From Crain’s New York Business comes this disquieting news about the New York State refundable tax credit for film production that has been integral to the health of our business here. It’s titled “Television Production Stalls Out in New York,” and its subhead says it all: “The state’s tax credit for filming in the Big Apple has become a victim of its own success; the state is out of money and a lack of pilots is threatening jobs.” From the middle of the piece, this salient passage: Studio and local production executives began to worry several months ago about the […]
The SXSW Film Festival, unspooling in Austin, Texas from March 13 – 21, has just announced its line-up. Without further adieu… NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITIONThis year’s 8 films were selected from 737 submissions. Films screening in Narrative Feature Competition are: Artois the GoatDirector: Kyle Bogart. Writer: Cliff and Kyle BogartLab technician Virgil Gurdies embarks on an epic quest to craft the greatest goat cheese the world has ever known and reclaim the heart of his beloved Angie. Cast: Mark Scheibmeir, Sydney Andrews, Stephen Taylor Fry, Dan Braverman (World Premiere) Bomber Director/Writer: Paul CotterA bittersweet comedy about love, family and dropping bombs […]
I’ve posted previously on this blog about The Long Tail author Chris Anderson’s recent series of articles (and forthcoming book) on the economics of free. Briefly, Anderson’s proposition is that digital production and delivery, which decreases the marginal cost of goods, drives their purchase price down to zero. For most, this means adapting to the idea of distribution being ad-supported in some way, and this type of revenue scheme is what has dominated Anderson’s previous writings on the subject. But as I noted in a previous post on the Google Book Settlement, the problem with free models for the producer […]
BORCE NACEV AND VESNA STANOJEVSKA IN DIRECTOR MILCHO MANCHEVSKI’S SHADOWS. COURTESY MITROPOULOS FILMS. Writer-director Milcho Manchevski has only made three features over the course of his 15-year film career, yet the multi-talented Macedonian rarely allows himself a moment to catch his breath. Born in 1959 in the Macedonian capital of Skopje, Manchevski studied History of Art and Archeology at his hometown university before going to film school at Southern Illinois University on a scholarship. Following his graduation, he relocated to New York and began making commercials, music videos, documentaries, shorts and experimental films. In 1992, he won several major awards […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 23, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] Moon was a challenge to write. There were a set of pretty stringent criteria that we had come up with for ourselves in order to give us the best chance of getting the film made. I had to keep in mind a very limited budget, keep the cast as small as possible, write something that would best be done in a controlled, studio environment all while utilizing a very specific set of visual effects that would maximize production value for minimum cost. All that, and we didn’t want […]
I agree with Manohla, the reduced crowds make this Sundance the most pleasant in years. In her just-posted piece in the New York Times on the festival, however, she includes a bit of historical summary that nails the current conundrum facing the independent sector. An excerpt: The industry was still in attendance this year, but the high-roller fever that has gripped the festival for the last decade has cooled. Although this made for the most pleasant Sundance in memory, it also presents a host of unknowns. If the studios don’t buy independent films, fewer investors in turn may be inclined […]
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Thursday, Jan. 22, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] I wanted to tell a comic story with a fast, screwball structure but set in the real world and that feels genuine and convincing at every moment. It was inspired by the real-life story that’s kept the world gobsmacked for the past five years: a U.S. President (using and abusing a UK Prime Minister) who mounts an ill-thought-through military invasion in the Middle East that looks like it’s been planned on the back of a cigarette packet. I wasn’t interested in portraying those high up in power, but […]
Opening this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival is Michael Imperioli’s directorial debut, The Hungry Ghosts, a gripping look at five New Yorkers all struggling to satisfy their physical and spiritual needs while facing down their own – and society’s – flaws. Best known for his Emmy-winning portrayal of Christopher on The Sopranos, Imperioli has over the course of his 20-year career worked with such top directors as Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee. He’s also built a sub-career as a screenwriter, having penned numerous episodes of The Sopranos and Lee’s Summer of Sam, which originally Imperioli was going to direct. For […]
For Terence Davies, his youth — his early years in Liverpool, his relationship with his mother, and his feelings about being gay in that working-class town — have always provided the raw material for his filmmaking. His celebrated “Terence Davies Trilogy,” a collection of shorts, and later features like Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Long Day Closes summon up for the viewer an interior life with a rare combination of lyricism and heartache. These films cemented Davies’s international reputation, but after two more, non-autobiographical features (The House of Mirth and The Neon Bible), he became less active, a development […]
Writer, director and producer Edward Boyce sent us this blog post about his experience attending Sundance this year as the producer of a short film. Short. Film. Bitter. Sweet. I’m four days into my life as a Sundance anointed short film producer. I’ve felt obliged to schmooz and glad-hand so much that I feel like a reluctant student-council candidate. And good luck trying to wash off some of the weird tinsel-slime that seems to linger on the fringe of the artistic core at Sundance. (Festival resolution #12: never willingly enter a “gifting suite” again.) It’s a big deal and it’s […]