Festivals & Events
Festivals & Events
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“DUMBO is the Best Thing to Happen to Film Week”: Reinaldo Marcus Green Wraps it Up
As IFP’s Independent Film Week has officially come to an end, I’m reminded again of how amazing it is to do what I do, with the people I get to do it with. With the close of this year’s program, this marks my first “hat trick” — three years in a row! Five years ago I was sitting behind a desk, staring at a blank Excel spreadsheet, working for an insurance giant. Fast-forward five years, I’ve graduated film school, became a husband, father and a filmmaker. And in the last 72 hours, I just had more than two dozen meetings […]
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Episodic Series Bring an Innovative Spirit to IFP Film Week
Filmmakers, industry and IFP staff are breathing an accomplished sigh of relief today as IFP Film Week came to a close last night. The bulk of the week was centered around meetings between filmmakers and industry with IFP playing matchmaker. As Deputy Director of IFP Amy Dotson said, “It’s a first date.” I’d been on a lot of first dates, and recently rode one all the way to an actual wedding. So I felt prepared. Throughout the week filmmakers were given a chance to pitch their project to potential financiers, production partners, networks, agents and film festivals. Some filmmakers returned […]
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2016 Camden International Film Festival and Points North Winners Announced
Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) has announced the winners of the 2016 Festival, which ran from September 15-18 in Camden, Rockport and Rockland, Maine. For the second year, Conservation Media Group partnered with the Points North Institute to select projects from filmmakers and organizations alike that use video to create measurable action in ocean conservation or sustainable energy. 2016 CMG Action Grant finalists included: Alex Finn’s Whale Heritage Sites, Jeff Talbot’s Protect the Great Bear Sea, and Doug Woodring’s Global Alert – Floating Trash. This year’s $10,000 CMG Action Grant cash prize was awarded to Whale Heritage Sites. The 2016 class of […]
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My IFP Film Week Experience, Part 2: The Pitch Perfect(ed)
Read Part One of Isabel Sandoval’s IFP Film Week Diary, “The Female Gaze, Anyone?”, here. Forget Project Greenlight. If anyone wants to do a reality series based on the No Borders pitch meetings, it would be a more grizzled Swingers meets The Hunger Games — but with lookbooks subbing for bows and arrows. The thing is, I’m sure somebody actually used that logline for their own project. The proceedings have a jovially survivalist element to them. While my No Borders project Lingua Franca is my third feature, it’s my first U.S. production so Film Week doubles as Indie Film Financing […]
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Arnon Milchan to Receive Industry Tribute at 2016 Gotham Independent Film Awards
IFP, Filmmaker‘s parent organization, announced today that Founder and Chairman of New Regency, Producer Arnon Milchan will receive the Industry Tribute at the 2016 IFP Gotham Awards, joining previously announced tribute honorees Amy Adams, Ethan Hawke, and Oliver Stone for the ceremony on November 28, 2016, in New York City. “Arnon Milchan exemplifies the passion, drive, and innovative thinking essential to independent film,” said Joana Vicente, Executive Director of IFP and the Made in NY Media Center. “We can think of few others who have so consistently supported the best in auteur-driven filmmaking, working with such talent as Oliver Stone, David Fincher, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu. We’re […]
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TIFF Critic’s Notebook 7: The Dreamed Path + Wavelengths
I had the truly rare advantage of a loose enough schedule to accommodate seeing all four of the Wavelengths shorts programs at TIFF this year, and they were kind of a lifesaver. For someone who’s made my trade watching and writing about movies, I’m a (paradoxically?) terrible marathon viewer. Following full-length, narratively driven films, one after another, is hard work, speaking purely personally; an hour’s-ish worth of avant-garde-leaning shorts does wonders to clear the mind. It’s a different kind of stimulation, and if you don’t like one another will be along any moment. I’m going to punt on the vast majority […]
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Reading, Rejection and Relationships: Hot Tips from Three IFP Film Week Panels on Agents, Financing and Festivals
At the “Working with the Right Agent” panel at IFP Film Week, one thing we heard a lot of is that it’s a business of relationships and connections. Peter Trinh (International and Independent Film Agent, ICM) says that for big agencies, it’s impossible to look at everything that gets sent to them, so he pays a lot of attention to what the people he trusts recommend. Since his pile of scripts would be literally impossible to read in its entirety, he’s much more likely to read the ones he’s heard good things about. And to that point, he says it’s […]
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“Normalized Magic” at IFP Film Week
Like many of you, we’ve spent years making our film, 306 Hollywood. (Years!) And most of that time, it felt like we were crafting our project underground, without much notice, as if it was a film just for us. But now, here we are. IFP Film Week is upon us and finally we are bringing the film out into the world. Over the course of the week we will meet with over two dozen members of the film industry including sales agents, distributors, producers, and funders. Obviously we have big hopes. But everyone knows the problem with big hopes… It’s […]
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Bringing Web Series Butch and Nellie Take the Rap Game to Independent Film Week
It’s 9:20 pm on Friday, September 16th. I’m on the tarmac of Burbank’s Bob Hope Airport, just two Z-Quill and one red-eye flight away from my first IFP Film Week. My luggage occupies the last available overhead space. Inside are two stacks of business cards for myself and my producer Lindsey Villarreal, a raincoat (I’d heard it rains outside of L.A.), and a gay pride cape (costume for a homo-hip-hop performance on Wednesday night). Before I know it, it’s take-off time for me and my short-form episodic series Butch & Nellie Take the Rap Game. I first became involved with […]
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Feeling Empathetic through Virtual Reality at IFP Film Week
One focus of this year’s IFP Film Week is on the future of cinema in the form of Virtual Reality. A little background for those new to it: There are currently two ways of creating immersive worlds. The first wave and most common is spherical video, where you strap a bunch of cameras all together in an outward-facing circle. This approach has the familiarity of using cameras, but the viewer can’t physically move through the space — they’re akin to a locked-off tripod with a 360 swivel head, planted in one spot as characters and the world moves around them. […]
