KUCI: Film School

Subject to Review / Film School Radio interview with Director Theo Anthony

In tennis, measurement – specifically, judging whether a ball is in or out – is particularly crucial. The new ESPN Films 30 for 30 Short, SUBJECT TO REVIEW takes a close look at not just the technology that’s been developed to determine the right calls with better accuracy, but the meaning and significance of that pursuit. The film, directed by Theo Anthony (“RAT FILM”) will air Sunday, Dec. 22, at 3 p.m. ET on ESPN. Tracing the history of photographic review back more than a hundred years, and chronicling controversial moments before and after the age of review in tennis, SUBJECT TO REVIEW explores the mechanisms of the cameras and computerized simulations that now serve as the final word on close calls – but also the limits of the veracity of those calls. Ultimately, it’s a story about technology in sports – but also a study of what we want from our machines, and our minds, well beyond any court of play. “’Subject to Review’ is about how some images are made and why they’re made that way,” said director Anthony. “It’s a film about the inescapable rift between the world and how we image that world. I hope that audiences can take this small exercise in critical curiosity beyond the world of tennis, giving audiences a little space to look differently at the world.” Theo Anthony joins us to talk about the complex relationship between flawed human judgement and the “certainty” of technology.
“Subject to Review” has screened at New York Film Festival, Hamptons Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival and Mar Del Plata Film Festival.
About the Filmmaker – Theo Anthony is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker whose films have received premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, Locarno International Film Festival, Rotterdam International Film Festival, and SXSW. His first feature, “RAT FILM,” was released by Cinema Guild in 2017 to critical acclaim. “Subject to Review” is produced by Sebastian Pardo and Riel Roch-Decter of MEMORY, an independent artist-driven studio specializing in producing and curating innovative, thought-provoking works that push the formal boundaries of their medium. Together, the duo has produced and distributed multiple award-winning fiction and non-fiction films.
SUBJECT TO REVIEW will air on ESPN beginning Sunday, December 22, at 3 p.m. (Eastern)
Social Media
theoanthony.net
twitter.com/ProxyTheo
instagram.com/theodorejacobanthony
https://vimeo.com/theoanthony

Slamdance Film Festival / Film School Radio interview with Co-founder Peter Baxter

It all began when a group of cheerful, subversive filmmakers weren’t accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. Unwilling to take “no” for an answer, they instead started their own event – Slamdance: Anarchy in Utah. 26 years later, Slamdance has become a year-round organization fostering the development of unique and innovative filmmakers. The organization now consists of the Film Festival, Screenplay Competition and Slamdance Studios. It has also created Slamdance On The Road, a traveling theatrical showcase that brings popular Slamdance films to audiences that otherwise would not have the opportunity to see them. Dan Mirvish, Jon Fitzgerald, Shane Kuhn and Peter Baxter are the founding forefathers who, along with co-conspirator Paul Rachman, fought for truly independent filmmakers by giving them a voice in 1995 at the very first Slamdance Film Festival. Since then, the festival takes place every January in the breathtakingly stunning, snow-capped mountains of Park City, Utah at the exact same time as the Sundance Film Festival, to provide a more authentic representation of independent filmmaking. Up-and-coming writers, directors and producers, alongside seasoned veterans and film lovers, converge for the weeklong celebration of independent cinema, realizing that Slamdance is a great place to find those next, great, visionary films. Slamdance lives and bleeds by its mantra By Filmmakers For Filmmakers. No other film festival in the world is entirely run and organized by the creative force that can only be found in filmmakers. Slamdance adamantly supports self-governance amongst independents, and exists to deliver what filmmakers go to festivals for – a chance to show their work and a platform to launch their careers. The festival has earned a solid reputation for premiering films by first-time writers and directors working within the creative confines of limited budgets. Co-founder and President Peter Baxter joins us to talk about this year’s Slamdance, the groundbreaking films and the innovative new distribution and digital initiatives being launched by Slamdance.
For news and updates go to: slamdance.com
Check out the film schedule at slamdance 2020 schedule
Slamdance Film Festival - January 24-30 at the Treasure Mountain Hotel in Park City, Utah
Social Media:
facebook.com/SlamdanceFilmFestival
twitter.com/Slamdance
instagram.com/slamogram

The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman / FIlm School Radio interview with Director Rosine Mbakam

Filmmaker Rosine Mbakam left Cameroon at 27 to live in Belgium. Seven years later—having studied film and married a European—she returns to make what she calls a journey into darkness—to the village of her birth, and later to the capital city of Yaoundé, where her mother now lives most of the year. In the village of Tonga, her mother, Mâ Brêh, shares memories of the horrors of the war against French colonizers, and of daily life for a Cameroonian woman in an arranged marriage—a fate Rosine herself barely escaped, leaving the family of an angry ex-fiance behind. As she spends more time with her mother and the women around her, Rosine reveals the strength of their solidarity and their ability to face adversity.
For news, screenings and updates go to: icarusfilms.com/if-bamil
Chez Jolie Coiffure and The Two Faces of a Bamileke Woman are also available at ovid.tv
Social Media
twitter.com/hashtag/RosineMbakam
twitter.com/IcarusFilms
twitter.com/OVIDtv

