Exclusive: Ben Whishaw will reunite with director Ira Sachs to shoot an “intimate” movie about photo artist Peter Hujar.
Until his death from AIDS in 1987, Hujar was a leading figure in the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers at the forefront of Manhattan’s downtown cultural scene.
The untitled film follows Passages, the acclaimed picture Sachs shot in Paris with Whishaw and Franz Rogowski.
Passages has been enjoying awards season attention with Rogowski bagging the best actor prize from the New York Film Critics Circle — in fact I just saw him the other night at an event for the picture out here in Los Angeles.
Whishaw, Rogowski and the film are in contention for prizes at the Independent Spirit Awards. Whishaw’s also on the BAFTA Best Supporting actor longlist for Passages.
Ira Sachs, Adele Exarchopoulos, Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski of ‘Passages’ at the Deadline Studio
And he...
Until his death from AIDS in 1987, Hujar was a leading figure in the group of artists, musicians, writers, and performers at the forefront of Manhattan’s downtown cultural scene.
The untitled film follows Passages, the acclaimed picture Sachs shot in Paris with Whishaw and Franz Rogowski.
Passages has been enjoying awards season attention with Rogowski bagging the best actor prize from the New York Film Critics Circle — in fact I just saw him the other night at an event for the picture out here in Los Angeles.
Whishaw, Rogowski and the film are in contention for prizes at the Independent Spirit Awards. Whishaw’s also on the BAFTA Best Supporting actor longlist for Passages.
Ira Sachs, Adele Exarchopoulos, Ben Whishaw and Franz Rogowski of ‘Passages’ at the Deadline Studio
And he...
- 1/10/2024
- by Baz Bamigboye
- Deadline Film + TV
Currently boasting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and heading into its second weekend in New York theaters is Brian Vincent‘s Make Me Famous, a self-distributed documentary about the 1980s New York art world centered around painter Edward Brezinski. A notable figure from the era that spawned Nan Goldin, Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Wojnarowicz, he never attained their level of recognition and subsequently disappeared — a disappearance the filmmakers try to solve. From the press materials: A madcap romp through the 1980’s NYC art scene amid the colorful career of painter, Edward Brezinski, hell-bent on making it. What begins as an investigation […]
The post Trailer Watch: Brian Vincent’s ’80s NYC Art World Doc, Make Me Famous first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Brian Vincent’s ’80s NYC Art World Doc, Make Me Famous first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 6/26/2023
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Currently boasting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and heading into its second weekend in New York theaters is Brian Vincent‘s Make Me Famous, a self-distributed documentary about the 1980s New York art world centered around painter Edward Brezinski. A notable figure from the era that spawned Nan Goldin, Jean-Michel Basquiat and David Wojnarowicz, he never attained their level of recognition and subsequently disappeared — a disappearance the filmmakers try to solve. From the press materials: A madcap romp through the 1980’s NYC art scene amid the colorful career of painter, Edward Brezinski, hell-bent on making it. What begins as an investigation […]
The post Trailer Watch: Brian Vincent’s ’80s NYC Art World Doc, Make Me Famous first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Trailer Watch: Brian Vincent’s ’80s NYC Art World Doc, Make Me Famous first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 6/26/2023
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Fashion’s biggest night is always one to remember.
Celebrities descend upon The Met steps every first Monday in May to bring their fashion A-game for a different theme each year. Sometimes, in an effort to be memorable, stars will go above and beyond for their outfits, at times resulting in the year’s most outrageous looks.
This year, the Met Gala theme honors the late Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019. The dress code simply reads “In honor of Karl,” leaving it mostly up for interpretation for the celebrities attending — and their stylists. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton says he hopes guests will celebrate “the spirit of Karl, and hopefully, everyone will come out in vintage Chanel, vintage Fendi, vintage Chloé.”
Vogue‘s Anna Wintour will steer the event, alongside Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer and Dua Lipa, who all serve as her Met Gala co-chairs.
Celebrities descend upon The Met steps every first Monday in May to bring their fashion A-game for a different theme each year. Sometimes, in an effort to be memorable, stars will go above and beyond for their outfits, at times resulting in the year’s most outrageous looks.
This year, the Met Gala theme honors the late Karl Lagerfeld, who died in 2019. The dress code simply reads “In honor of Karl,” leaving it mostly up for interpretation for the celebrities attending — and their stylists. The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton says he hopes guests will celebrate “the spirit of Karl, and hopefully, everyone will come out in vintage Chanel, vintage Fendi, vintage Chloé.”
Vogue‘s Anna Wintour will steer the event, alongside Michaela Coel, Penélope Cruz, Roger Federer and Dua Lipa, who all serve as her Met Gala co-chairs.
- 5/1/2023
- by Christy Piña
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ryan Murphy and husband David Miller, Netflix’s Bela Bajaria and her husband Doug Prochilo, Greg Berlanti and Robbie Rogers, and Joel and Sarah Mchale are among the Hollywood names who work with art adviser Joe Sheftel in building their art collections. “Joe has been great in helping us focus and translate our passions into visual arts, while also teaching us a great deal about market trends. We’ve discovered artists’ works both historical and current that our whole family is inspired by every day,” say Berlanti and Rogers, in a joint email to THR.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the New York-based Sheftel — who operated an art gallery on the Lower East Side from 2012 to 2015 — talks current trends in art, what is special about working with industry clients and his advice on navigating the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, which runs Feb. 16 to 19.
How would you describe...
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the New York-based Sheftel — who operated an art gallery on the Lower East Side from 2012 to 2015 — talks current trends in art, what is special about working with industry clients and his advice on navigating the Frieze Los Angeles art fair, which runs Feb. 16 to 19.
How would you describe...
- 2/16/2023
- by Degen Pener
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
This touching documentary revisits the grimy Manhattan of the 70s and 80s in search of long-lost painter Edward Brezinski
If All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the recent documentary featuring photographer Nan Goldin, has whetted your appetite for the scuzzy glory days of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1970s and 80s, then this documentary about Edward Brezinski, another artist kicking around the Bowery at the time, will quench that thirst. Interestingly, Goldin is never mentioned in this film, but a few art-world figures such as actor-critic Cookie Mueller and artist David Wojnarowicz overlap both films. No doubt there must have gallery openings or parties where Brezinski and Goldin were in the same room or even met one another, and this work clearly demonstrates that the NYC art scene was a small, almost incestuous circle where nearly everyone slept with everyone, especially before Aids arrived, and they all bitched about each other constantly.
If All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the recent documentary featuring photographer Nan Goldin, has whetted your appetite for the scuzzy glory days of Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1970s and 80s, then this documentary about Edward Brezinski, another artist kicking around the Bowery at the time, will quench that thirst. Interestingly, Goldin is never mentioned in this film, but a few art-world figures such as actor-critic Cookie Mueller and artist David Wojnarowicz overlap both films. No doubt there must have gallery openings or parties where Brezinski and Goldin were in the same room or even met one another, and this work clearly demonstrates that the NYC art scene was a small, almost incestuous circle where nearly everyone slept with everyone, especially before Aids arrived, and they all bitched about each other constantly.
