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Exclusive: Sffilm’s prestigious Doc Stories is set to welcome a slew of Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated filmmakers to its 10th anniversary event next month, along with industry heavyweights Keri Putnam, Laura Kim, Carrie Lozano, and Justine Nagan.

The documentary festival, which runs from October 17-20 in San Francisco, unveiled its full lineup this morning, highlighted by new work from Kevin Macdonald, Ben Proudfoot, Raoul Peck, Bonni Cohen, Jon Shenk, and Pedro Kos, as well as a classic from Amy Berg about a singer who stunned San Francisco with her talent more than 50 years ago. [Scroll for the full program]

Macdonald opens the festival with One to One: John and Yoko, co-directed by Sam Rice-Edwards, “which chronicles John and Yoko’s musical, personal, artistic, social, and political world set against the backdrop of a turbulent era in American history.”

The closing night film belongs to Suburban Fury,...

The 2024 edition of Sffilm Doc Stories is celebrating a milestone year as the festival toasts its 10th anniversary.

This year’s four-day program will take place from October 17 through 20, and open with Kevin Macdonald and Sam Rice-Edwards’ “One to One: John & Yoko,” about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 18 months living in the U.S.

The festival will close out with a full circle moment, marking the premiere of Robinson Devor’s “Suburban Fury,” which was funded in part by a 2012 Sffilm Rainin Grant. “Suburban Fury” tells the story of Sara Jane Moore, who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford on a crowded sidewalk in San Francisco’s Union Square in September of 1975.

The 2024 Sffilm Doc Stories lineup includes 10 features, two shorts programs, two filmmaking and industry talks, and a documentary filmmaking workshop for teens.

The Doc Stories weekend will kick off with a free, retrospective screening of Amy Berg...

“Phoenix Rising” should absolutely disturb you. Conversations about domestic violence are not easy, mostly because harming young women especially has warranted little alarm in our culture. That’s one of the illuminating truths of this first installment of the two-part documentary playing at Sundance before airing in full on HBO later. To relay this message, acclaimed “Westworld” actress Evan Rachel Wood lays bare her own life.

Wood kicks off the discussion with an intimate conversation: Looking through pictures alongside a friend in a work room, Wood alludes to the impact of the abuse she says she’s suffered by sharing how difficult it is to view images of herself from before. “This is the stuff that makes me cry,” she says before sharing a picture of her with her first boyfriend. “It’s always hard for me to look at photos of myself from before,” she says through tears.

As...

Now playing on Amazon Prime, “Val” is a documentary that reveals an insider’s perspective of what it’s like to be a Hollywood actor. Like Oscar-winner “Amy,” archival footage is the secret sauce — in this case, shot by subject Val Kilmer himself and saved over the decades in a cavernous vault. Kilmer brought in editor Leo Scott a decade ago to digitize that footage. Several years later, Scott and another editor-director, Ting Poo, pitched Kilmer on turning his trove of material into a first-person documentary narrative about his so-called Hollywood life.

With any non-fiction film like this, getting access and keeping it is key to success. And yet the question when it comes to this sort of celebrity profile is always: How honest and authentic is the story? What has been left out? And, in the case of a film like “Val,” if the filmmakers work for the subject,...

Now playing on Amazon Prime, “Val” is a documentary that reveals an insider’s perspective of what it’s like to be a Hollywood actor. Like Oscar-winner “Amy,” archival footage is the secret sauce — in this case, shot by subject Val Kilmer himself and saved over the decades in a cavernous vault. Kilmer brought in editor Leo Scott a decade ago to digitize that footage. Several years later, Scott and another editor-director, Ting Poo, pitched Kilmer on turning his trove of material into a first-person documentary narrative about his so-called Hollywood life.

With any non-fiction film like this, getting access and keeping it is key to success. And yet the question when it comes to this sort of celebrity profile is always: How honest and authentic is the story? What has been left out? And, in the case of a film like “Val,” if the filmmakers work for the subject,...

Jeff Jampol has managed the estates of the Doors, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Tupac Shakur. “None of my clients tour,” he says. “They’re all dead.”

That hasn’t stopped him from generating big money on their behalf, whether it’s organizing a touring exhibition of Cobain’s artwork, setting up Oliver Stone’s 1991 Doors biopic (which tripled the band’s catalog sales), or producing the 2015 Joplin documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue. Jampol compares an artist’s legacy to a dark, cold fireplace with five or six matches on...

Abramorama has acquired worldwide distribution rights for Jonathan McHugh’s directorial debut “Long Live Rock…Celebrate The Chaos” and plans a March 12, 2021 release.

“Long Live Rock” was filmed at various rock festivals around America showing the scope of just how massive these crowds are. Attesting to the power of destination music festivals such as Coachella and Lollapalooza are interviews with members of Metallica, Guns N ‘Roses, Slipknot, Korn, Rob Zombie, Five Finger Death Punch, Rage Against the Machine, Greta Van Fleet, Halestorm, Machine Gun Kelley, and Shinedown. These prominent performers discuss, among other things, the relationship with their audience.

The film is produced by McHugh, Gary Spivack and Jonathan Platt. “Long Live Rock…Celebrate The Chaos” will be launched with an online global red carpet premiere screening event on March 11 featuring a Q&a with the filmmakers, band members and some surprise guests. The film will be available the next...

This Fear the Walking Dead review contains spoilers.

Fear the Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 5

Well, here we are, another week and yet another mission to take down Ginny by turning her own plans against her. This time, in “Honey,” it’s newly reunited Dwight (Austin Amelio) and Sherry (Christine Evangelista) seeking to turn things to their advantage. But what starts out as a simple plan to steal back Al’s Swat van turns into a power struggle when Morgan (Lennie James) suddenly turns up to muddy everyone’s thinking.

In short order, tables are turned. Then turned again. Lovers are reunited, then separated. In the end, this episode feels like a retread of something we’ve seen a few too many times in 16 seasons of Fear the Walking Dead and The Walking Dead. Intentionally or not, Dwight himself sums it up best when late in the episode he tells Morgan,...

Amy Berg, the documentarian behind such acclaimed films as Deliver Us From Evil, West of Memphis and Janis: Little Girl Blue, has absolutely nothing against Chris Pratt. In fact, she strongly disagrees with that other Amy Berg who inadvertently launched the whole Cancel/Don’t Cancel Chris twitstorm that got so out of hand the Avengers themselves came to their costar’s rescue.

“What a way to wake up,” documentarian Berg tweeted this morning. “This is not me. Hundreds of hate messages on all social media platforms! I strongly disagree with this Amy Berg’s tweet and not a big fan of cancel culture. Thank you. #ChrisPratt”

Even the other Amy Berg, a TV producer and writer, is saying enough is enough. Yesterday, she tweeted, “We managed to turn a Chris ‘snack’ joke into attacks and threats by right-wingers….Seriously, enough.

Samantha Laidlaw.

Streaming service Femflix, which carries features, documentaries, miniseries and short-form content celebrating female-centric storytelling, has launched in Australia and New Zealand.

