“Plastic People” is one of those essential state-of-our-world documentaries. If and when it gets a release (it premiered this week at SXSW), I urge you to see it, to ponder its message, to consider what it’s saying about how microplastics — plastic particles that are less than 5mm in length, though the key ones may be microscopic — have invaded our food, our water, our air, and, quite specifically, our bodies.
For decades, it’s been a trope of environmental filmmaking to showcase the ugliness of landfills, and to ask where all the plastic we throw out is ultimately going to go. “Plastic People” has some of that. Yet its portrait of what plastic is doing to us is even more distressingly advanced. Yes, plastic is hell on the environment (no small thing), but the thrust of the film’s message is that it’s also toxifying us from within. It...
For decades, it’s been a trope of environmental filmmaking to showcase the ugliness of landfills, and to ask where all the plastic we throw out is ultimately going to go. “Plastic People” has some of that. Yet its portrait of what plastic is doing to us is even more distressingly advanced. Yes, plastic is hell on the environment (no small thing), but the thrust of the film’s message is that it’s also toxifying us from within. It...
- 3/14/2024
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Exclusive: Ahead of its world premiere at SXSW on Saturday (March 9), feature doc Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics has found an international distributor in the UK’s Rainmaker Content.
The 90-minute film from Canada’s White Pine Pictures investigates the global addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics to human health. The film is an official selection of the SXSW Festival 2024 Documentary Spotlight.
Rainmaker has bagged worldwide sales rights. Two of its key execs, Greg Phillips and Vicky Ryan, have worked with White Pine execs for almost 20 years. While at Kew Media Distribution (Kmd) and Content Media, they represented White Pine titles such as hard-driving TV drama series The Border; feature doc Toxic Beauty; and Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word is Power.
Plastic People has been positioned as the follow-up film to Toxic Beauty.
The synopsis for Plastic People notes that...
The 90-minute film from Canada’s White Pine Pictures investigates the global addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics to human health. The film is an official selection of the SXSW Festival 2024 Documentary Spotlight.
Rainmaker has bagged worldwide sales rights. Two of its key execs, Greg Phillips and Vicky Ryan, have worked with White Pine execs for almost 20 years. While at Kew Media Distribution (Kmd) and Content Media, they represented White Pine titles such as hard-driving TV drama series The Border; feature doc Toxic Beauty; and Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word is Power.
Plastic People has been positioned as the follow-up film to Toxic Beauty.
The synopsis for Plastic People notes that...
- 3/7/2024
- by Jesse Whittock and Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
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,...
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,...
- 1/10/2024
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Bollywood meets Nollywood. Well, not really. Specifically, an Indian director directs a film about the Nigerian film industry, known to the world as Nollywood - one of the 3 largest film industries in the world (in terms of output), right alongside Hollywood, and, of course, Bollywood. Except Samir Mallal, the co-director of "Nollywood Babylon" (along with Ben Addelman) isn't a Bollywood director - rather a Canadian of Indian descent. However, I couldn't resist making the transcontinental connection, if only for effect. Although Mallal (who I learned was very much connected to his native country's film industry) and Addelman, while definitely seeking to...
- 8/14/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Bollywood meets Nollywood. Well, not really. Specifically, an Indian director directs a film about the Nigerian film industry, known to the world as Nollywood - one of the 3 largest film industries in the world (in terms of output), right alongside Hollywood, and, of course, Bollywood. Except Samir Mallal, the co-director of Nollywood Babylon (along with Ben Addelman) isn't a Bollywood director - rather a Canadian of Indian descent. However, I couldn't resist making the transcontinental connection, if only for effect. Athough Mallal (who I learned was very much connected to his native country's film industry) and Addelman, while definitely seeking to...
- 9/20/2012
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Each week within this column we strive to pair the latest in theatrical releases to worthwhile titles currently available on Netflix Instant Watch. This week we offer alternatives to Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, and Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel.
This weekend a trio of song-singing chipmunks will do box office battle with a charming super sleuth and the ultimate Hollywood rebel. But if the weather outside’s too frightful for you to venture out, enjoy these selected streaming adventures that feature beguiling gumshoes, screwball siblings and brilliant and bizarre showbiz docs — all from the comfort of your couch!
