Karl Bushby Attempts 36,000 Mile Trek in The Walk Around the World
Karl Bushby had two rules when he set out to walk an unbroken path around the world: No form of transport to advance, and he couldn’t go home, to Hull, England, until he arrived on foot.
He made this pact with himself nearly two decades ago, and Bushby's still walking. He's walked across 25 countries, over seven mountain ranges, from the southern tip of Argentina up through South and Central America,
Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of V-E Day Through Film
May 8th marks the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe (V-E Day). For those fortunate enough to be spending this Friday in the Washington, DC, an event call "Arsenal of Democracy: World War II Victory Capitol Flyover" will feature more than 40 vintage WWII aircraft flying over our nation’s Capitol between noon and 1 p.m. The path will start along the Potomac River; turn left at the Lincoln Memorial to follow Independence Avenue along the Mall,
From Robert Mugabe to Ray Liotta – That’s a Wrap at the Tribeca Film Festival
New York took center stage in the opening and closing films of the 14th annual Tribeca Film Festival, however the winning films rounded things out with stories from much further afield.
The Saturday Night Live documentary Live From New York! kicked off the proceedings, demonstrating how the landmark comedy show has both responded to the times and occasionally had a hand in shaping them over the 40 years it’s been on air.
Tribeca Recap: Code Looks at the Lack of Women in Computer Science
Why is there such a dearth of women in computer science and other high-tech fields? Director/producer Robin Hauser Reynolds searches for the answers in CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap, which made its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Two years ago Reynolds received a call from her daughter, who had become so discouraged by her male-dominated computer science classes at college (she was one of only two female students),
Tribeca 2015: Tim Blake Nelson on Writing/Directing/Producing Anesthesia
Writer/director Tim Blake Nelson’s ensemble drama Anesthesia premiered Wednesday night at the Tribeca Film Festival. A fitting setting for the New Yorker’s latest film about the intersecting lives of erudite city-dwellers who are united by a violent crime. The film, which explores the different ways we attempt to numb our pain, was filmed on location in New York, with an impressive cast of mostly New York-based actors, including Glenn Close, Sam Waterston, Gretchen Mol,
Stormtroopers, Snoopy & a Virtual Reese Witherspoon: Highlights From the 2015 Creativity Conference
Stormtroopers, Snoopy and a one-on-one audience with Reese Witherspoon—the 2015 Creativity Conference was manna for film buffs, tech geeks and policy wonks alike. The stormtroopers, unusually accommodating, were on hand to help conference goers create the ultimate selfie (the James Bond gun barrel backdrop, where one could get their photo taken against the iconic opening montage in the opening credits to Bond films, was also pretty awesome), ditto Snoopy, who offered as many fist-bumps as he did hugs.
Go Back to the Future With the Live Stream of 3rd Annual Creativity Conference
In Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly's trip in the DeLorean took him all the way to…October 21st, 2015. If that doesn't make you feel old, we envy you.
Today at the 3rd annual Creativity Conference, held at The Newseum in Washington. D.C., Microsoft researcher Sidhant Gupta and a former studio technology executive and indie filmmaker Howard Lukk will explore the zany, futuristic world of 2015 that Marty McFly encountered, one that revealed all sorts of surprising innovations —
Which Dinosaur Would You Fear The Most in New Jurassic World Trailer?
First of all, who in their right mind would get into one of those transparent orbs and go rolling off into a huge herd of dinosaurs? Tourists, will they ever learn? Anyway, this new Jurassic World trailer gives you a bevy of dinosaurs to fear, and the morbid question that popped into our heads was; which way you rather go if you had to be eaten by a dinosaur at this completely insane theme park?
Why NBA Star Serge Ibaka is the Son of the Congo
He would wake up at four in the morning to go running through the streets of Congo. He'd play as much basketball as he could, in old sneakers or barefoot, if need be. When his mom died and his dad was thrown in prison, he was kicked out of his uncle's house and lived on the streets, often sleeping in a parking lot. But Serge Ibaka never wavered in his commitment to make basketball his life. And when he did,
5 Interesting Choices Made by Cast & Crew in Skype Horror Unfriended
There are few things creepier in life than an unexplained, unwanted intrusion on our privacy. In the pre-internet era, the phone was the communication medium of choice for sadists to torture their victims in films. When a Stranger Calls (1979) revolves around that phone call from the titular stranger to a babysitter named Jill (Carol Kane), asking “have you checked the children?” Spoiler alert; the police trace the call and tell the babysitter the call is coming from inside the house.
