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Gabriel Byrne at the Aero

Gabriel Byrne will be present at a screening of Gabriel Byrne: Stories from Home at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Stories from Home, which screens this evening (Thursday), Sept. 24, at 7:30 pm will be followed by Macdara Vallely’s Peacefire. Byrne will take part in an onstage discussion between the two film presentations.
Both films are being screened as part of the Los Angeles Irish Film Festival, which continues until Sunday, Sept. 27.
Schedule and synopses below form the American Cinematheque’s press release:
Thursday, September 24 – 7:30 PM
Double Feature:
GABRIEL BYRNE: STORIES FROM HOME, 2008, South Wind Blows/Harvest Films, 76 min., Dir. Pat Collins. A revealing look at the life and creative impulse of Gabriel Byrne [...]

Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival 2009

The 4th Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, which runs April 23-30, will kick off with a screening of Joshua Sinclair’s Jump, starring Ben Silverstone (of the coming-of-age gay drama Get Real) and Patrick Swayze.
Jump will screen on Thursday, April 23, at 8:00 pm at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. Based on a real story, the film (co-written by Sinclair and Ryan James) follows the biased murder trial of the young Jew and future celebrity portrait photographer Philippe Halsman (Silverstone), who was accused of murdering his father in late 1920s Austria. Swayze plays the young man’s Jewish attorney.
Also in the Jump cast: Martine McCutcheon, and veterans Stefanie Powers, Richard Johnson, and Sybil [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: BURN THE BRIDGES, CAMPILLO, YES I DO

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Thursday, April 2, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

One Summer in New Paltz, a Cautionary Tale

Cast:
Nancy Nicol

Country:
Canada

Year:
2008

Running time:
54min

Campillo, Yes I Do

Directed by:
Andrés Rubio

Country:
Spain

Year:
2008

Running time:
52min

 
One Summer in New Paltz, a Cautionary Tale
In 2005, George W. Bush called for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to enshrine a heterosexual definition of marriage. The mayor of New Paltz however didn’t agree and performed 26 gay weddings one sunny afternoon, beginning a wave of civil disobedience. Whether you are the marrying type or not, only the hardest of hearts could fail to be moved by this clever and touching film about love, commitment and pissing off George [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: GHOSTED, THE AMERICAN SOLDIER

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Wednesday, April 1, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

Before Stonewall

Directed by:
Greta Schiller, Robert Rosenberg

Distributor:
Peccadillo Pictures

Country:
USA

Year:
1984

Running time:
87min

 
25 years ago this film felt like a revelation of a hidden gay history. Conventional wisdom had defined the modern movement for gay liberation from the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York, however, this film shows just how much activism and creativity haad been going on before 1969. A dazzling line-up of interviewees includes poets, writers, political organizers, dancers, actors who bear witness to a life before Stonewall, including Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde, Barbara Gittings, Harry Hay, Ann Bannon and many more.
The courage and bravery of those [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: PEDRO, MADAME X: AN ABSOLUTE RULER

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Tuesday, March 31, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

Madame X – An Absolute Ruler

Directed by:
Ulrike Ottinger

Cast:
Tabea Blumenschein

Country:
West Germany

Year:
1977

Running time:
141min

 
Adventure and fun on the high seas comes at a price for this band of stereotyped women, who answer a call to join Madame X on her ship Chinese Orlando and experience a life without rules and patriarchal tyranny. However old roles reassert themselves and the women find themselves swapping one kind of servitude for another as Madame X demands complete devotion from her shipmates, even the ones she is enamoured with.
An early low-budget film from renowned avant-garde filmmaker [Ulrike] Ottinger, who actually took all crew positions [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: EROS O BASILEUS, STEAM

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Monday, March 30, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

Lion’s Den

Directed by:
Pablo Trapero

Cast:
Martina Gusman, Elli Medeiros, Laura García

Distributor:
Unanimous Pictures

Country:
Argentina

Year:
2008

Running time:
113min

 
Julia, a two weeks pregnant 25-year-old student is sent to prison for a crime she may or may not have committed – the murder of her boyfriend’s male lover. No one can remember what happened that night, and as Julia adjusts to life inside prison walls, gradually commanding respect from other inmates on the ‘maternity’ wing and developing a tender and loving relationship with fellow internee Marta, she not only has to fight her wrongful incarceration, but also for her son Tomas, born inside prison and due [...]

