Filmmaker is very happy to be sponsoring gumshoe director/journalist Jamie Stuart's annual take on the New York Film Festival this year. Here's his first piece: Stuart... with music; Schwartzman... without mustache; Anderson... sans sous-titres. Click here and enjoy.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/30/2007 10:00:00 PM Comments (6)

The New York Film Festival feels especially airy and capacious this year, as if a wind had blown the doors wide open. Credit goes, in part, to Scott Foundas , J. Hoberman, and Lisa Schwarzbaum, guest curators who (along with chief Richard Pena and Film Society's Kent Jones) sculpted this year's lineup.

I sat down with Foundas and asked him if the films that made the cut marked a new direction for the venerable festival, which may or may not be looking over its shoulder at the ambitious over-reaching-and-corporatized Tribeca Film Festival. About half the NYFF lineup arrived without distribution, Foundas told me. Hardly surprising, since the market is currently so inhospitable for international fare, including works that in the past would have gotten picked up. So what's shifted over the years is not so much the NYFF itself, but rather the economic and cultural landscape. "And the role of the festival has changed," says Foundas, "because it may give New Yorkers their only chance to see certain films." The hostile landscape also explains, in part, the glut of festivals, which bring films to cities that might not otherwise see them.

While the committee dug deep into Cannes for this edition's lineup -- I counted 7 films -- it also made a concerted effort to favor films that didn't have U.S. distribution. "Sometimes it was a tossup between two films that might be similar," said Foundas. "But the film that wasn't going to show in New York otherwise got the edge."

As well, the question of balance figured heavily. An opener should be entertaining, not too long, with stars to walk the red carpet. And it helps if the filmmaker has a huge following in New York. Hence The Darjeeling Limited. Into the mix also went films the crix deemed "important and provocative," along with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, which though subtitled, is also an accessible crowd pleaser. Not everyone on the committee is a fan of Brian de Palma, who's been tagged a low rent shock artist -- yet his Redacted was in the lineup from the start for its Brechtian reaction against media saturation, and effort to nail the role of cinema in digesting it.

Throughout the selection process a collegial spirit prevailed, for which Foundas credits Pena (now marking his 20th year at the helm). "Certain films are divisive, but you work it out," said Foundas. "Richard put together a committee whose opinion he respects. You're on a level playing field." Occasionally a film,such as Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project, arrives on the committee's radar through the six degrees syndrome -- in this case, critic Dave Kehr happened to be a friend of director John Landis.

This year saw a surplus of good films. But would someone please tell me why the fest nixed The Duchess of Langeais by Jacques Rivette?

# posted by Erica Abeel @ 9/30/2007 12:43:00 PM Comments (2)

Over at Videoblogging, anyone with a camera is invited to subscribe to the Lumiere Manifesto and create one-minute works in the tradition of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century French filmmaking brothers. They've fashioned their call into a Dogma 95-ish Manifesto that dictates how such minute-long pieces must be conceived and shot. (Hat tips: Warren Ellis and Boing Boing)

Here's are excerpts from the Manifesto that argue for the validity of this homage in today's times:

We believe instead that everyday video brings together a collective consciousness and experience through which we all come to view a universal existence and see “light” in the world, even through personal darkness. Film lacking context and artistic modification in any way beyond perspective, technology, and equipment is essential in an era of unrestrained, theatrical Internet TV. We do not believe filmmaker's geographical or psychological location to be an advantage any more than any other tool we can all employ. We believe in universal, important beauty and those who can attempt to replicate what their eyes and minds encounter. Inasmuch, Lumiere films require no explanation and are accessible to any audience with patience and an acceptance of the world we share....

...we believe in the personal viewing experience afforded by the computer as it enables an individual and private relationship between the viewer and the video. This intimate consumption is not one the filmmaker should attempt to overcome by collective viewings; instead, it should be embraced and public presentations of the work as cinema or a television broadcast should be rejected.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/29/2007 09:10:00 PM Comments (0)

The 45th edition of the New York Film Festival kicked off last night at Avery Fisher Hall with a packed screening of Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited. Many present might well have worried about the caliber of this year's selection based on the opener. They shouldn't. From what I've viewed so far, overall, this looks to be a lineup of brilliantly realized films, reflecting the fest's mandate to show the creme of what's out there. And given the wide spectrum, with each film you're transported to a distinctive and arresting world.

"Darjeeling," though arresting visually and musically, also plays like a cinematic expression of arrested development. Three bros (Owen Wilson, Jason Schartzman , Adrien Brody hit the rails in India to reaffirm filial ties, find mommy, and shed their Vuitton baggage. The NYFF seems almost to fetishize this director (in fact, by rightfully rescuing Rushmore from Disney limbo and placing it in the fest, it put Wes on the map). The filmmaker himself is into fetishes that make up his precious, sollipsistic universe. At its best, "Darjeeling" serves up amusingly weird tschotchkes (like the mom-and-pop shrine adorning Jason Schwartzman's room in Hotel Chevalier , the "curtain-raiser" to the film proper). The actual train, which looks hand-painted, is a cabinet of wonders; scenes are meticulously composed; Anderson's musical choices are delicious, and so is Jason Schwartzman's hair.

That said, the dialogue dribbles out with stunning inanity and the schticks are mostly unfunny. I found more offensive than amusing Schwartzman's quickie with the Indian train hostess. You could say it flirted uncomfortably with images of the Ugly American and sex tourism, if it weren't, well, so preppy-abroad. Having viewed the film twice, in an effort to jack up my enthusiasm, I knew the third time round at the premiere to skip out to the Ladies during the brothers' attempt to rescue the Indian child who drowns. Yeah, I know, it's supposed to be clever, or revelatory, or something to switch tones on a dime, but I found the mix of quirky and tragic distasteful. At bottom, "Darjeeling" is about the world of rich white boys, a throwback to those 19th century aristos who owed themselves a trot around the globe. I say all this with trepidation because it's totally uncool not to "get" Anderson and this film -- hey, I liked The Royal Tennenbaums just fine!

After the premiere, what seemed like all of Avery Fisher spilled onto Broadway and surged like some invasion of the Mongols toward the opening night party at Tavern on the Green. It's an exclusive party, they can't all be going, I said to my friend the kultur maven, very distinguay in his tux. But they were. We had to battle a battalion of hotties with cleavage and ironed hair to get to the hooch.. Do events rent eye candy for the evening? The clever guests had gotten a leg up by skipping the movie altogether to dine early amidst the Tavern's Turkish whorehouse decor with faux Tiffany windows. You couldn't get near the Talent. Black and blue tuna congealed on plates on the VIP section tables reserved for them. Finally Bill Murray arrived, full of fun and quite drunk. Has anyone noticed how much Adrien Brody and Noah Baumbach resemble each other? Same artiste type we used to fall for at Vassar and Sarah Lawrence. Major egos, great in the sack, guaranteed to drive you up the wall ... I was hoping to see Asia Argento and her co-artist canine, but had to make do with Michael Musto and Sylvia Miles (looking and sounding identical to her role in Abel Ferrara's sleazy fun fest Go Go Tales). My fave guest: a mysterious lone woman wearing a hat with gigantic egret feather.

Weaving over the cobblestones at 1:30 A.M. in search of an elusive cab, we saw a middle-aged woman furiously power-walking. An example of New York's famous energy -- or maybe quiet desperation.

# posted by Erica Abeel @ 9/29/2007 03:59:00 PM Comments (1)

Over at his Long Tail blog, Chris Anderson posts an email he received from Jeff Bach, an independent filmmaker at Quietwater Films regarding the viability of the "long tail" model for an independent producer. (In this case, it's a sports non-fiction producer -- Quietwater produces films on canoeing for boating enthusiasts).

