News

Lately, it’s seemed like I’ve been inadvertently launching a weekly VOD column, but here is yet another contrarian and unexpected entry in the financially-shrouded market’s set of data points. Over the weekend, Radius-twc released their digital grosses for The Unknown Known and 20 Feet From Stardom at $1 million and $1.3 million, respectively. In the exclusive report, co-president Tom Quinn offered his reasoning behind the films’ release strategies (“Errol Morris has a heavy following on Twitter”), while the author Brian Brooks points out that although VOD is assumed to be a major source of revenue, “some execs have noted that tabulating nontheatrical grosses is inherently not the […]...

Lately, it’s seemed like I’ve been inadvertently launching a weekly VOD column, but here is yet another contrarian and unexpected entry in the financially-shrouded market’s set of data points. Over the weekend, Radius-twc released their digital grosses for The Unknown Known and 20 Feet From Stardom at $1 million and $1.3 million, respectively. In the exclusive report, co-president Tom Quinn offered his reasoning behind the films’ release strategies (“Errol Morris has a heavy following on Twitter”), while the author Brian Brooks points out that although VOD is assumed to be a major source of revenue, “some execs have noted that tabulating nontheatrical grosses is inherently not the […]...

Brian Brooks is a Deadline contributor.

Some crowds headed to see Sundance debut Austenland this weekend, opening in 4 theaters and grossing just over $42K. The film got TV ad treatment and hilariously even had its trailer show twice at NYC’s Chelsea Clearview before a showing of another SPC title, Blue Jasmine yesterday, much to the groans of the crowd. But with all that awareness the feature only managed a so-so opening weekend, besting fellow Sundancer Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which had a mellow debut in three theaters grossing $28,800. And another Sundance pic, Cutie And The Boxer, headed out to theaters grossing $21K for a $7K-plus PSA. But the weekend PSA bragging rights go to Cohen Media Group’s You Will Be My Son, which opened with $15,469 at the Paris Theatre in NYC. The weekend’s other newcomers, Inch’Allah, The Patience Stone and Spark: A Burning Man Story opened...

The 51st New York Film Festival, running September 30th – October 13th, is currently unveiling this year’s lineup and Spike Jonze’s Her will make its world premiere at the festival’s Closing Night Gala.

Her stars Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson.” The Warner Bros. Pictures film is set for a limited release on November 20. Below is Nyff’s official press release regarding the Closing Night Gala selection, along with the film’s synopsis and trailer:

Press Release

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today that Spike Jonze’s Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde and Scarlett Johansson will make its World Premiere as the Closing Night Gala presentation for the upcoming 51st New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13).

Nyff’s Director of Programming and Selection Committee Chair, Kent Jones said, “Like many people I’ve come to expect great and surprising things from Spike Jonze,...

Just like George Zimmerman ... the police officer who snuck a pic of Zimmerman's driver's license during a routine traffic stop has been cleared of wrongdoing, TMZ has learned. TMZ broke the story ... Trayvon Martin's shooter was pulled over for speeding last week in Forney, Texas -- and audio from the dash cam footage revealed one of the officers snapped a photo (thanks to the unmistakable sound of the iPhone camera shutter). Cops opened an investigation...

The 51st New York Film Festival, running September 30th – October 13th, is underway and news that Ben Stiller’s ‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ will make its world premiere as the festival’s Centerpiece Gala was just released. Ben Stiller has this to say about the premiere, “I am incredibly honored and excited to have The Secret Life Of Walter

Mitty premiere in the New York Film Festival. When I first heard, I wanted to make sure it was the one at Lincoln Center and not one in Utica or somewhere. Making this film has been a wonderful collaboration with a really special screenwriter, Steve Conrad, and all the extremely talented cast and crew who worked on this movie. Having grown up a few blocks away on Riverside Drive, I couldn’t be happier to have it premiere here.”

The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty stars and is directed...

Graduate Assistant Position Available

USC Visions and Voices is currently seeking a graduate assistant to support the department’s marketing and event production efforts. Responsibilities include audience development; assessment of student needs and interest; development and implementation of marketing strategies and outreach plans; development and distribution of promotional materials; assistance with online marketing and social media; arrangements for services with vendors; arrangements for guest artists; working at events; managing Visions and Voices’s online reservation system; and general administrative assistance.

