News

International sales agency The Open Reel has unveiled the first trailer for director-producer Quentin Lee’s “Last Summer of Nathan Lee.”

Inspired by a real life incident from Lee’s high school years, the film follows the titular Nathan Lee, a teenager who finds out that he has brain cancer just before he turns 18, vows to live the remains of his life with passion and refuses to die a virgin.

The cast includes Harrison Xu, Matthew Mitchell Espinosa, Natasha Tina Liu, Aaron Guest and Dru Perez. The film is produced by Lee’s Margin Films, with screenwriter Dennis Escobedo and casting director Kit DeZolt also serving as producers alongside Lee.

“Last Summer of Nathan Lee” will have its world premiere at The Center for Asian American Media (Caam)’s CAAMFest 2023, which will take place from May 11 to 21.

Meanwhile, The Open Reel has also closed a number of sales on its slate titles.

Italian sales outfit The Open Reel also racked up further deals on its slate.

Italian sales and production company The Open Reel unveiled a raft of deals including sales of Valentin Merz’s debut feature De Noche Los Gatos Son Pardos (At Night All Cats Are Black) to Matchbox Films for the UK and Ireland, and Out Screen Pty for Australia and New Zealand.

De Noche Los Gatos Son Pardos, which is set during the shoot of a costume drama film in the countryside and follows events taking an odd turn after the director mysteriously disappears, premiered in competition at...

‘The Yellow Ceiling’ tells the story of nine former students at Spain’s Lleida Theatre who filed a complaint against two of their teachers for sexual abuse.

Italian sales company The Open Reel has unveiled three new additions to its Cannes Marché slate, including Isabel Coixet’s latest film The Yellow Ceiling.

The feature documentary, produced by Miss Wasabi Films, tells the story of nine former students at Spain’s Lleida Theatre who filed a complaint against two of their teachers for sexual abuse.

The Open Reel’s slate also includes Eleonora Veninova’s debut Things Unsaid. This North Macedonian...

Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy’s return to live, in-person screenings is an occasion for national celebration, says Anna Möttölä, the executive director of the event, now marking its 34th edition.

While cinemas in Helsinki must still be limited to 50% capacity for pandemic precaution reasons, screenings of hot new titles such as opening gala film Leos Carax’s tragicomic musical “Annette” and closer Mia Hansen-Løve’s “Bergman Island” have already sold out, Möttölä says, with audience anticipation for the beloved fest feeling palpable this year following a mainly online event in 2020. Foreign guests such as Ninja Thyberg, screening her Sundance sensation “Pleasure,” are also generating buzz this year, she notes.

Meanwhile the event has managed to maintain its dedication to diversity and inclusion despite Covid challenges, with some 46% of the 131 features and 149 shorts screening by women or non-binary filmmakers.

The popular Spotlight section has seen brisk ticket sales for its program,...

Award-winning filmmakers and a documentary from ‘The Act Of Killing’ producer Signe Byrge Sørensen among those selected.

Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (Cph:Dox) has revealed its line-up of competition titles for 2021, set to run April 21 to May 2.

The programme includes films that focus on the dominance of tech giants, new democratic movements, decolonization and climate change among other topics.

The competition programmes consist of 64 titles with 47 world premieres, nine international premieres and six European premieres. In total, 58% of the titles (37 films) are directed by one or more women. This increases to 66% when including films co-directed by male and female directors.

From Cineuropa.org by Tina Poglajen

The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (October 24–29, 2017) is the largest event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. The festival retains a distinctive and progressive programming approach and has built a remarkable Industry section, featuring projects such as Emerging Producers and Inspiration Forum. The festival is also famous for its informal atmosphere, discussion character and full screening venues.

On 26 October, the flagship industry project of the Ji.hlava Idff publicly presented 18 talented producers from 16 European countries plus Morocco.

Bringing together talented European documentary film producers, Emerging Producers, the promotional and educational project of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, is becoming more highly acclaimed and well known each year. In its six years of existence, it has enrolled over 100 alumni, many of whom have subsequently become successful producers.

Divided into three main parts — promotion, networking and navigation — the aim of the...

At Idfa, Distrify and the Scottish Documentary Institute have announced today a new ‘film gifting’ scheme called Pay-It-Forward.

The new initiative kicks off with the online release of Maja Borg’s Future My Love (website here), about futurist Jacque Fresco’s new economic and social model.

This scheme is a continuation of the online distributor’s ‘portable fundraiser’ project – a collaboration with Scottish Documentary Institute with backing from Nesta.

People will be able to pay a small fee to send a link to a friend or stranger to watch a film for free.

Distrify noted: “Viewers may buy for one or more people, or even an open invitation for viewers around the world to see the film if the ‘giver’ feels it is a film that should be shared and seen by many.”

Peter Gerard, CEO of Distrify, said: “This is the first time the Pay-it-Forward concept has been used for film distribution. We are excited...

Don Jon | The Butler | The Counsellor | Dom Hemingway | In Fear | Utopia | Future My Love | Pandora's Promise | Battle Of The Year | Ram-Leela

Don Jon (18)

(Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 2013, Us) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Tony Danza, Glenne Headly. 90 mins

Never one to shy away from a risky project, Gordon-Levitt dives into sexual politics and pornography addiction for his first directing job, and just about pulls it off. He's charming as ever, playing a cocksure Italian-American casanova who secretly prefers online onanism to real sex – until dream girl Johanssen prompts him to take a hold of himself. It's snappy, funny, and pertinent, though the Noo Joisey stereotyping is an unnecessary let-down.

