ARTHOUSE FILM NEWS - Cosmic Disco Detective Rene at Facets, Chicago 11/29/23

Texas based indie film director & screenwriting professor Chris Hansen and his funny & excellent movie The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah are coming to the DC area on Thu July 6. The film is about a man who believes that he is a regional Messiah, & his quest to find a special mission from God. Messiah will play at Kensington, MD's Kensington Row Bookshop as a part of the Capital City Microcinema screening series. Read all the life-changing information below: The Proper Care & Feeding of An American Messiah A film by Chris Hansen Best Feature FILM EXPO TEXAS 2006, Official Selection STIFF Seattle's True Independent Film Festival 2006, Official Selection South Regional INDIE GATHERING Film Festival 2006, Finalist PEC Independent Film Championship 2006, Official Selection MYRTLE BEACH International Film Festival 2006, Official Selection COSMOS International Film & Video Game Festival 2006 " Many of the sequences fire on all cylinde

Even though we in DC may not have as many cool things happening here as our epic - only 4+ hours away - neighbor NYC, we do have the free concerts at Fort Reno every Summer. I attended several of these Fort Reno shows last Summer, dug them a lot. Local indie bands (including some w/ large followings, such as Metropolitan & The Evens) give free performances at a park (near a former Civil War era? fort, remains of a fort?) every Thursday night, all Summer long. Here's the schedule for this Summer's concerts at Fort Reno. See ya at a show. Bring an umbrella. - Sujewa

Not sure why IMDB does not have the cast, crew & director info. up on its Date Number One page, but I have re-submitted that info. so perhaps soon we will see that info. up on IMDB. In the meantime, here is the IMDB page for Date Number One . If you are one of the 200 or so people who've seen the movie so far, you may want to partake in the many interactive features IMDB offers: ratings, reviews, message board, etc. There will be a 1 week long run of the film coming up most likely in September in DC. Will have more info. on that late next week. Speaking of incomplete tasks, I am off to finish up the promo e-mails for Chris Hansen's The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah screening on 7/6 in Kensington. More on that very soon. - Sujewa

Tonight I was at the Four Eyed Monsters screening in DC & the projector kept breaking down. Well, it wasn't really the projector but the computer that was feeding the film/the file to the projector. The first time the film stopped (lost image, audio could still be heard) it came back on a couple of minutes later. The second time we waited for about 5 mins & nothing happened. So I went to the projection booth to see what was going on. The projectionist & a young theater employee were dealing w/ an unfamiliar projection system (the flick was being played back from a hard drive) & they had no idea how exactly to fix it. I got on the keyboard after the computer was shut down & restarted, then once the project was loaded back up I figured out how to get the flick back up to the point where we lost the image & all was good. The Avalon hooked me up w/ some popcorn for my services :) Then like 20 mins later, right after we learnd that Susan's character was acce

Not much time to write about this since I've got to get to the Avalon in like 30 mins, but here's the link. - Sujewa

At 10 PM tonight PBS's documetary series P.O.V. will air a film called "No More Tears Sister", about a slain human rights activist in Sri Lanka. Read all about the film here. Will write more about this film later today. - Sujewa

Mike Tully (director & co-producer of the Rotterdam, SXSW, Sarasota, IFF Boston, & Maryland film fests selected '06 feature "Cocaine Angel" ) came to see "Date Number One" on Sat night at Kensington Row Bookshop & he reviewed the flick today at his blog. The review is brief but very positive. Here are a couple of lines: " The film is about as charming as they come, which left a pleasant taste in my mouth. Sujewa presents a world in which cultures don't clash, they mesh. It's refreshing to see characters who all appear to have a natural optimism, as opposed to the typical indie-film predilection for bitterness and cruelty. " Read the whole review here. Thanks for coming to the show Mike! & thanks for taking the time out to write about the flick. - Sujewa

