Ava DuVernay Documentary to Open New York Film Festival

by Murtada

The Fall Film Festivals (Venice, Toronto, Telluride, New York and London) are almost upon us. Or at least the announcements of their programmes are. TIFF announces next Tuesday, Venice at the end of of July. New York announced its opening night selection this week, Ava DuVernay’s The 13th, a documentary about the high incarceration rate, particularly of African Americans, in the United States.

The title refers to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”

The film mixes archival footage - from the civil rights movement, Ku Klux Klan to the Black Lives Matter movement - with modern day commentary to present the ramifications of the amendment and the history of racial inequality in the US. It’s an apt choice for all that’s unfolding in 2016. The 13th will be released in cinemas and on Netflix on October 7th.

Lupita Nyongo'o and Madina Nalwanga in Queen of Katwe

Meanwhile lists are also being made for what other movies will appear on the festival circuit. London will open with Amma Asante’s A United Kingdom, and Mira Nair’s Queen of Katwe will have its European premiere there, meaning it will debut somewhere on this side of the Atlantic first. Let’s speculate what else could play at New York, based on precedent that is arbitrary and will probably mean nothing in the end. But it’s fun to speculate:

• Damien Chazelle’s La La Land - this film, with the beloved trailer, will open Venice. Another Emma Stone film, Birdman, opened Venice and closed New York, it could happen again.

• Ang Lee’s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk - because Life of Pi opened NYFF in 2012.

• Martin Scorsese's Silence - remember when Hugo started its Oscar campaign with a surprise screening in New York in 2011?

• Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals - the rumour is that it will play in competition at Venice. Come to New York soon after, Tom. We'd like to see Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal together in a movie, too.

• Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By the Sea - there’s always a Sundance movie that makes it to NYFF, Whiplash and Brooklyn being the last two examples.

• Robert Zemeckis’ Allied - his last two films, The Walk and Flight, both played at NYFF before opening nationwide.

That's just a few titles, we will know much more in the next few weeks. Are you planning to attend any of the fall film festivals?

Interview: Wim Wenders on Every Thing Will Be Fine, 3D and Guilt

Director Wim WendersThis interview was conducted by guest contributor Amir Ganjavie, during the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. Every Thing Will Be Fine was released in theatres last week.

Four years after his success with 3D in the dance film Pina, Wim Wenders is using the technology in the realm of fiction filmmaking in Every Thing Will Be Fine. One of the German auteur’s most accessible films, this psychological thriller is about the traumatic experiences of Tomas (James Franco), a writer who is dealing with the consequences of a brutal car accident. The effects of this tragedy on him and on Kate (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who has lost someone close, shape the story of the film. 3D cinematography has rarely been used for such a character-driven story with so few action scenes. Wenders is testing the limits of storytelling possibility with the technology.

AMIR: How was the experience of using 3D for such a character-driven, psychological film?

WIM WENDERS: Trauma is internalized. Something happens externally in your life and from then on it creates this thing in your mind and you have to live with it. It’s impossible to make it un-happen. It’s a pain in your life, there is guilt involved, and other people are involved with whom you have suddenly connected without wanting to, but the trauma is inside. The cinema has hitherto had to invent situations that externalize the trauma to make it visible. With 3D I felt that for the first time we had cameras that could look inside of a person and see into the soul because these cameras are almost like x-rays; they see more accurately and you cannot hide anything from them. You look at a person and you know who that person is. This might surprise a lot of people because the 3D films we have seen so far don’t prove that; actually, they have done the opposite. [More...]

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September. It's a Wrap

We've reached the final quarter of the year? Unreal right? September was very rough off blog (personal crises for friends and family) and the movies kept us just as busy. Frankly your editor-in-chief has had a hard time remembering what day of the week it even is at this point. The head is spinning. So let October be a fresh new rebirth as we begin the march toward Oscar night. Just 151 days away! 

September often felt like a brick to the head

10 September Highlights
Best School Films - Team Experience went back to school by choosing the 10 all time best from 1955's Rebel Without a Cause through 2008's Palme d'or winner The Class. 
Fury Road's "Best Shots" - multiple tributes to John Seale's cinematography on Mad Max Fury Road
Fast Times - Anne Marie looked at the career of Amy Heckerling in Women's Pictures
Matt Damon's Foot in Mouth Disease - Oh Matt. Well meaning oblivious Matt
AHS Promos - Manuel argued that American Horror Story is better at the foreplay than the actual f***ing
Top Ten Summer - the Podcast team chose their favorite things about 2015's summer movies 
What's next for Jennifer Lawrence? - Murtada is keeping an eye on her 
Goodfellas turns 25 - David revisited the Scorsese classic
Jeremy Irvine talked Stonewall "no one ever sets out to make a bad movie" 
Liz Taylor's best Cleopatra looks - Abstew did the impossible choosing 10 from 65 costume changes! 

Oscar Mania
Tis the (beginning) of the season. We paid special attention to Best Picture movement, Original Song, Foreign Film, Actress, and Actor... but all of the charts are freshly updated.  

Other Happenings...
At TIFF Amir & Nathaniel reviewed 37 films (whew). But film festivals weren't the only happenings. In September we also learned that we'd get two Oscar hosts (but not who they'd be), were forced to say goodbye to master of horror Wes Craven, and celebrated Emmy night with several articles as well as actressy celebrations devoted to Regina King, and new triplecrowner Frances McDormand.

