The latest film by the directors of Leviathan combines disorientating, brutal surgery closeups with doctors’ candid chats to powerful effect
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel are the French documentary film-makers who in 2012 gave us Leviathan, an experimental and immersively strange account of life on a fishing trawler in the north Atlantic. In 2017 their Somniloquies was a hallucinatory, image-driven film about sleep-talking, while Caniba was about the notorious Japanese murderer and cannibal Issei Sagawa and the strange half-life of his later years, when he was immobilised by a cerebral infarction.
Their new film does for the human body what Leviathan did for the alien world of the sea: an account of surgical and clinical procedures in a number of Paris hospitals, with extreme, disorientating closeups and some deeply disturbing images, including one mortuary scene of a dead body being dressed in the “civilian” clothes of the living. It gives us brutally...
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel are the French documentary film-makers who in 2012 gave us Leviathan, an experimental and immersively strange account of life on a fishing trawler in the north Atlantic. In 2017 their Somniloquies was a hallucinatory, image-driven film about sleep-talking, while Caniba was about the notorious Japanese murderer and cannibal Issei Sagawa and the strange half-life of his later years, when he was immobilised by a cerebral infarction.
Their new film does for the human body what Leviathan did for the alien world of the sea: an account of surgical and clinical procedures in a number of Paris hospitals, with extreme, disorientating closeups and some deeply disturbing images, including one mortuary scene of a dead body being dressed in the “civilian” clothes of the living. It gives us brutally...
- 5/15/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
And now for something truly different. Unconventional in almost every way, Caniba is the latest anthropological and psychological inquest from Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor. Their previous film, Leviathan, made for the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab wordlessly looked at the functioning of a long range fishing vessel often from the point of view of the of the dead fish or the birds flying overhead. With Caniba, the film is a lengthy dialogue with convicted murderer and cannibal Issei Sagawa, now in his late 60s and and his brother Jun, but it is shot in lengthy extreme, often unfocused close-up that is fascinating, challenging in ways that are uncomfortably voyeuristic. Consider the relationship between sex and food. Or sex and death. In France there is...
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[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 10/13/2017
- Screen Anarchy
Dear Kelley and Fern,As you both noted earlier, John Woo’s Manhunt was a thrilling, tongue-in-cheek compendium of the director's best qualities. This kind of masterful self-reflexivity may rub some the wrong way—remember, at the time, the hostility to De Palma’s Femme Fatale and Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. as if they were only Directors' Greatest Hits?—but when done smartly this is no mere masturbation, but a celebration and self-questioning, honed to deft precision, of an artist’s perennial themes.Such is the case with one of the few great feature films I've seen here in Toronto, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. In remarkable contrast to his last film, the coked-up cartoon Dog Eat Dog, it is is a self-consciously austere drama of a wearied priest (a tremendous, hollowed-out Ethan Hawke) of a minuscule congregation housed in the oldest church in America, one dismissively dubbed the ‘souvenirs shop’ by the newer,...
- 9/15/2017
- MUBI
Gaining notoriety in 1981 when he murdered and ate a Dutch woman in Paris, Issei Sagawa has earned the ghastly label of the world’s most famous cannibal, a title that reflects on not just his own sickness but the ensuing media “phenomenon” that surrounded him. A quarter century later, and no current media sensation other than a recent Vice documentary to really capitalize on, he’s the subject of his own feature film.
Thus for Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor to make a documentary film out of him, one that under a presumed experimental guise, still essentially seeks to provide biography and psychology to the man, comes a nagging feeling of skepticism. As opening with the onscreen text: “This film does not seek to justify or legitimize that crime,” the tricky question of distance, and what is exactly behind the specific impulse of psychologizing or providing sympathy for this man,...
Thus for Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor to make a documentary film out of him, one that under a presumed experimental guise, still essentially seeks to provide biography and psychology to the man, comes a nagging feeling of skepticism. As opening with the onscreen text: “This film does not seek to justify or legitimize that crime,” the tricky question of distance, and what is exactly behind the specific impulse of psychologizing or providing sympathy for this man,...
- 9/13/2017
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
55th New York Film Festival Projections choices announced by Anne-Katrin Titze - 2017-08-19 22:50:10
Leviathan directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's latest, Caniba, will screen in the 55th New York Film Festival Projections program Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 55th New York Film Festival Projections selections, which run from October 6 to October 9. The programme will screen eight feature films, including Kevin Jerome Everson's Tonsler Park, Neïl Beloufa's Occidental, Narimane Mari's Le Fort Des Fous, Rosalind Nashashibi's Vivian’s Garden, Xu Bing's Dragonfly Eyes, Luke Fowler's Electro-Pythagoras (A Portrait Of Martin Bartlett), Ben Russell's Good Luck, and Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Caniba. Zhou Tao's 48-minute The Worldly Cave will be shown on loop at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Amphitheater over the four days of Projections. There will also be eight programs of shorts and the newly restored work of Barbara Hammer and Mike Henderson preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 55th New York Film Festival Projections selections, which run from October 6 to October 9. The programme will screen eight feature films, including Kevin Jerome Everson's Tonsler Park, Neïl Beloufa's Occidental, Narimane Mari's Le Fort Des Fous, Rosalind Nashashibi's Vivian’s Garden, Xu Bing's Dragonfly Eyes, Luke Fowler's Electro-Pythagoras (A Portrait Of Martin Bartlett), Ben Russell's Good Luck, and Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor's Caniba. Zhou Tao's 48-minute The Worldly Cave will be shown on loop at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Amphitheater over the four days of Projections. There will also be eight programs of shorts and the newly restored work of Barbara Hammer and Mike Henderson preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
- 8/19/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has the complete lineup for its Projections section of the 55th New York Film Festival, which will unspool October 6 – 9. The year’s slate is comprised of eight features and eight shorts programs, each designed to present “an international selection of film and video work that expands upon our notions of what the moving image can do and be.” Each year, the Projections section of the festival seeks out innovative new films told in unique and often experimental new ways, and 2017 seems to be no different.
“Projections is the New York Film Festival’s home for adventurous work, and our 2017 lineup attests to the sheer number and variety of ways in which our most vital artists are exploring the possibilities of cinematic language,” said Dennis Lim, Fslc Director of Programming and one of the curators of Projections. “We’ve extended the program by a day this year,...
“Projections is the New York Film Festival’s home for adventurous work, and our 2017 lineup attests to the sheer number and variety of ways in which our most vital artists are exploring the possibilities of cinematic language,” said Dennis Lim, Fslc Director of Programming and one of the curators of Projections. “We’ve extended the program by a day this year,...
