News

If you’ve never heard of the progressive neuromuscular disease Friedreich’s ataxia, you’re exactly the target demographic for Zack Bennett and Kevin Schlanser’s documentary. Depicting the efforts of a sufferer to participate in a grueling cross-country bike ride in order to raise awareness of the condition The Ataxian pursues the same goal in moving fashion.

The film centers on Kyle Bryant, who was diagnosed with the disease — which usually afflicts children and almost always proves fatal — when he was 17 years old. As he increasingly lost the ability to play sports and even walk, Kyle began to test himself...

Claire Carré’s Embers scooped best feature film in the juried awards as the southern California festival came to an end.

Carré was also named best director, while George Kosuros won best actor for American Wrestler: The Lizard. Best documentary went to Off The Rails by Adam Irving.

In the audience awards, Jeremy Profe’s The Lennon Report and Jesse Shapiro’s Nobody Walks In La took the feature film prize.

Zack Bennett and Kevin Schlanser prevailed in the documentary category for The Ataxian, while Dmitry Meskhiev’s Battalion (Russia) was named best foreign film.

The Outstanding achievement in filmmaking: feature film award went to Alex Ranarivelo for American Wrestler: The Wizard, and The Violin Teacher director Sergio Machado and The Innocents director Anne Fontaine collected the corresponding prize for foreign film.

Bob Yari took the directing honours for Papa: Hemingway In Cuba, while Dev Patel and Evanna Lynch were named best actors for The Man Who Knew Infinity and My Name Is Emily...

For avid lonelygirl15 fans, the surprise reveal that the original lonelygirl15 star Jessica Rose has joined the cast of Poor Paul, wasn't exactly shocking. (Former LG15 star Yousef Abu-Taleb is a producer of the show.) But to the casual web video junkie this catches an extra mouse click or two. Episode 32, "You're a Guy", was released today on YouTube and KoldCast with Rose playing title character Paul's (Zack Bennett) new sex-charged neighbor Beatrice. Eleven episodes into their second season, director Sean Michael Beyer, who also plays Paul's dad 'Mr. Ted' in the series, will have Rose in several more episodes this season. Rose is still one of the most universally well known web series actors out there, made famous by hundreds of close-up vlogs as lonelygirl Bree back in 2006 as YouTube was just taking off. Later she would star in WB.com's Sorority Forever, which is rumored to be prepping a second season,...

With web television still being a relatively young medium, we're still seeing a lot of firsts in the space. The team behind Poor Paul, just hit us with another one. They donated a walk-on role to be auctioned off at the 2008 Children at Heart Gala and Celebrity Auction which benefits the Chabad's Children of Chernobyl Charity. The role went for $4500 and the winner, fourteen-year-old Chelsea Evered from Connecticut appears in the latest episode (above), "When the Walls Come Crumbling Down." Since the show is shot under a SAG new media contract, the 14 year-old aspiring actress actually ended up with a little bonus, being Taft-Hartley'd into union eligibility with her role on the series. The hit comedy web series returned for a second season on KoldCast TV in June, with hapless video blogger Paul (Zack Bennett) dealing with his antagonizing roommates Clyde (Wes Whitworth) and Justin (Kevin G. Schmidt) and would-be...

In more news of web series second seasons, Poor Paul returned today kicking off its sophomore run with web television network KoldCast TV, which signed the series before its first season last fall, once again backing the outlandish roommate comedy. Zack Bennett is back as the eponymous Paul with daytime star Kevin G. Schmidt (The Young and the Restless) and Disney Channel regular Samantha Droke (Suite Life of Zack & Cody) returning as the scene-stealing co-stars. The Disney connection was actually played up in the publicity for the show as we were told that Schmidt and Droke are both starring in another upcoming Disney TV movie, The Princess Protection Program. Who knew? The only change on the cast was the role of Paul's roommate Clyde, which is being taken over by Wes Whitworth. Stoner comedian Guillermo Diaz (Weeds, Half Baked) is one of the slew of guest stars announced along with Mandy Jiroux,...