Big Sonia, directed by Todd Soliday & Leah Warshawski, screens Friday June 1st through Sunday June 3rd at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood). The movie starts at 7:30pm each night. Directors Todd Soliday & Leah Warshawski will join family members/cast for a panel discussion following each screening. Please send your name, number of tickets desired, and the screening that you would like to attend to films@webster.edu. The cashier will have a list at the door (tickets are $5 to $7. We can only accept cash or check. Winifred Moore Auditorium seats 240. The seating is general admission only).
In the last store in a defunct shopping mall, 91-year-old Sonia Warshawski – great-grandmother, businesswoman, and Holocaust survivor – runs the tailor shop she’s owned for more than 30 years. But when she’s served an eviction notice, the specter of retirement prompts Sonia to resist her harrowing past as a refugee and witness to genocide.
In the last store in a defunct shopping mall, 91-year-old Sonia Warshawski – great-grandmother, businesswoman, and Holocaust survivor – runs the tailor shop she’s owned for more than 30 years. But when she’s served an eviction notice, the specter of retirement prompts Sonia to resist her harrowing past as a refugee and witness to genocide.
- 5/28/2018
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Ben Stillerman — director of Taking Stock, a new film about his father’s South African family business — talks with two other documentary filmmakers about the particular joys and challenges of making films about family. Leah Warshawski is the director of Big Sonia, about her inspiring Holocaust survivor grandmother; Kate Dandel’s Gold Balls is about professional senior tennis and features her father-in-law. Stillerman: I came up with the idea for doing a film about my father and our family business partly because I knew I would have unfettered access to a very interesting person and story. I also knew that […]...
- 2/15/2018
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
No reason has been given for the change in opening film.
Danish director Bille August’s The Chinese Widow will open this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff, June 17-26), replacing Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come, which was previously announced as the opening film.
However, Our Time Will Come will still play in the Golden Goblet competition at Siff. No reason was given for the change by either the festival or the film’s producer Bona Film Group.
Both films are set in China during the Second World War. Starring Emile Hirsch and Yu Nan, The Chinese Widow tells the story of an American pilot who is shot down and saved by Chinese villagers. It remains unclear if the film has been made under the recently signed Danish-Chinese co-production treaty. August recently served as jury president at the Beijing International Film Festival.
Our Time Will Come, which stars Zhou Xun and Eddie Peng, revolves...
Danish director Bille August’s The Chinese Widow will open this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival (Siff, June 17-26), replacing Ann Hui’s Our Time Will Come, which was previously announced as the opening film.
However, Our Time Will Come will still play in the Golden Goblet competition at Siff. No reason was given for the change by either the festival or the film’s producer Bona Film Group.
Both films are set in China during the Second World War. Starring Emile Hirsch and Yu Nan, The Chinese Widow tells the story of an American pilot who is shot down and saved by Chinese villagers. It remains unclear if the film has been made under the recently signed Danish-Chinese co-production treaty. August recently served as jury president at the Beijing International Film Festival.
Our Time Will Come, which stars Zhou Xun and Eddie Peng, revolves...
- 6/12/2017
- by lizshackleton@gmail.com (Liz Shackleton)
- ScreenDaily
Kicking off last week and continuing through this Thursday, Doc NYC is a utopia for the year’s best documentaries. One of the most promising will have a premiere tomorrow and today we’re pleased to premiere an exclusive clip. Big Sonia follows one of the last remaining survivors of the Holocaust, the 90-year-old Sonia, who is faced with an eviction notice after running her late husband’s tailoring business.
“There are many sides to Sonia – she’s a tiny, dynamic woman – who never stops trying to make an impact in her own small ways,” co-director Leah Warshawski, and Sonia’s granddaughter, tells us. “She’s the only survivor in the Kansas City area who speaks regularly about her experience during the Holocaust to students, prisoners, and anyone who will listen. This clip is from one of our first trips to see her speak at a middle school, and we...
“There are many sides to Sonia – she’s a tiny, dynamic woman – who never stops trying to make an impact in her own small ways,” co-director Leah Warshawski, and Sonia’s granddaughter, tells us. “She’s the only survivor in the Kansas City area who speaks regularly about her experience during the Holocaust to students, prisoners, and anyone who will listen. This clip is from one of our first trips to see her speak at a middle school, and we...