Limerence / Film School Radio interview with Director Tammy Minoff

LIMERENCE cleverly tips the scales on Hollywood’s approach to a romantic comedy. Women get to see themselves in female lead Rosemary—as complex, independent and real, breaking the stereotypes society has fed us. Rosemary (Tammy Minoff), an aspiring painter and free spirit, moves to Venice where she hooks up with Tom (Matthew Del Negro), a local gallery director. Their intense chemistry quickly and unexpectedly evolves into a serious relationship. This passionate romance is juxtaposed with Tom's best friends, May (Jennifer Lafleur) and Donald (Evan Arnold), dealing with the monotony of their long marriage and the possibility of starting a family. Complicating everything is Leo, Rosemary's oft inappropriate yet earnest best friend from high school Leo (Billy Aaron Brown). All their feelings about the nature of love will put their relationship choices to the test and the answers aren't always black and white. LIMERENCE world premiered at the Other Venice Film Festival, winning Best Audience Award, before going on to win Best Feature at the SOHO International Film Festival. LIMERENCE will make its global VOD/Digital & DVD release across platforms everywhere on January 7th, 2020 through Gravitas Ventures, a Red Arrow Studios company. Director, producer, writer and lead actor Tammy Minoff joins us for a conversation on her honest and engaging look into romance, love, expectations and walking your own path.
Social Media
facebook.com/pg/limerencethemovie
instagram.com/tamzersmin
twitter.com/tamzers

Midnight Family / Film School Radio interview with Director Luke Lorentzen

MIDNIGHT FAMILY has won more than 25 national and international awards, played in 135 film festivals around the world. MIDNIGHT FAMILY is set in Mexico City, where the government operates fewer than 45 emergency ambulances for a population of 9 million. This has spawned an underground industry of for-profit ambulances often run by people with little or no training or certification. An exception in this ethically fraught, cutthroat industry, the Ochoa family struggles to keep their financial needs from jeopardizing the people in their care. When a crackdown by corrupt police pushes the family into greater hardship, they face increasing moral dilemmas even as they continue providing essential emergency medical services. MIDNIGHT FAMILY is an enthralling. harrowing, and intimate look at a family business of dedicated professionals who often fo more than simple transport the helping the people who end up in their ambulance. Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor Luke Lorentzen joins us to talk about his mesmerizing film and the challenges of capturing all the different facets of the Ochoa family.
Social Media
facebook.com/MidnightFamilyFilm
twitter.com/MidnightFamFilm
instagram.com/midnightfamilyfilm
#midnightfamilyfilm

Dawson City: Frozen Time / Film School Radio interview with Director Bill Morrison

A hallucinatory cinematic fever dream, Dawson City: Frozen Time tells the bizarre true story of some 533 silent film reels, dating from the 1910s and 20s, that accumulated at the end of a film distribution line in northwestern Canada and which were miraculously discovered some 50 years later, in 1978, buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool, deep in the Yukon permafrost. Filmmaker Bill Morrison (Decasia, The Miners’ Hymns, The Great Flood) deftly combines excerpts from this remarkable collection with historical footage, photographs, and original interviews, to explore the complicated history of Dawson City, a Canadian Gold Rush town founded across the river from a First Nation hunting camp, and then traces how the development of that town both reflected and influenced the evolution of modern Cinema. Combined with a powerful, evocative score by Alex Somers ( Captain Fantastic; Hale County This Morning, This Evening; Honey Boy), orchestrated and arranged by Ricardo Romaneiro, Dawson City: Frozen Time is a triumphant work of art that spins the life cycle of a singular film collection into a breath-taking history of the 20th century. Director, writer and editor Bill Morrison joins us to talk about his amazing re-creation of a time and place that existed in the parallel universes of a nascent film industry and crushing avarice of a gold rush that still resonates today.
billmorrisonfilm.com/dawson-city-frozen-time
Social Media
facebook.com/BillMorrisonFilm
twitter.com/decasia

The Disappearance of My Mother / Film School Radio interview with Director Beniamino Barrese

The Disappearance of My Mother chronicles Benedetta Barzini desire to leave this world behind. An iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she became a muse to Warhol, Dali, Penn and Avedon. As a radical feminist in the 1970s, she fought for the rights and emancipation of women. But at the age of 75, she is fed up with all the roles that life has imposed upon her and decides to leave everything and everybody behind, to disappear to a place as far as possible from the world she knows. Hiding behind the camera, her son Beniamino witnesses her journey. Having filmed her since he was a child in spite of all her resistance, he now wants to make a film about her, to keep her close for as long as possible – or, at least, as long as his camera keeps running. The making of the film turns into a battle between mother son, a stubborn fight to capture the ultimate image of Benedetta – the image of her liberation. Director Beniamino Barrese joins us to talk about this remarkably intimate, raw film and his complex relationship with his muse and mother who reluctantly helping him with his “project” as she prepares for her final exit.
For news and updates go to: kinolorber.com/film/the-disappearance-of-my-mother
More about the film go to: thedisappearanceofmymother.com
Opening in Los Angeles on December 13 at Laemmle Monica Film Center
Social Media
facebook.com/thedisappearanceofmymother
instagram.com/thedisappearanceofmymother

