TRANSLATION

By Admin

I received the following e-mail recently and have decided to pass it on in the event that an enterprising filmmaker or two may want to take advantage of Valerie’s offer to translate their film into French:

“Hello,

I’m a French student in my fourth year of college and I have to do a translation paper (60 to 80 pages long) which can be made of several short film translations or/and analysis of it. I would love to translate an English short film into French. I can not find in France any English short film and i wanted to know if you had any idea of a filmmaker who would allow me translate his short film, someone I could get in touch with. I am very open minded concerning the type of film ( except horror or extreme genres). I would need both the film and the script and it’s very hard to find via the Internet.

I thank you for the attention you have paid to my request.”

Valerie

zazouille2000@aol.com

zazouille2000_1@hotmail.com
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OUT OF THE TANK

By Scott Macaulay

One New York indie I’ve been tracking over the last year is Kevin Jordan’s Lobster Farm, the story of two generations of one Brooklyn family struggling to hold onto the family business, a Sheepshead Bay lobster shop. Jordan’s previous pic, Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire, received much festival acclaim, and as he readies his new one for a fest premiere, he’s already picked up one high-profile supporter. Reports Michael Fleming in Variety, Martin Scorsese has agreed to put his “Martin Scorsese presents” label on the film, assuring it some degree of critical buzz. Jordan connected with Scorsese when he was a student at NYU; he sent him one of his student shorts and Scorsese liked it enough to give him a scholarship and invite him onto the set of Kundun.

Lobster Farm stars Danny Aiello and Jane Curtin and was filmed at a real lobster store, which happens to be owned by Jordan’s parents. He says profits from the independently financed film will go towards saving the store, which, paralleling the film’s storyline, is up for auction.
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CELLUAR ENTERTAINMENT

By Scott Macaulay

Via Variety comes this interesting subscription-only piece announcing a new spin-off for Fox’s espionage TV series 24 which reachers viewers via cell-phone.

Writes Josef Adalian, “In a first-of-its-kind deal for a U.S. TV studio, 20th Century Fox TV has greenlit production of a live-action 24 spinoff skein that will be produced exclusively for cell phone users. Dubbed 24: Conspiracy, the show — featuring original characters separate from the Fox TV skein — will unfold over 24 roughly one-minute episodes; one seg will be downloaded to subscribers’ phones every week.”

Premiering in the U.K., where cell phone use and 3G technology is more established than in the States, in January, the series is expected to hit American users in the spring or summer.

Continues the trade, “Industry soothsayers are already predicting so-called ’3G’ cell phones will open up a significant new market for studios and networks. In the same way American Idol helped text messaging take off in the U.S., it’s expected that within a few years, it won’t be uncommon for consumers to watch videoclips or entire mini-shows and movies on their phones. One Swedish broadcaster attracted thousands of subscribers to a cell phone live feed of Big Brother.
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THE FOREIGNNESS OF FILM

By Admin

In B. Ruby Rich’s keynote address on the State of Cinema at the 2004 San Francisco International Film Festival, she writes: “In an environment in which marketing drives film exhibition, consider the notion that film festivals have become a global circuit that competes with Hollywood’s marketing juggernaut — an alternate worldwide circuit that allows films outside the U.S. to find recognition. And Audiences. Awards. Buzz. Marketability. Fame and renown. The film festival circuit is the cultural World Cup, unpredictable in its stars and scores, exciting, with a climax of national triumph and personal victory… Consider the film festival as a political intervention into the market monopoly, a thorn in the side of [former MPAA head] Jack Valenti, a counter-offensive of imagination and difference. And of language, above all language. Cinematic language, yes, but also the language spoken by those billions of the people in the world who do not speak English. ‘Everyone in the world is basically the same,’ my partner Mary’s mother loves to say, she who hardly ever travels. And Mary, who has always traveled, always answers, ‘No mother, they are all different.’”

