Thursday, April 30, 2015

'Penny Dreadful' Season 2 Character Portraits

The character portraits for 'Penny Dreadful' Season 2.
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'Outlander': Scenes From 'The Watch'

Scenes from 'Outlander' Season 1, Episode 13 - 'The Watch.'
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'Arrow' Season 3, Episode 22: 'This Is Your Sword'

Scenes from 'Arrow' Season 3, Episode 22, 'This Is Your Sword.'
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Guillermo del Toro Feted at San Francisco Film Fest: "I saw my first corpse at age 4"

One of the pleasures of daily immersion in a film festival is appreciating the wildly different audiences you can be part of during a day. A couple of hours after watching "Wanda," made by Barbara Loden in 1970, introduced by local novelist Rachel Kushner, as one of a serious group of cinephiles that didn't exactly fill the 1,400-seat Castro Theatre, I returned that evening to be part of a capacity crowd of fun-loving fanboys and fangirls of Guillermo del Toro whose excitement and enthusiasm was so palpable as to be contagious. That's when a festival is festive indeed. The witty and fast-moving clip reel reminded me that I haven't seen everything. And, of course, the way I'd...

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Cannes: Indie Producer Cassian Elwes Launches Golden Gate Media

Elwes has long been in the business of assembling projects, finding financing, and selling rights for various indie movies on sale at Cannes, Toronto and Sundance. When Elwes was head of William Morris Independent, he arranged financing for over 250 films. He's got a producer or executive producer credit on 73 films on IMDb. He is now partnering with merchant bank Pelican Point Capital Partners' media arm in the formation of Golden Gate Media. Via Golden Gate, Elwes will continue to produce and finance two to four films a year with budgets in the $2 to 15 million range. Elwes will originate, package, and generate films, and hopes to contribute to the award season as well,...

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Amy Berg's Sex Abuse Doc 'An Open Secret' Finally Lands Distribution, Goes to Cannes

When "An Open Secret" premiered at DOC NYC, audiences and critics worried that no distributor would touch it. But the film has finally been picked up, by Rocky Mountain Pictures, for a 20-city US theatrical release beginning June 5. The film will also play exclusively at the Cannes Market in an invite-only screening on May 19. The documentary, however, is not exactly in the wheelhouse of Rocky Mountain Pictures, which has so far specialized mainly in fundamentalist Christian and right-wing political films, from "Atlas Shrugged: Part One" (2011) to its highest grosser "2016: Obama's America" (2012), for the middle American demo. How will the Utah-based...

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'Game Of Thrones': Scenes From 'Sons Of The Harpy'

Scenes from 'Game of Thrones' Season 5, Episode 4 - 'Sons of the Harpy.'
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Reality Checks: How Hot Docs Helps Underappreciated Documentaries Find Life

READ MORE: 'Raiders!' and 'Mavis!' Highlight Hot Docs 2015 Lineup The clean and friendly Canadian city is home to two of the biggest film festivals on the planet, the Toronto International Film Festival in the fall, and Hot Docs, currently underway, which is North America's largest nonfiction festival. With 210 documentaries from 44 countries, Hot Docs has an expansive range of nonfiction cinema, and like TIFF is to narrative cinema, it's almost impossible to pigeonhole the programming. "We're such a large festival — our audience will hit 200,000 people," Hot Docs director of programming Charlotte Cook told Indiewire, "so we can show just about anything." But while...

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Exclusive: Seattle Film Fest Programs 6 American Indies in Catalyst Lineup

The six world premieres in Seattle's Catalyst Program, all included in the festival's New American Cinema competition, will play over the course of one weekend, May 28-31. The program also boasts two days of panels covering production, distribution, workflow and current trends in Indigenous Cinema. This year's Catalyst "State of the Indie Industry" will be delivered by IFP's Deputy Director and Head of Programming, Amy Dotson. “Four years in and I feel like this is our strongest overall program yet," said SIFF programmer Brad Wilke. "Six world premieres, four first-time feature film directors, and a weekend full of panels and workshops aimed at sharing the latest...

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'Halt And Catch Fire': Season 2 Portraits (Exclusive)

Check out these stunning portraits of the cast of AMC's 'Halt and Catch Fire' Season 2. The new season kicks off on May 31 at 10 PM ET/PT on AMC.
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Exclusive: Alex Gibney's 'Steve Jobs' Doc Announced for Inaugural Mammoth Lakes Film Festival

The Mammoth Lakes Film Festival, a new festival starting this year in the Mammoth Lakes region of California, has announced its first lineup of screenings, premieres and events. Alex Gibney's "Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine" has been announced as the inaugural opening night film. There will be 16 films in the Narrative and Documentary competitions, as well as special events including an industry panel on women in filmmaking with producer Allison Amon and actress Kristanna Loken. Festival founder Shira Dubrovner said, "Like Sundance and Telluride, our goal is to be a world-class destination film festival known for showcasing the best of cinema and providing audiences...

