MUSICIANS AND FRIENDS IN THE SNOW: SUNDANCE SNAPS

By Scott Macaulay

Here outside Zoom following BMI’s annual seat-switching dinner are elusive rock icon Rodriguez and Malik Bendjelloul, the director of his doc, Searching for Sugar Man. At the dinner, I asked Bendjellaul whether he was a fan of Rodrgiuez’s before the film. No, he said. He was looking for a story and hear about the Rodriguez saga from a private detective. The film was acquired at Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics.

Left behind after the Sundance premiere of Exit to the Gift Shop was this Banksy artwork, nicely framed by the good folks in Park City. Caught checking out the artwork are writer/director James Ponsoldt (Smashed) and Rev. Megan Holloway, whose “Vocation of the Storyteller” appeared in our Fall issue.

Writer/director David Lowery, one of our 2011 “25 New Faces,” was at Sundance following the January Screewriter’s Lab. Here he is at the Producer’s Brunch.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Eugene Hernandez hosted a radio show at Sundance called The Daily Buzz. Here he is in the studio. You can download his podcasts here.

For several years the cut-through running from Main Street to Swede Alley by the Transit Center has been a spot for street performers. One singer/songwriter who made the trek to Park City this year was Natalie Gelman. Visit her website for merch, a show itinerary and more.… Read the rest

ROBBO IN BERLIN FOR “YELLING TO THE SKY”

By Scott Macaulay

Filmmaker Victoria Mahoney premiered her first feature, Yelling to the Sky, in Competition at the Berlin Film Festival this month, and arriving in the city with her was British graffiti artist Robbo. And by the time of the film’s premiere, the city was the richer for a wall-sized mural of the film’s lead character, Sweetness (Zoe Kravitz). Below, Mahoney writes about the process of finding a home for Robbo’s work. Her story has an ironic coda given Robbo’s recent street rivalry with Banksy. Read on.

I always knew I’d be mounting a graffiti piece in tandem with the premiere of Yelling to the Sky. Since the day I finished the script, I’ve been holding a private wish for a graffiti piece in conjunction with our opening. It was a must. The only question was “who” and “how.”

Robbo and I met in London in November 2010. I pursued him with a fever, had no humility whatsoever about begging him to do the piece. He is a myth and a legend in the graff world, and, like our film, he’s an underdog.

Robbo and I spent the two-and-a-half months leading up to Berlinale going back and forth about which photo and why. He’d send me samples. I’d send him notes. The two of us carried on nonstop until we landed upon the photo he felt most inspired by. He was extremely specific about what he wanted and didn’t relent until he felt in synch. I was so grateful to realize he wasn’t just throwing a piece up for whatever heat it would bring him; instead he held such a strong measure of integrity from the first day to the last.

Many people thought I was crazy to have commissioned the likes of Robbo without a wall in place. “You’re going to Berlin without any idea of a wall, no contacts, no connections. You’re just going to show up and ask someone to loan you a wall?” I’d get this cockeyed look, smile (the smile all indie die-hard filmmakers live by) and calmly-confidently respond, “Hell yes.” The thought was never … Read the rest

BANKSY WINS TOP PRIZE AT CINEMA EYE HONORS

By Scott Macaulay

At an awards ceremony at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, Cinema Eye handed out honors to the best of this year’s documentary films. The top award, the Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking, when to Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop, produced by Jaime D’Cruz. Laura Poitras was named Outstanding Director for The Oath, and Jeff Malmberg Outstanding Debut for his Marwencol. Matt Porterfield’s Putty Hill won the first Filmmaker-sponsored Heterodox Award. One of the most moving moments of the night was a tribute to editor Karen Schmeer, who was killed last year in a hit-and-run, and one of the most inspiring was the Legacy Award given to Albert Maysles and Muffie Meyer. Maysles, who is 84, quipped, “There must be someone in the audience with money for my next 25 films. (The highlight of my evening was taking their picture and having Maysles correct my frame.)

Last night’s was my first time attending the Cinema Eye Honors, and I loved the mixture of awards-show ceremony and warm-hearted community gathering. A.J. Schnack and Esther Robinson were surprisingly good as comedically bantering hosts, zinging punchlines that I’m sure will be somewhat obscure to those watching on the Doc Channel later in the month but which everyone in the room laughed at. Quite often, though, both they and the presenters spoke personally and warmly about the psychic rewards of the often punishing profession of documentary film. (Robinson at one point compared it to drug addiction in that you lose your money and your youth while pursuing it.) The most memorable of these comments was from the late George Hickenlooper, as remembered by Morgan Spurlock. The Super Size Me director recalled a dinner with Hickenlooper a couple of weeks before he died. “How lucky we are to do what we do with our lives,” Hickenlooper said to him. They were words that resonated deeply to all of those in the room.

The complete awards list is below. For more on the Heterodox Award, wait for our Spring issue, in which the five jurors will discuss their decision … Read the rest

EARLY COURSEWORK FROM DISTRIBUTION U.

By Scott Macaulay

Scott Kirsner and Peter Broderick are bringing their Distribution U. to New York and Los Angeles November 13 and 20, respectively. Among the various presentations dealing with independent marketing and distribution in New York will be a case study of Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop. In L.A., singer-songwriter Jill Sobule will be talking about how she reinvigorated her recording career through crowdfunding and an online community. I’ll be leading one of the seminars in New York.

