[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 5:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] Art & Copy is a movie about advertising, creativity, and the innate human urge we have to communicate – whether it’s painting on cave walls or selling canned spaghetti. What makes this documentary a reflection of its times may be simply that people are finding my characters to be inspirational, at a time when many documentaries– for a lot of very good reasons– are depressing, and losing their audiences a result. Maybe times are changing, and people are ready to be less cynical. (Even about advertising…?)
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 6:00 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] For me, “story” is the most overused word in the film world these days. I hear actors saying, “I just wanna tell good stories.” I hear producers saying, “I have an intense passion for storytelling.” Jerry Bruckheimer is in some commercial calling himself a storyteller. Maybe he is. I don’t understand when indie movies became synonymous with storytelling. When did this extreme emphasis on narrative take place? As if a movie doesn’t lend itself equally well to being a poem or a painting. But we don’t hear […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 5:30 pm — Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City] We made a conscious effort to fight against the issues of Internet and nonarthouse distribution. All those avenues are exciting and interesting in many ways, however, no one seems to be writing any checks for them. I still believe that most filmmakers make a film to be shown in a theater. We felt our story was cinematic in scale and because of the importance of the history involved, we needed to try to reach as large an audience as possible. I still think that is through […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 3:00 pm — Screening Room, Sundance Resort] Film has always been affected by diverse forces; many times has its near death been foreseen before the arrival of a new media, but today, more than 100 years from the invention of the cinematographer, cinema is still very similar to how it all began: celluloid, light and emotions on the screen with moving images in a dark room. The story of Heart of Time comes from inside the life of a rural community, a simple love story that is developed within the fight and the resistance of […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 16, 2009More than anything, Sundance is a survival game. Here are some tips from veterans on how to make it through your stay there. Park City Fashion: You shouldn’t be embarrassed about skiing down to Main Street and going straight to a screening. It’s cool to show up at the Egyptian in your snow gear. — Jeff Abramson, Gen Art Budget Control: The more time you spend in an actual theater the less chance you have of buying rounds in bars and other more frivolous expenses. Rather than partying, choose that midnight movie instead! — Michael Tully, Hammertonail.com Housing Strategy: Wait […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 15, 2009What’s the mood heading into the 25th Sundance Film Festival? Overall, the sense of a across the board scaling back is palpable. Almost no one will talk about their own company’s downsizing publicly, for fear of appearing financially unstable, but it’s no secret that the economic catastrophes have hit everyone’s travel and promotional budgets. Besides fewer sponsored parties – Motorola, for instance, will not be in attendance — the rumor is that some photo agencies have majorly scaled back their coverage, sticking to the red carpet only, and usually ubiquitous publications aren’t sending their film critics. “The party grid is […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 10, 2009Independent filmmakers like to think that they are creating works of art that contribute to an enduring American culture. There’s just one problem: these works of art are disintegrating. Literally. More concerned with life rights than half-life, filmmakers are allowing their films to crumble and dissolve into analog blurs and forests of digital glitches as formats change, materials are uncared for, and elements are left forgotten on lab floors. Enter the Sundance Collection, a collaborative program with the UCLA Film and Television Archive. It is the first archive to be devoted exclusively to the preservation of independent cinema. This year, […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 10, 2009Here’s Anthony Kaufman’s Industry Beat column for the upcoming Winter issue. “Gay Marriage Ban Inspires New Wave of Activists,” declared a recent headline in The New York Times. If the passage of California‘s Proposition 8 initiative — which denied same-sex couples the previously granted right to marry in the state — could stir hundreds of newly politicized members of the gay community to join together and fight back, will that same activist energy jolt America‘s gay and lesbian filmmakers to do the same? If a new, more radicalized LGBT cinema were on the rise, trend spotters would likely find murmurs […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 9, 2009[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 6:15 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City] Afghan Star is a documentary about a TV show of the same name. It’s a powerful TV format we all know — a version of Pop Idol — but in a country that most of us don’t: Afghanistan. With the backdrop of warfare and Taliban repression (they banned music and used to impale TVs on spikes) you certainly wouldn’t expect to find a TV music talent contest. But Afghan Star: The Series is now one of the most potent forces of change the country has. You […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 8, 2009[PREMIERE SCREENING: Friday, Jan. 16, 3:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] The story of my film, Boy Interrupted, was not affected much by recently changing digital technology. If anything, the film is a throwback to conventional documentary filmmaking; straightforward chronological storytelling – no tricks. Authenticity was our guide. The goal was to tell the story of my son Evan’s bipolar illness and suicide in as factual a manner as possible, with home movies and first-hand interviews bearing witness to our experience as a family. I love the self-contained and mostly humorous videos I see on YouTube and Facebook and […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 8, 2009