- 11/14/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The two feature-length documentaries, both of which focus on subjects over the age of 80, are the beneficiaries of a three-year pledge from True Productions founder Dwayne Clark and his wife, Terese. The Seattle-based film, theater, and media production company will award one $50,000 grant annually during that time — though the competition was so strong in this, the program's inaugural year, that Clark tapped Aegis Living, the retirement, assisted living, and Alzheimer's care company of which he's CEO, to support a second $50,000 grant. Leah Warshawski and Todd Soliday's "Big Sonia" depicts 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski — who stands at a not-so-big 4'8" — struggling with retirement and imparting life lessons after she's served an eviction notice for John's Tailoring, the last shop left in a dying suburban mall. Kate Dandel's "Gold Balls," filmed at four locations around the country, depicts the competitors in the tennis...
- 1/26/2016
- by Matt Brennan
- Thompson on Hollywood
It’s been a couple months since the last edition of What’s Up Doc? placed Michael Moore’s surprise world premiere of Where To Invade Next at the top of this list and in the meantime much shuffling has taken place and much time has been spent on various new endeavors (namely my Buffalo-based film series, Cultivate Cinema Circle). Finally taking its rightful place at the top, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hagedus’ Unlocking the Cage is in the midst of being scored by composer James Lavino, according to Lavino’s own personal site. Though the project has been taking shape at its own leisurely pace, I’d expect to see the film making its festival debut in early 2016.
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
Right behind, the American direct cinema masters is a Texan soon to make his non-fiction debut with Voyage of Time. Just two weeks ago indieWIRE reported that Ennio Morricone, who scored...
- 11/5/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Plus… La Film Festival announces partnership with ArcLight Cinemas for 2016; Lakeshore, Phantom Four partner on Miles, Seattle grant finalists; Davoli and Davids merge firms.Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired worldwide rights from Submarine Entertainment and Rosalind Lichter to Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt’s Havana Motor Club (pictured) about underground drag racers in Cuba. The film premiered in Tribeca and will open in 2016.The La Film Festival produced by Film Independent has announced a partnership with ArcLight Cinemas that will see the 22nd edition of the La Film Festival take place at ArcLight Cinemas across the city next summer from June 1-9.Paramount Television has closed a two-year overall television deal with Beasts Of No Nation director Cary Fukunaga and his production company Parliament Of Owls. Fukunaga is collaborating with Paramount Television as director and executive producer of The Alienist for TNT. Benicio del Toro, an awards season contender for Sicario, will take place in an on-stage conversation about his career...
- 11/3/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
The fall festival rush is upon us. Locarno is currently ramping up. Venice has released their line-up and Thom Powers and the Toronto International Film Festival team have dropped a bomb with a previously unannounced new feature from powerhouse docu-provocateur Michael Moore. It is truly a miracle that the production of a film such as Moore’s upcoming Where To Invade Next (see still above) managed to go completely undetected by the filmmaking community until it was literally announced to world premiere at one of the largest film festivals in the world. Programmed as a one of the key films in the Special Presentations section at Tiff, the film sees Moore telling “the Pentagon to ‘stand down’ — he will do the invading for America from now on.” Also announced to premiere at Tiff was Avi Lewis’ This Changes Everything, which has slowly been rising up this list, as well as...
- 8/7/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
I recently wrote a two-part article featuring four documentary filmmakers who not only pursued a hybrid release approach with their most recent films, but also were generous enough to share the real data from their films' releases for the article (Read Part 1 and Part 2). Upon reading these stories, filmmaker Leah Warshawski expressed interest in writing a similar piece on her experience self-releasing her film, "Finding Hillywood". The following post chronicles the story of her release and concludes with a list of 10 tips for filmmakers. When all of the data is in – about a year from now – Warshawski will write a follow up piece and include the actual data from the release. I encourage more filmmakers to tell their stories – not just the how, but also the results. A great way to do this is to participate in the Sundance Transparency Project. This information helps all of us learn from each...
- 7/1/2015
- by Leah Warshawski
- Indiewire
Well folks, after a rather long and brutal winter (at least for me here in Buffalo), we are finally heading into the wonderful warmth of summer, but with that blast of sunshine and steamy humidity comes the mid-year drought of major film fests. After the Sheffield Doc/Fest concludes on June 10th and AFI Docs wraps on June 21st, we likely won’t see any major influx in our charts until Locarno, Venice, Telluride and Tiff announce their line-ups in rapid succession. In the meantime, we can look forward to the intriguing onslaught of films making their debut in Sheffield, including Brian Hill’s intriguing examination of Sweden’s most notorious serial killer, The Confessions of Thomas Quick, and Sean McAllister’s film for which he himself was jailed in the process of making, A Syrian Love Story, the only two films world premiering in the festival’s main competition.
