Within minutes of it's 88-minute running time, it becomes apparent that My Father and the Man in Black inherently runs the risk of coming across as self-indulgent storytelling. The writer and narrator is Jonathan Holiff, a former Los Angeles talent agent, but his main claim to fame (and reason for the documentary) is that his father was Saul Holiff. That name probably means nothing to you unless you're a big fan of Johnny Cash, in which case you might realize he was Cash's longtime manager from about 1960 until resigning the role in 1973. The film starts with a reenactment of the senior Holiff committing suicide in 2005 at the age of 80, followed by the younger Holiff's voiced-over narration explaining that the two had been estranged for twenty years and that Saul had never been much of a father at all. Jonathan also reveals that he was quite the Hollywood hotshot himself...
- 9/5/2013
- by Linc Leifeste
- SmellsLikeScreenSpirit
Ballpark Film Distributors takes all UK rights to British crime thriller; sets release date.
Ballpark Film Distributors has taken all rights in the UK and Eire to Who Needs Enemies, the debut feature from writer/director Peter Stylianou of Red Guerrilla Films.
The British crime thriller tells the story of strip club owner Tom Sheridan (Ian Pirie) who takes revenge on an old friend Ian Levine (Michael McKell) when he discovers he’s using his club is to entertain wealthy paedophiles.
Writer/director Peter Stylianou said: “‘Who Needs Enemies’ is an intelligent gangster drama that focuses on storytelling rather than thrills. We are excited to be working with Ballpark Film Distributors in releasing this film and many more to come.”
Ballpark will release Who Needs Enemies on Nov 15.
Sheffield-based Ballpark are currently distributing Jonathan Holiff’s Johnny Cash documentary My Father and The Man In Black and will release four more films this autumn including No Fixed...
Ballpark Film Distributors has taken all rights in the UK and Eire to Who Needs Enemies, the debut feature from writer/director Peter Stylianou of Red Guerrilla Films.
The British crime thriller tells the story of strip club owner Tom Sheridan (Ian Pirie) who takes revenge on an old friend Ian Levine (Michael McKell) when he discovers he’s using his club is to entertain wealthy paedophiles.
Writer/director Peter Stylianou said: “‘Who Needs Enemies’ is an intelligent gangster drama that focuses on storytelling rather than thrills. We are excited to be working with Ballpark Film Distributors in releasing this film and many more to come.”
Ballpark will release Who Needs Enemies on Nov 15.
Sheffield-based Ballpark are currently distributing Jonathan Holiff’s Johnny Cash documentary My Father and The Man In Black and will release four more films this autumn including No Fixed...
- 8/30/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
French sales outfit Wide Management has added a slew of titles in recent months.
Tiff contemporary world cinema premiere Ningen, about a Japanese CEO under pressure to save his company, is the second feature from Noor directors Cagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti.
Portuguese drama Bobo, by Ines Oliveira, plays in the Tiff discovery programme. The feature follows two women who unite over their mutual desire to protect a child.
Vinko Bresan’s Karlovy Vary competition comedy The Priest’s Children has sold to a number of European territories while Jean-Louis Daniel’s Paris-set Shanghai Belle, also in-demand, tells the story of young models discovering a life of drugs, sex and prostitution.
Also on the slate are Snails in the Rain by Yariv Mozer, Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Rene Feret’s The Film to Come, and Us comedy Only in New York, in which a stand-up has a novel take on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Wide has also...
Tiff contemporary world cinema premiere Ningen, about a Japanese CEO under pressure to save his company, is the second feature from Noor directors Cagla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti.
Portuguese drama Bobo, by Ines Oliveira, plays in the Tiff discovery programme. The feature follows two women who unite over their mutual desire to protect a child.
Vinko Bresan’s Karlovy Vary competition comedy The Priest’s Children has sold to a number of European territories while Jean-Louis Daniel’s Paris-set Shanghai Belle, also in-demand, tells the story of young models discovering a life of drugs, sex and prostitution.
Also on the slate are Snails in the Rain by Yariv Mozer, Letters of a Portuguese Nun, Rene Feret’s The Film to Come, and Us comedy Only in New York, in which a stand-up has a novel take on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Wide has also...
- 8/30/2013
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
After his father committed suicide, Jonathan Holiff discovered an incredible secret in a storage locker: recordings of the elder Holiff's audio diary from his days as Johnny Cash's manager from 1960 to 1973. In his new film, "My Father and the Man in Black," Holiff combines found footage, re-enactments and his own voice-over narration to craft a story about the father he hadn't spoken to for two decades--and about the often-troubled music legend who turned to religion for solace. In the clip below, provided exclusively to Toh!, Jonathan listens to his father Saul's diary recording of one remarkable morning in Toronto, when he and others found Cash passed out on the floor of his Rv from an overdose. "For all intents and purposes, he was dead," says Saul. A few hours later, Cash performed two sold-out shows in Rochester, New York, as if nothing had happened. "My Father and the Man in Black...
- 8/27/2013
- by Jacob Combs
- Thompson on Hollywood
Only God Forgives | The Heat | Paradise: Hope | The Conjuring | Red 2 | My Father And The Man In Black | From Up On Poppy Hill | The Smurfs 2 | Heaven's Gate
Only God Forgives (18)
(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013, Fra/Thai/Us/Swe) Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Tom Burke. 90 mins
The Drive dream team are back together in Bangkok, but those hoping for a cute Gosling droolathon will be disappointed. This is more a cinematic slab of red meat: lean, raw, bloody and blunt, but with much to savour. Executed with great formal rigour, it's a stylised revenge story centred on Gosling's almost mute gangster, his terrifying mother (Scott Thomas) and an even more terrifying Thai cop (Pansringarm).
