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‪The Gospel According to André‬ director Kate Novack with producer Andrew Rossi on André Leon Talley‪: "He says he is equally inspired by Lady Ottoline Morrell, a British aristocrat, as he is by Martin Luther King Jr. with the crisp white shirt." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Gospel According To André, a Tribeca Film Festival Special Screening highlight, will have its UK première at the Edinburgh International Film Festival later this month. Kate Novack's revealing documentary portrait on André Leon Talley, shot by Bryan Sarkinen and edited with Andrew Coffman, flashes a light to illuminate different stages in the life of the man who invented himself with style and grace.

Andrew Rossi on André Leon Talley: "I think that's one of the unique things that Kate has done in the film, is to see how ‪André ‬brings a unique perspective to the history of fashion."

Recent interviews with Tom Ford,...

The Eisner Awards were handed out last Friday, and I have to say, I’m feeling just a little bit smug.

No, I didn’t win anything. There is no Eisner Award for the Best Procrastinating by a Writer. However, quite a few of the prizes went to people and projects that I championed as an Eisner judge this year, selecting the nominees.

I’m not going to tell you which ones I’m talking about because to do so implies that I met with resistance. (You’ll have to get me drunk the next time we’re together.) As I said before, talking about the selection process the committee used, “I can say that none of us got all of our first choices, but all of us got some of them.” In other words, we had different tastes and different criteria, and that is as it should be. We talked,...

With now only six credits to his name, director Andrew Rossi has gone from a relatively unknown documentary filmmaker to one of the few “names” in the medium. He’s been primarily a director of New York-focused documentaries, that use subjects like the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the New York Times to spin larger yarns about culture writ large. With his 2014 film Ivory Tower breaking this tradition a little, Rossi has returned to the story of a New York original following his 2016 film First Monday in May, Bronx Gothic.

To those with an affinity for modern performance art, the title Bronx Gothic may be familiar, and that’s because that’s the world Rossi has set his sights on. Taking inspiration from performer Okwui Okpokwasili’s one-woman show of that very name, Rossi introduces us to Okpokwasili and lets the viewer steep in the singular vision that is her harrowing show.

Andrew Rossi (with Anne-Katrin Titze) on Okwui Okpokwasili in Bronx Gothic: "One of the things that I really responded to was the complexity of desire ..." Photo: Aimee Morris

Andrew Rossi, who in his recent documentaries expertly juggled large numbers of people interviewed on screen - The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition China: Through The Looking Glass (curated by Andrew Bolton with Wong Kar Wai and Anna Wintour's Costume Institute Gala) in The First Monday in May, restaurant and university madness respectively in Le Cirque and Ivory Tower, and Page One: Inside The New York Times - in Bronx Gothic sticks mostly to his friend, writer and performance artist Okwui Okpokwasili, her family and frequent collaborator Ralph Lemon and films the final tour of her one-woman show.

Okwui Okpokwasili in Bronx Gothic

Okpokwasili, who has also worked with Julie Taymor (A Midsummer Night's Dream), is intent on challenging unreflected notions of "the brown body.

"I wanted a voice screaming out into the wilderness of 'I am here and this is what is happening to me.'" Grasshopper Film has debuted an outstanding official trailer for a performance documentary titled Bronx Gothic, profiling the performances by and life of acclaimed artist/dancer Okwui Okpokwasili. This is the latest doc from director Andrew Rossi, who previously made Page One: Inside the New York Times, Ivory Tower, and The First Monday in May. Okwui has African parents, but she grew up in Brooklyn, and brings all of that to her powerful theatrical performances. This trailer gives an excellent introduction to who she is, what she's trying to do, and how she tells her story with her body in front of mesmerized crowds. This looks like an eye-opening, emotional doc that examines the breathtaking work of a truly gifted artist. Have a look. Here's the first official trailer...

Ubisoft last night announced a sequel to the 2014 online racing title The Crew.

The Crew 2, developed by Ivory Tower, a Ubisoft studio in Lyon, France, will see players race across a fully redesigned open-world USA.

A variety vehicles will be available including cars, bikes, boasts and even airplanes giving each player the chance to become the Motorsport Champion.

“Today’s American motorsports scene has given us the perfect breeding ground for an all-new project,” said Ahmed Boukhelifa, Ivory Tower Studio Managing Director.

