John Van Hamersveld CRAZY WORLD AIN’T IT it’s an art documentary short film.
This documentary is directed by Dave Tourjé and Christopher Sibley.
About them we know that:
Born in 1960 and raised in NELA (Glassell Park, Highland Park, Eagle Rock), Tourjés work is a reflection of the multi-cultural DIY sensibilities of NELA. His work is known as a contemporary hybrid of low and high art, reflecting his real-life immersion in surf and skate, the LA punk and music scene, graffiti and other subcultures that thrived in the NELA of the 70’s and 80’s. In 2011, Tourje was the subject of the short documentary "L.A. Aboriginal" which won 7 Best Short Film awards internationally and in 2013 he was the Executive Producer on the feature film "Curly" which won 5 Best Feature awards internationally.
Chris Sibley is a producer and director, known for John Van Hamersveld Crazy World Ain't It (2020), Healing Hands Documentary (2020) and Ophelia (2016).
This short film introduces us to the world of John Van Hamersveld.
John Van Hamersveld is an American graphic artist and illustrator who designed record jackets for pop and psychedelic bands from the 1960s onward. Among the 300 albums are the covers of Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles, Crown of Creation by Jefferson Airplane, Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones, and Hotter Than Hell by Kiss. His first major assignment, in 1963, was designing the poster for the surf film The Endless Summer, after which he served as Capitol Records' head of design from 1965 to 1968. During that time, he worked on the artwork for albums by Capitol artists such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys. He also oversaw the design of the psychedelic posters for the Pinnacle Shrine exposition.
In this short documentary we strongly can see how his art has influenced other artist.
It’s a very colorful and powerful world the one the directors show us in the documentary John Van Hamersveld CRAZY WORLD AIN’T IT where the sea is a main character like the art.
Supported by a very good cinematography by many excellent camera operators and an engaging editing by Adam Cude, audiences are involved in this world in each part of the movie.
Also excellent is the choice of the music that always follows the different ages of John Van Hamersveld’s life.
The parable of this life and the world in which he lives as an artist, is well summarized in the title John Van Hamersveld CRAZY WORLD AIN’T IT: even the eccentric the world of art is perhaps the most normal that can be found.
It’s a good subject for every human being to tackle.
As every documentary about art you can’t beat art documentaries for sheer relatability. Watch the artists work, watch them succeed or fail, and then listen to their friends sort through the details and you’ll be more aware also about your life.
So a very important work for this two directors!
John Van Hamersveld CRAZY WORLD AIN'T IT won a Honorable Mention as Short Documentary in June 2020 New York Film Awards Monthly Competition.
Congratulations to all the cast and crew!
Home Away - Review
Home Away is an award winning Art House Drama Film.
It’s the story of Mr. Zhou who, in order to purchase the VIP membership of a nursing home, wants to seize the opportunity of the relocation of his house by arranging a fake marriage with Mrs. Dong to acquire more money out of the compensation. But Mrs. Dong, fearing karma, has her doubts all along.
Zhou Ping, Mr. Zhou's son, on the other hand, sees the relocation as an opportunity to buy a school estate for his daughter. Yun, Mrs. Dong's nanny who's from Sichuan Province, is suddenly informed that her brother has been hit by a car in her hometown, and, therefore, in urgent need of 100,000 RMB to pay for the operation. When she comes to know of Mr. Zhou's plan of the "fake marriage", she offers to help him out but asks for 100,000 RMB in advance.
Having learned about her father-in-law's intention of marrying Mrs. Dong, Huang Lili, Zhou Ping's wife, has stolen his household register. As a result, Mr. Zhou, when he is about to give the bankbook with a deposit of 100,000 to Yun, finds that his household register is gone in which the bankbook is tucked. In the meantime, Mrs. Dong is suffering from a fall after an eye operation and her daughter finds out that Yun has been seeing doctors using her mother's Medicare card. Unable to get in touch with her, Yun's husband who has been in the countryside has also arrived in Shanghai.
First of all, this film allows us to ask many important questions about Chinese Society. Then HOME AWAY has the big value to have a strong visual identity given by Jong Lin’s cinematography and the frames and camera movements perfectly chosen by the director Oliver Yan to convey the conditions of the main characters.
The choice from the beginning to shoot the first sequence behind a glass it’ very strong. And from this incipit we can deduce the quality of the work of this director. The visual impact this film has is so strong that it makes the audience fell in front of a documentary in stead of a feature without losing the pleasure of the aesthetic research that is very rigorous and consistent with the theme and mood of the film.
