More than 500 international projects were submitted to the Mercato Internazionale Audiovisivo (Mia).
Rome’s Mia film and TV market has selected 62 projects for its co-production market, which runs from October 9-13.
More than 500 projects were submitted this year from 80 countries worldwide.
Of these, 62 were selected - 15 films, 15 animation, 18 documentaries and 14 drama - from 36 countries.
The film projects include I Will Find You by György Kristóf, whose previous film Out played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2017.
UK writer and director Aaron Brookner of Pinball London also heads to Mia with mystery thriller A Gift To My Mother along with producers Paula Vaccaro and Pauliina Ståhlberg.
Rome’s Mia film and TV market has selected 62 projects for its co-production market, which runs from October 9-13.
More than 500 projects were submitted this year from 80 countries worldwide.
Of these, 62 were selected - 15 films, 15 animation, 18 documentaries and 14 drama - from 36 countries.
The film projects include I Will Find You by György Kristóf, whose previous film Out played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2017.
UK writer and director Aaron Brookner of Pinball London also heads to Mia with mystery thriller A Gift To My Mother along with producers Paula Vaccaro and Pauliina Ståhlberg.
- 9/22/2023
- by Tim Dams
- ScreenDaily
Two-day event runs September 10-11 in association with TIFF.
New Zealand producers Emma Slade and Victoria Dabbs of Firefly Films and Canadian partner Michelle Morris of Lily Pictures are among 40 producer teams set to participate in Ontario Creates’ 2023 International Financing Forum (Iff) running September 10-11 in Toronto.
The two-day feature film co-financing and co-production market, in association with TIFF and now in its 18th year, is a hybrid event. There will be in-person one-on-one producer and executive meetings, an industry panel discussion with Ontario and international producers, networking opportunities, and online international meetings.
Selected producers will get the chance to...
New Zealand producers Emma Slade and Victoria Dabbs of Firefly Films and Canadian partner Michelle Morris of Lily Pictures are among 40 producer teams set to participate in Ontario Creates’ 2023 International Financing Forum (Iff) running September 10-11 in Toronto.
The two-day feature film co-financing and co-production market, in association with TIFF and now in its 18th year, is a hybrid event. There will be in-person one-on-one producer and executive meetings, an industry panel discussion with Ontario and international producers, networking opportunities, and online international meetings.
Selected producers will get the chance to...
- 8/30/2023
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The first part will take place on the Greek island of Evia in June.
Circle programme director Biljana Tutorov confirmed 10 doc projects in Cannes on Monday for this year’s Circle Women Doc Accelerator training programme for women-identifying filmmakers.
They are Portrait Of A Friendship by Faezeh Nikoozad; Berliner by Anna Khazaradze; No Woman’s Road by Fanny Laure Bovet; Sites Of Resistance directed by Lisa Smith; Sisters by Tereza Bernatkova; Kafka In Belgrade by Masa Neskovic; Rock, Paper, Scissors by Christina Phoebe; Blazing Interwar produced by Anda Ionescu; Untying The Knot by Chona Mangalindan and Love School by Julia Maryanska.
Circle programme director Biljana Tutorov confirmed 10 doc projects in Cannes on Monday for this year’s Circle Women Doc Accelerator training programme for women-identifying filmmakers.
They are Portrait Of A Friendship by Faezeh Nikoozad; Berliner by Anna Khazaradze; No Woman’s Road by Fanny Laure Bovet; Sites Of Resistance directed by Lisa Smith; Sisters by Tereza Bernatkova; Kafka In Belgrade by Masa Neskovic; Rock, Paper, Scissors by Christina Phoebe; Blazing Interwar produced by Anda Ionescu; Untying The Knot by Chona Mangalindan and Love School by Julia Maryanska.
- 5/23/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
In a day that was in turns hopeful, angry, determined and defiant, industry stakeholders set the stage Thursday in Berlin for a concerted, pan-European push to boost diversity, inclusion and representation in the continent’s screen industries.
The Equity and Inclusion Pathways Seminar, which took place Feb. 16 during the European Film Market, laid out an action plan that the day’s participants said would have a transformative impact on policy frameworks across Europe.
“I think there’s an awakening,” said Victoria Thomas, of the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film (Artef). “We don’t have to explain to people anymore. There’s a general consensus that something needs to be done.”
The seminar offered a vision of what a diverse, equitable and inclusive European film community might look like, given enough buy-in from those industry gatekeepers in a position to foster change.
At the end of the day-long event — a spirited,...
The Equity and Inclusion Pathways Seminar, which took place Feb. 16 during the European Film Market, laid out an action plan that the day’s participants said would have a transformative impact on policy frameworks across Europe.
“I think there’s an awakening,” said Victoria Thomas, of the Anti-Racism Taskforce for European Film (Artef). “We don’t have to explain to people anymore. There’s a general consensus that something needs to be done.”
The seminar offered a vision of what a diverse, equitable and inclusive European film community might look like, given enough buy-in from those industry gatekeepers in a position to foster change.
At the end of the day-long event — a spirited,...
- 2/17/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
U.S. born British filmmaker Aaron Brookner (“Uncle Howard”) is plotting his first Nordic noir, slated for a market debut at Haugesund’s Nordic Co-Production Market, part of the leading Scandinavian confab New Nordic Films (Aug. 23-26).
Based on the novel “A Gift to My Mother” by London-based Finnish author and journalist Jouko Heikura, the thriller is being written and produced by Brookner and Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, co-founders of pedigreed Pinball London, which acquired rights to the book and handled the English-translation for the pic’s initial development stage.
The novel was brought to them by their Finnish co-producer Pauliina Stahlberg, credited for Netflix crime drama “Deadwind,” Seasons 2 & 3.
The story – slightly altered for screen purposes- – centres on a London-based human rights female lawyer, as she attempts to solve the mystery of a crime committed years ago against her terminally ill Finnish mother. Her rogue investigation takes her to a suspicious neighbour,...
Based on the novel “A Gift to My Mother” by London-based Finnish author and journalist Jouko Heikura, the thriller is being written and produced by Brookner and Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, co-founders of pedigreed Pinball London, which acquired rights to the book and handled the English-translation for the pic’s initial development stage.
The novel was brought to them by their Finnish co-producer Pauliina Stahlberg, credited for Netflix crime drama “Deadwind,” Seasons 2 & 3.
The story – slightly altered for screen purposes- – centres on a London-based human rights female lawyer, as she attempts to solve the mystery of a crime committed years ago against her terminally ill Finnish mother. Her rogue investigation takes her to a suspicious neighbour,...
- 8/12/2022
- by Annika Pham
- Variety Film + TV
Austria Selects Great Freedom For Oscars
Austria has selected Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom as its official submission for Best International Feature Film for the 94th Academy Awards. Set in post-war Germany, the movie tells the story of Hans who is imprisoned time and time again for being homosexual. Due to Paragraph 175, which prohibited homosexual acts in Germany, his desire for freedom is systematically destroyed. The one steady relationship in his life becomes his long-time cellmate, Viktor (Georg Friedrich), a convicted murderer. The film stars Franz Rogowski (Victoria) and Berlinale Silver Bear awardee Georg Friedrich (The Piano Teacher) in leading roles, with a screenplay by Thomas Reider and Meise. Producers are Sabine Moser, Oliver Neumann, and Benny Drechsel. The 2021 Cannes entry and Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner will be released by Mubi theatrically in the U.S. and UK on March 4, 2022. Meanwhile, per the Japanese Filmmakers Federation, Japan has...
Austria has selected Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom as its official submission for Best International Feature Film for the 94th Academy Awards. Set in post-war Germany, the movie tells the story of Hans who is imprisoned time and time again for being homosexual. Due to Paragraph 175, which prohibited homosexual acts in Germany, his desire for freedom is systematically destroyed. The one steady relationship in his life becomes his long-time cellmate, Viktor (Georg Friedrich), a convicted murderer. The film stars Franz Rogowski (Victoria) and Berlinale Silver Bear awardee Georg Friedrich (The Piano Teacher) in leading roles, with a screenplay by Thomas Reider and Meise. Producers are Sabine Moser, Oliver Neumann, and Benny Drechsel. The 2021 Cannes entry and Un Certain Regard Jury Prize winner will be released by Mubi theatrically in the U.S. and UK on March 4, 2022. Meanwhile, per the Japanese Filmmakers Federation, Japan has...
- 10/12/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman and Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the biggest issues in the film industry is the lack of standards and protocols surrounding human resources, argued panelists during Sarajevo Film Festival’s “Staying Sane: Mental Health in the Film Industry” panel.
“There is no overarching body holding folks accountable for bad behavior that can harm our mental health, so what do we have? Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin, who have been abusing people for decades,” said Malikkah Rollins, co-founder of Documentality – a new organization made up of psychotherapists and filmmakers aiming to normalize conversation about mental health and wellbeing.
“There are some entities that are going through self-questioning because they think they have to, but others genuinely wanted to evolve,” she said, mentioning the murder of George Floyd as one of the catalysts. Adding that marginalized groups, from indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities to people of color and women, tend to deal with “an extra layer of...
“There is no overarching body holding folks accountable for bad behavior that can harm our mental health, so what do we have? Harvey Weinstein and Scott Rudin, who have been abusing people for decades,” said Malikkah Rollins, co-founder of Documentality – a new organization made up of psychotherapists and filmmakers aiming to normalize conversation about mental health and wellbeing.
“There are some entities that are going through self-questioning because they think they have to, but others genuinely wanted to evolve,” she said, mentioning the murder of George Floyd as one of the catalysts. Adding that marginalized groups, from indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities to people of color and women, tend to deal with “an extra layer of...
- 8/19/2021
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
The task force is the brainchild of Matthijs Wouter Knol, the newly appointed director of the European Film Academy.
The Anti-Racism Task Force for European Film (Artef), which formed quietly in summer 2020, is today (July 1) going public with its work and asking for the wider European industry to engage with the group and its activities. The group will have its first public presentation as part of the Collectif 50/50 session on July 9 in Cannes.
