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A total of 166 films have been submitted for consideration in the documentary feature category for the 91st Academy Awards.

Notable titles up for the gold include “Rbg,” “Three Identical Strangers,” “Free Solo” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — which have performed strongly at the box office. Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” has grossed $22.6 million domestically.

Nine of the 10 titles named as finalists for the International Documentary Association’s top feature are on the list, including “Crime + Punishment,” “Dark Money,” “Free Solo,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” “Minding the Gap,” “Of Fathers and Sons,” “The Silence of Others,” “United Skates” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences noted that several of the 166 films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying runs. A shortlist of 15 movies will be announced on Dec. 17.

Nominations...

A whopping 166 documentary features have been submitted to the academy for consideration at the 2019 Oscars. That is down by four from last year’s record 170 submissions. Among these contenders are all of the highest grossing documentaries of the year including “Free Solo,” “Rbg” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”

To winnow the entries down to the 15 semi-finalists that will be announced on December 17, the academy is sending monthly packages of the newly eligible documentary feature screeners to all 400 or so members of the documentary branch. While all members are encouraged to watch as many of these as they can, one-fifth of the voters are assigned each title. In late November, each branch member will submit a preferential ballot listing their top 15 choices.

See 2019 Oscars: Foreign-language film entries from A (Afghanistan) to Y (Yemen)

All of these ballots will be collated to determine the 15 semi-finalists. Branch members will then be...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said today that 166 films have been submitted for Feature Documentary consideration for the 91st Academy Awards. Among them are box office success stories Rgb, Three Identical Strangers, Free Solo and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

The Academy notes that several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category’s other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process. This year, for the first time, films that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival or have been submitted in the Foreign Language Film category as their country’s official selection, are also eligible in the category.

A shortlist of 15 films will be announced on December 17, and Oscar nominations will be unveil January 22. The hardware...

Adam Carolla is motoring into streaming TV.

Next week, Chassy Media — the production and distribution company founded by Carolla and Nathan Adams dedicated to all things motor sports — will launch a channel exclusively on Pluto TV, the free, ad-supported TV-like streaming service. The Chassy channel will feature a rotating lineup of documentaries, feature films and TV shows covering the passion, culture and history of automobiles, motorcycles, racing, and vintage cars.

The Chassy channel is slated to launch on Pluto TV next Tuesday (Aug. 21). Under the terms of the agreement, Chassy will be exclusive to Pluto TV for one year.

Established in 2016, Chassy Media offers titles from its catalog for sale on its website as DVDs or downloads. Now, with Pluto TV, Carolla — comedian, author, host of “The Adam Carolla Show” podcast, director and producer — is expanding his brand into streaming television, in the hopes of reaching a wider audience for Chassy’s programming.

Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s Russian dash cam movie, The Road Movie, opens in a bevy of Us cinemas today. Oscilloscope is going all out for this release, their biggest theatrical run for any of their acquisitions, so we imagine there should be no issue finding a local multiplex near you playing this film. A mosaic of asphalt adventures, landscape photography, and some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s The Road Movie is a stunning compilation of video footage shot exclusively via the deluge of dashboard cameras that populate Russian roads. The epitome of a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it documentary, The Road Movie captures a wide range of spectacles through the windshield — including a comet crashing down to Earth, an epic forest fire, and no shortage...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The Road Movie is more of a YouTube compilation than a documentary. If you’ve spent any time on the internet, you may have come across some of the many, many compilation videos of cars getting into accidents. What you may not know is that most of them come from Russian dashcam cameras. The Road Movie […]

The post ‘The Road Movie’ Offers an Insane Journey Through Dangerous Russian Roads appeared first on /Film.

If you have spent any time lost in the YouTube wormhole, you have probably seen some of the crazy car accident footage that has been uploaded and archived by witnesses, usually from cheap cameras mounted at the front windshield of their cars. It might also surprise you that the vast majority of these clips come from Eastern Europe, mainly Russia. Why? Director Dimitrii Kalashnikov opined at the Q&A of the film that trust is not a big thing in Russian public life, and more than half of Russian drivers have dash mounted cameras to avoid situations of other drivers lying about what happened, and also rampant police corruption. The tagline for The Road Movie, a sumptuously curated and exquisitely edited collection of dash camera footage...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

This movie looks coco-bananas and a fun time at the movies. “The Road Movie” is a collection of crazy events that were captured on Russian streets from the point of view of a convoy of roaming cars’ dashcams. It has to be seen to be believed. Check out the trailer above: A mosaic of asphalt […]

The post The Road Movie Gets A New Trailer appeared first on Shockya.com.

