In this time of economic peril, many Americans have begun to shed frivolous spending for small but rich pleasures. With less nights of take-out or cineplex movies, they’ve learned that it’s the homemade things that count in this world. Filmmaker Anna Farrell portrays a tight-knit community in her documentary Twelve Ways to Sunday, one that always knew about the basic and organic things in life. Fixing up motorcycles, dishing up meals at the local diner, and canning fruit preserves, the people of Allegany County, New York, have always sustained through the good and bad times. Playing this Wednesday at Rooftop […]
Editor’s Note: Part one of this essay, “Things That Seem Real: A Three-Part Essay on Catfish and Other Movies,” appeared yesterday on the site and can be read here. These essays contain major spoilers regarding the film Catfish. Part Two: Catfish and Fantasy Over the course of an eight-month relationship that contained no physicality, Nev and Megan stayed in touch constantly. Using email, Gchat, Facebook walls, text messaging and phone calls, they pushed the boundaries of what are commonly understood to be the limits of an online-only relationship. Megan tells Nev about her family and the horses she takes care […]
Editor’s Note: The following essay contains major spoilers about the film Catfish. Part One: Catfish and Reality In the movie, the 14-year-old boy tells the school therapist that he likes to watch “little clips” on the computer, little videos. He describes them as “little clips of things that seem real.” Earlier in the film, we saw a montage of YouTube clips, from a cat playing piano to Saddam Hussein being hung to a baby laughing. Later in the film, the boy sees two girls die from a drug overdose right in front of him. How real that event does — […]
Hi again, Marc here with a report from opening day and the first day of meetings in the Emerging Narrative section for my character driven crime drama “Inside the Machine.” Yesterday started with an orientation with IFP folks, in a room full of other writer/directors looking for producers. Before they got started we all introduced ourselves, and afterwards started trading cards and contact information right away. I know how I felt, and informal chats revealed that I was not alone: having written a script, been selected to Project Forum, and maybe practiced pitching a bit, we didn’t really know what […]
It’s Independent Film Week and the IFP’s Independent Filmmaker Conference, so I thought I’d bring up Radiohead before some panelist does. A couple of years ago I remember sitting at a panel (not at the IFP, actually) at which a young filmmaker was asking how to jumpstart his own business model. A guy onstage in a suit who probably billed at $600 an hour looked at him and said, “The answer is Radiohead,” referring to the band’s strategy of releasing their In Rainbows digitally over the internet for whatever price fans were willing to pay. (The band subsequently released a […]
Hello everyone! We’re Roja Gashtili & Julia Lerman, NY-based writing partners about to attend the 2010 Independent Film Week with our screenplay, Pretty To Think So. The script follows awkward 8th-grader, Mina Lehsani, as she uncovers the secrets of her mother’s revolutionary past in Iran… but as we like to say, it’s a lot funnier than you think it is! We wanted to tackle the tragic ramifications of modern-day Iran’s tumultuous history, and the subsequent mass immigration it sparked, in a way not seen on screen before. Enter… the Lehsanis, a quirkily accessible Persian family whose hopes, dreams, flaws will resonate […]
Hello there. My name is Marc Maurino, as the byline indicates, and close watchers of this blog might remember that a few days ago there was a post entitled “Why I’m Looking For a Producer at Independent Film Week.” That post just dove into what I’m looking for in a producer and was scant on background information about myself, because it actually started life as a letter I wrote to Filmmaker magazine editor Scott Macaulay a few weeks ago, in response to his query in one of his editor’s letters about an upcoming article for the magazine (yes, I sometimes […]
Below is the second blog post from Katie Holly, producer of One Hundred Mornings, winner of the Workbook Project’s Discovery and Distribution Award. It begins a one-week run today at L.A.’s Downtown Independent. As I mentioned in my last post One Hundred Mornings was made as part of the Catalyst scheme, which was established to give writers, directors and producers a chance to make their first feature. Essentially it was a competition, and three winning films were given a chance to make a movie, fully financed and with additional production support provided in the form of mentorship. The mentorship element […]
I’m gearing up for one of my favorite work events of the year, IFP’s Independent Film Week. This time, however, I’ll be wearing two hats: as Arts Engine’s Filmmaker Services Manager, I’ll be attending the filmmaker presentations featured in the “Spotlight on Docs” section. Here, I catch a glimpse of what’s coming down the doc pipeline and get to scout potential projects for the monthly screening series I program, DocuClub. Every month, audiences gather to watch the rough cut of a documentary and offer thoughtful feedback for the filmmaker on the cut. The post-screening discussion is facilitated by an experienced […]
I just got off the phone following an interview with Indiewire. I was mealy-mouthed and unfocused, a good reminder that it’s never easy to talk about a script, even if you’re the one that wrote it. So that would be a bit of a stumble out of the gate for my push to get my new script The Garden made. It’s my first entry. My blog-voice is unformed. This may be a bit like a comedian’s first stab at stand-up: awkward for everyone. Long….blank….stares….. This first entry is supposed to be about my prep for the IFP Project Forum, which […]