Festival Circuit 2020

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domino harvey
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#76 Post by domino harvey » Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:06 pm

Sounds a bit like the MyFrenchFilmFestival model

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Never Cursed
Such is life on board the Redoutable
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#77 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Apr 14, 2020 3:30 pm

Six "Highlights from Rendez-Vous with French Cinema," including the John Waters-recommended Dumont Joan of Arc, are now streaming gratis on Film At Lincoln Center's website.

Glowingwabbit
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#78 Post by Glowingwabbit » Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:04 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:18 pm
Part of SXSW's film lineup will be streamed for free by Amazon for 10 days sometime around late April. Critically, one only needs a free Amazon account to watch whichever films make it to Amazon.
Has there been any updates about this? I'm guessing most of the filmmakers will be opting out (I know some have already said no) as it really doesn't seem beneficial for them in terms of seeking distribution deals in the future.

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Never Cursed
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#79 Post by Never Cursed » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:15 pm

Directors' Fortnight and Critics Week at Cannes are cancelled; the festival will host a virtual film market in late June. In all likelihood Cannes will not happen this year unless it combines with the Venice festival (which seems unlikely)

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#80 Post by DarkImbecile » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:59 pm

The Telluride Film Festival, meanwhile, has added an extra day to allow for more (and less packed) screenings, should it go on.

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Ribs
Joined: Fri Jun 13, 2014 1:14 pm

Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#81 Post by Ribs » Sat Apr 18, 2020 11:14 pm

I know it's a worldwide pandemic and there's a sense of general solidarity with one another due to that, but it will be a cold day in Hell before Berlin, Cannes, or Venice festival heads play nice with one another.

I think, if Cannes does get together for something, it will be in association with NYFF, which is the festival that tends to have the biggest overlap between slates with it (I think it would actually make a bit of sense to have an abbreviated Cannes run the week between TIFF and NYFF, other than the fact industry people won't be able to have the usual week off, but it's really impossible to tell who would forgo Venice for the prestige of being in Cannes two weeks later). But in all likelihood it's just not going to happen and we'll never find out what the line-up would have been and that's alright too. There's still a definite asterisk around if Venice, TIFF, or Telluride will happen but they obviously have plenty of time before they have to firmly back down.

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Lemmy Caution
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#82 Post by Lemmy Caution » Sun Apr 19, 2020 10:47 am

I wonder if the Shanghai Intl Film Festival will come off this Summer. It's generally scheduled for the rainiest week in late June, June 13-22 this year, slightly earlier than usual. In Shanghai, the city has opened back up, though everyone still wears masks in public and temp check are fairly common. For now, all international arrivals need to quarantine for 14 days, which would be a non-starter for directors and film buyers/sellers to come here. And the film marketplace is a big part of the SIFF.

Crowds aren't allowed yet in SH, and theaters full of people, with recent international arrivals mixed in, sounds like a bad idea. Not even clear when flights to/from Europe will resume.
So I wouldn't expect it to be a go. They could try an abridged version with international films, but no international arrivals, but you still have the issue of Crowds sitting together for extended periods.
But without the international arrivals, the SIFF wouldn't provide much of an economic boost at all, so that the risk wouldn't be worth it, imo.

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PfR73
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:07 pm

Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#83 Post by PfR73 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:00 pm

Glowingwabbit wrote:
Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:04 pm
Never Cursed wrote:
Thu Apr 02, 2020 9:18 pm
Part of SXSW's film lineup will be streamed for free by Amazon for 10 days sometime around late April. Critically, one only needs a free Amazon account to watch whichever films make it to Amazon.
Has there been any updates about this? I'm guessing most of the filmmakers will be opting out (I know some have already said no) as it really doesn't seem beneficial for them in terms of seeking distribution deals in the future.
Today through May 6. Unfortunately, yeah, not much there.

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#84 Post by DarkImbecile » Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:21 am


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FigrinDan
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#85 Post by FigrinDan » Thu Apr 30, 2020 7:11 pm

Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival going virtual. New festival dates are 20 August - 2 September.

Also, can anyone help explain this:
"All film screenings will be geo-blocked to Canadian audiences and only accessible from within the country, vastly expanding the number of viewers we can engage with outside of Quebec."

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Swift
Joined: Sun Oct 28, 2012 3:52 pm
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#86 Post by Swift » Sun May 03, 2020 2:45 am

It sounds like you won't be able to watch the movies unless you have a Canadian IP address.

