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Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is a complicated media figure to say the least, so what do critics think of “Miss Americana,” the documentary that explores the enigmatic star’s life, career and politics? It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month before debuting on Netflix on January 31.

SEETaylor Swift songs, ranked: Her top 21 greatest hits from worst to best

As of this writing the film has a MetaCritic score of 65 based on 23 reviews counted: 16 positive, 7 somewhat mixed, none outright negative. Over on Rotten Tomatoes, which rates films on a pass-fail basis, the film is rated 91% fresh based on 58 reviews, only 5 of which are classified as negative. The Rt critics’ consensus boils down the reviews by saying, “‘Miss Americana’ provides an engaging if somewhat deliberately opaque backstage look at a pop star turned cultural phenomenon.”

Indeed, critics are somewhat divided about how revealing the film truly is. It’s “vulnerable without being invasive,...

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit have announced their sixth album, Reunions. The Americana singer-songwriter previews the upcoming LP with the new song “Be Afraid.”

A jangly slice of low-fi indie rock, the song is a call to action for artists to use their voices to inspire or enact change — or risk being lost in a crowd of conformists. “We don’t take requests, we won’t shut up and sing,” Isbell barks, “tell the truth enough you’ll find it rhymes with everything.”

To Isbell, writing empty songs or making...

As the 17th annual Americana Honors & Awards drew to a close at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville on Wednesday night, the star power came out in full force. Lined up along the front of the stage were Brandi Carlile, Irma Thomas, Courtney Marie Andrews, the War and Treaty, and Ann McCrary of the McCrary Sisters to sing Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.” Having accounted for at least three of the evening’s biggest musical highlights to that point, it was a surefire cast for the grand finale.

There was...

Tony Sokol Jan 17, 2018

Former Doctor Who Matt Smith's next project will team him with American Psycho's Mary Harron...

The creative team behind the film American Psycho will be taking on another psychotic episode of Americana, the aftermath of the Charles Manson family murders. Former punk rock journalist Mary Harron, who directed and co-wrote American Psycho and the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol, is reteaming with screenwriter Guinevere Turner for the film adaptation of Ed Sanders’s best-selling 1971 Charles Manson novel, The Family.

Former Doctor Who Matt Smith is reportedly in talks to star as Manson, according to the Tracking Board.

The upcoming film will also add elements from the book The Long Prison Journey Of Leslie van Houten: Life Beyond The Cult, which gave a first hand account of Karlene Faith, who was appointed as van Houten’s social worker at the women’s prison she was incarcerated at.

Exclusive: Flies Collective selects two narrative features, one documentary short, and one narrative short to split $15,000 production grant.

Flies Collective, a New York-based production company founded by filmmakers Daniel Patrick Carbone, Zachary Shedd and Matthew Petock, have announced the winners of the inaugural Flies Collective Film Grant.

The Flies Collective Film Grant supports independent narrative, documentary and experimental features and shorts.

The four winning projects are:

Nettles directed by Raven Jackson. narrative short;

Where The Boys Are directed by Joshua Gleason. narrative feature;

The Cure For Fear directed by Lana Wilson. documentary short; and

The Earthenware Head directed by Jared Hutchinson. narrative feature.

Flies Collective became known for the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival selection Hide Your Smiling Faces, as well as Americana, and the experimental anthology film collective:unconscious. The company’s founders first worked together on 2011’s A Little Closer.

The four projects will split a $15,000 production grant.

Carbone said: “It is both humbling and exciting to be able...

Exclusive: Production support for ‘bold and distinct’ visions from team behind 2013 Berlinale selection Hide Your Smiling Faces.

New York-based producer Flies Collective founded by Daniel Patrick Carbone, Zachary Shedd and Matthew Petock on Tuesday launched its production initiative.

The Flies Collective Film Grant will support independent narrative, documentary and experimental features and shorts.

The Flies Collective principals said applicants will need to show “a demonstrable need” for funding to qualify for the award.

