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The titular sports car of Robin Schavoir’s The Jag is parked in an imaginary space off-stage at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, where the play is currently running in a production directed by Paul Felten. The existence of this symbolic object structures the matrix of resentment, envy and desire searchingly embodied by The Jag‘s on-stage trio: struggling screenwriter Tyler (Gilles Geary), rich guy art collector Brian (Mickey Solis), and nursing student Cori (Giovanna Drummond). (A fourth character, the renter of the Catskills home the three converge at, and voiced by a “downtown icon,” is only heard via recited emails […]

The post “It’s Really Sharp on the Neurotic Relationships that Americans Have with Money”: Robin Schavoir and Paul Felten Discuss The Jag first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The titular sports car of Robin Schavoir’s The Jag is parked in an imaginary space off-stage at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research, where the play is currently running in a production directed by Paul Felten. The existence of this symbolic object structures the matrix of resentment, envy and desire searchingly embodied by The Jag‘s on-stage trio: struggling screenwriter Tyler (Gilles Geary), rich guy art collector Brian (Mickey Solis), and nursing student Cori (Giovanna Drummond). (A fourth character, the renter of the Catskills home the three converge at, and voiced by a “downtown icon,” is only heard via recited emails […]

The post “It’s Really Sharp on the Neurotic Relationships that Americans Have with Money”: Robin Schavoir and Paul Felten Discuss The Jag first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

I’ve spent my offline hours producing The Jag, a new play that runs from June 21 to July 6 at the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research. Even without some of my fingerprints, this makes a curiously cinema-centered creative team: directed by Paul Felten (Slow Machine) and written by Robin Schavoir (The Plagiarists), it combines the lo-fi grittiness and observant humor that have defined either’s output. If you’re listening to this show, odds say what you know about theater could comfortably fit on a cocktail napkin. Thus I’m here to tell you The Jag is an ideal reintroduction to the medium, and––as a sign of confidence––offer up a 30% discount with the code Filmstage upon your ticket purchase.

For this episode I spoke with Felten about the play’s germination, evolution, and the feelings that come with being just hours from debuting a new production. Then, a conversation...

NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.

Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research

In anticipation of The Jag, a new play produced by yours truly, Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo present Jean-François Stévenin’s Mountain Pass on Friday.

Film at Lincoln Center

Films by Antonioni, Buñuel, and more play in a retrospective of Monica Vitti.

Anthology Film Archives

Films by Stan Brakhage play in Essential Cinema.

Roxy Cinema

Tongues Untied screens on Friday; Dressed In Blue, Three Bewildered People In the Night, and The Wild Boys show Saturday; Ratcatcher plays on Sunday.

Museum of the Moving Image

The Raid, District 13, Stagecoach, and Jackass 3D screen in “See It Big: Stunts!“; Alien shows Saturday and Sunday.

IFC Center

Ran continues in a 40th-anniversary restoration; Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Happiness play daily; Romeo + Juliet, To Live and Die in L.A., Audition, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang show late.

Mubi has unveiled next month’s streaming lineup, featuring David Cronenberg’s recent short Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection and Julie Dash’s 1977 short Diary of an African Nun. Other highlights include Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, on the occasion of Mubi’s theatrical release of Bird, alongside May Harron’s Psycho, Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s excellent indie Slow Machine, and a new restoration of Tunç Başaran’s Turkish classic Don’t Let Them Shoot the Kite.

They are also spotlighting Alanis Obomsawin in a special series, as their synopsis reads, “November is Native American Heritage Month in the United States, and Mubi is celebrating by spotlighting six films by Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. Obomsawin’s prolific documentary practice encompasses dozens of short and feature films produced across the past 50-plus years. This collection features six of Obomsawin’s most...

After sold-out showings of Godard and Rohmer my screening series Amnesiascope closes out this summer with a personal 2020s favorite that still demands proper place and consideration. On Wednesday, August 28––that’s eight days from now––the Brooklyn Center for Theatre Research will present Slow Machine with filmmakers Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo in attendance alongside star Scott Shepherd (most recently seen in Killers of the Flower Moon and The Last of Us) for a post-screening Q&a.