- 2/13/2023
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
This review was first published on Sept. 11, 2022, after the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Fesitval.
Less a biography than an act of communion, Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” sets for itself a difficult task: What more can you reveal about the most self-revealing of artists? What can a documentary portrait about Nan Goldin bring out that Goldin — a photographer who arguably revolutionized the artform with her candor — hasn’t already explored? To see the “Citizenfour” director wrestle and conquer those thorny questions is one of the many thrills of Poitras’ masterful, Venice Golden Lion–winning film.
As it surveys an individual narrative across a half-century of political, artistic and cultural heartache, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is, in so many ways, the Great American Novel in documentary form. Split into seven chapters, the film could just as easily be split into as many genres:...
Less a biography than an act of communion, Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” sets for itself a difficult task: What more can you reveal about the most self-revealing of artists? What can a documentary portrait about Nan Goldin bring out that Goldin — a photographer who arguably revolutionized the artform with her candor — hasn’t already explored? To see the “Citizenfour” director wrestle and conquer those thorny questions is one of the many thrills of Poitras’ masterful, Venice Golden Lion–winning film.
As it surveys an individual narrative across a half-century of political, artistic and cultural heartache, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is, in so many ways, the Great American Novel in documentary form. Split into seven chapters, the film could just as easily be split into as many genres:...
- 12/8/2022
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
Dennis Lim with All the Beauty and the Bloodshed director Laura Poitras, P.A.I.N. activists Nan Goldin, Harry Cullen, Megan Kapler, and the organisation’s lawyer Mike Quinn Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Golden Lion winner at the Venice International Film Festival) on the life and career of Nan Goldin, interwoven with the fight to take down the Sackler family, was the Centerpiece selection of the 60th New York Film Festival. Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, opened the festival and Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection, starring Jeremy Pope with Bokeem Woodbine, Raúl Castillo, and Gabrielle Union will be the Closing Night.
Nan Goldin on Paul Thomas Anderson’s favourite composer: “For me film music can make or break a film. Basically I watch anything that Jonny Greenwood does …” Photo:...
Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Golden Lion winner at the Venice International Film Festival) on the life and career of Nan Goldin, interwoven with the fight to take down the Sackler family, was the Centerpiece selection of the 60th New York Film Festival. Noah Baumbach’s adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel White Noise, starring Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, opened the festival and Elegance Bratton’s The Inspection, starring Jeremy Pope with Bokeem Woodbine, Raúl Castillo, and Gabrielle Union will be the Closing Night.
Nan Goldin on Paul Thomas Anderson’s favourite composer: “For me film music can make or break a film. Basically I watch anything that Jonny Greenwood does …” Photo:...
- 10/14/2022
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
That title. Even before it screened, “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” cast a shiver across the Venice Film Festival competition, sounding more like a line from a Yeats poem than the latest documentary from the director of “Citizenfour.” The big news: the film lives up to it. Already a robust director, Laura Poitras has leveled up with
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is about the life and art of Nan Goldin and how this led her to found P.A.I.N (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), an advocacy group targeting the Sackler Family for manufacturing and distributing OxyContin, a deeply addictive drug that has exacerbated the opioid crisis. It is about the bonds of community, the dangers of repression, and how art and politics are the same thing.
The biggest compliment is that this film is worthy of Goldin, a woman whose words are as stark as her art,...
“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” is about the life and art of Nan Goldin and how this led her to found P.A.I.N (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), an advocacy group targeting the Sackler Family for manufacturing and distributing OxyContin, a deeply addictive drug that has exacerbated the opioid crisis. It is about the bonds of community, the dangers of repression, and how art and politics are the same thing.
The biggest compliment is that this film is worthy of Goldin, a woman whose words are as stark as her art,...
- 9/3/2022
- by Sophie Monks Kaufman
- Indiewire
Click here to read the full article.
As a filmmaker, Laura Poitras has burnished her bona fides as an investigative journalist, notably in Citizenfour, which captured whistleblower history in the making. There are elements of you-are-there immediacy and insider access in her exquisite new film, but All the Beauty and the Bloodshed takes her work to new aesthetic heights and wrenching emotional depths. A collaboration with photographer Nan Goldin, the film chronicles Goldin’s activist mission to hold the Sacklers responsible for the opioid addiction crisis perpetrated by their company Purdue Pharma. But it’s much more than that.
It’s a portrait of the artist, through her images and her words, and an intimate look at grassroots political action. It’s a documentary about families — two in particular that couldn’t be more different and yet share a dark proclivity for dodging the truth: Goldin’s birth family, bent on keeping up appearances,...
As a filmmaker, Laura Poitras has burnished her bona fides as an investigative journalist, notably in Citizenfour, which captured whistleblower history in the making. There are elements of you-are-there immediacy and insider access in her exquisite new film, but All the Beauty and the Bloodshed takes her work to new aesthetic heights and wrenching emotional depths. A collaboration with photographer Nan Goldin, the film chronicles Goldin’s activist mission to hold the Sacklers responsible for the opioid addiction crisis perpetrated by their company Purdue Pharma. But it’s much more than that.
It’s a portrait of the artist, through her images and her words, and an intimate look at grassroots political action. It’s a documentary about families — two in particular that couldn’t be more different and yet share a dark proclivity for dodging the truth: Goldin’s birth family, bent on keeping up appearances,...
- 9/3/2022
- by Sheri Linden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The brilliance of David McShane’s short animation Come is in how it takes a common locale of queer cinema, the hookup, and shifts it into something potentially life-altering. McShane’s film follows the character of Finn who, after taking a regular route into a hookup, finds that his personal axis has been altered. Through the tactility of his painterly animation style, McShane is able to take us through Finn’s journey via a unique intimacy where every touch and motion begets a newfound meaning. Directors Notes is proud to present the premiere of Come today accompanied by a chat where McShane details the conversations with his flatmate that the film was born out of, the process of making his character models with acetate, and the joy he found in sharing his small, bedroom-made short with audiences around the world.
One of the aspects that stood out to me when...
One of the aspects that stood out to me when...
- 7/21/2022
- by James Maitre
- Directors Notes
Fox Entertainment’s MarVista Entertainment is entering into a development and production deal with TelevisaUnivision to produce 10 original Spanish-language films for ViX Plus, both sides announced Monday. ViX Plus is TelevisaUnivision’s Spanish-language subscription-based video on-demand offering; MarVista will produce 10 films across the genres of family, comedy, romance and holiday that will be available to stream exclusively on the service. TelevisaUnivision will hold the worldwide streaming distribution rights for all ten films, while MarVista is set to oversee the global distribution outside of streaming.
“It is an incredible honor to be a founding creative production partner of TelevisaUnivision on the launch of ViX Plus,” said Fernando Szew, CEO of MarVista Entertainment. “MarVista and Fox Entertainment take great pride in being leaders in delivering diverse stories and premium content across multiple genres for all viewers. We’re looking forward to introducing these initial ten films to what undoubtedly will be a...
“It is an incredible honor to be a founding creative production partner of TelevisaUnivision on the launch of ViX Plus,” said Fernando Szew, CEO of MarVista Entertainment. “MarVista and Fox Entertainment take great pride in being leaders in delivering diverse stories and premium content across multiple genres for all viewers. We’re looking forward to introducing these initial ten films to what undoubtedly will be a...
