DOC COLUMN | Arts Engine Celebrates 10 Years

Ten years can either be a blip or an eternity depending on your perspective. The year 1997 saw President Bill Clinton inaugurated for his second term, James Cameron's "Titantic" was the top movie and a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter first hit shelves. It was before the Internet stock bust and "information superhighway" was still a promise. The world of documentary in the U.S. was one of foundation funding, public television broadcast and educational distribution with precious few docs breaking into any kind of commercial success. It was in that entrenched world that then-new filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur felt like they had little opportunity.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Trends ]

Nonfiction Campaign: Can Errol Morris's "Standard Operating Procedure" Break the Political Doc Deadlock?

Election years are typically strong for political documentaries. Capitalizing on citizens' hunger for issues that the mainstream media is either ignoring or mishandling, audiences flock to theaters to get a deeper sense of what's going on in the world. At least that was the thinking in 2004, with the blockbuster sales of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and also given the multi-million-dollar grosses of "The Fog of War," "Control Room," "Super Size Me," and "The Corporation." Even "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" wasn't swift-boated in theaters, earning more than $614,000.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Trends ]

Webolution or Wild Unknown: Digital Rights in Indiewood 3.0

Is online distribution the future for indie releases? Probably, but for now, don't bet your budget on it. This year, at festivals from Sundance to Berlin to SXSW, industry professionals and filmmakers have been debating the state of feature streaming and online delivery at cocktail parties and on official panels with names like "Webolution!" and "Filmmakers on Demand."
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends ]

Beyond The Art House: True Indies Find Real Theatrical Alternatives Outside Commercial Venues

Commercial urban art houses are often so filled up with studio specialty division releases that truly independent films have a tough time getting in. But a vibrant and varied alternative scene is growing to get these endangered small movies seen - and maybe even to make a little money. It involves cinematheques, non-profit film centers with niche-oriented programming, film clubs, museums, microcinemas and cafes, universities, and more. Despite the growth of online platforms and on-demand sources for home viewing, these outlets are committed to providing communal moviegoing experiences, often with an educational component. And traditional distributors are working with them, even while continuing to try for extended engagements in the commercial theaters.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 1 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends ]

Docs Across America: Can Michael Moore Save the Theatrical Nonfiction Market?

After a dismal year for the theatrical nonfiction business, when aside from Michael Moore's "Sicko," only two documentaries - "No End in Sight" and "In the Shadow of the Moon" - made just over a million dollars, the iconoclastic documentary filmmaker wants to change all that. Last month, at the International Documentary Association's annual Oscar documentary celebration, Moore called for "Doc Night in America" (see related indieWIRE article), a plan which would see major theater chains dedicating one screen, one night a week, to non fiction film. While the proposal remains in its nascent stages, it has already spurred talk, both positive and negative, within the documentary community and the industry, at large. Will Moore's plan take off? And if it does, is it a good or bad thing for documentary releasing?
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 3 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Trends ]

DOC COLUMN | Documentary Shorts Are Seeing New Opportunities For Life

Tim Sternberg's wife was working in India and while visiting, he stumbled onto a story--an aging father and his son who project old films into a darkened box for poor kids to watch--that he wanted to film. As is often the case with creative folks, he bounced ideas off of friend Francisco Bello who was also captivated and traveled to India to help Tim capture the story. "It was a classic 'go for it' moment," said Sternberg. "We connected to the subject matter but we made it quickly and somewhat by the seat of our pants."
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 2 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Trends ]

DISPATCH FROM BRAZIL | Golden Bear Upset: A Look at the Controversy Behind "Tropa de Elite"

Shocking critics and industry insiders in a move that no one saw coming, the 58th Berlin International Film Festival awarded its top prize, the Golden Bear, to the Brazilian film "Elite Squad" (Tropa de Elite). The award was a remarkable coup for the film that made its international premiere with subtitle problems and that Variety had written off as "a one-note celebration of violence-for-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist thugs." Yet, earlier this month the Berlin jury headed by Costa-Gavras, a renowned political filmmaker, defiantly gave the award in what they said was a unanimous decision. While it may seem like it came from nowhere, "Elite Squad"'s Golden Bear is far from the first time this provocative film has pushed buttons, nor will it be the last.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Berlin, Lead Story, Trends, World Cinema ]