The brainchild of Samantha Laidlaw, the ad-free service costs $8.99 a month and offers 200 titles, all with at least one female-identifying creative in positions such as director, producer, writer, cinematographer or lead actress.

“Our goal is to shine a spotlight on female filmmakers in Australia, New Zealand and from around the world and to increase availability of female-centric storytelling for audiences,” Laidlaw tells If. “As a woman, it’s important to see yourself reflected on screen and have access to storytelling through a female gaze.

“We’re excited to have the support of a number of well-established distributors like Transmission Films, Bonsai Films and Vendetta Films and are in conversation with other distributors now that we have launched.

“We’ve also partnered with a number of screen industry bodies including Wift Australia,...

FilmRise, the New York-based film and TV distribution company and streaming network, has acquired Sabrina Van Tassel’s timely social justice documentary “The State of Texas vs. Melissa,” which premiered at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival.

FilmRise picked up the theatrical and digital rights to the documentary for North America, the U.K. and Ireland.

Set in the heart of the Latino community of South Texas, the compelling film explores the life and trials of Melissa Lucio, the first Hispanic woman in Texas sentenced to death row. The film takes a look at Lucio’s broken and abusive childhood and her adult life plagued by poverty and prejudice.

“Sabrina Van Tassel’s powerful documentary raises important questions about our criminal justice system and how it treats vulnerable members of our society,” said Danny Fisher, CEO of FilmRise.

“We are proud to add this film to our diverse library of documentaries about our criminal justice system,...

Prolific doc maker Alex Gibney returns this year with “Citizen K,” a portrait of Putin’s Russia that Greenwich Entertainment will release in Los Angeles on November 22. Financed by Amazon, the film will later hit streaming via Prime Video. Greenwich last year handled the theatrical distribution of National Geographic’s “Free Solo,” which went on to win the Best Documentary Feature Academy Award, and grossed nearly $18 million at the U.S. box office — impressive numbers for a doc.

“Citizen K” takes a look at post-Soviet Russia through the eyes of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a onetime oligarch turned political dissident, and unlikely martyr for the anti-Trump movement. Amid the shakeout of the U.S.S.R.’s dissolution, Khodorkovsky made bank working in finance and in oil production, becoming the richest man in Russia. However, when he accused Putin’s regime of corruption, he was arrested, followed by seizure of his assets and humiliation throughout a series of show trials.

Last week’s third-annual Women’s March was largely overshadowed by the sideshow of a standoff between dudes — specifically, Covington Catholic High students, Native American activists, and Black Israelities. This proved once again that it’s difficult for media and public alike to focus on women’s (or any other) issues amid the controversy blitzkrieg of the Trump Era.

Amy Berg’s “This Is Personal” (so freshly retitled from “Til Everybody’s Free” that it still bears that name in the Sundance catalog) attempts some course-correction by providing a glimpse of the actions, issues, and leading personalities driving the Women’s March. But its usefulness to all but the converted is limited by a lack of depth expanded on those issues and the organization itself, with a majority of screentime devoted to two high-profile activists. Either or both would have made a suitable subject for a whole documentary, but “This...

Union Entertainment Group has expanded its European operations with the launch of Ueg Global, announcing plans to launch a new Dublin-based entity to help create a pathway for North American film and TV projects to shoot in the country.

The film production and financing company, which partnered on films such as Janis: Little Girl Blue and whose president of production Noah C. Haeussner produced the Cannes-bowed Mads Mikkelsen-starring Arctic, has also partnered with Dublin-based production companies on a duo of upcoming projects.

With Zanzibar Films (Sanctuary, A Cambodian Spring) it will co-produce Kaitlin McLaughlin’s sophomore feature The Murphys, while with...

Why Bloodlight and Bami bucks the cliched trend that’s haunted films about Whitney Houston and Amy Winehouse

Related: Grace Jones and giant confetti cannons: the 20 biggest festival moments of 2017

The tragic downfall of a celebrity ingenue: a trusted, market-friendly formula for the big screen, especially where female recording artists are concerned. Documentaries about female stars tend to tread a similar narrative, involving a reductive look at personal histories, where the film-maker is less interested in the idea of accomplished musicians than of girls who supposedly dreamed too big and self-destructed through addiction and failed relationships. With this mythologising, you might say that Amy Winehouse (Asif Kapadia’s Amy), Whitney Houston (Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Can I Be Me), Nina Simone ( Liz Garbus and Hal Tulchin’s What Happened Miss Simone?) and Janis Joplin (Amy Berg’s Janis: Little Girl Blue) have been made more alike in death than in life.

FilmRise is shining a spotlight on sleep paralysis and movie posters, as they have announced that they have acquired North American distribution rights to Dead Awake, as well as worldwide distribution rights to the documentary 24X36: A Movie About Movie Posters.

Starring Lori Petty and Jocelin Donahue, Dead Awake is slated for an early 2017 theatrical release from FilmRise, who are also scheduling a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital release for Kevin Burke’s documentary 24X36: A Movie About Movie Posters. For full details on both deals, we have the official press releases below.

Press Release: Los Angeles, CA – FilmRise is proud to announce it has acquired the North American rights to Dead Awake, the next film from the creator of the Final Destination franchise.

FilmRise acquired the film in a deal with Archstone Distribution during this month’s American Film Market. The distributor plans a theatrical release in the U.

Tough times for indie distributors? Not when it’s FilmRise. Earlier this month, the Brooklyn-based distributor raised an additional $27 million led by Harlan Capital Partners, the investment firm that initially backed FilmRise by leading a $25 million investment a year ago.

What’s more: FilmRise plans to spend the $27 million in the next six months, and co-founder and CEO Danny Fisher says he already has offers for more.

FilmRise is using its latest capital injection to double down on its aggressive acquisition strategy, which will see the company release around 24 movies theatrically during the next year, plus many more digitally. While the majority of FilmRise’s revenue comes from digital releases, the company moved into releasing films theatrically last year with Amy Berg’s Janis Joplin documentary “Janis: Little Girl Blue.”

While FilmRise’s expansion into theatrical distribution might sound like a major milestone, a competing distributor said that without the boost of a theatrical release,...

About four years ago, it was reported that director Sean Durkin was to helm a biopic about singer Janis Joplin with Tony-winning actress Nina Arianda in the lead role. In the interim, there was radio silence on that front, though there were other reports that Lee Daniels would make his own biopic with actress Amy Adams, and Durkin went on to direct the British miniseries “Southcliffe” and produce films like “James White” and most recently “Christine.” Now, Durkin’s Joplin biopic is back in the mix as Variety reports that Michelle Williams is in talks to play the lead role in Durkin’s film.

Read More: Toronto Review: Despite Limited High Notes, ‘Janis: Little Girl Blue’ Can’t Best the Power of ‘Amy’

The film will tell the story of the last six months of Joplin’s life before she tragically died of a drug overdose in 1970. It will be produced by Peter Newman,...

The story of Janis Joplin has at once fascinated and confounded Hollywood, in equal measure, for decades. The iconic blues vocalist who burst onto the music scene in the 1960s captured the imagination in such a rare way that many have tried to deliver her biopic – and failed. This could be about to change, however, as it is reported that Michelle Williams is in “early talks” to play the titular lead role in Janis.

