With more multiplex screens showing the same blockbuster films, our exposure to the artisan works of filmmakers around the world is growing more limited. Unearthing those undercapitalized hidden gems is an extraordinary effort. But thankfully, film festival organizations around the world provide fertile opportunity for building exposure and separating the good from the great. Our friends at Film.com just published a great list of the 25 Best Undistributed Films of 2013, drawn from those movies that screened at a variety of international festivals, ranging from Telluride Film Festival to Jerusalem Film Festival and BAMCinemafest to Fantasia International Film Festival. There are movies for all tastes, covering a range of genres including, crime thrillers, dark comedies, sexual awakenings and documentaries. Here’s an excerpt and a link to the complete article, as well as handful of the movie trailers for the films listed. Have any favorite movies from 2013 that never made it to the big screen? Add your comments below and share your favorites with the Cinephiled community. “It’s hard to pin down exactly when it happened, but at a certain point in the cinema’s ongoing digital revolution it became easier to make a movie than it is to get it seen. That’s a sweeping and reductive generalization, of course, but what would the introduction to a Film.com list be without one of those? The truth of the matter is that, between the disparate poles of “Gravity” and “Leviathan”, the impossible image is all but extinct. Technology has caught up with (and likely eclipsed) the scope of our vision, and filmmakers have never been so empowered to confront their imaginations and realize their stories in one form or another. The inevitable result is that we’re living in a golden age of cinema so clear and ubiquitous that it can be difficult to even notice, the film festivals and streaming channels of the world absolutely saturated with brilliant offerings from established directors and undiscovered talents alike.” Read The 25 Best Undistributed Films of 2013 on Film.com or watch the some of the trailers below. BLIND DETECTIVE Directed by: Johnnie To Screened at: Toronto International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”rvWey_1E38o”] CLOSED CURTAIN Directed by: Jafar Panahi & Kambuzia Partovi Screened at: Berlin International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”lBLiT13SBl8″] DOOMSDAYS Directed by: Eddie Mullins Screened: Fantasia International Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Woodstock Film Festival, Dark Bridges Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”ZFPLDCw9U6s”] THE GARDEN OF EDEN Directed by: Ran Tal Screened at: True / False Film Fest, hotdocs 2013, Jerusalem Film Festival, Independent Film Festival Boston [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”14_44JF2wwg”] THE MANOR Directed by: Shawney Cohen Screened: Hot Docs Canadian Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”-FoMmY2DYQA”] MISTAKEN FOR STRANGERS Directed by: Tom Beringer Screened at: TriBeCa Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”QKYMHhMeexU”] PALO ALTO Directed by: Gia Coppola Screened at: Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival [pl_video type=”youtube” id=”2RF4C124ibQ”]
The 25 Best Undistributed Films of 2013
