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Previews
49th New York Film Festival Pans for Gold
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 29 August 2011 13:32
- Written by Laura Blum
New York Film Festival to screen 27 films on its main slate September 30-October 16, 2011
Only one Manhattan cinema event gets to call itself the New York Film Festival, though the pool of fests with "N," "Y," two "F's" and other qualifying letters has surged like Irene´s East River. As science says, the simplest reduction is most the elegant solution. And NYFF is nothing if not elegant.
Now in its 49th year, the Film Society of Lincoln Center's sometimes esoteric but mostly essential showcase sets its angle wide, moving between crowd ticklers such as Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist and auteurist prizewinners such as Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Like Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne’s The Kid With A Bike and Joseph Cedar's Footnote, these nuggets were mined at the Cannes Film Festival.
So was Lars von Trier’s Melancholia, starring Kirsten Dunst. The depression drama was among the Riviera's strongest heat sources this May, where it played alongside Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre, Gerardo Naranjo’s Miss Bala and Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb’s This Is Not A Film. The list continues; New Yorkers can confidently quarry Cannes without the expense of a trans-Atlantic crossing.
NYPD Festival - A Tribute
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Monday, 29 August 2011 05:00
- Written by L E Shannon
The NYPD Festival is taking place September 2 - 13, 2011 at Film Forum in Manhattan, 
New York City. The 19-film festival spotlights "New York’s Finest -- and Not-So-Finest" in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
New York City has been a living, breathing anthology throughout its history -- second only to heaven and hell as the place everyone has heard about most.
And nothing says "drama" like the word "police". Hollywood has mined the profession from as far back as the earliest silent films.
The two together have made for a rich history of stories both off and on screen, with cops running the gamut from heroes to hoods -- and sometimes both at the same time.
The NYPD festival has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming.
Film Forum was hosting a similar tribute to the NYPD when the tragic event occurred ten years ago. On September 11 and 12, 2001, Goldstein "had ironically scheduled two of the darkest visions of New York ever made":
- William Friedkin’s Cruising, starring Al Pacino as a cop investigating the serial killings of gay men -- a highly controversial film, it was denounced by gay activists as virulently homophobic.
- Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, with Harvey Keitel as a cop "who brings police corruption to new depths."
Both films had to be cancelled at the time. They are scheduled for screening September 12.
Playing on September 11, 2011 is Naked City, Jules Dassin’s "seminal all-location NYC Noir that opens with a murder on West 83rd Street and ends with a showdown on the Williamsburg Bridge."
Says Goldstein, "Though other Hollywood sound movies had gone on location in New York before -- notably Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend and Henry Hathaway’s The House on 92nd Street -- it was Dassin’s Naked City that really started the trend.
It brought back Manhattan as the world’s greatest sound stage, by a native New Yorker later forced by the blacklist to live in Europe. No one ever painted a more loving portrait of the city, so I thought it was the perfect choice for 9/11."
Starting off the Festival are two classic NYC Noirs directed by Otto Preminger, both starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney:
- Laura, "one of the most perverse Noirs of the ‛40s" (Time Out New York), with Tierney as "the murdered Manhattan smart-setter and Andrews as a detective on the brink of necrophilia"
- Where The Sidewalk Ends, with Andrews as a corrupt cop going after a criminal kingpin and Tierney as a murder victim’s widow.
Other films included in NYPD festival are such quintessential New York movies as:
- The Taking of Pelham 123, directed by Joseph Sargent, with W
alter Matthau as a quick-witted TA cop who closes in on Robert Shaw’s "Mr. Blue" - The Detective, directed by Gordon Douglas, screenplay by Abby Mann, with Frank Sinatra
- Madigan, directed by Don Siegel, with "by-the-book commissioner Henry Fonda cracking down on sticky-fingered detective Richard Widmark"
- Sweet Smell of Success, directed by Alexander Mackendrick, starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis, with "brutal cop" Emile Meyer
- Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, with Henry Fonda in a case of mistaken identity;
- I Wake Up Screaming, directed by H. Bruce Humberstone, "arguably the first true American Film Noir"
- the late Sidney Lumet’s Serpico, with Al Pacino as the real-life whistle-blowing NYC detective Frank Serpico
- William Wyler’s Detective Story, 24 hours in the life of a precinct, with Kirk Douglas and Lee Grant (in an Oscar-winning role)
- Pay or Die!, directed by Richard Wilson, starring Ernest Borgnine as the true-life Joseph Petrosino, an early 20th-century Italian-American cop in a one-man war against "The Black Hand" (forerunner of the Mafia)
- Cry of the City, directed by Robert Siodmak, with "cop-killer Richard Conte relentlessly pursued by also-from-the-hood lieutenant Victor Mature".