Janis Joplin shone very bright, but all too briefly as she forged a music career that resulted in just 4 studio albums, released between 1967 and 1971. She built a stellar reputation as an outstanding, captivating live performer, though, and frequently left audiences stunned from 1962, when she really began singing to entertain, and her premature death in 1970. In that fleeting period, she had been the lead singer of Big Brother And The Holding Company, The Kozmic Blues Band, and...

Ever since it wowed opening-night crowds at Sundance 2016, documentary biopic “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” has met a range of reactions. That’s because it’s more than a straightforward cradle-to-grave chronicle of Lear’s remarkable decades of television creativity. (Music Box opened the film in New York July 8, Los Angeles hits July 15, PBS’s American Masters airs in October, followed in November by Netflix.)

Documentarians Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Oscar-nominated “Jesus Camp,” shortlisted “Detropia”) recognized that, at 93, their subject is still vital and engaging—years after creating groundbreaking ’70s shows “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Maude,” and “Sanford and Sons,” among others, not to mention founding liberal action group People for the American Way.

And so they gave Lear leeway to fashion his on-screen persona, and brought in plenty of friendly talking heads, including, most controversially, George Clooney. In turn, Lear let them dig and...

Ever since it wowed opening-night crowds at Sundance 2016, documentary biopic “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” has met a range of reactions. That’s because it’s more than a straightforward cradle-to-grave chronicle of Lear’s remarkable decades of television creativity. (Music Box opened the film in New York July 8, Los Angeles hits July 15, PBS’s American Masters airs in October, followed in November by Netflix.)

Documentarians Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Oscar-nominated “Jesus Camp,” shortlisted “Detropia”) recognized that, at 93, their subject is still vital and engaging—years after creating groundbreaking ’70s shows “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” “Maude,” and “Sanford and Sons,” among others, not to mention founding liberal action group People for the American Way.

And so they gave Lear leeway to fashion his on-screen persona, and brought in plenty of friendly talking heads, including, most controversially, George Clooney. In turn, Lear let them dig and...

Adam Driver in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson.

Sydney Film Festival has announced additional screenings at Palace Cinemas in Leichhardt and Paddington.

.Palace Verona and Norton Street cinemas will show twelve additional screenings of festival films, where screenings have proved extremely popular,. said Sff Director Nashen Moodley.

.This is the second year we will extend our run for top-selling films beyond the end of the festival. These screenings are a wonderful way for audiences, if they missed out on Festival tickets, to see some of the most talked-about films of the year,. he said.

Those films include.Sing Street, Swiss Army Man, The Lure, Personal Shopper, Aquarius, Wednesday 9 May, Paterson, Tokyo Story, Weiner, Tickled and Janis: Little Girl Blue.

sff.org.au...

Adam Driver in Jim Jarmusch's Paterson.

Sydney Film Festival has announced additional screenings at Palace Cinemas in Leichhardt and Paddington.

.Palace Verona and Norton Street cinemas will show twelve additional screenings of festival films, where screenings have proved extremely popular,. said Sff Director Nashen Moodley.

.This is the second year we will extend our run for top-selling films beyond the end of the festival. These screenings are a wonderful way for audiences, if they missed out on Festival tickets, to see some of the most talked-about films of the year,. he said.

Those films include.Sing Street, Swiss Army Man, The Lure, Personal Shopper, Aquarius, Wednesday 9 May, Paterson, Tokyo Story, Weiner, Tickled and Janis: Little Girl Blue.

sff.org.au...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

10 Cloverfield Lane (Dan Trachtenberg)

Forget the Cloverfield connection. The actors who were in this film didn’t even know what the title was until moments before the first trailer dropped. Producer J.J. Abrams used that branding as part of the wrapping for its promotional mystery box, but the movie stands perfectly alone from 2008’s found-footage monster picture. Hell, 10 Cloverfield Lane perhaps doesn’t even take place...

Get out those orange jumpsuits: Season 4 of "Orange Is the New Black" debuts on Netflix on June 17.

Also new in June: The first three "Jurassic Park" films, "Life" (starring Robert Pattinson as a Life magazine photographer and Dane DeHaan as James Dean) and Best Picture Oscar winner "Spotlight." ("The Big Short" arrives in July.)

Here's the complete list of what's new on Netflix streaming in June 2016:

Available June 1

"7 Chinese Brothers" (2015)

"72 Cutest Animals:" Season 1

"72 Dangerous Places:" Season 1

"A Walk to Remember" (2002)

"Big Stone Gap" (2014)

"Bob Ross: Beauty is Everywhere (1990)

"Breaking the Magician's Code: Magic's Biggest Secrets Finally Revealed:" Season 1-2

"Cold in July" (2014)

"Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land On The Moon?" (2001)

"Cuba: The Forgotten Revolution" (2015)

"(Dis)Honesty: The Truth About Lies" (2015)

"El Libro de Piedra" (1969)

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" (2007)

"Extraordinary Tales" (2015)

"The Fear of 13" (2015)

"Gabo: The Creation of Gabriel García Márquez" (2015)

"Gentlemen and Gangsters:" Season 1

"The Good Witch...

I expect honest answers in the comments!

Newish to DVD/BluRay

• The Boy -have you ever been scared of a doll?

• Deadpool - What did you think of that junkyard finale?

• Dirty Grandpa - Do you think Robert de Niro feels any shame about his filmography or just laughs all the way to the bank?

• Janis: Little Girl Blue - Will Amy Adams will ever actually make that Janis Joplin bio and how many movies do we really need about the singer anyway?

• The Program - Ben Foster. Scary or sexy?

• The Witch - Wouldst thou live deliciously?

Also new: Where to Invade Next, Captive, War & Peace (series), Theeb, Orange is the New Black Season 3

I am a boxer for the freedom of cinematic expression!

-Sergei Eisenstein (in Eisenstein in Guatanjuato)

Streaming

• 99 Homes - Was Michael Shannon robbed of an Oscar nom?

• Eisenstein in Guanajuato - Have you ever seen a Peter Greenaway movie?...

★★★☆☆ "Take another little piece of my heart," Janis Joplin famously wails in Piece of My Heart. In Janis: Little Girl Blue, Amy Berg has lovingly reassembled those pieces, seemingly scattered over the most musically-critical decade in our recent history, and shaped them back into the bright star that was Joplin herself. While it is a documentary in the classic sense (talking heads, reels of historical footage, even a re-enactment of Joplin's letters), there is such a warm nostalgia for the subject that we do not seem to mind the familiar tropes. Berg brings us a softer, more vulnerable side to Joplin without trading on her name. There are some great nuggets: insightful anecdotes from former band members of Big Brother & the Holding Company as well as her family and archive footage help make this a wonderful portrait.

Exclusive: TrustNordisk’s documentary about chess champion Magnus Carlsen had its world premiere in Tribeca.

FilmRise has acquired Us rights to Benjamin Ree’s feature documentary Magnus, about chess champion Magnus Carlsen, in a deal with TrustNordisk.

