Highway Courtesans, a documentary film about a girl born into prostitution in India, has been accepted into the Emerging Visions section of the 2005 SXSW Film Festival. Highway Courtesans was edited by Edit Center alum Todd Williams and produced by alum Anura Idupuganti.
The Edit Center class project Swimmers, which recently played in the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, was very well reviewed in the Hollywood Reporter recently. "Mature audiences looking for a deeply-felt, human-scale story should be given the chance to enjoy this one in theaters," James Greenberg wrote. Swimmers was edited by Edit Center instructor Affonso Goncalves and alum Lilah Bankier, with assistance from alum Paul Kondo.
Forty Shades of Blue, edited by Edit Center instructor Affonso Goncalves, won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Winning the Documentary Audience Award was Murderball, which was onlined by Edit Center alumni Matthew Jacob and Tim Goodwin. TEC Alumn Stephen Walker was the assistant editor and media manager on Murderball, which also won a Grand Jury Prize for editing.
Apple has published an article on their web site covering the Edit Center, Swimmers, and Room. Also available on the Edit Center press page, the article is called "Cut to Sundance" and covers the Edit Center's role in helping these two films (both class projects) on their way to the Sundance Film Festival.
Elliot Greenebaum's Assisted Living and Leslie Shearing's Unscrewed (formerly titled Dogs in the Basement and Sex & How to Fix It) are both opening in theaters this February. Assisted Living, which was a class project in November/December of 2000 and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Slamdance Film Festival, will start at the Angelika on February 4. Unscrewed, the project of the November/December 2001 course, opens at the Quad Cinema on February 9.
Both Palindromes and Be Here to Love Me: A Film about Townes Van Zandt, will be screening at the 2005 South by Southwest Film Festival taking place in Austin, Texas in March. Palindromes, directed by Todd Solondz, was edited by alum Mollie Goldstein and Edit Center instructor Kevin Messman. Be Here to Love Me, a music documentary, was edited by alum Michael Taylor and directed by Margaret Brown.
Down to the Bone, edited by Edit Center teacher Malcolm Jamieson with associate editor Todd Williams (a TEC alum), and Liberia: An Uncivil War, edited by TEC alum Michael Kovalenko, have both been featured as two of IndieWire's Top 15 Undistributed Films of 2005. "If Debra Granik's Down to the Bone can't find a good distribution deal, indie film is really dead," said IndieWire. "The film's climax, involving a betrayal of more than just love, hits a nerve as deep as any of this year's Oscar contenders."
In brief: Edit Center alum Holly Schlesinger, who took the six-week class in the summer of 2001, is working as a segment producer for Fuse. Frank Luna, from the September/October 2004 course, has been hired as a full-time assistant editor for the post-production facility Batwin & Robin. The work of alumni Sam Farrell and Ted Rodenborn -- as well as the whole November/December 2003 class -- is now for sale on DVD. What Goes On, the music DVD that was one of their class projects, is now available for purchase at www.whatgoeson.tv.
After the last edition of the alumni newsletter, many TEC alums wrote back to share what they are doing. Victoria Lang (March/April 2004) was just hired as a post-production assistant on Prime, starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman and edited by Kris Boden (Carlito's Way, Insomnia). Giacomo Ambrosini (March/April 2004) just finished cutting the trailer for the independent feature Susan Hero. Andrew Shulman (March/April 2003) is teaching editing and video production classes at the Bronx Museum of Art. Michael Taylor (July/August 2001) edited the film commune, which will be playing at next month's Slamdance Film Festival (another film Michael edited, Homework, won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance last year).
Saving Face, which was directed by Edit Center alum Alice Wu, will be screening in the American Spectrum section of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. Earlier this year, the film was a hit at the Toronto Film Festival and was purchased for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics. Saving Face was edited by Susan Graef (She's the One) and Edit Center instructor Sabine Hoffman (Personal Velocity).