Every week, I get several press releases, screening invitations and other notifications from a handful of studio contacts. While I won’t be sharing any information regarding my screening invites, some of the press releases might be of interest to my readers, so I thought I’d start sharing them in toto with all of you. These could include new image galleries for various films or important updates to upcoming releases from various smaller studios and art house production companies.

• Press Release: Cinedigm Presents ‘Rockstars’
• Press Release: POV Broadcasts ‘Racing Dreams’
• Press Release: NY Children’s Film Festival Announces Slate & Jury

Press Release: Cinedigm Presents ‘Rockstars’

CINEDIGM TO PRESENT NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS AS ONE NIGHT THEATRICAL EVENT ON MARCH 1, 2012

Theatre locations to be announced in the coming weeks

Woodland Hills, CA (January 20, 2012) – Cinedigm Entertainment Group, a division of Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. (NASDAQ: CIDM), announced today that it will release NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS in select theaters across the country in an exclusive engagement on Thursday, March 1, 2012. Filmmaker Parris Patton’s much-anticipated documentary chronicling the Vans Warped Tour, will have its World Premiere at the 2012 Slamdance Film Festival on Sunday, January 22 in Park City, Utah.

”We are thrilled to bring NO ROOM FOR ROCK STARS to the many avid VANS WARPED TOUR fans across the country,” said Bob Fiorella, COO of Cinedigm Entertainment Group. “This documentary is the perfect candidate for the extremely targeted and efficient distribution model that digital cinema enables and we are confident that VANS WARPED TOUR fans will flock to theatres to support the exclusive engagement.”

From the team responsible for the acclaimed DOGTOWN AND Z BOYS, NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS is a film that resonates beyond tour and punk rock fans to anyone seeking out the true stories of rock and roll. For 17 years, the Vans Warped Tour has been a punk rock juggernaut, a misfit circus crisscrossing North America every summer as a wandering minstrel show for youth culture. Embracing a powerful, unifying ethic created by its founder Kevin Lyman, the tour has grown and prospered as the music industry itself imploded and continues to sift through the rubble in search of a new way forward. Along the way, Warped has provided a launching pad for a dizzying array of talent, from Green Day and Blink 182 to Ice-T, Eminem and No Doubt, along with perennial punk legends such as Pennywise, All, Bouncing Souls and Bad Religion.

Cinedigm is a leader in transforming movie theaters into digital and networked entertainment centers and has released close to 200 independent films and alternative content events.

With more than 300 hours of film shot during the 2010 tour, NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS documents the true stories of modern era rock and roll from every possible angle. The film is accompanied by a blazing soundtrack of Vans Warped Tour all-time greatest hits.

The film is directed by Parris Patton and produced by Stacy Peralta and Agi Orsi, with Cecy Rangel as co-producer and Doug Palladini as executive producer. Josh Salzman served as director of photography, and Joshua Altman as editor along with Patton.

Theatre locations will be announced in the coming weeks at www.noroomforrockstars.com.

Following the one-night theatrical event, NO ROOM FOR ROCKSTARS will be released on iTunes on April 2 and DVD on May 8.

ABOUT CINEDIGM
Cinedigm offers a new business model to exhibitors by enabling digital theatres to present engaging alternative programming including live 2D and 3D sporting events and concerts, shorts, cartoons, live Q&As, as well as branded entertainment. Recent releases by Cinedigm include the groundbreaking, LIVE 3D broadcast of The Foo Fighters performance, the worldwide LIVE 3D broadcast of the FIFA World Cup Championship, the BCS Championship in LIVE 3D, the Dave Matthews Band 3D concerts, the sold out 3D PHISH concerts and a variety of independent films. Cinedigm also provides a number of powerful software applications that enable exhibitors to enhance and streamline their daily operations. Additionally, Cinedigm offers precision marketing tools to dramatically increase exhibitor marketing effectiveness, including social media initiatives, targeted advertising and strategic public relations. Cinedigm™ and Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp™ are trademarks of Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. www.cinedigm.com [CIDM-G]

Press Release: POV Broadcasts ‘Racing Dreams’

Award-winning “Racing Dreams” Follows Three Tweens With Supercharged NASCAR Ambitions; Special POV Broadcast Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012 on PBS

