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distribution

Largest Croatian Film Distributor Moves Headquarters to Malta

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Vedran Pavlik

Rivals are accusing Blitz of profiting from state aid.

Blitz, the leading Croatian distributor and exhibitor of films, has moved its headquarters to Malta and has become a part of the Hero Holdings Limited offshore company, reports Večernji List on January 2, 2017.

The holding includes, in addition to Blitz, companies Duplicato Media and Vox Communications. According to the Blitz-Cinestar, a company whose headquarters have remained in Croatia, the reason for the creation of “the holding is company’s internal reorganization of the group in order to facilitate expansion to other European markets; the owner of the holding company remains Hrvoje Krstulović.”

They add that Malta had been selected since it is a member of the European Union and has developed financial and other services related to the film industry, with English as the official language and acceptable costs of doing business.

This fact is not irrelevant because Blitz, which dominates with Croatian film distribution market, last year had revenues in the amount of 126 million kuna and profits of 45 million kuna, making it the most profitable of all of Krstulović’s companies. Vox Communications had a profit of 1.3 million kuna, Duplicato Media about 22 million kuna, while Blitz-Cinestar last year brought about 18 million kuna.

The new corporate structure, according to Blitz-Cinestar, will combine the shares in all of members of the group, which will improve management and operations on different markets and facilitate access to the international capital markets.

While Blitz-Cinestar claims that the move to Malta is not taxable and that all of their operating companies with 269 employees regularly pay all taxes (just since 2010, they have paid more than 59.5 million kuna of corporate taxes in Croatia), its competitors, small film exhibition companies which wished to remain anonymous, claim that Krstulović’s companies generate huge profits due to substantial state aid which is not available to any other economic sector in Croatia.

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“Until 2014, there was no VAT for cinema tickets, and he sells 90 percent of all cinema tickets and distributes 90 percent of all films”, claim Krstulović’s opponents, claiming that Blitz-Cinestar stood behind the campaign against tax reform which called for an increase in the VAT rate for cinema tickets from 5 to 13 percent. The plans were ultimately abandoned.

Blitz-Cinestar denies the charges and claims that companies in the group are not entitled to state aid, with the exception to those programmes which are available to other companies as well. “In addition, it should be in common interest of all film exhibitors that the VAT on cinema tickets is not increased, since higher tax rate would have a negative impact on everybody,” says the company.

According to business data, Blitz-Cinestar did not pay any corporate taxes starting from 2012. “Blitz-Cinestar did not have to pay the tax for a limited period based on the applicable tax regulations. We have qualified for the tax break due to investments in the amount of 157 million kuna. We have created a total of 140 new jobs and saved all the existing ones,” concludes the company.

(Source: total-croatia-news.com)

distribution

Super Saban: Young distributor takes it slow and steady with nimble release strategy

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Posted By Larry Gleeson

By Rebecca Payle

It’s the year 2017, and a one-size-fits-all approach to movie distribution just plain doesn’t work anymore…if it ever did. Outside of your major studio releases—superheroes, explosions, giant robots, probably a third act where a giant sky portal opens up, you know the drill—there are dozens of mid-level films every month competing for limited audience attention and even more limited theatre space. Barring millions upon millions to spend on advertising costs, how do you compete? How do you stay afloat when there’s a glut of content and your average moviegoer only gets out to the theatre a handful of times per year? It’s a tough road, but Saban Films has figured out a way to walk it.

Launched in mid-2014, Saban Films is an acquisition and distribution outfit set up under the umbrella of Saban Capital Group, which in turn is run by billionaire producer Haim Saban. Even before getting into the distribution business, the Saban name was a big one in the entertainment industry. Saban brands include the Japanese franchises “Digimon” and “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” the latter of which has a big-budget film adaptation slated for this March through Lionsgate.

Saban Films, clarifies president Bill Bromiley, has nothing to do with Power Rangers, which is the result of a partnership between Lionsgate and Saban’s brands division. In fact, Saban Films has its own partnership with Lionsgate, with which it releases in the neighborhood of ten to twelve films a year. That slate runs the genre gamut—from westerns (The Homesman) to fish-out-of-water drama (A Hologram for the King) to blood ’n’ guts horror (31). It’s a diverse lineup, and one that results from Bromiley’s curatorial approach to film acquisition. Simply put: quality over quantity.

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Saban Films President, Bill Bromiley (Photo via Saban Films)

“We’re not about trying to create a library of titles. We’re trying to create a library of quality titles,” he explains. There has to be a “cast, director or story that is appealing to each film.” To that end, a key component of Saban Films’ strategy is going after films with “A-list talent,” whether it’s Tom Hanks in A Hologram for the King or Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank and Meryl Streep in The Homesman. “In the case of, say, A Hologram for the King, even if that doesn’t work theatrically, you still have a Tom Hanks film,” Bromiley explains. That’s a far easier sell in ancillary markets than even a well-regarded indie with no real household names to speak of. To that end, upcoming Saban releases feature the talents of Forest Whitaker and Eric Bana (The Forgiven), Al Pacino (Hangman), John Cusack (Misfortune) and Glenn Close (The Girl with All the Gifts).

Saban’s decision to attach itself to quality talent extends to behind the camera as well as in front of it. John Michael McDonagh, director of critical hits The Guard and Calvary, helmed Saban’s pitch-black comedy War on Everyone, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña as a pair of corrupt New Mexico cops. That one debuts on DirecTV in the first quarter of 2017 in advance of a theatrical release. A Hologram for the King had Tom Tykwer, previously of Run Lola Run and Cloud Atlas (with the Wachowski sisters), in the director’s chair, while Tommy Lee Jones himself directed and co-wrote The Homesman. In production now is The Forgiven, starring Forest Whitaker as anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu and directed by Roland Joffé, two-time Oscar nominee for The Mission andThe Killing Fields.

Up-and-comers are in the mix, too. Zack Whedon, whose writing credits include “Southland,” “Halt and Catch Fire” and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (directed by brother Joss), made his directorial debut with 2016 Saban release Come and Find Me, starring Aaron Paul and Annabelle Wallis. And early 2017 brings The Girl with All the Gifts, from director Colm McCarthy (TV’s “Peaky Blinders”). An “elevated genre film,” to use Bromiley’s phrase, The Girl with All the Gifts was adapted by Mike Carey from his own novel about the state of the post-zombie apocalypse world. One difference from your typical “Walking Dead” fare: The Girl with All the Gifts is told from the perspective of a young girl named Melanie (Sennia Nanua) who is herself a zombie (or “hungry”), albeit one who is mysteriously able to talk and form attachments and boasts a genius-level IQ. That film, out on DirecTV on Jan. 26 in advance of a theatrical/VOD bow on Feb. 24, is the one that Bromiley estimates he’s gotten “more calls about…than anything since we’ve started. We bought into it early on, which is our strategy. I would say that half of the product that we buy and distribute, we’re onboard early. That can be a pre-buy off a script, it can be during production, or it can be during post-production.”