Premiering at Rotterdam about a month before the onset of Covid-19, showing in a predominantly online NYFF, and given a hybrid theatrical-virtual release by Grasshopper Film during the pandemic’s waning days, Slow Machine has experienced a life cycle that’s made discovery somewhat difficult. But the work’s far from impenetrable, its many shapes––simmering thriller, Rivettian game of shifting identity, and musical documentary shot on 16mm that puts recent “gritty...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke

One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)

In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry...

The U.S. lineup for films coming to Mubi this September has been announced, featuring some of my personal favorites of the last few years, notably Philippe Lesage’s severely overlooked coming-of-age drama Genesis, John Gianvito’s Helen Keller documentary Her Socialist Smile, Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten’s formally thrilling Slow Machine, and Robert Greene’s documentary Bisbee ’17, as well as Jia Zhangke’s latest release Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue.

Also in the lineup is Bill Forsyth’s delightful Gregory’s Girl, Ari Folman’s hybrid feature The Congress, and Manoel de Oliveira’s Visit, or Memories and Confession, which was made in 1982, and only allowed to screen after his death.

See the lineup below and get 30 days free here.

September 1 | Yellow Cat | Adilkhan Yerzhanov | Festival Focus: Venice

September 2 | Visit, or Memories and Confessions | Manoel de Oliveira | Rediscovered

September 3 | Slow Machine | Joe DeNardo, Paul Felten | Mubi Spotlight

September...

Originally published out of Rotterdam 2020, this interview with the creators and star of Slow Machine is being republished today alongside the film’s release from Grasshopper Film. It is currently available for streaming through Metrograph. Kudos to the author of the unusually compelling copy for Slow Machine in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s catalogue. The elephantine program, encompassing more than 500 films whose wild assortment of lengths, genres and formats defies any attempt at meaningful categorization (its four main sections this year were split into 23 subsections) is filled with gems, but offers scant assistance in discovering those not already […]

The post “Our Crew was Three People”: Slow Machine’s Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo and Stephanie Hayes on Their Rivette-Inspired Punk Thriller first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Originally published out of Rotterdam 2020, this interview with the creators and star of Slow Machine is being republished today alongside the film’s release from Grasshopper Film. It is currently available for streaming through Metrograph. Kudos to the author of the unusually compelling copy for Slow Machine in the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s catalogue. The elephantine program, encompassing more than 500 films whose wild assortment of lengths, genres and formats defies any attempt at meaningful categorization (its four main sections this year were split into 23 subsections) is filled with gems, but offers scant assistance in discovering those not already […]

The post “Our Crew was Three People”: Slow Machine’s Paul Felten, Joe DeNardo and Stephanie Hayes on Their Rivette-Inspired Punk Thriller first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

It’s rare that a new American film feels genuinely alive with possibility from beginning to end. So many of the logistical, economic, and technological decisions that go into making a movie in the United States are designed to suffocate artistic vision in favor of audience accessibility. Which means something infinitely strange and fractured like Slow Machine feels all the more essential, an eccentric celluloid shape-shifter shot on 16mm that playfully upends the tropes of narrative storytelling.

Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s low-fi genre buster follows Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes), a Swedish, Brooklyn-based actress of experimental theater who meets a mysterious government agent named Gerard (Scott Sheperd). Instead of being thrown into a world of intrigue and clandestine operations, Stephanie must endure Gerard’s casual seductions and awkward theorizing, much of which revolves around his unseen fiancé’s thesis on narrative archetypes in pornography.

Their interactions are depicted mostly in flashback,...

"What's her deal?" Grasshopper Film has unveiled a trailer for an intriguing, experimental indie film titled Slow Machine, the feature directorial debut of filmmakers Joe Denardo & Paul Felten. This premiered at the 2020 Rotterdam Film Festival last year, and also played at the New York Film Festival and Vienna Film Festival. After a brief relationship with intelligence agent Gerard ends terribly, tired & disillusioned actress Stephanie hides in a house where a band is working on a record, which proves to be less of an escape than she imagined. This one stars Stephanie Hayes, Scott Shepherd, Eleanor Friedberger, and Chloë Sevigny. Described as a "miniature epic of music, murder, espionage, and paranoia." Sounds freaky. This looks a bit too experimental for my tastes, but I still appreciate unique and creative cinematic work like this. Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Joe Denardo & Paul Felten's Slow Machine, direct from YouTube: Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actress,...