“Our team has emerged with an exciting new ambition and vision for The Crew franchise and we expect The Crew 2 to continue to push the boundaries of the genre and deliver on the dream of a truly boundless driving experience.”

Some of the locations included in the open world include the snowcapped Rocky Mountains, the backstreets of New York City, the Mississippi River and the Grand Canyon.

There...

Ubisoft and Ivory Tower’s racing Mmo The Crew is the latest game being given away for free as part of Ubisoft’s 30th anniversary celebrations. From September 14, all you’ll need to do is log into your Uplay account and begin the download, whereupon you can burn rubber across the United States to your heart’s content.

While many of its problems have been resolved since release back in 2014, the open-world racer, which lets you and a group of friends get together and take road trips around the States in an always-online world, the game’s original release was plagued by crippling server and technical issues.

An expansion, The Crew: Wild Run was released for the title late last year, with a second, The Crew: Calling All Units, due to release on November 29 this year for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC.

The Crew is the fourth game being given...

Yesterday a new trailer was released for Warcraft, and while it didn’t solve the biggest question plaguing this film, it did perhaps shed light on another debate. Just what Is this building. Image Credit: Legendary Pictures Warning: Spoilers And Speculation For Warcraft Beyond This Point. Other than snowy mountains, that shining tower was the first image audiences saw of Warcraft. Among fans of the Mmorpg, a debate was instantly sparked as it was one of the few places that weren't instantly recognizable to lore nerds. A few frontrunners emerged. Perhaps it was High Elven architecture someone in Eversong Woods. Or maybe it was Wyrmrest Tower in Northrend during high summer. Or it could be Medivh’s tower Karazhan before Deadwind Pass became the death trap it is today. The new trailer pretty much confirms it’s the latter. Where else would Fel Magic explode from, if not the Ivory Tower of Karazhan?...

Documentary follows the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “China: through the looking glass” exhibition [pictured].

Paris-based Elle Driver has picked up the international sales rights to Andrew Rossi’s The First Monday in May following the creation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s record-breaking “China: through the looking glass” exhibition and its opening fund-raising event, the Met Gala.

The 2015 show - exploring the impact of Chinese aesthetics on Western fashion — was one of the museum’s most visited fashion events in its history.

Chaired every year by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, the Met Gala, or museum’s Costume Institute Gala, is one of the biggest global fashion events of the year and traditionally takes place on the first Monday of the year.

Rossi – whose past documentaries include Page One: Inside the New York Times and Ivory Tower – was given unfettered access to the creation of the show, curated by Andrew Bolton with Wong Kar-Wai on board as artistic...

Released at the tail end of 2014, The Crew served as a fitting conclusion to a tumultuous 2014 for Ubisoft. The Ivory Tower developed racer had plenty of potential, as its replica of the United States promised a massive playground for drivers to toy around with. Unfortunately, thanks to some questionable design decisions and troublesome glitches, the title was unable to reach its full potential. After less than impressive reviews from critics, and underwhelming sales, it appeared that the ride was already over for the game.

Surprisingly, though, Ubisoft unveiled The Crew: Wild Run at their E3 conference earlier this year. Despite the presence of a season pass already available for the title, Wild Run is a full-fledged expansion pack. While the original release focused mostly street and dirt racing, the expansion pack introduces three new types of challenges for racers to indulge in. Coinciding with the release of the Dlc, Ivory Tower...

We've been waiting for this for ages and finally Ninja Warrior UK is here! The cult show - which started in Japan and also has an American version - sees incredible athletes attempting to prove their mettle on the toughest assault course on television. But is the UK one going to be just as difficult?

To find out, we popped along to meet the show's hosts Ben Shephard, Rochelle Humes and Chris Kamara - read on to find out why the creator of the show thinks the UK's version is the best yet, what the toughest obstacle is and why Ben and Chris couldn't stop laughing during filming...

1. Ben is a big fan of the original versions of the show.

We've already seen him having a go at the course! "It's seriously tough," he said. "I've loved the show for years – I used to watch it on Challenge, and watched the American version on YouTube,...

Ian Hultquist, best known for being a founding member of Passion Pit, has moved onto film composition, working on three features over the last couple of years that have played at South By Southwest and Sundance. You may know his work from Animals or Ivory Tower, but his latest project, the horror film The Diabolical, played at SXSW 2015.

After its premiere, we had a chance to sit down with Ian and discuss the project. During the course of our interview, we talked about how he got his start composing, some of his biggest influences, the importance of music to a horror film, and much more.