Bromiley admits that, being a genre film, The Girl with All the Gifts is something of a “tricky” release. “The horror space is really, really difficult, unless you can spend $20 million-plus in P&A. If you want to be in that game, you can’t do it on one title. You need to make it a business. You have to have four or five titles and go to bat multiple times, like Jason Blum [of Blumhouse Productions] does.” But “tricky” doesn’t deter Saban, which prides itself on eschewing a fixed method of film distribution in favor of a more tailored approach. “Each film we treat individually, and that’s the allure of us,” Bromiley explains. “We have to be flexible in our distribution strategies.”

Though every Saban Films release goes out theatrically “in a minimum of ten markets,” the majority of its business comes from premium VOD; Bromiley estimates an 80/20 split. All the same, “personally, I think that the theatrical business, regardless of whether it’s Saban product or not, is going to be around forever,” he argues. “I think that is the driving force of our business, and it will continue to be the driving force.”

Though a longtime proponent of premium VOD—Bromiley got into that game early at Image Entertainment (now RLJ Entertainment) before moving over to Saban—he’s skeptical of its applicability to big studio releases. “There are a lot of things you’ve got to do to get a consumer to want to pay that kind of money at home for the movies they’re talking about”—we’re probably looking at around $50 per movie, if the big studios’ occasional feints into the premium VOD landscape ever take off—“and you also lose the experience of seeing the movies in the theatre.” Saban, being a mid-range distributor, is more “flexible” in terms of pursuing premium VOD (today defined as a VOD release going day-and-date with theatrical), but that doesn’t mean theatrical isn’t a vital component of their release strategy.

For an example of Saban Films’ outside-the-box thinking regarding theatrical exhibition, take a look at their strategy for 31, from horror stalwart Rob Zombie (House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects). Horror might be tough to break into, but “Rob’s a brand, and we knew that.” So prior to 31’s premium VOD release, Saban Films partnered with Fathom Events for a limited theatrical engagement on 400 or so screens. “It did real revenue—like $750,000 in one night, one stream,” Bromiley recalls. “We ended up doing an encore presentation as well… Exhibitors were happy. We were happy. It was creative, it was different. We’re constantly trying to milk the most we can out of these films, and we always have the theatrical distributor in mind while doing so.”

In the future, Saban Films plans do more 31-type event releases, with the caveat that “you can’t just throw any old film into an event like that. It has to have a hook.” Outside of that, Bromiley plans for slow and steady growth for Saban: “We’re going to be very cautious. We don’t want to necessarily jump into the wide-release theatrical business right away, because that’s very risky and puts you out of business quickly. I see part of our growth coming from the theatrical world and doing smaller platform releases.” After all, one big misstep—a large investment in a film that doesn’t end up delivering, an overzealous P&A spend—could have huge financial repercussions. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Saban Films is only a year and a half old, and Bromiley is determined to stay in the game by applying pinpoint strategy.

(Source: filmjournal.com)

distribution, Documentary

“Banking on Bitcoin” Film to Hit Theatres on January 6, 2017 Accompanied by VOD Release

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

December 28, 2016, California, USA – “Banking on Bitcoin” a feature film on Bitcoin, its history and future is set to be released on January 6, 2017. Produced by Gravitas Ventures, the film will be launched at select theatres and will also be made available on VOD.

The “Banking on Bitcoin” film covers the most disruptive digital invention since the Internet. It follows the ideological battle underway between fringe utopists and mainstream capitalism. An in-depth coverage of key players in the space including Charlie Shrem, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Barry Silbert, Erik Voorhees, Nathanial Popper, Alex Winter and more gives an insight into how they think this revolutionary cryptocurrency technology will shape our lives.

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Writer/Director David Guy Levy (Photo via LinkedIn)

“Our production has excelled in more ways than we could ever have anticipated,” Said David Guy Levy. He added, “With the material we’ve managed to produce, and the interviews we’ve procured, we hope that the audience will find the final piece as engaging and thought-provoking as we do,”

Bitcoin is one of the controversial creations of technology that is set to change the world. Its early pioneers sought to blur the lines of sovereignty and the financial status quo that has been around for ages. After years of underground development, Bitcoin grabbed the attention of curious public — as well as the ire of the regulators the technology had subverted. Yet after landmark arrests of prominent cybercriminals. Bitcoin, which surged on election night and recently peaked at over $900 per BTC, still faces its most severe adversary; the very banks it was built to destroy.

Considering the subject of film and the personalities featured in it, the film’s director is available for an interview by media houses and publications to clarify the vision and purpose behind the making of “Banking on Bitcoin”. The production team is also willing to entertain requests for an interview with the Winklevoss twins. The “Banking on Bitcoin” film’s trailers can be watched on Gravitas Ventures’ YouTube channel and the film us already available to pre-order on iTunes.

gravitasventures

About Gravitas Ventures

Gravitas Ventures is a leading all rights distributor of independent cinema. Founded in 2006, Gravitas connects independent filmmakers and producers with distribution opportunities across the globe. Working with more than 500 content partners, Gravitas Ventures has distributed thousands of films into over 100 million homes. Their most recent releases include Jonathan Hock’s “Fastball,” Colin Hanks’ “All Things Must Pass,” “Being Evel” from Academy Award® winning director Daniel Junge and producer Johnny Knoxville, “Backstreet Boys: Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of,” director Adam Nimoy’s documentary, “For The Love of Spock,” Richard Branson’s harrowing tale, “Don’t Look Down,” and Katie Holmes’s feature directorial debut, “All We Had.”

For more information, please visit gravitasventures.com, follow @GravitasVOD on Twitter and @gravitasventures on Instagram.

Learn more about Banking on Bitcoin at https://www.facebook.com/bankingonbitcoin/

Learn more about Gravitas Ventures at – http://gravitasventures.com/

Watch the Banking on Bitcoin trailer at – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmxqlSevtkQ&feature=youtu.be

Pre-order Banking on Bitcoin on iTunes – http://apple.co/2flUlDz

Media Contact

Contact Name: Melissa Perez

Contact Email: melissa@gravitasventures.com

Contact Phone: 3102662872

Location: California, USA

Gravitas Ventures is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

Featured, Korean Cinema

Korean cinema of 2016: Women, politics, horror

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Rumy Doo (doo@heraldcorp.com)

Women, female relationships and political intrigue were the hallmarks of Korean cinema this year.

A number of films that delved into the world of the occult, driven by unfathomable forces of evil, also stood out in a year that saw the return of some of Korea’s most renowned directors, including Park Chan-wook and Na Hong-jin, who each added significant pieces to their idiosyncratic oeuvre.

Spotlight on women

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Arguably the most globally lauded Korean film of the year, Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden” took on the subject of a lesbian thriller romance, featuring two female lovers against a world of demented male figures. Provocative scenes were portrayed against a fairy tale-like backdrop.

“Handmaiden” has nabbed various international accolades since its screening at the Cannes International Film Festival in May. Vogue.com named it among the “10 Most Fashionable Movies of 2016” for its lavish mise-en-scene, while the Los Angeles Film Critics Awards gave it a best production design award.

The New York Times listed Kim Tae-ri, who stars as Japanese lady Hideko’s earthy, unabashed handmaiden Sook-hee, in a September article titled “Four Actresses Everyone will be Talking About this Fall.”

