Editorial, finishing, and VFX studio Uppercut has added two editors to its roster. Sean Fazende joins the team in Los Angeles and Milena Z. Petrovic will work globally, with home bases in NYC and Europe.
Uppercut has seen considerable expansion in the last year, with the addition of Lisa Houck as managing director and the studio’s new offices in Atlanta, building upon its New York flagship location. Fazende, who was previously at Cut+Run, joins Uppercut’s West Coast team, which also includes editor Danielle Sclafani.
Fazende grew up in Texas, transfixed by the endless loop of music videos on MTV. His love of storytelling prompted him to attend Boston University’s film school. After graduation, he moved to L.A. to begin his career cutting music videos, working with artists such as Lorde, Selena Gomez, and Calvin Harris. His fast-paced editing style naturally segued him into commercial work for various brands and agencies.
Petrovic grew up in a family of filmmakers in Serbia, where she began editing and directing at the age of 12. She graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and has since won numerous awards for her feature, documentary, and commercial work. She won the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film Editing for the feature The Belgrade Phantom. Her short film Bluebird had its premiere in Cannes, and her commercial work has won awards at such festivals as D&AD, Cannes Lions, Clio, Eurobest, Ciclope, APA, etc. She relishes creative collaboration across a variety of mediums, including fiction, documentary, music videos, and advertising. Uppercut becomes her first U.S. roost.
DOC NYC Unveils Main Slate Lineup: 31 World Premieres; 24 Films Making Their U.S. Debut
DOC NYC--the documentary festival celebrating its 15th anniversary in-person November 13-21 at IFC Center, SVA Theatre and Village East by Angelika, and continuing online through December 1--has unveiled its main slate lineup. The 2024 festival presents more than 110 feature-length documentaries (including yet-to-be-announced Short List and Winner’s Circle titles) among over 200 films and dozens of events, with filmmakers expected in person at most screenings.
Opening the festival on Nov. 13 at SVA Theater will be the U.S. premiere of Sinead O’Shea’s inspiring portrait Blue Road--The Edna O’Brien Story, a breakout hit from the recent Toronto International Film Festival that honors the legendary Irish writer, who passed away just a few months ago at the age of 93.
Closing the festival on Nov. 21, also at SVA Theatre, will be the world premiere of Peter Yost and Michael Rohatyn’s Drop Dead City--New York on the Brink in 1975, a look back at the circumstances and players involved in NYC’s mid-70s financial crisis. The festival’s Centerpiece screening on Nov. 14 at Village East is the World premiere of Ondi Timoner’s All God’s Children (also part of the festival’s U.S. Competition), a chronicle of a Brooklyn rabbi and Baptist pastor who join forces to create greater unity between their two communities, against all odds.
Included are 31 world premieres and 24 U.S. premieres, with eight of those presented in the U.S. Competition, for new American-produced nonfiction films, and another eight featured in International Competition, for work from around the globe. The Kaleidoscope Competition for new essayistic and formally adventurous documentaries continues, while the festival’s long-standing Metropolis... Read More