COMING IN OCTOBER
Lots of exciting new movies to talk about including Room, The Martian, Freeheld, Steve Jobs, Crimson Peak and Suffragette. We'll also have a mini 1963 celebration to include the final Supporting Actress Smackdown of the season featuring Tom Jones, The VIPs and Lilies of the Field (panelists tba very soon), a few spooky films, and more interviews, reviews, lists, and silliness. ANY REQUESTS?

Review: Stonewall (2015)

First screened at TIFF. This article was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

This one's for Judy!"

… so went a legendary scream (along with brick throwing) as the Stonewall riots began. We can’t know exactly what happened that night, but as the famous saying goes, “when legend becomes fact… print the legend.” Judy Garland, The World’s Greatest Entertainer, had died a week earlier on June 22nd, 1969. Her remains were brought to New York City on June 26th where tens of thousands of people lined up to pay respects, and her funeral, which barred the public, took place on June 27th. The theory goes that the gay community, which had always idolized her (as any sentient human with taste should, then or now) was even more on-edge than usual when the police came to raid Stonewall on the night of June 28th, 1969.

Fact: All hell broke loose. The rest is (much argued about) ‘history’...

Judy grief as combustive fuel is one of the legends at any rate. And one that I heard a lot as a baby-gay whenever people brought up Stonewall. Stonewall was not the true beginning of gay liberation (political groups had been forming since the 1940s to pursue our future rights), but it remains a super handy symbolic one. 

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TIFF Review Index

Let this serve as the official TIFF Review reference guide since the festival closed up shop Sunday night after the Free screening of the People's Choice winner Room. We hope you enjoyed reading along with our reviews. Amir and I saw about 50 movies between us but we'll have to wrap up now as NYFF screenings have already started and Oscar charts MUST be updated and so on.

Fall Film Season is finally upon us!

3 of my favorites of the 29 I saw...

37 Films Reviewed
45 Years British marital drama (Nathaniel)
3000 Nights Palestinian prison drama (Amir)
Anomalisa Existential stop-motion dramedy (Nathaniel)
Arabian Nights: Vol 2 Portugueuse art film with politicial satire vignettes (Nathaniel)
As I Open My Eyes Tunisian music drama (Nathaniel)
Baba Joon Israel's immigrant family drama & Oscar submission (Amir)
Bang Gang French teen sex drama (Nathaniel)
The Clan Argentine true crime drama (Nathaniel)
Closet Monster Canadian LGBT drama (Nathaniel)
Dégradé Palestinian hair salon set female drama (Amir)
Demolition Canadian grief dramedy (Nathaniel)
Desde Allá Venezuelan LGBT Drama & Venice winner (Amir)
Dheepan French Immigrant drama, Palme d'or winner (Amir)
The Dressmaker Australian revenge dramedy (Glenn)
Embrace of the Serpent Black & White Colombian Amazon journey (Nathaniel)
Eva Doesn't Sleep experimental Argentine corpse drama (Nathaniel)
The Family Fang US Dramedy about a performance art family (Nathaniel)
Girls Lost Swedish LGBT Teen Drama (Nathaniel)
Granny's Dancing on the Table Swedish animated/live-action hybrid (Nathaniel)
The Here After Swedish School Drama (Nathaniel)  
Homesick Norwegian incest drama (Nathaniel)
I Saw The Light US musical biopic (Nathaniel)
Invisible Filipino immigrant drama (Nathaniel)
Love French 3D sex drama (Nathaniel)
Much Loved Moroccan docudrama on sex workers in Marrakech (Amir)
Mustang Turkish coming of age drama (Amir)
Phantom Boy French animated adventure (Nathaniel)
Room US family/crime drama, and People's Choice Winner (Nathaniel)
Spotlight, US journalist drama (Nathaniel)
Stonewall US gay history drama (Nathaniel)
Taxi Jafar Panahi's comedy & Berlinale Winner (Amir)
Truth US TV news political drama (Nathaniel) 
Victoria German continuous shot crime drama (Nathaniel)
The Wave Norwegian disaster epic (Nathaniel)
The Witch this year's Sundance horror sensation (Nathaniel)
Youth Showbiz drama (Nathaniel) 

upside down, VICTORIA turned me, inside out. and round and round

Other TIFF Articles
Best Actress Contenders (Nathaniel)
Red Carpet Opening Weekend (Jose)
Red Carpet Post-Venice (Jose)
Victoria's Single Take / Birdman Comparison (Sebastian)
People's Choice and Other Awards (Nathaniel)
Women He's Undressed - The Interview (Jose) 
IndieWire Critics Poll (Nathaniel) 

TIFF Juries of One
I polled the podcasters who stayed the whole fest. Here's what they said...

	Nathaniel R	Joe Reid	Nick Davis
Film	Room	Son of Saul	Arabian Nights
Director	Cirro Guerra, Embrace of Serpent	Ridley Scott, The Martian	Laszlo Nemes, Son of Saul
Actress	Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years	Cate Blanchett, Truth	Kalieaswari Srinivasan, Dheepan
Actor	Jacob Tremblay, Room	Abraham Attah, Beasts of No Nation	Frederick Lau, Victoria
Supp. Actress	Kate Dickie, The Witch	Julianne Moore, Maggie's Plan	Ghalia Benali, As I Open My Eyes
Supp. Actor	Stanley Tucci, Spotlight	Scoot McNairy, Our Brand is Crisis	Abdella Didane, Much Loved
Craft Contribution	Sound, Victoria	Cinematography, Son of Saul	Cinematography, The Assassin
	Cinematography, Embrace of Serpent	Art Direction, Room	Sound, Son of Saul
	Score, Spotlight	Costumes,  The Danish Girl	Camera Operator, Victoria