The to sequel Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes has the dapper detective (Robert Downey Jr.) and his devoted Watson (Jude Law) chasing down Holmes’ malevolent nemesis Moriarty (Jared Harris). Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams co-star.
Screen Sherlocks through the ages:
Sherlock Holmes: Dressed to Kill (1946) Basil Rathbone,...
This weekend a trio of song-singing chipmunks will do box office battle with a charming super sleuth and the ultimate Hollywood rebel. But if the weather outside’s too frightful for you to venture out, enjoy these selected streaming adventures that feature beguiling gumshoes, screwball siblings and brilliant and bizarre showbiz docs — all from the comfort of your couch!
The to sequel Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes has the dapper detective (Robert Downey Jr.) and his devoted Watson (Jude Law) chasing down Holmes’ malevolent nemesis Moriarty (Jared Harris). Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams co-star.
Screen Sherlocks through the ages:
Sherlock Holmes: Dressed to Kill (1946) Basil Rathbone,...
- 12/15/2011
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
On October 1st, Nigeria will celebrate its 50th year of independence from Britain. During the month, and through the autumn, there will be a sseries of events to mark Nigerian culture, the first being Nollywood Now!
Despite the prolificacy of nollywood, the festival will screen a total of just six films, to be shown one a day from Wednesday 6th to Tuesday 12th October.
For long-term nollywood fans, there’s be nothing new to see but the festival will be a chance for them to get together and celebrate Nigerian film in a public space. For those not so versed in nollywood, the festival will introduce the joy and excitement of Nigerian film to new audiences.
The schedule is as follows:
Wed 6: Nollywood Babylon (Dir: Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal, Canada 2008. 75 minutes)
A documentary feature which captures the Nigerian film industry in its social and political context.
Thu 7:...
Despite the prolificacy of nollywood, the festival will screen a total of just six films, to be shown one a day from Wednesday 6th to Tuesday 12th October.
For long-term nollywood fans, there’s be nothing new to see but the festival will be a chance for them to get together and celebrate Nigerian film in a public space. For those not so versed in nollywood, the festival will introduce the joy and excitement of Nigerian film to new audiences.
The schedule is as follows:
Wed 6: Nollywood Babylon (Dir: Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal, Canada 2008. 75 minutes)
A documentary feature which captures the Nigerian film industry in its social and political context.
Thu 7:...
- 9/25/2010
- by MsWOO
- ShadowAndAct
Mubi, for the non-cinephile, is nothing more than either a word that your neice or nephew made up, or for the geography geek out there, it’s a city in Nigeria.
However, that is hopefully going to change with both the recent name change of the website formerly known as The Auteurs, and now according to a press release, a brand new release from Lorber Films is going to have Nigeria’s film culture on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
The distributor is set to release the “buoyant and energetic expose” on the booming Nigerian film industry, a documentary called Nollywood Babylon, on DVD. The film began playing the festival circuit in 2008, and hit Us theaters last year, now getting its first release on DVD.
Nigeria currently boasts the fastest growing cinema industry in the world and this documentary hopes to enlighten those of us who haven’t had...
However, that is hopefully going to change with both the recent name change of the website formerly known as The Auteurs, and now according to a press release, a brand new release from Lorber Films is going to have Nigeria’s film culture on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
The distributor is set to release the “buoyant and energetic expose” on the booming Nigerian film industry, a documentary called Nollywood Babylon, on DVD. The film began playing the festival circuit in 2008, and hit Us theaters last year, now getting its first release on DVD.
Nigeria currently boasts the fastest growing cinema industry in the world and this documentary hopes to enlighten those of us who haven’t had...
- 6/7/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
Hooray for Nollywood! That's the thriving film industry in Nigeria, which churns out 2,500 movies a year, most of them made for less than $10,000 each. That makes Nigeria's movie biz the third largest in the world, behind Hollywood and Bollywood.