An out-of-the-blue surprise from last year’s festival circuit, Slow Machine is a simmering thriller, Rivettian game of shifting identity, musical documentary, and showcase for 16mm photography that puts the recent spate of “gritty” indies to shame. At its heart is the stunning newcomer Stephanie Hayes, supported by Scott Shepherd (seen next year in Killers of the Flower Moon), musician Eleanor Friedberger (more or less playing herself), and a haunting appearance by Chloë Sevigny.

Calling Slow Machine a discovery would undersell it by leagues, so it’s our fortune the film arrives June 4 via Grasshopper Film, who’ve debuted a trailer evincing why our summer preview said Joe DeNardo and Paul Felten’s feature “sets a high bar for the fertile experimental New York indie scene.” And good luck getting that music out of your head.

Watch the trailer below:

The post Chloë Sevigny and Eleanor Friedberger Open a World...

Stephanie Hayes, Chloe Sevigny, Eleanor Friedberger and more star in the new trailer for Slow Machine, a thriller film co-directed by Joe Denardo and Paul Felten that saw its premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam last year. The film also screened at the New York Film Festival last October.

Slow Machine centers on Stephanie (played by Hayes), a disillusioned actress whose tumultuous breakup with an intelligence agent, Gerard (Scott Shepherd), leads her to wanting an escape. Stephanie decides to hide inside a house where a band is recording an album,...

New York-based outfit Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Ephraim Asili’s debut feature, “The Inheritance,” following its premiere at Toronto and screening at the New York Film Festival.

Grasshopper Film is planning to have “The Inheritance” open on March 12 in New York at Film at Lincoln Center, as well as in other cities.

The ensemble film takes place almost entirely in a West Philadelphia house, where a community of young people come together to form a collective of Black artists and activists. Shot in 16 mm, the movie interweaves a scripted drama with a documentary recollection of the Philadelphia liberation group Move, which was the victim of a notorious police bombing in 1985.

A Pennsylvania-born filmmaker, Asili has been exploring different facets of the African diaspora for nearly a decade and “The Inheritance” is based on his own experiences in a Black liberationist group.

The film references legacies of the Black Arts Movement,...

New York-based distribution company Grasshopper Film has acquired North American rights to Valentyn Vasyanovych’s sci-fi drama “Atlantis,” Ukraine’s official selection for next year’s Academy Awards.

Represented in international markets by Belgian sales group Best Friend Forever, “Atlantis” played at Toronto, Rotterdam and Venice, where it won the best film award in the Horizons Competition. The critically acclaimed film was also selected for New Directors/New Films.

The movie, which is expected to be released theatrically early next year, is set in 2025. Eastern Ukraine in a desert unsuitable for human habitation and water is an expensive commodity brought by trucks. As a wall is being built on the border, Sergiy, a former soldier, is having trouble adapting to this new reality. He meets Katya while on the Black Tulip mission dedicated to exhuming war corpses. Together, they try to return to some sort of normal life in which...

Grasshopper Film has picked up North American distribution rights to Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo’s “Slow Machine,” ahead of the film’s premiere at the 58th annual New York Film Festival this week.

Set to release theatrically next year, the film is billed as a “miniature epic” of paranoia, espionage, subterfuge, music and performance on 16mm. It first bowed at January’s International Film Festival Rotterdam, one of the few physical film fests to take place ahead of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Slow Machine” follows Stephanie, a restless and vibrant actor, who meets a troubled counter-terrorism specialist who’s also an aficionado of experimental theater. Their relationship ends disastrously, and forces Stephanie to the ramshackle home of musician Eleanor Friedberger, where she’s haunted by violent memories of her past life.

“As moviegoers, we’ve seen the ‘Grasshopper Film’ logo in front of some of our favorite new and restored...

Samuel Goldwyn Films and Orion Pictures have acquired from CAA the mystery thriller Burn Country (formerly The Fixer) directed by Ian Olds.

Paul Felten and Olds wrote the screenplay to the film starring Tribeca Us Narrative Competition best actor winner Dominic Rains, Melissa Leo, James Franco, Rachel Brosnahan and Thomas Jay Ryan.

Mongrel International handles international sales in Toronto on the story of an Afghan man who served as a fixer for Western journalists during the war in Afghanistan.

