Inspired by a true story, The Boys are Back is a deeply moving, wryly confessional tale of fatherhood that intimately evokes both the fragility and wonders of family life. It follows a witty, wisecracking, action-oriented sportswriter (Academy Award® nominee and Golden Globe® winner CLIVE OWEN) who, in the wake of his wife’s tragic death, finds himself in a sudden, stultifying state of single parenthood.

With turbulent emotions swirling just below the surface, Joe Warr throws himself into the only child-rearing philosophy he thinks has a shot at bringing joy back into their lives: “just say yes.”

United by unspoken love, conflicted by fierce feelings and in search of a road forward, the three multi-generational boys of the Warr household, father and sons alike, must each find their own way, however tenuous, to grow up. Their story is not just about the transforming power of a family crisis — but the unavoidable grace of everyday life and love that gets them through.

Screenings are available nationwide with limited seating. Fill out the reservation form to request your seat(s), and we’ll let you know if we were able to save you one!

View Screening Locations & RSVP NOW

This week, Hollywood lost one of its best wordsmiths when screenwriter Horton Foote passed away.  The 92-year-old writer has classics like To Kill a Mockingbird to his credit, as well as lesser known (but just as moving) films like Tender Mercies and The Trip To Bountiful.

In 1995, Heartland honored Mr. Foote with the Crystal Heart Career Achievement Award, predecessor to the distinguished Pioneering Spirit Award bestowed on industry leaders today.  Below is the tribute video that introduced this talented, accomplished man before he accepted the award.

Heartland’s thoughts and prayers go out all of Mr. Foote’s friends and family in their time of loss.  His contributions to the art of filmmaking will continue to inspire audiences for years to come.

Read the remembrance about Horton Foote at Variety.com

Truly Moving Picture Award winner Phoebe in Wonderland opens in select cities Friday, March 6.  Starring Felicity Huffman, Bill Pullman, Patricia Clarkson and the talented young Elle Fanning as Phoebe, the movie was the Closing Night selection at the 2008 Heartland Film Festival.  Writer/director Daniel Barnz visited Indianapolis for the occasion.  Watch his Q&A below, then visit the official site for the trailer and tickets/showtimes!

Overture Film’s Last Chance Harvey and Twentieth Century Fox’s Marley & Me are the latest films to receive the prestigious Heartland Truly Moving Picture Award from Heartland Truly Moving PicturesTM, announced today by the organization’s President and CEO Jeffrey L. Sparks. From director/writer Joel Hopkins, Last Chance Harvey released in select theaters on December 25 and garnered Golden Globe nominations for both Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. In Marley & Me, a lovable yellow lab who may just be the worst dog in the world manages to bring out the best in the Grogan family.

Distributed by Overture Films and expanding into theaters nationwide on January 16, Last Chance Harvey follows New Yorker Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman), who’s on the verge of losing his dead-end job as a jingle writer. Harvey goes to London for a weekend to attend his daughter’s (Liane Balaban) wedding only to learn she has chosen to have her stepfather (James Brolin) walk her down the aisle instead of him. Doing his best to hide his devastation, he leaves the wedding before the reception in hopes of getting to the airport on time, but misses his plane anyway. When he calls his boss to explain, he is fired on the spot. Drowning his sorrows at the airport bar, Harvey strikes up a conversation with Kate (Emma Thompson), a slightly prickly, 40-something employee of the Office of National Statistics. Kate, whose life is limited to work, the occasional humiliating blind date and endless phone calls from her smothering mother (Eileen Atkins), is touched by Harvey, who finds himself energized by her intelligence and compassion. The growing connection between the pair inspires both as they unexpectedly transform one another’s lives.
 
“Quietly compelling and richly poignant, Joel Hopkins’ Last Chance Harvey may begin as the story of two strangers alone in the world, but it segues effortlessly into a portrait of love in its simplest form—unconditional,” said Sparks about the film and its message.
 
