Tisch Special Programs

Born in Suzhou, a city right outside of Shanghai, Bean began her journey through film development at the Shanghai Theatre Academy in 1997. After graduation in 2001, and a few years of traveling abroad, Bean came back to the Shanghai Theatre Academy to work as a language professor and as an instructor in acting and directing. Bean has had an interest in attending NYU’s film program since 2004 when she realized how famous and amazing it was. Her biggest draw was her need to “re-warm” her energy and enthusiasm for film, art, and life.

During her summer here at NYU Bean has been taking Sight and Sound: Film with Arnie Baskin, who she finds to be both funny and extremely entertaining. Although she loves this class very much, there were hardships she had to endure when she first began. She had to overcome a tough language barrier, which plagues so many of our international students, and being almost a full decade older than her classmates, which spawned a sincere feeling of loneliness. Bean even updated her Facebook status, to “Never felt like a baby that can’t speak at 31 yrs old”, to reflect her dismay. This was especially frustrating since Bean had been learning English for almost 20 years! To combat all these elements Bean placed her feet firmly in the ground and made her work speak volumes to her classmates, at which point the burden of language lessened.

More and more students have since opened up to Bean and she was even invited to join an all female film crew that included two Americans and one British student. They get along so well that her initial anxiety has since faded, and she is able to comfortably fit into her new class. Although language is still an issue when she needs to give direction, Bean confronts this with her head held high and her eyes firmly on her prize. If you’re wondering, this prize is attaining her Master’s Degree by next summer. We wish Bean the best of luck on all her future endeavors!

From The New York Times

"Now that the Broadway producer Rocco Landesman is officially chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts — he was confirmed on Friday — his straight-talking style, Missouri roots and affinity for baseball and country music are expected to give him a leg up with many legislators."

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The 8th Berlinale Talent Campus will take place from February, 13 – 18, 2010.

The Berlinale Talent Campus is a creative academy and networking platform for 350 up-and-coming filmmakers from all over the world.

The Berlinale Talent Campus lasts for six days and offers a huge variety of different programme elements for DIRECTORS • SCREENWRITERS • ACTORS • CINEMATOGRAPHERS • PRODUCERS • EDITORS • SOUND DESIGNERS • COMPOSERS • PRODUCTION DESIGNERS • FILM CRITICS and VISUAL ARTISTS

Focus Campus #8:
"CINEMA NEEDS TALENT: LOOKING FOR THE RIGHT PEOPLE"

'Stick with your friends' has proven to be a valuable advice for many in their filmmaking career. For filmmakers around the world, it’s never been a better time to join forces: teaming up with the right people to inspire and support you remains an essential element of improving your work. Developing one’s personal craftsmanship on the one hand, and to benefit from other people’s fortes on the other is the true sense of collaborative filmmaking. It’s about finding the most exalting people to work with, daring to ask the vital questions in order to exceed your own limits, and having the greatest time of your life when making film. Keep it simple, make it grand!

More information and application at www.berlinale-talentcampus.de

Get excited, kids! Some great stuff at this year's New York Film Festival.

The 47th Annual New York Film Festival Returns to the Fully Renovated Alice Tully Hall

September 25 - October 11, 2009

The 47th edition of the New York Film Festival will open with the U.S. premiere of Alain Resnais's Wild Grass (Les herbes folles) and close with Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces. This year's Centerpiece will be Lee Daniels' Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. In addition this year's festival will include two Masterworks series from China and India.

See the full line up here

IFP, the nation's oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers, announced today the line-up of its Project Forum of the 31st Annual Independent Film Week taking place in NYC September 19 - 24.

Additionally, it announced the expansion of its strategic relationship with the Sundance Institute; and new partnerships with B-Side, the four-year-old tech company which runs websites that handle ticketing and mine audience response data for 250-plus fests in North America, and The Good Pitch, a forum produced by Channel 4 BRITDOC Foundation which brings together inspiring social-purpose film projects and a group of expert participants from charities, foundations, brands, government and media to form powerful alliances around groundbreaking films.

