Filmmaking

ARTISTS FOR TSUNAMI RELIEF

A few days ago we posted an email from independent producer Tanya Selvaratnum about the devastating effects of the tsunami in her homeland of Sri Lanka. Now, Selvaratnum in conjunction with Syndicate is organizing a benefit in New York on January 20 in which 100% of the proceeds will go towards tsunami relief. There will be appearances from Angela McCluskey, Metro Area (Morgan Geist + Darshan Jesrani), Moby, Vernon Reid, DJ Rekha, Anna Deavere Smith, DJ Spooky, and Colson Whitehead. The Benefit Committee consists of: Alpana Bawa, Claude Arpels & Winsome Brown, Jennie Boddy, Gabri Christa & Vernon Reid, Nathan […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 6, 2005 Filmmaking
TALES OF BUBBA

Interesing news via Variety (registration required) today. Producer Michael London is partnering with Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner to produce for Paramount “a coming-of-age film about James ‘Bubba’ Smith, a teen who is to motocross racing what Tiger Woods is to golf.” It’s interesting not just because this story seems to be staking out some territory before a new Paramount head, presumably Brad Grey, comes in (says Variety, somewhat obliquely, “In an unusual development, Par topper Donald De Line has allowed development to progress without assigning an exec. The producers wanted it that way so they could flesh out their […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 6, 2005 Filmmaking
DESPERATE CRITICS

A TV show used to be many years in syndication before it became critical fodder for academics and intellectuals. But as it has swiftly climbed the ratings ladders, Desperate Housewives has also attracted notice from the sorts of writers who wouldn’t normally stoop to covering TV. Like Germaine Greer. Here’s the author of The Female Eunuch on the hit ABC show, as reviewed in The Guardian: “The series has nothing to say about the vicissitudes of the average or even the well-to-do American stay-at-home wife; it is neither feminist, nor pro-feminist nor proto-feminist nor post-feminist. Feminism has as little to […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2005 Filmmaking
EIGHT IS ENOUGH

Via press release we learned of producer Effie T. Brown’s ambitious new production and development slate — eight pictures ranging from a horror movie with a black cast to a couple of period dramas. She also announced that her production company, Duly Noted, has a first-look deal with HBO’s Original Programming Department. Brown, who received the IFP Producing Spirit Award three years ago, has been a producer on several HBO movies, including Real Women Have Curves, and The Stranger Inside, and she was also Executive Producer of Jane Campion’s hugely underrated In the Cut, which is on cable a lot […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 5, 2005 Filmmaking
PRODUCER REPORTS ON SRI LANKA AND TSUNAMI RELIEF

Indie producer Tanya Selvaratnum (On Line) sent an email out last week to her friends detailing the devastation that occured in her native Sri Lanka due to the tsunami. Her own family is safe but a number of family friends were lost, and Selvaratnum notes that 1/13th of the country’s entire population has been displaced by the disaster. In trying to figure out the best way to donate relief, she contacted the Sri Lankan government: “Something hilarious happened when I tried to contact the Sri Lankan government directly. I emailed the Prime Minister asking how we expats can help the […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 4, 2005 Filmmaking
Artist and Filmmaker Gretchen Bender Dies at 53

I learned over the holidays that artist Gretchen Bender, whose intelligent, visually seductive work crossed lines between visual art and film, sculpture and video, died in New York on Sunday, December 18 of cancer. She was 53. Bender, who, early in her career exhibited at the East Village Nature Morte Gallery and later Metro Pictures, created conceptually concise and elegant work that often critiqued mainstream media and the power imbalances contained within its representations. And while many artists at this time were working with appropriation and engaging in similar sorts of critique, Bender’s work always cunningly embodied within itself a […]

By Scott Macaulay on Jan 3, 2005 Filmmaking
TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE

“Adam and Eve” files, darknets, curries, topsites — no, I’m not referring to some kinky download website but rather the topics discussed in Wired Magazine’s essential January cover story by Jeff Howe referred to in the post below, which has just been posted online. It’s a look at how pirated material winds up on the web and for those who imagine it’s via teenagers sharing files with their friends, think again. The pirate internet distribution system is as rigidly controlled and hierarchical as the studio system except it boasts an entirely different group of players competing not for dollars but […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 30, 2004 Filmmaking
STARS OF TOMORROW

Via Defamer comes this odd L.A. Craig’s List talent call which I’m not quite sure speaks for itself: We are looking for the new Vincent Gallo & Chloe Sevigny!!! Independent Feature Film Production Company is casting adult male and female actors as well as experienced traditional actors for a new narrative film that has explicit scenes of sexuality. The film is a cross between “The Brown Bunny” and “Reservoir Dogs.” It’s the romantic and thrilling story of two professional hitmen who fall in love one night and the woman who comes between them. We finished a very successful narrative feature […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2004 Filmmaking
BLACK-MARKET BANGKOK

Former Filmmaker editor Chuck Stephens penned this engaging report from Soi Thonglor, the street he lives on “deep in the heart of Bangkok… where intellectual property rights aren’t exactly chief among local law enforcement’s concerns.” His “Ten Best” list (Number 1: Tropical Malady) includes a number of titles seen on bootleg DVDs Stephens picked up at his local grocery store. In the article, Stephens points out that apathetic distributors worldwide are causing dedicated cineates to rely on cheap black market DVDs just to keep up with the artform. Also great reading, although not on the web, unfortunately, is Wired‘s cover […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 29, 2004 Filmmaking
BE VERY AFRAID…

I’ve long been a fan of Dennis Cooper’s, the author of such formally audacious, heartbreakingly terrifying and sexually transgressive novels as Closer, Frisk and My Loose Thread. He has a new novel, God, Jr., a “PG-13” one, coming out this spring, but in the meantime Cooper has chosen the small Void Books to publish a “side project,” The Sluts, he considers too much for his regular publisher, Grove. Considering that Cooper has spent his entire literary career living outside the envelope, it does make me a little afraid to contemplate this new one. Says the press release: Set largely on […]

By Scott Macaulay on Dec 22, 2004 Filmmaking

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