August 19, 2016 – Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny, Co-directors Louis Black and Karen Bernstein

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Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny takes the viewer from the Academy Awards for the acclaimed, Boyhood, and an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Linklater’s latest film, Everybody Wants Some. Throughout the film, Richard Linklater himself addresses his own life at mid-career point, at times while embarrassed and shy. He tells of the influential array of filmmakers, playwrights and criminals that continue to form his own independent work, and the philosophical modalities which have guided the path; all in conversation with Louis Black, an Austin-based journalist who has known him since the 1980’s. Other interviews include Ethan Hawke, Jack Black, Jonathan Demme, Matthew McConaughey, Sandra Adair and Julie Delpy, members of the Linklater family, Clark Walker and more. Richard Linklater: Dream is Destiny was produced for PBS’ American Masters series is an unusual look at a fiercely independent style of filmmaking that arose from Austin, Texas in the 1980s/ early 90’s.  It is an unconventional look at how Linklater’s films of that period, Slacker, Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise, sparked a low budget, in your own backyard movement in this country and around the world. Co-directors and co-producers Louis Black and Karen Bernstein joins us for a spirited conversation on what makes Richard run, the early days of the Austin film scene and how Linklater has influenced and mentored many of the independent film world’s brightest talents.

For news and updates go to: linklaterdoc.com

“It’s shamelessly partial but also warmly pleasurable, partly because Mr. Linklater is an engaging and humble conversationalist who moves easily to the beat of his own soundtrack.” – Jeanette Catsoulis, New York Times

“A documentary portrait of the director of ‘Boyhood’ and ‘Dazed and Confused’ is full of revealing offscreen footage as well as a pinpoint feeling for the filmmaker’s visionary humanism.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“Warm, familial and unhurried portrait of the great Austin auteur provides a good overview of an underappreciated director’s work and unusual approach.” – Chris Barsanti, Film Journal International

“Black and Bernstein understand what it is that makes Linklater so curious, and in chronicling his career in such a clear and entertaining way, they’ve put together a worthwhile and winning portrait of a very special filmmaker.” – Adam Chitwood, Collider

Little Men, Director Ira Sachs

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When 13-year-old Jake’s (Theo Taplitz) grandfather dies, his family moves from Manhattan back into his father’s old Brooklyn home. There, Jake befriends the charismatic Tony (Michael Barbieri), whose single mother Leonor (Paulina Garcia, Gloria), a dressmaker from Chile, runs the shop downstairs. Soon, Jake’s parents Brian (Greg Kinnear) and Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) — one, a struggling actor, the other, a psychotherapist — ask Leonor to sign a new, steeper lease on her store. For Leonor, the proposed new rent is untenable, and a feud ignites between the adults. At first, Jake and Tony don’t seem to notice; the two boys, so different on the surface, begin to develop a formative kinship as they discover the pleasures of being young in Brooklyn. Jake aspires to be an artist, while Tony wants to be an actor, and they have dreams of going to the same prestigious arts high school together. But the children can’t avoid the problems of their parents forever, and soon enough, the adult conflict intrudes upon the borders of their friendship. Director and co-writer Ira Sachs (Love is Strange, Keep the Lights On, Forty Shades of Blue) with his trademark humanism and insight, Little Men highlights the New York City landscape with a story of life-defining friendships in the midst of familial turmoil. He joins us for a conversation on his latest cinematic gem.

For news and updates go to:littlemenfilm.com

Opens Friday, August 12th in Los Angeles at the following theaters:

LAEMMLE ROYAL – LOS ANGELES, CA
SUNDANCE SUNET CINEMA – WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA
LAEMMLE PASADENA PLAYHOUSE – PASADENA, CA

“As Leonor, Garcia, who killed as a grouchy middle-aged single woman in the Chilean “Gloria,” manages to combine grace with stridency.” – Matt Prigge, METRO

“I don’t know how to do justice to Garcia. When she smokes outside her shop, it’s as if her anger is keeping the cigarette burning.” – David Edelstein, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

“Garcia, though meek of manner, has a resilience that verges on the unnerving. We are so accustomed to cranky characters undergoing a sentimental sweetening that it’s a shock when Leonor does the opposite.” – Anthony Lane, THE NEW YORKER

“Garcia gives Leonor formidable strength of character.” – David Rooney, THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“Garcia is all simmering, passive-aggressive resentment as Leonor. Behind the character’s pinched smile, we sense a lifetime of having to put up with the more fortunate, always having to balance between being friendly and sticking up for herself.” – Tim Grierson, PASTE MAGAZINE

Abortion: Stories Women Tell, Director Tracy Droz Tragos

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In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade recognized the right of every woman in the United States to have an abortion. Since 2011, over half the states in the nation have significantly restricted access to abortions. In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year sees more restrictions. Awarding-winning director and Missouri native Tracy Droz Tragos sheds new light on the contentious issue with a focus not tracy-droz-tragoson the debate, but rather on the women themselves – those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue hoping to sway decisions and lives. Tragos’ illuminating documentary Abortion: Stories Women Tell offers an intimate window into the lives of these women through their personal stories. Some are heartbreaking and tender some are bleak and frightening; some women, on both sides of the issue, find the choice easy to make due to their own circumstances and beliefs, while others simply inform us of the strength and capacity of women to overcome and persevere through complicated and unexpected circumstances. Director and producer Tracy Droz Tragos joins us for a conversation on one of the most contentious and intractable issues facing women and her beautifully balanced, heart wrenching and moving documentary.