- 6/1/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
It should come as no surprise that Cannes Film Festival will play host to Kent Jones’s doc on the touchstone of filmmaking interview tomes, Hitchcock/Truffaut (see photo above). The film has been floating near the top of this list since it was announced last year as in development, while Jones himself has a history with the festival, having co-written both Arnaud Desplechin’s Jimmy P. and Martin Scorsese’s My Voyage To Italy, both of which premiered in Cannes. The film is scheduled to screen as part of the Cannes Classics sidebar alongside the likes of Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman, in Her Own Words, which will play as part of the festival’s tribute to the late starlet, and Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna’s Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (see trailer below). As someone who grew up watching road races with my dad in Watkins Glen,...
- 5/1/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Here's your daily dose of an indie film in progress -- at the end of the week, you'll have the chance to vote for your favorite. In the meantime: Is this a movie you’d want to see? Tell us in the comments. Big Sonia Tweetable Logline: Big Sonia profiles 89-year old Diva and Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski. Deeply rooted in the past and completely relevant Now. Elevator Pitch: Big Sonia is a feature documentary about 89-year old, 4'8" Sonia Warshawski - Diva, businesswoman, and Holocaust survivor living in suburban Kansas City. She still drives herself to work every day at her late husband's tailor shop - John's Tailoring - in the corner of a giant dead mall. Sonia can barely see over the steering wheel of her giant pink Buick, but customers come from far and wide just to be in her presence. And she just so happens to be my grandmother.
- 1/21/2015
- by Indiewire Staff
- Indiewire
There are several documentaries out there at the moment about the Nigerian film industry, movies clearly in awe of the money that Nollywood generates, the sheer volume of movies being made, the colorful characters who make up the landscape of what is the third movie industry in the world. And it’s great that these docs exist, because if there’s one thing the growing awareness of Nollywood has done it’s proven that there is a market for films in Africa, films made for and by Africans on their own terms. Finding Hillywood, Leah Warshawski and Christopher Towey’s documentary about the budding Rwandan film economy, proves the same point in a much different way. Unlike the distinct...
- 10/6/2014
- by Zeba Blay
- ShadowAndAct
On the heels of the 39th edition of the Toronto Int. Film Festival (Sept 4-14), Ifp’s Independent Film Week is where a plethora of fiction, non-fiction and new this year, web-based series from the likes of Desiree Akhavan and Calvin Reeder find future coin. Sectioned off as projects at the very beginning of financing to those that are nearing completion, there happens to be tons of Sundance alumni in the names below. Among those that caught our attention we have Medicine for Melancholy‘s Barry Jenkins’ sophomore feature, produced by Bad Milo!‘s Adele Romanski, Moonlight is about “two Miami boys navigate the temptations of the drug trade and their burgeoning sexuality in this triptych drama about black queer youth”. Concussion‘s Stacie Passon digs into the thriller genre with Strange Things Started Happening. Produced by vet Mary Jane Skalski (Mysterious Skin), this is about “a woman who has...
- 7/24/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
I was happy to be invited for the second year to serve on the jury for narrative features with Dan Mirvisch, indie filmmaker and founder of Slamdance, Dana Harris, editor in chief of Indiewire, Morrie Warchawski, author of Shaking the Money Tree and former Executive Director of the Bay Area Video Coalition and The Media Project. We had a spirited discussion about the films we saw, drank a lot of great wine at marvelous receptions and had a superb dinner in the dining room of the Black Stallion Winery which is on the former site of the famous Napa Valley Equestrian Center and has been owned by three generations of the Indelicato family. Chef Misty Phelps prepared a wonderful meal which we shared with invited guests, Hollywood Foreign Press members Patricial Danaher from Ireland and Dierk Sindermann who was on the doc jury and is a correspondent for 10 European publications. It was the second great dinner I had with Hfp folks, the previous one being at Spago after the screening of Japan's Like Father Like Son. These Hollywood Foreign Press people live a nice life because they love films so much! Their love of film is proven because the small indies, foreign language and doc films are not what their employers pay them to see or review. Their love of film brings them to see these films in addition to the star studded blockbusters. I digress because I am beginning to love the Hfp members, sharing dinners as we do, there are always interesting conversations as well. Other filmmakers and jury members were served equally special dinners at the Alpha Omega and Chappellet Reserve, Beaulieu Vineyards, Bello Family Vineyards and Cardinale. Films, food and wine truly served as catalysts for conversation.
