Exclusive: Management and production company 2Am is bolstering its finance and sales division with the hire of former Sundance Catalyst executive Julia Nelson.
Nelson will report to former WME & Endeavor Content exec Christine D’Souza Gelb who oversees the sales arm of 2Am.
2Am will be launching sales on two titles at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, and produced by 2Am, ShivHans, and AgX; and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry, produced by Dweck and Flies Collective. 2Am is co-repping worldwide rights on both projects with WME, where the filmmakers are also represented.
The company, which is a producer on Celine Song’s Golden Globe nominee Past Lives, has previously repped Sing J. Lee’s Accidental Getaway Driver, Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man.
Nelson joins the company after six years at...
Nelson will report to former WME & Endeavor Content exec Christine D’Souza Gelb who oversees the sales arm of 2Am.
2Am will be launching sales on two titles at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival: Sam and Andy Zuchero’s Love Me starring Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun, and produced by 2Am, ShivHans, and AgX; and Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry, produced by Dweck and Flies Collective. 2Am is co-repping worldwide rights on both projects with WME, where the filmmakers are also represented.
The company, which is a producer on Celine Song’s Golden Globe nominee Past Lives, has previously repped Sing J. Lee’s Accidental Getaway Driver, Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man.
Nelson joins the company after six years at...
- 12/15/2023
- by Andreas Wiseman and Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Michel Gondry’s Partizan and Rtg Features have tapped Christopher Makoto Yogi (I Was a Simple Man) to direct Merv and the Miracles, a feature-length doc that explores the legendary college basketball game between Chaminade and number-one ranked Virginia in 1982.
The film, currently in the early stages of production, is being co-produced and co-financed by Partizan and Rtg Features, with Julie Fong (Dave Chappelle’s Block Party), Brian Yang (Linsanity), and Justin R. Ching (Ritual) producing.
During the opening weekend of the 43rd annual Hawai’i Film Festival, Artistic Director Anderson Le will give attendees an early first look at the film during a panel conversation with Yogi, who is himself an Hiff alum. Pic will be one of two Hawaiian indies spotlighted during the 90-minute program taking place on Saturday, October 14th at Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Honolulu.
Merv and the Miracles picks up on December 23, 1982 with Coach Merv...
The film, currently in the early stages of production, is being co-produced and co-financed by Partizan and Rtg Features, with Julie Fong (Dave Chappelle’s Block Party), Brian Yang (Linsanity), and Justin R. Ching (Ritual) producing.
During the opening weekend of the 43rd annual Hawai’i Film Festival, Artistic Director Anderson Le will give attendees an early first look at the film during a panel conversation with Yogi, who is himself an Hiff alum. Pic will be one of two Hawaiian indies spotlighted during the 90-minute program taking place on Saturday, October 14th at Entrepreneurs Sandbox in Honolulu.
Merv and the Miracles picks up on December 23, 1982 with Coach Merv...
- 9/21/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
Dear Producer, founded by producer Rebecca Green, has announced the four recipients of its 2023 Dear Producer Award, now in its second year. IndieWire shares the recipients exclusively below.
Each producer will receive an unrestricted grant of $50,000, attend a retreat focused on rest and community building, and commit to mentoring an emerging producer for one year. This award is part of Dear Producer’s ongoing commitment to amplify the role of the producer and provide the independent film community with resources to build a more sustainable future.
The Dear Producer Award is sponsored by Facet, founded by Maida Lynn, which embraces creative non-fiction filmmaking by visionary artists.
Green noted the timeliness of this award in a statement shared with IndieWire: “With the WGA strike underway, producers are confronted with the harsh reminder that unlike their collaborators, producers do not have minimum salary protections, healthcare or pension contributions, or residuals.”
A Producers Sustainability Survey,...
Each producer will receive an unrestricted grant of $50,000, attend a retreat focused on rest and community building, and commit to mentoring an emerging producer for one year. This award is part of Dear Producer’s ongoing commitment to amplify the role of the producer and provide the independent film community with resources to build a more sustainable future.
The Dear Producer Award is sponsored by Facet, founded by Maida Lynn, which embraces creative non-fiction filmmaking by visionary artists.
Green noted the timeliness of this award in a statement shared with IndieWire: “With the WGA strike underway, producers are confronted with the harsh reminder that unlike their collaborators, producers do not have minimum salary protections, healthcare or pension contributions, or residuals.”
A Producers Sustainability Survey,...
- 6/5/2023
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Exclusive: Once Upon A Time alumna Rebecca Mader is set for a key recurring role on CBS’ drama series Fire Country. Additionally, Kanoa Goo (The Rookie) has been cast in the series starring Max Thieriot.
In the drama series, Thieriot portrays Bode Donovan, a young convict seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence by joining a prison release firefighting program in Northern California, where he and other inmates are partnered with elite firefighters to extinguish massive, unpredictable wildfires across the region. It’s a high-risk, high-reward assignment, and the heat is turned up when Bode is assigned to the program in his rural hometown, where he was once a golden all-American son – until his troubles began. Five years ago, Bode burned down everything in his life, leaving town with a big secret. Now he’s back, with the rap sheet of a criminal and the audacity to believe in a...
In the drama series, Thieriot portrays Bode Donovan, a young convict seeking redemption and a shortened prison sentence by joining a prison release firefighting program in Northern California, where he and other inmates are partnered with elite firefighters to extinguish massive, unpredictable wildfires across the region. It’s a high-risk, high-reward assignment, and the heat is turned up when Bode is assigned to the program in his rural hometown, where he was once a golden all-American son – until his troubles began. Five years ago, Bode burned down everything in his life, leaving town with a big secret. Now he’s back, with the rap sheet of a criminal and the audacity to believe in a...
- 3/13/2023
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
During his tenure as head of production at Columbia TriStar in the 1990s, Chris Lee oversaw such Hollywood classics as Philadelphia, Jerry Maguire and As Good As It Gets.
But behind the scenes, as the first known Asian American to lead production at a major Hollywood studio, the Hawaii native was also actively involved in nurturing the industry’s then-inchoate Aapi community of executives and creatives, co-founding in 1991 the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment.
Just over 20 years ago, Lee returned to his home state and continued his mission of developing Aapi storytellers by establishing the Academy for Creative Media across the University of Hawai’i system, where he still directs the program. Two ACM alumni have premiered features at Sundance over the past two years — Christopher Makoto Yogi with I Was a Simple Man in 2021 and Alika Maikau with Kaimuki in 2022.
This year Lee himself is returning to the...
But behind the scenes, as the first known Asian American to lead production at a major Hollywood studio, the Hawaii native was also actively involved in nurturing the industry’s then-inchoate Aapi community of executives and creatives, co-founding in 1991 the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment.
Just over 20 years ago, Lee returned to his home state and continued his mission of developing Aapi storytellers by establishing the Academy for Creative Media across the University of Hawai’i system, where he still directs the program. Two ACM alumni have premiered features at Sundance over the past two years — Christopher Makoto Yogi with I Was a Simple Man in 2021 and Alika Maikau with Kaimuki in 2022.
