The Circuit

Gotham-based Arthouse Films has nabbed worldwide rights to Megumi Saski's docu "Herb and Dorothy" for an early 2009 theatrical release.

Pic is about a postal clerk and a librarian who slowly amassed a large contemporary art collection over 30 years, stuffing over 4000 pieces of art into their tiny apartment.  The collection is now worth millions.

"Herb and Dorothy" preemed at AFI SilverDocs Film Festival and recently pocket both best doc and the audience award kudos at the Hamptons Intl. Film Festival.

Arthouse Film specializes in artist-based docs.  Other titles include "The Universe of Keith Haring," "Rem Koolhaas - A Kind of Architect," and "A Walk into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory."

by Stephen Garrett
Intrepid moviegoers traded crisp air, golden sunlight and blazing foliage for cinema this past weekend as the Hamptons International Film Festival drew to a close. The great outdoors were hard to ignore during the event, since the main venue in East Hampton, the United Artists multiplex, was merely the hub of activity for a screening schedule that included one theater to the east, in Montauk; two to the north, in Sag Harbor; and a multiplex to the west, in Southampton.

Film fans navigated the 20-mile perimeter either by free, twice-hourly shuttle service (courtesy the Hampton Jitney) or in their own cars, which meant padding arrival times to compensate for the pumpkin pickers on the farm-strewn fields that bottlenecked Route 27. 

Geography affected the experience greatly, as Montauk and Southampton’s quiet streets made their theaters feel isolated, while Sag Harbor’s many shops were bustling. East Hampton felt downright urban, with dense lines snaking outside the movie house, stretch limos idling nearby, locals like Christie Brinkley taking in a film and late-night stores such as BookHampton (where Naomi Wolf autographed her paperbacks) and Starbucks doing brisk business.

Awards were announced on Sunday afternoon, with the top winners in narrative and documentary also nabbing their respective audience prizes. Erik Poppe’s (pictured with Alec Baldwin) “Troubled Water,” a Norwegian-Swedish co-production about a man coming to terms with being a wrongly convicted child murderer, capped a strong year for Scandinavian films. (Six played the festival, including “Arn, the Knight Templar,” the most expensive production in their region’s history; supporting actress and longtime Bergman muse Bibi Andersson was even on hand to greet the audience.)

Receiving the Documentary Award was “Herb and Dorothy,” Megumi Sasaki’s look at the titular Vogels and their lifelong passion as first-rate collectors of modern art—despite their modest salaries as a postal worker and librarian. Its success was welcome but not surprising, as word-of-mouth increased among audience members from screening to screening.

Frances McDormand (pictured above) held court on Saturday at the Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor, as she and Elvis Mitchell chatted about her career. “I’m all woman!” she cried at the start, parroting a just-shown clip from “Burn After Reading” as she took the stage—and then, while standing firm in sneakers and jeans, she flexed her bicep and fingered her arm fat. The audience ate it up.

Over the course of an hour, the 51-year- old Academy Award winner pontificated about balancing her career with the demands of “housewifery,” the demerits of Sarah Palin (“Have you noticed that her outfits are getting tighter?”) and the demands of her Oscar-nominated role in “North Country,” the role for which she did the most preparation. “I don’t usually do research,” she explained. “I was taught to pretend. It’s easier just to put a wig on.”

Later that afternoon, the festival christened its new annual spotlight, “The Artist’s Eye,” the first of which was devoted to the work of photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber. The program drew from his commercial work, which includes campaigns for Banana Republic, Abercrombie and Fitch, JC Penny and Polo, as well as music videos for the Pet Shop Boys, short films and an extended trailer for his upcoming documentary on Robert Mitchum.

His signature use of chiseled young men and sexy women, set to lyrical jazz music, all bathed in deliriously hand-held B&W cinematography and shot with uncompromisingly cornball optimism, made for a suitably glamorous inaugural subject.

Weber himself was graciously candid in the Q&A afterwards, and even talked briefly about the influence of his Newfoundland dogs (which make occasional cameos in his films).  “I learn a lot from animals—their body language, the way they show affection—and I try to put that in my films,” he explained. “When I first met Bob Mitchum, I really thought of him as a little dog.”

That night was the sold-out premiere of Kristy de Gans’ warts-and-all documentary “Dominick Dunne: After the Party,” which chronicled in unflinching detail the Hollywood-producer-turned-journalist’s thirst for glamorous social climbing, neglect of his children and dissolution of his marriage before reinventing himself first as a novelist and then, after the murder of his daughter, as a Vanity Fair reporter specializing in the criminal behavior of the rich and famous.

De Gans’ octogenarian subject joined the filmmaker at the front of the auditorium to give his thoughts on today’s celebrity culture (“I’m utterly confused by Paris Hilton”) and the latest O.J. Simpson trial (“A cheesy, cheap crime.”). The older-skewering audience was enthralled, especially when Dunne gave his own self- assessment. “I didn’t come into my own until I was 50,” he said. “So nobody give up hope.”

by Stephen Garrett
One of the tonier affairs on the regional festival circuit, the Hamptons International Film Festival opened its 16th edition on Wednesday night in apt style with "Valentino: The Last Emperor," Matt Tyrnauer’s tender, big-hearted look at the final year in the life of Italian couturier Valentino Garavani and his 45-year legacy in the world of fashion. The intersection of art and commerce was the documentary’s leitmotif and a natural subtext of the Hamptons, being such a storied playground nexus for New York’s power brokers and the media elite.

