Chicago’s Bix Pix Wins Big at Annecy with Tumble Leaf. Bix Pix, headquartered on Belmont Avenue in Chicago, won the jury award for best TV series at the Annecy Festival in France. Drew Hodge, a graduate of Columbia College directed the show.

This is the first children's series produced by Amazon Studies. Kelly Bixler, the company's president is the brains behind the series. Congratulations.

Here is a DVD all you music historians will want. Punk in Africa (out March 11, 2014) tells the story of the multi-racial punk movement that coincided with political and social upheavals in three countries in Southernn Africa--South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

If people thought punk rock was a radical departure in Europe and America in the 70s (it really wasn't) this brings that to another level.

The story begins in the underground scene in 1970s Johannesburg and then the rise of a number of Ska bands throught the region. The movie features music, interviews and rare footage aplenty.

You can find out more at www.punkinafrica.com. You can pre-order HERE.

Goldfrapp and Arts Alliance Media Bring Tales Of Us To movie theatres Around the world. The film is a live show by the band with old faves and new songs from the new Goldfrapp LP, Tales of Us, (which is a great, great record).

The movie isn't all live performance. The first 30 minutes is based on five of the stories featured on the LP. The movie is co-created by Alison Goldfrapp and Lisa Gunning who has also worked on films such as Salmon Fishing in Yemen, Seven Psychopaths and Nowhere Boy. Many other great talents have been involved as well.

The feature will be show across the world (USA, UK, Europe, Australia an New Zealand)  at 7:30 p.m. (local times) on March 4, 2014. There will be encores at additional theaters at 7:30 p/m. (Local times) on March 25 and 27.

Find out details HERE.

Boardwalk the 1970 drama written by Stephen Verona comes out on DVD/Blu-ray March 25, 2014. The film has not been available on home video previously. The film stars Ruth Gordon, Lee Strasberg and Janet Leigh. The New York City-based drama is the story of a married couple living in Coney Island, a Coney Island that isn't what it once was. Their kids want them to move. They won't leave.

Verona produced many of rock n roll's earliest music videos. He also co-directed the classic, The Lords of Flatbush.

A significant film you can pre-order on DVD HERE or blu-ray HERE.

The  film project, Still, is being funded by a Kickstarter. But unlike many other film projects he isn't trying to raise tens of millions but $6,000. He even has some low end pledge amounts with cool rewards (a digital download of the movie for instance).

See the Kickstarter HERE.

Rabbit Room Productions, based in Chicago, made their first short film, TAPE, last year.

Still is a larger scale project based on an idea Jason Coffman has been kicking around for some time. On the Kickstarter page they say it is "like La Jetée meets Let's Scare Jessica to Death." Read more on the project page at Kickstarter.

Kickstarters for movies frequently have giant dollar amounts attached to them. This project is modest in its monetary needs but is big on creativity and I think when this funds (I believe it will easily do so) just hearing about the process of making the film will be worth the "admission price."

If you have any spare cash? Go pledge. And do not hesitate to pledge in smaller amounts. Every dollar counts on every project like this.

New Media Film Festival, in Los Angeles, has their early bird deadline fast approaching--September 3, 2013. If you have projects to sumbit you should head HERE for details (use the promo code twitter10) . There are a ton of reasons to submit early (one being that early selections will be announced).  The festival awards more than $45,000 in prizes. This is the fifth festival

The festival takes place June 10 and 11, 2014 in Los Angeles. If you attend you will have an opportunity to meet actors, directors and other industry professionals.

Taro, a track by Alt-J, is inspired by the story of war photographer Robert Capa and his relationship with Gerda Taro, who died during the Spanish Civil War. The concept for this video came from students and directors of the Ghetto Film School (the final video and treatment used in the video below came from Melissa Murray)

The Ghetto Film School has a mission to educate, young storytellers and filmmakers. Every year the organization helps over 650 emerging artists in the South Bronx (via workshops). Many more, hundreds off thousands work with the organization on collaborations and online classes.

Alt-J became involved when they contributed a song to David O. Russell's film, Silver Linings Playbook. Russell is on the schools board of directors. He encouraged the students and graduates to pitch ideas for the video to the band.

Find out more at www.ghettofilm.org.                                 

Tonight at 8 pm I chat with film writer Phil Hall. Hall is the author of a number of great books (and articles on film).

His latest is The Greatest Bad Movies Of All Time and it is out now. What is more fun than talking about the movies you love? Talking about the movies you hate.

Constantly Consuming Culture--The Radio Show appears on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network. You can listen in HERE.

As part of the Year Of Italian Culture the Chicago International Film Festival, the Italian Cultural Institute and Cinecitta Luce present, An Evening With Toni Servillo. Servillo, whicn includes a screening of the film, Il Divo.  The screening will take place at 5:30 and a VIP reception will follow at 8:30 on Sunday, June 23, 2013. Tickets for the film are $10 and $30 for both the film and reception.

The acclaimed Italian actor will be on hand for a screening of Il Divo, the 2008 film that won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. You can get tickets by calling 312-683-0121 x115 or at www.chicagofilmfestival.com.

Il Divo is the story of Giulio Andreotti, the seven time prime minister of Italy who was accused of a series of criminal acts that almost seem beyond belief.

Silent film enthusiasts (like me) should be very pleased over the release of Accidentally Preserved: Rare & Lost Silent Films from Vintage 16mm Prints, a somewhat cumbersome title for this DVD collection of nine silent film shorts. The set comes out June 11 and will be available only at Amazon.com via their “CreateSpace” DVD on demand service.

Some of these have been lost for decades and guess why they are back? Crowdfunding.  The crowdfunding project was put together by silent film musical accompanist, Ben Model.  Model coined the phrase “accidentally preserved” to refer films that exist because they were copied onto 16mm safety film for home rental (yes, they had home rental). Model is, as mentioned, a silent film accompanist and has worked as such at the Museum of Modern Art since 1984.

The films include pieces by Wallace Lupino, Billy Franey, Clyde Cook, Cliff Bowes and Paul Parrott (Charley Chase’s sibling). There is also a Max Fleischer cartoon and an industrial film (very few of these from the era survived—even less than entertainment films)

Find out more at www.accidentallypreserved.com. There will be more releases in the series. Probably in part, because of this “on demand” service by Amazon. It is tough to get distribution of such films and costly to duplicate in numbers.

For more on Model head to www.silentfilmmusic.com.