By The Global Film Initiative, on May 31st, 2013%
THE PARADE (Global Lens 2013) plays The Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York this June
THE PARADE, STUDENT and the rest of Global Lens 2013 soak up the summer screen…
Global Lens 2013 is heating up screens across the country all through the summer! This month in the spotlight:
Srdjan Dragojević’s THE PARADE is set to screen at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival this month (June 13-23) in New York City. Through its humane and shrewdly comedic story, this powerful film exposes us to gay rights issues that many face in Serbia today.
Continue reading Now Playing: Global Lens Dives Into Summer
By The Global Film Initiative, on May 16th, 2013%
Ten years ago today, GFI announced the recipients of the inaugural granting program, and look at us now…
On April 10, The Global Film Initiative announced it’s most recent grant recipients from the Winter 2012 granting cycle. The list of grantees features 11 works from both emerging and established filmmakers, representing 10 different countries around the world, and each project demonstrates great promise and vision. As Susan Weeks Coulter, Founder and Board Chair, said in the announcement: “We are pleased to identify and support these eleven unique and powerful narratives.”
What makes this granting cycle particularly special, however, is that it is the most recent in GFI’s now decade-old granting program. Ten years ago to the day, the very first round of grantees were announced on May 16, 2003. In celebration of this milestone, we’re taking a look back on the films GFI has funded over the years.
Again and again, our grantees represent filmmakers who are not afraid to challenge convention-to make sometimes dangerous, but always fiercely truthful statements about the society, and the world, that reflect them. These films often represent new perspectives and voices in storytelling-voices which are too often silenced or misrepresented in the mainstream-and hold promise in heralding a new generation of filmmakers.
Continue reading GRANTING: Ten Years to the Day in Global Film Funding
By Santhosh Daniel, on December 27th, 2012%
Global Lens 2013: Change the Way You See the World
Our tenth anniversary opens with China’s Sixth Generation, Sebastián Silva, the biggest film you’ve ever seen from Brazil (literally), and a host of Global Lens alumnus.…
It’s our tenth year and we’re kicking off Global Lens 2013, January 10th-26th, with ten films at the Museum of Modern Art! It’s going to be some celebration…
BEIJING FLICKERS will open the series on January 10th with a week-run at MoMA and director Zhang Yuan and actor Li Xinjun in attendance, to launch the festivities (a must see: Zhang is the acclaimed director of Beijing Bastards, and part of the gritty Sixth Generation ethos—who in the ‘90s, pushed Chinese filmmaking out of an overly-romanticized lens into the alter-reality of its edgy, urban psyche).
Also in New York for the GL13 opening: Suman Ghosh for the North American premiere of SHYAMAL UNCLE TURNS OFF THE LIGHTS, on January 11th. This film is something to indeed be experienced with the director, as he runs his fingers through the tangled hair of Kolkata’s bureaucracy; an inspired and insightful work that carries a subtle charm, similar to another Global Lens standout.
Continue reading NEWS: Global Lens 2013 @ MoMA!
By The Global Film Initiative, on July 11th, 2012%
Rob Avila talks with Tolga Karaçelik about capturing the right chemical reaction on the set and on the screen in TOLL BOOTH…
Tolga Karçelik on the set of the Global Lens 2012 film Toll Booth
TOLL BOOTH, the first Turkish film to receive a weeklong premiere at the New York Museum of Modern Art, is the debut feature of 31-year-old Istanbul native Tolga Karaçelik. It concerns the life and progressive collapse of a tollbooth attendant and bachelor named Kenan (played by the marvelous Serkan Ercan). A poet by longstanding practice and inclination, with a quick mind and generous spirit, Karaçelik studied law before coming to New York City to study filmmaking. It was back in New York, at the MoMA in January, that he sat down to talk about the genesis of his award-winning Toll Booth, the opening night film of the Global Film Initiative’s 2012 Global Lens series.
Continue reading INTERVIEW: Tolga Karaçelik on A Sincere Work
By Santhosh Daniel, on May 4th, 2012%
Because in an empathic civilization, ‘monkey see, monkey do’ isn’t such a bad thing
WATCH: The Empathic Civilization (courtesy of RSA Animate and Jonathan Rifkin)
Not long ago, Emma Rae Lierley, Administrative Coordinator at GFI, sent me a link to a video on “The Empathic Civilization” (right). Her rationale in sending it was that she felt it encapsulated the basic premise upon which Global Lens was founded: that in our most sympathetic state of human existence, we are all connected.
Of course, nowadays, we hear such things all the time. Technological evolution has certainly connected us with the world outside our physical boundaries. Intellectual curiosity has always found a way to merge minds above borders. And then, without doubt, there is religion.
All are valid points of connection, connectivity. But the video makes a much more basic point. It says that we, as humans, are predisposed to having shared feelings and emotions, or an “empathic” relationship with one another that intuitively draws us together, as a people (see the video’s example of ‘monkey see, monkey do’).