When he settles in a small town in northern California and finds work as a crime reporter, the new arrival uncovers the town’s dark secrets.

Caroline von Kuhn’s Ace Productions produced in association with Night & Day Pictures, Rabbit Bandini Productions, Gigi Films, Amphora Pictures, Green Street Film Company, Heart-Headed Productions, Raa Ventures and Relic Pictures.

Samuel Goldwyn plans a December 9 day-and-date theatrical and VOD release.

Charlotte Mickie and her team will kick off sales on the Croisette on Ian Olds’ recent Tribeca winner.

CAA brokered the deal and represents North American rights to the film.

The Fixer stars Melissa Leo, James Franco, Rachel Brosnahan, Thomas Jay Ryan, and newcomer Dominic Rains, who won the Us narrative best actor prize for the title role in Tribeca.

The story follows a former fixer for Us journalists in Afghanistan who relocates to smalltown America where he becomes embroiled in a local mystery.

Olds and Paul Felten wrote the screenplay and Caroline von Kuhn’s Ace Productions produced in association with Night & Day Pictures, Rabbit Bandini Productions, Gigi Films, Amphora Films, Green Street Film Company, Heart-Headed Productions, Raa Ventures and Relic Pictures.

Mongrel International has boarded sales, excluding Canada and the U.S., on Tribeca title The Fixer. The deal was brokered by CAA, which has North America. The drama will make its market debut in Cannes next week. Directed by Ian Olds, who co-wrote with Paul Felten, it stars Melissa Leo, James Franco, Rachel Brosnahan, Thomas Jay Ryan, and newcomer Dominic Rains. Rains scooped the Best Actor prize at Tribeca last month. Inspired by Olds’ documentary about an Afghani guide…...

It would be a futile exercise to try to pigeonhole this filmmaker into one category and just looking at the work samples that have crossed into Sundance territory he has

2007’s short Bomb, brought an unproduced screenplay The Western Habit at the 2011 January Screenwriters Lab and was the editor on the 2013’s kink. However, Ian Olds is better known for his docu features contributions in Occupation: Dreamland (winner of a 2006 Independent Spirit Award) and Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. He has two different films on the burner with the Sffs backed (2011 Sffs / Hearst Screenwriting Grant Recipient and Fall 2013, Spring 2014 & Spring 2015 Sffs / Krf Filmmaking Grant Recipient) The Fixer (the feature film version) that might break in early 2016. Starring James Franco, Rachel Brosnahan, Melissa Leo and Dominic Rains, they were still making casting announcements in early August, but we’re feeling that this might have crossed the finish line in time.

The San Francisco Film Society, otherwise known as the Sffs, has picked the winners for its 2015 Hearst Screenwriting Grant Award. Brent Green and Thyra Heder, who are developing a stop-motion animated feature length film entitled, "Over the Eaves," will receive $15,000 to carry out their tale about a young boy whose inventions change the course of human history forever.

"We were immediately struck by the impressive ambitiousness of this project,” said Sffs director of Film 360 Michele Turnure-Salleo.

Read More: San Francisco Film Society Announces New Science in Cinema Initiative

The Sffs Hearst Screenwriting Grant is awarded in the fall of each year to writers residing in the United States who have been practicing for at least five years and who have previously written a minimum of one feature screenplay. Previous grant winners include A. Sayeeda Moreno and Micah Shaffer for "White" (2014), Alistair Banks Griffin for "Snow the Jones" (2013), Maryam Keshavarz and...

In a preemptive swoop, the distributor has picked up James Franco’s dramedy about a young man obsessed with cinema who rises through the ranks in 1970s Hollywood.

Franco directs and stars alongside Megan Fox, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Jacki Weaver, Joey King and Dave Franco.

Franco and Vince Jolivette produce via their Rabbit Bandini Productions alongside Caroline Aragon and Michael Mendelsohn through his Patriot Pictures.

Paul Felten and Ian Olds adapted the Zeroville screenplay from Steve Erickson’s 2007 novel of the same name.

Alchemy plans to release the film, currently in post-production, in 2016.

Vice-president of acquisitions Jeff Deutchman negotiated the deal with Patriot CEO Mendelsohn.

