One of the more curious projects out there right now is reported on by Jeff Wells today over at Hollywood Elsewhere. It’s the adaptation of Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures, which is to be directed by Kenneth Bowser, best known for his Emmy Award-winning episode of American Masters on John Ford and his helming of the doc version of Biskind’s previous Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. Now he’s heading behind the camera again for a dramatic adaptation of Biskind’s book chronicling the rise of independent film — or, more accurately, the growth of the mini-majors and the specialty film market. Wells has several pages up of the screenplay, and here’s a link to a scene at the beginning in which October Films founders Jeff Lipsky and Bingham Ray react to a cut of the film we’re watching that starts with Shakespeare in Love winning the Best Picture Oscar.

Here’s Wells:

It’s basically a series of scenes showing some famous indie players — Bingham Ray, Harvey Weinstein, Jeff Lipsky, Quentin Tarantino, David Dinerstein, Cassian Elwes, Robert Rodriguez, Jeff Katzenberg, Tony Safford, Amir Mailin, Scott Greenstein, Allison Anders, Kevin Smith, Tim Roth, John Schmidt, Linda Lichter — trying to out-do or out-finagle or out-bullshit each other. Arguing, sniping, boasting, bellowing, boasting, bitching, whining, moaning. It’s pretty much Biskind’s book — all the good parts, I mean — minus the narrative padding and commentary and windy perspective.