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

Can be found here . Or scroll down two posts below to the 3/23 entry. Thanks. - Sujewa

Just created the front page for The Kensington Real Independent Film Festival(KRIFF)'s website . Check it out here . Not much there save for the name of the fest & a coming soon message. But it is a start, oh yes, more stuff on the fest at the KRIFF site very, very soon. - Sujewa

Ladies and gentlemen, The Kensington Real Independent Film Festival - a celebration of ultra-low budget/"no" budget, outside of Hollywood/Indiewood filmmaking excellence - will be happening this fall! A festival that will give a % of ticket sales from each screening to the filmmaker responsible for the screened film (try saying that 13 times fast :). Plust other goodies to filmmakers. See below for the details. KRIFF - A Celebration of the Real Indie Film & the Real Indie Filmmaker. Dates: September 6 Thu - 9 Sun, 2007 Place: Kensington, MD (a town + area/zip code of about 22,000 people who live a short distance away from the screening venue), 15 minutes outside of Washington, DC. Films will be screened at the Armory Building , a venue that can seat over 250 people. Line up: still working on it. At this point I am sure that a Jon Moritsugu film will be in the fest (most likely his recent Hi-8 feature, the "experimental" & sweet Scum Rock). I will also be in

Since this blog is going to be used primarily for Date Number One news, I started another blog to write about real indie film news items generated by other filmmakers & projects. Check it out here . - Sujewa

Originally published 8/31/06 Got to NYC. It is a lovely day. Sleepy. 4 hour bus ride from chinatown, dc to chinatown, nyc was not that bad. eating some oatmeal, hard working lap top people are at both sides of me. we are ready as much as we can be ready for the Date Number One NYC Premiere at Pioneer Theater tonight (9 PM). had a nice walk from chinatown to east village. got a nice giant orange poster for the show tonight, it should be up on the theater's door soon. meeting up w/ sis later to get some yummy sri lankan food. & then, the show. will write stuff when neat stuff happens. see ya at the show if u r coming. - sujewa

Originally published 9/1/06 But, I did get to sit next to a model from Ethiopia all the way from NYC to DC, some lively company on the loooong Greyhound trip overnight. The NYC Premiere of Date Number One last night at Pioneer Theater went very well. I will have a more detailed post about the event this weekend, after I get some real sleep & deal with this cold that is coming on. Don't have the exact tix sales & attendance figures (will have them soon) but it looked like 30 - 40 people attended the screening & perhaps 40 - 50 tickets were sold (advance tix sales, some people who bought tix did not show up). People laughed at all the right places, did not have any major projection issues (thanks to the excellent Pioneer projectionist whose name I sadly do not recall; Tom? Jim? anyway, you rock). Story 3 starring Steve Lee & Kelly Ham got the biggest laughs as usual. More on reactions to various stories soon. Ray the programmer gave a great introduction to the film &a

originally published in early September 2006 well, not the highest quality pic is it? that's me & the pioneer theater programmer ray doing the post-screening q&a session on thu 8/31, after the Date Number One NYC Premiere. better photos on the way. - sujewa

originally published 9/12/06 Found this photo in Pioneer Theater's photo album (lots more interesting ones there, go check out the album). Pioneer has not updated their blog in a while, but the photos are relatively fresh. The photo above was taken by Pioneer programmer Ray Privett, following the Date Number One NYC Premiere screening on Thu 8/31/06. That's me in the yellow shirt, w/ an indieLOOP friend on the left, Brian "The Film Panel Notetaker"/"The publicist" Geldin over my left shoulder, and two of my sister's friends on the right side of the pic - my sister is on the far right w/ a tan colored bag on her shoulder. After the Q & A session ended we were hanging out outside the theater for a bit when this photo was taken. Good pic Ray! - Sujewa

Date Number One & Film Festivals So far I have avoided submitting Date Number One to film festivals because blogs & DIY screenings have offered more than what festivals may be able to offer the film, for the most part. Reviews of the movie at blogs & additional press generated through DIY screenings & $s generated through DIY screenings have helped to keep the start of the distribution project going along at a steady pace since May '06. Some of my big objections to fests have been that: 1) they are a semi-commercial middle person, and can hinder a DIY project from reaching the paying audience (DIY filmmakers can be lead to believe that the response from a fest equals the true value of their movie, and may be discouraged from dealing with the consumers directly if the fest response is negative), 2) fests require a submission fee, for the most part, w/ no guarantee that anyone will actually watch the movie, let alone program it in to the fest, 3) they do not openly p

I liked Aaron Katz's '06 film Dance Party, USA . So I am looking forward to checking out his new movie Quiet City whenever I get a chance. Have not seen too many reviews of the movie, but here's one at the Austin Chronicle . - Sujewa

[originally published November 12, 2006] But First, A Long Introduction: 2006 = Year One of the New Self-Distribution Movement or go on you sexy hard working self- distributin ' filmmakers! I am very happy with how some of my fellow indie filmmakers & would be indie filmmakers & indie film fans are tackling "the distribution problem" this year. 2006 is a record year for self-distribution/partial self-distribution & experimental distribution projects in the US independent film scene (i know 'cause i've been keeping track. this year, more than any other year in history, has seen more high quality ultra-low budget indies/"real indies", fiction & doc features, getting in front of an audience -outside of festivals -due to distribution efforts by the filmmakers. will have an year end report on this phenomenon in late Dec. or early Jan.). A couple of Saturday's ago I went to see Mutual Appreciation in DC & spoke briefly with indie fil

Not sure if I mentioned this at this blog in a while, or at all, but there is an IMDB page for Date Number One . Check it out here . Just added it to the links on the right. - Sujewa

Filmmaker & self-distributor Lance Weiler (Head Trauma) interviews filmmaker Joe Swanberg (LOL, Hannah Takes The Stairs) here . - Sujewa

At this blog entry Kaufman talks about SXSW '07 highlighting a group of indie filmmakers known to some as the mumblecore movement; Bujalski (Mutual Appreciation), Swanberg (LOL, Hannah Takes The Stairs), Duplass bors.(The Puffy Chair), Katz (Dance Party, USA, Quiet City), etc. And I ended up leaving a couple of long comments re: a couple of other commenter's comments about the praise worthiness of the movement. Interesting stuff if u r into real indie (ultra low budget/no star/non-Holly or Indiewood) stuff. - Sujewa

just updated the Date Number One screenings page : the "July 12 - 18 in the DC area" run is on the boards now, as they say. when all the details of the run are finalized next week, will post all the info. re: the event at the same page & here at this blog & elsewhere where i post stuff up on the web. couple more things to do on the editing front this weekend. should be able to order the first batch of retail DVDs on Mon. i think i'll get 100 at first, & order more as i sell them. if you want one, for now, & if you live in the US, send a check or money order for $12 (postage included/paid by me) to: Sujewa Ekanayake Wild Diner Films 10408 Montgomery Ave Kensington, MD 20895 if all goes well you should get your DNO DVD w/ in the first week of April or earlier. make sure to include your mailing address & in case i need to contact you re: the order, e-mail & or phone (optional stuff, but could be useful if there is some confusion with the order). and f