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

Even though my eyes are not too happy about having to read blue letters off a red background, Brandon Harris's interview with Dennis Dortch , writer & director of A Good Day To Be Black & Sexy, is great weekend indie film reading. Check out the interview at Cinema Echo Chamber . UPDATE - 8 PM: Looks like Brandon changed the red background - much easier on the eyes - thanks Brandon! - Sujewa

Check out Amir Motlagh's short film about a rocker & his baby's moma in its entirety (24 mins.) right here: Plain Us_full short film by Amir Motlagh from Amir Motlagh on Vimeo .

An intro of sorts to an idea (a big idea with many parts) that I was thinking over earlier today (probably came about by thinking about the multi-generational & ultimately tragic conflicts in several parts of the world - including the current global war between militant Islam and the rest of the world - during the last few weeks) - at Positive Humans blog . The PH blog is related to the PH group on Facebook . The PH blog post does not have too much to do with film directly, but it may be of general interest to filmmakers as an individual or group philosophical stance since we have to deal with existence on this planet & how that creates various viewpoints & motivations for different characters in our films. Read the post here . - Sujewa

I hear that A Good Day To Be Black & Sexy is opening tonight in LA ( LA Weekly link for theater, showtimes ). In celebration of that event, here's a video interview with the director & two of the stars, from Sundance '08:

Go here to the ATL fest site to get info. on getting your press pass. Do it, you'll get to check out some great movies in a great city. - Sujewa

From an e-mail sent out by Brooklyn based filmmaker Tambay Obenson : "The basic part descriptions are: 1. Lead role - African American teenage boy (or at least someone who could play a teenager - 16 to 18 years old), and overweight (crucial), whether slightly or extremely. 2. African American man - father of teenage boy. 40s. 3. African American teenage girl (or someone who could play a teenager - also 16 to 18 years old). Size irrelevant. If you know anyone who can fill these parts on such short notice, and can be available sometime between Saturday and Wednesday, please forward this to them, or let me know who they are and I will contact them myself. There is pay for the lead role, the overweight teenage boy - not enough to pay rent, but enough to buy a pair of Nikes :o) THANK YOU!!!!! I greatly appreciate it!" Contact: TAMBAY OBENSON tao@tambayobenson.com * Tambay is planning on submitting the completed short to Sundance Film Festival

Filmmaker Princeton Holt (Cookies & Cream) saw my feature comedy Date Number One a few days ago & today he published a review . From the review: "The film overall has some of the most cleverly written, intelligent dialogue I've seen in a DIY film since Clerks . Existentialist ramblings about quantum-physics and Buddhism never sounded so fresh, so smart, so good. In this age of "mumblecore," or films about wayward 20-somethings, it's a breath of fresh air to hear these words and thoughts coming from this particular age group." Read the rest of Holt's DNO review here . - Sujewa :: LINKS 2013 Oscar Nominees Breakthrough Weekend teaser trailer - on Vimeo - HD Breakthrough Weekend teaser trailer on YouTube Indiewire ::

Go to this vid's YouTube page to see some comments related to this old (1940's?) family Christmas celebration. Neat.

Got a very nicely written e-mail from Sundance earlier today saying that Indie Film Blogger Road Trip was not selected for the '09 fest. Sounds good - on the bright side I can spend more time in Brooklyn & work on my new fiction feature script & fundraising, get to know my new home/neighborhood/city better (the NYC subway system is still mostly a mystery to me - it's not simple like the DC metro train system). Congrats to everyone who did get into Sundance '09. Thanks to Sundance for taking a look at IFBRT. And I am glad I was able to support the fest a little bit w/ my submission fee. I'll probably do a sneak preview type screening of Indie Film Blogger Road Trip in NYC in January or February (if doing such a screening won't get in the way of any festival screenings, other screenings). More on that possible NYC IFBRT screening next week. - Sujewa

Read all about it at The Film Panel Notetaker . For more on Docs In Progress , visit their site .

Great lyrics, good singing, OK music, very funny video - all in all a nice video to check out/listne to before sleep time (i was looking for a video clip of the original performer, but this was the best i could find on youtube, it'll do):

Even though some new filmmakers may assume that the drive towards Do-It-Yourself production & self-distribution in the art/indie/low-budget comedy/drama film world may have started around 2005, the truth is that several filmmakers have been doing their own versions of real indie/outside-of-Hollywood-$s-&-control filmmaking & self-distribution for decades - and Henry Jaglom is one of them. Check out this '07 Film Independent interview with Jaglom - specially questions about how he has handled financing & distribution on several of his movies. Here's a little bit of the interview : " Q. You're also one of the few filmmakers who self-distributes on a large scale . [Jaglom] I do that because the Samuel Goldwyn Company did a nice job distributing a film of mine called Always (1985). I watched what they did, and I thought, Oh, I can do that. Put a few people in an office making phone calls to art theaters around the country, somebody else making posters a

12/3 UPDATE: Tambay said that all the details of the grant should be finalized by January 1st, and the info. will be available at his blog. So far, as you can hear in the podcast linked to below, he is planning on giving two awards a year, each for $500. Go check out the link below for more. :: I have not heard the details of the new grant yet (the computer I am on at the moment does not have speakers), but, go check out info. on the new grant at Tambay Obenson's podcast about Black Cinema . - Sujewa

Something interesting to think about, and a possible problem to solve, for indie filmmakers who are interested in having their movies distributed beyond the core indie film audience, from Filmmaker Magazine blog , part of the paragraph: "I observed that all five films feature as characters people who are outside of the narrowly considered typical specialty-film audience, and I asked if the filmmakers had thought about how to make their film attractive to viewers resembling their characters. Hammer admitted that this is a problem, but he cited several non-theatrical screenings in universities and other venues in which a more diverse audience attended. He said it was hard to get bookings in, for example, commercial theaters in the South, not because they didn't want films with African-American characters but simply because they didn't book arthouse pictures. Dortch, whose film is opening this Friday in Los Angeles from Magnolia Pictures, says theater selection (The Bridge) w

There's probably 15 people in America who read my blog on a regular basis, and I think 12 of them live in NYC. It's always nice to meet a reader (so far I've met like 4 of the 12 who live in NYC :) - met one last night - filmmaker & writer Nelson Kim (who writes for Hammer to Nail & other places) - at Brandon Harris 's birthday party (happy b-day brandon!). Check out some film reviews by Nelson here . Anyway, I hardly ever run into people who read my blog in MD/DC, but in NYC it is a different, & better, story. - Sujewa