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 […]
ADRIEN BRODY, RACHEL WEISZ AND MARK RUFFALO IN DIRECTOR RIAN JOHNSON’S THE BROTHERS BLOOM. COURTESY SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT. When his first film was released in 2005, Rian Johnson became an overnight sensation; but, as is so often the case, that “overnight” success took many years of work to achieve. Johnson was born in 1973 in Silver Spring, Maryland, and grew up in Denver, Colorado, and San Clemente, California. He came from a family of film lovers and by the time he was in seventh grade he was making movies, taking his Super 8 camera with him whenever he could. When he […]
I’m a couple days late catching up with news on the blog, but congratulations to Trevor Groth, who was appointed this week as the Sundance Film Festival’s Director of Programming. He’s taking over the position from John Cooper, who, following Geoff Gilmore’s move to Tribeca, was appointed the festival’s director. From the press release: A 16-year veteran of the Festival, Groth had been a Senior Programmer handling both narrative and documentary feature selection and leading the Festival’s Short Film Section. In his new role Groth will head up the six person programming team that is responsible for curating the Festival’s […]
Tied to this weekend’s opening of The Limits of Control, the FilmInFocus site (which, full disclosure, I co-edit) has posted quite a bit of content relating to writer/director Jim Jarmusch and the movie. Below is an excerpt from Lea Rinaldo’s documentary on the making of The Limits of Control. FilmInFocus will be posting sections of this piece, and, having seen the whole thing I can recommend it both as intriguing glimpse into Jarmusch and his production method as well as film in its own right. And, also, I interviewed Jarmusch about the movie’s striking score, which is compiled of tracks […]
The Sundance Institute has announced 12 projects for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, which take place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from June 2- 26. Congrats to all the directors and writers, including the two on the list — Benh Zeitlin and Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, who appeared on our 2008 “25 New Faces” list. From the press release: Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute today announced the 12 projects selected for its annual June Directors and Screenwriters Labs, taking place at the Sundance Resort in Utah from June 2-26, 2009. Under the leadership of Michelle Satter, Director […]
In the current issue of Filmmaker we feature the last of Bomb It director Jon Reiss’s fantastic three-part series on DIY distribution. In part one he outlined an alternative vision of DIY theatrical distribution; in part two he discusses DIY DVD distribution; and in part three in the current issue he discusses DIY web marketing. This third part will most likely be Jon’s last in the series — he’s writing a book about all of this that should be out later in the year — and I’m curious what practical articles you, our readers, would like to read about next. […]
I’ve been meaning to blog about this interview with director Ti West by Karina Longworth over at Spout for a couple of days now. (I missed it when I first posted but caught up with it through Karina’s Twitter feed when she tweeted that after the interview director West was forbidden from doing press.) You should check out the piece, but, in a nutshell, West alleges that the version of his new The House of the Devil, screening this week at Tribeca, is “not my version,” and that the financiers, Dark Sky Films, excised a four-minute scene in order to […]
TONI SERVILLO IN WRITER-DIRECTOR PAOLO SORRENTINO’S IL DIVO. COURTESY MUSIC BOX FILMS. If Paolo Sorrentino represents the future of Italian cinema, then the country’s filmic output certainly should be exciting in years to come. The highly accomplished writer-director was born in Naples in 1970, and first became involved in filmmaking in the mid-90s when he was an assistant director on a couple of films, The Gas Inspector and Drogheria (both 1995). Finding himself poorly suited to production work, Sorrentino transitioned into screenwriting, jointly penning Polveri di Napoli with the film’s director Antonio Capuano in 1998. The same year, he wrote […]
Walk in a few minutes late and you’ll miss the set-up and most of the actual plot of Damien Chazelle’s lovely debut feature, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. Guy’s a young, handsome, somewhat taciturn jazz musician who seems to move from one short-lived romantic encounter to another while saving his real passion for his trumpet. Madeline is a pretty, shy, somewhat directionless young woman who meets Guy, is affected by him and his music, and then is abruptly cut loose as Guy’s eye wanders. And yes, that’s all in the first few minutes and told mostly without dialogue. […]
In the current issue of Filmmaker we feature an excerpt for Scott Kirsner’s new book, Fans, Friends and Followers. Now, HDFilmTools.com has produced a conversation with Scott in which he discusses some of the macro trends affecting production, distribution and audience consumption in our business right now. Part One is here, and you can follow the links for Part Two and Part Three.