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

Either I haven't been reading my blogs very carefully or Ed Burns' new flick's distro company has not sent any press material to the blogs I read. Anyways, the good news is Burns has a new flick called The Groomsmen , playing now in NYC & LA, according to the flick's website . Burns' Sidewalks of New York saved my life when I was shooting Date Number One in '04. Sidewalks' DVD extras had a segment where Burns talks about shooting the flick like a doc or editing it like a doc (quick shooting, jump cuts, etc.) and that approach helped me save the shooting of Story 2 in Date Number One. So, as a thank you, & since he's always made pretty decent movies (not as experimental as Jarmusch & Hartley, not as funky as Linklater, but solid stuff, & more enjoyable than Kevin Smith's work, to compare Burns with some of his peers) I am going to check out The Groomsmen as soon as I can. Maybe it'll play in DC, if not I'll check it out on DVD.

DNO in NYC, it's gonna be awesome! Date Number One , the ultra indie DIY self-distro movie of mine playing in New York City, the traditional homeland of indie film, will be magical. First stop to check: the Pioneer theater, the CBGB of new indie films. Pioneer should have received the DNO screener today. So, at some point this month, hopefully, I'll know if I will be screening DNO at Pioneer or not. And that's the latest from Date Number One land. Maxin' & relaxin' & getting ready for the early August DVD v1 release, preparing it, & getting ready for Fall screenings & some festival play. Working on the slow transformation of self into a smooth operatin' DNO distribution machine. Also waiting for some new reviews. Details coming very soon on various juicy DNO distro projects.

There's a PBS (i think) show on French painters right now. Other, older, forms of art, & the people who made them, can be inspirational & useful for filmmakers I think. I've learned a lot from indie rock (some aesthetic stuff, lots of bidness stuff), maybe I can learn stuff from painting too. So in July & August I am going to blog about painters & I would like you to comment & tell us about your favorite painters & other interesting stuff about painting. Painting is thousands of years old. Filmmaking is a little over 100 years old. US Indie filmmaking as we know it is perhaps a little over 50 years old (w/ the beginning somewhere around the time when the Cassavetes generation got its inspiration/started work). Us new indie filmmakers - the digital/web/DIY generation, can probably learn a lot by taking a look at/getting to know, painting & other older art forms. I'll start w/ Edward Hopper . Here's page w/ a lot of info on him. His most famou

The latest effort to assist the filmmaking scene from the fine folks at Hollywood Is Talking blog is a project called Actor Eclipz. The Eclipz are 1-minute clips of aspiring actors performing a piece from a play, film, book or original work for 1: our enjoyment and 2: to get work! Here's a link to the post about this new feature: http://hollywoodistalking.com/Blog/ and here's a direct link to the page: http://hollywoodistalking.com/acting/ . Now go discover some hot new talent! - Sujewa

Hey Real Indie Filmmakers, Mike Everleth from IFILM asked me a couple of days ago to spread the word about their indie section: IFILM's Indie Film page http://www.ifilm.com/indiefilms . Mike said that while IFILM gets a lot of video material from the bigger distributors, they do not at the moment get a lot of video material from smaller, real indie, DIY, and self-distributed projects. So go check out their page & submit your trailers & clips to them. Could result in a higher profile for your movie. One thing I've learned from DIY distribution is that we can never have too much publicity for our small-promotional-budget projects. IFILM & other real indie friendly web sites can help us a lot. As soon as I take care of some overdue work that should have been done like 6 months ago, I am going to cut a trailer for Date Number One & send it off to IFILM & other websites that promote indie films through clips & trailers. I should be able to get the trailer

Just got home from showing Date Number One at Takoma Park, MD. Highlights: awesome venue, Sangha does Fair Trade business w/ artisans from around the world, very cool place to play. Pretty decent turn out, everyone seemed to enjoy the movie. An audience member named Roland laughed a lot, almost at every funny situation. Dele William's (one of the stars in Story 2) sister & a cousin showed up to the screening, enjoyed the movie, asked some interesting questions about the film after the screening. Takoma Park has a film festival coming up later this year, perhaps I'll submit DNO, maybe I can sell some DVDs at the event or because of the exposure from the event, if the film gets in. I guess I should submit the film to at least a few festivals (even though I am not all that excited about the festival route, see previous post), mainly because quite a few important-to-the-project people expect me to do so, they think it will be good for the movie in the long run. So I will submi

Of course the generally accepted and probably overwhelmingly true answer is: yes, indie film festivals are very valuable and if your film gets into one & plays, it will be a useful thing in selling the film to a distributor or to the audience. But there is always a but, and that's probably why I have not yet submitted my new indie feature Date Number One to a single indie film festival and probably will not do so in the future. Read on. The problems with the festival route: 1. The Psychological Factor or dude, rejection is tough. When starting off on a new epic endeavor such as distributing a feature film you need all the feel good energy you can get. Getting rejected by a festival or festivals will probably affect how you see the film and probably yourself, and not in a good way. So I think it is useful to avoid getting rejected by a film organization early on in the distribution process. Maybe avoiding that option forever is a good thing. 2. The Right to Judge or who gave the

