Film

A new annual contest for budding filmmakers is now welcoming submissions. The Derry and Puffin D’Oench Film Award, sponsored by Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC), of Middletown, is open to Wesleyan University and Middlesex Community College students and alumni. The contest’s name honors Derry and Ellen “Puffin” D’Oench ’73, community members who contributed to the local arts and cultural community. At Wesleyan, Puffin served as curator of the Davison Art Center, adjunct professor of art history, and a trustee. Russell “Derry” D’Oench was editor-in-chief of the Middletown Press from 1959 to 1991. The couple was involved in many organizations, including…

Beginning this month, Wesleyan's College of the Environment, Center for the Arts and other outside partners will present "The Elements: An Annual Environmental Film Series." The first film, Elemental, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. March 30 in the Center for the Arts Hall. The award-winning film follows three activists as they work to protect air, water and earth around the world, and offers a call for global action. The second film in the series, WATERSHED, will be screened at 7 p.m. May 4 in Middlesex Community College's Chapman Hall, 100 Training Hill Rd. in Middletown. Executive produced and narrated by Robert Redford, this film tells the story…

Katey Rich ’06 has a new position as digital Hollywood editor at Vanity Fair, where she is overseeing The Hollywood Blog. Before Vanity Fair, Rich worked at the Cinema Blend website for six years, and her last job there was editor-in-chief. She was previously an editorial assistant at Film Journal International. As Wesleyan she major in film studies and English. For those who have read Rich's writing at Cinema Blend, they already know she has been a savvy chronicler of the film scene and an entertaining film critic for years. At vanityfair.com, Wesleyan alumni can currently enjoy her thoughts on…

Best-selling author Sam Wasson ’03 has published Fosse (Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), an authoritative and fascinating biography of the renowned dancer, choreographer, screenwriter, and director Bob Fosse. The only person ever to win Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards in the same year, Fosse was a masterful artist in every entertainment medium he touched, and forever marked Broadway and Hollywood with his iconic style that would influence generations of performing artists. Wasson reveals the man behind the swaggering sex appeal by exploring Fosse’s reinventions of himself over a career that would result in his work on The Pajama Game, Pippin, Sweet…

Liz Garcia ’99 is the director, screenwriter, and co-producer of The Lifeguard (Focus World and Screen Media), in which a young woman (Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars) nearing 30 quits her Associated Press reporting job in New York and returns to her childhood home in Connecticut. She gets work as a lifeguard and has an affair with a troubled teenager (David Lambert), the son of a co-worker. The film’s also stars Mamie Gummer, Martin Starr, Alex Shaffer, Adam LeFevre and Joshua Harto, who also is a co-producer (and Garcia’s husband). The Lifeguard premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last January and…

Sebastian Junger ’84 has directed a new documentary, Which Way Is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, which premiered on HBO this month. The film covers Hertherington’s career as a war photographer, from his earliest days covering the civil war in Liberia to his final days in Misrata. He was killed in 2011 at age 40 in the siege of Misrata during Libya's civil war. Junger pays tribute to Hetherington's video and still photography and how he engaged himself on a personal level with his subjects. Junger and Hetherington were co-directors of the acclaimed…

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival in September featured the North American Premiere of Museum Hours, directed by Jem Cohen ’84, and the world premieres of Imogene, co-directed by Shari Springer Berman ’85 and Robert Pulcini, and Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Joss Whedon ’87. All three films were well received by Toronto audiences and film critics. Both Imogene and Much Ado About Nothing were picked up in Toronto by Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions for release in North America. MPM Film is handing international sales and The Cinema Guild has acquired U.S. distribution rights for Museum Hours. Museum Hours…

To help the victims of the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, Wesleyan graduate students Maho Ishiguro, Akiko Hakateyama, Ellen Loeck and Shoko Yamamoto arranged a benefit concert titled "Voices United." Students and faculty from Wesleyan's music department, and resident performers from the Middletown area, assembled at Crowell Concert Hall for an afternoon of music and dance performances. The concert was filmed and will be available on DVD this month. Eleven performances, which included different genres of music from 10 countries, were featured. Participating ensembles and musicians included Chinese Ensemble, Balinese Gender Ensemble, Carnatic Music Ensemble (Indian vocals), The Mixolydians (vocal ensemble singing Rennaisance madrigals), Slavei…

Paul Weitz ’88 is the director of the film Being Flynn (Focus Features), which he adapted from an acclaimed memoir by Nick Flynn and which opened in theaters on March 2. The movie drama deals with a young, self-destructive writer (played by Paul Dano) who works in a homeless shelter where he reconnects after 18 years with his alcoholic father (played by Robert De Niro), also a writer, who comes to stay at the shelter. The film also stars Julianne Moore and Olivia Thirlby. Weitz’s film had a long journey to the screen and along the way, the director wrote…

Ethan de Siefe ’95 has written an entertaining new book, Tashlinesque: The Hollywood Comedies of Frank Tashlin (Wesleyan University Press). In the preface of his study, de Siefe writes: “Director Frank Tashlin left an indelible impression on American and global film comedy. His films are some of the funniest, most visually inventive comedies ever made, and they feature landmark performances by some of the greatest comedians in American film history, a list that includes not only Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis, but Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny.” Tashlin (1913–1972) was a supremely gifted satirist and visual stylist yet…

Every Tuesday night this July is a Cary Grant night at Wesleyan, though he'll be joined by some very attractive company. “Cary Grant and his Leading Ladies” is the title and theme of this year's installment of Wesleyan University's annual Wesleyan Summer Film Series. The free series held at the Goldsmith Family Cinema will feature a classic, fully-restored Cary Grant film each Tuesday night in July, with an introductory talk beginning at 7:30 p.m. The screenings star on Tuesday, July 6, with “To Catch a Thief” featuring Grant and Grace Kelly. On Tuesday, July 13, Connecticut’s own Katherine Hepburn and…

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Derry and Puffin D’Oench ’73 Film Award Open to Submissions

New Environmental Film Series to be Presented by COE, CFA

Rich ’06 Covers Hollywood for Vanity Fair

Wasson ’03 Writes Biography of Entertainment Icon Bob Fosse

Garcia ’99 Talks About Her Film The Lifeguard, in Theaters Aug. 30

Junger ’84 Directs HBO Documentary about Photojournalist Tim Hetherington

Toronto Film Festival Showcases Films Directed by Cohen ’84, Springer Berman ’85, Whedon ’87

Music Department, Local Musicians Create Film to Benefit Japan Relief

Weitz ’88 is Director-Writer of Being Flynn, Starring Robert De Niro

De Siefe ’95 Writes Study of Frank Tashlin’s Comic Films

Summer Film Series Features Cary Grant and His Leading Ladies

Oscar-Nominated Director Jason Reitman Speaks at Wesleyan