The last continent without a film festival finally gets one.
Long a frozen intellectual wasteland, Antarctica now boasts its very own film festival. While festival founders believe it will take a few years until the festival can compete with Cannes, Venice, and Sundance, they believe representing an entire content will eventually bootstrap the festival to the top echelon amongst the world's premiere festivals. While not yet a flagship festival, it certainly is an ice cutter.
Bad Business Sweeps 10 - Crystal Penguins In Festival Debut! |
|
Sergei Eisenstein honored with Crystal Penguin for a Lifetime Achievement Award |
 Photograph ©Movie City Entertainment Star, Chris Mulkey and Director, Murray Mintz accepting Crystal Penguin awards for best actor and best director.
|
McMurdo Sound, Antarctica - In Keeping with the idea of being left out in the cold, the jury has selected the great Russian director Sergei Eisenstein, for the Antarctic Film Festival's Lifetime achievement of award for "Great Films shot on Ice."  Eisenstein, who died at the beginning of the cold war, made only a half dozen feature films (including the ill fated Que Viva Mexico) before his untimely death from heart disease at the age of 50, shortly after the beginning of the cold war. He left the world a body of work of just six feature films, but each is a masterpiece and as each is studied by successive generation of filmmakers we continue to learn from him. There is little doubt that has he lived, his work would have certainly won awards at, Cannes or Venice, or Berlin and perhaps even at Sundance.
| |||||
Poor Attendance May Motivate Festival to Seek Alternate locationWhile Festival founders are reluctant to divulge the actual attendance to the festival screenings, they have admitted that this year's attendance was lower than they had hoped it to be.  There have been rumors that the festival may be seeking a warmer venue, however there has been no official word from the festival's board of directors. A board member, who has refused to be identified, did acknowledge that the festival has rented office space in Beverly Hills, California. When questioned on the significance setting up offices in California, the official responded " Sundance maintains offices in Santa Monica, so what's wrong with us headquartering in Beverly Hills? " The festival web site will keep you abreast of any formal announcements, so check back before booking tickets to Antarctica for next year's festival.
|
|
|
| BACK TO TOP OF PAGE |
MORE ON NEXT PAGE, including the secrets of the
ICE SCREEN, and Michael Pressman's take on why BAD BUSINESS is an American Dogme Film. 
|
Send us an Email
SIGN OUR GUEST BOOK 