NewEnglandFilm.com

This Just In

LA-based York Entertainment has secured worldwide distribution rights on Willow’s Way, a sci-fi feature shot entirely in Maine by DiBacco Films.  Specifics on the release are forthcoming.  Meanwhile visit www.willowswaythemovie.com. 

Bjort Productions (Saugus, MA) is hoping no one dies this weekend.  Seriously.  Because otherwise they’ll lose their funeral home location for their second feature, The Joneses.  The team has shot a few scenes already, and will reconvene for more fun and games after the New Year.  Follow the progress of their neighbor-rivalry story here.

Images Cinema in Williamstown, MA has issued a call for T-shirt designs to celebrate its 10th anniversary.  The winning design will be awarded a cash prize and all-you-can-eat popcorn for a year!  Images also has three special events planned for December:  The Triple X-mas Film Show: X is for eXperimental film eXploring sexuality on December 2nd at 9 pm; Bright Eyes, a 1983 documentary about the sexual politics surrounding AIDS for World AIDS Day on December 3rd at 5 pm; and a trio of free holiday films — In the Month of Kislev, Seven Candles for Kwanzaa, and A Charlie Brown Christmas on December 8th at 2 pm.  Visit www.imagescinema.org. 

Judith Wechsler, the National Endowment for the Humanities professor of art history at Tufts University has made 22 films on art and artists.  She will be present with her most recent documentary, Monet’s Water Lilies, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on December 5th and 9th.  Monet’s Water Lilies was commissioned by the Orangerie Museum in Paris, for its reopening.  It was filmed over the course of two years, in Giverny in both summer and winter, in the Orangerie Museum while it was under reconstruction, at the Musee Marmotton, and in the environs of the museum in Paris. 

Do It Your Damn Self National Youth Film and Video Festival celebrates with a retrospective “Best of” 11 years of youth filmmaking on December 6th at 7 pm at the Brattle Theater.  Visit www.communityartcenter.org. 

From The Undoing.
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Chris Stinson — a NH native now living in LA — co-produced The Undoing, which screens at the Brattle Theater December 7-9. Director Chris Chan Lee calls it “film noir from an Asian American perspective.” The Undoing premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival and is being released in four cities. Stinson pushed for Boston so family and friends could see it on the big screen. He’d like to shoot films in New England in the future. Check out Stinson’s work at www.LiveFreeOrDieFilms.com.

ThirdCat Productions (all Emerson College students!) is in postproduction on its documentary Going Home: Identities of the Modern Age — about a transracial adoptee who visits South Korea to find his birth parents.  The crew is holding a launch party on December 13th at Phoenix Landing in Central Square from 6-10 pm.  Associate producer Nikki Muller wrote NewEnglandFilm:  “We’re hoping to have picture lock by mid-December and then finish up with color correction, sound editing and mixing early next year.” See the filmmakers interviewed on Good Morning, Emerson here.

NewEnglandFilm’s own, publisher Michele Meek, was also interviewed by Good Morning, Emerson.  The students were wondering about the flood of incoming film production in the Bay State.  Hear Meek’s take.

Wondering about WGBH’s new Yawkey Theater?  See it firsthand at a free screening of new American Experience film Oswald’s Ghost on December 14th at 7 pm.  (Or stay at home and catch it on WGBH 2 on January 14th at 9 pm.)  The film provides a close re-examination and current-day take on the assassination of President Kennedy.  Executive producer Mark Samels will take questions after the film.  More info here.

Or maybe your aspirations are to get your work seen and aired by WGBH?  If so, even persons with no filmmaking experience are encouraged to pitch WGBH’s Open Call with ideas for a three-minute short that “look at the issue of how we resolve past wrongs, especially around matters of race.”  Possible themes could include “belonging versus expulsion, anger versus forgiveness, guilt versus reparations.”  Selected pitches receive production funding and editorial support.  Hurry — pitches due December 12th.  Like the topic but don’t have an idea?  Participate in the “Rate and Review” segment of Open Call from December 10-14.  Details.

Boston Underground Film Festival is seeking entries through December 14th. 

Women in Film & Video/New England is accepting applications for both mentors and mentees.  The Media Mentor program matches persons with experience in one area of media-making with someone looking for additional expertise or a desire to try something new.  Apply by December 15th. 

OZPIRATIONS: New art inspired by the Wizard of Oz is on view at The New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University through December 21st.  Many artists are featured, including local filmmaker Maryann Galvin. 

