Dear Documentary Filmmakers: Pet Causes
Basil Tsiokos at What (Not) to Doc on the dangers of assuming that your pet cause merits a feature-length documentary:
If you are a filmmaker, and you enjoy making films about things happening in your life, you may feel that your pet cause is as worthy of being filmed as any other issue out there. More power to you. Make your film about why you think male dogs should be forced to wear pants, and enjoy watching the final product with your friends, family, and pets. However, if you think your two-hour long pantalooned dog advocacy project is likely to resonate with the masses, I’d wager you are probably wrong.
I would add to Tsiokos’ sentiments that even if your cause does merit a feature-length doc, be careful not to conflate the film and the cause.
Chances are your film will be rejected from more than a few film festivals. That doesn’t mean that the festival and its staffers don’t believe in the cause – it just means they don’t want to play your film.
In the months and years immediately following Hurricane Katrina, I saw this a lot at various festivals. A fest would reject a film about pets who were orphaned after the storm or the plight of displaced kids and the filmmakers would start hurling accusations.
“You don’t care about starving animals!” they’d say, usually in an hastily (and angrily) composed email. (This charge leveled at one fest was particularly silly, as the head programmer was married to the director of an animal shelter.) The filmmakers just couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea that rejecting a film isn’t the same thing as rejecting the ideas behind it.
If you find yourself in this situation, consider the fact that a documentary doesn’t have to play festivals to benefit the cause. If raising awareness is the goal, getting the film out there online (and perhaps creating a few versions of different lengths) will probably get more eyes on the issue and effect more change.
Cinekink call for entries and: what makes Cinekink so special?
Cinekink ranks as one of my favorite festivals despite the fact that I’ve never made it to one of their fests. In fact, Cinekink’s visit to Austin later this month will mark the first time I’ll be able to see Cinekink’s programming. So how do I know it’s a great fest? Three reasons: passionate people (pun fully intended), a specific focus on their subject matter, and happy filmmakers.
1. Passionate people: Cinekink is more or less a one-woman show – there are scores of people who help make it happen, but it represents the vision of Lisa Vandever, who founded the fest almost a decade ago. When people approach me about starting a new film festival I generally discourage them from doing so, but Lisa is proof that there’s always room for a great idea. Vandever’s personality, persistence, and razor-sharp sense of humor make every interaction with Cinkekink memorable.
2. A specific focus: Cinekink promotes itself as “the kinky film festival,” but its insistence on representing “the positive depiction of sexuality and kink in film and television” makes it more than just kink. Sex has so many negative connotations in the media – particularly the American media – that it actually ranks above graphic violence in the pantheon of things parents worry about. A defender of good old-fashioned makin’ whoopie (of both wholesome and unwholesome varieties) is needed, and Cinekink fills that void. So to speak. At any rate, if your film has a specific audience or content slant, a specialty festival like Cinekink may be on the hunt for exactly your kind of film, which drives your chances of acceptance way, way up. Even if it’s not Cinekink, be on the lookout for your specialty festival.
3. Happy filmmakers. Whenever I talk to filmmakers whose films played Cinekink or people who have just attended the fest, they get the same coy smiles on their faces as they talk about how much they loved it. I get the feeling that even if there weren’t a special connection in the subject matter, Cinekink’s brand of hospitality and community would still draw rave reviews.
Cinekink’s regular deadline is this Friday, November 18th. If you’ve got a sex-positive film, you should submit. Your film, submit your film! Get your mind out of the gutter.
Find your local film blogger (and hey, the Muppets)
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before, but I write a monthly column on upcoming movies for kids (particularly those showing in Austin, TX) for a web site called Slackerwood. Here’s my column (titled Eenie Meenie Miney Movies) for November 2011.
I’ll start mentioning these here when they go live just for a bit of cross-promotional fun, but since this is the first time I’ve done this, I’d like to talk for a second about local film blogs. If you poke around Slackerwood you’ll notice that it homes in on the Austin audience. Like most other movie blogs it has the usual assortment of reviews and news, but if you live in Austin, it’s an invaluable resource for what to see in town. Since not every town has the same special screenings, finding a local film blog in your area is a great way to discover new things to see. As a filmmaker, your own local film blog can be a great ally – note the special attention Slackerwood pays to local productions and talent at festivals, both near and far. Recruiting local film blogger to support your film is a great way to raise awareness of your film in your own neighborhood, even when you’re screening elsewhere.