“I’ve recently written a chapter for a new anthology, Subtitles, edited by filmmaker Atom Egoyan and Canadian scholar Ian Balfour,” writes Rich, “on the subject of the foreignness of foreign films. I have been fascinated by a U.S. phenomenon of the past two decades: the crafting of film trailers that make it appear that films from Italy, say, or Japan, actually have English as their dialogue language. Not dubbed, but not subtitled either. What on earth do American audiences think? For that essay, I’ve studied the marketing habits of the ’80s and ’90s, interviewed some of the principals, and drawn some conclusions of my own about the connection between the monolingual habits of my country and its foreign-policy disasters.”

In Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film (Alphabet City Media book with The MIT Press, 544 pages, $35), an indispensable and provocative addition to the small canon of books dealing with cinema as a global cultural artifact, Egoyan and Balfour take B. Ruby Rich’s … Read the rest

FILM FESTIVAL SUMMIT

By Admin

Chris Gore, author of The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide (Lone Eagle Publishing Company, $21.95), has been chosen as a keynote speaker at the inaugural International Film Festival Summit, which takes place at the Hudson Hotel in NYC from December 7-8.

“Film festivals are exploding across the United States and worldwide,” said Gore, “so it’s about time the industry had its own event. The economic benefits for cities lucky enough to have a hot film festival are obvious, and the benefits to independent filmmakers seeking adoring audiences are enormous.”

According to a press release: “The International Film Festival Summit will be the largest ever gathering of professionals from the film festival industry. This is not a place to watch films or meet with filmmakers, but a place where film festival professionals, local government and corporate marketing executives can dialog with their peers, share insights and gain knowledge that will help them grow their film festival and keep it thriving or help understand the value of festival sponsorship opportunities and the impact on economic growth in communities.

Festival founder Todd Brockman from the Entertainment Technology Alliance has been going to major film festivals for over thirteen years and he realized that there was a need to build stronger alliances if the festival community is going to continue growing at the rate that it currently is. According to Brockman, “The film festival industry needs a way to share information and create better efficiencies, it is our intention that this annual event will create an environment where everyone is welcome to collaborate, learn, and share information.”

Lone Eagle Publishing Company is part of the publishing division of IFILM Corp., which was purchased earlier this year by The Hollywood Reporter.
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IN HOMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

By Scott Macaulay

At Filmmaker we’re always interested in alternative forms of distribution, so we took note of the unusual “window-busting” release plans for Noel, Chazz Palminteri’s directorial debut which premiered in September at the Toronto Film Festival. The sentimental holiday film which stars Susan Sarandon, Paul Walker and Penelope Cruz will premiere in theaters November 12 via The Convex Group, a new company headed by WebMD founder Jeff Arnold. Then, on Sunday, November 28 Noel will screen once on the TNT network. That day, the film will also become available to Amazon.com customers as $4.99 Flexplay DVDs, disks which erase themselves 48 hours after they are removed from their containers.

The film will also be marketed using Lidrocks — CDs containing movie trailers that are affixed to the lids of Cokes bought at movie theaters. Both Lidrocks and Flexplay are products owned and/or controlled by Convex, which describes itself as “a media and entertainment company that acquires and integrates unique assets to create new media networks.”
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KINK IN THE MAINSTREAM

By Scott Macaulay

One of the problems independent filmmakers have faced in the last decade has been the studio’s co-option of the specialty film genre. Acquistions have dropped as the mini-majors have set out to make, with bigger budgets, better production values, and real stars, the kinds of quirky character-based stories that in the ’80s and ’90s were largely the province of independent filmmakers.

A particularly cruel example of this trend was driven home by a press release, excerpted below, I received from CineKink, an organization devoted to “the recognition and encouragement of kink-positive depictions in film and television.” In order, I guess, to snag some mainstream column ink for its annual CineKink festival, the customary “awards wrap-up” release headlines not some of the genuinely kinky winners — like Napoleon Lake’s short Alice in Footland which received an honorable mention in the Audience Choice category — but rather a studio release, Warner Independent’s At Home at the End of the World, which received a Special Tribute Award for “its presentation of a polyamorous relationship and its positive portrayal of family and commitment outside of traditional monogamy.” Runner’s-up included HBO’s Six Feet Under, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and Fox’s Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.

