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The first American retrospective for New Queer Cinema provocateur Gregg Araki will come to the Museum of Arts & Design, at New York's Columbus Circle, this September and October.  The series will feature rare films from Araki's oeuvre, including his classic film "The Living End," his first feature "Three Bewildered People in the Night," and a pilot for a television show that never came to be, described as "Twin Peaks for MTV."   Araki will also host a master class on Saturday, September 28. "God Help Me: Gregg Araki" was curated by Mad's Director of Public Programs, the filmmaker Jake Yuzna.  The entire lineup, with links to more information on the Mad website, is below. The Living End Thursday, September 19, 2013, 7 p.m. Araki's entry into the New Queer Cinema movement, The Living End humorously and honestly tackles the effects of HIV on Generation X through the experiences of star-crossed lovers that take to...

Thanks to your votes, the first-generation immigrant drama "Werewolves in the Mall of America" won this weekend’s Project of the Week contest! Congratulations to “Werewolves in the Mall of America" director Jake Yuzna. The filmmaker will receive a digital distribution consultation from SnagFilms and the film is now officially a candidate for Project of the Month. That winner will be awarded with a consultation from the Sundance Institute. Here's what the project's about: During the coldest winter on record in Minneapolis, a Somali highschool student, Awo, discovers an abandoned Planet Hollywood restaurant in the world’s largest mall. Teaming with her art school friends, Awo launches an underground club deep within the bowels of the Mall of America. As the club grows in influence amongst the city's youth, Awo and her team begin to unleash a plan for reshaping their city, America, and the world. ...

At a reception last night at the Ronald Feldman Gallery in New York, Creative Capital announced its 2012 Film & Video and Visual Arts grantees. Among the media artists are a number of names familiar to Filmmaker readers, including 25 New Face directors Cam Archer, Matt Porterfield and Yance Ford. Others who received grants include L.A.-based director Nina Menkes, veteran experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs, and Rooftop Films head Mark Elijah Rosenberg, who, as a director, will tell “a multimedia, fictional story of an astronaut heading to Mars alone on a one-way mission.”

“Our grantees span artists from 27 years old to 77,” said Creative Capital Director Ruby Lerner at the event, before going on to explain the organization’s unique mission, which involves not only granting artists funds for their projects but also working with them to hone their professional skill sets. For Creative Capital, both making work and making a living while making work are prioritized,...

Today, Creative Capital announced its 2012 grant recipients. The grantees will receive up to $50,000 in direct funding and advisory services valued at more than $40,000.   New projects from Cam Archer ("Shit Year"), Jake Yuzna ("Open"), Nina Menkes ("Dissolution") Matt Porterfield ("Putty Hill"), Yance Ford (Pov), Mark Elijah Rosenberg (Rooftop Films), and archivist Rick Prelinger are all amongst this year's grantees. The complete list of film and video grant recipients are:  Cam Archer, Robert Bahar & Almudena Carracedo, Amy Belk and Matt Porterfield, Brad Butler, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel, Eric Dyer, Daniel Eisenberg, Yance Ford, Brian L. Frye and Penny Lane, Sonali Gulati, Kenneth Jacobs, Nina Menkes, Akosua Adoma Owusu, Brian Pera, Rick Prelinger, Michael Robinson, Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Norbert Shieh, Stacey Steers, Deborah Stratman, Jesse Sugarmann, Christopher...

Below, first-time director Jake Yuzna shares a scene from his 2009 Berlinale Teddy Award-winning feature film "Open."  It holds the distinction of being the only American film to ever receive the Best Feature Teddy Award; the film also received a Best Actor award at NewFest for its actor Morty Diamond.  The film just came out on DVD through an Ariztical Films release.   What's it about?  The film interlocks several story lines to tell the tales of Gene and Jay -- two transwomen who, inspired by the rocker Genesis Breyer P-Orridge go through rigorous plastic surgery and hope to achieve their pandrogynous ideal.  Syd, a Ftm trans guy, is also developing a relationship with his cisgendered boyfriend. The scene: Behind the scene:  Open is as much an ode to those who, by choice or force, challenge the status quo, as it is an attempt to break down and rearrange culture in its own right.

We haven't mentioned the Berlinale at all in the heat of Oscar week. So let's do that, shall we? Better late than never. The festival closes tomorrow but the awards were handed out over the past two days.

"Nader and Simin: A Separation" Golden Bear

Asghar Fahradi, who got a lot of Oscar buzz a couple years back (though no nomination) for About Elly, won this year's Golden Bear for Nader & Simin: A Separation (2011). The Hollywood Reporter explains the film like so.

Farhadi's drama traces the breakup of a Iranian family set against the political tensions in Tehran. While not overtly political, Nader and Simin is starkly critical of conditions in Iran, notably the country's huge class divide. It was widely tipped to win Berlin's top prize, not least because of the current upheaval in the Middle East.

Fahradi dedicated his prize to jailed filmmaker Jafar Panihi who was also...

Sometimes, apples land close to the tree, and although they never lived in the same town, Re-animator and From Beyond producer Brian Yuzna’s young nephew Jake Yuzna is carving his own path in creative cinema with his first feature film Open, based on the lives of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV founder Genesis Breyer P-orridge and his late partner Lady Jaye and their mission to fuse together into one being through mental, emotional and physical handiwork. Most sadly as Lady Jaye died several years ago, P-orridge adopted Lady Jaye’s family name of Breyer and continues the work, referring to their living joint creation as “we,” rather than “I.” The film follows a fictional couple based on Gen and Jaye as they explore pandrogeny, with a cast including a transexual, intersexual and queer actors.

