By Adam Hartzell

Every year since 2000, the Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF) in South Korea selects three prominent directors and provides each with 50 million won (roughly $44,500) to put together a piece around 30-minutes in length, for the Jeonju Digital Project (JDP). While the Busan International Film Festival is the most prestigious of Asian film festivals, Jeonju has made a name for itself through the JDP. (The festival even makes an appearance as part of the meandering plot of South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo's 2009 full-length feature Like You Know It All, where the film director character we follow in the film begins his sojourn at the festival.) The mission of the festival is less about promoting digital works and more about allowing directors a respite from the adjustments they might feel are needed to contort their visions into the logic of marketing and profit.

In Tokyo!, three visionary directors (Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho) come together for an omnibus triptych examining the nature of one unforgettable city as it’s shaped by the disparate people who live, work (and run amok) inside an enormous, constantly evolving, densely populated Japanese megalopolis — the enchanting and inimitable Tokyo. To celebrate the premiere of Tokyo!, GreenCine is pleased to give away 2 pairs of tickets for the opening week screenings at the Landmark Theaters in San Francisco (exact location TBD) and Los Angeles (Nuart Theater in Santa Monica), March 20th - March 26th.  Click on for details on how to enter.

By Sean Axmaker

Adrienne Shelly blossomed onto the indie film scene with her 1989 screen debut in Hal Hartley's debut feature The Unbelievable Truth. In the succeeding years, the diminutive, red-headed actress proved to be very picky about her screen roles, appearing largely in idiosyncratic indie films and guest-starring in East Coast-based TV shows like Homicide and Law and Order. She had come from the stage and continued writing, directing, and performing numerous stage productions in the independent theater scene in New York, and she was making a name for herself as a film director.

(Note: Her final film as director, Waitress, is now out on DVD.)

By Sean Axmaker

In Christopher Boe's Allegro [official site], a world acclaimed concert pianist (played by Ulrich Thomsen) is formally invited to reclaim his lost past. You see, it's preserved in an impenetrable and inexplicable bubble in the center of Copenhagen. Imagine a cross between Andrei Tarkovksy and The Matrix, with a whimsical flair and a mischievous narrator (Henning Moritzen) who may be a guardian angel, an ironic devil, or simply an existential master of ceremonies.

Boe's latest feature Allegro is now on DVD.