Declare Your Independents — Vol. 30
GITS development assistant Wendy Cohen here, and welcome back to Declare Your Independents, our new series highlighting the latest developments in the world of independent film!
This week…
The Imitation Game Wins Top Honors at TIFF
Will the iPhone 6 Revolutionize Filmmaking?
The Films Of Terry Gilliam, Ranked
THR Announces Early Oscar Predictions
Scott and I encourage any of you who go to see an independent movie to post your reactions to the film in these posts. Good, bad, indifferent, whatever. If there’s a film you want to recommend, do it. Use your words to inspire readers to transport themselves into a local cinema.
INDIE SPOTLIGHT: MOVIES TO SEE IN THEATERS THIS WEEK
OPENING FRIDAY (9/19)
Tracks tells the incredible true story of Robyn Davidson, a young woman who in 1977 undertook a perilous solo trek across 1,700 miles of stunning Australian outback. Abandoning city life, Robyn arrives in Alice Springs and declares her ambition to cross the desert to the Indian Ocean to the amusement of the locals. However after months of camping out and working on a camel farm people begin to take her seriously. A chance meeting with National Geographic photographer Rick Smoland provides her with the necessary financing for her expedition under the condition that he be allowed to photograph parts of her journey for the magazine. With only her dog and four unpredictable camels for company, she embarks on an inspiring and life changing journey of self-discovery.
Watch an interview with the film’s director, John Curran, here.
The Altman family doesn’t get along, and they haven’t all been together in years. But when the patriarch dies, the whole clan is expected to fulfill his final wish and sit Shiva for him for an entire week. Now newly divorced, newly jobless Judd Altman has to travel home to face his dysfunctional family, including his hot-to-trot psychiatrist mom, his sarcastic older brother, his unhappy sister and his too-perfect younger brother in an effort to see if family bonds will prevent them from killing one another.
Watch an interview with the film’s screenwriter and author of the novel upon which the film is based here.
Hector and the Search for Happiness
Hector (Simon Pegg) is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. As he tells his girlfriend, Clara (Rosamund Pike), he feels like a fraud: he hasn’t really tasted life, and yet he’s offering advice to patients who are just not getting any happier. So Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. And so begins a larger than life adventure with riotously funny results.
Watch DP/30’s interview with writer/director Peter Chelsom and star Simon Pegg here.
A chilling horror tale about the perils of storytelling, this film follows a brash American podcaster as he braves the Canadian wilds to interview an old man with an incredible past-only to discover the man’s dark secret involves a walrus. Directed by Kevin Smith.
Watch Entertainment Weekly’s interview with writer/director Kevin Smith here.
Life’s A Breeze follows a family struggling to stay afloat and stay together through the hard times in Ireland. Unemployed slacker Colm, his aging mother Nan and his niece Emma must overcome their many differences to lead their family in a race against time to find a lost fortune.
Maggie? Rainbow? Leeward and Mary cannot even agree on their three year old daughter’s name anymore. Mary is a hardworking nurse who dreams of only one thing: changing her life around. She resents her husband for being an irresponsible, overgrown adolescent incapable of holding down a job. Leeward is an atypical, idealistic musician who fancies himself a misunderstood artist and a New Age visionary. Enter Lilas, a 19 year old French artist and daughter of a world famous painter, who’s trying to make it in New York and get away from her overbearing mother. When the bubbly young woman moves into the couple’s tiny Chinatown apartment, their already fragile balance is upset even further.
Two suicidal paraplegic junkies hustle their way through the city streets trying to find a reason to live.
Sandi Sanchez, a second-generation Latina, and Lou Becker, an inflammatory talk show radio host, whose lives converge in the desert in Arizona. An Arizona cop racially profiles Sandi, who refuses to show her identification in protest. Her act of rebellion sets her on an unexpected course toward immigrant detention. Conversely, three siblings who have just suffered the loss of their brother due to a hate crime influenced by Lou’s racist radio talk show, kidnap him in hopes of punishing him and getting “justice.” While Sandi is being transferred to another immigrant detention center, her I.C.E. bus crashes in the desert. She escapes only to end up stranded in the desert. Lou is freed by one of his kidnappers. Sandi and Lou meet in the desert and make a gruesome discovery that bonds them.
Welcome to a 1970s version of the future, where the pants are wide, the music is groovy, and the new frontier is interplanetary. When a new assistant captain arrives on the Omega 76, tensions spark, and more than asteroids collide. Take a journey on an out-of-this-world adventure.
Watch an interview with the film’s director, Jack Plotnick, here.
A decorated Army medic and single mother returns home from an extended tour in Afghanistan to discover that the bond with her five-year-old son has been shattered. In her absence, the boy has attached to his father and his new girlfriend. As she struggles to reclaim her son’s affection and reintegrate into civilian life, she meets a mechanic with whom she becomes romantically involved. Just as her life begins to stabilize and the bond with her son shows signs of healing, she gets news of another deployment. She must now find a way to reconcile her duties as a mother and her obligations as a soldier.
