SXSW Student FIlms

Two student films from the Fort Worth area have won top honors at Austin’s South by Southwest Film Festival. http://2007.sxsw.com/film/. Both are students in the Birdville ISD Media Tech program.

Brandon Day, a senior at Richland Hills High School, won for his 5-minute short Murder for 9 Points. The film features Phil Pratt, Karen Seimears and D.C. Goode.
Synopsis:
An innocent game of Scrabble turns into something entirely different.
Watch the video trailer: http://2007.sxsw.com/film/screenings/film/F8495.html#top

Adela Escobar, a student at Haltom High School, won for her 3-minute film Daily Routine.
Synopsis:
At the last moment we try to look back at all the things we've done, and all we ever did. Have you lived your life to the fullest?
Watch the video trailer: http://2007.sxsw.com/film/screenings/film/F8511.html

Congratulations to our future filmmakers. And kudos for school districts like Birdville who make film programs available for students.

German Film Tax Break
Money makes the world go round! And film money is even better.
Germany has joined Hungary in offering tax break incentive for films produced within its borders, according to the Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/features/columns/on_location/e3ib79dcd249fa48ad4d6470ba5a7100913?imw=Y
The German Federal Film Fund, which offers a 20 percent rebate for film production in Germany, was launched in January.

According to the Hollywood Reporter:
“To qualify, 25 percent of the total budget must be spent in Germany. If the budget is more than $26 million, that drops to 20 percent. For international co-productions, the German participation must be at least 20 percent; if the budget is more than $32 million, a participation of $6.5 million is sufficient. The budget of the film project must be more than $1.3 million for feature films, $3.3 million for animation films and $226,000 for documentaries.

“A project must have at least 75 percent of its financing in place, and it must pass a "cultural test," with points given for using German locations or studios; German actors, artists or technicians; and German story or history. A little bit of everything would be the perfect match.”

Two for Tribeca

Tribeca Film Festival in New York has announced films slated for its World Narrative Features category. Mexico and Germany scored entries in the field of 34 features and documentaries competing for a share of $100,000.

Tribeca, founded by film legend Robert De Niro (at left), runs April 25 – May 6 in New York.

The films are Two Embraces (Dos Abrazos) from Mexico and Vivere, directed and written by Angelina Maccarone, from Germany.

http://www.indiewire.com/ots/2007/03/tribeca_07_slim_1.html

Tres Amigos
The New York Times has a great feature on Alejandro González Iñárritu, Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/style/tmagazine/11tdirectors.html?_r=2&ref=movies&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

This Just In

This week brings multiple new releases from our seven Sister City countries. DVDs are available in stores, via Amazon or Netlfilx.
Two samurai classics from Akira Kurosawa get reissued by Criterion with improved features. The New York Times gives a great review of the improvements.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/23/movies/homevideo/23dvd.html?ex=1173844800&en=33a621435556605b&ei=5070

Fires on the Plain (Nobi) 1959
Director Kon Ichikawa's harrowing film set in the Philippines during World War II, a Japanese soldier, his emotional and physical resources nearly depleted, endures the vicissitudes of war. Ichikawa, whom some cineastes say was as talented as his better-known contemporaries, including Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi, had a way with infusing light in the darkest places.

The Burmese Harp (1956) – Japan
Also directored by Kon Ichikawa. Set during World War II's last days, this indelible antiwar drama chronicles a Japanese soldier's transformation after coming face to face with the human cost of war. Sent to inform another platoon the war is over, Cpl. Mizushima (Shôji Yasui) can't persuade the men to surrender and becomes the lone survivor when the British attack. But the casualties he sees on the way to rejoin his unit overwhelm Mizushima, and he soon finds a higher calling.

Tales of Terror from Tokyo and All Over Japan: Vol. 3: Part 2 (2006) – Japan
Demons materialize during a high school video project and ghouls stir up deadly mischief in a deserted office space in this collection of 20 supernatural stories from horror writers Kihara Hirokatsu and Nakayama Ichiro. These startling stories are adapted from accounts of true events that occurred all across Japan. This collection showcases truly terrifying episodes of the TV series Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro.

Con Artists (1978) – Italy
Directed by Sergio Corbucci, Bluff storia di truffe e di imbroglioni, features, a notorious con man named Bang who somehow manages to elude the long arm of the law – just barely. As he weaves in and out of trouble, Bang’s misadventures involve him with a delightfully rakish cast of characters.

Hellbenders (1967) – Italy
An earlier work by director Sergio Corbucci Italian. In this gritty spaghetti Western helmed by Sergio Corbucci, Joseph Cotten headlines the cast as a bitter ex-Confederate officer named Jonas who hatches a scheme to reignite the Civil War by robbing a freight train carrying Union soldiers. After slaughtering them, Jonas and his three sons find themselves in a battle against the U.S. Cavalry and a tribe of Indians. Julián Mateos, Ángel Aranda, Gino Pernice and Norma Bengell also star.

Simpsons No Mas

Mexican voice over artists are still feuding with Grabaciones y Doblajes Intl. (GDI) over The Simpsons Movie slated for this summers. GDI handles dubbing for Gracie Films, which produces The Simpsons TV show.

GDI wants at least 40 percent of the dubbing voices to be non-union.

The National Actor's Association is now threatening to boycott the movie in Mexico if the voice over artists who have created the characters of Homer, Bart and the rest of the TV cast for the last 15 years are not used for the upcoming movie.

The TV series is in its 18th year.

Filmies Meeting Today

FWSCI Filmies has it's first meeting today at 6 p.m. in Fort Worth, Texas. See full info below. See you at the meeting,

Steve.

Texas Film Hall of Fame

The Austin Film Society inducted Fort Worth natives Betty Buckley and Bill Paxton to the Texas Film Hall of Fame last night.
http://www.austin360.com/news/content/movies/stories/2007/03/10fame.html

Paxton was born May 17, 1955 in Fort Worth and moved to Los Angeles at age 18.
His films have included The Good Life (2007), Spy Kids, Titanic, The Evening Star, Twister, Apollo 13, Tombstone, Boxing Helena, Aliens and Weird Science. Paxton and his wife Louise are seen in photo above on the red carpet before the film induction.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=55571&mod=bio

Buckley was born in Fort Worth on July 3, 1947. Although known more for TV and theater work, Buckley’s films have included Funny Peculiar (2007), Frantic, Tender Mercies and Carrie.
http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=9345

Both continued to be very involved in Fort Worth and the Lone Star Film Society.

Congrats!

First Filmies Meeting

Meeting, Monday, March 12, 2007
Fort Worth Sister Cities International

It's Show Time!
Please join us for the first meeting of the Fort Worth Sister Cities International Film Special Interest Group, where we will discuss our future plans and enjoy a wonderful and informative program by Fort Worth's local independent film producer, J. Mitchell Johnson.
Learn about our upcoming international film series that will be held simultaneously and in partnership with the Lone Star Film International Film Festival in November. Click here to view the agenda for the meeting and then click below to RSVP to Lisa Gail Barnes, or request more information.

The meeting will be held Monday, March 12, at 6:00 p.m. at the Four Star Coffee Bar, which is located at 3324 West 7th street, Fort Worth, Texas.
RSVP to Lisa Gail by clicking here.

Click here to contact me and Let's get rolling!
Sincerely,
Lisa Gail Barnes
Communication's DirectorFort Worth Sister Cities International

Unknown German’s 'Grave'

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director of the Academy Award-winning Lives of Others, isn’t the only up-and-coming, young German director you’ve never heard of.
Marcus H. Rosenmueller (photo below) has two hit movies, a third to debut soon and a stable of others in production or funded and on the books.
The Bavarian director burst onto German screens with the low-budge Grave Decisions, a dark comedy about death and damnation – that tried and true comedy combo.
Marketers apparently had trouble promoting the film and distributors feared the Bavarian dialect, which other Germans have often have trouble understanding, would turn away ticketbuyers.
With word of mouth the film ended on the top 10 list, sold 1.5 million tickets and had a boxoffice take of $12 million.
Now that’s inspiration for indie filmmakers everywhere.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/features/columns/e3i90ce0735a3e2db47f78962f42c78c464
Finding comedy in Bavarian roots
By Scott Roxborough
March 6, 2007 COLOGNE, Germany -- Forty miles south of Munich, pushed up against the Alps, lies Hausham, a sleepy provincial town of 8,000 residents. It's an unlikely spot to find the next big thing, but Hausham is home and inspiration to one of Germany's hottest young directors, Marcus H. Rosenmueller. While Rosenmueller's Munich Film School alumnus Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck traveled back to East Berlin in the 1980s for the inspiration for his Oscar-winning drama The Lives of Others, Rosemueller stuck closer to home with his debut, the low-budget dark comedy Grave Decisions. Grave Decisions didn't appear to have much going for it. It's a family comedy about death and damnation featuring a cast of mostly unknowns and shot in the local Bavarian dialect -- a thick, guttural vernacular even other Germans find almost incomprehensible. But with almost no publicity behind it, Grave became the sleeper hit of 2006, selling 1.5 million tickets for a boxoffice take of more than $12 million. "It was almost all word-of-mouth. The distributor found it almost impossible to advertise the film, a comedy about death in rural Bavaria," Rosenmueller says. "People heard about the movie and didn't want to go see it, but as soon as people did see it, they told their friends to go." Grave spent 16 weeks in the top 10, as Hollywood tentpoles like Scary Movie 4 and Mission: Impossible III came and went, grossing less in the territory than this local upstart. The success was all the more surprising because many theaters outside of Bavaria initially boycotted the film, convinced that northern German audiences wouldn't get the dialect, or the humor. "It was a really tough decision to shoot in the Bavarian dialect," Rosenmueller recalls. "We knew it would hurt us at the boxoffice. But it just seemed right, authentic. That's where I'm from and that's the source of my inspiration." Rosenmueller stayed close to the source for his second feature, the bobsledding comedy Heavyweights, the true story of a group of Bavarian amateurs who won Olympic gold in 1952. Released early this year, the film has so far grossed $4 million in Germany. These twin successes have turned Rosenmueller into Germany's hardest working director. He is in postproduction on Best Time, the first in a Bavarian coming-of-age comedy trilogy he is directing for Monaco Film. He'll shoot the second installment, Best Place, in May before switching to social drama with Der Raueber Kneissel, about a legendary 19th century Bavarian bandit. Then comes Die Perlmutterfarbe, an adaptation of the 1948 children's novel by German-Jewish author Anna Maria Jokl, which Rosenmueller is writing with his Grave co-author Christian Lerch. Next year Rosenmuller will direct another black comedy for Grave producers Roxy Film, Von Erden und Sterben, which Rosenmueller and Lerch will write. The film will once again be set in Bavaria. "Eventually, I'll have to write something in proper German so people outside Bavaria can understand it," the director quips.