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The International Documentary Association has announced its initial round of nominees for the 2017 Ida Documentary Awards, including special mentions and nods for limited series, curated series, episodic series, and more. Nominees for Best Feature and Best Short, and awards for creative recognition, will be announced on November 1. The Ida will honor director Marcel Mettelsiefen’s “Watani: My Homeland” with the Pare Lorentz Award. Also receiving a special mention in the category is Joe Berlinger’s “Intent to Destroy.”

Other standouts from this first list of nominees include Bryan Fogel’s controversial “Icarus,” Ryan White’s Netflix series “The Keepers,” Ken Burns’ revelatory miniseries “The Vietnam War,” and many more of the year’s best in documentary offerings.

Read More:Joan Didion and Arthur Miller Get the Documentary Treatment From Family Members, And That Makes All the Difference — Nyff

The 33rd edition of the annual ceremony will take place Saturday, December...

When one thinks of documentaries that could rightly be described as “enjoyable,” a look into the life and work of men and women sitting behind obituary desks at the world’s largest newspaper doesn’t instantly leap to mind. However, in the hands of director Vanessa Gould, that’s ostensibly what one gets in her latest film, Obit.

Obit introduces us to the obituary writing team at The New York Times, led by editor William McDonald, and his team including writers Bruce Weber, Margalit Fox, William Grimes and Paul Vitello, among others. All with distinct senses of humor and perspective, Gould’s film shines a distinctly vital light on each writer and the process they and the paper go through to pen their pieces. From giving a word length to a person’s life, to trying to define just what constitutes an obituary in today’s boundary pushing world, each...

Welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly look at the new movies hitting theaters this weekend, as well as other cool events and things to check out.

Even Emma Watson and Tom Hanks May Not Be Enough to Make a Mark As April Ends

The last weekend of April, and the “slower” spring movie season is ending this weekend, leading directly into the start of the lucrative summer box office next week. As has been the case in past years, the last couple weekends in April see a couple movies hoping to bring in any amount of money before the first big summer blockbuster, and other movies that will steal away their theaters. Last weekend was pretty sad, but hopefully a few of this weekend’s movies will fare better.

The movie that stands the best chance at finding an audience this weekend is the tech industry thriller The Circle...

On June 25, 2009, 70s icon Farrah Fawcett passed away after a long battle with cancer. Her obituary in The New York Times recalled her “signature flowing hairstyle” and the red bathing suit poster that first made her a star. It also mentioned her work in Charlie’s Angels and her marriage to Six Million Dollar Man‘s Lee Majors. It was a succinct, tasteful piece that bid farewell to a beloved celebrity whose death was, sadly, not unexpected. But as we learn in Vanessa Gould’s documentary Obit, the sense of calm left in the obituary department in the wake of Fawcett’s demise was quickly dispelled when news arrived that the King of Pop had died. Michael Jackson’s sudden death occurred at a time when the writers were getting ready to go home, and being The New York Times, the staff knew they needed to publish something that very day.

By Glenn Dunks

An observation made towards the start of Vanessa Gould’s Obit: despite the reputation as the reporting of death, most obituaries are only 10% about the death of an individual. The other 90% is about life. How a person lived it, what they did, where they went and how they go there.

That's an appropriate anecdote to lead with given how turned off people may be about a film set within the supposedly dreary old world of an obituary department in a physical news outlet like the New York Times.

It’s a nice thought from a film whose prime subjects are not dead and are in fact living...

"It's the once, only chance to make the dead live again." Kino Lorber has released an official trailer for the documentary titled Obit., about the lives and work of obituary writers. The description explains that this is supposedly the first ever doc about obituary writers, which is likely true. However, it makes me think of the film The Last Word, which is not a doc but an indie comedy about an obituary writer (played by Amanda Seyfried). From the description: "Going beyond the byline and into the minds of those chronicling life after death on the freshly inked front lines of history, the film invites some of the most essential questions we ask ourselves about life, memory, and the inevitable passage of time. What do we choose to remember? What never dies?" This already played at doc festivals all over and opens in very limited theaters later this month. Here's...

