Filmmaking

GET OUT OF THE VECTOR!

From an email from filmmaker Garrett Scott, who premiered his smart, sometimes surreal but always penetrating doc on a U.S. Army unit deployed in Fallujah, Occupation: Dreamland (pictured) in Rotterdam, where I got snagged in my hotel room with the Sundance flu for a couple of days: “It is widely believed that the deadly global Influenza epidemic of 1918 spread across the U.S. so rapidly because of mass troop mobilization for the First World War. No one realized what sort of by product would arise from moving all those bodies into closely compressed camps. Then, move them by train to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 8, 2005 Filmmaking
EMERGING PARTICIPATES WITH PARTICIPANT

From a press release we received today: “Emerging Pictures announced today that it will launch its Digital Cinema Network with an investment by Los Angeles-based Participant Productions. This digital cinema initiative will establish a nationwide network for the distribution and exhibition of specialty films in such venues as prestigious museums, performing arts centers, science & technology institutions, and restored movie palaces. These venues will screen independent and international films, both dramatic and nonfiction, as well as alternate content such as film festivals, dramatic performances, concerts, and other mission-appropriate programming. “Participant Productions, founded in 2004 by eBay pioneer and philanthropist, Jeff […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2005 Filmmaking
THE LONG ARM OF LONG TAIL

Checked out the Cyan Pictures site and discovered several new postings, the most interesting of which is the announcement of Long Tail Releasing, the Manhattan-based production company’s new distribution arm. Long Tail plans to release from 15 to 25 films in its first year and gear up to the release of an astounding 250 films annually, all by economizing and compacting the costs of distribution. Writes Cyan’s Josh Newman: “Long Tail started from a simple question: what costs make up that $250,000 [the initial releasing costs of a low-budget arthouse film], and how can we drastically reduce, share or eliminate […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2005 Filmmaking
THOUGHTS ON SUNDANCE: THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

A friend and I were talking about how, for those whose parents remained married, Noam Baumbach’s new film plays as a charming coming-of-age comedy. But for children of divorced parents, The Squid and the Whale seems to come off as a harrowing and painful relationship drama. I’m in the former camp, so I appreciated the excellent direction and acting (particularly by Jeff Daniels), the film’s balance between irony and affection, and its concise, purposeful pacing. It’s like an elegant novella extracted from a well-remembered life.

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 7, 2005 Filmmaking
THOUGHTS ON SUNDANCE: MAKING CENTS OF THE SPECTACLE

In today’s world of accelerated web journalism, normally I’d think I’m past the Sundance shelf date filing these final thoughts a couple of days after I returned from Rotterdam. But, despite all the columnists and websites, I notice that Sundance wrap-ups are still occurring and that a number of premiere films have yet to receive any press out of the festival at all. Like many others, I weighted my own attendance towards the festival’s first half (blame Rotterdam again) and will try to catch up on a number of films I missed on tape back here in New York. For […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 6, 2005 Filmmaking
GET YOUR FREAK ON

Mary Kuryla sent an email saying that it’s the last weekend for her indie feature Freak Weather at New York’s Pioneer Theater — fans of transgressive feminist portrayals of what Village Voice critic C. Carr once dubbed “the unsocialized woman” should check out this hard-edged film. Here’s what Kuryla herself wrote about her pic: FREAK WEATHER seems to finally have come into its own. The film’s punk sensibilities and irreverent, self-destructive protagonist, PENNY, strikes a chord with viewers in their twenties, in particular. Penny seems to express their own ambivalence toward the responsibility of parenting and ownership. Her foolhardiness in […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 4, 2005 Filmmaking
WHERE’S THE LOVE FOR LUDLOW?

Love, Ludlow screenwriter and exec producer has created an honest and engaging blog detailing his experiences making the movie and going to Sundance. In today’s entry, he identifies a phenomenon — call it the “Package B” effect — that I had been sensing myself. Patterson writes: Apparently there’s a bit of grumbling from some of the smaller films shown at Sundance this year. Some feel there was a bit of “frontloading” to the schedule. This meant that the bigger films with bigger stars were shown in the first week of the festival, while the smaller one’s premiered near the end. […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 4, 2005 Filmmaking
YARI DISTRIBUTES?

Anne Thompson, whose “Risky Business” ran in Filmmaker for the past year, recently moved over to The Hollywood Reporter where her identifiable and accessible brand of smart industry reporting has already garnered a number of scoops and interesting pieces. Her latest is an intriguing piece on indie mogul Bob Yari, which implies that the producer is holding off on a deal for Mike Mills’ well-reviewed Sundance entry Thumbsucker so he can self-distribute it through a new distribution venture. Writes Thompson: Yari isn’t thrilled by how his films have performed so far. Most distributors, he finds, use the domestic release as […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 4, 2005 Filmmaking
THE QUIET OF A KIDNAPPING

Ted Hope (who penned the Highsmithian title above) forwarded this email from director Barbet Schroeder regarding the disappearance of a friend of his in Iraq: Dear friends, Sorry to bother you with my own home made spam but it is unfortunately the only thing I can do for now. My close friend Florence Aubenas has disappeared in Bagdad a month ago. No news whatsoever since then. She was doing her job as a journalist for the daily paper “Liberation”. Everybody in France knows about it but I see nothing in the English speaking press. The only protection I can provide […]

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 4, 2005 Filmmaking
KUDOS FOR SEX ADDICT

I’ll have some stuff to say in the next day or so about Rotterdam and also, belatedly, Sundance, but while it’s still up and free I’m linking to this rave review in Screen International for Caveh Zahedi’s I Am a Sex Addict, which, unfortunately, premiered at Rotterdam before I got there. But from the sounds of it, there will plenty of opportunities to see it at festivals and, hopefully, in the theaters in the future.

By Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2005 Filmmaking

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