Mar 8, 2009 | No Comments | ByBirds Eye View
Real World Films: Portraits from Brazil and Palestine is screening tomorrow 6.45pm at the ICA, and rather excitingly, will be a world premiere. Rebecca Frankel tells us more about how these films have come about:
A Vida Politica, screening at Real World Films
“Real World is a pioneering documentary scheme to create and distribute positive images of women in the developing world. Filmmakers collaborated with academics to find stories in their chosen region.
They received training to develop their skills, and £20k to make a series of innovative short documentaries. 2 sets of films have been produced so far. They are 12 mins long each, about Brazil and Palestine, by Kat Mansoor (Animal Monday) and Paulino Tervo.
Read the full story
Mar 3, 2009 | No Comments | ByBirds Eye View
Rebecca Frankel, former Editor of FourDocs is a big fan of American Teen, screening at Birds Eye View film festival on Sat 7 Mar 6.30pm at the ICA in London and will see its opening weekend this Friday. We asked her to tell us a little bit about why she likes it so much:
“American Teen received rave reviews at Sundance last year. As well as setting off a bidding war with distributors, Nanette Burstein was awarded the Documentary Directing Award for it.
Set in Warsaw, Indiana, the film focus on five students in their final year of high school. Each fits one of the archetypes we know from, well, high school movies. So there is the jock, nerd, cheerleader, loner and rich kid. This cliche has been used to brilliant effect in the poster – a marketing rip off of The Breakfast Club poster.
American Teen poster pays homage to The Breakfast Club
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Mar 3, 2009 | No Comments | ByBirds Eye View
The Broken Hearts – “A Hollywood musical on hallucinogenics” (The Independent) – will be offering live musical accompaniment and a healthy dose of performance for the Vamp film A Fool There Was next Monday 9th Mar 6pm at the BFI Southbank. They also host a radio show on Q Radio every Sunday evening amongst other things (which include launching a fashion collection with Beyond The Valley, making songs, music videos for those songs, plus films about the circus…).
This week the theme on the show was “Silent Movies” and their special guest was none other than Bishi, the award-winning singer, multi-instrumentalist and DJ, who is also providing live music for one of the Vamp films in the festival – Salome. Adding to this, every week on The Broken Hearts radio show they have a section called Sartorial Memorial – the Fabulous Fashions of the Dearly Departed and this week they chose Theda Bara, star of A Fool There Was. Here is an extract: Read the full story
Feb 27, 2009 | 1 Comment | ByBirds Eye View
Think you’ve had your fill of tortured women running into the woods to tear their hair out after watching Ms Winslet in Revolutionary Road? Well, think again. The heart may be a dark forest, but it’s a veritable thrill to take a wander through it.
Nicolette Krebitz’s second feature is a slice of pop surrealism centring on a woman’s psychosexual meltdown – which sounds like a trial, and by rights should be depressing, but I actually found it a joy to watch.
Maybe that means I could do with a lie-down on the psychiatrist’s couch, or maybe it has something to do with the fact that Krebitz’s film provides a much needed breath of fresh air. The premise is pretty straightforward: what would you do if you found out your husband, and the father of your children, was leading a double life with another wife and kids, while you were at home changing nappies like a total mug? So far, so sadly-not-that-surreal. Read the full story
Feb 25, 2009 | 5 Comments | ByBirds Eye View
Our amazing retrospective programmers, Kelly Robinson and Ingrid Stigsdotter, give us some insight into some of cinemas first celebrities and most alluring vamps.
Greta Garbo
At a time when complaints about our celebrity-obsessed society seem to be everywhere, it is worth reminding ourselves that sensationalism has played an important part in film culture for a very long time. Among the actresses celebrated in this retrospective, Greta Garbo (The Temptress) is perhaps the one name that almost everyone still seems to recognise, but during the silent era, several of the stars in our programme were A-list celebrities.
Theda Bara
Theda Bara (A Fool There Was) was the first actress to establish a vamp persona on film and the first publicity-created star. Although Bara was American she was presented as an exotic French-Italian who had spent her childhood near the Sphinx in Egypt.
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Feb 18, 2009 | No Comments | ByBirds Eye View
Our favourite blogger Melissa Silverstein, who runs the fantastic blog Women and Hollywood (“News and Commentary About Women and Hollywood from a Feminist Perspective“), recently got chatting with the talent behind oscar-nominated (Best Screenplay and Best Actress) Frozen River: first-time director Courtney Hunt and actress Melissa Leo. Here is a taste of inspiration from both interviews:
Courtney Hunt, Director of Frozen River
Director Courtney Hunt
Melissa Silverstein: Hi, Courtney, let’s get started. What made you write “Frozen River”?
Courtney Hunt: The story was based on a real situation that goes on at the border of New York State and Canada involving smugglers, and this Indian reservation and the St. Lawrence River, which, when it freezes, the smugglers drive across. Around 9/11, I heard that they were switching over to illegal immigrants, so I was interested in that story. And I wrote a short film about it in 2004, and then that led to the feature. Read the full story
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