- 2/28/2022
- by Sasha Urban and Wilson Chapman
- Variety Film + TV
Documentary filmmaker Chris McKim was looking for something that would make him feel good six months into the Trump Administration and he wanted to make a difference. While he was aware of downtown New York City queer artist and activist David Wojnarowicz, it wasn’t until he started diving into the artist’s work that McKim realized there was an urgent story to be told.
McKim found a treasure trove of Wojnarowicz’s audio journals, which were edited alongside commentary from his contemporaries, for the World of Wonder film vying for documentary feature consideration this awards season.
Wojnarowicz’s installations and performance art drew attention to the AIDS epidemic when it was at its height. “There was this life story on top of his essays, and so much of his essays, dealing with AIDS spoke to what we were dealing with and managing at the time,” McKim says. Wojnarowicz was...
McKim found a treasure trove of Wojnarowicz’s audio journals, which were edited alongside commentary from his contemporaries, for the World of Wonder film vying for documentary feature consideration this awards season.
Wojnarowicz’s installations and performance art drew attention to the AIDS epidemic when it was at its height. “There was this life story on top of his essays, and so much of his essays, dealing with AIDS spoke to what we were dealing with and managing at the time,” McKim says. Wojnarowicz was...
- 12/14/2021
- by Jazz Tangcay
- Variety Film + TV
NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ+ film festival, kicks off tonight with one of the most prominent documentaries of the fall.
Mayor Pete, directed by Jesse Moss, goes behind the scenes and on the stump with Pete Buttigieg as he became the first openly gay major presidential candidate, vying for the Democratic nomination. Buttigieg’s campaign was unusual not only because of his gay identity, but for his résumé: his background in elective office was limited to serving as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
“One of the reasons I wanted to make the film is there seemed to be something almost Frank Capra-esque about this notion that a small-town mayor could run for president and be competitive,” Moss tells Deadline. “Of course, I wasn’t sure that was possible when we set out to make the film.
Mayor Pete, directed by Jesse Moss, goes behind the scenes and on the stump with Pete Buttigieg as he became the first openly gay major presidential candidate, vying for the Democratic nomination. Buttigieg’s campaign was unusual not only because of his gay identity, but for his résumé: his background in elective office was limited to serving as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
“One of the reasons I wanted to make the film is there seemed to be something almost Frank Capra-esque about this notion that a small-town mayor could run for president and be competitive,” Moss tells Deadline. “Of course, I wasn’t sure that was possible when we set out to make the film.
- 10/15/2021
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
NewFest, New York City’s premier LGBTQ film festival, swings into its 33rd edition on Friday, delivering over 130 features, shorts, and documentaries across theaters in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and for those viewers outside of NYC, at home virtually.
The festival this year runs October 15 through 26, kicking off on Friday with the east coast premiere of the documentary “Mayor Pete,” about Secretary of Transportation and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg. The film brings viewers inside his campaign to be the youngest U.S. President, and looking at his marriage to his husband Chasten, and their ambitious team — from the earliest days of the campaign to his unlikely victory in Iowa and beyond. This film reveals what goes on inside a campaign for the highest office in the land — and the myriad ways it changes the lives of those at its center. Buttigieg serves as the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet member in U.
The festival this year runs October 15 through 26, kicking off on Friday with the east coast premiere of the documentary “Mayor Pete,” about Secretary of Transportation and former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg. The film brings viewers inside his campaign to be the youngest U.S. President, and looking at his marriage to his husband Chasten, and their ambitious team — from the earliest days of the campaign to his unlikely victory in Iowa and beyond. This film reveals what goes on inside a campaign for the highest office in the land — and the myriad ways it changes the lives of those at its center. Buttigieg serves as the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet member in U.
- 10/15/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio and Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Theaters may be reopening, but physical media is forever — Alonso Duralde spotlights the best new DVDs and Blu-rays
New Indie
Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones make a somewhat unusual couple in “The Sound of Silence” (IFC Films), a somewhat unusual film. And it’s not that Sarsgaard and Jones don’t have chemistry to burn; it’s that the movie operates at its own pace while diving deeply into the Sarsgaard character’s obsessions with the thrums and throbs and vibrations of our day-to-day lives. He “tunes” his clients’ New York City apartments, looking for the sounds (whether they’re on the outside or coming from household appliances) that are disturbing the tenants, and Jones plays a social worker who turns to him for his unique services. Somewhere between “The Conversation” and last year’s “Sound of Metal,” it’s a uniquely eccentric tale that might make you pay more...
New Indie
Peter Sarsgaard and Rashida Jones make a somewhat unusual couple in “The Sound of Silence” (IFC Films), a somewhat unusual film. And it’s not that Sarsgaard and Jones don’t have chemistry to burn; it’s that the movie operates at its own pace while diving deeply into the Sarsgaard character’s obsessions with the thrums and throbs and vibrations of our day-to-day lives. He “tunes” his clients’ New York City apartments, looking for the sounds (whether they’re on the outside or coming from household appliances) that are disturbing the tenants, and Jones plays a social worker who turns to him for his unique services. Somewhere between “The Conversation” and last year’s “Sound of Metal,” it’s a uniquely eccentric tale that might make you pay more...
- 5/6/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
by Glenn Dunks
I briefly mentioned Chris McKim’s artist bio-doc Wojnarowicz: F*** You F*ggot F**ker earlier this year as one of the best unreleased documentaries that I saw in 2020. Voila, here we are, and this incredibly vibrant film is now out in the world. Big, boldly stylized and defiantly queer; it’s a documentary about an artist that, for once, feels truly in sync with its subject’s style. “I’m not gay as in ‘I love you’, I’m queer as in fuck off!” If it was one of last year’s best unreleased films, so now it is one of this year’s best films. I love it.
And perhaps part of what makes McKim’s film so interesting from the very start is that David Wojnarowicz is not an artist whose work and life has been excessively covered in film.
I briefly mentioned Chris McKim’s artist bio-doc Wojnarowicz: F*** You F*ggot F**ker earlier this year as one of the best unreleased documentaries that I saw in 2020. Voila, here we are, and this incredibly vibrant film is now out in the world. Big, boldly stylized and defiantly queer; it’s a documentary about an artist that, for once, feels truly in sync with its subject’s style. “I’m not gay as in ‘I love you’, I’m queer as in fuck off!” If it was one of last year’s best unreleased films, so now it is one of this year’s best films. I love it.
And perhaps part of what makes McKim’s film so interesting from the very start is that David Wojnarowicz is not an artist whose work and life has been excessively covered in film.
- 4/15/2021
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
The artist David Wojnarowicz, who died of AIDS in 1992, used his queerness as a radical pose, a way of saying, as Chris McKim’s documentary “Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F***er notes,” “I’m not gay as in I love you, I’m queer as in fuck off.” An angry, traumatized painter, photographer, writer, musician, filmmaker, and activist, Wojnarowicz cut a striking figure: wiry, gaunt, sallow-faced. In other words, he didn’t exactly blend into the world, and so he idolized fellow rebel poets like Arthur Rimbaud and Jean Genet, outcasts who allowed him to see the falsities of straight society from the outside. Blending Wojnarowicz’s own audio journals with input from a handful of his contemporaries, .
