IFC Center Pays Tribute to the 20th Anniversary Of an Essential Distributor, with 20-Program Retrospective Presented in the Theater's Ongoing "Weekend Classics" Series Weekends November 12, 2010 - March 27, 2011

"Milestone Films: 20 for 20," a celebration of the 20th anniversary of noted distributor Milestone Films, unfolds over 20 weekends from November 12, 2010 through March 27, 2011 at IFC Center as part of the theater's ongoing "Weekend Classics" program. The schedule for the first half of the series is below; the second half will be announced in late December.

Founded in 1990 by husband-and-wife team Dennis Doros and Amy Heller-both veterans of New York's independent distribution scene-Milestone boasts one of the richest and most varied catalogs of films ever assembled. Spanning virtually the entire history of cinema, from the early days of the 20th century through today, its collection includes works from such film legends as Alfred Hitchcock, Luchino Visconti, Ernst Lubitsch and Orson Welles, along with contemporary masters Jane Campion, Hirokazu Kore-eda, John Canemaker, Philip Haas and others. With extensive experience in film preservation and restoration, Milestone has rescued a number of orphaned films from limbo, collaborating with leading archives to restore "lost" movies to pristine condition and bring them to audiences for the first time. Among their most acclaimed recent projects are Charles Burnett's KILLER OF SHEEP, recipient of a 2007 Special Award from the New York Film Critics Circle, and Kent Mackenzie's THE EXILES, given a Special Heritage Award by the National Society of Film Critics in 2008, both of which had their long-awaited theatrical premieres at IFC Center.

In addition to those two films, the series offers a sampling of Milestone's essential work over the past 20 years, opening with Luchino Visconti's operatic ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS and continuing with Michael Powell's THE EDGE OF THE WORLD; Orson Welles's THE TRIAL with Anthony Perkins and Jeanne Moreau; Jane Campion's marvelous first feature, TWO FRIENDS; the groundbreaking animation of Lotte Reiniger's THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED; Mikhail Kalatozov's revolutionary fever-dream I AM CUBA and more.

"From the very first day, our mission was to discover movies that we truly love and to share them with our friends: the international film community. And for twenty years, the critics, the art houses, the archivists and the filmgoers have faithfully traveled with us on this wonderful journey. We never dreamed we would get this far and are very grateful for every step along the way." - Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, Milestone Films

Weekend Classics: "MILESTONE FILMS-20 FOR 20" w eekends through Mar. 27, 2011, at 11:00am
Nov 12-14 ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS (1960, Luchino Visconti)
Nov 19-21 THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (1937, Michael Powell)
Nov 24-28 KILLER OF SHEEP (1977, Charles Burnett)
Dec 3-5 THE TRIAL (1962, Orson Welles)
Dec 10-12 THE WIDE BLUE ROAD (1957, Gillo Pontecorvo & Maleno Malenotti)
Dec 17-19 TWO FRIENDS (1986, Jane Campion)
Dec 23-26 BON VOYAGE and AVENTURE MALGACHE (1944, Alfred Hitchcock)
Dec 30-Jan 2 THE ADVENTURES OF PRINCE ACHMED (1926, Lotte Reiniger)
Jan 7-9 THE EXILES and BUNKER HILL (1961 and 1956, Kent Mackenzie)
Jan 14-17 I AM CUBA (1964, Mikhail Kalatozov)

What’s NEW? For the first time with DVD2BLU.com consumers can send in ANY DVD they own (produced by any studio/sold at retail, online) even those old dusty ones under their beds or in the garage and get a new Warner Bros. Blu-ray title in return for as low as $4.95.

Over 100 Blu-ray titles are available including Gran Torino, V For Vendetta, Superman II, Wedding Crashers, The Shining, and several other favorites.

Here’s how it works:

Visit DVD2BLU.com, view the selection of over 100 Blu-ray titles and pick the ones you want to add to your collection.

Dust off those unwanted DVDs you already own and send us one (Disc Only) for every Blu-ray you wish to own. Please note only professionally produced DVDs (anything from a major/independent studio sold at retail), non Adult content will qualify.

Go to check out for all of the final details and in a few weeks get your new Blu-ray(s).

Welcome. Foreign Dispatch is your place to hear about what is going on in DVD & Bluray-land from across the pond and around the world. Since the titles discussed are generally ones I have purchased myself, or will purchase, the slant of the titles discussed will display a definite consistency. So bearing that in mind this first entry should probably be called Foreign Dispatch: Doctor Who Forever.