This year Lee himself is returning to the...
- 1/23/2023
- by Rebecca Sun
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (Laapff), presented annually by Visual Communications (Vc), Southern California’s leading showcase for new Asian Pacific American and Asian international cinema, announced today the program for the 38th edition of the festival. The festival returns May 5th to 13th in Los Angeles and will feature an exciting lineup of in-person programming, along with virtual programming for our audiences at home in Southern California and beyond.
As Visual Communications premiere annual event, Laapff continues to build connections between peoples and generations through the amplification of Asian and Pacific Islander film, video, and media.The festival celebrates Asian Pacific American filmmakers and Asian international artists with profound, important and entertaining films and content from the new voices of cinema while honoring the legends and leaders who keep this cultural movement going forward. Important themes of representation, authorship, responsibility and ethics are at the forefront of content creation.
As Visual Communications premiere annual event, Laapff continues to build connections between peoples and generations through the amplification of Asian and Pacific Islander film, video, and media.The festival celebrates Asian Pacific American filmmakers and Asian international artists with profound, important and entertaining films and content from the new voices of cinema while honoring the legends and leaders who keep this cultural movement going forward. Important themes of representation, authorship, responsibility and ethics are at the forefront of content creation.
- 4/18/2022
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
After Yang (kogonada)
Following his serenely stunning drama Columbus, video-essayist-turned-director kogonada headed to the future with After Yang. The gorgeous, moving drama about what makes up a family premiered at last year’s Cannes (where our own Rory O’Connor was mixed) and after a few tweaks recently landed at Sundance, where it received quite a rapturous response. Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Justin H. Min, Sarita Choudhury, Haley Lu Richardson, and Clifton Collins Jr., it follows Farrell as Jake, a father who attempts to repair the malfunction Yang, an android that was a companion to his young daughter. In his second feature, kogonada perfectly depicts quite a seemingly realistic near-future while still retaining the peaceful artistic sensibilities of his debut.
After Yang (kogonada)
Following his serenely stunning drama Columbus, video-essayist-turned-director kogonada headed to the future with After Yang. The gorgeous, moving drama about what makes up a family premiered at last year’s Cannes (where our own Rory O’Connor was mixed) and after a few tweaks recently landed at Sundance, where it received quite a rapturous response. Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Justin H. Min, Sarita Choudhury, Haley Lu Richardson, and Clifton Collins Jr., it follows Farrell as Jake, a father who attempts to repair the malfunction Yang, an android that was a companion to his young daughter. In his second feature, kogonada perfectly depicts quite a seemingly realistic near-future while still retaining the peaceful artistic sensibilities of his debut.
- 3/4/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Having just held the world premiere to August at Akiko in Rotterdam, Christopher Makoto Yogi has a slate full of feature film projects including I Was a Simple Man. In what feels like an Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee type set in Hawai’i. This was my sit down with the USC filmmaker back in 2015.
…...
…...
- 3/3/2022
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
Rarely one finds a friend on the Criterion Channel—discounting the parasitic relationship we form with filmmakers, I mean—but it’s great seeing their March lineup give light to Sophy Romvari, the <bias>exceptionally talented</bias> filmmaker and curator whose work has perhaps earned comparisons to Agnès Varda and Chantal Akerman but charts its own path of history and reflection. It’s a good way to lead into an exceptionally strong month, featuring as it does numerous films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the great Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara, newfound cult classic Arrebato, and a number of Criterion editions.
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
- 2/21/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
The first ever Sands: International Film Festival, set to be held in Scotland’s St Andrews, has revealed its line-up.
Running March 25-27, the program will consist of nine fiction and non-fiction features, including a mystery film not yet announced.
On the list is documentary Long Live My Happy Head, from Leith-based filmmaking duo Will Hewitt and Austen McCowan, which is a love story about comic books and caner that follows a long-distance couple as they navigate a Covid lockdown. The film will premiere at this year’s BFI Flare festival next month.
Screening in St Andrews having premiered recently in Sundance is Jono McLeod’s My Old School, a documentary-animation hybrid that unravels a Scottish scandal.
Arriving from Sundance’s 2021 edition will be Blerta Basholli’s feature debut Hive, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man.
A pair of titles will...
Running March 25-27, the program will consist of nine fiction and non-fiction features, including a mystery film not yet announced.
On the list is documentary Long Live My Happy Head, from Leith-based filmmaking duo Will Hewitt and Austen McCowan, which is a love story about comic books and caner that follows a long-distance couple as they navigate a Covid lockdown. The film will premiere at this year’s BFI Flare festival next month.
Screening in St Andrews having premiered recently in Sundance is Jono McLeod’s My Old School, a documentary-animation hybrid that unravels a Scottish scandal.
Arriving from Sundance’s 2021 edition will be Blerta Basholli’s feature debut Hive, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta, and Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man.
A pair of titles will...
- 2/21/2022
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Air Doll (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Despite coming from one of international cinema’s foremost working filmmakers, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2009 film Air Doll had never seen a release in the U.S. Adapted by Kore-eda from Yoshiie Gōda’s manga series Kuuki Ningyo, it’s a modern retelling of the Galatea myth—in which the king Pygmalion fell in love with his ivory statue and the goddess Aphrodite brought the statue to life. For a 21st-century spin on the tale, Kore-eda naturally updated the statue to a blow-up sex doll, played by Bae Doona. – Mitchell B. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Junta Yamaguchi)
The logistics behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes are mind-boggling to fathom; time-travel stories are...
Air Doll (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Despite coming from one of international cinema’s foremost working filmmakers, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2009 film Air Doll had never seen a release in the U.S. Adapted by Kore-eda from Yoshiie Gōda’s manga series Kuuki Ningyo, it’s a modern retelling of the Galatea myth—in which the king Pygmalion fell in love with his ivory statue and the goddess Aphrodite brought the statue to life. For a 21st-century spin on the tale, Kore-eda naturally updated the statue to a blow-up sex doll, played by Bae Doona. – Mitchell B. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Junta Yamaguchi)
The logistics behind Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes are mind-boggling to fathom; time-travel stories are...
- 2/4/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Exclusive: Visit Films has boarded worldwide sales rights to Ricky D’Ambrose’s new film The Cathedral, which will get its U.S. premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
In The Cathedral, which was part of the Biennale College Cinema at the Venice Film Festival, an unseen narrator unfolds the constellation of familial relationships of Jesse Damrosh, born in 1987, chronicling the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and the feuds, money concerns and deaths that define a typical middle-class American existence.
Part semi-autobiographical portrait and part-catalogue of the objects, people, and moments that characterized some 20 years of America, The Cathedral is a described as an “experiential meditation on youth and the recent past”.
The film stars Brian d’Arcy James (West Side Story), Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick), Mark Zeisler, Geraldine Singer (Get Out), and William Bednar-Carter.
Pic is produced by Graham Swon and executive-produced by David Lowery.
D’Ambrose said: “Making and...