Skill requirements:An innovative and creative thinker with marketing experienceProficient understanding of social-media platforms, including Facebook and TwitterStrong computer skills, including knowledge of Microsoft Word and ExcelExcellent communication skills, both verbal and writtenAbility to handle multiple tasksStrong interpersonal skillsAwareness of and interest in the arts and humanities

Must be a current USC graduate student who is available to work 15 to 20 hours per week. Starting pay is $14.00 per hour. Submit cover letter and resume through ConnectSC. For more info, click here. No phone calls please.

Desired start date is July/August 2013.

The 2013–14 Season

The new season of Visions and Voices has been announced. Visit their website to see what’s coming up and save the date for fantastic events, including a conversation featuring one of the world’s most preeminent playwrights, Tony Kushner; performances by incredible contemporary dance companies, including Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and the Brian Brooks Moving Company; a provocative performance by world-renowned writer/performer Mx Justin Vivian Bond; talks by acclaimed authors Alexandra Fuller and Dava Sobel, whose books Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Galileo’s Daughter, respectively, are featured on President Nikias’s 2013 summer reading list; a powerful and important evening with Dave and Dana Dornsife, who will discuss the extraordinary work they are doing to create access to water in Africa; The Langston Hughes Project, a lively performance celebrating the innovative jazz poetry of the Harlem Renaissance artist featuring actor Malcolm Jamal-Warner and the Ron McCurdy Quartet; a dynamic film festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of Indian cinema; a multimedia performance featuring the visionary artists of the legendary Los Angeles club night Low End Theory; and an entire retrospective screening of the cult television series Freaks and Geeks. For more info, go to visionsandvoices.usc.edu.

Brian Brooks is a Deadline contributor.

The Weinstein Company’s Quartet and Sony Pictures Classics’ Amour held steady in their expansions this weekend, while Zeitgeist’s Koch and Sony Classics’ The Gatekeepers remained solid in their second frames. Newcomers, however, fared comparatively softly, though the Blizzard that hit the Northeast certainly had an impact. A24 Films’ Charlie Sheen-starrer A Glimpse Inside The Mind Of Charles Swan III lead the trio of reporting limited-release debuts with a modest $6K average. Music Box Films’ Lore bowed in a half-dozen locations, averaging $5,167 while AMC Theatres roll-out Lost In Thailand averaged a paltry $833. Lost In Thailand, which packed a punch in China with over $200 million in that market clearly did not resonate here, at least yet. Still, the film remains China’s biggest domestic creation, second only to Avatar in that market. Freestyle Releasing did not report figures for its opener The Playroom.

Indiewire cofounder Eugene Hernandez, now digital director at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, is bringing into his expanding FilmLinc Daily  fold his long-time Indiewire cohort Brian Brooks, who recently emerged from a stint as a staffer at Jay Penske's Movieline and Deadline (for which he still contributes). Writes Hernandez: "In recent months we've steadily grown the editorial side of FilmLinc.com... The new FilmLinc Daily was born last year with expanded coverage of films and festivals. After the 50th Nyff we launched The Season, our new blog covering the best of 2012 through Oscar night.   As we head boldly into 2013, our growth continues. Fresh from the re-launch of our Daily Buzz radio program at Sundance, we'll next take the show to SXSW in March.   Now, we're thrilled to tell you that Brian Brooks, my former Indiewire colleague, is joining us this week as an ongoing contributor to FilmLinc.com. Brian will be.

Deadline Hollywood continues expanding staff to further position us as the primary 24/7 breaking news entertainment business website. Today we are announcing another important addition: new Los Angeles Film Editor Brian Brooks (brian@deadline.com). He will work closely with New York Editor & Film Editor Mike Fleming to cover both the major studio and indie film business and festival scene. A veteran of indiieWIRE since 1996 and Managing Editor since 2007, Brooks was integral in the execution of daily editorial news and feature content about the movie biz. He was a regular at the Sundance, Toronto, Laff, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes, Berlin, Hamptons, Sarajevo, AFI, Idfa, Pusan, Reykjavik festivals and more. He has moderated and produced events and panels in New York, Toronto, and Austin and served on numerous festival juries. A California native and UCLA grad, Brian is relocating from NYC to Los Angeles to join Deadline in mid-January – just in time to cover Sundance with Fleming.

As Jason Guerrasio notes for Filmmaker, Sundance has added two world premieres and two festival circuit veterans to its lineup.