October has been a good month for fans of classic DOCTOR WHO. It started out with the REVISITATIONS 1 box set and concluded with the 4th Doctor story, "Seeds of Doom." REVISITATIONS is bascially a double dip box set that takes earlier DOCTOR WHO DVD releases and does additional improvements to the audio/video end of things while also loading up with new & improved features. The stories found in REVISITATIONS 1 are "The Talons of Weng-Chiang"/4th Doctor, "The Caves of Androzani"/5th Doctor and "Doctor Who: The Movie"/8th Doctor. Now if you were to ask your average Doctor Who fan to name their top ten stories "Weng-Chiang" & "Androzani" would probably make that list. So to say these new & improved version are welcome would be something of a understatement and while "Doctor Who: The Movie" would probably not make that top ten list it is still a highly sought after story since it is the only video appearance of Paul McGann as the 8th Doctor. It is also worth noting that while the first DVD release of "The Movie" took place years ago in the UK the failed Fox/BBC pilot has never been released legally in this country. That is about to change as whatever rights clearances that needed to occur have happened and "Doctor Who: The Movie", along with the new & improved versions of "Weng-Chiang" & "Androzani", is due to be released here in the US sometime next year, probably in the first quarter.

The other WHO story released is the season 13 story, "The Seeds of Doom." Now imagine Joseph W. Campbell's "The Thing From Another Planet" mish-mashed with DOCTOR WHO and throw in Tom Baker at the peak of his powers as The Doctor and you will find a smashing good story that at six parts holds up all the way through. The story is one of the show's best and it makes my personal WHO top ten. As with REVISITATIONs 1, "Seeds of Doom" should see a release in region one sometime early next year. You should expect to see a more in-depth look at "Seeds of Doom" soon.

Staying on with DOCTOR WHO and release schedules, it was announced recently that 2 Entertain, the home video arm of the BBC, would be adjusting the schedule so that the drag time between UK WHO DVD releases and those in the rest of the world would be getting much closer. So WHO fans not equipped with region-free DVD & blu-ray players should be dancing a jig. It's worth noting from my end that I will probably continue buying classic WHO from the UK because A) I greatly prefer the UK artwork, B) even a week or two earlier is still earlier in my book and C) the UK releases often end up being less expensive then their American counterparts. Looks cooler & cheaper. Yeah I know I'm shallow.

Other releases we should expect to see early next year are "Meglos"/4th Doctor, "The Mutants"/3rd Doctor and "The Ark"/1st Doctor.

And one more piece of classic WHO news to finish with, the line-up for REVISITATIONS 2 has been announced and the titles getting the extra loving are "Seeds of Death"/2nd Doctor, "The Carnival of Monsters"/3rd Doctor and "The Resurrection of the Daleks"/5th Doctor. No release date or timeframe has been given but late 2011 should be thought to be a strong possibility.

So here ends vol.1. Expect future posts to more actively review R2 and R3 discs as well as featuring news type items. Any feedback or ideas are most welcome. Thanks.

Unifrance in partnership with Allociné, with the support of the Centre National de la Cinématographie and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is organizing the first French online film festival open to Internet users around the world.

The objective is to take fully into account the evolution of cultural consumption and to reach a new audience for French cinema abroad.

UniFrance is launching, in partnership with Allociné, this new and unprecedented event, to spotlight young French filmmakers.

myfrenchfilmsfestival.com will take place from 14 to 29 January 2011.

The selection comprises ten feature films (first and second films recently released in France) and ten short films, as well as a classic film.

The films will be available by Video On Demand (VOD), in original version and subtitled in several languages (German, English, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, etc.).

Internet users will be able to vote for their favourite film.
Three prizes will be awarded at the end of the festival: a prize awarded by the public, another by foreign bloggers, the third by the international press.

The festival's website will be online in December and give free access to the trailers and to many exclusive online interviews.

FEATURE FILM SELECTION

- Adieu Gary by Nassim Amaouche with Jean-Pierre Bacri In a working class city, abandoned by most of its population, some inhabitants stay in spite of everything because they were born and grew up there: Francis, Samir and Sarah (who believes that Gary Cooper is her father and is waiting for him).

- Bus Palladium by Christopher Thompson with Marc-André Grondin.
A rock¹n roll band, a group of friends who have met with success, and a girl who will disrupt it all

- Complices by Frédéric Mermoud with Gilbert Melki and Emmanuelle Devos
Two police detectives are investigating the disappearance of a teenage couple and find themselves confronted with the problems in their own lives.

