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With many annual awards ceremonies, even those that brand themselves celebrators of indie filmmaking, seemingly highlighting films that don’t necessarily need the boost, it’s refreshing when one truly highlights the indie spirit. Enter The Indie Awards, “an annual event dedicated to celebrating the spirit of truly independent filmmaking,” backed by Slamdance. Ahead of a ceremony taking place on December 9, 2024, at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, they’ve now unveiled their nominees.

Among a few picking up multiple nominations are Ryan Martin Brown’s Free Time and Vera Drew’s The People’s Joker, two stellar films we recently named among the best of 2024. Also nominated in the Best Narrative Feature section is Chloé Leriche’s Atikamekw Suns.

Co-founded by Ben Umstead, Paul Rachman, and Peter Baxter, the pool of films being considered could not have their premieres at some of the bigger “indie” festivals but...

Slamdance is celebrating the best indie films from 2024 with an inaugural awards ceremony aptly called The Indies. The Slamdance Film Festival announced Wednesday that its new annual ceremony will toast “the spirit of truly independent filmmaking” on December 9 at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. Actor/comedians Nic Novicki and Steve Way (“Ramy”) will host.

An interesting caveat, though: For films to be eligible at the ceremony, features must not have held their world premieres at Sundance, SXSW, or Tribeca. However, nominees must have played at one or more domestic film festivals over the last calendar year leading into the ceremony. The Indies also are staying domestic, with a focus on narrative and documentary features from filmmakers only in North America.

“Independent U.S. and Indigenous filmmakers feel neglected and abandoned,” said co-founder Paul Rachman in a press statement. “The current landscape for recognizing fresh voices in cinema has never...

Slamdance, the indie film festival established almost 30 years ago in response to the cultural monolith of Sundance, is unveiling its first ever awards show franchise.

“The Indies” will be an annual ceremony celebrating “the spirit of truly independent filmmaking,” according to organizers. The inaugural event is set for Dec. 9 at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. Comedian-actors Nic Novicki and Steve Way (“Ramy”) will host.

The Indies will focus on narrative and documentary features from filmmakers in North America. Eligible movies must have played at one or more domestic film festivals held over the calendar year. There’s an added guardrail to keep The Indies as cutting edge as possible: movies that set world premieres at Sundance, SXSW or Tribeca are not eligible for a trophy.

“The U.S. indie film sector is struggling, with only a handful of streamers and studios actively acquiring indie films — and it’s not enough.

As Locarno’s 8,000-strong Piazza Grande audience welcomed Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan on stage Saturday evening, a much smaller crowd congregated across the way for an alternative film event.

Organized by local left-wing cooperative Coordinamento Unico a sostegno della Palestina/ Coordination in support of Palestine (Cusp), a group of local activists and out-of-towners, mostly Locarno festival delegates, huddled around a pop-up projector for an evening of film screenings about Palestine.

The pop-up event was hosted on a piece of green next to the Teatro di Locarno, the festival’s venue for press screenings, a few meters back from the large Piazza Grande screen. The event began with a book drive where literature on Palestinian history and merch like keffiyeh scarves were sold. The demo proved controversial with many unaffiliated people passing by the event and stopping to voice their displeasure.

“Return the hostages and we’ll stop the bombs,...

A footage used in the film quotes President Obama's 2009 Cairo speech: “America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable today, unbreakable tomorrow, unbreakable forever.” This is this idea that Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen have decided to investigate here. “Israelism” more specifically explores the narrative constructed around Israel through the experiences of two young Jewish American citizens, Simone and Eithan, whose perspectives offer a unique lens through which to understand the complexities of Israel's storytelling and its impact on broader political perceptions.

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It is important to keep in mind that this documentary was shot prior to the October 7th, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack and the bloody retaliation in Gaza still ongoing as of June 2024, when this review is written. This context makes the subject highly sensitive, yet the film is even more pertinent for comprehending the ongoing cacophony among Biden's administration.

“Israelism,” a timely documentary exploring changing Jewish attitudes toward Israel, has been acquired by newly-launched distributor Watermelon Pictures for North America.

The film, the directorial debut of Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, premiered at the 2023 Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and went on to win multiple awards, including an audience award at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It will be released in theaters and on digital platforms nationwide early this summer.

As per the synopsis, “Israelism” is an “eye-opening and essential exploration of the dramatic shift in Jewish attitudes toward Israel, informed by Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, revealing a deepening generational divide over modern Jewish identity.”

The film centers on two young American Jews, Simone Zimmerman and Eitan, who are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military, while Zimmerman supports Israel on “the other battlefield:” America’s college campuses. When...

Cph: Dox, Copenhagen’s International Documentary Festival, has set the full lineup for its 2024 edition, including 84 world premieres, 32 international premieres, and 9 European premieres.

Running March 13-24, the festival will feature six competition categories: Dox: Award, F: Act Award, Nordic: Dox Award, Next: Wave Award, New: Vision Award, and the new Human: Rights Award.

Musician Pete Doherty will attend the festival for a screening of Peter Doherty: Stranger in My Own Skin. The event will take place on March 18 at Bremen Theater, when he and the film’s director Katia de Vidas – who became Doherty’s wife over the ten years she followed him with her camera – openly discuss the substance abuse that has shadowed his entire career. After the screening, Doherty will give an acoustic concert. Other high-profile titles include Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s Gaucho Gaucho, Carla Gutierrez’s Frida, Yance Ford’s Power,...

Israelism is the controversial new documentary about the ways in which our perception of Israel and its relationship to Judaism has changed in recent years, and how some young American Jews are pushing back. It's not really fair, though, to call it controversial; anything even tangentially related to Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, or Judaism as a monolith risks being controversial, especially in the past two months.

The filmmakers behind Israelism, Erin Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, always knew their movie would be controversial, but obviously never planned for it to become intertwined with the worst situation between Israel and Palestine in decades. They began filming interviews seven years ago, working on Israelism on and off until the film first hit the film festival circuit in February 2023. It began to make the rounds with various screenings, garnering controversy for its subject, but when Israel suffered the loss of 1,200 people on Oct.

The documentary Israelism explores how many young Jews are questioning their previously unwavering support for Israel's political and militaristic actions. Israelism has become extremely timely in light of Oct. 7th and the subsequent mass killings in Gaza, making it one of the year's most important documentaries. The film sheds light on the collapsing definitions of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and finds a great lead in Simone Zimmerman.

War and religion are all about real estate. Yes, that's reductive, but in many ways, the Abrahamic religions all chronicle people who had a home, were then exiled from their home, and hope to return. The problem of a shared idea of home is that one location cannot contain more than its physical space allots. This is the history of borders and Israel in a cracked, dusty nutshell, and we've seen the atrocious results of this play out over the past two months.

A new documentary argues some young Jewish Americans – including the directors themselves – have been raised in a system that demands pro-Israel activism

Erin Axelman was a fervent Zionist by the time they reached high school in the late 2000s. For their bat mitzvah, they had received a copy of Exodus by Leon Uris. The 1958 novel, one of the bestselling books of the decade, tells a story about the creation of the Israeli state that helped cement American Zionism. “It’s this kind of heroic, almost mythical tale of the creation of the state of Israel and it was incredibly empowering,” Axelman said.

After reading Exodus, Axelman “became obsessed with Israel”, they said. “I considered joining the Israeli military and fantasized about moving there.” They latched on to the story of Jews returning home.