Just as the marketplace for independent features is shifting on the distribution side, so is the world of film financing. Since 2009, raising financing for low- to mid-budget films has been in a state of flux, a series of changes now culminating in the dominance of streaming platforms, which are disrupting traditional territory-based sales models while also employing inscrutable algorithmic methods to guide their purchasing decisions.  “The middle has dropped out, and budgets are getting smaller,” says Matthew Helderman, partner in BondIt Media, which provides credit financing for film and television productions. Projects that a few years ago might have […]

With Toronto wrapped, New York upcoming and Sundance on the horizon, the film festival season is here, and distributors — particularly the traditional arthouse distributors — are facing tougher competition than ever. While critics and audiences struggle to keep up with the sheer volume of buzz-worthy films, industry executives must contend with tectonic shifts in the marketplace, ensuring in the process that their release slates are kept full of strong pictures.  In this new environment, when a pay TV outlet likes HBO scoops the competition by paying near $20 million for Toronto’s hot title, Bad Education, traditional distributors are often […]

A reminder that the documentary world is rapidly evolving was once again made clear at this month’s 26th edition of the Sheffield Doc/Fest. At the festival’s two-day pitch event, the MeetMarket, as well as at the lively boutique cinema hub at Showcase Cinemas, there were buzzy talks around smartphone filmmaking, the growing rise of short-form content, the emerging marketplace for podcasts and the array of distribution opportunities now available to all forms of docs. Addressing the festival’s diverse span of content —- subject matters ranging from gender relations and frayed international politics to Macedonian beekeeping woes — festival programmer Luke […]

As a native Texan and dutiful SXSW attendee traveling to the Czech Republic, I was thrilled to hear that Richard Linklater and the Austin Film Society would be the subject of a Tribute at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival. The 53rd edition of the Czech-based event that concluded July 7 screened an early print of Linklater’s $23,000 indie phenomenon Slacker (of which he introduced wearing an Astros baseball jersey); Eagle Pennell’s 1983 cult classic Last Night at the Alamo; Robert Rodriguez’s inaugural low-budget hit El Mariachi; and Tom Huckabee and William Van Overbeek’s surreal, image-laden doc Death of a […]

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) concluded its 53rd edition on July 7th, and with it a solid line-up of both Western and Eastern European fare. Romanian director Radu Jude (Aferim!) won the Grand Prix for his darkly comedic past-meets-present holocaust drama I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians, and Barry Levinson won the Audience Award for Rain Man — a film that gave him the Oscar for Best Picture in 1989. The 76-year-old director was also honored with the Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema. Before discussing the film and industry […]

As it does every year, the 25th edition of Sheffield Doc/Fest offered more than just a stand-out mix of documentaries. Yes, there were many feature highlights — among them opening night film A Northern Soul, about one man’s desire to create and tour a musical bus post-Brexit in the U.K. working-class town of Hull; part archive/part testimonial fashion doc McQueen; the Sundance and Full Frame-winning Of Fathers and Sons, which masterfully depicts a father who loves his sons yet is teaching them to be jihadi fighters; and Under The Wire, which uses interviews and re-enactments to tearfully tell the story […]

CANNES – Given the news events of the last year, it’s no surprise that the deficit of women and people from ethnic, disabled, and LGBT backgrounds working within the film industry has been a focus at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. On a positive note, practical action has been a key theme here, with many female industry figures expressing a sigh of relief that change is slowly happening across the various sectors of the film industry. Still, this is not without considerable effort. To start the festival, an anti-sexual harassment hotline was put in place in partnership with the French […]

Los Angeles-based writer/director Joe Penna has made a name for himself in the YouTube world with his popular channel MysteryGuitarMan. Combining his passion for music and stop-motion animation, the channel, now over ten years old, boasts 2.8 million subscribers and over 400 million views. Videos such as “Guitar Impossible” have screened at the Guggenheim Museum. In addition to his many commercials for top brands, the native Brazilian gained further attention for his short films, including Instant Getaway, that was produced by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and Turning Point and was selected to play at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. […]

Egyptian writer/director Abu Bakr (A.B.) Shawky and his filmmaking and real-life partner Egyptian producer Dina Emam made an impact weeks before their first feature, Yomeddine, even screened in Cannes. Theirs is the rare first-time feature to screen in what is most certainly the most prestigious launchpad for any movie: the festival’s Main Competition. Meaning “Day of Judgment” in Arabic, the film centers around a man with leprosy (Rady Gamal, “Beshay”) who goes in search of his family across Egypt with all of his possessions loaded on a donkey. Together with a young orphaned boy (Ahmed Abdelhafiz, “Obama”), the two fend […]

After several years working in television, veteran independent filmmaker Lynn Shelton (Laggies, Your Sister’s Sister, Humpday) returns to the big screen with Outside In, a tense relationship drama dealing with the complexities of romance. Co-written by Jay Duplass and produced Washington-based Mel Eslyn and Lacey Leavitt, with both Jay and Mark Duplass on board as executive producers, the film opens today in theaters followed by a Netlix release on June 1. Jay Duplass stars as 38-year-old Chris, who is granted early parole thanks to the advocacy of Carol (Edie Falco), his former high-school teacher. As he struggles with the challenges […]