The film had its world premiere in Tribeca, which is where FilmRise discovered it.

TrustNordisk head of sales Susan Wendt negotiated the deal with Max Einhorn, FilmRise’s VP Acquisitions, and Danny Fisher, FilmRise’s CEO.

Wendt said, “We are very exited to work with FilmRise on Magnus. They have done a really great job with Janis: Little Girl Blue and with the enthusiasm they have shown for Magnus we are convinced that they will do a great job here as well.”

“Magnus is an unforgettable portrait of a remarkable prodigy that truly shows real life can be more fascinating than fiction,” said Fisher. “We are beyond thrilled to announce our acquisition of Benjamin Ree’s film, and cannot...

As the main topic of this year’s festival, Docaviv will feature a select group of thought-provoking films about a world that is changing with the collapse of physical and social boundaries, growing economic disparities, the waves of refugees and immigrants, civil wars, international terrorism, and the ultimate undoing of social solidarity.

Within the framework of this theme the program does not only include documentaries about terror and refugees, but also about a fragmented society which is losing its solidarity. Both in Israel and elsewhere the gap between the haves and the have-nots is widening, and so are the frustrations and the unrest. Israeli and international titles correlating to these themes can be found throughout the entire festival program:

“Death in the terminal” - Directors Tali Shemesh (“The Cemetery Club”) and Assaf Surd

A tense, minute-by-minute, Rashomon-style account of a tragic day. On October 18, 2015, a terrorist armed with a gun and a knife entered Beersheba’s bus terminal. Within 18 minutes Omri Levy, a soldier was killed and Abtum Zarhum, Eritrean immigrant asylum seeker, was lynched after being mistaken for a terrorist.

“The Settlers” - Premiered in Sundance, Director Shimon Dotan.

A far-reaching, comprehensive look at the Jewish settlement enterprise in the West Bank. It examines the origins of the settlement movement and the religious and ideological visions that propelled it, while providing an intimate look at the people at the center of the greatest geopolitical challenge now facing Israel and the international community. (Isa Contact: Cinephil)

“Town on a Wire” - premiered at Cph: Dox Dir: Uri Rosenwaks

While Tel Aviv is thriving, just ten minutes away lies the town of Lod, right in the backyard of Israel’s bustling urban center. Unlike its affluent neighbor, Lod is a city that suffers from the blight of racism, crime, and sheer desperation. Can it be saved? Is there some way to bring hope to Lod’s Arab and Jewish residents?

“Foucoammare”/ “Fire at Sea” - by Gianfranco Rosi - winner of Golden Bear, Berlinale 2016 -every day the inhabitants of the Italian Island Lampedusa are confronted with the flight of refugees to Europe . These people long for peace and freedom and often only their dead bodies are pulled out of the water. (Contact Isa: Doc & Film Int’l. U.S.: Kino Lorber)

“Between fences” – by Avi Mograbi -. In an Israeli detention center asylum-seekers from Eritrea and Sudan can’t be sent back to their own countries, but have no prospects in Israel either thanks to the country’s policies. Chen Alon and Avi Mograbi, initiate a theatre workshop to give these people the opportunity to address their own experiences of forced migration and discrimination and to confront an Israeli society that views them as dangerous infiltrators.

“A Syrian Love Story” – by Sean McAllister -You can’t be Che Guevara and a mother Amer tells Raghda, but maybe she can't do it any other way. After years of struggle, life without her homeland and the revolution has no meaning for her. It is hard to determine what is more demanding in this bold film: the revolution, or the search for inner peace. (Contact Isa: Cat & Docs)

“Homo Sapiens” – by Nikolaus Geyrhalter - what does humanity leave behind when its gone? It sometimes seems as if the mark that humans leave on this planet will last forever. The truth is that the iron, bricks, cement, and steel – the human traces everywhere abandoned and forgotten – are erased by the forces of nature. This unusually beautiful film may lack people and words, but that leaves even more room for thought.(Contact Isa: Autlook)

“Land of the Enlightened” – Premiered at Sundance Ff 2016. Shot over seven years on evocative 16mm footage, first-time director Pieter-Jan De Pue paints a whimsical yet haunting look at the condition of Afghanistan left for the next generation. As American soldiers prepare to leave, we follow De Pue deep into this hidden land where young boys form wild gangs to control trade routes, sell explosives from mines left over from war, making the new rules of war based on the harsh landscape left to them. (Contact Isa: Films Boutique)

“Flickering Truth” - Premiered at Toronto Ff 2015. Director Pietra Brettkelly (The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins) directs this harrowing, compelling film about the power of cinema to preserve our history and in so doing potentially change our futures. (Contact Isa: Film Sales Company)

“Requiem for the American Dream” - Directed by Peter D. Hutchison, Kelly Nyks, Jared P. Scott. In ten chilling but lucid chapters, Noam Chomsky, one of the great intellectuals of our time, analyzes the “system,” which allows wealthy capitalists to seize the reins of government and turn those without wealth into a passive herd, willing to forego power, solidarity, and democracy itself. (U.S.: Gravitas. Contact Isa: Films Transit)

The festival will open with a first film by Israeli director Roman Shumunov

“Babylon Dreamers” Directed by Roman Somonob. An intimate report about a troupe of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, from one of Ashdod’s poorest neighborhoods; they struggle to survive facing harsh conditions - poverty, mental illness, and broken families. They channel their anger and cling to their dream of attending and winning the International Breakdance Championship.

Israeli Competition

Some 70 Israeli films produced over the last year were submitted out of which 13 films have been selected for the Israeli Competition. They will be competing for the largest cash prize for documentary filmmaking in Israel 70,000 Nis (Us$ 15,000). Other awards in the competition include the Mayor’s Prize for the Most Promising Filmmaker, the Prize for Editing, the Prize for Cinematography, the Prize for Research, and the Prize for Original Score.

"The Wonderful Kingdom of Papa Alaev," directors Tal Barda, Noam Pinchas -Tajikistan’s answer to the Jackson Family. A modern-day Shakespearean tale about a famous Tajik musical family, controlled by their charismatic patriarch-grandfather - Papa Alaev.

"A Tale of Two Balloons" by Zohar Wagner - The tale of a women who thought a pair of perfect breasts would help her find true love. But when that love came along, those perfect breasts had to go.

"Aida's Secrets," director Alon Schwarz - At 68, Izak learns he has a brother he never knew about. As part of the discoveries about the family, the film uncovers the story of the Displaced Persons camps- the vibrant and often wild social life that flourished immediately after WW2.

"Child Mother" by Yael Kipper and Ronen Zaretzky - The story of elderly women born in Morocco and Yemen, who were married off when they were still little girls. Only now, as they enter the final chapter of their lives, do they openly face their past and the ways it still affects them and their families.

"The Last Shaman" directed by Raz Degan - Inspired by an article he read, James decides to travel to the Amazon rainforests, in search of a shaman whom he thinks can save him from a clinical depression that haunts him.

