January 2004

Human Rights Watch brings its International Film Festival to Boston for the fourth time on January 22-26. Two films by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad are featured -- "Ford Transit," which follows a cab driver as he detours around roadblocks and speeds through short cuts in Ramallah and Jerusalem, and "Rana's Wedding" (returning from last year's festival), about a young woman who flees her family home to unite with her boyfriend after her father demands that she choose a husband from the eligible bachelors he has read more...

Anyone might envy Gabriel Polonsky for the life he has created for himself: he is doing what he loves, he loves what he is doing and he is earning a living doing it. For more than 20 years this native of Boston has worked as an illustrator and animator, freelance for the most part, but since 1992 he has headed his own firm, the Gabriel Polonsky Studio.

The creative life comes naturally to Polonsky, who grew up in a household where both of his parents were artists. When Polonsky was five years old, his father introduced him to the wonders and possibilities of film.

Most cinephiles have heard of silent film stars Mary Pickford, Clara Bow, and Louise Brooks. Few, however, would recognize the name Olive Thomas. Documentary filmmaker Sarah Baker, in her film "Olive Thomas: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," hopes to rescue the silent cinema star from the obscurity of celluloid history and earn her a respectable place in the pantheon of pre-sound players.

Documentary filmmakers Liz Canner and John Ewing are concerned about the issue of housing in this city. Their cyberart documentary "Symphony of a City" features a day in the life of eight Bostonians selected to illustrate the realities of living here now, and the participants themselves represent the diversity of the city’s residents.

Email news to news@newenglandfilm.com. 

Okay, so you have a finished script. Now what do you do? That’s the big question every screenwriter has after they’ve typed in those words, "Fade Out." The simple answer is to get the script into someone’s hands that will pay you for your script. As anyone who’s ever tried to sell a script knows: Easier said than done. The following article will give you an overview of the process.

In the dead of the night in rural Vermont, a young girl’s corpse drifts down a misty, snaking river. Shattering the eerie silence, her father, enraged and in shock, shouts, "Sophia, you must be cold! You need to get out of the water!" The dead girl, submerged for over an hour, lifts her head from the icy water and groans: "Dad, I’m fine. I’m not even cold anymore." By the time the cast and crew of "Right of the Meridian" were ready to roll on the opening scene of the film, it was 3 a.m. and they’d been lighting read more...