The number one movie at the box office over the holiday season, Marley & Me is based on the memoir by newspaper man John Grogan about the puppy he and his wife adopt as newlyweds at the beginning of their lives together. In no time at all, Marley grows into a 100-pound steamroller of unbridled energy that turns the Grogan home into a disaster area. He flunks obedience school, chews off dry-wall, takes a bite out of the sofa, overturns garbage cans, steals a Thanksgiving turkey, consumes pillows and flowers, drinks toilet water, and chases the UPS guy. Amidst the mayhem he generates through the years, Marley sees the Grogans through the ups and downs of family life, through job and home changes, and most of all, through the myriad challenges of a growing family. As John and Jenny come to realize, Marley – “the world’s worst dog” – somehow brings out the best in them.
 
Last Chance Harvey and Marley & Me are two of the first films to receive the Truly Moving Picture Award distinction in 2009. To view Heartland’s complete list of Truly Moving Pictures, visit www.TrulyMovingPictures.org.
 
Heartland Truly Moving Pictures, a non-profit organization, seeks to recognize and honor filmmakers whose work explores the human journey by expressing hope and emphasizing the best of the human spirit.  Its flagship event, the Heartland Film Festival®, launched in 1991 and runs each October in Indianapolis, screening independent films from around the world. Each year, the Festival awards $200,000 in cash prizes and presents its Crystal Heart Awards to the top-judged submissions.  Heartland has awarded more than $2 million to support filmmakers during the last 17 years. The organization’s Truly Moving Picture Award was created to honor films released theatrically that align with Heartland’s mission. By bestowing a watermark to honored films, the award allows studios and distributors to inform audiences of a film’s uplifting message and appeal.  Heartland is also dedicated to its relationship with the National Collaboration for Youth and its expanding F.I.L.M., “Finding Inspiration in Literature & Movies,” Project.  For more information, visit www.TrulyMovingPictures.org.

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This time of year is a movie-lover’s dream.  The studios trot out the best of the best so that heavy hitters like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road are fresh on Academy voter’s minds.  

But what about the first half of 2008?  What about all those great movies that came out in January, February and March?  National Public Radio movie critic Bob Mondello has taken the time to recommend a handful of movies from these forgotten months.

Several worthy movies make the cut, but most notably are the inclusion of two Fox Searchlight releases recognized as Truly Moving Picture Award winners.  Young @ Heart, the story of a senior-citizen’s choir that performs the likes of Coldplay and Sonic Youth, and Under The Same Moon (pictured), about a young Mexican boy who manages to cross the border in search of his mother in southern California, are both small films that aren’t getting quite as much play in the press these days as they may deserve.

Also on the list is the character portrait The Visitor, recognized by Heartland as a movie that will give you something to think about as well.

Both are available on DVD, so you can add them to a Netflix queue with just a few clicks of the mouse.  Too much work for you?  Leave a comment here and we’ll select one lucky moviefan to get a copy of each on DVD!

Read the NPR article

Related:  An interview with Under the Same Moon writer/director Patricia Riggen.  Listen  |  Read

Already making countless top 1o lists, and even being heralded as the best film of 2008 by some critics, Truly Moving Picture Award winner Wall*E added yet another accolade to the list as it picked up the Best Animated Feature award at the ceremony in Hollywood on Sunday night.

Congratulations to the Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar release.  If you haven’t seen this charming, futuristic fairy tale, it’s now available on Disney DVD and Blu-Ray.  In fact, we’ve got a copy for one lucky winner who leaves a comment below!

See the complete list of Golden Globe winner.

Related:  Get the Wall*E Discussion Guide

It was a resounding hit over the holiday weekend, and it’s not too late to catch the latest Truly Moving Picture Award winner to hit theaters, Twentieth Century Fox’s Marley & Me.

Based on the best-selling novel by John Grogan, Marley just may be the world’s worst dog.  But over the years he spends with John, his wife Jenny and the kids who come along the way, Marley turns into more than just a family dog.  He’s a friend, companion and member of the household who brings out the best in them.

The movie speaks to the heart in a voice both tender and hilarious. It brings into sharp focus the loyalty, commitment and grace required to make any lasting relationship possible through the best of times and, as is inevitable, the difficult times, too.

Watch the trailer below, then visit the official movie site and find showtimes near you!

After an impressive per-screen showing on its first weekend of limited release (the film did nearly $15,000 per screen to Madagascar 2’s $15,500), Miramax Films’ The Boy In the Striped Pajamas (starring Asa Butterfield as Bruno, left) expands across the country this weekend.

