A short letter this week as we are ten days away from closing our new issue and I'm deep into our "25 New Faces" feature. I've got a ton of screeners, an email box full of recommendations, and a bunch of scripts (most of them in digital form, thankfully) to plow through. The challenge is never to simply find 25 cool up-and-coming filmmakers; there is always a lot of great work from inspiring young people if you look hard enough. The challenge is to balance the list with a diversity of work that references the different journeys independent filmmakers are traveling today. I'll admit to a bias towards people following very singular paths, those who are not submitting themselves to the uncertainties of the studio and specialty development and production system but who are inventing their own systems of support.

I guess "new models" is the business flipside to a filmmaker's "systems of support." Finding a new model for independent film production and distribution seems to be on everyone's mind right now. (For the record, I'm not so sure that the old model was that great or effective or remunerative, but it might have floated the dreams of some filmmakers a bit better than today's broken-down non-model does).

I need to do some more thinking about the whole new model question. It's hard, though. As Jon Taplin has been writing for a while on his blog, we (as in American society) may be in an Interregnum -- a historical period when old models are dying and new models are unable to form. (Taplin is writing about economic growth and American democracy, but you can apply his basic argument to film too.) I guess the first thing you have to do when thinking about new models is to decide where to start. As a producer, is it about taking the economic components of the business (development, financing, production, marketing, distribution, exhibition) and rebalancing them in a way that matches your empirical take on the current landscape? Or is it about working backwards from the work itself? Maybe start by imagining the kind of film you-d want to see, and then figuring out how your business needs to reshape itself in order to support that work. What kind of overhead do you need (or not need)? What time horizons -- long or short -- should be planned for? Where would this work be seen, how and by whom? How does your own creative process need to shift in order to make it? What relationship to risk should you have, and can you afford it given the rest of your life? What level of energy do you need, and can you muster it? Should you seek to guide the creative process more, or allow for greater elements of chance and serendipity?

That's a lot to think about... which is why I will go back to my pile of screeners.

On a side note, this is the final week you can subscribe to Filmmaker and get the new "25 New Faces" issue in the mail.

See you next week.

Best,
Scott Macaulay
Editor IFP PROGRAM ALUMS SCREENING AT NYC FESTIVALS June is festival month in NYC with NewFest, Human Rights Watch, Brooklyn International, and BAMcinemaFEST currently in progress or recently completed -- all of which feature local premieres of some terrific films from recent IFP program alumni. The 2nd Annual BAMcinemaFEST (June 9 - 20) has featured Etienne Sauret's Dirty Pictures (Spotlight on Docs 2005) and Matthew Porterfield's Putty Hill (Emerging Narrative 2008), with Cameron Yates' The Canal Street Madam (SOD 2009) upcoming on June 18. HRW (June 10-24) has screened Elizabeth Mandel & Beth Davenport's Pushing the Elephant (SOD 2007) and Rebecca Richman Cohen's War Don Don (Independent Filmmaker Labs; SOD 2009), and NewFest included Andy Blubaugh's The Adults in the Room (SOD 2008), Hilla Medalia's After the Storm (SOD 2007 ), James Rasin's Beautiful Darling (SOD 2007), Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman's HOWL (No Borders 2008), and E.E. Cassidy's We Are the Mods (Independent Filmmaker Labs 2008). And at the just-concluded Brooklyn International Film Festival Greg King & David Teague's Our House (Independent Filmmaker Labs; SOD 2009) screened and Jeremy Engle won the short film Audience Award for Mosquito (IFP fiscally sponsored). Our Forums page is new and improved! Check out the new categories: how to make films, discuss the current trends in the business, job opportunities and look out for guest filmmaker moderators. Click here to get started.
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