My returning to work on a book about Iranian cinema that I’d put aside years ago, followed by the decision to produce the book independently, and then the choice of supporting this effort with an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign were all things set in motion by one terrible event: the death of Abbas Kiarostami.
That happened last July 4 in Paris, and it was a profound shock. I knew Kiarostami had been hospitalized for months in Tehran, but gleaned that he had turned a corner and was on the mend. Though it seemed his recuperation would take months, he had already mapped out plans for a new feature to be shot in China, and even in his hospital bed was putting finishing touches on the partly computer-generated feature “24 Frames” (which premiered in Cannes and will have a U.S. opening in the coming months).
His unexpected death was a jolt not...
That happened last July 4 in Paris, and it was a profound shock. I knew Kiarostami had been hospitalized for months in Tehran, but gleaned that he had turned a corner and was on the mend. Though it seemed his recuperation would take months, he had already mapped out plans for a new feature to be shot in China, and even in his hospital bed was putting finishing touches on the partly computer-generated feature “24 Frames” (which premiered in Cannes and will have a U.S. opening in the coming months).
His unexpected death was a jolt not...
- 7/4/2017
- by Godfrey Cheshire
- Indiewire
This year's Ebertfest opens today and runs through Sunday, and we're collecting notes on the lineup: Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Godfrey Cheshire's Moving Midway, James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour, Céline Sciamma's Girlhood, George Fitzmaurice's The Son of the Sheik, Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale, Damián Szifrón's Wild Tales, Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, Alan Polsky and Gabe Polsky's The Motel Life, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes and Ethan Hawke's Seymour: An Introduction. » - David Hudson...
- 4/15/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
This year's Ebertfest opens today and runs through Sunday, and we're collecting notes on the lineup: Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au langage, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Godfrey Cheshire's Moving Midway, James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour, Céline Sciamma's Girlhood, George Fitzmaurice's The Son of the Sheik, Robert De Niro's A Bronx Tale, Damián Szifrón's Wild Tales, Pawel Pawlikowski's Ida, Alan Polsky and Gabe Polsky's The Motel Life, Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes and Ethan Hawke's Seymour: An Introduction. » - David Hudson...
- 4/15/2015
- Keyframe
Jesse Eisenberg and Jason Segel in “The End of the Tour”
Champaign, Illinois isn’t quite Cannes or Park City, Utah, but the film festival hosted there annually in Roger Ebert’s name is as charming as they come. Now Ebertfest, in its 17th year, has announced its lineup of films prior to its four day run in April.
It was previously announced that Jean-Luc Godard’s acclaimed Goodbye to Language 3D would be the opening night film. Now Chaz Ebert has penned a touching love letter to her late husband detailing the choices they’ve made for the festival in his absence.
Among them are James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence, Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood, and special screenings of A Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro and the 1926 silent film The Son of the Sheik...
Champaign, Illinois isn’t quite Cannes or Park City, Utah, but the film festival hosted there annually in Roger Ebert’s name is as charming as they come. Now Ebertfest, in its 17th year, has announced its lineup of films prior to its four day run in April.
It was previously announced that Jean-Luc Godard’s acclaimed Goodbye to Language 3D would be the opening night film. Now Chaz Ebert has penned a touching love letter to her late husband detailing the choices they’ve made for the festival in his absence.
Among them are James Ponsoldt’s The End of the Tour, Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes, Roy Andersson’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting On Existence, Céline Sciamma’s Girlhood, and special screenings of A Bronx Tale with Robert De Niro and the 1926 silent film The Son of the Sheik...
- 3/26/2015
- by Brian Welk
- SoundOnSight
A running theme in SXSW is urbanites returning to the land. Either that or as sometimes happens when you’re seeing 3-6 screenings a day, unconscious themes never intended by the programmers immerge. Eating Alabama, a first-person documentary by Andrew Beck Grace, follows Grace and his wife, as they return to Alabama and start a year-long project to eat only locally sourced Alabama foods. The problem is this way of life has disappeared.
