Authors — Scott Macaulay

TRANS-CENDED

In Berlin I was walking to the premiere of Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica at the CineStar theaters this February with a friend, the head of a small indie distributor, when he got a phone call. The sellers of a film his company had bid on earlier in the festival had accepted his offer, and he had to turn back and meet them immediately to close the deal. I walked on and caught the film, which, if you’ve read my Berlin coverage in the print magazine this issue, I thought was sincere, empathetic and with an appealingly gentle humor. My only qualm […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2005
Z CHANNEL — YOU HAVE TO SEE IT

You can read about Xan Cassavetes’ doc on L.A.’s art-film cable pioneer The Z Channel (linked her via Nerve.com), but you should really watch it while it plays this month on IFC. The story of Z Prez Jerry Harvey’s murderous and suicidal demise is a captivating one, but what makes the doc really great viewing is its conveyance of a very specific brand of cinephilia that almost doesn’t exist anymore. Pre-internet, pre-DVD, the Z Channel’s generous scrambling of Euro greats, American auteurs and Euro-softcore — a mix that included everything from Berlin Alexanderplatz to Laura Antonelli festivals — undoubtedly shaped […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2005
U.S. DISTRIBUTORS IN CANNES

Anne Thompson files a fairly exhaustive survey of the American companies and their business objectives going into the Cannes Film Festival and Market. And even if you’re not headed to the Croisette, it’s worth reading as a summary of the state of the indie distribution business. Among the topics Thompson covers are the potential business partners of the Weinstein Brothers, the road ahead for Bob Berney in his new HBO/New Line theatrical distribution outfit, and the strategies of the smaller companies like ThinkFilms and Roadside Attractions. She also comments on likely pick-ups. From the piece: “Distributors who saw advance screenings […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2005
THE GULAGER INFLUENCE

Like many of you, I’ve been watching this season’s Project Greenlight with degrees of amusement, empathy and recognition. But it wasn’t until just now that I flashed on the tidbit of trivia that ties PGL director John Gulager and his dad Clu to today’s indie film scene. Father Clu, a veteran character actor who plays the bartender in his “contest-winner” son’s PGL horror movie Feast, has only one directing credit to his name, but it’s an evocative short that inspired the career of one of today’s most interesting filmmakers. In fact, Gulager’s 1969 A Day with the Boys, which d.p. […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 7, 2005
A PRODUCER’S WORTH?

What is a producer worth? Well, for the film DUMPED! The Musical, it’s $19.95 Producer and co-director Josh Lewis and co-director Joey Garfield are selling Associate Producer credits to their indie film on eBay for a nickel shy of a twenty-dollar-bill. The duo are trying to raise money to get their film through post and to submit to Sundance. Below is an excerpt from their plea. “What is an associate producer ? The Producers Guild of America defines an Associate Producer as follows: ‘The Associate Producer credit is granted solely on the decision of the individual receiving the Produced By […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 4, 2005
FIND-ING OUT

Knowing that the IFP/Los Angeles was to announce its split from the Independent Feature Project and rebranding as Film Independent (FIND) today, I hit the search engines for the official press release and was startled to come across this news piece about the arrest of an IFP leader. Fortunately, the piece refers to the detaining of a South African Inkatha Freedom Party MP for “dagga possession” and has nothing to do with the independent film organization. For the official release via Movie City News detailing the IFP Los Angeles’s rechristening as FIND, click here. An excerpt: “‘Film Independent [FIND] will […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 3, 2005
NEVER MIND THE DOLLAR MENU

One thing about the film business that has really sunk home recently is just how long movies take to move from development to production. And sometimes a project you think is dead in the water, or one that seems like pure folly, suddenly receives a high-profile resurrection. Take Fast Food Nation, the film version of the best-selling expose. All around cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren has been pitching this project for years, and today from Variety there’s news that it is one of the big titles on London-based foreign sales company HanWay’s Cannes slate. Rick Linklater will direct, and Maria Full […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 1, 2005
WHAT ARE YOU COMING HERE FOR, MR. GODARD?

From an interview with Jean-Luc Godard in The Guardian today: “To illustrate the point, he tells a story of how he recently flew from Montreal to New York. When he arrived, the customs officer asked him: ‘Mr Godard: what are you coming here for? Business or pleasure?’ Godard indicated the former. The officer asked what business he was in. ‘Unsuccessful movies,’ Godard replied..
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 29, 2005
25 NEW FACE ALUMNI WIN AT TRIBECA ALL ACCESS

As we begin putting together our annual “25 New Faces” issue of Filmmaker, in which we identify and profile the filmmakers who we believe will the independent stars of tomorrow, we also check back on the successes of our past selections. So, when a press release from the Tribeca Film Festival arrived in my in-box this morning I noticed that of the three winners of the Tribeca All Access Award, two — Dennis Lee (a member of the company Kulture Machine) and Mario de la Vega (pictured) — were directors spotlighted in last summer’s issue. From the press release: “The […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 29, 2005
SUNDANCE LAB PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

If you pick up the new issue of Filmmaker, you’ll notice by reading our cover articles on Miranda July and her first feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, the large role the Sundance Institute had in developing that film and supporting its production. July’s film was a Summer 2003 Sundance Lab project and it went to become a hit at the Sundance Film Festival and will open from IFC Films this June. And then there’s another Lab project I’m very interested in — David Jacobson’s Down in the Valley, which I thought was an amazing script and which […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 27, 2005

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