More than 90 feature films showcasing the best in U.S. moviemaking will take center stage next month at Poland’s American Film Festival (Aff), whose 14th edition takes place Nov. 7 – 12 in Wrocław, Poland.
Founded in 2010 as the sister event of the long-running New Horizons Film Festival, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
In putting together the program for the 14th edition, festival director Ula Śniegowska says she and the programming team spent the past year “scouting the festivals and trying to get our hands on the pulse of what’s happening in American auteur and independent film.” The festival, which includes titles that have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes and other leading fests, is similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which mounted its 49th edition this year.
Founded in 2010 as the sister event of the long-running New Horizons Film Festival, the Aff bills itself as the first film event in Central Europe solely devoted to the works of contemporary and classic American cinema.
In putting together the program for the 14th edition, festival director Ula Śniegowska says she and the programming team spent the past year “scouting the festivals and trying to get our hands on the pulse of what’s happening in American auteur and independent film.” The festival, which includes titles that have premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, Cannes and other leading fests, is similar in spirit to France’s long-running Deauville American Film Festival, which mounted its 49th edition this year.
- 10/24/2023
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: AMC Networks is continuing its true-crime drive.
The company’s SundanceTV has renewed Hilarie Burton Morgan’s It Couldn’t Happen Here and has also ordered two new series as it ramps up its True Crime Story franchise.
It Couldn’t Happen Here returns for a second season, hosted by One Tree Hill and The Walking Dead star Burton Morgan.
Separately, it has ordered True Crime Story: Citizen Detective and Crimes of Entitlement (w/t). The three series will air on SundanceTV, AMC+ and SundanceNow.
Citizen Detective is a documentary series that examines true-crime stories through the eyes of the untrained amateur sleuths who solved them or are still trying to do so. Each episode spotlights one new crime and the crime-fighter determined to make sure the case he or she is obsessed with is ultimately classified as closed.
It comes from RuPaul’s Drag Race producer World of...
The company’s SundanceTV has renewed Hilarie Burton Morgan’s It Couldn’t Happen Here and has also ordered two new series as it ramps up its True Crime Story franchise.
It Couldn’t Happen Here returns for a second season, hosted by One Tree Hill and The Walking Dead star Burton Morgan.
Separately, it has ordered True Crime Story: Citizen Detective and Crimes of Entitlement (w/t). The three series will air on SundanceTV, AMC+ and SundanceNow.
Citizen Detective is a documentary series that examines true-crime stories through the eyes of the untrained amateur sleuths who solved them or are still trying to do so. Each episode spotlights one new crime and the crime-fighter determined to make sure the case he or she is obsessed with is ultimately classified as closed.
It comes from RuPaul’s Drag Race producer World of...
- 3/29/2023
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Documentary+, the free streaming service launched by non-fiction studio Xtr, is moving into original series for the first time.
The platform is preparing to launch two series – Picture Locked and In My Own Words. It will launch the pair this month, coming on the back of original doc feature launches including The Sentence of Michael Thompson and When The LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood.
Picture Locked is an immersive retrospective with documentary filmmakers providing an in-depth breakdown of their breakthrough works, taking audiences shot by shot through the twists and turns of their process, while dissecting their own journeys as directors and the industry at large.
The series will explore films including explore Matt Ogens’ Confessions of a Superhero, chronicling the lives of costumed performers on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Bryan and Amy Storkel’s Holy Rollers, following a blackjack team of devoted card-counting Christians as they win millions from casinos,...
The platform is preparing to launch two series – Picture Locked and In My Own Words. It will launch the pair this month, coming on the back of original doc feature launches including The Sentence of Michael Thompson and When The LAPD Blows Up Your Neighborhood.
Picture Locked is an immersive retrospective with documentary filmmakers providing an in-depth breakdown of their breakthrough works, taking audiences shot by shot through the twists and turns of their process, while dissecting their own journeys as directors and the industry at large.
The series will explore films including explore Matt Ogens’ Confessions of a Superhero, chronicling the lives of costumed performers on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Bryan and Amy Storkel’s Holy Rollers, following a blackjack team of devoted card-counting Christians as they win millions from casinos,...