This sense of strong reality is convey also by the choice of an essential sound design, which everything is diegetic.
The performances of the actors Huang Lu and Xu Caigen are also very really realistic and authentic and make each scene really believable.
The rhythm of the editing has the power to perfectly present each part of the film to the audience.
The pace of the script is perfectly balanced and never predictable, essential and precise.
So a great proof of talent for the director of this film.
We really hope to see his next feature soon!
Oliver Yas is the talented director who wrote, directed and produced this precious film.
Oliver Yan was born and raised up in Shanghai.
He graduated from his first university in 2002 which studied physics. He made his first short film R that is no dialogue in 2008, screening in Cannes Film Festival short film corner and won Best Foreign Short Film in Washougal international Film Festival that year. In 2011, He wrote, directed, shot, edited and produced his first experimental feature Flipping (68mins) won Best Foreign Feature and Best Screenplay (nominated) in 2012 Madrid International Film Festival. His first feature film HOME AWAY which he wrote, edited, produced and directed has won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematographer, Best Lead Actor, Best Editor in NYC Indie Film Awards 2017. Won Best Original Screenplay and nominated as Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematographer, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress in 2017 New York City International Film Festival. Won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematographer, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actor in Los Angeles Film Awards 2017. Won Best Original Screenplay for Foreign Language Film in 2017 International Filmmaker festival of World Cinema Nice. Oliver Yan won Best Director in Florence Film Awards 2019. On July 28th, 2019, won Best Screenplay and Osaka Governor's Award for "Home Away" in Kadoma International Film Festival. Won Best Picture in Venice Film Awards on May 2020, Won Best Script in Montreal Independent Film Festival on October 2020
Home Away by Oliver Ryan won Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay in the April 2020 New York Movie Awards monthly competition.
CHIARA THE MUSICAL is a documentary short film about a musical.
CHIARA THE MUSICAL is a musical developed over four and a half years; created, written and performed by Claudia Corrieri (Twice 'Extraordinary Artist' awarded to live and work in New York). It was first presented at Joe's Pub, The Public Theater, (6 Pulitzer Prizes), NY, in the Spring of 2019.
The script is very touching and also the music created for this text. The music is performed by Jonathan Hart Makwaia, as piano accompaniment.
The editing disappears behind the sequence of frames. The pace is truly engaging. Also the choice of the costume is consistent with the story told in the musical.
The documentary of the performance is filmed by a team including, Sam Falconi (Beyoncé Halftime Show Rehearsal). Cinematography is very simple and clear.
The acting of Claudia Corrieri is very intense and believable throughout the film. She is so touching to engage the audience in a very deep way. The character she created is a really very strong and interesting role for a woman. Claudia Corrieri is an eclectic artist. In CHIARA THE MUSICAL, she is the main actress, the writer, the director and the producer.
In fact Claudia Corrieri is twice ‘Extraordinary Artist’ awarded to live and work in New York. She was awarded 'Best Musical / Dance Film' at the Los Angeles Film Awards; 'Best Voice Acting' at the Actors Awards Los Angeles; and twice Silver Winner for 'Lead Actress' and 'Documentary Short' at London's Latitude Film Festival.
She has created: an original musical, a musical theatre piece, two published books and two films. Miss Corrieri wrote the lyrics and melody to a new musical, 'Chiara The Musical' which debuted at Joe's Pub, The Public Theater, in the Spring of 2019.
Tickets to the show were substituted so that guests could make a donation to UN Women. She has acted as lead in several short films made by the director, Alice Evans. One of these films screened to 38,000 visitors at the Royal College of Art, Darwin Gallery. As well as being screened at The Whitechapel Gallery, London, which receives just under half a million visitors a year.
Claudia Corrieri is also a twice-published author, 'Speaking Through the Multitude, Composition 1, 2 ' 3 and 4...' and 'Chiara and Luna, script and song sheets' are on sale globally with Amazon Global. Miss Corrieri has also worked closely with the artist, Pedro Reyes (National Medal of the Arts).
She represented his play, 'Pharmasphere' at the opening of the Queens Museum, along with members of the United Nations.
CHIARA THE MUSICAL was Finalist in New York Movie Awards February 2020 Monthly Competition.
A Date With Shillelagh it’s a Drama and Thriller short film.
This short film deals with the world of music business and its sexual predators, focusing on the misogynist behavior within the entertainment industry.
