David Krall is stepping down from his positions as president, CEO and board member of Avid Technology, effective at the end of July. Board member and former chairman Nancy Hawthorne will step in as Avid’s interim CEO while the board initiates a search for a successor. Krall will be available to Avid as a consultant during the transition period….Los Angles-based Groove Addicts has secured several top composers, including several Oscar winners, for spot scoring through a newly forged alliance with music talent agency Gorfaine/Schwartz. Coming aboard the Groove Addicts roster for commercials are James Horner, James Newton Howard, Randy Newman, W.G. Snuffy Walden, Harry Gregson-Williams, Alan Silvestri, Mike Post and John Debney….Mary Espedal, senior producer at music house BANG/MOD’s studio in Stavenger, Norway, has moved to the company’s Southern California office as producer and will oversee West Coast production and coordination of BANG/MOD’s commercial and TV music operations. She will work closely with BANG/MOD’s New York senior producer and strategist Sara Russo, to coordinate assignments and productions being worked on jointly by the East and West Coast composer and sound designer teams….Mass Market, Psyop‘s visual effects boutique based in New York, has added producer Rich Rama, who comes over from Method Studios, Santa Monica. Since ’01 at Method, Rama has worked on such notable projects as Pepsi’s “Pinball,” Hummer’s “Monster” and Sears Tools’ “Aboretum”….
“Atropia” and “Twinless” Win Marquee Prizes At Sundance Film Festival
The war satire “Atropia,” about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. dramatic competition, while the Dylan O’Brien movie “Twinless” got the coveted audience award.
Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah.
Other grand jury winners included the documentaries “Seeds,” about farmers in rural Georgia and “Cutting Through the Rocks,” about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition.
“It’s for my dad,” said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking.
Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” about the bromance between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the U.S. dramatic category. O’Brien also won a special jury award for his acting.
The U.S. documentary audience award went to “André is an Idiot,” a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were “Prime Minister,” about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and “DJ Ahmet,” a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia.
Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline.
“Here’s to all... Read More