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TAQWA FASHION Taqwacore, being a small but thriving subculture, needs to exist on the margins to stay vital.
Copying North Korea Believe it or not, there is one place in the world that is emulating North Korea: The Islamic Republic of Iran!
Laura Hoptman on Brion Gysin I think what drew me to Gysin is the notion that the cut-up has dominated our cultural thinking...
Interview With Niko von Glasow
Explore the transformational power of Buddhism when you download two classic films: Meditate and Destroy and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Meditate and Destroy is a powerful and moving documentary chronicling Noah Levine's harrowing journey from addict and juvenile delinquent to leader of America's first Buddhist punk movement: Dharma Punx. Directed by Sarah Fisher, Meditate and Destroy is the first film to trace the influence of this movement in major cities throughout America, where a new generation of youths are increasingly turning to meditation as a departure from drugs, violence and crime. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a two-part series exploring the titular spiritual text originating in the spiritual cultures of the Himalayas. Leonard Cohen's narration and the film's breathtaking cinematography combine to boldly visualize the afterlife according to the ancient text's wisdom. The resulting effort has been described by CM Magazine as a "marvelous documentary creation" that "demands multiple viewings." Both films are sure to enlighten you.
After the Guggenheim's 2009 show, The Third Mind, named for a concept of collaboration by famed novelist William S. Burroughs and lesser known painter, writer, restaurateur, raconteur Brion Gysin, inevitably a curiosity would grow around this exceptional artist of many trades. The New Museum does great service to Gysin's work in a new show called Dreamachine, so dubbed for a device he co-created to stimulate hallucinatory states of consciousness.
Watch the film FLicKeR about Dreamachine
“Holes In My Shoes” on PBS WNET 13 and Jack Beers would have been 100
Monday, July 5th @ 10pm - "Holes In My Shoes" - airing again on PBS WNET Thirteen (New York/Conn./New Jersey). The award-winning feature doc is back on the tube for an encore! Jack Beers (whom the feature documentary is about) would have been 100 years old this July 27th! PBS WNET 13 is honouring this anniversary with the airing of our film again.
Please share this information with everyone you think might enjoy it (email, Facebook, Twitter, text, whatever goes these days). If you aren't in the tri-state area and you'd like to watch the film, click here to preview or download. To purchase the DVD, click here.
It is now one year since Jack Beers passed away. I miss him more than words can say, as do many of you. He always wanted to make 100 and said he'd have a huge party where everyone was invited if he did...yet, his 99 years in this life were extraordinary, da best (as Jack would say).
100,000 people tuned in last December to PBS WNET 13, and we received so many moving, genuine, and passionate comments. The film achieved above-average ratings for the TV channel. Jack would have been amazed to see this kind of reaction from his beloved NYC!
Finally, good news is that the film will be distributed nationally across the USA on PBS by the end of 2010, so millions more will get to know Jack. For the PBS WNET 13 airings, we secured sponsorhip partners in Miele, Green Cross International (Mikhail Gorbachev's organisation), ENT & Allergy, and Gringer & Sons. We are currently seeking additional corporate/NGO/individual sponsorship partners for the PBS national distribution, so if you have any ideas of who may be interested, let me know - really appreciated.
Other news is that "Holes In My Shoes" is about to have literary representation with the wonderful Mansion Street Literary Management. Hopefully, the bookshelves will be lined with Jack's great story in the near future.
Thanks again, and if you can let others know in NY/Conn/NJ about "Holes" being on this Monday, July 5th @ 10PM, that would be fab!
All the best, stay in touch, and always feel free to let us know your thoughts about the film.
Be da best,
David Wachs
Director/Producer
Filmmaker Niko von Glasow dishes about his early days in the film industry, when he was as an assistant fetching coffee for the legendary and temperamental although undeniably brilliant Rainer Werner Fassbinder, for which he received a production assistant credit. He charts his course from there before talking about his days at NYU and the Actor's Studio and closes with an honest assessment of his on work, placing the NOLA-winning NOBODY’S PERFECT, and his first film WEDDING GUESTS, at the top of the heap.
A little smaller this year than last year due to budget cuts, Silver Docs in its eighth year remains a favored festival for filmmakers, sales agents, distributors and audiences. Panels on funding, the craft of story telling, and the ins-and-outs of distribution were well attended. Screenings sold out to such films as Freakonomics and The Red Chapel.
