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WE’RE NOT DRUG DEALERS
At his CinemaTech blog, Scott Kirsner reports on the speakers at yesterday’s Future of Film Conference in L.A.
Along with various business types discussing new media platforms like Joost, the speakers included a director, Jason Kohn, who discussed his Sundance hit, Manda Bala:
He wants to shoot movies on film, and have them seen in theaters. With his documentary, which focuses on corruption and kidnapping in Brazil, “I was reacting against the future of film. The future of film at the time was video, and I thought the future sucked. So I decided to change the future.” He said he was depressed after listening to all the day’s talk about digital distribution, and watching movies alone on tiny handheld screens. “This was made to be projected in a theater in front of hundreds of fucking people,” he said. “We’re entertainers. We’re not fucking drug dealers, just fulfilling demand.”
Kohn is a real firebrand. He worked on the movie over five years. After the first edit, he and his investors realized he didn’t have a compelling ending. The movie didn’t make it into the Toronto International Film Festival. So he went back to Brazil, and eventually met the dangerous character who provides a solid ending for the movie. Kohn doesn’t have distribution for Manda Bala yet, but it sounds like talks are still pretty active.