Glowingwabbit
Joined: Wed May 01, 2013 1:27 pm

Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#87 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sun May 24, 2020 4:19 pm

For those in the US (only) the Chattanooga Film Festival is currently virtual. It ends tomorrow. For only $10 you can get a 24 hour pass. It's all genre stuff and I can't speak to the quality of the films yet since I've only watched KOKO DI KOKO DA so far, but I've been wanting to see it since zedz recommended it and that alone was worth the $10. Thanks zedz!

https://www.chattfilmfest.org/

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#88 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 24, 2020 4:43 pm

Thanks for the head’s up - I’ve been chasing that one for a while. Pretty bittersweet though since a bunch of these look terrific, and I wish I had more time to explore. Anyone have tips on what to prioritize?

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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#89 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sun May 24, 2020 4:56 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun May 24, 2020 4:43 pm
Thanks for the head’s up - I’ve been chasing that one for a while. Pretty bittersweet though since a bunch of these look terrific, and I wish I had more time to explore. Anyone have tips on what to prioritize?
Same. I wasn't even finding that one on back channels so it was an easy decision to pay the $10 for it. There are a lot of shorts too. I just finished The Beach House which I found to be a decent eco-horror with some really interesting visuals/textures that I'd recommend. But that one is also coming to Shudder soon.

Based on some people I've been following on twitter I'm planning to check out Jumbo, The Yellow Night, and Vice: Guide to Bigfoot next along with some shorts.
Last edited by Glowingwabbit on Sun May 24, 2020 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#90 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 24, 2020 5:02 pm

Awesome thanks for the tip, and yeah I requested it on backchannels a while ago without a hit so it’s definitely an opportunity I can’t pass up. I unfortunately don’t have the “latest version of Safari” and can’t upgrade my computer fully (also, no PC) so I guess I’m just gonna buy it and gamble that it’ll work for me. Those browser restrictions are absurd, especially in an era of Chromebooks.

Glowingwabbit
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#91 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sun May 24, 2020 5:13 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun May 24, 2020 5:02 pm
Awesome thanks for the tip, and yeah I requested it on backchannels a while ago without a hit so it’s definitely an opportunity I can’t pass up. I unfortunately don’t have the “latest version of Safari” and can’t upgrade my computer fully (also, no PC) so I guess I’m just gonna buy it and gamble that it’ll work for me. Those browser restrictions are absurd, especially in an era of Chromebooks.
Haha I had voted for that request too. Didn't realize it was you. I think the browser restrictions are for security reasons since a lot of these films are still only on the festival circuit. Maybe they are being more strict than they need to be. Hope it works for you.

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swo17
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#92 Post by swo17 » Sun May 24, 2020 5:21 pm

Awesome, thanks for the tip!

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#93 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 24, 2020 5:45 pm

Based on a quick internet search, these are the ones that seem to be garnering the most positive reviews and/or impressions:

-Dirty God
-Jumbo
-Homewrecker
-Dementer
-Eat Brains Love
-The Ringing Bell
-Scare Package
-Skull (the mask)
-The Vice Guide to Bigfoot
-The Wanting Mare
-The Yellow Night

Not sure if any of these will be arriving on platforms/released soon, or their availability on backchannels (I’m not currently at home), in order to prioritize, but - pending whether I can even access this festival - I’ll be digging into some of these.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#94 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sun May 24, 2020 5:50 pm

therewillbeblus wrote:
Sun May 24, 2020 5:45 pm

-Dirty God
-Jumbo
-Homewrecker
-Dementer
-Eat Brains Love
-The Ringing Bell
-Scare Package
-Skull (the mask)
-The Vice Guide to Bigfoot
-The Wanting Mare
-The Yellow Night
Thanks. I've heard some raves about Skull but it sounds like a gorefest which I'm rarely down for.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#95 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun May 24, 2020 8:04 pm

FYI for any skeptical Mac-users, I can confirm that the membership operates on the previous version of Safari (12.1.2) as well as the newer 13.1 version.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#96 Post by Glowingwabbit » Sun May 24, 2020 8:12 pm

The French fantasy film Jumbo is definitely a highlight. Also stars Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#97 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon May 25, 2020 2:12 am

Dementer is a bit amateurish but the psychological editing to emulate flashes of stained memories is well-done and follows a FWWM trauma-as-horror brigade, even if they amount to very little substance. I didn’t feel like the relationship between our star and her client was as fully formed as the filmmakers obviously did, and the drama hinges on empathy that is inaccessible due to intrusive camerawork and dizzying delusions. Any moment of potential honest connection is undercut by visual extravagance that signifies isolation, not even separation because there doesn’t feel like anything to separate to begin with. It all amounts to something too much, and if you can believe it actually gets wackier and more off the rails in the last act. There are some inspired technical choices, and it was probably very fun to make, but this would have functioned better as a short experimental film.


