News

Exclusive: Academy Award-winning producer Dan Janvey (Nomadland) has joined Ventureland, the studio behind the Emmy and PGA Award-winning docuseries Beckham and the Oscar and BAFTA-nominated Bobi Wine: The People’s President, as Head of Film.

Based in New York City, Janvey joins from the Brooklyn-based Present Company, where he was a producer. His appointment follows news over the summer that Jesse Uram joined as vice president of strategic partnerships, where he is focused on expanding the company’s relationships with partners across the financial, creative, brand and distribution communities. Kerstin Emhoff, John Battsek, Ali Brown launched the studio, specializing in the development of original entertainment across all media platforms, alongside Paul Hunter in 2018.

Producing credits for Janvey include the Best Picture Oscar-winning Nomadland, as well as the Oscar-nominated Time and Beasts of the Southern Wild. Additionally, he has produced Janet Planet, A Love Song, Heart of a Dog, and Patti Cake...

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is on a mission to confront the uncomfortable future, especially when it comes to emerging tech. Stranger Visions features portrait sculptures crafted from analyses of genetic material the transdisciplinary artist, educator and filmmaker literally picked up in public places (one person’s discarded cigarette butt is another’s way into a stranger’s DNA). T3511, a collaboration with cinematographer Toshiaki Ozawa (Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog), sees an anonymous saliva sample become fodder for the alchemizing of the perfect romantic partner. Now there’s Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, perhaps Dewey-Hagborg’s most ambitious work to date. Opening at NYC’s Fridman Gallery on […]

The post “My Film is For the Pigs”: Heather Dewey-Hagborg on Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is on a mission to confront the uncomfortable future, especially when it comes to emerging tech. Stranger Visions features portrait sculptures crafted from analyses of genetic material the transdisciplinary artist, educator and filmmaker literally picked up in public places (one person’s discarded cigarette butt is another’s way into a stranger’s DNA). T3511, a collaboration with cinematographer Toshiaki Ozawa (Laurie Anderson’s Heart of a Dog), sees an anonymous saliva sample become fodder for the alchemizing of the perfect romantic partner. Now there’s Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera, perhaps Dewey-Hagborg’s most ambitious work to date. Opening at NYC’s Fridman Gallery on […]

The post “My Film is For the Pigs”: Heather Dewey-Hagborg on Hybrid: an Interspecies Opera first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate U.S. musician, performance artist and filmmaker Laurie Anderson with its lifetime achievement award dedicated to creative pioneers.

The prominent Swiss fest dedicated to international indie cinema will be feting Anderson with its Vision Award Ticinomoda, and screening her two feature-length films, “Heart of a Dog” (2015) which is dedicated to Lou Reed, and the restored 4K version of “Home of the Brave” (1986).

Anderson will be given the award on Aug. 10 during a ceremony on Locarno’s Piazza Grande that will be followed by an onstage conversation on Aug. 11.

Locarno in a statement praised Anderson as “an artist who has made inventiveness and experimentation the hallmarks of her career,” underlining that she’s been a leading figure in the U.S. avant-garde since the 1970s.

“Anderson has spent five decades exploring the potential of multimedia and innovative technology in the arts, through collaborations with William S. Burroughs,...

30 years after premiering her debut film “Home of the Brave” at Directors’ Fortnight, Laurie Anderson will return to the Cannes sidebar with three virtual-reality installations created with Hsin-Chien Huang. “Aloft,” “Chalkroom,” and “To The Moon,” described as “three poetically linked and complementary pieces,” will be presented from May 15 – 25 under the collective title “Go Where You Look: Falling Off Snow Mountain.”

“The sensory, poetic and technological dimensions of these three pieces are tightly intertwined and offer new forms of storytelling by amplifying our cinematic experience. It is this singular and fully authorial, approach of virtual reality, that the Directors’ Fortnight wishes to highlight, honour and share,” said Palo Moretti, who runs Directors’ Fortnight. “Laurie Anderson’s artistic path is a testament to the Directors’ Fortnight’s exploratory spirit, and to this 51st edition, aiming to be both an observatory and a laboratory of the evolution of storytelling through moving images, as...

Focus Features’ awards hopeful Suffragette marched atop the Specialty Box Office’s sizable group of openers this weekend, just weeks after bowing at home in the U.K. The feature starring Carey Mulligan averaged over $19K in four theaters, giving the title the weekend’s highest PTA as of Sunday morning overall. Laurie Anderson’s personal essay doc Heart Of A Dog from Abramorama opened in a single theater grossing $14,750, while Broad Green Pictures’ Sarah Silverman starrer I Smile Back began its release in two locations, grossing just over $16K. A24’s Room, meanwhile, continues to sizzle in a second-week expansion, averaging just over $11K.

Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette starring Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep demonstrated some initial box office prowess over the weekend. The Focus title grossed $77K in four New York and Los Angeles, averaging $19,250, outpacing all other movies in terms of PTA. Suffragette’s...