DATE NUMBER ONE http://www.wilddiner.com/ a comedy about several first dates a movie by sujewa ekanayake "The film is about as charming as they come...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. " - Michael Tully, Rotterdam & SXSW film festivals selected filmmaker http://blogs.indiewire.com/tully/archives/010529.html "I found the characters and the premise sexy, sexy, sexy ." Jerry Brewington, Hollywood Is Talking blog, on Story 2 of Date Number One http://hollywoodistalking.com/Blog/508/ Thursday July 13, 8:30 PM, $5 SANGHA 7014 Westmoreland Ave Takoma Park, MD 20912 301.891.3214 website: http://www.sangha.ws/ directions: http://www.sangha.ws/VisitingSangha.html Director & some of the stars will attend the screening. "FIVE really entertaining, fully realized romantic interlu

And by wild I mean lots of driving & doing the show/making some new fans & lots more driving back to a hotel room in the early, early AM. Chris came down from Virginia Beach to Kensington, MD to show his excellent movie The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah on Thu 7/6. He wrote about the experience at his blog, check it out here. Thanks a lot for coming down to K-town Chris! That was some fine Summer '06 DIY film distro/screening action. Very cool.

This week filmmaker Cyrus Kar sued Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld & others over a two month long imprisonment in Iraq. Here are some details from the AOL article (man, AOL's got quite a few interesting articles today): " Kar was taken into custody in May 2005 after he visited Iraq to make a documentary film about Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who wrote the world's first human rights charter. Potential bomb parts were found in a taxi in which Kar was riding. He was released July 10 after his family sued, accusing the federal government of violating his civil rights and holding him after the FBI cleared him of suspicion. He is a former U.S. Navy SEAL, according to news reports. " Read the entire article here . - Sujewa

From an AOL article about an Indian royal family disowning a prince for being gay: " Homosexuality is banned in India and punishable by up to 10 years in jail, but gay activists are trying to lift the veil of secrecy over the community in a country where public hugging or kissing even among heterosexuals invites angry stares, lewd comments and even beatings." Read the whole article here . Probably a rich cinematic vein waiting to be created there: movies (they would have to be indie movies more or less I think) about being gay in India. Time to export the idea of a Queer Cinema movement to India. Time to discover the Indian versions of Greg Araki , Todd Haynes , Christine Vachon , Todd Verow & the like. Also a Public Display of Affection film movement could be useful there too. - Sujewa

Chris Hansen came all the way down from Texas (by way of Virginia Beach) for a quick visit & screening in Kensington last night. His movie The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah played well to Kensingtonians, Chris had a good time, made some money (enough at least to get his car some gas to get back on the road to his next destination), perhaps he will blog about his screening experience at some point soon. I gave Chris a copy of Date Number One, so perhaps there will be a Chris Hansen review of Date Number One this month. Date Number One screeners were mailed out to David "GreenCine Daily" Hudson & Amir "Still Lover/Whale" Motlagh this week. So more reviews soon I think. Screening #9 of Date Number One will be happening next Thu, 7/13, at Sangha in Takoma Park. Will have all the details on that screening later today. Larry Clark 's Wassup Rockers opens today in DC (yup, at a Landmark theater, oh well. now that Caveh's Sex Addict is do

Jim Jarmusch's movies are unlike any other American movies around. Characters spend a lot of time without doing much or saying much. It would be very strange for a screenwriter other than Jarmusch to write a script that could work as a Jarmusch movie because financiers & producers will probably be very hesitant to support such an unorthodox script. Yet the weirdest of all possible film lawsuits are happening, GreenCine Daily points to this story about a screenwriter accusing Jarmusch of stealing the script to Broken Flowers. Perhaps the legal system will produce the truth. It would suck if it turns out that Jarmusch did steal the Broken Flowers script. But I guess if that happens I can still be a huge fan of Stranger Than Paradise, Down By Law, Mystery Train & Night On Earth, since their originality is uncontested. Until proven otherwise, I am going to assume that Broken Flowers is a Jarmusch original. It certainly bears a lot of Jarmusch signs: quirky characters, dry hu

Saw "Syriana" (well made, sad) last night but even that was not enough to keep me from getting enthusiastic about independence day. Happy 4th of July everyone, have a lot of (mostly safe) fun! Enjoy the holiday today, we'll get back to making ourselves & the world better tomorrow. - Sujewa

From The Beach Reporter 's coverage of Lance Weiler's new feature Head Trauma & its appearance at the LAFF: " A true independent film, “Head Trauma” is written, directed and produced by Weiler. He is even handling his own press. But this is nothing new for Weiler who also wrote and directed the digital feature “The Last Broadcast,” which just finished a run on HBO and can be seen on IFC. He was also in “development hell” with a pilot that tested well but never got picked up, an inspiration for “Head Trauma.” “I think in some ways it's very rewarding and there's that creative control,” said Weiler of independent filmmaking. “It's a case of the grass is always greener. You want more resources but you hear when people are working on studio films what they're looking for is more creative freedom. They're looking for the ability to own the negative, own their work. So I think it's always a Catch-22. It's very hard when you have to do all this stu