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

So me & housemate & valiant producer's assistant Allie are on a nyc trip to promote the 8/31 screening of Date Number One at Pioneer Theater. Made an awesome flier, several hundred copies of it last night in Silver Spring (will add it to the blog later), MD before heading out on the road trip. We drove for about 4 hours, 1 stop in Delaware, saw a sign on a plush toy game machine that said "The Game Is Not Over Until You Win". And as Allie pointed out, that was not some wisdom statement but literally how that machine is set up - your turn at it does not end until you get a toy. For $2 I think that's a pretty good deal for a kid. Anyway, that sign in that toy machine put a smile on my face. I will have to put that in a movie at some point maybe. Off to get some brunch at a NJ diner (Allie tells me that they've got some "real" diners here, not like the ones in DC), & then off to NYC - meeting up w/ Samantha E., who I've only hung out w/ on t

It's about 5 AM on Sun. The NYC trip is fully on, we just got to the "temp home base" aka Allie's mom's house in Ho-Ho-Kus (what a name :) New Jersey. Some sleep & we are off to Brooklyn in the morning. More later today. - Sujewa

Let's see, I've got my own website going ( Date Number One/Wild Diner Films ), and I've got MySpace & Friendster & iLOOP going (& a few other places that I have not done much w/ yet). But it would be cool to have one place on the web where I can promote the show & hang w/ people who are coming to the 8/31 screening of Date Number One at Pioneer Theater. Sooooo, if you are planning on coming, & you want to introduce yourself to the readers of this blog/other people who may be coming to the screening, post a comment or send me an e-mail/pic(s) at wilddiner AT aol.com, & I am going to start posting stuff, introducing DNO 8/31 NYC Show people to each other, & generally turning this blog into one long social/promo/party situation for the next couple of weeks. It's too hot to do too much real work man. Time to party, promote & hang out. Alright, 1st 8/31 show VIP to introduce is Brian Geldin! That's right, Brian THE FILM PANEL NOTETAKER Gel

There are great advantages to showing your movie on a large screen. The larger than life image & the necessarily loud sound are overwhelming & it creates a unique, memorable & in my opinion more forgiving (of any technical flaws in the movie) experience. Re: that forgiving item, what I mean is that certain minor things (not huge visual problems of course) that need to be fixed in the movie may not be noticeable when viewed on a large screen because the brain is busy taking in the huge image & loud noise. Those same mistakes are more noticeable on a TV/computer screen, when watching the movie from a DVD. Anyway, I've learned a lot by watching Date Number One w/ 9 different audiences in 4 different cities over the last 3 or so months. Right now, using the acquired knowledge, I am making some changes to the movie, before it has its 10th screening in NYC on 8/31 @ Pioneer Theater ( get your tix now ). More on that later, this post is about the hard cost, the venue rent

Super blogger David Hudson @ the mighty indie film blog GreenCine Daily mentioned the 8/31 NYC premiere of Date Number One today. Here's the link (go there & scroll down 'till you see a ninja). Thanks David! - Sujewa

Thanks to Brian "the hard working publicity dude" Geldin , I discovered a new site that other indie filmmaker/distributor/publicist types may want to check out (if ya didn't know about it already; i didn't know). It's called PR Web Press Release Newswire . At the moment I am not sure exactly what they do except that a whole lot of people are using it, press releases can be found there, & the press release (content below also) that Brian posted on PR Web re: the 8/31 screening of my movie Date Number One ( buy advance tix here ) in NYC seems to be directing more traffic to my flick's website. Here's the rest of that 50 mil page views quote from the PR Web site: "50 Million Page Views Each Month – Each month PRWeb delivers over 50 million page views of press release content from its sites, PRWeb and eMediaWire. This is separate from the traffic that we don’t measure from our distribution network. This is the highest online visibility of any commerc

Yeah, there are plenty of wars & unrest & under-development in South Asia/the Indian subcontinent BUT also some of the hottest women in the world live there & come from there or have roots there. Prompted by my recent blogging about Date Number One 's NYC premiere on 8/31, 9 PM at Pioneer Theater, several South Asians e-mailed me & said they will be coming to the event & one, a very attractive young lady w/ obviously great taste in new films, just invited me to a party in NYC this weekend (I will be in NYC this weekend to promote the 8/31 screening). So there you go, one of the fringe benefits of making & showing indie movies: partying with hot South Asian women. Several hot South Asian women will be attending the 8/31 screening, so, you know, get ready.

