ModernFilmZine is organizing a film festival in Kannapolis, N.C., coordinating the event at the Gem Theatre with the Independent Tribune newspaper as a sponsor.
ModernFilmFest is scheduled for Sept. 25-27, 2009.
Tickets look to cost $4 each, with the Independent Tribune newspaper as a sponsor working with the Cabarrus County Chamber of Commerce. We also look to approach the N.C. Research Campus for help.
We look to collect 12 or more movies to play at the theatre over the three day period.
“Midgets vs Mascots,” a shockumentary shot in a style similar to “Borat” pits five little people against five mascots to battle for $1 million apiece in outrageous competitions. The film finished third in voting in the Heineken Audience Award at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, according to a news release.
Here is a run down of stories that ModernFilmZine reporter Michael Knox gathered during his trip to Winston-Salem, N.C. for the RiverRun International Film Festival. Knox will be working on writing up the interviews over the course of the next few weeks so keep checking in to see what interviews are posted.
* An interview with Oscar nominated script writer Guillermo Arriaga who penned, “21 Grams,” “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” and “Babel.” Arriaga discusses his directorial debut with his new movie, “The Burning Plain,” featuring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger.
Sacha Baron Cohen has made a name for himself with the hit film, “Borat” and his latest movie, “Bruno” is about to hit screens, but Baron Cohen isn’t the only one from the family in the film business.
Ash Baron Cohen, a cousin to the “Bruno” star, is currently casting “RadioActive,” a contemporary gangster love story set in Los Angeles against a backdrop of multicultural Americana. The $15 million project is scheduled to go into production in July.
Here is a clip from the Changing Elevations, Inc., circus documentary, “Tearing Down the Tent,” featuring the band, Hellblinki Sextet. The movie features Jamie Reel who runs away to join Cole Bros. Circus for a week, where he worked as a clown, stood inside the Moto-Globe of Death and worked with the clowns. This clip is from a performance at the circus that Reel worked at for a week.
When Hugh Romney joined up with Ken Kesey and the rest of the Merry Pranksters who formed the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test team, Romney knew it was an adventure he had to go on.
“It was a chance to sign up on a space ship,” Romney said during one sequence of a documentary based on his adventures, “St. Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie.”
TICKETS AND INFO: Tickets and all-access passes are now on sale at the Stevens Center box office, via www.riverrunfilm.com or over the phone (336-721-1945). For up-to-date information, or for details about volunteering at the Festival, visit www.riverrunfilm.com or call 336-724-1502
STAFF REPORTS
Director Marc Webb, who helmed the Zooey Deschanel romantic comedy, “(500) Nights,” will be in attendance at the opening night screening of his film during this year’s RiverRun International Film Festival, held in Winston-Salem, N.C.
A Muslim-American filmmaker detained by American Homeland Security has turned his story into a 70 minute documentary that explores the ordeal he endured as a terrorist suspect after returning from Iran where he filmed people interested in break-dancing.
Michael Knox, the director of “Tearing Down the Tent,” and Martin Ramsey, the editor on the circus documentary, worked with the Kannapolis, N.C. newspaper, the Independent Tribune, to develop a series of mini documentaries on Pillowtex.
When Jack Baxter was producing a documentary about a popular international blues bar by the beach in Tel Aviv, called Mike’s Place, he never expected the tone of his film to shift suddenly after a violent explosion.
Baxter was seriously injured in a suicide attack on the bar in Israel in April 2003, during the filming of “Blues By the Beach.” His wife, Fran Strauss-Baxter, said she knew her crew had to continue filming.
“When I saw my husband in the hospital, I knew that no matter what, the film must go on – just like Mike’s Place,” Strauss-Baxter said in a news release “I know from firsthand experience that ‘Blues’ can change someone’s perception of modern-day Israel.”