Predisposed is written and directed by Philip Dorling and Ron Nyswaner and features Jesse Eisenberg, Melissa Leo, Tracy Morgan, Sarah Ramos and Isiah Whitlock Jr. The Sundance synopsis: "Eli Smith, a piano prodigy, is dealing with his troubled mother and enlisting help from a hapless drug dealer on the day he has an audition for a prestigious music program. Events spiral comically out of control as this gang of misfits faces the mistakes of the past, the challenges of the future, and the possibilities of love."

Don Coscarelli's John Dies at the End, featuring Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown and Glynn Turman, is based on a novel by David Wong. Sundance: "On the street they call it Soy Sauce – a drug that allows users to drift across time and dimensions.

The Sundance Film Festival has unveiled its 2012 competition lineup, announcing that "110 feature-length films were selected, representing 31 countries and 44 first-time filmmakers, including 26 in competition. These films were selected from 4,042 feature-length film submissions composed of 2,059 Us and 1,983 international feature-length films. 88 films at the Festival will be world premieres…. On Day One, the Festival will screen one narrative film and one documentary from both the Us and World Cinema competitions, as well as one shorts program."

And those four films are Todd Louiso's Hello I Must Be Going (Us Dramatic Competition), Lauren Greenfield's The Queen of Versailles (Us Documentary Competition), Kieran Darcy-Smith's Wish You Were Here (World Cinema Dramatic Competition — image above) and Malik Bendjelloul's Searching for Sugar Man (World Cinema Documentary Competition). Click here to see titles and synopses for all four programs.

The festival runs from January 19 through 29.

Updates: Ioncinema's Eric Lavallee on the highlights of the World...

"Geoff Dyer's forthcoming book Zona (2012) has a premise that is so simple and brilliant it seems almost a wonder that it hasn't been tried before," blogs Katie Kitamura for frieze. "[A]s the book's subtitle puts it, Zona is 'A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room.' In other words, a book about Andrei Tarkovsky's seminal Stalker (1979), itself loosely based on the novel Roadside Picnic (1971), by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. 'Loosely' is key here. The skeleton of Zona is something like a glorified transcript of Tarkovsky's film, a factual description of what is seen on the screen…. But Zona hangs a great deal onto the scaffolding of this formal conceit. The book itself is full of digressions, both filmic and personal, as well as footnotes, interpretations, imprecations and asides. There's a definite gulf between the tone of Zona and the tone of Stalker, which is almost...

Today on indieWIRE, we got under Almodóvar's "Skin," judged Hilary Swank's poor decisions, debated whether piracy is really all that bad for indie films and much more! Almodóvar’s New Muse? Elena Anaya Talks “Skin,” Body Suits and Joining Pedro’s Family Brian Brooks speaks with Elena Anaya, star of Pedro Almodóvar's latest film "The Skin I Live In." Editorial: Hilary Swank, What The Hell Were You Thinking? Hilary Swank and Ramzan ...

"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival in an unfinished form because the film's real ending arrived, unexpectedly, a few weeks earlier," begins indieWIRE's Eric Kohn. "The men known as the 'West Memphis 3,' imprisoned while teenagers for crimes they likely didn't commit, spent 18 years behind bars. In August, they entered a trio of 'Alford pleas,' relying on a little-known law that allowed them to plead guilty while maintaining their innocence. Sentenced to time served, they went free that day. That meant 36-year-old Damien Echols evaded the death penalty; Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were released from their life sentences." In the Toronto cut, "the simple news of their freedom brings the rush of a happy ending. The final version, however, takes a much angrier direction."

"If you're unfamiliar with the case," writes Drew Taylor at the Playlist, "it essentially breaks down like...

"It's only natural," finds Jaime N Christley in Slant, "that Abel Ferrara's vision of the end of the world should take corporeal form as a quasi-autobiographical hangout movie, since that's been the kind of environment he's been building over the last few years, working with ever more limited means, turning the camera inward, even lightening up a little. Like Lars von Trier's Melancholia, 4:44 Last Day on Earth presents the apocalypse not so much as an exercise in genre play as an exercise in airing the auteur's predilections, and an auto-therapeutic exorcism of the artist's demons."