Read the Full List Here

From The Hollywood Reporter:

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has donated $1.2 million in grants to arts organizations nationwide.

Warren Beatty, Rose McGowan, Eva Longoria Parker, and Dylan McDermott were among the stars who joined association president Philip Berk at the Beverly Hills Hotel to present grants to twenty-nine film schools and nonprofit groups.

“I always behave badly at events for the Hollywood Foreign Press because they’re more fun than everything else,” Beatty said as he accepted a $350,000 grant to help the Film Foundation preserve and restore historic films.

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From The New York Times:

ABOARD THE WATERPOD, in New York Harbor — “One, two, three: Heave! One, two, three: Heave!” Perched nearly 20 feet high at the top of a metal dome on this listing barge, Alison Ward, an artist, was acting as a foreman, supervising as a half-dozen volunteers struggled to pull a heavy vinyl cover over the structure. It was just past 10 a.m. on a blazing Sunday in July, and the public was due to start coming aboard soon — too soon, Ms. Ward felt.

“How long until we’re descended upon?” she called to her crew. For a draining hour she and the others had worked the tarp, stitched together from discarded billboards, up and over the structure, which for the moment resembled a Buckminster Fuller-designed jungle gym.

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From the Tribeca Film Institute:

TRIBECA FILM INSTITUTE'S 2010 TRIBECA ALL ACCESS TO TAKE PLACE APRIL 19 - APRIL 26, 2010

New York, NY (August 17, 2009) - The Tribeca Film Festival announced today that the ninth Tribeca Film Festival will be held April 21 - May 2, 2010 in New York City and that the Tribeca Film Institute's Tribeca All Access (TAA) program will take place April 19 - April 26, 2010. The Festival has also announced a Call for Submissions for narrative and documentary features as well as for short film entries. TAA has announced a call for qualifying feature length scripts and documentary works-in-progress.

Deadlines to submit U.S. and International films for the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival are as follows:

September 14, 2009 - SUBMISSIONS OPEN
November 13, 2009 - EARLY DEADLINE, FEATURES & SHORTS
December 14, 2009 - OFFICIAL DEADLINE, ALL FEATURES AND SHORTS COMPLETED IN 2009
January 11, 2010 - LATE DEADLINE, FEATURES STILL IN POST-PRODUCTION AND COMPLETED AFTER OFFICIAL DEADLINE

Starting September 14, 2009, submission forms and complete information regarding eligibility for the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival will be available at www.tribecafilm.com/festival. Questions regarding submissions may be directed to entries@tribecafilmfestival.org or by calling 212.941.2305.

Deadlines for U.S.-based filmmakers to submit for the 2010 Tribeca All Access program are:

September 14, 2009 - SUBMISSIONS OPEN
October 26, 2009 - EARLY DEADLINE
December 14, 2009 - FINAL DEADLINE

Internationally-based filmmakers should apply through one of TAA's partner organizations (UK Film Council, ScreenAustralia, or the Canadian Film Centre).

Submission forms and complete information regarding eligibility for the 2010 Tribeca All Access program will be available at www.tribecafilminstitute.org starting September 14, 2009. Questions regarding submissions may be directed to allaccess@tribecafilminstitute.org or by calling 212.274.8080 ext. 27.

About Tribeca Film Festival:
Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2001 following the attacks on the World Trade Center, New York City to spur the economic and cultural revitalization of the lower Manhattan district through an annual celebration of film, music and culture. The Festival's mission is to help filmmakers reach the broadest possible audience, enable the international film community and general public to experience the power of cinema and promote New York City as a major filmmaking center. Tribeca Film Festival is well known for being a diverse international film festival that supports emerging and established directors. The Tribeca Festival has screened over 1100 films from over 80 countries since its first festival in 2002. Since its founding, it has attracted an international audience of more than 2.3 million attendees and has generated an estimated $600 million in economic activity for New York City.

