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

Check out filmmaker & blogger Brandon Harris's blaxploitation meets Godard short film Happiness Is No Fun at filmmaker & blogger Tambay Obenson's blog The Obenson Report . While I was in Brooklyn earlier today I got a chance to check out a rough cut/one possible version of a new short film by Harris ; featuring Ry Russo-Young in a lead role - very interesting, very well done, looking forward to seeing the final version. When I hear about any screenings of Harris's new short I'll mention it here. - Sujewa

... with photos from the Hot Summer Night Shorts (event went well, the handful of people who attended had a good time, Hansen's Clean Freak was a favorite) screening event, & perhaps notes & pics from shooting interviews for The Indie Film Bloggers in NYC on Sat. - Sujewa

Here it is: The Indie Film Bloggers: A Portrait of a Community . More about it here . - Sujewa

* * Image from GDMF by James M. Johnston Hot Summer Night Shorts USA 2008 Seven new short films by directors from various parts of the U.S. of A. Being shown on a large/10 foot long screen, away from the summer heat in one of the coolest bookstores in Maryland, with some of the filmmakers in attendance. Lemonade will be served. Event programmed & presented by filmmaker & blogger Sujewa Ekanayake. Interesting times will be had; come join us. Films: GDMF, 1 on 1, Clean Freak, Magnus & The Air Quotes Woman, knock.knock, Plain US, (and a short by Dave Nuttycombe, details soon). Total running time of the program: 2 hours. Go here/Capital City Microcinema site/blog for the rest of the info. - Sujewa

Masterson on that subject and more at The Film Panel Notetaker blog . - Sujewa

More on that at The Indie Film Bloggers site/blog. - Sujewa

Apparently Jim Jarmusch acted in a Simpsons episode recently, more info. here . - Sujewa

The following three things, I believe, are true: 1 - Hollywood movies are popular, both in the US & world wide 2 - Because of digital production & the web, more non-Hollywood filmmakers can make movies now, and thus more movies are made now than 10 years ago 3 - There are more film festivals in existence now, compared to the number 10 years ago; and most festivals are generally well attended So what does this mean for the US film industry, in all areas (Hollywood, indiewood, real indie/DIY, etc.), for the future? Reportedly around 600 movies were released theatrically in the US last year. Several thousand, around 5000 according to one count , movies are made in the US - in Hollywood & outside of Hollywood, and most likely that number will increase. Is there a US creative industry where tens of thousands of unique products/titles are released to consumers each year? Yes, the book industry. According to this & other sources, in recent years over 100,000 books were publi

It is quite possible that the only indie film blogger in Fayetteville, NC is Chuck Tryon , but in any case, will be in F-ville on Fri 7/11 to interview Chuck for my doc The Indie Film Bloggers . Then the next day, Sat 7/12, I'll be in Atlanta, to interview Noralil Ryan Fores & friends for the doc. Summertime indie filmmaking road trips to new (at least new to me) parts of the world, very exciting. - Sujewa

If I were to develop an indie film theatrical distribution business (which, come to think of it, I would like to do), I would follow the Zeitgeist Films model (from the Village Voice article re: the company's 20 year anniversary): "Gerstman and Russo, veterans of indie distribs First Run Pictures and Interama, respectively, joined forces in 1988, working in an elevator-sized apartment in the West Village for $175 per month. "We started the company with $1,000 each and $900 on a credit card," recalls Gerstman. Their first release was Bruce Weber's nonfiction boxing portrait, Broken Noses, followed by a collection of shorts from Todd Haynes and Christine Vachon's Apparatus Productions. Soon after, they released Haynes's feature debut, Poison, along with a bevy of work from budding auteurs, such as Guy Maddin's Archangel, Atom Egoyan's Speaking Parts, and The Films of the Brothers Quay." More here . And, the company is cool when approaching the

I just spoke with a couple of non-indiewood/real indie filmmakers who have completely bought into the wisdom expressed in Mark Gill's L.A. Film Festival "sky is falling" speech as being relevant to them & the entire indie spectrum. I tried to convince them that Gill is talking about indiewood stuff; movies made for over $5 million or so, using Hollywood filmmaking skills & experience & featuring Hollywood actors & promoted by Hollywood distribution skills & muscle, & with Hollywood expectations of box office success and not real indie movies ("no" budget, no star, more or less self-distributed in most cases, first or second or third time features, very small crews, etc.), not sure how successful I was at getting my point across. However, not everyone in the indie world believes that Gill's perspective applies to the entire indie film realm. 2 examples: My post from earlier today. Anthony Kaufman's post re: the 20 year anniversary

Click on the image to go find out about this intriguing comic book . - Sujewa

At ShortEnd Magazine . From the interview: "SM: (laughing) See that’s funny because I always feel like on a set the DP has the most responsibility. AS: To be honest, I haven’t had much responsibility DP’ing for narrative. Natural Causes was my first time doing that so I don’t have too much to base that on. With that experience in particular, the four of us [Siddiky and collaborating directors Michael Lerman and brothers Alex and Paul Cannon] were sort of sharing the load of making that film. And so in some ways I had the least to worry about of the four of us. I’ve definitely worked on films doing behind the scenes documentaries for bigger productions, and I’ve seen that; I’ve seen the hundred man crews and all the lighting and all the stuff that goes on to produce the one shot after hours of work, and as I’m thinking about where I want to go with this, that’s really not the direction I want to head in at all. I prefer to work with small crews." Read the rest of the intervie