In The Cathedral, which was part of the Biennale College Cinema at the Venice Film Festival, an unseen narrator unfolds the constellation of familial relationships of Jesse Damrosh, born in 1987, chronicling the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and the feuds, money concerns and deaths that define a typical middle-class American existence.
Part semi-autobiographical portrait and part-catalogue of the objects, people, and moments that characterized some 20 years of America, The Cathedral is a described as an “experiential meditation on youth and the recent past”.
The film stars Brian d’Arcy James (West Side Story), Monica Barbaro (Top Gun: Maverick), Mark Zeisler, Geraldine Singer (Get Out), and William Bednar-Carter.
Pic is produced by Graham Swon and executive-produced by David Lowery.
D’Ambrose said: “Making and...
- 12/13/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to “Marx Can Wait” by Italian film master Marco Bellocchio, who received the honorary Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Represented in international markets by The Match Factory, “Marx Can Wait” is a moving and personal family tale exploring how the suicide of his twin brother Camillo shaped Bellocchio’s life and body of work. The documentary played at New York Film Festival and is eligible for this year’s Academy Awards.
In “Marx Can Wait,” Bellocchio tackles the trauma of Camillo’s death and invites family members to present their memories of his twin brother. The narrative and observational documentary shows how this loss has loomed over Bellocchio’s work like an unexpressed taboo marked by guilt, remorse and longing.
“We’re so thrilled to be partnering once again with The Match Factory and with Bellocchio on this beautiful,...
Represented in international markets by The Match Factory, “Marx Can Wait” is a moving and personal family tale exploring how the suicide of his twin brother Camillo shaped Bellocchio’s life and body of work. The documentary played at New York Film Festival and is eligible for this year’s Academy Awards.
In “Marx Can Wait,” Bellocchio tackles the trauma of Camillo’s death and invites family members to present their memories of his twin brother. The narrative and observational documentary shows how this loss has loomed over Bellocchio’s work like an unexpressed taboo marked by guilt, remorse and longing.
“We’re so thrilled to be partnering once again with The Match Factory and with Bellocchio on this beautiful,...
- 11/22/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Julia Oh has been hired by 2Am, the full-service production and management company founded by Christine D’Souza Gelb, David Hinojosa and Kevin Rowe, as a producer.
Oh will be based in NY with the company’s production team, working alongside Hinojosa and Zach Nutman.
2Am’s film and TV production division, overseen by Hinojosa, is currently in post-production on Halina Reijn’s English-language debut, Bodies Bodies Bodies, starring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, and Pete Davidson, and on Emmy winner Billy Porter’s directorial debut, What If?, at Orion Pictures. It’s also finishing principal photography on Past Lives, a feature drama written and directed by Celine Song.
The company’s management division represents such acclaimed writers and directors as Amalia Ulman (El Planeta), Radha Blank (The Forty-Year-Old Version), Ari Aster (Hereditary), Janicza Bravo (Zola), Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play), Kota Eberhardt (X-Men: Dark Phoenix), Leilah Weinraub (The Shakedown...
Oh will be based in NY with the company’s production team, working alongside Hinojosa and Zach Nutman.
2Am’s film and TV production division, overseen by Hinojosa, is currently in post-production on Halina Reijn’s English-language debut, Bodies Bodies Bodies, starring Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, and Pete Davidson, and on Emmy winner Billy Porter’s directorial debut, What If?, at Orion Pictures. It’s also finishing principal photography on Past Lives, a feature drama written and directed by Celine Song.
The company’s management division represents such acclaimed writers and directors as Amalia Ulman (El Planeta), Radha Blank (The Forty-Year-Old Version), Ari Aster (Hereditary), Janicza Bravo (Zola), Jeremy O. Harris (Slave Play), Kota Eberhardt (X-Men: Dark Phoenix), Leilah Weinraub (The Shakedown...
- 11/11/2021
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
The 22nd San Diego Asian Film Festival (Sdaff) announced the winners of its competition categories at the Sdaff Awards Gala, held virtually on Saturday, November 6, 2021.
Top honors went to I Was A Simple Man for the Grand Jury Prize, Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust for Best Documentary Feature, and 7 Days for Best Narrative Feature.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Asian American Juried Competition
Jurors include Peter X Feng, Keisha N. Knight, Phuong Le, and Meena Nanji
Grand Jury Prize
I Was A Simple Man
Directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi
Best Documentary Feature
Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Directed by Ann Kaneko
Best Narrative Feature
7 Days
Directed by Roshan Sethi
Best Documentary Short
An Uninterrupted View Of The Sea
Directed by Mika Yatsuhashi
Best Narrative Short
Americanized
Directed by Erica Eng
Best Experimental Short
Rumi And His Roses
Directed by Navid Sinaki
Special Jury Mention
To...
Top honors went to I Was A Simple Man for the Grand Jury Prize, Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust for Best Documentary Feature, and 7 Days for Best Narrative Feature.
The full list of winners is as follows:
Asian American Juried Competition
Jurors include Peter X Feng, Keisha N. Knight, Phuong Le, and Meena Nanji
Grand Jury Prize
I Was A Simple Man
Directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi
Best Documentary Feature
Manzanar Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust
Directed by Ann Kaneko
Best Narrative Feature
7 Days
Directed by Roshan Sethi
Best Documentary Short
An Uninterrupted View Of The Sea
Directed by Mika Yatsuhashi
Best Narrative Short
Americanized
Directed by Erica Eng
Best Experimental Short
Rumi And His Roses
Directed by Navid Sinaki
Special Jury Mention
To...
- 11/8/2021
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: M. Night Shyamalan on the set of Old (2021). Berlinale has announced that the one and only M. Night Shyamalan will serve as the Jury President for the festival's 2022 edition. In a statement, Shyamalan said: "I have always felt like an independent filmmaker within the system of Hollywood. It is exactly those things in us that are different and unorthodox that define our voice. I have tried to maintain these things in myself and cheer others on to protect those aspects in their art and in themselves. Being asked to be a part of Berlinale is deeply meaningful to me. It represents the highest imprimatur for a filmmaker. Being able to support and celebrate the world’s very best talent in storytelling is a gift I happily accepted.”David Fincher is partnering with Netflix...
- 10/20/2021
- MUBI
Following up his lovely, meditative debut feature August at Akiko’s, Christopher Makoto Yogi returned this year with I Was a Simple Man, a serene ghost story set in the pastoral countryside of the north shore of O’ahu, Hawai’i. Premiering at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and now coming next month via Strand, it tells the story of an elderly man facing the end of his life, visited by the ghosts of his past. Ahead of the release, the first trailer and poster have now arrived.
David Katz said in his Sundance review, “One of the most succinct, yet heavily weighted lines of dialogue in cinema history is a three-syllable call to death: “Time to die,” as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty commands Deckard in Blade Runner. Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man makes its own attempt at this profundity, attempting to...
