Three 2013 theatrical releases, all covered quite comprehensively on S&A, are now available in the home video space – DVD, VOD primarily. So if you haven’t seen any of them, here’s your chance to do so.
Terence Nance’s Gotham award-winning (Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You) work of film art, An Oversimplification Of Her Beauty, which Variance Films opened in theaters earlier this year.
Nance’s critically-acclaimed debut, which boasts Jay-Z, Wyatt Cenac, Dream Hampton, and Joy Bryant as executive producers, was one of the most stylish, inventive, challenging, thoughtful and engaging films I saw at the Sundance Film Festival a year ago (read my review HERE if you haven’t), so I’m pleased that it’ll finally be seen by many more of you now that it’s available on iTunes.
Also be sure to read Jasmin’s wonderful Finding The New Black interview with director Terence Nance HERE.
Watch the new trailer below as a refresher:
Gimme The Loot, written and directed by New York-based Adam Leon, was acquired for distribution by Sundance Selects about a year ago, after it won the Grand Jury Prize in the Narrative Feature section at last year’s SXSW Film Festival.
Starring Tashiana Washington and Ty Hickson, the film’s synopsis reads:
Malcolm and Sofia, two determined teens from the Bronx, are the ultimate graffiti-writers. When a rival gang buffs their latest masterpiece, they must hatch a plan to get revenge by tagging an iconic NYC landmark, but they need to raise $500 to pull off their spectacular scheme. Over the course of two whirlwind, sun-soaked summer days, Malcolm and Sofia travel on an epic urban adventure involving black market spray cans, illicit bodegas, stolen sneakers, a high wire heist, and a beautiful, rich girl’s necklace that is literally their key to becoming the biggest writers in the City.
After a year of international travel, via the film festival circuit, attracting acclaim along the way, Sundance Selects released the film in theaters, this spring.
It’s now available on DVD and iTunes.
Check out the trailer for it below:
And finally, audiences interested in seeing Carl Franklin’s latest feature film, which saw a limited theatrical release earlier this year, will now be able to do so (assuming you missed its theatrical run).
It’s a project we’ve been following since we first discovered it in late 2010, called Bless Me, Ultima, based on Rudolfo Anaya’s award-winning novel of the same name, which chronicles the turbulent coming-of-age story of Antonio, a young boy growing up in New Mexico during World War II, and his relationship with Ultima, an elderly medicine woman who helps Antonio navigate the dangerous battle raging in his village, and ultimately helps him discover his own spiritual identity.
Miriam Colon stars as Ultima, while Luke Ganalon plays Antonio.
The film was received mostly well by those critics who saw it. “Magical realism” was one description of it.
The book the film is based on was reportedly banned and burned by several groups, and it ranks highly on the American Library Association’s list of banned/challenged books from 2000 to 2009; apparently, many opposed “the profanity and the alternative religious content.“
Although the novel is said to be a reading requirement in high schools across the USA.
The independently-released drama is now available on DVD and iTunes, so check it out!
Here’s a trailer as a refresher:
