Archive for March, 2005
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
I had no idea that in addition to pictures and profiles of charmingly tattooed and pierced young women who call themselves things like a “full-time artfag film student and part-time superbitch”, the Suicide Girls Web site features regular and rather interesting interviews, many with indie film personalities like Danny Boyle and Campbell Scott.
From the current discussion with Chloe Sevigny, who talks about her work with Woody Allen in Melinda and Melinda and Lars von Trier in Dogville and the upcoming Manderlay:
“Lars is very personal and he gets in your business and there’s a lot of chit chatting and Woody is very much just like a working experience. You go to work, do your job and you leave. Lars is a lot more joking around and teasing you and stuff like that. It’s two very different environments and plus working on the two films that I worked on with Lars, Dogville and Manderlay, we were on a soundstage. So we’re all kind of stuck in there together which added to the sort of strangeness.”
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Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
Jake Brooks provides the first media coverage of the IFP’s Producer’s Group, a gathering of some 50+ Gotham producers gathered last year to discuss the high costs of indie shooting in New York. With IATSE hiking pension and welfare benefits to over $100 per day per IA crew member, a group of producers, spearheaded by Jason Kliot, Joana Vicente, and Gretchen McGowan of Open City and HDNet and including such folks as John Penotti and Tim Williams of GreeneStreet, Ted Hope and Anthony Bregman of This is That, and John Sloss of Cinetic Media, met to discuss ways in which the collective power of the group could promote changes making easier to shoot low-budget films in New York.
Details Brooks about the forming of the group:
“The e-mails that bounced from inbox to inbox had the urgency of distress signals. Last year, during the typically serene summertime for moviemakers, the independent film community in New York City was responding to a call to arms. Over 50 independent producers and members of local production companies gathered far from the public eye in the Soho basement of the HERE arts space. While noshing on pretzels and Cheetos and drinking soda out of Styrofoam cups, they discussed their one common agenda: reducing the cost of film production in New York City.
‘This is the first time I’ve seen everyone in one room without a cocktail in your hands,’ said HDNet Films’ Jason Kliot jokingly over the drone of the A/C. Sober and determined, they went to work.”
Read Brooks’ article for more…
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Wednesday, March 16th, 2005
Documentaries about kids triumphing (or sometimes not) within educational endeavors have been big hits recently, from Spellbound to the current festival favorite Mad Hot Ballroom. With its SXSW Special Jury Award, Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s doc The Boys of Baraka should deservedly achieve the same level of recognition. Original, visually elegant and with an uncommonly ambitious narrative sweep, The Boys of Baraka was shot over a two-year period and makes a real investment in its subjects, an investment that pays off for the filmmakers.
I met Ewing and Grady, who together run the New York production company Loki Films, just before the festival and traded some emails with them about the film. In their words:
“On September 12, 2002 twenty ‘at risk’ 12-year-old boys from the tough streets of inner-city Baltimore left home to attend the 7th and 8th grade at Baraka, an experimental boarding school located in Kenya, East Africa. Here, faced with a strict academic and disciplinary program as well as the freedom to be normal teenage boys, these brave kids began the daunting
journey towards putting their lives on a fresh path.
The Boys of Baraka focuses on four boys: Devon, Montrey, Richard and his brother Romesh. Their humor and explicit truthfulness give intimate insight into their optimistic plans, despite the tremendous obstacles they face both at home and in school. Through extensive time with the boys in Baltimore and in Africa, the film captures the kids’ amazing journeyŠ and how they fare when they are forced to return the difficult realities of their city.
The Boys of Baraka zeros in on kids that society has given up on – – boys with every disadvantage, but who refuse to be cast off as ‘throw-aways.’”
Funded by ITVS, The Boys of Baraka will be broadcast on POV in summer, 2006, but should receive further big-screen play in the months ahead.
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Tuesday, March 15th, 2005
IndieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez, who moderated a panel discussion with producer Christine Vachon at the SXSW Film Festival, has posted some of her comments online:
“‘Filmmakers are starting to realize that [by] getting your film [on HBO], more people are going to see it that way than are going to see it at the Angelika [Film Center] with the subway rumbling underneath — I am starting to think, let’s get off the theatrical high horse.’
“Continuing she explained, ‘Ultimately I guess I feel like independent distribution and exhibition is really changing and I don’t want to be a dinosaur about it, and if I am faced with a little release in like 10 theaters with my movie [versus] a nice splashy cable release, I am going to go for the cable release.’”