- 8/17/2017
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Like the great Jean-Marie Straub, Scott Barley creates striking images by returning us to the basics of cinema, the natural world, but abstracting it through profilmic means by reducing the landscape to pure, basic forms. The sky at night becomes a grid of uneven white points like a pin board; an abstract, grainy image of trees, green hued, are obscured into strikes of painterly lines; the sunset, seen through clouds, is stained with a natural purple tint that makes the image look as unreal as the skies in John Ford’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; a deep-focus landscape shot slowly becomes obscured by a patch of fog in the foreground. After a few beats, Barley tends to then situate these abstractions within a clearer sense of space and time. Barley, an installation artist and filmmaker from Newport, South Wales, has gained ecstatic admiration for his short films within certain cinephiliac circles,...
- 3/9/2017
- MUBI
Mubi's retrospective Film Is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa is showing January 16 - March 15, 2017 in the United Kingdom and many other countries around the world.Landscape“Film is a theorem that has to arrive at a final point.”—Sergei Loznitsa It’s something of a critical cliché to say that a film or filmmaker is fixated on the notion of time; but there aren’t many contemporary filmmakers who fulfill that description as well as Belarus-born director Sergei Loznitsa. Although best known for his recent work—a trio of documentaries, Maidan (2014), The Event (2015) and Austerlitz (2016)—and a brief foray into fiction—My Joy (2010) and In the Fog (2012)—Loznitsa first started out with a string of documentary features and shorts, five of which are part of Mubi’s ongoing retrospective: “Film is a Theorem: The Documentaries of Sergei Loznitsa.” With a methodical, almost scientific rigor (indicative of Loznitsa’s...
- 2/26/2017
- MUBI
Dreams are abstract beasts at the best of times and we’re offered a meditative window (if little else) into them in Somniloquies, a new abstract documentary from Varena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor. It’s the latest experimental piece from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab (S.E.L.), a rightly celebrated institute best known for producing Manakamana in 2013 as well as the immersive fishing trawler documentary Leviathan from 2012. It’s built around the tapes of one Mike Barr who, over the course of seven years in the 1960s, recorded the ramblings of his flat-mate, a songwriter named Dion McGregor, as he slept. McGregor gained notoriety for narrating what happened in his dreams and became known, according to studies, as one of the world’s “most prolific sleep talkers.”
Unlike their previous cinematic offerings, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor present these recording with a rather dull visual aesthetic. The audience is presented with around twenty-five nude models,...
Unlike their previous cinematic offerings, Paravel and Castaing-Taylor present these recording with a rather dull visual aesthetic. The audience is presented with around twenty-five nude models,...
- 2/20/2017
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Cinema Eye has named 10 filmmakers and 20 films that have been voted as the top achievements in documentary filmmaking during the past 10 years. Founded in 2007 to “recognize and honor exemplary craft and innovation in nonfiction film,” Cinema Eye polled 110 members of the documentary community to determine the winning films and filmmakers just as the organization kicks off its tenth year.
Read More: Behind the Scenes of Cinema Eye’s Secret Field Trip for Nominees
Among the films chosen are Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing,” Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning “Citizenfour” and Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Poitras and Oppenheimer were both also named to the list of the top documentary filmmakers, joining Alex Gibney, Werner Herzog and Frederick Wiseman, who recently won an honorary Oscar and will be saluted at the annual Governors Awards on November 12.
“It’s fantastic that he is being recognized by the Academy for a...
Read More: Behind the Scenes of Cinema Eye’s Secret Field Trip for Nominees
Among the films chosen are Joshua Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing,” Laura Poitras’ Oscar-winning “Citizenfour” and Banksy’s “Exit Through the Gift Shop.” Poitras and Oppenheimer were both also named to the list of the top documentary filmmakers, joining Alex Gibney, Werner Herzog and Frederick Wiseman, who recently won an honorary Oscar and will be saluted at the annual Governors Awards on November 12.
“It’s fantastic that he is being recognized by the Academy for a...
- 9/21/2016
- by Graham Winfrey
- Indiewire
Projects previously presented at the market include Laszlo Nemes’s Oscar-winning Son Of Saul.
The 14th CineLink Co-Production Market (Aug 18-20), the backbone of Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry section, will this year present 15 projects from South-East Europe, and three guest projects from Qatar and Mexico.
CineLink boasts an impressive track record. An average of 60% of the projects that have taken part at the market in the last 13 years went all the way from development to production.
The most recent success is Laszlo Nemes’ Son Of Saul which won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2015 and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Films.
Other titles developed at the market include two winners of Venice’s Lion of the Future: White Shadow by Noaz Deshe, and Mold by Ali Aydin; two Berlinale Silver Bear winners: Harmony Lessons by Emir Baigazin and If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle by Florin Serban; and Semih Kaplanoglu’s 2010 Golden Bear winner Honey.
The...
The 14th CineLink Co-Production Market (Aug 18-20), the backbone of Sarajevo Film Festival’s industry section, will this year present 15 projects from South-East Europe, and three guest projects from Qatar and Mexico.
CineLink boasts an impressive track record. An average of 60% of the projects that have taken part at the market in the last 13 years went all the way from development to production.
The most recent success is Laszlo Nemes’ Son Of Saul which won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2015 and Oscar for Best Foreign Language Films.
Other titles developed at the market include two winners of Venice’s Lion of the Future: White Shadow by Noaz Deshe, and Mold by Ali Aydin; two Berlinale Silver Bear winners: Harmony Lessons by Emir Baigazin and If I Want To Whistle, I Whistle by Florin Serban; and Semih Kaplanoglu’s 2010 Golden Bear winner Honey.
The...
- 8/17/2016
- ScreenDaily
It’s one thing to come up with a top 10 list of the best movies in any given year. The best movies of the decade is even harder. But the best movies of a century? Ok, when it comes to the new millennium, that’s just a decade and a half. Still, it’s no easy task to consider the highlights from 16 years of viewing — but that’s part of what makes it such a compelling challenge.
Recently, BBC polled a large group of critics, including IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich, for their lists of the best achievements of the 21st century. (The full results will run in mid-to-late August.) The results of the poll have yet to run, but as countless participants have begun sharing their results, we felt compelled to weigh in. Of course, lists are highly subjective and almost always omit some major titles, so...
Recently, BBC polled a large group of critics, including IndieWire’s Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich, for their lists of the best achievements of the 21st century. (The full results will run in mid-to-late August.) The results of the poll have yet to run, but as countless participants have begun sharing their results, we felt compelled to weigh in. Of course, lists are highly subjective and almost always omit some major titles, so...
- 6/25/2016
- by Eric Kohn and David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Nine projects unveiled on top of six previously announced projects.