- 12/19/2022
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
One of the most talked-about documentaries of the year, Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel’s The Pez Outlaw is a masterclass in making a big story out of a small subject. Like the candy it’s concerned with, it’s small, sweet and not exactly filling, but it will definitely leave you with a craving for more.
In these days when we’re all more conscious of the damage done to the environment by disposable plastic, the idea of marketing sweets through the use of cutesy plastic dispensers would be a difficult pitch if it were new. The Pez Company still produces around 70 million of them a year, so it’s good to know that at least some of those end up in the hands of collectors, carefully stored and treasured. Whilst the cost of a new pez dispenser (with a single set of sweets) remains around £3, however, rare specimens can sell for.
In these days when we’re all more conscious of the damage done to the environment by disposable plastic, the idea of marketing sweets through the use of cutesy plastic dispensers would be a difficult pitch if it were new. The Pez Company still produces around 70 million of them a year, so it’s good to know that at least some of those end up in the hands of collectors, carefully stored and treasured. Whilst the cost of a new pez dispenser (with a single set of sweets) remains around £3, however, rare specimens can sell for.
- 10/19/2022
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
"Wecome to the wonderful world of Pez collecting. You're hooked now..." or about to be, anyway, after you watch the trailer for "The Pez Outlaw."
Forget your new-fangled NFTs; rare and hard-to-find Pez candy dispensers are where it's at. They once prompted a man, machinist, and Michigander named Steve Glew to fly to Europe so he could stock up on factory prototypes from Pez International (a separate entity from Pez USA) and then smuggle them back through U.S. customs, taking advantage of their unregistered trademarks to sell them for top dollar. It was all well and good until Brew's exploits got him into trouble with the president — or "Pezident," as he was known, of the Pez Company — who started having this Pez pirate followed, as any reasonable Pezident would.
That's the story behind the "The Pez Outlaw," a new documentary from directors Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel that...
Forget your new-fangled NFTs; rare and hard-to-find Pez candy dispensers are where it's at. They once prompted a man, machinist, and Michigander named Steve Glew to fly to Europe so he could stock up on factory prototypes from Pez International (a separate entity from Pez USA) and then smuggle them back through U.S. customs, taking advantage of their unregistered trademarks to sell them for top dollar. It was all well and good until Brew's exploits got him into trouble with the president — or "Pezident," as he was known, of the Pez Company — who started having this Pez pirate followed, as any reasonable Pezident would.
That's the story behind the "The Pez Outlaw," a new documentary from directors Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel that...
- 9/23/2022
- by Joshua Meyer
- Slash Film
The Pez Outlaw Trailer — Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel‘s The Pez Outlaw (2022) movie trailer has been released by Gravitas Ventures. The Pez Outlaw trailer stars Steven J. Glew, Eric Leukert, Jim Blaine, Katie Chrzanowski, and Jon Hicks. Crew The Pez Outlaw is “Co-Produced by Dawn Bender, Norbert Blecha, and Bo Butterworth.” Plot Synopsis The [...]
Continue reading: The Pez Outlaw (2022) Movie Trailer: A Pez Smuggling Documentary about Steve Glew vs. The Pezident...
Continue reading: The Pez Outlaw (2022) Movie Trailer: A Pez Smuggling Documentary about Steve Glew vs. The Pezident...
- 9/22/2022
- by Rollo Tomasi
- Film-Book
Exclusive: WME has signed the Emmy-winning husband-and-wife filmmaking team of Bryan Storkel and Amy Bandlien Storkel, as well as their non-scripted production company, Sidestilt Films.
The Storkels most recently directed and produced the award-winning documentary The Pez Outlaw, which claimed a Special Jury Prize at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and was recently acquired for the U.S. by Gravitas Ventures, with plans for a day-and-date release on October 21. The fish-out-of-water story follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man who boards a plane for Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His mission is to locate a secret factory that holds the key to the most desired and valuable Pez dispensers. If he succeeds, he will pull his family out of debt and finally be able to quit his job of 25 years. Steve becomes the hero of his own adventure, smuggling the rarest of goods into the U.