The Heat (15)
(Paul Feig, 2013, Us) Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir. 117 mins
Buddy sparks inevitably fly when Bullock's uptight FBI agent is partnered with McCarthy's foul-mouthed Boston cop, in a comedy that serves up plenty of female-oriented crudity,...
Only God Forgives (18)
(Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013, Fra/Thai/Us/Swe) Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Vithaya Pansringarm, Tom Burke. 90 mins
The Drive dream team are back together in Bangkok, but those hoping for a cute Gosling droolathon will be disappointed. This is more a cinematic slab of red meat: lean, raw, bloody and blunt, but with much to savour. Executed with great formal rigour, it's a stylised revenge story centred on Gosling's almost mute gangster, his terrifying mother (Scott Thomas) and an even more terrifying Thai cop (Pansringarm).
The Heat (15)
(Paul Feig, 2013, Us) Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir. 117 mins
Buddy sparks inevitably fly when Bullock's uptight FBI agent is partnered with McCarthy's foul-mouthed Boston cop, in a comedy that serves up plenty of female-oriented crudity,...
- 8/3/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Johnny Cash fans will want to check out this documentary about his former manager and his family failings
Former talent agent Jonathan Holiff directs this documentary about his dad, Saul, a Canadian-born hustler and music promoter who hit the jackpot when he met a young Johnny Cash and became his manager. Holiff Jr is clearly still bitter over the experience of being raised by such a driven father (at one point he says: "Saul didn't so much parent me as manage me like one of his clients"), and you know from the start Saul's rambunctious lifestyle doesn't end well: the opening scene is a reconstruction of his suicide in 1973. For Cash devotees who want a hitherto-hidden perspective on their man, though, this is invaluable viewing.
Rating: 3/5
DocumentaryJohnny CashAndrew Pulver
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to...
Former talent agent Jonathan Holiff directs this documentary about his dad, Saul, a Canadian-born hustler and music promoter who hit the jackpot when he met a young Johnny Cash and became his manager. Holiff Jr is clearly still bitter over the experience of being raised by such a driven father (at one point he says: "Saul didn't so much parent me as manage me like one of his clients"), and you know from the start Saul's rambunctious lifestyle doesn't end well: the opening scene is a reconstruction of his suicide in 1973. For Cash devotees who want a hitherto-hidden perspective on their man, though, this is invaluable viewing.
Rating: 3/5
DocumentaryJohnny CashAndrew Pulver
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to...
- 8/1/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★☆☆ Jonathan Holiff's engaging debut, My Father and the Man in Black (2012), benefits greatly from its third party storytelling, as he strives to discover what drove his father, Saul - the former manager of country legend Johnny Cash - to suicide. Holiff instantly sets a bleak tone by depicting a man chasing handfuls of pills with vodka and taping a plastic bag around his head before lying down to die. This acts as an invite into the point of Holiff's quest, as it is soon revealed that a recent discovery of a significant amount of recordings, clippings and photographs had inspired Holiff's decision to re-connect with his late father.
We're informed early on of the two types of father, both arguably equal in bad parenting terms, that Jonathan grew up with - one a distant, neglectful man who was barely home (Jonathan thought his father was Cash when he was...
We're informed early on of the two types of father, both arguably equal in bad parenting terms, that Jonathan grew up with - one a distant, neglectful man who was barely home (Jonathan thought his father was Cash when he was...
- 8/1/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Johnny Cash's story is an iconic fable of a troubled and talented storyteller, who found surprising, eventual redemption through faith.
Less explored is the relationship between Cash and his former manager, Saul Holiff.
While Holiff was central to some of Cash's most defining performances, and even responsible for bringing June Carter to his side for one of country music's most celebrated partnerships, and love stories, he had his own demons.
Johnny Cash and Saul Holiff's partnership was very close, but also much troubled
He sacrificed his own family life to tend to the career of his talented client, and later to deal with the fall-out as Cash succumbed to temptations and failed to honour performances and recording contracts.
Never close to his father, Jonathan Holiff was nonetheless shocked by Saul's suicide in 2005. And he was even more stunned to discover a storage locker full of Saul's letters...
Less explored is the relationship between Cash and his former manager, Saul Holiff.
While Holiff was central to some of Cash's most defining performances, and even responsible for bringing June Carter to his side for one of country music's most celebrated partnerships, and love stories, he had his own demons.
Johnny Cash and Saul Holiff's partnership was very close, but also much troubled
He sacrificed his own family life to tend to the career of his talented client, and later to deal with the fall-out as Cash succumbed to temptations and failed to honour performances and recording contracts.
Never close to his father, Jonathan Holiff was nonetheless shocked by Saul's suicide in 2005. And he was even more stunned to discover a storage locker full of Saul's letters...
- 7/30/2013
- by The Huffington Post UK
- Huffington Post
Raindance have just announced their line-up for their 20th annual film festival. The 2012 festival will, like every year showcase some of the best independent movies that we can expect in the coming year and beyond. Raindance 2012 will take place 26th September to 7th October at the Apollo Cinema, Piccadilly Circus in London. This year we can expect to see 105 features, more than 138 shorts, 64 UK Premieres, 13 International Premieres, 5 European Premieres, 19 World Premieres and 24 Directorial Debuts from 38 countries.
Scroll down to see the full press release as well as all the feature films that will be showing at the festival. To find out more, click here to visit their official site.
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the International Premiere of Here Comes The Devil a powerful fantasy horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana.
Scroll down to see the full press release as well as all the feature films that will be showing at the festival. To find out more, click here to visit their official site.
Opening the festival on Wednesday 26th September is the International Premiere of Here Comes The Devil a powerful fantasy horror from Mexico. Shot in Tijuana, a married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana.
- 9/4/2012
- by David Sztypuljak
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
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