Sarajevo Film Festival’s co-production market CineLink, which will run Aug 18-20, has unveiled its selection.
Nine projects have been added to the previously announced six, with additional guest projects to be announced in coming weeks.
The selection targets projects from established regional names, which are in advanced stage of development and financing.
CineLink offers awards funds totalling more than $180,000 (€160,000) in cash and services and boosts a impressive track record with previous projects going on to major international recognition such as Oscar and Cannes winner Son Of Saul (2015), Berlinale winner Harmony Lessons (2013) and Venice winner White Shadow (2013).
Cinelink Co-Production Market 2016
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija (Macedonia)
Director: Teona S MitevskaScriptwriters: Elma Tataragić, Teona S MitevskaProducer: Labina MitevskaProduction Company: Sisters And Brother Mitevski
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija is the fourth feature by Macedonian director Teona S. Mitevska. Her previous film The Woman Who Brushed Off Her...
Sarajevo Film Festival’s co-production market CineLink, which will run Aug 18-20, has unveiled its selection.
Nine projects have been added to the previously announced six, with additional guest projects to be announced in coming weeks.
The selection targets projects from established regional names, which are in advanced stage of development and financing.
CineLink offers awards funds totalling more than $180,000 (€160,000) in cash and services and boosts a impressive track record with previous projects going on to major international recognition such as Oscar and Cannes winner Son Of Saul (2015), Berlinale winner Harmony Lessons (2013) and Venice winner White Shadow (2013).
Cinelink Co-Production Market 2016
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija (Macedonia)
Director: Teona S MitevskaScriptwriters: Elma Tataragić, Teona S MitevskaProducer: Labina MitevskaProduction Company: Sisters And Brother Mitevski
God Exists, Her Name Is Petrunija is the fourth feature by Macedonian director Teona S. Mitevska. Her previous film The Woman Who Brushed Off Her...
- 6/20/2016
- by vladan.petkovic@gmail.com (Vladan Petkovic) michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Final Fantasy Xv is becoming an entire universe of products including a Sony Pictures Animated movie.
During a Final Fantasy event in La, Square Enix revealed a ton of details regarding the upcoming game. For starters Final Fantasy Xv will release September 30th, but an entire universe is coming with it.
The big announcement seems to be a full CG animated movie titled Kingslaive, which will be produced by Sony Pictures. The film will be released digitally before the games release.
The animated feature weaves together the complexities of kingdoms at war, royal relationships and epic battles in a tale that will set the stage for the main Final Fantasy Xv narrative. The CG movie features an all-star cast with Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones) voicing Regis, the King of Lucis who has sworn to protect his kingdom, Lena Headey (300, Game of Thrones), voicing Luna, the...
During a Final Fantasy event in La, Square Enix revealed a ton of details regarding the upcoming game. For starters Final Fantasy Xv will release September 30th, but an entire universe is coming with it.
The big announcement seems to be a full CG animated movie titled Kingslaive, which will be produced by Sony Pictures. The film will be released digitally before the games release.
The animated feature weaves together the complexities of kingdoms at war, royal relationships and epic battles in a tale that will set the stage for the main Final Fantasy Xv narrative. The CG movie features an all-star cast with Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones) voicing Regis, the King of Lucis who has sworn to protect his kingdom, Lena Headey (300, Game of Thrones), voicing Luna, the...
- 3/31/2016
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Dustin Spino)
- Cinelinx
Close-Up is a column that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Sweetgrass is playing on Mubi in the Us February 9 through March 9, 2016.Sweetgrass (2009) opens with a shot of a snowy Montana mountain scene, devoid of motion save for tall grasses succumbing to the wind. The following shots zero in on a rusted antique car, a metal shed or trailer, and then a large herd of sheep standing idly in the snow and staring at the cameraman, or just staring blankly as sheep seem to do. The film, directed by Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor, documents a family of Montana sheepherders who were among the last ranchers to graze their animals in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness near Yellowstone National Park. Sweetgrass follows a long line of documentary films focused on cultural practices on the decline in a world of global capital and accelerated technological development. But through thoughtful cinematography and sound design,...
- 2/23/2016
- by Matthew Harrison Tedford
- MUBI
To many, the name J.P. Sniadecki doesn’t ring much of a bell. Even to many storied cinephiles, the young documentarian and his work is a relatively blank spot on their selective film canvas. However, with films like Leviathan and Manakamana, the team at Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab have become some of non-fiction cinema’s most interesting and truly beloved voices. Sniadecki, along with directors like Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel (the latter of which Sniadecki teamed with on the film People’s Park), have risen to the absolute top of the documentary world with their engrossing and experimental motion pictures.
And now it’s time for Sniadecki to go it alone.
With The Iron Ministry comes the latest film out of the Hsel collective, and it’s yet another confounding achievement. Shot over the span of three years on various trains in China, the film is a definitive...
And now it’s time for Sniadecki to go it alone.
With The Iron Ministry comes the latest film out of the Hsel collective, and it’s yet another confounding achievement. Shot over the span of three years on various trains in China, the film is a definitive...
- 8/21/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Just like Leviathan and Manakamana before it, J.P. Sniadecki's The Iron Ministry is another striking sensory cinema experience. Closely associated with Havard Sensory Ethnography Lab and its esteemed Colleagues - Julien Castraing-Taylor, Verena Paravel, Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez and others, Sniadecki continues exploring the cinematic medium to its new height with the film which takes place entirely on the moving trains in China.Sniadecki, fluent in Mandarin, has been making films in China since 2010. Chaiquian, his first film explored the changing landscape of China and its 'floating people' - mass workers' migration from rural areas to the cities, followed by People's Park - a breathtaking single take film strolling through the Chengdu park, then Yumen, a docu-hybrid taking place in the ghost city of the...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 8/19/2015
- Screen Anarchy
For being just a brief 4 days, True/False is a densely packed festival, and I mean that in the true celebratory sense, full of not just film screenings, but parades and parties, street bound buskers, live game shows, filmmaking workshops and what-have-you, and it’s all condensed down into a vibrant, but relatively small college town. Everything is within a 10 minute walk. And where else might you walk two blocks and in the process subsequently encounter the likes of Joshua Oppenheimer, Alex Gibney, Nick Broomfield and the Ross Brothers? Paul Sturtz and David Wilson, the founders of True/False have created something truly special here in Columbia, Mo – a glorious celebration of non-fiction filmmaking and the fascinating fault line that separates the unreal from the untruthful.
Interestingly, Alex Gibney’s latest feature peddles only truth, but deals with the murky myths of a science fiction pseudo-religion. Based on Lawrence Wright’s exposé of Scientology,...
