Features

Self Reflection in Theater Two

Over the past year, various reckonings—from continued collective and individual action around #metoo to protests against institutions accepting donations from the Sackler family, Warren B. Kanders and oil giants like BP—that media and arts institutions have gone through have brought the weaponization of cultural capital via art-world philanthropy onto the front pages of newspapers. Meanwhile, in the U.S. documentary film field, the way we’re talking about who holds power and how it’s dispensed has remained narrowly focused.  Film festivals have jumped into this fray with public forums, panels and talks at which emboldened filmmakers and a new crop of festival […]

By Abby Sun

• Hits & Misses 2019: Surveying the Success of the Sundance Film Festival’s Theatrical Releases

  The times, they keep a-changin’. In its immediate aftermath, the story out of Sundance 2019 was its bounteous acquisition market and record-setting sales numbers—from New Line’s $15 million purchase of Blinded by the Light to Amazon Studios’ $27 million splurge on Late Night and Brittany Runs a Marathon. By the summer, a different narrative began to emerge. While these top acquisition titles earned millions of dollars at the box office, they all still under-performed in theatrical release. Then, Amazon Studios’ veteran head of theatrical distribution Bob Berney left the company, a departure that potentially signaled shifting priorities at what had […]

  by Anthony Kaufman
• Subscribers Fast, Cheap and Good
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  by Mark Terry
• Subscribers Every Day I Write the Book
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  by Anna Rose Holmer