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The Wolf Hour

The highest ranked Sundance Film Festival selected item on our list belongs to Alistair Banks Griffin and his long awaited second feature film. Filming took place in November of 2017 with Naomi Watts in the driver’s seat. A 2016 January Screenwriters Lab project, Griffin would reteam with composers Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans – they first worked together on Griffin’s 2011 debut film, Two Gates of Sleep.

Gist: June (Watts) was once a celebrated counter-culture figure, but that was a decade ago. She now lives alone in her fifth floor South Bronx apartment, having all but cut herself off from the outside world.…...

Naomi Watts is set to take the lead in The Wolf Hour, a psychological thriller from up-and-coming writer and director Alistair Banks.

Set during the 1977 New York blackout riots, the film will see the Oscar-nominated actress play June Leigh, a cultural icon and activist during the '60s who has since fallen from grace and is a shell of her former self, now facing her demons at the height of one of the darkest points in the city's history. Watts will also executive produce.

Alistair Banks Griffin’s first feature film, Two Gates of Sleep, screened in Director’s Fortnight at the 2010 Cannes Film...

Beginning now until November 27, cinephiles can enjoy all of Borderline Film’s movies at the Museum of the Moving Image’s seven-film retrospective in New York. To kick off the event, the production company shared a dynamic new trailer composed of all the features that will be screened, which you can check out below.

The celebration kicked off this past Thursday with the NY premiere of “The Eyes of My Mother” with director Nicholas Pesce in person. On Friday, November 18, a special screening of “Christine” was held with star Rebecca Hall in attendance. Since its premiere, the actress has been praised for her performance as the Florida news reporter who killed herself on air.

“With the critical acclaim around Rebecca Hall’s performance and Antonio Campos’s direction of the highly topical character study ‘Christine,’ and the New York premiere of the mesmerizing thriller ‘The Eyes of My Mother,’ this...

Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.

Metograph

Takeshi Kitano and Isabelle Huppert retrospectives begin

Film Forum

The great “3-D Auteurs” continues, with Hugo having a special Sunday screening.

Film Society of Lincoln Center

“Total Verhoeven” continues.

Anthology Film Archives

“Memorable Fantasies” continues with the likes of Last Year at Marienbad, Céline and Julie Go Boating, and Pandora’s Box.

Museum of...

The Sundance Institute is including a touch of Cannes this week as the likes of Pippa Bianco (her short Share was the 2015 winner of Cannes Cinefondation), Alistair Banks Griffin (Two Gates of Sleep premiered in Directors’ Fortnight in 2010), and the Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza tandem (from Critics’ Week Grand Prize in 2013 for Salvo) are among the dozen selected projects for the 2016 January Screenwriters Lab. The immersive, five-day writers’ workshop takes place just prior to the festival at the Sundance Resort in Utah, January 15-20. Look for several of these projects to one day break into not only Sundance, but other major film fests. Here are the selected people & projects:

The projects and fellows selected for the 2016 January Screenwriters Lab are:

Bull (U.S.A.) / Annie Silverstein (Co-writer/Director) and Johnny McAllister (Co-writer)

In a near-abandoned subdivision west of Houston, a wayward teen runs headlong into her equally willful and unforgiving neighbor,...

James WhiteFour films by Truffaut, one each by Kubrick, Kazan, Mackendrick, Donen, Lumet, Aldrich, Spielberg, Henry King, John Huston, Hawks, Hitchcock, Tourneur, William A. Wellman, John Ford, Brooks Mel (two films) and Richard (one), Michael Mann, and two by David Lynch. Classic Arabic movies, Pakistani movies, Romances & Musicals, Indonesian and Vietnamese films, films in Tagalog, Sinhala, Bengali, Mandarin and Cantonese, and six contemplative long take studies ranging in length from ten minutes to an hour. No, this is not the line-up for the Locarno Film Festival; it is but a taste of what was offered on demand on the video screen on my flight from New York to the small Swiss town's nearest large international airport, in Milan. Seeing as I was en route to a festival with several 35mm retrospectives, a competition section of adventurous fare anticipated and unknown, and scads of other program strands I've yet to fully understand,...

Ioncinema.com’s Ioncinephile of the Month feature focuses on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. Prior to the film’s TriBeCa Film Festival world premiere debut, we’ve had the pleasure to profile Lance Edmands on a couple of occasions, namely, our In the Pipeline spotlight. Matching the frigid, desolate Maine backdrop with a communal sense of sorrow, Bluebird features an outstanding group performance with Amy Morton leading a cast comprised of Louisa Krause, Emily Meade, Margo Martindale, Adam Driver and John Slattery (the Karlovy Vary Film Festival honored the four women). Usually, we get more into the mechanics of the film, but we took the opportunity to discuss technology and distribution – both changed tremendously during the film’s journey. Here’s this month (February/March) profile on Lance, and as always, make sure to click on over to his Top Ten Films of All Time list...

Eric Lavallee: Name me three of your favorite “2014 discoveries” …

David Call: Australian cinema has been big for me this year. I discovered Wake In Fright, which blew my mind, finally saw the incredible Walkabout and Breaker Morant, rediscovered Mad Max and absolutely loved The Rover, The Babadook and The Snowtown Murders. Those Aussies make some badass films.

