Viggo Mortensen to Receive Dennis Hopper Award at AMFM Fest (Exclusive)

May, 23, 2013 11:02 am | Comments On #Movies

Viggo Mortensen will receive the fourth annual Dennis Lee Hopper Award at this year’s inaugural AMFM Fest in California’s Coachella Valley, Film 4 Change announced on Thursday.

Mortensen, an actor, writer, poet and visual artist, will receive the award at a ceremony in the desert town of Cathedral City on June 16, on the final day of the four-day festival that draws its name from the phrase “Art, Music, Film and More.” His art will also be exhibited at the fest, which will include a screening of the Alex Kleinert documentary “Wild Horses and Renegades,” in which Mortensen appears.

Viggo Mortensen“Dennis believed that to be an artist, you had to embrace all the...

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Steven Soderbergh to Present New Godfrey Reggio/Philip Glass Film at Toronto Fest

May, 22, 2013 8:56 am | Comments On #Godfrey Reggio, Movies, Philip Glass, Steven Soderbergh, TIFF, toronto, Toronto International Film Festival, Visitors

Steven Soderbergh will present a gala screening of “Visitors,” the new film from “Koyaanisqatsi” director Godfrey Reggio, at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Wednesday.

Getty ImagesThe film includes a score from Philip Glass, who also composed the music for Reggio’s “Koyaanisqatsi” trilogy. At the TIFF premiere, that score will be performed live by members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

The premiere is the first piece of programming to be announced for this year’s festival, which will run from Sept. 5 through 15.

“I'm thrilled and honoured to act as presenter of Visitors,...

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Academy to Give More Oscars for Animated Feature

May, 20, 2013 11:38 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, best animated feature, oscars

The Academy has relaxed the rules for winning an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, allowing more individuals to take home statuettes.

In rule changes approved by the AMPAS Board of Governors, the filmmaker with producer credit will now receive an Oscar in the category, along with the film’s credited director. In cases where a two-person team has shared director credit, a third statuette can be awarded.

In the past, the Animated Feature Oscar went to the single individual with the most creative input into the film, typically the director. In only two cases over the 12 years of the category – including the most recent winner, “Brave” – two credited directors received statuettes.

Other rule changes included previously announced alterations to voting in the documentary shorts and foreign-language categories.

The AMPAS press release...

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VH1 Sets Theatrical Release for Napster Doc 'Downloaded'

May, 20, 2013 7:35 am | Comments On #Alex Winter, documentaries, Downloaded, independent film, indies, Movies, Napster, VH1

“Downloaded,” Alex Winter’s documentary about the rise and fall of the transformative but controversial company Napster, will receive theatrical and VOD runs from VH1 beginning in late June, the music network announced on Monday.

Directed and produced by Alex Winter, the film will open in New York City on June 21 and Los Angeles on June 28, and will then expand to Albuquerque, Austin, Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Martha’s Vineyard, San Francisco and Seattle, among other cities.

DownloadedRichard Abramowitz of Abramorama will partner with VH1 on the theatrical release.

The film premiered at SXSW and also screened at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival, and has had...

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Noah Baumbach on ‘Frances Ha’: Why It Took 40 Takes to Make a Little Story Feel Epic

May, 17, 2013 11:19 am | Comments On #Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig, independent film, indies, Movies, Noah Baumbach

Noah Baumbach’s “Frances Ha” seemingly came out of nowhere to charm viewers at Telluride and Toronto last fall.

The Brooklyn-born director, whose previous films include “Kicking and Screaming,” “The Squid and the Whale” and “Margot at the Wedding,” made the made the movie quietly, co-writing it with his “Greenberg” leading lady Greta Gerwig and filming it in luminous black and white on the streets and in the subways and apartments of New York City.

The film follows Gerwig’s title character, a 27-year-old aspiring dancer who’s never quite gotten her life together; by turns funny, sad, touching and cringe-inducing, it approaches the mess that Frances has made with what TheWrap’s Alonso Duralde described as “an optimism and empathy … that feels genuine and earned.”

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USC, Ringling, School of Visual Arts Top Student Academy Award Winners

May, 14, 2013 2:08 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, oscars, Student Academy Awards

The University of Southern California, Ringing College of Art and Design and the School of Visual Arts each placed two films on the list of Student Academy Award winners, which were announced on Tuesday by the Academy.

Other schools represented on the list of 15 winners in five categories include CalArts, Occidental College, the University of Michigan, Columbia, Elon and the University of Texas at Austin.

This year, the Student Oscars' 40th, marks the first wins for Elon, Occidental and the University of Michigan.

In the foreign-film category, the winners came from schools in the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Belgium.

Dia de los MuertosComedian Bob Saget...

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Producers Guild's ProShow Competition Picks 11 Finalists (Exclusive)

May, 13, 2013 3:00 pm | Comments On #Awards, PGA, Produced By conference, Producers Guild, producers guild of america, Producers Showcase, ProShow

The Producers Guild of America announced the 11 finalists in the 2013 Producers Showcase competition on Monday, with five feature films, three reality television projects and three online projects competing for prize packages and development deals.

The competition, also called ProShow, is open to producers who are working to get film, television or online projects off the ground. The finalists will receive award packages worth more than $20,000, along with free admission to the 2013 Produced By Conference, which will take place on June 8 and 9 at 20th Century Fox.

One winner in each category will be announced at the conference, and will receive development deals with Fox International Pictures (feature film category), Ryan Seacrest Productions (reality television category) and Maker Studios (online category).

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'2016: Obama's America' Docu Producer Misses Mark With Oscar Beef

May, 12, 2013 12:42 pm | Comments On #2016: Obama's America, Awards

Documentary filmmakers are supposed to be devoted to the truth, but Gerald Molen appears to have entered a realm of pure fantasy.

Molen, the producer of the documentary “2016: Obama’s America” (and before that, an Oscar winner for producing "Schindler's List") sent a letter to AMPAS president Hawk Koch last month, blaming the presence of noted liberal Michael Moore on the Academy’s Board of Governors for his film’s failure to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary earlier this year.

Making Moore and his fellow doc-branch governors Michael Apted and Rob Epstein “the gatekeepers in charge of which films get nominated seems patently absurd,” Molen (photo below) wrote, adding that the “assumed bias” caused by Moore’s presence on the board would hurt the Academy.

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Czech Films Hit the Road for Moveable Fest

May, 09, 2013 4:21 pm | Comments On #Czech That Film Festival, film festivals, foreign films, Movies

With apologies to Ernest Hemingway and "A Moveable Feast," you can call this one a Moveable Fest. The Czech That Film Festival, which begins five days of screening in Los Angeles on Friday, is a festival on the go, hitting three cities before stopping in L.A. with another seven on the itinerary afterwards.

From the 1968 Oscar winner “Closely Watched Trains” to last year’s acclaimed Oscar entry “In the Shadow,” and from 1964 Czech musical “The Hop Pickers” to the 2011 rotoscope-animated noir “Alois Nebel,” the festival is taking a cross-section of Czech cinema around the country, with a L.A. stop a collaboration with the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

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10 Emerging Cinematographers Get a Hollywood Showcase

May, 09, 2013 12:58 pm | Comments On #Awards, cinematography, International Cinematographers Guild, Movies

The International Cinematographers Guild has been handing out its Emerging Cinematographers Awards since 1996, honoring aspiring directors of photography who  have gone on to shoot films like "Hustle and Flow" and "Eve's Bayou" and television shows that include "CSI: Miami," "The X-Files" and "24."

The event has grown significantly over the years – and on Thursday night at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, it will take another step forward with a public screening of last year’s eight winners and two runners-up, followed by a panel discussion with six of the honorees.

ECA"We've never done this before," ICG president Steven Poster told TheWrap...

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