The film gets its title from a scribbled piece of homophobic obscenity Wojnarowicz found on the street, and then turned into radical art. Born in 1948, Wojnarowicz went on to become...
The film gets its title from a scribbled piece of homophobic obscenity Wojnarowicz found on the street, and then turned into radical art. Born in 1948, Wojnarowicz went on to become...
- 3/19/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The Brad Furman-directed crime thriller City of Lies has had quite a journey, but the Saban Films release finally hits theaters today before dropping on digital and on demand April 9.
Based on the book, LAbyrinth, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Randall Sullivan and adapted by Christian Contreras, City of Lies follows the investigation into the infamous murder of iconic rap artist Christopher Wallace aka the hip hop legend Notorious B.I.G.
Oscar and Emmy winner Forest Whitaker stars as Jack Jackson, a journalist who teams up with LAPD detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp), who spent nearly 20 years trying to solve the murder. The two of them try to find the truth. They explore why the case remains cold — and why a secret division of the LAPD is seemingly set on keeping it that way.
It’s not a lie that City of Lies went through a lot to make its way to the theaters.
Based on the book, LAbyrinth, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Randall Sullivan and adapted by Christian Contreras, City of Lies follows the investigation into the infamous murder of iconic rap artist Christopher Wallace aka the hip hop legend Notorious B.I.G.
Oscar and Emmy winner Forest Whitaker stars as Jack Jackson, a journalist who teams up with LAPD detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp), who spent nearly 20 years trying to solve the murder. The two of them try to find the truth. They explore why the case remains cold — and why a secret division of the LAPD is seemingly set on keeping it that way.
It’s not a lie that City of Lies went through a lot to make its way to the theaters.
- 3/19/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Almost thirty years since David Wojnarowicz succumbed to AIDS, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, a movie about his life by director Chris McKim and produced by World of Wonder’s Randy Barbato & Fenton Bailey, captures his spirit because it’s made entirely of media from the artist’s archives. Wojnarowicz’s largesse of spirit couldn’t be contained to one artistic medium. He wrote, shot photography, painted, was a performance artist, played in the band 4 Teens Kill 3, and was an activist in Act Up. If he were beginning his career today people would label him with the uninformative term “interdisciplinary multi-media artist” to try and snuff out his voice. Thankfully, his prodigious talent included scrupulous recordings capturing his profound thoughts and voicemails from people in his life. It takes David Wojnarowicz’s own words to tell his story; including an explanation of the movie’s provocative subtitle.
- 3/19/2021
- by Joshua Encinias
- The Film Stage
Channeling the aesthetic and urgency of a driven multimedia creator, “Wojnarowicz” chronicles the too-short life of a determinedly “outsider” artist who was among the most furiously outspoken victims of the AIDS epidemic. Chris McKim’s documentary is largely composed of materials from the late subject’s archives, woven into a collage whole that is equal parts biography, vintage agitprop and objet d’art, plus surviving associates’ audio reminiscences.
While the confrontative nature suggested by the film’s full title is amply represented, there’s also considerable beauty and invention on display here, as often there was even in David Wojnarowicz’s most enraged work. Kino Lorber is currently distributing the feature to virtual cinemas via its Kino Marquee program, with home-formats release planned for May 18.
McKim starts in 1989, when his protagonist had already been diagnosed as HIV-positive, writing, “I realized I’d contracted a diseased society as well.” One symptom...
While the confrontative nature suggested by the film’s full title is amply represented, there’s also considerable beauty and invention on display here, as often there was even in David Wojnarowicz’s most enraged work. Kino Lorber is currently distributing the feature to virtual cinemas via its Kino Marquee program, with home-formats release planned for May 18.
McKim starts in 1989, when his protagonist had already been diagnosed as HIV-positive, writing, “I realized I’d contracted a diseased society as well.” One symptom...
- 3/19/2021
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
After a packed-to-the-gills February, March is really dialing things down with releases. If my local theaters are any indication, it seems that studios are banking on Raya and the Last Dragon gobbling up a majority of screens. And with Oscar nominations just two weeks away, there’s always the assumption that theaters put titles they couldn’t show in 2020 on the rest to close things out.
That’s not to say there aren’t some “big name” contenders for streaming time, though, thanks to Amazon’s Coming 2 America (March 5) and HBO Max’s Snyder Cut redux of Justice League (March 18). So you’ll have to instead gaze upon virtual cinema selections and VOD to find the indie gems willing to go the extra mile by commissioning a compelling poster to set them apart from the Hollywood gloss.
Image first
In that vein comes Adrian Curry’s Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker.
That’s not to say there aren’t some “big name” contenders for streaming time, though, thanks to Amazon’s Coming 2 America (March 5) and HBO Max’s Snyder Cut redux of Justice League (March 18). So you’ll have to instead gaze upon virtual cinema selections and VOD to find the indie gems willing to go the extra mile by commissioning a compelling poster to set them apart from the Hollywood gloss.
Image first
In that vein comes Adrian Curry’s Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker.
- 3/4/2021
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
With theatrical exhibition regaining some life as New York City theaters open up at a limited capacity this month, the spring and summer will be an interesting time for the film industry. In terms of the arthouse model, it’ll be curious to see how the Virtual Cinemas that so many theaters have relied on as a revenue stream these past 12 months meld with the more limited capacity standard physical screenings. As we wait and see how these shifts take shape, check out our rundown of the films to check out this month.
14. Sophie Jones (Jessie Barr)
Executive produced by Nicole Holofcener, Jessie Barr’s coming-of-age tale Sophie Jones had a festival run last year, earning acclaim at Deauville Film Festival and more, and now it arrives this month via Oscilloscope Laboratories. Led by the director’s cousin, Jessica Barr, she plays the title character, who struggles with the unexpected...
14. Sophie Jones (Jessie Barr)
Executive produced by Nicole Holofcener, Jessie Barr’s coming-of-age tale Sophie Jones had a festival run last year, earning acclaim at Deauville Film Festival and more, and now it arrives this month via Oscilloscope Laboratories. Led by the director’s cousin, Jessica Barr, she plays the title character, who struggles with the unexpected...
- 3/2/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Kino Lorber has acquired North American rights to the Chris McKim-directed documentary Wojnarowicz which is also known for its full, and for some, controversial title, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F*cker. The documentary which spotlights the artist and activist David Wojnarowicz is produced by Randy Barbato, Fenton Bailey for Wow Docs and by McKim for Hobo Camp Films and will have a theatrical release on March 19 followed by VOD release on Kino Now and home video.
The docu made its world premiere at Doc NYC where it was honored with the 2020 Metropolis Competition Special Jury Recognition for Best Use of Archival Materials. It was also an official selection at last year’s Tribeca and Hot Docs Film Festivals.
“Chris McKim’s exuberant celebration of legendary artist and activist David Wojnarowicz is as fittingly in-your-face as David’s life and work itself,” said Kino Lorber SVP Wendy Lidell said.