Anderson posts the whole email, but here's an excerpt:

But the reality at this time for me and my company is that I need to find multiple large national distributors if I hope to even come close to making a living at this game. And I need to produce fresh content on a reasonably frequent basis. In short, I am a much smaller and more struggling version of the giants that have preceded me. I have the same issues and problems my predecessors did. The only thing that has changed is that I am trying to do it with an awareness of Web 2.0 and Long Tail and several other "New Media" phrases that you can insert here.

Your Long Tail theory is a basic and profound truth that I happily embrace AS A CONSUMER. But as a producer and creator of Long Tail content it is basically spelling out my doom. Other than your book examples which are still basically about VERY LARGE entities and aggregators, I am finding very few self supporting examples of independent Long Tail producers.

This quote resonated with me a week after the IFP Market and Conference. Departing filmmakers there seem to be split between those excited by the marketing and distribution possiblities Web 2.0 has to offer and those whose eyes are glazed over with anxiety at the thought of becoming niche-distributors and navigating this terrain on their own.

In the comments thread (included after the post on the link above), Bach elaborates on his email, and I hope he won't mind if I quote him at length because I think his discussion of indie wholesale versus retail marketing is relevant to a broader audience of independent filmmakers:

I think paying attention to the demographics of your retail buyer is important as well. For example, I could posit that my typical retail buyer is 40+, affluent, outdoorsy or married to someone outdoorsy. So far so good. But things get interesting when I consider that as my demographic ages, fewer and fewer of them are routinely on the internet in a buying mood, looking to discover a product like I have. They are out there though - but where? For the most part they are in a retail store discovering and then holding the product in their hand before they buy it. Which brings me back to the importance, for Quietwater anyway, of having national distributors and a shelf presence in retail stores. That part of the business then becomes wholesale, with a margin that is half or less of retail, so it makes the volume aspect of the business even more important.

Quietwater is working with two distributors and hopefully that will flesh out over time. I do need to put more effort into the retail (mainly online) side of things, but right now developing the wholesale segment is a bit more active. On the retail side, I built an e-store at Createspace.com. They have a "just-in-time" model that is very efficient and takes care of the credit card and shipping issues as well, which is very significant. Their cost is reasonable as well. On the frustrating side, their online store has Quietwater content buried in a very awkward browsing tree which results in non-existent discovery. Their browsing tree has no entry for "outdoor recreation", which is a real bummer. Quietwater products (a solo canoe DVD and a rec kayak DVD) are available via Amazon, which does a great deal on the discovery side, but they take a huge chunk of the total sale price. It is depressing to write but...a retail sale on Amazon yields less than a DVD sold wholesale. Is the benefit of discovery on Amazon worth the cost? This is partly why I'm doing more with the wholesale side of the business, it actually makes more $$/DVD than Amazon retail does!

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/29/2007 03:45:00 PM Comments (1)

Earlier this week I saw the new Ryan Gosling movie, Lars and the Real Girl, in which the impressively versatile Gosling turns in a sweet, utterly convincing performance as socially regressed young man who finds a novel way of reintegrating himself with the world at large. Though the movie's central idea is a bit of a stretch, Gosling's sincerity in the role wins us over, and there is a particularly charming moment when he is lying in a treehouse in the woods, crooning an old fashioned love song. I was surprised how virtuousic his vocal performance was, but it turns out that Gosling is, like an alarming number of Hollywood's leading men, a keen singer who has quietly been pursuing a minor pop career on the side.

I couldn't find any mp3s of Gosling's warblings to post here, but I am going to take the opportunity to round up a few music-related movie tidbits that I've been meaning to mention. Firstly, there's Southland Tales: Richard Kelly's fear of the sophomore slump has kept the movie off our screens since its infamous premiere at Cannes in 2006 but, after a year of recutting, a new version of the movie played to a much more positive response at Austin's Fantastic Fest earlier this week, and will be on release from November 9.




The trailer (embedded above) makes the movie look sprawling, lavish and pretty out there, and but I think the trailer works particularly well because of the smart use of music. Things start out with the Pixies' seminal Wave of Mutilation, and come to a rousing finish with an epic song by the superb British band, Elbow, Forget Myself. (Click on the song titles to hear those tracks in full.) Moby has written the soundtrack for Kelly, and other musicians whose work appears include The Killers, Blur, Louis Armstrong and, um, Ludwig van Beethoven.

A band I've written about before is Ola Podrida, who are fronted by David Gordon Green's regular composer, David Wingo. Wingo has recently been recruiting indie directors to make promos for his songs, which started off with Michael Tully's video for Photo Booth. I then got notice from Joe Swanberg that his video for Run Off the Road is now online, starring one of our current 25 New Faces, Kentucker Audley. It's well worth checking out, and I'm also looking forward to seeing the next commissioned video, from The Guatelmalan Handshake director Todd Rohal. I bumped into Rohal last week at the IFP awards lunch, and he told me he expects it to be finished sometime in the next few weeks.

# posted by Nick Dawson @ 9/28/2007 10:18:00 AM Comments (0)

Over at their newly updated website, you can find some information on a workshop led by Jeff Silverstein at The New York Script Club. The event will take place on Thursday, October 11th and is open to the public for a fee of $10.00. The New York Script Club is a screenwriting support group that aids screenwriters with mentoring, motivation and networking opportunities.

Here's a press release:

Jeff Silverstein to host character writing workshop for
The New York Script Club

New York, New York – September 22,2007 – On Thursday, October 11th, The New York Script Club will offer a workshop specifically geared toward developing characters for film and television scripts. Led by Jeff Silverstein of Nehst Studios, this discussion will be held at 7 pm at 400 West 43rd St. in the Ellington Room on the 2nd floor.

The event is open to anyone for a fee of $10, however, space is limited. Interested parties must reserve a spot in advance via PayPal at www.nyscriptclub.org.

Jeff Silverstein is President of the Access and Learning Division of Nehst Studios. He runs the web network and is on the greenlight committee for features and media. Mr. Silverstein is also a screenwriter and consultant for scripts in development. Having attained a Masters degree from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, he has been involved with Writer’s Boot Camp, studied comedy with Neil and Danny Simon, and acting and directing at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.

Started in June of 2006, the New York Script Club is a free support group for all those interested in the art of screenwriting. It is open to writers of all backgrounds and skill levels, providing members with education, mentoring groups, motivation, and networking opportunities through bi-weekly meetings and writing sessions.

For more information on the New York Script Club or the upcoming event, please contact Ruthy Effler at ruthy@nyscriptclub.org.

# posted by Benjamin Crossley-Marra @ 9/27/2007 10:31:00 AM Comments (0)

For those of you who don't regularly check the main page, which is now updated quite often with new content, including Nick Dawson's "director interviews," head over there and check out his latest: a lengthy conversation with Andrew Dominic, director of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/26/2007 12:51:00 AM Comments (2)

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is one of the United State's oldest forums for showcasing experimental films. Unfortunately, due to some backwards thinking politicians who are under the notion that cultural conscience is a show on MTV, the festival recently had to forgo their state funding. Why, exactly have they lost their funding? Well, for starters for their non-compliance with state regulations that proclaim any film that receives state funding should:

I: Not depict human waste on any religious symbols.
II: Not show the desecration of the flag.
III: Not depict sex acts.

When a kind reminder that the Civil War is over didn't deter the politicians stance, the festival decided to take matters into their own hands and are trying to raise the money themselves. And they're going to sue the pants off the state for grossly violating the first amendment, but more on that at a later date.

But what you can do now is log onto their website and make a small donation in the name of art, cinema and politics. You'll feel good about doing this because you're supporting the filmmaking community, you get to vote to make the festival volunteers do something outrageous and a small percentage goes to the wildlife federation.

Here's a further press release:

Censorship Controversy

The Latest Update
In March 2007, the Ann Arbor Film Festival – working in conjunction with the ACLU of Michigan – filed suit against the state of Michigan in an attempt to overturn arts funding legislation that we believe is unconstitutional according to the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. The suit was in response to a movement by a small group of state legislators who used the rules to prohibit the AAFF from receiving state arts funding.

While the case is still pending, the Festival is working hard to recover from the loss of funding and the strain of defending itself against those who seek to abridge our right to Constitutionally protected speech. But there’s a lot more work to do – both in protecting the rights of artists and in returning the AAFF to a healthy position as one of the world’s leading showcases for cutting-edge films that provoke, challenge and inspire.

The Whole Story
In early 2006 an essay written by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy – a group that is opposed to all state funding of the arts – used the frequently provocative films we screen at the Festival to attack all public arts funding. The essays says, “one person’s highpoint of artistic achievement may be deemed a cesspool of silliness by another,” and then goes on to name several films that were screened at the AAFF.

After the essay was published, a small group of state legislators, claiming that taxpayer dollars were going to fund “pornography” at the Festival, used Michigan’s Constitutionally-suspect arts funding language in a political grandstanding maneuver that singled out the Ann Arbor Film Festival for special treatment. Our past-due funding was pulled and they attempted to pass new legislation preventing the AAFF from receiving any future state arts money.

In response, the Festival’s board of directors voted unanimously to forego state arts money as long as the vague and restrictive guidelines were in place. The board felt it was more important to uphold the Festival’s artistic integrity and protect the expression of its exhibiting filmmakers than it was to accept dollars that limited artistic expression.

But the decision wasn’t an easy one. The AAFF had been getting money from the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs for over ten years and, until the Mackinac Center published its essay, no one had ever found our films problematic before. We are an international festival and we take pride in the diversity of people and ideas the AAFF draws to Michigan. All of us at the Festival believe in protecting the rights of our participating filmmakers and that they should be allowed the full range of Constitutionally protected speech to express their artistic vision.

Economic Benefits & Cultural Tourism

Ann Arbor Film Festival’s Contribution to Michigan’s Culture and Economy

According to the June 2006 Economic Impact of Arts and Culture Report (pdf), a healthy arts community is an asset for economic development and helps attract the educated, creative work force that businesses and states seek to attract. As a local Festival that attracts work, artists and audiences from countries all over the world, the Ann Arbor Film Festival is a prime example of that.

While the overwhelming majority of small, community arts organizations in Michigan rely on their local communities and audiences to support their work, the AAFF is an economic engine that brings money into the state from across the United States and the globe. For example, in 2006, the Ann Arbor Film Festival received over $58,000 in submission fees – our single largest revenue line – yet only 5% of those fees came from Michigan filmmakers.

But the festival does more than draw money into the state through submission fees from the international filmmaking community. We bring audiences as well. In the past two years, the AAFF hosted 79 filmmakers from outside of Michigan – 14 from outside of the United States. In fact, at the 44th Ann Arbor Film Festival, we hosted filmmakers from five continents. And we know there are more – non-filmmakers who come from all over the world to attend the Festival – we just don’t track them.

Christen McArdle, the Executive Director of the AAFF, talked about attending our filmmakers’ reception the Saturday of Festival saying, “I was sitting at a table with filmmakers from Rwanda, the United Kingdom, Canada and New York. None of them had ever been to Michigan before; all were having a great time and enjoying the festival, and all of them talked about coming back.”

Visitors to the AAFF spend time and money at local restaurants, hotels, clubs, bars and retail stores and when they return home, they’ll tell their friends, neighbors and family members about the wonderful experience they had in Michigan.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is the oldest festival in North America showcasing independent and experimental film. As a non-partisan festival created to celebrate film as an art form, we exhibit work that challenges ideals, pushes techniques and styles in artistic expression, and celebrates cultures and countercultures from around the world. Since our founding in 1963, we have screened works by filmmakers like Kenneth Anger, Brian DePalma, Barbara Hammer, George Lucas, Yoko Ono, Gus Van Sant, Will Vinton and Andy Warhol.

And while our programming has represented a wide variety of viewpoints over the years – including those of the far left and far right and avant-garde and mainstream themes – and we are justifiably proud of the role we’ve played in bringing alternative viewpoints and glimpses into other cultures to Michigan, we’ve also played a key role in bringing visitors to Ann Arbor and dollars into the state and local economies. Your support in continuing to help us do so is both needed and greatly appreciated.

See you at the Festival!

# posted by Benjamin Crossley-Marra @ 9/25/2007 08:41:00 PM Comments (5)

Janus Films will be unveiling two new pristine prints of Albert Lamorisse's endearing films The Red Balloon and The White Mane. An interesting figure of the 20th century, Lamorisse is probably best known for creating the board game Risk, although he was an avid photographer, documentarian and filmmaker. He would go on to win the Palm d'Or for The Red Balloon at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He died in a helicopter crash over Iran whilst shooting a documentary in 1970. Janus films will kick of a 30-city tour of the double feature at New York's Film Forum on November 16th.

Here's the schedule so far:

Nov 16 – 23 - NYC Film Forum (matinees only on the last weekend.)
Nov 23 – 29 - LALandmark Nuart
Nov 23 - San FranciscoLandmark
Nov 23 BerkeleyLandmark Shattuck
Nov 23 – 29 - ChicagoMusic Box
Nov 23 - BostonLandmark Kendall
Nov 23 - SeattleLandmark Varsity
Nov 23 - DC Landmark E Street
Nov 23 - Nov 25 - DetroitDetroit Inst. of Art
Dec 1-2 - Ithaca Cornell Cinema
Dec 21-27 - DenverStarz Film Center
Dec 22 - Jan 2 - Westchester Jacob Burns matinees
Dec 14 - NashvilleBelcourt
Dec 14 - AtlantaLandmark Midtown Art
Dec 14 – 20 - St. LouisLandmark Tivoli
Dec 16 - HonoluluAcademy of the Arts – One Day Only!
Dec 21 – 27 - HartfordReal Artways
Jan 4-6 HoustonMuseum of Fine Art
Jan 5-6 - Cleveland Cleveland Cinematheque

# posted by Benjamin Crossley-Marra @ 9/25/2007 04:40:00 PM Comments (1)

Last week, during the 29th annual IFP Market, I had a chance to sit down with Documentary Spotlight programmer and director, Milton Tabbott. We talked about the state of nonfiction these days and IFP's unwavering dedication to helping independent filmmakers develop their vision and craft, the market and conference being just one way in which the organization shepherds artists through the obstacle course of making, finishing, exhibiting and selling their film.

Filmmaker: How many years have you been culling through the nonfiction submissions that come into the market?

Tabbot: I started as a volunteer [for IFP] in ’95 and then I came on staff in ’96. So since ’96, I’ve been bringing in work, both narrative and documentary. Since 2004, we’ve separated the Documentary Spotlight into its own program.

Filmmaker: Why is that? These days, I’m noticing a lot of strongly narrative programs including full documentary strands in their programming.