2.) Podcasts, specifically Brian Koppelman‘s and Marc Maron‘s, amongst others. It is so educational and inspiring to listen to brilliant artists, scientists and other people have long, in-depth conversations about what they do and how they do it. It’s like taking a class every time I press play on my iPod.

3). San Francisco. I was lucky enough to be able to spend 6 weeks there this fall shooting my new film Americana. It was always a city I loved, but this time I was really able to absorb it, the people,...

Moving from producer hat-wearing days (Afterschool, Two Gates of Sleep) to firmly stippling Park City with a metaphysical, deeply humane and serene portraits The Fort (2012) and Karaoke! (2013), Andrew Renzi saddled into feature filmmaking earlier this year with dual projects, the birth of Fishtail, the docu 16mm set in Montana and narrated by Harry Dean Stanton was the first to push out (’14 Tribeca/ Karlovy Vary), while his narrative feature debut appears to be close to going into labor. Production on the 2013 January Screenwriters Lab Franny began last October, with Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning and Theo James balancing on a tightrope act. On the tech side we find cinematographer Joe Anderson (Simon Killer), plus a Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans signed score (Enemy).

Gist: Gere will play a fun-loving, hedonistic philanthropist who works his way into the lives of a newlywed couple (Dakota Fanning, Theo James) to recapture the life he once had.

The 5th edition of the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland kicks off today, and among the 20 films featured in the competition (it truly is a buffet made up of the newest crop of American independent filmmakers) we find the international premiere for Travis Gutiérrez Senger’s Desert Cathedral.

With a score composed by Saunder Jurriaans and Danni Bensi (Two Gates of Sleep, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Simon Killer) overlapping with actual, true-life recordings from the film’s subject, what we find here below in our exclusive first look at the festival teaser is a real estate developer (played by Lee Tergesen) who mysteriously disappears into the Southwestern desert in 1992 and who leaves behind a series of VHS tapes. Along with mixed drink recipe details for a Harvey Wallbanger, what we have here in the ubiquity-infused, auditorily jarring, bone-chilling handsomely looking hybrid, about a man who lost his way both factually and figuratively.

On the heels of the 39th edition of the Toronto Int. Film Festival (Sept 4-14), Ifp’s Independent Film Week is where a plethora of fiction, non-fiction and new this year, web-based series from the likes of Desiree Akhavan and Calvin Reeder find future coin. Sectioned off as projects at the very beginning of financing to those that are nearing completion, there happens to be tons of Sundance alumni in the names below. Among those that caught our attention we have Medicine for Melancholy‘s Barry Jenkins’ sophomore feature, produced by Bad Milo!‘s Adele Romanski, Moonlight is about “two Miami boys navigate the temptations of the drug trade and their burgeoning sexuality in this triptych drama about black queer youth”. Concussion‘s Stacie Passon digs into the thriller genre with Strange Things Started Happening. Produced by vet Mary Jane Skalski (Mysterious Skin), this is about “a woman who has...

After serving as a producer on films including Afterschool and Two Gates Of Sleep and directing three shorts, Andrew Renzi is transitioning to directing features with not one but two films in 2014. First up is Fishtail, a portrait of life on a Wyoming cattle farm shot in a mere four days. Speed doesn’t mean sloppy haste: Fishtail makes full use of its 16mm widescreen frame, carefully capturing agricultural processes that connect the present to the old American West. Later this year, expect Renzi’s Richard Gere-starring drama Franny; his documentary premiered yesterday at the Tribeca Film Festival. In an email […]...

After serving as a producer on films including Afterschool and Two Gates Of Sleep and directing three shorts, Andrew Renzi is transitioning to directing features with not one but two films in 2014. First up is Fishtail, a portrait of life on a Wyoming cattle farm shot in a mere four days. Speed doesn’t mean sloppy haste: Fishtail makes full use of its 16mm widescreen frame, carefully capturing agricultural processes that connect the present to the old American West. Later this year, expect Renzi’s Richard Gere-starring drama Franny; his documentary premiered yesterday at the Tribeca Film Festival. In an email […]...

Promising newcomerDaniel Patrick Carbone’s Hide Your Smiling Faces, well received at festivals such as Berlin, Tribeca and Abu Dhabi, is a sumptuously shot meditation on the difficulties faced by a couple of rural New Jersey teenage brothers following the untimely death of a friend. The film’s delicately designed frames, as well as its super spare screenplay, studiously withhold information — artfully, but perhaps somewhat tediously, denying the audience pleasure. (That pleasure is subsequently generated, however, by the beauty of Hide Your Smiling Face‘s overall visual aesthetic.) The picture’s rather chilly style is somewhat reminiscent of Alastair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep, with […]...

Promising newcomerDaniel Patrick Carbone’s Hide Your Smiling Faces, well received at festivals such as Berlin, Tribeca and Abu Dhabi, is a sumptuously shot meditation on the difficulties faced by a couple of rural New Jersey teenage brothers following the untimely death of a friend. The film’s delicately designed frames, as well as its super spare screenplay, studiously withhold information — artfully, but perhaps somewhat tediously, denying the audience pleasure. (That pleasure is subsequently generated, however, by the beauty of Hide Your Smiling Face‘s overall visual aesthetic.) The picture’s rather chilly style is somewhat reminiscent of Alastair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep, with […]...

By the looks of it, the Tribeca Film Festival might finally be growing out of their awkward teenage phase and moving into a new era where the nab more than just Sundance and SXSW festival rejects. Artistic Director Frederic Boyer has managed to nab some noteworthy American indie projects such as Lou Howe’s Gabriel (see pic above), Keith Miller’s Five Star, Adam Rapp’s Loitering with Intent, and Tristan Patterson’s Electric Slide.

On the docu front, we’ve got the latest from the likes of notable documentarians Marshall Curry and Jessica Yu. Think Ewan McGregor’s Long Way Round meets child solider movie for Curry’s awesomely titled Point and Shoot — where the Libyan rebel army take hold of Curry’s subject. Yu moves from water shortage in Last Call at the Oasis (read our review) to the biggest pandemic of all; Misconception looks at the consequences...

The 13th Tribeca Film Festival has announced half its slate for next month’s New York celebration, which runs April 16-27. Culled from more than 6,000 submissions, Tribeca 2014 includes 55 world premieres, 37 first-time filmmakers, and 22 female directors. “Variously inspired by individual interests and experience and driven by an intense sensibility of style, the array of new filmmaking voices in this year’s competition is especially impressive and I think memorable,” said Frederic Boyer, Tribeca’s artistic director. “The range of American subcultures and international genres represented here are both eclectic and wide reaching.”

On April 17, Gabriel will open the World Narrative competition,...

Franny

Director: Andrew Renzi

Writer: Andrew Renzi

Producers: Treehouse Pictures’ Justin Nappi and Kevin Turen, TideRock Media’s Thomas B Fore and Jason Michael Berman, Big Shoes Media’s Jay Schuminsky

U.S. Distributor: Rights Available

Cast: Richard Gere, Dakota Fanning, Theo James

Padding his directing resume with a stellar pair of dramatic shorts in the Sundance preemed The Fort (2012) and Karaoke! (2013), Andrew Renzi’s feature debut Franny (a Sundance Writers’ Lab project) happens to have plenty of added value with Richard Gere in the lead, Simon Killer dp Joe Anderson and Martha Marcy May Marlene‘s composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans on the technical side.

Gist: Gere will play a fun-loving, hedonistic philanthropist who works his way into the lives of a newlywed couple (Dakota Fanning, Theo James) to recapture the life he once had.

Release Date: Filming began around October, so this could technically be ready for Cannes,...

After steering Borderline Films partners Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos’ short and feature film projects to critical success, it’s now Josh Mond’s turn to step forward into the spotlight/director’s chair. Featuring Cynthia Nixon, Ron Livingston, Scott (Kid Cudi) Mescudi, newbie Mackenzie Leigh and from the Borderline coffers indie actors David Call (Two Gates of Sleep) and Christopher Abbott (Martha Marcy May Marlene and Mond’s untitled multi-sensorial short film debut), theWrap reports that Mond is in the midst of filming James White. The drama commenced production in the big apple this December, and because we’re in the know…will be switching locations outside the frigid Manhattan backdrop.

Gist: This coming-of-ager is about a troubled young man (Abbott) in the midst of momentous family challenges.

Worth Noting: Here is a recent sample of Mond’s vid work: Mayday Parade (Kids In Love).

Do We Care?:...

2014 has long been shaping up to be a memorable year for the “actor” Brady Corbet. The indie veteran whose worked with major auteur talents continues next year with the likes of Assayas, Bonello, Hansen-Løve and Baumbach film (and that not including a foursome of other projects) will then look to commence the directing phase with Juliette Binoche, Robert Pattinson and his Funny Games U.S. co-star Tim Roth in The Childhood of a Leader. Variety reports that the French financed production is aiming for what would probably be a post Cannes start. Antoine and Martine de Clermont-Tonnere (Salvo) and Chris Coen (Jane Got a Gun/Funny Games) are producing.

Gist: Taking place perhaps during the same era as Haneke’s White Ribbon, this dramatic period piece set in France describes the childhood of a post-World War I leader.

Worth Noting: Remember the name of Mona Fastvold. She is what we could...

He made his splash on the Croisette (2010′s Directors’ Fortnight) with the exquisite, almost dialogue-less Two Gates of Sleep (Brady Corbet and David Call pairing) and now comes word/confirmation that filmmaker Alistair Banks Griffin has two projects in the works. His Therese was part of the 2013 Berlinale Residency (names such as Sebastián Lelio and the talented Elina Psykou also had projects) and Snow The Jones just received coin (which takes care of rent and filling up the fridge for a good year) in the shape of the 2013 San Francisco Film Society/Hearst Screenwriting Grant which was voted on by Tom Grievson (Sffs director of communications), filmmakers Ian Hendrie and Maryam Keshavarz (Circumstance) and Michele Turnure-Salleo (Sffs director of Filmmaker360).

Gist: Snow The Jones is about a teenage vagabond who joins a door-to-door sales crew and discovers. It is described as “an experiential trip into a dark side of the...