Check out the full interview below and enjoy!

Wgtc: How’d you originally get involved with the project?

Hultquist: I had just started working with an agency for the first time early last year. This was the first project they brought to me. They had...

Prince Andrew has faced tabloid headlines all his adult life - both laudatory and unsavory. The Queen's second son and fifth in line to the throne courted controversy with his one-time girlfriend actress Koo Stark, won admirers for his service with the Royal Navy in the Falklands War and endured endless media attention for his marriage to, split from and post-divorce friendship with the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson. Now, he is engulfed in a scandal stemming from a friendship with a disgraced billionaire that mystified and troubled Buckingham Palace insiders. The scandal broke last week after Florida court...

Two-thousand-and-fourteen was the not the greatest year for Ubisoft. Watch Dogs overpromised and underperformed, while both Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed Unity were met with little enthusiasm. Even Far Cry 4, which has been heavily praised and is in contention for Game of the Year, had its fair share of troubles upon launch. With the year coming to close, however, Ubisoft has one final chance to finish strong with The Crew.

Taking place throughout the United States, The Crew features a surprisingly lengthy single-player story.

Players step into the shoes of Alex Taylor, a young punk who was framed for the murder of his brother. Having spent the last five years in prison, Alex is released by an F.B.I. agent in order to infiltrate his brother’s former racing gang (The 5-10), which has since become a criminal trafficking ring. Putting his driving skills to good use,...

The Crew is out and people from all over the world are filling up the roads and forming their little groups, trying to make their impact in the world of racing “Mmo”. I’m more of a solo gamer though, a loner who would rather enjoy the game at my own pace, so why would I bother with a game that wants you to be social? Well Ubisoft may not like it (or maybe they planned it this way), but The Crew really isn’t that much of an Mmo at all, or doesn’t push you to play it as one anyway.

That’s not to say that the game is a failure, far from it. It has a huge map, making the gamer feel like they have a scaled down version of America to race around. There aren’t any fences stopping you from just driving your car...

In the wake of the turbulent launches experienced by Assassin Creed: Unity and Far Cry 4, all eyes in the industry are now trained on Ubisoft’s upcoming Mmo-like racer The Crew with one key question in mind: will it stumble into the same pitfalls as the publisher’s other high-profile releases? According to Serkan Hasan — lead designer of the arcade racer — the answer to that question is a resounding no, after the developer revealed that, thanks to the title’s long-gestating phase of beta testing, the game won’t run into the same problems out of the gate.

Speaking with The Metropolis, here’s what the Ivory Tower dev had to say on the matter:

“For The Crew, we’ve reaped the benefits of a long term beta program, designed specifically to push our infrastructure as far as possible in real world situations, with thousands of players from all over...

As someone who celebrated the day the amount of student loan debt I was saddled with dipped below six figures, the subject matter of producer-director Andrew Rossi’s documentary Ivory Tower truly struck a chord with me. The film questions the value of higher education in America, and shows how, over the years, attending college has grown more expensive and less beneficial. Colleges are being run like businesses: too focused on how to get more tuition-paying students in the front door and not enough on how to prepare them for post-college employment. Professors are more concerned with their own research and scholarship than they are with teaching classes. Students pay absurdly high out-of-state tuition to engage in the nonstop party lifestyle of state schools like Arizona State University but don’t get much learning out of the bargain; according to Rossi’s stats, more than half fail to graduate within the standard four years.

Ivory Tower

Starring: Andrew Delbanco, Michael Roth, Jamshed Bharucha, Drew Faust, Michael Crow

Directed by: Andrew Rossi

Written by: Andrew Rossi

USA, 2014

Filmmaker Andrew Rossi’s documentary Ivory Tower certainly brings a whole new meaning to the phrase “higher education” as audiences will get a matriculating lesson in the cost of learning and the massive debt it has impacted on the nation’s struggling students and their parents that have to flip for the enormous bill of investing in their children’s brain power. Thoroughly thought-provoking, insightful and steeped in revelation concerning the student debt crisis Ivory Tower cleverly investigates the country’s spiraling financial burdens of obtaining a college education. The questions remains: is the ultimate price of undertaking an expensive collegiate learning experience worth tip toeing in bankruptcy’s backdoor?

The talking heads that make up the presentation in Ivory Tower consists of the various academics including college...