David Katz said in his Sundance review, “One of the most succinct, yet heavily weighted lines of dialogue in cinema history is a three-syllable call to death: “Time to die,” as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty commands Deckard in Blade Runner. Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man makes its own attempt at this profundity, attempting to...
- 10/15/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
"Dying isn't simple, is it?" Strand Releasing has unveiled an official trailer for an acclaimed indie film titled I Was A Simple Man, which originally premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The film is made by a Hawaiian filmmaker named Christopher Makoto Yogi, his second feature, and it earned some rave reviews from critics. It's a gorgeous slow burn work of art. A family in Hawai'i faces the imminent death of their eldest as the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside. The director explains: "It was always the goal to make it feel honest to my experience growing up in Hawaii. When I think back to my childhood, I was always surrounded by ghost stories... it's very much a vibrant part of the culture. They are told in the same ways that one would trade memories." I Was A Simple Man stars Steve Iwamoto and Constance Wu,...
- 10/14/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAbove: Fox Maxy's Maat Means Land (2020) MoMA has announced the lineup and schedule for “To The Lighthouse,” a thrilling carte blanche program by curator Mark McElhatten featuring new films by Nathaniel Dorsky, Ernie Gehr, Jodie Mack, Dani and Sheilah ReStack, and more, along with older films by Rivette, Joseph H. Lewis, Claire Denis, and Marguerite Duras.An essential annual list, Filmmaker Magazine's 25 new faces of film for 2021 includes Kate Gondwe (the founder of Dezda Films), filmmaker Fox Maxy, Omnes Films (the collective behind Tyler Taormina's Ham on Rye), and others. A24 and Emma Stone’s production company, Fruit Tree Banner, have come together to back Jane Schoenbrun's I Saw The TV Glow. The film, a follow-up to Schoenbrun's debut from this year, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, follows...
- 10/13/2021
- MUBI
Christopher Makoto Yogi’s second feature “I Was a Simple Man” was one of the best films to world-premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. The film stars Constance Wu opposite a cast ensemble of Asian American and Native Hawaiian actors, including Iwamoto, Wu, Kanoa Goo, Tim Chiou, and Chanel Akiko Hirai.
The official synopsis for “I Was a Simple Man” reads: “A lyrical ghost story set in the lush Hawaiian countryside, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) whose life is slowly fading away because of a terminal illness. As his estranged family members struggle to care for him, Masao is visited by his deceased wife Grace (Constance Wu), and is forced to confront the decisions of his past.”
IndieWire Chief Film Critic David Ehrlich named “I Was a Simple Man” an official Critic’s Pick out of the Sundance Film Festival, writing, “Layering the spectral hush of...
The official synopsis for “I Was a Simple Man” reads: “A lyrical ghost story set in the lush Hawaiian countryside, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) whose life is slowly fading away because of a terminal illness. As his estranged family members struggle to care for him, Masao is visited by his deceased wife Grace (Constance Wu), and is forced to confront the decisions of his past.”
IndieWire Chief Film Critic David Ehrlich named “I Was a Simple Man” an official Critic’s Pick out of the Sundance Film Festival, writing, “Layering the spectral hush of...
- 10/13/2021
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Fox Fire Films, Sanusi Chronicles, Causeway Films produced.
Visit Films will kick off world sales later this week on South African filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass’s TIFF genre title Good Madam (Mlungu Wam) which gets its world premiere in Platform on Thursday (September 9).
Set in the suburbs of Cape Town Good Madam tells of Tsidi, a single parent who moves back in with her estranged mother Mavis, a live-in domestic worker who has been employed by her bedridden white “Madam” for 30 years.
When Tsidi experiences disturbing events that have plagued her mother she uncovers the dark truth behind the relationship Mavis has with her employer.
Visit Films will kick off world sales later this week on South African filmmaker Jenna Cato Bass’s TIFF genre title Good Madam (Mlungu Wam) which gets its world premiere in Platform on Thursday (September 9).
Set in the suburbs of Cape Town Good Madam tells of Tsidi, a single parent who moves back in with her estranged mother Mavis, a live-in domestic worker who has been employed by her bedridden white “Madam” for 30 years.
When Tsidi experiences disturbing events that have plagued her mother she uncovers the dark truth behind the relationship Mavis has with her employer.
- 9/7/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (Laapff), presented annually by Visual Communications (Vc), today announced the first set of films that will screen as part of the 37th edition of the Festival, which will be a hybrid event taking place virtually and in person at select cinemas in the Los Angeles area from September 23 to October 2, 2021.
The Festival will open on Thursday, September 23 at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center’s Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles with the Los Angeles premiere of Ann Kaneko’s Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, a poetic look at the unexpected alliance formed by Native Americans, Japanese American WWII incarcerees, and environmentalists to defend their land and water from Los Angeles.
“Visual Communications looks forward to sharing the stories that intersect and converge movements such as Manzanar, Diverted,” says Francis Cullado, Executive Director of Visual Communications. “From emerging to established filmmakers,...
The Festival will open on Thursday, September 23 at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center’s Aratani Theatre in Little Tokyo, Downtown Los Angeles with the Los Angeles premiere of Ann Kaneko’s Manzanar, Diverted: When Water Becomes Dust, a poetic look at the unexpected alliance formed by Native Americans, Japanese American WWII incarcerees, and environmentalists to defend their land and water from Los Angeles.
“Visual Communications looks forward to sharing the stories that intersect and converge movements such as Manzanar, Diverted,” says Francis Cullado, Executive Director of Visual Communications. “From emerging to established filmmakers,...
- 8/28/2021
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
In a sad blow, the Melbourne International Film Festival (Miff) has announced it will cancel its in-cinema screenings given the current Covid situation in the city.
The festival, always designed as a hybrid event, will continue nationally on Miff Play, with the festival securing an additional 30 titles for the platform. These include some direct-from-Cannes titles such as The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, La Civil, Rehana Maryam Noor and Babi Yar, and Australian films Ablaze, Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution, Little Tornadoes and Paper City.
However, some of the festival most anticipated films, including local films such as Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, intended as the Opening Night Gala, and Justin Kurzel’s Nitram are not available on the service.
As regional Victoria is no longer in lockdown, the festival’s regional season will proceed, with required changes to the line-up to be advised through local operators.
The festival, always designed as a hybrid event, will continue nationally on Miff Play, with the festival securing an additional 30 titles for the platform. These include some direct-from-Cannes titles such as The Hill Where Lionesses Roar, La Civil, Rehana Maryam Noor and Babi Yar, and Australian films Ablaze, Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution, Little Tornadoes and Paper City.
However, some of the festival most anticipated films, including local films such as Leah Purcell’s The Drover’s Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson, intended as the Opening Night Gala, and Justin Kurzel’s Nitram are not available on the service.
As regional Victoria is no longer in lockdown, the festival’s regional season will proceed, with required changes to the line-up to be advised through local operators.
- 8/10/2021
- by Jackie Keast
- IF.com.au
While the 2020 edition was understandably canceled due to the pandemic, BAMcinemaFest will be returning this year for a virtual edition from June 23-39, the same month that Bam Rose Cinemas will reopen––specifically on June 11.