Unlike SXSW, where the emphasis is on the intersection of technology and DIY distribution, Silver Docs industry panels focus on novice filmmakers. I was joined on a panel moderated by Byron Hurt with Louise Rosen, Diana Holtzberg of Films Transit International, and Cynthia Fenneman, President, American Public Television to discuss Letting Go of Your "Baby" … or Not. Distribution in 2010, What is a Filmmaker to do? In a market with fewer commissions, less funding, and a plethora of films for distributors to choose from, is it better to work with an agent or go solo; work with a distributor or go the DIY route?
As a distributor, I advise all filmmakers to seek advice, from peers, agents, friends or family. Ask questions early on and plan your strategy long before your film is at rough cut. Build your audience using social media tools and grass roots outreach. Define your festival strategy. Solicit the advice of agents; understand that a savvy, established agent will have relationships with programmers at TIFF, Sundance, Sheffield, SXSW and IDFA, to name a few.They will know the deadlines and festival programmers' preferences and will share that knowledge with you.
At Kino Lorber, acceptance into a prestigious festival, or an award, can be the deciding factor in acquiring a film for release.
A year ago we screened The Red Chapel at rough cut stage. At the time, our analysis was that the challenge of releasing a subtitled doc about two Danish comedians who infiltrate North Korea would be very challenging. We look to release films that we can successfully premier in New York city theatrically, ensuring a review, and then continue to show across North America at independent theaters and calendar houses, windowing with sales to the educational market, television and eventually, direct-to-consumer and then into retail and digital. Our output deal with Netflix's Watch Now allows us to make all of our theatrically-released films available direct to the digital world, as well as via VuDu, Amazon, Hulu and cable VOD. When The Red Chapel won the World Cinema Jury Prize at Sundance, it was no longer an obscure foreign doc but a critically recognized film that premiered at MoMA's New Directors and played to a sold-out audience at Silver Docs.
So before you approach a distributor, start to build your audience and develop a festival strategy before you even start filming. Consider working with an agent such as Diana, from whom we recently licensed The Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould or Josh Braun of Submarine, who brought another festival favorite to us, Winnebago Man, which opens July 9th at the Sunshine in New York and will roll across America throughout the summer.
Lorber Films has picked up "Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould," set for a theatrical release opening in September at Gotham's Lincoln Plaza Cinemas. DVD and digital will follow in early 2011.
Deal was negotiated by Lorber's Richard Lorber and Elizabeth Sheldon with Film Transit Intl.'s Diana Holtzberg and White Pine Pictures' Kelly Jenkins.
It also fits his vision for the festival. Mr. Prince has tried to model Lighthouse—now in its second year—on festivals like those in Nantucket and the Hamptons "that bring in films from the top festivals around the world." Of this year's 70 movies, several are hot off the reels from Sundance and Berlin. Opening night will feature "The Red Chapel," a movie best described as "Borat" in North Korea. Named best world documentary at Sundance, it features two Danish comedians and one journalist traveling in the Communist state under the pretense of a cultural exchange.
Go Charlie!
Niko von Glasow and Bianca Vogel in "NoBody’s Perfect."
How rare is it to discover a documentary about disability that scorns “differently abled” euphemisms and rhapsodies of inner beauty? Rare enough to make “NoBody’s Perfect” an exemplar of fresh-air filmmaking that addresses the devastating legacy of the drug thalidomide with acidic wit and grumpy honesty.
Read full movie review at New York Times
Watch a short clip on iPhone or iPod Touch (13.7 MB)
It is quite a treat to see the Dalai Lama exercising on a treadmill just like millions of other people around the world. Although his Buddhist philosophy is focused on the mind, he sees the importance of taking good care of the body. The director, who provides a running commentary on his activities, notes at one point that it's a paradox that a man of nonviolence is surrounded by armed body guards. But given the continuing tension between China and Tibet, these are necessary precautions. More than 200 study at the monastery and listen to teachings given by the Dalai Lama, which can run from one to five hours. We see him giving a lecture with references to the Big Bang, the self, and compassion as "the basic nature of the mind."
Watch Sunrise Sunset Online, iPad or iPhone
It sounded like a great idea for a documentary: In 2007, the Montreal rapper and producer Socalled, a.k.a. Josh Dolgin, along with his parents, organized a klezmer/heritage cruise down the Dnieper River from Kiev to Odessa. On the chartered boat, Jewish Russian and Ukrainian immigrants revisited their once-vibrant homeland and traced their ancestral roots in the towns and shtetls they left in the 1930s and '40s. At night, they danced, sang and communed with some of the brightest lights on the contemporary klezmer scene.
While selling the cruise at a klezmer night at Oscar Peterson Hall, Josh ran into filmmaker Garry Beitel and invited him to come along and film the voyage. Beitel agreed. But it didn't take long to decide that Dolgin was a better subject than the cruise.