The Storkels most recently directed and produced the award-winning documentary The Pez Outlaw, which claimed a Special Jury Prize at this year’s SXSW Film Festival and was recently acquired for the U.S. by Gravitas Ventures, with plans for a day-and-date release on October 21. The fish-out-of-water story follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man who boards a plane for Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His mission is to locate a secret factory that holds the key to the most desired and valuable Pez dispensers. If he succeeds, he will pull his family out of debt and finally be able to quit his job of 25 years. Steve becomes the hero of his own adventure, smuggling the rarest of goods into the U.
- 8/16/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
The festival wrapped up its 26th edition on August 3.
Korean action film The Roundup and US sci-fi The Artifice Girl won the gold awards for best Asian feature and best international feature, respectively, at the audience awards for the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, which wrapped its 26th edition on August 3.
Starring Eternals and Train To Busan’s Done Lee as a ‘best of a cop’, The Roundup is directed by Lee Sang-yong and acts as a sequel to 2017’s The Outlaws. The gold winner was also a box office hit in South Korea, recording over 12.5 million admissions (as...
Korean action film The Roundup and US sci-fi The Artifice Girl won the gold awards for best Asian feature and best international feature, respectively, at the audience awards for the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, which wrapped its 26th edition on August 3.
Starring Eternals and Train To Busan’s Done Lee as a ‘best of a cop’, The Roundup is directed by Lee Sang-yong and acts as a sequel to 2017’s The Outlaws. The gold winner was also a box office hit in South Korea, recording over 12.5 million admissions (as...
- 8/5/2022
- by Ellie Calnan
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Gravitas Ventures has acquired U.S. rights to the 2022 SXSW award winner The Pez Outlaw, from directors Amy Bandlien Storkel and Bryan Storkel, with plans for a day-and-date release on October 21.
The fish-out-of-water story follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man, who boards a plane for Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His mission is to locate a secret factory that holds the key to the most desired and valuable Pez dispensers. If he succeeds, he will pull his family out of debt and finally be able to quit his job of 25 years. Steve becomes the hero of his own adventure, smuggling the rarest of goods into the U.S. and making millions in the process. It was all magical, until his arch-nemesis, The Pezident, decided to destroy him.
The Pez Outlaw made its world premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival,...
The fish-out-of-water story follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man, who boards a plane for Eastern Europe soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. His mission is to locate a secret factory that holds the key to the most desired and valuable Pez dispensers. If he succeeds, he will pull his family out of debt and finally be able to quit his job of 25 years. Steve becomes the hero of his own adventure, smuggling the rarest of goods into the U.S. and making millions in the process. It was all magical, until his arch-nemesis, The Pezident, decided to destroy him.
The Pez Outlaw made its world premiere at this year’s SXSW Film Festival,...
- 8/3/2022
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
NewportFILM Outdoors has unveiled its upcoming season of award-winning documentaries. The organization showcases non-fiction features and screens them in dramatic, often opulent settings around Newport, Rhode Island, a legendary summer getaway. This year is no exception, with some of the screenings taking place at such storied venues as Rough Point, a Gilded Age mansion that was the home of Doris Duke, and Marble House, the “summer cottage” of William K. Vanderbilt.
The season kicks off on Thursday, June 23rd with a Sundance favorite, Jono McLeod’s “My Old School” from Magnolia Pictures, which will open the series. Showtime’s upcoming documentary “McEnroe,” a look at tennis great John McEnroe, has the closing night slot and will screen, quite fittingly, at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The series runs weekly through Sept. 1.
Highlights include HBO Documentary Films’ “The Princess,” a deep dive into the life of Princess Diana; “Master of Light,...
The season kicks off on Thursday, June 23rd with a Sundance favorite, Jono McLeod’s “My Old School” from Magnolia Pictures, which will open the series. Showtime’s upcoming documentary “McEnroe,” a look at tennis great John McEnroe, has the closing night slot and will screen, quite fittingly, at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The series runs weekly through Sept. 1.