Interestingly, Alex Gibney’s latest feature peddles only truth, but deals with the murky myths of a science fiction pseudo-religion. Based on Lawrence Wright’s exposé of Scientology,...
- 3/12/2015
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Birthed by the brilliant minds at Harvard’s increasingly influential Sensory Ethnography Lab, Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana takes in the sights and sounds of the mountainous Nepalese wildness from the bird’s eye view of a sky-bound Austrian engineered cable car that transports Hindu pilgrims and worldly tourists alike to a temple atop the rugged ridge, yet the film does not explain this simple fact. Rather, taking visual cues from the structuralist filmmakers of the 60s and 70s, their 16mm camera sits statically across from various lift passengers on their way to and from the mountain top temple, documenting their 10 minute trip in whole 400 foot reels of film as the lush landscape passes them by like some kind of nostalgic scrolling rear projection effect. In theory, the film sounds like a heady slog of documentary slow cinema, but the resulting two hour feature is a charming bit...
- 8/27/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
As reported over at The Dissolve, highly respected British film magazine Sight & Sound is famous for its list of the greatest films off all time released once every decade. Since 1952, Citizen Kane held the number one spot until Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo dethroned it in the 2012 poll. Now for the first time Sight & Sound has released a list of the 50 greatest documentary films of all time. The list was compiled after polling from over 200 critics and curators and 100 filmmakers, including “John Akomfrah, Michael Apted, Clio Barnard, James Benning, Sophie Fiennes, Amos Gitai, Paul Greengrass, Jose Guerin, Isaac Julien, Asif Kapadia, Sergei Loznitsa, Kevin Macdonald, James Marsh, Joshua Oppenheimer, Anand Patwardhan, Pawel Pawlikowski, Nicolas Philibert, Walter Salles, and James Toback”.
The top 10 are:
Man With A Movie Camera, (Dziga Vertov, 1929) Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985) Sans Soleil, (Chris Marker, 1982) Night And Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955) The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1989) Chronicle Of A Summer (Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin,...
The top 10 are:
Man With A Movie Camera, (Dziga Vertov, 1929) Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985) Sans Soleil, (Chris Marker, 1982) Night And Fog (Alain Resnais, 1955) The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1989) Chronicle Of A Summer (Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin,...
- 8/1/2014
- by Max Molinaro
- SoundOnSight
Thanks to the increase in access to small scale non-fiction films through the barrage of streaming services viewers now have access to – Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Mubi, Vudu, etc – people are watching more documentaries than ever before. You can literally turn on any web ready device of your choosing and be watching any number of top quality docs within a number of seconds. It’s nothing short of incredible. But, with ease of access comes an over saturation of content used to fill in the curatorial gaps. For every Marwencol, Senna, Gimme Shelter or The Act of Killing, there are heaps of ordures cinéma clogging up precious bandwidth. And let’s not forget, cinemas themselves are enjoying a renewed trust in the non-fiction form, exhibiting over 100 documentaries on the silver screen last year and banking over $50 Million at the box office in the process, not including the hundreds of...
- 7/28/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Gerard Johnson’s follow-up to Tony to receive world premiere as opening film; contenders for Michael Powell Award also revealed, including six world premieres.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has revealed that corrupt cop drama Hyena will open the 68th edition of the festival on June 18.
The film reunites director Gerard Johnson with Peter Ferdinando, who played the lead in his debut feature Tony which received its world premiere at Eiff in 2009.
Producers include Stephen Woolley (Made in Dagenham, The Crying Game, Mona Lisa), Elizabeth Karlsen (Great Expectations, Ladies in Lavender) and Joanna Laurie. Hyena was developed by Film4. Sam Lavender and Katherine Butler exec produced the film for Film4 which was co-financed by Film4, BFI, Ingenious and Lipsync and will be released by Metrodome in the UK and distributed internationally by Independent.
Set in London, Hyena revolves around corrupt police officer Michael Logan (Ferdinando) who has to deal with an influx of ruthless Albanian gangsters...
The Edinburgh International Film Festival (Eiff) has revealed that corrupt cop drama Hyena will open the 68th edition of the festival on June 18.
The film reunites director Gerard Johnson with Peter Ferdinando, who played the lead in his debut feature Tony which received its world premiere at Eiff in 2009.
Producers include Stephen Woolley (Made in Dagenham, The Crying Game, Mona Lisa), Elizabeth Karlsen (Great Expectations, Ladies in Lavender) and Joanna Laurie. Hyena was developed by Film4. Sam Lavender and Katherine Butler exec produced the film for Film4 which was co-financed by Film4, BFI, Ingenious and Lipsync and will be released by Metrodome in the UK and distributed internationally by Independent.
Set in London, Hyena revolves around corrupt police officer Michael Logan (Ferdinando) who has to deal with an influx of ruthless Albanian gangsters...
- 5/12/2014
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
The Sensory Ethnography Lab, a collective of researchers and filmmakers based out of Harvard, made a name for themselves last year with the theatrical release of Leviathan, a thunderbolt of experimental nonfiction by directors Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel. Plunging us dizzily into the minutiae of industrial fishing, Leviathan awakened many to the visceral possibilities of documentary, the film itself heaving and churning alongside a ship's waterlogged undulations as if in the mechanical throes of a theme park simulation. Manakamana, the latest feature to arrive under the aegis of the lab and produced by Castaing-Taylor and Paravel, proves no less physical an experience — though this time around, landlocked and airborne, viewers ought to at least ...
- 4/16/2014
- Village Voice
Manakamana – Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez
NYC Release – April 18th
Distributor: The Cinema Guild
Awards & Fests: Winner of a trio of Locarno Film Fest awards (the Golden Leopard for Special Jury Prize in Filmmakers of the Present, Special Mention for Best First Feature Film and the Independent International Film Critics’ Award for Best First Feature ), this was showcased at Tiff & Nyff.
What the critic’s are saying?: Receiving thumbs up from Variety’s Scott Foundas (“manage to craft a vast and revealing portrait of both their chosen locale and the people who pass through it“) and hailed as an achievement and an audience-testing item via IndieWire’s Eric Kohn (“Manakamana” says as much about the erosion of patience as it does about the value of holding onto it”), decidedly, as Cinema Scope’s Jay Kuehner points out in a lengthy analysis, there is sweet offerings in the “field report from...
NYC Release – April 18th
Distributor: The Cinema Guild
Awards & Fests: Winner of a trio of Locarno Film Fest awards (the Golden Leopard for Special Jury Prize in Filmmakers of the Present, Special Mention for Best First Feature Film and the Independent International Film Critics’ Award for Best First Feature ), this was showcased at Tiff & Nyff.
