More news out of the Academy Awards as we enter February and approach the 2012 Cinematic Super Bowl that is this award show!
Halle Berry will present at the 84th Academy Awards ceremony, telecast producers Brian Grazer and Don Mischer announced today.
Berry won an Oscar® in 2001 for her lead performance in “Monster’s Ball.” She [...]

Today is the day! Your Film Festival, You Tube’s challenge to filmmakers the world over to tell a compelling and deeply enriching story in 15 minutes or less, is now taking submissions on what is sure to be the most innovative approach in online video cinema to date.
The details are simple: create a video cinematic [...]

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is currently running until February 5, 2012 and has just announced its Director and Producer panel’s panelists.
SBIFF’s Directors on Directing panel will take place Saturday, February 4, at 11:00 a.m. at the Lobero Theatre. Moderated by Variety’s Peter Bart, this ever-popular panel will feature: Gore Verbinski (Rango), [...]

In case you missed it, here is a recap of all the jury prizes awarded at the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The festival ran from January 20, 2012 – January 26, 2012 and award prizes on closing day.
AUDIENCE AWARDS
Audience Award for Feature Documentary: Getting Up by Caskey Ebeling
Audience Award for Feature [...]

Stephanie Allain, known most notably for her role as producer to Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan, will be taking the helm as director of the LA Film Festival.
She succeeds Rebecca Yeldham, who voluntarily left her position for personal reasons. Stephanie will be working closely with Festival Managing Director Gloria Campbell and Festival [...]

Respect the film that is indie, so saith this year’s Oscar nominations! From The Artist to A Separation, If A Tree Falls to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, indies are hiding in plain sight and it’s working to perfection.
Here is the full list of nominees as released by The Envelope. If you [...]

Kickstarter is a great resource for filmmakers with worthy causes to find those who, too, feel they are worthy. Generally, posting about a Kickstarter project is met with a burgeoning amount of reasons why to support it: not so here.
The organic necessity of documentaries like “Second Class Citizens,” if it should be named that, give [...]

Every year new thoughts and experiments are performed in the world of independent filmmaking that show just how necessary it is to have a separation from big budget films which work to satisfy the one note of profit at the expense of a sonata of deep, intellectual product.
Kimi Takesue, a documentary filmmaker with credits in [...]

The Visual Effects field is narrowing for the 84th Academy Awards®, and the plight for indie sensation The Tree of Life seems daunting against the super studio charged behemoths standing against it. Still, though, the Fox Searchlight film remains one of the best films of 2011 in most critical minds and could persevere despite [...]

The PFCS is a collection of film critics based in Phoenix, AZ. Last year the PFCS was the only critics group to name “The King’s Speech” as Best Picture correctly predicting the Academy Awards.
It only follows that the Phoenix Film Critics Society will be under heavy watch to endorse this year’s best film, and the [...]