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

Have you heard about Mumblecore movies? If not, this blog Cinephilia says there's gonna be a blog-a-thon this weekend/starting Fri 8/24. - Sujewa

IFC Center page for The New Talkies: Generation DIY series . Buy tickets for the shows here . Titles, play dates @ IFC Center, & trailers/clips: * Hannah Takes the Stairs 8/22 - 8/28 * Funny Ha Ha 8/22 - 8/23 * Kissing On The Mouth 8/24 Trailer link: http://www.kissingonthemouth.com/trailer.html (didn't see it on YouTube or MySpaceTV) * Young American Bodies: Season 1 2006 8/25 The show at Nerve Video: http://www.nerve.com/video/Video.aspx?VideoGroupId=12 * The Puffy Chair 8/26 - 8/27 * Dance Party, USA 8/28 - 8/29 * Quiet City 8/29 - 9/4 Quiet City Trailer Add to My Profile More Videos * Hohokam 8/30 * Team Picture 8/30 Team Picture trailer Add to My Profile More Videos * Mutual Appreciation 8/31 - 9/1 * LOL 9/2 - 9/3 this page points to a QuickTime trailer (didn't see a YouTube trailer to embed): http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=28254279&blogID=78675623 * Quietly On By 9/4 * Mumbleshorts 9/4 The IFC site does not list the titles of

From In The Picture blog: "She Is My Sister focuses on a young woman, Rose, from a rural village who gets to university and then is able to get a job/open a business selling imported electronics goods. This all happens before the narrative begins and we see her return to her village where she finds her childhood sweetheart who she takes back to the city and introduces to her girlfriends. The 'country bumpkin', Danny, turns out to be very good at running the shop and before long the couple are married with a small child. Danny, played by Steven Kanumba who also wrote the script and seems to be one of Tanzania's successful young stars, also becomes very attractive to Rose's friend Flora." Read the rest of the review here . - Sujewa

Date Number One Completed* in May 2006 (* 1st publicly screenable version, additional changes have been made to the film following several of the screenings) PAST * May 2006 - July 2007: 19 screenings in 5 US cities (Washington DC, Seattle, Kensington MD, New York City, Takoma Park MD), 500 - 600 audience members served PRESENT * August 2007 - working on making DVDs available for sale FUTURE * September 2007 and forward - additional screenings, week long or longer runs, DVD distribution, exploration of other distribution avenues (cable, VOD, etc.) - Sujewa

I've written about & posted the trailer to White Lies, Black Sheep earlier, so here's some fresh news from Cinematical ; the flick is going to play at the next Toronto International Film Festival . Read more about it here at Cinematical . TIFF happens 9/6 to 9/15. - Sujewa

I think it would be fair to say Rick Schmidt is the godfather of ultra-low budget real indie filmmaking because not only has he been engaged in the pursuit of that unique & often frustrating but sometimes awesomely rewarding art form since 1975 (!!!), but he has popularized the practice through his essential indie filmmaking how-to book Feature Filmmaking At Used Car Prices and the follow up book Extreme DV At Used Car Prices . Before I shoot a new film (and often during & after), I re-read one or both of his books. I've seen several of the films produced by Rick & his Feature Workshops . One of the best, in my opinion, is the well written/conceived, well acted & well shot & edited Chetzemoka's Curse . It also has the honor of being the 10th film to receive the Dogme 95 certification. And the film tells an engaging story. Find out more about the film here and here . Here is a little bit about the film: "Only the second American Dogme 95 movie, Chetze

The prolific Chicago based indie filmmaker James Fotopoulos's Back Against the Wall (2000) sounds bizarre & interesting (available for purchase from Facets ). Check out a review of the film, by J. Hoberman at Village Voice, here . Here is a sentence from the review: "Typically shot in drab black-and-white, Cinefotopoulos is characterized by its total conviction and obsessive structure, as well as a distinctive atmosphere of poverty-row geekery that bids at any moment to loose a torrent of perversion." Read the rest here . - Sujewa

