ASIFA-East’s Evening of Calendars and Films

By Justin Simonich
What do PBS, NPR,  The Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon and ASIFA-East all have in common? They all survive on donations in order to survive. Last week ASIFA-East held the first ever calendar fundraiser event featuring art from a number of NYC animation superstars.
On hand to sign the calendars and share their films [...]

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Queens International Film Festival Founder subject of numerous fraud allegations

Following my lousy time at the Queens International Film Festival, it’s come to light, via news sources, that the founder, Marie Castaldo, is the subject of numerous fraud allegations, stemming from unpaid debts from Queens, to upstate NY, to California.  The Queens Chronicle has an in-depth look on the story. And last night, Fox 5 [...]

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ASIFA-East presents – An Evening with John Dilworth

December 8th, Tuesday  7pm

ASIFA-East presents – An Evening with John Dilworth

Join us for an unforgettable evening of films, conversation, and surprises, including the ASIFA-East premiere of Oscar-nominated filmmaker John R. Dilworth’s new short, “Rinky Dink.”
* ASIFA-East calendars will be on sale at the event ($10 each), as well as Dilworth merchandise.
SVA
School Of Visual Arts
209 [...]

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Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs: An Evening with Director Carlos Saldanha

According to Wikipedia, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is “the second highest grossing animated film of all time with $874.5 million worldwide.”
Which also means, Ice Age 3 has bested every Pixar production at the box office.
Quite an achievement for director Carlos Saldanha, a 1993 School of Visual Arts graduate from Brazil, who began a [...]

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Upcoming events in the NY area!

November 18th – April 26th
The Museum of Modern Art presents – Tim Burton Retrospective

This major career retrospective on Tim Burton, consisting of a gallery exhibition and a film series, considers Burton’s career as a director, producer, writer, and concept artist for live-action and animated films, along with his work as a fiction writer, photographer [...]

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Henry Selick brings Coraline to New York City

Article written by Emmett Goodman.
On November 17, a private screening of Coraline in 3D took place in New York. Taking place with the film, director Henry Selick made an appearance for a Q&A. I have known Henry Selick’s name since The Nightmare Before Christmas (directed by Selick, produced and conceived by Tim Burton). He has [...]

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Queens International Film Festival Largely Disappoints

Article by Dayna Gonzalez.
UPDATE: Shortly after writing this, I came across this article, “Film Festival Fraud”, purporting the festival to be a major scam operation.  Not surprising, given the experience I and others had.  Fair warning.
I’m not really sure where to start with this review.  All I can think, is that the festival must have [...]

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