BERLINALE '08 | Buoyed by Sundance and Berlin, "Ballast" Prepares for Unsteady Market with IFC

Lance Hammer's feature debut "Ballast" isn't the first American independent film to leap from laurels in Park City to a prestigious competition slot in Berlin. In 1999, Tony Bui's Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner "Three Seasons" went onto the Berlinale contest, while more recently, Joshua Marston's "Maria Full of Grace" (2004) and Mike Mills' "Thumbsucker" (2005) also made the double-play, winning acclaim at both festivals for their lead actors.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Berlin, Lead Story, Trends ]

PARK CITY '08 | Don't Overlook the World: 10+ International Films to Watch at Sundance '08

Next week, the global film industry will turn to Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival. But does Sundance, in turn, look back at the rest of the globe? The answer, of course, is sort of. While press, paparazzi and moviegoers will be tracking the every movement of this year's American celebs (Josh Hartnett, Charlize Theron and Jack Black, just to name a few), Sundance has increasingly tried to boost its international competition sections, with more prizes and more prestige value for the festival's global entrants.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Park City, Trends, World Cinema ]

The Glut, Festivals, Resolutions and More: Summing Up '07 and Looking Ahead to 2008

With the word "change" reverberating in the emerging U.S. presidential election, the concept is also permeating new year discussions within the film industry. Surveyed over the past week as indieWIRE examined the annual box office grosses and considered the challenges facing documentaries theatrically, a handful of film executives and insiders bemoaned the past and considered the future. Insiders were asked simply to share their observations on the business of film, festivals and/or distribution. What are the biggest issues facing independent and specialty film at this moment and what are their hopes and/or resolutions for the new year?
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends ]

DOC COLUMN | Expectations Exceed Business for Docs in 2007

A quick glance at the box office numbers for documentaries released this year shows Michael Moore's "Sicko" as the top doc, but at $24.5 million, the take is significantly lower than recent hits "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "March of the Penguins" at $120 million and $77 million. You have to scroll pretty far down Box Office Mojo's top 100 list of docs to find the next 2007 entry, "No End in Sight," Charles Ferguson's critical debut about U.S. policy around the Iraq war, at $1.4 million in the #55 slot. Says veteran doc maker Doug Block, producer of this year's Berlinale Teddy winner "A Walk Into the Sea," "As far as feature docs are concerned, all signs are pointing to it being a very grim time for theatrical distribution."
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 1 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Trends ]

WORLD CINEMA | Gone Today; Here Tomorrow: Foreign Flicks Wait Out, Then Face Award Season Glut

Foreign cinema lovers are facing a severe drought in U.S. movie theaters. During the crowded rush of award-season, when both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have recently published stories titled, respectively, "Not Just Some Movies: This is A Glut of Cinema" and "Arthouse Depression," there's one type of non-studio film that's nearly absent from both theaters and the debate surrounding the packed release calendar: world cinema.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends, World Cinema ]

DISPATCH FROM LOS ANGELES | Strike Talk Stirs AFI Fest, AFM; WGA Sets Walkout for Monday

A U.S. film business facing a downbeat DVD market, concerns about the distribution of entertainment via new media outlets, and criticism that there are simply too many movies being made, is dangerously close to a walkout by the 12,000 unionized writers who create most of the mainstream films and television shows commercially distributed by the Hollywood studios and national TV networks. Barring a last minute resolution over the weekend here in Hollywood, the strike will officially begin at 12:01 a.m. on Monday, November 5th.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 2 comments ]   [ filed under AFI Fest, Lead Story, Trends ]

Uninvited: "The Band's Visit" Turned Away by AMPAS, Middle East Fests

"The Band's Visit," it turns out, has not been welcomed with open arms. While first-time filmmaker Eran Kolirin's much-beloved movie about a group of Egyptian musicians astray in Israel won a special prize in Cannes, a distribution pact with Sony Pictures Classics and was looking like a shoo-in as a foreign-language Oscar nominee, the fish-out-of-water comedy has recently faced a series of roadblocks. In the same week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) deemed "The Band's Visit" ineligible for the foreign-language category because it contained too much English dialogue, the film found itself at odds with two Middle Eastern film festivals, the Cairo International Film Festival and the new Middle Eastern International Film Festival (MEIFF) in Abu Dhabi, neither of which will be showing the film.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Awards Watch, Lead Story, Trends ]