The task force was the brainchild of Matthijs Wouter Knol, the newly appointed director of the European Film Academy, who quickly aligned with key colleagues who were also passionate about the topic.
The Anti-Racism Task Force for European Film (Artef), which formed quietly in summer 2020, is today (July 1) going public with its work and asking for the wider European industry to engage with the group and its activities. The group will have its first public presentation as part of the Collectif 50/50 session on July 9 in Cannes.
The task force was the brainchild of Matthijs Wouter Knol, the newly appointed director of the European Film Academy, who quickly aligned with key colleagues who were also passionate about the topic.
- 7/1/2021
- by Wendy Mitchell
- ScreenDaily
Artef, the anti-racism task force for European film that was initiated in the summer of 2020 by European and U.K. film organizations, is now fully operational.
Artef’s main aim is to dismantle racist structures and combat all forms of racism in the European film industry and become a task force for change by raising awareness, offering education and insights, suggesting revisions to regulations and practices, as well as to weather opposition from the industry — especially from those who habitually benefit from institutionalised racism.
In 2020, Artef’s first step was an awareness training program led by Dr. Emilia Roig, trainer, author, and founder of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin. The workshops took place between November 2020 and May 2021 online with an average of forty participants from across Europe in each session.
The training programs will continue for European film professionals who are keen on tackling institutionalised racism and willing...
Artef’s main aim is to dismantle racist structures and combat all forms of racism in the European film industry and become a task force for change by raising awareness, offering education and insights, suggesting revisions to regulations and practices, as well as to weather opposition from the industry — especially from those who habitually benefit from institutionalised racism.
In 2020, Artef’s first step was an awareness training program led by Dr. Emilia Roig, trainer, author, and founder of the Centre for Intersectional Justice in Berlin. The workshops took place between November 2020 and May 2021 online with an average of forty participants from across Europe in each session.
The training programs will continue for European film professionals who are keen on tackling institutionalised racism and willing...
- 7/1/2021
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Film4 and Match Factory execs also selected for Nfts scheme from 11 territories.
Amazon Studios and Paramount Pictures executives are among those selected for the 2021 Inside Pictures training and leadership initiative, run by the UK’s National Film and Television School (Nfts).
The annual scheme has chosen 20 participants, representing 11 territories, from sectors including acquisitions, development, production, sales, distribution, finance, marketing, publicity, exhibition, legal and business affairs.
Scroll down for full list of participants
This year’s industry mentor is Fiona Lamptey, director of UK features for Netflix, who will provide support and expertise to the producers and executives throughout the programme,...
Amazon Studios and Paramount Pictures executives are among those selected for the 2021 Inside Pictures training and leadership initiative, run by the UK’s National Film and Television School (Nfts).
The annual scheme has chosen 20 participants, representing 11 territories, from sectors including acquisitions, development, production, sales, distribution, finance, marketing, publicity, exhibition, legal and business affairs.
Scroll down for full list of participants
This year’s industry mentor is Fiona Lamptey, director of UK features for Netflix, who will provide support and expertise to the producers and executives throughout the programme,...
- 5/4/2021
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
The session, moderated by Pinball London producer Paula Vaccaro, looked at how film programmers and film reviewers are joining forces to support a shift in power. If gatekeeping begins with festivals and reviewers, how can we demand that selections understand intersectionality and a plurality of voices? This was one of the questions pondered by panellists Kaleem Aftab, Cineuropa’s UK Correspondent, Faridah Gbadamosi, writer, producer and filmmaker; Elma Tataragić, scriptwriter and curator; and Bedatri Choudhury, writer and curator, at an online panel during Sarajevo Film Festival's CineLink Industry Days entitled "Imagining a Radically New Way to Curate and Review”, which looked at how Bipoc film programmers and film reviewers are joining forces to support a shift in power. The session began with the panellists talking about obstacles in the industry stopping them from doing the work that they want to do. Choudhury pointed to a...
Sarajevo CineLink panel included Matthijs Wouter Knol, outgoing director of Berlin’s European Film Market.
The European film industry needs to reckon with its own racism and evolve its attitudes to people of colour, according to a panel of speakers at Sarajevo’s CineLink Talks.
While the Black Lives Matter movement was born out of the US, it is Europe that is “the mother of the problem,” according to UK producer Paula Vaccaro (On The Milky Road).
Vaccaro, who curated and moderated the session, said: “It’s curious how, in Europe, we hear so many times that this is not our problem.
The European film industry needs to reckon with its own racism and evolve its attitudes to people of colour, according to a panel of speakers at Sarajevo’s CineLink Talks.
While the Black Lives Matter movement was born out of the US, it is Europe that is “the mother of the problem,” according to UK producer Paula Vaccaro (On The Milky Road).
Vaccaro, who curated and moderated the session, said: “It’s curious how, in Europe, we hear so many times that this is not our problem.
- 8/19/2020
- by 1100142¦Wendy Mitchell¦39¦
- ScreenDaily
While the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement triggered months of protests in the U.S. and kicked off a roiling debate about institutional racism, much of Europe has struggled to initiate a similar reckoning about race—something European film industries have been particularly slow to grapple with.
How that might change in the months and years ahead was the subject of “Anti-Racism and White Supremacy: Will the Market Catch Up with Much-Needed Change?,” a conversation held on Tuesday as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talks discussion series.
Moderated by producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road”), the discussion included Sarah-Tai Black, a film programmer, arts curator, writer, and co-director of The Royal Cinema in Toronto; Nada Riyadh, a director and producer from Cairo; Matthijs Wouter Knol, head of the European Film Market and incoming director of the European Film Academy...
How that might change in the months and years ahead was the subject of “Anti-Racism and White Supremacy: Will the Market Catch Up with Much-Needed Change?,” a conversation held on Tuesday as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talks discussion series.
Moderated by producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road”), the discussion included Sarah-Tai Black, a film programmer, arts curator, writer, and co-director of The Royal Cinema in Toronto; Nada Riyadh, a director and producer from Cairo; Matthijs Wouter Knol, head of the European Film Market and incoming director of the European Film Academy...
- 8/19/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Veena Sud, creator of AMC’s “The Killing” and Netflix’s “Seven Seconds,” says the television industry is ready for “radical, real change,” calling on industry gate-keepers to rethink hiring practices, promote more women and people of color, and address a systematic lack of representation, “and not be in the same place we are now that we were in 30 years ago.”
Sud appeared in conversation Monday with producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road”) as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talks discussion series. The Emmy-nominated TV creator and showrunner spoke about her experiences as a woman of color rising through the ranks of the television industry, while also calling for sweeping changes that would allow the industry to more accurately reflect the diversity of American society today.
Recalling her experiences as an undergraduate studying film, Sud described being the only woman or person of color in a...
Sud appeared in conversation Monday with producer Paula Vaccaro (“On the Milky Road”) as part of the Sarajevo Film Festival’s CineLink Talks discussion series. The Emmy-nominated TV creator and showrunner spoke about her experiences as a woman of color rising through the ranks of the television industry, while also calling for sweeping changes that would allow the industry to more accurately reflect the diversity of American society today.
Recalling her experiences as an undergraduate studying film, Sud described being the only woman or person of color in a...
- 8/18/2020
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Radical changes are needed to dismantle unequal structures that inhibit access to audiences, according to a Sarajevo CineLink panel.
A distribution collective for independent filmmakers could help save a “broken” system, according to a Sarajevo CineLink panel of producers.
Watch the full session below.
US independent producer Karin Chien raised the idea of 500 independent filmmakers each paying $100 to become part of a distribution collective that could hire a year-round marketing team, rather than each filmmaker trying to reinvent the wheel with self-distribution for each of their films.
“The ideas I’m thinking of come from a collective model, power in numbers,...
A distribution collective for independent filmmakers could help save a “broken” system, according to a Sarajevo CineLink panel of producers.
Watch the full session below.
US independent producer Karin Chien raised the idea of 500 independent filmmakers each paying $100 to become part of a distribution collective that could hire a year-round marketing team, rather than each filmmaker trying to reinvent the wheel with self-distribution for each of their films.
“The ideas I’m thinking of come from a collective model, power in numbers,...
- 8/17/2020
- by 1100142¦Wendy Mitchell¦39¦
- ScreenDaily
Writer-producer reveals further details of upcoming features and drama series.
Paula Vaccaro, producer of Venice award-winner On The Milky Road and documentary Uncle Howard, has revealed further details of her upcoming projects.
The founder of production outfit Pinball London, who will curate several of this year’s Sarajevo CineLink Talks for Documentary Campus, will be in Venice next month to unveil drama feature Listen.
The film, which will play in the Orizzonti strand, marks the debut of Portuguese director Ana Rocha and was also scripted by Vaccaro with partner Aaron Brookner and Rocha.
Sold by Magnolia Pictures International, Vaccaro and...
Paula Vaccaro, producer of Venice award-winner On The Milky Road and documentary Uncle Howard, has revealed further details of her upcoming projects.
The founder of production outfit Pinball London, who will curate several of this year’s Sarajevo CineLink Talks for Documentary Campus, will be in Venice next month to unveil drama feature Listen.
The film, which will play in the Orizzonti strand, marks the debut of Portuguese director Ana Rocha and was also scripted by Vaccaro with partner Aaron Brookner and Rocha.
Sold by Magnolia Pictures International, Vaccaro and...
- 8/14/2020
- by 57¦Geoffrey Macnab¦41¦
- ScreenDaily
Norwegian producer Gudny Hummelvoll, whose Hummelfilm shingle worked in tandem with Sweden’s Yellow Bird on hit climate-crisis thriller “Occupied,” has been elected President of the European Producers Club.
Hummelvoll is the first woman to head the organization of 130 prominent independent film and TV drama producers across Europe, including the U.K., who since 1993 have been jointly thrashing out pressing audiovisual industry issues and lobbying European Union legislators.
