One day left to submit to Austin Film Festival 2010
Tomorrow is the last day to get your film submission postmarked for consideration at the Austin Film Festival, one of the world’s largest and most prestigious events dedicated to the craft of cinematic storytelling. (And I don’t just say that because I used to work there!)
If the lure of a laid-back film festival in one of the world’s most dynamic cities isn’t enough, pile on the festival’s Screenwriting Conference, which features intimate conversations and workshops with working screenwriters like Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine, Toy Story 3), John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side), and David Simon (The Wire). (Personally I’m looking forward to hearing from Jon Lucas, who wrote The Hangover.)
Naturally attending a festival like this one is better (and cheaper) when you’re a participating filmmaker, so get your film in today. Details on submitting to the festival can be found on the AFF web site.
Peep Show Interview with CineKink’s Lisa Vandever
An insightful interview with one of my favorite festival directors.
I know that when I think of DIY filmmaking, one of the first filmmakers who comes to mind is Tony Comstock, whose wonderful film, ‘Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together,’ played at CineKink a few years back. He and his wife, Peggy, have been producing and distributing explicit documentaries for the past decade – and they regularly top Amazon sales lists for number of DVDs sold. Obviously, they’re doing something right – during a recent distribution/marketing panel I attended, Tony was tweeting me from a sailing excursion through the Caribbean, prodding me to ask the participants how many of them owned a yacht.
Overall, I think Comstock Films exemplifies how many filmmakers on the “porn/erotica” side have—largely through necessity—become proficient in getting their work out there and noticed once it’s been produced. Rather than waiting on the hope of some distributor picking them up, the need is there to reach out to an audience directly, bringing with it a front-running understanding of all the tools necessary to do so, especially staying on top of reaching out through the internet, including supreme mastery of SEO and finding ways to circumvent the many technical road-blocks that are intended to inhibit sexual content.
Read Peep Show Interview with Cinekink Director Lisa Vandever Part One at FilmSnobbery.
Be sure to check out the Programmer Profile of Lisa Vandever too.
Programmer Profile: Mark Flindall, Atlantic Film Festival
My name: Mark Flindall
My current festivals: Atlantic Film Festival and the ViewFinders International Film Festival for Youth.
My title: Programming Coordinator
Other fests I’ve worked for: None, this is my first. I started as a volunteer, and within a month I had a job. I was unemployed at the time, so I had lots of free time to try and impress. I should mention though that I do have the credentials with a BA in Film Studies from Brock University.
Movies that best represent my personal tastes: Being John Malkovich, Bottle Rocket, Cloverfield, Dazed and Confused, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fight Club, Groundhog Day, I Heart Huckabees, Lost in Translation, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Primer, The Big Lebowski, The Jerk, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzou, Wall-E.
When I’m not watching movies I like to: Spend time with my girlfriend Trina and our two cats Chomsky and Papa. I also always enjoy working on our house, playing video games, drawing and watching too much TV (Lost, Breaking Bad, Parks and Recreation, Daily Show, Colbert Report, Eastbound & Down, etc.).
A movie I recently programmed that I consider to be a great personal discovery: We definitely didn’t premiere it, not even close, but I really loved the short The Surprise Demise of Francis Cooper’s Mother. It really felt like something special, and it’s also a pretty good distillation of my personal taste in film. It’s deeply weird, animated, has cats in it, perfect narration, and the suggestion that life goes on no matter how stupid, insane or unsuitable for life we may be. Which is actually kind of an amazing statement. Did I mention it has cats?
When filmmakers ask me “What’s different about your film festival?” I say: The accessibility. Who doesn’t like to have all of their films (and the people related to those films) in one very compact, walkable, beautiful and historic city on the ocean? The fact that Halifax is an incredibly laid back, fun and culture loving city that likes to drink doesn’t hurt at all either. We’re also renowned for being extremely pedestrian friendly so no accidents when you’re stumbling around town after our parties. Still not sold? We have a huge fort right in the middle of our city. So we’re really nice but we’re also kind of bad-ass.
Drive-In Theater Sees Revival In Illinois
A fun story from NPR about the resurgence in popularity of a drive-in theater in Illinois. Having survived the onslaught of home video, the theater has become a social hub for local families. The result? They’re knocking down an abandoned cineplex to add a third screen.
The takeaway for filmmakers: there are all kinds of ways to watch movies, and therefore all kinds of ways to get your movie seen. You just need to find the hook that makes your screening an event.