About Tribeca All Access:
Tribeca All Access (TAA), a year round program of the Tribeca Film Institute, fosters and nurtures relationships between film industry executives and filmmakers from traditionally underrepresented communities. TAA is a recognized talent pool within the industry and an unrivaled opportunity for participating filmmakers to advance their careers. During the annual Tribeca Film Festival, TAA hosts a diverse group of emerging and established filmmakers who are selected to participate in a series of workshops and panels and given the opportunity to pitch their narrative scripts or documentary works-in-progress in a series of one-on-one business meetings with industry executives. Year round, the program supports alumni through TAA OnTrack, which offers free use of digital filmmaking and editing equipment; promotional support for completed films; hosted presentation screenings, educational panels and workshops; and fellowships. Since its founding in May 2004, Tribeca All Access has supported the careers of more than 155 filmmakers and facilitated over 2,430 one-on-one business meetings.

Two NYU Alumni (Angela Robinson and Martha Coolidge) are featured this article on female directors from Variety:

It has been more than 35 years since Women in Film was formed, with the goal to help "women achieve their highest potential within the global entertainment, communication and media industries." In 1973, few females had attained the high-powered position of director in either film or television.

Cut to 2009, when ex-Directors Guild of America president Martha Coolidge (whose helming credits include "Valley Girl," "Rambling Rose" and "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge") comments about the number of female directors working in film and television: "It's terrible. The percentage is awful. We're talking ranging between 6% and 11% of the total, with 11 being the highest women have ever achieved."

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From BBC World Service:

Efo Kodjo Mawugbe from Ghana and Erin Browne from the USA have been awarded the two top prizes in the BBC World Service and British Council International Radio Playwriting Competition 2009.

Erin Browne from the USA won the English as a First Language category with her play, Trying, described by the judges as “exquisite”, “human” and “spare”.

Efo Kodjo Mawugbe from Ghana won the English as a Second Language category with his play, The Prison Graduates, described by the judges as “imaginative”, “muscular” and “hysterically funny”.

In addition, the best writers from four regions were awarded radios as prizes.

Vasil Bassa Janikashvili from Georgia received the top prize for Russia and the Caucuses for his play, On The Latch, and Anna Bennetts from Australia won for the Asia Pacific region with her play, Shift.

Meher Pestonji from India came first in the South Asia category with her play, Feeding Crows, and Csaba Székely from Romania won for the Europe region with his play, Do You Like Banana, Comrades?

Review of Posing Beauty photography exhibition at Tisch from Examiner.com:

Few people would deny that the representation of African and African American women in art has a controversial history. Jean-Paul Goude is a photographer whose book, Jungle Fever, featured on its cover a nude Grace Jones posing in a cage. That image was published in 1982, however Goude recently photographed model Amber Rose for a layout in Complex magazine that includes a re-enactment of the shot. Whether the images are demeaning or not is a question that lack a definitive answer. After all, each of the women agreed to be involved and the new photo shoot is published in a reputable magazine. Is it respectable art that pushes social boundaries, or is it merely fetishizing black women by portraying them as animals?

Posing Beauty, an exhibition sponsored by the Tisch School of the Arts Department of Photography and Imaging, explores this and other questions of race, beauty, art and the complex relationships among them.

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Here's a music video for Fleet Foxes' White Winter Hymnal made by Baldocchi, Alana Bonilla, Alec Isaacs and Charlie Redd for the Tisch summer High School Program. Enjoy!

From The New York Times:

This year's New York International Fringe Festival clocks in at just over 200 low-budget productions playing at theaters throughout downtown.

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From The New York Times:

Those who didn’t catch the musical “Passing Strange” when it was both on and Off Broadway, will now have a chance to get a close-up look at the show. Spike Lee’s filmed version of the musical opens in theaters Aug. 21, and merges his talents with those of Stew, the star and co-writer of this semi-autobiographical story.

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From Variety.com

James Cameron is taking his 3-D mission beyond the multiplexes, aiming to get a toehold in American homes with 3-D TVs and Blu-Ray players in a partnership with Panasonic while tubthumping his "Avatar" pic.

The manufacturer has been named exclusive audiovisual partner for the 3-D film and will promote it along with several of its upcoming products, including its Full HD 3-D technology, in a global advertising campaign.

A truck tour showing a clip from the film on a 103-inch 3-D HDTV will be part of the promo push.

"Any attention to 3-D is good," said Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, chief technology officer of Panasonic. "A tie-in with a landmark movie sends a strong message not only to consumers but to the industry in general."

Mary Schmidt Campbell, dean of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has announced that the Tisch School will hold its annual gala, This is Tisch!, on Monday, November 2 at the renowned Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. This is Tisch! will honor Academy Award® winning producer Brian Grazer, two-time Academy Award® winning director Ron Howard, Academy Award® and Tony Award® winning actress and Tisch alumna Marcia Gay Harden, arts philanthropist Diana King, and Academy Award®, Emmy Award® and Peabody Award® winning Sheila Nevins, president of HBO Documentary Films.

In addition to a fundraising event and gala dinner, This is Tisch! is a celebration of some of the nation’s most distinguished artists and philanthropists with students and alumni performing live at the Frederick P. Rose Hall. The star-studded performance will be produced by Ken Davenport and directed by Stafford Arima. Past Tisch galas have included performances from Tony Award® winning Broadway shows such as Spring Awakening and from some of the entertainment industry’s most celebrated talent such as Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld, Wyclef Jean, Bill Cosby, Elaine Stritch, Raúl Esparza and Jesse L. Martin.

Scheduled award presenters will include the Chairman, CEO & President of Sony Corporation, Sir Howard Stringer, and award-winning director, Spike Lee, both members of the Tisch Dean’s Council, and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner.

“The 2009 gala will raise critical scholarship dollars which will be used to support those students who would not otherwise be able to afford an NYU Tisch education,” said Campbell. “In an ambitious effort to scout new talent as proactively as elite schools scout for members of their athletic teams, the Tisch School is committed to finding, enrolling and retaining the country’s most talented young people, regardless of their ability to pay.”

Honoree Marcia Gay Harden added, “I am very proud to be honored by Tisch on November 2. The education and training that I received there enabled me to find my voice as a young artist and gave me the skill and confidence that I needed to succeed in a very competitive field. What I am most proud of, though, is what Tisch is doing today to reach and enroll those students in this country, and even around the world, who have a great gift, but who are not able to afford or access the fantastic training that I received.”

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This two-year screening cycle is intended to serve as both an exploration of the richness of the Museum’s film collection and a basic introduction to the emergence of cinema as the predominant art form of the twentieth century. The auteurist approach to film—articulated by the critics of Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s and brought to America by Andrew Sarris—contends that, despite the collaborative nature of the medium, the director is the primary force behind the creation of a film. This exhibition takes this theory as its point of departure, charting the careers of several key figures not in order to establish a formal canon, but to develop one picture of cinematic history.

Tisch Asia's own Shijie Tan's film Er Ren (For Two) has been accepted to the 66th Venice Film Festival. Inspired by true events, Er Ren is a story about relationships and their illusions. A lonely widower lives in his sparse apartment, still longing for his deceased wife. Living secretly in his house, however, there is a woman, who takes part to this life “together” with him, taking care of the home when he’s not there. When the fragile reality of this life “together” threatens to become too real for either to take, both Man and Woman must react.

The film will screen on September 8th. Visit the Venice Film Festival website for more information about the screening and for tickets.

We caught up with Shijie recently and got his thoughts on Er Ren and his experience at Tisch Asia.

Describe your film Er Ren (For Two)?
The story is about a curious relationship between a man and a woman who lives, in secret, inside his cupboard. They share a life "together"; a fragile relationship held up by the implicit denial of each other, in different ways. One of the key aims of this film was to depict this fragility aesthetically.

Czech Cinematographer Michael Gahut is one of our fine faculty members in our 35MM Filmmaking Program in Prague. Learn more about him in the two part documentary below:

To find out more about studying in Prague, check out the Tisch Special Programs website.

From The New York Times' Lens Blog:

Viral video art worth watching from the Lens Blog.

Click here to view the videos