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Viet Film Fest 2022, presented by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (Vaala), a nonprofit organization that is celebrating its 30th year anniversary in 2022, announces its full lineup for the 13th edition of the festival. The return of Viet Film Fest will provide access to national and international audiences through an online streaming platform in a movies-on-demand environment from October 1-15, 2022, as well as a 2-day in-person screening at Century Huntington Beach and Xd on October 7th and 8th. This year’s in-person screening brings Viet Film Fest closer than ever to its home in Little Saigon, Orange County, California.

“It is so exciting for us to bring the festival so close to Little Saigon in a new venue,” said Tran Lee, this year’s Viet Film Fest Events Director. “We have never been more than a few miles away from the heart of Little Saigon and a few streets down...

“Val,” the warmly received and reveal documentary about actor Val Kilmer, began simply with an email. A decade ago, Leo Scott was working as an editor on director Harmony Korine’s half-hour comedy series for Vice Films ‘The Lotus Community Workshop.” Kilmer played a version of himself as a motivational speaker. “It was quite incredible what he did with that character,” said Scott during a recent Film Independent Zoom conversation on “Val.”

“I really, really wanted to tell him how good he was,” Scott noted. So, he sent a carefully crafted e-mail to the actor, who has starred in such films as 1984’s “Top Secret!,” 1996’s “Top Gun,” 1991’s “The Doors,” 1993’s “Tombstone” and 1995’s “Batman Forever.” Much to Scott’s surprise, Kilmer quickly sent him back an email. Soon, Scott found himself working with Kilmer on his one-man theater piece on Mark Twain.

“He was starting to workshop the...

“Top Gun” actor Val Kilmer surprised everyone when he revealed that for the past 40 years, he’s been capturing his life and career on video, ending up with more than 800 hours of footage.

A feature documentary was the natural conclusion of his faithful chronicling, and when Kilmer mentioned that he was digitizing the footage to filmmaker Leo Scott, the idea for “Val” was hatched.

Scott had been editing “The Lotus Community Workshop,” a segment starring the actor within the 2012 omnibus “The Fourth Dimension,” and ended up helping with the digitization. He also brought in collaborator and fellow editor Ting Poo (“Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405”) to make the documentary happen. It begins streaming on Amazon Prime Video on Aug. 6.

Scott and Poo served as both co-directors and co-editors, organizing the tapes, digitizing them and helping tell Kilmer’s story as well as shaping it into the sharp film that has generated awards buzz.

Fierce, committed and above all, tough — these are the words that collaborators use to describe producer Robin O’Hara, a longtime fixture of the New York independent film scene, who died suddenly last week after complications from cancer treatment.

When O’Hara’s business and life partner Scott Macaulay of Forensic Films posted the sad news on Facebook last Wednesday, hundreds of prominent filmmakers, former crewmembers, and friends from across the independent film world offered an outpouring of condolences, remembrances, and testimonies about O’Hara’s importance in nurturing their art and their careers.

As “Saving Face” director Alice Wu wrote, “She was brilliant and mercurial and hilarious and terrifying. She gave no fucks — unless she did give a fuck — and then she gave everything. Anyone who has been lucky enough to be in her orbit never lets go. She pushed us all … and we became better people.”

Echoing Wu,...

Exclusive: Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films has acquired rights to The Incident, with up-and-coming Polish writer-director Jan Kwiecinski (The Fourth Dimension) helming his script. E/F/O co-CEOs Randall Emmett and George Furla will put the $15M-budget picture into production in July, with Ambyr Childers (The Master, Ray Donovan) co-starring and producing with Emmett and Furla, Andrew Corkin of Uncorked Productions, Priya Swaminathan, and Shannon Riggs. Mona Panchal and Bryan…...

