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

From the article : " "I turned away, embarrassed for her, irritated with the people around me." Those are Obama's words, about his mother and the crowd at the revival theater, but they could just as easily be mine, describing what I often feel whenever I see predominantly white audiences swoon for obscene films like Crash, Blood Diamond , and Under the Same Moon , wishing they could see how those films pander to white prejudices by condescending to non-white experience, and how that's a symbiotic relationship worth affronting." Read the rest here . Thanks House Next Door for the link. :: And let me add something to this discussion and say that there is a lot of experiences that "white" humans and "non-white" humans have in common; so much so that artists should not be afraid to write about or film characters who do not look like them or belong to a different "race". When a unique human character is created it is possible to rise

From today's New York Times : "The speech Senator Barack Obama delivered Tuesday morning has been viewed more than 1.6 million times on YouTube and is being widely e-mailed. While commentators and politicians debated its political success Wednesday, some around the country were responding to Mr. Obama’s call for a national conversation about race." Read the rest of the article here . - Sujewa

A site for selling DVDs of my movies has been set up, go here to read about it, & go here to see it. First DVD will of course be Date Number One (4 years after i started writing the script!!!; script was written - for the most part - in early '04!). The Wild Diner DVD site is bare bones at the moment, but it will be full of all kinds of info. by the end of this coming week; info. on ordering the DNO DVD, etc. A DNO trailer, clips are also on the way; this coming week. By the end of the coming week I'll be announcing the pre-ordering info. for the DNO DVD. I should be able to start mailing DVDs out before 4/15. Exact dates & more info. coming next week. - Sujewa

Description: "GDMF is an improv based short narrative about an exotic dancer named Bridgette. An only child raised by a caring yet judgmental single mom, she has grown into an exquisitely disengaged woman seeking her own brand of independence. One night, after performing at a party Bridgette's private and professional lives are catastrophically blurred by an unsettling personal discovery." * gdmf from Atombomb.tv on Vimeo .

Here's the trailer: * And info. on 2 upcoming NYC screenings: EAT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY ("MANGE, CECI EST MON CORPS") the award winning visionary Haitian film by Michelange Quay starring Sylvie Testud, Hans St Val Dacosta and Catherine Samie WINNER GRAND PRIZE MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL 2008 IBERO AMERICAN COMPETITION OFFICIAL COMPETITION ROTTERDAM 2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2008 TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 TOKYO FILMEX 2007 The film will be playing in New York City, at the Museum of Modern Art/Lincoln Film Society's prestigious "NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS" Showcase. Please feel free to share this invitation with friends and lovers of both Haiti and new provocative art cinema. EAT FOR THIS IS MY BODY Thursday March 27 9 pm MoMA's Titus 1 Theatre Saturday, March 29 3:45 at Film Society (Walter Reade Theater) ticket info: http://www.filmlinc.com/ndnf/tickets.html

From the GreenCine interview : " Are you American or Mexican? I was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico. I moved to New York City ten years ago, where I got an MFA at Columbia University, in Film Studies. Then I moved to Los Angeles around three years ago. According to the IMDB, you have made only two short films previously. Yes, the first was a narrative short subject, 27 minutes long called La Milpa (The Cornfield) It went to 40 festivals, and won over 20 awards. Then I made another 28-minute documentary called Family Portrait about a little boy who was photographed by Gordon Parks for Life magazine in 1968. It deals with poverty in Harlem. This one also went to many festivals and won the jury prize at Sundance. The shorts and their success allowed me to raise money to finance my first feature-length film." Read the rest here . And check the post below for Moon trailer & review links. - Sujewa

Nice, a comedy-drama/adventure of a boy approach (at least in the trailer) to dealing with the topic of illegal immigration, will have to check this movie out. Lots of review links at GreenCine Daily . Trailer:

I've read some good articles over at ShortEnd Magazine over the course of the past few months (most recently a long interview with Barry "Medicine for Melancholy" Jenkins ), and today SM announced their 1 year anniversary. Congrats on 12 months of writing about indie film SM! Go here to read about their first year. They've produced an impressive amount of data re: their coverage (yum, stats :). - Sujewa

images: a scene from Medicine for Melancholy, Barry Jenkins, MfM poster "As far as low budget American Independent Filmmakers are concerned, hell yes they can change the world!" - Barry Jenkins :: Barry Jenkins is the writer and director of the new American independent film Medicine for Melancholy. :: I N T E R V I E W The Can Low Budget American Indie Filmmakers Help Save The World question Q1- Sujewa : Do you think there is a unique & positive (beneficial to the well being of a nation or a community) role that filmmakers - specifically indie filmmakers - can play in the world that elected officials, business people, and military people cannot do? As in, the entire human experience is heavily framed by story telling; people are taught about who they are or who they are supposed to be through stories - whether it is the stories of the Bible , stories about the Founders of the US , stories ab

From Washington Post's obituary of legendary sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke, who died on 3/18 in Sri Lanka: "In addition to his books, he wrote more than 1,000 short stories and essays. One of his short stories, "Dial F for Frankenstein" (1964), inspired British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee to invent the World Wide Web in 1989." Read more at the Post . I remember reading Clarke's 2001 : A Space Odyssey in Sinhala as a kid. It must have been the late 1970's, there was a wedding in Rambukkana (the one near Kegalle ), near the police station, my family knew the family that was having the wedding, I believe I borrowed 2001 from someone related to the wedding. I don't think I finished the book, but, years later (maybe a decade later), I did watch Kubrick 's movie version of the story in America - thought it was very interesting; I guess that's my Arthur C. Clarke memory :) More on Clarke, from the Post obit: "Although he rarely left S

Yup, another great speech. And yup, lots of people have "difficult" :) relatives so what are ya gonna do? Judging the candidate by his own actions & words should be enough, at least for the sane voters. Anyway, here's the full 37 min. speech from earlier today, if ya haven't seen it yet:

The new website for Date Number One is here . I used a Blogger blog template to create the site; so it's both a site for a movie & the blog for the movie - pretty convenient (and free, if anyone needs a site for their movie, try that route - it's fast). The old DNO site will be around for a while, it'll be turned into a DVD sales site & a place for promoting my future projects. Speaking of DVDs, the DNO DVD is coming along, should have it available for purchase in April (from DNO's new site, old site, this blog, etc.) - for all 6 of you who are eagerly awaiting that DVD :) It'll be worth the wait - the movie is 1/2 hour shorter (now around 90 minutes), & a lot smoother than it was in '06 & '07. Trailer for the film coming this week.

Go here to learn about all the docs nominated for the first ever Cinema Eye Awards. The awards ceremony is tonight at the IFC Center in NYC. Go to AJ Schnack's blog to read about how the Cinema Eye Awards came into existence. Congrats to all the filmmakers & others who made the event & the awards happen and to all the nominated films & their makers; everyone gets a big round of applause for creating a hot new event for the doc film community. - Sujewa