Get a complete list of cities, and find a theater near you to see this great film.  Seeing it on opening weekend sends a direct message to the studios that you want to see more films like this on the box office landscape–films of substance, films than linger, films that have the potential to change the world.
After you’ve seen the film, download the FILM Project’s Discussion Guide (find it here) to help stimulate conversations that will surely follow after this moving film.

THIS JUST IN!

Miramax Films has put together a five-pack of Truly Moving Picture Award winners on DVD and we’re giving it away!  Submit here to win the group of DVDs, including Becoming Jane, Tsotsi, The Queen, Finding Neverland and, upon its release, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas!

Each year, Heartland counts on countless volunteers to help make the Festival happen.  These dedicated committees and individuals are the essential piece of the organizational puzzle without which we wouldn’t be able to bring you the Festival or any of our year round programs and events.

At the 2008 Crystal Heart Awards Gala, the program directly recognized and thanked these volunteers for their time and investments.  The video below features just a few of the many faces of Heartland volunteers as they share what it means to be a part of Heartland Truly Moving Pictures and how they define the difference they’re making for filmmakers and film-lovers.  Watch the video below, or here.

done

After its North American premiere at the 2008 Heartland Film Festival, Miramax Films’ The Boy in the Striped Pajamas comes to theaters today.  The movie is getting great reviews, and critics and advance audiences agree that this is a film you must see.  A few choice words:

This beautifully rendered family film is told in a classic and old-fashioned style, in the best sense, providing poignant and powerful teachable moments. -Claudia Puig, USA Today (3 1/2 stars)

…the power of the story and the performances — young Butterfield amazes — is indisputable. -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone (3 stars)

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is not only about Germany during the war, although the story it tells is heartbreaking in more than one way. It is about a value system that survives like a virus. -Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times (3 1/2 stars)

I want as many people to see The Boy in the Striped Pajamas as humanly possible. -Rex Reed, The New York Observer

Asa Butterfield and Vera Farmiga star in

The movie is playing now in select cities, and opens wider on November 14.  For a complete list of cities and several resources on sharing the film with groups and everyone you know, visit the In Theaters page at Heartland Truly Moving Pictures online.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas has also been chosen as a part of the FILM Project–to learn more about using the free, downloadable curriculum with your youth group, visit FILM online.

Have you seen the film?  Let us know what you thought of it in the comments section below!  Leave a note by Monday, November 10, and you may be chosen to receive a special movie tie-in edition of the book.

I’m sure you’ve already got your tickets to all of the Festival’s special events.  From the Filmmakers’ Brunch to the Film Institute, you can’t beat the experiences at Heartland. In case you’ve been holding out on getting your Closing Night screening tickets, wait no more!  We’re happy to confirm that Phoebe in Wonderland will wrap this year’s festivities.  From writer/director Daniel Barnz, the story follows young Phoebe who lives in a world all her own while her parents struggle to figure out just what’s going on inside their little girl’s head.

Starring Elle Fanning (Dakota’s baby sister), Bill Pullman, Campbell Scott, Felicity Huffman and Patricia Clarkson, this small film has big heart and we can’t wait to share it with you (learn more).  Barnz is scheduled to appear at the shindig on October 24 and participate in a Q&A with the audience immediately following the film.  Get your tickets; the event is held at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center in downtown Indianapolis.  It’s not a huge venue, so get your tickets before they go!

In other news, it looks like this year’s Family Movie Event, the exclusive Festival premiere of Walt Disney Pictures’ Tinker Bell, is one hot ticket.  So hot that it’s sold out!  If you’ve got a little fairy of your own who had her heart set on seeing this one, you may still have the chance.  Seats are on a first come-first served basis, and if they don’t fill up the day of the show, we’ll definitely let in folks who’ve come by hoping to get in.  No promises, but it may be worth a shot.  And remember, you can get this Truly Moving Picture Award winner on DVD October 28.

Lastly, be sure you’re checking out the Festival Community and plotting out the Festival films you want to see.  Stay tuned for inside info on Crystal Heart Award winners and some great Official Selections you don’t want to miss!