As you can see from the crazy trailer, it can be easy to dismiss The Road Movie as YouTube: The Movie. It’s a fair assessment of the trailer, but the pull quote “Jackass meets Faces of Death” led me to pursue it. It shares virtually nothing in common with either of those, mind you. But this looked 100% made for me. A little background: I don’t remember much about quick entertainment before YouTube. Quick fixes turn into endless hours of deep diving into the internet’s video database. My friend and I used to watch crazy compilations on YouTube in which we adopted the phrase “only in Russia!” This was in reaction to a reoccurring clips of dash cam footage with a pulsing electronic track in the background, in which something absolutely insane happens. They were always the favorite bits. Russia (among Many other countries) have dash cams on a pretty standard basis,...

I’d like to know the regulations for automobile tires in Russia because Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s dash-cam compilation documentary The Road Movie has too many violent fishtails and gravity-enforced overturns to not have its audience infer the country as being riddled with bald tires. Some incidents occur in snowy conditions, but others don’t. Speed surely plays a factor alongside a weirdly calm yet psychotic form of road rage too, but the numbers are still too high to ignore. He probably could have filled the entire 67-minute runtime with these accidents if doing so wouldn’t inevitably get old fast. You can only watch so many examples of the same type of tragedy before growing bored of the monotony. The drivers’ vocal commentary helps, but Kalashnikov knows he needs to raise the stakes too.

The “art” of Russian dash-cam movies sparked interest in the United States after footage of a...

Much of the Western world first learned about the weird, wonderful, and bizarre culture of Russian dashboard cameras in 2013, when the Chelyabinsk meteor blazed across the Ural Mountains and was captured on a multitude of low-grade lenses. Now, there is a documentary set to open in this nation next year from Oscilloscope Laboratories composed solely of Russian automobile footage.

Entitled The Road Movie, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s feature premiered at the 2016 International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam and played at the prestigious True/False Film Festival. Judging from the just-premiered trailer and its plethora of descriptive pull quotes, The Road Movie promises to be a “can’t believe your eyes” extravaganza, featuring armed road rage, bears, forest fires, and tanks.

See the trailer and poster below.

A mosaic of asphalt adventures, landscape photography, and some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s The Road Movie is a...

A mosaic of asphalt adventures, landscape photography, and some of the craziest sh*t you’ve ever seen, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s The Road Movie is a stunning compilation of video footage shot exclusively via the deluge of dashboard cameras that populate Russian roads.

“Somewhere between Jackass and Faces Of Death lies the queasy allure of The Road Movie.” - Dennis Harvey, Variety

The epitome of a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it documentary, The Road Movie captures a wide range of spectacles through the windshield — including a comet crashing down to Earth, an epic forest fire, and no shortage of angry motorists taking road rage to wholly new and unexpected levels — all accompanied by bemused commentary from unseen and often stoic drivers and passengers.

The Road Movie smashes into cinemas January 19th.

  Movie Trailers for The Strangers: Prey at Night, A Quiet Place, Rampage, & More New teaser trailers and full movie trailers for mainstream, independent, and documentary films have been released by numerous movie studios. These movies include: The Strangers: Prey at Night, A Quiet Place, Rampage, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation, The Road Movie, and The Mercy. A [...]

Continue reading: Movie Trailers: The Strangers 2, A Quiet Place, The Rock Tries to Stop a Rampage, & More...

A trailer has been released for a new documentary called The Road Movie and it looks absolutely bonkers. This is a feature-length film that is basically a collection of some crazy footage captured from Russian dash cams. Good Lord, there's a lot of crazy shit that's caught on camera! Here's the synopsis:

A mosaic of asphalt adventures, landscape photography, and some of the craziest shit you’ve ever seen, Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s The Road Movie is a stunning compilation of video footage shot exclusively via the deluge of dashboard cameras that populate Russian roads. The epitome of a you-have- to-see- it-to- believe-it documentary, The Road Movie captures a wide range of spectacles through the windshield—including a comet crashing down to Earth, an epic forest fire, and no shortage of angry motorists taking road rage to wholly new and unexpected levels—all accompanied by bemused commentary from unseen and often stoic drivers and passengers.

