Fierce, committed and above all, tough — these are the words that collaborators use to describe producer Robin O’Hara, a longtime fixture of the New York independent film scene, who died suddenly last week after complications from cancer treatment.
When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.
As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”
Echoing Wu,...
When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.
As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”
Echoing Wu,...
- 3/20/2017
- by Anthony Kaufman
- Indiewire
The twenty first entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Chantal Akerman's Tomorrow We Move (2004) from March 8 - April 7, 2017 in most countries around the world. Tomorrow We Move (2004) is Chantal Akerman’s most underrated film. A recent, ambiguous “tribute” to the director in Cineaste magazine dismissed most of her work in fiction filmmaking beyond the 1970s, and was especially down on those fictions involving music, comedy, love, passion, and obsession. So, into the bin go Night and Day (unmentioned in the article), Golden Eighties (“dated and silly”), La Captive (“elephantine, imitative, and strangely fake”), and Almayer’s Folly (sunk by that “terrible French actor Stanislas Merhar”). And Tomorrow we Move? It and A Couch in New York (1996) are merely “exercises that Akerman had to get out of her system.”There is frequently an element of self-portraiture in Akerman’s work,...
- 3/8/2017
- MUBI
Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Chantal Akerman (1950-2015) - Belgian Filmmaker. She made one of the most famous feminist films of all time, Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (see below). Her other notable works include The Meetings of Anna, News From Home, Hotel Monterey, On Tour with Pina Bausch, A Couch in New York, From the East, From the Other Side and her latest documentary, No Home Movie, about her late mother. She committed suicide on October 5...
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- 11/3/2015
- by Christopher Campbell
- Movies.com
Chantal Akerman's groundbreaking film Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles
The Belgian filmmaker, artist and academic Chantal Akerman has died at the age of 65. Known for singular woks like Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and A Couch In New York, she carved out a place in the industry at a time when it was exceedingly difficult for women and for experimental directors alike, and she has been cited as a major influence by the likes of Gus Van Sant.
Having lost her grandparents and come close to losing her mother in Auschwitz, Akerman faced significant barriers in her early life, but she managed to study at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion and made her first film, Saute Ma Ville, at the age of 18. She produced her most famous works in the Seventies while living in New York, where she was...
The Belgian filmmaker, artist and academic Chantal Akerman has died at the age of 65. Known for singular woks like Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and A Couch In New York, she carved out a place in the industry at a time when it was exceedingly difficult for women and for experimental directors alike, and she has been cited as a major influence by the likes of Gus Van Sant.
Having lost her grandparents and come close to losing her mother in Auschwitz, Akerman faced significant barriers in her early life, but she managed to study at the Institut National Supérieur des Arts du Spectacle et des Techniques de Diffusion and made her first film, Saute Ma Ville, at the age of 18. She produced her most famous works in the Seventies while living in New York, where she was...
- 10/6/2015
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Academy has announced the new class of invited members for 2014 and, as is typical, many of which are among last year's nominees, which includes Barkhad Abdi, Michael Fassbender, Sally Hawkins, Mads Mikkelsen, Lupita Nyong'o and June Squibb in the Actors branch not to mention curious additions such as Josh Hutcherson, Rob Riggle and Jason Statham, but, okay. The Directors branch adds Jay and Mark Duplass along with Jean-Marc Vallee, Denis Villeneuve and Thomas Vinterberg. I didn't do an immediate tally of male to female additions or other demographics, but at first glance it seems to be a wide spread batch of new additions on all fronts. The Academy is also clearly attempting to aggressively bump up the demographics as this is the second year in a row where they have added a large number of new members, well over the average of 133 new members from 2004 to 2012. As far as...
- 6/26/2014
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 271 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures.
Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.
“This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”
The 2014 invitees are:
Actors
Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,...
Those who accept the invitations will be the only additions to the Academy’s membership in 2014.
“This year’s class of invitees represents some of the most talented, creative and passionate filmmakers working in our industry today,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Their contributions to film have entertained audiences around the world, and we are proud to welcome them to the Academy.”
The 2014 invitees are:
Actors
Barkhad Abdi – “Captain Phillips”
Clancy Brown – “The Hurricane,” “The Shawshank Redeption”
Paul Dano – “12 Years a Slave,” “Prisoners”
Michael Fassbender – “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame”
Ben Foster – “Lone Survivor,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”
Beth Grant – “The Artist,” “No Country for Old Men”
Clark Gregg – “Much Ado about Nothing,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Sally Hawkins – “Blue Jasmine,...
- 6/26/2014
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o of 12 Years a Slave were two of the 271 artists and industry leaders invited to become members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which determines nominations and winners at the annual Oscars. The entire list of Academy membership—which numbers about 6,000—isn’t public information so the annual invitation list is often the best indication of the artists involved in the prestigious awards process. It’s worth noting that invitations need to be accepted in order for artists to become members; some artists, like two-time Best Actor winner Sean Penn, have declined membership over the years.
- 6/26/2014
- by Jeff Labrecque
- EW - Inside Movies
Pop quiz: What do Chris Rock, Claire Denis, Eddie Vedder and Josh Hutcherson all have in common? Answer: They could all be Oscar voters very soon. The annual Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences invitation list always makes for interesting reading, shedding light on just how large and far-reaching the group's membership is -- or could be, depending on who accepts their invitations. This year, 271 individuals have been asked to join AMPAS, meaning every one of them could contribute to next year's Academy Awards balloting -- and it's as diverse a list as they've ever assembled. Think the Academy consists entirely of fusty retired white dudes? Not if recent Best Original Song nominee Pharrell Williams takes them up on their offer. Think it's all just a Hollywood insiders' game? Not if French arthouse titans Chantal Akerman and Olivier Assayas join the party. It's a list that subverts expectation at every turn.
- 6/26/2014
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
While Chantal Akerman's early works—Le chambre, Hotel Monterey, News from Home, Je tu il elle, and Les rendez-vous d'Anna—have been chronologically grouped based on her sojourn in New York City during the 1970s and, consequently, her exposure to the structuralist aesthetic of artists like Michael Snow and Hollis Frampton (and the local experimental film community that revolved around Jonas Mekas's filmmakers cooperative), her adoption of the fixed camera in these films, nevertheless, suggests an approach that intuitively runs counter to the idea of a static shot, paradoxically conveying a sense of impermanence, restlessness, and mutability within the stasis.
In Le chambre (1972), Akerman subverts the inherent limitations posed by a stationary camera position by rotating the camera 360-degrees within the fixed axis of the tripod to create an unbroken panoramic shot of her studio apartment, before reversing direction and alternately sweeping an arc formed by the vertex...
In Le chambre (1972), Akerman subverts the inherent limitations posed by a stationary camera position by rotating the camera 360-degrees within the fixed axis of the tripod to create an unbroken panoramic shot of her studio apartment, before reversing direction and alternately sweeping an arc formed by the vertex...
- 2/8/2010
- MUBI
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