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EIGHT SELECT TITLES FROM THE 8th ANNUAL LONE STAR FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCED Cannes, Toronto and SXSW Film Festival winners among the first titles announced, which include MR. TURNER, THE IMITATION GAME and screenings presented by Julian Schnabel and Candy Clark.
Fort Worth, Texas—Sept. 18, 2014— In honor of its 8th annual event, the Lone Star Film Festival (LSFF) in Sundance Square announced eight titles from its 2014 lineup, including THE IMITATION GAME, MR. TURNER and WINTER SLEEP. The festival will take place Nov. 6-9 at the AMC Palace Theater with additional screenings at The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The LSFF will announce its complete list of approximately 35 feature films in early October.
THE IMITATION GAME, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch and recently picked up the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), will screen at the 2014 LSFF. Previous TIFF People’s Choice Award winners include SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE KING’S SPEECH, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and 12 YEARS A SLAVE.
Other titles announced today include Mike Leigh’s MR. TURNER, a biopic of master painter J.M.W. For his portrayal of Turner in the film, Timothy Spall won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year.
WINTER SLEEP by Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, winner of the Cannes’ highest honor, the Palme d’Or, as well as the FIPRESCI critic’s award, will also screen at the LSFF. Ceylan’s previous film, ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and also screened at the LSFF. Previous to that, Ceylan’s THREE MONKEYS, CLIMATES and DISTANT received their first Fort Worth screenings during Christopher Kelly’s Modern Cinema.
Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, Christopher Kelly’s Modern Cinema will take place as part of the 2014 Lone Star Film Festival, with Kelly programming seven films at the Modern over the course of the weekend. Some of the titles announced today were selected in collaboration with Kelly and will screen at the Modern. The full Modern Cinema schedule and lineup will be announced along with that of the LSFF in October. Tickets and passes to all screenings will be sold through the Lone Star Film Festival ticketing system described below.
In addition to new work, the LSFF will present some revisited films with the artists that made them. As previously announced as a partnership with the Modern Art Museum, Julian Schnabel will present his second feature film, BEFORE NIGHT FALLS, which launched Javier Bardem into the international spotlight after he received a Best Actor Oscar Nomination for his portrayal of Cuban poet Reinaldo Arenas. Fort Worth native Candy Clark will present AMERICAN GRAFFITI, for which she also received an Oscar nod.
Additional screenings at the 2014 LSFF include the SXSW Documentary Grand Jury Prize winner THE GREAT INVISIBLE about the Deepwater Horizon spill, the premiere of the locally shot documentary THE ROUGHNECKS by Fort Worth native producer Marty Bowen, and Texas native Ryan Piers William’s sophomore feature X/Y, starring America Ferrera and LSFF alumnus Melonie Diaz.
The LSFS will also honor Julian Schnabel with its Achievement in Film Directing Award, Ray Benson with the Stephen Bruton Award and Bob ‘Daddy-O’ Wade with the Visionary Award at the 5th Annual Lone Star Film Festival Ball, November 7.
With limited individual ticketing this year, a Festival Pass is the best way to experience the 2014 LSFF. Passes are currently on sale for a special early bird price of $95 (normally $120) for general public and $71 for members. The promotion will end when individual tickets go on sale the first week of October. Individual tickets will cost $12 for general public and $10 for LSFS members. There will be an additional $10 charge for Festival Pass holders who wish to attend the Julian Schnabel conversation. More information at lonestarfilmfestival.com.
Stay up to date with the 2014 Lone Star Film Festival by “liking” Lone Star on Facebook and following Lone Star on Twitter at @LoneStarFilmSoc.
List of films and synopses:
THE IMITATION GAME Directed by Morten Tyldum
Benedict Cumberbatch stars as Alan Turing, the genius British mathematician, logician, cryptologist and computer scientist who led the charge to crack the German Enigma Code that helped the Allies win WWII. Turing went on to assist with the development of computers at the University of Manchester after the war, but was persecuted by the UK government in 1952 for homosexual acts, which the country deemed illegal. THE IMITATION GAME recently won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. The award has become to be known as an indicator of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Also stars, Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode and Mark Strong.
MR. TURNER Directed by Mike Leigh
MR. TURNER explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner. Profoundly affected by the death of his father and loved housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays in the country with aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of the Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty. Directed by Mike Leigh whose film ANOTHER YEAR screened at the LSFF in 2010, MR. TURNER premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where lead actor Timothy Spall won Best Actor honors.