"Likely his most personal work, it's also ironically the most life-affirming in a career defined by anger and grime," writes indieWIRE's Eric Kohn. "Ferrara has gone soft without selling out…. This is the quintessential New York filmmaker's belated post-9/11 movie, committed to coming to terms with chaos."

In the New York Times,...

Towards the end of his interview on the New York Times Book Review podcast, John Lithgow, whose new memoir, Drama: An Actor's Education, is reviewed by Ada Calhoun, along with Hal Holbrook's Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain, tells Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus that acting "really only exists while it's happening…. The more that an actor can accommodate himself to the truth that he will eventually be forgotten, the better off he is." Naturally, Tanenhaus asks, "Even film performances?" That's when Lithgow recounts an "appalling moment" from the days when he was working with "my dear young protege," Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who overheard some of the older actors talking on the set of 3rd Rock from the Sun, and asked, "Who's Cary Grant?"

Of course, Gordon-Levitt was young at the time — this would have been well over ten years ago now — but for anyone needing a refresher, do...

indieWIRE hosted a series of Q&As at Tiff's Filmmakers' Lounge. Here's the highlights from managing editor Brian Brooks' conversation with director Stephen Kessler and Paul Williams, star and subject of the documentary "Paul Williams: Still Alive." Paul Williams claims the Tiff-debuted recovery documentary “Paul Williams: Still Alive” resembles a home movie spun out of control. A 4-and-a-half-year passion project by childhood fan Stephen Kessler, the majority of the film was ...

indieWIRE hosted a series of Q&As at Tiff's Filmmakers' Lounge. Here's the highlights from managing editor Brian Brooks' conversation with director Stephen Kessler and Paul Williams, star and subject of the documentary "Paul Williams: Still Alive." Paul Williams claims the Tiff-debuted recovery documentary “Paul Williams: Still Alive” resembles a home movie spun out of control. A 4-and-a-half-year passion project by childhood fan Stephen Kessler, the majority of the film was ...

A month ago today, an announcement appeared that had Twitter all aflutter: "On the occasion of the centennial of the birth of acclaimed film director and Hollywood legend Nicholas Ray (Galesville, 7 August 1911 - New York, 16 June 1979), the Venice Film Festival announces the world premiere screening on Sunday 4 September at the Lido of the restored/reconstructed copy of We Can't Go Home Again, the definitive version that is faithful to the original idea of Ray's posthumous masterpiece." A panel followed yesterday's screening, "with the participation of American director and actor James Franco and Spanish director Victor Erice, author with Jos Oliver of the book Nicholas Ray y su tiempo (Madrid, 1986). Also invited at the panel are the acclaimed visual artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon, and Henry Hopper — the son of Dennis Hopper, who starred in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and accompanied Nicholas Ray in several of his subsequent artistic endeavors. Henry Hopper...

Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground "admirably tries, on a minuscule budget, to evoke the spirit of American cinema from 35 years ago: the age of Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall, an era much more hospitable to serious roles for women than the current one." Melissa Anderson in the Voice: "As reported in a New York Times Magazine cover story on the actress in 2006 (three years before her Oscar-nominated performance in Up in the Air), Farmiga has expressed her disgust with the roles offered her by setting scripts on fire: 'I stack up all those crass female characters, all those utterly ordinary women, all those hundreds and hundreds of parts that have no substance or meaning and turn them into a blazing pyre.' It's a shame, then, that Higher Ground never really ignites."

Farmiga plays "Corinne, a Midwest rural woman who embraces a hippie-inflected but paternalistic evangelical community with her high...

"The mammoth Toronto International Film Festival unveiled the last of its 2011 lineup today, with added titles to its Masters section," reports indieWIRE's Brian Brooks. "Additionally, the event announced more selections for its Maverick series and Discovery program." We'll get to the Mavericks and Discoveries, but first, an overview of the complete Masters lineup:

Chantal Akerman's Almayer's Folly (La Folie Almayer). Tiff: "Somewhere in South-East Asia, in a little lost village on a wide and turbulent river, a European man clings to his pipe dreams out of love for his daughter. Working freely from Joseph Conrad's debut novel, Akerman tells the story of a trader in 1950s Malaysia whose dreams of a Western life for his Malay daughter slowly lead to destruction. A quest for the absolute, a story of passion and madness." Here are a few images.

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Once Upon A Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu'da...