The Butler (12A)

(Lee Daniels, 2013, Us) Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo. 132 mins

Old school but illuminating take on American history and the civil rights struggle, viewed through the eyes of a black White House butler who served eight presidents. The dazzling cast is almost a distraction,...

★★☆☆☆

Offering an abstract glimpse of a distant utopia which might just be within humankind's reach, experimental Swedish filmmaker Maja Borg's Future My Love (2012) will almost certainly struggle to put "bums on seats" over this new release-packed weekend, but may reward a small sub-section of open-minded viewers with the patience and perseverance to join Borg on her futurist foray. Narrated throughout by the documentary's director, who laments the loss of her first love whilst musing over our collective fates, there are sadly only occasional flashes of inspiration to be found within this arch demi-installation piece.

Maja Borg checks herself in at a Florida retreat to search outside the capitalist system for solutions to unhappiness in this provocative film

This distinctive, Chris Marker-like essay sees Swedish-born, Glasgow-based filmmaker Maja Borg finding a novel means of getting over heartbreak: checking herself in at the edenic Florida retreat of social theorist Jacque Fresco, an early proponent of free culture, whose most radical idea is that we should abandon money and do everything for love, not financial reward. Theories that almost certainly sounded naive pre-2008 are returned to the table: Borg's conversations with Floridians illustrate how the present system doesn't work for them, while archival digressions contrast capitalism's 1950s golden age with the scrapheaps piling up in its wake. If there's something self-conscious about the framing, the core is provocative and outward-looking: in searching for solutions, both for her own unhappiness and everybody else's, Borg transforms the personal into the unmistakably political.

Future My Love

Directed & Written by Maja Borg

Sweden/Scotland, 2012

If there is one thing human beings have mastered, it’s thinking about the future. Theologians, affianced lovers, political theorists, social revolutionaries, TV franchise creators, actuaries and bankers all have that fundamental activity in common. Whether we are entertaining sweeping changes on a global scale, or merely wondering about our own prospects for retirement, we cannot help but beam mental images onto the blank screen of what’s to come. The specific content of these visions may vary widely – and we worry that other people with more power and fewer scruples than ourselves will prevent the things we envision from ever taking physical form – but we live in hope that, somehow, these prismatic projections will harmonize into a solid ray of light capable of illuminating all of our lives. The future, we tell ourselves, has yet to be written – but...

Hot Docs 2013 is just a week away – and Sound on Sight will be providing extensive coverage of the festival this year. Readers can expect a barrage of reviews – beginning well in advance of the event itself and carrying forward until the final showing on May 5th – so interested parties should definitely bookmark the link to our Hot Docs round-up.

After spending many happy hours in consultation with the Official Schedule, we are proud to present our list of the ten most highly anticipated docs on the docket. All of these films (and several more in the bargain) will be discussed at Sound on Sight over the course of the next few weeks. We hope you’ll join us! (And please feel free to let us know which films you’d like to see reviewed.)

(in alphabetical order)

Blackfish

Screenings: Apr 30 (7 pm), May 2 (2 pm) and May 3 (9:15 pm)

Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s...

Left disheartened and motivated to seek out change by the breakdown of a relationship due to the ideals set upon her and her lover by society, Maja Borg embarks upon a personal journey of self-discovery and social, environmental and economic change that leads her, amongst others, to Jacques Fresco: a social engineer and futurist, who is doing everything in his power to set into motion an alternative lifestyle, known as The Venus Project.

Five years after Ottica Zero, a short film that explored her then relationship with Italian actress Nadva Cazan and their desire to find a new, less scrupulous way of living, the Swedish filmmaker releases her feature debut Future My Love, a continuation of sorts that sees her blend elements of documentary, love story and political opinion to further her investigations into how various alternative ways of life could well improve not only the individual, but an entire civilisation.

Cannes is now over which means it’s time to move to Britain as the Edinburgh Film Festival kicks off!

We’ve just been sent the full line-up for the 2012 Edinburgh Film Festival which is now in it’s 66th year. We have our people (Jamie, Steven and Emma) on the ground at the event right now ready to catch as many films as they possible can throughout the next wee or two as we get to see 121 new features and 19 world premieres.

I’ll let the full press release below do the talking but let us know what you’re looking forward to in the comments section below.

World Premieres:

Berberian Sound Studio Borrowed Time Day Of The Flowers Exit Elena Flying Blind Fred Future My Love Guinea Pigs Here, Then Leave It On The Track The Life And Times Of Paul The Psychic Octopus Life Just Is Mnl...

The full programme for the 66th edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff), which runs from 20 June to 1 July, has been officially announced and will feature nineteen World premieres and thirteen International premieres.

The Festival will showcase one hundred and twenty-one new features from fifty-two countries, including eleven European premieres and seventy-six UK premieres in addition to the World and International premieres. Highlights include the World premieres of Richard Ledes’ Fred; Nathan Silver’s Exit Elena and Benjamin Pascoe’s Leave It On The Track and European premieres of Lu Sheng’s Here, There and Yang Jung-ho’s Mirage in the maiden New Perspectives section; and the International premiere of Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabio and Laurent Cantet’s 7 Days In Havana and the European premiere of Bobcat Goldthwait’s God Bless America in the Directors’ Showcase. In addition to the new features presented,...