All articles by Peter Bowen
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Features
Tribeca Film Festival
JAMES MOTTERN - TRUCKER WORLD NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITIONA chance encounter at a truck-stop cafe inspired James Mottern's debut feature Trucker, the story of a California woman (Michelle Monaghan) whose freewheeling career screeches to a halt when she has to care for her 11-year-old son.Living in Riverside, California, in 2001, Mottern ...
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News
Sundance preview: a sunshine outlook'
Each year thousands come to the mountain town of Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival.Some are here to see films, some to get rejected from overcrowded parties, and others to score goody bags.Many come to divine the future of independent film from the parade of new talent and ...
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Features
Sundance - The Shape of Things to Come - US Stars of Tomorrow
Each year thousands come to the mountain town of Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival. Some are here to see films, some to get rejected from overcrowded parties, and others to score goody bags. Many come to divine the future of independent film from the parade of new ...
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News
Upcoming feature documentaries
From star-led projects to nature documentaries, Peter Bowen profiles a selection of upcoming feature docs.SickoMichael Moore's assault on the US healthcare system opened on June 22 in the US, and starts an international rollout in August. Gary Faber, executive vice-president of marketing at The Weinstein Company feels confident that 'with ...
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Reality check
As the theatrical documentary boom slows, distributors are looking for more innovative release strategies. Ahead of the UK's BRITDOC festival (July 25-27), Peter Bowen explores the future for feature documentaries. After a few years of strongly performing feature documentaries, a recent slowdown in the number of breakouts has left many ...
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Documentary case study: Sicko
Michael Moore's Sicko may be drumming up hype because of its subject matter. But for The Weinstein Company, the director is the real story. Peter Bowen reports. After Fahrenheit 9/11 grossed more than $220m worldwide, it became clear that a Michael Moore film was not your everyday documentary. For his ...
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Documentary case study: Air Guitar Nation
Peter Bowen explains why a debut documentary with a jokey-sounding title was the right fit for a new distributor.The plot of Alex Lipsitz's first documentary feature Air Guitar Nation sounds like a joke. A smattering of hopeful US air guitarists, with names like Bjorn Turoque and C-Diddy, follow their dreams ...
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Oscar changes the eligibility rules for documentaries - again
Will the new Academy Awards requirements benefit films with greater resources' Peter Bowen reportsAfter altering the rules in 2005, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Ampas) is again changing the rules dictating the eligibility of documentary features.In short, a doc must have a seven-day qualifying exhibition in either ...
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Jon Kilik: for whom the Bell tolls
The US producer of The Diving Bell And The Butterfly tells Peter Bowen how he got the film made when both Johnny Depp and Universal dropped out. The French-language memoir The Diving Bell And The Butterfly (Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon) marks the third collaboration between US producer Jon Kilik ...
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James Gray: good cop, bard cop
Shakespeare and Italian melodrama provided the creative inspirations for James Gray's We Own The Night, set in New York in the 1980s. Peter Bowen reports. The inspiration for James Gray's We Own The Night, a character-driven drama about a man who has hidden his past only to confront an inevitable ...
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Tribeca Talent: Carlitos Ruiz Ruiz
Carlitos Ruiz Ruiz's debut feature Lovesickness (Maldeamores) deals with the universal theme of love in very Puerto Rican terms. For Ruiz, 'It's a slice of our Latin idiosyncrasies which also shows how intense and intensely flawed love can be.'Having received a bachelors degree in photography from the Art Institute of ...
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Tribeca Talent: Marshall Lewy
Marshall Lewy's debut feature Blue State, a character-driven road film about a Democrat activist moving to Canada after George W Bush is re-elected in 2004, reflects the director's life in several ways. Like his main character, director Lewy did field work in Ohio for the Democratic Party in 2004. And ...
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Tribeca Talent: Bill Guttentag
Director Bill Guttentag's debut feature film Live!, a mockumentary about a reality TV show whose ultimate showdown ends with a nasty game of Russian roulette, combines his many talents in one package.As a respected non-fiction film-maker who won an Oscar for his 2003 documentary short Twin Towers, Guttentag knows how ...
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Tribeca Talent: Kevin Connolly
Film-maker Kevin Connolly, best known for playing the sane friend, Eric, in HBO's hit series Entourage, found time from his acting career to direct Gardener Of Eden, a small indie comedy about a New Jersey ne'er-do-well who is pushed to become a local hero after he accidentally captures a serial ...
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Latin American locations: Colombia
When producing a $50m film with a host of international stars, Colombia would not necessarily be on any producer's shortlist. But for Scott Steindorff of Stone Village Pictures, who recently wrapped Love In The Time Of Cholera in Cartagena, the experience was well worth the trouble.Colombia was not his first ...
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Features
US stars of tomorrow
Over the past two decades, the Sundance Film Festival has developed into two distinct events. The festival, as started by Robert Redford, has actually changed very little over the last 20 years. Despite the new programmes and categories, and the increasing number of submissions - 1,852 US features this year ...