Female romance also featured in Lee Hyun-ju’s indie film “Our Love Story,” a subtle, realistic tale of an encounter between an art student and a stranger.

Antagonistic relationships between women were explored in films like Kim Tae-yong’s “Misbehavior,” which draws on the jealousy and pride between two female teachers fighting for the affections of a male student. Both Kim Ha-neul and Yoo In-young are excellently cast in their roles: One is reticent and downtrodden, while the other is vivacious, young and self-absorbed.

Director Lee Eon-hee’s “Missing,” meanwhile, saw the unlikely reconciliation between two women — a mother and the nanny who kidnapped her daughter, played by Uhm Ji-won and Gong Hyo-jin.

In a mature tale of womanhood, “Bacchus Lady” explored the world of Korea’s elderly prostitutes and the universal solitude of growing old.

Veteran actress Youn Yuh-jung portrayed the feisty protagonist, who, at 65, turns tricks for a living. Directed by E J-yong, the film offers an emotional reflection on life and death as Korea advances into an aging society. It was screened at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival.

Scandalous politics

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This year also saw a number of films portraying disasters and authorities’ damnable responses.

Director Park Jung-woo’s “Pandora,” set to be streamed globally on Netflix, depicted a nuclear power plant meltdown and the lack of an emergency response system, resulting in the preventable deaths of nuclear power plant workers and residents of surrounding areas.

Kim Seong-hun’s “Tunnel” saw actor Ha Jung-woo trapped inside a collapsed tunnel for weeks on end, with members of the rescue squad wringing their hands at the ineffectual orders from those higher-up in the government.

Kim Sung-su’s “Asura: The City of Madness” depicted a bloodstained web of criminals and politicians.

The latest political thriller “Master,” helmed by Jo Eui-seok, stars actor Lee Byung-hun as a con artist who amasses astronomical wealth and bribes government officials to exert power in state affairs. The flick which opened last week, rang an eerily familiar bell in Korea, which is currently embroiled in an influence-peddling political scandal surrounding President Park Geun-hye.

Ride into the occult

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Two of this year’s most striking films were in the horror genre, ruminating on morality and human nature.

Yeon Sang-ho’s apocalyptic zombie thriller “Train to Busan” showed everyday characters — from students to office workers — fighting for their lives while trapped on a torpedoing train swarming with flesh-hungry zombies. It premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival’s Midnight Screenings section and has been picked up for a US remake by Gaumont, a French film studio.

Na Hong-jin’s occult thriller “The Wailing (Goksung),” which also screened at Cannes’ Out of Competition section, took viewers on a terrifying journey toward unreasoning evil. Fourteen-year-old actress Kim Hwan-hee delivered a chilling performance as a possessed child.

A period in time

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A number of period pieces also sought to reinterpret historical events from the Japanese occupation era.

Kim Jee-woon’s “The Age of Shadows” transformed the story of Korean independence fighters smuggling in bombs from Shanghai to Korea into a stylish noir.

In “The Last Princess,” director Hur Jin-ho focused on the early stages of the Japanese occupation of Korea through the eyes of Joseon princess Deok-hye, weaving the historical into a personal tale.

“The Portrait of a Poet” by Lee Joon-ik offered a moving portrait of poet Yun Dong-ju, in colonial Korea where the Korean language was banned.

(Source: http://www.koreaherald.com)

#Berlinale, Berlin Film Festival, European Film Market

The 2017 European Film Market is Already Fully Booked, Despite Considerable Expansion

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The European Film Market (EFM) at the Berlin International Film Festival is considered one of the most important trade platforms for film rights and audiovisual content.

As the first industry gathering of the year, the EFM will open its doors on February 9, 2017, setting the trends for the upcoming year in film. The entire exhibition spaces, in the Martin-Gropius-Bau and the Marriott Hotel, are already fully reserved. More than 9,000 exhibitors, license traders, producers, buyers and investors are expected over the nine market days from February 9 to 17, 2017.

This year, the European Film Market has expanded in both space and content. New initiatives such as the “Berlinale Africa Hub” and “EFM Horizon” provide forward-looking impetuses. The immensely popular “Drama Series Days”, presented by the EFM and the Berlinale Co-Production Market, has been expanded and moved into a new venue. The three-day edition of the segment will run from February 13 to 15 in the Zoo Palast, with panel discussions, market screenings and various networking events. The official partner of the “Drama Series Days” is the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW; it is mounted in cooperation with HBO Europe and the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. And at the 2017 EFM, Mexico will be the first “Country in Focus” – a new EFM initiative that the market plans to follow through with in upcoming years with different countries.

Of course, this year’s EFM continues with its established and successful segments “EFM Asia”, “Meet the Docs”, “American Independents in Berlin”, “EFM Producers Hub”, the “EFM Industry Debates” and LOLA at Berlinale.

matthijs_wouter_knol“The European Film Market is one of the most important film markets world-wide and, since it’s at the start of the year, it’s a key seismograph for the year to come. The EFM is a trend-setter that keeps abreast of the radical changes in the industry”, says EFM director Matthijs Wouter Knol.

 

 

“There has rarely been as much movement and such a sense of euphoria in the filmscreen-shot-2016-12-19-at-10-12-48-am industry as there is now. We’re responding to that with our broad range of initiatives. At the same time, it’s extremely important that we provide optimal surroundings that offer dependability and stability in terms of infrastructure and content”, adds EFM president Beki Probst.

For additional information, visit www.efm-berlinale.de.

(Source: http://www.berlinale.de)

Dubai Iternational Film Festival, Egypt

Egypt’s award-winning films showcased at Dubai International Film Festival

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Egypt has shown a strong participation at the latest edition of the Dubai International Film Festival. Egyptian directors featured prominently at the festival, showcasing a wide variety of unique films in various segments of the festival. Much of their works were a welcome departure from the usually commercial formulas followed by many directors.

Starting with Withered Green, the film’s young director Mohammed Hammad was awarded the best long film director in the Long Muhr feature competition. This is the film’s first award after having competed in six other film festivals.

Withered Green tells the story of Eman, portrayed by young actor Asmaa Fawzy, who is an extremely conservative religious woman living according to enforced societal and cultural limits that confine her to be a specific person. This is translated through her actions, as she takes people’s opinions of her into account and shows uptight restrictions against all of the withering social traditions while raising her younger sister Noha, after the death of their parents. For a girl that lives a strict life, in which moving away from the mainstream path is not allowed, her life is upended by a life altering event that changes her forever.

screen-shot-2016-12-18-at-5-46-13-pm“Every main character in any film has its own mechanical rhythm, like robots, but for Iman’s ‎character, and as we follow her life’s details, there is not much happening to her. I ‎tried to focus on her, as a woman, to engage the audience with her character more than ‎with what’s going on around her,” Hammad said at the film’s premier in the festival.

The films is also written and co-produced by Hammad alongside producer Mohamed Hefzy. The film follows the path of independent films in Egypt, which struggle to gain recognition on par with commercial films.