With titles such as "Highway to the Grave," "Divine Twins" and "Stronger Than Pain," the movies are strictly for video sales, since the only three functioning movie houses in the capital Lagos, population 14 million, don't project local fare.
The little-known story of Nigeria's movie success is examined in "Nollywood Babylon," a fascinating documentary by Canadians Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal.
With titles such as "Highway to the Grave," "Divine Twins" and "Stronger Than Pain," the movies are strictly for video sales, since the only three functioning movie houses in the capital Lagos, population 14 million, don't project local fare.
The little-known story of Nigeria's movie success is examined in "Nollywood Babylon," a fascinating documentary by Canadians Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal.
- 7/3/2009
- NYPost.com
After Hollywood and Bollywood there's... Nollywood? Nigeria's movie industry is, no kidding, the third largest in the world. Funded by electronics merchants and sold on DVD in rag-tag markets in Lagos among other covetable locations, the country's 2,500 annual productions are generally made for less than $10,000 apiece.
Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal's new documentary, Nollywood Babylon, takes a look at the "pop-pop-pop" style of filmmaking that has been made Nollywood the fastest-growing film industry since it sprung up in the early 90's.
Cheaper than Telenova and just as much an acquired taste, Nollywood probably won't be taking the Us by storm anytime soon. But Nollywood Babylon serves up a few bona fide curiosities, including the incredibly popular pint-size acting duo Aki and Pawpaw (Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Kenneth Iheme). Our first thought too: very YouTube-able. Check them out in this list of our favorite gonzo Nollywood trailers:...
Ben Addelman and Samir Mallal's new documentary, Nollywood Babylon, takes a look at the "pop-pop-pop" style of filmmaking that has been made Nollywood the fastest-growing film industry since it sprung up in the early 90's.
Cheaper than Telenova and just as much an acquired taste, Nollywood probably won't be taking the Us by storm anytime soon. But Nollywood Babylon serves up a few bona fide curiosities, including the incredibly popular pint-size acting duo Aki and Pawpaw (Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Kenneth Iheme). Our first thought too: very YouTube-able. Check them out in this list of our favorite gonzo Nollywood trailers:...
- 7/2/2009
- Interview Magazine
While much of the indie film community has been focused on SXSW, everyone else kept busy making deals, programming festivals, and releasing trailers. Indie Roundup presents an overview of what's been happening during the past week.
Indies Online. Our friends at SnagFilms announced a deal to provide a portion of of their library to Hulu for online distribution. Best known for offering free clips and TV episodes, Hulu is launching a new documentary film section. The SnagFilms library now features 600 docs available for free streaming. Both services remain Us only, which I know is frustrating for our readers in Canada and the rest of the world. However, both services intend to expand to international streaming, which can't come soon enough to really expand the online audience for docs.
Deals. Emma Franz's Intangible Asset #82, which is playing at SXSW, and Ben Addelman and Samar Mallal's Nollywood Babylon, which played at Toronto and Sundance,...
Indies Online. Our friends at SnagFilms announced a deal to provide a portion of of their library to Hulu for online distribution. Best known for offering free clips and TV episodes, Hulu is launching a new documentary film section. The SnagFilms library now features 600 docs available for free streaming. Both services remain Us only, which I know is frustrating for our readers in Canada and the rest of the world. However, both services intend to expand to international streaming, which can't come soon enough to really expand the online audience for docs.
Deals. Emma Franz's Intangible Asset #82, which is playing at SXSW, and Ben Addelman and Samar Mallal's Nollywood Babylon, which played at Toronto and Sundance,...
- 3/19/2009
- by Peter Martin
- Cinematical
I am heading out the door and have no time to really dig into this, but here is the line-up for next year's 2009 Sundance Film Festival as reported by Variety. Dramatic Competition Adam, directed and written by Max Mayer ("Better Living"), about a slightly dysfunctional man's attempt at a relationship with an alluring new neighbor. Stars Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison. Amreeka, directed and written by Cherien Dabis, a drama examining the challenges faced by a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son upon moving to rural Illinois. With Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem. Arlen Faber, directed and written by John Hindman, about the intrusion of two strangers into the life of a famous reclusive author. With Jeff Daniels, Lauren Graham, Lou Pucci, Olivia Thirlby, Kat Dennings. Big Fan, directed and written by Robert Siegel (writer of "The Wrestler"), which hinges on the reaction of a...
