The Circuit

The Full Frame Docmentary Film Festival in Durham, NC, will preem Dan Klores' new doc "Black Magic" in a Festival Preview Benefit on February 11. While the fest will host the theatrical version, the full doc will run on ESPN in a four-hour, two-part commercial free series.  Klores last film, "Crazy Love," was acquired at Sundance 2007 by Magnolia.

"Black Magic" is about the lives of black basketball players during the Civil Rights Movement.  Samuel L. Jackson and Wynton Marsalis contribute as narrators.  Basketball legends Earl Monroe and Al Attles will attend the screening with Klores.

Full Frame runs April 3-6, 2008.

Three films were awarded a VPRO Tiger Award at the 37th International Film Festival Rotterdam at the Feb 1 awards ceremony.  Aditya Assarat's tsunami-themed drama "Wonderful Town," (pictured) Liew Seng Tat's comedy "Flower in the Pocket," and Ma Salama Jamil's revenge tale "Go With Peace Jamil" will each get 15,000 Euros and guaranteed broadcast on the Dutch public television network VPRO.

The Dioraphte Award for best film supported by the Hubert Bals Fund went to Sandra Kogut's "Mutum," a drama about a Braziliam boy surviving his parents' violent marriage.

FIPRESCI's International Critics' Prize was awarded to "The Sky, the Earth and the Rain," Jose Luis Torres Leiva's film about lonely people on a remote Chilean island.  The Association of Dutch film critics recognized Alexei Balabanov's Russian thriller "Cargo 200."

Variety's Ed Meza has a story on the mounting legal problems behind the Berlin entry, "Heart of Fire," - a film that may (or may not) be based on (or inspired by or only slightly influenced) by Senait Mehari's book of the same name. 

Mehari's autobiography is about her life in Eritrea as a child soldier.  Meza says a number of her fellow children-in-arms have filed defamation suits against her and the book.

When the lawyers turned their sights on the film, the co-producer let loose the smoke screen:

Christoph Mueller, head of Senator Film Prod., which co-produced “Heart of Fire,” has said the film is “neither a documentary nor a one-to-one adaptation of the book,” but rather a cinematic narrative loosely based on Mehari’s novel.

So look for a title card in the front credits that reads:  "Sorta, kinda based on real events."

Read Meza's story here.

More slow leaks of the SXSW lineup...

Tony Krantz's dark comedy "Otis" will screen midnight, opening night, at SXSW and has also been picked up by Warner Home Video for distribution.  The distrib said the release may include a limited theatrical run before being released on home vid in the summer.  Pic stars Bostin Christopher (pictured), Illeana Douglas, Daniel Stern, and Kevin Pollack. 

What's it about?

"Otis is a satire of a 'Leave it to Beaver' world colliding with the gore-porn world of a modern-day serial killer. Revenge and justice are sought -- and found -- in a blackly comedic way," said director/producer Tony Krantz.

So in the summer, look for the DVD in the "Gore-Porn" section.

The Dublin fest takes advantage of all the UK names in the news recently, bringing in local Daniel Day-Lewis, Colin Farrell and U2 to show their respective films.  Check out Archie Thomas' story here.

The Shootout crew gives Alex Rivera a camera to document his premiere day at Sundance.

Sundance juror Quentin Tarrantino and Austin Film Society's Rebecca Campbell at the Awards Party.


"Donkey Punch" actress Jamie Winstone (daughter of actor Ray) with "Baghead" actress Elise Muller at the Texas Filmmakers Party.


"Frozen River" producer Chip Hourihan phones it in after winning the Grand Jury prize on Saturday.

David Modigliani's doc on Bush's home-away-from-home has a trailer up here.  Looks good.  The doc is premiering at SXSW 08.

Submarine is repping the rights.

Official site here.