The Date Number One screening last night went very well: full house, show started pretty close to on time, the film was a bit better w/ the little bit of music that I tried out w/ some scenes, good Q & A session, nice hang out/party session afterwards, & good post-post show action @ the Tastee w/ John Stabb, Mika, self, Chuck Tryon & Allie. It was nice to see some people I haven't seen in a while (Matt Wilmott (sp?), Lisa Helfert, etc.) & it was very cool of award winning internationally known Maryland New Wave filmmaker Mike Tully to show up for my little screening at a bookstore. Thanks Mike & Rob w/ helping out w/ the technical difficulties at the start of the show. Didn't get a chance to take any photos, but will do at the next show - 7/13 @ Sangha. Chris Hansen's Messiah is going to screen on 7/6 @ Kensington Row Bookshop - the same place I was showing last night. More on Messiah soon. I am going to spend much of my Wild Diner Films work time this c

I'll be in California in August. Looks like from around 8/5 to around 8/20 I will be in San Francisco & LA. A week in each city. I am working on getting at least a couple of screenings set up in each city. And there will be much hanging out, the no-budget D.I.Y. version of Entourage :) - except filmmakers instead of actors. Will have all the details before mid-July. It's gonna be hot!

Although the 1960's/French New Wave era filmmakers are very important, I find it slightly disappointing that there seems to be a seemingly/comparatively never ending amount of their films being shown at art/indie houses and not enough of films by art/indie filmmakers from subsequent generations (and let's just say it, specially my own) not being shown at these venues. The work of the 60's indie filmmakers I guess have become one of the the essential bodies of work of the art/indie "genre" for the moment and there is a relatively small but built in audience for those flicks so programmers keep programming them. And not to mention the fact that cats like Cassavetes & Godard does need to be celebrated year after year because they did do some groundbreaking stuff. But, what if rock clubs stopped at the Elvis generation of musicians & did not make room for the subsequent generations? Well, our selection of music will be far less & it would be less relevant.

"The travelling film and music festival" Check them out here. - Sujewa

The 10 DIY & Self-Distro Features In 5 Years Project I did the math late last week. Selling 2000 DVDs of " Date Number One " will allow me to continue to work on its distribution at a higher level (spend more time on the distro project & set up more screenings & promote them) and also will allow me to shoot my next ultra-low budget feature. Through my mailing lists, networking sites & blogs I am in touch with more than 1000 people, so, once the DVD comes out in July I should be on my way to reaching that 1st sales goal: 2000 DVDs. Maybe w/ in the next two months I will be able to reach that goal. 2000 "Date Number One" DVDs sold by September? We shall see. It may be possible for me to take an idea from script through production to distribution in 6 months. So I am going to set a 5 year production & distribution goal: 10 features. Under that goal I expect to make 2 new ultra-low budget features & get their DIY distribution started every year,

Saw the new Jared "Napoleon Dynamite" Hess directed Jack Black movie Nacho Libre tonight. It is pretty funny, even hilarious at some points. But about 15 minutes into the movie I said to my date that Mexico is not gonna like this movie. It's a cartoonish movie so taking a deeper view of its racial, ethnic, national politics & viewpoints are probably not warranted - or but are they? Simple, widely distributed movies can easily set up negative stereotypes & reinforce negative perceptions, so I think it's cool to question exactly what we are seeing. Beyond the initial layer of a goofy movie about a monk who moonlights as a wrestler, here is what I saw & cringed at: 1) all adult characters save 2 - Black's Nacho & the nun - the object of Nacho's desire - are corrupt & without heroic qualities (they are sometimes likeable, but not consistently heroic & charmingly human as Black's character). Nacho - since he is played by Black - even wit

Facets Multi-Media in Chicago has a blog. It looks pretty new, but promises good things. Check it out here.

DATE NUMBER ONE http://www.wilddiner.com/ a comedy about several first dates a movie by sujewa ekanayake "FIVE really entertaining, fully realized romantic interludes...a shamefully rare achievement" - Tom Kipp , Seattle audience member, former film reviewer for Seattle alternative weekly The Stranger Sat June 24 7 PM $5 Kensington Row Bookshop 3786 Howard Ave. Kensington, MD 20895 301.949.9416 Director & some of the stars will attend the screening. "Heartfelt...poignant...I loved it!" - Jon Moritsugu , award winning filmmaker "Date Number One is quite funny...also a subtle, thoughtful film...might be understood as the anti-Crash depiction of life in the city...depicts a comfortably multi-ethnic community...I'd happily recommend it." - Chuck Tryon , media professor & blogger, The Chutry Experiment blog