Read (or listen to) Drive-In Theater Sees Revival In Illinois.
Photo credit: Wools.
Planet Money: We See Angelina’s Bottom Line
Planet Money is one of the best podcasts out there, and in this episode they strike close to our collective heart: the accounting involved with film distribution. This should be required listening for every filmmaker looking for distribution for their film. After hearing this, it should be no surprise that independent filmmakers are routinely screwed out of their share of a film’s proceeds by creative accounting similar to what the studios use. It’s fascinating, terrifying stuff.
There’s this weird thing in the movie business: Almost all movies lose money. Except they don’t, really.
On today’s Planet Money, Edward Jay Epstein, the author of a recent book called The Hollywood Economist, explains the business of movies.
As a case study, he walks us through the numbers for “Gone In 60 Seconds.” (It starred Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage. They stole cars. Don’t pretend like you don’t remember it.)
The movie grossed $240 million at the box office. And, after you take out all the costs and fees and everything associated with the movie, it lost $212 million.
This is the part of Hollywood accounting that is, essentially, fiction. Disney, which produced the movie, did not lose that money.
Listen to Planet Money: We See Angelina’s Bottom Line.
What you are watching now is a film.
This could easily be a film festival screening committee. Thank heaven this one’s a joke. Films like this film-within-a-film starring Cliff get submitted all the time without a hint of irony.
Programmer Profile: Nina Streich & Kelly DeVine, Global Peace Film Festival
Our names: Nina Streich & Kelly DeVine
Our current festival: Global Peace Film Festival
Our titles: Executive Director (Nina) and Artistic Director (Kelly)
Other fests we’ve worked for: Newport International Film Festival, Nantucket Film Festival, NYC Mayor’s Office of Film, Theatre & Broadcasting (Nina); Tribeca Film Institute, Creative Capital, IFC Channel (Kelly)
Movies that best represent our personal tastes: Nina: American Dream (Barbara Kopple), The Parallax View (Alan Pakula), Day for Night (Francois Truffaut), Z (Costa-Gavras). Kelly: Love and Death (Woody Allen), Reds (Warren Beatty), Hail, Hail Rock and Roll (Taylor Hackford), The Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov).
When I’m not watching movies I like to: Nina – follow & talk politics and current events; relax with friends and a good glass of wine or vodka; take a long walk in a park or on a beach. Kelly – I love to work in my yard/garden, read fiction and non-fiction on a range of issues and topics (usually with a sociological or philosophical bent), I am news hound – one of the few people who actually watches C-Span!
A movie we recently programmed that we consider to be a great personal discovery: Two films spring to mind: Schnitzel Paradise and One Village, Same Ocean. Schnitzel Paradise is a romantic comedy from Holland featuring the unlikely love story between a poor Moroccan student and the wealthy Dutch woman whose relatives own the hotel in which they both work. It’s a polished and familiar formula, but for our audiences who hear only the worst stories regarding the relations between Muslim immigrants in Europe it was revelatory – maybe, just maybe the immigrant situation in Europe was both more nuanced and more familiar than they had thought. One Village, Same Ocean, a doc about the conflict between the existing fisher culture and the proposal to attract cruise ships to the port, is what I like to call a “medium”. With a running time of 44 minutes, it doesn’t fit neatly into the screening schedules of the typical festival, but because GPFF was open to this non-typical length, we were able to program a film from a first-time director local to the state and to highlight an issue still very much in discussion that had not attracted statewide media attention prior to the festival showing.
At the Cannes Film Market with James Rocchi & Tim League
“At festival screenings in the Palais, folks are deadly serious, dressed to the nines and behave with a generally austere manner befitting the most respectful film-going audience in the world,” League said. “Just 100 meters away, appropriately through the back door of the same building, dozens of tiny rooms are outfitted with 6-foot screens, cheap video projectors and home-grade sound systems. This is the Marche du Film, where I spend the bulk of my time. Instead of tuxedos, folks are wearing sweat pants and T-shirts. Buyers are talking at full volume on cell phones during the screenings. At any given time,one-third of the audience will be either texting or snoring. If a film doesn’t deliver in the firstfive minutes, half of the room clears out and buyers move on to the next room. I start watching about eight movies a day; I usually finishthree of them. If you are a filmmaker with a movie in the [Market], do not attend your screenings. It might break your soul.”
James Rocchi interviews Fantastic Fest director Tim League for an exploration of the fascinating (and terrifying) Cannes March du Film (Film Market).