Highlighted in high profile allegations against media mogul Harvey Weinstein. We can add this film production supports The “Me Too Movement”. Used as a hashtag on social media, "Me Too” spread virally in October 2017 in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assaults and harassment, especially in the workplace. It followed soon after the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein. A theme so important to deal with in this historical period.
The story we have in this short film is very well sustained by the performances of the actors, in particular Eleanor Burke (Jo) who previously appeared in the Oscar nominated film 'Kon Tiki' and Lauren Cornelius (Karen) a regular with BBC Radio 4 drama. In this short film we follow Jo's dreams of fame. Failing to heed Karen's warnings about slimeball music promoter Billy Tomkins (played by Peter McManus), Jo chances the dance with danger, to pursue her Rolls Royce road to stardom.
On the screen many elements help to create the sense of danger and ambiguity typical of a side of the entertainment industry: cinematography is quite dark and full of shadows and “lights of the show”, movements of the camera closely follow the actors, diegetic music and sound design underline the sense of fear and suspence of this short film. The script well shows conflicts and contradictions typical of this working environment.
Date With Shillelagh has two directors who together worked to create this interesting short film: Brian Johnston and Jeff Stewart.
Moreover this short film is written and produced by Keith Large who in a preceding interview said : “We filmed mostly in Loughborough. It’s set in the ‘seventies and there’s a great scene where the star is coming out of a venue stage door to get into her Rolls Royce with crowds of screaming fans eager to see her. The College’s performing arts students were part of the mob, waving album covers we’d had made up with Eleanor’s face on them. Our motor vehicle lecturer Darren Wallis even appeared as the bodyguard. The Shillelagh of the title refers to a weapon, which we actually had made up in rubber for the film. It is a tribute to my late Mum, who used to have the real thing behind the bar at a pub she ran, which could get a little lively at times.”
Date With Shillelagh is actually Finalist at New York Movie Award.
Ally 3000 is a clever comedy by Giovannie Espiritu.
It shows us a professional meeting in which The CEO of a tech firm has to make a decision about a new product designed to alleviate white guilt.
Ally 3000 deals with the theme of Race and Privilege in a very elegant and clever way.
We can imagine because of the very authentic way of the storytelling that this story is strong influenced by the experience of the director.
The director, Giovannie Espiritu, is a really talented young woman. ALLy 3000 is indeed written, directed and produced by Espiritu. Moreover she is the main actress and she collaborates also at the editing.
Although ALLy 3000 is a very independent short film, Espiritu’s talent lets the short film not suffer from this condition.
The actors are well directed, the script is strong and the choice of the frames are simple but effective. Finally, the rhythm of the editing supports the breath of the comedy.
Giovannie Espiritu is an actress and a filmmaker. She was nominated alongside Academy Award Nominees Alfre Woodard and Amy Irving for Best Supporting Actress at MethodFest for the Mynah Films feature film Fiona’s Script. Her primetime credits include a recurring role on ER (NBC), Bones (FOX), Gilmore Girls (ABC), and Trauma (NBC). She can currently be seen as the lead in the Amazon series, “Dyke Central,” which was featured in After Ellen, BuzzFeed, Bust Magazine and Curve Magazine as a top LGBTQ series to watch.
As a filmmaker, she was featured in Elizabeth Banks’ WhoHaHa Media for her parody song, “An Introvert’s World,” and her storytelling has been featured in Ms. Magazine. A two-time Outfest Fusion Filmmaker, her short film, "Ultra-Feminist," was awarded Honorable Mention.
She coaches kids/teens online nationwide through HollywoodActorsWorkshop.com and was just named as one of the top 40 Audition Coaches in Los Angeles by the Hollywood Winners Circle founded by Wendy Alane Wright, a top talent manager. Her students are represented by the top agencies in the Bay Area and Los Angeles and notable student alumni include William Lipton (Daytime Emmy Nominee, Cameron on General Hospital) and the Espina Sisters (Hosts of Dreamworks’ “Life Hacks for Kids on the Road”).
In her spare time, she rocks climbs and advocates for Domestic Violence Awareness/Prevention and LGBTQ equality. She has served on the Board of Directors for C.O.R.A. (a Bay Area domestic violence hotline and agency) and been awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the Senate for her community service.
Moreover ALLY 3000 has already received an Honorable Mention at the LatinX21 Film Festival and a Best Screenplay award at the Culture and Diversity Film festival and it was also shown at the California Women's Film Fest as an intro to the NAACP award-nominated documentary Pushout.
Ally 3000 was selected for New York Movie Awards' July Monthly Competition.
Congratulations to all cast and crew!
ALICE is a clever sci-fi short film.