The docu made its world premiere at Doc NYC where it was honored with the 2020 Metropolis Competition Special Jury Recognition for Best Use of Archival Materials. It was also an official selection at last year’s Tribeca and Hot Docs Film Festivals.
“Chris McKim’s exuberant celebration of legendary artist and activist David Wojnarowicz is as fittingly in-your-face as David’s life and work itself,” said Kino Lorber SVP Wendy Lidell said.
- 2/9/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Prolific, lyrical, and possessed of that entrepreneurial optimism which afflicts some who have seen the worst of what the world has to offer, David Wojnarowicz was a multivalent artist who survived a tormented childhood and decanted that bone-deep fury into his work. Chris Kim’s skittering collage of a documentary “Wojnarowicz” doesn’t explore his career from the outside but rather works ground up through his art to present an experiential plunge into the raw tumult of the New York art scene just before and following the onset of AIDS.
Continue reading ‘Wojnarowicz’ Is A Fiery Testament To An Artist’s Enlightening Rage [Doc NYC Review] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Wojnarowicz’ Is A Fiery Testament To An Artist’s Enlightening Rage [Doc NYC Review] at The Playlist.
- 11/21/2020
- by Chris Barsanti
- The Playlist
Christian D Bruun's Calendar Girl on Ruth Finley, the creator of the Fashion Calendar, is a Doc NYC highlight. Other feature films of note include Chris McKim’s Wojnarowicz (on David Wojnarowicz); Nathan Grossman’s I Am Greta (on Greta Thunberg); Ulrike Ottinger’s Paris Calligrammes; Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker’s The Meaning of Hitler; Oliver Murray’s Ronnie’s (on Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club); Katja Hogset, Margreth Olin, and Espen Wallin’s Self Portrait (Selvportrettet) (on photographer Lene Marie Fossen); Yael Bridge’s The Big Scary "S" Word; and two shorts, Jennifer Callahan’s Making The Case on Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s handbags (thank you to Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer) and Alison Klayman’s Flower Punk (on artist Azuma Makoto).
Calendar Girl (written with producer Natalie Nudell) features interviews with the who’s who of the fashion world (including Bill Cunningham; Carolina Herrera, who designed the white pantsuit and pussy-bow blouse.
Calendar Girl (written with producer Natalie Nudell) features interviews with the who’s who of the fashion world (including Bill Cunningham; Carolina Herrera, who designed the white pantsuit and pussy-bow blouse.
- 11/18/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
David Wojnarowicz, a key figure of the 1980s art movement that flowered in the pavement cracks of New York’s pre-gentrified East Village, died of AIDS in 1992 at age 37. But Chris McKim’s defiantly alive collage documentary, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, is so charged with the words and images of the multimedia artist it could almost be considered self-portraiture, often recalling Jonathan Caouette’s remarkable docu-narrative hybrid Tarnation. Assembled from the photographs, paintings and audio and video journals that Wojnarowicz recorded for most of his life, this impassioned personal testament should continue the work of the Whitney Museum’s ...
- 11/9/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
David Wojnarowicz, a key figure of the 1980s art movement that flowered in the pavement cracks of New York’s pre-gentrified East Village, died of AIDS in 1992 at age 37. But Chris McKim’s defiantly alive collage documentary, Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker, is so charged with the words and images of the multimedia artist it could almost be considered self-portraiture, often recalling Jonathan Caouette’s remarkable docu-narrative hybrid Tarnation. Assembled from the photographs, paintings and audio and video journals that Wojnarowicz recorded for most of his life, this impassioned personal testament should continue the work of the Whitney Museum’s ...
- 11/9/2020
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dennis Hopper on Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in Malia Scharf and Max Basch’s documentary, produced with David Koh: “They brought a vitality and an energy to art that just hadn’t been there. The importance of those three artists, they just seemed to bring the eighties alive really.” Photo: Tseng Kwong Chi / Courtesy Muna Tseng Dance Projects, Inc.
Two of the 2020 Doc NYC highlights are on artists. The world premiere of Chris McKim’s hard-edged Wojnarowicz brings back to life the committed activist/artist/poet/performer David Wojnarowicz who died from AIDS in 1992 at age 37.
Malia Scharf on Kenny Scharf with Keith Haring: "He was and still is such an important part of Kenny and our lives."
And there is Malia Scharf and Max Basch’s intimate portrait, Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide (produced with David Koh), which features remembrances from Kenny of Keith Haring,...
Two of the 2020 Doc NYC highlights are on artists. The world premiere of Chris McKim’s hard-edged Wojnarowicz brings back to life the committed activist/artist/poet/performer David Wojnarowicz who died from AIDS in 1992 at age 37.
Malia Scharf on Kenny Scharf with Keith Haring: "He was and still is such an important part of Kenny and our lives."
And there is Malia Scharf and Max Basch’s intimate portrait, Kenny Scharf: When Worlds Collide (produced with David Koh), which features remembrances from Kenny of Keith Haring,...
- 11/4/2020
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
"Is that not political?" World of Wonder has unveiled an early trailer for the documentary Wojnarowicz, with a much more provocative full title: Wojnarowicz: F--k You F-ggot F--ker. The film is premiering at the Doc NYC Film Festival next month. Their full description: "Emerging as a distinctive voice in the East Village art scene of the 1980s, David Wojnarowicz combined a variety of disciplines, from painting and photography to music and writing, in his artistic practice. Fiercely and unapologetically embracing his queer identity, he rebelled against the growing conservatism of the times, epitomized by the establishment's callous indifference to the AIDS epidemic, which would claim him in 1992 at the age of 37. Filmmaker Chris McKim has constructed a powerful elegy that recaptures the urgency and passion of Wojnarowicz’s life and art." From the looks of it, this definitely will be a provocative and compelling look at a genuinely bold artist.
- 10/15/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
As certain artists are lionized over time, other legacies are often overshadowed by the veneration of their peers. The names Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe are well known to more than the students of queer outsider art who first discovered them, but their contemporary David Wojnarowicz has remained lesser known. In “Wojnarowicz: F*** You F****t F***er,” a new documentary about the prolific artist and AIDS activist, filmmaker Chris McKim aims to elevate his work beyond queer art circles. This exclusive first trailer offers an intriguing taste of this singular multimedia artist and political voice.
The film gives an intimate look at the life and times of the artist, with unprecedented access to his archives and the full cooperation of his estate. Wojnarowicz inspired a generation through his work at the heart of political and culture wars in New York City in the 1970s and 80s. The film draws...
The film gives an intimate look at the life and times of the artist, with unprecedented access to his archives and the full cooperation of his estate. Wojnarowicz inspired a generation through his work at the heart of political and culture wars in New York City in the 1970s and 80s. The film draws...
- 10/15/2020
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Exclusive: World of Wonder (Wow), the company behind the Emmy-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race, has launched its own documentary division, Wow Docs with unscripted executive Jim Fraenkel leading the charge. The news was announced after Doc NYC unveiled their lineup.
Fraenkel has been with Wow since 2018. Prior to Wow, Fraenkel built an award-winning body of work spanning the worlds of news and documentary at Spotify, MTV, and Fox. His new title will be SVP of Documentary and Current, and he will report to Wow co-founders Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey.