CNN Films has named Volkswagen as its presenting sponsor for its documentaries airing on the news network. The partnership will kick off with CNN Films' cost-of-college title Ivory Tower, which premieres on CNN on Thursday, Nov. 20. The car manufacturer will have an extensive co-branded presence leading into and during sponsored films, including custom-produced co-branded creative material and Volkswagen advertising during film breaks. The partnership will last through the first three quarters of 2015, spanning a number of CNN's films. CNN Films titles set to air on the news network in the coming months include

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Whoopsy. I forgot to share this list... Herewith the films that could be up for Best Documentary Feature this year. We'll get a finalist of 15 at some point next month followed by 5 nominees in January "until we crown A Winnah!" If we've reviewed the titles, you'll notice their pretty color which you can then click on to read about them. The magic of the internet. You can also see the animated and documentary Oscar charts here.

The 134 Semi-Finalists

A-c

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, Algorithms, Alive Inside, All You Need Is Love, Altina, America: Imagine the World without Her, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, Anita, Antarctica: A Year on Ice, Art and Craft, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, The Barefoot Artist, The Battered Bastards of Baseball, Before You Know It, Bitter Honey, Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity, Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi,...

One hundred thirty-four features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 87th Academy Awards. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December.

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

“Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq”

“Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case”

“Algorithms”

“Alive Inside”

“All You Need Is Love”

“Altina”

“America: Imagine the World without Her”

“American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs”

“Anita”

“Antarctica: A Year on Ice”

“Art and Craft”

“Awake: The Life of Yogananda”

“The Barefoot Artist”

“The Battered Bastards of Baseball”

“Before You Know It”

“Bitter Honey”

“Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity”

“Botso The Teacher from Tbilisi”

“Captivated The Trials of Pamela Smart”

“The Case against 8”

“Cesar’s Last Fast”

“Citizen Koch”

“CitizenFour”

“Code Black”

“Concerning Violence”

“The Culture High”

“Cyber-Seniors”

“DamNation”

“Dancing in Jaffa”

“Death Metal Angola”

“The Decent One”

“Dinosaur 13”

“Do You Know What My Name Is?...

Citizenfour, Life Itself, Red Army, Warsaw Uprising among long-list contenters for the 87th Academy Awards.

The Salt Of The Earth, Happy Valley, Jodorowsky’s Dune, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me, Food Chains and Point And Shoot are also named.

The submitted features, listed in alphabetical order, are:

20,000 Days On Earth

Afternoon Of A Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq

Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

Algorithms

Alive Inside

All You Need Is Love

Altina

America: Imagine The World Without Her

American Revolutionary: The Evolution Of Grace Lee Boggs

Anita

Antarctica: A Year On Ice

Art And Craft

Awake: The Life Of Yogananda

The Barefoot Artist

The Battered Bastards Of Baseball

Before You Know It

Bitter Honey

Born To Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity

Botso The Teacher From Tbilisi

Captivated The Trials Of Pamela Smart

The Case Against 8

Cesar’s Last Fast

Citizen Koch

Citizenfour

Code Black

Concerning Violence

The Culture High

Cyber-Seniors

Damnation

Dancing In Jaffa

Death Metal Angola

The...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released its list of 134 film vying for the Best Feature Documentary Oscar at the 87th Annual Academy Awards in February. A number of the nonfic hopefuls have yet to get their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Those that don’t will be cut from the contention. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December. Oscar noms will be revealed January 15, and ABC will broadcast Hollywood’s Big Night live on February 22 from the Dolby Theatre.

Here are the docu feature submissions:

Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq

Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case

Algorithms

Alive Inside

All You Need Is Love

Altina

America: Imagine the World without Her

American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs

Anita

Antarctica: A Year on Ice

Art and Craft

Awake: The Life of Yogananda

The Barefoot Artist

The Battered Bastards of Baseball...

One hundred thirty-four features have been submitted for consideration in the Documentary Feature category for the 87th Academy Awards®. Several of the films have not yet had their required Los Angeles and New York qualifying releases. Submitted features must fulfill the theatrical release requirements and comply with all of the category's other qualifying rules in order to advance in the voting process. A shortlist of 15 films will be announced in December. Films submitted in the Documentary Feature category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories. The 87th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 15, 2015, at 5:30 a.m. Pt in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The Oscars® will be held on Sunday, February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar...