“The most important thing for independent films in Egypt is the artistic quality and the ‎quantity of films produced. It won’t be possible for you to make your voice heard or leave an ‎impact, without mass production. As for the distribution, it should be diverse with all the ‎films getting equal opportunities because at the end of the day, no one can ever determine ‎which film will make a difference and capture the audience’s interest,” Hammad added.

As for the Egyptian actor Ali Sobhi, he was awarded the best actor award for his role in Ali, Me’za w Ibrahim (Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim). This marks the film’s first award.

The film tells the story of Ali who was born and raised in a rough neighbourhood before he travels across Cairo with Ibrahim based on the recommendation of a psychic due to voices he hears in his head. Their journey turns into a voyage of friendship and self-discovery.

Directed by Sherif El Bendary, Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim is written by Ahmed Amer, based on Ibrahim El Batout’s story and is produced by Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic, Transit Films of Hossam Elouan, and the French film production company Arizona Productions.

(Source: http://www.dailynewsegypt.com)

Venice International Film Festival

Slamdance Opening Night Film: World Premiere Of What Lies Upstream. Oscar Qualifying Shorts Program Features 24 World Premieres

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(LOS ANGELES, CA) – Slamdance today announced its Special Screenings, Beyond, and Shorts programs for their 23nd Film Festival. It is a bold selection of films from visionary filmmakers from across the globe. This year the festival will host 35 World, 9 North American and 10 US premieres within these programs.

screen-shot-2016-12-08-at-12-55-20-am “This year Slamdance’s Special Screenings selections are hard-hitting, revelatory films that deserve exposure in Park City,” says Paul Rachman, Special Screening Programmer. “Averting trends and remaining premiere agnostic this program reflects the gut instinct Slamdance programmers rely on in their singular choices.”

Last year the festival presented EMBERS, a sci-fi indie directed by Claire Carre. Carre was recently nominated by the 32nd Film Independent Spirit Awards for the Kiehl’s Someone To Watch Award.

“The support of Slamdance has had a powerful impact on my first feature from selecting the film as the festival’s Closing Night film, through releasing it theatrically with Slamdance Presents,” shares Carre. “It’s challenging making a low budget indie movie on your own, and it’s easy to get lost. Slamdance has championed EMBERS in monumental ways.”

This year, several Slamdance Alumni return with highly anticipated presentations in the Beyond Program. These selections are made be emerging narrative and documentary filmmakers working beyond their first features.

“The films in the Beyond section exhibit bold directorial vision and singular characters that introduce audiences to exciting and uncharted new worlds,” says Beyond programmer Josh Mandel. “These emerging filmmakers are beacons of light in a sea of darkness that will continue to forge new paths in the years to come.”

Films in this program are eligible for the Audience Award. Additionally, the filmmakers are eligible for the Spirit of Slamdance Awards, which is voted upon by their festival filmmakers peers.

“Our slate of short films this year is one of the most daring we have been privileged to showcase,” says Narrative Shorts programmer Taylor O. Miller. Fellow programmer Breven Angaelica adds, “We continue this year with short films that fit into their own category, or none at all, and bring a rawness and and originality to the future of filmmaking that we are humbled to recognize and share.”

The 2017 OscarⓇ Qualifying Shorts competition showcases 51 US and 20 International productions in the Narrative, Documentary, Animation, Anarchy and Experimental sections. All Slamdance films are programmed entirely by the Slamdance filmmaking community from blind submissions.

SPECIAL SCREENINGS PROGRAM

After Adderall
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Stephen Elliott
In 2010 James Franco optioned the rights to my memoir, The Adderall Diaries. In 2015 The Adderall Diaries starring James Franco and Ed Harris premiered at the TriBeca Film Festival. This is a movie about James Franco making a movie about me.
Cast: Stephen Elliott, Mickaela Tombrock, Bill Heck, Michael C. Hall, Ned Van Zandt, James Urbaniak, Lili Taylor, Jerry Stahl

A Narrative Film*
(USA)
Director: Michael Edwards
The most narrative narrative never narrated. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end…. It is at once both a three-act assault on the conceit of the traditional narrative, and also perhaps, a futile attempt to escape the narrative impulse of cinema.

What Lies Upstream
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Cullen Hoback
In this detective story, filmmaker Cullen Hoback investigates the largest chemical drinking water contamination in a generation. But something is rotten in state and federal regulatory agencies, and through years of persistent journalism, we learn the shocking truth about what’s really happening with drinking water in America.
Cast: Dr. Marc Edwards, Dr. Rahul Gupta, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Cullen Hoback, Randy Huffman, Dr. David Lewis, Maya Nye, Dr. Andrew Whelton

You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski
(Italy/Mexico/USA) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Matteo Borgardt
A night of drinking and talking about sex, literature, childhood and humanity with the irreverent writer poet Charles Bukowski in his California house in 1981. A story of tapes lost, found and brought back to life.
Cast: Charles Bukowski, Linda Lee Beighle, Silvia Bizio

*Animated Short Preceding You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski

BEYOND PROGRAM

Automatic at Sea
(USA/ Denmark) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Lessner
Eve, a young Swedish traveler, finds herself stranded on a private island with Peter, a wealthy heir whom she hardly knows. While waiting for other guests to arrive, Eve becomes trapped in an unstable reality punctuated by feverish visions, dimensional shifting and secret soft drinks. How can she escape if she’s not even sure she’s there?
Cast: David Henry Gerson, Livia Hiselius, Breeda Wool

The Erlprince
(Poland) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Kuba Czekaj
It’s the end of the world for a teenage genius, the feverish approach of the apocalypse – adulthood.
Cast: Staszek Cywka, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Sebastian Łach,

Future ‘38
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Jamie Greenberg
1938 screwball comedy set in the far-off future year of 2018
Cast: Betty Gilpin, Nick Westrate, Robert John Burke, Ethan Phillips, Sean Young, Tom Riis Farrell, Sophie von Haselberg, Tabitha Holbert

Neighborhood Food Drive
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jerzy Rose; Screenwriter(s): Halle Butler, Mike Lopez, Jerzy Rose
A group of awful idiots fail at throwing a party over and over.
Cast: Lyra Hill, Bruce Bundy, Ruby McCollister, Ted Tremper, Marcos Barnes, Jared Larson

Suck It Up
(Canada) World Premiere
Director: Jordan Canning; Screenwriter: Julia Hoff
Faye lost the love of her life, Ronnie lost her brother. These two best friends take off on a debaucherous journey into the mountains to cope with the loss of the man they both loved.
Cast: Erin Carter, Grace Glowicki, Daniel Beirne, Toby Marks, Nancy Kerr, Michael Rowe

NARRATIVE SHORTS PROGRAM

August
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Caitlyn Greene
Deep in Louisiana’s swampland, a woman wakes from a fever dream where it has been August for 16 years.
Cast: Kaelyn Charbonnet, Reginald Robinson, Sanita C. Irvin (Voice)

Birds with Human Heads
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Max Wilde
Basking in the wildlife of a handmade universe, a girl receives her first stick and poke tattoo from her best friend.
Cast: Emma Factor, Emma Kikue Munson

