We are finally pleased to announce the official launch of Club Soda. We have teamed up with the Apollo Cinema Piccadilly Circus to bring you a new film club that previews the latest and the best in independent cinema.
By joining Club Soda, you become part of a select group who can see new films well before they hit the big screen. And you can even help inform the release campaign by letting us know what you think.
All screenings will take place at the Apollo Piccadilly Circus on Lower Regent Street (W1) - and they are all free.
Fancy signing up? Simply fill out a short form on the Club Soda site, and we will send you information about upcoming screenings and how to apply for tickets.
Launching soon will be Soda’s first ever film club, offering you the chance to see the latest and the best independent and world cinema (which translates as ‘Soda films’) in London.
We will be posting full information on the club and details on how to join here shortly. As soon as the club fully launches next week we’ll be shouting about it here, on our social media sites (facebook/ twitter/ myspace) and through the Soda newsletter so sign up/ follow/ join and we’ll keep you posted.
Soda Fizz likes an awards ceremony or two which is how we found ourselves at the Odeon Leicester Square yesterday afternoon for ‘the Activision First Light Movie Awards’ 2009 (hereby to be know as …AFLIMA…..not that Fizz can take credit for this witty acronym, we leave that to co-host of the awards Rick Edwards).
What’s this you say? First Light has not been hiding under a bushel but helping to fund filmmakers aged between five and 19 to write, produce, design and direct their movies. To this date that’s about 12,000 movies. And today was the day the winners were announced in categories ranging from best animation to best screenplay. The atmosphere was barking, whipped up into a frenzy by the compère who gave instructions on how to greet a nomination ENJOY IT! How to react to a nomination ENJOY IT! And how to have a good time DAY OFF SCHOOL! ENJOY IT!
(update see below page break) If you can cast your mind back to last year then you may remember the Your Winnipeg film making competition we ran around the release of My Winnipeg (if not then you can catch up here). Finally this week the final 4 films will be airing on Channel 4 as part of the 3 Minute Wonder segment.
Slight confusion however as were previously informed that the films would be showing at the following dates… (more…)
I caught the announcement for the Oscar’s Foreign Language Film ’shorter long list’ last night via Indiewire. The list is now down from 65 titles qualifying for consideration to 9, and includes films such as The Class, Waltz With Bashir and The Baader Meinhof Complex.
There was one shock which was the noticeable absence of Gomorrah. Considering the UK critical reaction and it making both the Golden Globes & BAFTA shortlists I had expected the title to at least make it this far and of course I’m not the only one surprised by this (see Spout and The Guardian comments) . Not quite sure where I’m hedging my bets at the moment, but I’m definitely leaning towards Waltz With Bashir (which also seems to be the new Soda office consensus with Gomorrah out of the running).
The full list is below, and the final short list will be announced January 22nd.
3 Monkeys dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey The Baader Meinhof Complex dir. Uli Edel, Germany The Class dir. Laurent Cantet, France Departures dir. Yojiro Takita, Japan Everlasting Moments dir. Jan Troell, Sweden The Necessities of Life dir. Benoit Pilon, Canada Revanche dir. Gotz Spielmann, Austria Tear This Heart Out dir. Roberto Sneider, Mexico Waltz with Bashir dir. Ari Folman, Israel
In conjunction with the upcoming release of Far North on December 26th today we’re offering you the chance to pose your questions to Far North director Asif Kapadia & actress Michelle Yeoh.
We need your questions by 4pm today. So to find out how to submit your questions and more head over asap to the official Far North site at www.farnorththefilm.com
Its that time of year when ‘Film of the Year’ lists begin popping up everywhere, and not wanting to disappoint we here at Soda have merrily jumped on the festive film list bandwagon. So for the past few weeks I’ve been asking Soda staff and Soda friends to let me know what their ‘Film of the Year’ was (n.b. in hindsight I think requesting just one film of the year was a little mean- so I’ve allowed the occasional extra few films slip through the net) and finally here are the responses…
Come February 6th 2008 we’ll be releasing our second Kelly Reichardt film Wendy and Lucy (Old Joy being Soda’s first) into the wild. So of course we are busy working away with the guys over at Monterey Design to come up with the UK Quad. Sadly I can’t show you all the concepts just yet but I have included below a small ‘peek a boo’ selection from the initial concepts…
… according to readers of Cinema Business magazine! My Winnipeg’sfrozen horses heads took on the promotional artwork of Man on Wire, Wall-E, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull and came out victorious. I have very productively spent the morning trying to find a home for our new glass monolith as sadly we don’t yet have an office trophy cabinet in the (or a very good camera).
Still suffering from election withdrawal symptoms? Well hopefully we can offer you something to fill the void- (at least until the next general election). Voting opens tomorrow for you (as in ‘You the Discerning Public) to cast your vote on which of the final four ‘The Big Pitch’ projects you would like to see win the UK’s largest film production prize.
The finalists are currently blogging for your votes on The Big Pitch site. But before you go over here’s a quick (1 min approx) insight into the comp & the final four to bring you up to speed…