We awarded The Best Narrative Feature Prize to Hank and Asha (www.hankandasha.com) directed by James E. Duff. It had previously won the Audience Award at Slamdance and won at Portland, Brooklyn, Rhode Island and Woods Hole Film Festivals. It was a beautifully shot near-romance of an Indian film student in Prague who connects via webcam with a New York based filmmaker whose film she admired when she was the the Prague Film Festival. Their intercultural exchange leads to a love and affection which is never culminated by a meeting.
The Audience Favorite for Documentary Feature went to Finding Hillywood (www.findinghillywood.com) directed by Christopher Towey and Leah Warshawski (the daughter of our own jury member, Morrie Warchawski). This film has played in numerous festivals and garnered many awards and much attention as it shows the fledgling Rwandan filmmaking community.
Here are the other awards!
Juried Awards
Best Narrative Feature: Hank and Asha directed by James E. Duff
Best Feature Documentary: Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth directed by Pratibha Parmar
Best Short Documentary: Sky Burial directed by Tad Fettig
Best Animated Short: Sleight of Hand directed by Michael Cusack
> Honorable Mention: The Right Place directed by Jamie Gallant
> Honorable Mention: Horsepower directed by Olivia Lai Shetler
Best Narrative Short: King of Norway directed by Sylvia Sether
> Honorable Mention: The Romantics directed by Ryan Daniel Dobson
> Honorable Mention: The Listing Agent directed by Matthew Helfgott & Jared Hillman
Special Jury Prize for Most Thought Provoking Film: The Last White Knight directed by Paul Saltzman
Audience Awards
Favorite Narrative Feature : The Little Tin Man directed by Matthew Perkins
Favorite Actor : Andrew Pastides, Hank & Asha
Favorite Actress : Mahira Kakkar, Hank & Asha
Favorite Documentary Feature : Finding Hillywood directed by Christopher Towey and Leah Warshawski
Favorite Documentary Short : Make Haste Slowly: The Kikkoman Story directed by Lucy Walker
Favorite Narrative Short : The Listing Agent directed by Mathew Helfgott and Jared Hillman
Favorite Animated Short : Horsepower directed by Olivia Lai Shetler
Favorite Lounge Feature : Starring Adam West directed by James Tooley
Favorite Lounge Short : The Romantics directed by Ryan Daniel Dobson
Next year's Napa Valley Film Festival will take place on 12-16 November 2014. To buy passes visit Here...
We awarded The Best Narrative Feature Prize to Hank and Asha (www.hankandasha.com) directed by James E. Duff. It had previously won the Audience Award at Slamdance and won at Portland, Brooklyn, Rhode Island and Woods Hole Film Festivals. It was a beautifully shot near-romance of an Indian film student in Prague who connects via webcam with a New York based filmmaker whose film she admired when she was the the Prague Film Festival. Their intercultural exchange leads to a love and affection which is never culminated by a meeting.
The Audience Favorite for Documentary Feature went to Finding Hillywood (www.findinghillywood.com) directed by Christopher Towey and Leah Warshawski (the daughter of our own jury member, Morrie Warchawski). This film has played in numerous festivals and garnered many awards and much attention as it shows the fledgling Rwandan filmmaking community.
Here are the other awards!