In B. Ruby Rich's Sundance wrap, it's "Sleep Dealer" that rises to the top (though it's mentioned at the bottom):

But the feature film that captured my attention, hands down, was Sleep Dealer, a science fiction view of a dystopian future by first-time director Alex Rivera. It was my favourite kind of sci-fi: just enough into the future for things we recognise to have become grotesque, untenable, dangerous. On the US-Mexico border, new factories harvest human energy by connecting to nodes implanted in human workers. There are armed drones and cyber-memories, computer hackers and scary reality TV shows.

Rivera's film was the opposite of the big-money movies that made the headlines ($10m for Hamlet 2, for instance), but it didn't sit with the quiet narrative dramas, either. With two awards - for screenwriting, and for contribution to science - it may have a future. I hope so. It is films like Sleep Dealer that give hope for Sundance's future. Rivera revives the promise of an American independent cinema that can intervene in our world, imagine the worst, hope for the best - and entertain like mad along the way.

Full story here.

"Sleep Dealer" plays in Berlin next.

The Newport Beach Film Festival has created the "Chuck Jones Award for Excellence in Animation" for their 2008 event.  Named after the Bugs Bunny creator, the award will go to someone who "best exemplifies artistic achievement and innovation in the field of animation."  They'll receive a special animation cel of Jones' work and a cash award.

The Newport Beach Film Festival runs April 24 – May 1, 2008.

Rotterdam's MovieSquad award, picked by five teenage jury members, goes to Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's "Persepolis."  The award comes with Dutch distribution with the MovieZone educational program.  2000 Euros go toward the film's promotion to kids in The Netherlands.

The jury statement:

Persepolis has not been drawn in a realistic way. Yet this animated film has touched us deeply. The script was very well constructed. In a film about a girl in Iran in which political developments play such an important role, it is obvious to think of serious themes as supression by political or military leaders, corruption and poverty. All of these themes are addressed, but this film goes further. The heavier themes are relieved by a good dose of humour.

On top of all the Sundance wrap-ups, The Knife looks at the best of food in Park City, including this nugget:

Best-kept dining secret
That Bon Appetit was hosting a Sundance dinner for U2. According to publisher Paul Jowdy, it began when his secretary said there was a man on the line, but she couldn't understand him because his accent was so thick. "I don't know why I took the call," he said, especially when the brogue-tongued caller insisted Jowdy sign a nondisclosure agreement online before he even revealed the reason for their conversation.

But Jowdy did, upon which Paul McGuinness introduced himself as the manager of U2. The band heard about the Supper Club and would Bon Appetit be interested in hosting them for their film "U2 3D"? And could Bon Appetit arrange for a Champagne sponsor, since the Edge loves Champagne, and a chef from New Orleans, since the band is very interested in supporting the area? One Veuve Cliquot and a John Besh later, it was done.

Full post here.

by Nick Holdsworth
MOKRA GORA, SERBIA – You could hardly have invented a stranger place for a film festival.

More than 1,500 metres above sea level, three hours drive from Belgrade, high in the mountains that straddle the border with Bosnia – where just 15 years ago armoured convoys of Serbian soldiers trundled towards the siege of Sarajevo - a recreated wooden-built medieval village is hosting the world’s first Kustendorf Festival of Film and Music.

The brainchild of award winning Serbian director Emir Kusturica (pictured), the new student-film focused festival is avowedly non-commercial.  It kicked off on January 14th with a mock funeral for copies of “Die Hard’ complete with weeping black-clad women, an incense swinging priest and pine coffin.

As a symbol of all that Kusturica hates about commercial filmmaking, the final death of ‘Die Hard’ hit the right note: Kustendorf is festival that takes its art seriously but not itself.

An invitation-only event financed by Kusturica and the Serbian government and held at the ethno-village the film director has developed on a mountainside above the remote winter resort village of Mokra Gora, Kustendorf surely counts as one of the more eccentric events on the world’s calendar of 3,000 or so annual film festivals.