She replaces Spanish producer Alvaro Longoria, head of Spain’s prominent and prolific Morena Films, in the organization’s top role. Longoria is now one of Epc’s three vice presidents, alongside Dariusz Jablonski, head of Poland’s Apple Films, and Paula Vaccaro of Pinball London.
In her first interview as Epc leader Hummelvoll underlined the importance of working towards greater diversity as a group.
“The producer is at the heart of the industry,” she said. “She/he chooses subjects, and develops...
Hummelvoll is the first woman to head the organization of 130 prominent independent film and TV drama producers across Europe, including the U.K., who since 1993 have been jointly thrashing out pressing audiovisual industry issues and lobbying European Union legislators.
She replaces Spanish producer Alvaro Longoria, head of Spain’s prominent and prolific Morena Films, in the organization’s top role. Longoria is now one of Epc’s three vice presidents, alongside Dariusz Jablonski, head of Poland’s Apple Films, and Paula Vaccaro of Pinball London.
In her first interview as Epc leader Hummelvoll underlined the importance of working towards greater diversity as a group.
“The producer is at the heart of the industry,” she said. “She/he chooses subjects, and develops...
- 6/17/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Newcomers join Sundance docs Assassins, The Fight on sales slate.
Magnolia Pictures International has added two titles to its Cannes Marché du Film Online slate, boarding worldwide rights to London-set immigrant drama Listen, and Istanbul-set love story When I’m Done Dying.
Listen chronicles the struggles of a Portuguese immigrant couple in London whose children are taken away by social services.
Ruben Garcia, Portuguese actress and singer Lucia Moniz (Love Actually), Sophia Myles, and Maisie Sly, star of British Oscar-winning short The Silent Child, star in Ana Rocha De Sousa’s first feature, currently in post.
The film is produced...
Magnolia Pictures International has added two titles to its Cannes Marché du Film Online slate, boarding worldwide rights to London-set immigrant drama Listen, and Istanbul-set love story When I’m Done Dying.
Listen chronicles the struggles of a Portuguese immigrant couple in London whose children are taken away by social services.
Ruben Garcia, Portuguese actress and singer Lucia Moniz (Love Actually), Sophia Myles, and Maisie Sly, star of British Oscar-winning short The Silent Child, star in Ana Rocha De Sousa’s first feature, currently in post.
The film is produced...
- 6/11/2020
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
“Post-Brexit we may want to be doing more of this.”
British producers who attended the recent Ventana Sur market with the UK’s first delegation to Buenos Aires have cited Latin American co-productions as a model for independent filmmakers with international aspirations.
The vibrant event has also offered hope to one prominent Brazilian producer in search of funds at a time when Latin America continues to be plagued by political and economic unrest.
“We met lots of producers and directors and writers – not just from Argentina,” said Origin Pictures founder David Thompson. “It opens up one’s vision of the region.
British producers who attended the recent Ventana Sur market with the UK’s first delegation to Buenos Aires have cited Latin American co-productions as a model for independent filmmakers with international aspirations.
The vibrant event has also offered hope to one prominent Brazilian producer in search of funds at a time when Latin America continues to be plagued by political and economic unrest.
“We met lots of producers and directors and writers – not just from Argentina,” said Origin Pictures founder David Thompson. “It opens up one’s vision of the region.
- 12/20/2019
- by 36¦Jeremy Kay¦54¦
- ScreenDaily
Rachel Feldman’s “Kinks,” Monica Bellucci-starrer “Radical Eye,” Nabil Ayouch’s “Black-Out” and “Perfect Monsters,” from “Roma” producer Nicolas Celis, all figure among the 16 drama series projects to be pitched at this year’s second – and expanded – In Development, a joint venture of MipTV and Canneseries.
Also making the cut at In Development, known as well as the Cannes Drama Creative Forum, is “Twenty-Four Land,” an ambitious WWII project from Portugal, and “A Good Year,” from relatively new Flemish outfit Mockingbird Pictures. Chosen from 376 submissions, up on last year’s inaugural edition, the 16-title In Development projects will be pitched at an event which play out this year over an extended schedule of three-and-a-half days as MipTV itself places ever more emphasis on project development, not just distribution.
The spread of country of origin of projects has also grown from a still predominantly European base, but taking in titles from Mexico,...
Also making the cut at In Development, known as well as the Cannes Drama Creative Forum, is “Twenty-Four Land,” an ambitious WWII project from Portugal, and “A Good Year,” from relatively new Flemish outfit Mockingbird Pictures. Chosen from 376 submissions, up on last year’s inaugural edition, the 16-title In Development projects will be pitched at an event which play out this year over an extended schedule of three-and-a-half days as MipTV itself places ever more emphasis on project development, not just distribution.
The spread of country of origin of projects has also grown from a still predominantly European base, but taking in titles from Mexico,...
- 3/1/2019
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Portuguese actress Lucia Moniz (“Love Actually”) is attached to star in “Listen,” a drama about a Portuguese couple working in London whose kids are taken away by social services. The timely pic will be directed by Portuguese first-timer Ana Rocha De Sousa.
“Listen” is being co-produced by Paula Vaccaro’s Pinball London and Portugal’s Bando À Parte, headed by Rodrigo Areia. It’s being described by Vaccaro as “a drama with thriller pacing” that charts the couple’s quest to recover their kids before they are placed for forced adoption. Moniz is a popular pop singer in Portugal and will be soon be seen on the big screen in Italian director Marco Pontecorvo’s drama “Fatima.” In “Listen” she will play the mother of three kids.
London-trained Ana Rocha de Sousa, who is a former actress, has previously shot several prizewinning shorts, two of which screened in Cannes. De...
“Listen” is being co-produced by Paula Vaccaro’s Pinball London and Portugal’s Bando À Parte, headed by Rodrigo Areia. It’s being described by Vaccaro as “a drama with thriller pacing” that charts the couple’s quest to recover their kids before they are placed for forced adoption. Moniz is a popular pop singer in Portugal and will be soon be seen on the big screen in Italian director Marco Pontecorvo’s drama “Fatima.” In “Listen” she will play the mother of three kids.
London-trained Ana Rocha de Sousa, who is a former actress, has previously shot several prizewinning shorts, two of which screened in Cannes. De...
- 2/8/2019
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Monica Bellucci has been cast as feminist revolutionary Tina Modotti in a miniseries to be set in Mexico, Los Angeles and Italy and to be directed by prize-winning Italian director Edoardo de Angelis (“Indivisible”).
The role is one that Bellucci has wanted to play for years. Modotti was an Italian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, acted briefly in Hollywood silent films, then became known during the 1930s in Europe and Mexico for both her photography and her left-wing revolutionary fervor. She joined a group of major contemporary artists in Mexico and is considered a proto-feminist who advocated new freedoms for women in the early 20th century.
The six-part series, which is in advanced development, is titled “Radical Eye: The Life and Times of Tina Modotti.“ It is being produced by London-based husband-and-wife team Paula Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner (“Uncle Howard”), who have written the screenplay. They will produce via their Pinball London company.
The role is one that Bellucci has wanted to play for years. Modotti was an Italian who emigrated to the U.S. in 1913, acted briefly in Hollywood silent films, then became known during the 1930s in Europe and Mexico for both her photography and her left-wing revolutionary fervor. She joined a group of major contemporary artists in Mexico and is considered a proto-feminist who advocated new freedoms for women in the early 20th century.
The six-part series, which is in advanced development, is titled “Radical Eye: The Life and Times of Tina Modotti.“ It is being produced by London-based husband-and-wife team Paula Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner (“Uncle Howard”), who have written the screenplay. They will produce via their Pinball London company.
- 8/7/2018
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Five films, each in the final stages of post-production, have been selected to participate in Guadalajara Goes to Cannes, the works in progress partnership between the Cannes Film Market and Guadalajara International Film Festival (Ficg)
In Cannes the producers and filmmakers of the selected works will have the opportunity to pitch and show excerpts with the aim of securing sales, distribution and future festival pickups.
The selected films participated in March’s Guadalajara Construye, the industry section of the Mexican festival, where a number of them earned prizes which provided the means necessary to get the films to their current state.
Juan Caceres’ debut feature “Perro Bomba” was the big winner at Construye, where it took home four awards and had the industry professionals in attendance buzzing.
The film is the first to focus its narrative on Chile’s Haitian immigrant population, a group which has seen exponential growth in the last decade,...
In Cannes the producers and filmmakers of the selected works will have the opportunity to pitch and show excerpts with the aim of securing sales, distribution and future festival pickups.
The selected films participated in March’s Guadalajara Construye, the industry section of the Mexican festival, where a number of them earned prizes which provided the means necessary to get the films to their current state.
Juan Caceres’ debut feature “Perro Bomba” was the big winner at Construye, where it took home four awards and had the industry professionals in attendance buzzing.
The film is the first to focus its narrative on Chile’s Haitian immigrant population, a group which has seen exponential growth in the last decade,...
- 5/14/2018
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes has added a Special Screening to its Official Selection in the shape of feature Another Day Of Life. The movie was revealed by the festival after the eye-catching additions earlier today. The European co-pro chronicles the experiences during the 1975 Angolan civil war that drove acclaimed Polish war correspondent and novelist Ryszard Kapuściński to write the book that forged his literary reputation. The animation-live action hybrid is directed by Spain’s Raúl de la Fuente and Poland’s Damian Nenow. Indie Sales handles international sales.
Cornerstone has boarded world sales on Mirrah Foulkes’ feature film directorial debut Judy and Punch. The hard-hitting live-action reinterpretation of the puppet play Punch and Judy is now underway in Australia with backing from Vice Studios. Damon Herriman (Justified) is joining Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) in the cast. Producers are Michele Bennett (Mr Inbetween), Nash Edgerton (Mr Inbetween) and Vice’s Danny Gabai (Lords of Chaos...
