Tag Archives: film festival

ITVS Co-Presents Two Films at CAAMFest!

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For the next 10 days, the Center for Asian America Media presents CAAMFest, a celebration of film, music, food and digital media form the world’s most innovative Asian and Asian American artists.

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Yesterday marked the beginning of the 2013 CAAMFest, formerly known as the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, and ITVS could not be more excited to co-present two of the films featured in this year’s festival, The Mosuo Sisters and Xmas Without China.

This year, in an effort to transition away from the traditional film festival, CAAM has embraced new forms of artistic expression with a spirit of curiosity and adventure. Come celebrate the festival through various live events, multimedia performances, and expanded ventures into the music and culinary worlds. With such a wide variety of entertainment to choose from, Bay Area participants will be able to enjoy Asian American media in all its various forms.

Be sure to check out the trailers (after the jump)! Continue reading →

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Priceless advice on interactive documentary filmmaking comes from an unlikely source: The Guardian’s Global Development Professionals Network. Emma Wigley, director of the interactive documentary Big River Rising, says to take a holistic approach: “Big River Rising is much more than a media project. It is a long-term educational resource for students and development organisations around the world.” (via @povdocs)

Could this be the first documentary filmed with Google Glass? This latest gadget by Google displays information in front of your eyes — imagine a smartphone strapped to your face. Gizmodo claims to have spotted a camera team filming with the elusive product still unavailable to the public.

For once, filmmakers are seeking guidance on how to transition from the theatrical film world to TV. A panel at New York Television Festival counseled indie filmmakers to invigorate projects that “might otherwise languish in cinematic purgatory.” Indiewire writes: “Over the past few years, television’s begun to challenge film as the preeminent outlet for American storytelling, the breadth of interest and means of distribution at an all-time high for a medium that can no longer be looked at as of inferior artistic merit.”

UK doc-makers now have more opportunities to receive funding for their films. The BFI Film Fund will accept pitches twice a year, when selected applicants will give a 10-minute pitch to an expert panel.

This psychedelic short video by Dutch designer and director Mischa Rozema is an homage to the 1990 space shuttle Voyager 1, combining real-life NASA footage, sci-fi animation, and experimental orchestration. (via @brainpicker)

This could be the first year a YouTube video wins an Emmy, according to Mashable. With Arrested Development on Netflix, it’s clear that some of our greatest shows are no longer confined to cable.

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

More documentary films are being made now than ever. To make sense of their impact, social scientists are using Big Data to measure cultural shifts within social media.

People of all professions go through quarter-life crises, but young filmmakers have a specific set of anxieties. Raindance ticks off the fears of twenty-something directors, including financial insecurity and getting into the “inside track.”

“If you don’t know who’s funding you on day one, do not start your campaign,” said Indiegogo founder Slava Rubin at DOC NYC. Learn other invaluable crowdfunding tips from Vimeo’s synopsis of DOC NYC’s online fundraising event. Continue reading →

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Can’t let go of election excitement? Here are 12 movies about elections that deserve a close rewatching, including The Manchurian Candidate (1962, 2004) and Milk (2008)/The Times of Harvey Milk (1984).

What a week for festivals! New York’s DOC NYC, an all-nonfiction fest Nov. 8-15, has an especially strong slate of films, including Oma & Bella, a documentary about two octogenarian survivors of the Holocaust in Berlin who cook childhood meals that conjure up vivid memories.

Another intriguing doc premiering at DOC NYC: The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema. Philosopher Slavoj Zizek tours through the history of cinema with a hilarious and insightful eye turned toward our unconscious urges. Here’s an interview with director Sophie Fiennes.

For those on the West Coast, the Napa Valley Film Festival will offer cinema with a side of wine and delicious food Nov. 7-11.

