IFP Independent Film Week
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SEE YOU YESTERDAY: MORE IFW SNAPSHOTS
We’re halfway through Independent Film Week, and time has started to play tricks. Days seem to stretch on forever, but at the same time, hours go by like minutes. Today I accidentally said to someone, “I’ll see you yesterday.” Here are some more snapshots of Film Week in action: The creative forces behind IFP’s 2011 Narrative and Documentary Lab projects share the stage at the end of Tuesday night’s Lab Showcase at the Walter Reade Theater. Writer/Director Gillian Robespierre discusses her screenplay Obvious Child with the Sundance Institute’s Rachel Chanoff. Writer/Director Harrison Witt (Sister Sarah) helps actor […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Sep 21, 2011 -
PLATFORMS, PMD’S & PERPETUATING OBSCURITY
Our innovation is stagnant. Stagnant and boring. Really. Boring. The movies themselves are one thing having long been locked into a race to the bottom with their Hollywood counterparts in an often times futile effort to just be noticed, but most stagnant and boring is the proliferation of new ‘platforms’ on which filmmakers can ‘launch’ their careers. Everywhere I look there is some new upstart looking to get into the digital distribution realm touting how their platform puts the power in your hands and provides a direct gateway for your film to reach an audience. A claim which, of course, […]
by Gregorybayne on Sep 19, 2011 -
ON THE GROUND AT INDEPENDENT FILM WEEK
As one of roughly a dozen full time staffers at IFP, I’ve been working the past six months to help launch the 33rd annual Independent Film Week. It’s our first year at Lincoln Center’s new Elinor Bunin Film Center, and more than a thousand indie filmmakers and industry professionals are in town for the festivities. In commemoration, I’ve dug up my long neglected digital camera, and I’ll be sharing photo highlights from IFW all week long. Here are some snapshots from Day 1: The team behind the upcoming Detroit Unleaded (editor Nathanial Sherfield, director Rola Nashef, producers Marwan Nashef and […]
by Jane Schoenbrun on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: “BEST KEPT SECRET”
A year ago, I was banging my head against the wall of my Brooklyn apartment asking myself “Why?” Why another documentary film I knew would consume my entire life and prevent me from financial stability? Why a film made in the grittiest part of Newark, New Jersey, one of the country’s most problematic urban areas? Why not a film about Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris or cheese making in Rome? The answer was, of course — because I had to tell THIS story. Best Kept Secret is the story of a Newark public high school teacher who struggles to prepare her students with autism to survive […]
by Samantha Buck on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: “OUR NIXON”
Next week, my husband Brian and I will take our first documentary feature (Our Nixon) to Independent Film Week. I’ve never been to this event before, or to anything remotely like it, so I would describe my state of mind as Excited Anticipation, tinged with a slightly lesser amount of Bemused Bafflement. For the uninitiated, here is the little that I know about Independent Film Week (I should say more specifically the Project Forum): if you are selected by IFP to participate, you upload information about your film to a top secret server run by elves, and then various species […]
by Penny Lane on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: “THE SWERVE”
Dear Gentle Reader, My name is Tommy Minnix, and I am really delighted to be guest blogging for Independent Film Week this year. Thanks to Scott and the folks at IFP for having me. I am participating in No Borders this year with a narrative feature called The Swerve. The script was written and will be directed by Dean Kapsalis, and I’m producing along with veteran indie producer Derrick Tseng. It’s a psychological thriller about a woman whose life spirals out of control when she’s bitten by a mouse. When we got the e-mail in mid-July that we had been […]
by Tommy Minnix on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: “OBVIOUS CHILD”
Hi! My name is Gillian Robespierre. I’m a writer-director and so thrilled to be attending the 2011 IFP Emerging Narrative project forum with my script Obvious Child. It’s a romantic comedy about a young woman living in Brooklyn who has just had her heart broken, and after a spontaneous one-night stand, finds that she’s pregnant. She decides to get an abortion and move on with her life. Yes, it’s a comedy! Obvious Child was originally a short film I directed and co-wrote with Anna Bean and Karen Maine. After years of watching films that featured unplanned pregnancies ending in childbirth […]
by Gillian Robespierre on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: NEW TERRITORY
I am Ron Simons, an independent film producer based in NYC. I haven’t been a producer very long, having come into the role not quite by accident but certainly not as a childhood dream either. In fact, if you’d asked me five years to define the role of a film producer I would have been hard pressed to come up with a response that included half of what I presently do. By way of background, I’m an actor by training having spent a few years at University of Washington earning an MFA in acting from the Professional Actor Training Program. Before […]
by Ron Simons on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: KICKING OFF “FIVE NIGHTS”
I will start by saying this: we are very lucky. Just a few weeks ago, we finished a remarkable Kickstarter campaign for my film, Five Nights In Maine. In 30 days, we raised $40,613 from 367 courageous and generous backers. The support from people we have known our whole lives and complete strangers humbled and inspired up. Our community proved that this is a film they want to see and be a part of. Now it’s time to take this energy to Independent Film Week! We are thrilled to be participating in this year’s No Borders International Co-production Market. My […]
by Maris Curran on Sep 19, 2011 -
IFW: “HECTOR AND HIMSELF” PRODUCER HELEN ALEXANDER, #1
So Independent Film Week is finally around the corner…coming to you from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada within Strategic Partners, the second module of the TAPS program 2011. After a superb week in Berlin, back in June, on module one with the Erich Pommer Institut, expectations are high! I am attending all three modules with our third project, feature fiction adventure Hector & Himself, a Dickensian style contemporary fable, which finds the protagonist, 25-year-old Hector, setting foot outside his attic room for the first time, after dreaming up an imaginary friend, Henry. His deranged mother has kept him drugged and locked […]
by Helen Alexander on Sep 18, 2011