"The Patriarch's Room" by Danae Elon -The bizarre imprisonment of the former head of the Greek Orthodox Church in a tiny monastic cell in Jerusalem’s Old City leads to a fascinating journey in search of the truth, penetrating the remote world of the priesthood. The complex and unfamiliar picture that emerges is revealed here, on camera, for the very first time.

"Poetics of the Brain" by Nurith Aviv –weaving associative links between her personal biographical stories and neuroscientists’ accounts of their work. They discuss topics such as memory, bilingualism, reading, mirror neurons, smell, traces of experience.

"Shalom Italia," by Tamar Tal Anati (winner of Docaviv for Life in Stills) -Three Italian Jewish brothers set off on a journey through Tuscany, in search of a cave where they hid as children to escape the Nazis. Their quest, full of humor, food and Tuscan landscapes, straddles the boundary between history and myth, both of which really, truly happened.

"Week 23" by Ohad Milstein - Rahel, the daughter of a Swiss bishop, is coping with a difficult pregnancy in Israel. One of the identical twins she is carrying has died in utero, and now poses an almost certain threat to its sibling. The doctors are unequivocal about it. They tell Rahel that she should abort the surviving fetus and end her pregnancy.

"The Settlers" by Shimon Dotan; Town On A Wire directed by Uri Rosenwaksand Eyal Blachson; Death in the Terminal by Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry, and Babylon Dreamers by Roman Shumunov.

The Members of the selection committee included Sinai Abt, artistic director of the Docaviv Film Festival; director Reuven Brodsky, winner of Docaviv in 2012 for his film Home Movie and of Honorable Mention at Docaviv in 2015 and film editor Ayelet Ofarim.

Twelve films have been selected for the International Competition, which will open with the The Happy Film by Stefan Seigmeister. Also competing are Jerzy Sladkowski’s Don Juan, winner of the Idfa Award; Author: The J.T. LeRoy Story about the imaginary cult figure who became the darling of New York society and nightlife, picked up by Amazon at Sundance as its first doc title. Another festival favorite is A Flickering Truth and Sean McAllister's daring award winning documentary A Syrian Love Story.

The Depth of Field Competition will open with LoveTrue by director Alma Har’el, who will be a juror for the Israeli Film Competition. This is the Competition’s third year, held in conjunction with the Film Critics’ Forum that will award films for an outstanding and daring artistic vision. Other films that will be screened as part of the competition include Sundance winners Kate Plays Christine by Robert Greene, and Pieter-Jan De Pue’s hybrid documentary The Land of the Enlightened; other titles that will be shown are Hotel Dallas by wife and husband artist duo Livia Ungur and Sherng-Lee Huang, The Hong Kong Trilogy by noted cinematographer Christopher Doyle , and the musical- turned into documentary London Road by Rufus Norris and Alecky Blythe.

The Masters Section, a new category in the festival, highlighting new films by world renowned directors will be opened by Fire at Sea by director Gianfranco Rosi, winner of the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale. Avi Mograbi’s Between Fences will be accompanied by a play by the Holot Legislative Theater, with a cast of actors that includes Israelis and African asylum seekers.

Other films in this section include amongst others Junun, Paul Thomas Anderson’s portrayal of a musical project involving Shye Ben-Tzur and Jonny Greenwood, Homo Sapiens by director Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine by director Alex Gibney, To the Desert by director Judd Neeman, Unlocking the Cage by directors D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, De Palma by co-director Noah Baumbach and He Named Me Malala by David Guggenheim.

The Panorama selection of films will include amongst others the moving Strike a Pose, by Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan about the dancers who accompanied Madonna on her “Blond Ambition” tour, Roger Ross Williams ‘Life, Animated depicting the remarkable story of an autistic boy, who learned how to communicate with his surroundings through Disney films, Those Who Jump about an African refugee who films attempts by other refugees to jump the barbed wire border fence in North Africa and Louis Theroux: My Scientology Film.

This year’s Arts Section will include Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville; I Don’t Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman, which was produced shortly before her tragic death, Listen to Me, Marlon, which tells the story of Marlon Brando through the audio recordings he made throughout his life, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, the salacious story of art collector Peggy Guggenheim, Koudelka Shooting Holy Land, Gilad Baram’s film about famous Czech photographer Josef Koudelka’s travels along the Separation Fence, and more.

Seven films produced by the top film schools in Israel were selected to compete in the annual Student Film Competition. The prize for the competition was donated by the Gottesman family in memory of Ruti Gottesman, a leading supporter of Docaviv and of documentary.

The Members of the selection committee included Karin Ryvind Segal, programming director for Docaviv, Hila Avraham, curator and expert on film and audiovisual media preservation and screenwriter Danny Rosenberg, whose work includes the films My Father’s House , Susia and the television series Johnny and the Knights of the Galilee.

Special Guests attending the Festival:

Award winning Director Ondi Timoner, will be attending the Israeli premiere of her film Russell Brand: A Second Coming. Her Sundance-winning film Dig! will be among the music documentaries screened at the Tel Aviv Port. In conjunction with the Film Department of Beit Berl College, Timoner will also be conducting a special master class for students, professionals, and amateurs.

This year’s festival will include a special tribute to acclaimed director Nikolaus Geyrhalter who will be attending the festival with his recent Homo Sapiens. This year’s festival will also include two previous films of his, Our Daily Bread and Abendland,.

International jury members attending the festival include:

Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen, Director of the Idfa industry office; Gary Kam, producer of Planet of Snail; film director Alma Har’el (Bombay Beach; LoveTrue) ; Nilotpal, Director of Docedge Kolkata, Sascha Lara Bleuler, Director of the Human Rights Film Festival in Zurich, and film director Tatiana Brandrup.

The Israeli jurors include:

Director Dror Moreh, director and producer Barak Heymann, director Robby Elmaliah, producer Elinor Kowarsky, photographer David Adika, and film editor Tal Rabiner.

Around town. A record number of twelve screening venues spread out across Tel Aviv will offer free screenings. These are: Habima Square, the Beit Danny Community Center, the Hatikvah neighborhood, the Arab-Jewish Community Center in Jaffa, the rooftop of Tel Aviv City Hall, WeWork, Levinsky Park, Bar Kayma, Beit Romano, the Nalaga’at Center, Picnic Little Italy-Sarona Tel Aviv, and Artport.

Outdoors. The Tel Aviv Port will continue to host the festival this year, with outdoor screenings of music films with guest deejays from KZRadio. Films to be screened at the port include Janis: Little Girl Blue, The Reflektor Tapes about the band Arcade Fire, P.T Andersoan’s Junun about the musical collaboration between Shye Ben Tzur, ‎Jonny Greenwood, Nigel Godrich, and a dozen Indian musicians.

Festival Firsts. DocaviVR: a collaboration between Docaviv and Steamer, Israel’s first Interactive and Virtual Reality Film Festival, presents original documentary projects from Israel and around the world, created especially for viewing with Vr gear. The event will take place at Beit Romano. A cinema will pop up in one of Tel Aviv’s trendy hubs, with 25 stations equipped with Vr gear.