Amid the Roar of 70-M.P.H. Go-Karts, Oscar®-nominated Director Marshall Curry Chronicles Young Love and Family Struggles as Kids Compete in the “Little League” of Professional Racing

“Absorbing . . . Racing Dreams is the unusual sports movie that is more interested in the lives of children. . . . one of the rare documentaries you leave wishing it was a little bit longer.” – Stephen Holden, The New York Times

Award-winning filmmaker Marshall Curry (Oscar®-nominated Street Fight, 2005; Sundance-winner If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, 2011), returns to POV in 2012 with Racing Dreams, a chronicle of two boys and a girl who do something extraordinary: They fearlessly race extreme go-karts at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour in pursuit of trophies and, just maybe, careers as NASCAR drivers. And as the youngsters compete on the track, they also navigate the treacherous road from childhood to young adulthood.

Racing Dreams, winner of the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and executive-produced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, has its national broadcast premiere on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2012, at 9 p.m. as a special broadcast on PBS’s POV (Point of View) series. (Check local listings.) American television’s longest-running independent documentary series, POV is the winner of a Special Emmy for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking, two International Documentary Association IDA Awards for Best Continuing Series and NALIP’s Corporate Commitment to Diversity Award.

Fondly described as “Talladega Nights meets Catcher in the Rye,” Racing Dreams is a dramatic, funny and sometimes heartbreaking look at the world of NASCAR culture as lived by three young aspirants to race-car glory and their families. The film follows Annabeth Barnes (11 years old), Josh Hobson (12) and Brandon Warren (13) as they compete in the Pavement Series, a yearlong national championship of five races around the country organized by the World Karting Association (WKA).

The WKA’s races have been a breeding ground for NASCAR racers in the past — Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Danica Patrick and others started out racing competitive go-karts — and Brandon, Annabeth and Josh dream of stepping up to the “big leagues,” too.

For each of these young drivers, racing is more than just a hobby. Josh, who started racing when he was 5, grew up in car-country, not far from Flint, Mich. A well-spoken, straight-A student, he studies not only racing strategy, but also the political sensitivity it takes to be the kind of spokesman NASCAR and its sponsors favor. As precocious as he is, however, he doesn’t recognize the financial burden that his passion places on his family: Each race can cost up to $5,000 for equipment and travel.

Annabeth also has racing in her blood. Her Hiddenite, N.C. relatives have been racing cars “since back in the moonshine days,” she explains, and the love of speed has a particular significance at her age: “When you are 11 or 12, your whole life is filled with people telling you what to do. But when you’re racing you make your own decisions. . . . You’re totally independent.” She takes special pleasure in beating the boys in such a male-dominated sport, but as adolescence sets in, she feels torn between her love of racing, which requires her to travel nearly every weekend, and a desire to be a regular kid.

For Brandon, racing is in many ways an escape from a difficult home life in Creedmoor, N.C. “If I’m not racing, I’m not happy,” he says. His parents have wrestled with drugs, and so he lives with his nurturing grandparents in a double-wide trailer filled with racing memorabilia. Talented, funny and charismatic, Brandon also has a hot temper that sometimes gets him into trouble. He is aiming to win the championship that he lost the previous year when he was disqualified for rough driving.

As the tour unfolds, the three young racers step from the sheltered world of childhood into adolescence — discovering romance for the first time, questioning their relationships with their parents and glimpsing the serious obstacles that will threaten their ability to achieve their dreams.

“Some people might see car racing as a surprising subject for a PBS documentary,” says director-producer Curry, whose other films have dealt with inner-city politics and the environmental movement. “But NASCAR is said to be the second-biggest spectator sport in America, and it’s a part of our country’s culture worth exploring. The film is also a lot more universal than it might seem on the surface. It was very well-received at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, where I bet most members of the audience couldn’t name a single NASCAR driver. It’s really as much a story about adolescence and that amazing chapter of our lives as it is a story about going fast.”

DreamWorks Studios is currently developing the documentary into a dramatic feature film produced by the team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Cowboys & Aliens, Transformers).

Racing Dreams is produced by Marshall Curry Productions, GOOD and White Buffalo Entertainment.