Continue reading SUPPORT: Change the Way You See the World
By Santhosh Daniel, on March 29th, 2012%
Thousands of stories in the evolution of one world
Nigerian writer Chimanda Ngozi Adichie and the Danger of the Single Story
In just a few days, we’ll be announcing our Winter 2012 grantees-ten films by ten filmmakers that, coincidentally, mark our tenth year of grantmaking.
It’s a significant milestone, and an auspicious occasion. And like all granting cycles, it affords a moment to reflect on the statement we’re making. Because in awarding these grants, we are of course saying that of the hundreds of projects we reviewed, these ten are “the best”… But are they?
A few years ago, Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie gave a TEDtalk about the “danger of the single story.” Her essential point was that no one story, no singular history or perspective, is the only story—and believing otherwise is what leads to the inability of many people to be sympathetic, if not empathetic, toward other cultures.
It’s a simple and true analysis, most people do tend to only hear the story that’s within earshot—whether that comes from their government, history, religion, family or community. And it’s a sentiment that often echoes in mind, especially when we award grants to filmmakers or, choose films for Global Lens: Are we telling a single story?
Continue reading SUPPORT: E Pluribus Unum
By The Global Film Initiative, on December 15th, 2011%
Programmers, curators and more-preview our 2012 lineup on Festival Scope!
 Every January, just around the time we launch a new season of Global Lens, we get hit with multiple requests from curators and programmers for screening copies of our films. And we love it. The only problem: we can’t always keep up with the demand, especially when those films are making news (i.e. MOURNING, THE PRIZE, PEGASUS, AMNESTY…)
MOURNING (dir. Morteza Farshbaf, Iran) now available on Festival Scope
So, woe is us, such an exquisite difficulty and what’s a boutique nonprofit film organization supposed to do. Or rather, how do we keep the promise made to our filmmakers, of promoting their films to the widest and most geographically diverse audience possible? And how do you get to see Global Lens in your city, festival and theater…
Well, our longtime friend, Alessandro Raja, has an answer: Festival Scope
Festival Scope is our newest promotional partner for Global Lens. Launched in 2010 by Alessandro (formerly of Celluloid Dreams), it’s an online film viewing resource created exclusively for industry professionals who want to review films, immediately, from the wonderful world of festivals. Dubai, Busan, Torino, Toronto-name it and you’ll likely find it on Festival Scope.
Continue reading NOW PLAYING: Global Lens on Festival Scope
By The Global Film Initiative, on December 8th, 2011%
Our ninth season opens January 12th in New York with the director, cast and crew of TOLL BOOTH
The new year is just a few weeks away, and with it comes launch of Global Lens 2012 at the Museum of Modern Art, January 12th-28th! The presentation, as many of you know, is part of our annual and ongoing collaboration with the Museum, and is organized by Jytte Jensen, Senior Curator in MoMA’s Department of Film. And what can we say except…
It’s one of our best series yet. Global Lens 2012 includes GREY MATTER, the first narrative feature film produced in Rwanda by a native Rwandan filmmaker; the oh-so-lovable Farfan, star of FAT, BALD SHORT MAN (the first-ever rotoscope feature for Global Lens); and top picks from Pusan, FESPACO, Morelia and Guadalajara international film festivals (and, not to mention, Albania’s official submission to the Oscars: AMNESTY).
Continue reading Global Lens 2012 @ MoMA!
By The Global Film Initiative, on September 16th, 2011%
L-R: Yiman Wang, UC Santa Cruz, Jasmina Bojic, UNAFF, Alesia Weston, Sundance Institute and Santhosh Daniel, The Global Film Initiative. Photo courtesy of PAIFF/Francesca Garbagnati (GFI intern and volunteer photographer for the Festival!)
PAIFF Speaker Series: Global Cinema Tomorrow
On September 30th, Director of Programs Santhosh Daniel sat down with Sundance Institute’s Alesia Weston and Jasmina Bojic of the United Nations Association Film Festival at the Palo Alto International Film Festival to talk about the changing face of world cinema.
The Global Film Initiative co-presented THE LIGHT THIEF (Global Lens 2011) at PAIFF, and Santhosh also served as moderator of the panel “Ditching the Divide” at PAIFF. For a full recap of the Global Cinema Tomorrow panel, click here, and see below for an in-depth interview with Santhosh about THE LIGHT THIEF and trends in global cinema.
Continue reading Where is Global Cinema Going?
By Santhosh Daniel, on July 29th, 2011%
Global Lens and promoting a difference of opinion for the sake of diversity
Global Lens: grindhouse, arthouse, our house
Every year, we do our best to bring you the best in independent world cinema. And over the years, if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that tastes vary from person to person and often what we see in a film isn’t always the same as what you see…
Earlier this year, we released what some audiences describe[d] as a “slasher” film-and others describe as an iconic representation of the “Indian New Wave.” For us, Sidharth Srinivasan’s SOUL OF SAND is an eccentric thriller that ‘delves into the dark interstices between Indian modernity and tradition,’ and for Memphis-based critic, John Beifuss:
“A blunt horror-art hybrid… With one foot in the arthouse and the other in the grindhouse.” [more]
Continue reading SUPPORT: You Say “Tomato” and I Say “Tomahto”
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