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

This film is traveling to various cities with its maker & screening now - part of the Range Life Fall tour . Here's the trailer, flick looks well made & funny: RSO Trailer from Dean Peterson on Vimeo . For more on RSO, check out the flick's site . - Sujewa

Indian schoolchildren at a candlelight vigil in memory of victims of Mumbai attacks. More photos here .

The blog/site is here . Working on script & fundraising for the next 3 months, so probably not much to blog about, but who knows :) Flick takes place in Brooklyn. One of the story lines will be the one I've been working on for Actress movie . I hope to start shooting in March. That's about it for this untitled project for now - am calling it Brooklyn Movie while it is in script & production stages. Anyway, whenever there is more to report on the Brooklyn Movie project, it'll be at its blog/site .

Check out the CCN article Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai . From the article: "Neha Viswanathan, a former regional editor for Southeast Asia and a volunteer at Global Voices, told CNN, "Even before I actually heard of it on the news I saw stuff about this on Twitter. "People were sending in messages about what they were hearing. There were at least five or six blogs from people who were trapped, or who were very close to what happened." One tweet from "Dupree" appeared to be coming from inside one of the hotels: "Mumbai terrorists are asking hotel reception for rooms of American citizens and holding them hostage on one floor." A group of Mumbai-based bloggers turned their Metroblog into a news wire service, while the blog MumbaiHelp offered to help users get through to their family and friends in the city, or to get information about them, and has had a number of successes." Read the rest of the article here . - Su

Full story at CNN . From the article: "Indian security forces appear to be gaining control of two Mumbai five-star hotels attacked by terrorists in a wave of violence that has lasted more than 24 hours. But a standoff continues at a Jewish center in the city, said a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry." Read the rest of the story here . * Best wishes to India in recovering from this terrorist attack/tragedy. - Sujewa

Get the latest re: the situation, w/ many links to follow, at Daily Kos .

Trailer for Jon Moritsugu's underground/indie/punk/DIY/whatever classic Mod Fuck Explosion (!happy thanksgiving!):

After a few years of wanting to do it, & then having access to a place in Queens this year & then having a sublet in Brooklyn for a couple of months this fall, I've finally rented a permanent place in Brooklyn (even though I am writing this from MD at the moment - here for the holidays & also will be here quite often since I've got several important things going on here & MD is less than 4 hours away on Vamoose) - so thus begins my NYC period as an artist/filmmaker. NYC is very photogenic (also kind of crumbly in places, but the energy is generally sexy), looking forward to making movies there. I am going to try to finish shooting a new feature in NYC before the end of Spring '09. - Sujewa

Trailer for a new NYC indie/DIY film called Uptown, directed by Brian Ackley: "Uptown" teaser

Some indie filmmakers that I've heard from through the magic of electronic mail are disappointed that their DIY films have not yet made them rich and or famous by Hollywood standards. What I have to say to that is if you want to get rich & famous by Hollywood standards, then you should try to make a Hollywood movie & get it distributed widely - & get tons of tickets & DVDs sold & get tons of cable & foreign licensing & then make sure you get paid properly for your work. DIY film, as I & many others understand it, is generally not a smaller version of Hollywood nor is it a quick stepping stone to Hollywood. DIY film (as I & some others practice it) is about making interesting films through means available to you at the moment, and also distributing those films through means available. On a grand scale there is a relationship between DIY film production & distribution & Hollywood stuff - but there is no guaranteed link between the two areas

I really have no idea what kind of magical product Facebook uses to determine if their members are sending spam to one another or if a certain message being sent to members of a group is legitimate or not, BUT, whatever they use does not work too well. Though I've never sent any spam to any of my Facebook friends or to my groups, Facebook keeps warning me about sending spam. Obviously whatever filtering thing they use is not very effective. It's a good thing I still have my MySpace & Friendster accounts & this blog, other blogs & sites - yay for options! We'll see what happens - maybe due to communications limitations Facebook will drop out of popularity as quickly as they became popular. But, other than the warnings re: & limits to legitimate activity, being on Facebook has been a pretty good thing so far (it's been a few weeks).

Met Ryan Andrew Balas, a NYC based indie filmmaker, this past weekend. Ryan's got a new movie called Carter heading out to screenings, and another feature called Sandcastles on its way to DVD. For all manner of info. on Ryan's projects, check out his blog . - Sujewa

From Brian's blog The Film Panel Notetaker : "I like Indie Film Blogger Road Trip as a social commentary on a growing community...a kind of multi-city film panel discussion on digital video. Sujewa makes great use of a diverse bunch of unique bloggers, each speaking about the state of indie film blogging and how it's evolved from and its affects on more traditional means of film journalism and criticism, what each of us brings to the table, and where we see things going." Read the rest of the post here . - Sujewa

Tambay Obenson talks a little about watching Indie Film Blogger Road Trip and Cookies & Cream this past weekend at this podcast .

Cookies & Cream , directed by Princeton Holt, is one of the strongest - well made, generally effective - ultra low budget debut feature dramas I've seen in several years. Although Cream is not technically polished as Medicine for Melancholy , both of these new features take a step away from "digital video tales of young people looking for love" land & decide to bother themselves with questions that deal with traditions & assumptions & perhaps questionable practices in the greater society. In Cookies the underlying subject matter is sex work. However, the main story is about a girl trying to find the right guy. This romantic drama in disguise is shot, edited, & scored well. Any lack of technical smoothness/a certain "raw"-ness in some places added positively to the world that was presented in the movie - or, the sometimes documentary like quality of camera & sound work heightened the realism factor - made the movie seem like a chronicle of