The timing is finally right for the New England-produced feature Happy Holidays.  It runs December 21-23 at the Red River Theatre in Concord, NH.  Audiences caught the story about three high school friends who unexpectedly reunite in their New England hometown the week before Christmas at the Woods Hole Film Festival and SNOB, probably wearing shorts and tees.  But now they can bundle up in wool turtlenecks and sip cocoa during the film, which addresses questions of faith and family in a humorous, holiday-like way.  Co-writer Thomas J. Misuraca will be present for a Q & A session following the 3 pm screening on December 22nd.  Visit www.happyholidaysthemovie.com.

Coming Soon

IFFBoston 2008 is calling for entries.  The official deadline is December 31, 2007.  Extended deadline:  January 31, 2008.   

Pickman’s Model, a thoroughly Connecticut film production, just posted a trailer online.  Justin Tacchi adapted the screenplay from the classic H.P. Lovecraft story.  Gary Fierro directs.  More here.

The Artists’ Exchange Short Film Festival, hosted by the Cranston, RI nonprofit Artists’ Exchange, started planning its 2008 festival last month.  They’ve decided to move it from January to April.  Visit www.artists-exchange.org. 

The Cloud Foundation issued a call for teen films for its Teen Film Curators’ 4th Annual Youth Fusion Teen Film Series.  Every genre is okay, as long as it was made by teens ages 13-19.  Submissions for the February 1, 2008 screening are due to Cloud Place by January 4th.  Complete submission information. 

The New Haven Underground Film Festival (NHUFF) is accepting submissions now through June 1, 2008.  It’s also screening The Turkish Star Wars, straight from 1982 in all of its cult glory, on December 12th, 8 pm, at The Space in Hamden. 

Held Over

Former Boston-area writing instructors Jami Brandli and Brian Polak, who now live in Los Angeles, are finalists for the ABC Disney Writers Fellowship.   If selected, they get $50,000 each for 2008, a mentorship with a seasoned TV writer, and TV writing jobs.  According to the Grub Street Rag, there were over 1,000 applicants this year and they’re currently in the top 20.  After Thanksgiving, they go through the interview process: a short intro to ABC Disney, a cocktail mixer with the other finalists, and then a panel interview. 

Audience votes from the 19th annual Boston Jewish Film Festival determined two festival awards.  Beaufort, directed by Joseph Cedar won the best feature fiction award.   It was Israel’s entry for best foreign language film and will be released by Kino International in early 2008.  Praying with Lior, directed by Ilana Trachtman won best feature documentary. It tells the story of a Down’s syndrome bar mitzvah and will be released by First Run Features, also in early 2008. 

SNOB (Somewhat North of Boston) Film Festival named Tom and Heidi Tosi’s feature Dribbles the best New Hampshire film.  Read last month’s NewEnglandFilm.com interview with the filmmakers here. 

Sharp Dressed Men garnered SNOB’s best feature film award.  Ti Alan Chase, the film’s producer and director, is a resident of Portsmouth, NH.  Right now he’s in post on his first HD feature, a gothic drama, Stricken.  “It’s not a vampire movie,” writes Chase.  More info (coming soon). 

Jimmy Smits congratulates Needham filmmaker Dean Huh.  Photo by Tony Bennis.
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The Portland Phoenix Maine Short Film Festival named its awardees, Will Fraser’s webseries Artifact, among them.  Learn a lot more.

Monday mornings getting you down?  Robert Newton of WorcesterMovies.com is offering a temporary repose.  Each Monday log on for Trailer Stash — a quintet of trailers he assembles “for your information, entertainment and misappropriation of company time while at work.”  Generally speaking the trailers are from soon to be widely-released titles. 

The Martha’s Vineyard Independent Film Festival is now programming for 2008 (March 14-16). Submission deadline is January 1, 2008.  

In November, MA-based filmmaker Dean Huh won the Best American Feature Film award at the Everglades International Film Festival in South Africa for his first feature By the Sea.  He began filming five years ago in Rhode Island (the locale that inspired the film) and was thrilled that his film continues to gain audiences throughout the world.  He calls it a Latin-themed but English-speaking “mystical romance.”  His production team includes Boston producer Tony Bennis and veteran Hollywood producer/director Dean Barnes. 

Sony has issued a call for public service announcements against cyberbulling.  Due January 11th.