Cornerstone has boarded world sales on Mirrah Foulkes’ feature film directorial debut Judy and Punch. The hard-hitting live-action reinterpretation of the puppet play Punch and Judy is now underway in Australia with backing from Vice Studios. Damon Herriman (Justified) is joining Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) in the cast. Producers are Michele Bennett (Mr Inbetween), Nash Edgerton (Mr Inbetween) and Vice’s Danny Gabai (Lords of Chaos...
- 4/19/2018
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Filmmaker Agnes Varda will be honoured in San Sebastian Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival Belgian filmmaker Agnès Varda and Italian star Monica Bellucci have been announced as recipients of Donostia Awards at this year's San Sebastian Film Festival. It ends a good week for Varda, 89, who has also been announced as the first female director to receive an honorary Oscar, which she will receive on November 11.
They will join Argentine actor Ricardo Darín, previously announced as a recipient, at the festival, which runs from September 22 to 30.
Actress honoured with lifetime achievement accolade Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The festival has also announced the jury members for its 65th edition. Actor, writer and director John Malkovich will head the panel deciding on the Golden Shell. He will be joined by Argentine actor Dolores Fonzi (Truman), British director William Oldroyd, who won the Fipresci award for Lady Macbeth at last year's festival,...
They will join Argentine actor Ricardo Darín, previously announced as a recipient, at the festival, which runs from September 22 to 30.
Actress honoured with lifetime achievement accolade Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The festival has also announced the jury members for its 65th edition. Actor, writer and director John Malkovich will head the panel deciding on the Golden Shell. He will be joined by Argentine actor Dolores Fonzi (Truman), British director William Oldroyd, who won the Fipresci award for Lady Macbeth at last year's festival,...
- 9/8/2017
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Aaron Brookner with Paterson and Gimme Danger director Jim Jarmusch - Sara Driver on Uncle Howard: "I knew Howard’s nephew Aaron was interested in filmmaking ..."
In Aaron Brookner's search in the making of Uncle Howard, with timely editing by Masahiro Hirakubo (Orlando von Einsiedel's Virunga), we see glimpses of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, John Giorno, Laurie Anderson, Anne Waldman, Jim Carroll, Frank Zappa, and Patti Smith at the Entermedia Nova Convention - Andy Warhol having Cities Of The Red Night inscribed by William Burroughs - clips from Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars - and a telling interview with Lindsay Law on Howard Brookner's film Bloodhounds Of Broadway, based on Damon Runyon stories, with Matt Dillon, Rutger Hauer, Randy Quaid, Jennifer Grey, Madonna, Anita Morris, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, and Steve Buscemi.
Sara Driver with Paul Bowles scholar Francis Poole and Richard Peña...
In Aaron Brookner's search in the making of Uncle Howard, with timely editing by Masahiro Hirakubo (Orlando von Einsiedel's Virunga), we see glimpses of John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, John Giorno, Laurie Anderson, Anne Waldman, Jim Carroll, Frank Zappa, and Patti Smith at the Entermedia Nova Convention - Andy Warhol having Cities Of The Red Night inscribed by William Burroughs - clips from Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars - and a telling interview with Lindsay Law on Howard Brookner's film Bloodhounds Of Broadway, based on Damon Runyon stories, with Matt Dillon, Rutger Hauer, Randy Quaid, Jennifer Grey, Madonna, Anita Morris, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, and Steve Buscemi.
Sara Driver with Paul Bowles scholar Francis Poole and Richard Peña...
- 10/2/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Exclusive: Italian distributor buys docs including Zero Days and Lo And Behold and a number of narrative dramas.
Italian distributor I Wonder Pictures has struck deals for a number of documentaries, confirming its place as a key player in the doc market.
Andrea Romeo, I Wonder managing director, has picked up a number of films that screened at the recent Italian Biografilm festival, of which he is also the artistic director.
Acquisitions include Alex Gibney’s Zero Days, Werner Herzog’s Lo And Behold and Morgan Neville’s Music Of Strangers about cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.
Also picked up were the Paula Vaccaro and Jim Jarmusch-produced celebration of Howard Bookner, Uncle Howard; refugee story Those Who Jump; doc thriller The Lovers And The Despot; and Ester Gould’s Strike A Pose, the what-happened-next chronicle about the dancers of Madonna’s 1990 music tour.
I Wonder, which has previously released documentaries Citizenfour, The Look Of Silence and [link...
Italian distributor I Wonder Pictures has struck deals for a number of documentaries, confirming its place as a key player in the doc market.
Andrea Romeo, I Wonder managing director, has picked up a number of films that screened at the recent Italian Biografilm festival, of which he is also the artistic director.
Acquisitions include Alex Gibney’s Zero Days, Werner Herzog’s Lo And Behold and Morgan Neville’s Music Of Strangers about cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.
Also picked up were the Paula Vaccaro and Jim Jarmusch-produced celebration of Howard Bookner, Uncle Howard; refugee story Those Who Jump; doc thriller The Lovers And The Despot; and Ester Gould’s Strike A Pose, the what-happened-next chronicle about the dancers of Madonna’s 1990 music tour.
I Wonder, which has previously released documentaries Citizenfour, The Look Of Silence and [link...
- 7/12/2016
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Emir Kusturica’s latest stars the director alongside Monica Bellucci.
ICM has come on board to handle Us rights on Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
The film, which finished shooting in March, is in post-production.
There had been hopes it could have been rushed towards completion in time for this year’s Cannes, as Kusturica is a two time Palme D’Or winner with a very close connection to the festival, but it was not ready.
Kusturica previously had to dismiss reports that he was rejected from the festival on political grounds.
“Anyone who puts two and two together can understand that a film that finished shooting in March just cannot make it to Cannes. It just doesn’t make sense,” said producer Paula Vaccaro.
On The Milky Road stars Kusturica himself alongside Monica Bellucci. International rights are handled by Wild Bunch and the film has pre-sold to several territories.
It is yet...
ICM has come on board to handle Us rights on Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
The film, which finished shooting in March, is in post-production.
There had been hopes it could have been rushed towards completion in time for this year’s Cannes, as Kusturica is a two time Palme D’Or winner with a very close connection to the festival, but it was not ready.
Kusturica previously had to dismiss reports that he was rejected from the festival on political grounds.
“Anyone who puts two and two together can understand that a film that finished shooting in March just cannot make it to Cannes. It just doesn’t make sense,” said producer Paula Vaccaro.
On The Milky Road stars Kusturica himself alongside Monica Bellucci. International rights are handled by Wild Bunch and the film has pre-sold to several territories.
It is yet...
- 5/15/2016
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Emir Kusturica’s latest stars the director alongside Monica Bellucci.
ICM has come on board to handle North American rights on Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
The film, which finished shooting in March, is in post-production.
There had been hopes it could have been rushed towards completion in time for this year’s Cannes, as Kusturica is a two time Palme D’Or winner with a very close connection to the festival, but it was not ready.
Kusturica previously had to dismiss reports that he was rejected from the festival on political grounds.
“Anyone who puts two and two together can understand that a film that finished shooting in March just cannot make it to Cannes. It just doesn’t make sense,” said producer Paula Vaccaro.
On The Milky Road stars Kusturica himself alongside Monica Bellucci. International rights are handled by Wild Bunch and the film has pre-sold to several territories.
It is yet...
ICM has come on board to handle North American rights on Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
The film, which finished shooting in March, is in post-production.
There had been hopes it could have been rushed towards completion in time for this year’s Cannes, as Kusturica is a two time Palme D’Or winner with a very close connection to the festival, but it was not ready.
Kusturica previously had to dismiss reports that he was rejected from the festival on political grounds.
“Anyone who puts two and two together can understand that a film that finished shooting in March just cannot make it to Cannes. It just doesn’t make sense,” said producer Paula Vaccaro.
On The Milky Road stars Kusturica himself alongside Monica Bellucci. International rights are handled by Wild Bunch and the film has pre-sold to several territories.
It is yet...
- 5/15/2016
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Uncle Howard director to helm an adaptation of Darryl Pinckney’s novel.
UK production outfit Pinball London has optioned Darryl Pinckney novel Black Deutschland as the latest project for Aaron Brookner (Uncle Howard, pictured) to write and direct.
The book is about a young black man from an affluent background in Chicago who heads to Germany after coming out of rehab. A troubled college dropout struggling to come to terms with his sexuality (he is gay), he hopes to build a new life in Berlin, a city he is drawn to by its decadent and bohemian reputation.
The film will be produced by Paula Vaccaro. It is being put together as a UK-Germany-us co-production.
Brookner’s previous feature Uncle Howard - sold internationally by Upside Distribution - is screening at the Cannes Marché following its selections in Sundance and Berlin.
Uncle Howard is about director Brooker’s uncle, the celebrated filmmaker Howard Brookner who died of...
UK production outfit Pinball London has optioned Darryl Pinckney novel Black Deutschland as the latest project for Aaron Brookner (Uncle Howard, pictured) to write and direct.
The book is about a young black man from an affluent background in Chicago who heads to Germany after coming out of rehab. A troubled college dropout struggling to come to terms with his sexuality (he is gay), he hopes to build a new life in Berlin, a city he is drawn to by its decadent and bohemian reputation.
The film will be produced by Paula Vaccaro. It is being put together as a UK-Germany-us co-production.
Brookner’s previous feature Uncle Howard - sold internationally by Upside Distribution - is screening at the Cannes Marché following its selections in Sundance and Berlin.
Uncle Howard is about director Brooker’s uncle, the celebrated filmmaker Howard Brookner who died of...
- 5/15/2016
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
One of the earliest challenges in making Uncle Howard was figuring out how to tell a story around a main character who is essentially absent. My uncle, Howard Brookner, was a fairly obscure director, whose work went missing to varying degrees, and who had died some 25 years ago. Yet, to me and others around him, he left a very strong memory and spirit. How to show this? For inspiration, my producer, Paula Vaccaro, and I turned to Howard’s friend and former film subject, William S. Burroughs (Burroughs: The Movie, 1983), whose book, The Western Lands, was the last he wrote before dedicating himself […]...