The lineup for the annual festival, which celebrates some of the finest new offerings in indie filmmaking, is pared down from the standard in-person edition but still features five New York premieres, including Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli starring Riz Ahmed; the world premiere of BAMcinemaFest alum Ougie Pak’s Clytaemnestra; an artist spotlight on the work of Fox Maxy; as well as documentary and experimental shorts programs, and filmmaker Q&As.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to have BAMcinemaFest back virtually this year,” said Jesse Trussell, Bam’s senior film programmer. “We’re so happy to present work by this collection of pathbreaking, incisive, formally and politically daring filmmakers—and to help these films find...
The lineup for the annual festival, which celebrates some of the finest new offerings in indie filmmaking, is pared down from the standard in-person edition but still features five New York premieres, including Bassam Tariq’s Mogul Mowgli starring Riz Ahmed; the world premiere of BAMcinemaFest alum Ougie Pak’s Clytaemnestra; an artist spotlight on the work of Fox Maxy; as well as documentary and experimental shorts programs, and filmmaker Q&As.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to have BAMcinemaFest back virtually this year,” said Jesse Trussell, Bam’s senior film programmer. “We’re so happy to present work by this collection of pathbreaking, incisive, formally and politically daring filmmakers—and to help these films find...
- 5/18/2021
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
After being closed for over a year due to Covid-19, Bam Rose Cinemas will reopen Friday, June 11 for in-person screenings of first-run and repertory films, the Brooklyn mainstay has today announced. All four screens will reopen, with approximately 20 to 50 seats available in each theater, in accordance with reduced capacity New York State guidelines.
The theater will also be implementing a variety of enhanced safety measures, including mandatory masks unless eating or drinking (concessions will be available), socially-distanced seating, enhanced Hvac filtration, and increased time between screenings to facilitate thorough cleaning and minimize interactions.
The theater will play a variety of new releases and older selections when it opens, including several titles that initially premiered as virtual cinema titles, such as Ousmane Sembène’s “Mandabi,” which first played on the virtual platform in February. “Sembène is an artist I love to see on the big screen,” senior film programmer Jesse Trussell told IndieWire.
The theater will also be implementing a variety of enhanced safety measures, including mandatory masks unless eating or drinking (concessions will be available), socially-distanced seating, enhanced Hvac filtration, and increased time between screenings to facilitate thorough cleaning and minimize interactions.
The theater will play a variety of new releases and older selections when it opens, including several titles that initially premiered as virtual cinema titles, such as Ousmane Sembène’s “Mandabi,” which first played on the virtual platform in February. “Sembène is an artist I love to see on the big screen,” senior film programmer Jesse Trussell told IndieWire.
- 5/18/2021
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
Strand Releasing has acquired North American rights to Christopher Makoto Yogi’s “I Was a Simple Man,” which stars Constance Wu and had its world premiere at this year’s Sundance film festival.
A lyrical ghost story set in the lush Hawaiian countryside, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) whose life is slowly fading away because of a terminal illness. As his estranged family members struggle to care for him, Masao is visited by his deceased wife Grace (Wu) and is forced to confront the decisions of his past.
Spanning multiple generations, “I Was a Simple Man” features a rich ensemble of Asian American and Native Hawaiian actors, including Iwamoto, Wu, Kanoa Goo, Tim Chiou and Chanel Akiko Hirai. The film participated in the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs, as well as Sundance Catalyst.
“I was lucky enough to be introduced to Chris and this project at the Sundance Labs,...
A lyrical ghost story set in the lush Hawaiian countryside, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) whose life is slowly fading away because of a terminal illness. As his estranged family members struggle to care for him, Masao is visited by his deceased wife Grace (Wu) and is forced to confront the decisions of his past.
Spanning multiple generations, “I Was a Simple Man” features a rich ensemble of Asian American and Native Hawaiian actors, including Iwamoto, Wu, Kanoa Goo, Tim Chiou and Chanel Akiko Hirai. The film participated in the Sundance Directors and Screenwriters Labs, as well as Sundance Catalyst.
“I was lucky enough to be introduced to Chris and this project at the Sundance Labs,...
- 5/11/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
HBO Max is rounding out cast for its comedy pilot Ok Boomer. Will Sasso and Tim Chiou are set as series regulars, along with Zoe Manarel and Carter Chee in the multi-camera comedy pilot from creator Todd Linden, the late Jamie Tarses’ Fanfare and Sony Pictures TV. They join previously announced series regulars Patti Lupone, Erinn Hayes and Devere Rogers.
Written by Linden and to be directed by Victor Gonzalez, Ok Boomer centers on Barbara (LuPone), a self-centered boomer who shows up at her estranged daughter Sarah’s (Hayes) house hoping to live off the family’s money, but forms an unexpected bond with her progressive granddaughter who’s quick to challenge her on their differing views — of which there are plenty.
Sasso will play Nick,...
Written by Linden and to be directed by Victor Gonzalez, Ok Boomer centers on Barbara (LuPone), a self-centered boomer who shows up at her estranged daughter Sarah’s (Hayes) house hoping to live off the family’s money, but forms an unexpected bond with her progressive granddaughter who’s quick to challenge her on their differing views — of which there are plenty.
Sasso will play Nick,...
- 4/15/2021
- by Denise Petski
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: Constance Wu, star of ABC’s Fresh Off The Boat and Crazy Rich Asians, is moving into TV production and has struck a first-look deal with eOne.
The actress is launching a production venture and has tapped Justine Jones as Vice President of Development.
It comes as Wu is developing a feature adaptation of Rachel Khong’s novel Goodbye Vitamin, with Dylan Clark Productions, that she will star in and exec produce.
Last year, Wu wrapped up the sixth and final season of ABC comedy Fresh Off The Boat, in which she starred as Jessica Huang. She also starred as Rachel Chu in Warner Bros. hit feature film Crazy Rich Asians, which was directed by Jon M. Chu, where she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
Coming up, Wu stars in Amazon anthology series Solos, alongside Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren, Uzo Aduba, Nicole Beharie, Anthony Mackie and Dan Stevens.
The actress is launching a production venture and has tapped Justine Jones as Vice President of Development.
It comes as Wu is developing a feature adaptation of Rachel Khong’s novel Goodbye Vitamin, with Dylan Clark Productions, that she will star in and exec produce.
Last year, Wu wrapped up the sixth and final season of ABC comedy Fresh Off The Boat, in which she starred as Jessica Huang. She also starred as Rachel Chu in Warner Bros. hit feature film Crazy Rich Asians, which was directed by Jon M. Chu, where she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.
Coming up, Wu stars in Amazon anthology series Solos, alongside Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway, Helen Mirren, Uzo Aduba, Nicole Beharie, Anthony Mackie and Dan Stevens.
