Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kelly Rohrbach will make a big splash when she takes over Pamela Anderson‘s iconic role of C.J. Parker in the upcoming remake of Baywatch. Rohrbach was honored with the Rising Star Award at the 2016 Maui Film Festival on June 15, 2016, which “honors a young film artist whose every role […]
Undue Burden: Director Dawn Porter on ‘Trapped’
For years, women’s health rights in the U.S. have been steadily eroding, in large part due to restrictive laws passed by conservative state governments regulating abortion clinics, known as TRAP laws (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers), particularly in the South. While cloaked in faux concern for women’s health on the part of legislators, these laws […]
Sundance Interview: ‘The Fits’ Director Anna Rose Holmer & Star Royalty Hightower
A fresh new female voice on the independent film scene, Anna Rose Holmer made a quiet splash at Sundance with her dreamy, evocative and wholly mesmerizing debut feature THE FITS. The film’s US premiere in the NEXT section followed its international bow at the 2015 Venice Film Festival, in a partnership with the prestigious Venice […]
Marya Cohn on Exploring the Nexus of Sex and Power in ‘The Girl in the Book’
With a few rare exceptions (The Diary of a Teenage Girl is the latest example that comes to mind), the intricacies of the developing sexuality of girls and women has been gratuitously simplified on screen, often by male directors with an innately outsider perspective. That’s part of the reason it’s so refreshing to see writer/director Marya Cohn’s new […]
Sundance 2015: Directors Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo on ‘SEMBENE!”s Rich Legacy
Though it’s a cliché for a Sundance Film Festival premiere to be called “a labor of love,” never has the term been more apt than with Sembene!, Jason Silverman and Samba Gadjigo’s impassioned biopic of Ousmane Sembène, “the father of African cinema.” Samba Gadjigo is a Senegalese man who credits Sembène’s early writings with helping a teenage Gadjigo find […]
Sundance 2015: Morgan Neville & Robert Gordon Rescue Vidal/Buckley Debates from Obscurity in ‘Best of Enemies’
Largely forgotten by history, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley, Jr. squared off in a series of crackling debates on ABC in 1968, which scored high ratings, got the country talking, and left both men forever scarred. When you read the description of Best of Enemies, which had its world premiere this week in the […]
Sundance 2015: Charles Poekel, Kentucker Audley & Hannah Gross Talk Brooklyn Indie ‘Christmas, Again’
Charles Poekel‘s debut feature, screening this week at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, offers a melancholic slice-of-life look at a Brooklyn neighborhood holiday staple: the open-24/7 Christmas tree stand. When you live in New York City, there are certain hallmarks that signify the beginning of the holiday season, chief among them the singular smell of […]
‘Call For Help’ Features Renegade Relief Workers in Post-Earthquake Haiti
“That’s why we do what we do.” — Global D.I.R.T., Haiti, 2010 Five years ago, the already-impoverished island country of Haiti was besieged by a terribly destructive earthquake, killing over 200,000 people and leaving the country in desperation. Basic human necessities such as food, water and shelter were immediately scarce, and even though numerous NGOs and humanitarian groups quickly […]