- 1/26/2016
- by Aaron Brookner
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
One of the earliest challenges in making Uncle Howard was figuring out how to tell a story around a main character who is essentially absent. My uncle, Howard Brookner, was a fairly obscure director, whose work went missing to varying degrees, and who had died some 25 years ago. Yet, to me and others around him, he left a very strong memory and spirit. How to show this? For inspiration, my producer, Paula Vaccaro, and I turned to Howard’s friend and former film subject, William S. Burroughs (Burroughs: The Movie, 1983), whose book, The Western Lands, was the last he wrote before dedicating himself […]...
- 1/26/2016
- by Aaron Brookner
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
On the Milky Road
Director: Emir Kusturica
Writer: Emir Kusturica
We’ve pegged Serbian auteur Emir Kusturica‘s On the Milky Road as a possible release for the past three years. The two time Palme d’Or winner (Time of the Gypsies in 1998; Underground in 1995) hasn’t completed a feature since 2007’s Promise Me This. His long gestating latest is based on his short film Our Life and “unfolds as a three-part narrative recounting three periods in the life of a man (Kusturica): his time as a lucky milkman during the war, perilous escapades and blossoming romance with the woman he loves (Bellucci), and his later life as a monk, looking back over the tumultuous past – both his and his country’s.”
Cast: Emir Kusturica, Monica Bellucci
Production Co./Producers: Ag Studios’Alex Garcia, Bn Films’ Lucas Akoskin, Pinball London’s Paula Vaccaro, Rasta Intl’s Emir Kusturica.
U.
Director: Emir Kusturica
Writer: Emir Kusturica
We’ve pegged Serbian auteur Emir Kusturica‘s On the Milky Road as a possible release for the past three years. The two time Palme d’Or winner (Time of the Gypsies in 1998; Underground in 1995) hasn’t completed a feature since 2007’s Promise Me This. His long gestating latest is based on his short film Our Life and “unfolds as a three-part narrative recounting three periods in the life of a man (Kusturica): his time as a lucky milkman during the war, perilous escapades and blossoming romance with the woman he loves (Bellucci), and his later life as a monk, looking back over the tumultuous past – both his and his country’s.”
Cast: Emir Kusturica, Monica Bellucci
Production Co./Producers: Ag Studios’Alex Garcia, Bn Films’ Lucas Akoskin, Pinball London’s Paula Vaccaro, Rasta Intl’s Emir Kusturica.
U.
- 1/8/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
This month on the Newsstand, Ryan is joined by David Blakeslee to discuss the December 2015 Criterion Collection line-up, as well as the latest in Criterion rumors, news, packaging, and more.
Subscribe to The Newsstand in iTunes or via RSS
Contact us with any feedback.
Shownotes Topics William Becker’s passing The December 2015 Criterion Collection Line-up Downhill Racer (December 1st) Jellyfish Eyes (December 8th) Speedy (December 8th) Burroughs: The Movie (December 15th) The August Wacky Drawing What’s coming in 2016? No Wexner talk this year New additions to Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, and YouTube New rumored titles Episode Links William Becker, Who Transformed Janus Films, Dies at 88 – The New York Times Remembering William Becker – From the Current Flashback: William Becker (1927–2015) – From the Current William Becker, 1927–2015 – From the Current Amazon is having a fantastic sale The Apu Trilogy is currently available to pre-order for $49.99 Wacky New Years Drawing Hints At The Criterion Collection...
Subscribe to The Newsstand in iTunes or via RSS
Contact us with any feedback.
Shownotes Topics William Becker’s passing The December 2015 Criterion Collection Line-up Downhill Racer (December 1st) Jellyfish Eyes (December 8th) Speedy (December 8th) Burroughs: The Movie (December 15th) The August Wacky Drawing What’s coming in 2016? No Wexner talk this year New additions to Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, and YouTube New rumored titles Episode Links William Becker, Who Transformed Janus Films, Dies at 88 – The New York Times Remembering William Becker – From the Current Flashback: William Becker (1927–2015) – From the Current William Becker, 1927–2015 – From the Current Amazon is having a fantastic sale The Apu Trilogy is currently available to pre-order for $49.99 Wacky New Years Drawing Hints At The Criterion Collection...
- 9/17/2015
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
On the Milky Road
Director: Emir Kusturica// Writer: Emir Kusturica
We had two Palme d’Or winner (Time of the Gypsies in 1998; Underground in 1995) Emir Kusturica pegged to unveil his latest film, On the Milky Road at Cannes in 2014, but no such luck. It looks like Kusturica took about a year’s break in filming (which isn’t completely uncustomary for him), which resumed summer of 2014. Now, a poster has debuted and we’re thinking this should finally be ready for 2015, especially since Kusturica has recently announced plans for a new project, a French/Belarus co-production set to film mid 2015. The films is inspired by Kusturica’s short film Our Life, and consists of three stories: the first story is about a soldier with a task to get milk in the nearby village and take it to fellow soldiers. The second is about a woman who gives him the milk,...
Director: Emir Kusturica// Writer: Emir Kusturica
We had two Palme d’Or winner (Time of the Gypsies in 1998; Underground in 1995) Emir Kusturica pegged to unveil his latest film, On the Milky Road at Cannes in 2014, but no such luck. It looks like Kusturica took about a year’s break in filming (which isn’t completely uncustomary for him), which resumed summer of 2014. Now, a poster has debuted and we’re thinking this should finally be ready for 2015, especially since Kusturica has recently announced plans for a new project, a French/Belarus co-production set to film mid 2015. The films is inspired by Kusturica’s short film Our Life, and consists of three stories: the first story is about a soldier with a task to get milk in the nearby village and take it to fellow soldiers. The second is about a woman who gives him the milk,...
- 1/6/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Further details have emerged of the marketing and release plans for religious-themed portmanteau picture Words With Gods, which features contributions from such directors as Guillermo Arriaga, Emir Kusturica, Mira Nair and Hector Babenco.
The film, which has been screening out of competition in Venice, is produced by Arriaga along with Alex Garcia and Lucas Akoskin.
Speaking in Venice, Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, who produced Kusturica’s contribution, has revealed that there will be “a big inter-faith” campaign to accompany the distribution of the film. This is being coordinated through Vaccaro’s London-based company Pinball.
Sales are currently being handled by Garcia’s LatAm Pictures.
“We are going to tackle different territories and different areas with different activities,” Vaccaro explained. The intention is to create events around each short that will promote inter-faith dialogue and debate as well as educational activities.
The film looks at everything from atheism to Aboriginal spirituality, from Serbian orthodoxy to Buddhism.
Words With Gods has already...
The film, which has been screening out of competition in Venice, is produced by Arriaga along with Alex Garcia and Lucas Akoskin.
Speaking in Venice, Paula Alvarez Vaccaro, who produced Kusturica’s contribution, has revealed that there will be “a big inter-faith” campaign to accompany the distribution of the film. This is being coordinated through Vaccaro’s London-based company Pinball.
Sales are currently being handled by Garcia’s LatAm Pictures.
“We are going to tackle different territories and different areas with different activities,” Vaccaro explained. The intention is to create events around each short that will promote inter-faith dialogue and debate as well as educational activities.
The film looks at everything from atheism to Aboriginal spirituality, from Serbian orthodoxy to Buddhism.
Words With Gods has already...
- 8/31/2014
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
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...
- 7/24/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
Exclusive: Producer is in Cannes with slate that includes a restored William S Burroughs doc and On The Milky Road.
London-based Argentinean producer Paula Vaccaro is in town talking up an eclectic slate that includes a restored William S Burroughs doc and Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
Pinball London’s Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner serve as remastering producers on Burroughs: The Movie.
Brookner launched a Kickstarter campaign in late 2012 to restore the film, which his late uncle directed and remains the only feature doc about the Naked Lunch author, born 100 years ago.
Criterion is on board to release on DVD and Janus Film will distribute theatrically at the end of the year after Burroughs: The Movie returns to the New York Film Festival, the site of its world premiere 30 years ago.
Brookner will film the festival screening and insert into his original doc, Uncle Howard, which Vaccaro also produces. Jim Jarmusch is executive...
London-based Argentinean producer Paula Vaccaro is in town talking up an eclectic slate that includes a restored William S Burroughs doc and Emir Kusturica’s On The Milky Road.
Pinball London’s Vaccaro and Aaron Brookner serve as remastering producers on Burroughs: The Movie.
Brookner launched a Kickstarter campaign in late 2012 to restore the film, which his late uncle directed and remains the only feature doc about the Naked Lunch author, born 100 years ago.
Criterion is on board to release on DVD and Janus Film will distribute theatrically at the end of the year after Burroughs: The Movie returns to the New York Film Festival, the site of its world premiere 30 years ago.
Brookner will film the festival screening and insert into his original doc, Uncle Howard, which Vaccaro also produces. Jim Jarmusch is executive...
- 5/21/2014
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
On the Milky Road
Director: Emir Kusturica
Writers: Emir and Dunja Kusturica
Producers: Lucas Akoskin, Alex Garcia, Paula Vaccaro
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Emir Kusturica, Monica Bellucci, Natasa Ninkovic
The two time Palme D’or winning Serbian director is working on his first film since 2007’s Promise Me This, which never received a Us release. However, having Monica Bellucci headlining the cast will definitely snag some international interest. While he’s been appearing in a number of films in front of the camera, we’re happy to see Kusturica return to the director’s seat after a number of stalled projects have seen set aside.
Gist: The films is inspired by Kusturica’s short film Our Life, and consists of three stories: the first story is about a soldier with a task to get milk in the nearby village and take it to fellow soldiers. The second is...
