Shorts, 4/12.

Last week one of Bollywood's most talented young filmmakers, Anurag Kashyap, got a new middle name: jinxed.

In 2001, his debut film, Paanch, a searing portrayal of the ugly underbelly of urban youth, was banned by the censors for its graphic violence, foul language and scenes of drug abuse. Now, Kashyap's second film, Black Friday, a no-holds-barred recreation of the Bombay bomb blasts of March 12, 1993, has come unstuck, despite a valid censor certificate in hand. This time the issue is not of censorship or ban. Black Friday is on difficult turf, at the centre of a face-off between two delicate issues - that of a filmmaker's creative autonomy and the legal rights of the accused.

Via Perlentaucher's "Magazinrundschau."

The cinetrix has got some serious coverage of the Full Frame Documentary Festival going on. Besides a longish take on Mondovino ("Nossiter is not especially subtle in building his anti-globalization argument"), she's also got - appropriately - shortish ones on several shorts.

"The visceral power..., whatever one believes to be true or untrue about the film and its genesis, remains undiluted," writes Dennis Cozzalio, so enthralled by Claude Lelouch's C'était un rendez-vous that he's really looked into what is and isn't known about it (he's even found a map documenting the route taken by the anonymous driver). "The fact that laws and lives were possibly flaunted in order to get that action on the screen just adds another layer of goose bumps as they uncontrollably crop up amidst the comfort and safety of the thrill-seeker's home theater."

Alison Veneto agrees a bit, disagrees a bit with bc magazine's 3rd annual Golden Durian Awards, which are "not entirely unlike the Razzies but for HK film."

The Anime News Network's Bamboo Dong's got not only a review of Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo but also interviews with its authors, Patrick Macias and Tomohiro Machiyama.

Film-Philosophy's currently featuring two pieces on Simon Popple and Joe Kember's Early Cinema: From Factory Gate to Dream Factory: Marshall Deutelbaum and Richard Schellhammer.

In the Guardian:

• "No 83-year-old silent film has ever aroused such furore as the rediscovered Beyond the Rocks," writes David Robinson. The rediscovered and restored silent starring Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson is headed to Cannes.

• Adrian Searle on the work of Fiona Tan.

• Katharine Viner remembers Andrea Dworkin, 1946 - 2005.

Manoel de Oliveira isn't for everyone, admits Flickhead, but he remains intrigued.

Chuck Olsen posts a few more "tiny reviews" from the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival (through April 16).

Cyndi Greening's got the list of Wisconsin Film Festival winners.

Here's an idea: Host a Media That Matters screening.

In San Francisco April 14 through 17? The hi/lo Film Festival.

Here's a slew of updates related to Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman's Derrida, including news of a book and a related appearance by the filmmakers in LA on Sunday, April 17.

June 12 is "Roger Ebert Day in Chicago," Mayor Daley's declared. That and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bill Zwecker reports in the Chicago Sun-Times. Via Movie City News.

Greg Allen asks Keira Alexandra, VP, Creative Director at the Sundance Channel all about this new ID, moving logo thing built on the metaphor of gallery walls. Plus an online viewing tip.

CNET presents a special report: "Me TV: Television of the Future."

Matt Haber recommends a double feature at low culture. Related: Ned Martel in the New York Times.

Online browsing tip. Institut Drahomira. Via Rashomon.

Online listening tip. Brian Flemming (who also has an online viewing tip for you), talking about The Beast and The God Who Wasn't There on New York's WBAI.

Online viewing tip. Robert Seidel's _grau, a ten-minute suite of stunning visual phenomena suggesting a not-too-distant time and place in which nature and technology, having merged completely, carry on evolving long past our time. Via a highly appreciated tip from brakhage, who also points to two cached versions.

Posted by dwhudson at April 12, 2005 7:43 AM