Embargo (Johann Lurf, 2015)The Promise Of Real FICTIONAs Neo awakes from his immersive slumber covered in the pink goo of experience, The Matrix provides us with the perfect image that is the cyborg theorist’s wet dream and cinema’s eternal promise: an immersion so total in the artificial perceptive experience that this fiction becomes entirely indifferentiable from any supposed external reality.This promise of cinema’s ‘realer real’ is in full force in the mythology driving the production of 3-D movies. As 3-D cinema was the curated theme of this year’s International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the plethora of films and 3-D techniques (or as the curator Björn Speidel more accurately calls it: “stereoscopic techniques”) granted the perfect opportunity to explore the myths, possibilities and limitations of a cinema in the third dimension.Just being in the theater during the screenings of the program’s nearly 50 films sufficed...

The Fourth Dimension is an anthology piece comprised of three short films contributed by three different directors – Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko and Jan Kwiencinski. Spearheaded by Vice Magazine’s Eddy Moretti and partly funded by Grolsch Film Works, The Fourth Dimension sees each director tackling the open-ended concept of the fourth dimension – the next, higher existence of your soul – in their own unique ways, while adhering to a set of strict rules and precepts.

Kicking off this oddball collection is Korine, arguably the most well-known of the three. Her segment, titled The Lotus Community Workshop, sees Val Kilmer playing a scruffy, rapturous version of himself who uses his “skills” to reach out to others as a motivational speaker. Using Kilmer’s persona as her interpretation of the fourth dimension, Korine mixes unusual, yet effective sound effects and strobe lighting to effectively blur the already faded line between reality and fantasy,...

He could have been another Brad Pitt. Instead he's doing one-man stage shows. Is it time for a rescue plan?

For some time now, I have belonged to a secret society known as the League of Rueful Val Kilmer Enthusiasts. It consists of men of a certain age who adore Tombstone and Heat, and who also have a soft spot for The Doors and The Ghost and the Darkness. And, of course, Top Gun. What unites the members of the league is our affection for the actor himself, mingled with regret that Kilmer did not become the intergalactically famous star we wanted him to be. We also resent the fact that he did not make more movies like Heat while he was young and athletic enough to pull it off.

Because now it is too late. Kilmer has reached the point in his career where he is performing in a one-man show called Citizen Twain,...

In the omnibus film The Fourth Dimension, Brooklyn based Vice Magazine along with commercial company Grolsch Film Works dispatched three filmmakers to tackle on a subject matter that must have been elicited from a hazy drug fueled debate. At least that is how it seems to deal with its abstract subject matter, the concept of the fourth dimension otherwise known as the unification of space and time, or space-time continuum. Apropos to cinema, the concept seems to fit perfectly and offers up a treasure trove of possibilities both scientific and philosophical. But the lack of cohesiveness to each short film make the overall structure a chore to get through and will leave you scratching your head in bewilderment rather than having deep philosophical conversations about space and time.

The opening short film, and arguably the best of the bunch, is Harmony Korine’s The Lotus Community Workshop starring Val Kilmer as himself.

by Steve Dollar

I don't care what you say; the cinema is richer because Harmony Korine exists within it. Hopes for The Fourth Dimension were calibrated, nonetheless. The only advance word on the new film, a three-director omnibus with vaguely Dogme '95 overtones, was that it starred Val Kilmer "as Val Kilmer," playing a motivational speaker, who rides a kid-sized bicycle and dazzles the faithful at Southern indoor skate arenas. I had penciled it in as part of the Tribeca Film Festival's freakshow trilogy, which included the stunt-casted Elmore Leonard caper Freaky Deaky (Andy Dick and Crispin Glover as playboy brothers) and Francophrenia (James Franco as "James Franco," playing a soap-opera character named Franco). It's much better than that.

Kilmer's episode, "The Lotus Community Workshop," opens the show, lensed by Korine in an extreme panoramic aspect ratio that seemed to highlight the flotsam-jetsam aspects of the director's beloved underclass milieu.

