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DIGITAL DILEMMA SURVEY RESULTS

In September we put up a survey on our site that aimed at getting input from filmmakers about some of the issues that impact the making and preservation of their films. Below are the results of the survey. These stats have been passed on to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for their final report which they will be publishing sometime next year. The only results that aren’t posted below are the ones where a written answer was required. And for those who aren’t familiar, read the story that inspired this survey. Thanks to those who participated. Please […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 30, 2009

Transart Film Express

Filmmaker, critic and Filmmaker magazine writer Shari Roman died in Manhattan on Wednesday, September 9. The following is a reprint of the last piece that Shari wrote for us, published in Summer, 2007. In the piece she surveys a number of young visual artists using film and film installation as a medium. For more on Shari and her life and work, visit the blog post on her passing. When Matthew Barney kicked off his five-part Cremaster film cycle in 1994, perforating the barrier between the art world and independent cinema, the multidisciplinary artist took some hard knocks from purists who […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 4, 2009

THE TRUTH: WANTED AND DESIRED

In a week of stories surrounding Roman Polanski’s arrest in Zurich on a warrant for his three decade old conviction on a sex charge involving a 13-year-old girl in the U.S. and retired prosecutor David Wells‘s sudden admission that he fabricated the comments he made in Marina Zenovich‘s documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, it got me thinking of Zenovich’s answer to our yearly question to Sundance directors the year she screened the film there in 2008. The question: “If you had 10 percent more of anything, what would it be and why?” I wish I’d had a 10 percent […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Oct 2, 2009

FILMMAKERS BLOG ABOUT INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK

You may have caught on overnight that IFP’s Independent Film Week is upon us. Throughout the event (which begins tomorrow and concludes on the 24th) filmmakers who are participating this year will take time out of their busy schedules to post their thoughts on the experience on the blog. Here’s who you’ll be hearing from: Kristi Jacobson (Hungry in America, Spotlight on Documentaries)Paul Lovelace & Jessica Wolfson, a.k.a. Lost Footage Films (Radio Unnameable, Spotlight on Documentaries) Rebecca Richman Cohen (War Don Don, Spotlight on Documentaries)Jennifer Phang (Look for Water, No Borders)Noah Harlan (Free In Deed, No Borders)Melissa B. Miller (The […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 18, 2009

“BRICK WORK” — TORONTO’S WAVELENGTHS 4: IN COMPARISON

Ironically, a strange, brilliant one-minute trailer for the Buenos Aires Festival International de Cine Independiente (BAFICI) by Argentine director Lisandro Alonso opened the fourth Wavelengths program of avant-garde cinema at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the piece, officially titled S/T (pictured above), an unblinking owl stared in luxuriously saturated color, while pounding drums created a masterful musical score. The work was being asked to function not primarily as advertising but as cinema — and experimental art cinema at that. S/T was followed by In Comparison, a 16mm film by accomplished filmmaker and installation artist Harun Farocki. Born in the […]

by Livia Bloom Ingram on Sep 16, 2009

Exclusive | OREN PELI TALKS PARANORMAL

We’ve been keeping tabs on director Oren Peli (pictured) and his debut low-budget horror Paranormal Activity after seeing the film and instantly putting him on our 2008 25 New Faces on Independent Film list. Now Paramount Pictures has announced that the film — which the few who have seen it compare to The Blair Witch Project — will be doing a creative release of the film starting Sept. 24th when it screens at Austin’s Fantastic Fest at midnight. In select theaters across the country on the same night the film will have free midnight screenings. The studio has also created […]

by Jason Guerrasio on Sep 15, 2009

A Filmmaker’s Glamorous Life: Barry Jenkins

In “A Filmmaker’s Glamorous Life,” online and in our latest print edition, Esther Robinson surveyed a number of filmmakers about the jobs they’ve taken to support themselves when they are not making films. In this blog series we’ll run the unedited responses we received that were then condensed for the piece. Below: Barry Jenkins. Filmmaker: How did you support yourself during the production of your last movie/movies? Jenkins: I had this job at Banana Republic that was more or less essential to getting my last movie done. Was a great job, I was the shipment supervisor at the largest Banana […]

by Scott Macaulay on Aug 4, 2009

A HARD 38

Ted Hope, who in the past has assembled lists of reasons to feel good about independent film, has posted the sobering opposite: a comprehensive list of “38 American Independent Film Problems/Concerns.” They include: Lack of access — outside of NYC & LA — to films when they are at their highest media awareness (encourages bootlegging, limits appeal by reducing timeliness). Distrib’s abandonment (and lack of development) of community-building marketing approaches for specialized releases (which reduces appeal for a group activity i.e. the theatrical experience). Emphasis on upfront compensation for star talent creates budgets that can’t reasonably recoup investment. HP&W fringe […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 16, 2009

THE REACTIVE VERSUS THE REFLECTIVE BRAIN

Laura Miller’s essay in Salon on Willifred Gallagher’s Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life is a must read for anyone pondering with alternating degrees of fascination and worry the effect of internet communication and online media on our attention spans as well as our psyches. This is stuff I think about myself as I wonder why, for example, I’ve never rewatched Berlin Alexanderplatz, the beautiful Criterion edition of which sits right in front of me, while I did just watch Justin Timberlake’s Mother’s Day SNL spoof. It’s easy for some of us to joke about being ADD and for others […]

by Scott Macaulay on May 10, 2009

WHY THE RECESSION COULD BE GOOD FOR FILMMAKERS

There are many reasons why the current recession is bad for films and filmmakers. Venture capital is drying up; lacking stock portfolio gains, individual investors don’t have the “mad money” that once fueled indie film production; and the entertainment conglomerates are cutting back by axing the specialty divisions that were the buyers for our films. However, there are reasons why which the recession may turn out to be a good thing for filmmakers, and some of these are the same reasons I just listed above. At the Steady Diet of Film blog, Erin Donovan posts, “Why the financial collapse is […]

by Scott Macaulay on Apr 1, 2009

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