Filmmaking
Filmmaking
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Why Didn’t Shane Carruth Change the Distribution Paradigm for this Year’s Sundance Filmmakers?
While many Sundance filmmakers last year this time were nervously awaiting distribution deals, one had done something completely different. Upstream Color director Shane Carruth entered the festival with a DIY distribution plan already in place. He partnered with Sundance Artists Services’s Joseph Beyer and distribution consultant Michael Tuckman, devised a theatrical campaign and swift VOD rollout, and was already at work on merch for the large fan base eager for the follow-up to his cult classic Primer. Carruth and his team pre-screened the film for journalists, including Filmmaker, and, we responded by endorsing both the movie and its distribution paradigm, […]
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“These Movies Work Better If You’re Really Stoned:” David Cronenberg on Architecture and His Early Work
TIFF’s acclaimed Evolution exhibition — celebrating the career of hometown boy David Cronenberg — had just closed when OCAD University hosted a free discussion between him and TIFF CEO Piers Handling. For the past five months, the art school has been partnering with Toronto International on The Cronenberg Project, a multimedia exploration of the director of Dead Ringers, Crash and A History of Violence. It’s appropriate that the discussion before an audience of 325 students and VIPs centered on Cronenberg’s student years, early films and architecture. The talk began with excerpts from Stereo (1969) and Crimes of The Future (1970), […]
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10 Tips on Festival and Distribution Strategy From Tall as the Baobab Tree Director Jeremy Teicher
The following is a guest post by Jeremy Teicher, who debut feature, Tall as the Baobab Tree, landed him on Filmmaker‘s “25 New Faces” list in 2013. A documentary-narrative hybrid, the film was shot in Sinthiou Mbadane, Senegal – a small rural village with no running water or access to electricity – with nonprofessional actors and a four-person crew. Tall as the Baobab Tree premiered a year ago at Rotterdam and is out now on VOD through iTunes, SundanceNOW, YouTube and a host of other digital platforms thanks to Sundance Artist Services and IFFR in the Cloud. I thought the […]
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Why the Zellner Brothers’ Kumiko is The Perfect Allegory for Independent Filmmaking
Warning! This piece contains major spoilers for David and Nathan Zellner’s wonderful new film, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter. If you’ve yet to catch Kumiko (which premiered earlier this week at Sundance), read on at your own risk. Tuesday night at Sundance’s annual short filmmaking awards (held, as all great award ceremonies are, at a bowling alley), David and Nathan Zellner delivered something of an impromptu keynote about the many joys and headaches of independent filmmaking. The brothers, who have had nearly half a dozen films at the festival over the years – as well as three features – talked about […]
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Co-Present Film Festival Connects Solitary Viewers through Twitter
Held once a month on a Saturday and lasting the whole day, CPFF is an online film festival with both public and private viewing capabilities. Conceived by Sherri Wasserman, “a citizen of the realm of timezone independence,” the idea is that viewers watching solo from their homes or private spaces can connect with other viewers watching the same film at the same time. The theme of the festival, born out of this concept of the solitary viewer, is “Prisons Real & Imagined.” Wasserman explains the ideas behind the festival: We, as a group of watchers, are (mostly) in physical isolation. […]
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Jonathan Harris Peeks Inside the Lesbian Porn Industry in I Love Your Work
A three-time Webby Award winner and a 2009 World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader,” who has exhibited at MoMA and built the world’s largest time capsule with Yahoo!, Jonathan Harris can now add the firestarters IDFA DocLab Award for Digital Storytelling – for his latest interactive project I Love Your Work – to his esteemed CV. In it Harris invites us on an online journey not to the Arctic Ocean with Alaskan Eskimos – as he did in his previous piece, The Whale Hunt – but into the lives of nine women residing in a much hotter climate, that of the […]
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Slamdance’s Distribution Arm, Slamdance Studios, To Release Bible Quiz
Providing exposure for its entries is simply not enough for the Slamdance Film Festival, Sundance’s alterna-sister. In January 2010, Slamdance announced a distribution partnership with Xbox and Zune, thus realizing Slamdance Studios. Last year, they partnered with Cinedigm to release four titles on VOD, and today, they announced the acquisition of their 2013 Grand Jury Prize Winner, Nicole Teeny’s Bible Quiz, for a limited theatrical release. In partnership with Virgil Films, Slamdance Studios will release the documentary about the world of competitive Bible verse memorization in New York and Los Angeles, before moving to Houston, Kalamazoo, Lubbock and Austin in cooperation […]
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Sundance Days Four and Five: Reflection
I think I incorrectly titled my last post. Compared to the rate I am moving at now, my pace on Day Three seems utterly turbo. I am combining the last two days because there is a bit less to report. A good number of our crew members had flights cancelled due to a snow storm in New York City, which allowed for a bit more time to reflect all together. Memphis screened at the Sundance Resort on Tuesday evening. While the movie played for a different audience than we had interacted with over last four days, our crew sat in […]
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Made in NY Media Center by IFP Membership Drive
Since opening its doors last October, the Made in NY Media Center by IFP has enjoyed a wealth of creative activity in seminars, workshops, screenings, events and even the average work day. The Dumbo forum is currently in the thick of its membership drive, accepting applications for the community workspace and incubator levels through January 31. Home to technologists, content creators, entrepreneurs and innovative companies like Seed&Spark, the Media Center offers its members access to workspace, networking opportunities, rentals, discounted classes and more. Apply now with the discount code Resolution14 and win a chance to receive 6 months membership for […]
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Watch Sarah’s Uncertain Path: An Op-Doc from the Directors of Rich Hill
For their Op-Doc collaboration with Sundance Institute grantees, The New York Times tapped 25 New Face Andrew Droz Palermo and his cousin Tracy Droz Tragos, filmmakers behind the Sundance title Rich Hill, to produce a short profile of Sarah, a pregnant Midwestern teen, struggling to strike out against her familial trajectory. Sarah’s Uncertain Path acts as a microcosm for what Droz Palermo and Droz Tragos call “a myth in America.” “If you have a strong moral compass, work hard and make good choices, you will have equal opportunity,” they write of this unfulfilled promise. “But after two years of listening to and documenting low-income […]