Last Friday night, “The Fourth Dimension” made its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival, a collaborative film that we thought got satisfying results out of its premise. In attendance were the set of directors responsible for the three short films created based on a collection of random instructions generated by Vice Films producer Eddy Moretti in a collaboration with Grolsch Film Works. The directors tapped included Harmony Korine (“Trash Humpers,” “Gummo”), Aleksei Fedorchenko (“Silent Souls”) and Polish director Jan Kwiecinski, making his big screen debut. We sat down to talk to Harmony Korine and Val Kilmer -- who stars in Korine’s film as a ridiculous motivational speaker -- about their short, “Lotus Community Workshop.”

The description of Korine creating a film within a structured set of rules may sound familiar. Back in 1999 Korine created his sophomore feature narrative “Julien Donkey-Boy” under the notably restrictive rules of the Dogme 95 movement.

Awesome secrets. Light and fluffy. Cotton candy. These are words you're going to be hearing a whole lot more should you tune into "The Fourth Dimension," the Tribeca Film Festival flick from Vice mastermind Eddy Moretti collecting short movies from directors Harmony Korine, Aleksei Fedorchenko, and Jan Kwiecinski.

The film is split into three segments, but if it's star power you're after, there's no where better to turn than "The Lotus Community Workshop," Korine's short starring Val Kilmer as — wait for it — Val Kilmer.

"The premise is so great," Kilmer told MTV News about his work in "Fourth Dimension," which mostly involves a fictional version of himself giving a rousing and thoroughly absurd speech to a down-and-out community. "I'm a motivational speaker, but I'm a complete idiot. I still laugh every time I say it!"

Describing "Lotus Community Workshop" as Korine's first flat-out comedy, Kilmer revealed that his character wasn't...

I came for the Korine. I stayed for the Fauns. The Fourth Dimension is a triptych of vignettes all loosely centered around the titular theme of space and time. Produced in part by Eddy Moretti of Vice magazine, the film takes us on a multifaceted, multicultural journey, three talented directors at the helm. First up is Harmony Korine's The Lotus Community Workshop, a hilarious bit of oddness starring Val Kilmer as Val Kilmer. In the alternate reality of the film, good ol' Madmartigan has quit acting to become some kind of spiritual guru/motivational speaker. Dressed like a 16 year old stoner, he lives in a giant mansion where he swims in the pool and plays video games with his much younger girlfriend- played by Korine's...

A collaborative effort produced by Vice and Groslch Film Works, anthology film "The Fourth Dimension" contains three short works that explore otherworldly experiences, but have little in common beyond that. Vice Films director Eddy Moretti provided the participants with a few vague guidelines, such as the requirement that they blur the line between reality and fiction, but left the content largely up to the filmmakers. That's probably a good thing, because the first and best entry of the anthology, Harmony Korine's "Lotus Community Workshop," could only have come to fruition if the "Gummo" director had no restraint. For this project, Korine (who recently finished shooting his next feature, "Spring Breakers," in Florida) turned to a name actor equally willing to work without restraint: Val Kilmer, playing "Val Kilmer," a pompous, retired actor living in an upscale neighborhood and giving nonsensical motivational lectures...

Last Friday night, the San Francisco International Film Festival hosted the world premiere of “The Fourth Dimension,” a production born out of a partnership between Vice Films and Grolsch Film Works.

“The Fourth Dimension” consists of three short films (though requests itself be called a feature film) by three directors, Harmony Korine (“Trash Humpers,” “Gummo”), Aleksei Fedorchenko (“Silent Souls”) and new-comer Jan Kwiecinski, all sprung from an identical creative brief. The brief itself is a list of over 50 instructions as incalculable as “You must forget everything you know” or specific as “A stuffed animal needs to make an appearance.” Even if you wanted to skip the context of the film’s roots, you can’t, as the shorts are hitched together with a series of bumpers that recall a number of the brief’s commands.

As the through-line between the shorts isn’t narrative or character based, there’s a...

