Declare Your Independents: Volume 7
GITS development assistant Wendy Cohen here, and welcome to yet another edition of Declare Your Independents, our series highlighting the latest developments in the world of independent film.
This week…
10 Films We’re Excited For at the 2013 Venice Film Festival
Indiewire’s Interview with Liz W. Garcia, Writer and Director of THE LIFEGUARD
The Telluride Film Festival Announces Its 40th Edition Lineup
The Plight of a Brave LGBT Film Festival In Russia, and How To Support Their Mission
Top Ten Highest Grossing Woody Allen Movies vs. “Blue Jasmine”
Robert Redford-Produced Doc on Pioneering Director Alice Guy-Blache, “Be Natural” Reaches Its Kickstarter Goal
David Lynch Gives Advice on Instagram
Your Week in Streaming: A Bad Teacher, Zac Efron in Tighty Whities, Pasolini’s Marxist Jesus, and More
Again, a reminder from last week’s post:
- 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.
- When you go to the theater, why not whip out your cellphone and snap a shot of something that demonstrates you were there? A photo of the movie poster in the lobby. A shot of your ticket stubs. An image of the movie theater itself. You and your iconoclastic indie film freaks.
- For any conversations on Twitter re: this initiative, let’s use these two hashtags: #independents and #declareyourindependents
- While we’re at it, why not add our photos to CydM’s fantastic Pintrest page for everyone to enjoy?
- And if we come up with a nifty Declaration of Independents, we could try to make it go viral. If you were going to write a Declaration of Independents, what would you include? What if we made it a video manifesto?
We can’t make this work without your participation. Share your experiences with the community so we can open up readers to the fantastically diverse, exciting and evolving world of independent film. We’ll all be extremely grateful that you did!
INDIE SPOTLIGHT: MOVIES TO SEE IN THEATERS THIS WEEK
OPENING FRIDAY (8/30)
Leigh, almost 30, is living a seemingly perfect life in New York. But when her career and love life both come crashing down, she flees to her suburban hometown and regresses right back into high school life. Picking up right where her teen halcyon days left off, she moves into her old room with her parents, hangs out with friends who never left town, and reclaims her high school job as a condo-complex lifeguard. But as Leigh enjoys shirking off adult life and responsibilities, and enters into an illicit affair, she begins a chain reaction that affects those closest to her.
Watch the Sundance Institute’s interview with the writer/director Liz W. Garcia:
Q&A with director Liz W. Garcia and cast to come.
Rachel is a quick-witted and lovable, yet tightly coiled, thirty-something steeped in the creative class of Los Angeles’s bohemian, affluent Silver Lake neighborhood. Everything looks just right — chic modernist home, successful husband, adorable child, and a hipster wardrobe. So why is she going out of her gourd with ennui? Deadened by the stultifying realities of preschool auctions, a lackluster sex life, and career that’s gone kaput, Rachel visits a strip club to spice up her marriage and meets McKenna, a stripper whom she becomes obsessed with saving. She decides to adopt McKenna as her live-in nanny, and this bold move unleashes unimagined and colorful waves of change into her life and community.
Read Vanity Fair’s interview with the writer/director here.
Q&A with director Jill Soloway to come.
An Acapulco playboy finds a baby on his doorstep, and he embraces his newfound role as a parent while also stumbling into a new career as a Hollywood stuntman after moving to Los Angeles to search for the girl’s missing mother. Valentin (Eugenio Derbez) romanced his fair share of beauties, but he never realized he had become a father until a former lover left him with a screaming infant. The mother nowhere to be found, Mexico native Valentin sets his sights on L.A., and moves to the city with baby in tow. Over the course of the next six years, Valentin becomes a loving father to his growing daughter Maggie (Loreto Peralta) while rising through the ranks of fearless Hollywood stuntmen. Later, when Maggie’s biological mother shows up determined to take back her daughter, Valentin realizes just how much meaning the little girl has brought to his frivolous life, and vows to fight for custody by any means necessary.
The offices of a prominent multinational corporation is the setting for this story of a power struggle between two contemporary women. Isabelle has unlimited admiration for her direct superior, Christine, a woman well-schooled in the ways of power. Christine enjoys holding sway over Isabelle, leads her one step at a time and ever more deeply into a game of seduction and manipulation, of dominance and servitude. The game is played for keeps, and there is no turning back.
Watch an interview with actress Noomi Rapace here.
Throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras. Young, idealistic and dedicated, they had no idea that a few years later they’d all be in prison. This unique and personal visual record, created by H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin, was seized by the FBI during the Watergate investigation, then filed away and forgotten for almost 40 years. OUR NIXON is an all-archival documentary presenting those home movies for the first time, along with other rare footage, creating an intimate and complex portrait of the Nixon presidency as never seen before.
Read Filmmaker Magazine’s interview with director Penny Lane here.
Washed-up race-car driver Brent Magna (Ethan Hawke) puts the pedal to the metal to rescue his kidnapped wife, enlisting the aid of a brilliant young woman (Selena Gomez) to accomplish his treacherous mission as a malevolent stranger issues orders while monitoring Brent’s every move via remote cameras affixed to his Shelby Cobra Mustang.
