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

Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep was shot on weekends in the 1970's for around $10,000, as a grad school thesis project. Now, about 30 years later, the much praised film is receiving a theatrical release. Read all about it at GreenCine Daily . - Sujewa

Read all about it here . Wish I could have been in the audience for that one, two of my secret indie/punk/DIY filmmaking heroes in one place! Thanks GreenCine Daily for the link. UPDATE: a pic of Moritsugu that i did some decorations on for an interview i did with him a couple of years back made its way over to the post mentioned above - the b&w pic with the red explosion around his head. fun to see a little side item i created randomly show up at a blog many months later, at a great post :) UPDATE 2: read part 2 of the panel discussion notes here . - Sujewa

Waco, Texas based director Chris Hansen's amusing and well made mockumentary The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah will screen at the Kensington Real Independent Film Festival (KRIFF) in Kensington, Maryland. KRIFF, both a new film festival and a new kind of a film festival - one that celebrates real independent filmmaking in America and one that will share ticket sales revenue with filmmakers, happens September 6 - 9, 2007. Screening date and time for Messiah are to be determined. Messiah will be one of only 10 fiction feature films that will screen at the festival. KRIFF 2007 is the inaugural version of the film festival. Messiah is a low budget, actually independent comedy-drama about the misadventures of a character who believes he has been chosen for a special mission by the God of the Christians. The feature was made with the assistance of Baylor University students. The film is a real independent movie since it was created, as far as I can tell, without any

Fest: The Kensington Real Independent Film Festival , September 6 - 9 Aside from the two traditional ways of seeking movies for a film festival: call for entries/submissions & inviting films that I know about, I want to try a 3rd method: opening the floor up to the readers of my blog to nominate/suggest some movies that I should invite/try to get to screen at my fest. Read the 2 or 3 posts below this one to get a full idea about my fest. KRIFF will be a very good deal for indie filmmakers; they will get 15% of tix sales, assistance with travel/housing/food & a chance to sell their DVDs & other merch. And no submission fee. Here's what I am looking for: - Fiction features - No Hollywood or indiewood movies - no Hollywood or indiewood stars, or money, or control in or over these projects. (some exceptions maybe made if a Holly/indiewood actor has a tiny part/more of a favor to a home town friend as opposed to a major marketing move by the filmmaker or something like tha

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