Tiburon Film Festival Awards 2009

2009 Tiburon (Calif.) Film Festival Awards
2009 Tiburon International Film Festival: March 19-27
 

Based on a novel by Josef Kopta, Filip Renc’s Guard No. 47 tells the story of Josef Dousa, a railway guard and World War I veteran who hopes to forget all the horrors he witnessed in the battlefield by spending his time with his young wife in a lone-standing guard house. Peace, however, is not in store for him. One day he saves the life of a young man about to jump under a train; while recovering, the young man falls in love with Dousa’s wife.

 
Golden Reel Award for Best Film: Guard No. 47 from the Czech Republic
Best Director: Filip Renc for Guard No. [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: BORN IN 68, Latin American Shorts

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Sunday, March 29, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

Born in 68

Directed by:
Jacques Martineau, Olivier Ducastel

Cast:
Laetitia Casta, Yannick Renier, Yann Trégouët

Distributor:
Peccadillo Pictures

Country:
France

Year:
2008

Running time:
170min

 
Festival favourites Martineau and Ducastel return to the LLGFF with an epic drama covering life and sexual politics in France. Friends and lovers caught up in the excitement of May ‘68 at the Sorbonne eventually leave Paris for a communal life in the country. The collective seems at first like a fairytale of left wing hippydom. But principles are betrayed as members of the commune drift away to bourgeois careers. Laetitia Casta gives a great performance as the central figure, Catherine, loved by [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: DOLLS, THE DEVIL’S CLEAVAGE

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Saturday, March 28, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

Dolls

Directed by:
Karin Babinská

Cast:
Marie Dolezalová, Sandra Nováková, Petra Nesvacilova

Country:
Czech Republic

Year:
2007

Running time:
99min

 
This debut feature from Karin Babinská is a beautifully made and poignant coming of age tale, about three best friends from high school embarking on their last summer together before going their separate ways at summer’s end. Iska, struggling to understand her burgeoning sexuality and why she feels different from other girls, has been forced to join her little brother Vojta at a summer camp for athletes. Whilst he can back flip and somersault like a pro, the timid Iska can barely hold her own against a punch [...]

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009: Fred Halsted, THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT

London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival 2009
Friday, March 27, highlights
Schedule and synopses from the LLGFF website
 

The Naked Civil Servant

Directed by:
Jack Gold

Cast:
John Hurt, Liz Gebhardt, Patricia Hodge

Country:
UK

Year:
1975

Running time:
85min

 
This dramatization of Quentin [Crisp]’s first volume of autobiography won BAFTAs for its director Jack Gold and its star. John Hurt gives a dazzling performance as the young Quentin, a flame-haired flamboyant homosexual when such things were not permitted. It contains much of the wit and wisdom of Quentin and celebrates a life lived in a refusal to conform. The highlight is Quentin’s impassioned speech from the dock when charged with soliciting for an immoral purpose.
Plus an interview with Bernard Braden filmed in 1967. Previously [...]

Boston Underground Film Festival Awards 2009

2009 Boston Underground Film Festival Awards
2009 Boston Underground Film Festival: March 19-26, 2009
 

In Zach Clark’s Modern Love Is Automatic, a bored nurse (Melodie Sisk) discovers her inner dominatrix after ditching her boyfriend and finding a new roommate, a naive young woman (Maggie Ross) who is just beginning to realize that the world out there isn’t quite like the Disney Hour.
 

Jury Awards
Best of Fest (Feature)
Modern Love Is Automatic (Zach Clark)
Honorable Mention: Morris County (Matthew Garrett)
Best of Fest (Short)
Treevenge (Jason Eisener)
Honorable Mention: The Scavengers (Corey Bowles)
Most Effectively Offensive
Mavela (My Love Lives in the Sewers) (Manuel Arija de la Cuerda)
Honorable Mention: The Gingerbread House (Claudio Centimeri)
Special Jury Prize
Excision (Richard Bates, Jr.)
[...]

SXSW Film Festival Awards 2009

2009 SXSW Film Festival Awards
2009 SXSW Film Festival: Austin, March 13-21, 2009
 

First-time feature filmmaker Judi Krant’s Made in China follows an American "novelty" inventor who goes to China in order to try to market his product. Once in Shanghai, he discovers that things aren’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. In the cast: Jackson Kuehn, Dan Sumpter, Syna Zhang, Deng Juan.
 

FEATURE FILM JURY AWARDS
NARRATIVE FEATURE
Grand Jury Award
Made in China, Director: Judi Krant
Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast
That Evening Sun, Director: Scott Teems
 
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Grand Jury Award
45365, Director: Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross
Special Jury Award
The Way We Get By, Director: Aron Gaudet
 
FEATURE FILM AUDIENCE AWARDS
NARRATIVE [...]