Ready for a wild road trip? Then buckle-up for The Road Movie trailer. The film is a compilation of dashboard camera footage shot across various roads in Russia, and it looks wild. This is one of those weirdo ideas that almost seems like a joke, but is apparently very real. And that’s worth getting excited about. The […]

The post ‘The Road Movie’ Trailer: The Crazy Dash-Cam Documentary You Never Knew You Needed appeared first on /Film.

"World-class stupidity..." Oscilloscope Labs has unveiled a new official trailer for the brutal, the crazy, the wild, the epic documentary known as The Road Movie (or also Дорога in Russian), compiled entirely of dash cam footage from Russia. This doc played at Idfa, True/False, Sheffield, Zurich, Denver, and other film festivals and will be hitting theaters in January. One of the descriptions makes this seem a little over the top: "Super objective dashboard-cam videos grow into a strong image of the Russian national character, permanently awaiting for a miracle and the habitual approach to real dramas. Everything can happen on the road of... life." Apparently so. This seems like it should play well to Us right audiences now. This trailer is packed with some very bold, vicious quotes that don't really make me any more interested in this. Have fun. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Dmitrii Kalashnikov's The Road Movie,...

To say that Russians are insane conjures up different ideas of what insane is, pending what corner of the World you are observing them from. Do not take our word for it. Thankfully for the rest of the World the Russian populace's obsession with dash cams has collected evidence from their bowl of collective crazy for everyone to see.   Filmmaker Dmitrii Kalashnikov (I mean, come on, he has the same name as the gun!!!) has gathered together the best bits, the creme de la crazy, and created The Road Movie, a documentary with over an hour of mind blowing footage. Oscilliscope Pictures is releasing The Road Movie on January 19th and Screen Anarchy is pleased to debut the trailer for this jaw dropping documentary. ...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

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...

Toni Erdmann star Sandra Hüller features in latest project from the director of Friendship!.

Sony’s Deutsche Columbia Pictures Filmproduktion and Studio Babelsberg’s in-house production arm Traumfabrik Babelsberg are co-producing Friendship! director Markus Goller’s latest feature project 25 Km/H, which began shooting in Baden-Württemberg this week.

The road movie stars Lars Eidinger (The Bloom of Yesterday), Bjarne Mädel (Tatortreiniger), Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann), Alexandra Maria Lara (Rush) and Jella Haase (Fack Ju Göhte).

The project is the first to go into production for Goller and screenwriter Oliver Ziegenbalg’s recently formed production company Sunny Side Up, and is also in co-production with Deutsche Columbia, Pictures in a Frame, Mythos Film, Traumfabrik Babelsberg and the single-purpose company 26th Babelsberg Film.

25 Km/H is Goller and Ziegenbalg’s first collaboration since their 2010 film Friendship! which was the most successful German film of that year with more than 1.5 million admissions.

That film was produced by The Live Of...

For fans of arthouse theaters, the power of the big screen experience, and indie film in general, the now-annual Art House Theater Day offers up the chance to combine all those obsessions into one single event. Bolstered by the success of last year’s inaugural event, The Art House Convergence — an international organization of independent, community-based, mission-driven movie theaters — has now announced their plans for their second annual Art House Theater Day.

This year’s event will take place on Sunday, September 24, 2017, and over 150 theaters are currently on deck to offer up special film programs in what is billed as a “nationwide celebration of the cultural and community growth that art house theaters promote.”

Read More7 Filmmakers Turning Amazon Into An Art House Cinema Powerhouse

Per its mission, “Art House Theater Day celebrates the legacy of independent theaters as advocates for cinematic arts. In an age where media has become more digital than tangible,...

Shiloh Fernandez has joined the cast of Green Dolphin in a key supporting role. 

As previously announced, the coming-of-age film stars Justine Skye, Tyler Dean Flores and Seann William Scott. 

The road movie follows 15-year-old Robinson (Flores) and 20-year-old Keesha (JSkye) as they venture cross-country in an attempt to escape the grasp of abusive foster parent and drug-dealer Martin (Scott). When they break down midway, Keesha and Robinson meet Edwin (Fernandez) and a new family that could turn their life around. 

Written and directed by Chris Kenneally (in his narrative feature film debut), Green Dolphin is being produced...