I received this comment today (also a shorter version of this was e-mailed to me): " Dear Sujewa, We have taken off your program from our email list. The only reason we advertised it was because Ray from the Pioneer called us and asked to do so. We had no financial gain from the screening. This is commonly known as "Co-Presenting" or "Outreach" for Film Festival Marketing. A non-profit group with a target audience is asked to invite their audience to a specific program. We do provide free marketing to a core audience for South Asian independent films for the Pioneer Theater when they ask us to do so. Apologies for any misunderstandings. Good luck with your release. Best wishes, 3rd I NY " Sounds good to me. The whole argument could have been avoided had 3rd I NY contacted me prior to claiming that they are showing the movie. Co-presenters are fine, but taking all the credit for an event, after the event was arranged & promoted by others, is not fine. N

The happy ending of the story is that the South Asian media organization 3rd I NY will tell the 3000 or so people on their mailing list about the NYC Premiere screening of Date Number One at Pioneer theater on 8/31. Which is very cool, thanks 3rd I NY! But before we got to that point today, there were a couple of hours of confusion, mild panic, early preparations to stop a possibly unauthorized screening, e-mails & phone calls. Here's what happened: I check my e-mail early afternoon today to find an e-mail from an organization that I've heard about (3rd I NY) but never dealt w/, & from a person named Shilpa Mankikar, a person that I do not know, and the relevant part of the e-mail read: "we are screening your film for 3rd i in new york this month. can you come up for a q&a?" I was like: interesting, that's news to me. I did not agree to or authorize a screening of Date Number One for 3rd I NY. In fact I had never dealt w/ them re: Date Number One (or r

So I bought a blog ad. Definitely to promote the Date Number One screening on 8/31 @ Pioneer Theater in NYC & also to show some appreciation to Anthony Kaufman's blog - which is one of my favorite daily reads. Anthony regularly grapples with difficult, important, not-too-sexy but very relevant indie & foreign film matters. Check out the ad here (look to the right, below the ad about filmmaking in NY): http://blogs.indiewire.com/anthony/ An apostrophe (sp?) has appeared as a question mark in the ad. Will see if I can get that fixed. If not, no biggie. I like the ad. Go BlogAds & iW & AK's blog! - Sujewa

Yup, that's right, blogging about Araki films are happenin'. Go here to get all the details. Being Boring blog is the home of this event. While I have not fully enjoyed any Greg Araki movies I've seen so far (The Living End, The Doom Generation, the one w/ the alien - Nowhere?) I do enjoy & appreciate the existence of Araki & he is an inspiring indie filmmaker w/ DIY roots. & he is an Asian-American filmmaker w/ DIY indie/punk roots, there aren't too many of us around, so I always check to see what Araki is up to when his name surfaces in the media. Since I am not in love with any of his movies that I've seen, I will contribute to the blog a thon by writing about his career. Expect the post at some point this week. & maybe I'll check out Mysterious Skin also. & maybe I'll blog about that flick. But I'll definitely blog about Araki's career. - Sujewa

I will be very happy for a while with just GreenCine carrying the Date Number One DVD, if it happens, when we get to that point - will be submitting the flick to them - BUT there are people, including many indie filmmaker people, who are crazy about Netflix & would probably love to have the DVDs of their films be carried by Netflix. If you are one of those filmmakers, here is the link to the page where Netflix offers info. on submitting your film to them. Good luck. - Sujewa

I started a new blog called Positive Humans . PH will feature info. on inspirational people & groups & events. Will be writing in it at least once a day. The first post points to the peace activist group Nonviolent Peaceforce. Check out the blog here . Thanks. - Sujewa