Neon and Topic Studios present writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool at 1,835 theaters in a lively specialty weekend sandwiched between a new crop of Sundance films and noteworthy expansions in the glow of Oscar nominations.
09.01.2023 - 20:49 / deadline.com
Polar bears are both a welcome and an unwelcome sight in the town of Churchill, Manitoba.
They’re welcome in the sense that each year the ursine creatures draw tourists to the area eager to see the bears as they migrate through Churchill on their way to winter feeding grounds on the Hudson Bay. And the tourists pour a lot of money into the local economy.
On the other hand, the bears create issues — at least ones that linger too long, attracted by the aroma of food from the local dump. It is the latter kind of animal that occupies the frame in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Nuisance Bear. The short directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden is streaming at the NewYorker.com and on the New Yorker’s YouTube channel.
“There’s a lot of films that get made in Churchill,” notes Weisman. “We realized that there was this missing component in the stories that were being captured there… It became obvious through watching those and watching the filmmakers, that there was an opportunity to do something just completely different from the traditional approach.”
Nuisance Bear begins with slow motion footage of waves crashing along a frigid shoreline, then moves to a slow tracking shot across a snowy landscape. A magnificent polar bear comes into view, striding in slo-mo, occasionally lifting its nose to inhale a snoutful of frosty air. At this stage, the film might seem like a typical nature documentary. But as the bear proceeds, it reaches a road where a grouping of tourists and assorted photographers watch it calmly lope to the other side. One guy toting a long lens turns his back on the polar bear, evidently repositioning himself for a shot with a more scenic backdrop than lanes of traffic.
“The moment where the bear
Neon and Topic Studios present writer/director Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool at 1,835 theaters in a lively specialty weekend sandwiched between a new crop of Sundance films and noteworthy expansions in the glow of Oscar nominations.
EXCLUSIVE: The Gotham Film & Media Institute has unveiled the winners of its fourth annual Focus Features & JetBlue Student Short Film Showcase. The five filmmakers chosen are Saleem Gondal (Post Term, Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema), Yingtong Li (The Silent Whistle, Emerson College), Taylor Mannsman (Obscura, University of Texas at Austin), Shannon M. Sutherland (They Flew Like Blackbirds, Florida State University) and Cheryl Wong (Stigma, Style, NYU).
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Karen Cooper, longtime director of New York City’s indie cinema gem Film Forum, says she’s stepping down at a good time, not just for her, but for the business. Despite all the naysayers and after slogging through Covid with the help of federal grants and weathering a slow recovery, Cooper said business is currently pretty lively at the lower Manhattan nonprofit cinema she’s run for the past 50 years.
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