The Docommunity conference aims to promote dcomentary across the country by bringing together cultural coordinators and artistic directors from across the country to introduce them to the latest documentary films from Israel and around the world.

The Platform for Alternative Documentation at Artport art space: A performative piece that brings together film artists, social activists, and researchers studying the various aesthetic, social, and philosophical aspects of documentation. Curated by Laliv Melamed and Gilad Reich.

Young audiences. For the first time, films from The Next Doc will be screened, a special initiative of Docaviv, the Second Channel, and the New Fund for Film and Television, which led to the production of three films created especially for a teenage audience.

Docaviv will also be hosting the final event of Docu Young, at which films by students in residential schools, who participated in film workshops , will be screened.

The Docyouth Competition will feature the best documentary films produced by students in high school film programs throughout the country. For the first time, voting for this year’s competition will be held online and open to high school students across the country.

Among the Screenings of docs for kids are Victor Kosakovsky’s “Varicella”, and “Landfilharmonic”.

Over the course of the festival, 110 films will be screened.

An amazing talent gone way too soon, Janis Joplin is more than her boozy, brash public image. This bio docu has the personal background and the insights of those her knew, plus the Texas and San Francisco context in the Rock breakout of the late 1960s. Janis: Little Girl Blue DVD Filmrise / Mvd 2015 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date May 6, 2016 / 19.95 Starring Janis Joplin, Cat Power (voice), Peter Albin, Melissa Etheridge, Clive Davis, Laura Joplin, Michael Joplin, D.A. Pennebaker, Kris Kristofferson, Country Joe McDonald, Dick Cavett.. Cinematography Francesco Carrozzini, Jenna Rosher Film Editors Mark Harrison, Maya Hawke, Billy McMillin, Garret Price, Brendan Walsh Produced by Amy J. Berg, Alex Gibney, Katherine LeBlond, Jeff Jampol Directed by Amy J. Berg

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Janis: Little Girl Blue is an entertaining and emotionally affecting bio-film about the noted singer and songwriter, whose rise to fame in the San Francisco scene of the...

FilmRise has acquired worldwide distribution rights to the Silicon Cowboys, which had its world premiere Friday in the Documentary Spotlight section at SXSW. The indie film and TV distributor (Going Clear, Janis: Little Girl Blue) plans a fall 2016 theatrical release. Jason Cohen’s docu centers on the birth of Compaq Computer and is a fresh look into the explosive rise of the 1980s PC industry. Compaq, founded by three friends in a Houston diner, took on mighty Ibm by…...

La-based firm closes deals on genre titles and brings slate to Hong Kong Filmart.

Content Media has closed a series of deals throughout Asia for a hat-trick of titles.

Sci-fi Higher Power, from Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, has been sold to China (Hgc Entertainment), Japan (Ccc / Culture Entertainment), Korea (Entermode). Pan Regional Ptv (Fox International), India (PVR), Malaysia (Vsg), Philippines (Pioneer), Singapore (Shaw), Thailand (Sahamongkol) and Vietnam (Vsg).

Directed by Matthew Santoro, the film centres on an ordinary man who risks his life to save his daughter, and ends up with superpowers. Cast includes Ron Eldard, Colm Feore, Jordan Hinson, Austin Stowell and Jade Tailor.

Supernatural horror film Don’t Knock Twice, starring Battlestar Galactica’s Katee Sackoff and directed by Caradog James (The Machine) has been sold to India (PVR), Indonesia (Rapi Films), Malaysia (Rain Film), Philippines (Pioneer), Taiwan (Cmc Content), Thailand (M Pictures), Vietnam (Rain Film) and Pan Regional Ptv (Fox International).

Sackoff stars as...

Following its recent premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Jim Hosking’s The Greasy Strangler has been acquired for North American distribution by FilmRise, with a theatrical release planned for this fall:

Press Release: New York – Film and television distributor FilmRise announced today that it has acquired the exclusive North American distribution rights for the Sundance sensation “The Greasy Strangler.” The film will play as a “Festival Favorite” in the SXSW Film Festival later this month and will receive a theatrical release in fall 2016. FilmRise will collaborate with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas in a multi-market theatrical partnership to release the film, a coproduction from SpectreVision, Drafthouse, Rook Films and Timpson Films.

Picked up by the distributor following its raucous world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, “The Greasy Strangler” follows Ronnie, a man who runs a disco walking tour along with his browbeat son, Brayden. When an alluring woman comes to take the tour,...

Trumbo | Dad’s Army | Rams | Janis: Little Girl Blue | Point Break | Goosebumps | Miss Hokusai | Taking Stock | Strangerland | Amazonia

Putting memories of Walter White behind him, Cranston gets his teeth into the eloquent, dapper, chain-smoking screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who defied his Hollywood blacklisting by ghost-writing a string of 1950s hits, usually from his bathtub. There’s little curiosity about Trumbo’s communism here; it’s more of a self-congratulatory tribute to Tinseltown nobility, celebrity impersonations and all. But Cranston deserves his Oscar nod.

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The ragged beauty of Janis Joplin’s voice; that diamond-in-the-rough, sandpaper, bluesy holler of surprising power and range, has enraptured listeners for decades. Her premature end in 1970 stunned the music community. It was also, coming at the age of 27, a loss that has gained notoriety for its timing, as she is oft-referred these days

The post Janis: Little Girl Blue Review appeared first on HeyUGuys.

Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy Berg, is a documentary that describes how the blues-rock singer’s miserable school days influenced her music and contributed to her problems with drugs and alcohol. In this clip Joplin heads to her 10-year high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas, and tells reporters how she felt isolated from her schoolmates as a teenager

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Janis: Little Girl Blue, directed by Amy Berg, is a documentary that describes how the blues-rock singer’s miserable school days influenced her music and contributed to her problems with drugs and alcohol. In this clip Joplin heads to her 10-year high school reunion in Port Arthur, Texas, and tells reporters how she felt isolated from her schoolmates as a teenager

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Istanbul event will host a total of 23 gala screenings, including the latest films from Charlie Kaufman and Jean-Marc Vallee, as well as a David Bowie tribute programme.Scroll down for the full line-up

!f Istanbul Independent Film Festival has revealed its programme for the 2016 edition (February 18-28).

Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa, which premiered at Telluride last year, and Jean-Marc Vallee’s Demolition, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, will open and close the festival respectively.

!f Istanbul - in its 15th edition - will host screenings, competitions and events dedicated to bringing the best of independent film to the Turkish city.

Other gala presentations will include Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash, Gaspar Noé’s Love 3D, Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s BAFTA-nominated The Assassin.

In memory of the late musician David Bowie, the festival will show remastered versions of his films The Man Who Fell To Earth and The Hunger...

Read More: Watch: Tarantino, Iñárritu and More Reveal Influences and Industry Issues in One-Hour Roundtable The Hollywood Reporter's excellent series of roundtable discussions continues today with the full 58-minute documentary roundtable, which includes six heavyweight panelists: Michael Moore ("Where To Invade Next"), Alex Gibney ("Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" and "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"), Amy Berg ("Janis: Little Girl Blue" and "Prophet's Prey"), Kirby Dick ("The Hunting Ground"), Liz Garbus ("What Happened, Miss Simone?") and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ("Meru"). Tackling topics and figures as controversial as college rape, Warren Jeffs, Steve Jobs, Scientology and more, these documentarians have often risked their lives and reputations to bring the truth to the big screen. "I hired a private detective; he was carry­ing a gun," said Berg...

