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

DATE NUMBER ONE http://www.wilddiner.com/ a comedy about several first dates a movie by sujewa ekanayake Thursday, August 31, 9 PM The Two Boots Pioneer Theater http://www.twoboots.com/pioneer/ 155 East 3rd Street (between Avenues A and B, closer to A) New York, New York 212-591-0434 ticket prices: $9 adults, $6.50 members :: link for advance ticket purchase will be available soon :: Director will attend the screening. "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://hollywoodistalki

Date Number One distribution project is just getting started (9 screenings so far, DVD v1 coming around 9/1 - will be available through wilddiner.com 's STORE, $12, & lots more screenings coming starting in September) but I am already thinking about the script for the next flick. Unlike in the past I won't give too much away until the flick is made, but this much I can tell right now: the next feature will be shot in early '07, John Stabb Schroeder (ninja from Story 1 of DNO) & Jennifer Blakemore (Sunshine in Story 2 of DNO) will reprise their roles (in the case of John he will play the ninja's twin brother, a bartender, seen in one scene in DNO, Jennifer will play the same character - Sunshine). Making decisions on the plot & story right now, collecting notes for characters & scenes. This next feature will also be an ultra low budget, DIY, self-distributed flick. But for the rest of this year & until the next flick is ready to play at some point ho

In about a month or so, 8/22 & 23 it looks like. Get the info. here . - Sujewa

Just saw Clerks II . Me & the rest of the audience at the packed theater in Silver Spring, MD (!sharktown! there is a huge shark on top of the Discovery Channel building right now, Shark Week promo) enjoyed the movie a lot. There are 3 kinds of Kevin Smith movies: the comedies, the drama (Chasing Amy), and the one I was not interested in seeing (Jersey Girl). Of the comedies, Clerks II is the best, and the original Clerks comes in at a close second. Cinematography in Clerks II was the best, if I recall correctly, out of all the Smith flicks. Tonally, this movie feels right. There is more sadness in this one than in the original Clerks. There is also one of the wildest climax (end of Act II?) scenes ever in this movie, involving confession of important secrets, the police, the fire fighters, a donkey and a half naked man in leather. Whereas his peers (of sorts) Jarmusch, Hartley, & Linklater staked their claims to a certain kind of storytelling & kept getting it right more t

From their News page : " 6.29.06 So .... we always say that we release records along with the ebb and flow of our community here in Washington, DC. Well this idea will be well illustrated after a year of relative calm with a VERY active release schedule planned for the second half of 2006. IN 2005 and 2006 the DC punk scene has taken a turn back to the underground and we are now beginning to see the fruits of this period of introspection with forthcoming albums from Channels, Soccer Team, The Evens, Joe Lally, French Toast, The Aquarium and possibly Antelope. " Read the rest of the update here . Dischord Records is an awesome punk label (home of Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, etc.) and a source of inspiration for D.I.Y. artists everywhere. - Sujewa

Head Trauma gets to play in theaters & also gets into stores nationwide on DVD while Lance retains all the important distribution rights to the flick. Here's the initial Indie Features 06 post that introduced the HT DVD distribution topic. Here's a portion of Lance's comment re: a question about how he is getting his DVD into stores nationwide while doing DIY distribution of the film: " I'm doing a hybrid model. The theatrical is DIY and the DVD release is in conjunction with a small label. After running my own label I wanted to find a partner that I could do the release with. Last time I spent 2 much time on management. So this time I struck a deal with a small label that helps me reach retail and rental BUT allows me to hold all rights. Plus I was able to create an amazing deal - I leveraged the theatrical release to help get me the best terms possible. I carved away all digital rights, VOD, Theatrical, even the rights to sell DVD's over my sites and I ge

There is yet another place on the web to promote your film, and this one is connected to a website w/ a rapidly increasing membership: indieLOOP. iLOOP has a Groups choice called Film Projects, so far 5 projects are a part of this group. iLOOP now has over 2500 members, and I find it more relevant to me than MySpace (vast majority of the iLOOP members are involved w/ indie film, as far as I can tell, & iLOOP does not have any underage teen scandals associated w/ it, yet? :) at this point. I created an iLOOP group called Date Number One to promote my movie. Posted an update on the DNO distribution project there. - Sujewa

Saw the PBS re-broadcast of the Canadian made doc No More Tears Sister last night. Sister is excellent. It tells the story of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama, a young Sri Lankan Tamil professor of anatomy, mother & human rights activist who was most likely killed by the LTTE/Tamil Tigers because of her non-violent, peace & justice demanding work. The doc is a good, relatively brief introduction to the violence that has been rocking Sri Lanka since the early 1950's, the volume of which grew massively after July 1983 or Black July when 1000-3000 (by most accounts) Tamils were killed by Sinhala mobs while the then government & police stood by & watched & in some cases aided in the killings & other violence against Tamils. At present the LTTE runs a military dictatorship in some of the Tamil populated areas in the north of Sri Lanka and there are frequent clashes between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government and its allied paramilitary groups. As it was pointed out i

That's right, there's a person out there who draws images from & inspired by Fassbinder flicks & flicks by several other filmmakers on t-shirts & sells them at $150 a pop. That person is Jordan Mattos , a filmmaker who works for IndiePix . Jordan's t-shirt samples can be found at his site. I think this is a cool little hobby. Possibly a good way to raise $s for a project, special handmade t-shirts. Chloe Sevigny is a fan of the shirts. If you feel like getting one of those special t-shirts, you can order one throught the site. - Sujewa

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.