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao / Film School Radio interview with Director Karim Aïnouz

Set in a brilliantly recreated 1950s Rio de Janeiro, The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao revolves around two inseparable sisters, 18 and 20 years old, living restricted lives with their conservative parents. However, each nourishes a passionate dream: Eurídice of becoming a renowned pianist; Guida of finding true love. In a shocking turn of events, they are separated and forced to live apart. Karim Aïnouz’s first film, MADAME SATÃ, a Jean Genet-inspired story of 1930’s Rio’s drag demi-monde, premiered at Film Forum in 2003. INVISIBLE LIFE shares with it this director’s commitment to immersing himself in the emotional lives of his characters, visualized through rich, inventive, and lush imagery. Based on Martha Batalha’s popular novel The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão, the film won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. INVISIBLE LIFE is nominated for Best International Film at the 2020 Film Independent Spirit Awards and is Brazil’s official submission to the 2020 Academy Awards® for Best International Film. Director and co-screenwriter joins us to talk about his razor-sharp, wrenching story of patriarchy, fierce determination and love in a time and place where gender mattered more than family.

First Love /Film School Radio interview with Director Michael Masarof

Michael Masarof’s drama FIRST LOVE focuses on Rebecca (Annie Heise) is a notorious Hollywood actress, holed up in a seaside hotel, in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Her twin brother Matthew (Aaron Costa Ganis) is a lapsed lawyer and failed family man, whose new career as a writer is on the verge of a major breakthrough. They haven’t seen each other in fifteen years. Matthew travels to the City of Angels, with his tell-all memoir in hand, and a plan to make it big. All he needs is his reclusive twin’s blessing. He was the only one she ever trusted, but has their mysterious twin bond stood the test of time? As Rebecca slinks further into an abyss, and Matthew wanders the city looking for a connection, they both find distractions. A naïve Jordanian hotel worker (Amin El Gamal) and a young Swedish woman (Malin Barr) seem like the perfect fix, but these newfound romances only bring Matthew and Rebecca closer to one another. As the Pacific breaks in front of them and the California sun gets ever hazier, can Rebecca and Matthew grow a new bond if the old one is severed? Director and writer Michael Masarof joins us to talk about his intimate drama about identity, family and connection.
About the Filmmaker: Michael Masarof is a writer and director born in New York and residing in Los Angeles. Michael received his MFA in Film Directing from New York University's Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television’s Graduate film program at the Tisch School of The Arts, where he was the recipient of the Jane Rosenthal Scholarship and the Warner Bros. Production Grant. Michael’s short film You Should Have The Body won the first place prize at the International Munich Festival of Film Schools. It also screened as a special presentation at the Berlinale, as well as on Channel 3SAT in Germany. First Love is Michael’s debut feature.
For news, screenings and updates go to: firstlovefeature.com
Social Mediahttp://twitter.com/michaeljmasarof
facebook.com/FirstLoveFeature
twitter.com/michaeljmasarof
instagram.com/firstlovefeature

Knives and Skin / Film School Radio interview with Director Jennifer Reeder

What happened to Carolyn Harper? Part suburban nightmare, part neon-soaked teenage fever dream, this tantalizing mystery traces the wave of fear and distrust that spreads across a small Midwestern town in the wake of a high school girl’s mysterious disappearance. As the loneliness and darkness lurking beneath the veneer of everyday life gradually comes to light, a collective awakening seems to overcome the town’s teenage girls—gathering in force until it can no longer be contained. Unfolding in a hallucinatory haze of lushly surreal images, Knives and Skin is a one-of-a-kind coming-of-age noir that haunts like a half-remembered dream. Director / writer Jennifer Reeder joins us for a lively conversation on her heady melange of a film that bends multiple genres to its razor sharp will.
Director’s Statement: I tell stories about unruly women and the landscapes they transform. This is a story by a woman that proposes girlhood as a place of transcendence and transgression. I am committed to this voice and to producing unexpected narratives. I write scripts from actual experience and observation and my films are specific in mood and perspective. I am influenced by Ohio, where I grew up—all that sky and flatness. And even more so by the Midwestern people and their kind of everyday destructiveness and determination to cope. This awkward emotionality is evident in my films as scenes unfold like sticky flypaper and characters make one small mistake after another. - Jennifer Reeder
For news and updates go to: chicagofilmproject.com/knives-and-skin
Social Media
facebook.com/knivesandskin
twitter.com/knivesandskin