Forney, Texas — The 11-year-old "mayor for a day" of a Dallas-area city knows what her first major act in office will be: Renaming part of Main Street for teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.

A temporary sign for "Justin Bieber Way" went up Tuesday during a ceremony in Forney, Texas.

City Manager Brian Brooks says the request came from 11-year-old Caroline Gonzalez. She won a contest meant to get young people interested in municipal government. She's active in student council, recycling and community service projects.

Brooks says city officials weren't able to reach Bieber to invite him to Forney, which is about 15 miles east of Dallas.

The tween politician's act won't cost the community much. Officials say the sign was made for about $20 and would only be displayed Tuesday.

___

Online:

http://www.cityofforney.org/...

Updated through 6/27.

This year's Los Angeles Film Festival, running through June 26, opens tonight with the latest from Richard Linklater, and Steven Zeitchik talks with him for the Los Angeles Times: "'It was my most difficult one to get made,' he said flatly. 'It took 12 years to happen, and even then it was tough. People can say shooting in 22 days makes a movie better. It doesn't.' … Bernie is a shaggy, idiosyncratic work, possibly the strangest yet in a career full of strangeness. Set in the small town of Carthage, Texas, it tells of an effeminate, musical-loving mortician named Bernie Tiede [Jack Black] who befriends and then commits a horrible crime against a repressed wealthy matriarch [Shirley MacLaine], leaving him to face the wrath of a local prosecutor [Matthew McConaughey]. The movie is a dramatization of an actual case — the script was based on a 1998 Texas Monthly article about Tiede, and Linklater, who attended Tiede's trial,...

The 35th edition of the San Francisco International Lgbt Film Festival, or Frameline35, opens tonight with Rashaad Ernesto Green's Gun Hill Road (image above) and runs through June 26 — Gay Pride Day — closing with Geoffrey Sax's Christopher and His Kind.

Michael Hawley previews eight narrative features and six documentaries, and he's got a top recommendation for each category, beginning with Céline Sciamma's Tomboy: "It's the summer before 4th grade and Laure's family has moved to a new town. When a potential playmate mistakes her for a boy, athletic Laure plays along and becomes Mikael to all the neighborhood kids — a charade that's kept hidden from her parents until just before the start of school. This complex and intelligent tale about gender identity won a jury prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival and it's now one of my favorite films of the year." And in Sebastiano d'Ayala Valva's Angel,...

To follow up on yesterday's roundup of Un Certain Regard remainders...

"The Tati-inspired dance trio of Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, and Bruno Romy are at it again, crafting an awfully similar follow-up to their previous feature, Rumba." Blake Williams for Ioncinema: "The Fairy is light on magic and the supernatural, but flutters breezily along with joke-a-minute fluff…. As in their other films, the 'plot' — this one involving a wish-granting fairy — is only really a conceit by which to give the illusion of continuity to what is essentially a string of short films." Screen's Fionnuala Halligan's enjoyed it, though: "Theirs is an old-fashioned, almost silent, routine (their first feature L'Iceberg was virtually wordless) blended beautifully with an arresting dance element." In the Hollywood Reporter, Jordan Mintzer notes that "Tati's hand is evident in the exceptionally precise art direction and camerawork by regulars Nicholas Girault and Claire Childeric."

"The Silver Cliff was...

Updated through 5/15.

"'Your vagina will not be penetrated. Your vagina is a temple.' With these words, Sleeping Beauty establishes the ground rules and sets the scene for a bizarre sexual nightmare." The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw: "It is technically elegant, with vehemence and control, though often preposterous, with the imagined classiness of high-end prostitution and art-porn cliches of secret sexiness in grand chateaux: shades of Eyes Wide Shut. Author-turned-director Julia Leigh has certainly made an assured debut, which evidently owes nothing to Jane Campion who has 'presented' this movie in some kind of Executive Mentor capacity. Instead, Leigh aims for the occult ritual of Buñuel and the formal exactitude of Haneke: rigorously framed and composed shots."

"n telling the story of a girl falling into the most eerily art-directed prostitution ring this side of a Freemason hazing ceremony, Leigh's way revisionist fairytale bluntly points out the ways in which...

