Open | Filmmaker Magazine

AUDIENCE WANTED — APPLY WITHIN

Over at his blog,, Anthony Kaufman cuts loose on what he calls the “woefully underpublicized” Indiewire/Emerging Pictures Undiscovered Gems series, which I blogged about a few posts below. The series opens tonight with a 9:30 screening (repeated tomorrow) of Jem Cohen’s debut fiction feature, Chain. He writes: I wouldn’t have even known of the showing myself had I not received an email directly from the director. Emerging Pictures’ web address http://www.emergingpictures.com/undiscovered_gems.htm doesn’t even work; indieWIRE has no mention of the showing on its website, and the Sundance Channel, another sponsor, gives it no props. Maybe it’s just the crowded New […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 25, 2006

LOOMPANICS, RIP

In a time in which plans for building a nuclear bomb or engineering a bio-terrorism attack are scarily available on the internet, let’s take a moment to note the closing of Loompanics, the Washington state publisher run by Mike Hoy whose titles were once deemed downright dangerous. Now, however, as the company announces a going out of business sale, Loompanics’s books seem, paradoxically, like quaint mementos of a more innocent time. I say “paradoxically” because there’s no doubt that the publisher, which experienced its share of First Amendment battles, suffered after passage of the Patriot Act when people reading books […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2006

NET NEUTRALITY 101

Alex Curtis at Public Knowledge created a short two-minute clip explaining just some of what’s at stake in the upcoming battle for “net neutrality.” And here’s from Save the Internet, a new website launched by a coalition supporting net neutrality. From the site: Congress is pushing a law that would abandon Network Neutrality, the Internet’s First Amendment. Network neutrality prevents companies like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deciding which Web sites work best for you — based on what site pays them the most. Your local library shouldn’t have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to have its […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 22, 2006

SHOW STOPPERS

Nick Knight’s U.K. fashion and media website SHOWstudio regularly streams some of the most interesting collaborations between media artists and the fashion world. As Knight writes, ““SHOWstudio is based on the belief that showing the entire creative process — from conception to completion — is beneficial for the artist, the audience and the art itself.” Now, SHOWstudio is broadening its community by creating interactive projects with both outside artists and viewers. From the website: Initial investigations into live, interactive fashion—contained within a 180-strong archive of projects on the site—are now being extended into opportunities for SHOWstudio’s international viewer-base to be […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 20, 2006

GUATEMALAN HIGH-FIVE

Over at Green Cine Jonathan Marlow posts a long interview with Todd Rohal, director of The Guatemalan Handshake. The film is one of my favorite indies so far this year. (I’ve actually been following the film for a while as I selected it to be part of the IFP’s Rough Cut program last year.) The film opens this week at the Independent Film Festival of Boston, and for more on the film, go to its website and, while you’re there, click on the iTunes link and subscribe to its podcasts. In the interview, Marlow asks Rohal about casting two musicians […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2006

PRIVATIZE THIS!

Pat Aufderheide, Professor and Director for Center for Social Media at American University’s School of Communication, forwarded an email about potentially alarming news coming from the Smithsonian. She writes, “The Smithsonian recently announced an exclusive partnership with Showtime Networks to create ‘Smithsonian Networks’ as a joint venture with the Institution’s Smithsonian Business Ventures Unit. This arrangement could stifle the range of independent work on American history and culture that consistently brings new ideas, voices and perspectives to public attention.” Why? Because, she continues, “The Smithsonian Networks policy would preclude independent filmmakers from creating projects for other media outlets. According to […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 16, 2006

THE BEGINNING OF MY DAVID SLADE INTERVIEW

The whole thing is in the new Filmmaker, which we just sent to the printer, but Hard Candy is opening this Friday and it’s an amazing first film, so I’m putting up the first part of my interview with director David Slade to whet your appetite for both the film and the magazine. Filmmaker: Having worked for years in commercials and music videos, how did Hard Candy wind up becoming your first feature?Slade: I’d been offered a lot of scripts, but this was the first thing that took me back to the roots of why I wanted to become a […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 11, 2006

NOTES ON THE DISTRIBUTION PANEL

I posted below a response to Sujewa in the comments section, but I thought I’d repost it here along with a few notes coming out of the panel I moderated last night sponsored by the IFP entitled “Distribution Now! Distribution How?” Prompted by IFC’s opening of Caveh Zahedi’s I am a Sex Addict this week, the panel brought Zahedi together with two other filmmakers – Susan Leber, producer of Down to the Bone, and Jay Duplass, writer/director of the upcoming The Puffy Chair, whose films took the long road to getting their features in theaters. (Down to the Bone opened […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 11, 2006

PEN PALS, PART TWO

The debate playing out at Caveh Zahedi’s blog over, specifically, Landmark’s backing out of screening his I Am a Sex Addict gets more and more fascinating as Zahedi and Mark Cuban go back and forth in a increasingly long series of blog entries. At the very least, it’s a more interesting and thorough debate of the whole “day and date” releasing strategy than we’ve seen in the trades as it deals with the inevitable conflicts that will arise between competing alliances of theater chains, cable providers and theatrical distributors. After a seemingly futile letter to Steven Soderbergh to intervene, Zahedi […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006

DISTRIBUTION NOW… DISTRIBUTION HOW?

I’ll be moderating an IFP-sponsored panel this coming Monday on the challenges of the current distribution environment for indies, focusing on filmmakers who have persisted despite initial adversity to see their films out in the marketplace. It’s linked to the New York opening of Caveh Zahedi’s I Am a Sex Addict and tickets cost ten bucks, but $8 of the ticket price goes back to the theater screening Caveh’s film and you get a voucher enabling you to see the movie during the first week. We’re doing it, obviously, to help Caveh’s grosses in the first week as these are […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 6, 2006

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