Fierce cosmopolitanism amid such a rustic setting: Long Island’s gilded enclave, while less radical than the hippie heritage surrounding upstate New York’s Woodstock Film Festival, still embraces its political issues with vim. Witness this year’s festival trailer, a short by music-video maestro Bob Giraldi (himself a HIFF alum with 2000’s "Dinner Rush") that shows a street queue of talkative people discussing what sounds like a plot line to an exciting film, when the camera suddenly reveals that they’re actually all standing on line to vote and really gabbing about the Obama-McCain race. It’s a neat, concise conflation of the cinephile’s mindset in this tight election year.

Most festivals these days tuck the word “International” into their moniker in a bid to sound more prestigious, but HIFF has spent years earning that right—and this edition cements its reputation even more. 

Their longtime Conflict and Resolution sidebar, which highlights war-torn hot spots throughout the world, is this year joined by Israel at 60, a half-dozen films that explore the state of the holy state. Not enough proof of their global outreach? Look no further than the main competition films vying for the festival’s Golden Starfish award. Of the six, only one, Patrick Read Johnson’s "’77" is made in the U.S.A.

Epitomizing the change is incoming executive director Karen Arikian, a longtime vet of the Berlin Film Festival and a savvy connoisseur of cinema. Her appointment last spring gave balance to a festival that had lost artistic director Rajendra Roy in mid-2007, when he was tapped to become head curator of the Museum of Modern Art.

“Last year it was pins and needle,” says Roy, who also pointed out that HIFF was also coming to terms with the imminent departure of its previous executive director Denise Kassel (announced last January). “It was a really tough year to lose both the administrative and artistic side.” 

Arikian’s appointment alleviated that concern: her background includes experience with both.

One of her first decisions, in fact, was to make Fortissimo co-head and film financier Wouter Barendrecht the recipient of the HIFF/ indieWIRE Industry Toast (the Dutch-born, Hong-Kong-based businessman is also the award’s first foreigner, adding to HIFF’s worldly outlook).

Berdendrecht, well loved in the industry (John Cameron Mitchell, the evening’s host, called him the “playboy of the Pacific Rim”), received affectionate tributes from such directors as Wong Kar-Wei and distributors like Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker and Tom Bernard.

The best accolade came from Jim Jarmusch, though, who sent a video tribute with Christopher Doyle. “To your exquisite taste in weird movies,” he toasted. “And send money!”

The Hamptons fest fest has picked four projects for its 8th annual Screenwriters' Lab.  From May 9-11, filmmakers will be mentored on their scripts, after which the festival will connect them with "friends of the Festival, including industry producers, agents, and development executives."

This year's projects:

ALEX R. JOHNSON - LA SOBRINA
Cookie Rodriguez had just started driving the night shift for a Brooklyn car service when her niece turns up dead in the Williamsburg waterfront. Frustrated with the police investigation, she starts one of her own and finds that her niece was caught up in a corrupt world of gentrification, bribery, and Brooklyn real estate.

JAMES PONSOLDT - REFRESH, REFRESH
Three teenaged sons of Marine reservists fighting a distant war must prove to themselves their worth as men. In measures of heartbreak, brutality, and humor, REFRESH, REFRESH takes an honest, unflinching look at the unforeseen repercussions of violence and how we inherit a war at home.

BRADFORD TATUM - BOOK OF WATER
BOOK OF WATER combines historical fact with a vibrant magical realist style to tell the story of the life of Leonardo da Vinci. An Alfred P. Sloan supported script.

AVI WEIDER - ZEROES AND ONES
In creating an intelligent machine out of discarded computer parts, a young woman uncovers her grandmother's long-buried secret of her survival from Auschwitz and finds a release from her own haunting memories. An Alfred P. Sloan supported script.

The 2008 Screenwriters’ Lab Mentors are filmmaker Maria Maggenti, filmmaker Ira Sachs, producer Jeffrey Sharp, and filmmaker Whit Stillman.

In an article for Variety's weekly, I tackle the glut of film festivals:

At the fourth annual Intl. Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas last week, fest honchos huddled together in panel sessions with names like "Creating a Sustainable Festival," showing a sense of camaraderie, friendliness and mutual support.

But then, most attendees there were new to the game. Among veteran fest programmers and execs, it's more a case of strong rivalries, poaching and a secret desire that their compatriots would disappear in a puff of smoke.

Competition among film fests has always been sharp, but it's become cutthroat as fests proliferate, with literally thousands of them vying for world premieres, stars and, crucially, sponsors. If the films are good, it's almost a bonus.

The piece also touches on a growing controversy amoung fest execs - rising distributor and sales agents fees. 

Full piece here.