What the critic’s are saying?: Receiving thumbs up from Variety’s Scott Foundas (“manage to craft a vast and revealing portrait of both their chosen locale and the people who pass through it“) and hailed as an achievement and an audience-testing item via IndieWire’s Eric Kohn (“Manakamana” says as much about the erosion of patience as it does about the value of holding onto it”), decidedly, as Cinema Scope’s Jay Kuehner points out in a lengthy analysis, there is sweet offerings in the “field report from...
- 4/1/2014
- by Eric Lavallee
- IONCINEMA.com
The International Cinephile Society has announced the nominees for the 11th Ics Awards. Abdellatif Kechiche's "Blue is the Warmest Color," the Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis," Spike Jonze's "Her," and Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" dominated the nominations with 7 nods each.
Winners of the 11th Ics Awards will be announced on February 23, 2014.
Here's the complete list of nominees:
Picture
. 12 Years a Slave
. Before Midnight
. Blue is the Warmest Color
. Frances Ha
. Gravity
. The Great Beauty
. Her
. Inside Llewyn Davis
. Laurence Anyways
. Spring Breakers
. The Wolf of Wall Street
Director
. Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - Inside Llewyn Davis
. Alfonso Cuarón - Gravity
. Xavier Dolan - Laurence Anyways
. Spike Jonze - Her
. Abdellatif Kechiche - Blue is the Warmest Color
. Paolo Sorrentino - The Great Beauty
Film Not In The English Language
. Beyond the Hills
. Blancanieves
. Blue is the Warmest Color
. Faust
. The Great Beauty
. The Hunt
. In the...
Winners of the 11th Ics Awards will be announced on February 23, 2014.
Here's the complete list of nominees:
Picture
. 12 Years a Slave
. Before Midnight
. Blue is the Warmest Color
. Frances Ha
. Gravity
. The Great Beauty
. Her
. Inside Llewyn Davis
. Laurence Anyways
. Spring Breakers
. The Wolf of Wall Street
Director
. Ethan Coen & Joel Coen - Inside Llewyn Davis
. Alfonso Cuarón - Gravity
. Xavier Dolan - Laurence Anyways
. Spike Jonze - Her
. Abdellatif Kechiche - Blue is the Warmest Color
. Paolo Sorrentino - The Great Beauty
Film Not In The English Language
. Beyond the Hills
. Blancanieves
. Blue is the Warmest Color
. Faust
. The Great Beauty
. The Hunt
. In the...
- 1/14/2014
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Since Leviathan, I’ve been more curious than ever about the functionality of GoPros. Often categorized as toys and far more prevalent on ski slopes than sets, it took Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel strapping the pocket-sized gizmo to the underside of a fishing vessel to illustrate its cinematic advantages. A little while back, Letus announced the release of a 1.33X Anamorphic Adapter for the camera, to be known as the AnamorphX-gp. Scheduled for shipment on January 31st, the first wave of test footage has arrived from Jared Abrams at Wide Open Camera. Though the characteristic fish eye traces remain intact, the wide aspect […]...
- 1/13/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Since Leviathan, I’ve been more curious than ever about the functionality of GoPros. Often categorized as toys and far more prevalent on ski slopes than sets, it took Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel strapping the pocket-sized gizmo to the underside of a fishing vessel to illustrate its cinematic advantages. A little while back, Letus announced the release of a 1.33X Anamorphic Adapter for the camera, to be known as the AnamorphX-gp. Scheduled for shipment on January 31st, the first wave of test footage has arrived from Jared Abrams at Wide Open Camera. Though the characteristic fish eye traces remain intact, the wide aspect […]...
- 1/13/2014
- by Sarah Salovaara
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Winners of the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors, recognizing the best documentaries of the year, were revealed and Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" (one of my faves of 2013) won the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking while Sarah Polley took home the Outstanding Achievement in Direction for "Stories We Tell."
Another big winner was Zachary Heinzerling's "Cutie and the Boxer" which won Outstanding Debut for Heinzerling, Outstanding Graphics and Animation for production company Art Jail and Outstanding Original Score for Yasuaki Shimizu.
Incidentally, all three movies are part of the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary, so we'll see if they all make the cut when the Academy Award nominations are revealed on January 16.
Here are the complete winners of the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors:
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen
Presented by...
Another big winner was Zachary Heinzerling's "Cutie and the Boxer" which won Outstanding Debut for Heinzerling, Outstanding Graphics and Animation for production company Art Jail and Outstanding Original Score for Yasuaki Shimizu.
Incidentally, all three movies are part of the Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary, so we'll see if they all make the cut when the Academy Award nominations are revealed on January 16.
Here are the complete winners of the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors:
Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking
The Act of Killing
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
Produced by Signe Byrge Sørensen
Presented by...
- 1/10/2014
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
Continued from picks 20 to 16….
20. Fruitvale Station – Ryan Coogler
19. Cutie and the Boxer – Zachary Heinzerling
18. Valentine Road – Marta Cunningham
17. Dirty Wars – Rick Rowley
16. Leviathan – Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel
15. American Hustle – David O. Russell
Doing his best Goodfellas impression, Russell has put together a lovably silly, surprisingly grim conman caper that has been wrongly billed as an outright period farce. Yes, Bradley Cooper in curlers, Christian Bale with a beer gut and classic comb-over, and Jessica Laurence as a headstrong, bellicose homemaker are the stuff of comedy gold, but this not a film stacked with one liners and physical gags. Instead, the awkwardly induced laughs are generally played as masterful characterial counterpoints to the increasingly complex and socially succinct narrative. Layered in the bungled schemes of Cooper’s power crazed FBI agent, Richie Dimaso, there is a scarily poignant depiction of the judicial system overreaching their means to the detriment of the American public at large.
20. Fruitvale Station – Ryan Coogler
19. Cutie and the Boxer – Zachary Heinzerling
18. Valentine Road – Marta Cunningham
17. Dirty Wars – Rick Rowley
16. Leviathan – Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel
15. American Hustle – David O. Russell
Doing his best Goodfellas impression, Russell has put together a lovably silly, surprisingly grim conman caper that has been wrongly billed as an outright period farce. Yes, Bradley Cooper in curlers, Christian Bale with a beer gut and classic comb-over, and Jessica Laurence as a headstrong, bellicose homemaker are the stuff of comedy gold, but this not a film stacked with one liners and physical gags. Instead, the awkwardly induced laughs are generally played as masterful characterial counterpoints to the increasingly complex and socially succinct narrative. Layered in the bungled schemes of Cooper’s power crazed FBI agent, Richie Dimaso, there is a scarily poignant depiction of the judicial system overreaching their means to the detriment of the American public at large.
