By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

“ANY DAY NOW” AND “QUARTET” SHARE CHICAGO INT’L AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD

“The Central Park Five” receives Audience Choice for Best Documentary Feature

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHICAGO (October 25, 2012) – The 48th Chicago International Film Festival proudly announces the Audience Choice Awards, presented by American Airlines. Overall, the films in the Festival were warmly received by audiences, receiving an average of 4.1/5 rating on ballots, with the three Audience Choice Award winners standing out from the others as overwhelming favorites.

Audiences received ballots at every public screening during the two-week event and ranked films on a five-point scale. Votes were tallied and averaged, so each film had an equal opportunity to win the award.

Audience Choice Award for Best Narrative Feature, presented by American Airlines

ANY DAY NOW (USA), Director: Travis Fine
In the late 1970s, when a mentally handicapped teenager is abandoned, a gay couple – a drag performer (Alan Cumming) and a closeted attorney (Garret Diallahunt) – takes him in and becomes the family he’s never had. But, once the unconventional living arrangement is discovered by authorities, the men must fight a biased legal system to adopt the child they have come to care for as their own in this gripping testament to love and family.

QUARTET (USA), Director: Dustin Hoffman
Beecham House is abuzz: the home for retired musicians is soon to welcome a new, and possibly famous, resident. Reginald (Tom Courtenay), Wilfred (Billy Connolly) and Cecily (Pauline Collins) receive a special shock when the new arrival turns out to be their estranged former singing partner, Jean Horton (Maggie Smith). Can the passage of time heal old wounds? And will the famous quartet be able to patch up their differences in time for Beecham House’s gala concert? “Quartet” is actor Dustin Hoffman’s directing debut.

Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary Feature, presented by American Airlines

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE (USA), Directors: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. Each spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before the actual criminal’s confession led to their exonerations. This powerful documentary from the great Ken Burns (“The Civil War”) explores this horrific crime and the appalling, racially-fraught miscarriage of justice that followed in its wake.

Festival Sponsors
Led by Presenting Partner, Columbia College Chicago, the 48th Chicago International Film Festival’s sponsors include: Official Airline – American Airlines; Producing Partners: AMC Theaters, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; Major Partner: Intersites; Supporting Partners: DePaul University School of Cinema and Interactive Media, Stella Artois, Chris Pagano – Realtor, Land Rover, WBBM NEWSRADIO 780 AND 105.9FM, ShutterBox Photobooth, Cultivate Studios; Participating Partners: iN Demand, EC Charro Tequila, Brugal Rum, Creative America, Gibsons Restaurant Group, Second City Computers, Optimus; and the Festival’s Headquarters Hotel, JW Marriott Chicago.

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About Cinema/Chicago
Cinema/Chicago is a not-for-profit cultural and educational organization dedicated to encouraging better understanding between cultures and to making a positive contribution to the art form of the moving image. The Chicago International Film Festival is part of the year-round programs presented by Cinema/Chicago, which also include the International Screenings Program (May-September), the Chicago International Television Competition (April), CineYouth Festival (May), Intercom Competition (October) and year-round Education Outreach and Member Screenings Program.

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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