The grant will offer financial support and a camera and lens equipment package to eligible projects. The trio will offer either $10,000 to a single project or divide it among several recipients. Submissions are now open.

“We benefited tremendously from the support of our filmmaking peers and mentors as we launched our first projects and we’re excited we can now pay that support forward to talented filmmakers creating exciting original work,” Carbone said.

“We’re really hoping to help launch projects that are bold...

The first programming has been revealed for the 20th annual Fantasia International Film Festival. Taking place from July 14th–August 2nd in Montreal, this year’s Fantasia will honor Guillermo del Toro with the Cheval Noir Award, and the newly revealed first wave of programming includes screenings of Lights Out, Abattoir, In a Valley of Violence, Under the Shadow, Trash Fire, Teenage Cocktail, and more:

Press Release: Montreal, May 26, 2016 – The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 20th Anniversary in Montreal this summer, taking place from July 14-August 2, with its Frontiéres international co-production market and Industry Rendez-Vous weekend being held July 21-24. The full lineup of over 130 feature films will be announced July 5th. In the meantime, the festival is excited to announce a selected first wave of titles, along with several special happenings.

For Fantasia’s 2016 poster, the festival has once again turned to award-winning Quebec visual artist Donald Caron.

Tony Sokol Joseph Baxter Mar 14, 2019

Former Doctor Who star Matt Smith plays Charles Manson in the crime drama, Charlie Says.

Charlie Says is one of two upcoming films to chronicle the historical homicidal Manson Family and its namesake, Charles Manson – whether or not that’s a good thing remains to be seen. While the oxygen in the proverbial Manson movie room will be hogged this summer by Quentin Tarantino’s star-studded cinematic release, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, another offering is getting the jump on things, this May’s Charlie Says, in which the former bow-tie-brandishing wielder of all things timey-wimey, former Eleventh Doctor Who, Matt Smith, will play the stabby Svengali.

The creative team behind American Psycho takes on another psychotic episode of Americana, the aftermath of the Charles Manson family murders. Charlie Says was directed by former punk rock journalist Mary Harron, who also directed the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol.

Venice Film Festival Biennale College – Cinema sidebar is like a low-lying fruit tree that hasn’t yet been picked, and from the past two editions Sundance programmers have basketed Tim Sutton’s Memphis (2014) and Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia’s H. (2015). We’re thinking the fest might go three for three with The Fits. Anna Rose Homer fiction feature debut hasn’t yet be shown outside the Lido and it’s coming into 2016 with terrific critical buzz with THR calling it a “rough-diamond discovery” French institute Cahiers du cinéma giving the film major props. The filmmaker touched several facets of the film indie film biz over the years getting her feet wet as a camera assistant, with grip credits for Afterschool and Tiny Furniture and her most recent gigs were as a producer on Jody Lee Lipes’ Ballet 422 and still photographer on Matt Wolf’s Teenage. The Fits, which benefited...

Us in Progress is a biannual event held in June during the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and in October during the American Film Festival in Wroclaw. It’s a five-year-old industry event that aims to strengthen transatlantic film collaborations and partnerships between European industry and emerging American filmmakers. The fifth Us in Progress recently held in Wroclaw featured six films in various editing and post-production stages. The participants included: Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Actor Martinez Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, Alaska is a Drag Zachary Shedd and Daniel Patrick Carbone, Americana Benjamin Kruger, It Had to Be You Joel […]...

Us in Progress is a biannual event held in June during the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and in October during the American Film Festival in Wroclaw. It’s a five-year-old industry event that aims to strengthen transatlantic film collaborations and partnerships between European industry and emerging American filmmakers. The fifth Us in Progress recently held in Wroclaw featured six films in various editing and post-production stages. The participants included: Mike Ott and Nathan Silver, Actor Martinez Shaz Bennett and Melanie Miller, Alaska is a Drag Zachary Shedd and Daniel Patrick Carbone, Americana Benjamin Kruger, It Had to Be You Joel […]...