World Cinema Column | French Revolution: Popular French Fare Finds U.S. Audiences

Bastille Day isn't the only reason the French have to celebrate this coming Saturday. The French film industry has been enjoying a box office resurgence of late, both at home and aboard. During the first quarter of 2007, French films took a robust 58.4% market share in France, well outpacing their own averages of 30%-40% in recent years and U.S. productions (only 38.6%). Popular titles have included the fourth installment of the French action franchise "Taxi" as well as Olivier Dahan's Edith Piaf bio-pic "La vie en rose" and Laurent Tirard's "Moliere," the latter of which will also soon be playing in the U.S., which has shown a steady taste for Gallic pictures over the last few months. Even Pixar's summer juggernaut "Ratatouille" has embraced its Parisian setting. Freedom fries, be damned.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends, World Cinema ]

DOCS MONTHLY | The Doc Blogs: Part of a Thriving Online Film Community

Ever wonder how the term "blog" was coined? Most people know it comes from the word "weblog", which was first used by Jorn Barger back in December of '97, but the shortened version came into use when Peter Merholz cleverly turned "weblog" into "we blog" in the sidebar of his brilliant Peterme.com in 1999. Since blogs as we know them have only existed for about a decade, it's remarkable that the number of people maintaining a personal website is expected to reach about 100 million this year, according to Gartner Research. It's not surprising then, that there are now blogs about every subject imaginable and then some - from robots to supernatural phenomena to brownies - and yes, even documentary film.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 1 comments ]   [ filed under Documentary, Lead Story, Trends ]

SF360 | A Superdance and a Superbowl

In the week that follows the Sundance Film Festival, two things arrive with regularity: Articles about how the festival has succumbed to (or advanced toward) commercialism, and previews for the Superbowl, America's premier commercial entertainment event. Though I heard many rumors of at least one Bay Area football star roaming the festival and did watch a playoff game on Main Street, there was another reason football comes to mind as the best metaphor for Sundance '07: It felt more like an NFL draft than any other year. And I mean that in the best of ways--independent films of unknown future potential commanded massive sums from suits seeking franchise gold. It was, as Anne Thompson noted in The Hollywood Reporter Jan. 26th, the biggest seller's market of all time. "Thirteen movies--10 features and three documentaries--sold to distributors, both foreign and domestic, over six days, with many more smaller deals expected to close at festival's end and beyond."
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends ]

Wrapping '06 and Looking Ahead at '07: The Lists, The Notable Moments, and the Resolutions

Happy New Year from indieWIRE. In our first article of 2007, we wrap-up a flurry of year end articles, mainly looking back at the best movies from the past year. It all started late last month with the first indieWIRE Critic's Poll, surveying 107 film critics about their favorite films of the year. Cristi Puiu's "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" topped the poll, with Martin Scorsese voted best director for his acclaimed Hollywood movie, "The Departed". James Longley's "Iraq in Fragments" was named best documentary and Rian Johnson's "Brick" was voted best first film. Writer Peter Morgan topped the best screenplay ballot for "The Queen" and the film's lead, Helen Mirren was singled out as best actress (while Mark Wahlberg was highlighted for his best supporting performance in "The Departed"). Finally, the notice for best cinematography went to Emmanuel Lubezki for "Children of Men."
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 0 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends ]

Emerging Spectators: Cultivating the Art-House Audience in a Post-Auteur Culture

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this month, renowned critic Andrew Sarris--the man who helped cultivate the auteur theory in the U.S.--appeared at a panel with critics J. Hoberman and Dennis Lim to celebrate the publication of the Village Voice Film Guide and a screening of Robert Bresson's "Au hasard Balthazar." But despite the overflowing crowd and cineastic fervor at this one-night event, the auteur model is fading, the Village Voice is a shell of its former self, and film culture is undergoing a radical shift.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 4 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends, World Cinema ]

"Volver" and "Pan's Labyrinth" Prepare to Break Out of the Foreign Language Niche

The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer. That's what the Democratic Congress will inherit when they officially take control of the country's legislature in January. The same state of affairs applies to foreign-language films in the United States. While there are a handful of films that break through to higher levels of popularity and ticket sales, the vast majority of features produced overseas continue to face overwhelming challenges at the U.S. box office.
[ read more in Biz ]   [ 1 comments ]   [ filed under Lead Story, Trends, World Cinema ]