Impact Partners is pleased to announce that HOW TO FOLD A FLAG won the Jury Award for Best U.S. Non-Fiction Film at Michael Moore’s 2010 Traverse City Film Festival.

“As How to Fold a Flag powerfully shows, the costs of war do not only come overseas and do not end when the soldiers come home.” Charles London, The Huffington Post

“What starts off seeming like a traditional ‘vets returning home’ documentary subtly morphs into a nuanced portrait of a country trying its best to emotionally distance itself from the reality of its foreign policy.” Scott Macaulay, Filmmaker Magazine

HOW TO FOLD A FLAG follows the paths of four men who shared a 15-month tour in Iraq as members of the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery of the US Army. Their stories range from the absolutely tragic to the willfully anesthetized to the tearjerklingly hopeful. One is a Colorado Springs hard rocker who refuses to let the memory of Iraq infest the rest of his life—he tells us he left a part of himself in Iraq no more than he leaves a part of himself in bed when he gets up in the morning. Another is a man in Texas who, because of PTSD, has come close to suicide and uses his career as a cage fighter to escape the horror of his dead comrades. The third, in North Carolina, is working for a degree but in the meantime works in a hog processing plant and must deal with the death of a sickly mother who was unable to care for him during his childhood—again, all under the haze of PTSD. The most sanguine veteran runs for US Congress in his hometown of Buffalo, only to be defeated in the primary by smear attacks from fellow Democrats. HOW TO FOLD A FLAG is a sincere reminder of the fact that the tragedy of war is not contained in the Middle East, or Vietnam or Korea or the Western Front. It is a lingering melodrama that society—much less its soldiers—can never leave behind.
(From The Arkansas Times)

For more information about the film, please visit the HOW TO FOLD A FLAG website.

Impact Partners is pleased to announce that SERGIO has been nominated for a 2010 Emmy Award in “Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Filmmaking.”

“Astounding archival footage, remarkable access and solid source material can’t hurt a nonfiction filmmaker, but helmer Greg Barker is also blessed with an inspiring subject in SERGIO, his life-and-death story about dashing, high-minded U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose career was about nothing if not life and death. Barker takes structural chances, eschewing the predictable for a more unorthodox film, and it works.” Variety

Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power’s biography Chasing the Flame, SERGIO revolves around the gripping and inspiring story of Sergio Vieira de Mello’s most treacherous mission ever. In the summer of 2003, Sergio Vieira de Mello had evolved from the radical, stone-throwing revolutionary of his youth into a master diplomat and head of the UN’s mission in Iraq. He did not want the job as he had opposed the war to begin with yet, Sergio arrived in Baghdad with his unusual style and panache, accompanied by his “A Team” – the best and brightest experts the UN had to offer – and his colleague and fiancée, Carolina. Assuming the Bush Administration — having begged him to go Iraq — actually wanted his advice, he set about trying to end the occupation as soon as possible. Instead, he found himself accused as being a tool of the Americans by the growing insurgency. On August 19, 2003, a huge truck bomb exploded directly beneath his office, instantly killing many of his own but Sergio himself remained alive. As Carolina searched desperately through the rubble, two American firefighters from the Army reserves selflessly climbed into the claustrophobic tomb of the collapsed building in what would be become an intense and desperate struggle to survive.

For more information about the film, please visit the SERGIO website.

Impact Partners is pleased to announce that CHILDREN OF INVENTION is coming to Video on Demand this summer. The film will launch on Brighthouse, Comcast, Cox, & Time Warner on June 4th and on Charter & Verizon on August 1st. There are also two additional theatrical runs of the film in New Orleans & Gainesville, Florida starting on June 11th.

“Urgent, artful and even austerely poetic..the movie seems ripped from the headlines: foreclosures, Ponzi schemes, children facing an uncertain economic future. This domestic drama seems very much of the moment.” Variety

CHILDREN OF INVENTION, which is set in Boston and was shot in and around New York City, had its World Premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, played over 40 film festivals, and won 15 festival awards, 5 of which were Grand Jury or Best Narrative Feature prizes, including the top prize at the Independent Film Festival Boston and Newport International Film Festival. The film was named one of the “Top 13 Films of 2009″ by Hammer to Nail and made several “Best Undistributed Films of 2009″ lists. It has also gained notoriety for its hybrid DIY distribution strategy, including being one of 5 Sundance films to launch YouTube Rentals. The filmmakers were recently named in Ted Hope’s list of “21 Brave Thinkers Of Truly Free Film.”

For further information and for news about the DVD release, please visit the CHILDREN OF INVENTION website.

Impact Partners is proud to announce that the filmmaking team behind THE COVE will be on Oprah for Earth Day–tomorrow. We hope that you will watch/DVR the show as we are thrilled to see this great and important film continue to garner more and more exciting press.

We would have loved to announce that there are tickets for SONS OF PERDITION, which is premiering at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival, but the film sold out in less than a day. We encourage you to try for rush tickets or to use your pass, whichever one you have–the film is worth the wait.

Congratulations to the filmmakers Tyler Measom & Jennilyn Merten
and producer Julie Goldman on their hard work.

