IFP has announced the 10 projects selected for participation in this year’s narrative edition of Independent Filmmaker Labs which takes place June 7-11 in New York City. The 2010 Labs include an initial five days of workshops that assist filmmakers with the technical, creative and strategic advice needed to complete their films; a Strategy & Networking Lab following in September with specialized workshops on web building, sales & marketing and audience building, as well as pre-scheduled meetings for the projects with potential buyers, funders and festival programmers during IFP’s Independent Film Week; and a winter intensive Distribution Lab, specifically focused […]
The Krakow Film Festival ended yesterday closing its landmark 50th year. The oldest film festival in Poland, Krakow Fest is one of the most beloved events spotlighting the work of docs, animation and shorts in Europe. This year’s Documentary Competition had two winners: Sanya and Sparrow, directed by Andriej Griazew, about the early consequences of capitalism in the Soviet Union, and the Golden Horn winner Beyond This Place, directed by Kaleo La Belle, about inter-generational drama between a father and son. The winners of the Silver Horns in the same category were Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, who chronicled the […]
Written and directed by David Mamet, shot by Robert Elswit, and starring Kristen Bell, Ricky Jay and Ed O’Neill. David Mamet’s “Lost Masterpieces of Pornography” w/ Kristen Bell, Ed O’Neill & Ricky Jay from David Mamet
I checked out the first two episodes of the Neistat Brothers HBO show on Thursday night at the Rooftop Films premiere party at Kips Bay. I liked them. Somehow, the Neistats got HBO to give them an eight-episode series which mostly seems to be about the two brothers making stuff and doing things and then documenting these processes in as rag-tag, homemade and lo-fi manner as possible. What kind of stuff? Stuff like smuggling American maple syrup past TSA to Amsterdam because the waffles are great but the syrup sucks there, or finding one brother’s biological birth father. (The series […]
The bad news regarding state film and television tax credits for films continues. Yesterday, it was reported that Pennsylvania is out of money for new projects applying for their incentive. Now, New Jersey is contemplating halting their incentive for fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1, 2010. Here is a letter I received from Tax Credits LLC. Senator Paul A. Sarlo, Chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, has called a special public Committee hearing to discuss the future of New Jersey’s Film and Digital Media Tax Credit Program. The Hearing will take place on Wednesday, June 9th, from […]
The 2010 Chicago Underground Film Festival, to be held June 24-July 1, will be honoring experimental film guru Jonas Mekas with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Mekas will attend a number of festival screenings, including that of the new documentary Visionaries: Jonas Mekas and the (Mostly) American Avant-Garde, at which he will participate in a Q&A with director Chuck Workman. Here is the complete CUFF lineup: June 24 8:00 p.m.: The Wild Hunt, dir. Alexandre Franchi. A jilted boyfriend enters the strange world of medieval re-enactments in a desperate bid to win his girlfriend back. June 25 6:00 p.m.: World’s Largest, […]
Outfest 2010: The 28th Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival will screen 147 films from 23 countries and host panels and events throughout the city, from July 8-18. Opening with Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman‘s Howl and closing with J.B. Ghuman, Jr.’s Spork, Outfest will have two other gala screenings as well as a number of special screenings of LGBT classics like Clueless and Hustler White. Here is the complete list of Outfest features: Opening Night Gala – HOWL, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (July 8 at 8:00pm – Orpheum Theatre) Closing Night Gala – Spork, J.B. Ghuman, Jr. […]
Out of 390 applicants from 23 countries, the Tribeca Film Institute and Gucci announced yesterday the seven recipients of the 2010 Gucci Tribeca Documentary fund, whose projects highlight globally important social issues. The projects that will receive a total of $100,000 in grant money are : African Deep, Directed and Produced by Rachel Boynton. – (USA) African Deep is a riveting adventure about the heated quest for oil in the deep waters off West Africa’s coast. Shot over the course of four years, at a time of rising demand for energy and increasing competition for resources worldwide, the film takes […]
After hit screenings at SXSW and HotDocs, Alexandre O. Philippe‘s The People vs. George Lucas will be shown at four film festivals this month: Edinburgh International, LA, AFI’s Silverdocs, and Munich. Philippe’s film examines the relationship between filmmaker George Lucas and his fans over the past thirty years. PvG is one of six documentaries at SILVERDOCS nominated for the WGA Documentary Screenplay Award this year. You can catch the film at any of the following screenings: Edinburgh International Film Festival: June 18 @ 7:45pm (Filmhouse 1) June 19 @ 3:30pm (Filmhouse 1) Los Angeles Film Festival: June 23 @ 8:30pm […]
Though it’s become a ubiquitous descriptor of anything short, visual, funny or shocking, setting out to make a “viral” video is like trying to make a “hit” movie. Videos go viral because they make people freak out a little bit. 2006 25 New Faces Casey & Van Neistat have made hundreds and hundreds of videos, earning their infectiousness the old-fashioned way: by getting forwarded, blogged, cited in court cases, covered on CNN, and — beginning this month — turned into a TV show on HBO. “I hate the word ‘viral.’ Any successful online short is ‘viral.’ A short that no […]