With the Hollywood ass-kissing out of the way, here then is the rest of the press release listing CineKink NYC’s more authentically pervy winners:

“A selection of CineKink NYC audience choice and festival awards were also

announced at the ceremony, presented to filmmakers whose works appeared in

the festival in a variety of categories:

CineKink Choice – AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARDS

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD FOR BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:

Born in a Barn (Elizabeth Elson, 2004, USA, 53 minutes), an intimate and

sometimes humorous look into the erotic lives of four seemingly ordinary

people and the fast-growing fetish world of ponyplay.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD FOR BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE:

Slaves (Ich Bin Niemand, 2003, USA, 101 minutes) a graphic,

documentary-style profile of artist R.C. Horsch and his sadomasochistic

relationships with several different women.

AUDIENCE CHOICE AWARD – HONORABLE MENTION:

Alice in Footland (Napoleon Lake, 2004, … Read the rest

A-LIST SANCTUARY

By Scott Macaulay

If you work in the film industry, there’s a point every year in which you scan through your Palm Pilot or Treo or old-fashioned rolodex and realize that so many of your colleagues have left the business. Some of them you know their whereabouts; you’ve gotten a cheery card announcing their latest endeavors. But so many others just fade away.

Someone who hasn’t faded away is former Time Warner chief Gerald Levin according to Maria Bartiromo, whose “Closing Bell” piece on Levin and his new venture I caught while channel surfing today.

Several years after the murder of his son, his divorce, and his departure from AOL/Time Warner, where he engineered the unhappy merger between the two companies, Levin has, with his ex-CAA agent fiance Laurie Perlman, opened the Moonview Sanctuary. Described by Fortune magazine as an “ultra-chic mental health clinic for high-profile millionaires,” the center, as seen on CNBC, is a modish blend of New Age stylings and boutique-hotel creature comforts — Bali by way of Brentwood. With Levin living testimony to Perlman’s therapeutic skills, the center’s programs are designed for stressed-out individuals with high profiles in the mass media who are experiencing life crises.

Writes Fortune’s Barney Gimbel, “Perlman dreamed up Moonview some six years ago as a place where celebrities could receive treatment by people who understand the unique stresses brought on by being in the public eye…. Moonview’s highly personalized approach allows clients ‘to explore and begin to resolve core issues on a deeper level.’ There’s even a special treatment program for families of celebrities on trial (perfect for the families of Kobe Bryant or Martha Stewart, says Perlman). The 30-room facility is nonresidential: Clients stay at home or in a nearby hotel, and after their treatment return for three two-day follow-ups.”

Moonview’s programs include “everything from traditional psychoanalysis to acupuncture, neurofeedback and even sex therapy.” The cost to join Moonview — “a sanctuary of calm and order in a world of chaos, pressure and fear?” $175,000 a year.
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CASTRO STAFF SHAKE-UP

By Admin

According to SFGate.com, “The manager of the Castro Theatre quit Tuesday — the latest of several staffing shake-ups to cause concern about the future of the venerable movie palace, mecca to film lovers in the Bay Area.

“Stacey Wisnia, who has managed the Castro for more than four years and worked there for eight, said she resigned in part to protest the abrupt firing last week of the theater’s long-time programmer, Anita Monga.”
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BROTHER TO BROTHER

By Admin

Rodney Evans’s Brother to Brother, which won a Special Dramatic Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, opens at Cinema Village in NYC today. The film will open in San Francisco and Berkeley Nov. 19, and roll out through the rest of the country in December and January.

The film’s star, Anthony Mackie, nominated for a 2004 IFP Gotham Award for Breakthrough Actor, recently starred in Spike Lee’s She Hate Me and Sucker Free City, and was featured in Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate. He is currently filming Clint Eastwood’s Rope Burns, playing a major role opposite Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman.
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