The fifth edition of the Us in Progress co-production forum will be held on October 22-23rd, 2015, as a part of the 6th American Film Festival in Wrocław (October 20-25th).

Us in Progress aims to facilitate professional networking among European film professionals and emerging independent filmmakers from the United States. A biannual event, Us in Progress is also held in June during the Champs-Elysees Film Festival in Paris.

Invite-only screenings will feature six projects selected from fifty American independent feature-length submissions, all in final editing stages. Congratulations to the 2015 Us in Progress Wrocław participants:

"Actor Martinez" by Mike Ott & Nathan Silver "Alaska is a Drag" by Shaz Bennett "Americana" by Zachary Shedd "It Had to Be You" by Sasha Gordon "The Alchemist Cookbook" by Joel Potrykus "The Loner" by Daniel Grove Invited to Wroclaw, the filmmakers and/or their producers will present the projects to top European buyers and festival programmers (Locarno, Edinburgh, Versatile, Memento and Trust Nordisk among others) and attend one-to-one meetings and network.

The 2015 Us in Progress Wrocław partners provide in-kind awards of post-production service packages of combined value amounting to $40,000. Partners from the leading Polish sound and image studios include:

-Soundflower Studio and Maciej Zieliński

-Chimney Poland

-Fixafilms

-Toya Studios .

Prizes are also being offered by Producers' Network at Cannes and Ale kino+ (TV rights acquisition offer).

In 2014, the top prize was awarded to the producers/directors of "Homefront" (by Tyler Walker and Fidel Ruiz-Healy). They recently color-graded in Warsaw's Chimney.

Selections from last year's slate "God Bless the Child" and "Take Me to the River" had World Premieres at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival and the 2015 Sundance Film festivals, respectively. Both films will screen this year in the Spectrum competition at the American Film Festival.

To learn more or contact Us in Progress please email: aff[At]snh.org.pl...

With the American Film Festival in Wrocław comes the Us in Progress co-production forum initiative. It also means that micro gems might trickle down from Europe in the unfinished form into Sundance and/or SXSW in early 2016. On the plate for October 22nd and 23rd, the six projects selected for the 2015 Us in Progress Wrocław include:

Actor Martinez by Mike Ott and Nathan Silver

Up until now, the project that teams Littlerock, Pearblossom Hwy and Lake Los Angeles helmer with Exit Elena, Soft in the head, Uncertain Terms and Stinking Heaven had no title. This

stars Bobby Black, Connor Long and Lindsay Burdge.

Alaska is a Drag by Shaz Bennett

Based on her 2012 short, if Rocky and Hedwig had a love child – that would best describe our hero Leo — an aspiring superstar – if he can just get out of Alaska. Everyone who works in a fish cannery – slicing fish for...

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,...

• English martial artist Scott Adkins (The Bourne Ultimatum; Ninja: Shadow of a Tear) and Thai star Tony Jaa (Ong Bak) are in discussions to join the Kickboxer reboot. The film will be directed by Stephen Fung (Tai Chi Zero) and will star Ufc’s George St. Pierre, stunt man Alain Moussi, and Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy). Moussi will star as martial artist Kurt Sloan, who travels to Thailand to learn kickboxing techniques and avenge his brother’s death at the hands of Tong Po (Bautista). Adkins is looking at the role of Kurt’s older brother, while Jaa...

“House of Cards” star Rachel Brosnahan and David Call have been set for the lead roles in indie thriller “Americana,” Flies Collective announced on Monday. Zachary Shedd is writing and directing the thriller, which is described as an indie take on the great San Francisco thrillers of the 1970s. Call will play Avery Wells, a recovering alcoholic and aspiring film editor who must investigate the death of his movie star sister, played by Brosnahan, while dealing with his own personal demons. Also read: Hillary Clinton Says She And Bill Binge Watched ‘House of Cards’ “David and Rachel are exceptionally talented actors who.