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

Check out this DCist article about the conflict between photographers vs. DC area security people & a developer, and what's being done about it. Here's a little bit from the article: " The lease signed by the county to the developers contains an easement "for public access," though it allows the private company to "enforce reasonable rules and regulations." Both of these statements seem pretty obvious: photography is allowed on Ellsworth Drive. Non-commercial photography of the area in downtown Silver Spring is not only reasonable, but it constitutes part of "public access," just like walking down Constitution Avenue. The Peterson Company has issued a laughable statement in reaction to the recent publicity over this issue, and has somehow deemed itself the authority to "give" these rights to photographers, stating in a press release, "We permit all [photography, videography and other filming at our Center]." The dev

Matt Dentler mentions the upcoming IFC center event The New Talkies: Generation DIY here . - Sujewa

Ms. Amanda just called me & told me that today's Kensington Gazette has a nice mention of the upcoming 7/12 - 18 run of Date Number One . So I did a search on line to find the article, it does not seem to be on line yet (i'll pick up a hard copy of the paper later). But I did find this 1999 article re: my film Wild Diner (my first feature) on the Gazette site. Nice flashback, thanks for all the support over the years Gazette! - Sujewa

I am going to start work on the next feature, the follow up to Date Number One , on 7/19/07 and I hope to have the film finished by 10/21/07. Hard deadlines this time, not like on DNO. DNO was a process of discovery, a successful one, and now that I know what I want to do & how I want to do it, it will be done without many delays. Production Scheduel: 7/19/07 - 8/19/07 Script 8/20/07 - 9/20/07 Shoot 9/21/07 - 10/21/07 Edit Budget: $0 - $20,000 OR the film will be made with what I have access to at a given time. The film will be a comedy and it will be shot on DV. More info. (with pics!) as things get done. Date Number One distribution work will continue while I work on the new, at the moment untitled, movie. - Sujewa

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