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After smashing Sundance with its horror breakout hit “Together” starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie, the Melbourne-based company Princess Pictures is poised to expand its footprint in the feature film arena with a raft of bold projects boasting award-winning talent and creatives.

The banner’s inaugural live-action feature film slate includes “Stillwater,” a crime thriller produced with “Animal Kingdom” filmmaker David Michôd, actor Joel Edgerton and producer Brad Zimmerman (“The Outfit”); as well as Michael Shanks’s follow up to “Together,” “Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel,” which is based on his Black List script and produced with “Don’t Look Up” filmmaker Adam McKay’s outfit; and “Axis of Impersonators,” a timely documentary feature with producer/directors Alexis Spraic (“Shadow Billionaire”) and Nick Coles.

“Stillwater” is based on the first novel of Tanya Scott, a doctor and medical educator turned writer with years of experience working in mental health care. The story revolves around Jack Quinn,...

BFI Flare: London Lgbtqia+ Film Festival (March 19-30) has unveiled its full line-up, with 56 features across three strands, exploring subjects such as Kenya’s ballroom scene and the appeal of dating apps.

The programme has films and shorts from 41 countries, with six world premiere features. These include Kenyan filmmaker Njoroge Muthoni’s documentaryHow To Live, which explores Nairobi’s vibrant ballroom scene and celebrates queer African joy.

In Yu-jin Lee’s Manok, the owner of a South Korean lesbian bar must return to her small hometown after clashing with the city’s younger queer community.

Buenos Aires-set comedy drama Few...

With “The World According to Allee Willis,” director Alexis Manya Spraic offers a welcome change in an era in which documentary filmmaking frequently follows established patterns. The film beautifully tells the story of a songwriter whose music you’ve probably sung along to, even if you don’t know her name. Willis’s music can be heard in many popular songs, from “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire to the theme song for “Friends,” but her story hasn’t been shared publicly until now.

This documentary is special because of the unique way it tells a life story. Spraic uses Willis’s extensive self-documentation to guide the story rather than following a typical chronological structure. This is reminiscent of Agnès Varda’s later works, where the subject becomes both the storyteller and the subject, creating a rich narrative that feels both intimate and broad.

With an estimated 60 million records sold and a creative output spanning music,...

One of the best things about the late great songwriter Allee Willis is that anyone who considers themselves a fan of hers can still be hit by one of her accomplishments by surprise. Such is the crux of the new documentary released by Magnolia Pictures titled “The World According to Allee Willis.”

Though the quirky creative was hard to miss in a crowd, with her signature haircut and colorful outfits, Willis is somewhat of a hidden figure among the world of music and film, colloquially referred to as the white woman who co-wrote Earth, Wind, and Fire’s eternal hit “September,” yet somehow worked on “I’ll Be There for You” by The Rembrandts too, also known as the theme song for “Friends.”

That said, Willis’s two Grammy Awards actually come from the original music she wrote for stage and screen. In the exclusive clip above from “The World According to Allee Willis,...

Showbiz has always made for strange bedfellows. Still, it’s hard to fathom any single personality linking talents as diverse as Pet Shop Boys, Bob Dylan, Fishbone, John Tesh, Diana Ross, Dusty Springfield, Toto, James Brown, TLC, Lulu, Stephen Stills, Tanya Tucker, Bette Midler, Gladys Knight, Scott Baio and Richard Simmons. Yet that list is just the tip of a collaborative iceberg for the subject of “The World According to Allee Willis,” about the late songwriter estimated to have sold over sixty million records.

Among many other accomplishments, Willis was also a compulsive archivist of her own very full life, so Alexis Manya Spraic’s documentary feels like a colorful sampler drawn from near-inexhaustible source materials. Magnolia is opening this entertaining tribute to a hugely successful yet highly idiosyncratic artiste in limited U.S. theaters on Friday.

Greatly influenced by the Motown sounds of her Detroit area youth, Willis was best known for co-writing Earth,...

The 32nd Hamptons International Film Festival (Hiff) has officially unveiled its 2024 winners.

The festival, which took place from October 4 through October 14, marked the U.S. premiere of John Crowley’s “We Live in Time,” with screenings of “Nightbitch,” “A Real Pain,” “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” and R.J. Cutler’s Martha Stewart Netflix documentary “Martha” among the acclaimed features.