For news and updates go to: storieswomentell.com

100% on Rottentomatoes

“The key to understanding why “Abortion: Stories Women Tell” is a quietly powerful documentary is not the first word in the title but the final three.” – Kenneth Turan, LA Times

“This doc is a tearjerker, but it’s also enraging. Taken together, these stories add up to a larger and deeply troubling narrative about what it’s like to be a woman living in America today.” – Amy Brody, Village Voice

“Stories Women Tell does succeed at what it primarily means to do, which is to take abortion out of the realm of the theoretical and make it more personal.” – Noel Murray, AV Club

Sun Choke, Director Ben Cresciman

sun-choke-film-posterAs Janie recovers from a violent psychotic break, she’s subjected each day to a bizarre holistic health and wellness regimen designed, and enforced, by her lifelong nanny and caretaker. But when she develops an obsession with a stranger, Janie’s buried demons begin to surface.

In the words of Director Ben Cresciman Sun Choke is a study of the magical and terrifying things that can happen at the furthest margins of a personality. Watching a character work desperately inward from these margins can be among the tensest, and ultimately most cathartic experiences we can have in a movie theater. It creates a sense of disorientation and terror that elevates our fear beyond knee jerk reactions and into the realm of emotional identification. True terror is loneliness and confusion. It’s a psychological state of pure dread, not a simple mechanism to elicit scares. My goal with Sun Choke was to create a world where the beautiful and the terrifying, fantasy and reality, are inseparable from one another. It’s an exercise in holistic horror, in which the breakdown of the mind is inexorably tied to the destruction of the body. Employing abstraction and obstruction in equal measure to unspeakable violence and terror, what results is a hallucinatory meditation on loneliness wrapped inside a psychological horror film that strikes at the most fundamental fears in our collective unconscious.” Director Ben Cresciman stops by to talk about his thrilling, disorienting and challenging new film.

For news and updates go to: sun-choke

“This slow-burn thriller offers intense psychological drama, but its deliberate coolness and ambiguity may frustrate genre audiences looking for a more conventional payoff.” – Maitland McDonagh, Film Journal International

“Ben Cresciman’s intense psychological horror film, Sun Choke, is the story of a woman staring into the abyss of nothingness and liking what she sees: absolute nothing, a retreat from the chaos of the light.” – Martyn Conterio, CineVue

“A wonderfully-twisted blend of psycho-drama, suspense and body horror.” – Garry McConnachie, Daily Record

“Sun Choke is, in keeping with a protagonist who comes in more than one ‘version’, a disorienting, dissociative affair, reminiscent in parts of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (2009) – and all beautiful, tense, hallucinatory and deeply disturbing.” – Anton Bitel, Sight and Sound

“Style and substance come together perfectly in this unique psychological thriller.” – Betty Jo Tucker, Reel talk Movie Reviews

Miss Sharon Jones!, Director Barbara Kopple

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Two-time Academy Award-Winner® Barbara Kopple (Harlan County USA, American Dream) follows Grammy-nominated R&B dynamo Sharon Jones during the most courageous year of her life. Often compared to the legendary James Brown because of her powerful and energetic performances, Sharon Jones is no stranger to challenge. For years her music career struggled as she was kept in the wings by a music industry that branded her “too short, too  black, too fat.” After decades of working odd jobs, from abarbara-kopple-photo corrections officer to a wedding singer, Sharon had a middle-aged breakthrough after joining forces with Brooklyn R&B outfit The Dap-Kings. In 2013, on the eve of the release of the much-anticipated album Give the People What They Want, Sharon was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Miss Sharon Jones! is a triumphant crowd-pleaser that captures an irrepressible human spirit as she battles back to where she belongs; center stage. Director / Producer Barbara Kopple joins us to talk about the daunting personal and career challenges Miss Sharon Jones has faced and her inexhaustible energy to create and carry on.

For news and updates go to:cabincreekfilms.com

facebook.com/SharonJonesDocumentary

“The film’s real success lies in having Jones as its primary subject, and that’s because she’s a wickedly funny, fierce, phenomenal force of nature, a positive, vivacious character whose generosity and charisma touches every single person.” – Tina Hassannia, rogerebert.com

“When she bounds onstage with a holler and a howl – and diction that nails every last word to the melody – it’s clear she deserves that exclamation point in the title.” – Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times

“Intimate without digging too deeply, but still a highly satisfying portrait of a resilient soul singer.” – David Noah, Film Journal international

“In the empowering tradition of Shut Up & Sing, Running From Crazy and Force of Nature, veteran documentarian Barbara Kopple serves up another portrait of female strength and resilience with Miss Sharon Jones!” – Leslie Felperin, Hollywood Reporter