There’s the old saying that you die twice: once when your physical body expires and then when the last person remembers you. For the Obituary desk at the New York Times, their job is memorialize those that have passed, and now their process is captured in a new documentary. Ahead of a release later this month courtesy of Kino Lorber, the trailer has now arrived for Obit.

Vanessa Gould’s acclaimed documentary sets out to depict the craft of obituary writing from the writers’ perspective, with the goal of breaking down the negative stereotype normally depicted about the job. Normally, the average person would expect that writing about the deceased would be a miserable job. But this new film wants to reverse that perception, and show that the writers enjoy their work. “Obits have next to nothing to do with death, and in fact absolutely everything to do with the life,...

“Obits have next to nothing to do with death, and in fact absolutely everything to do with the life,” says a voiceover in the trailer for “Obit,” Vanessa Gould’s documentary about the legendary obituary desk at the New York Times.

Read More: ‘Get Me Roger Stone’ Trailer: Netflix Documentary Explores the Career of the Infamous Trump Advisor

The craft of obituary writing may not typically be viewed as an art form, but Gould and the writers she follows for her film are seeking to break down that stereotype, as well as changing the perception that writing about the deceased is a miserable experience for those who do it.

“Obit” opens on April 26 in New York at Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza Cinema, with expansion to other cities to follow. Check out our exclusive trailer below.

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Obit Kino Lorber Director: Vanessa Gould Written by: Vanessa Gould Cast: Bruce Weber, William McDonald, Margalit Fox, William Grimes, Douglas Martin, Paul Vitello, Jeff Roth, Jack Kadden, Peter Keepnews, Dolores Morrison, Jack Pareles, Daniel Slotnik, Earl Wilson Opens: April 26 at New York’s Film Forum “Would you like to live to 100?” is a question […]

The post Obit Movie Review: Would you like to live to 100? appeared first on Shockya.com.

The world premiere of Ritesh Batra’s adaptation of the Julian Barnes novel starring Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling will kick off proceedings at the 28th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 5.

The Sense Of An Ending (pictured) is Batra’s second film after The Lunchbox and will open through CBS films on March 10.

Taylor Hackford’s The Comedian starring Robert De Niro will close the event (Spc opens the film on January 13) as festival brass unveiled the full roster of Premieres, New Voices/New Visions, Modern Masters, True Stories and After Dark.

World premieres include Colin Hanks’s Eagles Of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) (Us-France); Andrew Wagner’s Breakable You (Us) starring Holly Hunter, Tony Shalhoub and Alfred Molina; Catalina Aguilar Mastretta’s Everybody Loves Somebody (Mexico); and Simon Aboud’s The Beautiful Fantastic (UK-us).

Rounding out the world premieres are: The Concessionaires Must Die! (Us) by [link...

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

– Open Road Films has announced that it has acquired domestic distribution rights to “Spark,” an animated space adventure starring voice talent from Academy Award-winning actresses Hilary Swank and Susan Sarandon, Golden Globe nominee Patrick Stewart, Jessica Biel, and introducing Jace Norman. The animated film is directed by Canadian filmmaker Aaron Woodley. Open Road Films plans to release the film in theatres on April 14, 2017.

– IFC Films has announced at the American Film Market conference that the company has acquired U.S. rights to Werner Herzog’s “Queen of the Desert.” The film, written and directed by Herzog, stars Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Robert Pattinson and Damian Lewis. They will the release the film in the spring of next year.

Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to Vanessa Gould's documentary Obit., which offers a rare inside look that the New York Times‘ obituaries desk. The pic, which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, now has an April 26, 2017 release date at New York's Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza Cinema before expanding wider. Longtime Nyt obituary editor William McDonald and past and present staff are featured as the discuss the art of crafting stories of unusual and…...