Director: Emir Kusturica
Writers: Emir and Dunja Kusturica
Producers: Lucas Akoskin, Alex Garcia, Paula Vaccaro
U.S. Distributor: Rights Available
Cast: Emir Kusturica, Monica Bellucci, Natasa Ninkovic
The two time Palme D’or winning Serbian director is working on his first film since 2007’s Promise Me This, which never received a Us release. However, having Monica Bellucci headlining the cast will definitely snag some international interest. While he’s been appearing in a number of films in front of the camera, we’re happy to see Kusturica return to the director’s seat after a number of stalled projects have seen set aside.
Gist: The films is inspired by Kusturica’s short film Our Life, and consists of three stories: the first story is about a soldier with a task to get milk in the nearby village and take it to fellow soldiers. The second is...
- 3/4/2014
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Susan Kouguell speaks with director Aaron Brookner on his journey of re-mastering and re-leasing the documentary on William Burroughs, Burroughs: The Movie (1983) directed by his uncle, Howard Brookner, and Smash the Control Machine the feature documentary that tells the story of Aaron Brookner’s investigation into the mysterious life and missing films of Howard Brookner, who died of AIDS at age 34 in 1989 on the cusp of fame. Howard Brookner’s films also include Bloodhounds on Broadway (1989) and Robert Wilson and The Civil Wars (1987).
Born in New York City, Aaron Brookner began his career working on Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes and Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity before making the award-winning documentary short The Black Cowboys (2004). His first feature documentary was a collaboration with writer Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront), and his film, The Silver Goat (2012) was the first feature created exclusively for iPad, released as an App and downloaded across 24 countries, making it into the top 50 entertainment apps in the UK and Czech Republic.
The re-mastered print of Burroughs: The Movie will have its premier University of Indiana’s Burroughs 100th birthday event on February 6th, 2014.
Susan Kouguell: On your Kickstarter site you wrote:
“Howard Brookner directed three films before his death in 1989 from AIDS at the age of thirty-four. In the final year of his life he wrote:
If I live on it is in your memories and the films I made.
It was this quote that inspired me, Howard's nephew and enthusiastic Burroughsian, to search for the missing print of his first film, Burroughs: The Movie. After a long search I found the only print in good condition and embarked on a project to digitally remaster it and make it available to the public.”
This has been both a personal and artistic journey for you. When did this journey begin?
Aaron Brookner: It probably began when Howard died, originally. My lasting memories of him were of watching him make his final movie Bloodhounds on Broadway on the set, hanging out together and rough-housing, walking around downtown, the secret handshake and spoken greeting we had, the cool toys from Japan he brought me, messing around with video cameras, trips down to Miami, and oddly enough the Rolling Stones 3D halftime show during the 1989 Super Bowl.
But I also had seen him in a hospital bed. I had been to the AIDS ward. I was over at his apartment quite a bit during his final few months of life. Watched his funeral. And I was seven. Kids know everything that’s going on around them even when they don’t. I guess this was the case and that making Smash the Control Machine is some sort of way to articulate my childlike perspective on the story, as an adult. It’s also a way to satisfy my curiosity.
Howard, I’ve found out, in some weird cinematic way, left clues all over the world really, which show how he lived, and what he lived. He documented everything.
A few years ago when I started the search for the Burroughs: The Movie print, I started to find all these pieces to his puzzle. Not to mention his films! So I went all the way and committed to gathering up everything and telling his story, which has brought me into contact with the people who knew him best -- and survived him -- who each knew a completely different yet same Howard. It’s amazing to watch Howard come to life in the eyes of someone that knew him, through the stories they recall.
It’s been a very interesting journey, and still is. It was a hard one to start, obviously, because of the awful tragedy looming at the end, and I was sensitive to not want to stir this back up for the people who really suffered his death, but the feeling has really changed. There is so much life and joy of living and making movies that transcends through Howard’s work which I’ve discovered, and in the people who knew him best; that this feeling of life and art really trumps death and AIDS, and a lot of the political bulls--t that fueled that fire, and this is a good feeling, and sort of what I hope to bring out in my film.
Sk: You successfully raised more than the requested budget with Kickstarter to fund your film. Talk about the pros and cons of using this crowdsourcing resource.
Ab: A big pro is that you skip all the gatekeepers, which saves a lot of time. You go straight to the audience and in the case of remastering Howard’s Burroughs: The Movie film there was pretty straightforward thinking behind it. I thought if enough people know about this film and want it back, or if they want it for the first time, they’ll help me deliver. If not, so be it.
A con, and I don’t know if I’d call it a con or just the reality, is that you’re never getting something for nothing; you’ve got a lot of work to do to run a crowd-funding campaign. It’s great if there’s an audience for your project, but how are they gonna hear about it?! My partner, Paula Vaccaro, and I spent months working on this day and night, not knowing if we’d even succeed. A little stressful...but overall I think it’s amazing that crowd-sourcing exists, and that it can work. It’s also a pretty great exercise in clearly communicating what you want to do and why, and what’s the plan for how.
Sk: Smash the Control Machine, the film you are making on Howard’s story and the search for his lost work was selected in its early stages for the Berlinale. What was that experience like for you?
Ab: In a lot of ways it was like the Burroughs: The Movie Kickstarter experience, in that first of all, it was a great endorsement and support to have, and that it certainly helped to streamline the concept and see what worked and what didn’t.
We were specifically selected to the Talent Project Market at Berlinale as the only documentary of 10 total films from around the world. It was a few very intense and focused days like a workshop on all the different angles around your film, that as a creator you might not be thinking about -- like what your pitch is going to be and how to pitch for that matter -- to what are the comparable going numbers around and how an international co-production might work. It’s great to learn this because then, after the workshop days, you’re sitting at a table where film market people are coming to meet you and talk to you, and you kind of understand where they are coming from, so you’re confident in talking about your project, and knowing what’s good or not good for it.
Sk: Do you have any international partners with whom you are working?
Ab: The main production company for the film is Pinball London, which is mainly based in London, UK, our other partners are of course the executive producer of the film, Jim Jarmusch, producer Sara Driver in New York City, the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Talent Project Market, (who have been invaluable allies of the film) the Jerome Foundation, Media Program (the European Union’s main audiovisual development program (http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/index_en.htm), the Independent Filmmaker Project in NYC, which runs our fiscal sponsorship campaign and supports the film with knowledge and an amazing network, and the generous support of other partners, such as the Arnie Glassman Foundation and private individual donors. We’re currently having conversations with other co-producers, distributors, transmedia partners, as well as sales companies from Us and EU but I can’t go into more details at this stage.
Sk: Film director Jim Jarmusch, who worked with Howard, is your executive producer. His features Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise, were influential works not only to the downtown New York City art film scene, but to the wider independent/art film movement. You mentioned that through this filmmaking process you have been exposed to the art and film created during this time and its staying power. Please elaborate.
Ab: New York City in the late 1970s was really the last place and time where two generations of artists overlapped and met and fed off each other. They lived in the same neighborhood, did the same drugs, went to the same clubs, and in some cases slept with the same people. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, much as they were artistic innovators for the way they completely broke the rules of literature, were also pioneering in the way they were open about their homosexuality and the way they put in their work.
Writer Brad Gooch, Howard’s long-time partner, told me that his and Howard’s was the first generation who really got to live openly when they got to New York. All the first love straight people get to experience in high school, gay men (and women) were experiencing at age twenty-five in downtown NYC against this epic backdrop of all sorts of art and space and time to create it. This sexual liberation really fed into the art scene. It was political without having a message, just by being.
The films that Jim Jarmusch and others were making at this time, they sort of applied the total lack of respect for rules that Burroughs and Ginsberg had laid in literature, and applied it to cinema. They took what they saw around them and put it in their work. And in the case of Howard making Burroughs: The Movie, with Jim and also Tom Dicillo who was doing camera, he went straight to the source. Howard decided not only am I going to apply the lack of rules, rule to movie-making, I’m gonna turn the camera on this moment in time as it’s really happening. I mean it’s incredible. They’re filming Burroughs at home, working out his speech to protest Proposition 6 in 1978, which Burroughs then incorporates into his reading at the Nova Convention -- to a packed-to-the-rafters theatre filled with 20 and 30-year-olds. Howard and his crew actually shot this.
There is just so much truth that shines through this work, and the work of that time like in Jarmusch’s films, and I think it’s because you had new artists’ energy directly side by side with the source. It was exceptionally rare, I think, historically, where one generation of artists so directly influenced another, only with the newer generation using a different medium, which of course was film.
Sk: You discovered more than 35 hours of film Howard shot from 1978-1983 that was stored in Burroughs’ bunker for 30 years. These reels include footage of Andy Warhol, Burroughs and Howard in the Chelsea Hotel, Allen Ginsberg, Frank Zappa and Patti Smith. How did you learn about this footage?
Ab: James Grauerholz, who was very close friends with my uncle and co-produced Burroughs: The Movie, who is William Burroughs’ heir, early on when I was looking for a print of the film sent me a detailed inventory of everything Howard had stored in the bunker (Burroughs’ NYC residence). I looked at the list and my jaw dropped. Howard had finished Burroughs: The Movie with the BBC (who provided completion funds) in 1983. Sometime later they shipped back these giant trunks of all of Howard’s rushes, outtakes, workprints, and negative rolls. Howard didn’t have a permanent residence at that time because he was traveling the globe making his next film on theatre director , who was preparing six different international plays around the world to all come together for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. So Howard got these trunks of his films and asked Burroughs if he could stash it in the back room of the Bunker. And there it sat undisturbed for 30 years! After Burroughs died, John Giorno, who lived above the bunker, decided to keep it as a sort of museum to William. And of course along with Burroughs’ hat, canes, and spices from 1978, are Howard’s films.
Sk: What condition are the reels?
Ab: The negatives look great. The work-prints are all kind of pink, which happens to color film over time, but this is fixable with a good colorist as per example:
There’s a tiny bit of shrinkage, as photochemical film will shrink over time, but it is very minimal considering 30 years with no climate and humidity control. Only one roll was lost completely to severe water damage. It’s very fortunate really so much of it survived. It was a race against the clock. Film is a living breathing organic material.
Sk: How were you able to access them? Where was/is the bunker?