About the Filmmaker:
Marshall Curry (Director, Producer)
Marshall Curry’s Emmy- and Oscar®-nominated Street Fight, which he directed, produced, shot and edited, aired on POV in 2005. The film chronicles Cory Booker’s first run for mayor of Newark, N.J. against incumbent Sharpe James, and won numerous awards, including audience awards at the Tribeca Film Festival, AFI/Discovery Silverdocs and Hot Docs. It also received the Jury Prize for Best International Documentary at Hot Docs and was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award.

In 2005, Filmmaker Magazine selected Curry as one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” and he was awarded the IDA’s Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award. In 2007, he received an International Trailblazer Award at MIPDOC in Cannes. His recent film If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, winner of the U.S. Documentary Editing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, aired on POV in 2011.

Curry has been a guest lecturer at Harvard, Duke, New York University and other colleges, and he has served on juries for the IDA, Tribeca Film Festival and Hot Docs. Prior to working as a filmmaker, he taught English in Guanajuato, Mexico, worked in public radio and taught government in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of Swarthmore College and was a Jane Addams Fellow at The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, where he wrote about the history, philosophy and economics of nonprofits. Curry lives with his wife and children in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Credits:

Director/Producer: Marshall Curry
Producer: Bristol Baughan
Executive Producers: Jack Turner, Ben Goldhirsh, Dwayne Johnson, Dany Garcia
Cinematographers: Marshall Curry, Peter Gordon, Wolfgang Held, Alan Jacobsen
Editors: Marshall Curry, Matthew Hamachek, Mary Manhardt
Original Music: Joel Goodman, The National
Running Time: 86:46

POV Series Credits:

Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry
Co-Executive Producer: Cynthia López
Vice President, Production and Programming: Chris White
Series Producer: Yance Ford

* * * *

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, The Educational Foundation of America, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, FACT and public television viewers. Special support provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Funding for POV’s Diverse Voices Project is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Project VoiceScape is a partnership of Adobe Youth Voices, PBS and POV. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.

Press Release: NY Children’s Film Festival Announces Slate & Jury

NEW YORK INT’L CHILDREN’S FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES 2012 JURY AND SLATE PREVIEW

15TH ANNIVERSARY EVENT RUNS MARCH 2-25 OSCAR®-QUALIFYING FOR SHORT ANIMATION & LIVE ACTION OVER 25,000 EXPECTED FOR 100+ FILMS

SLATE PREVIEW:
OPENING NIGHT US PREMIERE – A MONSTER IN PARIS
N. AMERICAN PREMIERE – LE TABLEAU
US PREMIERE – CINDERELLA MOON
SHOWCASE SCREENINGS – CHIMPANZEE, PIRATES!
FIRST SCREENING IN OVER 10 YEARS – YELLOW SUBMARINE

NYICFF 2012 JURY INCLUDES:
JEFFREY WRIGHT, UMA THURMAN, SUSAN SARANDON, GUS VAN SANT, JAMES SCHAMUS, MATTHEW MODINE, JOHN CANEMAKER, TOMM MOORE, MICHEL OCELOT

FULL SLATE ANNOUNCED AND TICKETS ON SALE FEBRUARY 1 AT GKIDS.COM

New York, New York, Jan 19, 2012 – The critically acclaimed New York Int’l Children’s Film Festival has announced the 2012 jury and slate preview for its 15th anniversary event, which runs March 2-25 at New York’s DGA Theater, Walter Reade Theater, IFC Center, Peter Norton Symphony Space, Asia Society, Scholastic Theater, and Cantor Film Center. The 2012 jury includes actors Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Wright, and Susan Sarandon and filmmakers and animators James Schamus, Gus Van Sant, Michel Ocelot, Tomm Moore, and John Canemaker (complete jury below). As an Oscar®-qualifying festival, NYICFF jury winners qualify for consideration for the 2012 Academy Awards® in the Live Action and Animated Short Film categories. The complete festival lineup will be announced on February 1, and tickets for the festival will go on sale at www.gkids.com.

Now in its 15th year, NYICFF is the nation’s largest festival for children and teens and will present four weeks of groundbreaking and thought-provoking films for ages 3-18, with 100 new animated, live action, documentary, and experimental shorts and features, opening and closing night galas, studio showcases, retrospectives, filmmaker Q&As, filmmaking workshops, and the NYICFF Awards Ceremony. NYICFF has grown into an especially important showcase for independent and international animation, having premiered new works by Hayao Miyazaki, Nick Park, Katsuhiro Otomo, Tomm Moore, Mamoru Hosoda, Konstantin Bronzit among many others.