Local film & event bloggers are also a great resource when you’re headed out of town. If you have a festival screening in a new town, Google around the town’s name and use phrases like “local events” or “film blog” to zero in on likely suspects. Then fire off a friendly, personal email to introduce yourself and provide the writer(s) with the details of your film’s screening and a short synopsis and/or link to your trailer. It’s up to you whether you want to offer an advance screener, but I definitely recommend it. Why? Because like the local TV news, the local film bloggers may not mean much to you but they definitely have the ears and eyes of the local audience. When you’re trying to put butts in seats, that’s help that you want.
OK, enough of that. If you have kids and want to know what family films you’ll be taking them to over the Thanksgiving weekend (hint: Muppets!), check out the latest Eenie Meenie Miney Movies.
Stop waiting on Sundance – 2011 edition
There are plenty of filmmakers who rush to finish their film for Sundance, fill out the paperwork, send off the DVD, and then… stop. There’s nothing wrong with waiting anxiously to hear from what is arguably the world’s most famous film festival, but if you’re not submitting to other festivals while you wait you could miss out on the entire Spring season. Break out your list of target festivals (see chapter one of Film Festival Secrets for more on this) and get cracking. Here’s a handy (but by no means complete) list of festivals with upcoming deadlines. Check each festival’s web site for their late deadlines, submission rules, etc.
I picked these festivals for their relative prominence and for the fact that their deadlines come before the Sundance notification date (around Thanksgiving). If you’re a festival director and would like to post your own upcoming deadline in the comments, please feel free.
- Slamdance – October 21
- Dallas International – October 28
- Phoenix – October 31
- Cleveland – October 31
- South By Southwest – November 1
- Florida Film Festival – November 4
Win Playboy film contest, your film plays at Sundance! But not really.
From Brooks Barnes the New York Times Arts Beat blog:
New Route to Sundance
Playboy on Wednesday is announcing a competition intended to give budding film directors a new spotlight at the Sundance Film Festival – along, of course, with the bunny itself. The adult entertainment and publishing company will operate its contest, called the Playboy Shorts Series, viaTalenthouse.com, a social networking site that aims to foster artistic collaboration.
By “at the Sundance Film Festival” the contest producers really mean “at an event in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival.” The “New Route to Sundance” headline implies that winning films will be part of the official Sundance program. They won’t.
A quick check with the Sundance Institute last week confirmed that the contest isn’t sponsored or endorsed by the Festival. I’m sure Talenthouse and Playboy aren’t at all disappointed with the “New Route to Sundance” headline, which implies that the fest is involved. This is confusing at best and deliberately misleading at worst.
Just a word of warning folks – read the fine print on contests like these.
Graham Leggat, leader of S.F. Film Society, dies
Calling Mr. Leggat’s six-year tenure “transformative,” Society board President Pat McBaine cited his “irrepressible determination, dash and design. His vision, leadership, passion, work ethic, tenacity, imagination and daring, along with his colorful language and wicked Scottish sense of humor, have indelibly marked our organization with a valuable legacy and left it in the best shape – artistically, organizationally and financially – in its 54-year history.”
I only met Graham twice but it’s easy to see he left big shoes to fill.
Telluride Film Festival: Why A Secret Lineup Works
Todd McCarthy, writing for the Hollywood Reporter:
Virtually from the beginning, Telluride has performed an exquisite balancing act: Between old and new, foreign and American, the esoteric and the accessible, the expected and the unknown. As at a great restaurant, it’s best to just place yourself in the chef’s hands and sample what’s served up. Some dishes are better than others, of course, but you can rarely say something was bad or a waste of time. Because of its limited duration, Telluride can afford to be picky and discriminating, which only works to the benefit of the viewer.
Read the rest at The Hollywood Reporter.
Film Threat heads back to print
Venerable magazine-turned-website Film Threat looks back to its future with an IndieGoGo campaign aimed at returning to a print format. With less than 72 hours to raise the bulk of his $30,000 goal, publisher/editor Mark Bell decided to pull out the stops by staying awake for the remainder of the fundraising period while holding a “tweetathon” and live webcam feed.
No word yet on whether Bell will eat insects, perform obstacle course challenges, or dance with celebrity partners during the tweetathon, but we can certainly hope. Visit the IndieGoGo page to donate a few bucks to the cause.