- 1/7/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
20. Fruitvale Station – Ryan Coogler
Sundance has left a lasting impression this year. Among the lucky few who attended the world premiere of Ryan Coogler’s Grand Jury Prize winning debut feature in Park City, to say the least, I was completely blindsided by its overwhelming emotional power and distinguished empathy. Coogler’s fictionalization of Oscar Grant III’s last day before being murdered in cold blood by a Bay Area police officer breathes life back into the man – a father, lover, son, and former inmate – by all accounts accurately illustrating him with warmth and understanding of his sometimes fiery personality. With a promising young director behind the camera and a set of vibrant new talents before it in Michael B. Jordan’s wholly fleshed out depiction of Oscar and Melonie Diaz as his girlfriend and mother of their child, Fruitvale Station is a devastating and culturally crucial work. [July 12th NYC & L.A Release - Fox Searchlight]
19. Cutie and the Boxer...
Sundance has left a lasting impression this year. Among the lucky few who attended the world premiere of Ryan Coogler’s Grand Jury Prize winning debut feature in Park City, to say the least, I was completely blindsided by its overwhelming emotional power and distinguished empathy. Coogler’s fictionalization of Oscar Grant III’s last day before being murdered in cold blood by a Bay Area police officer breathes life back into the man – a father, lover, son, and former inmate – by all accounts accurately illustrating him with warmth and understanding of his sometimes fiery personality. With a promising young director behind the camera and a set of vibrant new talents before it in Michael B. Jordan’s wholly fleshed out depiction of Oscar and Melonie Diaz as his girlfriend and mother of their child, Fruitvale Station is a devastating and culturally crucial work. [July 12th NYC & L.A Release - Fox Searchlight]
19. Cutie and the Boxer...
- 1/6/2014
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
As with any year, some people have begun arguing that 2013 was a bad year for film, because of the expected glut of effects-heavy blockbusters that litter the multiplexes each summer, or because there was a lack of auteur-driven storytelling for the majority of the year. Though it is indeed frustrating that studios hold their more prestigious films until the last month or two of this or any year, 2013 was an excellent year for film. You shouldn’t have to look first to Sound on Sight’s list of the 30 best films of 2013 for proof, but you should add it to the pile, no doubt. We asked our film writers to provide their personal lists of the 15 best films of the year; everyone’s number-one pick got 15 points allocated, everyone’s number-two pick got 14 points, and so on. (As you’ll see, the point values for each of the 30 films is included here.
- 12/28/2013
- by Josh Spiegel
- SoundOnSight
Leviathan
Directed by Lucian Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel
USA, 2012
The Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab is slowly out to reshape the way you see cinema and the world. Rather than set out to document the world via a recitation of facts and experiences, they’re strapping the cameras right at the edge of life – in this case, a fishing vessel off the New England coast. Even the most mundane images of fish lying about or being gutted become beautifully abstracted, almost nightmarish in the mess of flesh and organs piled upon one another. It’s when the cameras go out to sea, strapped to the bow of the boat, rocking above and below the water as seagulls follow alongside, all elements in complete harmony and cooperative unity, that Castaing-Taylor and Paravel are truly touching the heavens, achieving that which cinema so rarely dares to explore, let alone succeeds in doing so.
-...
Directed by Lucian Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel
USA, 2012
The Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab is slowly out to reshape the way you see cinema and the world. Rather than set out to document the world via a recitation of facts and experiences, they’re strapping the cameras right at the edge of life – in this case, a fishing vessel off the New England coast. Even the most mundane images of fish lying about or being gutted become beautifully abstracted, almost nightmarish in the mess of flesh and organs piled upon one another. It’s when the cameras go out to sea, strapped to the bow of the boat, rocking above and below the water as seagulls follow alongside, all elements in complete harmony and cooperative unity, that Castaing-Taylor and Paravel are truly touching the heavens, achieving that which cinema so rarely dares to explore, let alone succeeds in doing so.
-...
- 12/17/2013
- by Ricky
- SoundOnSight
Film Comment’s Top 10 Films Released in 2013 1. Joel & Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis 2. Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave 3. Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight 4. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing...
- 12/16/2013
- by Sasha Stone
- AwardsDaily.com
Recently released in UK cinemas to great acclaim and directed by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, the extraordinary Leviathan (2012) is a thrilling, immersive and inventive documentary that takes you deep inside the dangerous world of commercial fishing. To celebrate the home entertainment release of Leviathan this coming Monday (9 December), we've kindly been provided with Two DVD copies of the film to give away to our regular readership, courtesy of our friends at documentary specialists Dogwoof. This is an exclusive competition for our Facebook and Twitter fans, so if you haven't already, 'Like' us at facebook.com/CineVueUK or follow us @CineVue before answering the question below.
- 12/13/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
★★★★☆In what could be described as an annus mirabilis for documentaries, Leviathan (2012) stands out as a monstrous marvel; something to inspire terror, confusion and awe. Taking the relatively unpromising subject of industrial fishing of the North American coast - New Bedford, Massachusetts to be precise - filmmakers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel have created an immersive, abstract poem of a film which captures the powerful war between man and nature "red in tooth and claw". There's no dialogue, no story and, except for the orange of the crews' waterproofs and fish remnants, little colour.
- 12/10/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Decadence, violence, love and space – Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw shares his fantasy award nomination list for 2013
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
• The 2012 Braddies
Awards season is now upon us and here, as every year, is my personal fantasy award nomination list for 2013, whimsically called the Braddies, which covers the period running from the beginning of the calendar year to the present. There are 10 nominations in eight categories: film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay and documentary.
The reader is invited to nominate the winner in the comments section below, and perhaps to note omissions and evidence that the list betrays suggestions of sociocultural bias.
I like to think that these awards will one day evolve into an actual ceremony with chrome-and-glass statuettes, sponsorship from Sky Atlantic and a televised evening presided over by Dara Ó Briain or Mariella Frostrup. But until then, it exists in a world of fantasy only. And so,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the 15 films left in the race for the Documentary Feature Oscar. A record 147 films had originally qualified in the category. Overall there was no major shockers, with the expected likes of "The Act of Killing," "Blackfish," "The Square," "Stories We Tell," "Tim's Vermeer" and "20 Feet From Stardom" all making the cut (and likely battling it out for the final five). There were a few notable exclusions: Martha Shane and Lana Wilson's "After Tiller," Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's "Leviathan," Penny Lane's "Our Nixon," Linda Bloodworth-Thomason's "Bridegroom," Errol Morris' "The Unknown Known" and Jason Osder's "Let The Fire Burn" all seemed like strong contenders to make the list, but in the end an incredibly competitive year pushed them out of the competition. Read More: Updated 2014 Oscar Predictions - Best Documentary Feature The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title,...