To talk to Mark Pellington, director of Truly Moving Picture Award winner Henry Poole Is Here, about movies is to talk to him about music and family and deep personal connections and the universal human condition. His long (and varied) resume includes a career-launching music video for Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” and the 2002 Richard Gere thriller The Mothman Prophecies.

But after his wife’s unexpected passing in 2004, Pellington worked through his grief and came out the other side with a conscious decision to make the kind of art that ultimately makes this unpredictable journey each of us is on ever slightly more bearable.

“It knocked me out in a way I could never have imagined,” he recalled of that time over the phone recently. “Art and creating were a great outlet…a great place to put these feelings. It obviously affects you as an artist and a filmmaker, as to what it is you want to make and what you’re drawn to.”

His renewed perspective gave him the guts to partner with first-time screenwriter Albert Torres on an obscure, unknown story then simply called Stain, a move he admits was a giant leap of faith.

“When I committed to try and make [the movie]…you just hope and pray that financiers, actors, all the machinations of the movie business kind of work in your favor,” he said.

The leap was made easier by the undeniable connection Pellington had to the story and characters. Henry Poole is Here centers around a man just given a terminal diagnosis and his instinctive response to retreat from life as he knows it. His determination to seclude himself from the world is challenged when a well-meaning neighbor sees something divine in a water stain on the side of his house. As all the evidence around him points to hope and the good in the world, Poole finds it harder and harder to hold on to his cynical frame of mind.

“At the end of the day, I needed a place to put feelings and this script had humor and hand a character’s journey that I could relate to,” he shared. “I related to…Henry’s journey home to repair some cracks and fissures in his spirit…and I think we all are trying to heal in one way, shape or form.”

The way he tells it, all of Hollywood’s machinations did end up working in his favor, from signing Luke Wilson to the title role (“I could just feel it in my bones that he had the human connection to Henry”) to filling each moment with the perfect soundtrack (“Each song had it’s own story of how it ended up in the film”).

The final product is a decidedly different type of movie that lives in a realm far removed from any other summer popcorn blockbuster. It will make you laugh and think, and if he’s done his job well, it will make you look at life from a slightly shifted perspective.

On Episode 20 of the Heartland Truly Moving Podcast, the complete interview with Mark Pellington. Coming soon! Learn more about Henry Poole is Here, or watch the trailer now:

The Heartland Film Institute makes industry experts from both Indianapolis and Hollywood more accessible to students than ever before.  The next program, The Art of Post Production, is scheduled for Thursday, September 4 in downtown Indy.  Local experts Eric Maloney and Brice Bowman will cover the ins and outs of finessing footage in order to make the most professional piece possible.

This event is a free program, and students at all levels of filmmaking will find the morning valuable.  To add to the experience, stick around for Lunch with the Experts, just $10 immediately following the seminar.  Get all the details on the event, or jump right in and register today and secure your spot at the event!

Heartland proudly announces the latest film to be designated as a Truly Moving Picture Award winner. Henry Poole Is Here, starring Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza and George Lopez, is in theaters August 15. When doctors give Henry Poole just months to live, he leaves a successful living and secludes himself in a house in the neighborhood where he grew up. His plans to live out his final days dejected and alone are interrupted, however, when a well-meaning but meddlesome neighbor sees a “devine” image in a water stain on the side of Henry’s house.

Where Poole shines is in the grace with which it handles what could easily be a touchy, off-putting subject. Nightly newscasters in towns across the country have covered something similar—a potato chip, a fallen tree, a dent in a car door that all look like the face of Jesus—and both cynics and believers come out to gawk. Henry himself is the film’s biggest cynic, damaged and confused in terms anyone with a history might recognize. It’s the measured pace at which he comes to accept the changes taking shape around him that set the perfect tone for this gem of a film.

His neighbor to the other side, Dawn, is perhaps the fulcrum on the see-saw of two extremes between a disillusioned Henry and the confidently faithful Esperanza. Her daughter is almost as emotionally damaged as Henry, and Dawn finds herself stuck somewhere between his skepticism and Esperanza’s piety, willing to try anything that might heal her little girl. The film’s most poignant moments come when Dawn finds the girl standing awe-struck by the stain.