It was a complicated battle. I fought, with support, a dedicated fight that lasted for well over a year. It was extremely anxiety-provoking, as every day there was a potential risk these precious films could have been destroyed. For all I knew there could have been vinegar in the cans, which happens to deteriorated film. There was a lot of faith involved, a bit like the Kickstarter campaign. You can image what Hurricane Sandy did to my nervous system. It was indeed a race against the clock with all sorts of obstacles, and so stressful I had to document it to cope, and because it really illustrated an issue that’s central to my film, which is: What happens to the work created by artists when they are gone? And this is key to artists who died of AIDS as they generally did not have the time or resources to prepare for their legacy. So, now that is a part of my film. There was a more or less happy ending. But you’ll have to see the film to get the story! The Bunker is on the Bowery in NYC.
Sk: With some of the clips you’ve shown me, this is quite a treasure trove that captures an important history.
Ab: There is a definite staying power of the art from that time because of its authenticity, and also because of New York City; these film rolls capture what New York City was like! So much space. Desolate downtown streets. Gritty details. It’s just pure beautiful decay. No one watching you. It looks like artistic paradise. And I’ve seen Howard’s rental contract for his loft on Prince and Bowery: $100/month!
Sk: Film preservation is vital, and as you mentioned, it’s a race against the clock before more films are lost.
Ab: This is a huge issue. Hundreds of thousands of films that maybe aren’t necessarily directly on the Hollywood radar are really in danger of being lost forever. You got time working against you because film deteriorates. You got money working against you because it costs a lot to keep climate and humidity-controlled vaults. Traditionally, labs all had vaults, but labs are closing. If not very nearly all closed. So it comes down to institutions and their funding, space and ability. You also got technology working against you. How many people out there know how to fix a film splice or thread a projector, or read camera roll code? And how many people will know this in 30 years? Who’s going to know how to fix the old film machines that stopped seeing use decades ago? It really needs attention because we’re looking at a century of film facing extinction.
Robert Wilson is a majorly important figure in the theatre and art world. Most people don’t know about Howard’s second feature documentary, which took the audience inside Robert Wilson’s creative process, and emotional process of making his work. I know this because I found part of these original film rolls packed into unmarked Igloo picnic containers stashed in the supply room behind the toilet in an archive in Hamburg.
Sk: When and where will Smash the Control Machine have its premiere?
Ab: The film is currently in early production and there is a very strong element of unpredictability in this story, making deadlines pretty impossible. But, Berlinale really gave us great support at a very early stage, and it would be a very nice honor to premier the film with them in 2015. But we will need to keep working and see what unfolds. There is a long year ahead.
Sk: What are the distribution plans for Burroughs: The Movie and Smash the Control Machine ?
Ab: For Burroughs: The Movie, we’ll be unveiling the remastered Dcp (Digital Cinema Package) of the film at University of Indiana’s Burroughs 100th birthday event on February 6th, followed by other Burroughs events throughout the year, such as at the Ica in London and the Photographer’s Gallery for their William Burroughs/Andy Warhol/David Lynch show.
The New York City premier will happen next fall at the New York Film Festival -- where the film first screened in 1983(!) -- possibly followed by a theatrical re-release and DVD/Blu-ray sale towards the end of the year. (Those who pledged for a DVD through our Kickstarter campaign however, will be sent their own copies of the film shortly.)
I’m also putting together a video art/sound installation piece from some of the never before seen material, that will show along with the film at Bafici in April, and likely in New York and London if not elsewhere. And we’re putting together a record with All Tomorrow’s Parties, using much of the never before heard audio from Howard’s Burroughs archive, to be sampled by select musicians.
For Smash the Control Machine: There are various plans I can’t discuss at this stage. What I can say is that our distribution will be tied to other impactful activities and events. I am working closely to build partnerships with those who care about the subjects of the film and the themes. Gentrification, Gay history, art legacy lost to AIDS. There are many great ways to distribute this film along these lines, as well as having a commercial release. My producer, PaulaVaccaro, and I are working hard to make sure this is tied up with whatever the film will do out there.
Sk: What advice do you have for aspiring documentary filmmakers?
Ab: Sometimes the best story for a film is right under your nose!
Breaking News: We are now working together with Janus Films and Criterion Collection for the distribution of Burroughs: The Movie. We are still creating a plan for the film although we know we will do a theatrical run in the Us sometime after the re-launch at the Nyff
See the Trailer Here
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
Born in New York City, Aaron Brookner began his career working on Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes and Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity before making the award-winning documentary short The Black Cowboys (2004). His first feature documentary was a collaboration with writer Budd Schulberg (On the Waterfront), and his film, The Silver Goat (2012) was the first feature created exclusively for iPad, released as an App and downloaded across 24 countries, making it into the top 50 entertainment apps in the UK and Czech Republic.
The re-mastered print of Burroughs: The Movie will have its premier University of Indiana’s Burroughs 100th birthday event on February 6th, 2014.
Susan Kouguell: On your Kickstarter site you wrote:
“Howard Brookner directed three films before his death in 1989 from AIDS at the age of thirty-four. In the final year of his life he wrote:
If I live on it is in your memories and the films I made.
It was this quote that inspired me, Howard's nephew and enthusiastic Burroughsian, to search for the missing print of his first film, Burroughs: The Movie. After a long search I found the only print in good condition and embarked on a project to digitally remaster it and make it available to the public.”
This has been both a personal and artistic journey for you. When did this journey begin?
Aaron Brookner: It probably began when Howard died, originally. My lasting memories of him were of watching him make his final movie Bloodhounds on Broadway on the set, hanging out together and rough-housing, walking around downtown, the secret handshake and spoken greeting we had, the cool toys from Japan he brought me, messing around with video cameras, trips down to Miami, and oddly enough the Rolling Stones 3D halftime show during the 1989 Super Bowl.
But I also had seen him in a hospital bed. I had been to the AIDS ward. I was over at his apartment quite a bit during his final few months of life. Watched his funeral. And I was seven. Kids know everything that’s going on around them even when they don’t. I guess this was the case and that making Smash the Control Machine is some sort of way to articulate my childlike perspective on the story, as an adult. It’s also a way to satisfy my curiosity.
Howard, I’ve found out, in some weird cinematic way, left clues all over the world really, which show how he lived, and what he lived. He documented everything.
A few years ago when I started the search for the Burroughs: The Movie print, I started to find all these pieces to his puzzle. Not to mention his films! So I went all the way and committed to gathering up everything and telling his story, which has brought me into contact with the people who knew him best -- and survived him -- who each knew a completely different yet same Howard. It’s amazing to watch Howard come to life in the eyes of someone that knew him, through the stories they recall.
It’s been a very interesting journey, and still is. It was a hard one to start, obviously, because of the awful tragedy looming at the end, and I was sensitive to not want to stir this back up for the people who really suffered his death, but the feeling has really changed. There is so much life and joy of living and making movies that transcends through Howard’s work which I’ve discovered, and in the people who knew him best; that this feeling of life and art really trumps death and AIDS, and a lot of the political bulls--t that fueled that fire, and this is a good feeling, and sort of what I hope to bring out in my film.
Sk: You successfully raised more than the requested budget with Kickstarter to fund your film. Talk about the pros and cons of using this crowdsourcing resource.
Ab: A big pro is that you skip all the gatekeepers, which saves a lot of time. You go straight to the audience and in the case of remastering Howard’s Burroughs: The Movie film there was pretty straightforward thinking behind it. I thought if enough people know about this film and want it back, or if they want it for the first time, they’ll help me deliver. If not, so be it.
A con, and I don’t know if I’d call it a con or just the reality, is that you’re never getting something for nothing; you’ve got a lot of work to do to run a crowd-funding campaign. It’s great if there’s an audience for your project, but how are they gonna hear about it?! My partner, Paula Vaccaro, and I spent months working on this day and night, not knowing if we’d even succeed. A little stressful...but overall I think it’s amazing that crowd-sourcing exists, and that it can work. It’s also a pretty great exercise in clearly communicating what you want to do and why, and what’s the plan for how.
Sk: Smash the Control Machine, the film you are making on Howard’s story and the search for his lost work was selected in its early stages for the Berlinale. What was that experience like for you?
Ab: In a lot of ways it was like the Burroughs: The Movie Kickstarter experience, in that first of all, it was a great endorsement and support to have, and that it certainly helped to streamline the concept and see what worked and what didn’t.
We were specifically selected to the Talent Project Market at Berlinale as the only documentary of 10 total films from around the world. It was a few very intense and focused days like a workshop on all the different angles around your film, that as a creator you might not be thinking about -- like what your pitch is going to be and how to pitch for that matter -- to what are the comparable going numbers around and how an international co-production might work. It’s great to learn this because then, after the workshop days, you’re sitting at a table where film market people are coming to meet you and talk to you, and you kind of understand where they are coming from, so you’re confident in talking about your project, and knowing what’s good or not good for it.
Sk: Do you have any international partners with whom you are working?
Ab: The main production company for the film is Pinball London, which is mainly based in London, UK, our other partners are of course the executive producer of the film, Jim Jarmusch, producer Sara Driver in New York City, the Berlinale Talent Campus and the Talent Project Market, (who have been invaluable allies of the film) the Jerome Foundation, Media Program (the European Union’s main audiovisual development program (http://ec.europa.eu/culture/media/index_en.htm), the Independent Filmmaker Project in NYC, which runs our fiscal sponsorship campaign and supports the film with knowledge and an amazing network, and the generous support of other partners, such as the Arnie Glassman Foundation and private individual donors. We’re currently having conversations with other co-producers, distributors, transmedia partners, as well as sales companies from Us and EU but I can’t go into more details at this stage.
Sk: Film director Jim Jarmusch, who worked with Howard, is your executive producer. His features Permanent Vacation and Stranger Than Paradise, were influential works not only to the downtown New York City art film scene, but to the wider independent/art film movement. You mentioned that through this filmmaking process you have been exposed to the art and film created during this time and its staying power. Please elaborate.