In THR's latest roundtable talk, some of the premier documentarians of 2015 reflect on the state of their chosen form. Michael Moore ("Where To Invade Next"), Alex Gibney ("Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief" and "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine"), Amy Berg ("Janis: Little Girl Blue," "Prophet's Prey"), Kirby Dick ("The Hunting Ground"), Liz Garbus ("What Happened, Miss Simone?") and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ("Meru") sit down to chat for a fascinating talk. Read More: Amy Berg's Brutally Unsettling 'Prophet's Prey'  When discussing documentaries, it's easy to forget that for all the stories about the tough production of "The Revenant," these filmmakers are also dealing with situations that could very easily turn dangerous. "Well, yeah, I'm afraid. But I reached a certain point where I had to just stop being afraid, and I got rid of the...

Continuing their support for women directors, Horizon Award co-founding producers Cassian Elwes, Lynette Howell Taylor, and Christine Vachon, announced the winners of the second annual Horizon Award. Academy Award nominee Chloë Sevigny will bestow up-and-coming filmmakers Macarena Gaona, Juliette Gosselin, Shanice Malakai Johnson, and Florence Pelletier with the Horizon Award at a reception in Park City, Utah, with creative talent, producers, entertainment executives and media in attendance to celebrate these rising women directors and their achievements in independent filmmaking.

The Horizon Award ceremony and reception will take place on Sunday, January 24th, 2016 at 6:30 pm at the WireImage Portrait Studio at Village at the Lift (825 Main Street, Park City), co-hosted by Jeff Vespa.

The Horizon Award is an annual award that seeks to identify and mentor talented, up-and-coming female directors – the primary goal being to support women directors early enough in their development to help them overcome the hurdles in advancing their learning curve and careers.

In addition to the Horizon Award, the four winners will receive grants from the Adrienne Shelly Foundation. The Foundation supports the artistic achievements of female filmmakers through a series of grants that reflect Adrienne Shelly’s dedication to the art of filmmaking and her own successful transition from actress to filmmaker.

This year’s winners are:

Horizon Award First Place

Juliette Gosselin (University of Quebec in Montreal) & Florence Pelletier (Concordia University, Montreal)

Co-directors of "Mes Anges à Tête Noire"

Horizon Award Runners-Up

Macarena (Macqui) Gaona (New York University) Director of "Channel 999 and Channel 1000"

Shanice Malakai Johnson (Scottsdale Community College) Director of "End to the Suffering"

On making the announcement, Cassian Elwes said: “I’m so excited to announce the winners of the second annual Horizon Award. This year’s overwhelming number of submissions and caliber of work made it very hard indeed to pick just one winner – the jury identified one grand prize winner, and two runners-up. Additionally, we have added new partners to our already formidable team – proving that not only is the move towards gender equality in the zeitgeist, but that there are very real advocates amongst our peers. After the recent summit for systemic change (hosted by Sundance and Women in Film), I am more convinced than ever that we can make a difference and that history is on our side. I remain steadfastly committed to the idea that, one day soon, women will have exactly the same opportunities as men to direct movies.”

Franklin Leonard, Founder and CEO of The Black List and one of the award’s original advocates added: “We are passionate supporters of this award that recognizes fresh voices and perspectives in storytelling. This effort mirrors our own effort – the Black List's 500 Feminist Films project, created by our Director of Community, Kate Hagen. We look forward to mentoring the winners in the year to come.”

The jury was comprised of 38 influential directors, producers, and executives from the filmmaking community who viewed 483 short film submissions from over 200 colleges and universities world-wide, including the U.S., Canada, England, Australia, India, China, South Africa, Scotland, France, Mexico, Portugal, Columbia, Brazil, Russia, Serbia, the Ukraine, and more. This year, submissions increased by over one hundred from last year, with additional countries and universities participating. Submissions were received from Nyu, USC, UCLA, Chapman, Emerson, Penn State, Loyola Marymount, University of Wisconsin, University of Washington, Syracuse, Tcu, Ryerson (Toronto), Oxford, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, University of Delhi, and more.

Now in its second year, the Horizon Award provides an all-expense-paid trip for the winning female college students to the Sundance Film Festival, where they will have the opportunity to present their films to some of the industry’s most influential names. The winners receive mentorship, festival access, and important introductions by Elwes, Howell, and Vachon to agents, producers, executives, festival staff, and other influencers throughout the Sundance Film Festival.

The Horizon Award was founded by producer, Cassian Elwes ("Margin Call," "All is Lost," "Dallas Buyers Club"), and Michelle Satter, Founding Director, Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, in response to a Sundance Institute and Women In Film Los Angeles study that revealed that only 4.2% of the top 100 films each year from 2002-2013 were directed by women. Elwes partnered with Howell ("Captain Fantastic," "Mississippi Grind," "Big Eyes," "The Place Beyond the Pines:), and Vachon ( "Goat," "Carol," "Boys Don’t Cry," "One Hour Photo," "Far From Heaven"), to create the award as an opportunity for young female directors to have mentorship and networking opportunities in conjunction with Sundance, the home of American Independent film.

You can see links for more info on the study:

Phase I and II

Phase III

Sponsors and Partners for the 2016 Horizon Award are: The Black List, CreativeFuture, The Creative Mind Group, Done To Your Taste Catering, FilmLA, Indiegogo, Mprm Communications, the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, Sundance Institute, Twitter, Verge, Vimeo, WireImage, Adina Design, and Women in Film. This impressive group has come together to support an award that they hope will continue to identify, nurture, and launch the careers of future female directors for years to come.

Full List of Jurors:

Stephanie Allain Producer ("Dear White People," "Hustle & Flow")

Dori Begley Magnolia Pictures (Svp, Acquisitions)

Amy Berg Director ("Janis: Little Girl Blue," "Deliver Us From Evil," "Prophet’s Prey")

Arianna Bocco IFC Films (Svp, Acquisitions & Co-Productions)

Robbie Brenner The Firm (Partner, President of Film)

Susan Carter Hall Painter

Amal ElWardi Zeal Media Company (Producer)

Cassian Elwes Producer ("Margin Call," "All is Lost," "Dallas Buyers Club")

Janet Grillo Director ("Jack of the Red Hearts," "Fly Away")

Poppy Hanks Macro Venture (Svp, Development & Production)

Catherine Hardwicke Director ("Miss You Already," "Red Riding Hood," "Twilight")

Lynette Howell Taylor Producer ("Captain Fantastic," "Mississippi Grind," "Big Eyes")

Liza Johnson Director ("Elvis & Nixon," "Return," "Hateship Loveship," "In the Air")

Eda Kowan Lionsgate (Svp, Acquisitions & Co-Productions)

Gina Kwon Amazon Studios (Executive, Comedy)

