Month: November 2024

Watch Today’s Festival: CHICAGO Festival Shorts

festreviews film festival, film festival reviews

Watch Film Festival HERE: https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/chicago-festival-november

Go to the Daily Film Festival Platform http://www.wildsound.ca and sign up for the free 7 day trial to watch a new and original festival every single day.

Go to the festival page directly and watch dozens of films:
https://www.wildsound.ca/todays-film-festival/

SEE THE FULL LINEUP OF FILMS:

Alex LeVesque | Mentoring Gang Members with Classic Cars, 10min., USA
Directed by John Snyder
Alex LeVesque is the founder of the Automotive Mentoring Group (AMG), a nonprofit that works to counter gang violence in the city of Chicago, Illinois. The organization recruits gang members from across the city and teaches them the skills needed to build careers as auto mechanics, thus giving a chance at reform to those who would otherwise likely fall victim to violence in the streets.

https://youreverydayheroes.com/video/alex-levesque/
https://twitter.com/YEDHeroes
https://www.instagram.com/youreverydayheroes/

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-alex-lavesque

Asim Khan “AK” | PARKOUR – Discover the differences between Parkour and Freerunning, 10min, Pakistan
Directed by Ali Imran Ch
Pakistan native Asim Khan Yousafzai is more than a freerunner: he is a teacher, a fighter, and above all, a survivor. As a child, he lived through the 2005 Kashmir earthquake. Freerunner Asim Khan explains how he rose above limited resources to become a hero.

https://youreverydayheroes.com/video/alex-levesque/
https://twitter.com/YEDHeroes
https://www.instagram.com/youreverydayheroes/

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-asim-khan

Yecson Preciado | Fighting For Life, 11min., Ecuador
Directed by Hernán Salcedo
Life has never been easy for boxing trainer Yecson Preciado. Hailing from Santiago de Guayaquil, Ecuador, he grew up in a drug-fueled, murderous environment. Suffering abuse at the hands of his father, he left home at 10, spending two months on the streets. In spite of these traumatic circumstances, he persisted, driven only by his dream of becoming a boxer. Never one to just sit and watch injustice occur around him, Yecson was inspired to start Trinibox, a boxing gym that caters to youth facing homelessness.

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-yecson-preciado

STAR CAFE, 9min., USA
Directed by Robin Hofmann
Small town cafe owner, Ruby, opened the inclusive Star Cafe to support her granddaughter with Down syndrome. When money gets tight and the cafe starts to break down, will they find a way to save the cafe?

https://hoffysheartproductions.com/
https://www.facebook.com/HoffysHeartProductions
https://www.instagram.com/hoffysheart/

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-star-cafe

Natural Light: The Remarkable Transformation of a School on Detroit’s East Eight Mile, 18min., USA
Directed by Richard R. Murray
When a new leader arrives at one of Michigan’s worst schools, he seeks help from a unique firm known for solving “impossible” school problems. But the challenges are enormous, the project has no funding, and the effort will confront bureaucracy, skepticism, indifference, profiteering, and even a pandemic.

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-natural-light


BLEACH BONE, 15min., USA
Directed by John D. Nilles
Nine years after murdering his friend in cold blood, Dwain returns to dig up the remains. There, in a bleak field, he reckons with Jay’s ghost and struggles to comprehend his own motives.

http://www.bleachbonemovie.com/
https://www.facebook.com/bleachbonemovie
https://www.instagram.com/bleachbonemovie

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-bleach-bone

LIVE FROM THE GENEVA!, 13min,. USA
Directed by Nick Leahy
Amidst the hysteria of the Red Scare in 1953 Chicago, a nightclub staff becomes entangled in a political scandal when their star performer’s iconic red-and-gold pocket square becomes the focal point of media chaos.