- 12/3/2008
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Oh I'm so excited! One of the best fests of the year! The 2009 Sundance Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its U.S. and World competitions for dramatic and documentary features. The non-competitive sections including Premieres, Spectrum, Midnight, and New Frontiers will be announced December 4. Sundance unspools January 15-25, 2009 in Park City, Utah.
Check out the film list after the break. via Variety.
Dramatic Competition
* Adam (Max Mayer)
* Amreeka (Cherien Dabis)
* Big Fan (Robert Siegel)
* Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (John Krasinski)
* Cold Souls (Sophie Barthes)
* Dare (Adam Salky)
* Don’t Let Me Drown (Cruz Angeles)
* The Dream of the Romans (John Hindman)
* The Greatest (Shana Feste)
* Humpday (Lynn Shelton)
* Paper Heart (Nicolas Jasenovec)
* Peter and Vandy (Jay Dipietro)
* Push (Lee Daniels)
* Sin nombre (Cary Fukunaga)
* Taking Chance (Ross Katz)
* Toe to Toe (Emily Abt)
Documentary Competition
* Art and Copy (Doug Pray)
* Boy Interrupted (Dana Perry)
* Sergio (Greg Barker...
Check out the film list after the break. via Variety.
Dramatic Competition
* Adam (Max Mayer)
* Amreeka (Cherien Dabis)
* Big Fan (Robert Siegel)
* Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (John Krasinski)
* Cold Souls (Sophie Barthes)
* Dare (Adam Salky)
* Don’t Let Me Drown (Cruz Angeles)
* The Dream of the Romans (John Hindman)
* The Greatest (Shana Feste)
* Humpday (Lynn Shelton)
* Paper Heart (Nicolas Jasenovec)
* Peter and Vandy (Jay Dipietro)
* Push (Lee Daniels)
* Sin nombre (Cary Fukunaga)
* Taking Chance (Ross Katz)
* Toe to Toe (Emily Abt)
Documentary Competition
* Art and Copy (Doug Pray)
* Boy Interrupted (Dana Perry)
* Sergio (Greg Barker...
- 12/3/2008
- QuietEarth.us
U.S. Dramatic Competition
This year's 16 films were selected from 1,026 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.
Adam (Director-screenwriter: Max Mayer)
A strange and lyrical love story between a somewhat socially dysfunctional young man and the woman of his dreams. Cast: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison.
Amreeka (Director-screenwriter: Cherien Dabis)
When a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son move to rural Illinois at the outset of the Iraq war, they find their new lives replete with challenges. Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Alia Shawkat.
Big Fan (Director-screenwriter: Robert Siegel)
The world of a parking garage attendant who happens to be the New York Giants' biggest fan is turned upside down after an altercation with his favorite player. Cast: Patton Oswalt, Michael Rapaport, Kevin Corrigan, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Matt Servitto.
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (Director-screenwriter: John Krasinski)
When her boyfriend leaves with little explanation,...
This year's 16 films were selected from 1,026 submissions. Each film is a world premiere.
Adam (Director-screenwriter: Max Mayer)
A strange and lyrical love story between a somewhat socially dysfunctional young man and the woman of his dreams. Cast: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison.
Amreeka (Director-screenwriter: Cherien Dabis)
When a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son move to rural Illinois at the outset of the Iraq war, they find their new lives replete with challenges. Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Alia Shawkat.
Big Fan (Director-screenwriter: Robert Siegel)
The world of a parking garage attendant who happens to be the New York Giants' biggest fan is turned upside down after an altercation with his favorite player. Cast: Patton Oswalt, Michael Rapaport, Kevin Corrigan, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Matt Servitto.
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men (Director-screenwriter: John Krasinski)
When her boyfriend leaves with little explanation,...
- 12/3/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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