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CHAIN REACTION
I ran into producer Mary Jane Skalski at the Salt Lake City airport this morning on the way into Park City, and she -- along with an e-mail from director Jem Cohen -- gave me material for an embarassing first post out of Sundance. In our new issue of Filmmaker, Anthony Kaufman writes in his "New York Scene" column about directors who choose, for whatever reason, not to make the festival and premiere their films in other venues. He writes about Michael Kang, whose Motel was unable to be finished in time, and also Jem Cohen, who is currently completing his new film Chain. Unfortunately, an editing mistake transposed the titles of two Cohen films, making it seem that Cohen has submitted Chain to Sundance only to see it rejected. This is not true. Cohen had actually said that his features Benjamin Smoke and Instrument had been turned down by the festival, but he didn't submit Chain and is still working on its postproduction. Our apologies to Jem and Mary Jane for the mistake and for the confusion it may have caused.# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/16/2004 08:11:32 PM
On January 25, the Rotterdam Film Parliament, organized annually as part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) will debate the pro's and con's of digital distribution (satellite, computers, video projectors, DVD and Internet). Among the topics up for discussion will be the consequences for independent cinema of digital distribution, the dangers of piracy and future ways of retailing films (worldwide or by territory?). Titled Digital: Dream or Nightmare?, the Film Parliament is modelled after the English House of Commons. Chaired by Nik Powell, speakers will plea against or in favour of the motion: "This house believes that the digital dream of distribution is a nightmare for independent cinema," after which the motion will be brought into vote. (Here, here.)
From Thursday, January 22 through Friday, January 31 the IFFR will also organize daily interviews, debates and talk shows under the rubric What (Is) Cinema?. Directors scheduled to participate include: Takeshi Kitano (Zatoichi), Catherine Breillat (Anatomy of Hell), Michael Winterbottom (Code 46), Harmony Korine (screenplay, Ken Park), Raul Ruiz, Ken Jacobs, as well as 2004 IFFR Artist in Focus Isaac Julien.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 1/16/2004 05:10:48 PM
The IFP/New York has announced the deadline for a new documentary fund. Named for the ABC News producer -- and cousin of John F. Kennedy Jr. -- who died of cancer in 1999, The Anthony Radziwill Documentary Fund will provide seed money/development grants for independently produced documentary projects by U.S. resident filmmakers, and will be administered by IFP/NY. Six to ten grants up to $10,000 will be given annually, with the initial cycle's grants to be awarded in June 2004. Grant cycle deadlines are March 1 and September 1 annually. Initial cycle deadline is March 1, 2004. On-line applications, submission requirements, and complete guidelines for proposals are available at www.ifp.org/docfund. For further questions write docfund@ifp.org or call 212-465-8200, ext 830.
FILMMAKER magazine will again collaborate with the Flanders International Film Festival-Ghent to coordinate the selection of a sidebar of American independent films at the event, which runs October 5-16. Anyone interested in submitting work for consideration should send it by the August 10 deadline directly to:
Flanders International Film Festival-GhentAttn. Cis Bierinckx / A LOOK APART
Leeuwstraat 40b
B-9000 Gent
Belgium
Regulations and additional information can be found at the festival Web site: www.filmfestival.be
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 1/16/2004 12:00:47 PM
LOST IN SPACE
Wil Wheaton, the actor-turned-blogger best known for his role in Stand By Me and as
Wesley Crusher in the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, has signed a three-book deal with O'Reilly & Associates. Says Wheaton, "This is a very exciting relationship for me, for several reasons. First, I am a huge geek, and without O'Reilly, I wouldn't know HTML from LMNOP. I never would have been able to get Linux running, and Perl would be one of the not-quite-as-good-as-Mrs.-Garrett replacements on Diff'rent Strokes."
While Wheaton has continued to act, most recently in Damion Dietz's Neverland (2003), doing voiceover work for Brother Bear, The Simpsons, and for a forthcoming Pixar production, he has devoted most of his time to writing.
O'Reilly & Associates plans to release Wheaton's Dancing Barefoot, comprised of five short-but-true stories about life in the so-called Space Age. Originally released by Monolith Press, Dancing Barefoot "sold 3,000 copies in less than five months," reports Wheaton. "I can't wait to see how it does when it's got the power and budget of a major publisher behind it."
O'Reilly also plans to release Wheaton's Just A Geek, an autobiographical book about coming to terms with what it means to be famous, or, ironically, famous for being previously famous.
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 1/15/2004 01:04:37 PM
Tribeca Enterprises, the latest business venture of Tribeca Film Festival co-founders Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, has announced that it will launch a behind-the-scenes entertainment expo at New York City's Javits Center next November 20-22. The trio has joined forces with former Variety publisher Gerry Byrne who will help launch and run the consumer exposition dubbed "So You Wanna Be In Pictures?"
"So You Want To Be In Pictures?" will offer high-tech, interactive exhibits, panels and conferences, hardware and software. From screenwriting, casting and cinematography to music, makeup and costume design, the show will cover every aspect of how screened entertainment is conceived, made, and ultimately branded and marketed.
Additional expo features will include presentations on the filmmaking process, demonstrations of the latest in digital equipment, as well as a pavilion on the associated entertainment games market. A series of innovative competitions will be announced at a later date that will be part of the core of the expo.
The American Museum of The Moving Image, the nation's premiere museum devoted to film, television and digital entertainment, will be part of the expo to provide historical context and vision.
