Since part of the mission of Stranger Than Fiction is to promote “lost gems,” it should come as no surprise that programmer Thom Powers would choose to screen Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera, a little seen (outside of film schools) Soviet classic that has had a profound influence on everything from Jean-Luc Godard to car commercials. A mish-mash of documentary material and visual effects, Man With a Movie Camera is a rapidly edited documentary experiment — and perhaps the world’s first music video. Last night’s screening featured a modern score arranged by John Walter, an editor and filmmaker […]
On June 5 and 6 IFP will present a weekend-long workshop with Bomb It director Jon Reiss on DIY hybrid distribution and marketing in New York City. Reiss has highlighted his journey releasing and marketing Bomb It in the pages of Filmmaker, and went into greater detail in his book Think Outside the Box Office. In the workshop Reiss will go over everything from creating a distribution strategy to advertising campaigns to transmedia platforms. And you also get into a networking happy hour. Lean more about the event and how to get tickets below. IFP PRESENTS THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX […]
What happens when you take an independent American filmmaker, a fetish for Communist memorabilia, and subtract all irony? Pretty much the films of Jim Finn. From May 27-June 2, the Anthology Film Archives will be playing the shorts and features of Jim Finn. Disclaimer: I have shown his films at film festivals I work for and commissioned Finn to make a Lunchfilm. The Busby Berkeley of propaganda, Finn has made three features with a lo-fi indie style that mixes larger Hollywood genre trappings in a big bowl. The results are funny, but also packed with socio-political commentary. Seems hard to […]
The 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival wrapped up this evening in France with Apichatpong Weerasethakul‘s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (pictured) taking the coveted Palme d’Or. Other winners include Xavier Beauvois‘s Of God and Men receiving the Grand Prix, Mathieu Amalric winning Best Director for Tournee, Juliette Binoche was awarded Best Actress for Certified Copy and in a tie Javier Bardem (Biutiful) and Elio Germano (La Nostra Vita) won Best Actor. See full list of winners below. Palme d’Or: Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul Grand Prix (runner-up): Des […]
I discovered a couple of excellent posts at the Coffee and Celluloid blog that will help you if you are contemplating or in the process of a crowdsourced funding campaign through a site like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Written by Joey Daoud, the posts chronicle his experience researching and enacting a campaign to raise $9,000 for his documentary on high-school combat robots, Bots High. The campaign was successful — he raised $9,100 — but, as always, the devil is in the details. In the first post, “How to Figure the True Cost of a Kickstarter Project,” he breaks down not only […]
South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo‘s Ha Ha Ha received top honors for Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section last night. The jury also gave a special award to the three actresses from Ivan Fund and Santiago Losa’s Los Labios (The Lips), Adela Sanchez, Eva Bianco, and Victoria Raposo. The main Cannes jury awards will be announced later today.
One of the discoveries of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival was a film that actually premiered at SXSW: David Robert Mitchell’s Myth of the American Sleepover. Receiving its international premiere in the Critics Week section, Myth of the American Sleepover is a dreamy, romantic, and wistful take on the amorous longings of our teenage years. It’s set during one night in which Mitchell’s various teen characters crisscross their Michigan town between several sleepovers, all-night slumber parties, and general hang outs. Without stooping to farfetched plot elements or melodramatic contrivances, the film compels our viewing by nailing just the right tone […]
At Google’s IO Conference this week, the search giant announced several new products and platforms, including the latest Android operating system, Froyo (named after “frozen yogurt”), and, perhaps most significantly for filmmakers, Google TV. At the heart of Google TV is a simple notion: right now we watch a lot of TV after it is broadcast on our computer simply because a) its creators have placed it there and b) it’s easy to find what we want to watch through internet search. But, if we could watch it on our TV screens? Wouldn’t we rather view it there? At his […]
Anne Thompson reports that starting today Rotten Tomatoes has integrated with Apple‘s iTunes store. According to Thompson: “Rotten Tomatoes is now part of Flixster; together the sites and their mobile apps reach more than 30 million moviegoers each month.”
I’m happy to see that one of my favorite films from last year’s fest circuit has found a home, Ben Steinbauer‘s hilarious and touching doc, Winnebago Man. If you’re not familiar with the antics of his subject, Jack Rebney (a.k.a “The Angriest Man In The World”), then you’ll get a kick out of this. Kino will release the film July 9.