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Cannes Completes Lineup with Luc Jacquet's Nature Doc 'Ice and the Sky'

Cannes has unveiled its full 2015 lineup, with director Luc Jacquet's ("March of the Penguins") nature documentary "Ice and the Sky" set to close the festival. Jacquet's fourth feature film explores the scientific discoveries of Claude Lorius, who began studying Antarctic glaciers in 1957 before becoming one of the first scientists to support the theory of global warming in 1965. Today, he's 82. A French biologist turned filmmaker, Jacquet won an Oscar for 2005's "March of the Penguins" and in 2010 launched the environmental nonprofit Wild-Touch. "Ice and the Sky" was produced by Eskwad and will be distributed by Pathé. Wild Bunch is...

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Let the Games Begin: Here's How The Stanley Film Festival Immerses Audiences in Horror

A child went missing at last year's Stanley Film Festival. Posters around town held clues to the young boy's disappearance and festival attendees helped to solve the mystery of what happened to him. Happily, no real child was missing. The posters were just part of an immersive horror game that participants had signed on to play. This year, a new "immersive horror game" is planned during the second annual festival, which is held at the historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado and runs from April 30 to May 3. The all-new interactive story is a real life horror-mystery narrative which uses the horror-themed festival itself as its medium. But because the game...

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2015 Cannes Film Festival Will Close With the Nature Documentary 'Ice and the Sky'

READ MORE: 2015 Cannes Film Festival Reveals Its 68th Lineup A documentary with a subject as grand as Cannes itself: the whole world. The closing film of the 68th Cannes Film Festival will be "Ice and The Sky," screening May 24 at the Grand Théâtre Lumière of the Palais des Festivals. In it, the film's writer and director Luc Jacquet discusses the work of scientist Claude Lorius, who began studying Antarctic ice in 1957 and was concerned about the effects of global warming as early as 1965. Now 82, Lorius has hope that people will change their ways: "Men will find the solidarity that will lead the people living on this planet to another type of...

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'Reign': Pics From The March To The Season 2 Finale

Pics from the final episodes of 'Reign' Season 2.
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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Seattle Film Fest Books Scorsese, Greenaway, 'Overnight,' 'Inside Out,' '54' and More

This year, the Seattle International Film Festival will screen 450 films from 92 countries, including 49 World premieres, 51 North American premieres and 18 US premieres. The festival runs from May 14 to June 7. SIFF is bookended by two hit comedies off the festival circuit. Paul Feig's feminist Bond parody "Spy" will open the festival, and the California swingers sex comedy "The Overnight" will close Seattle, which has also picked "The End of the Tour" for its centerpiece gala.  In addition, SIFF 2015 Tribute Guest and prolific actor Kevin Bacon will be presented with the festival’s Career Achievement in Acting Award and interviewed on stage in...

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'The Vampire Diaries': Even More Pics From Season 6

Even more pics from 'The Vampire Diaries' Season 6.
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2015 Cannes Classics Program Revealed; Costa-Gavras To Be Guest of Honor

This year's Cannes Classics -- the section of the Cannes Film Festival dedicated to heritage films -- will pay tribute to filmmaker Costa-Garvas, winner of the 1982 Palme d'or for "Missing," who served on the Jury in 1976. The festival will also celebrate Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles, as well as feature a tribute to Manoel de Oliveira and an evening with Barbet Schroeder. Along with these tributes, documentaries about cinema and restorations from around the world will also be featured. The festival will also feature new films by Barbet Schroeder ("Amnesia") and Eric Hannezo ("Rabid Dogs"). READ MORE: Cannes Wish List: 20 Films We Hope to See at the 2015...

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Cannes Classics Programs Orson Welles, Hitchcock Doc, Guest of Honor Costa-Gavras

This year's Cannes Classics Guest of Honor will be legendary Greek director Costa-Gavras, who won the Palme in 1982 for "Missing" and will participate in a screening of 1969 Jury Prize winner "Z." Meanwhile Cannes Classics will also celebrate centennials of Ingrid Bergman and Orson Welles. In partnership with Warner Bros., Cannes will screen three 4K Welles restorations, including "Citizen Kane" and "The Lady From Shanghai." Two new Welles docs will also bow, as will Kent Jones' highly anticipated documentary "Hitchcock/Truffaut." Other highlights include a tribute to the late Manoel de Oliveira, whose previously unseen 1982 film...

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'Avengers: Age Of Ultron' NYC Screening

The cast of 'Avengers: Age of Ultron' hits a special screening in New York City on April 28, 2015.
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