A terrorist attack in London results in the capture of suspect Farroukh Erdogan (Denis Moschitto). The attorney general appoints Claudia Simmons-Howe (Rebecca Hall) as special advocate on Erdogan’s legal team. On the eve of the trial, Erdogan’s lawyer dies, and a new defense attorney, Martin Rose (Eric Bana), steps in. Martin and Claudia are former lovers, a fact which must remain hidden. As Martin assembles his case, he uncovers a sinister conspiracy, placing him and Claudia in danger.
A drama centered on two childhood friends who plan to rob an armored car depository, and the NYPD officer who stands in their way.
The Last Flight of the Champion
On the planet Civis 3, the cultural center of a distant galaxy, a small alien boy named Neddie has a dream. He wants to do his part to help save the galaxy from a tyrannical warlord. When Neddie finds an ancient starship from a forgotten era, he and his young friends take flight to stop the evil General Disdain.
Armed with nothing more than twigs, their imaginations and a simple set of rules, a group of 12-year-olds engaged in a lively game of Capture the Flag in the neighborhood woods start dangerously blurring the lines between make-believe and reality. Rocks = Grenades. Trees = Control towers. Sticks = Submachine guns. The youthful innocence of the game gradually takes on a different tone as the quest for victory pushes the boundaries of friendship. The would-be warriors get a searing glimpse of humanity’s dark side as their combat scenario takes them beyond the rules of the game and into an adventure where fantasy combat clashes with the real world.
Read CraveOnline’s interview with the director and cast here.
When a college girl who is alone on campus over the Thanksgiving break is targeted by a group of outcasts, she must conquer her deepest fears to outwit them and fight back.
American Made Movie looks back on the glory days of U.S. manufacturing when there was a more balanced relationship between the goods produced and consumed, and illustrates how technology and globalization have changed the competitive landscape for companies doing business in America, as well as overseas. By illustrating the successes of companies and entrepreneurs that, of their own accord, have prospered without adopting the practices of their competitors, American Made Movie shows the positive impact these jobs can have on national and local economies in the face of great challenges.
NOW IN THEATERS
Amr is a 35 year old man who wakes up one day to a very different Egypt. Amr rarely leaves home as he works from his place designing software. It is January 25, 2011 and Amr starts the day with news of protests all over Cairo and marches leading to Tahrir square. Something tells him that these protests will lead to major political change. Farah, a woman in her early 30’s, is a news anchor on Egyptian television. The news Farah gives her audience is very different from the news presented online or on international news channels.
A father, who has trained his son all his life to play football, pauses when his son turns twelve and is about to play tackle football. Journalist Sean Pamphilon went out on a mission to decide when it was appropriate to let his son play the game he’s loved all his life.
Haunted by guilt over the death of his family, a man takes a job as a fire warden in a remote tower in the wilderness, and is inexorably drawn towards a young woman with a dark, terrible secret of her own.
Short Term 12 is told through the eyes of Grace (Brie Larson), a 20-something supervisor at a facility for at-risk teenagers. Passionate and tough, Grace is a formidable caretaker of the kids in her charge — and in love with her long-term boyfriend and co-worker, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.). But Grace’s own difficult past — and the surprising future that suddenly presents itself — throw her into unforeseen confusion, made all the sharper with the arrival of a new intake at the facility: a gifted but troubled teenage girl with whom Grace has a charged connection. While the subject matter is complex, this lovingly realized film finds truth — and humor — in unexpected places.
Read /Film’s coverage of the movie here.
Q&A with director Destin Cretton and cast to come.
Indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg wrote and directed this romantic comedy drama centering on the sexual tension between craft-brewery employees Luke (Jake Johnson) and Kate (Olivia Wilde), who wrestle with their growing attraction to one another due to the fact that they’re already both in committed relationships. With Luke’s marriage-minded girlfriend Jill (Anna Kendrick) and Kate’s boyfriend Chris (Ron Livingston) out of the picture for a weekend, the flirtatious co-workers learn there is no denying what the heart really wants.
Watch an in-depth interview with the director here.
Q&A with director Joe Swanberg and star Olivia Wilde to come.
Thérèse has married less for love than for convenience, but it is not long before the casual disinterestedness shown her by her arrogant husband, Bernard (Gilles Lellouche), sets her mind in motion. Life is easy at first, as Bernard’s pinewood estates keep them both in the lap of luxury. But when Thérèse’s best friend Anne (Anaïs Demoustier), who also happens to be Bernard’s younger sister, falls madly in love with a handsome young Portuguese man, Thérèse begins to see what she has been missing in her life. Corralled by Bernard’s family into persuading Anne to forego her planned nuptials, she begins to see first-hand the awesome power of passionate love, as Anne will go to any length to keep her lover by her side. Soon, Thérèse begins her own fight against the oppressive Desqueyroux family.
The Frozen Ground is inspired by the incredible true story that follows Alaskan State Trooper Jack Halcombe (Nicolas Cage) as he sets out to end the murderous rampage of Robert Hansen (John Cusack), a serial killer who has gone unnoticed for 13 years. As the bodies of street girls start to pile up in Anchorage, fear strikes a chord with the public. Risking his life, Halcombe goes on a personal manhunt to find the killer before the next body surfaces. When a seventeen year old escapee (Vanessa Hudgens) reveals key information about the case, Halcombe is finally on the trail of the killer. But will he catch him in time to save the next victim?
Star Nicolas Cage talks about the movie here.
Q&A with director writer/director Scott Walker to come.
Thanks, Wendy! This week, Declare Your Independents by checking out some of these movies via VOD or in a theater near you!
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