6301 Results for “Open ”
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25 New Faces of Independent Film
The summer used to be a slow period for independent film, so what better time to focus our readers’ attention on the up-and-coming artists who’d be shaping the next generation? That’s what we were thinking back in 1998, when we decided to devote our Summer issue to what has become our most celebrated feature of the year, the “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” We looked at a lot of work, canvassed our colleagues, and tasked ourselves with finding not the obvious names, the ones already bold-faced in the trades, but up-and-comers whose early work impressed and excited us. On […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Jul 18, 2013 -
The World Is Your Ouya
E3 is the big videogame industry show, where all the console makers and big publishers show their wares for the year to come. The big news this year was the next-generation consoles from Microsoft and Sony. It was a week of epilepsy-inducing noise and lights and people shouting at each other about AMD chips, Radeon graphics processors, dualshock controllers and how the latest versions of Warfare this or that will blow your mind. The news that caught my eye, however, happened in a parking lot across the street from E3. But let’s start at the beginning. In 1977, Atari set […]
by Heather Chaplin on Jul 18, 2013 -
Home Screen: The Made in NY Media Center by IFP
Editor’s Note: The subject of this article, the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, is developed and operated by IFP, also the publisher of Filmmaker. Cantankerousness is a disease that can affect even the smartest among us — back in the day, Socrates protested his ideas shouldn’t be written down, fearing that there was no way the written word could capture the meaning and emotion of the human voice. But instead of honoring the wise old man’s wishes, his young pupil Plato recorded his inspiration’s objections, using the very medium that Socrates was so set on strangling at its […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Jul 18, 2013 -
Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2013
Greeks, if not Greece, persist. In March, the 15th edition of the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival presented 76 Greek premieres among its teeming 10 days of attractions, streaming many films across Greece and Cyprus, as well as 520 films in a Market with 55 buyers from around the world. “Here we are again, despite the hardships,” Dimitri Eipides, artistic director of the Thessaloniki International Film Festival and TDF reflected on opening night. Of its 1999 inaugural, he said, “Audiences were skeptical then. The establishment of an internationally acclaimed institution celebrating the art of documentary was something unheard of in Greece. But […]
by Ray Pride on Jul 18, 2013 -
Foreign Sales 101: What Independents Need to Know About Selling Films Abroad
This article originally appeared in our Summer, 2013 issue. With substantial revenue (sometimes well above 50 percent) coming from exploitation outside of a film’s home country, it is vital that producers know how to target and then structure deals with foreign sales agents. For those beginning to explore international distribution, here are some very basic ideas and concepts about the business of foreign sales to know going in. What is an international sales agent? In simplest terms, an international sales agent is the conduit to your film’s distribution outside of its country of origin. The sales agent will acquire a […]
by Ryan Kampe on Jul 18, 2013 -
L.A. Unplugged: Director Paul Schrader on The Canyons
Stunning black-and-white photos of movie theaters — old-style palaces and tacky multiplexes alike — sit underneath the credits of The Canyons, the 18th feature from veteran director and screenwriter Paul Schrader. Except rather than evoke the majesty of the 20th century’s dominant art form, they depict its collapse. These theaters are guttered, wrecked, their seats torn out, signage empty, neon fixtures torn and dangling from the ceilings. Some of these theaters — vintage single-screen Art Deco houses — are surely no longer viable in the modern era. The demise of the pictured strip-mall multiplexes, however, is most likely the product […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 18, 2013 -
Turning the Tables
Nervous laughter fills the air as a box of surgical masks is passed. Everyone is instructed to take one and place it over their mouths. With masks in position, the group of 12 is quickly ushered into an elevator. After a few moments there is a jolt — the doors open and everyone slowly funnels out. The seventh floor of the New School has been transformed into a sci-fi world. Debris covers the ground, and strange sounds echo down the halls. A lone girl staggers forward, her face concealed by a long mane of black hair. With head hung down […]
by Lance Weiler on Jul 18, 2013 -
Tall Stories
Presented as a “live screening,” Katerina Cizek’s Web-based interactive piece, HIGHRISE/Out My Window, was a mesmerizing highlight of the “Expanding Documentary” exhibition at the 2010 edition of IDFA. Now, nearly three years later, Cizek is poised to extend her artistic exploration of urban living to the Web pages of The New York Times. Peeking out from its paywall, the Grey Lady has nabbed the director and her National Film Board of Canada producers to collaborate on a forward-thinking op-ed doc series on the subject of vertical housing. Set to launch in the fall, it consists of four short documentaries, the […]
by Lauren Wissot on Jul 18, 2013 -
The Way It Is Now
For the past half-year or so, I have been in constant dialogue with the distribution and foreign sales companies who are releasing four of my recent productions. While engaging these companies, in conjunction with the four directors, I noticed some patterns emerging that are revealing of the current distribution landscape — patterns that differ dramatically from the old ways of theatrical and home video release. Rest assured, it’s not all bad news. It used to be that foreign pre-sales would help us get our dramas financed. Now we can barely find foreign sales agents for our American independent films, even […]
by Mike S. Ryan on Jul 18, 2013 -
The Day Before: Ryan Coogler on Fruitvale Station
On Jan. 1, 2009, two hours after the New Year’s stroke of midnight, a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer fired upon and killed an unarmed Oscar Grant on the platform at Oakland’s Fruitvale Station. Grant had been returning home to East Bay from San Francisco with friends when a fight broke out in the subway car. Cops pulled a number of people off the train, and with Grant face down and restrained, an officer named Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back. Later, Mehserle would say he meant to draw his Taser instead of his pistol. The incident was recorded […]
by Ava DuVernay on Jul 18, 2013