Tabbot: We always had documentaries and we always had the same number of documentaries competing in the market. Up until, and through 2003, there was always a small portion of documentaries with producers who had a track record and such, included in No Borders. It became a little complicated because they were at different stages. On the narrative side, they were all at script stage. And on the documentary side, they were always in progress. And that was a time when there was growing interest in documentary, from both the industry and the public. So, the thought was to take those in-progress documentaries out of No Borders and give them targeted access to buyers who were looking for nonfiction. I think there was a concern, at the beginning, that buyers would be overwhelmed with the numbers because we have 60 works-in-progress, but it hasn’t turned out that way. And in 2004, we had the buyers requesting one-on-one meetings. We inform the industry right after we make our selections and we start churning out the publications. We've also added this compilation DVD of all the projects so that they can target what’s relevant to them.

Filmmaker: Do salespeople come for a combination of narratives and docs?

Tabbot: There have always, and continue to be, companies that are looking for both. But, post-Capturing the Friedmans, Spellbound, and a whole explosion of nonfiction films that did well theatrically, you started having companies like Focus Features and Paramount Vantage and others looking for documentaries that might work in the theatrical market. There was an increase in the traditional distribution arena that joined the usual suspects--the broadcasters and those other companies like 7th Art Releasing, THINKFilm, HBO, A&E IndieFilms, the international broadcasters--that started out of the gate with a lot of documentaries.

Filmmaker: There’s a strand here that’s covering the doc hybrid, or what’s being called nonfiction film--films that incorporate a lot of narrative elements in building the story. Is that tricky? What do you do with those?

Tabbot: It depends on what the balance is in the film and how it's being marketed. In the past two years, I’ve seen more focus on the story in documentary—what is the story? What is the narrative arc? There’s been a movement to think about that during production and to consciously build the film to play more like a narrative film. There's thought behind that while they’re following the story. Taking that one step further, we have a couple of projects in the market this year that I would say feel like narrative films but are documentaries. One is called "21 Below" that follows a family in Buffalo, New York and another, from what we’ve seen so far, is going to be a really terrific documentary called “A Rubberband is an Unlikely Instrument.” It’s not a music doc but it follows this musician in Brooklyn coping with his various life issues. It feels like an American indie with a European sensibility. He's [the director, Matt Boyd,] constructing it just like a narrative film. It’s a first-time feature for him. But, it’s also a hard film for buyers to get a bead on.

Filmmaker: What tends to happen with projects like that?

Tabbot: I try to tell them [the filmmakers] that they may not be popular at the dance right away, but once these films start with their festival screenings, that’s when their life is going to start. They’re going to need that buzz and that stamp of approval that comes with getting into the major festivals.

Filmmaker: Are there certain filmmakers that you, personally, track—watching artistically and creatively what they do, knowing that what they’re creating might change the whole landscape of documentary?

Tabbot: There are all kinds of documentaries. The majority of the group that’s here are still, for the most part, very social-issue driven. But what really does appeal to me, too, are those filmmakers challenging the form. I reiterate over and over at the filmmaker orientation, that the reason they’re here is that their work is really, really good. And there’s also very good work that we just couldn’t accommodate. It doesn’t mean those films won’t get in next year. We try to choose films that are ready to be exposed. Because there’s such a big group of key people from all the companies here looking at product, if you show it before it’s ready, that’s the impression that you’re going to leave behind.

I want to include films that are doing something different. Even if they’re not the most commercial projects, I feel they should be in some kind of documentary forum. . . . I’m a programmer, at heart, so anything having to do with the content of film or helping filmmakers is what I’m interested in. I’d be perfectly happy having a little theater somewhere to program—I know that’s a bit old school these days, having a brick and mortar theater.

Filmmaker: Has the programming here changed in any way in the course of your tenure?

Tabbot: I think part of it is us and part of it is the filmmaker. We try to structure the market as an extremely professional forum and I think the filmmakers step up to that. What you see in the documentary community is a mix of newcomers and veterans. It’s very rare for a documentary filmmaker to be able to go out and make his or her next movie without having to ask for money. It’s the reality; everybody deals with this.

Filmmaker: Do you think there ever will be any kind of governmental commissioning entity in our country that will act as a fund for independent filmmakers? Or is that too pie-in-the-sky?

Tabbot: I do think that is a bit pie-in-the-sky.

Filmmaker: Is that why you encourage co-productions? What is behind making the No Borders strand such a prominent feature of the market?

Tabbot: It’s because filmmaking can be a very isolating endeavor—it's a lot of working on a Final Cut Pro system on your laptop in your bedroom and sending out intermittent missives to people, but not having any clear guidance. There are a number of forums like this one, but not really anything in the US quite like what we try to do. The idea is to bring all these people together for an intense four to five days of opportunity and connection—that’s basically why we do it. For me, the struggle is not being able to find good work. But we do have a certain reputation at this point for careful curation and tapping if off at a certain number of participants. The challenge is keeping up with who the new players are, where the new money is, if there is any, and who’s got it. The narrative world is still a much more attractive world to most buyers.

Filmmaker: Who are some of your favorite nonfiction filmmakers right now?

Tabbot: Some of the films that I personally respond to are either very traditional or totally non-traditional. This past year, there was a film that I thought was fantastic by a narrative filmmaker who did a doc, Rob Devor’s “Zoo.” It was a documentary told in a narrative style—it’s almost totally imagined. Those are the kinds of films that get me excited. The thing about documentary filmmakers is that you rarely see the same thing from the same filmmaker from year to year. Each project can take many years to produce and finish.

Filmmaker: What venues or festivals do you hit that you really enjoy from a programming perspective?

Tabbot: I love going to Full Frame. It’s like a little oasis of nonfiction in a very intimate environment. I hope to get to True/False; I hear great things about that festival, again in terms of great programming and great community. The doc world community is really special. A filmmaker over at the Doc Spotlight, who had had a series of good meetings yesterday, told me, “It’s amazing how many nice people gravitate to documentary, on both the buyer side and the filmmaker side.” It's not unusual for me to watch a film by a filmmaker I haven't yet met and respond strongly to it. And when I do finally meet him or her, not surprisingly, there’s an affinity there.

Filmmaker: Do you think your job is going to get easier or harder, in terms of how this market is going to run in the future?

Tabbot: I think that any kind of major growth already happened a few years ago, as I said earlier. I’m always a little leery about such intense interest and what kind of life cycle it might have. This business is still driven by commerce and still driven by theatrical, especially for those who are working in the longer form—that aspiration, that hope of theatrical is still very pertinent, for both filmmakers and buyers.

Filmmaker: Is the online film marketing and distribution explosion something that you think will serve up quality content on a consistent basis?

Tabbot: (shrugs and laughs) I’m so old school! Hopefully, yeah, but whether it’s going to be a pipeline or an influencer of the form? It’s still hard to tell. I think there could very well be people who are new filmmakers, or there are people who have been working in nonfiction film for a while, that aren’t even thinking about this kind of structure [theatrical] because they’re young and they’re attuned to that kind of marketing and distribution. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

We hold an orientation for local filmmakers who are going to take projects to Hot Docs in Toronto [which takes place in the spring]. I was talking to Whitney Dow, the co-director of “The Two Towns of Jasper.” I had him share his experience pitching up there at the forum and he said, “It’s the best of times and the worst of times for documentary, in that there’s a lot of people doing a lot of good work, and there's a lot of interest in that work. But there’s still no money.” That side of things hasn’t kept up—there are still the same outlets out there with the same funding profiles they’ve had for years.

But people struggle and struggle to make their film and then you see the work. And due to enormous creativity, resourcefulness and perseverance, that work and sacrifice definitely does pay off.

# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/23/2007 08:28:00 PM Comments (0)

Here's a Google link to a conversation that Scott Kirsner from CinemaTech had during the IFP Filmmaker Confernece with Brett Gaylor, a Montreal-based filmmaker who is exploring new modes of collaboration for documentary filmmaking. I'm also embedding below, but if you go to the Google page you can download the 12-minute piece in a format suitable for playing on your iPod or PSP.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/22/2007 11:14:00 AM Comments (0)

Over at his Docs that Inspire, Joel Heller has posted an MP3 download of Scott Kirsner's IFP Filmmaker Conference panel on digital downloading for filmmakers.

Here's what he has to say about the conference/podcast:

Kirsner is arguably the most engaging panel moderator on the new media scene, both because of his knowledge of emerging distribution platforms and the persistence he brings to asking panelists tough questions and keeping things moving along. Panels such as this one are a vital service to filmmakers, who are faced with an overwhelming array of online distribution possibilities in new media landscape that's evolving at warp speed.

This podcast is a complete unedited one-hour audio recording of the panel discussion featuring Peter Broderick (Distribution Strategist at Paradigm Consulting), Kathleen Powell (Vice President, Worldwide Programming, Jaman), Jana Augsberger (Filmaka.com), and Kelly Devine (Manager, ReFrame Project). You can read more about this panel—along with Kirsner's commentary on several other IFP panels—at his blog CinemaTech.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/21/2007 01:02:00 PM Comments (0)

I've posted previously about Jonathan Lethem's "Promiscuous Materials Project," in which he allows filmmakers, songwriters and playwrights free adaptation rights to some of his short stories. Now, Lethem has a page on his blog in which he notes which artists have taken him up on his offer. An, in the cases of many of the songwriters, he posts streams of their work. Check it out. Among the film news: Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher is making a short fllm from Lethem's story "Interview with a Crab."

Related: Lethem also announced that he would give the film rights to his latest novel, You Don't Love Me Yet, to the director with the best proposal for its adaptation. It would be a free option with money due only when the film received distribution. On the news page for the book Lethem announces that Greg Marcks, whose previous film was 11:14, was awarded the option. "Greg's ideas for the film are really terrific, and I'm excited to see him try to make it," Lethem writes.

Marcks is currently working on The Gift, an international thriller set in Bolivia.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/21/2007 12:36:00 PM Comments (0)

So the highlight for me here at IFP was the opportunity to meet so many filmmakers and other creative people. I'm at the HBO party right now in the Puck building... I'm sitting on a couch hanging out with these two really kewL sound designer/composer types originally from France but now NY based. Thierry and Frederic are definitely holdin it down on the creative tip.

One of the coolest projects I heard about was from Jason Smith from Chicago with his film "The Jack MacKey Project" I'm a closet hiphop_head so I loved the idea behind his film. An MC was challenged to create an entire album in 24 hours, the d00d did it and apparently it was quite mega_ILL. This is Jason and I hangin out by the IFP DIY couch.


Since this will be my last post from the IFP I'd like to thank everyone at the IFP and everyone at Filmmaker magazine for letting a professional weirdo like myself take part in the festivities. Fellow blogger Alicia attacked me physically and threatened further mental and emotional trauma if I did not include this hyper professional photo of us both. In my personal life I usually never do what women tell me to do but in my like... professional life I make exceptions.


I'll speaking at the picnic conference in Amsterdam in Tuesday if anyone is going to be in the neighborhood and my film is playing in London on October 1st. If you want to see why I was invited here go pickup my DVD and allow your head to be exploded by le ultimate strange!!!

# posted by M dot Strange @ 9/20/2007 08:28:00 PM Comments (0)

"What do you do for exercise?"
"Tiddlywinks. And an occasional anxiety attack."

- Woody Allen, Melinda and Melinda

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About the Author:

Tze (pronounced "Z") Chun is a writer/director working out of NY and LA. His short film Windowbreaker played at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. His feature film You're A Big Girl Now is currently being produced by Jeremy Kipp Walker of Journeyman Films (Half Nelson, Maria Full of Grace). He was asked by this blog's editors to send some dispatches from attending IFP's International Co-finance market No Borders. He hopes he does a good job.

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Hey everyone, sorry about the lag time. Here's a play-by-play of my experience at No Borders, IFP's international co-finance market.

DAY 0: Saturday

Took three days off my job in LA and took the red-eye back to NY to present my project You're A Big Girl Now at IFP's international co-finance market No Borders. Spent a Saturday walking around Soho and Union Square with my girlfriend, then picked up the thirty-five pound box of scripts, lookbooks, and project overviews that William Morris messengered over to her office (I didn't want to make her carry it… I'm a gentleman). My producer Jeremy Kipp Walker is in Arizona shooting Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's follow up to Half Nelson and can't make it to IFP, so I've decided to go alone, but armed to the teeth.

Got a bad night's sleep. Still jetlagged.

DAY 1: Sunday

Woke up late and groggy then overcompensated with caffeine. I know I've drunk too much coffee when my interior monologue starts sounding more and more like Patrick Bateman's voice-over in American Psycho.

Today is orientation day! Feels like my first day at school. I even got hazed by a couple of the older writer/directors. Good thing I don't have any milk money to steal. At the kickoff brunch, got to see the ever wonderful Susan Boehm and Amy Dotson, who run No Borders and Emerging Narratives, respectively. If you don't know Susan and Amy, they're the ones been working round-the-clock to put the market together. Also saw Durier Ryan, who wrote the piece in 25 New Faces about me.

Met up with No Borders veteran Karin Chien (The Motel, Robot Stories) to get some advice. Karin's been helping me informally with You're A Big Girl Now, both with notes on the script and budget estimates. The best advice she gives me is not to sweat it. No Borders is about making the initial connection and seeing if this is a relationship you want to continue.

At noon, Susan gave us some pointers and the co-presenting partners (list here) give a small speech about what they do. The gist is that if you're from any country other than the US, you can get a lot of money to make your movies.

Some familiar faces. Michael Kang (The Motel, West 32^nd) and his producer Jamin O'Brian (who I met at Tribeca All Access this year) were there with their new film Sea of Tranquility. Jamin met the writer Chris Newberry last year at Emerging Narratives! Also, Priyanka Kumar, also a TAA alum, was there with her project The Flicker's Dance.

DAY 2: Monday

First full day of meetings. The way that No Borders (and Emerging Narratives) work is they have a group of small tables where 30 minute meetings are scheduled. They send out a dossier with project information, and companies and individuals request meetings with you. Everyone refers to it as 'speed-dating.'

All of the No Borders projects have some financing in place, so the conversations are less pitch-oriented, more about where you hope the project will go, what distribution you'd like for it, how you came up with the budget numbers, etc. Most of the time, the companies have requested meetings with you for a certain reason: subject matter, budget, or the filmmaker's previous track record.

Since my film is a modestly budgeted Cantonese-language period film. I found myself mostly in meetings with companies with equity financing or a film fund in place who were looking for a slate of films for the next year. Also met with a few film sales companies that wanted to take a look at the script and possibly advise about preselling foreign territories. I try to keep my pitch short, show the lookbook, discuss the budget and potential audience for the film, then ask some questions about the company I'm pitching to. Even if this project isn't right for the company I'm pitching, it's good to keep in mind who they are, what they're about, what type of projects they get involved in.

Some new faces who skipped orientation showed up yesterday. Sophie Barthes (fellow 25 faces and 2007 Sundance shorts alum) and my producer's partner Paul Mezey were there with their project Cold Souls. Oh, also this morning, John Hadity gave a great talk on international co-financing where he explained different type of financing – equity, supergap, gap, primary, mezzanine, and… vestibule?

I brought too many hard copies of my script. My back hurts.

