Filmmaking

RAY TAKES DISTRIBUTION POST AT SIDNEY KIMMEL

Dave McNary reports in Variety the exciting news that Bingham Ray, former head of October Films and United Artists, will head up a new theatrical distribution arm at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. The piece is short on details, but the coupling of Ray, the distributor behind the U.S. releases of films by Mike Leigh, Todd Solondz and Lars von Trier, among others, with the production company behind such films as United 93 is very promising right off the bat. More to follow…

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2007 Filmmaking
ASPEN SHORTSFEST REPORT

Brandon Harris, who blogs at Cinema Echo Chamber, covered the Aspen ShortsFest for us and contributes here a round-up in advance of his more detailed coverage in the Summer issue: One of the premier showcases for emerging directorial talent in North America, the Aspen ShortsFest concluded its 16th addition this past weekend. The Academy Award qualifying festival looks abroad for a majority of its programming, with over seventy-five percent of its fifty-nine competition films originating from outside the United States. With crowds made up largely of local film fans, zero sales activity and industry involvement at a minimum, this quaint […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 10, 2007 Filmmaking
LITTLE BODIES

There’s an eccentric tale of gentrification, “Revenge of the Mouse Coffins,” in this week’s Village Voice involving… Michel Gondry’s apartment. Here’s the lede: Filmmaker Michel Gondry—director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep—has taken over my old East Village apartment. I’m talking about the large, run-down Avenue B loft we got kicked out of last year after a long, expensive legal battle. The one my husband and his brother took turns living in for 15 years. The one we mistakenly believed was rent-stabilized, that we’d live in forever. The piece, by Sari Botton, edges towards […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 4, 2007 Filmmaking
"FROM BUSINESS PLAN TO BOX OFFICE"

The 8th Annual IFP Independent Producers Conference will be on April 21st, 9:00-5:00 pm at Minneapolis Community & Technical College in Minneapolis. Guest panelists include Christine Vachon, Jeff Lipsky, Scott Z. Burns, and Lance Weiller. Titled, this year, “From Business Plan to Box Office,” the event is a day-long conference ending with a mentoring session. From the press release: A successful independent film producer knows the important elements of the business of filmmaking and how to utilize them to their full advantage. In financing a film, the producer must show potential investors that there is a strong producing team in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2007 Filmmaking
STATE PLANNING

The folks at Axium, one of the leading film payroll companies, recently sent an email updating its mailing list of changes and new developments in the various state film rebate programs. With their kind permission, here it is: COLORADO is planning to again fund its incentive, originally called the “Defense against Canada Act.” Details will be available soon. FLORIDA’s legislature is evauating proposed major changes to its incentives, which will switch from a rebate to a transferable credit of 15% or 20%, with $75 million available over the next three years. Details to follow. IDAHO is considering a bill which […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2007 Filmmaking
TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCE

Director Matt Manahan, who is finishing up post-production on his feature The Book of Caleb, recently attended the Head Trauma screening/concert/experience in Philadelphia I blogged about last week and sent this report. I went to see Head Trauma finally in Philadelphia. I can be pretty cynical when it comes to some indi films, but Lance is doing something genuinely cool, innovative and different. It was the first screening I’ve ever been to where the director of the film reminds you before the show to keep your phones turned ON, as you would need them to call a number that would […]

By Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2007 Filmmaking
AH-CHOO!

If you were in Times Square last weekend and thought of sitting down in one of those red sofas that signify a Kleenex ad, you might have found yourself in a Greenpeace campaign. From Gothamist:: Perhaps you’ve seen the Kleenex commercials where an actor playing a therapist sits with a red couch in a busy public space, ready for people to share their thoughts and feelings – and maybe have a good cry. Well, the Kleenex “Let It Out” campaign was in Times Square over the weekend, where cameras were rolling for passers-by to add their experiences to the reel. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 31, 2007 Filmmaking
Susanne Bier on After the Wedding

The marriage ceremony in Danish director Susanne Bier’s haunting After the Wedding, penned by frequent collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen and one of this year’s five nominees for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, greatly alters more lives than those of the young heiress bride, Anna (Stine Fischer Christensen), and her betrothed. Indeed, the film could be entitled Before, During, and After the Wedding. Anna’s father, burly, big-bucks exec Jorgen (Rolf Lassgard), invites Jacob (Mads Mikkelsen), an expat Dane whose energy is totally tied up with the orphanage for street children he works at in Bombay, but who is reluctantly in […]

By Howard Feinstein on Mar 30, 2007 Directing
FRANK AND BIER

On the main page: Nick Dawson’s interview with The Lookout‘s Scott Frank and Howard Feinstein’s talk with Susanne Bier, director of After the Wedding. Both films open today.

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 30, 2007 Filmmaking
KILLER OF SHEEP LIVES

Today in New York at the IFC Center Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep receives its U.S. theatrical premiere… 30 years after its completion in 1977. Made as the writer/director’s UCLA thesis film, Killer of Sheep went on to win awards at the Berlin Film Festival and Sundance, and it was declared a “national treasure” by the Library of Congress. The story of a slaughterhouse worker, an insomniac, struggling to raise his family in ’70s Watts, the film blended the work of non-actors and poetic visuals with a deeply humane sensibility that contrasted sharply with the blaxploitation films that appeared in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Mar 29, 2007 Filmmaking

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