Snow The Jones looks at a girl who discovers the dark world of door-to-door sales crews.

Two Gates of Sleep director Alistair Banks Griffin has won the 2013 San Francisco Film Society/Hearst Screenwriting Grant.

The $15,000 prize goes to develop his script Snow The Jones.

The grant, supported by a donation from William R. Hearst III, is awarded each autumn to a writer living in the Us who has been working for at least five years.

The panelists who reviewed the finalists’ submissions were Tom Grievson, Sffs director of communications; filmmakers Ian Hendrie and Maryam Keshavarz; and Michele Turnure-Salleo, Sffs director of Filmmaker360.

Snow The Jones is about a teenage vagabond who joins a door-to-door sales crew and discovers. It is described as “an experiential trip into a dark side of the American dream and a lost young girl looking for a place to belong.”

The jury said in a statement: “It was a very competitive round with very...

He has been on our radar since he produced Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep (2010) and mounted his writing-directing projects in the Sundance preemed shorts The Fort (2012) and Karaoke! (2013) (here is one of our two interviews with the helomer), Deadline reports that Richard Gere has boarded Andrew Renzi’s directorial debut – a Sundance Writers’ Lab project that will begin lensing in October, Franny will potentially film Philadelphia where the original screenplay is set. We’re looking forward to more casting announcements for the roles of the young couple. The producer army begins with Treehouse Pictures’ Justin Nappi and Kevin Turen (All Is Lost), TideRock Media’s Thomas B Fore and Jason Michael Berman (Sara Colangelo’s Little Accidents) and Big Shoes Media’s Jay Schuminsky are producing. Magnolia Entertainment’s Shelley Browning and Michael Diamond serve as executive producers alongside Soaring Flight Productions’ Ruth Mutch and Qed evp of international sales John Friedberg.

Aside from quality projections, there is nothing that arouses me more during a festival than to get the feeling of communal caring for the 7th art. Day 2, 9:00 a.m’s screening of Jerry Schatzberg’s Scarecrow (see fest pic below) was packed with Karlovy Vary patrons (the demo are an enthusiastic mid 20′s to early 30′s type crowd) and this trickled onto my screenings of “films from the past” in Afterschool and Reprise. As part of Schatzberg’s homage, both Puzzle of Downfall Child (1970) and The Panic in Needle Park (1971) will be shown. Starring the oddball pairing of a fun to watch, improvisational not-yet-bark full of bite Al Pacino and layered Gene Hackman, this digitally projected copy of the film happened to be was my first ever viewing of the road movie that won big in 73′ edition of Cannes (The Conversation, also starring Hackman would win the same prize...

The Berlin International Film Festival (February 6 – 16, 2014), one of our industry's major festivals, is calling for projects for the second year of its residency program. The Berlinale Residency is an initiative of the Berlin International Film Festival, the Nipkow Programme and the Guadalajara International Film Festival, in cooperation with the Media Mundus program of the European Union and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

The international Berlinale Residency fellowship program is inviting six filmmakers with their latest film projects to Berlin from August 15 to November 15, 2013, so they can finalize their screenplays, and develop production and distribution strategies. An international jury – consisting of Clare Binns (Director of Programming and Acquisitions at City Screen, Great Britain), producer Cedomir Kolar (Asap Film, France) and Thomas Hailer (Berlinale Programme Manager, Germany) – has chosen six directors and their projects.

Berlinale Director Dieter Kosslick comments: “With the Berlinale Residency, the Berlinale has successfully expanded its programme to promote filmmakers. I’m delighted that in the initiative’s second year we’ll again be supporting international directing talents in developing their new projects.”

Berlinale Residency participants in 2013:

Emir Baigazin, Kazakhstan: The Wounded Angel

Producer: Beibit Muslimov, Kazakhfilm Studios, Kazakhstan

Born in Kazakhstan in 1984, Emir Baigazin studied film and television directing at the Kazakh National Academy of Arts. In 2007 he participated in the Asian Film Academy in Busan. He is also an alumnus of the 2008 Berlinale Talent Campus. Baigazin’s debut feature film, Harmony Lessons, was supported by the World Cinema Fund and celebrated its premiere in the Berlinale Competition 2013, where it won a Silver Bear for an Outstanding Artistic Contribution. The film was considered an extraordinary discovery and is now travelling the international festival circuit.

Bence Fliegauf, Hungary: Glowing Wormhole

Producer: Bence Fliegauf, Fraktál Film, Hungary

Hungarian filmmaker Bence Fliegauf’s debut feature film Forest premiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2003. One year later, Dealer (2004) garnered him over 20 awards, including the Fipresci Prize at the Mar del Plata Film Festival. He won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival forMilky Way in 2007. His first English-language movie, Womb, was screened in Locarno and Toronto. The Berlinale Competition 2012 presented Fliegauf’s latest film, Just the Wind, which received the Jury Grand Prix and went on to be screened at many other film festivals.