SLATE PREVIEW:

· A Monster in Paris, Opening Night Film – US Premiere, France, Bibo Bergeron. NYICFF 2012 opens with a classic misunderstood-monster tale set in Paris 1910, a warm-hearted animated musical about the power of song featuring Django Reinhardt-style gypsy guitar and honey-toned vocals courtesy of Sean Lennon.
· Le Tableau – North American Premiere, France, Jean-François Laguionie. One of the most stunningly beautiful films in years, with swirls of vibrant color that burst from the screen and nearly every frame a breathtaking wonder, Le Tableau is a captivating, enormously enjoyable parable set within the frame of an unfinished painting. Presented in partnership with Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.
· Cinderella Moon – US Premiere, China/USA, Richard Bowen. A gorgeous and enchanting fairytale based on the earliest known version of Cinderella (the Chinese tale “Ye Xian” from 768 A.D.) filled with exquisitely ornate costumes and dazzling scenery shot in Yunnan Province.
· Chimpanzee – Showcase Screening, USA, Alastair Fothergill/Mark Linfield. From the award-winning directors of Earth and sumptuously shot in the rain forests of Africa, Chimpanzee tells the true-life story of an adorable young chimp named Oscar, whose playful curiosity and zest for discovery showcase the intelligence and ingenuity of some of the most extraordinary personalities in the animal kingdom.
· The Pirates! A Band of Misfits – Showcase Screening, UK, Peter Lord. An epic new claymation adventure from four-time Academy Award®-winning stop-motion masters Aardman Animations. Directed by Aardman founder (and former NYICFF juror) Peter Lord, Pirates is a high seas saga of a hapless pirate captain and his crew of extremely silly and witless pirate fools.
· Yellow Submarine – Special Event, UK, George Dunning. First NYC Screening in Over 10 Years! An icon of psychedelic pop culture, Yellow Submarine is a colorful musical spectacle and an exhilaratingly joyful cinematic experience – filled with visual invention, optical illusions, word play, and glorious, glorious music.

NYICFF 2012 JURY:

· John Canemaker – Academy Award®-winning animator (The Moon and the Son)
· Adam Gopnik – Author, essayist and New Yorker contributor
· Tomm Moore – Academy Award® nominated animator/director (The Secret of Kells)
· Lynne McVeigh – Associate Professor of Children’s Media at NYU Tisch School of the Arts
· Matthew Modine – Award-winning actor (Full Metal Jacket, The Dark Knight Rises)
· Michel Ocelot – Award-winning writer/director/animator (Kirikou & the Sorceress, Tales of the Night)
· Dana Points – Editor-in-Chief, Parents Magazine
· Susan Sarandon – Academy Award®-winning actor (Dead Man Walking, Jeff Who Lives at Home)
· James Schamus – Award-winning writer/producer (Brokeback Mountain, The Ice Storm)
· Evan Shapiro – President, IFC Television and The Sundance Channel
· Uma Thurman – Academy Award® nominated actor (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2)
· Christine Vachon – Award-winning producer (Boys Don’t Cry, Mildred Pierce)
· Gus Van Sant – Academy Award® nominated director (Milk, Good Will Hunting)
· Taika Waititi – Academy Award® nominated writer/director (Two Cars One Night, Boy)
· Jeffrey Wright – Award-winning actor (Basquiat, The Ides of March)

ABOUT NYICFF:
Established in 1997, NYICFF is an Oscar®-qualifying event and North America’s largest film festival for children and teens. The most recent edition attracted a sold-out-in-advance audience of 25,000 and generated 80 million media impressions. NYICFF 2012 takes place March 2-25, with 100+ films from around the world, plus gala premieres, retrospectives, filmmaker Q&As, filmmaking workshops, audience voting, and the NYICFF Awards Ceremony. Festival sponsors include HSBC Premier, HBO, Parents Magazine, and Scholastic with funding from NY State Council on the Arts, a state agency, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs with support from the NY City Council, and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to the annual March festival, NYICFF presents year-round film programming both in New York and nationally.