New Documentary Series Edited by TEC Alum Airs on OWN This Week

Belief, a 7-part documentary series exploring spirituality from a global perspective, premieres on OWN (Oprah Winfrey's network) this week. Sarah Devorkin, an alum from our March/April 2007 six-week class, edited the last episode of the series, "A Good Life," which airs on 10/24. 

Here's how Indiewire describes the series:

The documentary series will explore humankind's ongoing search to connect with something greater than ourselves, traveling all over the world, and to places "cameras have rarely been," in search of the origins of our diverse faiths.

You can read the full article and watch a trailer for Belief here.

Class Film Missing People wins Best Doc at Hamptons International Film Festival!

Dir. by David Shapiro

Missing People, a class project from our July/Aug & Sept/Oct 2013 six-week classes, won the Best Documentary Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival last week! TEC alums Becky Laks and Adam Kurnitz were editors on Missing People, which will also be screening at DOC NYC next month. You can find details and tickets here.

TEC at the 2015 New York Film Festival

TEC alums worked on a few films that had their U.S. premieres at the 2015 New York Film Festival:

Where to Invade Next | Edited by TEC alum Tyler Walk
“American documentary film written and directed by Michael Moore. The film, in the style of a travelogue, has Moore spending time in countries such as Finland, Italy and France where he experiences those countries' alternative methods of dealing with social and economic ills experienced in the United States.”

Experimenter | Edited by TEC alum Kathryn Schubert
"Experimenter, as befits its title, is less a straight biography than a diverting gloss on human behavior, historical memory and cinema itself. It’s a story about a man whose work was haunted by the death camps, was conducted as the United States escalated its presence in Vietnam and was destined to speak to the ages (to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and beyond) because his subject — the all too human being — is reliably barbaric."

Class film Five Nights in Maine shines at TIFF

Reviews have been coming in for January 2015 class project Five Nights in Maine, edited by TEC alum Ron Dulin, with TEC alum Marina Katz serving as assistant editor. The film, starring David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. 

Philly.com describes Five Nights in Maine:

Close-up and aching, leavened with a gentle wit and anchored by Oyelowo's inside-out performance.

Read the full Philly.com article here. 

Variety praises Five Nights in Maine's filmmakers:

Curran does display a intriguingly understated, mature approach for such a young director, and Sofian El Fani’s photography of the beautiful yet cheerless Maine locations offers an ideal visual counterpart to the buttoned-down narrative that plays out within them.

Read the entire Variety review here. 

The Hollywood Reporter highlights the film's uniqueness:

It’s rare to come across a movie about grief and grieving that doesn’t feel manipulative or routine.

Read the full review here and watch an interview with The Hollywood Reporter below. 

TEC at the Emmys!

We would like to congratulate the TEC alums and teachers whose work was honored at the 2015 Emmy Awards in September:

Hot Girls Wanted | Additional editing by TEC alum Becky Laks
Nominated for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief | Additional editing by TEC alum Hannah Vanderlan
Winner: Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming, and Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming
Nominated in the following categories: Editing, Cinematography, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing

Alumni Film Sleeping With Other People Opens This Week!

Sleeping With Other People opens this week and the good reviews are pouring in! TEC alum Paul Frank served as editor and alum Dylan Greiss served as a post-production assistant on the romantic comedy, which stars Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis. 

Opening in theaters September 11th. Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Alison Brie, Adam Scott, Amanda Peet & Natasha Lyonne Can two serial cheaters get a second chance at love? After a one-night stand in college, New Yorkers Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis) meet by chance twelve years later and discover they each have the same problem: because of their monogamy-challenged ways, neither can maintain a relationship.

Salon calls the film: 

A fast-paced, dazzlingly witty and occasionally downright filthy rom-com that updates the “When Harry Met Sally” formula – which is to say the 1930s screwball comedy formula – for the age of Tinder and Ashley Madison.

You can read the full Salon review here. Other great reviews from Entertainment Weekly and New York Magazine!

Class Film Queen of Earth is a NY Times Critics' Pick!

Just days after its theatrical release, October 2014 narrative class film Queen of Earth is receiving great reviewsalready on the NYT Critics' Pick list!

From The New York Times:

Like the movie, these close-ups are alternately mesmerizing and suffocating, which dovetails with Mr. Perry’s pull-push strategy of bringing you uncomfortably close to the action, to the tears and the drama, only to shove you away. Some of this may be a matter of artistic temperament and Mr. Perry’s interest in exploring the more rancid manifestations of human behavior, but it also serves his narrative experimentation here.

You can read the full NYT review here. 

From A.V. Club:

There is an innate, affecting strangeness to Queen Of Earth, which is pitched somewhere halfway between actor’s showcase and creepy formal exercise, continually foreshadowing a burst of psychotic violence that never comes.

You can read the full A.V. Club review here.

World Premiere of Class Film at TIFF!

Five Nights In Maine, our January 2015 class project, is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 13th. The film stars David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest and was edited by TEC alum Ron Dulin. Alum Marina Katz served as assistant editor.

Read more about it on TIFF's website here.

Theatrical Release of Class Film Queen of Earth

October 2014 class project, Queen of Earth, will be released in theaters on Wednesday, August 26th at IFC and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Catch a Q&A with Alex Ross Perry and Elisabeth Moss after the 8:30 screenings at IFC on Wednesday and Thursday.

TEC alums Dylan Greiss and Regina Sobel served as associate editors and Anthony Mascorro and Brian Young as assistant editors.

Congrats everyone!

Oscar-nominated director Debra Granik Praises TEC program

Filmmaker Magazine has a great interview this month with Debra Granik, the Oscar-nominated director of Winter's Bone and the just-released documentary Stray Dog. Both were Edit Center class projects and Debra gave us a huge shout out:

The Edit Center is legendary when it comes to the idea of reveling in the art of editing and the artistry and arduousness of it. The editor that edited Stray Dog, Tory Stewart, had gone through The Edit Center program and really benefited from it. She and I found it extremely rich. It injected something very positive into the process… The classes could be both intimate and large, and they were really a true help and intellectually very invigorating.

You can read the full interview here.