Alistair Banks Griffin, USA: Therese (working title)

Producer: Eric Overmyer, USA

Alistair Banks Griffin was born in 1978 in England and raised in New Orleans. He received his BA from the Rhode Island School of Design. Griffin’s short film Gauge (2008) premiered at the New York Film Festival. In 2009 he was the recipient of a Cinereach grant for his first feature film, Two Gates of Sleep, which premiered at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and then won the New Talent Grand Pix Award at Cph:pix in Copenhagen in 2011. The film has screened at numerous international festivals and museums.

Sebastián Lelio, Chile: Greeting to the Sun

Producer: Juan de Dios Larraín, Fábula, Chile

Born in Chile in 1974, Sebastián Lelio graduated from the Escuela de Cine de Chile. In 2006, he completed his first film, La Sagrada Familia, which received many awards and international recognition. His second film, Navidad, made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. El Año del Tigre, his third feature film, was released in the international competition of the Locarno Film Festival in 2011. His latest film, Gloria, premiered in the Competition of the Berlinale in 2013, where it was highly acclaimed by the critics and the audience, and took home a Silver Bear for Best Actress.

Elina Psykou, Greece: Ivo & Sofia

Producer: Giorgos Karnavas, Heretic, Greece

Born in 1977 in Greece, Elina Psykou studied film directing at the Lykourgos Stavrakos Film School and sociology at Panteion University, both in Athens. She went on to study cultural history at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. In 2007 she participated in theBerlinale Talent Campus. She has written and directed two short films, Sunday Trip (2004) and Summer Holidays (2006). Psykou’s first fictional feature film, The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas, won the Best Work in Progress award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; the film had its world premiere in the Berlinale Forum in 2013.

José Luis Valle, Mexico: Operation Baby

Producer: José Luis Valle, Caverna Cine, Mexico

Born in El Salvador, José Luis Valle became a citizen of Mexico, where he studied literature and film. His short film Chimera won the Kodak Film School Competition and received an Honorary Mention at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2006. His documentary The Pope’s Miracle screened at the Locarno Film Festival in 2009. Valle’s first fictional feature, Workers, received support from the World Cinema Fund, premiered in the Berlinale Panorama in 2013, and won the Mezcal Prize for the best Mexican entry at the 28th Guadalajara International Film Festival.

Kirsten Niehuus, Managing Director of Film Funding at the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, states: “Alongside our other artist-in-residence initiatives, the Berlinale Residency represents the successful continuation of our Berlin 24/7 program. Together with the Berlinale and the Nipkow Programme, we wish the six filmmakers a creative and inspiring time in the metropolitan area of the capital.”

The Berlinale Residency directors will stay in Berlin from August 15 to November 15, 2013. With script consultants from the Nipkow Programme and other experts from the industry, they will finalize their screenplays. In a workshop towards the end of the Residency, their producers will also receive concrete feedback from experienced industry professionals and assistance in preparing the projects for the international market. In February 2014, the filmmakers will return to Berlin so they can present their projects with their producers to potential co-producers and financers at the Berlinale Co-Production Market. A number of the participants will also be given the opportunity to present their works at the Ibero-American Co-Production Meeting in Guadalajara in March 2014.

A filmmaking family just had a sexy, twisted, and enigmatic baby. After working together on films like “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and “Two Gates of Sleep,” Antonio Campos, Brady Corbet, Josh Mond, and Sean Durkin re-teamed to bring “Simon Killer” to life. Corbet stars as Simon, a college graduate who runs off to Paris after ending a long-term relationship. The space is good for Simon at first, but soon the allure of Paris and his goal to start fresh is consumed by his desperation to reconnect with his ex. Having hit rock bottom, Simon winds up in a local strip club, paired with a prostitute. However, rather than just make [ Read More ]

The post Interview: Simon Killer’s Antonio Campos And Brady Corbet appeared first on Shockya.com.

Yesterday, Jordan M. Smith, Nicholas Bell and I highlighted our Top 10 New Faces (strictly in the acting domain) of 2013′s Sundance Film Festival and while that list was pretty much a consensus, our Top 20 New Voices (fiction/non-fiction/short scribes, directors and full-out filmmakers/producers) was an amicably, yet hard fought deliberation process and then ranking of who we think the future will shine most bright…in other words, if these people were Wall Street stock options — we’d put our money behind them. Enjoy the mini profiles and adjoined praise.

#20. Sophie Goyette

Part of the pair of Canadian-based, female auteurs to make a pit stop in Park City (the other being Sarah Polley) French-Canadian filmmaker Sophie Goyette and her 2012 Tiff showcased short film Le Futur Proche demonstrates that there is plenty more raw talent and a pulse from Quebec. Here we find a pilot dealing with loss, suppressing his...

Every year, precisely the week before we toast to a new edition of the Sundance Film Festival, there is a lucky set of a dozen or more scribes who head of to the Sundance resort as part of the January Screenwriters Lab. For the 2013 edition, this year’s dozen includes some familiar names and fairly diverse international mix and at the top of the list we find Andrew Renzi who’ll be at the fest the week later with his short Karaoke! and will be workshopping his feature film Franny. Russell Harbaugh who brought his queasy The Celebration-esque short Rolling on the Floor Laughing to the fest the year before, will also be receiving support on his debut entitled, Love After Love. Jan Kwiecinski whose most recent short was part of The Fourth Dimension project will tackle The Incident, and K’naan, an artist who is already had practice at...

