Columbus
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No Money, No Problem?
They’re the two most beautiful words in the cinematic language: tax credits. Almost no one who practices the seventh art got into it to learn about business; if anything, they got into it to avoid it altogether. Alas, it’s almost impossible to participate in the most expensive art form without being at least semi-fluent in business jargon. State film tax incentives are a crucial part of most American films’ financing these days, be they giant Marvel productions filming in incentive-rich Atlanta or a tiny indie shooting in Albuquerque, mere miles from the set of Better Call Saul. As of this […]
by Matt Prigge on Mar 14, 2019 -
John Cho Talks About the Challenges of Acting in Searching, the Importance of Eye Contact, and Shooting from the Hip
John Cho is perhaps best known for playing Sulu in the Star Trek reboots and Harold in the Harold and Kumar films. His new movie Searching takes place entirely on computer screens. Cho’s performance is one of the reasons why it is a successful piece of true cinema and not a novelty. We discuss the unique challenges of performing alone in some scenes and trusting director Aneesh Chaganty to navigate him through the space. We also talk about one of my favorite recent indie films, Columbus, and the connection he felt with co-star Haley Lu Richardson that truly powers the […]
by Peter Rinaldi on Aug 28, 2018 -
Wide Open or Ajar: Theatrical Windows in the VOD Age
It used to be so simple: Release a movie in theaters and, several months later, it would come to your local video store. Nowadays, each and every film’s release pattern and chosen distribution platforms are—or, at least, should be—idiosyncratic, unique, and specifically tailored. “The first thing you have to ask yourself,” distribution consultant Michael Tuckman says, “is who is your audience, and work backwards from there to figure out what windowing you’re going to do.” If the target audience is a young demographic who spend most of their time on devices, then, according to The Orchard’s Paul Davidson, “a SVOD […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Jun 11, 2018 -
At SXSW, Sundance Shares Columbus Distribution Figures and Offers DIY Distribution Tips
Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Initiative released today a case study for one of its inaugural films that premiered at Sundance last year: Columbus, from :: kogonada, who appeared on Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film list. Opening to strong critical acclaim and grossing over $1 million at the U.S. box office, the film is centered around a Korean-born man who finds himself stuck in Columbus, Indiana, where his father is in a coma. In two weeks, an additional case study for Jennifer Brea’s Oscar short-listed doc Unrest will be released. Established in May 2017, the initiative is aimed at […]
by Tiffany Pritchard on Mar 14, 2018 -
2017 in Ten Double Features
Why not pair, rather than pit against one another, the great films of a given year? This was the question that led me to reconsider the year-end top-10 list in terms of double features. In 2016 and 2015 I ranked my favorite double features of the year on this very site. I love the double bill for its flexibility. You can pair films based on any connective tissue: style, setting, subject matter, theme, time period, director, star. Viewing and thinking about films this way urges you to consider them anew. What do we think of the suburban woes of Lady […]
by Soheil Rezayazdi on Jan 3, 2018 -
Hits and Misses: Anthony Kaufman Surveys the Sundance Class of ’17
The headlines said it all: “Hollywood Faces August Death March,” “Bummer Summer” and “Beleaguered Box Office.” OK, Hollywood had a tough year, but does that necessarily apply to independent films? Well, as the saying goes, a receding tide sinks all boats. And so it was in 2017: If people were going out to fewer movies and streaming more episodic content at home, it affected both indie films and tentpoles. But if we look back at the films that premiered at Sundance 2017, there are a few instances to inspire hope: The Big Sick, of course, was the big one; Wind […]
by Anthony Kaufman on Dec 14, 2017 -
Sundance Announces New Creative Distribution Fellowship with Columbus, Unrest
The Sundance Institute announced today a new initiative aimed at filmmakers going the DIY distribution route. The inaugural projects supported by the Creative Distribution Fellowship are two recommended independent films that premiered this past January at Sundance: Columbus, by Filmmaker 25 New Face :: kogonada, and Unrest, a documentary by director and subject Jennifer Brea. In the press release, Keri Putnam, Executive Director of Sundance Institute, said, “Columbus and Unrest are perfect examples of the creative spirit of independent filmmaking, and this new Fellowship will provide them with resources, mentorship and tactical support to pioneer independent pathways to audiences. This […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 2, 2017 -
Last Dance Before Trumpism: Eastern Oregon, Park City (Virtual) and Rotterdam
In retrospect, it seems like it was the last glimmer of something. We were all in Eastern Oregon again, the loose circuit of folks who gather annually for the tiny two-and-a-half day, two-venue film festival that takes cinephilia to the reddest corner of a blue state. The election was just a few weeks off. No one seemed particularly bothered about it, seeing as the weekend before all the talk had been about the #BillyBushTapes and how could an admitted sexual assailant become the President anyway, puhleeze? It wasn’t hard to encounter a Trump/Pence sign in La Grande, though. It’s a largely […]
by Brandon Harris on Feb 4, 2017 -
Sundance Dispatch 3: Columbus, Golden Exits
Columbus certainly doesn’t look like a standard American independent film: even if you didn’t know debuting director kogonada’s background as a video essayist primarily concerned with High Art (Bresson, Tarkovsky et al.), it’s clear this is made by somebody who’s studied the framing of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang et al. quite closely. No matter how mundane the setting — average small downtown streets, a drab university library — kogonada and DP Elisha Christian stick to the visual philosophy espoused by architecture-obsessed protagonist Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) as she annotates one building’s properties, noting how it’s “asymmetrical but also still balanced.” I […]
by Vadim Rizov on Jan 23, 2017
