Ken Jacobs, mainstay of New York’s underground film culture, dies aged 92

Experimental film-maker’s works included Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra, and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son

Renowned experimental film-maker Ken Jacobs, whose works such as Little Stabs at Happiness, Blonde Cobra and Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son made him a key member of the underground film circuit of the 1960s, has died aged 92. His son Azazel Jacobs, also a film-maker, told the New York Times that he died of kidney failure in hospital on Sunday.

Described by the New York Times as “the éminence grise of the American avant garde”, Jacobs and his wife Flo, with whom he collaborated on much of his work, straddled the worlds of experimental art and American new wave film-making, along with the likes of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas. He was a founding member of New York’s Film-Makers’ Co-Operative and the first director of the Millennium Film Workshop in 1966, both of which offered a space for film-makers working outside the mainstream and which are still operating today.

Continue reading...

Stormzy takes first acting role as he launches film production company

After music, publishing, sports and philanthropy, rapper expands into film-making with lead role in Big Man, a short film premiering on YouTube

After conquering the charts, Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage and launching his own publishing imprint, Stormzy is taking his first steps into the world of movies with starring in a short film about the travails of an ex-rapper.

Big Man will be made by the rap star’s own production company Merky Films in association with Apple, and feature Stormzy – in a sizable wig – as the lead character Tenzman, “a former rap star now navigating a restless and uncertain chapter of his life”.

Continue reading...

David Lynch, Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive director, dies aged 78

Film-maker who specialised in surreal, noir style mysteries made a string of influential, critically acclaimed works including Wild at Heart and Eraserhead

David Lynch, the maverick American director who sustained a successful mainstream career while also probing the bizarre, the radical and the experimental, has died aged 78.

“It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch,” read a Facebook post. “We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.”

Continue reading...

Fifty percent: Short film asks ‘Is it better to know your future or live in the moment?’ – video

With a 50% chance of inheriting a fatal disease, is it better to know your future or live in the moment?

Lillian Hanly has a 50/50 chance of inheriting Huntington’s, a neurodegenerative disease. With a number of her family testing positive for the gene, and her mother already affected by it, she must come to a decision: Get tested now or continue to live on, in the unknown.

Fifty Percent is part of the Loading Docs 2021 collection. The films can be viewed online via www.loadingdocs.net

Continue reading...

True Stories: Spaces review – impressive short docs from folk horror to a Lebanese marvel

This short film collection from the True Story platform ranges across continents to look at how we interact with our environments

Deeply psychogeographical, this collection of documentary shorts from the streaming platform True Story roams among spaces old and new, and across continents. Personal and public memories are intertwined, creating portraits of how human beings interact with their environments, and vice versa.

Paul Heintz’s nocturnal Shānzhài Screens is a meditative study of liminal urban spaces, shot in a Chinese district that specialises in fine-art reproductions. Rectangular frames populate the screen, from flickering apartment windows, hurried video calls, to endless replicas of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. Authenticity is elusive, and loneliness reigns.

Continue reading...

Guardian film Colette wins Oscar for best documentary short

Film about a former resistance fighter travelling to visit the concentration camp where her brother died wins prize at the 93rd Academy Awards

Watch the Guardian’s Oscar winning film, Colette

Colette, a film released by the Guardian, has won the Oscar for best documentary short at the 93rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Written and directed by Anthony Giacchino, and produced by Alice Doyard, Annie Small and Aaron Matthews, Colette tells the story of 90-year-old former French resistance member Colette Marin-Catherine, who visits the concentration camp where her brother was murdered during the war with a young history student, Lucie Fouble.

Continue reading...

‘Film-making? Bring it on!’: ex-stockbroker Farah Nabulsi on her Oscar nomination

The British Palestinian is up for an Oscar with her debut, filmed at a notorious Israeli flashpoint called Checkpoint 300. The London-based director talks about her shocking visits to the Middle East

Farah Nabulsi was at home in west London when she found out her film The Present had been nominated for the Oscar for best live action short. She’d persuaded her teenage sons to stay home and watch the announcement. When she heard her name, she jumped up on the table. Her eldest looked at her as if she’d gone mad. He’d got it into his head that this was the actual ceremony and she had lost. “He was like, ‘Why are you so happy? They didn’t pick you.’ He killed the moment.”

The film is Nabulsi’s directing debut, a powerful 20-minute piece of humanist cinema about a Palestinian man, Yusef (Saleh Bakri), who wants to surprise his wife with a fridge as an anniversary gift. He takes the couple’s young daughter, Yasmine (Mariam Kanj), shopping. But their big day out is ruined by two encounters with Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint. Yasmine is a witness to her dad’s humiliation – she tugs on his sleeve, reminding him to bite his tongue, to swallow the soldiers’ insults. It is a study of injustice that – like the best shorts – doesn’t try to cram too much in.

Continue reading...

Oscars release first shortlists for 2021 Academy Awards

Boys State, MLK/FBI and Crip Camp among contenders as categories announced include best documentary and best international film

Shortlists for nine Oscar categories have been unveiled by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas), an intermediate stage in the thinning-out of films that have qualified for consideration for the Academy Awards. The categories include best documentary, best international film and best song, as well as best live action and documentary shorts.

The rules for each voting process vary, but in most categories a preliminary vote from industry specialists in each field is employed to create the shortlist and then the final five nominations, with the full membership of the Academy invited to vote on the winner.

Continue reading...