Also included is Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, based on Ed McBain‛s 87th Precinct novel King's Ransom. Toshiro Mifune stars as a businessman whose son is kidnapped, and Tatsuya Nakadai is the cop heading the squad hunting down the kidnapper.
Paired with High and Low is another film based on an Ed McBain novel, the B Noir thriller Cop Hater, directed by William A. Berke, starring Robert Loggia and Vincent Gardenia.
The NYPD festival will be followed by an extended run of William Friedkin’s The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider, in a new 35mm print.
For more information, go to www.filmforum.org.
NYPD Festival
September 2 - 13, 2011
Film Forum
209 W Houston St.
New York City
212-727-8110
The All-New Hell's Kitchen Film Festival
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Sunday, 28 August 2011 05:00
- Written by L E Shannon
The inaugural Hell's Kitchen Film Festival (NYHKFF) runs September 1 - 11, 2011 at the 
Producers’ Club Indiehouse theaters in the Hell‛s Kitchen area of Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Co-founders Alfred and Ernest Tollja, owners of the long-established Producers’ Club in Hell’s Kitchen, founded the all-digital festival "to revitalize and bring attention to New York’s Hell’s Kitchen as a community of artists and film enthusiasts," says Ernest Tollja.
"The festival provides a fresh, edgy New York audience and an intimate setting for independent filmmakers whose voices may still be new, undiscovered or unheralded." He adds, "It’s really for works that may have fallen through the cracks, are waiting to break through, or demand further attention."
The Opening Night film is Kevin, the first non-fiction film from acclaimed director Jay Duplass, the story of the disappearance and redemption of renowned Austin, Texas musician Kevin Gant. Musician Kevin Gant will be performing live after the screening, and a Q&A with Duplass will follow.Telluride Film Festival - Mystery Movies
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- Parent Category: Film Festivals
- Category: Previews
- Published on Sunday, 28 August 2011 05:00
- Written by L E Shannon
The 38th Telluride Film Festival (TFF), the "SHOW", takes place September 2 - 5, 2011 at 
the historic Sheridan Opera House, Masonic Hall, Palm Theatre, Galaxy, Pierre and Backlot Theatres, and the Chuck Jones Cinema, all in scenic Telluride, in the San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado.
Telluride Film Festival, presented by National Film Preserve, Ltd., is an international event celebrating the art of film, hosting a special selection of feature length and short films. This Festival ranks among the world’s best film festivals and is an annual gathering for film industry insiders, cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers and critics.
Many films first launched at the Telluride Film Festival have gone on to award-winning recognition including Blue Velvet, Sling Blade, Brokeback Mountain, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire and The King‛s Speech.
First-time filmmakers discovered at TFF include Terry Zwigoff, Billy Bob Thornton, Richard Rodriguez, Doug Liman and Robert Luketic.
Films selected to screen at Telluride Film Festival are shown out of competition and kept secret until Opening Day. "What's playing in the Telluride program is not revealed until you reach the mountains." Thus, by definition, every film is a World Premiere.
"Three distinguished artists will be honored with a silver medallion, one presented each night of the Festival.... [W]e also like to spring a real surprise and pay tribute to those you may have forgotten, or never even knew: Abel Gance, D.A. Pennebaker, [et al.].
Each year, TFF recruits a different film enthusiast to act as Guest Director to help create their dream festival. This year, the Guest Director is Caetano Veloso.
In keeping with Telluride Film Festival tradition, Veloso’s film selections will be kept secret and unveiled on Opening Day.
Events include:
- Noon Seminars in Elks Park
- Labor Day Picnic seminar
- "Conversations" in the County Courthouse:
- Film premieres in the Open Air Cinema
- Filmmakers of Tomorrow programs
- Films at the Back Lot
For more information, go to www.telluridefilmfestival.org.
Telluride Film Festival
September 2 - 5, 2011
Historic Sheridan Opera House
110 N. Oak Street
Telluride, CO 81435
970-728-6363
Masons Hall
200 East Colorado Ave
Telluride, CO
Michael D. Palm Theatre
Telluride High School
721 W. Colorado Avenue
Telluride, CO 81435
970-369-5669
"Galaxy Theatre"
Telluride Middle/High School
725 W. Colorado Avenue
Telluride, CO 81435
970-728-6617
Le Pierre Theatre
725 West Colorado Avenue
Telluride, CO 81435
970-728-4377
Backlot Theatre
100 West Pacific Avenue
Telluride CO 81435
970-728-4519
"Chuck Jones Cinema"
Conference Center Plaza
Telluride Conference Center
580 Mountain Village Blvd.
Telluride, CO 81435
970-369-5120