Alchemy has acquired North American rights to James Franco's Zeroville, an adaptation of the acclaimed Steve Erickson novel, with Megan Fox co-starring.

Alchemy is planning to release the film, which is now in postproduction, in 2016. Set against the backdrop of late 1960s Hollywood, the dramedy is directed by Franco from a screenplay by Paul Felten and Ian Olds.

Franco and Fox star alongside Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Jacki Weaver and Joey King.

"James has proven there is no subject matter that he and his collaborators can’t brilliantly satirize, and we can’t wait to share their comedic take on ...

Alchemy has acquired North American rights to James Franco's Zeroville, an adaptation of the acclaimed Steve Erickson novel, with Megan Fox co-starring.

Alchemy is planning to release the film, which is now in postproduction, in 2016. Set against the backdrop of late 1960s Hollywood, the dramedy is directed by Franco from a screenplay by Paul Felten and Ian Olds.

Franco and Fox star alongside Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Jacki Weaver and Joey King.

"James has proven there is no subject matter that he and his collaborators can’t brilliantly satirize, and we can’t wait to share their comedic take on ...

Production is already under way on James Franco's next directorial outing Zeroville, with the filmmaker starring alongside Seth Rogen, Will Ferrell, Megan Fox, Jacki Weaver, Danny McBride, Dave Franco, Craig Robinson, Joey King and Horatio Sanz.

The story is adapted from Steve Erickson's 2007 novel of the same name, which follows a loner and a film-obsessed architecture student (James Franco) who comes to Hollywood in the 1960s to pursue a career in the movie business. He has tattoos of A Place in the Sun stars Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor on his bald head, and upon his arrival in Hollywood, he becomes mistaken for one of the murderers in the Charles Manson family. He eventually lands a job as a film editor, where he discovers a secret film hidden within the frames of every movie ever made, while encountering former starlets, burglars, political guerrillas, punk musicians and veteran filmmakers.

Melissa Leo has hopped aboard the cast of "The Fixer," from writer/director Ian Olds. Co-written by Paul Felten, the film centers on Gloria (Leo), the erstwhile-hippie sheriff of a small Northern California town opposite Lindsay (James Franco), a volatile hot tub craftsman. The part of Gloria was written with Leo in mind.In "The Fixer," an Afghan journalist exiled from his war-torn country comes to Gloria's town, stirring up shadowy backwoods intrigue involving casual sex, suspicion and unexpected violence. Olds previously worked with Leo on his Sundance short "Bomb" in 2007. In 2009, he directed the documentary "Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi" about a similarly thwarted journalist.DeLisi Creative will launch an international search for the leading role of 28-year-old Osman, who will join Leo and Franco. DeLisi Creative was part of the team behind the search for the Somali pirates in "Captain Phillips."Leo was recently spotted at the Santa Barbara International Film.

James Franco is set to star in “The Fixer,” an indie drama that Franco’s frequent collaborator Ian Olds will direct from a script he co-wrote with Paul Felten, TheWrap has learned. The project is inspired by Olds’ work with “fixers” — individuals hired by foreign journalists to facilitate, translate and gain access for their stories. Olds directed the 2009 documentary “Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi,” for which he won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Caroline von Kuhn (“Like the Water”) of Ace Productions will produce with Vince Jolivette of Franco’s Rabbit Bandini banner.

James Franco's ongoing experimentation with the limits of his own celebrity are like little else popular culture has produced of late. While his hijinks within academia and beyond are well documented (he's working on a Film Mfa at Nyu and an English PhD from Yale, while being a movie star, reediting "My Own Private Idaho," writing essays for N+1 and occasionally doing some performance art with Laurel Nakadate), they come to a startling head in his "Francophrenia (Or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where The Baby Is)," a daringly oddball collaboration with lauded documentarian Ian Olds, whose "The Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi" was a hit in Rotterdam in 2009.

Lensed over the course of a seemingly one night shoot, the film essentially follows Franco around the set of ABC's "General Hospital" as he leers at people, engages in mind numbing conversations, watches as mediocrity begets more mediocrity (what...

In 127 Hours, James Franco hacked away at his arm. During Francophrenia, you might just wish he did the same to his head.

This is a shame, because this 70-minute documentary covering the star's return to the soap General Hospital, where he started out in 2009, begins as an impressive Fellini-esque dissection of American society, celebrity, and the at-times thin membranes separating an actor's public persona from the roles he plays and his inner self.

