April 2000

In the summer of 1995, Christian de Rezendes and his family embarked on a trip to his grandmother's hometown of Bouçoais, Portugal. He took along a camera with the intention of taping the visit as a family memoir. Afterwards, while reviewing the footage, he realized there was much more to the images contained in the story. He would spend the next five years on the project. During this time, the film gradually transformed from a travelogue into a tribute to the determination and strength of his read more...

Every independent filmmaker knows that, no matter how hard it is to get the money and resources together to shoot a movie, and no matter how hard it is to see a project through and beyond post-production, the job is still only half done at that point. Finding an audience still looms ahead. Even the most slipshod Hollywood production easily ends up on 3,000 screens on its first weekend, but a really independent filmmaker has a hard time showing her work to anyone other than immediate family, friends and backers.

In 1636, Roger Williams, driven out of Massachusetts by the Puritans, founded Providence as a haven for people seeking freedom of expression and worship. Today Rhode Island's capital city is again a haven of sorts as it hosts the Eighth Annual Festival of Latin American Cinema. A lack of distribution, both here and in Latin America, has made the Providence festival a creative refuge for Latin American directors of feature-length and short films. The week-long festival, at the Rhode Island School of read more...

Film Fest New Haven celebrates its fifth anniversary from April 7-9 in Connecticut. As in previous years, the main goal of the Festival is to "expose film fans from all over the region to new and exciting talents in the independent film and video fields."

There is something about Scandinavian cinema that allows it to resonate sharply in the New England consciousness: the pervasiveness of rough weather and the constant human struggle with nature; the wavering attitudes towards sexuality, by turns puritanical or scandalously perverse; the age-old battle of religion, where strong pagan traditions crash against a sanitized, modern Christianity.

Producers Irena Fayngold and Catherine Benedict wanted to see what was going on in the world of experimental video in New England, so they put out a call for entries and on March 15 hosted "Short and Edgy," a program of 16 short videos featuring the work of nine New England artists. The event, held at the Harvard Film Archive, was co-hosted by Women in Film and Video New England (WIFVNE), and featured the work of Annie Berman, Joan Braderman, Sarah Smiley, Adriene Hughes, Isa Dean, read more...

To get a better idea of what's working and what isn't in Judi Rothberg's feature script, "Second To None," the author decided to produce a staged reading of her screenplay at BU's Theater of Arts last month. A semi-finalist in the prestigious Chesterfield writing contest, "Second To None" actually marks the second script Rothberg has penned and forced herself to listen to from the audience's perspective. Rothberg spoke with NewEnglandFilm.com about the process, the people and the read more...

The Eighth Annual Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema arrives at the Brattle Theatre this April 13-17. This festival has previously premiered or previewed such esteemed independent films as "Sugar Town," "High Art," "Fire," "I Shot Andy Warhol," "Mi Vida Loca," "Olivier Olivier" and "The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love," and welcomed such luminaries as producers Christine Vachon and read more...