Issues
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How to Succeed at Self-Distribution if You’re Not Louis C.K.
James Swirsky & Lisanne Pajot are the directors, producers and distributors of the Sundance award-winning feature documentary, Indie Game: The Movie. Before we began production on Indie Game: The Movie, we saw Louis C.K. perform in our hometown of Winnipeg, Canada. It was a great show. He was hilarious, and we walked away cemented in the idea that Louis C.K. is one of the funniest people on the planet. Creatively, it’s hard not to be inspired by someone performing at the top of his or her field. However, little did we know, two years later, Louis C.K. would be inspiring […]
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Positive First Impressions
Documentary filmmaker Farihah Zaman shares the secrets of the Good Pitch.
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On-Demand Culture
In April 2012, comedian Mark Malkoff embarked on an extraordinary challenge when he set out to use his Netflix account to watch as many streaming movies as possible over the course of one month. Reasoning that he wanted to get the best value possible for his $7.99 monthly subscription, Malkoff pushed Netflix’s promise of a deep catalog of streaming movies to absurd lengths, managing to watch 252 movies — about eight titles per day — and bringing his cost per film to an impressively low three cents. The stunt helped to illustrate how easily and cheaply consumers can access and […]
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Load & Play
Citadel New Video – January 29 A cousin of sorts to 2011’s Attack the Block, Irish writer/director Ciarán Foy’s Citadel ruminates on the sad lot of a new widower, caring for the prematurely born young child he lives with in a soon-to-be-demolished British suburban housing project. Little does he know that the hooded gangbangers who attacked his deceased wife with syringes and continue to hound him from afar are, in fact … wait for it … goblins! Skating around (or perhaps right through) some pretty ugly ethnopolitical undertones (the movie was clearly made pre-Trayvon), Citadel has the savage intensity and […]
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Transcendental Oneness
Maybe it was the weather. It was a warm night. Perfect Los Angeles, balmy, the reason people put up with that town. I was in Culver City. It was the second night of IndieCade, and I was half an hour away from finding myself having what I can only describe as a transcendental experience. IndieCade is the game world’s Sundance; I know I’ve written about it before in these pages, but bear with me. I was walking around with one of my favorite game designers, Jonathan Blow, (Braid and, forthcoming, The Witness) At some point, we became aware of a […]
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The Basement Tapes
It’s easy to imagine movies now as mutable data shuffled endlessly between clouds and hard drives — and for some movies, this is at least sort of the case. But the enduring value of original physical media — prints, expensive video masters and even physical screenplays — is being demonstrated in a dispute that is roiling the experimental film and video world. For the last two years, filmmaker Mark Rappaport has been unsuccessfully attempting — via private correspondence, public pleas and a court case — to retrieve needed archival materials he left for safekeeping with film critic and Boston University […]
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Parting Shot – Ben Wheatley
Since his 2009 debut Down Terrace, a pitch-black comedy about a Brighton crime family in decline, the fearless writer/director Ben Wheatley has gripped audiences with his brutally bleak take on British life. His follow-up, the hitman horror Kill List, entered even more terrifying territory, but Wheatley is now back to comedy with his third feature, Sightseers. After playing at Cannes, Toronto and Sundance, Sightseers hits U.S. screens this spring through IFC Films. It may be his lightest work yet, but Sightseers’ subject matter is still pretty grisly by normal standards: It’s a blood-soaked romcom about two vacationing 30-something lovers (co-writers […]
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Hits & Misses
Back to reality. That may be the best way to describe both the status of our global economy and the previous 12 months in independent film. Little irrational exuberance; no breakout blockbusters; but a few profitable indie films, perhaps countable on one hand, that stand out as carrots for hundreds of others to try to reach out and emulate. Calmer heads prevailed at Sundance 2012 as sellers and buyers got down to the more complicated business of the current indie marketplace, with its delicate mix of theatrical and VOD platform releasing. No one was throwing money around like it was […]
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Super 8
Flicklist The Digital Age is a double-edged sword in terms of creative content: it has exponentially increased the accessibility of creation and consumption but also led to a flooded and overwhelming marketplace. Co-founded by Ted Hope, Brian Newman and Antonio Kaplan, Flicklist is a new iPhone app aimed at streamlining the search for films that you’ll love. Simultaneously allowing you to compile your own lists of cinematic recommendations, as well as follow the tastes of people whose opinions you trust, Flicklist creates an interactive social-media platform around movies and then alerts you to their availability, whether online or at your […]
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How to Do a Festival Q&A
The credits roll, there is applause, and not too many people walked out. The festival premiere of your debut film is over. You relax, a year’s worth of stress magically departing your body. Sure, there will be tough times ahead; distribution is difficult. But, for the moment, you congratulate yourself on a job well done. But don’t relax too much, warn a trio of festival heads. Your next big job as a director looms sooner than you think. The audience Q&A you’ll lead in just a minute or two is surprisingly important when it comes to your film’s future life. […]
