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

See it here . The story is too tragic for additional words. Hopefully the two skinheads who attacked Ritcheson, one serving a 90 year sentence and one serving a life sentence, will never get out of jail/never be free again. - Sujewa

* * * * :: DC's print & web publication On Tap, which deals with area entertainment & night life, has an article about Date Number One in its July issue. Here is the opening paragraph of the article: " Having already screened in New York City and Seattle in 2006, Sujewa Ekanayake’s film Date Number One , featuring a number of the District’s indie film actors, will have its first weeklong run in Kensington, Maryland this month. Comprised of five different stories, all about first dates, the film has been described as “about as charming as they come,” by Michael Tully, a SXSW film festival selected filmmaker, who continued on to say Date Number One “presents a world in which cultures don’t clash, they mesh.” Chuck Tryon, a media professor, treaded along this tangent as well, writing that the 30-somethings’ search for love in Ekanayake’s film “might be understood as the anti-Crash depiction of life in the city.” Read the rest here . Print copies of the magazine can be fo

Foreignwood = all manner of non-US based/financed/controlled filmmaking & distribution. The Cannes film festival is a famous foreignwood event. A lot of foreignwood movies never play in American movie theaters (but there is always DVDs & GreenCine & maybe Jaman too to pick up the slack). Hollywood = the major US filmmaking & distribution industry; big money, wide distribution in the US. Indiewood = the "place" in the US where real independent and hollywood meet and give birth to Napoleon Dynamite type movies, also the "place" that produces low budget & "edgy" hollywood movies that receive relatively wide art house & beyond distribution. You should be able to catch a lot of indiewood movies at Landmark theaters, also smaller independent theaters that program Landmark type stuff & on IFC. Festwood = the US independent film festival scene. it is possible for a real indie film to do very well in Festwood but have no impact in Indiew

Just a quick observation: about this time last year & a little bit earlier Chris Hansen , myself , Joe Swanberg , and AJ Schnack were blogging about our movies & discussing indie/DIY production & distribution. And now, about a year later, we've got some very interesting developments happening with various feature film projects: Hansen's American Messiah (his first feature) announced a significant distribution deal , my Date Number One (my second feature/third long project - over 1 hour long; more info. on previous projects here ) is less than two weeks away from having a week long run in the DC area , Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs (his third feature) announced a distribution deal with IFC's First Take , and AJ's Kurt Cobain About A Son (his second feature) is winning raves (and at least one significant award that i know of) from coast to coast at film fests. This is just an off-the-top-of-my-head list, by no means complete, because I am sure

Added the 7/12 - 18 screenings info. to the Date Number One's MySpace page , plus a couple more things/changes. Will add new clips from the movie, maybe a trailer or two, stills in the coming 3-4 days. Go become our MySpace pal if ya haven't yet. Thanks! - Sujewa

Filmmaker/musician Amir Motlagh's band Shanks and the Dreamers ( MySpace ) has a new album called A Day Late: Instrumentals for Illegal Aliens, available now through Amazon . I've heard it (well, an earlier version of it), good stuff (it made a barely moving DC traffic jam very bearable one day a couple of months ago - also I was able to daydream to the music), get yerself a copy. - Sujewa

Check it out here at Found In Brooklyn blog. - Sujewa

Man, there are like 5 very interesting articles at the Reeler right now. Check out the one about the Afro-Punk festival . Also, when you are there, check out the interview with the director of In Between Days. The Reeler is bringing the good stuff - in significant quantities - this week. - Sujewa

Check out the article re: Rescue Dawn at The Reeler , and the comments, here . - Sujewa

Check out the conversation here at The Workbook Project . Esther Robinson is the director of the award winning doc A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory . Doug Block is the director of the doc 51 Birch Street - which recently completed an 8 month long theatrical run. Lance Weiler is the director & distributor of the acclaimed indie horror flick Head Trauma , and a digital film production & distribution pioneer. - Sujewa

From Blake : "My film " Killing Down " played at the Cannes Film Market recently and the DVD should start popping up in Europe and the Middle East in the near future. No domestic deal has been inked yet, but we have several offers. Still trying to find the best fit and honestly not in a huge hurry. My new feature is moving ahead nicely too..." Read the rest here at Indie Features . - Sujewa

Chris Hansen, director of Messiah, has the news right here . Congrats Chris & Team Messiah! - Sujewa

Thanks Film Panel Notetaker! Also, thanks to the Kensington town newsletter for spreading the word. - Sujewa

Film series Independent Week: New American Independent Cinema 2007 is happening June 30 - July 10 at the Harvard Film Archive. Films featured are: Great World of Sound by Craig Zobel, In Between Days by So Yung Kim, Hohokam by Frank V. Ross, Apart from That by Randy Walker and Jennifer Shainin, Team Picture by Kentucker Audley, Finally Lillian and Dan by Mike Gibisser, Honey by David Ball, Afraid of Everything by David Barker, Yellow by Nick Peterson, shorts Contingent , Split Pea Soup , Two , Frenesi by Nick Peterson, Sullivan's Last Call by Francesca Rizzo, We're Going to the Zoo by Josh Safdie, Chalk by Mike Akel, Hannah Takes the Stairs by Joe Swanberg, Quiet City by Aaron Katz, Frownland by Ronald Bronstein. Visit the website for the series here . - Sujewa

A while back, over here , I wrote about the goal of getting mainstream press coverage for the 7/12 - 18 Date Number One run in Kensington. There was some significant progress on that project today - the Washington Post called me & we talked about the movie, the upcoming run, etc. This is very good news because I am very interested in getting local mainstream print press for the movie & the upcoming run. The Post is as mainstream as it gets for print press in these here parts. So hopefully there will be a nice article about the movie & the run in the Post come July 12. - Sujewa