Ab: New York City in the late 1970s was really the last place and time where two generations of artists overlapped and met and fed off each other. They lived in the same neighborhood, did the same drugs, went to the same clubs, and in some cases slept with the same people. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, much as they were artistic innovators for the way they completely broke the rules of literature, were also pioneering in the way they were open about their homosexuality and the way they put in their work.
Writer Brad Gooch, Howard’s long-time partner, told me that his and Howard’s was the first generation who really got to live openly when they got to New York. All the first love straight people get to experience in high school, gay men (and women) were experiencing at age twenty-five in downtown NYC against this epic backdrop of all sorts of art and space and time to create it. This sexual liberation really fed into the art scene. It was political without having a message, just by being.
The films that Jim Jarmusch and others were making at this time, they sort of applied the total lack of respect for rules that Burroughs and Ginsberg had laid in literature, and applied it to cinema. They took what they saw around them and put it in their work. And in the case of Howard making Burroughs: The Movie, with Jim and also Tom Dicillo who was doing camera, he went straight to the source. Howard decided not only am I going to apply the lack of rules, rule to movie-making, I’m gonna turn the camera on this moment in time as it’s really happening. I mean it’s incredible. They’re filming Burroughs at home, working out his speech to protest Proposition 6 in 1978, which Burroughs then incorporates into his reading at the Nova Convention -- to a packed-to-the-rafters theatre filled with 20 and 30-year-olds. Howard and his crew actually shot this.
There is just so much truth that shines through this work, and the work of that time like in Jarmusch’s films, and I think it’s because you had new artists’ energy directly side by side with the source. It was exceptionally rare, I think, historically, where one generation of artists so directly influenced another, only with the newer generation using a different medium, which of course was film.
Sk: You discovered more than 35 hours of film Howard shot from 1978-1983 that was stored in Burroughs’ bunker for 30 years. These reels include footage of Andy Warhol, Burroughs and Howard in the Chelsea Hotel, Allen Ginsberg, Frank Zappa and Patti Smith. How did you learn about this footage?
Ab: James Grauerholz, who was very close friends with my uncle and co-produced Burroughs: The Movie, who is William Burroughs’ heir, early on when I was looking for a print of the film sent me a detailed inventory of everything Howard had stored in the bunker (Burroughs’ NYC residence). I looked at the list and my jaw dropped. Howard had finished Burroughs: The Movie with the BBC (who provided completion funds) in 1983. Sometime later they shipped back these giant trunks of all of Howard’s rushes, outtakes, workprints, and negative rolls. Howard didn’t have a permanent residence at that time because he was traveling the globe making his next film on theatre director , who was preparing six different international plays around the world to all come together for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. So Howard got these trunks of his films and asked Burroughs if he could stash it in the back room of the Bunker. And there it sat undisturbed for 30 years! After Burroughs died, John Giorno, who lived above the bunker, decided to keep it as a sort of museum to William. And of course along with Burroughs’ hat, canes, and spices from 1978, are Howard’s films.
Sk: What condition are the reels?
Ab: The negatives look great. The work-prints are all kind of pink, which happens to color film over time, but this is fixable with a good colorist as per example:
There’s a tiny bit of shrinkage, as photochemical film will shrink over time, but it is very minimal considering 30 years with no climate and humidity control. Only one roll was lost completely to severe water damage. It’s very fortunate really so much of it survived. It was a race against the clock. Film is a living breathing organic material.
Sk: How were you able to access them? Where was/is the bunker?
It was a complicated battle. I fought, with support, a dedicated fight that lasted for well over a year. It was extremely anxiety-provoking, as every day there was a potential risk these precious films could have been destroyed. For all I knew there could have been vinegar in the cans, which happens to deteriorated film. There was a lot of faith involved, a bit like the Kickstarter campaign. You can image what Hurricane Sandy did to my nervous system. It was indeed a race against the clock with all sorts of obstacles, and so stressful I had to document it to cope, and because it really illustrated an issue that’s central to my film, which is: What happens to the work created by artists when they are gone? And this is key to artists who died of AIDS as they generally did not have the time or resources to prepare for their legacy. So, now that is a part of my film. There was a more or less happy ending. But you’ll have to see the film to get the story! The Bunker is on the Bowery in NYC.
Sk: With some of the clips you’ve shown me, this is quite a treasure trove that captures an important history.
Ab: There is a definite staying power of the art from that time because of its authenticity, and also because of New York City; these film rolls capture what New York City was like! So much space. Desolate downtown streets. Gritty details. It’s just pure beautiful decay. No one watching you. It looks like artistic paradise. And I’ve seen Howard’s rental contract for his loft on Prince and Bowery: $100/month!
Sk: Film preservation is vital, and as you mentioned, it’s a race against the clock before more films are lost.
Ab: This is a huge issue. Hundreds of thousands of films that maybe aren’t necessarily directly on the Hollywood radar are really in danger of being lost forever. You got time working against you because film deteriorates. You got money working against you because it costs a lot to keep climate and humidity-controlled vaults. Traditionally, labs all had vaults, but labs are closing. If not very nearly all closed. So it comes down to institutions and their funding, space and ability. You also got technology working against you. How many people out there know how to fix a film splice or thread a projector, or read camera roll code? And how many people will know this in 30 years? Who’s going to know how to fix the old film machines that stopped seeing use decades ago? It really needs attention because we’re looking at a century of film facing extinction.
Robert Wilson is a majorly important figure in the theatre and art world. Most people don’t know about Howard’s second feature documentary, which took the audience inside Robert Wilson’s creative process, and emotional process of making his work. I know this because I found part of these original film rolls packed into unmarked Igloo picnic containers stashed in the supply room behind the toilet in an archive in Hamburg.
Sk: When and where will Smash the Control Machine have its premiere?
Ab: The film is currently in early production and there is a very strong element of unpredictability in this story, making deadlines pretty impossible. But, Berlinale really gave us great support at a very early stage, and it would be a very nice honor to premier the film with them in 2015. But we will need to keep working and see what unfolds. There is a long year ahead.
Sk: What are the distribution plans for Burroughs: The Movie and Smash the Control Machine ?
Ab: For Burroughs: The Movie, we’ll be unveiling the remastered Dcp (Digital Cinema Package) of the film at University of Indiana’s Burroughs 100th birthday event on February 6th, followed by other Burroughs events throughout the year, such as at the Ica in London and the Photographer’s Gallery for their William Burroughs/Andy Warhol/David Lynch show.
The New York City premier will happen next fall at the New York Film Festival -- where the film first screened in 1983(!) -- possibly followed by a theatrical re-release and DVD/Blu-ray sale towards the end of the year. (Those who pledged for a DVD through our Kickstarter campaign however, will be sent their own copies of the film shortly.)
I’m also putting together a video art/sound installation piece from some of the never before seen material, that will show along with the film at Bafici in April, and likely in New York and London if not elsewhere. And we’re putting together a record with All Tomorrow’s Parties, using much of the never before heard audio from Howard’s Burroughs archive, to be sampled by select musicians.
For Smash the Control Machine: There are various plans I can’t discuss at this stage. What I can say is that our distribution will be tied to other impactful activities and events. I am working closely to build partnerships with those who care about the subjects of the film and the themes. Gentrification, Gay history, art legacy lost to AIDS. There are many great ways to distribute this film along these lines, as well as having a commercial release. My producer, PaulaVaccaro, and I are working hard to make sure this is tied up with whatever the film will do out there.
Sk: What advice do you have for aspiring documentary filmmakers?
Ab: Sometimes the best story for a film is right under your nose!
Breaking News: We are now working together with Janus Films and Criterion Collection for the distribution of Burroughs: The Movie. We are still creating a plan for the film although we know we will do a theatrical run in the Us sometime after the re-launch at the Nyff
See the Trailer Here
Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, Susan Kouguell teaches screenwriting and film at Tufts University and presents international seminars. Author of Savvy Characters Sell Screenplays! and The Savvy Screenwriter, she is chairperson of Su-City Pictures East, LLC, a consulting company founded in 1990 where she works with over 1,000 writers, filmmakers, and executives worldwide. www.su-city-pictures.com .
- 1/29/2014
- by Susan Kouguell
- Sydney's Buzz
Metamorphosis
Rhys Ifans is being sought to star in the Chapman brothers' trippy feature "Metamorphosis". Colin Vaines will produce.
A loose spin on the Franz Kafka short story, the plot deals with an insect who awakens to discover that he has become human. [Source: Screen]
Love and War
Actress Monica Bellucci and Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica are teaming on "Love and War" which Kusturica will direct.
Kusturica plays a soldier who chooses to end his life as a monk, Bellucci plays his lover. Paula Vaccaro will produce. [Source: Screen Daily]
The Blue Room
Léa Drucker has been cast in Mathieu Amalric's "The Blue Room" at Alfama Films. Amalric and Stephanie Cleau will also star in the project based on the novel by George Simenon.
The story follows a couple who meet secretly to make love in the blue room at the Hotel des Voyageurs. They exchange what they think are innocent words after sex...
Rhys Ifans is being sought to star in the Chapman brothers' trippy feature "Metamorphosis". Colin Vaines will produce.
A loose spin on the Franz Kafka short story, the plot deals with an insect who awakens to discover that he has become human. [Source: Screen]
Love and War
Actress Monica Bellucci and Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica are teaming on "Love and War" which Kusturica will direct.
Kusturica plays a soldier who chooses to end his life as a monk, Bellucci plays his lover. Paula Vaccaro will produce. [Source: Screen Daily]
The Blue Room
Léa Drucker has been cast in Mathieu Amalric's "The Blue Room" at Alfama Films. Amalric and Stephanie Cleau will also star in the project based on the novel by George Simenon.
The story follows a couple who meet secretly to make love in the blue room at the Hotel des Voyageurs. They exchange what they think are innocent words after sex...
- 5/22/2013
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
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