Not Robert Redford or any Sundance programmer for that matter would admit to it, but their are certain characteristics that make for the quintessential Sundance film and I think we find this with Lance Edmands’ directorial debut. Certified by the Sundance Institute (was workshopped at both the Directors and Screenwriters Labs) with Bluebird we’ve got Americana, an appealing, distinguishable setting and backdrop during a harsh season, a creative slicing of the narrative, vet actors (John Slattery, Margo Martindale) breaking out later in life and working alongside future “it” faces (Emily Meade and Adam Driver) and to top it all off, the crew includes talented composers Daniel Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans (Simon Killer), Production Designer Inbal Weinberg (The Place Beyond the Pines) and perhaps one of the best cinematographers in the business who is one project from a major studio payday in Jody Lee Lipes (Two Gates of Sleep).

Gist: In...

This month’s Short Film Corner we feature The Fort, the dozen minute short that premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (more recently BamCinemafest) and is slowly making its way onto the U.S. and international film festival circuit. Set on the puddle-filled backwoods, this tells the tale of a rain0-coat wearing young boy (pint-sized Kyle Catlett) who is putting the finishing touches on fort and who meets a stranger — what follows could be the entry point into the narrative of the man (Jake Weber) who helps build that fort, but who has monster preoccupations that are come across as unresolved. Andrew Renzi (featured as part of our inaugural American New Wave 25 series in 2010) moves from his role as a producer (2010′s Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep) to that of helmer. Contributing to this meditative, stripped down number we find producer Andrew D. Corkin,...

Weekly Eye Candy: Edward Sharpe and the Margnetic Zeros – Man on Fire

Directed by: Brady Corbet

Produced by: Borderline Films and Andrew F. Renzi

Visuals: Jody Lee Lipes

This week’s featured filmmaker is none other than Brady Corbet. The actor who appeared in films by Catherine Hardwicke, Gregg Araki, Michael Haneke, Sean Durkin, Lars von Trier, and most recently, was the titular player in Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer, also happens to work behind the camera breaking out with his short film Protect You + Me. (view here) which grabbed an Honorable Mention Short Filmmaking at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009, and he both starred in and co-edited Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep – the 2010 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight selected film.

Produced by the Borderline Films folks (Campos, Durkin, Mond) along with Andrew F. Renzi (Anw-25, 2010 edition), the music vid captures choreographed motions from various high-school, amateur and classical level...

We've got your exclusive first look at the poster one sheet for Gregory Kohn's Northeast, the shot on 16mm pic which stars David Call, ("Two Gates of Sleep") and Eleonore Hendricks (from the Safdie Bros.' The Pleasure of Being Robbed and Go Get Some Rosemary). Tribeca Film is releasing the indie pic nationwide on December 26th via cable VOD, iTunes, Amazon, and Vudu. Tomorrow we'll be bringing you the trailer. David Call plays Will, an unemployed and aimless playboy in Brooklyn, New York, has spent his 20’s skating on easy charm from one casual, distant affair to the next. Noticing his friends’ happiness as they gradually settle into steady jobs and committed relationships, Will decides to trade apathy for effort in order to find someone with whom he can start the next chapter of his life.

#08. The Best Man for the Job - Joshua Zeman Indie producer stalwart (The Station Agent, Mysterious Skin) Joshua Zeman made his directing debut in 2009 with the docu Cropsey (here's our interview with Zeman) and it now appears that he has the directing bug. Earlier in the year he financed and filmed The Best Man for the Job starring Two Gates of Sleep's David Call. I'm not in the habit of predicting Short Film selections for the festival, but this would be a no-brainer inclusion. Here's the short's Kickstarter page which includes a video intro from the filmmaker. Gist: When a hostage negotiation turns personal, a cop with a secret is forced to make a choice between his partner and the woman he loves. (IMDb Link)  ...

They're a creative filmmaking model to emulate. Borderline Film's Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin and Josh Mond have tied the knot with Fox Searchlight for a two-year, first-look deal. After a courtship phase that began the moment when Martha Marcy May Marlene was picked up by Searchlight at Sundance, the indie studio made a no-brainer move to be the first in line and see what other original masterworks Campos, Durkin and Mond can come up with. Anyone who reads our site knows we have a hard-on for this collective since we were first introduced to the trio with Campos' Cannes selected Afterschool in 2008. We were equally floored by the rest of their output: the Cannes-winning Sean Durkin hypnotic short Mary Last Seen (2010), Alistair Banks Griffin's under-appreciated debut Two Gates of Sleep (2010) and of course, this year's mind-blowing Mmmm, which is currently in theatres and is easily up there in the...

Here's some more huge news for the team behind "Martha Marcy May Marlene." Borderline Films, the creative partnership of Josh Mond, Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos, has signed a two-year first-look deal with "Martha" distributor Fox Searchlight. Nyu Tisch alumni Mond, Durkin and Campos formed Borderline Films in 2003 and have since produced three features: "Afterschool," "Two Gates of Sleep" and "Martha Marcy May Marlene." Their latest feature, "Simon Killer," ...