Brad Cuts Loose
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Good
An uptight office drone seemingly discovers the perfect vehicle for letting off steam when an advertisement for a business catering to his innermost desires pops up one morning on his computer.
Cast: Kentucker Audley, Tipper Newton, John Ennis, Wilson Vance

Business
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Kati Skelton
A terrified young man gets tangled up in a surreal and demoralizing “business opportunity.”
Cast: Branson Reese, Peter Reznikoff, Dagmar Stansova, Matt Dennie

The Cure
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Mike Olenick
A mom cries, photos fly, cats spy, and bodies collide in this sci-fi soap opera that unravels the secret dreams of people who are desperately searching for ways to cure their fears of loneliness.
Cast: David Rysdahl, Jennifer Estlin, Justin Rose, Kait Staley, Mrva Russell

A Doll’s Hug
(Taiwan/USA) World Premiere
Director: Rob Chihwen Lo; Screenwriter(s): Rob Chihwen LO (Story), Cheng-Han WU (Screenplay)
A Taiwanese boy learns to fight back from the threatening violence in his Barbie doll world.
Cast: Pin-Chieh Su, Jackson Lou, Mengxi Hus, Fabio Grangeon, Ivon Huang

Dr. Meertz
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Steve Collins
A renegade psychotherapist has a brief window of time to cure a patient with ungodly dreams.
Cast: John Merriman, Byron Brown, Paul Gordon

E
(Canada) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Raphaël Ouellet
5 women : 5 tales of ordinary oppression.
Cast: Victoria Barkoff, Sandrine Bisson, Debbie Lynch-White, Sarah Pellerin, Alexa-Jeanne Dubé

Ford Clitaurus
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: MP Cunningham
An aspiring artist struggles to find his voice, his sexual identity, and the meaning of creativity.
Cast: Bryce Van Leuven, Taylor Young, MP Cunningham

Get Out Fast
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Haley Elizabeth Anderson
Alex’s best friend, Coyote Boy, is missing and he doesn’t know why.
Cast: Hale Lytle, Tre Marquis Frazier, Warren Dedrick, Tori Wolsefer

I’m in Here
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Willy Berliner
When a man finds a family of strangers in his house who claim to have bought the place, he agrees to let them stay until they can get to the bottom of the mix-up. They never leave.
Cast: Dave Hanson, Jim Santangeli, Jillian Lebling, Kathy Searle

The Investment
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Steve Collins
A mysterious salesman offers an inadvisable investment opportunity to a lonely woman in need of a friend.
Cast: Courtney Davis, Paul Gordon

Last Night
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Kent Juliff
On the final night of their DIY stand up tour around Texas, five comics grow closer as friends.
Cast: Kent Juliff, Elizabeth Spears, Joe Tullar, Martin Urbano

Losing It
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Henry Jinings
High schooler Marshall hopes to seal the deal on prom night, but his date, Sarah, might not be as into it as he had hoped.
Cast: Bryce Earhart, Rachelle Henry, Eric Newsome, Anne Ruttencutter, Nic Chase, Mason Knight, Alice Tokaryev

Neon Lights
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Bradley Bixler
After a seemingly ordinary transaction goes wrong, a young stripper encounters a violent customer on her way home to her father’s birthday.
Cast: Adriana Llabrés, Parker Torres, Michael Barbour, Giovanny Cruz-Marín

No Other Way To Say It
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tim Mason
A voice over actor tries to deliver the right performance while receiving confusing text messages and confusing direction.
Cast: Beth Melewski, Sue Salvi, Megan Kellie

Nonna
(Canada) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Pascal Plante
Just another visit at granny’s…
Cast: Micheline Chamberland, Catherine Beauchemin

Oh What a Wonderful Feeling
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: François Jaros
Stars, hide your fires, let not light see my black and deep desires. Nor any truck.
Cast: Karelle Tremblay, Frédérike Bédard, Catherine Hughes, Patrice Beauchesne

One-Minded
(France/USA/South Korea)
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Forest Ian Etsler, Sébastien Simon
“One-minded” tells the story of one fan’s transformation from dog to God.
Cast: Moon Choi, Yaerin Erin Joo, Ryu Jun-yeol, Kwak Jin-moo

The Package
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Benjamin Whatley
An experimental narrative which follows the journey of a product from the factory line to a consumer and beyond.
Cast: Michael Rudolf

Paco
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Catalina Jordan Alvarez
He wants you to bounce on his lap.
Cast: Brian Jordan Alvarez, Rosalyn Williams, Daniel Fishkin, Parker Dilworth

Pedazos
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Alejandro Peña
After a garish and violent ceremony, two lovers are thrown into a mysterious cave inhabited by flying creatures.
Cast: Henry MacLean, Will Stryker

Redmond Hand, Private Dick
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Todd Selby; Screenwriter: Jason Kreher
On her quest to find a beautiful woman’s missing cactus, LA’s most notorious detective gets caught up in some crazy shit and then dies.
Cast: Felicia Pearson, Miranda Parham, Katya Zamolodchikova, Jay London

Sadhu in Bombay
(India) North American Premiere
Director: Kabir Mehta
Sadhu In Bombay is a documentary portrait of a man, with ascetic origins, who has been radically transformed by city life . The film explores the grey zones between truth, fiction and the construction of reality; while vividly addressing contemporary life in India.

Student Union
(Hungary) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: György Mór Kárpáti
The return journey on a train from a freshman summer camp, where 18-year-old Dóra has just been sexually abused.
Cast: Katica Nagy, Krisztián Rózsa

Voyage of Galactic Space Dangler
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Evan Mann
A space man meets a cave man.
Cast: Andrew Finzel, Nolan Brown, Rick Romero, Valerie Simon

We Together
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Henry Kaplan
A zombie is awakened.
Cast: Martel Rudd, Kristopher McAfee

DOCUMENTARY SHORTS PROGRAM

Clean Hands
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Lauren DeFilippo
On a Sunday morning the congregation of the Daytona Beach Drive-In Christian Church tunes in.
Cast: Robert Kemp-Baird

Clip-135-02-05
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Sasha Gransjean
Animals are used to express the dislocation, helplessness, and anger, while nature illustrates the lack of control that we have on events that come to pass.
Cast: Sasha Gransjean

Commodity City
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jessica Kingdon
An observation of the daily lives of vendors who work in China’s Yiwu Markets, the largest consumer market in the world. The film explores moments of tension between the fake and the real, between what is for sale and the humans who sell them.

The Dundee Project
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Mark Borchardt
In his long-awaited follow-up to 1997’s ‘Coven,’ filmmaker Mark Borchardt steps behind the camera again with ‘The Dundee Project,’ a documentary chronicling a small town UFO festival in Wisconsin.
Cast: Mark Borchardt, UFO Bob, Mike, Sheldon

Dust & Dirt
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Chris Stanford
Mason Massey dreams of one day making it to the top level of racing but with a lack of big money sponsorship he knows that it is going to be a long, hard road.
Cast: Mason Massey

Eveready
(Uganda/USA) World Premiere
Director: Paul Szynol
Uganda’s most surprising boxer steps into the ring one more time.

