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"What are you after, Shmuel? What is this all about?" Good Deed Ent. has unveiled the first official trailer for an indie dark comedy titled To Dust, the feature directorial debut of Harvard graduate, singer-turned-filmmaker named Shawn Snyder. The film is about a Hasidic cantor's struggle to find religious solace after his wife's untimely death, while secretly obsessing over how her body will decay once buried. He befriends a local community college biology professor, seeking his help to understand what's happening underground. Géza Röhrig stars as Shmuel, along with Matthew Broderick, and the full cast includes Sammy Voit, Bern Cohen, Ben Hammer, Leo Heller, and Marceline Hugot. This film looks very peculiar but also rather unique and quite amusing, especially with Broderick giving this kind of kooky, quirky performance. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for Shawn Snyder's To Dust, direct from YouTube:...

Nigerian filmmaker Tony Abulu's Doctor Bello, which stars Isaiah Washington, Vivica A. Fox, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Bern Cohen, Genevieve Nnaji, and Stephanie Okereke, is the first movie project financed in part by the recently established Nigerian Intervention Fund for the arts and entertainment industry, administered by Nexim Bank. The money is part of the N200 billion (or about $1.2 billion) intervention fund set up by the Nigerian Federal Government to bail out the manufacturing sector from crisis. Thus far, a reported 7 projects have received money from the fun, which some say is too low, given how much of a boost...

The 20th annual African Diaspora International Film Festival (Adiff), here in New York City, kicked off  its 2012 edition (also its 20th anniversary, a milestone year), last Friday, November 23rd, opening with Nigerian filmmaker Tony Abulu's cross-continental drama/thriller, Doctor Bello (a screening premiere I was present for), a film S&A readers should already be familiar with, as we've been covering it since it began production earlier this year. The Nollywood/Hollywood collaboration stars Isaiah Washington, Vivica A. Fox, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Bern Cohen, Genevieve...

A quick recap on this.. - First, the film is titled Doctor Bello and it's directed by Nigerian filmmaker Tony Abulu. - Second, it stars Isaiah Washington, Vivica A. Fox, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Bern Cohen, Genevieve Nnaji (maybe the most internationally well-known Nollywood actress), Stephanie Okereke (also a Nollywood actress) and many others. - Third, the film’s synopsis states, "The Cure for Cancer has been found in the sky mountains of Africa, and an American Oncologist will risk everything to get it." - Fourth, the film is scheduled to make its world premiere later this month - September 27, 2012 at...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 84th Academy Awards. One hundred twenty-four pictures had originally qualified in the category.

The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:

Battle for Brooklyn (Rumer Inc.)

Bill Cunningham New York (First Thought Films)

Buck (Cedar Creek Productions)

Hell and Back Again (Roast Beef Productions Limited)

If A Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)

Jane's Journey (Neos Film GmbH & Co. Kg)

Long Way Home: The Loving Story (Augusta Films)

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (@radical.media)

Pina (Neue Road Movies GmbH)

Project Nim (Red Box Films)

Semper Fi: Always Faithful (Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)

Sing Your Song (S2BN Belafonte Productions, LLC)

Undefeated (Spitfire Pictures)

Under Fire: Journalists in Combat (Juf Pictures,...

Yahoo! Movies got their hands on the first 6 minutes of the upcoming film “Project Nim” directed by James Marsh and starring Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen and Reagan Leonard. Synopsis: From the Oscar-winning team behind Man On Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we...

Project Nim

Directed by: James Marsh

Starring: Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen, Reagan Leonard

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: July 8, 2011

Trailer Score: 8/10

Thoughts by Tsr: The title chimp does wear a sweater in this trailer, but that isn’t the main selling point of this trailer. In fact, while a movie with a poster similar to Project Nim’s could load up on its cute factor, this movie seems to get straight into its point of creating a biography of its center chimp. Immediately the trailer becomes about the similarities between a chimp’s brain to our own, which to me serves as an excellent thesis statement. In fact, this trailer could have been a minute shorter, and I probably wouldn’t have thought anything different.

James Marsh did something special with his previous Oscar-winning documentary, Man on Wire, and it looks like this is going to be a similar case here.

To celebrate the UK premiere of James Marsh's award-winning new film Project Nim, three new clips have been unveiled by Icon Film Distribution.

The film, directed by Marsh and produced by Simon Chinn, will premiere at documentary festival Sheffield Doc/Fest on Friday, June 10, and Sunday, June 12, and at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 18 and 20.

With a cast including Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen, Reagan Leonard and Bob Ingersoll, it goes on general release in the UK on August 12, with a 12A certificate and 99mins running time.

Project Nim won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and the Outstanding Achievement in Documentary accolade at the Newport Beach Film Festival.

The three clips, plus a synopsis and an Edinburgh International Film Festival video, are included below.

The official description is as follows:

From the Oscar and BAFTA winning filmmakers behind Man on Wire, James Marsh and Simon Chinn,...

Roadside Attractions have unveiled the first official trailer for upcoming documentary feature Project Nim.

Directed by James Marsh (Man on Wire), Project Nim stars Bob Angelini, Bern Cohen and Reagan Leonard.

Nim is a chimpanzee who, in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child.

Project Nim premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and will be shown simultaneously at the 65th Edinburgh International Film Festival and the 2011 Sheffield Doc/Fest in June.

Iframe Embed for Youtube

Head over to Apple now to watch the trailer in HD.

 

 

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Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Bartha join together for Kevin Asch's Holy Rollers

Holy Rollers, a new film from first time director Kevin Asch, was inspired by actual events in the late nineties when Hasidic Jews were recruited as mules to smuggle ecstasy from Europe into the United States. Sam Gold (Jesse Eisenberg), a young Hasid from an Orthodox Brooklyn community reluctantly follows the path his family has chosen for him, awaiting a pending arranged marriage and studying to become a Rabbi. A charming neighbor, Yosef Zimmerman (Justin Bartha), senses Sam's resistance and propositions him to transport 'medicine' for Jackie (Danny A. Abeckaser), an Israeli dealer, and his girlfriend, Rachel (Ari Graynor). Sam quickly demonstrates his business skills to his new bosses, who instantly take Sam under their wing. Now exposed to the exciting and gritty worlds of Manhattan and Amsterdam nightlife, Sam begins to spiral deeper into their detrimental lifestyle,...