- 12/3/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
Leviathan | Saving Mr Banks | Carrie | Jeune & Jolie | Marius, Fanny | Saving Santa | The Best Man Holiday | Free Birds | Day Of The Flowers | Life's A Breeze
Leviathan (12A)
(Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2012, Fra/UK/Us) 87 mins
An arthouse fishing-trawler documentary sounds like a practical joke, but this takes us to places we've never before – into the ocean depths and back out on to the decks with the catch. It's a series of dark, semi-abstract tableaux full of flapping fish, clanking machinery and tattooed fishermen doing wet, gory work. It's easy to forget this is real life you're watching.
Saving Mr Banks (PG)
(John Lee Hancock, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson. 125 mins
How Walt Disney came to make Mary Poppins was hardly a pressing movie mystery, and one suspects a spoonful of drama has been added, but the leads are eminently watchable.
Carrie (15)
(Kimberly Peirce, 2013, Us) Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore. 100 mins
Brian De Palma...
Leviathan (12A)
(Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Véréna Paravel, 2012, Fra/UK/Us) 87 mins
An arthouse fishing-trawler documentary sounds like a practical joke, but this takes us to places we've never before – into the ocean depths and back out on to the decks with the catch. It's a series of dark, semi-abstract tableaux full of flapping fish, clanking machinery and tattooed fishermen doing wet, gory work. It's easy to forget this is real life you're watching.
Saving Mr Banks (PG)
(John Lee Hancock, 2013, Us) Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson. 125 mins
How Walt Disney came to make Mary Poppins was hardly a pressing movie mystery, and one suspects a spoonful of drama has been added, but the leads are eminently watchable.
Carrie (15)
(Kimberly Peirce, 2013, Us) Chloë Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore. 100 mins
Brian De Palma...
- 11/30/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
★★★★☆The latest remarkable offering from Harvard University's Sensory Ethnography Lab (whose additional credits include Sweetgrass, Foreign Parts and the upcoming Manakamana), Lucien Castiang-Taylor and Verena Paravel's hulking behemoth of a documentary, Leviathan (2012), rightly caught the eye after scooping up the top prize at the Edinburgh Film Festival earlier this year. Unlike any other doc seen this year - or any year, for that matter - Leviathan soars above the black waves of the Atlantic before plummeting into the depths as it follows a group of hardened fishermen trawling for their prey off the New Bedford coast.
- 11/28/2013
- by CineVue UK
- CineVue
Two arthouse film-makers took to the raging seas with fishermen from the New England town where Moby-Dick was set – and returned with a shocking record of a savage industry
Leviathan is an extraordinary collision of genres: an art film made by a pair of British and French anthropologists that works as a stupendous cinematic spectacle. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel – founders of Harvard's radically interdisciplinary Sensory Ethnography Lab – set out to make a film based in New Bedford, the "whaling city" of New England and the historic background for Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. But they then became increasingly fascinated by the city's contemporary status as a fishing port.
Sailing on an 80ft-foot "dragger", Fv Athena, to the Grand Banks fishing grounds of the open Atlantic, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel equipped themselves and the crew with miniature GoPro cameras – new HD technology that has become beloved of documentary film-makers. The result,...
Leviathan is an extraordinary collision of genres: an art film made by a pair of British and French anthropologists that works as a stupendous cinematic spectacle. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel – founders of Harvard's radically interdisciplinary Sensory Ethnography Lab – set out to make a film based in New Bedford, the "whaling city" of New England and the historic background for Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. But they then became increasingly fascinated by the city's contemporary status as a fishing port.
Sailing on an 80ft-foot "dragger", Fv Athena, to the Grand Banks fishing grounds of the open Atlantic, Castaing-Taylor and Paravel equipped themselves and the crew with miniature GoPro cameras – new HD technology that has become beloved of documentary film-makers. The result,...
- 11/19/2013
- by Philip Hoare
- The Guardian - Film News
In the increasingly noisy and contentious documentary race--as beleaguered critics and Oscar doc branch members try to decide which of the overwhelming number of films they should see--every award group nomination makes it easier for them to decide. Thus, the Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking nominees for the 7th Annual Nonfiction Film Awards were revealed in New York Wednesday night. Zachary Heinzerling’s Sundance hit "Cutie and the Boxer" nabbed six nominations, while Joshua Oppenheimer’s "The Act of Killing" followed with five. Three more well-reviewed fest faves fill out the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking category: Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s abortion doc "After Tiller," Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s commercial fishing expose "Leviathan" and Sarah Polley family memoir "Stories We Tell." Forty feature films and six shorts were vying for this year’s Cinema Eye...
- 11/6/2013
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Zachary Heinzerling’s "Cutie and the Boxer" led the nominations for the 7th Annual Cinema Eye Honors, taking six nominations including the top prize, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking. Also nominated in the that category were Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing" (which was close behind "Cutie" with five nods), Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s "After Tiller," Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s "Leviathan" and Sarah Polley’s " Stories We Tell". Nominees for Outstanding Achievement in Direction included Alan Berliner for "First Cousin Once Removed," Tinatin Gurchiani for "The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear," Oppenheimer for "The Act of Killing," Shane and Wilson for "After Tiller," Castaing-Taylor and Paravel for "Leviathan" and Polley for "Stories We Tell." This marks the first time in Cinema Eye history that more women were nominated for the Directing Award than their male counterparts. In addition,...
- 11/6/2013
- by Peter Knegt
- Indiewire
Cinema Eye Honors has announced its nominees for the 7th Annual Nonfiction Film Awards. Forty feature films and six shorts will vie for this year’s Cinema Eye Honors for Nonfiction Filmmaking.
Five films are competing for Cinema Eye’s top award, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing, Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller, Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie And The Boxer (pictured), Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell.
Cutie And The Boxer led all films with six nominations, while The Act Of Killing received five. Heinzerling and the directing duos of Castaing-Taylor and Paravel and Shane and Wilson all led individual nominees with four nominations apiece.
Cinema Eye also announced nominees for their inaugural award for Nonfiction Films Made for Television. Four of the six nominees are from HBO Documentary Films, including Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel, Dawn Porter’s Gideon...
Five films are competing for Cinema Eye’s top award, Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking: Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act Of Killing, Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller, Zachary Heinzerling’s Cutie And The Boxer (pictured), Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan and Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell.
Cutie And The Boxer led all films with six nominations, while The Act Of Killing received five. Heinzerling and the directing duos of Castaing-Taylor and Paravel and Shane and Wilson all led individual nominees with four nominations apiece.
Cinema Eye also announced nominees for their inaugural award for Nonfiction Films Made for Television. Four of the six nominees are from HBO Documentary Films, including Lucy Walker’s The Crash Reel, Dawn Porter’s Gideon...
