Abel Gance's J'Accuse (1919), a politically an d stylistically daring anti-war drama produced while the trench warfare of World War I was still grinding up soldiers on both sides of the battle, opens with the title spelled out by the bodies of soldiers striding into formation, like a marching band at a half-time show. Then they collapse, as if dead, to startling effect. Appropriating the cry leveled by Emile Zola during the Dreyfus affair, Gance levels his accusations at war itself.

The Merry Widow (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, US 1925)is the opening night film at the 2009 Giornate de Cinema Muto 200,

The Music
When I first accompanied The Merry Widow years ago, I was totally struck by this highly creative and inventive film adaptation of the operetta, directed by the genius Erich von Stroheim. Immediately I realized that my "one" piano + singer accompaniment wasn't at all enough to serve this brilliant film. I started a serious quest to develop a score for the film, and at the same time to promote this relatively unknown von Stroheim film wherever I possibly could.

True-blue British actor, Michael York has arrived in Pordenone, Northern Italy, with his wife Pat, to introduce Mary Pickford, the Muse, a new comprehensive documentary on the silent film diva, directed by Nicholas Eliopoulos.

Brought to you by the creative minds behind Pencil Fighting: The Life and Times of Team Balderdash, the 20-minute short Inventing Kin is a dramedy about missed opportunities and life's second chances. It's close in spirit to Zach Braff's Garden State, which was also about a lost soul returning home to make peace with the past. This new film lacks the broad characterizations that made Pencil Fighting so memorable, but it displays some of the quirkiness that sets the films of Fro Rojas apart. (Full disclosure: Rojas and I both went to Miami International University of Art & Design, where we made a film together.)

For an ode to pretentious, up-your-own-ass, "artistic" indie shit, there's nothing quite like the opening minutes of Baghead. The protagonists are at a film festival, where the film "We Are Naked" is having its world premiere. It's shot in grainy black-and-white, the dialogue is ludicrous, and just before the end-credits roll, the lead couple take off all their clothes and have sex. On their feet. In the front yard.

So you want to be an actor? You heard of the term "shoot", right? Photographers, Directors, Cinematographers, Cowboys – they all use this term. Now, to get the term right, when it comes to acting it means you need to know that without having your head shot in the right way you are D-E-A-D in this town (or any other town, for that matter). I mean, shot like it matters, the actor's attitude matters, their hair and make-up matters, the clothes matter, the colors matter, why even the manner in which you get it to the right agent or manager or casting director MATTERS. Alright, so I had a small head-start, I've had headshots done by four other photographers before and only two out of a million shots were chosen to be what my then agents in Miami thought could actually sell me. After showing my manager out here in LA the headshots that had gotten me decent work over the years on the east coast, he laughed, burped, farted, and then asked me to burn them. Which after much suffering... I did. Suffering from the gaseous response, I mean.

How many times has this happened to you? You're watching a movie or a TV show and you know exactly where they're shooting... but you know that it may have been shot better somewhere else? Or you're watching something and now you have ideas of your own to shoot something but you don't know where to go to get the shot? Have you ever needed the perfect place to shoot a scene but can't afford to hire a location scout because you're a student or you're broke? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you should probably read this in case you're hoping to shoot in the Magic City... Miami, FL.

What are the three most important things in setting up business in the filmmaking business? Survey says: Location, Location, Location... Okay, now that we've got that down, you know that without it you'll be shooting in your mother's kitchen and in your father's garage, which per say is not a bad thing, unless that is... you have a lot of "on-location" type of shooting to do, then you need to get out and find it, Fast. First: Where does the story take place, what time of year, season? Do I need permits to shoot outside in public? Do you need seclusion, privacy in public? Do you need to stop a busy road but can't afford it? Well, I'm going to make this blog interactive by taking all specified questions you may have and answering them to the best of my knowledge. To boot, I know of thousands of different streets, alleys, bars, clubs, hotels, motels, houses, tourist traps, historical info, from who to grease for the shot and who not to, what places are camera crazy, I'm talking about anything about a location you need I might be able to help.

We all know filmmaking is a team effort. Nowadays almost everybody's seen the DVD features and the behind-the-scenes of their favorite movies and perhaps been overwhelmed by the number of people who are involved in the filmmaking process. Camera teams, lighting teams, post-production teams, stunt teams, wardrobe teams, animal wranglers and so on, we are all aware of the seemingly infinite amount of names and titles that keep scrolling up during the credits. Unfortunately, most people choose this time to stop sucking on those unpopped-popcorn seeds and start walking out of the theater (or turn the TV off, if you were already home), even though it's probably the only real public moment of acknowledgement that the "rigging gaffer" or the "second-second-second-assistant director" will get!

Searching the Internet on a daily basis for high quality short films & videos can be an arduous & strange task at times. Let’s face it: there’s a lot of crap out there. On average, you have to watch about 50 bad videos in order to find just one good one. From tutorials on how to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich to a man giving his dog a haircut, there are no shortages of completely pointless, unwatchable videos populating the Internet today.

More than 700 people came out to the Aventura Mall on Thursday, Oct. 23, to attend the premiere of Director, a low-budget action movie shot in Miami.

It was a real coup for filmmaker Aleks Rosenberg, who both directed and served as the director of photography on the film. The maker of one previous feature, 2001's award-winning Zelimo, Rosenberg now teaches in the film department of Miami International University of Art & Design. He said he'd spent the last week-and-a-half working round-the-clock in the editing suite, making last-minute tweaks to prepare the film for its world premiere. The producers sent out invitations to more than 200 journalists, and the response was so enormous they had to rent out a second screen to show the film on.