The launch of the new docu arm of Wow makes perfect sense considering World of Wonder’s library of over 50 feature docus that shines a light on underrepresented and marginalized communities. Barbato and Bailey have documentary roots that run nearly three decades deep with numerous feature-length documentaries on provocative subjects premiering on HBO, BBC and Sundance.
“We began our career in...
Fraenkel has been with Wow since 2018. Prior to Wow, Fraenkel built an award-winning body of work spanning the worlds of news and documentary at Spotify, MTV, and Fox. His new title will be SVP of Documentary and Current, and he will report to Wow co-founders Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey.
The launch of the new docu arm of Wow makes perfect sense considering World of Wonder’s library of over 50 feature docus that shines a light on underrepresented and marginalized communities. Barbato and Bailey have documentary roots that run nearly three decades deep with numerous feature-length documentaries on provocative subjects premiering on HBO, BBC and Sundance.
“We began our career in...
- 10/15/2020
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Celine Danhier with Joel Coen and Ethan Coen at the table behind us at The Odeon on the evolution of Blank City: "James Nares said 'Let me call Jim Jarmusch.' It was really like that. And then at the same time I had the music scenes and I interviewed Pat Place." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Celine Danhier's all-hands-on-deck Blank City, edited to perfection by Vanessa Roworth, enters the world of the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression. We see and hear about the work of Bette Gordon, Casandra Stark Mele, Charlie Ahearn, Michael Oblowitz, Nick Zedd, Sara Driver, Susan Seidelman, Maripol, Patti Astor, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Vivienne Dick, Vincent Gallo, John Lurie, Steve Buscemi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lizzie Borden, Amos Poe, John Waters, James Nares, Jim Jarmusch, Anders Grafstrom, Richard Kern, Ann Magnuson, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, Pat Place, Becky Johnston, Adele Bertei, Scott B, Tommy Turner, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Kemra Pfahler,...
Celine Danhier's all-hands-on-deck Blank City, edited to perfection by Vanessa Roworth, enters the world of the No Wave and Cinema of Transgression. We see and hear about the work of Bette Gordon, Casandra Stark Mele, Charlie Ahearn, Michael Oblowitz, Nick Zedd, Sara Driver, Susan Seidelman, Maripol, Patti Astor, Eric Mitchell, Beth B, Vivienne Dick, Vincent Gallo, John Lurie, Steve Buscemi, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lizzie Borden, Amos Poe, John Waters, James Nares, Jim Jarmusch, Anders Grafstrom, Richard Kern, Ann Magnuson, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, Pat Place, Becky Johnston, Adele Bertei, Scott B, Tommy Turner, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Kemra Pfahler,...
- 4/24/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Ghost Town AnthologyThe titles for the 69th Berlin International Film Festival are being announced in anticipation of the event running February 7-17, 2019. We will update the program as new films are revealed.COMPETITIONThe Ground Beneath My FeetThe Golden Glove (Faith Akin, Germany/France)By the Grace of GodThe Kindness of StrangersI Was at Home, but A Tale of Three SistersGhost Town Anthology (Denis Côté, Canada)Berlinale SPECIALGully Boy (Zoya Akhtar, India)BrechtWatergate (Charles Ferguson, USA)Panorama 201937 Seconds (Hikari (Mitsuyo Miyazaki), Japan)Dafne (Federico Bondi, Italy)The Day After I'm Gone (Nimrod Eldar, Israel)A Dog Called Money (Seamus Murphy, Ireland/UK)Waiting for the CarnivalChainedFlatland (Jenna Bass, South Africa/Germany/Luxembourg)Greta (Armando Praça, Brazil)Hellhole (Bas Devos, Belgium/Netherlands)Jessica Forever (Caroline Poggi, Jonathan Vinel, France)AcidMid90s (Jonah Hill, USA) Family MembersMonos (Alejandro Landes, Columbia/Argentina/Netherlands/Germany/Denmark/Sweden/Uruguay) O Beautiful Night (Xaver Böhm,...
- 1/2/2019
- MUBI
A beautiful teenager’s strange artistic affliction is revealed after he is drawn into a coterie of Caravaggio connoisseurs
Here is a diverting, self-conscious fantasy sketch of gay life and gay sensibility composed of what the film-maker imagines or remembers of bygone Soho’s lost bohemianism. Its creator is Steve McLean, a former video director returning to cinema after a long personal hiatus following his last feature, Postcards from America in 1994, based on the writings of artist David Wojnarowicz. Both the dialogue and the mise-en-scène of this new film are stylised and theatrical, shot entirely in a darkened studio space, and there are echoes of Derek Jarman. For some, this might be borderline insufferable, but I found it interestingly innocent and high-minded – and aspirational, too, in an unexpected way.
Harris Dickinson plays Jim, an Essex teenager with an interest in art history who arrives in London hoping to make his fortune,...
Here is a diverting, self-conscious fantasy sketch of gay life and gay sensibility composed of what the film-maker imagines or remembers of bygone Soho’s lost bohemianism. Its creator is Steve McLean, a former video director returning to cinema after a long personal hiatus following his last feature, Postcards from America in 1994, based on the writings of artist David Wojnarowicz. Both the dialogue and the mise-en-scène of this new film are stylised and theatrical, shot entirely in a darkened studio space, and there are echoes of Derek Jarman. For some, this might be borderline insufferable, but I found it interestingly innocent and high-minded – and aspirational, too, in an unexpected way.
Harris Dickinson plays Jim, an Essex teenager with an interest in art history who arrives in London hoping to make his fortune,...
- 11/22/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
What critic B. Ruby Rich dubbed the “New Queer Cinema” encountered little but praise (plus some attention-getting damnation from political conservatives) with such early ’90s titles as “Swoon,” “My Own Private Idaho,” “The Living End,” “Paris Is Burning,” and so forth. But by mid-decade the vogue had run long enough that even gay audiences felt less inclined to embrace every creative effort, giving a relatively cold shoulder to Steve McLean’s “Postcards From America” (1994) and Todd Verow’s “Frisk.” Both were adapted from edgy gay lit figures — the former from autobiographical writings by David Wojnarowicz (who’d died of AIDS), the latter from a typically violent, queasy novel by Dennis Cooper.
These films look better now than most critics or viewers allowed then. The revulsion “Frisk” was greeted with (at a time when gay films were expected to provide some measure of reassuring uplift) only emboldened Verow as a since-highly-prolific director of microbudget features,...
These films look better now than most critics or viewers allowed then. The revulsion “Frisk” was greeted with (at a time when gay films were expected to provide some measure of reassuring uplift) only emboldened Verow as a since-highly-prolific director of microbudget features,...
- 6/28/2018
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
The film premiered at the BFI Flare Film Festival in London in March.
Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Steve McLean’s Postcards From London, about a teenager who leaves his insular hometown for the bright lights of London where he falls in with a group of elite rent boys in the city’s legendary district of Soho.
The deal was brokered by Jon Gerrans at Strand Releasing and Rym Hachimi at Paris-based The Bureau Sales, which is handling world sales on the title.
