Yesterday wrapped up the first day of the Open Video Conference, a two-day event being held at New York University Law School featuring speakers, screenings and events all centering around the topic of Open Video. The conference, which can be livestreamed on its website, is produced by the Participatory Culture Foundation, the Yale Internet Society Project, the open source video platform Kaltura, iCommons, and the Open Video Alliance. What is Open Video? Quoting from the website: Open Video is a broad-based movement of video creators, technologists, academics, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, activists, remixers, and many others. When most folks think of “open,” […]
ALBERT (VOICED BY BARRY OTTO) AND THE ANGEL (VOICED BY GEOFFREY RUSH) IN DIRECTOR TATIA ROSENTHAL’S $9.99. COURTESY STRAND RELEASING. Being an independent filmmaker is difficult enough without adding the further challenges of animation, so it’s always a pleasure to see the emergence of a visionary talent like Tatia Rosenthal. The Israeli writer-director and stop motion animator was born in Tel Aviv in 1971 and explored some very diverse avenues before deciding on her current profession: Rosenthal was in the Israeli Defense Force for two years, spent a period of time at medical school and then studied photography in Paris […]
The Netflix/Film Independent “Find Your Voice” competition has selected its ten semi-finalists, and now it’s time to vote for the winner, who will receive a total of $350,000 worth of production services and cash towards the making of his or her film. I’m going to go through the ten nominees right now and check them out but, not to play favorites, you might consider Dee Rees’s Pariah as we love her work: she was one of our “25 New Faces of 2008.” Her Netflix submission is below:
The 2009 Producer’s Guild “Produced By” Conference wrapped up on Sunday after two days of back-to-back panels discussing the past, present and future of the film business. Attendance was beyond capacity (begging the question, who was left to wait tables at Marix?) and while the information delivered wasn’t exactly groundbreaking, the conference did serve as a summation of the State of the Industry. In a nutshell, here’s where we are today: find alternate ways to squeeze money out of your product (not just ticket sales and ad dollars), and focus only on content with a pre-existing audience, i.e. sequels, adaptations, […]
At the end of March, an exceedingly odd trailer for a feature film showed up on Apple’s trailer page. For a film titled After Last Season, the trailer was a collection of almost random moments and conversation between students, researchers and a doctor seemingly involved in some kind of science experiment involving perception and telekinesis. The sheer mysteriousness of the whole endeavor — the fact that the trailer conveyed so little information about the film itself as well as its low production values (an MRI machine seemed clearly made from cardboard) — spawned an instant internet cult, with fans debating […]
Below I posted Nash Edgerton’s new Bob Dylan video and a couple of people told me they didn’t know much about his work. So, here’s a primer: First, his bio from the The Directors Bureau: Nash Edgerton knows his craft from both sides of the camera from his work as an actor, stunt performer, editor, producer, writer, and director. Since his short DEADLINE, which took out the top prize at Tropfest in 1997, Nash has directed a number of award-winning short films, music videos and commercials. The action packed trailer for Tropfest called THE PITCH was followed by the horror […]
After Last Season director Mark Region is as mysterious a presence as his film is within today’s independent moviemaking community. After Filmmaker wrote about the film a couple of months ago, I’ve tried to get more info on him and his film. However, after the trailer went viral and the film seemed a new cult hit, the production company, Index Squared, has taken a very low-key approach to promoting the movie. But I was able to get in touch with one of the lead actors, Jason Kulas. I asked him some questions about the film over email, and he sent […]
The IFP has announced today that executive director Michelle Byrd will be stepping down when her contract expires on Dec. 31. Byrd has been with the organization since 1992 when she was in charge of a number of membership and programming responsibilities before being promoted to deputy director in February 1996 and then executive director in April 1997. The IFP is the publisher of Filmmaker Magazine. From the release: In her role as Executive Director she has overseen the strategic direction and growth of all of IFP’s activities, including:– re-positioning the founding program (now called Independent Film Week™) and its […]
Today IFP announced the projects selected for this year’s Independent Filmmaker Lab, taking place next week. In it’s 5th year, the Lab is a highly immersive, free mentorship program for low-budget ($1 million) first feature films that have shot all or a substantial amount of footage but have not completed post-production. The goal of the program is to connect mentors with projects before they are submitted to film festivals. Past participants include The New Year Parade (2008 Slamdance Grand Jury Narrative Prize winner) and Half-Life (2008 Sundance Film Festival and Tokyo International Film Festival). The 2009 Narrative Lab leaders are […]
ERIC NDORUNKUNDIYE AND JOSEF “JEFF” RUTAGENGWA IN DIRECTOR LEE ISAAC CHUNG’S MUNYURANGABO. COURTESY FILM MOVEMENT. For Lee Isaac Chung, filmmaking is linked to tackling challenges and obstacles above and beyond those inherent to the cinematic process. The son of Korean immigrants, Chung was born in Denver in 1978 and grew up on a farm in rural Arkansas. He attended Yale and was studying biology, on track to become a doctor, when he discovered arthouse movies. Rather than continue on his path to a medical career, Chung took a filmmaking class given by Michael Roemer and went on to earn an […]