This week’s new Blu-ray releases include the latest explosion-filled effort from Michael Bay, a small-scale indie from Jon Favreau, the return of Jack Bauer, and more. Briefly: Transformers: Age of Extinction (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD) - $17.99 (55% off) Transformers: Age of Extinction (3D Blu-ray + Blu-ray + DVD) - $26.99 (46% off) Transformers: Age of Extinction Limited Edition Gift Set with Grimlock and Optimus Collectible Statue [Blu-ray] - $79.99 (33% off) Chef (Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD with UltraViolet) - $19.99 (43% off) 24: Live Another Day [Blu-ray] - $29.99 (50% off) Once Upon a Time in America: Extended Director's [Blu-ray] - $26.49 (24% off) Gone With the Wind 75th Anniversary [Blu-ray] - $35.69 (29% off) Are You Here [Blu-ray] - $15.99 (47% off) Cold in July [Blu-ray] - $14.99 (50% off) Ivory Tower [Blu-ray] - $27.28 (7% off) Leprechaun Origins [Blu-ray] - $21.24 (15% off) Third Person [Blu-ray] - $24.99 (31% off)

The post New to Blu-ray: Transformers: Age Of Exctinction, Chef, 24: Live Another Day, and More appeared first on Collider.

Each year, lots of quality documentaries arrive at the Sundance Film Festival, but many don't get the love they need after the festivities in Park City come to a close. One such movie is "Ivory Tower." But today we've got a chance for you to own the film that caught our eye at the beginning of the year. Directed by Andrew Rossi, the doc investigates the rising cost of a college education that has created massive student debt, all while graduates struggle to find employment in their field. It's a complex subject, but as our review notes, this is "compelling viewing, particularly if you feel close to the crisis" that faces many leaving high school and seeking higher education. It's an intriguing topic, and we've got some Blu-ray copies of "Ivory Tower" for a few lucky readers. How can you grab one? Follow us on Twitter and tweet the following:...

The new issue of Cineaste is out, featuring interviews with Joaquim Pinto (What Now? Remind Me) and Andrew Rossi (Ivory Tower). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Henry K. Miller on 1963 as a watershed year for film criticism; an interview with Armond White; Michael Koresky on Terence Davies; David Bordwell looks back on the evolution of archives; Fabrice du Welz (Alleluia) revisits a moment in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon; R. Emmet Sweeney writes about Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past; Bob Fosse on All That Jazz; a trailer for a David Lynch exhibition—and more. » - David Hudson...

The new issue of Cineaste is out, featuring interviews with Joaquim Pinto (What Now? Remind Me) and Andrew Rossi (Ivory Tower). Also in today's roundup of news and views: Henry K. Miller on 1963 as a watershed year for film criticism; an interview with Armond White; Michael Koresky on Terence Davies; David Bordwell looks back on the evolution of archives; Fabrice du Welz (Alleluia) revisits a moment in Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon; R. Emmet Sweeney writes about Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past; Bob Fosse on All That Jazz; a trailer for a David Lynch exhibition—and more. » - David Hudson...

Andrew Rossi’s prior film, Page One: Inside the New York Times, delved into the newspaper industry while it began to teeter on the brink of collapse as the rise of blogs and social media began to take a strangle hold on physical news distribution. His latest, Ivory Tower, looks at another industry in tailspin – the higher education system. Anyone who hasn’t gotten a free ride to college in the last decade knows that the current business model in which students blindly accept loans upwards of $100,000 for college degrees which come with no guarantee of bagging a job that makes enough cash to pay that mountain of debt back. Rossi’s film is massively important in that it brings this issue to light with insightful clarity, though offers no obvious solutions. Just after the film’s premiere at Sundance earlier this year, I had the good fortune to sit...

Luxury home cinema service Prima has struck a deal with Samuel Goldwyn Films, bolstering the company's slate of offerings. Photos 35 of 2014's Most Anticipated Movies The first Goldwyn titles being made available are Andrew Rossi's 2014 Sundance Film Festival documentary Ivory Tower, about the crisis in the country's higher-education system, and The German Doctor, Argentina's submission for the Oscar for best foreign language film. Participant Media partnered with Goldwyn Films on Ivory Tower, which debuted in select theaters earlier this month. It was made available to Prima subscribers late last week. Photos 19 Sequels That Outgrossed the Original Movies

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College, in the past decade, has nearly completed the transformation from gateway to higher learning to a locus of high anxiety—and not just for students and their families or for teachers and alumni, but also for Michelle and Barack and the nation as a whole as student debt rises and public anger grows. As he did with Page One: Inside the New York Times, director Andrew Rossi visits an institution in crisis at a moment of particular disruption with a balanced, eyes-open approach and finds shards of hope. In the case of Ivory Tower, the devastation of the "college" experience has been brought about by a perfect storm. Institutions are engaged in a "building" war to better market themselves while charging increasing tuition to pay for the expansion while students are making up the difference with increasingly less forgiving loans. Traveling from New York to Massachusetts from Death Valley to Silicon Valley,...

College, in the past decade, has nearly completed the transformation from gateway to higher learning to a locus of high anxiety—and not just for students and their families or for teachers and alumni, but also for Michelle and Barack and the nation as a whole as student debt rises and public anger grows. As he did with Page One: Inside the New York Times, director Andrew Rossi visits an institution in crisis at a moment of particular disruption with a balanced, eyes-open approach and finds shards of hope. In the case of Ivory Tower, the devastation of the "college" experience has been brought about by a perfect storm. Institutions are engaged in a "building" war to better market themselves while charging increasing tuition to pay for the expansion while students are making up the difference with increasingly less forgiving loans. Traveling from New York to Massachusetts from Death Valley to Silicon Valley,...

Ivory Tower, a documentary focused on grading the value of a university education when tuition has reached unbelievable heights, is about as comprehensive and complete a 90-minute film can be about a sprawling subject, without feeling rushed or overstuffed. Director Andrew Rossi, who made 2011’s superb doc Page One: Inside the New York Times, connects the dots of many factors that led to the exorbitant prices of middling, mediocre education, and like an excellent lecture, the film provides insightful discussion, even if it does not have many easy answers.

Rossi asks most of the big questions here. Is college over-rated since students glean much of the same information from books and Wikipedia? Is schooling too expensive? After all, many middle-class students are left with mountains of loans to repay while wealthier kids can coast through without a worry. At an orientation, a parent looks directly at an advisor and asks...

Page One: Inside the New York Times director Andrew Rossi’s damning doc Ivory Tower details how the increasingly outrageous cost of a college education — spurred by the rise of administrative salaries, lack of government support and the arms race for the best and brightest (and richest) among us — is killing the American dream and heightening the divide between the haves and have nots. Rossi’s movie isn’t covering especially new ground if you’re out in the world while reading about how it’s all falling apart. The Reagan/Friedman ideology suggesting education is a private good that ought to be paid for […]...

Page One: Inside the New York Times director Andrew Rossi’s damning doc Ivory Tower details how the increasingly outrageous cost of a college education — spurred by the rise of administrative salaries, lack of government support and the arms race for the best and brightest (and richest) among us — is killing the American dream and heightening the divide between the haves and have nots. Rossi’s movie isn’t covering especially new ground if you’re out in the world while reading about how it’s all falling apart. The Reagan/Friedman ideology suggesting education is a private good that ought to be paid for […]...

When one of the talking heads in “Ivory Tower” uses the word “apocalyptic” to describe the higher education system, it at first seems like an exaggeration. But throughout its 90-minute runtime, Andrew Rossi’s documentary offers a number of frightening statistics that make the adjective seem earned. Learning that the cost of college has grown more than any other good or service since 1978 caused our jaws to drop like we were seeing a destroyed metropolis on film. Watching the multi-million-dollar student centers with pools, tanning beds and climbing walls was akin to glimpsing a zombie horde. Seeing the seven-figure salaries of university administrators made us feel like we were watching looters. “Ivory Tower” is compelling viewing, particularly if you feel close to the crisis. Authors, current and former students, faculty and business people share their thoughts on the state of the system, with some sobering statistics that punctuate the more personal moments.

Title: Ivory Tower Director: Andrew Rossi While renewed calls for a national focus on income inequality, predominantly grounded in a discussion of a minimum wage hike, are met with predictable squeals of “Class warfare!” from barons of industry, perched-on-high professional capitalists and other assorted defenders of the status quo, there’s an important second front in this developing battle — one that can be seen in the emerging populism of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has made student loan debt (and the attendant profits reaped by federal government programs) one of her pillar issues. The new documentary “Ivory Tower” dives headlong into this thorny issue, not bemoaning achievement gaps or essaying the [ Read More ]

The post Ivory Tower Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

Filmmaker Andrew Rossi pulls no punches in his provocative and engaging documentary, Ivory Tower, as he examines the state of higher education in America and reveals how leading institutions have lost their way in the struggle to remain competitive. Rossi asks if the pursuit of higher education is worth the staggering cost and if it is possible to evolve a sustainable economic model that still offers the potential for life-changing college experiences. Opening June 13th, the film profiles an impressive array of schools with different ideas and approaches including Harvard, Stanford, Arizona State, Cooper Union, Deep Springs College, Spelman College, and online education company Udacity’s pilot program at San Jose State. In an exclusive interview, Rossi spoke about what inspired him to explore this issue, how he decided which people and institutions to focus on, why he shuttled between contemporary profiles and historical context to tell the story, the...

AFI Docs has released its complete line-up of films for this year's festival, which will take place June 18-22 in Washington, D.C. and Silver Springs, MD. As previously announced, "Holbrook/Twain: An American Odyssey" and "Life Itself" will open and close the festival, respectively. In addition to screening 84 films from 28 different countries, AFI Docs will honor Academy Award-winning documentarian Alex Gibney at its annual Charles Guggenheim Symposium. Excerpts from his films will be screened at the ceremony. The festival's roster of Catalyst Screenings -- which feature post-screening panel discussions with filmmakers, field experts and policymakers -- includes Andrew Rossi's higher education critique "Ivory Tower" and Brian Knappenberger's contemplative piece about the web, entitled "The Internet's Own Boy." Rory Kennedy's "Last Days In Vietnam" and Amir Bar-Lev's "Happy Valley" -- the latter of which explores the circumstances surrounding the charges of sex abuse levied against...

In CNN Films' "Ivory Tower," director Andrew Rossi questions the purpose of higher education in an era when record-high college tuition doesn't necessarily yield results for graduates struggling to get on their feet. Check out the film's new trailer below. Filmmaker Andrew Rossi reveals the moment in history when the United States, long regarded as the epicenter of higher education, embraced a business model promoting property expansion over quality learning. Through interviews with Andrew Delbanco, Anya Kamenetz, and Internet education pioneer Daphne Koller, cofounder of the revolutionary online platform Coursera, 'Ivory Tower' exposes the instability of traditional college education as it searches the country for alternative forms of cost-effective learning, ranging from concepts of self-governance taught at Deep Springs College in Big Pine, California, to the unofficial hacker houses of northern California.An entry in Sundance's Us Documentary competition lineup, "Ivory...

Trailers are an under-appreciated art form insofar that many times they’re seen as vehicles for showing footage, explaining films away, or showing their hand about what moviegoers can expect. Foreign, domestic, independent, big budget: What better way to hone your skills as a thoughtful moviegoer than by deconstructing these little pieces of advertising? This […]

The post This Week In Trailers: Love Hotel, The Internet’s Own Boy, Burt’s Buzz, We Could Be King, Ivory Tower appeared first on /Film.

The first Ivory Tower trailer for writer/director Andrew Rossi’s (Page One: Inside the New York Times) provocative documentary has been released online. The film examines the current state of higher education in our country, specifically focusing on the rising costs, high student loan interest rates, and overall benefit of a college education in our culture. The evolution of college in America has certainly become troubling over the past decade or so, and this trailer promises a challenging and thought-provoking look into the problem. Matt caught the film at Sundance and in his positive review praised Rossi for starting a conversation we need to be having. Hit the jump to watch the Ivory Tower trailer. The film opens in theaters on June 14th. Ivory Tower trailer via Yahoo! Movies. Here’s the official synopsis for Ivory Tower: As tuition rates spiral beyond reach and student loan debt passes...

Following a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, the eye-opening documentary Ivory Tower is coming to theaters, and the first trailer has arrived. Director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside The New York Times) dives into the world of higher education, looking at alternatives to the expensive universities that many of us flock towards after high school. With student debt climbing, and the quality of schools declining as they irresponsibly spend their money on many irrelevant amenities, it's a dangerous time to clamor for more education. This is a must watch for anyone considering a college education. Watch! Here's the first trailer for Andrew Rossi's Ivory Tower from Thompson on Hollywood: Filmmaker Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times) reveals the moment in history when the United States, long regarded as the epicenter of higher education, embraced a business model promoting property expansion over quality learning.

