Aesthetica Film Festival
Documentary Filmmaking: Telling the Story
Thursday 8 November
14:00-15:00
York Theatre Royal (Studio)
Spring Films’ portfolio of factual work includes the beautifully crafted, Emmy, Peabody and RTS Award-winning Night Will Fall and Werner Herzog’s Emmy nominated Into the Inferno, as well as Herzog’s latest work, Meeting Gorbachev. Executive Producer Richard Melman offers his extensive experience in documentary production, discussing methods of finding and following a compelling subject, acquiring commissions and producing unique films.
Werner Herzog’s Fireball lands at MIPCOM
Spring Films is to produce a new feature doc - Fireball - with filmmaker Werner Herzog to explore mankind’s relationship to meteorites. Spring’s Head of Global Development Figs Jackman will be unveiling the project for the first time at MIPCOM in Cannes.
IWM Short Film Festival
IWM SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2018 25–29 October 2018 | Imperial War Museum London
Free Screenings Animations, Documentaries, Dramas 5 days, 10 programmes, 29 films
The IWM Short Film Festival is a showcase of imaginative and challenging films, inspired by the causes, course and consequences of conflict and its impact on people’s lives. The festival shows documentaries, dramas and animations from all over the world, including professional, student and amateur filmmakers.
Spring's MD Richard Melman was delighted to be one of this years judges.
The 2018 Festival will run from 25–29 October at IWM London. Find out more about the films shortlisted for the Festival in this year's programme.
We’re Moving!
Spring Films is delighted to announce that from Monday 1st October, we are moving to larger new offices at 7 Cavendish Square, London, W1G 0PE.
MEETING GORBACHEV – WERNER HERZOG & ANDRÉ SINGER Q&A AT TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL
Prolific director Werner Herzog’s candid conversations with the former Soviet head of state form the backbone of this illuminating documentary, co-directed by André Singer, on one of the 20th century’s most defining politicians.
A Mother Brings Her Son to Be Shot set for national release
'Following sold-out screenings at London, Dublin, Glasgow and Belfast International Film Festivals, CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, the Galway Film Fleadh, New Zealand and Sydney Film Festivals, Sinéad O'Shea's new Irish documentary, A Mother Brings Her Son to be Shot, is set for nationwide Irish and Northern Irish release on 14 September.
The Irish Film & Television Network
Werner Herzog Finds a True Hero
Meeting Gorbachev’ Review: Werner Herzog Finds a True Hero in this Tender Documentary About the Former Soviet Leader — Telluride
In Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final President of the Soviet Union, Werner Herzog has finally met his match.
With Mikhail Gorbachev — the eighth and final President of the Soviet Union — Werner Herzog has finally met his match. In the opening seconds of the legendary filmmaker’s latest documentary, Herzog sits across from the retired world leader responsible for hits like glasnost and perestroika, and attempts to hijack the man’s life story for his own ecstatic purposes.
“Meeting Gorbachev, for a German, is burdened by history” he narrates in his signature drone of despair, alluding to the violence of World War II and already trying to reframe the facts in order to heighten the emotional truths behind them. “The first German you met wanted to kill you,” Herzog declares to his star, hoping to gaslight Mikhail Gorbachev into believing that his life has always been a Herzog movie waiting to happen. It’s the same technique the filmmaker used to portray Dieter Dengler, the Woodcarver Steiner, andTimothy Treadwell, twisting their lives (and their deaths) into haunting stories about the beauty of demented men and the impossible burden of their dreams.
Gorbachev isn’t having any of it. “No,” he firmly replies to the filmmaker’s juicy conversation prompt, leaving Herzog with a stunned look on his face that we’ve never really seen before. Not even close. In reality, Gorbachev explains in Russian, the first Germans he met were the sweet couple who owned the local candy store in the bitter poor North Caucasus village where he was born. Record scratch.
Gorbachev might be 87 years old and starting to show his age, but — as will only become clearer as the film goes on — his mind is still too sharp for Herzog to successfully incept him with more exciting memories, and his will is forever too strong to be seduced into the deference the filmmaker has always demanded from the world around him. Not since Klaus Kinski has Herzog aimed his camera at such an uncontrollable subject, and that includes the erupting peaks of “Into the Inferno” and the radioactive crocodiles in “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”
And yet, it’s ultimately because of Gorbachev’s seeming unwillingness to fit the director’s usual mold that “Meeting Gorbachev” is able to become such a different and engaging bio-doc, as Herzog is left no other choice than to abandon the dark irony that tends to veil his work and embrace a more sincere approach. At one point, Herzog straight up tells Gorbachev that he loves him.
Read the Full Article at
https://www.indiewire.com/2018/09/meeting-gorbachev-review-werner-herzog-1202000039/
Documentary Filmmaking: Telling the Story
Thursday 8 November
14:00-15:00
York Theatre Royal Studio
Spring Films’ portfolio of factual work includes the beautifully crafted, Emmy, Peabody and RTS Award-winning Night Will Fall and Werner Herzog’s Emmy nominated Into the Inferno, as well as Herzog’s latest work, Meeting Gorbachev. Executive Producer Richard Melman offers his extensive experience in documentary production, discussing methods of finding and following a compelling subject, acquiring commissions and producing unique films.
15 Documentaries that could shake up the Oscar race
“Meeting Gorbachev” (A&E/The History Channel with MDR and ARTE)
Werner Herzog and his frequent producer André Singer co-directed this portrait of Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev for A&E’s History 100 series. (Submarine is repping the theatrical sale for this presumed Telluride debut.) German filmmaker Herzog has rarely interviewed politicians over his 50-year career, but “in the case of Gorbachev, admires him,” said Powers, “not least of all for his role in the reunification of Germany. What we get is a portrait of a leader who makes such a marked contrast to the leaders we have today. Gorbachev is a man of grace and wisdom and commitment to peace, and it’s a pleasure to spend time with him, to see someone with so agile a mind as Werner Herzog draw him out on a number of subjects.”
Meeting Gorbachev to Play at TIFF
We are delighted to announce that the Spring Films and Werner Herzog Film co-production 'Meeting Gorbachev' has been accepted for the Toronto International Film Festival.
'Meeting Gorbachev' is directed by Werner Herzog and André Singer and was made for A&E's History 100 and MDR/Arte.
Spring’s Prison is number 1
Congratulations to Paddy Wivell and the team. Programme three is still to come - watch this space for updates - it's worth waiting for.
PRISON EP2 – 26th July C4 9PM
This is a remarkable and compelling film that raises many questions.
Thank you to the amazing team who worked so hard to make it, and to The FARM for their excellent post-production services.
Composer
BRADLEY MILES
Colourist
SONNY SHERIDAN
Online editor
BEX MURRAY
Dubbing Mixer
NICK FRY
PRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT
Kesirel Humphries-Allen
PRODUCTION CO-ORDINATOR
Claire Kessie
LEGAL
Peter McInerney and Keith Ashby
HEAD OF PRODUCTION
Pat Footer
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Chris Dale
Dennis Mabry
Saskia Tompsett
ASSISTANT PRODUCER
Josh Allott
SHOOTING PRODUCER
Jack Wood
EDITOR
Chris Nicholls
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
Kathy Myers
Richard Melman
PRODUCER & DIRECTED BY
Paddy Wivell