Never once does Poole attempt to tell you what it is on this wall that affects people so significantly. There is no iron fist insisting on resolution; rather, a gentle hand makes it easy to see the film through the same glasses you were wearing when you came in. In the true fashion of well-made art, however, the film quietly reminds devout and cynic alike that it is the intangibles in life—hope, love, a human connection—that keep us waking up every morning to face another day.

Check out the trailer below, then learn more about the movie or visit the official MySpace page.

It’s been a busy summer here at Heartland, with Truly Moving Picture Award winners like Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Journey to the Center of the Earth and Wall*E all hitting theaters in the last couple of weeks. The tide is turning a little and the next Award winner isn’t in theaters for a couple of weeks (shh! it’s a secret!).

In the meantime, I thought you might be interested to hear what other films we’ve added to Heartland’s list of movies–they’re all films that you can count on to align with our vision of movies that make you feel good or think about the world a little differently. So, which are the latest and greatest to join the ranks?

Forever Young – This Mel Gibson vehicle has been called saccharine and sweet, but it’s also a tearjerker of a story about a guy who just wants to be with the woman he loves. When she falls into a coma, he offers to by cryogenically frozen (just go with it!) in order to wait out her ordeal. Fast forward 40 years, and he’s woken up in a world he knows nothing about!

Snow Falling on Cedars – When a fisherman in small-town Washington state is found dead, the tense climate of 1950’s America plays into the trial of the Japanese man accused of the crime. Ethan Hawke stars in a story that will surely raise questions and spark conversation about just how far we’ve come since the post-war days.

The Good Earth - An old film by any definition, this 1937 classic is based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck. The epic about a poor Chinese farmer is a story of humanity and bravery in the face of all the curve balls life has a tendency to throw in one’s path.

Akeelah and the Bee – Triumphant and touching, Akeelah is the young girl who becomes the unlikely hero in the National Spelling Bee. Her determination to be her best and her commitment to always doing what’s right takes her far in this family-friendly flick about the vast potential in all of us.

As the days stay hot and the pool stays crowded, take an afternoon to stay in the AC and check out one of these most recent additions to Heartland’s list of movie. Or check out any of the others at the complete list on TrulyMovingPictures.org

Got a movie you think Heartland would like? Nominate it!

The first Truly Moving Picture Award winner of 2008, Penelope is the modern-day fairy tale of a young woman in the curious position of being cursed with a pig’s snout.  Christina Ricci plays Penelope, whose parents have kept her behind lock and key while they look for a well-to-do suitor who will help break the spell.  Enter the charming James McAvoy as Max, the slightly-sketchy heir to a fortune might or might not be what he says he is.

Check out the trailer to this must-own new movie:

We’ve also created a brief discussion guide that plays on the movie’s themes of self-image and finding one’s own path in life.  Grab the pdf from Heartland, then sit down with your family, your book club or just the friends you invited over for movie night and start discussing!

If you caught this one in the theaters, leave a comment and we’ll pick someone to receive the DVD courtesy of Heartland and Summit Entertainment.  Heck, even if you haven’t seen it, leave a comment about how much you’re dying to and you could win it too!

Buy PENELOPE now

As promised, here’s the video from this week’s screening of Journey to the Center of the Earth, with an interview with actor Josh Hutcherson and a few impromptu reviews by audience members for good measure. They all loved it, and you will, too!

Summer is the season of big movie releases, but this month’s best-kept secret is one good-time adventure you don’t want to miss. Journey to the Center of the Earth might not be grabbing all the headlines (yet!), but we here at Heartland can say with confidence that you don’t want to miss this rollercoaster of a ride. It’s so exciting, Warner Bros. Pictures is even releasing it in Real D 3D cinema in select theaters!

The movie sets three explorers (Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson and Anita Briem) on an adventure of a lifetime when they go looking for one scientist who sought out the center of the Earth and never returned. Traveling through never-before-seen worlds, the trio comes face-to-face with surreal and unimaginable creatures—including man-eating plants, giant flying piranha, glow birds and terrifying dinosaurs from days past. The adventurers soon realize that as volcanic activity increases around them, they must find a way back to the Earth’s surface before it is too late.