Irregulars
(Italy)
Director: Fabio Palmieri
Against a tellingly hypnotic factory backdrop, a refugee encapsulates the global immigration crisis in his own wrenching words.
Cast: Cyrille Kabore

It Is What It Is
(USA) US Premiere
Director: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar
As filmmaker Cyrus Yoshi Tabar digs deep into his family history for answers to questions that have shaped his life, he finds that there are some things that might be better off left in the past.
Cast: Cyrus Yoshi Tabar, Afsaneh Sade, Roxane Maiko Pate

Moriom
(Switzerland)
Director(s): Francesca Scalisi, Mark Olexa
Moriom, a beautiful but strange young woman, says her parents must be punished for holding her prisoner and torturing her. They have a different story.

The Real Wi-Fi of Baltimore
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Julia Kim Smith
Featuring the genre-busting talent of James Nasty and TT the Artist, The Real Wi-Fi Of Baltimore offers a punny and nuanced view of Baltimore neighborhoods in a short film edited from iPhone screenshots of Wi-Fi network names.
Cast: James Nasty, TT the Artist

Richard Twice
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Matthew Salton
Richard Atkins, the singer and songwriter of the early 70’s California psychedelic folk duo ‘Richard Twice’, was on his way to stardom and a huge success with his first debut album when he mysteriously walked away from it all.
Cast: Richard Atkins

Searching for Wives
(Singapore) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Zuki Juno Tobgye
A foreign worker from South India, whose customs says he is not allowed to marry at an even age, comes to Singapore in search of a job and a chance to find a wife before he turns 32.
Cast: Shanmugavel Pathakarnan, Sheeja Sajeev Lal, K. Sajeev Lal, Ramalingam Muthu

Sweet Pie
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Pierce Cravens
Sweet Pie, also known as Paul Winer, revives his career as the baron of bare-assed boogie-woogie and blues at the Public Theater in NYC.
Cast: Sweet Pie aka Paul Winer, Joanne Winer, Will Perone

This is Yates
(USA)
Director: Josh Yates
A reflexive analog-elegy that hates itself.

Troll: A Southern Tale
(USA)
Director: Marinah Janello
An eccentric artist navigates self-expression through his experiences living and growing up in the South.
Cast: Tony Arnold

ANIMATION SHORTS PROGRAM

Auto
(USA) US Premiere
Director: Conner Griffith
Cars dance on highways, crowds of people wash across sidewalk shores.

Batfish Soup
(USA)
Director: Amanda Bonaiuto
Wacky relatives give way to mounting tensions with broken dolls, boiling stew and a bang.

Chella Drive
(USA) Us Premiere
Director: Adele Han Li
A disembodied memory of adolescence in a Southern Californian suburb. The stuck-stillness of endless summer is disrupted only by a passing El Niño.

Hold Me (Ca Caw Ca Caw)
(USA)
Renee Zhan
Flap flapflapflapflap flap. A large bird and a small boy cohabit in an unhappy relationship, trapped by four walls and a mutual codependency. The fragile balance of their existence is cracked by an un-eggs-pected arrival.

Insect Bite
(USA)
Director: Grace Nayoon Rhee
A tiny bug tries to figure out what it wants to become.

It Is My Fault
(China) North American Premiere
Director: Liu Sha
This work utilizes the own approach of the digital medium itself to deconstruct, to form the subliminal synesthesia visually and to create a fictional experience for the mind.

Monkey
(China) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Shen Jie
One of the three monkeys died.

My Father’s Room
(South Korea) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Nari Jang
Sometimes, family members can be worse than strangers.

The Noise of Licking
(Hungary)
Director and Screenwriter: Nadja Andrasev; Short story by: Ádám Bodor
A woman is being watched every day by the neighbor’s cat, as she takes care of her exotic plants. Their perverted ritual comes to an end when the cat disappears. Next spring a peculiar man pays her a visit.

Plena Stellarum
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Matthew Wade
Neon ghosts dreaming in dead landscapes.

Q
(USA) US Premiere
Director: James Bascara
A bashful encounter.

Remember
(Japan)
Director and Screenwriter: Shunsaku Hayashi
“Leaving home, ‘I’ got a phone call. As ‘I’ answered it, the house exploded. ‘I’ went to work and continued as normal”…

Serpentine
(USA) North American Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Bronwyn Maloney
A young woman’s reflective fantasy arouses a surreal exploration of sensuality, self-esteem, and deeply rooted fears.

EXPERIMENTAL SHORTS PROGRAM

Blua
(Colombia) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Carolina Charry Quintero
What do we see when we really look at an animal? Certainly, not just what meets the eye.
Cast: Margarita Quintero, Chuja Seo, Rafa Rojas, José Adam Arriola

Experiments in Non-Cinema
(USA) World Premiere
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Spencer Holden, Noah Engel
Making cinematic experiences without a camera apparatus. Non-Cinema
Cast: Spencer Holden, Noah Engel

Girl Becomes Snow
(USA) World Premiere
Director(s) and Screenwriter(s): Ryan Betschart, Tyler Betschart
An investigation into death induced dream ephemera or; a body (mind) dissolves into video signal memories.
Cast: Karissa Hahn

Press Play
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Kym McDaniel
Discernment becomes crucial as a little girl negotiates an adult world where different forms of entrapment threaten reality.

The Trembling Giant
(United Kingdom)
Director: Patrick Tarrant
The bark of the quaking aspen is thought to provide the cure for any fear who cause can’t be named.

Unknown Hours
(USA) North American Premiere
Director: Calum Walter
An observer journeys down a main street in Chicago towards a neighborhood known for its nightlife.

UpCycles
(USA)
Director: Ariana Gerstein
Cycling from original footage shot on super 8mm, up to 16mm, 35mm, down again to 16, optically printed, hand processed, and then optically printed again using a digital still camera to end on digital video.

ANARCHY SHORTS PROGRAM

Ape Sodom
(Canada)
Director and Screenwriter: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos
Three degenerates navigate the descending hierarchy of post-consumerist enlightenment.
Cast: Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, Mihaly Szabados, Perrie Olthuis, David Cronenberg

Hell Follows
(USA/Japan) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Brian Harrison
Betrayed by his clan and murdered for his past evil deeds, a sadistic killer’s soul possesses his identical twin’s body and sets out onto the road of vengeance for one final crusade of extermination… Everywhere he goes… HELL FOLLOWS.
Cast: Takuya Iba, Shu Sakimoto, Masahiro Takahashi, Sohanny Rose

Horseshoe Theory
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Jonathan Daniel Brown; Screenwriter(s): Jonathan Daniel Brown, Travis Harrington
A weapons deal between a white supremacist and a member of the Islamic State blossoms into more.
Cast: Jackson Rathbone, Amir Malaklou, Lily Harrington, Travis Harrington

In a World of Bad Breath
(USA) World Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Christopher Graybill
Watch general confusion amongst an ancient presence.
Cast: Oates Wu, Asher Knowles

Lighter Click
(USA) World Premiere
Director: Robbie Ward
An odyssey through a mysterious psychedelic landscape full of monsters and secrets both beautiful and dark.

