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Roster includes animation The Steam Engines Of Oz voiced by Ron Perlman, William Shatner, Julianne Hough.

Los Angeles-based Premiere Entertainment Group (Peg) arrives at the Efm with an international sales slate comprising American Dreamer, Human Affairs, The Steam Engines Of Oz, and The Contractor.

Jim Gaffigan stars in crime thriller American Dreamer as a ride share driver who makes extra cash chauffeuring a low-level drug dealer around town and lands in hot water when a kidnapping goes wrong. Robbie Jones and Tammy Blanchard co-star. Derrick Borte directed and co-wrote with Daniel Forte.

Scott Lochmus produced for Storyland Pictures, in association...

Charlie Birns’ Human Affairs is a film about the desire for human connection within a story about surrogacy, a situation that’s intimate by nature but requires an emotional disconnect. As one character points out, the surrogacy process needs women willing to relinquish the child they’ve carried over to its parents without any “emotional complications.” Birns’ feature debut deals with one of those complicated situations, where surrogate and intended parents find themselves unable to deal with the strong, unexpected feelings springing up from the situation they’ve put themselves in. But Birns, like his characters, is out of his depth emotionally, as he’s only able to evoke any emotion from his drama in brief snippets.

Taking place over five days, Human Affairs follows surrogate mother Genevieve (Julie Sokolowski), a young French woman living on a farm in Vermont, as she arrives in New York City to stay with...

Yesterday, a clip for Charlie Birns' Slamdance entry, the drama Human Affairs, premiered over at The Playlist. We can now share that clip from Birns' feature film debut with you below and it is very much worth checking out; such a beautiful and intimate montage of images.    Lucinda and Sidney, a successful, young couple in the New York City theatre world, hire a French woman, Genevieve, to carry their child. Three months pregnant and beginning to have second thoughts, Genevieve travels to New York to meet them and spend a long weekend together. During an unexpectedly intimate experience, all three must confront their own boundaries and vulnerabilities as they develop profound connections that culminate in a startling emotional moment.   Human Affairs stars Dominic Fumusa,...

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

Don’t for a moment think that the Slamdance Film Festival is in the shadow of Sundance. The annual event is where tomorrow’s next great talent is unearthed and its the place for tiny gems to get the shine and attention they deserve. “Human Affairs” is just such a film, and it brings together an array of terrific names for an intimate drama.

Written and directed by Charlie Birns, starring Dominic Fumusa, Kerry Condon, David Harbour, and Julie Sokolowski, and shot by the great Sean Price Williams (“Good Time,” “Golden Exits,” “Heaven Knows What“), the story follows a young couple who use a surrogate to conceive a child, and complications that follow among the trio.

Continue reading ‘Human Affairs’ Clip: Step Into Lucinda’s World [Slamdance Exclusive] at The Playlist.

The Slamdance Film Festival announced today their narrative and documentary feature film competition for its 24th Festival edition, taking place January 19-25, 2018 in Park City. Established in 1995 by a group of filmmakers whose work had been rejected by the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance is dedicated to fostering a community for independent emerging artists, fashioning itself “the premiere film festival by filmmakers, for filmmakers.”

The feature competition includes 16 premieres, mostly produced in the U.S. All competition films are feature length directorial debuts with budgets of less than $1 million Usd, and without Us distribution. In addition, the festival announced a new partnership with alumni Anthony and Joe Russo (“Captain America: Civil War,” and “Avengers: Infinity War”) to establish the inaugural Russo Fellowship award. Every participating filmmaker will be eligible for a $25,000 cash prize and mentorship from the Russos in the development of the winner’s next project at the brothers’ Los Angeles studio.

The heart of Paris beats for film industry in June. Industry Week is the professional part of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival.

The submissions for Us in Progress are now open till August 15th here.

This label includes the Us in Progress (USiP) and Les Arc Film Fesstival’s team presenting the Paris Coproduction Village and La Residence de la Cinefondation which welcomes a dozen young directors who come to Paris to work on their first or second fiction feature project for 4 and 1/2 months. All together, they offer 24 film projects at different stages, from development to post production. More than 200 professionals from the industry, producers, international sellers, distributors, etc. are welcomed.

This year Us in Progress broke out. It has become a top event for discovering American independent cinema not only for the Europeans invited to attend, but for Americans who find themselves in Paris for the event or who even...

Wild Nights With Emily, about an illicit romance, scoops €50,000 top prize.

Us playwright and director Madeleine Olnek’s Wild Nights With Emily, inspired by the secret love life of Us poet Emily Dickinson, has won the sixth edition of Us in Progress in Paris.

Taking place June 20-22 as part of the industry wing of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, the event showcased five independent Us feature productions at the rough-cut stage.

It is a joint initiative between the festival and the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland.

Wild Nights With Emily revolves around Dickinson’s hushed-up affair with her brother’s wife Susan Dickinson,...

Wild Nights With Emily, about an illicit romance, scoops €50,000 top prize.

Us playwright and director Madeleine Olnek’s Wild Nights With Emily, inspired by the secret love life of Us poet Emily Dickinson, has won the sixth edition of Us in Progress in Paris.

Taking place June 20-22 as part of the industry wing of the Champs-Elysées Film Festival, the event showcased five independent Us feature productions at the rough-cut stage.

It is a joint initiative between the festival and the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland.

Wild Nights With Emily revolves around Dickinson’s hushed-up affair with her brother’s wife Susan Dickinson,...

Works-in-progress event will run June 20-22 in Paris.

Us indie directors Charlie Birns and Madeline Olnek will present features at the sixth edition of Us in Progress in Paris.

Due to take place June 20-22, the event is a joint initiative between the American Film Festival in Wroclaw, the Champs-Elysées Film Festival in Paris and Black Rabbit in New York.

A total of five feature-length fiction works and documentaries will be presented at the event including Birns’s surrogate mother drama Family Affairs, his debut feature after a trio of shorts.

Respected New York playwright and film-maker Madeleine Olnek will present her Emily Dickinson-inspired third feature Wild Nights With Emily.

Rough-cuts of the participating films will be presented to 40 European sales agents, distributors, festival programmers and producers.

The winning film will get post-production, acquisition and promotion services offered by a number of sponsors from the independent cinema scene in Paris.

Us in Progress...

Whether you are a filmmaker, or one of the Sundance programmers whose task it is to identify the films that make up a line-up, it is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. The 32nd edition of the Sundance Film Festival kicks off on January 21st with Park City and Salt Lake City. Two decades back, Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan’s Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern was the Grand Jury Prize winner in the Documentary section while Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse beat out the likes of Nicole Holofcener’s Walking and Talking, Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott’s Big Night, Mary Harron’s I Shot Andy Warhol and Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth for the Grand Jury Prize dramatic.

As per our tradition here on the site and as we all get ready for the festival, we like to propose an overview of the films we...