In the last weekly newsletter I wrote the following: Last week Filmmaker gathered a small group of producers, sales reps and a distributor to talk about what some are calling a crisis in the funding and distribution of independent film. Our panel mixed generations, comprising veterans who remember independent film in the ’70s and ’80s as well as relative newcomers who have begun producing in the post-Pulp Fiction/Blair Witch era. I won’t go into all the details of our conversation here because the comments will run as a roundtable discussion in the next issue of Filmmaker. One thing was clear, […]
As we enter a lazy Labor Day news cycle, Anne Thompson picks up on her Variety blog the press release that THINKfilm CEO Mark Urman is leaving the troubled distributor and will join Senator Entertainment as the head of its new theatrical distribution company. Here’s the press release: Effective October 1, veteran film industry executive Mark Urman will join Marco Weber’s Senator Entertainment US as president of his newly formed distribution company. The teaming with Urman follows Weber’s recent acquisition of all shares in U.S.-based Senator Entertainment Inc. in order to focus solely on the production of English language films […]
IVAN BARNEV AND ASSORTED FEMALE FRIENDS IN DIRECTOR JIRÍ MENZEL’S I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND. COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSICS. Ji?í Menzel is rather like a character from literary fiction, the brilliant best friend who is beset by bad luck but accepts his lot in life with a wry, philosophical smile. Menzel, born in the former Czechoslovakia on the cusp of World War II, grew up with a passion for theatre but failed to get into drama school due to a perceived lack of ability. Instead he went to film school, where he was taught by the seminal Czech director […]
On the one year anniversary of Mike Jones’s “The Circuit” column at Variety, former AFI Fest Director Christian Gaines, who is now employed by Withoutabox, contributes a two-part discussion on festivals and our current failing indie film theatrical distribution model. Part one is titled “Do Festivals Matter?” and part two is “Things Gotta Change.” In part one, Gaines writes that festivals have become, for many films, the premiere exhibition opportunity: In the pantheon of viable choices for getting your film seen, film festivals continue to thrive (seems there’s a new one born every minute, right?), and that’s because, putting aside […]
M. Dot Strange, writer/director, 2007: Since being the only one hiding his face amongst the 25 I posted my animated feature film We Are the Strange on youtube subtitled in 17 languages where combined it has been viewed over 1.1 million times adding to my international audience. I did an animated music video for the NYC band “Mindless Self Indulgence” for the song “Animal” and it was included with the bands new album “IF” I’m currently completing the animatic for my new animated feature film Heart String Marionette. It is scheduled to be completed in January 2010 with production beginning […]
MATT BOREN, FLO JACOBS AND KEN JACOBS IN DIRECTOR AZAZEL JACOBS’ MOMMA’S MAN. COURTESY KINO INTERNATIONAL. Trying to make it as a director is difficult – and particularly so when your father is one of the most respected filmmakers in his field – however in the last few years Azazel Jacobs has made a name for himself in his own right with a string of individual and resonant films. Jacobs, the son of avant garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and painter Flo Jacobs, grew up in New York City and studied film at Purchase University in upstate New York. His graduation […]
This piece by filmmaker Barbara Schock appeared in our Summer, 2005 issue. The phenomenal painter, teacher and film critic Manny Farber called his film class “A Hard Look at the Movies.” It was the first upper-division college class I took. I’d transferred from a small college in the Midwest to the University of California at San Diego, and I’d never seen a foreign film, unless you count the Sergio Leone westerns. We watched the following films in a 10-week period, and it turned the way I looked at movies upside down: Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Max […]
Far away from the world of indie film one of the most dramatic show business stories is unfolding. As Nikki Finke and Variety are both reporting, a high-stakes showdown is occurring in court as Fox is suing Warner Brothers over the release of 300 director Zach Snyder’s upcoming The Watchmen. From Dave McNary and Tatiana Siegel’s piece: A judge has denied a Warner Bros. motion to dismiss 20th Century Fox’s lawsuit over Warners’ right to make a film based on the graphic novel Watchmen. Ruling is potentially a huge victory for Fox, which could wind up as a profit participant […]
This article, written by Bergen Swanson, originally appeared in our Winter, 2002 issue. YOU’VE DONE IT! The screenplay you’ve been slaving over for months has finally been optioned by an edgy production company noted for offbeat films. Or, the movie that has consumed your life for the past two years has been picked up by a noted distributor. Emptying out your savings, selling your comic book collection, sleeping on friends’ couches – it’s all been worth it. But then the unthinkable happens. The company that bought your film or script files for bankruptcy, and your project gets thrown into legal […]
ROBERT ENGLUND AND TREVOR MATTHEWS IN DIRECTOR JON KNAUTZ’S JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER. COURTESY ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT. At a time when horror films are getting ever more brutal, Jon Knautz brings a comfortingly old- fashioned feel to genre filmmaking. The Ottawa-born writer-director, who grew up on a diet of slasher films and 50s creature features, went to Vancouver Film School to pursue his dream of making movies. Knautz’s graduation project, Apt. 310 (2002), a stylish, tightly scripted noir, was the first in a series of shorts that harked back to classic modes of filmmaking. After making the blood-spattered comedy horror […]