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Sunday, March 13th, 2005
Andrew Gurland and Huck Botko’s Mail Order Wife, covered in the current issue of Filmmaker, opened this weekend at the Angelika, and its first weekend performance will have a lot to do with how widely this perversely funny and disturbing mock doc plays around the country. We’d tell you all the reasons to see it, but Moriarty at Ain’t It Cool News presents a much more detailed and coherent argument that we’re able to muster this late at night…
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Thursday, March 10th, 2005
The International Center of Photography in New York will present the first American retrospective of the work of Larry Clark, one of the most important and influential American photographers of the second half of the 20th century, from March 11 through June 5, 2005.
The exhibition, Larry Clark, will include the full spectrum of Clark’s work, spanning five decades and as many media.
Clark is currently in postproduction on his sixth feature, Wassup Rockers, which Palm Pictures had initially inked a deal to produce, but they pulled out days before the start of production, according to Clark. The film is now being produced by Henry Winterstern (Wicker Park, Underworld) through Capital Entertainment/Dual Films; Clark is scheduled to complete editing in mid-May.
According to the Killer Movies Web site, “Like Clark’s controversial Kids, Rockers will feature street kids in leading roles. This time, the story is set in South Central Los Angeles and follows a group of largely Hispanic teenagers who, instead of conforming to the hip-hop culture of their neighborhood, ride skateboards, listen to punk rock and wear their clothes tight.
“Constantly harassed, they take buses to Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Hollywood, where they skate and catch the attention of the local rich girls, inevitably leading to trouble with parents, police and boyfriends.”
In conjunction with the ICP retrospective, the Pioneer Theater in NYC will screen Clark’s films over four nights in mid-May. (No word yet on whether Ken Park will be included in the Pioneer program.)
On a related note: Vincent Kartheiser, star of Clark’s second feature, Another Day in Paradise, will join the cast of the Off-Broadway theater production Slag Heap at the Cherry Lane Theater (38 Commerce Street). The play begins previews on March 29th and opens on April 13th.
“Set in Manchester, England, Slag Heap is the strangely hilarious yet moving chronicle of teenage prostitutes, born from Thatcher’s politics in the aftermath of Britain’s Industrial Revolution in a world where the buying and selling of humanity has become the primary industry.”
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Wednesday, March 9th, 2005
Our friend Travis Crawford, who appears often in our pages, drops from view in the late winter and early spring when, as associate director of programming for the Philadelphia Film Festival he puts together his Danger After Dark program. And now, in what has become an annual tradition, he re-emerges with an e-mail in which he sneaks his program to his friends a few days in advance of the official announcement.
If you are a devotee of outre genre films — and even if you don’t plan to attend the festival — check out Crawford’s program, below. His wonderfully descriptive and witty blurbs for the films constitute a kind of “all-you-need-to-know cult cinema primer” for the current festival season. And as I’m throwing this up on the web moments after receiving it, check back in a few days to see whether we’ve come up with some good links for the below titles.
Writes Crawford:
Danger After Dark titles for PFF 2005:
ARAHAN (South Korea): Adrenaline-pumping contemporary urban martial arts eye-candy supreme, with a bullied young cop discovering he is actually a secret ch’i master. Wirework and CGI overload, but refreshingly witty and clever; no Ryuhei Kitamura movie this year, so this will have to do as your substitute. (U.S. Premiere)
CUTIE HONEY (Japan): A candy-colored and comedic fantasy-action film about a sexy female superhero (exuberantly incarnated by Eriko Satoh), this FX-filled spectacle is like an anime come to life. The best movie in the whole wide world if the whole wide world happened to be exclusively populated by 12-year-old boys — and that’s meant as a compliment. (Philadelphia Premiere)
FLOWER AND SNAKE (Japan, pictured at right above): Ahhh, I can’t wait to see this with an audience. An opulent but thoroughly brutal and un-PC example of Japanese S&M sexploitation from Takashi Ishii, this story of a wealthy trophy wife’s abduction and sexual slavery is the Danger After Dark film most likely to appal. Bring your own nipple clamps. (US Premiere)
THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS (US/UK): Asia Argento’s bold, blistering portrait of child abuse and hallucinatory psychological … Read the rest
Wednesday, March 9th, 2005
MediaRights has released a DVD version of its Fourth Annual Media That Matters Film Festival.
The DVD, available for sale through Amazon.com, to educators through National Film Network, and for rental through Netflix, includes all sixteen short films featured in the 2004 Festival.
“This DVD allows us to bring MediaRights’s mission of fostering community involvement through media outreach to a wider audience of not only students and groups, but concerned individuals, extending the Festival’s life beyond the initial theatrical and Internet screenings,” said Nicole Betancourt, executive director of MediaRights.