You might know The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a doc that follows hardcore arcade players trying to hit the world’s highest score on Donkey Kong. It’s not the only fabulous nonfiction film about oddballs. Here are nine others, including Independent Lens’s own Beauty is Embarrassing. Continue reading →

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Get into the Halloween mood with The Awl’s list of classic Hollywood monsters, including Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Kim Novak’s eyebrows.

The U.S. Copyright Office just granted documentary filmmakers a special pass. In an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, documentarians are allowed to rip footage from DVDs and streaming videos to be incorporated into their work.

Confused by crowdfunding? The IFC Center in New York is hosting an event to demystify the process. “Get the Money: Tap into Crowds” will be held November 9 (via @POVengage).
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The ITVS Indies Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Has the line between highbrow and lowbrow vanished? When we have film festivals for cat videos, you have to wonder. A.O. Scott and David Carr chew over this question (literally, as Carr snacks on Cheez-Its and Diet Coke) in a casual video filmed in the New York Times newsroom.

Here’s a great way for directors and producers to dive into TED talks: Filmmaker IQ compiled 10 TED talks for filmmakers.

The Emmys were announced this week, with ITVS winning four news and doc Emmys and our sister show POV winning 4 Emmys as well. You can watch four of POV’s award-winners online for free.

This is your brain on stories. In an animated video, neuroscientist Paul Zak explains the power of empathy in storytelling and how the chemicals that stories provoke can actually change our brains.

Comedians in show business, including Tina Fey, have a soft spot for an erudite writer: David Foster Wallace. Continue reading →

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

Has the film industry given up on liberal arts? At least two recent movies suggest that might be the case.

The 50th New York Film Festival opens up today at the Lincoln Center, and will hopefully calm our fears about the death of cinema.

West Coasters yearning for a film festival would be wise to check out the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival in San Francisco starting this weekend. Courtesy of 7×7, here are film recommendations from the festival, which celebrates the cinema of German-speaking countries.

For a Friday laugh, watch the most horrendously acted death scene from the 1974 Turkish martial-arts movie, Kareteci Kiz. Continue reading →

The ITVS Indie Roundup

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A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.

While San Francisco says goodbye to Woody Allen (he just wrapped up shooting his latest film in the Bay), here’s a comprehensive 1995 Paris Review interview of the screenwriter:“I have no compunction stealing from Strindberg, Chekhov, Perelman, Fellini, and Bob Hope’s writers,” Allen said.

Speaking of screenwriters, learn about the lesser-known art of documentary writing from the Writer’s Guild Award-winning duo behind Better This World.

Check out the wonders of stop-motion animation beyond Tim Burton: This poetic and beautifully textured short film, Undone by Hayley Morris, captures the unraveling of the mind caused by Alzheimer’s. It was inspired by Morris’s grandfather’s struggle with the disease.

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A Full Frame Documentary Extravaganza

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By Eric Martin

ITVS Senior Staff Writer Eric Martin, filed this report from the 2012 Full Frame Film Festival, which ran April 12-April 15 in Durham, N.C..

The Waiting Room held its world premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

The Full Frame Film Festival turned 15 years old this year in Durham, N.C., where I happen to live right now, and it’s no surprise that the well-attended, four-day, 100+ documentary extravaganza, which ended Sunday, included a meaty slate of ITVS and Independent Lens projects packed with something for everyone.
Continue reading →

Four ITVS Shorts Featured in PBS Online Film Festival

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Beginning Monday February 27, PBS will launch its first Online Film Festival to showcase 20 short films from independent filmmakers. The festival will last until March 30 and can be accessed via the PBS website and PBS’s YouTube channel.

This is the first time PBS has produced a film festival exclusively for online content and with a focus on independent films. Of the 20 films selected, four are films funded by ITVS and three have been previously released online. They are: Bullet Proof Vest by May Lin Au Yong (Grand Jury Prize Winner of the Independent Lens Online Film Festival), Play by David Kaplan and Eric Zimmerman, Sunshine: Single Dads by Karen Skloss; and Women and Girls Lead: Meet Beverly by Carl and Betsy Crum.