School might be out for summer, but this coming June, Participant Media and Samuel Goldwyn Films are adding the student debt question to the cinephile curriculum by pairing on the theatrical release for the Sundance preemed Ivory Tower. Just like the healthcare sector reform and debate, Andrew Rossi’s docu appears to be a pocket-book pinching expose that merited an up-close examination. Paramount Home Media Distribution will take care of the film’s post theatrical life.

Gist: As tuition spirals upward and student debt passes a trillion dollars, students and parents ask, “Is college worth it?” From the halls of Harvard to public and private colleges in financial crisis to education startups in Silicon Valley, an urgent portrait emerges of a great American institution at the breaking point.

Worth Noting: This is the second collaboration between Participant Media and Rossi – they previously teamed on his third docu feature, the fascinating...

Participant Media, Paramount Home Media Distribution, and Samuel Goldwyn Films announced today a collaboration to distribute CNN Films. Ivory Tower . Andrew Rossi.s critically acclaimed film about the American higher education system at a crisis point premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. It will have a June 2014 U.S. theatrical release through Samuel Goldwyn Films. Participant Media, part of the team behind Rossi.s previous documentary, Page One: Inside the New York Times , has a long-term commitment to focusing on the importance of education. Building on campaigns for Waiting for Superman , which Paramount Vantage released in 2010, and Teach , which aired on CBS and Pivot last fall, Participant will mount a social action...

Participant Media, Paramount Home Media Distribution, and Samuel Goldwyn Films are collaborating to release CNN Films’ Ivory Tower. Director Andrew Rossi explores the Us higher education system in crisis and premiered at Sundance.

Ivory Towerwill open theatrically through Samuel Goldwyn Films in June.

Paramount Home Media Distribution will handle the subsequent home entertainment release and will distribute outside the Us.

Participant will mount a social action campaign for Ivory Tower in support of the film’s theatrical release.

Josh Braun of Submarine and Stacey Wolf of CNN negotiated on behalf of CNN Films and the producers.

The Sarasota Film Festival unveiled its 2014 lineup, which will include John Slattery’s God's Pocket, Charlie McDowell's The One I Love, Andrew Rossi’s Ivory Tower and Rory Kennedy's Last Days in Vietnam. Last Days of Vietnam will kick off the annual festival, which runs April 4-13, as the opening-night film. The film also will launch the festival’s Acts of Valor program, which examines the experience of American veterans from World War I to today and features an array of new, classic and archival films screening throughout the festival. Photos: Philip Seymour Hoffman on the Parts He Played The Mark Duplass-Elisabeth

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Virtually nothing has shot up in cost more drastically over the past half-century than college tuition, spurring a crisis in higher education that is forthrightly addressed in Ivory Tower. Produced by CNN Films for broadcast in the fall, Andrew Rossi's sobering film zeroes in on multiple causes of the problem, studies specific situations at various schools and looks at some of the alternatives, such as on-line study, that are being tried. The subject is so big that it would take a film of three hours or more to comprehensively address it but, in putting so many ideas and

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After they leave higher education, young people are told they’ll be entering the “real world”, i.e. an unstructured environment where they’ll have to be self-sufficient. They’ll also be entering an absolutely insane place where among the myriad of problems they’ll likely face is that the entry cost to the real world has put them in tens of thousands of dollars of debt. The wretched economy has put them at an even greater disadvantage to where we’ve reached a crisis. Andrew Rossi’s documentary Ivory Tower examines this crisis from multiple perspectives, breaking down the problem, asking about the necessity of college, and potential alternatives or compromises. The documentary could use a better organization, and yet it’s never wishy-washy. At the very least, Rossi starts a conversation we need to be having. Ivory Tower looks at the college crisis from multiple perspectives. The picture...

Last year, student debt in the United States hit a milestone $1 trillion, with no signs of slowing down as admission and tuition are steadily increasing and have been for decades. Enter director Andrew Rossi (Page One: Inside the New York Times) and his documentary Ivory Tower, which looks at the inefficiency and shortcomings in university education, more specifically, the lack of government funding causing a rise in tuittion, but also the unwise spending on amenities that seem to hinder, more than bolster, their students' education, and the quality of it too. While the documentary seems one-sided to the point of beating a dead horse for the first half, it does move into more neutral and analytical territory. More below! Initially, Rossi uses a variety of experts who have criticized the flawed university systems in a world where self-made entrepreneurs and increasing young people are educating themselves in the age of information.