ALICE deals with the theme of new technologies that should make our life more comfortable.
In this short film a new proprietary smart home device, ALICE, is always listening to make life easier. When a naive Annabelle searches for romance via a new dating app, she finds an unearthly attractive and peculiar lover. Is luck the matchmaker or is ALICE?
Trying to find an answer to this question, we are introduced in the story of this elegant short film.
Until the end of the short film we cannot infer about the truth and, like the main character Annabelle does, we fall in love with the man who arrives at home.
The direction of this short film is clear and precise and very well supported by the cinematography of Nigel Robbins. The actors are well directed and believable so until the end we feel the suspence of discovering the truth of their identities. The script also builds this sense of doubt well.
The original scole is consistent with the atmosphere of the short film.
Also considering this is the director’s first time as a Filmmaker, it’s a very good piece of cinema.
Andrew Ramirez, writer, producer, director, author, born near Detroit MI 1986, and began his film career in advertising producing TV broadcast spots for local small businesses via his agency business, RezSocial. Andrew has produced countless video adverts for many clients across the US in several states. Ramirez enjoys creating entertaining content for viewers and providing a working platform for other local creatives to thrive. ALICE is Andrew Ramirez's first short film venture.
The director adds about this short film:
“The film was conceived during a plane trip to London. I dreamed of a movie where men on dating apps were controlled by the government. Months later the pandemic hit. Due to the world situation, a short film of this scale didn't seem reasonable. I spent a lot of time at home setting up that smart home device I've been meaning to get to during the quarantine. I noticed how creepy these smart homes were! Alice had been conceived.
The goal of the film was to provide an outlet for myself and my creative friends in a minimal production controlled environment. We wanted to create something with potential to produce on a larger scale once the concept was released and state of the world grew in a more positive direction. I am honored to share a snapshot into some of my film dreams with the world and hope only that it entertains the viewer. That's what it's all about right? Entertainment.
I'd love to explore with the audience in the future more of Alice corp., Annabelle's desires, and what the hell Kyle actually is! Someday we may see that come to fruition but for now please enjoy a short look into this not so different alternate reality with the full 10 minute short film.”
We can confirm, Andrew Ramirez has achieved his goal.
ALICE won a Honorable Mention at the Now York Film Awards Monthly Competition
Congratulations to all cast and crew.
Who among us doesn’t have a sentimental dualism with Christmas? Whether we are part of a large family that makes the holidays a moment of union, or that we have a family that can hardly be called such, we all find ourselves having to deal with a journey into the past and with an in-depth analysis of the present which most of the times doesn’t match with our idea of happiness or personal achievement.
THE EVE talks about this duality and does it through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy, who dreams of being carried away by Santa Claus in an enchanted world due to his painful present. But, as the movie will show, dreams and nightmares are often made of the same substance.
The theme of loneliness and childhood is supported by the theory of 'money does not make happiness' (the beautiful house and the muffled reality of the protagonists do not in fact protect them from suffering), and by the idea that a dream is not the right medium to face a troubled present, because it represents more of an escape than a fight.
The direction signed by Luca Machnich is aware and very well managed. The editing by Donatella Ruggiero and Niccolò Palomba is good and punctual.
The amazing animations and the 3D (worthy of a Blockbuster movie) blend perfectly with the photography signed by Giulio Pietromarchi (whose warmth doesn’t betray the typical Christmas atmosphere), conveying a feeling of fluidity and never of detachment.
The soundtrack by Sandro Di Stefano is precise and generous but it never overtakes the scene, which is a sign of awareness and experience, given that it’s easy to end up overusing it to cover a lack of writing, especially in the Horror genre. This is the perfect case in which the audience can feel the music without getting distracted.
THE EVE recently won two awards at the Florence Film Awards (Honorable mention and Best Production Design) and is an award winner at several International Festivals.
Congratulations on this small film that recalls the old Italian horror school, whose vision of the director has been accompanied by a crew that respected it and enriched it.
Making Things Right
MAKING THINGS RIGHT is a Psychological Horror Directed by Logan Garrett. Born as a student project, we cannot infer the limit of this condition in production.
It deals with the story of Brian and his religious girlfriend Abby, who is pregnant. Not being able to afford a ring, he steals one off of the corpse he finds in a swamp. Just when he thinks all is well, he watches her hand slowly turn black and weathered, while Abby and others around her are totally oblivious. Brian descends into madness as he must decide whether or not he must take a drastic action to stop the decay from reaching the unborn baby.