The film, however, degenerates into a masturbatory mockumentary which reveals that the co-directors -- Ian Olds and Franco himself -- have little vision, piddling wit, and negligible respect for their prospective audiences. Imagine David Lynch shooting his own colonoscopy, and you're halfway there. 

This enterprise, a highlight of the Tribeca Film Festival, is accumulated from 40 hours of footage of rehearsals, backstory, fan interaction, and the actual shooting of an episode where the actor James Franco plays a disturbed character named "Franco,...

Here's Whit Stillman's schedule for the next few days: This evening, following a screening of Barcelona (1994), he and Chris Eigeman will be chatting at the Museum of the Moving Image. Tomorrow, he'll be at the Museum again to introduce his new film, Damsels in Distress, before heading over to BAMcinématek for a Q&A with Eigeman and Lena Dunham following a screening of The Last Days of Disco (1998). And then on Friday, following its premiere in Venice (see the roundup) and screening in Toronto (see Dan Sallitt's take), Damsels, Stillman's first feature in 14 years, finally opens in theaters.

Let's take this more or less chronologically, beginning with Colin Beckett, writing for Moving Image Source:

The three films that Whit Stillman made in the 1990s are neither the paradigmatic indie comedies they would appear in summary nor the traditionalist allegories his conservative fans have claimed. Though Stillman released these formally unambitious,...

Nice cover for the new issue of Cahiers du Cinéma, which features a collection of articles (all of them offline) on Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt. There's a new Brooklyn Rail out as well, and we've already noted Monica Westin's interview with Geoff Dyer in today's roundup on Andrei Tarkovsky and Paul Felten's review of Damsels in Distress in another roundup on Whit Stillman. In terms of strictly film-related pieces (and let's hope you don't confine yourself to those!), that leaves Troy Swain's graphic celebration of the upcoming series at Anthology Film Archives, The Films of Carmelo Bene, running April 26 through 29, and Donal Foreman's interview with Nicole Brenez.

The occasion for the interview was the series Brenez curated for Anthology last month, Internationalist Cinema for Today (there was a roundup at the time) and Foreman writes a terrific introduction:

In an essay on Adorno's relationship with cinema, Nicole Brenez...

Marketing folks try anything to draw the widest audience possible so it's often hard to know the exact genre of a film until we've sat through it. With that knowledge we bring you the handful of horror films screening at this year's Tribeca Film Festival thus far...plus those that Might be.

The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 18th-29th in New York City. Visit the official Tribeca 2012 website for the full World Narrative, World Documentary, and Viewpoints lineups and more info; and keep your eyes on Dread Central for further film announcements (only the first half has been revealed thus far) and full event coverage!

World Narrative Competition

Beyond the Hill (Tepenin Ardi)

Directed and written by Emin Alper (Turkey, Greece)—North American Premiere

Faik, a proud old forester, is having trouble with nomads grazing their livestock on his land. For revenge, he and his hulking farm hand Mehmet...

HollywoodNews.com: The 2012 Tribeca Film Festival (Tff), presented by American Express®, today announced the World Narrative and Documentary Competition film selections, along with selections for the out-of-competition Viewpoints section—the program established last year that highlights personal stories in international and independent cinema. Forty-six of the 90 feature-length films were announced. The 11th edition of the Festival will take place from April 18 to April 29 at locations around New York City.

The Festival was curated by a new programming team this year. Frédéric Boyer has joined Tff as Artistic Director, having most recently served as Artistic Director and Head of Programming for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. Geoffrey Gilmore, Chief Creative Officer of Tribeca Enterprises, has expanded his role in overseeing the Festival program. Genna Terranova has been promoted to Director of Programming and Cara Cusumano returns as Programmer.

“It’s been so gratifying to watch the new programming...

The Tribeca Film Festival announced half of this year’s movie showcase, the 11th edition of the New York celebration set for April 18-29. James Franco’s behind-the-scenes General Hospital feature, Francophrenia, will have its North American premiere in the Viewpoints section – the program established last year that highlights more personal stories. “He’s kind of constructed this really interesting and well-crafted film about that experience that plays with the boundaries of documentary,” says Genna Terranova, Tribeca’s director of programming. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek, as James himself can be. He’s a bit enigmatic and the film is as well.

