By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Winner of the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Posted Friday, February 3rd, 2012 - Comments Off on Winner of the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival
Be Sociable, Share!

Winner of the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

New York, NY – February 3, 2012 – Kino Lorber, Inc. is proud to announce the acquisition of all US and Canadian rights to the acclaimed documentary 5 Broken Cameras (2012), a daring chronicle of resistance in the West Bank by first-time Palestinian director Emad Burnat and Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi.

Filmed from the perspective of a Palestinian farm laborer (i.e. co-director Emad Burnat), 5 Broken Cameras was shot using five different video cameras – all of them destroyed in the process of documenting Emad’s family’s life and non-violent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation.

Emad, who lives in Bil’in, just west of the city of Ramallah in the West Bank, was thrust into global politics when his community peacefully resisted Israeli plans to erect a wall through their village. Initially given the camera to chronicle the birth and childhood of his son Gibreel, the film captures Gibreel growing into a precocious preschooler against the backdrop of the many non-violent protests that became an intrinsic part of life in the West Bank.

With hundreds of hours of video footage covering a period of over six years, Guy Davidi and Emad have turned “five broken cameras” into a larger-than-life lyrical device that both informs and structures their personal and collective struggles in the West Bank. Furthermore, this Palestinian, Israeli and French co-production daringly meshes personal essay with political cinema, displaying how images and cameras can change lives and realities.

Richard Lorber commented: “This is that most rare film of both inspiration and aspiration; with all the visceral impact of a war movie, it operates on a higher cinematic and poetic plane. Ultimately the film drives deeper thinking and caring about a global political issue through the intimacy of its personal vision. We think audiences across the entire polarized Middle East spectrum will be powerfully moved by it as they have been already at key festivals.”

5 Broken Cameras continues Kino Lorber’s tradition of supporting Palestinian and Israeli productions (releases include the Academy Award nominated film Ajami and Beaufort) that illuminate long-standing issues in the Middle East. The film also stands as cinema of the highest order, and since its premiere on the festival circuit in the late fall, the film has won a Special Jury and an Audience Award at the prestigious International Documentary Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) and received the World Cinema Directing Award (Documentary) at Sundance Film Festival.

Kino Lorber plans to release 5 Broken Cameras to the theatrical, non-theatrical and educational markets in late summer – before a home video and digital release at the end of the year with television following. The film has just started its festival life, and given its outstanding reception so far, Kino Lorber expects 5 Broken Cameras to play in many other key US festivals in 2012.

This acquisition was negotiated between Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber and Vice President Elizabeth Sheldon and Catherine Le Clef, President of the Paris-based international sales agency CAT&Docs.

About Kino Lorber:

With a library of 700 titles, Kino Lorber Inc. has been a leader in independent distribution for over 30 years and releases over 20 films per year theatrically under its Kino Lorber, Kino Classics and Alive Mind Cinema banners. In addition, the Company brings over 60 titles each year to the home entertainment market with DVD and Blu-ray releases and digital distribution on over 15 internet platforms and VOD services.

#
#
#

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on Winner of the World Cinema Directing Award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon