Caveh Zahedi has a blog up promoting his new film, I am a Sex Addict, which is opening from IFC Films next month. So far there’s been a lot of talk about porn star Rebecca Lord’s nipple (which would be pictured, but Blogger’s been having a problem uploading pictures, which is why photo placement on this blog is kind of erratic), but the blog is also prompting discussion of the efficacy of sef-distribution today. Zahedi, you’ll remember, was prepared to go the DIY route with his new I am a Sex Addict until IFC picked up the film following its […]
Both Indiewire and The Hollywood Reporter reported today that Focus Features co-president David Linde will become co-chairman of Universal Pictures, effective immediately, and Mark Schmuber has been appointed chairman. Shmuger has served as the studio’s vice chairman since 2000. Variety posted a longer article on the story later in the day that reports that the two jobs are equal in stature and that Shmuger received the “chairman” title due to his “longer tenure at Universal.” The two will work collaboratively and replace Stacey Snider, who recently announced her departure to become co-chair and CEO at Dreamworks. From the Hollywood Reporter: […]
Tne NYC production community, which, for the purposes of pitching projects and raising money, has gotten used to automatically knocking off 15% from its production budgets may have to revise its spreadsheet calculators. Articles in The New York Times and Gothamist both reference an upsetting development: the New York City tax credit program for film has been a victim of its own success. The $50 million allocated by the legislature for four years of the program has run out in only 13 months and, for now, producers aren’t guaranteed it will be renewed. (It is due to come up for […]
From Takashi Miike’s blog covering the production of his new film (helpfully translated and posted by the folks at Japan Film News): “So what’re ya shooting?” It’s a picture about a fierce battle between Aikawa Sho and a bunch of young boys.?So, half the actors are kids. “I’ve said this before but… is that really safe?” This is a wholesomely violent movie. You can revel in excitement that doesn’t fit within established genres, and after watching it I would like people to discuss human suffering with their mates over a few sakes at their local izakaya. Heh heh heh. Next […]
Over at Movie City Indie, Ray Pride notes this Reel Chicago piece reporting that Chicago-based avant-gardist James Fotopoulos is about to embark on his first “commercial production,” a $2 million adaptation of Jay Bonansinga’s police novel The Sleep Police. Ray links to his own profile of Fotopolous, but two can play at that game — here’s Travis Crawford’s interview with Fotopolous appearing in Filmmaker.
Mary Glucksman covered Jason Rosette’s Susan Hero in her “In Focus” column back in 2004, and now Rosette emails to say he is finishing his Santa Fe-shot film… in Cambodia. Rosette moved to Cambodia where he teaches video production at the Royal University in Phnom Penh. He’s got his film on 500 gigs of hard drive space, an occasionally updated blog up detailing his adventures in both Cambodia and in the trenches of film festival submissions, and a website where he aggregates all his filmmaking activities, including info on his previous film, Book Wars.
Josh Horowitz has a good conversation with writer/director Whit Stillman up on his Better than Fudge blog. His transcribed phone call works as a solid “part two” to Anthony Kaufman’s piece in the current Filmmaker which discussed the making of Metropolitan on the release of the film’s new Criterion release. Here’s the end of the piece, but click on the link above to read the whole thing: “JH: What do you miss most about making films?WS: Number one, an income. Number two, director’s guild health insurance. Number three I just miss the extroverted production life, being around technicians and being […]
Chris Gardner in Variety reports today that producer Michael London has launched a new financing and production company, Groundswell Productions. Starting with a capitalization of $55 million, the company plans to raise a total of $100 million and produce five films a year with budgets under $20 million. From the piece: “Groundswell’s business strategy will be a mix of foreign pre-sales for projects with established stars or pure equity investments in filmmaker-driven projects. The company’s slate will mix films from established directors and emerging talent alongside comedies and genre films. London said with Groundswell he will be looking for projects […]
Adam Dawtry reports in Variety on the latest in artistic gamesmanship from Lars von Trier, who announces a “Statement of Revitality” on the eve of shooting his new film, The Boss of it All. Reacting against various elements of the financing and publicity machine for arthouse cinema, Von Trier has put the last film of his Brechtian America-set Dogville trilogy on hold and is searching, as he did when he created “Dogma 95,” for a new way of working. Here’s his statment: “In conjunction with the departure of Vibeke Windelov, who has been my producer for ten years, and the […]
I received two emails recently from filmmakers who are highlighting their work on newly launched websites. The first was from director and editor Jim Helton, whose Blue Coup D’Etat is, as he describes, a “docu-poetic video blog” where he’s posting “sometimes little silent movies of friends and family, sometimes sound movies, sometimes simple, sometimes complicated.” Helton is a world traveller, and many of these mini-movies capture brief flashes from journies to Bangkok, Koh Samui and other places. Other clips feature (and are birthday gifts to) his filmmaker friends Derek Cianfrance and Shannon Plumb. The second site is BorderLine Films, the […]