune, Claude Lanzmann’s continued Holocaust investigation with The Last of the Unjust and Mark Cousins’s film history follow up The Story of Children and Film. Expectedly, Errol Morris...

The 2013 Toronto Film Festival selection grew quite a bit today as the organizers announced the Midnight Madness, Documentary, Vanguard, City to City and Cinematheque selections for this year's festival. Among the title announced there aren't exactly a ton of names that pop off the paper immediately. The Midnight Madness selection will open with Lucky McKee's All Cheerleaders Die in which a young girl who practices the dark arts turns on her best friend after she joins the cheer squad. However, I assume most attention will be on Eli Roth's The Green Inferno, a film in which a group of humanitarians go to the Amazon to help a native tribe only to have the tribe kidnap them and later learn their cannibalistic heritage is very much intact. The Documentary selection includes plenty of familiar faces such as Marcel Ophuls, Claude Lanzmann and Errol Morris and Frank Pavich will be bringing Jodorowsky's Dune,...

New work from Errol Morris and Frederick Wiseman will screen in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Tiff Docs strand, while City To City spotlights Athens and Alex Aja’s Horns is among the Vanguard offerings.

Festival staff remind readers that the following listing is not complete or final and is subject to change.

Premieres key

Wp = World PremiereIP = International PremiereNAP = North American PremiereCP = Canadian PremiereTIFF Docs

A Story Of Children And Film

Mark Cousins (UK) Nap

Ain’t Misbehavin’

Marcel Ophüls (France) Nap

At Berkeley

Frederick Wiseman (Us) Nap

Beyond The Edge

Leanne Pooley (New Zealand) Wp

Burt’s Buzz

Jody Shapiro (Canada) Wp

The Dark Matter Of Love

Sarah McCarthy (UK) Nap

The Dog

Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren (Us) Wp

Faith Connections

Pan Nalin (France/India) Wp

Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story

Barry Avrich (Canada) Wp

Finding Vivian Maier

John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (Us) Wp

Hi-Ho Mistahey!

Alanis Obomsawin (Canada...

New work from Errol Morris and Frederick Wiseman will screen in the Toronto International Film Festival’s Tiff Docs strand, while City To City spotlights Athens and Alex Aja’s Horns is among the Vanguard offerings.

Festival staff remind readers that the following listing is not complete or final and is subject to change.

Premieres key

Wp = World PremiereIP = International PremiereNAP = North American PremiereCP = Canadian PremiereTIFF Docs

A Story Of Children And Film

Mark Cousins (UK) Nap

Ain’t Misbehavin’

Marcel Ophüls (France) Nap

At Berkeley

Frederick Wiseman (Us) Nap

Beyond The Edge

Leanne Pooley (New Zealand) Wp

Burt’s Buzz

Jody Shapiro (Canada) Wp

The Dark Matter Of Love

Sarah McCarthy (UK) Nap

The Dog

Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren (Us) Wp

Faith Connections

Pan Nalin (France/India) Wp

Filthy Gorgeous: The Bob Guccione Story

Barry Avrich (Canada) Wp

Finding Vivian Maier

John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (Us) Wp

Hi-Ho Mistahey!

Alanis Obomsawin (Canada...

The Toronto International Film Festival last week began its annual series of program announcements that will eventually culminate in 250+ of the most anticipated films of the year screening in Canada's largest city this September. Last week, the festival revealed a slew of narrative films that made the cut, including opening night WikiLeaks drama "The Fifth Estate," and today the festival has announced some of the documentaries making their world, North American and Canadian premieres at the festival. Read More: Tiff List 2013: A List of All The Announced Films At The Toronto International Film Festival Among the standout docs making their world premieres: "Midway," the feature debut from Seattle based artist Chris Jordan, who documents albatrosses on Midway Island, 2,000 miles away from any continent. The almost wordless film is said to be visually striking and a standout because of the uniqueness of the author's voice. Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren's "The Dog" tracks the.

“Imagination, Charm, Fantastical Delights” - Jeanette Catsoulis, New York Times

From the Producer of “The Joy Luck Club”

魚 年

Year Of The Fish

Featuring Rotoscoped Digital Painting

Debuts on DVD February 8, 2011 from Gigantic Pictures

Bonus Materials Include Audio Commentaries and Exclusive Footage

Overview: Year Of The Fish is a modern-day adaptation of Cinderella based on a 9th Century Chinese variant of the folk-tale, the oldest known version of the story, recorded some 800 years before the better-known European versions. Hailed by critics as “magical,” “refreshing,” and “shouldn’t be missed,” this award-winning independent feature film was written and directed by first time feature filmmaker David Kaplan and shot entirely on location in New York City’s Chinatown. Using a cutting-edge digital painting technique that transforms live-action video into a beautiful, evocative movie with an animated look and giving the aesthetic effect of a painting brought to life, this unforgettable film...