News

Longtime British game show host, Jonathan Robbins, finds himself questioning his mortality and legacy after the recent death of a close friend. When he comes across an unexpected letter from a young fan, he heads to rural Spokane, Wa in search of deeper meaning for his life. Co-starring Gloria Laino and Kerry Knuppe, and shot on location in both the UK and Washington State, this stunning character piece makes its World Premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival, streaming April 8-18. There will be a live Q&a on April 11 at 8:30pm Pt with Director Andrew Hyatt, Producer Nike Imoru, and Stars James Faulkner, Kerry Knuppe, and Aaron Dalla...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

UK Covid Supervisor Program

The Production Guild of Great Britain (Pggb) and the British Film Commission (Bfc) are partnering to roll out a new accredited program of Covid supervisor training for film and TV production professionals. Backed by £100,000 investment from Bfc, the new scheme is being developed in consultation with the Producers Guild of America’s Production Safety Task Force. Targeted at production managers, line producers and location managers, it will build on the Bfc’s guidance documents published in July, to help introduce a UK standard of best practice. Helen Curston has been appointed Pggb Director Of Training to oversee the program.

Moonstone Boards Dramedy For AFM

Exclusive: Moonstone Entertainment has boarded world sales ahead of the virtual AFM on director Andrew Hyatt’s completed dramedy All Those Small Things, starring James Faulkner (Game Of Thrones). Set in London and a small town in the Pacific Northwest,...

James Faulkner has signed on to star in Andrew Hyatt’s comedy-drama All Those Small Things, the debut feature from Rebel Kat Productions and Hyatt’s Chi Rho Films. Hyatt is directing the film from his own script, about British game show host Jonathan Robbins who finds himself questioning his mortality and legacy after the recent death of a close friend. When he comes across an unexpected letter from a young fan, he heads into the backwoods of America in search of deeper meaning for his life.

Faulkner and Hyatt previously collaborated on Paul, Apostle of Christ, which was released last year via Sony. Hyatt and Caleb Applegate are producing the pic with Rich Cowan and Marc Dahlstrom of North by Northwest Productions, and Cory Pyke.

Rebecca Petriello and Nike Imoru of Rebel Kat will serve as executive producers on the film, which is currently shooting in Spokane,...

“I made Mama think I was depressed – or maybe I was depressed. I don’t know. I felt like I was pretending to be depressed to avoid having the talk. But maybe I was really depressed and just thought I was pretending.”

After reading the film’s synopsis— “17-year-old Jackie is in distress as her older brother Matthew gets his first girlfriend and prepares for college. Though Matthew does not share her incestuous desire, Jackie resists the intrusion of reality on her idyllic childhood world.”—The Unspeakable Act sounds like your typical, American indie filled with moments of pseudo-psychology, overly clever dialogue, and exaggerated self-importance. But it is one of the most assured and insightful films of 2013 – and one of the least-seen. Despite a glowing review from Film Comment’s Jonathan Robbins and a spot on Ignatiy Vishnevetsky’s ‘best of’ list, the film has yet to gain the type of recognition it deserves.

First, indieWIRE's Eric Kohn hosted a "Meet the New Directors" panel at the Film Society of Lincoln Center earlier this week and you can watch it here. It runs 63'12" and the guests are Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin (Now, Forager); Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi (5 Broken Cameras); Adam Leon (Gimme the Loot); Kleber Mendonça Filho (Neighboring Sounds); Terence Nance (An Oversimplification of Her Beauty); Joann Sfar (The Rabbi's Cat); Joachim Trier (Oslo, August 31st); and Clarissa Knoll (Street Vendor Cinema).

And the Fslc has posted separate Q&A sessions with Leon (Gimme), Pablo Giorgelli (Las Acacias) and Gareth Evans (The Raid: Redemption), all on one page.

Meantime, we've entered the home stretch. New Directors/New Films rolls on through the weekend and closes on Sunday night with a surprise — whatever it may be, it'll probably rank a roundup of its own. That aside, here's where we wrap it up.

This year, New Directors/New Films is "breaking precedent and presenting a film nearly 20 years older than the festival itself."

Nick Schager in Slant: "So loathed by Stanley Kubrick that the legendary director reportedly confiscated all existing copies to keep it out of circulation, Fear and Desire proves a modest, if relatively promising, 1953 debut for the late auteur, touching on his trademark themes via the allegorical tale of soldiers shot down behind enemy lines in an unnamed country in an unspecified time. Kubrick's story, penned by Howard Sackler, is deliberately vague with regard to nationalities and politics so that its focus can remain squarely on the psychological turmoil of its characters, a ragtag quartet that includes ruminative Lieutenant Corby (Kenneth Harp), gruff Sergeant Mac (Frank Silvera), meek Private Fletcher (Stephen Colt), and sensitive Private Sidney (future filmmaker Paul Mazursky) — men whose narrated internal monologues articulate, with frequent pretentiousness, Kubrick's investigation...

"Forty-one years young, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art's annual New Directors/New Films festival is committed to compiling a slate of artistically diverse films from every corner of the world," writes Ed Gonzalez, introducing Slant's collection of reviews. "Twenty-eight countries represent the 29 feature films (24 narrative, five documentary) and 12 shorts that make up this year's program, which kicks off on March 21 with a screening of Where Do We Go Now?, Nadine Lakaki's follow-up to Caramel, and closes with a special surprise screening that won't be revealed to the audience until it screens at Film Society on Sunday, April 1. Any guesses?"

Not from this corner, though the wish-list runs pretty long. "We weren't planning to do a surprise for New Directors," Richard Peña tells the Fslc's Jonathan Robbins, "but there is a unique situation with this film." As for Nd/Nf as a whole, Peña...