News

Dogora,  Patrice Leconte's wonderful insight of the people of Cambodia will be released in April.  The DVD will also be re-released at the same time.

You can pre-order using the following links

• Blu Ray on Amazon.com
• DVD on Amazon.com

Tom Lowe, creator of Timescapes, has announced a new film: Southwest Light

The film will be a mixture of timelapse, slow-motion, and real-time footage.  Tom will travel the American Southwest (California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona & New Mexico) for ten straight months, no stopping.

Tom says: "My goal is to create a portrait of “a time and a place” using poetic, haunting, jaw-dropping visuals.  The genre of the film will be similar to non-narrative masterpieces Baraka and Koyaanisqatsi."

Tom has received financial backing and plans to start shooting in Feb 2010.

The 9th Annual Tiburon International Film Festival (TIFF) will be held March 18-26, 2010 in Tiburon, California, a showcase for the independent feature and short films from around the world.Read more >>>

Amazon are having a big sale on many BBC series, including the Blue Planet, and Planet Earth series.

Most are half price, or less! 

This is a great chance to get box sets at a fraction of their original price.  I'm particularly liking The Life Collection.  24 disc box set.  Fanastic!

See the offers on:

• Amazon.com
• Amazon.co.uk

The 8th Annual Tiburon International Film Festival (TIFF) will be held March 19-27, 2009 in Tiburon, California, a showcase for the independent films and filmmakers from around the world.

Submissions are open to all genres of film: Fiction, documentary, short, animation, experimental, student, children, sports, music video.....from any nation in the world.

The festival has honored many great filmmakers: Orson Welles, Sam Pekinpah, Luchino Visconti, Charlie Chaplin, Santiago Alvarez, John Frankenheimer, George Stevens, Malcolm McDowell, Saul Zaentz, Brad Bird, Paul Mazursky, Mark Rydell, Blake Edwards ..... Read more >>>

Grant Wakefield has released a preview to this latest work, Empire of Stone, which is part of his Remnants project. It's a great timelapse film, 15 minutes in length. We look forward to seeing more of the project.

Read more >>>

Watch a trailer of Highway World, Martin Hans Schmitt film currently doing very well on the film festival circuit. It's also available to buy from Amazon (links below).

Watch Highway World on YouTube (sorry, can't show the video on this page)

Buy From Amazon.com (NTSC)

Buy From Amazon.com (PAL)

Baraka Blu-Ray review and quotes from Roger Ebert

“the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined”

“’Baraka’ by itself is sufficient reason to acquire a Blu-ray player.”Read more >>>

A PAL region 2 DVD of Lucky People Center International will be released in Jan/Feb next year in Scandinavia. It is the first time LPCi will be released on DVD with english subtitles (it will also have swedish, danish, norwegian and finnish subtitles).

It also contains a new 5.1 sound mix as well as the orginal 2.0 mix.

Hopefully it will be available worldwide eventually.

Some information about Samsara on the in70mm.com website.

Baraka is expected to be released on Blu-ray on 28-Oct-2008.

You can pre-order the Blu-Ray with a link at the top of the Baraka page

"FULLY RESTORED - THE FIRST MOVIE EVER TRANSFERRED IN 8K ULTRADIGITAL HD!"

Special Features: Includes over 80 minutes of all new bonus features: Baraka: A Closer Look
Baraka: Restoration

It's expected to sell for US$34.98.

Great news as Baraka is truly a film that will benefit from a high quality transfer, as it was shot in 70mm. Currently Baraka DVDs are difficult to get hold of, and I assume it is because production and release has stopped whilst the Blu-Ray HD version was published. I expect a new DVD version will also be available.

I might have to buy a new TV and DVD player soon :)

I'll let you know more when I get more information.Read more >>>

Highway World, by Martin Hans Schmitt, is being showing at the Globians Film Festival, Potsdam, Germany on 12th August 2008, and the Globians Film Festival, Berlin, Germany on 3rd September 2008.

• Images from Highway World
• Globians web site

What energy do you worship? is a thought provoking short film, comparing various types of religious worship, to the worship of nature and the energy of its oceans from the perspective of surfers.

It's a good short film.

Mark Magidson has kindly sent a photograph from Sossosvlai, Namibia, where he is currently filming Samsara. He expects to be in Africa for 6 weeks. I hope to have more photographs from Mark soon

Click the image for a closer look.

Photograph © Copyright 2008 Mark Magidson.

Martin has sent me a copy of his film Highway World. It is a great film which fits nicely into the genre of this website. I am about to leave England to spend the winter traveling in India and Southeast Asia, and unfortunately to do not have time to add a page for the film. Check out Martin's website though, and I will add more details upon my return in June.

Ata Whenua is a new film from New Zealand. The film shows stunning images of landscapes of the Fiordland national park of south west New Zealand.

Paul Ramsbottom is seeking a musician to help score a independent non-verbal film.

Paul's email address is: pramsbottom @ mac.com (remove the spaces)

Pauls message below...

I am seeking a creative collaborator (or a small group of people) to create an original score for a short film project. Ideally I am looking for local people in the San Francisco / Bay Area.

This film is a high definition video project that I have been filming in SE Asia since 2002. The working title "16x9" reflects the sixteen or so South East Asian nations that I have visited during nine trips over the last 5 years.

This is the first time I have presented any of my work or sought the assistance of others (except in your class). My ambitions for this project are very modest; perhaps to create something worthy of entry in a few minor film festivals.Read more >>>

Many thanks to Mark Magidson (producer of Baraka, Samsara and Chronos) for the following Samsara press releases.

Magidson Films - 20-June-2007

Samsara is a Tibetan word that means “the ever turning wheel of life, a concept both intimate and vast, obvious and oblique, the perfect subject for filmmakers Mark Magidson and Ron Fricke who have awed us with exquisite images of the mundane; filmmakers with an uncanny ability to reveal the elusive current of interconnection that runs through the Universe and our lives.Read more >>>

I have added a new page to highlight the short films and trailers of independant filmmakers. Kyle Hopkin's '360' is the first film listed.
Read more

"Samsara," directed and shot by Ron Fricke, has begun lensing and will span 12 to 14 months and more than 20 countries.

From producer Mark Magidson:

"One of the challenges of this is to try to get stunning and unfamiliar imagery. We also need to have a lot of density of imagery to build the sequences for a film that relies on non-verbal storytelling and can sustain interest for the length of a feature."

Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance and "Gladiator" fame will be involved in the "Samsara" score.

Improvements in home- theater systems over the years have helped keep homevid demand strong, and "Baraka" has shipped more than half a million DVDs to date. An upgraded edition, in both regular and high-definition, is on the way from MPI Home Video by year's end.

Budget for the sequel is likely to exceed the original's $3 million, with world distribution rights expected to remain up for grabs until shooting wraps.