Strand Releasing also released McLean’s previous film, Postcards From America which was...
Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Steve McLean’s Postcards From London, about a teenager who leaves his insular hometown for the bright lights of London where he falls in with a group of elite rent boys in the city’s legendary district of Soho.
The deal was brokered by Jon Gerrans at Strand Releasing and Rym Hachimi at Paris-based The Bureau Sales, which is handling world sales on the title.
Strand Releasing also released McLean’s previous film, Postcards From America which was...
- 5/15/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
The 26th annual Images Festival will be taking over Toronto on April 11-20 with an epic series of experimental film screenings, media installations, expanded cinema performances, workshops, artist talks and tons more. With so much going on, the Underground Film Journal is just listing all the screening events below. For everything Images has to offer, please visit their official website.
Before the screenings list, here are some of the highlights:
Opening Night: Accompanying the documentary imagery of prolific filmmaker Robert Todd will be live music performed by electronic music deconstructionist Tim Hecker. Plus, there will be a new audiovisual work by SlowPitch called Emoralis, which pairs images of snails with crackly and droning rhythms.
Closing Night: Corredor will be a live performance piece combining South American imagery by artist Alexandra Gelis, accompanied by live music by drummer Hamid Drake and saxophonist David Mott.
Live Performances: Jodie Mack will provide live...
Before the screenings list, here are some of the highlights:
Opening Night: Accompanying the documentary imagery of prolific filmmaker Robert Todd will be live music performed by electronic music deconstructionist Tim Hecker. Plus, there will be a new audiovisual work by SlowPitch called Emoralis, which pairs images of snails with crackly and droning rhythms.
Closing Night: Corredor will be a live performance piece combining South American imagery by artist Alexandra Gelis, accompanied by live music by drummer Hamid Drake and saxophonist David Mott.
Live Performances: Jodie Mack will provide live...
- 4/11/2013
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
I was reading this interview in Vice about the Blu-ray reissue of Richard Kern’s short films from the ‘80s, and the names came flooding back to me. “Back in the day, Richard, along with buddies like Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Lung Leg, Sonic Youth, and Henry Rollins, made some of the most bloody, sexually deviant, and generally fucked up short films ever,” writes Christian Storm in his intro. Lung Leg – I haven’t heard that name in a while. She was on the cover of Sonic Youth’s album Sister. I wonder what she’s up to. Lydia, of course, is still …...
- 12/14/2012
- by Scott Macaulay
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Embedded above is the first music video ever produced for the legendary art rock band Sonic Youth, “Death Valley 69,” the eighth and final track on their 1985 album Bad Moon Rising. This is also the first music video that was co-directed by Richard Kern, one of the leading figures of the Cinema of Transgression movement. The song and the video are a perfect time capsule blend of audio and images from the raging punk scene coming out of NYC’s Lower East Side in the ’80s.
According to Jack Sargeant‘s definitive history of the Cinema of Transgression, Deathtripping, Judith Barry was originally hired to direct the video with Kern only hired to do the gore makeup special effects. However, Kern would end up co-directing along with Barry. (The video’s on-screen credits, listed in full below, also credit Sonic Youth as a co-director.)
The final video ends up being...
According to Jack Sargeant‘s definitive history of the Cinema of Transgression, Deathtripping, Judith Barry was originally hired to direct the video with Kern only hired to do the gore makeup special effects. However, Kern would end up co-directing along with Barry. (The video’s on-screen credits, listed in full below, also credit Sonic Youth as a co-director.)
The final video ends up being...
- 9/28/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
Critics reflect on how social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and myDigg, fit into the perennial debate on cultural elitism
Miranda Sawyer, broadcaster and Observer radio critic: 'Twitter has made it easier for critics to hear other people's opinions. Even then, though, you tend to hear similar views to your own'
When I was writing for the Face, during the 1990s, I went to interview some boy racers: young lads who spent all their money souping up their cars in order to screech around mini roundabouts or rev their engines in supermarket car parks until their tyres smoked. The kids asked me who I was writing for. When I said the Face – a magazine that prided itself on representing all aspects of British youth interests – every single one of them replied: "Never heard of it."
The point is that most people – especially those outside the high-culture capital of London – are...
Miranda Sawyer, broadcaster and Observer radio critic: 'Twitter has made it easier for critics to hear other people's opinions. Even then, though, you tend to hear similar views to your own'
When I was writing for the Face, during the 1990s, I went to interview some boy racers: young lads who spent all their money souping up their cars in order to screech around mini roundabouts or rev their engines in supermarket car parks until their tyres smoked. The kids asked me who I was writing for. When I said the Face – a magazine that prided itself on representing all aspects of British youth interests – every single one of them replied: "Never heard of it."
The point is that most people – especially those outside the high-culture capital of London – are...
- 1/30/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Jan. 25
7:00 p.m.
Microscope Gallery
4 Charles Place
Brooklyn, NY 11221
Hosted by: Microscope Gallery
The creator and leading figure of the Cinema of Transgression movement, Nick Zedd, will appear in person to present his most controversial films, from 1984′s collaboration with Richard Kern, Thrust in Me, to several of his multiple-projector films.
Back in the early ’80s, Zedd captured the zeitgeist of a style of filmmaking that was emerging in NYC’s Lower East Side. He thus created the Cinema of Transgression, a loose connection of low-budget independent filmmakers who were making work that rebelled against traditional social norms. Some of these filmmakers included Richard Kern, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Tommy Turner and David Wojnarowicz. You can read Zedd’s Transgression manifesto here.
Films screening at this particular event include Thrust in Me, a 1984 Super 8 collaboration with Richard Kern in which Zedd plays two characters, basically himself and a woman with whom he sexually molests.
7:00 p.m.
Microscope Gallery
4 Charles Place
Brooklyn, NY 11221
Hosted by: Microscope Gallery
The creator and leading figure of the Cinema of Transgression movement, Nick Zedd, will appear in person to present his most controversial films, from 1984′s collaboration with Richard Kern, Thrust in Me, to several of his multiple-projector films.
Back in the early ’80s, Zedd captured the zeitgeist of a style of filmmaking that was emerging in NYC’s Lower East Side. He thus created the Cinema of Transgression, a loose connection of low-budget independent filmmakers who were making work that rebelled against traditional social norms. Some of these filmmakers included Richard Kern, Tessa Hughes-Freeland, Tommy Turner and David Wojnarowicz. You can read Zedd’s Transgression manifesto here.
Films screening at this particular event include Thrust in Me, a 1984 Super 8 collaboration with Richard Kern in which Zedd plays two characters, basically himself and a woman with whom he sexually molests.
- 1/22/2011
- by screenings
- Underground Film Journal
Still from David Wojnarowicz, A Fire In My Belly (Film In Progress), 1986-87, Super 8mm film, black and white & color, Silent. Courtesy of The Estate of David Wojnarowicz and P.P.O.W Gallery, New York and The Fales Library and Special Collections/ New York University. The director of the Museum of Modern Art, Glenn D. Lowry, announced today that MoMA had acquired two versions of David Wojnarowicz’s artwork A Fire in My Belly, the allegedly controversial video that was pulled from a show at the Smithsonian late last year—in what we have officially deemed “a decidedly chicken-shit move”—after bougainvillea-hued Birkin windbag John Boehner, among others, called it “an outrageous use of taxpayer money and an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.”...