The village, where Kusturica now lives most of the time having first had the vision to buy up and relocate local old wooden houses here (at a cost of a few thousand dollars each) when filming in the valley four years ago, boasts a Serbian Orthodox church, bank, swimming pool, library, room for 110 guests and two state of the art Dolby cinemas, one boasting a $90,000 K2 projector.

Streets are named after famous directors and other figres that Kusturica holds dear: Nikita Mikhalkov Square, the Stanley Kubrick Theater, Federico Fellini Street and Ernest Che Guevara St are all here.

Even without the names, Mechavnik’s location is inspiring enough: mists and cloud that blur the pine dotted mountains burn off as the sun rises to reveal rocky crags beneath a crystalline blue sky. A miniature steam railway, hugely popular with children, runs through the valley below.

Stories of wartime battles between Tito’s partisans, the Germans and nationalist Chekniks add a flavor of Serbia’s turbulent past.

It’s an easy place to promote idealism and propagate an anti-commercial gospel.

Mikhalkov warmed to the zeitgeist during press conferences, workshops and after film chats.

“The most awful thing that can happen to anyone is intellectual McDonalds – fast, cheap, tasteless and can harm you,” he remarked on more than one occasion when asked what threatened artful, thought provoking film making today.

He was at his best when talking about his own process of creating atmosphere and concentration on a set – the weeks of work he puts into writing up notes on a screenplay that may be hundreds of pages long; his dismissal of any crew member not totally engaged in the project; the effort he puts into ensuring actors have done the work necessary to allow them to extemporise.

Israeli director Eran Kolirin – named the European Film Academy’s European Discovery of the Year for his touching film “The Band’s Visit” – seemed bewildered by the attention when talking to the audience after the screening of his film.

“I was scared to death when I got that discovery award,” he admitted before delving into the creative processes he adopts – trying to “re-remember” emotions and images, as he put it.

An intimate and relaxed event that is more campus retreat than festival, Kustendorf promises to become an interestingly quixotic event if funding and interest holds up.

Kusturica says that next year he hopes to bring in African, Asia and South American  film and says that celebrated American independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch will be a key note visitor.

Photos: Mechavnik village, where film festival is taking place and Emir Kusturica introducing a film.  Photos by Nick Holdsworth.

Filmmaker's Scott Macaulay has this report from Rotterdam on "Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker":

Who's Afraid of Kathy Acker, premiering here in Rotterdam, is Barbara Caspar's thoughtful and creative film biography/essay on the late writer, whose formally inventive novels, published from the '70s through the mid-90s, challenged assumptions about gender roles, sexuality, and the literary canon. A beguiling and intensely contradictory figure, Acker is best known for books which creatively appropriated texts from Great White Male writers, retelling them in an emotionally raw, sexually blunt, and politically questioning female voice.

Full report here.

For the Sundance weary industry, the upcoming trip to Berlin seems daunting.  The epic flight from LA plus the biting German cold makes one seriously reconsider this next circuit stop.  Is it necessary?

Yes, says Belladonna Production's Rene Bastian, co-producer of "L.I.E." and "Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" who is bringing several projects to the European Film Market.  "Sundance is still very North American centric.  The Berlin market is growing every year.  All sales agents go there.   All buyers go there."

Patrick Frater has a good preview of the EFM:

The European Film Market in Berlin has become less of a specialty market than it used to be five years ago. Where once it focused tightly on films that were featured in the festival -- or at least were the type that could nab a festival slot -- and organizers appeared almost to want to play down commercial movies and the companies that sold them, the mart is now a much more open and general event.  (Full post here.)

On the festival side, Nick Holdsworth reports some are saying it's about time Berlin recognize the Eastern European wave of film:

"It is high time that Berlin discovers more talent from Eastern Europe and opens up the competition for filmmakers like Czech directors Bohdan Slama or Petr Zelenka," critic Jorg Taszman says. "The new, popular and commercially successful films that are in between arthouse and mainstream, from Russia or the Czech Republic, for example, need to be shown in Berlin."  (Full post here.)