Juried Awards
Best Narrative Feature: Hank and Asha directed by James E. Duff
Best Feature Documentary: Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth directed by Pratibha Parmar
Best Short Documentary: Sky Burial directed by Tad Fettig
Best Animated Short: Sleight of Hand directed by Michael Cusack
> Honorable Mention: The Right Place directed by Jamie Gallant
> Honorable Mention: Horsepower directed by Olivia Lai Shetler
Best Narrative Short: King of Norway directed by Sylvia Sether
> Honorable Mention: The Romantics directed by Ryan Daniel Dobson
> Honorable Mention: The Listing Agent directed by Matthew Helfgott & Jared Hillman
Special Jury Prize for Most Thought Provoking Film: The Last White Knight directed by Paul Saltzman
Audience Awards
Favorite Narrative Feature : The Little Tin Man directed by Matthew Perkins
Favorite Actor : Andrew Pastides, Hank & Asha
Favorite Actress : Mahira Kakkar, Hank & Asha
Favorite Documentary Feature : Finding Hillywood directed by Christopher Towey and Leah Warshawski
Favorite Documentary Short : Make Haste Slowly: The Kikkoman Story directed by Lucy Walker
Favorite Narrative Short : The Listing Agent directed by Mathew Helfgott and Jared Hillman
Favorite Animated Short : Horsepower directed by Olivia Lai Shetler
Favorite Lounge Feature : Starring Adam West directed by James Tooley
Favorite Lounge Short : The Romantics directed by Ryan Daniel Dobson
Next year's Napa Valley Film Festival will take place on 12-16 November 2014. To buy passes visit Here...
- 11/26/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
‘Finding Hillywood’: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to present documentary about Rwanda’s budding film industry The 2013 documentary Finding Hillywood, which offers a glimpse into the budding film industry in Rwanda, will be presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Bpeace, the Business Council for Peace, at a special screening on Monday, October 21, at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City. The Finding Hillywood screening will be followed by an onstage discussion with Leah Warshawski, who directed and produced the documentary with Christopher Towey, and production designer Wynn Thomas (Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind, Spike Lee’s Inside Man), who was a member of the Academy’s International Outreach delegation to Rwanda and Kenya in 2011. According to the Academy’s website, Wynn Thomas and several other Academy delegates, among them actress Alfre Woodard (Cross Creek), writer-director Phil Robinson (Field of Dreams...
- 10/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Emir Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons won the 39th Seattle International Film Festival’s Best New Director grand jury prize on Sunday [9] as top brass handed out jury and audience awards.Scroll down for full list of winners
The Siff 2013 Best Documentary grand jury prize went to Penny Lane’s Our Nixon and Lucy Walker earned a special jury prize for The Crash Reel, while Kyle Patrick Alvarez took the Best New American Cinema grand jury prize for C.O.G.
In the audience awards, Henk Pretorius’ Fanie Fourie’s Lobola won the Best Film Golden Space Needle Award and Morgan Neville’s Twenty Feet From Stardom took the corresponding documentary prize.
The Best Director Golden Space Needle Award went to Nabil Ayouch for Horses Of God, while best actor was awarded to James Cromwell for Still Mine and best actress to Samantha Morton for Decoding Annie Parker.
The Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award was presented to [link...
The Siff 2013 Best Documentary grand jury prize went to Penny Lane’s Our Nixon and Lucy Walker earned a special jury prize for The Crash Reel, while Kyle Patrick Alvarez took the Best New American Cinema grand jury prize for C.O.G.
In the audience awards, Henk Pretorius’ Fanie Fourie’s Lobola won the Best Film Golden Space Needle Award and Morgan Neville’s Twenty Feet From Stardom took the corresponding documentary prize.
The Best Director Golden Space Needle Award went to Nabil Ayouch for Horses Of God, while best actor was awarded to James Cromwell for Still Mine and best actress to Samantha Morton for Decoding Annie Parker.
The Best Short Film Golden Space Needle Award was presented to [link...
- 6/9/2013
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Rwandan cinema (dubbed Hillywood - because Rwanda is known as the land of a thousand hills) is at the center of an upcoming new feature documentary from directors Leah Warshawski and Chris Towey, titled Finding Hillywood. We're probably all used to seeing the country via limited lenses, and rarely, if ever, get to know the land and its people from the people themselves. That there's a film festival in Rwanda that's now in its 8th year, is likely news to many outside of the country. Nollywood stories seem to dominate African cinema news, and with good reasons of course. It's one of the top 3 largest film-producing industries in the world, in terms of output,...
- 3/26/2013
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
The process of getting a film made is a long climb through rejection, neglect, frustration, and even some hostility. Those that "know", tell you that it is impossible--but still tens of thousands of films get made every year despite this knowledge of the "experts". Being a filmmaker takes incredibly thick skin. But it not just bullheaded arrogance that is needed to navigate through the difficult climb to completion. You need to turn rejection into a tool. Today's guest post by first time feature filmmaker Leah Warshawski captures these necessary lessons well--and even for the seasoned pro are crucial reminders of…...
- 5/10/2011
- Hope for Film
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.