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

Sound Design For Indies Class By Kelley Baker , Sound Designer on 6 Gus Van Sant movies What : Sound Design For Indie Films Class Who : By Kelley Baker, Sound Designer on 6 Gus Van Sant movies (“My Own Private Idaho” to “Finding Forrester“, and also on Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven”) When : Wednesday April 19, 2006, 6:30 PM - 9:30 PM Where : Kensington Row Bookshop 3786 Howard Ave. Kensington, MD 20895 venue phone (for directions only, see Contact for other needs): 301-949-9416 How Much : $30 Contact (local/DC event producer): Sujewa Ekanayake, wilddiner@aol.com , 240-354-3394 Contact (instructor): Kelley Baker, Angryfilminfo@aol.com , 503-329-6112 Additional Info: Sound Design for Independent Filmmakers "We'll fix it in the mix..." is an often heard expression, but what does it mean? As a sound designer it means you're in trouble. As the Sound Designer on Gus Van Sant's films, as well as animated features, network television specials and his own features, Kell

4/11/06 Village Voice article by Anthony Kaufman http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0615,kaufman,72822,5.html Check out the entire article, there is a good Spike Lee mention & quote in there too. Here's a paragraph from the article: "Indeed, the terrible irony of AIVF's current crisis, says McKay, "is that there is a greater need in this country for the activist part of AIVF now more than ever." As the major studios shut down new technologies that could help independent artists distribute their films (e.g., Grokster), as government institutions intermix with private companies to limit the availability of public information (e.g., the Smithsonian's recent deal with Showtime to privatize its archives), and as the Senate guts "net neutrality" provisions from a telecommunications bill, "there needs to be an organization that is lobbying Congress," says McKay, "that is dealing with broadband issues, that is shining a spotlight on grass

Read all about it here at filmmaker Caveh "I Am A Sex Addict" Zahedi's blog: http://blogs.indiewire.com/caveh/archive/007777.html - Sujewa

http://indiefeatures06.blogspot.com/2006/04/september-12th-wins-best-feature-at.html " September 12th wins Best Feature at Longbaugh! I am happy to announce that September 12th just won the Best Feature Award at the 2006 Longbaugh Film Festival in Portland, OR. It has been a great festival, and we are very thankful to David Walker and Joe Lesher of Willamette Week , the festival directors. There will be a repeat screening tonight of the film. posted by Magicfying @ 4:38 PM "

I wanted to give at least some of the interested DC area people a chance to check out my brand spanking new superdelicious feature Date Number One before it has its world premiere in Seattle in late May. So, a small preview screening has been set up at the Kensington Row Bookshop, a Capital City Microcinema event, for Fri May 12 @ 7 PM. $5. More info. on the film & the preview screening coming this week. Thanks! - Sujewa

Long before I started blogging on an almost daily basis, I kept a production journal for Date Number One. It covers events starting in March '04 (still working on the script at that point) until late'05 (August I think, end of shooting). Then there were a couple of attempts to keep a post-production & distribution blog, those blogs did not get used much, which brough me to this blog, which will cover the distribution story of the film. From time to time I am going to post entries from the production blog here at this new blog. - Sujewa

A couple of days ago I signed up for San Francisco's Balboa theater's e-mailing list. Theater programmer Gary Meyer wrote the following in a mass e-mail received today: “... "I Am a Sex Addict" had a spectacular opening on Wednesday at the Balboa. Near capacity crowds laughed, gasped and responded just as we hoped they would. Zahedi proved to be as entertaining on stage during his Q&A as he is on film. Joined by cast and crew, after a few questions, Caveh’s cell phone rang. Looking a little surprised and embarrassed, he answered it.“Hi Ryan. Yeh, it’s going great.”Looking up at the audience, he confided, “It’s my distributor.” Back to the phone, “ I’m on stage answering questions. Can I call you later?” I hope you get a chance to meet this talented filmmaker or some of his great team. They will be appearing at the evening shows throughout the coming week. • April 7 and 8 -CavehZahedi, Director/Writer/Actor • April 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 -Thomas Gogoreci, Producer • Apr