Now, IndieWire can exclusively announce the films that the Hiff jury and audience members selected for the top awards. “Armand,” also Norway’s 2025 Oscar submission, won the Hiff Award for Best Narrative Feature. “Armand” stars “A Different Man” and “Worst Person in the World” breakout Renate Reinsve as a mother of a seemingly disturbed six-year-old; the film debuted at Cannes before screening at Hiff. “Armand” is directed by Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman. IFC Films has U.S. distribution rights for “Armand.”

“’Armand’ is...

Exclusive: The 48th San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival aka Frameline48 wrapped over the weekend and presented it awards after a slate of 120 in-person screenings and programs featuring international LGBTQ+ filmmakers and Bay Area artists.

Frameline48 highlights included a 30th anniversary screening of the 4K restoration of Go Fish; the “queer premiere” of Anthony Schatteman’s Young Hearts; the U.S. premiere of Juan Pablo Di Pace and Andrés P. Estrada’s Duino, world premieres of Deborah Craig’s Sally! (co-directed by Jörg Fockele and Ondine Rarey) and Osama Chami’s Una película barata; and screenings of Harrison Xu, Ivan Leung and Katherine Dudas’ Extremely Unique Dynamic, Marco Berger’s The Astronaut Lovers (Los amantes astronautas) and Luke Willis’ Lady Like, which saw the director and Lady Camden, the film’s subject, in attendance.

The Frameline kickoff celebration featured a live performance by singer, songwriter and producer Linda Perry, followed...

Magnolia Pictures has acquired North American rights to “The World According to Allee Wilis,” a new documentary about the musical powerhouse best known for writing the “Friends” theme song and Earth Wind & Fire’s “September.”

The film, which is directed by Alexis Spraic, had its world premiere at SXSW and has been hitting the festival circuit. It most recently screened at the Provincetown Film Festival, and will next be showcased at Frameline.

The documentary features interviews with musicians, artists and power players such as Mark Cuban, Cyndi Lauper, Lily Tomlin, Paul Reubens, Michael Patrick King, Patti Labelle, Pet Shop Boys, Pamela Adlon, Paul Feig and Mark Mothersbaugh (Mothersbaugh also composed the music for the film).

The filmmakers say that Willis, who always dressed in “a cacophony of prints and colors” and boasted a “signature asymmetrical haircut,” had a public persona that was brashly confident. However, privately, Willis struggled with not...

The biographical documentary is a genre that lends itself to a reliable storytelling formula. First, we look back on the origins of the subject; we are introduced to some of the key figures that helped them along the way; we are shown the beginning of their career all the way to the end, and are then left to contemplate their legacy.

Due to the predictability of this format, these documentaries can often come off as by-the-numbers, taking us on a telegraphed emotional journey intended as a crowdpleaser. But every once in a while, there’s a subject who is so unique that their story elevates the formula. Allee Willis is one such subject, with a life story that’s energetic, colorful and invigorating to witness. Director Alexis Manya Spraic crafts a documentary that strives to be just as fascinating as its subject.

The World According to Allee Willis, which premiered at SXSW earlier this month,...

March fest announces multiple competition sections.

SXSW announced on Wednesday that Netflix series 3 Body Problem from Game Of Thrones co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss is the festival’s opening night TV premiere, while Universal’s action comedy The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt is the centrepiece screening.

Top brass at the Austin, Texas, festival (March 8-16) also unveiled feature and short competitions and Midnighters and Global sections, as well as select titles from other categories and Xr Experience for the 31st edition.

Headliners selections include world premieres of Pamela Adlon’s Babes starring Ilana Glazer,...

Here is an exclusive clip for Built To Fail: A Streetwear Story, the documentary that premieres Saturday night at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Directed by Bobby Kim, Alexis Spraic and Scott Weintrob, the documentary follows Kim, the co-founder of the street fashion brand The Hundreds, as he tracks back to the players at the atom-splitting moment when the subculture of La's surfing and skateboarding scene birthed a hip fashion style that became a billion dollar global…...

This year’s Los Angeles Film Festival, better known as Laff if you’re fun, has unveiled its full slate of 2017 offerings, including new offerings from Vincent Grashaw, Leena Pendharkar, Hong Sangsoo, Lea Thompson and many more. The slate includes 48 feature films, 51 short films, 15 high school short films and 10 short episodic works representing 32 countries. The festival’s five competitions feature 37 World Premieres, 2 International Premieres and 9 North American Premieres. Across the competition categories, 42% of the films are directed by women and 40% are directed by people of color.

