Gotham Awards: Cry Me a ‘Frozen River’

The 18th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards (formerly known as simply the Gotham Awards) were handed out last night with Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River beating Lance Hammer’s Ballast, Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, Tom McCarthy’s The Visitor and Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler for Best Feature. Frozen River’s Melissa Leo also took Breakthrough Actor for her [...]

‘Ballast’ Nabs Four Gotham Nominations

Michael J. Smith Sr. in Ballast
Ready or not, it’s officially awards season with the IFP announcing its nominees for the 18th Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards (formerly known as the Gotham Awards).
Several films that might be familiar to you if you’ve been reading LiC lately have been showered with a little early awards loving and [...]

Review: Trouble the Water (2008) ****

Kim Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts as we meet them in Trouble the Water
One sign of a good documentary filmmaker is the ability to shift gears and abandon preconceived notions when a story changes unexpectedly. In the case of Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, the story that became their hurricane Katrina documentary Trouble the Water [...]

LiC Interview: ‘Trouble the Water’ Part 1

Carl Deal and Tia Lessin
I recently sat down to chat with Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, the filmmakers behind Trouble the Water, the Sundance grand jury prize winning documentary about hurricane Katrina that opens in New York and Los Angeles on 8/22.
On the same day, I also spoke with two of the subjects of that [...]

Weekend Forecast: 8/22/08

Kimberly Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts in Trouble the Water
Ouch. It looks like summer is over but the fall movie season still hasn’t begun. The wide releases look almost completely forgettable so, once again, I’ll dig into the slightly more promising limited releases first.

Trouble the Water. Coming from the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for [...]

More on Katrina doc ‘Trouble the Water’

Kim Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts in Trouble the Water 
Back in July you may remember I mentioned having caught up to the Sundance jury prize-winning documentary Trouble the Water, the story of hurricane Katrina told through the eyes of two survivors: Kimberly Rivers Roberts and her husband Scott Roberts. I’ll have a review of the [...]

First Impressions: Trouble the Water & American Teen

Kimberly Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts on a good day in Trouble the Water
I caught up recently with a couple of documentaries that made their respective marks at Sundance last January. The gripping and moving hurricane Katrina documentary Trouble the Water ended up winning the jury documentary prize while the crowd-pleasing American Teen received enthusiastic [...]

Sundance Announces Awards

The 2008 Sundance Film Festival jury and audience award winners were announced this evening during the Festival’s closing awards ceremony host by William H. Macy.
The Grand Jury Prize for dramtic feature went to Courtney Hunt’s Frozen River.
The Grand Jury Prize for documenatary feature was given to Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s Trouble the Water.
Sweden’s  King of  [...]