Eagerly awaiting the fifth season of AMC TV’s hit series, Mad Men? While show creator Matthew Weiner, the cable channel AMC, and the producing studio Lionsgate seem to be stuck in negotiations, loyal fans continue to wonder what the fifth season will bring. What will happen to Don Draper and his new love interest? What about the agency and Draper’s relationship with copy writer Peggy Olsen? What about her dealings with partner and account executive Pete Campbell? Or what about partner Roger Sterling and his relationship with office manager Joan Holloway Harris? Well, wait no longer—there is something to bridge…
Author: Tanja Meding
In 2000, philanthropist-turned-filmmaker Anne Bass traveled to Cambodia to on humanitarian voyage. During that trip, she attended a traditional Khmer dance performance in Angkor Wat, where she noticed one of the dancers, Sokvandara-Sy-Sar. Thoroughly impressed by his stage presence and performance, she contacted him after her return to the US and offered him what would be considered a dancer’s dream: the opportunity to travel to the US and audition for New York City’s School of American Ballet, one of the most prestigious dance academies in the world, which is intimately linked to New York City Ballet, the world-famous dance company.…
The late British children’s author Enid Blyton wrote over 600 children books and has been selling more than 600 million copies world-wide. Amongst her many works, she wrote a series of books about a pair of twins and their adventures at the all-girl boarding school ST. CLARES. Originally titled THE TWINS AT ST CLARES (1941), the German version of the O’Sullivan twin books, was called HANNI AND NANNI (HANNI UND NANNI) and first published in the 1960’s. Since then, HANNI AND NANNI have become true classics and in addition to the six original books written by Blyton, the German edition…
In summer 2010, GERMAN PREMIERES celebrated its 25th screening in New York with the German feature VINCENT WANTS TO SEA (VINCENT WILL MEER, 2009) by Ralf Huettner. Since 2004, GERMAN PREMIERES, an initiative by German Films (the national information and advisory center for the promotion of German films worldwide), has presented 25 noteworthy new German features – fiction as well as documentaries – to attract the attention of US distributors and buyers. In the German feature, VINCENT WANTS TO SEA, twenty-something-year-old Vincent suffers from Tourette’s syndrome. His is of the verbal kind: whenever he gets nervous, he involuntary curses or…
Just in time to celebrate and commemorate John Lennon – who would have turned 70 this October, two new films – one doc, one fiction – one for TV (American Masters on PBS) one for the big screen – focusing on the life and times of John Lennon – one about his early years, one about his final years – are being released. This year, New York Film Festival premiered Michael Epstein’s documentary LENNONNYC and New York’s art house circuit saw the premiere of NOWHERE BOY by British visual artist Sam Taylor-Wood.Taylor-Wood’s fiction film focuses on Lennon’s first steps into…
New York City has a new festival! DOC NYC – New York’s own Documentary Festival. According to the festival’s website, the first edition this year was first planned as a five-day festival, but just a few weeks before the opening got extended to a seven-day run! Conceived, curated and produced by executive director Raphaela Neihausen and artistic director Thom Powers (also the documentary programmer of the Toronto International Film Festival and curator of the famed IFC Center documentary screening series STRANGER THAN FICTION), the festival is co-presented by IFC Center and NYU’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, where Powers…
In addition to the numerous documentaries at this year’s Hamptons International Film Festival (reviewed in an earlier article), I was also interested in the feature film SOUL BOY from Kenya. It turned out that the story behind the making of this film was as interesting as the movie itself. In 2008, teacher and producer Marie Steinmann, together with German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Heaven, The International, and more), decided to start One Fine Day Films—a new production company with the aim of supporting new African cinema. The concept is to offer film production workshops to interested and emerging…
Following a foggy, rainy week in New York, the weather made a dramatic turn for the best and offered plenty of sunshine in time for the Hamptons International Film Festival weekend. Screening more than 100 features, docs and shorts over a long holiday weekend, the festival was jam-packed with panels, master classes and conversations, plus—not to be missed—fabulous parties in breathtaking locations. The following is a selection of documentaries I caught: Love, Etc., by Jill Andresevic, is a disarming documentary that looks at love across generations and across the five boroughs of New York. The film ranges from first love…
Swiss-German filmmaker Dani Levy’s highly successful 2004 comedy GO FOR ZUCKER (ALLES AUF ZUCKER, 2004) was supposedly the first German-Jewish comedy made in Germany since before World War II. Originally made for TV, the film became such a hit with German audiences that it was transferred to the theaters, selling over one million tickets and winning numerous awards, including Best Feature at the 2005 German Film Awards, and the German Film Critic Club’s Ernst Lubitsch Award. Plus, it was sold worldwide, including in Israel and the U.S. where First Run Features released it in 2006.Subsequently, Levy co-wrote and directed MY…
Imagine a versatile green laptop for $100 US, that can go online, takes pictures and video, works with solar energy and can even survive being dropped on the floor! Look no further – it exists – the XO 2, conceived, produced and distributed by Nicholas Negraponte and his team at ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD (OLPC), a non-profit organization. If you want one, buy one for a child in a developing country and another for yourself. Prior to becoming founder and chairman of OLPC, Negraponte was the co-founder and former director of MIT’s Media Laboratory – a research laboratory that focuses…