With The Five-Year Engagement set as the opening title for the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, they’ve announced more of the line-up today with World Narrative & Documentary Features as the Viewpoint titles. We’ve got the next film from The Exploding Girl director Bradley Rust Gray, Jack and Diane (as well as a first look about featuring Juno Temple, thanks to Styd).

There is a new Harmony Korine short as well Kate Bosworth‘s While We Were Here and The Girl, starring Abbie Cornish. James Franco also has his latest film, Francophrenia, featuring footage from his performance on General Hospital. Nothing sticks out too greatly yet, but if I see something as interesting as Beyond the Black Rainbow or Magic Valley like last year, I’ll be a happy man. Check it out below and come back Thursday for the rest of the announcement.

World Narrative Feature Competition

• All In (La Suerte En Tus Manos...

SXSW kicks off later this week, but once your done slurping the BBQ sauce off your fingers, pack your backs and head north to Manhattan as the Tribeca Film Festival is gearing up to unspool in April. To whet cinephile appetites, organizers have dropped the lineup for the World Narrative Feature Competition, World Documentary Feature Competition and Viewpoints lineups and there are plenty of titles to take note of.

Among the narratives, the anticipated "Jack And Diane" from Bradley Rust Gray will make its world premiere. Starring Juno Temple and Riley Keough, the film takes a teenage lesbian love tale and twists the formula, with one of them revealing she's a werewolf. Add to that a cast rounded out by Dane DeHaan, Jena Malone and pop star Kylie Minogue (as a tattooed lesbian, of course) and you can see why this will be one of the hottest tickets at the fest.

The 2012 edition of the Tribeca Film Festival just got a little bit more James Franco. The actor/author/student/performance artist will bring "Francophrenia (or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is)" to the 11th edition of the New York-set film fest, a thriller-cum-documentary about his time on "General Hospital."

Co-directed by Ian Golds, and written by Olds, Franco and Paul Felten, "Francophrenia" will have its North American premiere as part of the Viewpoints program. Per the press release, "While shooting a key 'Gh' episode, Franco brought along a film crew. Tff award winner Ian Olds (Fixer, 2009) then repurposed Franco's behind-the-scenes footage into an experimental psychological thriller set amid the spectacle of a celebrity's escalating paranoia, creating a mind-bending exploration of identity."

Also debuting at the festival, "On the Mat," a wrestling documentary narrated by "Moneyball" star Chris Pratt, and "The Fourth Dimension," an omnibus feature with a segment directed by Harmony Korine.

The 2012 edition of the Tribeca Film Festival just got a little bit more James Franco. The actor/author/student/performance artist will bring "Francophrenia (or: Don't Kill Me, I Know Where the Baby Is)" to the 11th edition of the New York-set film fest, a thriller-cum-documentary about his time on "General Hospital." Co-directed by Ian Golds, and written by Olds, Franco and Paul Felten, "Francophrenia" will have its North American premiere as part of the Viewpoints program. Per the press release, "While shooting a key 'Gh' episode, Franco brought along a film crew. Tff award winner Ian Olds (Fixer, 2009) then repurposed Franco's behind-the-scenes footage into an experimental psychological thriller set amid the spectacle of a celebrity's escalating paranoia, creating a mind-bending exploration of identity." Also debuting at the festival, "On the Mat," a wrestling documentary narrated by "Moneyball" star Chris Pratt, and "The Fourth Dimension," an omnibus feature with a segment directed by Harmony Korine.

The Sundance Institute announced their 2011 January Screenwriters Lab participants and among the talents who come packing the dozen projects we find one of the best dps in the indie film biz, and an American New Wave 25 personality in Jody Lee Lipes (see pic), we have Diane Bell, the filmmaker who brought her feature debut Obselidia to the festival last year and Ian Olds - the director behind the doc film Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi. We have a Cannes resident and a couple of Filmmaker Magazine Top New Faces in the mix as well. Knowing all too well that these labs end up being integral part of the festival's annual output (especially in the Dramatic Comp categories) we love to keep tabs on the journey of these filmmkers as they go from Screenwriters to Directors lab and onwards towards production. One recent example is Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene...