THE FAITHFUL Screens Quebec City's National Museum of Fine Arts!

Sunday, September 10, 2023

The Faithful is making its way to the big screens in Canada! The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in Quebec City, Canada will show The Faithful as part of its FIFA screening series. Entrance will cost a fee, and the venue has a capacity of 150 people. For more information, visit MNBAQ’s film calendar. We can’t wait!

DOCPOINT May Just Be Our Favorite International Documentary Film Festival in the World!

February 6, 2023 in Helsinki, Finland with Director Annie Berman

Our International Premiere of The Faithful: The King, The Pope, The Princess at DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival was something special. Helmed by the brilliant Head of Programming filmmaker Inka Achté, and Executive Director Tape Riihimaki, and team, Docpoint Helsinki presented risk-taking films from around the world, a celebration of truly independent works of nonfiction after three long years without in-person togetherness. Throughout the festival, the chosen films showcased the many different ways to tell important stories and interpret the world through filmmaking, never avoiding difficult subjects or bold experiments. Each year, over one hundred of the best and most talked-about creative documentary films from all over the world are brought to screens in Helsinki, and we were honored to see The Faithful chosen as one of those films this year. Even more honoring was our nomination for the 2023 YLE Award for Best International Documentary Film–many thanks to all who made it possible.

It’s hard to describe the pure joy and delight of finally uniting with our closest collaborators, converging on Helsinki from Portugal, Ireland, England and Spain...to see our film projected in a beautiful theater with a thoughtful, inquisitive, gracious audience. It was a week of films, art, dinners, saunas, dancing, music and immense, gratifying joy.

Thank you Docpoint Helsinki for all of your hard work, generosity, and risk-taking programming. Thank you for bringing us all together. Thank you for introducing us to these brilliant films and filmmakers. And, thank you for showing us the beauty of Finland and its people. We will cherish these memories for a lifetime.

Together for the first time ever. Andrew Kirwan (sound designer) and fiance Diane from Dublin; Oliver David (post-producer) from London; Paulo Cunha Martins (colorist/restorationist) from Porto on the streets of downtown Helsinki. Photo by a very content Annie Berman (director).

Oliver David, Post Producer; Annie Berman, Director; Paulo Cunha Martins, Color/Restorationist at Amos Rex, Helsinki, Finland.

Such an honor to be nominated for Best International Documentary Film alongside these greats: All of our Heartbeats Are Connected Through Exploding Stars & Surround, Burial & Aphotic Zone, How Dare You Have Such a Rubbish Wish, Ladies Only & Virtual Voice, Manifesto, Myanmar Diaries, Périphérique Nord & True Bug, Rojek, The Last Chapter, The Pawnshop, and, While We Watched. 🏆

In the flesh. Breaking bread together at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art. Oliver David (post-producer) and Paulo Cunha Martins (color/restoration) hold The Faithful postcards. We made a real thing together across an ocean.

Our lovely Oliver shares The Faithful to his social media.

Annie’s POV from The Faithful’s Q&A at Docpoint Helsinki with team - Matt Mankins (collaborating producer), Paulo Cunha Martins (color / restoration), Oliver David (post-producer) - who flew in from Spain, Portugal, England, respectively.

Good morning, Helsinki! Could grow very accustomed to these scrumptious Scandinavian breakfast feasts overlooking the awakening city, in good company.

Finland is known for having the most well-developed education in the world. This was undoubtedly one of the most engaged, thoughtful and inquisitive audiences yet.

What a cool venue!

Left to right: Annie Berman (director), Paulo Cunha Martins (color/restoration), Matt Mankins (Collaborating producer), Oliver David (post-producer). Andrew Kirwan (sound design/mix) had yet to arrive.

Paulo Cunha Martins presents Annie with her very own cabbage bowl, direct from Portugal. 🇵🇹

And along with our memories, lives a patch of primeval forest protected in honor of The Faithful’s international premiere! 🌲🌲🌲

Leaving this country with full hearts, warmed souls, enlarged minds, and full bellies. 🇫🇮

International Premiere announced: Docpoint Helsinki Feb 2, 2023! Nominated for Best Feature!

We couldn’t be happier to announce that The Faithful will make its International Premiere at DocPoint Helsinki in International Competition, nominated for Best Documentary Film of the Year Award!!! The festival, after two years of lockdowns, returns with new Head of Programming Inka Achté who expressed commitment to a vision of “cinema that won’t leave you alone - films that demand you get together with friends afterwards to discuss, ponder and dissect...even to dance...We want to show titles which aren’t easy to define: ones which blur our notions of what documentary cinema can be and break the rules without an ethical or moral bargain.” Director Annie Berman in attendance with sound designer Andrew Kirwan, colorist Paulo Cunha Martins and producers Matt Mankins and Oliver David - none of whom have yet to see the film on the screen with an audience - so this will be a grand celebration.

Highlights from the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Q&A moderated by the brilliant Thaïs Miller

Aunt Nora, filling the magnificent Castro Theater. Her spirit lives on.

Festival director and filmmaker, Jay Rosenblatt, whose films I’ve always adored.

Judith Helfand, director of Love and Stuff, a double header. It’s not everyday you share a screen with a mentor whose work has influenced and inspired your own.

Photojournalist Yoshi James! How magnificent to meet in person after serving on the Indie Memphis jury together!

Friend, photographer, and now local Jim Youll - thanks for the very warm welcome, and for the beautiful photos!

Thanks to the incredible directors of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and Jewish Film Institute, Jay Rosenblatt and Lexi Leban, brilliant moderator Thaïs Miller, Board President Ralph Guggenheim for bringing THE FAITHFUL to the SFJFF, and for the royal treatment!

THE FAITHFUL: Official Selection of the 42nd San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Thrilled to announce that The Faithful was chosen to screen at this year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the world’s largest and longest running Jewish Film Festival, which will present 71 films from 14 countries—narratives, documentaries, and shorts—that spotlight bold films and filmmakers that expand and evolve the Jewish story. I'll be attending and excited to finally meet (in person!) fellow filmmakers in residence of the Jewish Film Institute.

Our heartfelt gratitude to JFI and SFJFF's Lexi Leban, Jay Rosenblatt, Marcia Jarmel, Joanne Feinberg, Claudia Finkle, our gracious hosts, and to The Faithful's Faithful Producers and Collaborators Andre Valentim Almeida, Sara Theriault, Sarah Enid Hagey, Matt Mankins, Oliver David, Sound Designer and Mixer Andrew Kirwan and Colorist Paulo Cunha Martins and to all who have supported this film.

More info below, https://jfi.org/sfjff-2022

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The Faithful: The King, The Pope, The Princess

July 25 • 11:15am • Castro Theatre

Annie Berman, 2021, Documentary, USA, 90 minutes, English

Director Annie Berman (2022 JFI Filmmaker in Residence) expected to attend

Annie Berman’s essay film is a witty, frequently surreal reflection on three of the most photographed individuals—Elvis Presley, Pope John Paul II, Diana, Princess of Wales—of all time and the people who worship their images. Filmed over the course of 20 years, on numerous trips from Graceland to the Vatican to Kensington Palace and back, Berman’s fascination with documenting each icon’s adoring public soon morphs into an obsession of her own about how materialism, performance and ritual come together in the making and resurrections of each of these modern icons. Berman’s Jewish identity informs her outsider status in each setting, allowing her to approach scenes of ardent fandom and devotion to celebrity graven images as if they were forbidden fruit.

"My Favorite film we've screened . . ."

THE FAITHFUL is my favorite film we’ve screened in my five years as Associate Programmer of the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The film manages to be both deeply personal and universal, scratching at the itch of why and how we seek belonging and greater meaning. Annie’s dexterous direction reads almost like a poem, weaving across decades and seamlessly jumping between subjects and stories in a stream of consciousness guided by her unique artistic vision, which provides critical, self-reflexive insights into the nature to textuality and authenticity within a fan-driven world of replication and reproduction. THE FAITHFUL is a must-see not only for those seeking to gain new insights into the nature of fandom, but also  into the role of documentarians as active participants in this world, as creators of texts that contribute to bodies of fandom and preserve these images and ideas for generations to come.

— Matthew Meier, Associate Programmer, USC School of Cinematic Arts