Thompson on Hollywood

Louisiana Film Prize Announces iTunes and Festival Distribution Deal for Top Five Winners

News

The Louisiana Film Prize has announced that it will provide a distribution deal through Shorts International for the award winners. This means filmmakers will not only be competing for $50,000 -- one of the largest cash prizes for a shorts festival -- but also for a chance to further screen at the Dallas VideoFest, Sync Up Fest and the Hollywood Shorts Fest.

By Beth Hanna
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March 13, 2013 12:07 PM
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Silent Film Trend: 'The Dance' Wins National Screen Institute of Canada's Best Comedy Award

Video

The National Screen Institute of Canada has selected Pardis Parker's short "The Dance" for their Best Comedy award. The dialogue-free love story has won several awards, and signals the continuing trend of silent films following "The Artist"'s Oscar win in 2012 and "The Paperman"'s Oscar win for best Animated short in 2013. "Blancanieves," Spain's Goya-winning entry for the 2013 Best Foreign Language film, was a silent black-and-white rendition of Snow White. In 2008 it was Pixar's "WALL-E" that found mainstream adoration with twenty minutes with almost no dialogue at all.

By Sophia Savage
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March 4, 2013 2:53 PM
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POWFest Celebrates Sixth Edition with Penelope Spheeris, Spirit Nominee 'Breakfast with Curtis' and More

Festivals

The Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival (a.k.a. POWFest) announces highlights from its upcoming event, running March 7-10. The festival is celebrating its 6th year, and received a record number of submissions from women filmmakers across the world to compile almost 100 films...

By Sophia Savage
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February 21, 2013 12:53 PM
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Oscar Q & A: Meet Tom Van Avermaet, Director of Darkly Glimmering Short 'Death of a Shadow' (TRAILER)

Interviews

Of all the Oscar-nominated shorts, Tom Van Avermaet's gorgeous "Death of a Shadow" occupies the most complex and entrancing alternative reality. Matthias Schoenaerts ("Rust and Bone") plays Nathan Rijckx, a deceased WWI soldier stuck in a limbo where an intricate steam-punk machine selects each person's moment of death. He has a second chance at life if he agrees to work for a Grim Reaper figure who collects shadow images of the moment that people die. Rijckx agrees to shoot 10,000 shadows in order to return to life and find the woman he fell in love with at the moment he died.

By Maggie Lange
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February 18, 2013 2:56 PM
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Meet Shawn Christensen, Writer-Director-Star of Oscar-Nominated Short 'Curfew'

Interviews

Leading the pack in the race for the best live-action short Oscar is Hollywood screenwriter Shawn Christensen's gritty 19-minute "Curfew," which stars the multi-hyphenate as suicidal New Yorker Richie who babysits for his nine-year-old neice Sophia. Safe to say we will be hearing from this actor-writer-filmmaker again: he's currently expanding "Curfew" into a full-length feature. (See the short on iTunes.)

By Maggie Lange
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February 15, 2013 3:11 PM
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Oscar Talk: Shorts and Documentary, BAFTAs and Scripters, Spielberg vs. Lee, Lawrence vs. Riva and More

Awards

On this week's Oscar Talk Podcast, Kris Tapley and I discuss live-action and documentary shorts as well as the documentary feature race. We look at the influence of last weekend's BAFTAs and USC Scripters Awards, and talk a few too-close-to-call categories: Steven Spielberg or Ang Lee for Best Director? Jennifer Lawrence or Emmanuelle Riva for Best Actress? Supporting actor, cinematography and production design are also in the mix.

By Anne Thompson
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February 15, 2013 12:00 PM
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Watch: David Lynch's Documentary Short on French Lithography House Idem Paris

Video

David Lynch's "Inland Empire" (2006) is the director's most recent feature film, and in the years since he's been focusing his efforts on online projects, transcendental meditation, visual art and short films in various genres, including documentary and music videos.

By Beth Hanna
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February 13, 2013 2:48 PM
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Watch: Oscar-Nominated Short 'Head Over Heels' a Poignant Love Story of a Couple on Different Planes

Video

Following the online debuts of the other four competing Oscar-nominated short animated films, stop-motion "Head Over Heels" is now available to watch until the day of the Oscars (February 24). Full video below.

By Beth Hanna
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February 11, 2013 12:40 PM
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WATCH 'Adam and Dog': Exclusive Animated Oscar Short

Video

Korean Minkyu Lee's Oscar-nominated animated short, "Adam and Dog," which won the Annie for best animated short last year, is available online.

By Bill Desowitz
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February 8, 2013 11:48 AM
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Immersed in Movies: Assessing the Animated Shorts Oscar Race (TRAILERS)

Features

Animated shorts have never been bigger. Starting today, ShortsHD and Magnolia Pictures are screening the five nominees theatrically in North America and Europe for the eighth consecutive year along with the live-action and doc short nominees; they continue to sell briskly on iTunes; and, for the first time, the Academy has opened up the voting to all members, and will be sending out DVD screeners, which will offer greater exposure.