Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury is an Irish-British and American actress and singer who has played many film, theatre and television roles. With one of the longest careers in the entertainment industry, her career has spanned over 80 years, much of it in the United States; her work has also received much international attention. Upon the death of Olivia de Havilland in July 2020, Lansbury became the oldest surviving Academy Award nominee and one of the last stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
The Yes Men are a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. Through various actions, the Yes Men primarily aim to raise awareness about problematic social and political issues. To date, the duo have produced three films: The Yes Men (2003), The Yes Men Fix the World (2009), and The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014). In these films, they impersonate entities that they dislike, a practice that they call "identity correction." The Yes Men operate under the mission statement that lies can expose truth. They create and maintain fake websites similar to ones they intend to spoof, which have led to numerous interview, conference, and TV talk show invitations. They espouse the belief that corporations and governmental organizations often act in dehumanizing ways toward the public. Elaborate props are sometimes part of the ruse, as shown in their 2003 DVD release The Yes Men. The Yes Men have collaborated with other groups of similar interest, including Improv Everywhere, Andrew Boyd and Steve Lambert.
Nelson George is an American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Roadracers is a 1994 made-for-television film directed by Robert Rodriguez, his second feature film following the success of his 1992 debut, El Mariachi. The film originally aired on Showtime Network as part of their Rebel Highway series that took the titles of 1950s-era B-movies and applied them to original films starring up-and-coming actors of the 1990s and directed by established directors such as William Friedkin, Joe Dante, and Ralph Bakshi. Rodriguez was the only young director to participate in the series. The series was produced by the son and daughter of Samuel Z. Arkoff, the co-founder and producer of American International Pictures (AIP), the distributor of the films this series takes its titles from.
Jacques Servin is an American media artist and activist. He is one of the leading members of The Yes Men, a culture jamming activist group. Their exploits in "identity correction" are documented in the films The Yes Men (2003), The Yes Men Fix the World (2009), and The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014). As Ray Thomas, he is a co-founder of RTMark.
Igor Vamos is a member of The Yes Men, and an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 2000, he received the Creative Capital award in the discipline of Emerging Fields. He is also a co-founder of RTmark and the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, granted for a project that used Global Positioning System (GPS) and other wireless technology to create a new medium with which to "view" his documentary Grounded, about an abandoned military base in Wendover, Utah.
The Yes Men is a 2003 documentary film about the early culture jamming exploits of The Yes Men.
The Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF) was founded in 2005 by Kelley Vickery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. The four-day festival features independent films for filmmakers and film aficionados, with showings of features, documentaries, shorts, and animation—as well as panel discussions and special events focusing on filmmakers and talented artists from both sides of the camera.
Doc Society is a social entrepreneurship organisation created in 2005. They have supported the production of over 60 films that have won awards as of 2012.
Amy Virginia Talkington is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and author.
Abbi Jacobson is an American comedian, writer, actress, illustrator and producer. She co-created and co-starred in the Comedy Central series Broad City (2014–2019) with Ilana Glazer, based on the web series of the same name. Her other roles include voicing Katie Mitchell in The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021), Nya in The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017), and Princess Bean in the series Disenchantment (2018–present), in addition to appearing in the live-action films Person to Person (2017) and 6 Balloons (2018). She is a writer and co-creator of the Amazon Prime series A League of Their Own (2022), in which she also stars as Carson Shaw, an aspiring baseball player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.
The Dissolve was a film review, news, and commentary website which was operated by Pitchfork and based in Chicago, Illinois. The site was focused on reviews, commentary, interviews, and news about contemporary and classic films. Its editor was Scott Tobias, the former editor in chief of The A.V. Club. Editorial director Keith Phipps announced The Dissolve's closure on July 8, 2015.
The 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival, the 39th event in the Toronto International Film Festival series, was held in Canada from 4–14 September 2014. David Dobkin's film The Judge, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall was the opening night film. A Little Chaos, a British period drama directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet closed the festival. More films for each section were announced on 12 August, with the line-up completed on 19 August. A total of 393 films were shown, including 143 world premieres. The first Friday was dubbed "Bill Murray Day", as festival organisers dedicated a day to the actor by screening a select number of his films for free.
Candescent Films is an American film production company that produces and finances documentary and narrative films that explore social issues.
Champs is a 2014 documentary film focusing on boxers Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and Bernard Hopkins. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2014. Starz released the film on March 13, 2015, in a theatrical release and through video on demand.
Hot Girls Wanted is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus. The film follows the lives of several 18- and 19-year-old pornographic actresses. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was released on Netflix on May 29, 2015.
Don Peyote is a 2014 American comedy film written and directed by Dan Fogler and Michael Canzoniero. It stars Fogler as a slacker who has a spiritual awakening and becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories.
Art History is a 2011 American drama film directed by Joe Swanberg, written by Swanberg, Josephine Decker, and Kent Osborne. It stars Decker, Swanberg, Osborne, Adam Wingard, and Kris Swanberg as filmmakers whose lives are complicated by a graphic sex scene in an arthouse film.
Band Aid is a 2017 American comedy-drama film, written and directed by Zoe Lister-Jones in her directorial debut. It stars Lister-Jones, Adam Pally, Fred Armisen, Susie Essman, Retta, Hannah Simone, Ravi Patel and Brooklyn Decker. Lister-Jones also co-wrote the original songs in the film with multi-instrumentalist Kyle Forester.
Topside is a 2020 American drama film written and directed by Celine Held and Logan George. It stars Zhaila Farmer, Celine Held, Jared Abrahamson, and Fatlip. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September 2020. It was released in the United States on March 25, 2022, by Vertical Entertainment.