And that's how the world missed out on a Ukrainian klezmer-cruise Up the Yangtze-style doc and got The Socalled Movie instead.
The Socalled Movie is made up of 18 vignettes Beitel culled from two-and-a-half years he spent following Dolgin around with a camera (the Dnieper cruise is one of the short films). Other sequences explore Socalled's collaborations with Montreal country singer Katie Moore, French showman Chilly Gonzales, klezmer clarinettist David Krakauer, '50s lounge icon Irving Fields, and Dolgin's musical hero, funk trombonist and former James Brown backer Fred Wesley.
While the idea of punk rock Muslims might sound ridiculous to some people and to others it might even be blasphemous, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, Taqwacore: The Birth Of Punk Islam is inspiring and hopeful. Not only do those involved dispel any stereotypes you might have about Muslims, they also show how it is possible to be a religious person without letting your religion dictate who and what you are as an individual. The underlying message of tolerance and respect, mixed with a healthy dose of the benevolent chaos of punk, is one the world could stand hearing over and over again.
The human rights movement makes its way to Video On Demand (VOD) with Kimjongilia, offering all Americans the opportunity to take part through viewing this momentous documentary through instant online viewing or downloading. Testament to the power of the information age to bring to light the atrocities of the world's most isolated nation, this VOD release will reveal the tragedies of the ongoing totalitarian state of Kim Jong Il, the last large-scale totalitarian state of the twentieth century.
Not yet available on DVD, Kimjongilia is accessible now from the comfort of home or on iPod, iPhone, or iPad at MyFilmBlog.com. Winner of the Best Film 2010 from One World Brussels, in co-op with Human Rights Democracy Network, Kimjongilia is a cri de coeur that will put North Korea on the table in human rights debates around the world.
To read Filmmaker N.C. Heikin's blog visit Kimjongilia.MyFilmBlog.com. Access bonus interviews not included in the final cut, ask the filmmaker questions, and learn what you can do to stop the death camps in North Korea.
When viewers purchase a ticket to watch Kimjongilia On Demand at MyFilmBlog.com, the price of the ticket ($4.95) will be applicable to the purchase of the DVD when released later in 2010. Be sure to sign-up for our newsletter to learn when it is released! Kimjongilia had its U.S. premiere at New York's Cinema Village and will also be available at select theaters and community screenings across America before the DVD release. Click here to find out about upcoming screenings and learn how you can host a screening in your community.
In a remote wintry forest, a hunter discovers the mummified corpse of a 40-year-old man. A diary is found near the body, detailing the man’s everyday thoughts as he commits suicide through self-imposed starvation. Based on an incredible true story, and adapted from the novella “Until I am a Mummy“ by Shimada Masahiko, Peter Liecthi’s THE SOUND OF INSECTS is a stunning investigation into the mystery of the man’s enigmatic self-destructive motivations. Taking on his point-of-view, the film presents the notebook entries as stream-of-consciousness musings on the world around him as his body dissipates, an attempt to piece together the causes of his disillusionment. With luminous cinematography of the vaulting trees that surround his tented tomb, and of hallucinated memories of the cities and people he left behind, THE SOUND OF INSECTS is a hypnotic and transcendent meditation on how the renunciation of life paradoxically reveals its beauty.
Watch a film trailer on iPhone or iPod Touch
Watch a film trailer in Standard Definition
In Emmanuel Laurent’s new documentary, “Two in the Wave,” the “two” are the filmmakers François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. The wave, needless to say, is La Nouvelle Vague, a journalistic name that not only stuck to Truffaut, Mr. Godard and their colleagues, but that also changed the way film history is understood.
Watch a trailer (Flash) and read the overview
Watch a film trailer in Standard Definition (Computer HD, iPhone, iPad)
Sex gurus Em and Lo return in episode 2 for another installment of naughty educational fun that’s strictly for adults only. Bringing with them a vast catalog of carnal knowledge in the art of lovemaking, the cheeky duo explore ‘manual sex’ in an episode that is all about the sex that ‘you can do with your hands’.
First: the facts. Em and Lo reveal that a recent truechristian.com study found that American industries annually lose $3.14 billion in errant productivity thanks to people ‘misbehaving’ at work. And, with the apparent health benefits, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people are seizing every available moment to ‘relieve’ themselves. As Em and Lo report, there is a strong link between male masturbation and a decrease in prostate cancer, while women who frequently self-pleasure score higher on self-esteem indexes and possess a better body image.
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