Qohen Leth is a reclusive computer genius living in an undetermined future, who works as a programmer for the Orwellian organisation Corporation ManCom. He resides in an ancient derelict church, awaiting a phone call that will give meaning to his life. When the mysterious ‘Management’ summons him to crack the Zero Theorem, a formula that could answer everything, and the seductive Bainsley and the turbulent Bob barge into his controlled universe, Leth’s existence is set to irrevocably change.
Rural Texas. Sara is a young girl raised in a family of goat farmers. Her parents homeschool their twelve children, rigorously following the precepts of the Bible. Like her sisters, Sara is taught to be a devout woman, subservient to men while keeping her physical purity intact until marriage. When Sara meets Colby, a young amateur bull rider, she is thrown into crisis.
This film is a bold vision of one of music’s most mysterious and charismatic figures, the iconic Nick Cave. In their debut feature directors Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard fuse drama and documentary by weaving a cinematically staged day in Cave’s life with never-before-seen verité observation of his full creative cycle. The film delves into Cave’s artistic processes, unpicking the stuff that makes him tick. We meet those who have affected his life, personally and professionally, including hilarious moments shared with his regular collaborator, the multi-instrumentalist and epic beard-wearer Warren Ellis; actor and friend Ray Winstone; and Kylie Minogue, whom Cave duetted with on his mainstream hit single Where The Wild Roses Grow. This category-defying film possesses the same frankness and wry humour that run through all of Cave’s work, and pushes the form into new territory, exploring universal themes and celebrating the transformative power of the creative spirit.
Watch an interview with directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard here.
Pump is an inspiring, eye-opening documentary that tells the story of America’s addiction to oil, from its corporate conspiracy beginnings to its current monopoly today, and explains clearly and simply how we can end it — and finally win choice at the pump.
NOW IN THEATERS
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby
With his unique vision, writer/director Ned Benson ambitiously captures a complete picture of a relationship in the beautifully relatable portrait of love, empathy and truth that is THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY. Once happily married, Conor (McAvoy) and Eleanor (Chastain) suddenly find themselves as strangers longing to understand each other in the wake of tragedy. The film explores the couple’s story as they try to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone. Screened for the first time at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, Benson’s latest version of their story combines his previous two films — titled HIM and HER — uniting their perspectives and taking a further look into the subjectivity of relationships.
Watch Variety’s interview with writer/director Ned Benson and the film’s cast here.
When estranged twins Maggie (Kristen Wiig) and Milo (Bill Hader) feel they’re at the end of their ropes, an unexpected reunion forces them to confront why their lives went so wrong. As the twins reconnect, they realize the key to fixing their lives may just lie in repairing their relationship.
Watch Sundance’s interview with the film’s director and co-writer, Craig Johnson, here.
This real-life thriller tells the story of one of Israel’s prized intelligence sources, recruited to spy on his own people for more than a decade. Focusing on the complex relationship with his handler, The Green Prince is a gripping account of terror, betrayal, and unthinkable choices, along with a friendship that defies all boundaries.
Watch an interview with the film’s writer and director here.
Kyle and Jen, estranged siblings, travel from New York City to rural Pennsylvania to pack up the home of their recently deceased mother. While there, they make a discovery that turns their world upside-down. A Picture of You is a serious movie about life that gets sideswiped in the supermarket parking lot by a funny movie about death. It’s a story about family, loss, secrets, letting go, and starting anew.
Watch an interview with writer/director J.P. Chan here.
Eve is a catastrophe-low on self-esteem but high on fantasy, especially when it comes to music. Over the course of one Glasgow summer, she meets two similarly rootless souls: posh Cass and fastidious James, and together they form a pop group. This film is a poignant coming-of-age story that doubles as a sublime indie-pop musical from one of indie pop’s biggest songwriters.
Watch SXSW’s interview with writer/director Stuart Murdoch here.
A committed gay couple find their fledgling marriage challenged by a series of unexpected developments in this compassionate drama from writer/director Ira Sachs (Married Life, Keep the Lights On). Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) have been together for nearly 40 years. When gay marriage becomes legal in New York, the happy couple decide that it’s finally time to tie the knot, and declare their love for one another in front of family and friends. Although the ceremony is everything Ben and George ever could have hoped for, the happy couple’s newlywed bliss is sadly short-lived when the diocese receives word of the wedding, and George is fired from his job as a music teacher at a local Catholic school. As a result, the pair are no longer able to afford the rent on the New York City apartment they’ve shared for two decades. In order to remain in the city while searching for a job, George moves in with his sympathetic neighbors, a pair of gay policemen (Manny Perez and Cheyenne Jackson). Meanwhile, Ben attempts to make the best of the situation by moving in with his nephew’s family in Brooklyn. Now, as the big event that should have brought Ben and George closer together leads only to loneliness and frustration, everyone involved finds their once-comfortable lives in a hopeless state of flux. Marisa Tomei, Darren E. Burrows, and Charlie Tahan co-star.
Watch an interview with the film’s director and co-writer Ira Sachs here.
Many thanks to Wendy for today’s post. Remember to Declare Your Independents by going to a theater or use V.O.D. to watch an indie feature this weekend.