"The People’s Alternative Academy Awards: 2010 PROGIE AWARDS FOR BEST PROGRESSIVE FILMS & ARTISTS

2010 PROGIE AWARDS FOR BEST PROGRESSIVE FILMS & ARTISTS

The Awards Honor Outstanding Films and Artists of Conscience and Consciousness

Los Angeles, Feb. 21, 2011 – A Spanish film about a peoples power uprising in Bolivia has swept the James Agee Cinema Circle’s fourth annual “Progie” Awards for Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of 2010. Upon receiving word Even The Rain screenwriter Paul Laverty declared: “I like the sound of best Anti-Fascist film very much!! I'll take that to the grave with pride… I must tell all our compañeros in Cochabamba too... sure they will feel honored.”

The James Agee Cinema Circle is a new international, independent umbrella group of lefty film critics, reviewers, scholars and historians dedicated to raising public awareness about films dealing with political, social and cultural issues such as: Human rights, workers’ struggles, women’s rights, environmentalism, ethnic rights, free speech, gay rights, civil liberties, immigrant rights, people’s activism and peace. The JACC annually presents The Progies to the year’s Best Progressive studio features, indies, documentaries and artists. The Progies are the “un-Oscar”, the “people’s alternative Academy Awards,” honoring movies and talents of conscience and consciousness.

2010’s Progie Award winners reflect the protest and strike wave stretching from Tunisia to Wisconsin, including: Even The Rain’s 4 Progies include The Trumbo for Best Progressive Picture; Naomi Watts won the Karen Morley Best Progressive Actress Progie for Fair Game; the Matt Damon Iraq War drama The Green Zone won the Renoir for Best Anti-War Progie; The Wall Street expose Inside Job won the Dziga for Best Progressive Documentary Progie; the British feminist strike drama Made In Dagenham earned the Our Daily Bread Progie for best progressive working class portrayal; Jean-Luc Godard won the Sergei Progie for Best Progressive Lifetime Achievement, while his latest work Film Socialisme received the Langlois Progie for Best Progressive Film Deserving U.S. Theatrical Release. The Fighter’s Mark Wahlberg and Casino Jack’s Kevin Spacey tied in the Garfield Best Progressive Actor category.

Below is a complete list of all of the 2010 Progies winners, followed by the nominees in every category. Each Progie is awarded in a category named after a great cinema artist or film that made a contribution to movies that inspire, enlighten and entertain audiences.

Ed Rampell, author of Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States, and other members of the James Agee Cinema Circle are available for comment and interviews with the press.

THE TRUMBO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE PICTURE is named after Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, a member of the Hollywood Ten, who was imprisoned for his beliefs and refusing to inform. Trumbo helped break the Blacklist when he received screen credit for “Spartacus” and “Exodus” in 1960.

Winner: Even The Rain
Other nominees:
Social Network, Casino Jack, Made In Dagenham

THE GARFIELD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTOR in a progressive picture is named after John Garfield, who rose from the proletarian theatre to star in progressive pictures such as “Gentleman's Agreement” and “Force of Evil,” only to run afoul of the Hollywood Blacklist.

Winners: Mark Wahlberg, The Fighter and Kevin Spacey, Casino Jack

Other nominees: James Franco, Howl, Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech

KAREN MORLEY AWARD: The Progie Award for BEST ACTRESS in a film portraying women in a progressive picture is named for Karen Morley, co-star of 1932’s “Scarface” and 1934’s “Our Daily Bread.” Morley was driven out of Hollywood in the 1930s for her leftist views, but maintained her militant political activism for the rest of her life, running for New York’s Lieutenant Governor on the American Labor Party ticket in 1954. She passed away in 2003, unrepentant to the end, at the age of 93.

Winner: Naomi Watts, Fair Game

Other nominees: Sally Hawkins, Made In Dagenham

THE RENOIR: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-WAR FILM is named after the great French filmmaker Jean Renoir, who directed the 1937 anti-militarism masterpiece “Grand Illusion.”

Winner: The Green Zone

Other nominees: Route Irish (scripted by Paul Laverty), Miral

THE GILLO: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE FOREIGN FILM is named after the Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, who lensed the 1960s classics “The Battle of Algiers” and “Burn!”

Winner: Even The Rain

other nominees: Tears Of Gaza

THE DZIGA: The Progie Award for BEST PROGRESSIVE DOCUMENTARY is named after the Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov, who directed 1920s nonfiction films such as the “Kino Pravda” (“Film Truth”) series and “The Man With the Movie Camera.”

Winner: Inside Job

Other nominees: Client 9, South Of The Border

OUR DAILY BREAD AWARD: The Progie Award for the MOST POSITIVE AND INSPIRING WORKING CLASS SCREEN IMAGE is named after King Vidor’s 1934 classic about an American collective farm, which starred Karen Morley and was produced by Charlie Chaplin.

Winner: Made In Dagenham

Other Nominees:
Even The Rain, The Fighter

THE ROBESON: The Progie Award for the BEST PORTRAYAL OF PEOPLE OF COLOR that shatters cinema stereotypes, in light of their historically demeaning depictions onscreen. It is named after courageous performing legend, Paul Robeson, who starred in 1936’s “Song of Freedom” and 1940’s “The Proud Valley,” and narrated 1942’s “Native Land.”

Winner: Even The Rain

Other nominees: Night Catches Us, Miral, Guy And Madeline On A Park Bench, Frankie & Alice

THE SERGEI: The Progie Award for LIFETIME PROGRESSIVE ACHIEVEMENT ON- OR OFFSCREEN is named after Sergei Eisenstein, the Soviet director of masterpieces such as “Potemkin” and “10 Days That Shook the World.”

Winner: Jean-Luc Godard

Other nominees: Sean Penn, Mike Leigh, Ed Asner

THE BUNUEL: The Progie Award for the MOST SLYLY SUBVERSIVE SATIRICAL CINEMATIC FILM in terms of form, style and content is named after Luis Bunuel, the Spanish surrealist who directed 1929’s “The Andalusian Dog,” 1967’s “Belle de Jour” and 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”

Winner: The Social Network

Other nominees: Enter the Void, Hitler in Hollywood

THE PASOLINI: The Progie Award for BEST PRO-GAY RIGHTS film is named after Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, who directed 1964's “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” and “The Decameron” and “The Canterbury Tales” in the 1970s.

Winner: The Kids Are Alright

Other nominees: I Love You Philip Morris

THE LAWSON: The Progie Award for BEST ANTI-FASCIST FILM is named after John Howard Lawson, screenwriter of 1938’s anti-Franco “Blockade” and the 1940s anti-nazi films “Four Sons,” “Action in the North Atlantic,” “Sahara” and “Counter-Attack,” and one of the Hollywood Ten.

Winner: Even The Rain

Other nominees: The King’s Speech, Casino Jack, The Last Circus

THE LANGLOIS: For BEST PROGRESSIVE PICTURE DESERVING THEATRICAL RELEASE IN THE US and distribution in other countries and platforms is named after film archivist Henri Langlois, co-founder of Paris’ Cinémathèque.

Winner: Film Socialisme

Amigo, Vlast, Cleveland Versus Wall Street, Nostalgia For The Light, The Housemaid

'Even the Rain' (Tambien La Lluvia) Wins Panorama Audience Award at Berlin Film Festival

Berlin, February 19, 2011

The day after 'Even the Rain' opened in the United States, the film was honored with the Berlin Film Festival Panorama section Audience Award. On behalf of the filmmakers, of 'Even the Rain' screenwriter Paul Laverty issued this statement upon learning that the film won the Audience Award in Berlin:

IT IS A GREAT HONOUR TO RECEIVE THIS PRIZE FROM THE PUBLIC AND WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THEM ALL FOR THEIR SUPPORT. WE WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE FESTIVAL FOR THE THEIR HOSPITALITY AND EVERYONE INVOLVED FOR THEIR HARD WORK AND KIN

DNESS TO US.

ABOVE ALL WE WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE PEOPLE OF COCHABAMBA IN BOLIVIA WHO INSPIRED THE STORY. MANY OF THEM FACED TEN YEARS AGO IN THE WATER WARS WHAT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS NOW FACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA. ORDINARY CITIZENS SICKENED BY CORRUPTION AND POVERTY NOW RISK LIFE AND LIMB FOR BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. WE SALUTE THEIR COURAGE AND THE HOPE THEY

GIVE US.

HOWARD ZINN, THE HISTORIAIN TO WHOM THIS FILM IS DEDICATED, ONCE SAID, "NOT TO BELIEVE IN THE POSSIBILITY OF DRAMATIC CHANGE IS TO FORGET THAT THINGS HAVE CHANGED, NOT ENOUGH OF COURSE, BUT ENOUGH TO SHOW WHAT IS POSSIBLE. WE HAVE BEEN SURPRISED BEFORE IN HISTORY. INDEED, WE CAN DO THE SURPRISING."

THANK YOU,

PAUL LAVERTY - WRITER

ICIAR BOLLAIN - DIRECTOR

JUAN GORDON - PRODUCER

About the Film:

A Spanish film crew arrives in Bolivia to make a film about Columbus in the New World. Idealistic director Sebastian (Gael García Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries) wants to denounce the injustices of the past, focusing on exploitation of the indigenous people. Practical producer Costa (Luis Tosar, Cell 211), working on a tight budget, has chosen Bolivia, one of Latin America's poorest countries, to stand in for Santo Domingo because extras will work for only $2 a day.

After an open casting call almost degenerates into a riot, Sebastian hires outspoken Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) to play the rebel Indian leader. But when the locals begin demonstrations against a multinational's plans to privatize water-even the rain-Daniel is in the thick of them, endangering the film's shooting schedule.

The thought-provoking screenplay by frequent Ken Loach collaborator Paul Laverty (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) cunningly parallels the Spanish conquest of the Americas with the modern spread of capitalism. This fascinating mixture of past and present, fiction and fact, features spectacular scenes of the period film within a film. Directed by Icíar Bollaín (Take My Eyes).

How did the Morena Films crew work with the Bolivian community in Cochabamba?
Producer Juan Gordon and director Iciar Bollain explain in this video. View the trailer for Even the Rain.
Read more about the award
Find Even the Rain in a theatre near you.

13 Nominations for TAMBIÉN LA LLUVIA: Goya Award Nominations Announced Today

The Goya Award (Spain's equivalent of the Oscar) nominations were announced today and 'Tambien La Lluvia" (Even the Rain) scored 13 nominations including:

Best Music
Best Film
Best Direction (Iciar Bollain pictured below)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Direction of Production
Best Sound
Best Special Effects
Best Supporting Actor (Karra Elejalde)
Best New Actor (Carlos Aduviri)
Best Lead Actor (Luis Tosar pictured below)
Best Makeup and Hair
Best Costumes
Best Editing

The photo of Carlos Aduviri as 'Hatuey,' an indigenous Bolvian cast as a 15th century native, shows off some of the hair, make up and costuming that made the historical epic in the film within a film, seem as real as the depictions of native characters in a film like Apocalypto or The New World.

In the film, Carlos Aduviri plays a dual role. His character Daniel, gets a role in a film that is shooting in Cochabamba, Bolvia in the year 2000 when the government sold off the rights to the water to multinational companies that then tried to sell water back to the people at excessive fees. The Daniel character takes an active role in the riots that ensue, fighting for water for his people. In real life, Daniel is not an actor. He is a carpenter, who went to film school and now works in a film school and makes short films. His casting was very similar to the way it is depicted in the film (an open call for extras). The part was written for a very big, strong-looking warrior of a man. Carlos was cast against type for his intensity. Now he is nominated for a Goya Award for his work in the film.


Director Iciar Bollain serves as Vice President of the Spanish Academy for the Motion Picture Industry. 'Tambien La Lluvia" is her fifth film. Her film is also the official Oscar submission from Spain and is competing for one of the five Best Foreign-Language film nominations with 60 other films. The nominees will be announced on January 25, 2011. If she is nominated, Bollain will be the first female director from Spain to be honored in this way. Bollain became attached to the film to direct after Alejandro Innaritu, who started to develop the project, departed to make BIUTIFUL. Now, BIUTIFUL, the Mexican Oscar submission starring popular Spanish actor Javier Bardem is up against Spain's TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA, which stars Mexico's biggest actor, Gael Garcia Bernal. Go figure!

Other multiple nominees at the Goyas are:
BALADA TRISTE DE TROMPETA with 15 nominations, directed by Alex de la Iglesias, PA NEGRE with 14 nominations and BURIED with 10 nominations.

Production Company Morena Films did well last year at the Goyas with CELDA 211 also starring Luis Tosar.

Tambien La Lluvia will be released in the United States on February 18, 2011 by Vitagraph Films.

Read more about Tambien La Lluvia and the water riots on Facebook or our website.

Vitagraph Films Acquires All North American Rights for Official Spanish Oscar Submission, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (EVEN THE RAIN) From Wild Bunch

Columbus Day, October 12, 2010 – Vitagraph Films, LLC partners David Shultz and Margot Gerber announced today that they acquired all North American rights for Spain’s official entry for ‘Best Foreign Language Film” for the 2011 Oscars, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA (EVEN THE RAIN) from Wild Bunch, on behalf of producer Juan Gordon’s Morena Films. Ironically the deal was finalized in time to announce the acquisition on Columbus Day, as the “film-within-a-film” in TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA chronicles some of gold-seeking Christopher Columbus’ exploits with the indigenous people he encountered in the Americas, circa 1492.

An official selection of the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA is directed by Icíar Bollaín from a screenplay by Paul Laverty (ROUTE IRISH), a frequent Ken Loach collaborator. The film stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Luis Tosar and Carlos Aduviri.

The deal was negotiated on Vitagraph’s behalf by European agent, Guy Amon of the Paris-based Leisure and Multimedia Consulting. LMC has been representing films in France since the early 1980s and works with Munich based TMG/CONCORDE FILM ‘s Dr. Herbert Kloiber and Markus Zimmer on film and television acquisitions for German speaking territories and sales in the French market of TMG's productions.

TAMBIEN LA LLUVIA sets up an intriguing dialogue about Spanish imperialism through incidents taking place some 500 years apart, while examining the personal belief systems of the members of a film crew headed by director Sebastian (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his producer Costa (Luis Tosar) who arrive in Bolivia to make a revisionist film about the conquest of Latin America. Set in February and March of 2000 when real-life protests against the privatization of water rocked the nation, the film reflexively blurs the line between fiction and reality in what Variety calls "a powerful, richly layered indictment of the plight of Latin America's dispossessed." Carlos Aduviri is dynamic as a local who is cast as a 15^th century native in the film, but when the make-up and loin cloth come off, he sails into action protesting his community’s deprivation of water at the hands of the government. Meanwhile, Gael Garcia Bernal’s Idealist film director is as relentless as Werner Herzog infamously was in making FITZCARALDO, pushing ahead against all odds, ignoring the prevailing danger about to disrupt at any moment. Despite the devastation emerging around him, Sebastian seems unable to engage with any emotion over than a dogmatic desire to get his film done. And of course, the film also recalls themes in Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD and the film-within-a-film scenes are as brutal as any in APOCALYPTO.

Founded in 1999, the Los Angeles based Vitagraph Films, LLC is a self contained theatrical and home optical, television distribution entity. Vitagraph currently has the documentary AHEAD OF TIME: The Remarkable Life Story of Ruth Gruber (directed by Bob Richman) in theatres and will open TODAY’s SPECIAL on November 19^th. In 2009, Vitagraph Films distributed VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR, a documentary on the Italian haute couture fashion designer Valentino and the Academy Award and Golden Globe nominated THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX: The Story of the Red Army Faction, a docudrama based on the West German terrorist group that formed in the late 1960s in opposition to the prevailing post-WWII government. In 2005, Vitagraph Films released Spanish filmmaker Alex de la Iglesias’ EL CRIMEN FERPECTO in the U.S.

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Ruth Gruber, Journalist Who Captured The Exodus on Film to Celebrate 99th Birthday at Brooklyn Heights Cinema

Did you know that when Otto Preminger found out that much of Leon Uris' book EXODUS was based on Ruth Gruber's EXODUS 1947, he told Ruth he could have saved money had he not bought the rights to the Uris story. He said he wanted to do something for her. She thought, "maybe a screen credit?," but all she got were two tickets to see the film! In 2008 she was invited to Israel to speak about Preminger when the studio donated a print of the film to the Jerusalem Cinematheque's archive. The AHEAD OF TIME crew followed her there to capture Ruth's visit to the Captain of the ship Exodus on film. He was 23 years old at the time. When they reunited, he marveled that she was 11 years older than he and that 60 years had not changed their stance on the events of that time. Yithak Aharonovitch passed away in Israel in December of 2009 at the age of 86. Ruth took the famous photos of the Exodus trying to come into port in Palestine where it was thwarted by the British, including the one depicting the Union Jack with a swastika painted on it. Her photos were nearly confiscated, but she wouldn't give them up. Ruth's editor at the Herald Tribute decided to put them out over the AP (Associated Press), saying the photos belonged to the world. Her interviews with the refugees on the ship (many of them Holocaust survivors) gave the situation a human face. Ruth's photos were influential in shaping world opinion and Ruth found herself involved in the creation of the Jewish state of Israel. She ended up escorting 1000 survivors to safety on another ship, The Henry Gibbons as part of a US mission. On that ship was 5-year old Doris Schecter who is one of the executive producers of the film AHEAD OF TIME. Ruth's book EXODUS 1947, which exposed some unpleasant facts about the British, was finally published in the UK in 2007! Learn more about Ruth in the documentary AHEAD OF TIME. She will be speaking live at a cinema in her hometown (Brooklyn, NY) on Thursday, September 30, 2010 (which happens to be her 99th birthday!) after the 7:30 PM screening of AHEAD OF TIME. Many of Ruth's photos can be seen at this link to the Jewish Virtual Library.

VITAGRAPH FILMS ENTERS DISTRIBUTION DEAL WITH CONSTANTIN FILMS TO DISTRIBUTE 2009 OSCAR AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINEE THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX IN THE U.S

Vitagraph Films has entered into a distribution deal with Constantin Film to distribute THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX, the 2009 Academy Award ® and Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, in all media in the United States. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger (2005 Academy Award nominee DOWNFALL) and directed by Uli Edel (LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN, CHRISTIANE F), the film dramatizes the history of the real-life West German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), which rose to violent action against the German political status quo in the late 1960s. Led by Ulrike Meinhof, a prominent journalist who forfeited her career and children to engage in anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist acts of resistance, and Andreas Baader, the group’s youthful members went underground, sacrificing leading normal lives, to fight for a more human society – through terrorist bombings and bloodshed. THE BAADER MEINHOF COMPLEX’s ensemble cast includes, Martina Gedeck (THE LIVES OF OTHERS, THE GOOD SHEPARD), Moritz Bleibtreu (RUN LOLA RUN), Johanna Wokalek (AIMEE AND JAGUAR) and Bruno Ganz (THE READER, DOWNFALL). Based on Stefan Aust’s critically acclaimed non-fiction book Der Baader bMeinhof Komplex the film was Constantin Film’s biggest box office success in 2008. An updated edition of Aust’s book was released in March 2009.

Vitagraph Films currently plans to theatrically platform the release of the film in August 2009 in 18 of the top 20 markets.

“We are pleased that an American audience will now be able to see this exceptional film in theatres. David Shultz and Margot Gerber have shown a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and Constantin Film is proud to be in business with Vitagraph Films,” says Martin Moszkowicz of Constantin Film AG. “This is a story that has not been widely told in America,” says David Shultz, President of Vitagraph Films.

“With the early years of our current century dominated by the aftermath of 9/11, this is an interesting time for audiences to take a look at a previous generation of terrorism – and through it, a complex political world history that continues to reverberate in our times.” Vitagraph Films LLC is currently distributing THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH, TOKYO! and VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR. Established in 1999, some of Vitagraph’s previous titles include JCVD, Larry Clark’s WASSUP ROCKERS, Takashi Miike’s AUDITION and Alex de la Iglesia’s EL CRIMEN PERFECTO.

ABOUT CONSTANTIN FILM
Constantin Film has been one of the most successful producers and independent distributors of feature films in Germany for over 25 years. The company, which is listed on the stock market since 1999, is also involved in the international production of theatrical films in English as well as TV production (TV movies, series, entertainment formats). The classic production and distribution operations were supplemented successfully in 2004 by license trading and the internal exploitation of video and DVD rights and intensified TV service production, with a particular focus on TV entertainment. Constantin Film’s international box-office hits include The Neverending Story, The Name of the Rose, the Resident Evil and Fantastic Four franchises, Perfume—The Story of a Murderer and Academy Award® nominees Downfall and The Baader Meinhof Complex. Forthcoming releases include Pope Joan and Pandorum.

Vitagraph to take VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR into expanded marketplace

The fashion conscious are running down the runway to see VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR, boosting it into the position of highest grossing documentary of 2009. Now open in New York, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay area and Los Angeles, it continues to roll out across the country with director Matt Tyranuer in person for q & a in as many as 3 cities per weekend!

Vogue columnist Andre Leon Talley will join the director for q & a at the City Cinemas 1, 2, 3 in Manhattan on Friday when the film expands beyond the Film Forum where it opened on March 18. Vitagraph Films will now work with the filmmakers to expand the number of cities where the film will open.


VALENTINO THE LAST EMPEROR is a feature-length film on the legendary designer Valentino Garavani in the wake of his exit in 2008 from the company he founded in Rome more than 45 years ago. Produced and directed by Matt Tyrnauer, Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, the film is an intimate, engaging and very funny fly-on-the-wall exploration of the singular world of one of Italy's richest and most famous men. The film documents the colorful and dramatic closing act of Valentino’s celebrated career, tells the story of his extraordinary life and work, and also explores the larger themes affecting the fashion business today. But at the heart of the film is the unique relationship between Valentino and his business partner and companion of 50 years, Giancarlo Giammetti.

For theatres, to see photos and trailer and more:

http://www.valentinomovie.com/
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