The sixteen short films included on the DVD tackle topics such as the environment (The Meatrix; Seeds of Hope), criminal justice (Books Not Bars), September 11th and civil liberties (Day of Remembrance; Bush for Peace), AIDS Awareness (I Promise Africa; iThemba), Domestic Abuse (Novela, Novela), culture-jamming (POPaganda: The Art & Subversion of Ron English), immigration (The Sixth Section), the working poor (Struggling to Survive), and childhood obesity and bullying (Laugh at the Fat Kid). Teen filmmakers are also featured with youth produced projects (Children of Birmingham; Lean on Me; Dedicated to My Family; Struggling to Survive).
Offering a “festival in a box,” the DVD includes free downloads of information related to the various film topics as well as tips on hosting a Festival screening to encourage community involvement. MediaRights also offers teaching guides on incorporating the films into class curricula through its Web site. All proceeds from sales of the DVD benefit MediaRights’s outreach and educational programs.
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Monday, March 7th, 2005
The Sundance Institute Documentary Fund announced its first round of grants for 2005. Fourteen feature-length documentary films will receive a total of $490,000.
“‘Ranging from depictions of the broad topic of globalization to very personal explorations of individual identity, the films in this slate reveal the human stories within larger events and forces that shape our world,’ said Diane Weyermann, Director of the Sundance Documentary Program. ‘Many of these filmmakers are expanding the art of documentary filmmaking by pushing cinematic boundaries, and the Sundance Documentary Fund is proud to support their new work.’”
The fourteen Sundance Institute Documentary Fund grant recipients are:
WORK IN PROGRESS GRANTS
Deborah Dickson, THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE HMONG (U.S.)
A touching portrayal of the large Hmong refugee communities in Thailand and the United States as a result of the “secret war” in Laos.
Mark and Nick Francis, BLACK GOLD (U.K.)
An exposition on the relationship between Western coffee consumption and the collapse of the Ethiopian coffee economy, leading to starvation for the farmers and a dependence on outside aid.
Victoria Funari and Dergio De La Torre, MAQUILOPOLIS (U.S.)
The story of globalization and the transformation of Tijuana through the eyes of Mexican women factory workers.
Maria Teresa Larrain, THE TRIAL OF PASCUAL PINCHUN (Canada/Chile)
Focuses on the conflict between landowners and Mapuches (Native people of Chile), when MININCO, a Canadian multinational forestry company, settles in Mapuche land.
Zach Niles and Banker White, THE REFUGEE ALL STARS (U.S.)
Via the Refugee All Star Band, six Sierra Leoneans, who have been living for years as refugees in Guinea, struggle to keep their hope and music alive.
Laura Poitras, THE WAR AFTER (U.S.)
A cinema verite film that explores US Military’s strategic planning and on-the-ground efforts to implement democratic elections in Iraq.
Juan Carlos Rulfo, IN THE PIT (Mexico)
A cinematic eye into the daily lives of construction workers building the Second Deck of Mexico City’s Periferico Freeway.
Rodrigo Vazquez, AN AMERICAN MARTYR (U.K.)
The story of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, crushed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in March of 2003.
DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Richard … Read the rest
Sunday, March 6th, 2005
In 2003, we put Thomas de Zengotita in our Super 8 column. (Full disclosure: de Zengotita was one of my high-school professors. Thanks to him, my school offered anthropology (Monod, Malinowsky) and philosophy (Plato) electives to seniors. He was also one of those teachers who could probably run the table on you in a pool game while offering his opinion on why you shouldn’t get a girl’s name tattoed on your chest.)
For the past few years de Zengotita’s influence has begun to spread, thanks to a series of fantastic lead articles in Harper’s magazine, where he’s a contributing editor. In the coming months his impact as a cultural critic should expand even more, thanks to the publication of his book, Mediated (Bloomsbury, $21.95). An anthropologist by training (he’s a former protege of Margaret Meade), de Zanegotita articulates an expansive theory that encompasses, hipsterism, politics, the Internet, and cable TV. It’s a devastating, and completely entertaining exploration of a post-9/11 culture in which authenticity is paramount, yet rarely achieved. (For those of you who cringed in fear at theory-based “performance studies” courses in college, fear not: Mediated is rigorous, but not inaccessible.)
De Zengotita has picked up a fan in Norman Mailer, who blurbs the book with the following quote: “Mediated has the same liveliness and intense intellectuality as Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media which is a way of saying there are anywhere from three to ten stimulating ideas on every page. As McLuhan presented us with the realization that modernism was coming to an end, so de Zengotita has a great deal to say about the saturation of post-modernism in our existence today. Let me offer my salute to Thomas de Zengotita.”
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