Tag Archives: darrin-navarro

SUNDANCE: Directors Tease ‘The Square,’ ‘American Promise,’ ‘Pit Stop,’ ‘A River Changes Course,’ ‘This Is Martin Bonner,’ ‘Who Is Dayani Cristal’

The Sundance Film Festival is passing its midpoint, but there are more world premieres of some of the films that will grace the Specialty Big Screen this year. Beginning last week Movieline posted details about this year’s U.S. and World Competition and NEXT films and filmmakers in their own words. In today’s round Jehane Noujaim ( The Square ), co-directors Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson ( American Promise ), Yen Tan ( Pit Stop ), Kalyanee Mam ( A River Changes Course ), Chad Hartigan ( This Is Martin Bonner ) and Marc Silver ( Who Is Dayani Cristal ) preview their films. [ Related: WATCH: Get To Know 5 Sundance Film Festival Filmmakers (And Their Films) AND SUNDANCE: Directors Tease ‘Dirty Wars,’ ‘Fire In The Blood,’ ‘God Loves Uganda,’ ‘A Teacher,’ ‘Narco Cultura’ ] The Square by Director Jehane Noujaim [World Documentary Competition] Synopsis: In February 2011, Egyptians – particularly young ones – showed the world the way people demanding change can drive an entire nation to transformation. The result was a profound movement toward democracy that is still evolving across the Arab world. The Square , a new film by Jehane Noujaim ( Control Room ; Rafea: Solar Mama ), looks at the hard realities faced day-to-day by people working to build Egypt’s new democracy. Catapulting us into the action spread across 2011 and 2012, the film provides a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of the struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. Armed with values, determination, music, humor, an abundance of social media, and sheer obstinacy, they know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out. [Courtesy of Sundance Film Festival] The Square quick pitch The Square  is an intimate observational documentary that tells an immersive story of the ongoing struggle of the Egyptian Revolution.  Beginning in the tents of Tahrir in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak, we follow our characters on their life-changing journey through the euphoria of victory into the uncertainties and dangers of the current ‘transitional period’ under military rule, where everything they fought for is now under threat. While much of the world thought that the Egyptian Revolution had been won, our characters had only just begun their battle.   …and why it’s worth seeing at Sundance and beyond: Our film catapults you into the front lines of the Egyptian revolution, providing a kaleidoscopic, visceral experience of their struggle. Cairo’s Tahrir Square is the heart and soul of the film, which follows several young activists. They know that the thorny path to democracy only began with Hosni Mubarek’s fall. The life-and-death struggle between the people and the power of the state is still playing out on the ground, and our crew is bringing the story straight to Park City.  Arrest, being shot and immersion: The entire team was immersed in the events on the ground, many times getting tangled up in the action. For example, I got arrested by military soldiers while I was on the frontline of clashes between the military and protesters. I was detained and eventually freed by one of my characters coincidentally, lawyer Ragia Omran.  Our producer Karim Amer got arrested taking sound while walking near the square with our character Ahmed Hassan and my very talented cinematographer Mohammed Hamdy got shot in the back and in the head with a pellet while filming a battle between security forces and protesters in Tahrir. He got stitched up in a nearby hospital and went straight back to Tahrir to continue filming.  —

Original post:
SUNDANCE: Directors Tease ‘The Square,’ ‘American Promise,’ ‘Pit Stop,’ ‘A River Changes Course,’ ‘This Is Martin Bonner,’ ‘Who Is Dayani Cristal’

SUNDANCE REVIEW: James Ponsoldt’s ‘The Spectacular Now’ Is A Spectacularly Authentic American Teen Movie

The scars and blemishes on the faces of the high-school lovers in The Spectacular Now are beautifully emblematic of director James Ponsoldt’s bid to bring the American teen movie back to some semblance of reality, a bid that pays off spectacularly indeed. Skillfully adapted from Tim Tharp’s novel, evocatively lensed in the working-class neighborhoods of Athens, Ga., and tenderly acted by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley , this bittersweet ode to the moment of childhood’s end builds quietly to a pitch-perfect finale. Warts-and-all authenticity can be a tough sell, but Ponsoldt’s bracing youth pic seems bound to graduate with honors. Working with a sensitive script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber ( 500 Days of Summer ), Ponsoldt follows his Off the Black and Smashed   with another insightful study of a flawed protagonist’s hard-fought battle against forces, including alcohol, that keep him or her from growing to fruition. Dumped by his gorgeous girlfriend ( Brie Larson ) in the early going, whiskey-swilling senior Sutter Keely (Teller) swiftly rebounds by making a charismatic play for book-smart Aimee Finecky (Woodley), who finds him passed out at dawn on a neighbor’s front yard and is astounded when the school’s hungover party monster returns her gaze. Aimee, having never had a boyfriend, naturally falls hard for the ultra-confident but scholastically challenged Sutter as she tutors him in geometry and he teaches her how to drink. Although Sutter can’t stop mildly flirting with his ex, he makes the moves on Aimee anyway, alarming friends of both. A startlingly intimate sex scene, set in Aimee’s tiny bedroom and hauntingly captured in long take, marks the point at which the possibility of heartbreak begins to loom large. Whatever formulaic elements appear in the opposites-attract scenario are mitigated by the film’s philosophical underpinnings. While pragmatic Aimee prepares to attend college in Philadelphia, Sutter remains arrogantly committed to his manner of living in the moment, believing that a car, a flask and an hourly wage job are all he’s ever going to need. Sutter’s hardened mom ( Jennifer Jason Leigh ) worries that her son is following in the footsteps of his estranged father and contrives to prevent a reunion of the two. It’s during the inevitable meeting with Dad ( Kyle Chandler ), facilitated by Sutter’s well-off sister, Holly ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead ), and held over pitchers of beer, that the film’s principal themes — of the difficulty of breaking the familial mold, the fine line between temporary behavior and habit, and the fleeting nature of youth — begin to take root. Ponsoldt, with the help of Jess Hall’s attentive cinematography, does an excellent job of letting the drama play out on the imperfect faces of his two young leads, both of whom embody a delicate combination of fearlessness and vulnerability. Woodley thoroughly fulfills the promise of her smaller role as the teenage daughter in The Descendants , locating the precise point at which Aimee’s infatuation with Sutter turns to self-protection. Equally impressive is Teller, who makes his character’s adolescent bravado appear intoxicating and then more than a little scary. The film’s supporting players are uniformly superb, particularly a haggard Chandler, who offers a worrisome glimpse of what Sutter could easily become, and Andre Royo as a schoolteacher whose honest reluctance to sell Sutter on the advantages of adulthood silently speaks volumes. Linda Sena’s production design makes vibrant use of Athens locations while maintaining the small-town setting as Anywhere, U.S.A. Editing by Darrin Navarro respects the pic’s alternately peppy and languorous mood, occasionally using slo-mo to represent Sutter’s desire to stretch now to eternity. Other tech elements are aces, each one furthering the film’s refreshing commitment to naturalism. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

Originally posted here:
SUNDANCE REVIEW: James Ponsoldt’s ‘The Spectacular Now’ Is A Spectacularly Authentic American Teen Movie