Homewrecker is like a low-budget psycho-obsessive threat pic illusively centered on the loneliness of feminine friendship, rather than romantic love or celebrity infatuation that has plagued the industry through the Gen X late 80s/early 90s wave of identity-vacuum disillusionment. This isn’t new of course, the feminine stalker relationship has been done before, and better, in Single White Female.

That film actually had interest in identity, while this hints at the black hole inside people as a highway sign down psychopath lane, without slowing down for a pit stop. It’s pretty creepy and painful, and only half succeeds as it attempts to satirize the hollow hearts of middle-upper class white women by spilling out the ennui of age and solipsism as a byproduct of privilege. The acting is pretty rough and the director fails at finding the sought tonal balance, with comedy and horror co-mingling without wit or worthwhile purpose.

The story forces its way into the one-hour mark, and kicks off a final act that ventures away from its central conceit into a mesh of exactly the kind of film it was departing from. I actually had to admire the direction the narrative briefly went in a sick way, but the movie is flimsy and somehow tries to have its cake and eat it too, and pathetically reveals itself to be bleeding satire into self-seriousness. It maneuvers into spending a significant amount of time sympathizing with infidelity in a worse way than the misogynist films that started this subgenre, before pulling back to silently shaking one’s head at problematic masculinity. But there is so much wrong with the convoluted messages here, especially if one of them is even glancing at feminism.


Jumbo is a quirky romance that on paper feels like a rehash of Lars and the Real Girl but it’s entirely different. Noémie Merlant is aware that her romantic attraction is socially inappropriate and yet she feels compelled, just like the mystifying power of love. The question of whether an inanimate object has a soul is asked in the same breath as the better question of whether we can connect with non-sentient beings through physical touch. Does energy transfer? Do we pass on, or get something of substance from contact with tangible mass? If the connotative emotions we get from our subjective experience give us meaning, does anything else matter?

And this is a film all about that. Not just about using an object to cope with psychosocial issues or to exhibit psychotic symptoms, nor to celebrate the abandonment of social mores in favor of individuality. It’s about the thrills we get from our own unique connections with the world, be them with a human partner, a nostalgic object, a certain space, a piece of art, or an amusement park ride. It’s about that experience of lying in bed and transporting ourselves to the passion we feel for life through signifiers. And it’s about being ourselves, not as a result of spiting norms but because we can be nobody else and that's pretty cool, idiosyncrasies and all.

Anyways, that’s how I read it... for awhile. The narrative departs to try to explain itself psychologically with the absent father diagnosing a bizarre consequence on Jeanne for lack of male attention. However, if one can see this as only the mother’s way of making sense of what she doesn’t understand, the film works much better. Objectophilia exists, yet this True Story is as much about exploiting and validating the condition as it is about generalizing the core sensations to enigmatic romanticism. The problems in the film get wildly dramatic and deterred me from the magical vibes with severe dysphoria forcing a psychosocial undercurrent that felt out of step with the first half.

The uneven scattered moods don’t imitate the unusual central romance like a Gondry film might, and I didn’t walk away liking this nearly as much as I enjoyed dissecting the ideas of the first act. Still, it’s probably one of the better films in this festival (my partner and I started and stopped quite a few when we first signed up; maybe they recovered, but I expect not).

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knives
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#98 Post by knives » Mon May 25, 2020 12:32 pm

DeNiro has basically moved Tribecca onto youtube to raise funds for covid relief. FIlms will play at the end of the month for 10 days.

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Never Cursed
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#99 Post by Never Cursed » Tue May 26, 2020 3:10 pm

WeAreOne's lineup - not sure how I feel about any festival that includes a Lessons From The Screenplay video as part of its programming

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knives
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Re: Festival Circuit 2020

#100 Post by knives » Tue May 26, 2020 3:20 pm

That has a handful of really rare and exciting films.

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