Steve Callahan, Matthew Montgomery in Rob Williams‘ Role/Play (top); Jake Yuzna‘s Open (upper middle); Joe Wilson‘s Out in Silence (lower middle); Julia Kots‘ Nothing Happened (bottom) Alicia Silverstone, The Evening Dress & 19th-Century Lesbian Romance: Outfest 2010 (July 11) More at Outfest 2010 on Saturday, July 11: Rob Williams‘ Role/Play, Jake Yuzna‘s Open, Joe Wilson‘s Out in Silence, and the shorts program "Cherchez la Femme." Starring real-life partners Steve Callahan and Matthew Montgomery, Role/Play chronicles the emotional ups and downs of a recently outed soap opera actor (Callahan) and a recently divorced gay marriage activist (Montgomery) who meet at a Palm Springs resort. Open is described as a movie that "blurs the borders of gender and sexuality." In the film, two transgender women "alter their bodies to become a single Pandrogynous being," while a young gay transman dates a "cisgender hipster." In the documentary Out in Silence:...

With the distinction of being the only American film to win the feature film Teddy and an acting award for star Morty Diamond at this year's Newfest, "Open" compels wherever it plays. Says Outfest, "First-time feature director Jake Yuzna presents a beautifully shot, intense film that blurs the borders of gender and sexuality. As transwomen, Gene and Jay - inspired by artist Breyer P. Orridge (of Psychic TV fame) - alter ...

With the distinction of being the only American film to win the feature film Teddy and an acting award for star Morty Diamond at this year's Newfest, "Open" compels wherever it plays. Says Outfest, "First-time feature director Jake Yuzna presents a beautifully shot, intense film that blurs the borders of gender and sexuality. As transwomen, Gene and Jay - inspired by artist Breyer P. Orridge (of Psychic TV fame) - alter ...

Yes, yet more New York happenings, and this time of the undead variety. The Museum of Arts and Design will be hosting "Zombo Italiano: The Italian Zombie Film Movement, 1972 - 1985" from July 8th - July 29th.

Okay, so straight from the horses mouth:

Zombo Italiano

The Italian Zombie Film Movement, 1972 - 1985

$10 a screening, $7 for students with valid ID or with zombie make-up

* discount for zombie make-up available in person only

All screenings will be held at the Museum of Arts and Design

2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY 10019

212.299.7740

New York, NY (June 23, 2010)- Italian zombie cinema comes alive at the Museum of Arts and Design this summer in its latest film series, running from July 8 through July 29. At once gruesome and poetic, the 10 films showcased in "Zombo Italiano: The Italian Zombie Film Movement" underscore the prolific visions and technical achievements of noted Italian directors-including Lucio Fulci, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and George A. Romero...

Outfest 2010 will kick off with "Howl," Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's portrait of Allen Ginsberg, and close with J.B. Ghuman's high school-set musical "Spork."

Organizers said Wednesday that the 28th edition of the gay and lesbian film festival will screen 147 pics -- 60 features and 87 shorts -- from 23 countries during the July 8-18 event.

"Howl," which stars James Franco, Jon Hamm and David Strathairn, will be presented at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles as part of the opening-night gala. There, actress Jane Lynch will receive this year's Outfest Achievement Award, to be presented by fellow "Glee" cast member Chris Coffer and director Paris Barclay.

Other gala screenings on tap include Cheryl Dunye's hybrid thriller/documentary "The Owls," screening as the U.S. Dramatic Centerpiece, and the feature debut from Outfest Screenwriting Lab fellow Javier Fuentes-Leon, "Undertow" (Contracorriente), the International Dramatic Centerpiece.

The fest will celebrate...

With Berlinale wrapped, let's take one last looksie at random celebs working the premieres and photo ops. Part of our irregular red carpet lineup tradition. And then the awardage.

From left to right: I didn't know what Michael Winterbottom looked like, so I've included him here. He's a boyish 48. I think his career is pretty fascinating because it covers so much global ground and differing genre terrain. He's so prolific while still making intelligent films. I'm impatient so prolific works for me. That said, his new noir The Killer Inside Me might be one I'll have to skip. If festival types are so horrified by the violence I'm sure it's more than I can take.

Julianne Moore looking foxy on her way to fifty. She's gone a bit goth here with smoky eyes, black dress and black fingernails. More on her in a bit.

Two-time Oscar nominee Isabelle Adjani, who hasn't been working much,...

Annette Bening, Julianne Moore in The Kids Are All Right (top); Pietro Marcello’s The Mouth of the Wolf (upper middle); James Franco’s The Feast of Stephen (lower middle); Gaea Gaddy in Jake Yuzna’s Open (bottom) Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right, a family comedy co-written by Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg, and starring Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, claimed the Teddy Award for best gay-themed feature film at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival. A hit at Sundance — there’s already Oscar talk for film, filmmakers, and performers — The Kids Are All Right was screened out of competition at the Berlinale. Also featuring Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska (soon to be seen in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland), and Josh [...]...

Berlin -- The Berlin film festival's Panorama sidebar is coming back loud and proud this year with a lineup packed with films examining gender identity and the gay movement.

The 2010 Panorama opens Feb. 11 with the Russian film "Jolly Fellows," director Felix Mikhailov's look at the drag queen subculture of a Moscow club.

This year's lineup also features Cheryl Dunye's thriller "The Owls," in which aging lesbians try to get away with murder; and Jake Yuzna's "Open," a series of intertwined love stories featuring gay and trans-gendered partners.

Several of Panorama's documentary selections explores related themes -- such as Crayton Robery's "Making The Boys" about Matt Crowley's ground breaking gay play "The Boys in the Band;" "Cuchillo de Palo," Renate Costa's expose of persecution of homosexuals during the Paraguayan dictatorship and the German doc "Rock Hudson – Dark and Handsome Stranger" from directors Andrew Davies and Andre Schaefer.