Filed under: 'Fone Finds

Today on indieWIRE: Cannes kicked off, Oprah debuted her new doc club on Own, and much more.

indieWIRE is on the scene in Cannes to report back on the 64th edition of the world's leading film festival. Critic Eric Kohn caught an advance press screening of the event's opening night film, Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris.' He liked what he saw. So did Anne Thompson, who called it Allen's best work since 'Deconstructing Harry' in 1997, in her feature interview with the funny man himself. Brian Brooks, meanwhile caught Allen speak at the official press conference following the initial press screening. Brooks also stuck around to witness Bernardo Bertolucci (in town to pick up an honorary Palme d'Or) prove that he's still in the game, and to watch the Cannes jury address the worldwide press.

Continue Reading...

IndieWIRE in Cannes 2010 Wednesday began bright and early with a breakfast confab on the Grand Hotel terrace with indieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks and Eric Kohn, who was meeting new indieWIRE family members Todd McCarthy and Sydney Levine for the first time. We mapped our plans—indieWIRE is doing a smart daily timeline—downed our espressos and croissants and went our separate ways. What a difference a year makes: Eugene Hernandez is now head of all things digital at the New York Film Society and Todd McCarthy has returned to the corporate fold as chief reviewer for The Hollywood Reporter. Lucky…...

Updated through 5/5.

A new 35mm print of Kon Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters opens today at New York's Film Forum, playing through May 12. Nick Pinkerton in the Voice: "The setting is the wartime precipice of 1938; the synthesizer score is distinctly 1983. When he finally succeeded in filming Junichiro Tanizaki's novel, Kon Ichikawa was 68 years old — a living link to Japan's cinematic Golden Age, taking on a self-consciously throwback prestige production. The Makioka Sisters details the interlocked emotional lives of four Osakan siblings, orphaned young and left as caretakers of the once-prestigious Makioka name. Observing each woman meeting this duty, The Makioka Sisters is a Whartonian work of compassionate nostalgia tinctured with irony."

"Make no mistake," adds David Fear in Time Out New York, "The Makioka Sisters is a melodrama, complete with public scandals, petulant ingenues, interclan power struggles, unrequited love and consummated love affairs. But Ichikawa plays everything cool without seeming cold,...

Updated through 3/23.

Robbie Pickering's Natural Selection has been named best Narrative Feature at this year's SXSW Film Festival by both the Grand Jury and audiences. What's more, Rachael Harris and Matt O'Leary are among the Breakthrough Performances (the one other winner is Evan Ross for 96 Minutes), Pickering wins Best Screenplay and Michelle Tesoro wins Best Editing.

To the Documentary Features. The Jury's going for Tristan Patterson's Dragonslayer, awarding Best Cinematography to Eric Koretz as well. As for the Audience Award, "In 2010, Indian-American filmmaker Vikram Gandhi went to Phoenix and invented a spiritual workshop from scratch," writes Eric Kohn at indieWIRE. "That's the premise of Kumaré, a documentary that Gandhi assembled out of his experience, in which he created a fake spiritual guru, replete with heavy accent, far-out proclamations, and a tiny legion of followers… Structural problems aside, Kumaré succeeds at creating a thoughtful depiction of performance art, if not a particularly funny one.

indieWIRE is hosting a series of talks on the Next Stage inside the SXSW trade show at the Austin Convention Center. Here's the highlights from Tuesday, February 15. Interviews: "The Future" filmmaker Miranda July, "Silver Bullets" director Joe Swanberg and star Ti West, FilmBuff head Matt Dentler, Film Society of Lincoln Center digital strategy director Eugene Hernandez Emcees: iW editor in chief Dana Harris, managing editor Brian Brooks and film ...

indieWIRE is hosting a series of talks on the Next Stage inside the SXSW trade show at the Austin Convention Center. Here's the highlights from Tuesday, February 15. Interviews: "The Future" filmmaker Miranda July, "Silver Bullets" director Joe Swanberg and star Ti West, FilmBuff head Matt Dentler, Film Society of Lincoln Center digital strategy director Eugene Hernandez Emcees: iW editor in chief Dana Harris, managing editor Brian Brooks and film ...

indieWIRE is hosting a series of talks on the Next Stage inside the SXSW trade show at the Austin Convention Center. Here's the highlights from Tuesday, February 15. Interviews: "The Future" filmmaker Miranda July, "Silver Bullets" director Joe Swanberg and star Ti West, FilmBuff head Matt Dentler, Film Society of Lincoln Center digital strategy director Eugene Hernandez Emcees: iW editor in chief Dana Harris, managing editor Brian Brooks and film ...

indieWIRE is hosting a series of talks on the Next Stage inside the SXSW trade show at the Austin Convention Center. Here's the highlights from Tuesday Feb. 15. Interviews: "The Future" filmmaker Miranda July, "Silver Bullets" director Joe Swanberg and star Ti West, FilmBuff head Matt Dentler, Film Society of Lincoln Center digital strategy director Eugene Hernandez Emcees: iW editor in chief Dana Harris, managing editor Brian Brooks and film ...