This year's Tribeca Film Festival carries one of its strongest line-ups in years. In addition to films from Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Sundance and Berlin circuit, there's also a wealth of U.S. premieres or lesser-known festival movies in the line-up that look just as promising this time around; after a relatively weak SXSW, it looks like the East Coast is getting some of the good stuff.

Below, you'll find 15 films that seem among the most intriguing Tribeca has to offer this year. Of course, we can't speak for their quality as yet, but they certainly look promising at this point at time. And for the record, we haven't included the high-profile opening and closing films -- "The Five-Year Engagement" and "The Avengers" -- partly because they're getting more than enough attention elsewhere, and partly because we've already seen both (although can't review them just yet -- keep your eyes peeled...

The San Francisco International Film Festival unveiled the lineup and program for its 55th edition yesterday, 174 films in all, from 45 countries. Sfiff's not a festival that places much emphasis on premieres, but one that it is touting is The Fourth Dimension, a collection of three shorts by Harmony Korine, Alexsei Fedorchenko (Silent Souls) and Jan Kwiecinski, screening April 20 and four days later at the Tribeca Film Festival (Sfiff runs from April 19 through May 3, Tribeca from April 18 through 29).

The Hollywood Reporter debuted the trailer on Monday; and, for Sfiff, Cheryl Eddy fills us in: "Created under a 'manifesto' whose directives would make Lars von Trier shudder, this three-part film might look on paper like an exercise in forced hipness…. Working under orders tall, whimsical (according to the manifesto, a stuffed animal must make an appearance no matter what) and surreal, Korine's Lotus Community Workshop drops Val Kilmer in an alternate-universe existence...

#43. Spring Breakers Director/Writer: Harmony KorineProducers: Charles-Marie Anthonioz (Trash Humpers), Jordan Gertner, Chris Hanley, David Zander Distributor: Rights Available The Gist: Four college girls who land in jail after robbing a restaurant in order to fund their spring break vacation find themselves bailed out by a drug and arms dealer who wants them to do some dirty work...(more) Cast: James Franco, Selena Gomez, Emma Roberts, Vanessa Hudgens, Heather Morris and Rachel Korine (featured in pic above with husband). List Worthy Reasons...: After his most recent creative misfires in Trash Humpers and Mister Lonely, I figured that I wouldn't be too pumped for Harmony Korine's future output...well I think I might be wrong with that assertion. With a premise that sounds Gregg Araki-like, with Steven Spielberg's right-hand man Dp Janusz Kaminski on board and risk-taker James Franco being cast alongside tween icons (Selena Gomez, Emma Roberts,...

[1] Harmony Korine has built up quite a reputation as a polarizing cult filmmaker (writer of Kids, writer/director of Gummo, Mister Lonely, Trash Humpers), but that hasn't stopped him from doing quite well for himself in the relatively safe world of commercials. Among his past high-profile clients are Budweiser, Liberty Mutual, and Axe. His latest commercial effort sees him teaming up with high-end fashion line Proenza Schouler for a four-minute short titled Snowballs, featuring the brand's Southwestern-flavored Fall 2011 collection. Although Snowballs won't drop til next week, we've got an exclusive look at two posters for the film that suggest something artsy, colorful, and hopefully a little twisted. Check 'em out after the jump. [gallery columns="2" orderby="title" exclude="112515"] The new collaboration marks the second time Korine has worked with the brand. Last year, he created a short Super 8 film titled Act da Fool to promote Proenza Schouler's fall 2010 line. Watch it below: Though Korine hasn't...

Will Be One Part Of An International Anthology Film Produced By Vice Films When we first learned that Harmony Korine was teaming up with Val Kilmer for a mysterious Nashville-set project about a motivational speaker it seemed like a match made in Awesome Heaven. As it seems with most Korine projects these days, it's been flying under the radar moving to its own, probably bizarro, beat, but it seems there is much much more to this already idiosyncratic undertaking. The folks over at IndieWire have come across the creative brief of something called "The Fourth Dimension" an undertaking that will…...