Miami Film Festival Awards 2009

2009 Miami Film Festival Awards
2009 Miami Film Festival: March 6-15, 2009
 

Directed by Daniele Vicari, and adapted from attorney Gianrico Carofiglio’s novel by Vicari, Carofiglio, Francesco Carofiglio, and Massimo Gaudioso, Il Passato è una terra straniera / The Past is a Foreign Land stars Elio Germano as a brilliant but bored law student who, after crossings paths with a card shark (Michele Riondino), is lured into the dangerous world of fixed decks.
 

WORLD COMPETITION
Knight Grand Jury Prize: The Past is a Foreign Land (Il Passato È Una Terra Straniera) by Daniele Vicari, Italy
Best Director: Enrique Rivero, Parque Vía, Mexico
Best Actor: Michele Riondino, The Past is a Foreign Land (Il Passato È Una Terra Straniera) by [...]

Robert Redford to Be Honored at San Francisco Film Festival

Robert Redford — actor, filmmaker, political and environmental activist, and independent film festival creator — will be the recipient of this year’s Peter J. Owens Award at the 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival on Wednesday, April 29, 2009, at 7:00 pm. at the Castro Theatre.
The Robert Redford tribute will feature career retrospective film clips, audience Q&A, and an onstage interview with Phil Bronstein, editor-at-large of the San Francisco Chronicle. That will be followed by a screening of the film that turned Redford into a superstar, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), directed by George Roy Hill, and co-starring Paul Newman and Katharine Ross.
Among Redford’s most notable films as a director are [...]

2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation V: RUTHLESS, Vitaphone Varieties

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.
Saturday, April 18
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
RUTHLESS (top photo)
(1948, Edgar G. Ulmer)
Director Edward G. Ulmer’s complex psycho-melodrama Ruthless (1948) is undoubtedly worthy of rediscovery. A flashback-structured tale of a sociopath’s remorseless drive for station and wealth, Ruthless (often referred to as Ulmer’s Citizen Kane) employs a relentless undercurrent of emotional violence. As relayed in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Ulmer envisioned his feature as “a Jesuitic morality play… a very bad indictment against 100 percent Americanism—as Upton Sinclair saw it.” [...]

2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation IV: BEHIND THE SCENES IN HOLLYWOOD, POINTED HEELS

Lena Rivers
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule I: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule II: THE PROWLER
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule III: SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR
Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.
 

Sunday, April 5
7 p.m.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Society for Cinephiles
LENA RIVERS (top photo)
(1914, director unknown)
This version of the classic drama Lena Rivers by Cosmos Features was one of a pair released in 1914 (the other from Garrison Films) [...]

2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation III: SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR, POINT OF ORDER!

The Naked Eye by Louis Clyde Stoumen
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule I: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule II: THE PROWLER
Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.

 
Thursday, March 26
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
THE NAKED EYE
(1957, Louis Clyde Stoumen)
Director Louis Clyde Stoumen’s evocative documentary on the art and history of photography begins with a quote from Ecclesiastes—“Truly the light is sweet…”—before a quick recounting of the medium’s 100-year technical development. From there, Stoumen sharpens focus with extended narrative sequences on key artists. Alfred Eisenstaedt and [...]

2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation II: THE PROWLER, RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS 7

Evelyn Keyes, Van Heflin in The Prowler
2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation Schedule I: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.

 
Friday, March 20
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by the Film Noir Foundation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE PROWLER
(1951, Joseph Losey)
Set in a shadowy post-war Los Angeles, The Prowler focuses on a wealthy but neglected housewife (Evelyn Keyes) who spends her evenings alone, with only her husband’s voice on the radio for company. When she’s spooked by a peeping tom, a calculating cop (Van [...]

2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation I: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release:
Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives
Click on the photos to enlarge them.
Friday, March 13
7:30 p.m
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and GUCCI
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
(1974, John Cassavetes)
Over 30 years after its self-distributed release, screenwriter-director John Cassavetes’ masterpiece retains the power to shock and unnerve for its raw, often harrowing depiction of a blue-collar Los Angeles family on the rocks. At its trembling heart, Gena Rowlands’ performance as Mabel Longhetti, wife of everyman Nick (Peter Falk) and mother of three, stands as a virtually unmatched tour [...]