HBO Documentary hosted their annual bash at The Canyons resort outside of Park City over the weekend. Filmmakers, industry and others mingled casually - a contrast from the frenzy that often happens at many other Sundance parties. Pictured here are HBO Documentary head Sheila Nevins with filmmaker Peter Richardson ("How to Die in Oregon") and the network's Jackie Glover. Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE...

Veteran film journalist Dana Harris has been named as indieWIRE's new editor-in-chief. Harris has worked for the last decade at Variety, where she most recently served as editor, strategic projects. She replaces Eugene Hernandez, who left the position in late October nearly 15 years after he co-founded the online publication. Harris will serve as indieWIRE's leader from Los Angeles effective January 1, 2011, while iW managing editor Brian Brooks will ...

Pattz-Stew Global: Avid fans of “Twilight” stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart have launched a grassroots campaign to fund “For Your Consideration” ads in the Hollywood trade papers advocating Oscar consideration for “Welcome to the Rileys” (for best picture) and its stars James Gandolfini (for best actor), Melissa Leo (for best actress), and especially Stewart (for best supporting actress) — which is more than the film’s distributor, Samuel Goldwyn Films, has done. “Think how incredible it would be to see these three incredible actors gracing the Academy Award red carpet,” the mission statement suggests, adding, “We are seeking to raise $50,000 by December 15th.” Thus far, $130 has been contributed.

New York Post: Emily Smith reports on “Page Six” that Ronni Chasen, the high-profile Hollywood publicist whose murder last week remains a mystery, suspected she was being followed, according to one of her friends (whose identity is kept anonymous). The source says,...

"Don't underestimate the potential of any 'door'," said Javier Fuentes-León in a statement to indieWIRE. Fuentes-León, the director of "Undertow," was initially unsure about participating in the Berlin International Film Festival's Talent Campus. After deciding to accept, he (profiled by Brian Brooks in June) has been reaping the rewards. A winner at this year's Sundance, and opener of NewFest in New York this past summer, "Undertow" follows a fisherman devoted ...

indieWIRE: Brian Brooks passes along the news that Annette Bening will be the recipient of the the Santa Barbara International Film Festival’s American Riviera Award on January 28, just three days after this year’s Oscar nominations are announced. Bening, who is a best actress contender for her standout performances in both “The Kids Are All Right” and “Mother and Child,” joins an impressive list of recipients of this particular honor. Since it was created in 2004, all but one of the honorees went on to receive an Oscar nod, and three went on to win — Philip Seymour Hoffman for “Capote” (2005), Forest Whitaker for “The Last King of Scotland” (2006), and Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side” (2009) just last year.

The Hollywood Reporter: Mimi Turner summarizes the nominations for the British Independent Film Awards, which were announced yesterday. “The King’s Speech” led the field with eight nods — among them were best British independent film,...

After working with departing editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez for over ten years at indieWIRE, Managing Editor Brian Brooks will fill in as acting editor-in-chief until SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen completes his search for a replacement. It's been an emotional time at indieWIRE, as the site's co-founder Hernandez leaves after fifteen years to start his first day at the Film Society of Lincoln Center as director of digital strategy. Hernandez, who will ...

This interview was originally published during indieWIRE's coverage of SXSW 10'. First screened at this year's SXSW festival, Jeff Deutchman's political documentary "11/04/08" is featured this month in SnagFilm's Midterm Madness series. Deutchman (who was profiled by Brian Brooks earlier this year), chatted with indieWIRE about the genesis of his film, and what he has planned next on the docket. Two weeks before the election of Barack Obama, director Jeff ...