DeNiro, Rosenthal and Hatkoff recently set up a new business entity, Tribeca Cinemas, to operate The Screening Room in New York.
"In addition to its commercial potential, The Screening Room will also enable us to help support the non-profit Tribeca Film Institute and the growing needs of the Tribeca Film Festival," said Jane Rosenthal. "The acquisition of The Screening Room will provide some of the much-needed additional capacity for screenings and hospitality events during the Tribeca Film Festival that last year attracted 325,000 visitors to the streets of Lower Manhattan."
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 1/15/2004 10:12:08 AM
Every summer Filmmaker runs a feature entitled "25 New Faces of Independent Film" in which we try to apply our long-lead editorial approach to talent spotting. We identify promising new writers, directors and actors who are flying well below the industry radar, and several of our pics usually show up at Sundance each year.
Here are Filmmaker's "25 New Faces" picks in this year's festival.
The advance industry buzz on The Clearing has been all over the map, but Justin Haythe's screenplay was the best I read a couple of years ago. It's a terse, emotionally rich drama about a kidnapping-gone-awry that, like In the Bedroom, is ultimately a dissection of marriage in America. The film is directed by Dutch-born producer Pieter Jan Brugge, whose credits include Bulworth, The Insider, and Heat, and is premiering, strangely, as a "work in progress" out-of-competition. Starring Robert Redford, Willem Dafoe and Helen Mirren, it will be interesting to see how Redford's iconic All-American screen persona gels with the bitter truths of Haythe's script.Writer-director Angela Robinson makes it to the festival with her first feature, D.E.B.S. Produced by L.A. indie producing heroes Andrea Sperling and Jasmine Kosovic, the film is a lesbian-themed riff on a Charlie's Angels/Man from U.N.K.L.E. spy flick.
Josh Marston made our "25" list with his screenplay Maria Full of Grace, an honest and moving story of a Colombian woman who travels to the States as a drug mule. Marston premieres the film -- produced by Paul Mezey for HBO -- in Competition.
Greg Pak's own movie Robot Stories opens in theaters in February, but this 2003 "25" pick shows up at Sundance with the screenplay for Harry Davis's American Spectrum selection MVP. And fellow 2003 "New Face" Jessica Sharzer -- director of the award-winning short Wormhole -- makes her feature debut with Speak. Brought to Sharzer by Showtime after execs there saw her short, the feature -- which Sharzer did a rewrite on -- was produced under the cable channel's "Six-Figure Film" program.
Two below-the-line "25" selections -- cinematographer Tim Orr, and production designer Judy Becker -- worked together previously on Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas. This year, they've teamed up again on Mark Milgard's Dandelion, which stars the usually amazing Taryn Manning (Eight Mile, Crazy/Beautiful) and premieres in the American Spectrum section. Becker adds one more Sundance credit to her resume with Garden State, Zack Braff's comedy.
Finally, one 2003 "25" pick won't be at Sundance because her film's already a theatrical hit. Director Patty Jenkins's Monster is, as you've no doubt heard, fantastic, but if you get a chance to catch a screening with a Jenkins Q&A, do so -- Jenkins is articulate, purposeful and, in person, a walking object-lesson on the qualities first-time directors must have to inspire confidence in those who'll finance (and star in) their films.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/15/2004 12:24:59 AM
OH, TO BE A BLOGGER!
There are frustrations in editing a published-quarterly magazine like Filmmaker. As media cycles accelerate around us, we still publish every ninety days, trying to write intelligently about the aesthetics, business, and reasons for making independent film while pretending not to care that, with our long-lead schedule, we can't really comment on that day or week's movie news. The current issue of Filmmaker, for example, went to bed in mid-December, will be first read at the Sundance Film Festival, and will linger on newsstands until early April or so. Which means that meaningful commentary on the latest breaking news is pretty much foolhardy to even attempt -- even though Anne Thompson did a pretty good wrapup of the whole "screener ban" issue in her new "Risky Business" column.
Hence, this film blog. Here you'll find postings, notes, and opinions from the magazine's staff encompassing topics that would be stale by the time they hit the pages of Filmmaker. Or, we'll be tossing out random thoughts and musings that would be likely be edited out of the book in a space crunch. Or, perhaps, we'll be covering our critical ass on stuff that should have been in the magazine but which we were simply too lame to pick up on in time.
An example of the latter is the French artist Pierre Huyghe's Streamside Day Follies, a film installation that closed this past weekend at the Dia:Chelsea in New York. Huyghe's 26-minute DV film dispassionately chronicles a young family relocating to a brand-new housing development. Deer wander through the half-constructed houses, costumed children parade the streets, and a giant helium-filled china-ball acts as a fake sun in a work that expertly pinpoints the horror within the perfectly mundane. 
But what sends Huyghe's work over the top is its staging, which delivers a deft conceptual punch I wouldn't have wanted to reveal if I had reviewed this work earlier. Arriving in an empty gallery space, with only the artist's pencil-drawings on the wall, viewers are left to wonder just where the exhibition is. Slowly, though, the walls begin to move on mounted tracks, converging into the center of the space and gradually forming an exhibition space. There's a great moment when you have to decide if you're "in or out," and once you jump into the suddenly constructed theater, the lights dim and Huyghe's film begins. With its grand metaphor about culture and nature, colonization and crowds, Hugyhe's piece is an alternative film for the e-Walk era. If I had done a ten-best list, it would have been on it.
# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 1/14/2004 01:43:41 PM
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