Check-It Follows a DC Gang that Disproves Gay Clichés
Filmmakers Dana Flor and Toby Oppenheimer (The Nine Lives of Marion Barry) are relying on an Indiegogo crowdfunding platform to raise $60,000 to finish Check It, their documentary about a gay gang in one of Washington D.C.’s most violent neighborhoods. The campaign ends on April 4 — and as of this writing they have raised a bit more than $53,000 — or approximately 89 percent of their goal.
The film,
Actress Katharine Emmer Wanted A Life in Color, so she Became a Director
NYU graduate Katharine Emmer looked to have a bright acting career in front of her. She landed an episode of Desperate Housewives; she had a role in indie film Puccini for Beginners, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. At NYU she was the recipient of the Annual Tisch Artistic Achievement Award. But even with her growing resume, she was not a full-time working actor;
New Trailer for Straight Outta Compton Raw & Exciting
The new Straight Outta Compton trailer has all the power of the movement that inspired it. N.W.A. was the musical progenitor of a new, and largely ignored, raw urban voice. Even in this short clip, we get a taste of the story of an America that we don’t read about in many history books, but nonetheless was a lived experience for millions. For N.W.A., including Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and Eazy-E, their “art was a reflection of their reality.”
Insurgent Producer Todd Lieberman on Getting a Big Film Done Quick
Insurgent stormed into theaters last Friday, the second film adaptation of Vernoica Roth’s “Divergent” novels, starring Shailene Woodley as the resourceful, courageous Tris. Set in a dystopian future Chicago obliterated by war, the people are separated into personality-based factions and ruled by the increasingly iron fist of Jeanine (Kate Winslet). Tris, as the first film in the series was titled, is a "Divergent," meaning she's a little bit country and a little bit rock-n-roll and doesn't comfortably fit into any one faction.
Has it Really Been 20 Years Since Toy Story?
Given the length of the lines (at least 100 people were turned away at the door) for South by Southwest’s, “Infinity & Beyond: Pixar & 20 Years Since Toy Story” panel, many of us have a friend and clearly miss our old Buzz Lightyear and Woody the cowboy toys. But this ‘behind the scenes’ look into the Pixar films that made so many of us animation junkies was the next best thing.
SXSW 2015: Alison Bechdel, Joshua Openheimer & Maria Hinojosa talk Storytelling
Maria Hinojosa, the executive producer and anchor of Latino USA on NPR, led a discussion between two leading lights in their respective fields; graphic memoirist Alison Bechdel and documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer. Bechdel’s last two works, the groundbreaking “Fun Home,” about her childhood and, more specifically, her closeted father, and “Are You My Mother?” which explores her relationship with her mother through the prism of psychoanalytic theory. Oppenheimer’s last two films, The Act of Killing (2012) and his latest,
SXSW 2015 Preview: Women to Watch
The programming at SXSW has become more robust each and every year. Part of the appeal of the festival's selections is the wide representation of female filmmakers, who have produced an especially rich mix of films for this year's slate.There are far too many filmmakers to chose from, so here's just a very quick peek at some of these talented women and the projects they've brought down to Austin.
Hannah Fidell 6 Years
Hannah Fidell is back after winning the Chicken and Egg award here in 2013 for her film A Teacher.
Bert Marcus on his Knockout Documentary Champs
As star-studded as the front row of any primetime heavyweight fight, the boxing doc Champs calls on A-listers from Mark Wahlberg and Ron Howard to Denzel Washington and Mary J. Blige to weigh in on one of the most brutal sports in history. Beautifully shot reenactments and first-hand stories are interspersed with real footage of some of the most famous brawls of all-time, making for a riveting ride. But this isn't just any sports documentary —
Inherent Risk: Editor and Producer Mathilde Bonnefoy on Making Citizenfour
When documentarian Laura Poitras asked Edward Snowden why he had chosen her, out of all the potential people to disclose his information to, he replied, “I didn’t. You chose yourself.” At the time Snowden was writing to her as “citizen four,” and for months Poitras alone knew about his trove of information on the N.S.A.'s surveillance program.
Eventually, as we learn in Citizenfour, the Oscar-nominated documentary that culminated from her relationship with Snowden,
Sundance 2015: Talking to Cassian Elwes, Co-Producer of Inaugural Horizon Awards
The Sundance Film Festival has made a few recent announcements that speak to a fresh commitment to help spread some of the festival’s opportunities around. The first was a new tool to help lesser-known filmmakers get their work seen by using a new service, Quiver Digital. As reported by Mashable, Quiver Digital is a distribution dashboard that allows users to push their films to Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Google Play and Sony Entertainment Network,