One family happy to get in on the advanced screening of Journey to the Center of the Earth

Heartland hosted an advanced screening in Indianapolis earlier this week, and over 600 people left the theater with grins and great reviews after checking out the movie for themselves. Actor Josh Hutcherson even surprised the crowd with a late appearance at the theater, signing autographs and posing for pictures with some of his biggest fans (read more about the evening).

Coming soon: the first Heartland videocast, featuring an interview with Hutcherson and a few of the thumbs-up reviews for this newest Truly Moving Picture Award winner. Stay tuned!

Heartland proudly announced the latest Truly Moving Picture Award winner to come to theaters. WALL*E is the newest Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar production, about a lone robot left behind on an uninhabitable Earth. Over 700 years, this garbage-processing machine develops one unexpected flaw–a personality!

The movie is a true Pixar triumph, stunning in detail and heartwarming in story. When EVE, a probe looking for signs of life on Earth, Wall*E can’t help but fall hopelessly for the sleek machine.  He spends every moment trying to impress her.  When she’s completed her directive, Wall*E sets aside his own duties to look after her.

In a wild series of adventures, Wall*E finds himself on the space station where Earth’s population now lives and in the middle of a fight between man and machine. Can he help EVE and the captain convince the computer to send the ship home? Can he convince EVE to look past his dirty, worn exterior to the witty robot inside?

Even with its sparse dialogue, kids and their parents alike will be captivated by this charming robot and his knack for getting in and out of sticky situations. Pixar’s signature attention to detail and subtle storytelling mean there are elements for young and old–kids will appreciate the goofy antics of the robots and their human counterparts, while parents will recognize certain relevant messages on the state of our collective consciousness today.

Learn more about the movie, then be sure to vote with your movie ticket this weekend. Check out the movie and send a message to Hollywood that audiences demand these Truly Moving Pictures!

With the upcoming nationwide release of Truly Moving Picture Award winner Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, I got to snag a few minutes on the phone with actor Chris O’Donnell, who plays Kit’s dad Jack in the film.  Check out the latest episode of the Heartland Truly Moving Pictures podcast for the whole interview.  O’Donnell talks about how he got on board with such a fantastic ensemble cast, how excited his own daughter is about the movie, and what films are Truly Moving Pictures around his house (hint: one’s a classic Christmas flick!).

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl is the first from the popular book series to be adapted for the big screen.  Starring Abigail Breslin as Kit, the family film is a story of determination, courage and perseverance in even the darkest of times.  Catch the movie in a theater near you when it opens July 2.

Listen to the interview now!

Here at Heartland, we know movies are about more than just the two hours in front of the screen. Movies are about moments, about the ways the story gets to you and stays with you long after the credits roll.

To that end, we’ve started creating Discussion Guides for you to use with your family, your book club, your church group or anybody else. These short guides spur discussion through thought-provoking questions, simultaneously offering unique suggestions on getting involved in your community in ways that bring out the various themes in each movie.

Our latest guide is a companion to THE BUCKET LIST, newly available to own on DVD and Blu-Ray. Click over to Heartland and download the five-page guide. Once you’ve tried it out, leave a comment below or send us an email about how you used the guide for yourself.

One of the last Truly Moving Picture Award winners of 2007, THE BUCKET LIST is available today on DVD and Blu-Ray disc!

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star as two men who couldn’t be more different. One a jet-setting billionaire, the other a mechanic with a penchant for reading, the two become unlikely friends when similar cancer diagnoses land them in the same hospital room. Aware that their days are numbered, the new friends set out on a quest to do all those things they’ve always meant to do before they “kick the bucket.”

We’ve got copies of THE BUCKET LIST on DVD and we want you to have one! Leave a comment below (by noon EST on Thursday) and we’ll nab a random reader or two (or more!) to get their very own copy of this Award winner. Good luck!

If you’ve just gotta have your copy now, be sure to check out the back of the case and look for the Truly Moving Picture Award logo, the label that proves this movie is one you won’t be disappointed in.

Coming soon – a viewer’s guide to help you experience THE BUCKET LIST beyond the screen. Stay tuned!