For more information about the filmmakers and the film, please visit the Sons of Perdition website.

Dan just gave me (Barnett, here) a list of blogs that he likes/reads on a regular basis/finds useful.

If you are in the film business, we suggest that you drop everything or at least say goodbye to Twitter for a minute and check them out. In no particular order of preference, they are:

Truly Free Film
Hammer To Nail
Stranger Than Fiction
CinemaTech
Filmmaker Magazine
All These Wonderful Things
WorkBook Project
The 401st Blow :: Thoughts on Media

And, of course, they are located in our BlogRoll, just a bit to your left.

Stranger Than Fiction is holding a special Wednesday night screening of FAMILY AFFAIR (STF screenings are usually scheduled for Tuesday nights) on April 14th at the IFC Center in New York City.

We are stealing the synopsis of the film from the Sundance Film Festival Catalogue, where the film premiered in January, but the Sundance description gets straight to the heart of the matter:

“At 10 years old, Chico Colvard shot his older sister in the leg. This seemingly random act detonated a chain reaction that exposed unspeakable realities and shattered his family. Thirty years later, Colvard ruptures veils of secrecy and silence again. As he bravely visits his relatives, what unfolds is a personal film that’s as uncompromising, raw, and cathartic as any in the history of the medium.”

“Driving the story forward is Colvard’s sensitive probing of a complex dynamic: the way his three sisters survived severe childhood abuse by their father and, as adults, manage to muster loyalty to him. These unforgettable, invincible women paint a picture of their harrowing girlhoods as they resiliently struggle with present-day fallout. The distance time gives them from their trauma yields piercing insights about the legacy of abuse, the nature of forgiveness, and eternal longing for family and love. These truths may be too searing to bear, but they reverberate powerfully within each of us.”

We are very excited about FAMILY AFFAIR and hope to see you at the screening.

For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit the STF website.

CHILDREN OF INVENTION continues to garner rave reviews. The New York Times, The Village Voice/LA Weekly, Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and The New York Post all gave CHILDREN more than just two thumbs up.

“Restraint proves a virtue of – and a shrewd if necessary choice for – Children of Invention, a modestly scaled, quietly effective independent movie….A fine feature debut…a topical look at what it means to be working and poor in America while hanging onto a badly frayed thread. Yet while the politics are there, you might be too busy choking back tears to notice.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“A rueful homage to American dreams both wonderful and warped.” Ella Taylor, The Village Voice/LA Weekly

“Urgent, Artful, and even austerely poetic…” Variety

“Wonderful…absorbing and deftly played. Chen and Chiu’s genuine, rarely cloying performances along with Cheung’s urgent sincerity add immeasurably to this timely film’s many modest pleasures.” Los Angeles Times

“One way to judge a filmmaker is by the way he or she directs children. Take Tze Chun and his impressive first feature, ‘Children of Invention.’ He gets high marks for coaxing marvelous performances from his child stars….Performances are realistic and unpretentious, and the backbone of this observant movie by a director-writer with a promising future.” V.A. Musetto, The New York Post

The film is playing in NYC and LA until Thursday (this Thursday) March 18th.

To get info and tickets, please visit the CHILDREN OF INVENTION website

We are proud to announce the theatrical premiere of CHILDREN OF INVENTION. The critically acclaimed independent feature film written and directed by Tze Chun will have its New York premiere on Friday March 12th at the BIG Cinemas Manhattan and in Los Angeles on the same day at the Downtown Independent.

“Urgent, artful and even austerely poetic..the movie seems ripped from the headlines: foreclosures, Ponzi schemes, children facing an uncertain economic future. This domestic drama seems very much of the moment.” Variety

CHILDREN OF INVENTION, which is set in Boston and was shot in and around New York City, had its World Premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, played over 40 film festivals, and won 15 festival awards, 5 of which were Grand Jury or Best Narrative Feature prizes, including the top prize at the Independent Film Festival Boston and Newport International Film Festival. The film was named one of the “Top 13 Films of 2009″ by Hammer to Nail and made several “Best Undistributed Films of 2009″ lists. It has also gained notoriety for its hybrid DIY distribution strategy, including being one of 5 Sundance films to launch YouTube Rentals. The filmmakers were recently named in Ted Hope’s list of “21 Brave Thinkers Of Truly Free Film.”

For showtimes and to purchase tickets, go to BIG Cinemas Manhattan for New York and here for Los Angeles.

Our favorite pair of DIY filmmakers Tze Chun & Mynette Louie, the director/producer team behind CHILDREN OF INVENTION just got a smashing and well-deserved review of their film in Variety yesterday.

“Urgent, artful and even austerely poetic, writer-director Tze Chun’s “Children of Invention” has taken some time hitting theaters after a much-lauded tour of the fest circuit. But in that time, its issues have ripened to a point where the movie seems ripped from the headlines: foreclosures, Ponzi schemes, children facing an uncertain economic future. This domestic drama seems very much of the moment — maybe the next moment — and could ignite a passion among some indie auds via its delicate treatment of a small family in the jaws of financial ruin. Self-distributed rollout begins in Boston, followed by New York and Los Angeles.”

Check out the CHILDREN OF INVENTION website for screening times and locations.