Structured as an essay film, Grace is a likeable narrator, opening the film on a hunting expedition; he explains he is uncomfortable holding a gun. The Graces do not restrict themselves to vegetables, although they do enlist two friends Joe and Sarah, also likeable figures, and start growing their own foods, even going so far as to plant a victory garden.
Along the journey, which descends into madness as the young couples travel on an illogical shopping...
Structured as an essay film, Grace is a likeable narrator, opening the film on a hunting expedition; he explains he is uncomfortable holding a gun. The Graces do not restrict themselves to vegetables, although they do enlist two friends Joe and Sarah, also likeable figures, and start growing their own foods, even going so far as to plant a victory garden.
Along the journey, which descends into madness as the young couples travel on an illogical shopping...
- 3/12/2012
- by jpraup@gmail.com (thefilmstage.com)
- The Film Stage
By Michael Atkinson
Say it again -- there's a film inside every family, and all you need is the head and heart to find it. (That is, you don't need to be the cursed Great Neck residents of "Capturing the Friedmans" or "Tarnation"'s Jonathan Caouette, and in some ways, it'd better for us all if you aren't.) Film journalist Godfrey Cheshire's "Moving Midway" (2007) has a deep ditch of historical soil to dig, but it's not a personal-regional family doc that focuses on dysfunction or tragedy; rather, its position is ironic and aciduously nostalgic. Originally from North Carolina, Cheshire may well be the most universally liked personage in contemporary New York movie critic culture (notoriously a small pond with mean fish; disclosure-wise, he is a friend), and his film comes both bearing an enormous amount of good will and receiving the same. I can't untie the extra-cinematic humanity from the film's threads,...
Say it again -- there's a film inside every family, and all you need is the head and heart to find it. (That is, you don't need to be the cursed Great Neck residents of "Capturing the Friedmans" or "Tarnation"'s Jonathan Caouette, and in some ways, it'd better for us all if you aren't.) Film journalist Godfrey Cheshire's "Moving Midway" (2007) has a deep ditch of historical soil to dig, but it's not a personal-regional family doc that focuses on dysfunction or tragedy; rather, its position is ironic and aciduously nostalgic. Originally from North Carolina, Cheshire may well be the most universally liked personage in contemporary New York movie critic culture (notoriously a small pond with mean fish; disclosure-wise, he is a friend), and his film comes both bearing an enormous amount of good will and receiving the same. I can't untie the extra-cinematic humanity from the film's threads,...
- 2/17/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
Say it again -- there's a film inside every family, and all you need is the head and heart to find it. (That is, you don't need to be the cursed Great Neck residents of "Capturing the Friedmans" or "Tarnation"'s Jonathan Caouette, and in some ways, it'd better for us all if you aren't.) Film journalist Godfrey Cheshire's "Moving Midway" (2007) has a deep ditch of historical soil to dig, but it's not a personal-regional family doc that focuses on dysfunction or tragedy; rather, its position is ironic and aciduously nostalgic. Originally from North Carolina, Cheshire may well be the most universally liked personage in contemporary New York movie critic culture (notoriously a small pond with mean fish; disclosure-wise, he is a friend), and his film comes both bearing an enormous amount of good will and receiving the same. I can't untie the extra-cinematic humanity from the film's threads,...
- 2/17/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
Moving Midway Directed/Written by: Godfrey Cheshire Cast: Charles Hinton, Elizabeth Silver Cheshire, Al Hinton, Dena Williams Silver Running Time: 1 hr 38 min Rating: Unrated Plot: New York filmmaker and critic Godfrey Cheshire juxtaposes the enduring myth and romance of the antebellum Southern plantation against his brother’s attempts to physically move the actual house, Midway, to a less urban location. Who’s It For? Civil War buffs and anyone who feels connected to the Southern identity. Expectations: I always expect to enjoy documentaries. Scorecard (0-10) Cast: The people in the film are like people you've had a brief introduction to at a picnic. They are likable, but you forget their names immediately afterward and you spend the rest of the afternoon referring to them as "whathisname over there...no, the guy eating the pickle." Further convoluting the problem is that some...