DAY 3: Tuesday

Second full day of meetings. Met up with Cinetic Media madman Dana O'Keefe, who AD'd a short film of mine five years ago. Also, Alex Orlovsky (Half Nelson, Blue Valentine) of Hunting Lane. This is my second day of nine half-hour meetings, but I feel fine, I think. One of the great things about No Borders is that the companies choose to meet with you, and not the other way around. Because of this, there's a near absence of the Creative Executive glazed-look reaction when you're pitching. These are all companies that are truly interested in finding out more about independent film and independent filmmakers.

At night I went to my one extra-curricular event, run by the Florida Film Festival. I'm also keeping up with my day job as a staff writer on Cashmere Mafia. Calling my sometimes writing partner out in LA. Started missing NYC for the first time.

DAY 3: Wednesday

Started missing NYC hard. Just two meetings set up through IFP. Met with a London based distribution company that might want to put up half of the budget in exchange for China distribution rights. Trying to follow up as I go. Had to run back home to pack up so I could get some sleep before my flight tomorrow. Didn't get to say goodbye to most people. Gave Susan a huge hug. I think she was initially worried that Jeremy couldn't do the meetings with me, but said she got some positive feedback about my pitch and presentation.

All in all, a fantastic experience meeting with all these companies in one place. Really inspiring to see all these producers, filmmakers, and production companies making interesting films. Filmmakers that I'd admired from afar and got to meet face to face. Companies whose logo I would see in front of some of my favorite films.

DAY 4: Thursday

Took the 6am plane back to LA and was back in the writer's room by 10am. Trying hard to edit all my posts and realizing what a bad writer I am when I'm tired. Hope they make sense. If they don't, e-mail me.

# posted by Tze Chun @ 9/20/2007 06:58:00 PM Comments (0)

If you are in New York this weekend, consider going to see Larry Fessenden's Iceland-set, environmental/exisentialist horror movie The Last Winter, which is playing at the IFC Center. Manohla Dargis gave the film an amazing review in the New York Times.

She wrote, in part:

It’s amazing what you can do with a low budget, an expansive imagination and a smooth-moving camera. (A fine cast helps.) An heir to the Val Lewton school of elegantly restrained horror, wherein an atmosphere of dread counts far more than a bucket of blood and some slippery entrails, the director Larry Fessenden is among the most thoughtful Americans working on the lower-budget end of this oft-abused and mindlessly corrupted genre.

Apocalyptic in title and tone, “The Last Winter,” written by Robert Leaver and Mr. Fessenden, breathes fresh air into a stale setup (an isolated group gone stir crazy or something) by insisting that our everyday horrors aren’t a matter of arid news reports but of feverishly real, terrifying life.

And if you haven't checked out the Filmmaker.com main page (which you really should, because there is a lot of new web-only content there), here's a link to Damon Smith's interview with Fessenden.

An excerpt:

Filmmaker: Do you find it hard writing for horror audiences considering that you’re not giving them the gory stuff most fans are clamoring for?

Fessenden: No. [Laughs] Costa-Gavras maybe, but all that is political. By chance, I’ve made two movies about environmental issues and I can honestly say that is quite rare. There is a tradition in some horror movies of the revenge of the beasts — with frogs and God knows what — but my model is much more traditional. I’m influenced by Scorsese’s movies and Roman Polanski, who has that subtle sense of dread in his films.

Filmmaker: How do you think people will respond to The Last Winter?

Fessenden: I’ve really carved a very strange place for myself — the pursuit of the uncanny. I really think the uncanny is what we live every day, and to express that is so cool. The axe murder in an absolutely shocking and horrifying event, but it only happens to a few of us. We can obsess on it, and that’s fine, but what’s intriguing is the peculiarity you live with every day. The little nicks and cuts, as opposed to the huge axe murder—those are things that we do to ourselves and we’re doing right now. There is no more symbolic feature in our lives than the fact that we are ignoring this thing that is killing us. It’s just madness.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/20/2007 06:51:00 PM Comments (0)

Tomorrow, Friday, is the final day of the IFP Filmmaker Conference, and it's both free and open to the general public. From 9:00AM until 10:30AM panelists will discuss issues surrounding fair use in documentary film, the limits of, benefits from, and restrictions around E&O insurance, and specific issues that have arisen in various docs having to do with fair use. It's at the Puck Building in New York at Houston and Lafayette. Anybody working in documentary film today has to know about these issues.

Here's the schedule:

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 21st - FAIR USE IN DOCUMENTARY FILM

FAIR USE 101 9:00 - 10:30AM
Michael Donaldson, Principal, Donaldson & Hart

E & O & YOU 11:00AM - 12:30PM
Peter Jaszi , Professor, Washington College of Law, American University
Debra Kozee, President, C&S Insurance

FILMMAKER FAIR USE ROUNDTABLE 1:00 - 2:30PM
Anthony Falzone, Executive Director, Stanford University’s Fair Use Project
Kirby Dick, Director, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist
Alex Gibney, Director, ENRON: Smartest Guys In The Room, Taxi to the Dark Side
Lesli Klainburg, Director, Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema, Indie Sex: Censored
David Van Taylor, With God On Our Side, Dream Deceivers: The Story Behind James Vance vs. Judas Priest

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/20/2007 04:17:00 PM Comments (0)

For those of you who haven’t been able to check out the Filmmaker Conference going on this week, IFP has been uploading video interviews with some of the panelists to the IFP MySpace Page.

They’ve got interviews with John Sayles and Maggie Renzi, producers Gill Holland and Peter Saraf, and everyone from Sunday’s MUSIC MAKES THE MOVIE PANEL, including Moby, Tom DiCillo and music supervisor Tracy McKnight. They’ll be uploading more videos throughout the week, so keep checking back!

To see the Conference panel lineup for Thursday and Friday, go to www.filmmakerconference.com.

# posted by André Salas @ 9/20/2007 01:06:00 PM Comments (0)

As we pass the half-way point, I want to thank all of our guest bloggers -- Pamela, M. Dot, Alicia, and Brandon -- who've been covering the IFP Filmmaker Conference. But as GreenCine pointed out today, there are other places to get your vicarious Conference fix. The Film Panel Notetaker has several long and detailed accounts of the various panel discussions. And Scott Kirsner has several long posts as well on his CinemaTech blog. In one, while listening to THINKfilm's Mark Urman discuss the challenge of publicizing a film in the internet age, Kirsner goes web-surfing to the THINKfilm site and realizes that, like most distributor sites, it does not allow bloggers and other "non-registered media" easy access to press stills and publicity materials. Kirsner says that correcting this would allow the distributors a low-cost way to service the army of bloggers who, for some films, might be an even more potent force than the MSM.

# posted by Scott Macaulay @ 9/20/2007 11:04:00 AM Comments (2)

Today, the market and conference is focused on nonfiction filmmaking. It's a bit quieter than the last couple of days, with most of the staff off-site prepping for the filmmaker awards luncheon in a few hours at Chinatown Brasserie just down the street.

The day started with the "Public Television in the 21st Century" panel moderated by International Documentary Association's executive director, Sandra Ruch. She was joined by Claire Aguilar of ITVS, Kathy Lo of PBS' Independent Lens, Simon Kilmurry of PBS' POV and, the very charming, Christoph Jorg of ARTE. Ruch encouraged the panelists to provide practical advice to the audience on how to submit to these various broadcasters--the whos, whats and wheres of navigating the process each series or channel has for their annual programming.