Martha Marcy May Marlene, writer/director Sean Durkin’s psychological thriller about a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) escaping from a cult, continued to earn rave reviews and solid art-house audiences for specialty arm Fox Searchlight Pictures. Fox Searchlight presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley extended their relationship with New York City-based Borderline Films by signing a two-year, first-look deal with the independent producer. Durkin co-founded Borderline in 2003 with fellow New York University film school grads Antonio Campos and Josh Mond. In addition to Martha Marcy May Marlene, Borderline also produced Campos’ Afterschool and director Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep in addition to short films and music videos.

Martha Marcy May Marlene, writer/director Sean Durkin’s psychological thriller about a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) escaping from a cult, continued to earn rave reviews and solid art-house audiences for specialty arm Fox Searchlight Pictures. Fox Searchlight presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley extended their relationship with New York City-based Borderline Films by signing a two-year, first-look deal with the independent producer. Durkin co-founded Borderline in 2003 with fellow New York University film school grads Antonio Campos and Josh Mond. In addition to Martha Marcy May Marlene, Borderline also produced Campos’ Afterschool and director Alistair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep in addition to short films and music videos.

[Editor's note: This interview was orginally published during the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.] If the names aren't familiar, their films are...and will be. After film festival accolades for Afterschool (2008), Two Gates of Sleep (2010) and with the Campos' sophomore film Simon Killer in post and poised for another huge film festival premiere, it is the revelation at this year's Sundance Film Festival and association with Indie vet producer Ted Hope on the uniquely titled Martha Marcy May Marlene that has turned the spotlight inwards on a trio of film school friends who've united, branded and excelled in bringing about an evocative and refreshing new works on the American independent film scene. Borderline Films is Josh Mond, Sean Durkin and Antonio Campos. Here is our interview with them conducted by Sean Glass. Picture above taken from (www.drewinnis.com) one of their many strong collaborators in photographer/cinematographer Drew Innis. ...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: I celebrate all levels of trailers and hopefully this column will satisfactorily give you a baseline of what beta wave I’m operating on, because what better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? Some of the best authors will tell you that writing a short story is a lot harder than writing a long one, that you have to weigh every sentence. What better medium to see how this theory plays itself out beyond that than with movie trailers? X Trailer Jon Hewitt's last feature Acolytes starred Joel Edgerton, one of the best reasons why a strong ensemble makes a great movie even...

Originally reviewed at the 2010 AFI Fest.

"Two Gates of Sleep" is about the journey of a coffin to its final resting spot, but in a part of the world where political concerns are limited to the bickering between two brothers over the right way to bury their dead mother. Set apart from any semblance of urban encroachment, save for the lumber mill where the two brothers make a meager wage, Jack (Brady Corbet) and Louis (David Call) reside on the fringe of the Mississippi-Louisiana border where the flicker of their weak television reception just about sums up the pulse of life before their ailing mom (Karen Young) ultimately flatlines and they settle upon hauling her coffin across the river with only their hands.

First-time director Alistair Banks Griffin was originally a painter, which is evident immediately from the fact that "Two Gates of Sleep" is told in brush strokes -...

American independent films of the narrative variety are rarely hard art films. But in the case of Alastair Banks Griffin’s Two Gates of Sleep, which bowed at last year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes before finding its way to AFI Fest last Fall, one should be ready to enter a long-take heavy, unspeakably gorgeous dirge that is sure of its influences and even more sure that it has something deeply resonant to express to you. It’s the type of movie that, as the cliche goes, requires the audience to “do some work,” that isn’t going to bend over backwards to entertain you, that’s going to leave your questions unanswered and your desires for exposition or denouement unfulfilled. It tells the story of a pair of backwoods brothers (Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene’s Brady Corbett and Tiny Furniture’s David Call) in the rural American South who...

Factory 25, the uber cool Brooklyn NY label responsible for making sure that Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo and You Wont Miss Me get some love from the movie-going public have picked up one of my favorite films from the 2010 campaign in the Cannes Director's Fortnight selected Two Gates of Sleep. Alistair Banks Griffin's debut film easily puts him in a category apart of budding U.S filmmakers to watch out for (I'd include Lance Hammer, Antonio Campos, Jeff Nichols and more recently Sean Durkin) in that pack of remarkable first time efforts. Tgos will receive a one week release this Friday (April 1st) at the Re-Run Theater. I imagine other markets including Los Angeles (where the film was previously shown in AFI Fest) will follow and for sure we'll get some whacked out DVD release for the film -- I think of Factory 25 as a mix between Criterion and the...

Rating: 3/5

Writer: Alistair Banks Griffin

Director: Alistair Banks Griffin

Cast: Brady Corbet, David Call, Karen Young

Alistar Banks Griffin’s directorial debut, Two Gates Of Sleep, tells the journey of two brothers dealing with the death and burial of their mother. Taking place in the rural outskirts of Louisiana along the Mississippi River, Jack (Brady Corbet) and Louis (David Call) diligently follow their mother’s (Karen Young) wish of being put to rest surrounded by the environment she loved so much while she was alive.

Read more on AFI Fest 2010 Review: Two Gates Of Sleep…...

Reviewed at the 2010 AFI Fest.