This ninja (John Stabb Schroeder) goes on a blind date in Date Number One photo copyright 2005 sujewa ekanayake/wild diner films Rolling nicely into Spring over here. Here's what I'm up to film action wise: * Editing Date Number One . Almost done, just a couple more days & I'll have that screener DVD peeps have been waiting for. * Seattle 5/19 - 5/21 Date Number One World Premiere is set. Need to create a web page for that event, this weekend. Fine tuning travel, crew, ticketing, etc. plans for Seattle at the moment. Also making Seattle publicity plans, to go into effect starting around 4/15. * Searching for a DC area venue to have a benefit screening (partial benefit @ least, 50% of ticket sales, for We Are Family, a DC charity that helps the elderly, run by punk author & activist Mark Andersen ) in early May, before I head out to Seattle for the World Premiere (i like that term, World Premiere, i guess a lot of mundane things can be world premieres too, not just m

There are more important & more interesting DIY film matters for me to blog about here, but let me just get these hopefully final words out about the disturbing indiewood drama that just occurred, since theaters deciding not to live up to their booking agreements hurts all filmmakers, audience members, distributors & related businesses. When Mark Cuban canceled the Landmark Theater bookings of the Caveh Zahedi film I Am A Sex Addict (in Comcast markets only, as Cuban likes to point out in his recent blogging) earlier this week, with about 5 days to go before an advertised opening in Berkeley, he made it very difficult for a lot of people in the indie filmmaking & distribution & consumer arenas to look at him & Landmark Theaters as a potential friend & ally. While I appreciate the physical high-quality of Landmark theaters & Cuban's focus on the bottom line (which indies need a little more of, so things like AIVF coming up $60K short can be avoided, perh

Monopolies & vastly powerful corporations can lead to all kinds of problems. In the case of Caveh Zahedi vs. Landmark Theaters/Mark Cuban it is: the worker (in this case the filmmaker) being punished for something that he had nothing to do w/- the battle between Mark Cuban & Comcast (read indieWIRE for details on that issue). Landmark Theaters is the nation's largest indie film theater chain, so I've been told, so it will be difficult to avoid them all together (as indie film fans or indie filmmakers), however, it is in our best interest for there to be competition for Landmark Theaters or for there to be other indie film theaters (non-mega-corporate, not chain owned, if possible) in Landmark cities, towns. Let's spread the word about non-Landmark indie theaters everywhere in the US & support those theaters whenever we can so that they may stay in business & keep Landmark in check to some degree. I'll start w/ DC: Indie film theater alternatives to th

The cool kids who run indieWIRE are no slackers, not only are they all over the Mark Cuban/"I Am A Sex Addict"/Comcast battle that is making people loudly question the healthiness of the relationship between INSANELY HUGE monied people/companies & indie film, they found the time to add this blog to their Blogs We Love section. Thanks a lot indieWIRE, this blog loves you too! Sujewa *******

received a copy of the Ms. Films DIY Guide to Film & Video in the mail today from Parcell Press . the Guide is an inspiring little 100 page DIY filmmaking info marvel, i plan on selling copies of it at my site and at Date Number One screenings. also received the paper copy of an important document from Matt "Rentals" C. at NWFF in Seattle. my 5/19 - 21 DNO Seattle gig is becoming more & more real every day. it's gonna be officially called the Date Number One World Premiere, i have decided. can't wait to play Seattle! all in all an excellent mail day. time to go get some eggs & coffee @ Tastee Diner, read mail, & then go home & edit! edit! edit! s*u*j*e*w*a

Looks like Elmwood in Berkeley is going to open Sex Addict on Fri: (from Green Cine Daily, comments section of Sex Addict review, posted today ): " I program the Balboa and have become an I AM A SEX ADDICT addict. When Landmark pulled the film I urged other east bay exhibitors to book it and the Elmwood in Berkeley will open SEX ADDICT on Friday. If the movie does strong business it will be interesting to see if Landmark changes their policy. I have a hunch the film buying department, all good folks, were not happy to be pawns in this game. But they don't hold the purse strings on a very big bank account. Posted by: Gary Meyer at April 4, 2006 11:26 AM " Awright, Sex Addict lives in Berkeley! Go Gary Meyer! - Sujewa

In a totally f***ed up development, after the screening has been advertised, Mark Cuban cancels an opening engagement screening of Caveh Zahedi's "I Am A Sex Addict", so says Caveh at his blog . - Sujewa UPDATE 11:59PM Mark Cuban responds to Caveh's post at Caveh's blog. Check that out too, to get more info. on the situation.

Several days ago at my recently retired blog Filmmaking For The Poor I asked a couple of questions: 1) should film festivals share some of the $s they make from a film's screening w/ the makers of that film?, and 2) what are the festivals that do that now? The discussion still continues over there, check it out. - Sujewa