Documentary folks, as a rule, are much easier to access than people who produce and buy fiction and also tend to be extremely forthcoming and open about their process selection and any other issues or questions a filmmaker might have. They will give you their email, their phone number, their time and attention. But, as with most things discussed here, the onus is on the filmmaker to do the necessary research and present as professional a package as you possibly can when you're ready to go through their submission process. You don't want to get kicked out of the pile due to not doing your homework--it's a waste of everyone's time, especially yours. And be prepared to submit to the same entities several times. Ruch says, "Don't be discouraged. If they're writing you back inviting you to re-submit, take that as a positive sign and try again."

Also this morning, Thom Powers, nonfiction programmer of the Toronto International Film Festival will talk to Participant Productions' Diane Weyermann for the last "A Conversation With. . .".

There are four more panels throughout the day with the superstars of the doc world--filmmakers, programmers, and executives working exclusively in nonfiction. And, there is also a focus on doc/narrative hybrids, a burgeoning category discussed frequently in the nonfiction filmmaking community.

And tomorrow, the whole day (free to anyone who wants to attend) is devoted to Fair Use in Documentary--"Fair Use 101" with Michael Donaldson (who, literally, wrote the book on these issues), "E&O and You" (errors & omissions insurance) and, finally, a "Filmmaker Roundtable" continuing the discussion about these essential issues for film producers.

# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/20/2007 10:24:00 AM Comments (0)

Just had to add a note to today's stuff: I attended the "Show Me the Money" panel, as anticipated. Great, articulate group, as usual, peopled by the industry's most pioneering film execs, and all went well--people were amusing and pithy and all that stuff a good panelist does.

I've attended many, many panels at this fest and usually when they're over (and this is a packed house, mind you), just a few people wander up to talk to the panelists as they step down from the podium

Well, this group didn't even get a chance to lift their asses off their chairs, let alone step off the podium. They were mobbed. At last, at last! Someone can explain where the hell we might get some stinkin' money, already, oh happy day.

I found it very touching and sad. If I ever strike it super-duper rich some day (don't get excited; it's not that likely), I will give a huge chunk of my cash away to artists, filmmakers, craftspeople, musicians, anyone that creates something from the best of their brain and their soul. Promise.

# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/19/2007 06:46:00 PM Comments (2)

A couple of popular festivals had parties last night on the east side to kick off the '08 season. The Woodstock Film Festival, October 10 - 14, has a great program scheduled this year and some of their sponsors, including indiepix, hosted a little shindig at Libation to fete filmmakers and staff. This young fest is very popular with filmmakers, as is the True/False Film Festival. T/F hosted a special screening of one of last year's faves, Super Amigos by Arturo Perez Torres at the IFC Center. Chicago 10 director, Brett Morgen, did a Q&A with Torres following the screening, followed by an intimate party on Broome Street with all the usual suspects in attendance.

This morning at the market, the UK Film Council and UK Film Council US hosted a preview of new work from film projects supported by the Council's New Cinema Fund, followed by a brunch in the lobby of the Angelika Film Center. An excited Lenny Crooks introduced the show reel with scene selections, trailers, and screen tests of projects currently in production, most of which looked fresh, provocative and exciting. I was especially taken with Chris Waitt's A Complete History, Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane (gorgeous cinematography), Peter Greenaway's Nightwatching (also gorgeous) and Noel Clarke's Adulthood. Good stuff.

Crooks, the new head of the Fund said that over the course of the next three years, he's very keen on creating collaborations with UK and US indie filmmakers/producers. With 14 films currently in production, he's anxious to fill a near-future slate with quality independent fiction and nonfiction co-productions.

After brunch, I went back downstairs to watch a work-in-progress doc called Paolo by filmmaker Andrea Franco Batevsky. Then back to the Puck Building for a sit-down with IFP's documentary programmer and Doc Spotlight director, Milton Talbott. In a few days, on this blog, I'll be posting our conversation about the current state of nonfiction, and how the documentary strand at the market has changed and grown over the years.

I followed Milton over to 4th street where the doc spotlight meetings were taking place--a smaller, quieter (but just as intense) version of the narrative and No Borders meetings between sales agents, producers, filmmakers and financiers. Judith Helfand was there representing Chicken and Egg Pictures, as was Diana Holtzberg of Films Transit International (both as a director/producer and an acquisitions and sales agent). I also saw Peter Broderick and others conducting meetings. As I was leaving, a very excited sales agent came running up to Milton and shared the news that she'd just closed a great deal with a documentary filmmaker.

I met Simon Kilmurry, the executive director of PBS' POV series in the elevator on the way back down to the lobby and we chatted on the walk back to the Puck Building. He'll be one of the panelists for the "Public Television in the 21st Century" panel tomorrow as part of the market day that focuses on documentary. I interviewed one of his team members recently, producer Yance Ford, for Renew Media. You can read the interview here.

I spent the afternoon in the viewing library and watched these WIP docs: Samantha Buck's 21 Below; Cathryne Czubek's A Girl and a Gun; Virginia Williams' Frontrunner; and Matt Boyd's A Rubberband is an Unlikely Instrument (Jem Cohen's partner-in-crime and a wonderful filmmaker in his own right).

Some great panels coming up this afternoon: "Show Me the Money": Where are today's indies under $2 million finding their budgets? Learn how independent filmmakers find the money--through grants, private foundations and fiscal sponsorship programs--they need to get their movie made.

Following that will be the last panel of the day moderated by indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez called "The State of Independents." How has independent film changed in the last five years? Where are we headed--and how can distributors and independent filmmakers work together to tweak old platform models in a landscape of shrinking windows and increasingly elusive audiences to get their work seen by global audiences?

Eugene is pulling double-duty today. After the panel, he'll be heading over to the Apple Store in Soho to have a conversation with filmmaking partners Jason Kliot and Joana Vicente at 7:30. Also tonight, Rooftop Films, in conjunction with IFP, will be hosting a free screening of "Sneak Previews from the IFP Narrative Rough Cut Lab." Live music and never-before-seen films under a clear autumn sky--sounds good to me. Come out and join the festivities.

# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/19/2007 12:56:00 PM Comments (0)

One of the thangs to do here at this IFP biZ is to take meetings. After some hyper professional meet and greets this morning with development exec types I decided skip out on my final business meeting of the day and instead meet with NY based filmmaker Janice Ahn.

I saw her excellent short film "Stutter" at the Cinequest film festival in San Jose, Ca earlier this year and wanted to meet her. Its great to be able to meet so many other filmmakers here at IFP... there are a ton of really interesting films in development here. The coolest one I've heard about so far is a doc about an MC who was challenged to make an entire album in a day. He stepped up to the challenge and apparently its like...ILL. I'll try to chase down the Chicago based filmmaker who made it and post his info here.

# posted by M dot Strange @ 9/18/2007 06:40:00 PM Comments (2)

Having listened to several panels yesterday, I decided to start my day viewing some WIP (works-in-progress) documentaries in the viewing library and am hoping to catch some more screenings at the Angelika, as well. Today's focus at the market is international in scope with the thought that forming co-productions to finance, produce and distribute your film might benefit you greatly in all kinds of ways.

There are a lot of great companies from all over the world here at the market participating in the No Borders strand. Tomorrow morning, the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund is hosting a special showcase of their upcoming projects, followed by a brunch. Lenny Crooks, the new head of the Fund will host, along with its senior executive, Himesh Kar.

(In fact, behind me right now, M Dot Strange is dazzling a small audience of Asian and European producers with his material (shown off his laptop, natch) and holding forth in his energetic, articulate manner about all things DIY--a great ambassador for independent filmmaking, if ever there was one.)