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1295719-live-from-the-geneva
https://www.instagram.com/livefromthegeneva/

Watch the Audience Feedback Video:
https://www.wildsound.ca/videos/audience-feedback-live-from-geneva

Filmmaker Podcast EP. 1369 – Writer/Producer Graham John Lamb (TAINTED)

festreviews PODCASTS

TAINTED, 11min,. Singapore

Directed by Ian Wee

In a world driven by corporate greed and unethical genetic experimentation, Darien, the pioneering human clone, finds himself obsolete against a superior 2nd Generation Clone, leading to his and his mentor’s targeting. Following his mentor’s death, Darien’s hidden hybrid nature—combining human and vampire DNA—surfaces during a critical confrontation, granting him unexpected survival. Marked as a “Tainted” failure yet possessing newfound powers, Darien faces an ambiguous future, embodying the narrative’s critique of ambition’s perils and the poignant fallout of manipulative sciences.

http://www.brightvoxelstudios.com/

https://www.instagram.com/film_tainted/

What motivated you to make this film?

I was Virtual Production Supervisor on a film in Singapore, when the IMDA (InfoComm Media Development Authority Singapore) announced that they were funding projects in this particular area. My producer, director and director of photography were at the time over in the UK at the National Film and Television School also attending a Virtual Production immersion program aimed at industry professionals to learn about this new way of film making. So excited with this new surge of enthusiasm I asked Jeffrey about joining this content creation initiative and we all got together and created Tainted.

What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

Honestly I got a little teary, when I was looking at the reviews, I am greatly appreciative that the reviewers talk about the whole film in general from stunts, makeup, sound & music to performance and that really shows that the team was really the best – such a dynamic group all around and I have nothing but high praise for everyone involved.

Subscribe to the podcast:

https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod

https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/

https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod

Happy Birthday Don Cheadle

festreviews Happy Birthday

QUOTES:

  • I’ve been doing this since I was 10 years old, inhabiting different people and playing different roles. Thirty years later, there’s still the same sort of excitement I get from it. It’s still fun to inhabit different characters and play different things, so it’s all in that panoply of acting.
  • I also believe that you are what you have to defend, and if you’re a black man that’s always going to be the bar against which you are judged, whether you want to align yourself with those themes or not. You can think of yourself as a colourless person, but nobody else is gonna.
  • In fifth grade I was Templeton the Rat in a production of ‘Charlotte’s Web’. I remember I had a friend who worked in a doughnut shop. I’d go in, get a doughnut and sit there with my script, going over the lines and making notes in the margin. I was serious!
  • (2008 quote) I’m very critical of myself. I’ve yet to see a great performance from this kid. No, it’s not comfortable; I hate watching myself. You don’t like when you hear your voice on your voicemail; imagine having to see yourself 30 feet wide and 30 feet big.

Happy Birthday Joel Coen

festreviews Happy Birthday

Been married to Frances McDormand since 1984.

QUOTES:

  • We’ve never considered our stuff either homage or spoof. Those are things other people call it, and it’s always puzzled me that they do.
  • The bigger stars we’ve worked with have been without the movie-star vanities or meshugaas that you read about and dread. [George Clooney], for example, was the opposite. He has no entourage. He’s a big movie star, but a nice guy.
  • [Ethan Coen] had a nightmare of one day finding me on the set of something like The Incredible Hulk (2008), wearing a gold chain and saying, “I’ve got to eat, don’t I?”
  • [Ethan Coen] once described the way we worked together as: one of us types into the computer while the other holds the spine of the book open flat. That’s why there needs to be two of us – otherwise he’s gotta type one-handed. That’s how you “collaborate” with someone else.
  • [upon winning the Oscar for Best Director for No Country for Old Men (2007)] In the late ’60s, when [brother Ethan Coen] was 11 or 12, he got a suit and a briefcase and we went to the Minneapolis International Airport with a Super 8 camera and made a movie about shuttle diplomacy called “Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go”. And, honestly, what we do now doesn’t feel much different from what we were doing then.