This interview was originally published during indieWIRE's coverage of SXSW 10'. First screened at this year's SXSW festival, Jeff Deutchman's political documentary "11/04/08" is featured this month in SnagFilm's Midterm Madness series. Deutchman (who was profiled by Brian Brooks earlier this year), chatted with indieWIRE about the genesis of his film, and what he has planned next on the docket. Two weeks before the election of Barack Obama, director Jeff Deutchman ...

New York Times: David Brooks, The Gray Lady’s conservative op-ed columnist, scolds “The Social Network” for “bad sociology” (asserting that “the old Wasp Harvard of Mayflower families, regatta blazers and Anglo-Saxon cheekbones” doesn’t exist alongside “the largely Jewish and Asian Harvard of brilliant but geeky young strivers” but has actually been replaced by it), praises it for “good psychology (“the movie does a brilliant job dissecting the sorts of people who become stars in an information economy and a hypercompetitive, purified meritocracy”), and makes a terrific observation (“I was reminded of the famous last scene in ‘The Searchers,’ in which the John Wayne character is unable to join the social bliss he has created”).

New York Magazine: Willa Paskin compares the teaser trailer (released about a month ago) with the theatrical trailer (released last night) for “127 Hours,” the latter of which “powerfully lays out the stakes” but “[witholds] all signs of bloody hand amputation…...

The 2010 Toronto International Film Festival has come to a close with the announcement of Tom Hooper's "The King's Speech" as the festival's audience award . In the twelve days and nights leading up to that conclusion, indieWIRE and its team of writers - Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks, Anne Thompson, Peter Knegt, Nigel M. Smith, and Eric Kohn - were working hard from Canada, bringing you the latest news, reviews, and ...

Father and son duo Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, together at Tiff to spread the word on Estevez's "The Way," got personal during a chat with Brian Brooks at the first edition of the 'Live at the Lounge with indieWIRE' series. When discussing the experience of collaborating with his son Sheen got visibly emotional. "To work with my son is sacramental, it’s deeply personal. It’s not possible to describe what he ...

Li Hongqi, photographed by Massimo Pedrazzini for the Locarno Film Festival.

The Locarno Film Festival's Golden Leopard goes to Li Hongqi's Winter Vacation this year. Marian Crişan's Tomorrow has won the Special Jury Prize and Denis Côté has been named Best Director for Curling, which also takes home a Best Actor award for Emmanuel Bilodeau. Curling, by the way, is headed to Toronto in September. Jasna Djurišić wins Best Actress for her performance in Oleg Novković's White White World.

Brian Brooks has the full list of winners at indieWIRE. Coverage of Locarno in the German-language press has been substantial and, for the most part, quite positive. In English, though, the pickings have been thin. Even so, I've been gathering what I've been able to find and posting updates to this entry right here since the festival began.

Update, 8/15: "Juries move in mysterious ways and the best festivals should, and often do,...

The 2010 Cannes Film Festival has come to a close with the announcement of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" as the winner of the Palme d'Or. In the twelve days and nights leading up to that conclusion, indieWIRE and its team of writers - Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks, Anne Thompson, Todd McCarthy, Sydney Levine, and Eric Kohn - were working hard from Croisette, bringing you the ...

Celebrity Sightings: Lindsay Lohan looking like she's attending a toga party. Mischa Barton looking like a creepy Stepford Wife. Are these signs that Cannes is winding down?

Deals: Another pickup for IFC: Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier.

News: Hong Sangsoo's Ha Ha Ha (pictured) won the top award in the Un Certain Regard section. A special award was also given to Los Labios actresses Adela Sanzhez, Eva Bianco and Victoria Raposo. The first annual Queer Palm award, given to an Lgbt film, goes to Gregg Araki's Kaboom. Director's Fortnight winners include Pieds nus sur les limaces, Illegal, Le Quatro Volte and Vuk, a dog who co-stars in Le Quatro Volte. And the Cinefondation Awards for student works were spread to films from Finland, France, Serbia and the U.S. (Nyu).

International critics awarded Fipresci prizes to Matthieu Amalric's Tournee (On Tour), Pal Adrienn and Todos vos sodes capitans.

It's the half-way point of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, with six days behind us and six days to go. indieWIRE and its team of writers - Eugene Hernandez, Brian Brooks, Anne Thompson, Todd McCarthy, Sydney Levine, and Eric Kohn - will continue to work hard from the Croisette, bringing you the latest as the fest winds down toward this weekend's closing ceremony. But in the meantime, how about an indieWIRE-ian ...