For the twenty-first summer in a row, Rooftop Films will be screening some of the best in independent and documentary film in unique outdoor setting all across the New York City. In that time, they have been the first to identify some of the best filmmaking talent in the world, and through their Filmmakers Fund they’ve backed these filmmakers breakout projects.

Past grantees have included Ana Lily Amirpour’s “The Bad Batch,” David Lowery’s “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” Benh Zeitlin’s “Glory at Sea,” Lucy Walker’s “The Tsunami” and many more.

Rooftop digs up gems and shorts that haven’t been getting a ton of word of mouth and shares them – along with popular festival titles like “The Big Sick”– with their dedicated and artistically curious audience who have come to trust their curation.

IndieWire recently checked in with Rooftop program director Dan Nuxoll to find out what films and filmmakers we should have on our radar for 2017.

What film has fallen through the festival cracks this year?

Certainly “The Genius and the Opera Singer” hasn’t yet gotten nearly the love it deserves, but I hope that changes soon. It’s a powerful dark comic documentary that certainly goes to some emotionally difficult places, but watching it is an undeniably unique experience. We showed it this past Saturday and the audience reaction was even more positive than I anticipated. The crowd loved it, despite some heavy moments. It’s a very well-crafted and expertly-edited film and it’s much more entertaining than one might expect. It’s Vanessa Stockley’s first film and it’s a revelation.

I’m also a big fan of Jeff Unay’s “The Cage Fighter,” which is a beautifully shot and very intimate and personal film that premiered at San Francisco a couple of months ago – it’s a gorgeous doc. Plus Morten Traavik and Ugis Olte’s “Liberation Day” is a boisterous and fascinating film about Laibach, who are a very strange strange but wonderful cult Slovenian band who have a very fascist aesthetic and who somehow convince the North Korean government to allow them to perform there. It’s a very enjoyable provocation.

You were the first one to tip me off to Ana Lily Amirpour and Jonas Carpignano. What up and coming filmmaker should we paying to, but we aren’t?

Dave McCary. His film “Brigsby Bear” premiered at Sundance and got very strong reviews but I don’t think it has yet gotten nearly the attention it deserves. McCary and star Kyle Mooney had a successful sketch comedy group and later joined SNL, so going into the premiere I assumed the film would be funny, but I will admit I didn’t have particularly high expectations otherwise. But I definitely underestimate them–it’s strikingly well executed and the comic and emotional components of the film are expertly balanced.

And beyond that, McCary has a unique touch that you rarely see in comedy films–an ability to dance around the character arcs and emotional trajectory of the characters without ever slipping into maudlin sentimentality and never losing the absurd comic energy. Whenever it seems that the film is about to head someplace conventional, McCary injects a perfectly timed comic turnabout that propels the film forward, but never quite in the direction you expect.

There have been a lot of really good dark indie comedies this year, but “Brigsby” is as funny as any of them while also being full of light and warmth and emotional generosity. It’s a special film and I hope that enough people see it so that it becomes a classic and not just a cult classic.

What’s one film in your lineup that does something new and exciting with the medium?

I was blown away by Amman Abbassi’s “Dayveon.” There have been a lot of independent coming of age films over the years, but few of them manage to balance realism and lyrical artistry quite as wonderfully as this debut feature. Capturing the warmth of an Arkansas summer and the emotional confusion of a thirteen year old struggling after the murder of his older brother, Abbassi establishes himself as a sensitive filmmaker with the ability to evoke a delicate subjective experience.

And on the doc side?

I knew the filmmaker Maple Rasza back in college but hadn’t caught up with him in a while and a few months back a mutual friend tipped me off to his latest project, a really exceptional interactive film he has made with Milton Guillen called “The Maribor Uprising: A Live Participatory Film.” He and Milton shot footage from a series of massive protests in Slovenia following some incidents involving comically flagrant government corruption, and instead of turning it into a traditional documentary they created an interactive project in which Maple leads the audience through the footage. The audience can choose to follow different protestors, decide whether to follow the law or follow the less peaceful demonstrators, and much more. We have long been a champion of live cinema events, like those created by Brent and Sam Green, but this film is an interesting variation on the form. Plus it just happens to be a very timely project. I’m really excited for that show.

Also, Dmitri Kalashnikov’s “The Road Movie” is a very fun comic documentary composed entirely of wild footage captured by hundreds of Russian automobile dash cams. It’s a very weird way to experience the Russian road. I loved every minute of it.

What film introduced you to a world you didn’t know anything about?