This morning I viewed samples of the following projects in the Spotlight on Documentaries--Works-in-Progress: Matthew Kohn's short Site Specific: The Legacy of Regional Modernism; Matthew Wallin's I Die Daily: The Making of Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle (it took Barney nine years to create his full cycle and took Wallin ten to do this doc--I'll have an in-depth interview with him on my own blog soon); Brittany Huckabee's The Mosque in Morgantown; Jennifer M. Taylor's New Muslim Cool; Troy Word's The Presence of Joseph Chaikin; Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton's The Road to Nasiriyah; Marcia Jamel and Ken Schneider's Speaking in Tongues; and Peggy Stern's Upside Down and Backwards. All these projects look amazing--I'm looking forward to seeing the finished films and speaking more to these filmmakers.

After lunch, I sat in on the "Navigating Foreign Film Festivals" panel with representatives from Rotterdam, Berlin, the UK Film Council and IFC. Lenny Crooks of UK Film Council said that a "good, creative producer should pursue these partnerships." He's looking for the emerging first time filmmaker making his/her signature film and is interested in sustaining long-term relationships. "The passion of the filmmaker is the most important thing; that's where it starts with me and that's a privilege a lot of funding entities don't have." He also believes that festivals are the best way to find an international audience.

Marit Van Den Elshout of Rotterdam feels that it's not necessarily the best strategy to hit the big festivals if you have a little film. She stresses that it's important to do your research and learn about the different "signatures" or brands all these festivals have. For instance, Rotterdam gives a lot of attention to experimental work. These days, presenting your project as "an American independent" is rather meaningless, really. Festivals stand for something quite specific and are an alternative to mainstream programming. Good festival programmers task themselves with adjusting the balance of what gets programmed in more traditional outlets and this means that things get more competitive for an American filmmaker, not less. Your work is being gauged against the best of whatever is coming out of Asia, Europe, the Middle East or South America. And every festival programmer, of course, wants to find a project to champion and nurture its development--it's a point of pride for them to make those magical discoveries and showcase them at their festivals.

This afternoon, a really cool program took place in the Puck Building lobby called "Raw Word," sponsored by Brooklyn-based Raw Word and Kodak. Sidetrack Films' Jared Moshe was responsible, in part, for this new program by bringing in the Raw Word-ers, a Brooklyn-based arts group. There was a presentation of 5 - 10 minute excerpts from the scripts of the six Emerging Narrative Screenwriter Award finalists read by professional actors, cast specifically for this reading by Laura Verbeke (Flight of the Conchords). This is all new material that the writers got to test in front of a live audience filled with film executives and fellow writers. The winner will receive a $5,000 grant. The projects are: Ryan Lakenan's Get A Life Desmond Jones, Don Handfield's Jason Scott, Nir Paniry's Kamikaze Dolls, Christina Beck's Perfection, Kathy Christopherson's The Wind Effect and Avi Weider's Zeroes and Ones.

# posted by Pamela Cohn @ 9/18/2007 11:14:00 AM Comments (0)

At a pair of panels on the state of U.S. film festivals and the strategies filmmakers should bring to their film's festival life, Gabe Wardell of the Atlanta Film Festival and SXSW's Matt Dentler made the analogy alluded to in the title of this post, making light of the fierce competition that exists among the major winter and spring festivals to be the first place to shed light on bold new American independent feature films.

Representatives of each were there at the second panel, including programmers from Sundance (David Courier), Slamdance (Sarah Diamond) and Tribeca (David Kwok). Each stressed the unique strengths and programming concerns of their festival while seeming very much at peace with the currently jam packed festival scene, where any spring weekend two or three major regional film festivals may be showing the same films that these festivals have recently premiered. While everyone was quite cordial, Diamond couldn't help but mention the antipathy that has largely characterized the relationship between the Park City festivals. "It's nice that we get to sit next to each other on a panel and open the dialogue a bit." said the programming director of the insurgent festival Robert Redford once referred to as "parasitic". A few pointers from the programmers on submitting films to their festivals:

- The essentials: Make sure your disc works. Fill out the submission form completely. Get your film in as early as possible. Don't send multiple cuts; send in the film when it is complete. Don't send extraneous materials the programmers have not asked for. Don't hassle them with excessive phone calls or emails ("If premiere is like losing your virginity, submitting is like courtship." reiterated Dentler.)

- "Align yourself with people who have your best interest at heart." Dentler said, referring to the situation many films completed after the Sundance deadline face, when trying to choose between Tribeca and SXSW, but also alluding to the fact that filmmakers should try to play festivals in which the programmers are clearly passionate about their films, so as not to get lost in the shuffle of a large festival.

- For shorts: Premiere status is largely unimportant, but the shorter the better. "Its easier to program a 12 minute short than a 20 minute short." said Diamond.

At the sunday afternoon panel, sales reps Jeremy Walker and Ronna Wallace joined Wardell, ThinkFilm acquisitions exec Ben Stambler and "In Search of a Midnight Kiss" director Alex Holdridge in a discussion of what steps filmmakers should take to bring industry awareness to their projects. Most stressed the need to "build a narrative" for your film, be it by taking iconic stills that capture the essence of the film, making clips for TV and online media that are durable enough to work outside the context of the film and knowing the film well enough to discern weather it will play better in front of a big crowd, or on a distribution exec's DVD player at the Racquet Club.

# posted by Brandon Harris @ 9/17/2007 06:23:00 PM Comments (1)

This morning at 10am I was on a panel called "Turning your viewers on" Luckily I was able to keep my pants on unlike a panel I was on at a questionable function I attended to generate funds for my next film at an event earlier this year. After the panel a woman came up to me and congratulated me on being a satanist even though I don't remember pledging my soul to our all mighty overlord of darkness during the panel. I've taken up temporary residence on the couch outside the entryway to the panels so if you want to chat with a professional weirdo please stop by. The couch is now the official IFP DIY filmmaking couch. Here are some of todays guests on the M dot Strange IFP DIY couch show.... Brian Chirls of team Four Eyed Monsters stopped by and we talked about alternative theatrical distribution strategies...

Then Lance Weiler(The Last Broadcast, Head Trauma) stopped by and proceeded to explode Filmmaker Mag's Jason Guerrasio and my own head with his hyper ultimate interactive narrative ideas... Lance is a real innovator... check out his WorkbookProject for mad info....ahem...WESTSIDE!

# posted by M dot Strange @ 9/17/2007 03:24:00 PM Comments (2)

With six panels and a full day of screenings at the Angelika starting today, the second day of the market heated up with many people buzzing around, checking in, having a bit of breakfast and setting meeting schedules for the day in the lounge.

I attended the 11:30 keynote of the day, a conversation with Tony Liano of Crackle. Interviewed by our own blond Scott Macaulay, Liano held forth on all things content and distribution on the web. Liano is the head programmer at this Sony Pictures Entertainment Company-owned, San Francisco-based online entertainment network and distribution pathway company.

Liano, who started in advertising, followed that by a stint at Microsoft as both a creative and a techie. When the Canon XL1 came on the market, he and his producer brother looked at it and thought, “No excuses—time to create.” And so he directed a documentary and became a filmmaker for the first time. He also has an MBA and started to explore distribution scenarios for content that had nowhere else to go.

He says that Crackle (the revamped, re-launched Grouper) wanted to marry the bottom-up approach (where there's no real context for anything and few rules as to how the site is structured or what kind of content they showcase, a la YouTube) to a top-down approach (where content has a branded destination and clear distribution pathways with specific audiences in mind). Crackle consists of several designated channels with their own branding, look and content strand.

Clips from the popular Mr. Diety were shown. The company discovered the director online, acquired 10 episodes and are producing another 10. Liano says, “Traditional content development is dying a slow death in the industry.”

When