Helen Lee-Kim Good Universe (Partner, Head of International)

Laura Lewis CAA (Agent, Film Finance)

Alix Madigan Broad Green Pictures (Head, Creative)

Marianna Palka Actress/Director ("I’m the Same,""Always Worthy," "Good Dick")

Bruna Papandrea Pacific Standard (Producer/Partner)

Keri Putnam Sundance Institute (Executive Director)

Dee Rees Director ("Bessie," “Empire”)

Laura Rister Untitled Entertainment (Head of Production)

Rena Ronson UTA (Partner)

Michelle Satter Sundance Institute (Director, Feature Film Program)

Cathy Schulman Stx Entertainment (President & Chief Content Officer)

Lauren Selig Shake and Bake Productions (Executive Producer)

Mary Jane Skalski Producer ("The Visitor," "Mysterious Skin," "The Station Agent")

Lara Thompson E1 Entertainment (Svp, Worldwide Acquisitions)

Christine Vachon Producer ("Goat," "Carol," "Boys Don’t Cry")

Ruth Vitale CreativeFuture (CEO)

Angie Wang Director ("Cardinal X")

Hanna Weg Producer ("Septembers of Shiraz")

Tanya Wexler Director ("Hysteria," "Finding North," "Ball in the House")

Joanne Wiles ICM (Partner/Agent, Motion Picture Talent)

Pam Williams Pam Williams Productions ("Lee Daniels’ The Butler," "Fail Safe")

Lisa Wilson The Solution Entertainment (Co-Founder/Partner)

So Yong Kim Director ("Love Song," "For Ellen," "In Between Days")...

A weekend TV-programming note: Check out The Hollywood Reporter's acclaimed roundtable series on SundanceTV. This Sunday is THR's Documentary Roundtable, which features Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief and Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine), 62; Michael Moore (Where to Invade Next), 61; Amy Berg (Janis: Little Girl Blue and Prophet's Prey), 45; Kirby Dick (The Hunting Ground), 63; Liz Garbus (What Happened, Miss Simone?), 45; and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi (Meru), 36. For the first time, viewers can watch the roundtable discussion on SundanceTV as part of the cable channel's new original nonfiction series, Close

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This is definitely the time of year when film critic types (I’m sure you know who I mean) spend an inordinate amount of time leading up to awards season—and it all leads up to awards season, don’t it?—compiling lists and trying to convince anyone who will listen that it was a shitty year at the movies for anyone who liked something other than what they saw and liked. And ‘tis the season, or at least ‘thas (?) been in the recent past, for that most beloved of academic parlor games, bemoaning the death of cinema, which, if the sackcloth-and-ashes-clad among us are to be believed, is an increasingly detached and irrelevant art form in the process of being smothered under the wet, steaming blanket of American blockbuster-it is. And it’s going all malnourished from the siphoning off of all the talent back to TV, which, as everyone knows,...

In this round-up, we have an exclusive poster for the Rasmussen brothers' The Inhabitants, DVD release details on The Hatching, a look at Diamond Select Toys' The X-Files and Ghostbusters figures, an All Hallows' Eve 2 trailer, and Kickstarter campaign details for the comic book series Monstrous.

The Inhabitants Exclusive Poster: Hitting Blu-ray and DVD today from FilmRise, The Inhabitants was written and directed by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen (John Carpenter's The Ward). To celebrate the film's home media release, we've been provided with an exclusive poster from The Inhabitants just for Daily Dead readers (shown below).

Press Release: "New York – FilmRise has acquired North American home media rights to The Inhabitants, the new supernatural thriller from the writers of John Carpenter's The Ward. The Brooklyn-based film and TV distributor will release the film January 5th, 2016, on DVD and Blu-ray. The discs will include an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette as well as the film's trailer.

Nothing fits the music documentary format quite so compellingly as a life cut tragically short. In addition to the ready-made dramatic arc, a subject who leaves this mortal coil before their time usually also leaves a certain amount of mystery in their wake, providing ample grist for filmmakers (and the folks they interview) to chew on.

Even when the hows and whys of an artist's tragic exit are a matter of uncontroversial record, questions of "What might have been?" inevitably linger over their prematurely truncated discography — in itself a far...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.

Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)

Sure, the film has some flaws. I think Nolan‘s visual style suffers with the absence of his usual collaborator, Wally Pfister, though Hoyte van Hoytema still shoots a beautiful film. All the same, Interstellar swings for the fences, and while it might throw out its shoulder and stumble on a twisted ankle in the homestretch, I’ll be damned if the ball...

A compassionate, intimate unpacking of the legend of Janis Joplin that reveals the troubled influences on the force-of-nature singer she willed into being. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto)

Janis Joplin! She was the Amy Winehouse of her day… except without all the vampiric media attention and the constant stalking by paparazzi. Joplin was at least able to die of her substance abuse in peace and privacy. We’re used to thinking that women have it so much better today, but before Joplin died in 1970 — at age 27, the same age at which Winehouse died in 2011 — the focus of the press coverage of her had been on her work: “Janis should dump her band, they’re not as good as she is and they’re dragging her down”; “Janis shouldn’t have dumped her band, these...

This is a reprint from our review from the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Port Arthur lies on the southeastern end of Texas, ninety minutes from Houston, and two hours from Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s a tiny place, home to under 60,000 residents, and one can only imagine it’s the kind of town where if you grow up with any kind of worldly aspirations, you start plotting your escape fast. Port Arthur marks the unlikely and humble beginnings of rock ‘n roll legend Janis Joplin, whose boisterous spirit and refusal to fill pre-conceived social, gender, or sexual roles all but assured the town could never contain her. She “couldn’t figure out how to make herself like everyone else,” her sister reflects in Amy Berg’s sturdy documentary “Janis: Little Girl Blue.” Janis was an outcast, but she soon found a city full of them that she would call home. San...

Female-driven films bookend the Bahamas International Film Festival as Todd Haynes’ Carol starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara opens the event on December 9 and Amy Berg’s documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue ends the festivities on December 12.

Now its fourth year, the 12-day festival will showcase more than 130 films from 40 countries.

A 60s-themed gala will conclude the festival after the screening of the Janis Joplin documentary (pictured).

“I’m excited to be showing two amazing and powerful films to open and close the Nassau component of our festival this year,” said Biff founder and executive director Leslie Vanderpool.

A singer who, decades after her tragic passing, has been challenged by few singers in terms of sheer power, Janis Joplin did more a lot more than burn bright and fade away. Director Amy Berg ("West Of Memphis," "An Open Secret") paints a fascinating, layered portrait of the blues-rock icon in "Janis: Little Girl Blue," and today we have an exclusive clip from the documentary. Narrated by Cat Power and produced by Alex Gibney, 'Little Girl Blue' presents an intimate, insightful look at a complicated, driven, often beleaguered artist. Joplin’s own words tell much of the film’s story through a series of letters she wrote to her parents over the years, many of them made public in the documentary for the first time. The picture also features numerous interviews, as you'll see in the scene below, with a fellow musician recounting his first meeting with Joplin.