It had been a long time since I was in the same room with director Michael Cimino. My first job out of Nyu Cinema Studies was in the publicity department at United Artists in New York, where I witnessed the long delays on Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 1978 anti-war diatribe “The Deer Hunter,” the period western “Heaven’s Gate.”

The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’

“Heaven’s...

It had been a long time since I was in the same room with director Michael Cimino. My first job out of Nyu Cinema Studies was in the publicity department at United Artists in New York, where I witnessed the long delays on Cimino’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning 1978 anti-war diatribe “The Deer Hunter,” the period western “Heaven’s Gate.”

The director got caught up in chasing authenticity in the myriad details of the production, training for weeks the cast led by Kris Kristofferson and Isabelle Huppert to roller-skate for one scene — and demanding endless retakes until he shot more feet of film, over 1 million, than even Francis Coppola did on another memorably out-of-control UA movie, “Apocalypse Now.” The original $11 million budget bloated to $32 million (Cimino’s figure), as recounted in Steven Bach’s “Final Cut: Art, Money and Ego in the Making of ‘Heaven’s Gate.’

“Heaven’s...

Cinetic’s international sales division led by new arrival Jason Ishikawa has launched sales in Cannes on Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s upcoming Love Cecil.

Roghts have gone to Studiocanal for the UK and Germany on the project, which presents a portrait of famed photographer and Oscar-winning costume designer Cecil Beaton, who shot iconic images of celebrities and also won two Oscars for costume and set design.

Cinetic is also handling world rights on a documentary in post about Franca Sozzani, the famed editor of Vogue Italia. Francesco Carrozzini directs and Amy Berg produces.

Cinetic is screening two Tribeca documentaries: Obit, directed by Vanessa Gould, and Betting On Zero, directed by Ted Braun. Cinetic said Us buyers were in talks on both titles.

The Us sales division is handling Below Her Mouth, which Elle Driver sells internationally and screens in the market.

Above: 1929 Swedish poster for The Hound Of The Baskervilles (Richard Oswald, Germany, 1929). Designer uncredited.It’s time once again for my countdown of the most popular (the most “liked” and “reblogged”) posters on my Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr over the past three months. The most popular by far, and deservedly so, was this extraordinary 1920s Swedish poster for an adaptation of Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, which looks like some modern Mondo marvel. I had never seen it before it showed up on Heritage Auctions in March, where it sold for over $5000 (a steal). I’m not sure how Heritage dated the poster or divined which version of Hound of the Baskervilles this was for, since there are no acting or directing credits on the poster. They claim it for Richard Oswald’s 1929 German version though IMDb has a variant of the poster attached to a 1914 German adaptation.

Exclusive You don’t have to be, let’s say, of a certain age to appreciate a good obituary. In her new documentary Obit, premiering today at the Tribeca Film Festival – and with a teaser trailer debuting right here – director Vanessa Gould takes an unprecedented look at The New York Times‘ legendary obit department. Obit editor William McDonald, along with past and present staff writers Bruce Weber, Margalit Fox, William Grimes, Douglas Martin and Paul Vitello open up…...

Top brass at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival presented by At&T have announced selections in the Us Narrative, International Narrative and Documentary Competition strands.

The films comprise 55 out of 110 features that will play during the 15th edition of the New York festival from April 13-24. The festival will present features films in the Spotlight, Midnight, and Special Sections on March 8.

Also included in Wednesday’s announcement are the out-of-competition Viewpoints titles.

The world premiere of Bill Ross and Turner Ross’ Contemporary Color will open the World Documentary competition on April 14, while the world premiere of Kicks by Justin Tipping will open the Us Narrative competition.

The world premiere of Madly directed by Gael García Bernal, Mia Wasikowska, Sebastian Silva, Anurag Kashyap, Sion Sono, and Natasha Khan will open the International Narrative Competition. Viewpoints will open with the world premiere of Nerdland directed by Chris Prynoski.

One third of the festival’s feature films are directed by women...