Highlights include HBO Documentary Films’ “The Princess,” a deep dive into the life of Princess Diana; “Master of Light,...
- 6/16/2022
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
This story is part of our Collector’s Digest editorial series powered by:
To paraphrase Huey Lewis and the News, the power of Pez is a curious thing. Invented in Vienna, Austria in 1927 by Eduard Haas III as “an alternative to smoking,” the ubiquitous candy’s name was derived from the German word for peppermint – its original flavor. The various iconic dispensers not only helped make snacking on sweets more portable but also fueled a collector’s frenzy around the globe that continues undeterred to this day.
Legend has it tech entrepreneur Pierre M. Omidyar founded eBay in 1995 to provide a way for his fiancée to trade Pez candy dispensers. While this was later found to be a fabricated story, it’s still a sweet one that illustrates the possibility of what can happen when necessity turns into a hobby. Omidyar achieved his goal of bringing together buyers and sellers...
To paraphrase Huey Lewis and the News, the power of Pez is a curious thing. Invented in Vienna, Austria in 1927 by Eduard Haas III as “an alternative to smoking,” the ubiquitous candy’s name was derived from the German word for peppermint – its original flavor. The various iconic dispensers not only helped make snacking on sweets more portable but also fueled a collector’s frenzy around the globe that continues undeterred to this day.
Legend has it tech entrepreneur Pierre M. Omidyar founded eBay in 1995 to provide a way for his fiancée to trade Pez candy dispensers. While this was later found to be a fabricated story, it’s still a sweet one that illustrates the possibility of what can happen when necessity turns into a hobby. Omidyar achieved his goal of bringing together buyers and sellers...
- 3/31/2022
- by Chris Cummins
- Den of Geek
In-person festival to run in Austin, Texas, from March 11-20.
A starry SXSW 2022 film line-up announced on Wednesday (2) includes world premieres of new work from Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Richard Linklater and Nicolas Cage, among many others.
The Austin, Texas, festival ran online editions over the past two years and is planned to take place from March 11-20 as an in-person event against a backdrop of declining Omicron infection levels across the United States.
The roster includes Irish filmmaker and actor Campbell-Hughes’s It Is In Us All (pictured) in Narrative Feature Competition starring Cosmo Jarvis, Claes Bang and Campbell-Hughes about a...
A starry SXSW 2022 film line-up announced on Wednesday (2) includes world premieres of new work from Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Richard Linklater and Nicolas Cage, among many others.
The Austin, Texas, festival ran online editions over the past two years and is planned to take place from March 11-20 as an in-person event against a backdrop of declining Omicron infection levels across the United States.
The roster includes Irish filmmaker and actor Campbell-Hughes’s It Is In Us All (pictured) in Narrative Feature Competition starring Cosmo Jarvis, Claes Bang and Campbell-Hughes about a...
- 2/2/2022
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Chicago – One of the best things that can be said about Bryan Storkel’s documentary, “Holy Rollers,” is that it features Christians who don’t fit the profile of religious stereotypes. Their morally questionable line of work does raise some provocative questions, but Storkel resists any opportunity to condescend to his human subjects. His evenhanded approach results in a picture that could be interpreted by some as a recruitment video and by others as a cautionary tale.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Not to be confused with Kevin Asch’s 2010 crime drama of the same name (about an Orthodox Jewish youth-turned-ecstasy dealer), this film centers on the real-life escapades of an all-Christian blackjack team that took millions of dollars from casinos throughout North America. These players voice their hatred of casinos and yet they choose a career devoted to high-stakes gambling. Their victory is ultimately a hollow one since it amounts to little more than personal gain,...
Rating: 3.0/5.0
Not to be confused with Kevin Asch’s 2010 crime drama of the same name (about an Orthodox Jewish youth-turned-ecstasy dealer), this film centers on the real-life escapades of an all-Christian blackjack team that took millions of dollars from casinos throughout North America. These players voice their hatred of casinos and yet they choose a career devoted to high-stakes gambling. Their victory is ultimately a hollow one since it amounts to little more than personal gain,...
- 3/6/2012
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
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