“Our competitions reflect who Film Independent is as an organization,” said La Film Festival Director Jennifer Cochis. “Within each section you’ll find discovery, diversity, and promising talent both in front of and behind the camera.” Programming Director Roya Rastegar added, “The films curated for the 2017 competition reflect the changing political climate’s impact on emerging independent filmmakers, who are compelled to tell stories about the power of conviction,...

The days are getting longer and the nights are getting warmer, which means that we're edging ever closer to this year's La Film Festival. Taking place June 14th–22nd, the La Film Festival's 2017 competition lineup has been unveiled, and of particular interest for genre fans is the Nightfall section, which includes Colin Minihan's It Stains the Sands Red, Julius Ramsay's Midnighters, and Amanda Evans' Serpent.

Press Release: Los Angeles (May 9, 2017)— Today the La Film Festival, produced by Film Independent, the nonprofit arts organization that also produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards, unveiled the official U.S. Fiction, Documentary, World Fiction, La Muse and Nightfall sections. The 2017 La Film Festival will screen a diverse slate of feature films, shorts and episodic series, along with programs such as Coffee Talks and Future Filmmakers Showcase. The La Film Festival takes place June 14 – June 22, 2017 headquartered at ArcLight Cinemas Culver City, with additional screenings at ArcLight Hollywood,...

Los Angeles Film Festival

This seems to be the season for documentaries that chronicle mind-boggling true romances.

Audiences recently gaped at "Crazy Love", the story of the 50-year-long relationship of a couple that stayed together even after the man deliberately blinded the woman he loved. And now "Cat Dancers" zeroes in on a bizarre menage a trois that ended in tragedy. This HBO docu will stir up conversation when it airs on the cable network, but it also has a shot to generate healthy boxoffice business in theaters.

Ron and Joy Holiday met in 1954 and eventually married. They began as ballet dancers, but when their dance careers dried up, they started an act performing with exotic animals, primarily such large cats as tigers and leopards.

In one of the film's fascinating footnotes, we learn that it was William Holden who helped launch their second careers by offering them a baby leopard as pet. The Holidays' act thrived, and in 1988 they decided to expand by bringing into the show a handsome young circus performer, Chuck Lizza. Before long Chuck, a couple of decades their junior, became the lover of both Ron and Joy, and so their lives were even more intimately intertwined. But in 1998, Chuck was killed by a white tiger in their menagerie. Soon after that, a despondent Joy also was killed by the same tiger, under circumstances that have never been fully explained.

Much of the film is told by Ron, who still is going strong and training young performers. There also is a good deal of home movie footage, along with TV news broadcasts showing the trio at various points in their lives.

The film provokes a great many questions. Like Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man", "Cat Dancers" asks us to ponder what drives people to spend their lives in close proximity to dangerous animals. This was not simply a job for Ron and Joy but a consuming passion. There are, of course, many animal lovers, but they generally stick to more domesticated pets. As well trained as jungle beasts may be, they are never entirely predictable, so the people who work with them knowingly assume a huge risk.

Another question that the film stirs concerns the dynamic of the romantic relationships. Because Ron is the only person around to describe this three-way love affair, we wonder if we are getting the whole story. Would Chuck or Joy offer a different perspective? We have no reason to doubt Ron's veracity, but we do miss hearing from the other two parties to the triangle.

Given the sensational nature of the subject, the film was bound to be riveting. But it happens also to be skillfully executed by director Harris Fishman and his editor, Alexis Spraic, who does wonders weaving together the preexisting footage and brand new material. Another asset is the haunting musical score by String Theory and Peter Salett. This story of various forms of crazy -- or at least unconventional -- love might leave us with more questions than answers, but it tantalizes long after the lights come on.

CAT DANCERS

HBO Documentary Films in association with Cactus Three and Submarine

Credits:

Director: Harris Fishman

Producers: Amanda Micheli, Harris Fishman

Executive producers: Josh Braun, Julie Goldman, Krysanne Katsoolis, Caroline Stevens, Silas Weir Mitchell

Co-executive producers: Chris Keenan, Michael Cash

Director of photography: Amanda Micheli

Music: String Theory, Peter Salett

Co-producers: Alexis Spraic, Christina Ferreira, Scott Kaplan

Editor: Alexis Spraic

Running time -- 75 minutes

No MPAA rating...