Emerging International Film Talent at Cannes

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Tuesday, 01 May 2018 13:14

Written by Brad Balfour

The Monaco-based International Emerging Film Talent Association (IEFTA) returns to the Cannes Film Festival (May 8 - 19, 2018) with unique works of international cinema and initiatives to help filmmakers from around the world.

Focusing on the world’s developing regions, IEFTA’s Global Film Expression provides opportunity and education to budding filmmakers from countries such as Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Palestine, and Egypt. This is the eighth year of IEFTA’s GFE program to be presented in Cannes.

It is also the first year of IEFTA’s new partnership with the Princess Grace Foundation-USA to sponsor filmmaker, Heidi Saman’s latest work, The Armenian Club.

This year, IEFTA will be sponsoring three filmmakers in the Producers Network to encourage international co-productions and facilitate networking.

IEFTA will also present a documentary work-in-progress: Beyond The Raging Sea, which follows ttwo Egyptian athletes and adventurers, Omar Samra and Omar Nour (known as Team O2), as they take on the perilous 3,000 nautical mile journey from the Canary Islands to Antigua. The screening and a panel will be Saturday, May 12 at 12:00 in Palais K in the Palais des Festivals.

IEFTA presents screening of the 3rd Edition of UNHCR’s Annual Refugee Voices in Film, in collaboration with the Marché du Film and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). Refugee Voices in Film addresses humanitarian crises through film, with a focus on the Rohingya crisis, Yemen, and Syria. Refugee Voices in Film screens on Friday, 11 May and Sunday, 13 May from 14:00-15:30, in the ‘Doc Corner’ of the Marché du Film in the Riviera.

To learn more, go to:  https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/festival/ & http://www.iefta.org/

London’s 2017 Olivier-winning Production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" Premieres at Chicago Lyric Opera

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Monday, 30 April 2018 14:32

Written by Ellis Nassour

What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s a-happening. The buzz right now is at Chicago Lyric Opera (20 North Wacker Drive) where the much-lauded house, soon to celebrate its 65th anniversary, is presenting the North American premiere of the Regent’s Park 2016 Olivier Award-winning production of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, through May 20. The production also won the 2016 Evening Standard Radio 2 Audience Award for Best Musical [voted by listeners].

Directing is three-time Olivier Award winner Timothy Sheader (formerly Royal Shakespeare Company, now artistic director, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre), who helmed the much-acclaimed London production presented outdoors in 2016 with an encore in summer 2017.  

The cast, all in modern dress [which is not to say there are some wild and colorful costumes choices], features a mix of Chicago, Broadway, and West End talent. Starring are Heath Saunders (American Repertory Theatre and Broadway, Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, Lennon as Jesus); three-time Grammy-nominated soul singer Ryan Shaw (Judas), tUnE-yArDs band vocalist Jo Lampert (Public Theatre’s Into the Fire) (Mary Magdalene); Diane Coffee a.k.a. Shaun Fleming (Herod); and Postmodern Jukebox band jazz crooner Michael Cunio (Broadway, Hairspray; Chicago, Jersey Boys) (Pilate).

Featured are Mykal Kilgore (Broadway, Motown, Hair; First National, Book of Mormon) (Simon Zealotes); Joseph Anthony Byrd (Chicago, Cabaret, Little Mermaid) (Annas);  Cavin Cornwall (reprising the role he created for the Regent’s Park productions) (Caiaphas); and Andrew Mueller (Peter and the Starcatcher) (Peter). The production features the Lyric’s orchestra and chorus, rock musicians, and a cast of 48 – twice that of the Regent’s Park production.  

Sheader has brought with him his London creative team: music director Tom Deering, Olivier-winning choreographer Drew McOnie, Tony-nominated set and costume designer Tom Scutt (King Charles III), and Olivier-nominated lighting designer Lee Curran.
The Chicago Lyric premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar is sponsored by the Negaunee Foundation and Mr. and Mrs. J. Christopher Reyes in association with The Really Useful Group Limited. Lyric is under the direction of Anthony Freud, with Sir Andrew Davis as music director and famed opera star Renée Fleming (on Broadway as Nellie Fowler in the Carousel revival) as creative consultant.

Tickets for Chicago Lyric Opera’s Jesus Christ Superstar are $47.50 to $130.50. For the ultimate front-row rock concert experience, Lyric is offering $20 seating in their gigantic orchestra pit for the first time in the company’s history. 

For tickets and more information, visit www.lyricopera.org

In “The Seafarer,” Four Men Have A Devil of A Time With their Lives

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 20 April 2018 23:17

Written by Brad Balfour

“The Seafarer”
Irish Repertory Theatre the Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage
Written by Conor McPherson
Directed by Ciarán O’Reilly
Starring Matthew Broderick, Colin McPhillamy, Michael Mellamphy, Andy Murray, and Tim Ruddy

Through May 24, 2018

As one of Ireland’s most important contemporary dramatic voices, playwright Conor McPherson knows how to craft a simple yet sly story in “The Seafarer.” Making its off-Broadway return to New York at the Irish Rep through Ciarán O’Reilly’s well-directed production, the play shouldn’t be missed. Set in a beautifully ramshackle house in Baldoyle, a coastal suburb north of Dublin, McPherson’s set piece starts as an intimate look at middle aged men coping with the dismay of living out lives full of existential despair and actual pain. These are characters who haven’t exactly handled their jobs or families with much grace, but what seems to be naturalistic portraits turns into an oddly believable supernatural fantasy with a sinister underpinning.

The narrative revolves around a simple idea — what if what we think we know isn’t what’s really up. In this case, well-worn traumas working their way through a wretched Christmas Eve into Christmas day take a sinister turn. Without giving away the reveal, there’s a twist to the story that takes it from a look into painfully frustrating men interacting into an intriguing game of win or really lose. When the play transforms from this intimate look of lives struggling with last attempts at redemption to be a supernatural thriller of fate, it adds a layer of humor and anxiety that makes even more revealing.

Sharky (Andy Murray) has returned home to build a new, sober life after losing yet another job through both recklessness and sheer bad luck. He has to cope with his far more hopeless older brother, Richard (Colin McPhillamy) who had been blinded through a drunken accident a year ago. While Sharky tries to help him he doesn’t make it easy refusing to bathe or slow down his drunken excesses.

On this Christmas Eve, their old disreputable friend Ivan (Michael Mellamphy) has crashed in the house rather than be home with his family. The drinks flow as these old “friends” are joined by Nicky (Tim Ruddy) who brings along the mysterious Mr. Lockhart (Matthew Broderick) for an annual game of poker. This stranger turns out to be someone encountered in Sharky’s wretched past who ups the ante on the stakes in the game with possibly dire consequences.

All of the cast settles into their characters with ease and rough grace but it is Broderick, in his second appearance on the Irish Repertory Theatre’s main stage, who turns out to be the perfect sinister personality. Because of his seemingly innocent face and demeanor, he adds an unexpected grit to his character. Previously he had been in McPherson's "Shining City" in 2016, which was hailed by The New York Times as “his most assured and affecting stage performance in years.”

When "The Seafarer" premiered at London’s Royal National Theatre in 2006, it was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Play. When premiered on Broadway in December of 2007, it was nominated for four 2008 Tony Awards, including Best Play. And if this current version is any indication, this 46-year old playwright is poised for an ever brighter future.