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 In the next issue: our 25 New Faces, of course. Interviews with Mike Cahill and Brit Marling on Another Earth; Evan Glodell about Bellflower; and Miranda July talks about The Future. An excerpt by Jon Reiss from a new book on self distribution by Jon, The Film Collaborative and Sheri Candler. And Paul Devlin’s important piece on the current IRS campaign against documentary film -- and how he survived his own audit with his financial well being intact. Look for it on newsstands at the end of the month. See you next week. Best, Scott Macaulay Editor  
For the past thirty-two years, Independent Film Week has been a one-of-a-kind event that has brought the international filmmaking community to New York City to celebrate, advocate, and introduce projects from both established filmmakers and new voices on the independent scene. Independent Film Week is a destination where the community of individuals involved with independent film can annually convene – from the filmmakers selected for their strong new projects to the individuals from companies, festivals and organizations aimed at helping the work get made and ultimately seen by public audiences. Industry registration is now open for this year’s Independent Film Week which will take place from September 18-22 at The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s new Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. More info here.
 Top Discussions Film Calendar, DIY Distribution, Current Cinema |
 Hammer To Nail Review Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest Project Nim Septien John Carpenter, The Ward IFP: Independent Film Week Registration Opens Fest Deadlines Join our Forums  
By Tom HallIn December of 1973, a two-week old chimpanzee named Nim Chimpsky was taken from the arms of his mother and given to a human family in the hopes of settling a raging intellectual debate. In a famous study, the linguist (and now-famous political philosopher) Noam Chomsky had asserted that language acquisition was solely the domain of human beings, an innate quality existing within and discovered by humans through experience and exposure to language, which combined to trigger our “language acquisition device.” Several linguistic theoreticians challenged Chomsky’s assertion, most dramatically in a series of animal language studies in the 1970s that hoped to prove that, raised among humans and given the tools of linguistic expression, animals could indeed learn to convey their thoughts in language and communicate with humans. read more  
Spanning the evolution of one of hip-hop's most influential groups of the past 20 years, actor and super fan Michael Rapaport looks at A Tribe Called Quest in this engaging documentary that celebrates the group’s jazzy beats and infectious lyrics that have since influenced everyone from The Roots to Kanye West. But the doc doesn’t shy away from probing Tribe’s downfall -- particularly the friction between Q-Tip and Phife Dawg, which has been ever-present since the group broke up in 1998. Sprinkled throughout with Tribe’s music and those who’ve collaborated with them, Rapaport reveals one of the groups that elevated hip-hop to its current heights. Check back to our website on Friday for a video interview.
PROJECT NIM
From Oscar-winning director James Marsh (Man on Wire), this new documentary chronicles a 1970s experiment in which a group of scientists raised a baby chimpanzee in an entirely human environment. Through modern-day interviews with the people involved as well as archival footage of Nim, the test subject, Project Nim chronicles the ups and downs of this outlandish experiment. For anyone whose ever wished they could talk to their pet, Marsh's film serves as a comprehensive study and stark reminder of the irreconcilable differences between humans and animals.
SEPTIEN
Four years since his last feature, Silver Jew, Michael Tully (who is also the editor of the site Hammer To Nail) creates his most ambitious project yet with the Southern Gothic tale Septien. Recalling not only Harmony Korine or David Gordon Green but also ‘80s B movies, the story follows Cornelius (Tully) who returns to his backwoods childhood home as suddenly as he left it 18 years earlier. Reunited once more with his two brothers (Robert Longstreet and Onur Tukel), the three partake in comical outings yet there’s a deep-seeded anger hidden inside all of them, and it begins to show when a mysterious drifter enters town. Read our interview with Tully about the film here.
 
This week on the blog, Jason Guerrasio shares July's VOD Calendar, Farihah Zaman chronicles fictional on-screen US Presidents in the July 4th edition of her Lady Vengeance column (pictured left), and Jamie Stuart and Daniel Scott deliver a video interview with Azazel Jacobs, director of the new film Terri.
To read more posts from our blog, click here.  
By Damon SmithJohn Carpenter has a well-earned reputation as the Master of Horror, even if the legendary director’s still-growing body of work has encompassed everything from TV biopics (Elvis) to sci-fi thrillers (The Thing, Escape from New York) and the occasional action-comedy (Big Trouble in Little China). Early on, he just seemed to have his finger on the pulse of something, well, evil. If you came of age in the late ’70s, before cable and home entertainment systems made R-rated movies easily accessible to viewers of any age, the dread-inducing, nightmarish trailers on network television for films like Halloween and The Fog (still viewable on YouTube) afforded brief but chilling glimpses into the nihilistic world of “John Carpenter,” a name more or less synonymous in my mind with the bogeyman. Something of a miracle worker with low budgets (his highly influential street-gang thriller Assault on Precinct 13 cost around $150,000), Carpenter has toiled and survived more than three decades in the movie business as a genre director who often writes, produces, and scores his own films. read more  Omaha Film Festival Early Deadline: July 8 WAB Deadline: November 18 Festival Dates: March 7 - 11, 2012 British Independent Film Festival Early Deadline: July 10 WAB Deadline: March 20, 2012 Festival Dates: May 7, 2012 Chicago International Film Festival Late Deadline: July 11 Festival Dates: October 6 - 20 |
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