Film Festival reViews

Quebec director, Philippe Falardeau stunned during the screening at Sundance Film Festival, as his film, Monsieur Lazhar, was nominated for an Academy Award  (Best Foreign Film).

A Steely Dan concert from their Shuffle Diplomacy Tour Twenty Eleven seduced us in the Berkshires at Tanglewood with their sophisticated and sublime music and musicians.

Told through stories of victims in Ukraine and other Eastern European nations, Emma Thompson narrates the documentary, Fatal Promises, directed by Kat Rohrer and produced by her mother, expose journalist, Anneliese Rohrer.

Another Woodstock on the Edge with the film "2B: The Era of Flesh Is Over" as it tests the waters along with a panel that included Ray Kurzweil's take on the future in the field of artificial intelligence.

In ten years, Woodstock Film Festival was established as a maverick, being fiercely independent, providing an outpouring of films from fiercely independent filmmakers.

Acclaimed jazz violinist Yuri Turchyn gets into the heart of the matter with the connections between the artist and the aspects of music-making.

An American original coming from roots in the Jersey music scene in the 1970s into experimental permutations integrating Latin Jazz into a World Beat sound.

BeFilm The Underground Film Festival (BeTuff) showcases the best national and international films in animation, documentary, experimental, spec narrative, and stereoscopic films.

Tim and Mike Rauch are the animators behind German In The Woods, a Best in Show Winner at ASIFA East. Their illustration style has a rhythm and pace of an orchestrated composition, nuances of physical gestures with the grain.

BeFilm The Underground Film Festival (BeTuff) is the first film festival in the world exclusively dedicated to short films with a 3D stereoscopic category.

A documentary film by Geoffrey Smith, The English Surgeon, winner of Best International Feature at Hot Docs, Toronto, follows Dr. Henry Marsh going to Kyiv, Ukraine for 15 years with suitcases full of slightly-used equipment that would ordinarily be thrown out after one use. Nick and Warren Cave wrote and performed the original score.

The "Artistic Crime of the Century," in Man On Wire, a story revolving around Philippe Petit and his daring aerial walk on a wire illegally rigged between the World Trade Center's twin towers in 1973.

What if "Happiness" was literally for sale? A Short film in an unusual setting: a condom factory where a disgruntled worker, played by renowned Polish-American actor Elzbieta Czyzewska, spends days testing the product for leaks.

Writer/director Courtney Hunt wrote the short, then the feature Frozen River, then Melissa Leo and Misty Upham brought the narrative home, winning the  Sundance  Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Competition. 

There are films that can leave you hanging or make you quietly introspective, but Playing For Change: Peace Through Music is a film that lingers in your musical soul.

Bill Plympton's World Premiere of an animation feature, Idiots & Angels, a dark comedy about a man battling for his soul.

Cynthia Wade, Director of Academy Award-winning Short Documentary, Freeheld, talks about elements that make up a "Cynthia Wade" stamp on her work, specifically a story told through the eyes of a strong female character.

A conversation with Melissa Leo in her element at the foothills of the Catskills where mystical energies make things happen.

My co-host, Thom Powers, Documentary Programmer for Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), discuss Manufactured Landscapes, Jennifer Baichwal's portrayal of renowned photographer, Edward Burtynsky as he composed his large-format photos that combine global social issues within an epic sweep.

Margaret Brown's Order of Myths unlocks ornately embellished doors drawing us into an exotic world of secret, mystic societies, both black and white, that staunchly cling to centuries-old traditions.