Silverhead
(USA) US Premiere
Director and Screenwriter: Lewis Vaughn
A deranged, 300 lb. masked ax murderer terrorizes the streets of Chicago as a calculated hunter tracks him.
Cast: Christopher Porter, Corbin Manning, Clayvon Reeves, Jason Grey, Jarren Davis, Rodney Andrews, Ashley Pough

TheBox
(USA) US Premiere
Director(s): Jack Turpin, Davy Walker
An expressionistic journey through the gilt-pop-entrapment in which we find ourselves.

Vitamins for Life
(USA)
Director: Grier Dill; Screenwriter: T. R. Darling
An educational film about some lesser known vitamins.
Cast: Tessa Greenberg

What a Beautiful World This Will Be
(USA)
Director and Screenwriter: Tyler Walker
While a mysterious disease called “the Blank” ravages New York City, a young drunk must find his missing friend.
Cast: Jordan Michael Blake, Luke Marinkovich, Kara Dudley, Amanda Evans

Press Stills: http://bit.ly/2goPmzt

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ABOUT SLAMDANCE
Slamdance is a community, a year-round experience, and a statement. Established in 1995 by a wild bunch of filmmakers who were tired of relying on a large, oblique system to showcase their work, Slamdance has proven, year after year, that when it comes to recognizing talent and launching careers, independent and grassroots communities can do it themselves.

Slamdance alums are responsible for the programming and organization of the festival. With a variety of backgrounds, interests, and talents, but with no individual filmmaker’s vote meaning more than any others, Slamdance’s programming and organizing committees have been able to stay close to the heart of low budget and do-it-yourself filmmaking. In this way, Slamdance continues to grow and exemplify its mantra: By Filmmakers, For Filmmakers.

The 2017 Slamdance Film Festival will run January 20-26 in Park City, Utah.

Notable Slamdance alumni who first gained notice at the festival include: Christopher Nolan (Interstellar), Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity), Marc Forster (World War Z), Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), Lena Dunham (Girls), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Anthony & Joe Russo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin), Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), Lynn Shelton (Humpday) and Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche). Box Office Mojo reports alumni who first showed their work at Slamdance have earned over $11.5 billion at the Box Office to date.

In addition to the Festival, Slamdance serves emerging artists and a growing audience with several year-round activities. These include the popular Slamdance Screenplay Competition, the traveling On The Road screening events, the Anarchy Workshop for student filmmakers, and The ArcLight Presents Slamdance Cinema Club – a monthly cinema club partnership with ArcLight Cinemas based at the ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Chicago, with two screenings and filmmaker Q&A’s each month:
www.arclightcinemas.com/en/news/arclight-presents-slamdance-cinema-club

Slamdance Presents is a new distribution arm established to access broader distribution of independent films. The goal is to build the popularity of independent films and support filmmakers on a commercial level through theatrical releases. In August 2016, Slamdance Presents launched the week long release of Claire Carré’s feature sci-fi film, Embers, at ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood. Steve Yu’s The Resurrection of Jake The Snake was the first film to be released by the company. The documentary reached number one on iTunes in December, 2015.

In November 2015, Slamdance announced DIG (Digital, Interactive & Gaming), a new digital, interactive and gaming showcase dedicated to emerging independent artists working in hybrid, immersive and developing forms of digital media art. Ten works were featured in the inaugural DIG show that opened in Los Angeles at Big Pictures Los Angeles on December 4, running through December 13, 2015. The show was also featured at the 2016 Slamdance Film Festival.

DIG will open December 2-10, 2016 in Los Angeles and form part of the 2017 Film Festival.

2017 Slamdance Film Festival Sponsors include Blackmagic Design, Distribber, CreativeFuture, Directors Guild of America, Fusion, Different By Design, Pierce Law Group LLP, Writers Guild Of America West, Salt Lake City’s Slug Magazine, Beehive Distilling, and BlueStar Café. Slamdance is proud to partner with sponsors who support emerging artists and filmmakers. Additional information about Slamdance is available at http://www.slamdance.com

Facebook: SlamdanceFilmFestival
Twitter: @slamdance
Instagram: @slamogram

Additional References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slamdance_Film_Festival

PRESS CONTACT:

After Bruce PR
Eseel Borlasa
eseel@afterbruce.com
562-881-6725

Tracy Nguyen-Chung
tracy@afterbruce.com
503-701-2115

(Source:www.slamdance.com)
Sundance Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Sundance adds four more films

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

Park City, UT — Rounding out an already robust slate of new independent work, Sundance Institute adds two Documentary Premieres and two archive From The Collection films to the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Screenings take place in Park City, Salt Lake City and at Sundance Mountain Resort.

screen-shot-2016-12-14-at-4-40-57-pm

Bending the Arc and Long Strange Trip join archive films Desert Hearts and Reservoir Dogs, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1986 and 1992, respectively. The archive films are selections from the Sundance Institute Collection at UCLA, a joint venture between UCLA Film & Television Archive and Sundance Institute. The Collection, established in 1997, has grown to over 4,000 holdings representing nearly 2,300 titles, and is specifically devoted to the preservation of independent documentaries, narratives and short films supported by Sundance Institute, including Paris is Burning, El Mariachi, Winter’s Bone, Johnny Suede, Working Girls, Crumb, Groove, Better This World, The Oath and Paris, Texas. Titles are generously donated by individual filmmakers, distributors and studios.

With these additions, the 2017 Festival will present 118 feature-length films, representing 32 countries and 37 first-time filmmakers, including 20 in competition. These films were selected from 13,782 submissions including 4,068 feature-length films and 8,985 short films. Of the feature film submissions, 2,005 were from the U.S. and  2,063 were international. 101 feature films at the Festival will be world premieres.

DOCUMENTARY PREMIERES

Bending the Arc / U.S.A. (Directors: Kief Davidson, Pedro Kos, Screenwriter: Cori Shepherd Stern) — This powerful epic is about the extraordinary doctors and activists—including Paul Farmer, Jim Yong Kim, and Ophelia Dahl—whose work 30 years ago to save lives in a rural Haitian village grew into a global battle in the halls of power for the right to health for all. World Premiere

Long Strange Trip / U.S.A. (Director: Amir Bar-Lev) — The tale of The Grateful Dead is inspiring, complicated and downright messy. A tribe of contrarians, they made art out of open-ended chaos and inadvertently achieved success on their own terms. Never-before-seen footage and interviews offer this unprecedented and unvarnished look at the life of the Dead. World Premiere

FROM THE COLLECTION

Desert Hearts / U.S.A. (Director: Donna Deitch, Screenwriter: Natalie Cooper) — Nevada, 1959: Vivian Bell arrives to get a divorce and finds herself increasingly drawn to Cay Rivvers, a self-assured lesbian. The emotions released by their developing intimacy combined with Vivian’s insecurities are played out against a backdrop of rocky landscapes and country and western songs. The Festival will screen a new digitally restored version by the Criterion Collection and UCLA Film & Television Archive in conjunction with Sundance Institute and Outfest UCLA Legacy Project. Cast: Andra Akers, Dean Butler, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley, Helen Shaver, Glen Welles.

