iPhone application for BUZZon.com available as free download

Over the past year and a half The Buzz website manager Yanik Richards has devoted himself to a complete makeover of our website—www.buzzon.com.

Filmmakers, producers and actors can participate

Liane Balabane (in a scene with you-know-who) will be one of the workshop leaders. A series of workshops are coming up (August 27–October 3) for filmmakers, producers, and actors in Charlottetown, PEI. The Digital Workshops are presented by The Island Film Factory, ITAP, The Island Media Arts Co-op, and the PEI Screenwriter’s Bootcamp.

The Other Notebook
by David Helwig

What makes a movie touch us, resonate? With such a collaborative, highly artificial form of narrative it’s hard to say, but sometimes the combination of script, actors, cameraman, director creates something like art. In my CBC days I saw filmmaking from the inside, and given the cost, the organizational difficulties, it seemed a wonder that anything made sense at all. The French have invented a theory that calls the director the film’s author, its guiding spirit, but the industrial moviemaking of Hollywood often appears to make a mockery of the idea. Yet with certain movies there is a sense that something has led a group of talented people to a convincing unity of vision.

The Other Notebook
by David Helwig

It’s one of those long June evenings when the traces of light in the sky hang on and on as you drive home. Soon enough it will be the longest day of the year—as close as time comes to standing still.

We are driving back from John Hopkins’ screening of Timepiece, his almost-completed film about his mother, Hilda Woolnough. The film takes its name from the major installation on which she spent several years toward the end of her life. Hilda died in 2007, but there she was on the screen tonight, larger than life as she created the big prints for the work and discussed the origins of Timepiece and the techniques involved in its production.

3rd annual event to be held in Souris and Charlottetown

The 3rd Annual Prince Edward Island International Film Festival—The Film Festival On The Edge Of The World—takes place at the new Souris Show Hall July 8–9 and at The Guild, Charlottetown July 10–11. Twenty-four films have been chosen for the festival.

Friday night July 9 at 7 pm there will be a showcase short films made by PEI and the Maritime filmmakers.

Free public screening

A free public showing of Poor No More will take place at UPEI on July 14 with question and answer period with Executive producer David Langille. It is sponsored by CUPE and other community groups including P.E.I. Working Group for a Livable Income. It will take place at 7 pm at AVC Lecture Theatre, UPEI, Charlottetown.