I've found that it is very easy to embed a YouTube or MySpaceTV clip on this blog, so, since I am always on the lookout for short cuts when it comes to blogging, having a trailer or a clip of yer real indie film on one of those places will make it easier for me to mention it here/provide a tiny bit of press for yer project. E-mail me with yer clips & trailers links ( wilddiner@aol.com ) or post the links/URLs below in comments and I might promote them here when I get around to it. Thanks! - Sujewa * and i should take my own advise & cut & post a Date Number One trailer, adding that item to the 2 do list now

This excellent theatrically self-distributed (in '04) real indie feature is available on DVD . Check out Matt Zoller Seitz's (filmmaker, blogger, & print film reviewer- currently at New York Times) review of Robot Stories here . Here is a sample from the review (from an edition of the New York Press newspaper): "In some ways, "Machine Love" is the most daring of the four segments. Like other memorable recent sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters–including A.I. and The Return of the King–it presents a simple concept and unabashedly emotional characters without fashionable ironic distance. The main character is a humanoid robot named Archie (played by Pak himself, in an opaque yet moving performance that seems to absorb and then radiate the emotions of whichever characters happen to be in the room with him). Archie is a docile sweetheart who aims to please, programmed to learn from his coworkers, absorbing both their physical skills and their value systems. But he qu

The last week of not-too-much-work-during-the-summer is coming up; I am taking a little trip to NYC, mainly for the iW blogger/indie film blogger meet up on Thu 8/23 starting @ 9 PM @ Botanica bar, more info. here . I will also be visiting a bunch of indie theaters & catching a lot of movies during this trip. On this trip I'll have with me screener DVDs of Date Number One to give to several NYC people I've promised them to months ago; we are staying true to the Wild Diner Films motto: "yeah, it'll get done eventually" :). Prior to the blogger meet up I am going to try to attend the Apple Store SoHo event re: Generation DIY filmmakers, which starts at 7 PM on Thu 8/23. Get more info. on that thingy here . And I think there is a new movie opening up on Wed 8/22 at the IFC Center; a movie that I have not heard too much about in the blogz lately, a movie that SXSW film festival producer Matt Dentler is kind of excited about - find out all about it here . I am goi

As the name of this blog indicates, I am a big fan of ultra-low budget real indie filmmakers, including Mumblecore filmmakers, getting press, getting their movies out, building careers, etc. But I was slightly bothered by the following quoted statements (from Spout blog ) by Benten Films co-owner Andrew Grant about the Beats, 80's & 90's indie filmmakers, in relation to Mumblecore filmmakers. Here is the comment I left at the Spout post: "A lot of what Andrew Grant says in the following quoted paragraphs seem like just hype by an owner of a DVD label, a label that is about to release several Mumblecore (M-core) DVDs; questionable hype that plays with facts. Might not be a big deal in the course/history of film publicity & sales, but I was bothered by it, so here's my dissection & response to it (my thoughts in parantheses (sp?)): "ANDREW: I think there’s a natural inclination to group artists under a single umbrella." (OK) "Mumblecore is

A clip from my favorite American movie : - Sujewa

A comment I made at Matt Dentler's blog made me look up the career of the late Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray (1921-1992). I knew he was not Bollywood, but made what we would consider art/indie films, but I did not know that he made one movie a year from 1955 until 1991 - that's a lot of Indian indie films from one artist! Here is the text from a page on Ray's work, from the excellent website SatyajitRay.org (from Subjects: Ray's World page under Filmmaking tab): " One of biggest contribution of Ray to the world of cinema was his choice of subjects. He explored a range of characters and situations. Many of these were alien to popular Indian cinema, as they were not considered suitable film subjects in India. He brought real concerns of real people to the screen - villagers, city middle-class, intellectuals, rich and famous, detectives, kings...Ray himself summed up a very important aspect of his films: "Villains bore me." Good Vs evil, white vs. black, t

And that mmmm is re: her talent of course - writes, acts & directs. Check out the trailer for 2 Days In Paris below. Looking forward to seeing this pic. Some theater should program Before Sunset and 2 Days In Paris together. Maybe along with The Hebrew Hammer . That would be a good line up. Maybe Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Hebrew Hammer & then 2 Days In Paris. - Sujewa

Jumping Off Bridges is one of the handful of theatrically self-distributed '06 movies that I had a chance to watch. A well made, well reviewed movie. Check out a trailer here: - Sujewa