- 3/30/2021
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
The Sundance Institute has selected the 11 screenwriters that will participate in the ninth annual Screenwriters Intensive which will take place digitally on March 4-5. The writers selected are Radhika Apte, William Kwok, Tulica Singh, Timothy Ware, Daniel Klein, Jo Hatcher, Chy Chi, Xavier Coleman, Joyce Sherri, Brian Robau and Jessica Mendez Siqueiros.
The Intensive is a two-day workshop for emerging independent writers and writer/directors developing their first fiction features. The writers, which are from traditionally underrepresented communities, will have the opportunity to refine their stories under the guidance of established writers and the Institute’s Feature Film Program, led by Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, and the program’s Founding Director, Michelle Satter.
“We are inspired by this group of dynamic artists, who are each telling indelible stories with specificity, boldness, and their own distinctive style,” said McKimmie “It’s a privilege to bring them...
The Intensive is a two-day workshop for emerging independent writers and writer/directors developing their first fiction features. The writers, which are from traditionally underrepresented communities, will have the opportunity to refine their stories under the guidance of established writers and the Institute’s Feature Film Program, led by Ilyse McKimmie, Deputy Director, Sundance Institute Feature Film Program, and the program’s Founding Director, Michelle Satter.
“We are inspired by this group of dynamic artists, who are each telling indelible stories with specificity, boldness, and their own distinctive style,” said McKimmie “It’s a privilege to bring them...
- 3/4/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Roster includes mountaineering documentary The Sanctity Of Space.
Ryan Kampe’s Visit Films has added acclaimed Sundance titles I Was a Simple Man, El Planeta and First Date to the sales roster for this week’s virtual EFM.
The slate includes previously announced Sundance thriller Superior, as well as mountaineering documentary The Sanctity Of Space, Tribeca 2020 selections Lorelei and My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, 2020 SXSW selection The Surrogate, and survival thriller Wildcat.
Visit holds international rights to Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man, which takes place in the countryside of the north shore of O‘ahu,...
Ryan Kampe’s Visit Films has added acclaimed Sundance titles I Was a Simple Man, El Planeta and First Date to the sales roster for this week’s virtual EFM.
The slate includes previously announced Sundance thriller Superior, as well as mountaineering documentary The Sanctity Of Space, Tribeca 2020 selections Lorelei and My Heart Can’t Beat Unless You Tell It To, 2020 SXSW selection The Surrogate, and survival thriller Wildcat.
Visit holds international rights to Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was A Simple Man, which takes place in the countryside of the north shore of O‘ahu,...
- 3/1/2021
- by Jeremy Kay
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Former Endeavor Content partner Christine D’Souza Gelb has teamed with Killer Films production exec David Hinojosa and manager Kevin Rowe to launch 2Am, a new production and management venture that gets off the ground with backing from A24.
The company launches with designs on managing filmmaker clients, and producing projects primarily in the film and television space. For indie studio A24, this is its first foray in investing in a management concern. Sources said there will be an arms length relationship between the two companies with no first look deal.
The catalyst for the new company is D’Souza Gelb, who spent 15 years at a top agent in film financing and sales as a partner at Endeavor Content, before surprising colleagues last May with an internal note that she would stop being an agent. She wanted to take some time and plot a course change, and early this fall she began putting together 2Am.
The company launches with designs on managing filmmaker clients, and producing projects primarily in the film and television space. For indie studio A24, this is its first foray in investing in a management concern. Sources said there will be an arms length relationship between the two companies with no first look deal.
The catalyst for the new company is D’Souza Gelb, who spent 15 years at a top agent in film financing and sales as a partner at Endeavor Content, before surprising colleagues last May with an internal note that she would stop being an agent. She wanted to take some time and plot a course change, and early this fall she began putting together 2Am.
- 2/23/2021
- by Mike Fleming Jr
- Deadline Film + TV
“Dying isn’t simple is it?” Masao (Steve Iwamoto) is on his death bed, unwilling — or unable — to reckon with his debilitating sickness, even as his estranged children and grandchildren flit around and away from his bedside. The only presence that has stuck by his side the entire time he’s been bedbound is not […]
The post ‘I Was a Simple Man’ Review: A Ghostly Constance Wu Guides Her Dying Husband in a Gentle Meditation on Life [Sundance 2021] appeared first on /Film.
The post ‘I Was a Simple Man’ Review: A Ghostly Constance Wu Guides Her Dying Husband in a Gentle Meditation on Life [Sundance 2021] appeared first on /Film.
- 2/8/2021
- by Hoai-Tran Bui
- Slash Film
Sundance went virtual for its 2021 edition, but that certainly didn’t slow the market down. Within a matter of days, Apple broke the record for dealmaking at the festival by scoring eventual Grand Jury prize-winner “Coda” for a whopping $25 million; Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut, “Passing,” landed with Netflix for a reported $15 million deal as the festival came to an end. Meanwhile, a number of highlights from the lineup are enmeshed in bidding wars as sales agents sort through their options, including Questlove’s celebrated documentary “Summer of Soul” and Jerrod Carmichael’s twisted buddy movie “On the Count of Three.”
Since those movies don’t exactly need our help getting on buyers radars, we’re leaving them off our usual memo to distributors in favor of a number of titiles that could really use the boost. The year ahead is certainly going to be an unpredictable one for distribution...
Since those movies don’t exactly need our help getting on buyers radars, we’re leaving them off our usual memo to distributors in favor of a number of titiles that could really use the boost. The year ahead is certainly going to be an unpredictable one for distribution...
- 2/4/2021
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Sundance 2021 offered two case studies in the anxiety of influence, or lack thereof—neither film’s particularly worried about covering its tracks. Hawai’ian director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man is a logical progression from his first feature, 2018’s August at Akiko’s, which climaxed by layering a Mulholland Drive riff (a sax player soloing inside an empty cave with no audience) on top of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (said shot of cave models its angle and lighting directly on Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s climactic setup). But August at Akiko’s told an essentially simple, literally meditative story about atmospherically re-immersing oneself at home after a long […]
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 5 (Vadim Rizov): I Was a Simple Man, The Blazing World first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 5 (Vadim Rizov): I Was a Simple Man, The Blazing World first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/3/2021
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Sundance 2021 offered two case studies in the anxiety of influence, or lack thereof—neither film’s particularly worried about covering its tracks. Hawai’ian director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man is a logical progression from his first feature, 2018’s August at Akiko’s, which climaxed by layering a Mulholland Drive riff (a sax player soloing inside an empty cave with no audience) on top of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (said shot of cave models its angle and lighting directly on Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s climactic setup). But August at Akiko’s told an essentially simple, literally meditative story about atmospherically re-immersing oneself at home after a long […]
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 5 (Vadim Rizov): I Was a Simple Man, The Blazing World first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 5 (Vadim Rizov): I Was a Simple Man, The Blazing World first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/3/2021
- by Vadim Rizov
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Sundance Film Festival always has a few surprises in store. This year, they didn’t come from record-breaking deals or overnight talent discoveries. All of that happened, but the surprise of Sundance 2021 was that it worked so well.
