Film Festivals
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POV Offers Funding Suggestions for Filmmakers
Here’s a list to bookmark: the POV for Filmmakers site has handy, spreadsheet-style lists of funding sources for documentary, new media and web films. From the Alter Cine Foundation to World View, the site offers links and one-paragraph summaries of the organization’s mission and funding range. Additional sections of the site provide links to engagement strategists — individuals and companies who can work on films’ outreach campaigns — as well as film festivals and the various entry points to PBS.
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2013 -
FOUR TRIBECA DOCS: FROM ZEN TO MADNESS TO SEXY
At 85, Tony Bennett looks and sounds great. In The Zen of Bennett, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and will soon appear on Netflix, Bennett relies on a single word, repeated over and over throughout the documentary, to describe his life philosophy. That word is “quality.” For the clothes he wears, for the songs he sings, for the people who are his friends, for everything, quality is his guiding principle. Conversely, the elderly singer with the smoothest pipes in the business, disparages cheap songs, crude and outlandish behavior, and anger. “Everything you do should be done with love, […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Apr 30, 2012 -
The Micro-Budget Conversation: Is Enough… Enough ?
When and how did Edward Burns become the mouthpiece of micro budget cinema? That’s a question I asked on Facebook after a late night holiday bender and noticing the ridiculous amount of press Ed got for making a film that certainly didn’t cost him 9K. Then I thought, who really does make a film for 9K? If you add up all the favors and salaries that are not getting paid you’re in the hundreds of thousands. Then I thought, oh man is there any such thing as micro-budget at all? Or is it like the myth of cover girl beauty. […]
by John Yost on Feb 16, 2012 -
NAVIGATING OUR ROTTERDAM PREMIERE, PART 2
It’s hard to believe that IFFR is already coming to an end. Having now been here for a full and very active week filled with films, parties, new acquaintances…we feel simultaneously exhausted and rejuvenated. It is an honor to bring a film to Rotterdam. The Patron Saints screened three times at three different venues. At the start of our first screening, there was a technical issue that threw us into a bit of a panic. It was really our fault for not showing up a few minutes early to do a tech check, but… live and learn. To our great […]
by Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky on Feb 6, 2012 -
WRAPPING WOODSTOCK 2011
Forget that the world economy is inching precariously close to tanking, yet again. Forget that new film festivals are also streaming out of the starting gate. “The inaugural Singafest Asian Film Festival hits Westwood this weekend,” the email proclaims. So just how many festivals are there? “First Palo Alto Film Festival opens with a bang.” The emails won’t stop. A lowball count is 4,000 worldwide, although doubling, possibly tripling, that number is probably closer to reality. Forget that we know all the top-tier festivals, the celebrities attending, the films winning, and the festival race-chatter: Toronto is up and Venice is […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Oct 4, 2011 -
THE 12th WOODSTOCK FILM FESTIVAL
Looking @ Docs Bookended by two of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, the super-gala in Toronto and the cinephile delight in New York, the Woodstock Film Festival is set in a tiny village on the edge of the Catskill Mountains, and for a dozen years it has been garnering a different kind of prestige. With a quality film program that’s not humongous, filmgoers experience fewer film scheduling conflicts — a frequent irritant for film buffs. With plenty of film industry people in attendance, looking and enjoying instead of working and stressing, they’re approachable, even friendly. People have always come […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Sep 27, 2011 -
DOCS AT THE 2011 URBAN WORLD FESTIVAL
When historical documentaries spotlight the dynamic past, they also reveal, if one is prone to see, an uncomfortable present. This can fuel nostalgia and a yearning to return to that great by-gone era just witnessed on the screen. While making you feel good about the past, docs can make you feel lousy about today. After watching the premier Brooklyn Boheme, and listening to the Q&A afterwards, a lot of us felt lousy about today. For some 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, Fort Green and to a lesser extent neighboring Clinton Hill were home to an extraordinary community of […]
by Stewart Nusbaumer on Sep 25, 2011 -
GRAHAM LEGGAT, 1960 – 2011
Graham Leggat, the executive director of the San Francisco Film Society and a former Contributing Editor of Filmmaker, died yesterday at his Bay Area home from cancer. Always erudite and elegant, Leggat brought intelligence and real creativity to the worlds of film festivals, exhibition and journalism. From his obituary in Variety: For nearly six exciting and transformative years, Graham Leggat led the San Francisco Film Society with irrepressible determination, dash and design,” said Pat McBaine, president of the Film Society’s board of directors. “His vision, leadership, passion, work ethic, tenacity, imagination and daring along with his colorful language and wicked […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 26, 2011 -
The Microbudget Conversation: Brandon Bethmann
Short films can often be gateways to feature films, experiments in storytelling, or stand alone works of art. After film school I still made one short film every year, but for me they were ways to try out ideas before committing to something feature sized. For some folks they are end goals that are beautifully done and well thought out. Sometimes however, we get short films that are too long, or ideas that exist between short format and feature length. Plus, with the introduction of Youtube and Vimeo we also seem to have an over abundance of “short films” that […]
by John Yost on Mar 22, 2011 -
MORE THOUGHTS ON WALKING OUT OF MOVIES
Every Thursday we do a weekly newsletter that includes links to that week’s content, festival deadlines, and an original letter from me which I usually don’t repost on the blog. (And if you don’t get this newsletter, why not? You can subscribe here. It’s free.) But I’ll reprint this week’s because it’s a response to James Ponsoldt’s blog post about walking out of movies. “When is it okay to walk out of a movie?” James Ponsoldt asked on the Filmmaker blog yesterday. The post was inspired by his sitting through at Sundance a film he loathed; it was his attempt […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 10, 2011