UCLA Festival of Preservation 2009

The UCLA Film & Television Archives‘ 2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation, which kicks off this evening and continues until April 26, leaves me at a loss. The problem is: I don’t know what not to recommend. (See full schedule below.)
Now, it’s not that I think every single one of the listed films are waiting-to-be-rediscovered masterpieces — or even that they’re mostly enjoyable fare. What makes me so excited about the Festival of Preservation is that it features films that for the most part are incredibly rare, thus offering audiences a unique chance to either get to know (or to get reacquainted with) our cinematic past.
Here’s some of what’s in store for you if you live in the [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Special Screenings

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Special Screenings
 
American Prince
Director: Tommy Palotta
After being forgotten for 30 years, filmmaker Tommy Pallotta revisits Scorcese’s lost documentary “American Boy” and its raconteur subject, Steven Prince. (World Premiere)
Berlin Calling
Director/Writer: Hannes Stoehr
Berlin Calling is an extraordinary story that starts in pre-war Berlin, spans three generations, and concludes in the dark and sweaty rock n’ roll clubs that line the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Cast: Paul Kalkbrenner, Rita Lengyel, Corinna Harfouch, Araba Walton, Peter Schneider (U.S. Premiere)
Blood Trail
Director: Richard Parry
War photographer Robert King let a camera crew follow him for over 15 years. From his first assignment in Bosnia to his breakthrough work in Chechnya, and on to [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Midnighters

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Midnighters
 
A Film With Me In It
Director: Ian Fitzgibbon
An actor hard on his luck ends up with a large number of dead bodies on his hands. Cast: Mark Doherty, Dylan Moran (U.S. Premiere)
The Ceremony
Director/Writer: James Palmer
After finding a bizarre book, a young man is plagued by unexplainable occurrences inside his home. Cast: Scott Seegmiller (World Premiere)
Grace
Director/Writer: Paul Solet
After losing her unborn child, Madeline Matheson insists on carrying the baby to term. Following the delivery, the child miraculously returns to life, but when the baby develops a desperate appetite for human blood, Madeline is faced with a mother’s ultimate decision. Cast: Jordan Ladd, Samantha Ferris, [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Lone Star States

SXSW Film Festival 2009: Lone Star States
 
American Violet
Director: Tim Disney. Writer: Bill Haney
The astonishing story of Dee Roberts, a young African American single mother, whose courageous fight against her unwarranted drug arrest forever changes her life and the Texas justice system. Cast: Nicole Beharie, Tim Blake Nelson, Will Patton, Michael O’Keefe, Xzibit, with Charles Dutton and Alfre Woodard.
Blaze Foley Inside
Director: Kevin Triplett
A documentary on the everyday man behind the legend, Blaze Foley. Born in a tree house, killed in a friend’s living room and 86?ed from his own funeral, is now a bona fide country music legend whose songs are covered by Merle Haggard, John Prine, Willie Nelson and [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: 24 Beats Per Second

SXSW Film Festival 2009: 24 Beats Per Second
 
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
Director: Sacha Gervasi
At 14, Toronto school friends Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. They meant it. Cast: Steve “Lips Kudlow,” Robb Reiner.
All Tomorrow’s Parties
Director: All Tomorrow’s People
A kaleidoscopic journey into the parallel musical universe of cult music festival All Tomorrow’s Parties. (World Premiere)
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
Director: Chai Vasarhelyi
Youssou Ndour, one of Africa’s most prominent musicians, returns home for the release of his highly controversial album, Egypt. (U.S. Premiere)
Intangible Assets Number 82
Director: Emma Franz
An Australian drummer searches for an enigmatic Korean shaman and is transformed by the [...]

SXSW Film Festival 2009: SX Global

SXSW Film Festival 2009: SX Global
 
Calling E.T. (Netherlands)
Director: Prosper de Roos.
A close-up look at a small group of people listening, watching, waiting and preparing for their perceived inevitable earthly encounter with extraterrestrial intelligence. (U.S. Premiere)
Favela on Blast (Brazil)
Director: Leandro HBL
Globe trotting taste-maker DJ Diplo presents a look at Brazil’s Baile Funk music scene from directly inside the mountain ghettos where it spawned and thrives.
The Forgotten Tree (Mexico)
Director: Luis Rincon
A documentary that revisits the slums featured over fifty years ago in Los Olvidados, (Luis Buñuel), and reveals the current and similar conditions for the people in this area of Mexico City.
Journey to the End of Coal (France)
Director: Samuel Bollendorff
Millions of Chinese [...]

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