Something tells me Eran Riklis would take it as a compliment to call his a career full of minor works. While many Israeli filmmakers have concentrated on making the big statement about their fractured cultural landscape of their homeland, Riklis has focused on making the small one in recent years, whether it's the legal battle over a lemon grove between a Palestinian woman and the Israeli defense minister in his last drama "Lemon Tree" or the uneasy union of Syrian and Israeli families in his 2004 breakthrough "The Syrian Bride."

As Riklis said in his introduction to the AFI Fest crowd over the weekend, his latest film, "The Human Resources Manager" is "similar, but different" - a nod to the fact that while the titular character travels thousands of miles from Jerusalem to an unnamed Eastern European country to return the corpse of one of his...

Kudos to the AFI Fest for setting up an important sidebar that will expose the best that the next generation of filmmakers have to offer. Bumping up their crop of exciting new auteur cinema, sections labeled "Young Americans" and "New Auteurs" (Cannes heavy) are showcases you'll want to keep an eye on - I can vouch on a good chunk of titles already selected. Among the half dozen included names in "Young Americans" section we find a pair of filmmakers in Alistair Banks Griffin and David Robert Mitchell who were included in our own American New Wave 25 feature this summer. Two Gates Of Sleep, one of my top discoveries of the year from this year's Cannes will finally receive its North American premiere. Filling out the section, we also have the North American premiere for the Locarno preemed Kitao Sakurai's Aardvark (Sakurai was the cinematographer on You Wont Miss...

Bressonian in approach and Malick-like in its use of the natural surroundings, Alistair Banks Griffin's Two Gates of Sleep is a sublime film debut that reminds me of how David Gordon Green broke out with George Washington a little more than a decade ago. - Sorry folks. There's been a lack of Cannes-related updates due to the simple fact that I'm at four plus films per day and have been adding some interviews late in the game - so I'm technically going into Day 10, when the site is pumping out Day 7 items, which is fine because it was a particularly great day of Cannes movie watching, which initially began with the press conference for a film I've been keen on seeing way before it was announced as a Director's Fortnight selected film. Bressonian in approach and Malick-like in its use of the natural surroundings, Alistair Banks Griffin...

Sorry folks. There's been a lack of Cannes-related updates due to the simple fact that I'm at four plus films per day and have been adding some interviews late in the game - so I'm technically going into Day 10, when the site is pumping out Day 7 items, which is fine because it was a particularly great day of Cannes movie watching, which initially began with the press conference for a film I've been keen on seeing way before it was announced as a Director's Fortnight selected film. Bressonian in approach and Malick-like in its use of the natural surroundings, Alistair Banks Griffin's Two Gates of Sleep is a sublime film debut that reminds me of how David Gordon Green broke out with George Washington a little more than a decade ago. This is just one portion of my coverage on the film, look for more items coming soon and...

If I had to pick just twelve (my actual screening schedule is north of 40) then I'd go with the dozen titles below. - If I had to pick just twelve (my actual screening schedule is north of 40) then I'd go with the dozen titles below.  All Good Children directed by Alicia Duffy (Director's Fortnight)On the basis of her short film and the clip I saw for this one, this feature debut may just bring us the next Lynne Ramsay, Andrea Arnold.Biutiful directed by Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu (Main Comp)First screenplay sans Guillermo Arriaga, I'm expecting this to be the fresh start and move away from mapped out narratives and multiple character collision course - big question: is this an English or Spanish spoken film? Carlos directed by Olivier Assayas (Out of Competition) Of the list you find on this page, this is the...

If I had to pick just twelve (my actual screening schedule is north of 40) then I'd go with the dozen titles below. All Good Children directed by Alicia Duffy (Director's Fortnight)On the basis of her short film and the clip I saw for this one, this feature debut may just bring us the next Lynne Ramsay, Andrea Arnold.Biutiful directed by Alejandro Gonzales Innaritu (Main Comp)First screenplay sans Guillermo Arriaga, I'm expecting this to be the fresh start and move away from mapped out narratives and multiple character collision course - big question: is this an English or Spanish spoken film? Carlos directed by Olivier Assayas (Out of Competition) Of the list you find on this page, this is the film in Cannes that I won't be watching - 5 hour 33 minutes should have been broken down by the festival. Will seek it out post festival.Inside Job directed...

The lineup for the 2010 edition of Directors’ Fortnight has been announced. There are eleven first films in the lineup which will compete for the Camera d’Or prize which goes to a first film from across all the sections.

In 2010 Directors’ Fortnight, the Carrosse d’Or award will be awarded to Agnes Varda, the celebrated woman auteur-director of the french independant cinema. The Carrosse d’or (Golden Coach) Prize is a tribute to a director chosen from the international filmmaking community for the innovative qualities, courage and independent-mindedness of his or her work. Since its creation in 2002, this prize has been given to Jacques Rozier, Clint Eastwood, Nanni Moretti, Sembene Ousmane, David Cronenberg, Alain Cavalier, Jim Jarmusch and Naomie Kawasé in 2009.

Directors’ Fortnight will run from May 13 to 23 on the sidelines of the official selection at Cannes International Film festival.

Feature films

(* denotes films competing for Caméra d'Or Prize)

Alegria,...