Here is how the event is described:

Designed and presented by leading distribution strategist Peter Broderick and cutting-edge author and tech analyst Scott Kirsner, this is a unique event that informs and engages its participants in new ways. The Distribution U. audience is active — film industry professionals and emerging filmmakers absorbing new ideas and sharing their experiences. Distribution U. focuses on the newest strategies and the latest tactics that actually work, avoiding theoretical predictions about the future. There’s interactive brainstorming — an opportunity for you to get ideas for your current project. You’ll sit down for in-depth lunch discussion groups with industry experts. You’ll hear how successful filmmakers built an audience and made the distribution decisions for their latest projects. And you’ll engage in resource-sharing and networking with the other participants….

Distribution U. is an event unlike any other. It is panel-free and hype-free. Information is candid and real, coming from filmmakers and key members of their distribution teams. We tap the experience of our participants, along with the knowledge of speakers and resource people. There is a collective sense of mutual support and collaboration. It’s designed to produce constructive ideas you can actually act upon — not confusion or anxiety!

Distribution U. is offering two treats for Filmmaker readers. The first is a discounted registration. Click on the above links for pages that knock down the early bird (due November 3) and regular registrations 7.5%. And, below is an audio exclusive to Filmmaker of two of last year’s events. In it, producer Cora Olson talks about how she handled the distribution and marketing of her 2008 Sundance romantic comedy, … Read the rest

BANKSY STORYBOARDS AND DIRECTS “THE SIMPSONS”

By Scott Macaulay

Artist Banksy, whose Exit to the Gift Shop is one of the best films of the year, storyboarded and directed the opening “couch gag” sequence of tonight’s The Simpsons. It references the fact that much of the Simpsons animation is outsourced to South Korea. Check it out.

… Read the rest

JOHN SLOSS: “I COULD BE BANKSY!”

By Ingrid Kopp

Cinetic Media powerhouse John Sloss took to the stage on Wednesday morning at the Independent Filmmaker Conference in a conversation moderated by indieWIRE’s Eugene Hernandez (who announced today that he is leaving indieWIRE to take a new role as Director of Digital Strategy at the Film Society of Lincoln Center). Sloss began the conversation by acknowledging that we all stand on the shoulders of giants, pointing to the influence of John Pierson on his career, “His heart wasn’t in the business side of things but mine was.” Everyone should read Pierson’s book Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes he declared. He then moved on to talk about the recent uptake in buying activity at Toronto. He acknowledged that films were selling for less than before but he didn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing, “The marketplace is becoming much more efficient. You can anticipate what the offers will be because these guys know what the revenue streams will be.”

Like many other industry pundits at the conference this year, Sloss remarked that a theatrical release does not always make sense for a film, “What is this irrational compunction filmmakers have to mortgage the value of their film doing a theatrical release?” He acknowledged the upsides of theatrical including of course the all important critic reviews but said that filmmakers must understand that distributors are basically doubling down on theatrical and then hoping to make their money back on ancillary streams. He added that film critics risk becoming irrelevant if they only focus on theatrical releases.

Sloss went on to talk about his first foray into theatrical distribution with Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary about Banksy. “I was always very critical of basketball referees until I had to be one myself,” he said, explaining why he wanted to try distribution. They experimented with different approaches with Exit, including free screenings. “There are films where by screening them you expand the audience and there are films where by screening them you use up a finite audience.” Exit was definitely the former. They rolled the film out with … Read the rest

ARTISTS ADD PORN TO THE iPAD

By Scott Macaulay

Looks like Banksy’s Exit to the Gift Shop is influencing folks out there. This viral campaign by a group of San Francisco artists, Freedom From Porn , who are protesting the ban on adult material within Apple’s walled garden, clearly cops a few licks from the British artist’s great new movie.

Freedom From Porn from Freedom From Porn on Vimeo.… Read the rest

SPARROW SONGS, GOD, KAROKE AND BANKSY

By Scott Macaulay

Sparrow Songs is a documentary project by filmmaker Alex Jablonski and d.p. Michael Totten, who are making and posting one short doc film per month on their site for a whole year. They are six episodes in, and the films are quite wonderful. Averaging about eight minutes, they are poetic essays that capture the essences of specific places, people, and moments, and that then, without pretension, build these observances into larger statements about love, truth, community, and the ways we are choosing to live our lives.

The films include Porn Star Karoke, about the crowd that gathers weekly at an L.A. club for an evening of karoke with adult movie stars. In Donut Shop, the filmmakers insert themselves into their film as they wonder why more people won’t talk to them during a night spent at a 24-hour donut joint. In the most recent, L’Arche, the filmmakers visit a home for the developmentally disabled in which the residents are cared for in a warm, non-institutional environment; they focus not only on the residents but also on the caregivers, who include a young woman who has just left a monastery. With their artful framings, precise editing, and sensitive use of sound and music, Jablonski and Totten capture the quest of everyone at L’Arche to find purer, less complicated ways of living.

Sparrow Songs is a beguiling project that gains its power by the commitment shown to it by its filmmakers. Their web page contains thumbnails of the six episodes finished so far and blank spots for the six that are yet to come. The knowledge that these are not just disparate short films but rather installments in time-based project give Sparrow Songs a quiet gravity. Watching these films, you find yourself drawing connections between them. You watch — and wait — for themes to develop, and you project onto the filmmakers an evolving recognition of their authorship. It is slow-motion filmmaking dispensed in short, elegantly realized segments.

After watching L’Arche, which I’ve embedded below, I visited the Sparow Songs site, signed up for the newsletter, and … Read the rest

BANKSY’S STREETS ARE OURS

By Scott Macaulay

This was was favorite film at Sundance this year — pretty much from the opening notes of the Richard Hawley song that adorns its opening credits. See it here. (Hat tip: Movie City Indie.)

… Read the rest