WINTER SLEEP Directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities. (Cannes Film Festival).
Ceylan’s seventh feature won the Palme d’Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival where it premiered earlier this year.
X/Y Directed by Ryan Piers Williams
In this sophomore feature, Ryan Piers Williams stars alongside America Ferrera, Melonie Diaz, Common and Jon Paul Phillips in the character-driven drama centered around four friends living in New York and their interactions with one another as they search for a true sense of balance. With raw energy, Williams puts a microscope on the wanton desire we all have to connect with someone, the desperate lengths we’ll go to keep that connection, and what happens to us when that connection no longer holds meaning. (Tribeca Film Festival)
THE GREAT INVISIBLE Directed by Margaret Brown
On April 20, 2010, communities throughout the Gulf Coast were devastated by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore oilrig operating in the Gulf of Mexico. Peabody Award winning documentarian Margaret Brown (BE HERE TO LOVE ME, ORDER OF MYTHS) traveled to small towns and major cities across Alabama, Louisiana and Texas to explore the fallout of the environmental disaster. Brown treats her subjects with respect and sensitivity as they provide first-hand accounts of the tragedy from the moment of the explosion to its still unfolding repercussions on the region and its residents.
THE ROUGHNECKS Directed by Richard Cameron White (produced by Marty Bowen)
The story of the Fort Worth Ridglea Roughnecks, one of the oldest and most intense Pee-Wee football teams in Texas, as they set out to win the Youth football ‘Super Bowl’, their last chance at a title they narrowly lost last year. Producer Marty Bowen (THE TWILIGHT SAGA, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS) presents a film about the team for which he used to play as a young boy growing up in Fort Worth. White directs a character-based documentary with all of the drama of an epic sports story.
Julian Schnabel presents BEFORE NIGHT FALLS Directed by Julian Schnabel (2000)
Schnabel’s second feature follows the life of poet and novelist, Reinaldo Arenas, who was harassed by the authorities in his native Cuba for his controversial work and his refusal to hide his homosexuality. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2000 Venice Film Festival BEFORE NIGHT FALLS features a Javier Bardem unknown to American audiences at the time who would go on to receive an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Arenas. For many who missed Schnabel’s first feature about Jean Michel Basquiat, it would be their first exposure to a brave new voice in filmmaking who brought a much needed fresh approach to the biopic genre.
Candy Clark presents AMERICAN GRAFFITI Directed by George Lucas (1973, produced by Francis Ford Coppola)
Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, AMERICAN GRAFFITI follows four friends over the course of one summer night as they navigate relationships, their futures, and the post-high school decisions that will impact both. Innovative in structure and at times both hilarious and poignant, this coming of age tale remains a classic today and resonated with critics and audiences alike when it was released in 1973. The film was nominated for 5 Academy Awards and 4 Golden Globes, winning Best Picture. Costing a mere $1.27 million to make and market, the film yielded gross worldwide box office revenues of more than $55 million. Candy Clark stars among a cast that includes Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard. For her role as Debbie, Clark was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting role at the 1974 Academy Awards. This screening marks the 30th anniversary of her nomination.
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ABOUT THE LONE STAR FILM FESTIVAL The Lone Star Film Festival (LSFF) in Sundance Square is the signature event of the Lone Star Film Society and a vibrant addition to the Fort Worth, Texas cultural landscape. The festival seeks to discover and platform emerging films, talent, trends and distribution models that will shape the future of film while providing North Texas audiences with their first, and sometimes only, opportunity to see the most celebrated films of the year and interact with the artists that made them. The 2014 Lone Star Film Festival will take place November 6-9 in Sundance Square.
In 2014, MovieMaker Magazine included the LSFF in its coveted annual list “50 FESTIVALS WORTH THE ENTRY FEE” For the second consecutive year. In only it’s eighth year, the Fort Worth, Texas-based Lone Star Film Festival now proudly ranks among veteran festivals such as the 35-year-old Denver Starz Film Festival, the 23-year-old Cinequest Film Festival (located in San Jose, CA) and the 30-year-old Hawaii International Film Festival, as well as much larger festivals like Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, renowned as the largest genre festival in the U.S.
For more information, visit lonestarfilmfestival.com.