Deadlines to Apply: March 9 (Documentary) / April 6 (Narrative)

IFP's Independent Filmmaker Labs are a year-long fellowship supporting independent filmmakers when they need it most: through the completion, marketing, and distribution of their first features. Lab submission is open to all first-time documentary and narrative feature directors with films in post-production. Structured in three week-long components held over the year, the Labs offer personalized attention on post-production, audience building, and distribution strategies in the digital age, followed by continued support from IFP as the project premieres in the marketplace.

Recent Lab Project alumni now in theaters include Dee Rees' Pariah (Focus Features), Alrick Brown's Kinyarwanda (AFFRM), and Victoria Mahoney's Yelling to the Sky (MPI), being released this spring. Premieres at 2012 festivals have included An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (Sundance), Welcome to Pine Hill (Slamdance, Grand Jury Award), Una Noche (Berlin), and The Light in Her Eyes and Smokin' Fish (IDFA 2011) - with more Lab alumni set for upcoming festivals and broadcast. To apply or for more information, please visit http://www.ifp.org/programs/labs.

Winner of the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Kino Lorber, Inc. (www.kinolorber.com) is proud to announce the acquisition of all US and Canadian rights to the acclaimed documentary 5 Broken Cameras (2012), a daring chronicle of resistance in the West Bank by first-time Palestinian director Emad Burnat and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi.

Filmed from the perspective of a Palestinian farm laborer (i.e. co-director Emad Burnat), 5 Broken Cameras was shot using five different video cameras - all of them destroyed in the process of documenting Emad's family's life and non-violent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Emad, who lives in Bil'in, just west of the city of Ramallah in the West Bank, was thrust into global politics when his community peacefully resisted Israeli plans to erect a wall through their village. Initially given the camera to chronicle the birth and childhood of his son Gibreel, the film captures Gibreel growing into a precocious preschooler against the backdrop of the many non-violent protests that became an intrinsic part of life in the West Bank.

With hundreds of hours of video footage covering a period of over six years, Guy Davidi and Emad have turned "five broken cameras" into a larger-than-life lyrical device that both informs and structures their personal and collective struggles in the West Bank. Furthermore, this Palestinian, Israeli and French co-production daringly meshes personal essay with political cinema, displaying how images and cameras can change lives and realities.

Richard Lorber commented: "This is that most rare film of both inspiration and aspiration; with all the visceral impact of a war movie, it operates on a higher cinematic and poetic plane. Ultimately the film drives deeper thinking and caring about a global political issue through the intimacy of its personal vision. We think audiences across the entire polarized Middle East spectrum will be powerfully moved by it as they have been already at key festivals."

5 Broken Cameras continues Kino Lorber's tradition of supporting Palestinian and Israeli productions (releases include the Academy Award nominated film Ajami and Beaufort) that illuminate long-standing issues in the Middle East. The film also stands as cinema of the highest order, and since its premiere on the festival circuit in the late fall, the film has won a Special Jury and an Audience Award at the prestigious International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) and received the World Cinema Directing Award (Documentary) at
Sundance Film Festival.

Kino Lorber plans to release 5 Broken Cameras to the theatrical, non-theatrical and educational markets in late summer - before a home video and digital release at the end of the year with television following. The film has just started its festival life, and given its outstanding reception so far, Kino Lorber expects 5 Broken Cameras to play in many other key US festivals in 2012.

This acquisition was negotiated between Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber and Vice President Elizabeth Sheldon and Catherine Le Clef, President of the Paris-based international sales agency CAT&Docs.

The Mill and The Cross, starring Rutger Hauer and Charlotte Rampling, based on the book by Michael Francis Gibson exploring Breugel the Elder's famous "Way to Cavalry," is available for download from MyFilmBlog for $14.95 in HD. Don't tarry. Watch now!

If you are a fan of Mads Brugger, who went behind the Iron Curtain separating South and North Korea in his first doc Red Chapel, you will enjoy The Ambassador even more. As Karinna Longworth from LA Weekly notes in her Sundance review, Mads represents the latest form of gonzo journalism, following in the foot steps of Hunter S. Thompson but taking more risk to expose political corruption.

This time Mads travels to the Central African Republic under diplomatic pretense. He brings a strong fashion sensibility to his mission, like Sean O'Connory in the early Bond films if he were dressed by Helmut Lang, which climaxes in one political assassination and a failed attempt to smuggle diamonds. Mads escape back to the Congo and civilization leaves many questions unanswered except to highlight that political corruption in Africa is so entrenched that the current president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson, was banned from holding political office at one point in her career on grounds of crimes against humanity.

Hope that everybody will be able to catch the movie soon in a theater near you. Stay tuned.

What we suspected long ago is now confirmed:

She may be a newcomer, but Alison Klayman, who makes her directorial debut with documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, isn't wet behind the ears. Klayman met the provocative Chinese artist while working in China for Global Radio News, producing radio and television features for PBS Frontline and NPR, and has been working on her documentary since 2008. Given Ai's recent arrest -- he was jailed in China for 80 days in April for alleged tax evasion, charges his supporters believe are the government's revenge for his online activism and fight for free speech -- this is one of Sundance's more anticipated docs. Klayman's explorations of modern China, as well as the blurring of politics and art, means we'll likely be hearing a lot more about this film and Klayman in the year to come.

Read more here.