- 12/12/2008
- The Scorecard Review
When they put a high way through the front yard of an antebellum North Carolina manse called Midway, its owners decided to pick up and move - and take the house with them.
The oddly compelling documentary "Moving Midway" is an engineering tale combined with a family history and a ghost story.
Former New York Press film critic Godfrey Cheshire, who made the film, remembers happy childhood days spent in the house, which is today owned by his cousin Charlie. He uses the house as a wedge to break open...
The oddly compelling documentary "Moving Midway" is an engineering tale combined with a family history and a ghost story.
Former New York Press film critic Godfrey Cheshire, who made the film, remembers happy childhood days spent in the house, which is today owned by his cousin Charlie. He uses the house as a wedge to break open...
- 9/12/2008
- by By KYLE SMITH
- NYPost.com
By Neil Pedley
Some might be quick to dismiss this week as part of the post-summer lull, but others might see it as a week of films that have been years in the making . it's been 13 since the now re-paired Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were last on screen together, while Diane English's remake of "The Women" took 12 to make it to the big screen, and the Flaming Lips' "Christmas on Mars" spent a mere seven years in the offing. As for fans of the Coen brothers, it only seems like forever since "No Country for Old Men."
"Able Danger"
Another week, another 9/11 conspiracy film, this one actually getting released on the seventh anniversary of the tragedy. Loosely inspired by "The Maltese Falcon," this Dv noir offers something of a date movie for far-left conspiracy theorists who take issue with perceived abuse of power on the part of our government.
Some might be quick to dismiss this week as part of the post-summer lull, but others might see it as a week of films that have been years in the making . it's been 13 since the now re-paired Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were last on screen together, while Diane English's remake of "The Women" took 12 to make it to the big screen, and the Flaming Lips' "Christmas on Mars" spent a mere seven years in the offing. As for fans of the Coen brothers, it only seems like forever since "No Country for Old Men."
"Able Danger"
Another week, another 9/11 conspiracy film, this one actually getting released on the seventh anniversary of the tragedy. Loosely inspired by "The Maltese Falcon," this Dv noir offers something of a date movie for far-left conspiracy theorists who take issue with perceived abuse of power on the part of our government.
- 9/8/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
First Run acquires 'Midway' rights
First Run Features has acquired North American rights to Godfrey Cheshire's autobiographical Southern plantation docu "Moving Midway".
The former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle's film, which premiered at this spring's New Director/New Films fest, chronicles the relocation of his family's North Carolina plantation and their doscovery of African-American relatives.
The film will be released in New York on Sept. 12, followed by a national platform release.
The former chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle's film, which premiered at this spring's New Director/New Films fest, chronicles the relocation of his family's North Carolina plantation and their doscovery of African-American relatives.
The film will be released in New York on Sept. 12, followed by a national platform release.
- 6/11/2008
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
- Ioncinema.com presents: Best of FestsFULL Frame FESTIVALWhere: April 12 to 15, 2007 Counting Down: updateCountdownClock('April 12, 2007'); Location: Durham, North Carolina - United States Official Website: fullframefest.org/What: Founded in 1998 by Nancy Buirski, and now recognized as the premier documentary film festival in the United States by both The New York Times and indieWIRE, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival celebrates the power and artistry of documentary film. The festival is an important arena for documentary filmmakers — a place where they can showcase their work theatrically in an environment that stimulates conversation and community between other filmmakers, industry executives and the general public. Sections: (Click for more info!) Full Schedule: Power of Ten: Special Programming: Panel & Workshops8 Bit - Marcin Ramocki, Justin Strawhand Alice Sees The Light - Ariana GersteinAngels in the Dust - Louise HogarthThe Ants - Kaoru IkeyaBanished - Marco WilliamsBeyond Selinunte - Salvo CucciaBlockade - Sergei Loznitsa
- 4/11/2007
- IONCINEMA.com
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