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

Stuff Done Today/Need To Do soon: - Got about 300 fliers out in the East Village neighborhood promoting the 8/31 Date Number One screening at Pioneer theater - Spoke w/ about a dozen enthusiastic NYC people about the film, they said they will spread the word about the 8/31 screening. - Got the contact info for the IFC center programmer (one of many?) at the IFC Center itself (right by the West 4th subway station, where I got off last couple of days to go to East Village), wll be attempting to get Date Number One screenings there. - Lots of NYC theaters to contact re: DNO screenings, will be doing it this month. * if you know ,or if you are, a NYC indie screening venue (indie theater, microcinema) programmer, let me know, will tell ya all about Date Number One so that we can look into doing some screenings. e-mail me at wilddiner AT aol.com. - Date Number One Posters & post cards need to get done, DVDs need to get done - working on them this week * had some yummy sri lankan food at

The world is, compared to any one person, huge. Getting a movie out even nationwide is an enormous task, even if that task is to be accomplished over time - over several months. DIY distribution is a powerful & effective tool. Instead of waiting around for approval & acceptance from film festivals/theater programmers/critics & other media/other distributors, a filmmaker can interact directly with the audience and conduct business by offering his/her work for purchase at screenings or through DVD or VOD. In the final analysis, two groups of people matter above all others in the film creation & consumption area of activity: filmmakers & paying audience members. DIY distribution is the shortest route between those two groups. The down side of DIY distribution is its limited reach. Unless the filmmaker has access to a lot of money & can hire/create a distribution operation that can take the film out wide, the film will only be seen in a few places, and even that wou

Hung out in East Village today. Met & talked w/ Pioneer programmer Ray for a bit, found an "authentic" Sri Lankan restaurant called Sigiri near Pioneer, must try their food to see if it is in fact authentic (seems like it, Sri Lankans were working there, went in & said hello, there was a 1 hour long wait for dinner, so we ate at an Indian restaurant called Gandhi nearby - good food), put some Date Number One 8/31 Pioneer screening flyers out in East Village w/ the help of Brian Geldin & Allie, watched "Satellite" at the Pioneer - well shot & well acted, nice theater (reminded me of Visions, former indie theater, in DC). Need to get an early start tomorrow - back in East Village to get more flyers out, & got plans to hang out in West Village & maybe Brooklyn too. Did not run into Jim Jarmusch today, but I DID see a Stranger Than Paradise poster that is signed by Jarmusch to Two Boots, at Pioneer Theater (must get a pic of it tomorrow, will pu

Had some excellent brunch at a diner near Ho-Ho-Kus (in Paramus?). Man, NJ diners know how to make eggs & home fries, yums. Took a bus to NYC. Saw the cityscape gleaming in the sun for the first time on this trip around 7 PM before the bus disappeared into the Lincoln Tunnel. Entered the city on foot from Port Authority Terminal. Walked through Times Square, met up w/ Samantha E. at Grand Central Station. Samantha gave me an overview of the subway system, which trains I need to take to get to the places I need to get to tomorrow for the promo work (thanks samantha!). Samantha took me & Allie to East Village. Had dinner there, walked around, figured out how to get to Pioneer Theater. On the way back from dinner I walked past the IFC Center. Very cool to see a place that I had only seen up to that point through pics on indieWIRE. Direct contact with NYC is exciting. It's a real place. I was here briefly in '91. Other than that all of my contact with NYC has been second ha

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.