We showed Yuri Ancarani’s stunning short film “il Capo” a few years back and ever since I have been excited to see what he would do with a feature film. Sure enough, his new documentary “The Challenge” did not disappoint. He somehow managed to convince secretive Qatari sheikhs to let him film their bizarre and decadent lives as they prepare for the massive falconry competitions they hold deep in the desert. The footage he captured is arresting, hilarious and profound. There is barely a word spoken in the entire film but you will never want to look away. I have never seen anything like it.

You always put shorts front and center at Rooftop and dig into the best international short films. I remember two years ago you talking about how there was an inordinate amount of great shorts coming out of Sweden, what you find this year?

Yeah, a lot of those great Swedish short filmmakers are now doing pretty well. Ruben Ostlund just won Cannes after all, and he was one of the talented Swedes I was talking about back then. And there are some truly wonderful new Swedish shorts this year as well – I am particularly fond of “I Will Always Love You Conny,” by Amanda Kernell. It’s a heartbreaking short.

But my favorite short of the year is a Swedish animation that we gave a grant to called “The Burden” by Niki LIndroth Von Behr. It won Gothenburg, and it’s part of a trend that I have noticed lately of a surge in very, very talented young female animators. Ten years ago an animated shorts program would be packed with films by men, and that is definitely not the case anymore. It’s exciting to see women animators from all over the world coming to the fore. We opened the summer with an animated film by a woman and we will end the summer with one, too, and that isn’t a coincidence.

Rooftop Films Summer Festival runs through August 19th. You can find more information here.

Related stories'Brigsby Bear' Teaser Trailer: Kyle Mooney Introduces You to A Highly Original Summer Indie'The Big Sick,' 'The Bad Batch' and More Announced for Rooftop Films' 2017 Summer Series2017 Cannes Critics' Week Announces Lineup, Including 'Brigsby Bear' and Animation From Iran...

Rooftop Films has announced its lineup for the 2017 Summer Series. This year’s series will feature more than 45 outdoor screenings in more than 10 venues, including films like Michael Showalter’s Sundance hit “The Big Sick” Ana Lily Amirpour’s “The Bad Batch,” (dates still Tbd).

The series kicks off on Friday, May 19 with “This is What We Mean by Short Films,” a collection of some of the most innovative, new short films of the past year. The screening will take place on the roof of The Old American Can Factory, in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The following night, Saturday, May 20, Rooftop will present a sneak preview screening of Zoe Lister-Jones’ 2017 Sundance entry, “Band Aid,” free and outdoors at House of Vans in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The entire lineup so far is below. Tickets are already for sale.

Friday, May 19

“This is What We Mean by Short Films”

Saturday, May 20

“Band Aid” (Zoe Lister-Jones)

Saturday,...

Keep up with the wild and wooly world of indie film acquisitions with our weekly Rundown of everything that’s been picked up around the globe. Check out last week’s Rundown here.

– Gunpowder & Sky Distribution has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to April Mullen’s “Below Her Mouth.” Shot entirely with a female crew, the film tells the story of an unexpected romance between two women whose passionate connection changes their lives forever.

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2016, and it went on to screen at Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Mar Del Plata International Film Festival, and Goteborg Film Festival. It will also play at BFI Flare: London’s Lgbt festival in March.

Gunpowder & Sky Distribution will release the film on April 28, 2017, theatrically and across all major On Demand platforms, including iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, Microsoft Movies & TV, Verizon FiOS, and DirecTV.

The film stars Lola Kirke, Zoë Kravitz and John Cho.

Tom Quinn and Tim League’s new distributor Neon has swooped on Us rights to Aaron Katz’s crime mystery Gemini in a deal with ICM Partners.

Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions financed and retains international rights.

Lola Kirke and Zoë Kravitz star as a personal assistant and her Hollywood starlet boss whose relationship is tested by a shocking crime. John Cho also stars.

Mynette Louie produced Gemini with Sara Murphy and the recent best picture Oscar-winning producer of Moonlight, Adele Romanski.

The film is presented by filmscience and is a Syncopated Films and Pastel Production in association with Rough House Pictures.

Oscilloscope Laboratories has acquired North American rights from Syndicado to Dmitrii Kalashnikov’s Russian documentary The Road Movie and will release theatrically later this year.Abramorama will handle North American theatrical distribution of John Scheinfeld’s documentary Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary starting in New...