In the Valley of Fashionable Spirituality

Documentary filmmaker Adrienne Grierson was already well-acquainted with the twin topics of Brazil and spirituality when she made The Valley of Dawn, screening tomorrow at the Film Directing 4 Women Film Festival in London and stateside later this month at events in Sun Valley, Idaho and Rutgers University, New Jersey. Her first substantive film, 2006's John of God, showcased the remarkable healing powers of João de Deus, a channeling medium who performs daily miracles at the Casa de Do Inacio in the central part of the country and for whom Grierson remains one of several tourist guides.

A Gargantuan Genesis

Beginning Wednesday, September 8th, the Somerville, AL based makers of the independent anthropological thriller A Genesis Found will launch a mightily ambitious 2010-2011 tour at the University of West Alabama. When all is screened and done, they will have touched down at dozens of different campuses across the southeastern United States, offering grassroots marketing support in exchange for a modestly sponsored room, hall or auditorium.

A Florida Ghost Story

Long before Burt Reynolds stepped onto the boards of Florida's Lake Worth Playhouse in the 1960s, it was known as the Oakley Theater in honor of founding brothers Clarence and Lucien Oakley. As Pierre Rivard, Company Manager for the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theater discovered this summer while on location producing the fact-based contemporary supernatural drama Lumiere Fantome, at least one of the siblings is still very much involved in the theater's day-to-day operations.

The Actor's (Independent) Studio

Martin Landau was all set to begin work September 7th in Wisconsin on the latest in a flurry of recent low-budget film projects until the contract came in for signature. Because the terms for The Wedding Bunch appeared to have changed, Landau says he now has his eye instead on a vehicle written for him by a fellow Actor's Studio disciple.

Circling Back to Iowa

Three years after following Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic Party hopefuls into Iowa and beyond, Australian TV journalist Rebecca Glenn was back in the Hawkeye State this past weekend for the inaugural festival screening of her documentary First Stop, Iowa!. While the reception at the Landlocked Film Festival in downtown Iowa City was extremely positive, Glenn found the mood among party rank and file to be somewhat more complex.