Movies/TV/Streaming

Photo by PoPville flickr user Rukasu1

The following was written by ‘Going to the Movies’ contributor and Mount Vernon Triangle resident, Catherine Taegel.

Filmfest D.C. isn’t the area’s only international film festival, it was the first and it’s certainly the biggest. This year the festival is 27 years old and movie showings span over two weeks and eight venues. Last week Tony Gittens, the Director and founder of the DC International Film Festival, released a statement regarding the future of Filmfest D.C. Unfortunately, for D.C. and the surrounding metropolitan area, right now the future looks grim.

Even with 23,000 filmgoers attending in 2011, economic times are tough and ticket sales don’t cover even half of Filmfest D.C.’s budget. Around 60% of D.C. Filmfest’s budget is made up of donations. The big donors include the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) and the D.C. government. According to the statement, both donors provided less than expected funding and Mr. Gittens didn’t see it coming. Costs continue to rise and D.C. Filmfest had been diving into reserves even before the untimely cut in funds.

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Dear PoPville,

I thought you might be interested in our film Mysterious Prison, which is a docu-drama that looks at homelessness in DC through the stories of six characters. Below is a link to the official trailer. The film has had a couple screenings at the E Street Cinema and the new Angelika Film Center Mosaic in Fairfax, VA. We are planning more local screenings in collaboration with non-profits and organizations that deal with homelessness. We also are taking the film to festivals around the country. If you or your readers are interested in the film they can check out the film’s Facebook page.

Dog Days Trailer from Kasey Kirby on Vimeo.

Dear PoPville,

My newest documentary is called DOG DAYS. Filmed as a labor-of-love project over the past 4 years, the film tells the story of an unemployed dreamer and a 20-year veteran hotdog vendor as they tackle DC’s broken vending industry in pursuit of the American Dream. It’s a film with strong themes of entrepreneurship, perseverance and hope, and it showcases the hometown culture of DC that so few films ever reflect.

We premiered the film’s trailer via our Kickstarter campaign page, as we’re in the midst of trying to fund the last phase of post-production in the hopes of premiering at Silverdocs in June.

Photo via wikipedia by David Shankbone

From a press release:

Martin Scorsese, Academy Award winning American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian and preservationist, will deliver the 2013 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities. The annual lecture, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), is the most prestigious honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.

Scorsese will present the 42nd Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on Monday, April 1, 2013, at 7:30 PM at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., where he will discuss the evolution of his films, the art of storytelling, and the inspiration he draws from the humanities.

The acclaimed director and producer of some 50 films, Scorsese has directed such landmark works as Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), and The Departed (2006). His singular vision has helped define modern American film. Drawing inspiration from such wide-ranging sources as Fellini, Powell and Pressburger, Hitchcock, Dante, and Dostoyevsky, Scorsese is renowned for having expanded the boundaries of his art. His films, though incredibly diverse in subject and style, are reputed for their incorporation of camera and editing techniques from different genres and distinctive treatment of signature themes of isolation and tribal identity, violence and loss, guilt and redemption, faith and spirituality.

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Mark writes:

“I’m a local filmmaker and had tapped residents to submit 10 second videos of their day during inauguration (the most mundane details). This is the result. A nice time capsule of January 21, 2013.”

Photo by PoPville flickr user ep_jhu

Going to the Movies is written by Mount Vernon Triangle resident Catherine Taegel.

This week I saw “Warm Bodies” starring Nicholas Hoult as R, the zombie with a heart. This is Hoult’s first stab at the starring role in a film. (You can see him later this year as Jack in “Jack the Giant Slayer”as well.) The story is a of world post zombie apocalypse, but with a twist. R, the young zombie, falls in love with a much alive young female human, and begins to feel again. A friend referred to it as the best both worlds for a date night – zombies for the guys and romance for the ladies. I can get down with that, but I did relatively enjoy both sides.

The film opens with R aimlessly wondering (stumbling) around an abandoned airport with other zombies. His internal dialogue shows us that unlike most zombies we’ve encountered before, there is something in him. He has habits, a personality, and his sarcastic voiceover guiding each scene exposes the utter ridiculousness that is zombies. Since the sole purpose of zombies is to eat humans, it’s befitting that R discovers his one true love on a quest for a meal.

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