- 1/13/2011
- Vanity Fair
The Museum of Modern Art has acquired both the full cut and a seven-minute excerpt of David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly," following its controversial removal from the Smithsonian Institution last December. Made during the AIDS crisis in the late 80s, the short film came under attack last year by Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League and several members of Congress. Wojnarowicz made "A Fire in My Belly" ...
- 1/13/2011
- Indiewire
The Smithsonian Institution finds itself between a rock and a hard place this week, as it is faced with the decision of whether to appease The Warhol Foundation, who has given The Smithsonian 375,000 in exhibits, or the Catholic League and the United States Congress. The object of debate is the short film A Fire In My Belly by the late David Wojnarowicz. The 1986/1987 film was pulled from a National Portrait Gallery exhibit a few weeks ago due to the pressures the Smithsonian Institute received from William Donahue, head of the Catholic League, and Republican leaders in congress, most notably House Gop Leader, John Boehner. The Warhol Foundation has fought back, saying it will cut off all funding for future Smithsonian exhibitions if the film is not reinstated.
Read more on Smithsonian in a pickle over controversial film, A Fire In My Belly…...
Read more on Smithsonian in a pickle over controversial film, A Fire In My Belly…...
- 12/15/2010
- by Tim Sweeney
- GordonandtheWhale
Earlier this month, at the behest of unctuous House majority leader Eric Cantor (R-va) and some outraged commenters on FoxNews.com, the Smithsonian removed a video installation that Cantor called “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season.” The piece in question, A Fire in My Belly, by David Wojnarowicz, depicted Jesus nailed to the cross and covered in ants, and, according to Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, intended to “depict the suffering of an AIDS victim.” (Wojnarowicz died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 37.) Regarding the video’s graphic nature, exhibition co-curator David C. Ward explained, “That it is violent, disturbing, and hallucinatory precisely replicates the impact of the disease itself on people and a society that could barely comprehend its magnitude.” AIDS, Congressman Cantor should note, is not a seasonal disease that comes and goes with each Christmas. He...
- 12/13/2010
- Vanity Fair
Frank Rich
This past Sunday, New York Times columnist Frank Rich blasted the National Portrait Gallery and its parent institution the Smithsonian, for censoring “A Fire in the Belly,” a piece of gay art that suddenly became controversial after a rightwing blogger wrote about it.
Rich is absolutely devastating in dissecting the cowardice of Martin E. Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, as well as his bosses at the Smithsonian, who caved in to notorious homophobe William Donohue of the Catholic League who labeled the art "anti-Christian"for featuring eleven seconds of ants crawling across a crucifix.
As Rich and Los Angeles Times columnist Christopher Knight noted, the eleven seconds of video in "A Fire in My Belly" had run for a month without a single complaint from those attending the exhibit about same-sex themes in American portraiture titled “Hide/Seek.” Yet that didn't stop anti-gay forces on...
This past Sunday, New York Times columnist Frank Rich blasted the National Portrait Gallery and its parent institution the Smithsonian, for censoring “A Fire in the Belly,” a piece of gay art that suddenly became controversial after a rightwing blogger wrote about it.
Rich is absolutely devastating in dissecting the cowardice of Martin E. Sullivan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, as well as his bosses at the Smithsonian, who caved in to notorious homophobe William Donohue of the Catholic League who labeled the art "anti-Christian"for featuring eleven seconds of ants crawling across a crucifix.
As Rich and Los Angeles Times columnist Christopher Knight noted, the eleven seconds of video in "A Fire in My Belly" had run for a month without a single complaint from those attending the exhibit about same-sex themes in American portraiture titled “Hide/Seek.” Yet that didn't stop anti-gay forces on...
- 12/13/2010
- by Michael Jensen
- The Backlot
So, the Smithsonian kicked out a video piece by late artist David Wojnarowicz called A Fire in My Belly out of an exhibit because some alleged “Christians” complained about images of Jesus in it. (Wojnarowicz was part of the Cinema of Transgression movement.) The Huffington Post has a good rundown on the controversy and who’s been showing the video in protest of the protest. This week I was introduced to the website of filmmaker/author Shade Rupe, who helped me out with my Chicago Underground Film Festival post the other day. He’s written about a ton of interesting stuff, some of which you can read online or purchase. Speaking of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, the Columbia Chronicle has an excellent and thorough piece on the fest, including lots of choice quotes from fest director Bryan Wendorf and others. A couple months ago I posted up Andrea Grover...
- 12/12/2010
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
***Warning*** This article discusses Wednesday night’s episode of Work of Art.
Every television season usually features one show that is a surprise break-out hit. The one you first hear about while standing in line at Starbucks and the person ahead of you breathlessly says to their friend, “Are you watching X? It’s so good! You have to start watching it!”
This year that program is Bravo’s Work of Art, a new reality competition program pitting fourteen artists against each other as each week they create a new work of art. While much like Bravo’s own Top Chef – arguably the gold standard for these sorts of programs – there is one important difference about WoA. Unlike Tc where the audience can't taste the food and must rely solely on the opinions of the judges, viewers watching WoA can form an opinion (no matter how uninformed) about whether or not they like the art.
Every television season usually features one show that is a surprise break-out hit. The one you first hear about while standing in line at Starbucks and the person ahead of you breathlessly says to their friend, “Are you watching X? It’s so good! You have to start watching it!”
This year that program is Bravo’s Work of Art, a new reality competition program pitting fourteen artists against each other as each week they create a new work of art. While much like Bravo’s own Top Chef – arguably the gold standard for these sorts of programs – there is one important difference about WoA. Unlike Tc where the audience can't taste the food and must rely solely on the opinions of the judges, viewers watching WoA can form an opinion (no matter how uninformed) about whether or not they like the art.
- 7/1/2010
- by michael
- The Backlot
IndieWire Precious takes the audience prize at Toronto. Could this season be another like the Slumdog last when everything was a foregone conclusion before the big night. If so, zzz and uh-oh. The buzz is so deafening now it might sadly become one of those movies where everyone's opinions are pre-formed and no one's can fully be trusted. Hate it when that happens (but I am totally dying to see the film. Very soon. very soon)
Quiet Earth Concept art for Mute, the follow up to Duncan Jones Moon
Pop Culture Nerd wonders if you'll go to the Harry Potter theme park. My god, not me. I'll be so relieved in 2011 when it's all finally over. Next!
Cinema Styles has a fascinating take on Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart. I love reading modern takes on this movie
NY Times Robert De Niro and Spike Lee are developing...
Quiet Earth Concept art for Mute, the follow up to Duncan Jones Moon
Pop Culture Nerd wonders if you'll go to the Harry Potter theme park. My god, not me. I'll be so relieved in 2011 when it's all finally over. Next!
Cinema Styles has a fascinating take on Francis Ford Coppola's One From the Heart. I love reading modern takes on this movie
NY Times Robert De Niro and Spike Lee are developing...
- 9/20/2009
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
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