The Netflix Film The Perfection, which was shot by cinematographer Vanja Černjul, ASC (The Deuce, Crazy Rich Asians), directed by Richard Shepard (The Matador, Dom Hemingway, Girls), and written by Eric C. Charmelo, Nicole Snyder, and Richard Shepard, follows the story of a troubled musical prodigy who seeks out the new star pupil of her former school with shocking consequences.
San Francisco-based cinematographer/colorist Stephen Berke was director of photography for the award-winning short film Snaggletooth, which had its New York premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. Berke was also the DP for two additional short films, The Interview (currently showing on the festival circuit and Best in Show winner at the 2019 Albany Film Fest) and The Shepherds of Cat Island, a 10-minute single-take, premiering soon. His camera of choice is the Panasonic VariCam LT.
Global content studio Gunpowder & Sky has acquired worldwide rights to Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan’s SXSW music documentary, Everybody’s Everything. The film follows the life and career of Lil Peep, the genre-bending rapper who was just rising to fame when he died of an accidental drug overdose at 21 years old. Dubbed the future of emo by Pitchfork, Gustav Åhr was influential in bringing emo and pop-punk to hip-hop through his mixtapes, released via SoundCloud. Ahr’s first mixtape, 2015’s Lil Peep Part One generated 4,000 plays in its first week.
Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards, announced the 13 filmmakers and eight projects selected for its 2019 Documentary Lab. The Lab is an intensive two-week program designed to help filmmakers who are currently in post-production on their feature-length documentary films.
From the earliest days of feature length films until the 1980s, the movie going experience typically happened in a very large theatre with a really big screen. Faced with rising costs and increasing competition from television, exhibitors of that sad era cut their buildings into multi-screen complexes to increase ticket sales and maximize profits on concessions. Today, faced with a different set of economic realities, exhibitors around the world are increasingly responding by creating movie palaces that rival all but the most spectacular theatres of the turn of the last century. One trend at this year’s CinemaCon, which wrapped up last week, was the continuing rise of premium large format theatres. Another trend was the almost comical trashing of Netflix. PLF theatres and Netflix are both here to stay; we’ve been here before
Fathom Events has entered into a multi-year master distribution agreement with global independent film distributor 1091, formerly known as The Orchard. Under the agreement, 1091 and Fathom will work to curate and distribute compelling content, including sports and action/adventure films, to cinemas across the United States.
Marcus Theatres has announced the expansion of the CineLatino Milwaukee Film Festival, which is presented by Advocate Aurora Health. The 2019 event takes place April 10-14 and features 15 films, three locations and a variety of special activities that help raise money for the community. A portion of net proceeds will be donated to local Hispanic health and education efforts; combined, the first two years of the festival raised more than $40,000 for these initiatives.
Todd Douglas Miller, the filmmaker behind the critically acclaimed Apollo 11 moon-landing documentary, will present the keynote at the 2019 National Association of Broadcaster Show’s Future of Cinema Conference, produced in partnership with the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
Boasting an impressive cast including Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes and Matt Smith, and captured by cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister BSC, the political thriller Official Secrets was directed by Gavin Hood, and produced by Ged Doherty, Elizabeth Fowler, and Melissa Zuo. Hoffmeister selected Sony’s Venice motion picture camera system for principal photography.
Dark Dunes Productions and Taormina Films have partnered with filmmaker Sam Koji Hale to help realize Yamasong: March of the Hollows, a fantastical puppet vision, with a screenplay by novelist Ekaterina Sedia. The film was executive produced by Toby Froud (son of Brian and Wendy Froud) and Heather Henson (daughter of Jim Henson) and is being released February 15 in select theatres the United States, as part of an exclusive cinematic distribution partnership between Dark Dunes Productions, myCinema and Random Media.
