Like many of you, I’ve been watching this season’s Project Greenlight with degrees of amusement, empathy and recognition. But it wasn’t until just now that I flashed on the tidbit of trivia that ties PGL director John Gulager and his dad Clu to today’s indie film scene. Father Clu, a veteran character actor who plays the bartender in his “contest-winner” son’s PGL horror movie Feast, has only one directing credit to his name, but it’s an evocative short that inspired the career of one of today’s most interesting filmmakers. In fact, Gulager’s 1969 A Day with the Boys, which d.p. […]
Here’s a novel promotional e-mail we received today from Todd Rohal, director and sound engineer of The Guatemalan Handshake. We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the story, but we thought you might find it of interest: “As the news of Tom DeLay’s misuse of funds is talked about daily here in the nation’s Capital, we at The Guatemalan Handshake would like to clear the air about our involvement… “Early on in our search for funding we were set up to meet with a high-profile Washington lobbyist. I bought a brand new pair of pants for the occasion. This lobbyist […]
What is a producer worth? Well, for the film DUMPED! The Musical, it’s $19.95 Producer and co-director Josh Lewis and co-director Joey Garfield are selling Associate Producer credits to their indie film on eBay for a nickel shy of a twenty-dollar-bill. The duo are trying to raise money to get their film through post and to submit to Sundance. Below is an excerpt from their plea. “What is an associate producer ? The Producers Guild of America defines an Associate Producer as follows: ‘The Associate Producer credit is granted solely on the decision of the individual receiving the Produced By […]
Knowing that the IFP/Los Angeles was to announce its split from the Independent Feature Project and rebranding as Film Independent (FIND) today, I hit the search engines for the official press release and was startled to come across this news piece about the arrest of an IFP leader. Fortunately, the piece refers to the detaining of a South African Inkatha Freedom Party MP for “dagga possession” and has nothing to do with the independent film organization. For the official release via Movie City News detailing the IFP Los Angeles’s rechristening as FIND, click here. An excerpt: “‘Film Independent [FIND] will […]
One thing about the film business that has really sunk home recently is just how long movies take to move from development to production. And sometimes a project you think is dead in the water, or one that seems like pure folly, suddenly receives a high-profile resurrection. Take Fast Food Nation, the film version of the best-selling expose. All around cultural provocateur Malcolm McLaren has been pitching this project for years, and today from Variety there’s news that it is one of the big titles on London-based foreign sales company HanWay’s Cannes slate. Rick Linklater will direct, and Maria Full […]
From an interview with Jean-Luc Godard in The Guardian today: “To illustrate the point, he tells a story of how he recently flew from Montreal to New York. When he arrived, the customs officer asked him: ‘Mr Godard: what are you coming here for? Business or pleasure?’ Godard indicated the former. The officer asked what business he was in. ‘Unsuccessful movies,’ Godard replied..
As we begin putting together our annual “25 New Faces” issue of Filmmaker, in which we identify and profile the filmmakers who we believe will the independent stars of tomorrow, we also check back on the successes of our past selections. So, when a press release from the Tribeca Film Festival arrived in my in-box this morning I noticed that of the three winners of the Tribeca All Access Award, two — Dennis Lee (a member of the company Kulture Machine) and Mario de la Vega (pictured) — were directors spotlighted in last summer’s issue. From the press release: “The […]
If you pick up the new issue of Filmmaker, you’ll notice by reading our cover articles on Miranda July and her first feature, Me and You and Everyone We Know, the large role the Sundance Institute had in developing that film and supporting its production. July’s film was a Summer 2003 Sundance Lab project and it went to become a hit at the Sundance Film Festival and will open from IFC Films this June. And then there’s another Lab project I’m very interested in — David Jacobson’s Down in the Valley, which I thought was an amazing script and which […]
I met with a young filmmaker the other day who told me that she couldn’t decide whether she should try to make her film for $2 million, $1 million, $500,000 or even do it no-budget at $150,000. She said she wanted to make sure that whatever she did, her film would make its money back. My response was to recommend that she construct her budget based on the creative and production needs of the film as well as the resources she’s able to tap into. But to bring in the specter of profitability? Well, as I explained, a $150,000 film […]
Sundance and Cinvegas programmer, journalist and very occasional Filmmaker contributor Mike Plante emailed to say that the new issue of his spirited film zine Cinemad is now online. Click on the link for the current issue, which contains interviews with Bruce Conner, Crispin Hellion Glover, Alejandro Jodorowsky and more. Plante also passes on some festival deadlines in his email which I’ll cut and paste below: “Some rad festivals coming up: MadCat Women’s International Film Festival seeks provocative and visionary films and videos directed or co-directed by women. Films can be of any length or genre and produced ANY year. MadCat […]