Happy Birthday Gemma Chan

festreviews Happy Birthday

Born

November 29 · London, England, UK

QUOTES:

  • It’s really rare in TV not to think, ‘Well, I’ve seen a version of this before.’
  • Making a pretty picture, an image, is a completely different thing from acting to camera.
  • I think ‘Humans’ is more about provoking the idea that there is a class of beings in society that we treat as less than… as subordinates; people who we treat badly and take for granted. Often they are the same people who work hard to keep the city going. We need to think about that.
  • Save the Children is also working to improve accommodation for refugee families living outside settlements. I met a family which had been living in a substandard building without windows, doors or a toilet.
  • I hate the idea that people should listen to what actors have to say on certain issues more than anyone else. Actors have no more right to be heard than anyone.
  • I visited a Child Friendly Space where children take part in structured play and development activities in a safe environment. These are designed to develop their cognitive ability as well as address their psychosocial needs. As I watched them sing songs and take part in games, it struck me that these kids could be anywhere in the world.
  • My parents are wonderful, practical, sensible people, and the expectation was that I would study something academic.

Happy Birthday Lauren German

festreviews Happy Birthday

Quotes

  • I’m very klutzy. I’ve fallen off horses, I’ve tripped with my high-heeled boots over a stunt guy.
  • I always get cast as the girl who’s dying or the girl who’s killing or the girl who’s suicidal – all these heavy roles. But I like playing them.
  • I’d love to do comedy.
  • [why she doesn’t act nude] My body is perfect and so great, I don’t think everyone’s ready for it. Do you know what I mean?

Happy Birthday Anna Faris

festreviews Happy Birthday

QUOTES:

  • Blythe Danner is somebody whose career I admire. She’s a great actress and does good work, but also has a life of her own. I love my job but, at the end of the day, I want to come home and watch a movie and drink a bottle of wine with my husband.
  • [on doing another Scary Movie (2000) sequel] After Scary Movie 3 (2003), I was like “No I’m done,” but then I had so much fun making [Scary Movie 4 (2006)] that I think that I would. I would definitely be open to doing it.
  • I was never the class clown or anything like that. When I was growing up and doing theatre in Seattle, I was always doing very dramatic work. Now I can’t get a dramatic role to save my life!
  • [on losing herself in her relationships]I made that mistake, I think, a little bit, like ‘I’m checking my relationship off the list and if that would be the final piece of advice I could give you, that would be know your worth, know your independence.
  • Life is too short to be in relationships where you feel this isn’t fully right or somebody doesn’t have your back, or somebody doesn’t fully value you. Don’t be afraid to feel your independence if things aren’t right.

Today’s Podcast: EP. 1368 – Filmmaker Jason Montgomery (TURNCOAT)

festreviews PODCASTS

TURNCOAT, 28min., South Korea
Directed by Jason Montgomery
A shrewd merciless crime boss must investigate the scene of his brother’s assassination for answers, revenge, and to avoid the same fate.

https://www.facebook.com/turncoattheshortfilm
https://www.instagram.com/turncoattheshortfilm/

Get to know the filmmaker:

What motivated you to make this film?

I had spent the last several years living in South Korea; teaching English and writing screenplays. I got the itch to actually shoot something and direct it, as it had been way too long. Even though I didn’t have much of a network, few resources, and little money, I decided to use what I had and make something. My ex-teaching colleague and neighbor Maurice (Rob in the film) had left our teaching academy to pursue acting, and over some drinks in the local bar the film was shot in, we got the idea for me to write and direct something with him as the lead.

What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

It was kind of surreal. I’ve seen, heard, and given reactions like that many times, but to see people I’ve never met giving such deep and intelligent consideration to my film was amazing.

Subscribe to the podcast:

https://twitter.com/wildsoundpod

https://www.instagram.com/wildsoundpod/

https://www.facebook.com/wildsoundpod