MAKING THINGS RIGHT is a very ambitious project by Logan Garrett, who tried to deals with the delicate theme of making rash decisions based on outdated religious notions.
Shooting this short film Garrett shows us a very strong ability to deal with this subject in very conscious point of view and of course it was not an easy goal to pursue.
The actors Louis Bosch and Summer Ertel are very well directed and the script and symbols used in the story help us to maintain a strong sense of reality also in the horror genre.
Dialogues are well written and acted, the camera movements and rhythm of the editing although very simple, they convey a strong sense of suspense and danger during the whole film.
The sound design also underlines the sense of fear of the main character who is the only one who know what is really happening. We are very curious to see next works of this director.
About his biography we can add that Logan Garrett hails from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is currently a senior at the Savannah College of Arts and Design (SCAD). He has a minor in Production Design, and is soon completing his B.F.A in Film and Television Production. For him "Telling stories is what I do. No matter what is placed in front of me, I see it as a tool for story telling.”
The short film MAKING THINGS RIGHT won a Honorable Mention for the Original Story in the September Monthly competition of the New York Movie Awards.
Congratulations to all cast and crew!
Across the river is a melancholy videoclip about a love story
This is the first work as a director of Frances Sapphire and the production is very independent and low budget.
The story of this song talks about a woman and her love at the school times. This beautiful love story takes place near the river but it is characterized by a betrayal perpetrated by her boyfriend with a mature woman, his secret lover. Nevertheless she only tries to think about the marvelous moments passed her love. After many years the man will come back to her across the river of their love.
Across the river develops between flash back and forward to built the memory of this long story of love.
We have unknown actors of different ages surrounded by a wonderful nature. In the cast we have Frances Sapphire as the singer, Manuel Diadema as “the boyfriend”, Giorgia Grimaldi as “the young girlfriend”, and Maira Satta “as the lover”. All the ages of a woman are told in a very authentic way and is very rare to see in video music this richness in representation of the different ages.
Nature is another main character of this story and everything happened near a river. Congratulations to the writer and producer, with Frances Sapphire, Angelo Petruccetti.
In a period in which everything is screaming, Across the river has the merit of telling this story in a very intimate way. In certain sense we can define this videoclip an “old style” mood, so precious to preserve.
In Across the river The story and the words in the music tell us about different ages of a woman.
To tell about this story we have a colorful cinematography as the colors of the feelings are.
Editing follows the rhythm of the music and is very fluid and delicate. All the elements we mentioned contribute to built a dreamlike atmosphere and a very intense love’s story with an ancient taste.
We can still dream to have a strong passion like the main character through the vision of videoclip and this music called
Across the river.
Experienced author and director Sophia Romma told us a very contemporary and touching story in her experimental feature film USED AND BORROWED TIME.
The story is about Eva Gold’s life (present and past) and about her journey in a racist reality that persecuted her whole life, especially her love story with an African American guy when she was a teenager, in the segregation laws period.
We meet Eva in a market in Birmingham, Alabama the day after Halloween night. She moves around the vendors’ stands, she meets Gypsy and Romani fortune tellers (Sophia Romma portrays the Gypsy one), an amazing orchestra, candies, masked people, animals. Everything reminds of a fairy tale world. But then, as soon as she approaches one of the vendors, reality comes back, showing a still racist world. Some against Chinese economic growth, some still against Jews (Eva Gold is a blind, Jew actress).
During her conversion with a bakery vendor at the market, Eva gets projected to her past, where she suddenly finds herself between a kissing couple: on the left, Eva herself, younger, and on the right her boyfriend, a poetic African American civil rights advocate. So we meet here the young Eva Gold, that will be uncharged to show us her past.
The antagonist character is assigned to an unprincipled white suprematist family Woods, awfully racist. Romma doesn’t fear shocking the audience and without polishing any word of the dialogues she delivers a strongly harsh reality full of racism and hate.
The movie is very long (3 hours and 36 minutes) and it’s divided into two parts. The second one looks faster, maybe because of the plot that gets more and more interesting until it reaches a climax that really gets the audience shocked. Especially if you stop and think that what Romma is showing is nothing but something that not only really happened (the movie is inspired by true events indeed) but it’s something that it’s still happening in our current world, under our noses.
Great soundtrack and original music by the orchestra led by Queen Ilise and Gabriel Lawson (the last song I Found You is really impressive). Great costume and set designers. Good acting, especially Emily Seibert and Cam Kornman (young and old Eva Gold), Clas Dunkan (Steadroy), and Grant Morentz (Wade Woods). Congratulations!
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