The Hamptons International Film Festival announced that Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" has won Alfred P. Sloan Award. The cash prize of $25K is awarded annually to films "that explore science and technology themes in fresh, innovative ways and depicts scientists and engineers in a realistic and compelling fashion."

"Diving Bell" is based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former Elle France editor who learned to communicate through his left eye after a paralyzing stroke. The film was adapted by Ronald Harwood and has raked in critical lauds at every fest it's played since Telluride.

Also, the fest announced that it would host a reading of Caitlin McCarthy's "Wonder Drug." The story centers on how the harmful drug DES affects the lives of three people.

The reading will be directed by Tom Gilroy ("Spring Forward"), who served as McCarthy's mentor during the Hamptons International Screenwriters' Lab. McCarthy and her scientific mentor, P. Harry Jellinc, will participate in a discussion afterwards.

The Hamptons fest will run October 17-21, 2007.

Bob Balaban's "Bernard and Doris" and Kirsten Sheridan's "August Rush" will bookend the 15th Hamptons International Film Festival, October 7-17 -- expertly scheduled just after the seasonal Hamptons exodus.  

Also of note in the program, the defining Hamptons doc for cineastes, "Grey Gardens," gets a revisit by the original docmaker, Albert Maysles. The HBO-produced "Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway," where Maysles explores the film's transition to a Broadway musical, will have its world premiere at the fest. 

The fest also has one of the richest purses attached to its Golden Starfish narrative competition -- over $185,000 in goods and in-kind services.  The winning doc only gets $5K.  From the fest's release:

Narrative
“Elvis and Anabelle” (US, East Coast Premiere) Dir. Will Geiger - with Blake Lively & Max Minghella.  Elvis is a mortician in his family's funeral parlor. Anabelle is a beauty queen who has dropped dead. An innocent kiss brings a corpse back to life, and romance ensues.

“Just Buried” (Canada, US Premiere) Dir. Chaz Thorne - with Jay Baruchel, Graham Greene & Rose Byrne.  A young man inherits a nearly bankrupt funeral home from his estranged father. He falls in love with the alluring young mortician, only to find out she's offing people to keep the place in business!

“Kings” (UK, US Premiere) Dir. Tom Collins.  In the mid 1970s, a group of six young men left their homes in the West of Ireland, took the boat out of Dublin Bay and sailed across the sea to England in the hope of making their fortunes and returning home. Thirty years later only one, Jackie Flavin, makes it home - but does so in a coffin. Jackie's five friends reunite at his wake where they are forced face up to the reality of their alienation as long term emigrants who have no longer have any real place to call home.

“Turn The River” (US, World Premiere) Dir. Chris Eigeman - with Famke Janssen.  As this story of a pool-hustling mother and physically abused son hell-bent on fleeing from their terrible lives builds to its inevitable climax, the two desperate characters must take their one last shot at escape, against the odds, and without regard to the possible consequences.

“Valerie” (Germany, East Coast Premiere) Dir. Birgit Möller.  The camera follows Valerie throughout a week in her life as she stumbles through Berlin trying to scrape her life back together.

Documentary
“Do You Sleep in the Nude?” (US, World Premiere)  Dir. Marshall Fine.  Featuring celebrity testimonials and footage of Rex Reed's television appearances, this documentary reveals many of the same characteristics of journalism's enfant terrible that have fascinated the public and frightened celebrities for decades.

“Gahan Wilson:  Born Dead, Still WEIRD” (US, World Premiere) Dir. Steven-Charles Jaffe.  This portrait of legendary cartoonist Gahan Wilson offers a fascinating and candid glimpse into the artist's life and work, simultaneously reveal a nightmarish perspective on modern adult life. Featuring interviews with Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, Hugh Hefner and Stan Lee, among others.

“I Am an Animal: This Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA” (US, World Premiere) Dir. Matthew Galkin.  The most well-known and controversial animal rights organization, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), is as equally reviled as it is esteemed.

“Pool Of Princesses” (Germany, East Coast Premiere) Dir. Bettina Blümner.  Docudrama about three teenage girls struggling for personal identity and freedom in urban Germany brilliantly captures the bittersweet moments of youth as each girl talks of her hopes, desires, and fears

“Resolved” (US, East Coast Premiere) Dir. Greg Whiteley.  This film will destroy every stereotypical thought you've ever had about kids who engage in debating, the reasons they do it, and how level the debate playing field really is, or isn't.

 

 

The Hamptons International Film Festival marks its 15^th year in September facing some challenges, namely that artistic director Rajendra Roy earlier announced he’ll be transitioning out of the fest and into the big shoes of Chief Curator for the MoMA’s film department. Raj put new life into the Long Island event. It’s no surprise someone plucked him away. While he’ll remain in an advisory role, the fest picked David Nugent (formerly programmer at Newport) to replace him. 

The Hamptons will mark their 15th anniversary with a new program “15 Years 15 Stories” -- a series of personal accounts from the fest as told by New Line’s Michael Lynne, former HIFF intern and now producer Jeff Sharp (“Boys Don’t Cry”), producer/actor Bob Balaban, and director Gary Winick, among others.