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Revolution Summer: Klein Unearths A Political Satire Over 20 Years In The Making

Making a movie is all about timing. If you’re lucky, you get the cast and crew you want, scrape together the money, go into production, and then excitedly head into the edit to put the finishing touches on your picture. If you’re writer/director Daniel Klein, you manage to do all the above, only to find your whole project turned sideways by 9/11. That’s the story behind Taste The Revolution, with Klein shaping his movie over twenty years after he first yelled action, into a time capsule that still feels very relevant today.…...

Mahershala Ali’s first lead film role, postponed for nearly 20 years, has finally made its debut in a fascinating story of persistence. Daniel Klein’s mockumentary “Taste the Revolution” recently debuted at the New Orleans Film Festival and is now screening at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Saudi Arabia.

The project was originally filmed in 2001 but was abandoned after the 9/11 attacks. Klein spoke on the film’s odd journey during a Q&a session at the festival. He recalls meeting Ali at a coffee cafe while she was a graduating acting student. Klein, a young filmmaker, offered his project to Ali, who was keen to participate.

“I have this movie I’m going to make with no money,” Klein recalls saying. Klein initially had a different role in mind for Ali, but the actor insisted on playing the lead. “He approached me and said, ‘I shouldn’t be this.

Mockumentary Taste the Revolution from writer and director Daniel Klein, starring Mahershala Ali in his first lead role, finally premiered with a 25-year delay at the New Orleans Film Festival in October. Now, it is screening at the fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (Rsiff).

And Klein was on hand for a brief Q&a after the movie’s first screening at the fest in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, sharing some insight into the long journey of the project that also sees Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World franchise) appearing in several small roles and serving as an executive producer. Ali plays a revolutionary leader called Mac Laslow who heads up a summit of young adults looking to change the world and blow off some steam. The story is told through the lens of two filmmakers documenting the summit with their cameras.

Taste the Revolution, Klein’s feature directorial debut,...

Any director would love to land Mahershala Ali for their film. Now imagine getting the two-time Oscar-winner for your first feature. That’s what happened to Daniel Klein in 2000 when he hired the young actor to star in his film, which was never released or even formally presented outside screenings at a small regional film festival.”. But now, nearly 25 years later, a new movie cut from the countless hours of footage is taking the spotlight when “Taste the Revolution” premieres Oct. 19 at the New Orleans Film Festival. The film is also seeking distribution.

“It’s a strange thing to experience, and I’m really happy that audiences are going to have an opportunity to see it,” Ali tells Variety. “It’s been like this ghost limb in my life – something you know is there, something I experienced and was really moved by making and being a part of it. It...

This story was created in paid partnership with DePaul University.

The trailer for Waiting for the Light to Change, an independent feature film produced entirely through DePaul University’s Indie Studio, opens on a wistful scene: five friends run excitedly out of a worn down prius in an open field at dusk while on their way to a weeklong winter getaway at a secluded lake house, where the group negotiates the existential tumult of their early twenties.

Created as the latest release from DePaul’s Indie Studio—an in-house program dedicated to helping students navigate the film industry’s dynamic digital landscape—the film serves as Mfa Directing Graduate Linh Tran’s directorial debut and impressively features an all-student cast and crew. Since its premiere at the 2023 Slamdance Film Festival, Waiting for the Light to Change has made tremendous waves, including winning the festival’s Grand Jury Prize—a distinction that no film written,...

The Sundance Institute has selected the 11 screenwriters that will participate in the ninth annual Screenwriters Intensive which will take place digitally on March 4-5. The writers selected are Radhika Apte, William Kwok, Tulica Singh, Timothy Ware, Daniel Klein, Jo Hatcher, Chy Chi, Xavier Coleman, Joyce Sherri, Brian Robau and Jessica Mendez Siqueiros.

The Intensive is a two-day workshop for emerging independent writers and writer/directors developing their first fiction features. The writers, which are from traditionally underrepresented communities, will have the opportunity to refine their stories under the guidance of established writers and the Institute’s Feature Film Program, led by Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, and the program’s Founding Director, Michelle Satter.

“We are inspired by this group of dynamic artists, who are each telling indelible stories with specificity, boldness, and their own distinctive style,” said McKimmie “It’s a privilege to bring them...

Achieving perfect balance in a hero-based shooter like Apex Legends is an unobtainable pipe dream, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Respawn’s battle royale is fundamentally flawed on a mechanical level. Widely speaking, the developer has done a terrific job of keeping every currently playable character a viable option able to clinch a win from the jaws of defeat, though it’s also true that some participants in the Apex Games are always going to be more efficient at what they do or more popular with the fanbase.

Indeed, those two concepts are often assumed to be synonymous with each other, and mistakenly so, judging by updated stats recently provided by Respawn’s Daniel Klein. In an interview with The Third Party Podcast, Klein not only reveals the top 5 most played characters so far in Season 7: Ascension, but also the reasons behind why they’re so frequently chosen above less popular combatants.

I have always been a fan of short films but never really liked attending shorts programs at festivals because there are usually only 1 or 2 good films sandwiched between 4 or 5 terrible ones. That is one of the reasons why I absolutely love the online press screening room that the Tribeca Film Festival gives us access to every year. Rather than have to watch the films in blocks, you can pick and choose which films to watch and potentially review. Throughout the week I watched (or attempted to watch) well over 25 Tff shorts. I say attempt because there were quite a few misfires that I didn’t think deserved to be in this festival. Of course there were also some I wanted to see that just were not available, which I believe is a huge mistake made by some of the filmmakers. But there were quite a few that were pretty fantastic.

For short films, the Tribeca Film Festival is a must. Winning the award for Narrative Short or Best Documentary Short automatically qualifies a film for the Academy Awards. Their track record isn’t too bad either. Shawn Christensen’s Curfew had its New York premiere at the Festival and went on to win the Academy Award.

This year, Tribeca will show 60 short films in eight categories, from a variety of new and returning directors (including Christensen with Grandma’s Not A Toaster), and featuring performances from a number of Hollywood stars. Elijah Wood plays a standup comic who attempts a daring set in Setup,...