• The major league of film schools isn't a brick-and-mortar institution. It's an online platform where the best in student-made short filmmaking is put to the test and everyone is invited to watch, comment and share. About three years ago San Francisco-based public TV & radio station KQED came into some money and got into the student-made short film racket, with an aim to connect student filmmakers with festivals

  • The Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira died Thursday at the age of 106, as was announced by the producer Luis Urbano. Manoel de Oliveira was the world's oldest still-working filmmaker. Since the release of his first film in 1931 during the silent film era he shot more than fifty feature films and documentaries. His last three films were released between 2009 and 2012, “O Estranho Caso de Angélica,” (the strange

  • It's been a few days now since Sam Weisberg published his article about the rivalry between two men (a director, Abel Ferrara, and a distributor, Vincent Maraval) and the former's claims to artistic prerogative surrounding the production and subsequent U.S. release of the movie "Welcome to New York." I sent a link of Sam's article to Abel Ferrara, who had also received financing from Paris-based Wild Bunch

  • Damian Chazelle’s opening is simple, economical, bursting with information. In short: powerful. Andrew, the story’s teenaged hero, is practicing alone at night at the world’s top music school. Enter Fletcher, the sole decision-maker on who gets to be a great jazz musician (a goal that is clearly and painfully central to our hero’s life). From the first scene, we know who our hero is, what his goal is, what he must do to get it

  • Today, after a six month-press war launched by filmmaker Abel Ferrara against his chief financier, Vincent Maraval (French distributor Wild Bunch's head honcho) and IFC Films, the R-rated cut of Ferrara’s originally unrated “Welcome to New York” is opening theatrically—to Ferrara’s chagrin—in the US.

    It is, however, only showing at one theater: The Roxie, in San Francisco.

  • June 1996 - “Independence Day” slain the monster, bringing in more than $ 300 million in sales. Its director, Roland Emmerich, has planned a sequel, called "ID2," and pre-production is to begin in the next few weeks. But that’s not really all that exciting anymore. What’s interesting, and rather weird, is the fact that French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg will have a leading role in “ID2.” Yes, Gainsbourg

  • (PARIS) Here’s guessing you’re not going to see French cinéaste Abdellatif Kechiche (at left in picture) and producer/distributor Marin Karmitz enjoying onion soup together at Le Sélect anytime soon. A court in France ruled that Palme D’Or recipient Kechiche (“Blue is the warmest color,” a.k.a. “La vie D’Adèle” in the original French title) did not fulfill the terms of the contract that bound him to MK2