Over the past year, the concept of the virtual film festival has been eyed with skepticism at best, and at worst, outright revulsion. Cannes shrugged off the notion of a virtual festival each time it postponed its 2020 dates until all it could do was announce a selection with no screenings. The Toronto and New York festivals found basic solutions to make their lineups available in virtual form. For its part, TIFF actually pulled off a localized version of its event that included indoor screenings. Venice went a step further as the only snazzy red-carpet fall event to take place exclusively in physical form.
Sundance took a different path. By late June...
Over the past year, the concept of the virtual film festival has been eyed with skepticism at best, and at worst, outright revulsion. Cannes shrugged off the notion of a virtual festival each time it postponed its 2020 dates until all it could do was announce a selection with no screenings. The Toronto and New York festivals found basic solutions to make their lineups available in virtual form. For its part, TIFF actually pulled off a localized version of its event that included indoor screenings. Venice went a step further as the only snazzy red-carpet fall event to take place exclusively in physical form.
Sundance took a different path. By late June...
- 2/3/2021
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
This week on the New Hollywood Podcast, we have not one, not two but 16 guests in four separate segments. The Sundance Film Festival was virtual this year as was Deadline’s Sundance Studio. For this special episode, we share our studio interviews in podcast form.
For this episode, I had the chance to speak with Christopher Makoto Yogi, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Tim Chiou and Nelson Lee from the Hawaii-set familial drama with a ghost story twist I Was A Simple Man as well as Nikole Beckwith, Ed Helms and Patti Harrison for the platonic friend comedy Together Together. Meanwhile, Amanda N’Duka chatted with Rebecca Hall, Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and returning guest Andre Holland for the highly-anticipated drama Passing. She also sat down and had a talk with Carlson Young, Vinessa Shaw, Dermot Mulroney and Udo Kier from the fantasy-horror The Blazing World.
Each film in this...
For this episode, I had the chance to speak with Christopher Makoto Yogi, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Tim Chiou and Nelson Lee from the Hawaii-set familial drama with a ghost story twist I Was A Simple Man as well as Nikole Beckwith, Ed Helms and Patti Harrison for the platonic friend comedy Together Together. Meanwhile, Amanda N’Duka chatted with Rebecca Hall, Tessa Thompson, Ruth Negga and returning guest Andre Holland for the highly-anticipated drama Passing. She also sat down and had a talk with Carlson Young, Vinessa Shaw, Dermot Mulroney and Udo Kier from the fantasy-horror The Blazing World.
Each film in this...
- 2/2/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos and Amanda N'Duka
- Deadline Film + TV
Christopher Yogi hopes to introduce audiences to a different Hawaii than the one they have grown accustomed to seeing onscreen.
“A lot of movies that take place here take place in hotels and at popular tourist spots,” explains the filmmaker. “A lot of times the island is used as a pretty backdrop and the locals are at the margin.”
I Was A Simple Man follows a family as their eldest, Masao (Steve Iwamoto), nears death. The cast includes Constance Wu, who first workshopped the project with Yogi years ago at the Sundance Labs and plays Masao’s late ...
“A lot of movies that take place here take place in hotels and at popular tourist spots,” explains the filmmaker. “A lot of times the island is used as a pretty backdrop and the locals are at the margin.”
I Was A Simple Man follows a family as their eldest, Masao (Steve Iwamoto), nears death. The cast includes Constance Wu, who first workshopped the project with Yogi years ago at the Sundance Labs and plays Masao’s late ...
Christopher Yogi hopes to introduce audiences to a different Hawaii than the one they have grown accustomed to seeing onscreen.
“A lot of movies that take place here take place in hotels and at popular tourist spots,” explains the filmmaker. “A lot of times the island is used as a pretty backdrop and the locals are at the margin.”
I Was A Simple Man follows a family as their eldest, Masao (Steve Iwamoto), nears death. The cast includes Constance Wu, who first workshopped the project with Yogi years ago at the Sundance Labs and plays Masao’s late ...
“A lot of movies that take place here take place in hotels and at popular tourist spots,” explains the filmmaker. “A lot of times the island is used as a pretty backdrop and the locals are at the margin.”
I Was A Simple Man follows a family as their eldest, Masao (Steve Iwamoto), nears death. The cast includes Constance Wu, who first workshopped the project with Yogi years ago at the Sundance Labs and plays Masao’s late ...
The Sundance Institute has been running producer and director labs since 1981, even before taking over and renaming the former US/Utah Film Festival in 1985. In that sense, the projects coming out of the Feature Film Program, Indigenous Program and Documentary Film Program are just as important a marker of Sundance’s effect on the US film ecosystem as the platform provided by the festival. When I programmed film festivals, I tracked their press releases as closely as official lineup announcements. This year, 16 projects in the festival were officially supported by […]
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 2 (Abby Sun): I Was a Simple Man, Strawberry Mansion, Cryptozoo first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 2 (Abby Sun): I Was a Simple Man, Strawberry Mansion, Cryptozoo first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/1/2021
- by Abby Sun
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The Sundance Institute has been running producer and director labs since 1981, even before taking over and renaming the former US/Utah Film Festival in 1985. In that sense, the projects coming out of the Feature Film Program, Indigenous Program and Documentary Film Program are just as important a marker of Sundance’s effect on the US film ecosystem as the platform provided by the festival. When I programmed film festivals, I tracked their press releases as closely as official lineup announcements. This year, 16 projects in the festival were officially supported by […]
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 2 (Abby Sun): I Was a Simple Man, Strawberry Mansion, Cryptozoo first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Sundance 2021 Critic's Notebook 2 (Abby Sun): I Was a Simple Man, Strawberry Mansion, Cryptozoo first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/1/2021
- by Abby Sun
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
One of the most succinct, yet heavily weighted lines of dialogue in cinema history is a three-syllable call to death: “Time to die,” as Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty commands Deckard in Blade Runner. Hawaiian filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi’s I Was a Simple Man makes its own attempt at this profundity, attempting to sum up the big goodbye in one epigrammatic phrase. “Dying isn’t simple is it?” is spoken––murmured gently, more like––no less than three times across the film, and by the end, Yogi’s work seems to have offered a resolution to that question, although viewers may beg to differ.
Ah, death. You can’t stop what’s coming, and equally, you can’t stop art film directors conjuring up all their poetic means to give this subject its due. Yogi has switched tack for his second feature, his first to premiere in the U.
Ah, death. You can’t stop what’s coming, and equally, you can’t stop art film directors conjuring up all their poetic means to give this subject its due. Yogi has switched tack for his second feature, his first to premiere in the U.