- 11/6/2013
- ScreenDaily
This year’s quintessential art doc, Leviathan is the latest feature from Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, the duo behind Sweetgrass and the driving force behind Harvard’s experimental Sensory Ethnography Lab. With a myriad of weather-proof digital cameras strapped to a North American trolling ship, the film documents the grotesque nature of commercial fishing with the grainy high-contrast visuals of a shipwrecked acrobat. We slosh about the deck bathed in the blood of countless sea creatures and watch weathered men be pelted by an ever present downpour as hungry gulls flutter against a black sky hoping to score a scrap of remains. This is Deadliest Catch without the embellishments of competition, personality or theme music – a purely guttural experience to be had.
Never before has the objective of the Sensory Ethnography Lab been brought to life with such direct and brutal eloquence as within. Certainly documenting the hard-knock lives...
Never before has the objective of the Sensory Ethnography Lab been brought to life with such direct and brutal eloquence as within. Certainly documenting the hard-knock lives...
- 10/29/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Included in last week’s Nonfics Home Picks for its iTunes debut, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel‘s sensory ethnography film about life of all kinds on and around a fishing boat is now even more recommended in its Blu-ray release. This is one of those docs that you either need to see on the big screen or with as big a TV or monitor as you can get and in the highest quality format available. It’s not just a passive viewing experience of pretty images, either. Leviathan is a puzzle for the eyes and the mind and a stunning achievement of cinematographic reality. I’ll say it for the billionth time, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Special features include an essay by French critic Cyril Neyrat and a new short film titled Still Life / Nature Morte, which is 30 more minutes of the galley footage of fisherman watching TV. Read...
- 10/24/2013
- by Nonfics.com
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Stephanie Spray & Pacho Velez – Manakamana
Section: Wavelengths
Dates: Friday 6th, Sunday 8th, Sunday 15th
Buzz: Let’s be frank. The sheer immensity ingrained in the film’s proposition had our ears and eyes perked. Directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez weaved single shots lasting the entirety of 16 mm rolls of film together, freezing in time the high wire journey of pilgrims on their way to and from the ancient Manakamana Temple in the valleys of Nepal. But, it is the fact that the film was birthed from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Laboratory and boasts the producer involvement of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, the directing duo behind last year’s monolithic seafaring docu-feature, Leviathan, that had us at this feature’s beck and call. At this point, those credits alone should have everyone’s attention. Spray and Velez’s feature debut (see trailer) is being hailed as a ‘sensory stunner’ by the Tiff programming staff.
Section: Wavelengths
Dates: Friday 6th, Sunday 8th, Sunday 15th
Buzz: Let’s be frank. The sheer immensity ingrained in the film’s proposition had our ears and eyes perked. Directors Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez weaved single shots lasting the entirety of 16 mm rolls of film together, freezing in time the high wire journey of pilgrims on their way to and from the ancient Manakamana Temple in the valleys of Nepal. But, it is the fact that the film was birthed from Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Laboratory and boasts the producer involvement of Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, the directing duo behind last year’s monolithic seafaring docu-feature, Leviathan, that had us at this feature’s beck and call. At this point, those credits alone should have everyone’s attention. Spray and Velez’s feature debut (see trailer) is being hailed as a ‘sensory stunner’ by the Tiff programming staff.
- 9/2/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
Ifp's 2013 Filmmaker Conference, which runs from September 15-19 at the New York Public Library's Bruno Watler Auditorium, will feature keynotes from cinematic non-fiction's posterchild, the famously laconic Lucien Castaing-Taylor ("Leviathan"), "Rebirth of a Nation" multimedia artist DJ Spooky, and "The Hunger Games" producer Jon Kilik. The controversy surrounding public television organization's revoked funding for the documentary "Citizen Koch" will be explored on the panel "Documentaries that Disturb the Power Structure" with "Citizen Koch" filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, as well as "Park Avenue" producer Mette Hoffman Meyer and Itvs's Claire Aguilar. The conference, which focuses on important issues in the independent filmmaking community will also feature case studies on the production and release of "Fruitvale Station," "Our Nixon" and the interactive documentary "Hollow." The Sundance Institute's Artist Services will also present their tips for direct distribution...
- 8/23/2013
- by Bryce J. Renninger
- Indiewire
Independent Film Week is less than a month away, and today Ifp announced some highlights of the event Filmmaker Conference, which will take place at Lincoln Center between September 15 and 19. The keynote speakers this year include Leviathan director Lucien Castaing-Taylor and musician and filmmaker DJ Spooky while there will be case studies of Ryan Coogler’s Sundance-winning Fruitvale Station, Penny Lane’s archival doc Our Nixon, Dave Grohl’s Sound City and Elaine McMillion’s web doc Hollow. From the press release, here’s the info that was unveiled today: Each day of the conference guides filmmakers in the art, technology and business of […]...
- 8/22/2013
- by Nick Dawson
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The camera-wielding researchers at Harvard's Sensory Ethnography Lab, an eccentric team responsible for experimental documentaries like last year's groundbreaking fishing-boat portrait "Leviathan" and the shepherd-focused "Sweetgrass," typically refuse to identify as "filmmakers" in the traditional sense of the word. The group's latest effort, the startlingly unique viewing experience "Manakamana," provides the best case for that claim. Shot with a static camera exclusively within the confines of a cable car as it travels up and down the Nepal Valley for a series of 10-minute rides, "Manakamana" contains nothing traditionally movie-like in its progression. And that's exactly what makes it one of the most engrossing cinematic achievements to come along since… well, "Leviathan." Directed -- insofar as that term applies here -- by Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez and produced by "Leviathan" visionaries Lucien Castain-Taylor and Verena Paravel, the feature begins with a single unbroken...
- 8/14/2013
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
As Moore’s Law has continued to raise the quality and lower the cost of Av equipment, and more fledgling filmmakers have dipped their feet in the fountain of non-fiction, there’s been much talk about us being in the midst of a new golden age of documentary filmmaking. Now, lofty statements like these generally wind up being little more than buzzword attractions meant to set the blogosphere aflame, but this year has undoubtedly been a stellar year for the non-fiction form. From politically shattering investigations to form flexing art films to immensely personal portraits, not only are documentaries making a major impact on the ol’ festival circuit – Sundance, Tribeca, Hot Docs, SXSW, AFI Docs – many fest favorites from last year have had considerable success this year in art house theatres, not just in NYC & La, but in some cases nationwide – not an easy feat.
Of the lengthy list of...
Of the lengthy list of...
- 7/29/2013
- by Jordan M. Smith
- IONCINEMA.com
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