- Espion(s) by Nicolas Saada with Guillaume Canet and Géraldine Pailhas
A young baggage handler is hired as spy by the French counter-intelligence agency after being involved in spite of himself in an affair involving the explosion of a diplomatic pouch in an airport.

- La Famille Wolberg by Axelle Ropert with François Damiens
Simon Wolberg is the mayor of a small provincial town, loving husband, overbearing father and provocative son. The film recounts the escapades of this man obsessed with his family.

- L'Autre by Patrick Mario Bernard and Pierre Tridivic with Dominique Blanc
Anne-Marie leaves Alex when she realizes they no longer have the same aspirations: he wants to settle down, she wants to keep her freedom. But when Alex finds a new mistress, Anne-Marie becomes crazy with jealousy.

- Le Bal des actrices by Maïwenn with Karin Viard and Charlotte Rampling
A director is shooting a documentary film on actresses. She shows all their personalities: manipulative, fragile, lying, moving, etc. But she quickly gets involved in their little games, for better or worse.

- Qu'un seul tienne et les autres suivront by Léa Fehner with Pauline Etienne and Reda Kateb
Three people are brought together by chance in a prison visiting room: Stéphane who was just offered the deal of his life, Zorah who is trying to deal with her son¹s death, and Laure, who has fallen in love for the first time with a convict.

- Tête de Turc by Pascal Elbé with Roschdy Zem and Ronit Elkabetz
A teenager of 14, an emergency doctor, a cop looking for revenge, a mother fighting for her family, a man crushed by his wife¹s death see their destinies linked after an accident.

-Tout ce qui brille by Géraldine Nakache and Hervé Mimran with Leïla Bekhti
Ely and Lila are childhood friends living in the Paris suburbs. They dream of entering a world they don't belong to, where everything seems to shine like gold.

Classic film not in competition:
French Cancan by Jean Renoir (1955) with Jean Gabin

SHORT FILM SELECTION
- Babel by Hendrick Dusollier
- Cabossés by Louise Prémonville
- Chienne d¹histoire by Serge Avédikian
- C¹est gratuit pour les filles by Claire Burger and Marie Amachoukeli
- ¿Dónde está Kim Basinger? by Edouard Deluc
- En attendant que la pluie cesse by Charlotte Joulia
- L¹Homme à la Gordini by Jean-Christophe Lie
- Mémoire d¹une jeune fille dérangée by Keren Marciano
- Petit dragon by Bruno Collet
-Une pute et un poussin by Clément Michel

For the first time in 45 years, the entire cast of “The Sound of Music” will gather for a once-in-a-lifetime reunion on the “Oprah” show stage on Friday, October 29, 2010. Stars Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, along with fellow cast members Charmian Carr (“Liesl”), Nicholas Hammond (“Friedrich”), Heather Menzies-Urich (“Louisa”), Duane Chase (“Kurt”), Angela Cartwright (“Brigitta”), Debbie Turner (“Marta”) and Kym Karath (“Gretl”) will reunite and reveal the stories behind one of the world’s most beloved movie musicals. Together for the first time in nearly half a century, the cast shares secrets from the set, reminiscences about their time together and what their lives have been like in the years since the movie was released. Finally, the von Trapp Children – a singing group featuring members of the real von Trapp family – pay their own special tribute to the film that made their family name known throughout the world.

Considered by many to be the most successful movie musical in history*, “The Sound of Music” took home five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, in 1965. Its first release lasted over 4 ½ years. It is shown annually on network television; has been released for home entertainment on VHS, Laser Disc, DVD and has recently been digitally remastered and restored for its high definition Blu-ray Disc debut November 2; unites new fans and old through the amazing SINGALONG SOUND OF MUSIC events nationwide; and the soundtrack CD is one of the best selling soundtracks of all time, having gone Platinum more than 12 times. Its landmark score includes some of the most beloved songs in the American songbook including “My Favorite Things,” “Edelweiss,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” “Do Re Mi,” “Sixteen Going on Seventeen,” and the title song.

Furthermore, for the first time since 1973, “The Sound of Music” twirls back into theaters nationwide in stunning high definition to commemorate the beloved musical’s 45th anniversary. This special event will be broadcast to nearly 500 select movie theaters for a two-night-only engagement on Tuesday, October 19 and Tuesday, October 26 at 6:30 p.m. local time. The Sound of Music Sing-Along Event includes the sing-along version of the fully restored feature with classic songs that have delighted fans for decades, such as “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” “The Sound of Music,” “Edelweiss,” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”

Tickets to The Sound of Music Sing-Along Event are available at participating box offices and online at www.FathomEvents.com