- 1/31/2021
- by David Katz
- The Film Stage
Set in the countryside of O’Ahu, Hawai’i, Director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s second feature film I Was a Simple Man is a surreal portrait of an elderly man’s final days. Told in chapters, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) as he’s visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife Grace (Constance Wu). Acting as the editor for his film, Yogi discusses staying true to his initial emotion in writing the film, as well as the value of brutal honesty in your team. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and […]
The post "My Collaborators Are Geniuses": Editor Christopher Makoto Yogi on I Was a Simple Man first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "My Collaborators Are Geniuses": Editor Christopher Makoto Yogi on I Was a Simple Man first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/30/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Set in the countryside of O’Ahu, Hawai’i, Director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s second feature film I Was a Simple Man is a surreal portrait of an elderly man’s final days. Told in chapters, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) as he’s visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife Grace (Constance Wu). Acting as the editor for his film, Yogi discusses staying true to his initial emotion in writing the film, as well as the value of brutal honesty in your team. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and […]
The post "My Collaborators Are Geniuses": Editor Christopher Makoto Yogi on I Was a Simple Man first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "My Collaborators Are Geniuses": Editor Christopher Makoto Yogi on I Was a Simple Man first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 1/30/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
The rigorously restrained, contemplative nature that struck viewers of Christopher Makoto Yogi’s first feature, August at Akiko’s, in 2018, remains the distinctive trait of his new film I Was a Simple Man. At its core an account of an aging man as he willingly takes the dive from being into nothingness, the film is defined by its discipline and a style that might be called lushly austere. This is refined, specialist cinema that will be warmly embraced by aesthetes.
The film premiered Friday in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup.
Yogi’s cinema is built on blocks of strong, mostly static compositions and a mood in which the serene beauty of the Hawaiian setting is encroached upon by restless winds, insistent music, relentless Westernization and unsettling portents of mortality. Calm acceptance of the inevitable does quiet battle with clenched fear and the ever-growing specter of morality.
The film premiered Friday in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup.
Yogi’s cinema is built on blocks of strong, mostly static compositions and a mood in which the serene beauty of the Hawaiian setting is encroached upon by restless winds, insistent music, relentless Westernization and unsettling portents of mortality. Calm acceptance of the inevitable does quiet battle with clenched fear and the ever-growing specter of morality.
- 1/30/2021
- by Todd McCarthy
- Deadline Film + TV
When filmmaker Christopher Makoto Yogi made the 2011 short film “Obake,” he didn’t necessarily expect to have the film so greatly impact his creative life.
“The short was inspired by my personal experience with death in the family and really trying to capture the feeling of being in the room with someone who is passing over,” he tells Gold Derby. “I wanted to process it on some level as well. I made the short just to make it.”
But a couple of years later, he couldn’t shake the themes of family and death. “I thought I was done with it and for whatever reason, the story stayed with me,” he says. “I kept thinking of the characters and coming up with more story, more to explore. So maybe two or three years after the short was done, I sat down and wrote it and the first draft poured out of me.
“The short was inspired by my personal experience with death in the family and really trying to capture the feeling of being in the room with someone who is passing over,” he tells Gold Derby. “I wanted to process it on some level as well. I made the short just to make it.”
But a couple of years later, he couldn’t shake the themes of family and death. “I thought I was done with it and for whatever reason, the story stayed with me,” he says. “I kept thinking of the characters and coming up with more story, more to explore. So maybe two or three years after the short was done, I sat down and wrote it and the first draft poured out of me.
- 1/30/2021
- by Christopher Rosen
- Gold Derby
Set on the trench that
divides waking reality from the subconscious, director Christopher Makoto
Yogi’s moody sophomore effort “I Was a Simple Man” achieves the narrative
fluidity of dreams in a multigenerational ghost tale that conflates Hawaii’s
recent history with one man’s burdensome life—both in irrevocable transition.
Read More: 25 Most Anticipated 2021 Sundance Film Festival Premieres
Faced with the twilight of his mortal stay, elderly Masao (Steve Iwamoto), the child of Japanese immigrants in rural O‘ahu, Hawaii, begins to experience visits from the great beyond.
Continue reading ‘I Was A Simple Man’: Hawaiian Ghost Story Recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Earthly Dreamscapes [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.
divides waking reality from the subconscious, director Christopher Makoto
Yogi’s moody sophomore effort “I Was a Simple Man” achieves the narrative
fluidity of dreams in a multigenerational ghost tale that conflates Hawaii’s
recent history with one man’s burdensome life—both in irrevocable transition.
Read More: 25 Most Anticipated 2021 Sundance Film Festival Premieres
Faced with the twilight of his mortal stay, elderly Masao (Steve Iwamoto), the child of Japanese immigrants in rural O‘ahu, Hawaii, begins to experience visits from the great beyond.
Continue reading ‘I Was A Simple Man’: Hawaiian Ghost Story Recalls Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Earthly Dreamscapes [Sundance Review] at The Playlist.
- 1/29/2021
- by Carlos Aguilar
- The Playlist
“Dying isn’t simple, is it?” Those words repeat through Christopher Makoto Yogi’s “I Was a Simple Man,” calling frequent attention to the film’s title, and to its curious use of the past tense. It frames the cancer-stricken final days of Masao Matsuoshi (Steve Iwamoto) in the context of someone who’s only thinking about the mess of people caught in his web now that his body has run out of filament and they’re all forever enmeshed.
Not that Yogi holds that against him. Layering the spectral hush of “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” over the elegiac domesticity of a late Ozu film like “An Autumn Afternoon,” the Honolulu-born filmmaker’s singularly Hawaiian second feature is haunted and haunting in equal measure — a reckoning pitched at the volume of a whisper. Just because people don’t stay behind doesn’t mean they ever leave.
Not that Yogi holds that against him. Layering the spectral hush of “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” over the elegiac domesticity of a late Ozu film like “An Autumn Afternoon,” the Honolulu-born filmmaker’s singularly Hawaiian second feature is haunted and haunting in equal measure — a reckoning pitched at the volume of a whisper. Just because people don’t stay behind doesn’t mean they ever leave.
- 1/29/2021
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
“Dying isn’t simple, is it?” That question is asked at three separate points in “I Was a Simple Man,” and with each repetition, it sounds slightly less rhetorical, less worldly-wise, more loaded with anxious uncertainty. Christopher Makoto Yogi’s hushed, ruminative study of an elderly man’s last days in Oahu doesn’t quite settle on an answer either. It considers the troubling weight of impending death on the victim — as failing health, glitching memory and drifting ghosts of the past combine to disorienting effect — as well as on his burdened, emotionally conflicted family. Yet there’s serene peace here amid the trauma: At the film’s most lyrical points, mortality doesn’t seem a threat or a ticking clock, so much as a breeze to which you eventually bend. It might help, of course, to be surrounded by the gracious greenery and oceanic soundtrack of Oahu, to which...
- 1/29/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In the opening scene of Christopher Makoto Yogi’s lyrical family drama, I Was a Simple Man, the elderly protagonist looks out over densely built-up Honolulu and recalls when there was just beautiful green where concrete towers now cluster. That sense of a spiritual connection to nature, cultural foundations and people long departed, even to the characters’ younger selves, permeates this delicate, time-shifting study of a solitary man’s rueful end-of-life introspection. “Dying isn’t simple, is it?” asks the ghost of his wife, who died young, leaving him with sorrow and anger. But it’s a transition that ultimately ...
- 1/29/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
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