Reservoir Dogs / U.S.A. (Director and screenwriter: Quentin Tarantino) — They were perfect strangers, assembled to pull off the perfect crime. Then their simple robbery explodes into a bloody ambush and the ruthless killers realize one of them is a police informant. But which one? Miramax provided a brand-new 35mm print for this special 25th anniversary screening, which will be followed by an extended Q&A with Tarantino and producer Lawrence Bender. Cast: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen.

The Sundance Film Festival has introduced global audiences to some of the most groundbreaking films of the past three decades, including Boyhood, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash, Brooklyn, Twenty Feet from Stardom, Life Itself, The Cove, The End of the Tour, Blackfish, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, Super Size Me, Dope, Little Miss Sunshine, sex, lies, and videotape, Reservoir Dogs, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, An Inconvenient Truth, Precious and Napoleon Dynamite.
The Sundance Film Festival®
The Festival is a program of the non-profit Sundance Institute®. 2017 Festival sponsors to date include: Presenting Sponsors – Acura, SundanceTV, Chase Sapphire®, and Canada Goose; Leadership Sponsors – Adobe, AT&T, DIRECTV, Omnicom, Stella Artois® and YouTube; Sustaining Sponsors – American Airlines, Canon U.S.A., Inc., Creators League Studio, Daydream, Francis Ford Coppola Winery, GEICO, The Hollywood Reporter, IMDb, Jaunt, Kickstarter, Oculus and the University of Utah Health. Sundance Institute recognizes critical support from the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development, and the State of Utah as Festival Host State. The support of these organizations helps offset the Festival’s costs and sustain the Institute’s year-round programs for independent artists. Look for the Official Sponsor seal at their venues at the Festival. sundance.org/festival

sundance_logo

Sundance Institute
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization that provides and preserves the space for artists in film, theatre, and new media to create and thrive. The Institute’s signature Labs, granting, and mentorship programs, dedicated to developing new work, take place throughout the year in the U.S. and internationally. The Sundance Film Festival and other public programs connect audiences to artists in igniting new ideas, discovering original voices, and building a community dedicated to independent storytelling. Sundance Institute has supported such projects as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Sin Nombre, The Invisible War, The Square, Dirty Wars, Spring Awakening, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder and Fun Home. Join Sundance Institute on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

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(Source: sundance.org)
distribution, Documentary

How an award-winning documentary was allegedly blacklisted by Netflix

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Jason Guerrasio

In just four years, Netflix has become by far the most watched destination for documentaries, beaming titles to 190 countries and an astounding 83 million global subscribes.

That has given Netflix a lot of power in a relatively small corner of Hollywood to make or break titles — and for one director, that meant a dramatic setback in his movie’s release.

Netflix’s decision to come in early on documentaries like “The Square,” “Virunga,” “What Happened, Miss Simone?” and “Winter on Fire” led to Oscar nominations, while recent titles like “Making a Murderer” and “Amanda Knox” have fed subscribers’ addiction for true-crime stories.

As Netflix’s chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, boasted in 2015, “People who have never watched a documentary in their life are watching them on Netflix.” And the Netflix Original branding has become an instant stamp of legitimacy for filmmakers.

But what’s less talked about, beyond the mountains of cash Netflix dishes out for premium content, is when a filmmaker inevitably decides he or she doesn’t want to make a deal with Netflix.

It may not happen often, but in one case, turning down a Netflix Original deal seemingly led a filmmaker’s movie to be blacklisted from ever being shown on the streaming giant.

A Netflix deal gone bad

Much of what you hear about Netflix’s nonfiction (as opposed to the TV series division) is that it gives immense freedom to artists. Werner Herzog told Business Insider of making “Into the Inferno” for Netflix: “They saw the film and liked it and that was that. They trusted me in a way that was very, very pleasant.” The “Amanda Knox” codirectors told Business Insider that the leeway Netflix gave them was a “giant luxury.”

So when Craig Atkinson got the attention of Netflix, he thought he had made it to the big time.

Best known for working as a cinematographer with Oscar-nominated filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, Atkinson in 2013 decided to embark on his directorial debut, “Do Not Resist,” in which he examines the militarization of the police in the US. Atkinson spent three years shooting around the country, gaining the trust of law enforcement so he could tell a vérité story.

But the protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of Michael Brown by the police changed everything. Atkinson, 34, and his producer Laura Hartrick, 28, visited and captured footage of the tactics used by riot-gear-dressed officers that was more raw and unfiltered than what the evening news had been showing.

“Do Not Resist” was suddenly covering a topical story. And as Atkinson was in postproduction before the movie’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, Netflix came calling.

“The Saturday before the premiere I got a call from one of the executives at Netflix,” Atkinson told Business Insider. (He asked that the Netflix executive remain anonymous for this story.) “We spoke at great length about the project, the person said it was an incredibly timely film, and they were interested in it.”

CraigAtkinson_HeadshotDirector Craig Atkinson. Tiffany Frances

The next day, Atkinson got a call from the same executive saying that Netflix wanted to make an offer to buy the film and brand it as a Netflix Original title, but the person asked whether Atkinson would be open to making changes to his film.

“I was still unsure about the film,” Atkinson said. “I didn’t think we made a perfect film, so I was open to collaboration, but the person told me the deal couldn’t be made until I said I was open to this, so I said OK because I wanted to see what the deal was going to be.”

On Monday, Atkinson received the offer from Netflix. He and his team were going to premiere at Tribeca on Thursday, and if they were to accept the deal, the offer stated they would have to agree by noon on the day of the film’s premiere or the offer would be null and void.

The deal for worldwide rights to the film was in the mid-six figures, and the agreement stated that Netflix would retain all creative approvals over the final cut and the film’s title. It also had a budget line of $70,000 for “finishing” (money for additional editing or other changes Netflix saw fit).

These are general terms most first-time filmmakers will encounter at any company looking to buy their film. Numerous filmmakers told Business Insider, however, that there’s often an open dialogue between the filmmaker and the buyer about suggested changes before signing an agreement. Negotiations can, of course, vary from filmmaker to filmmaker, especially based on someone’s experience and profile.

“So I’m reading the deal and it doesn’t specify changes,” Atkinson said. “It says that they have full control and they can change the title. The deal is time-stamped for high noon on the day of our premiere, so now the clock is ticking. In my mind I’m thinking maybe they are catering to a certain audience and they want to change the film. I was so overwhelmed and unprepared to be in this position.”

‘Trust us’

Atkinson was unable to land a sales rep, which at this point in a movie’s life is an essential ingredient (though he was able to get an entertainment lawyer).

Sales reps have an understanding of the marketplace and use their connections within the industry to get the film they’re representing the best deal both domestically and internationally. A rep would have told Atkinson that the figure he was offered was substantially higher than what he would get from any of the independent film distributors that would be tracking his film at the Tribeca Film Festival, or from a documentary-heavy network like HBO or A&E.

Atkinson told Business Insider that colleagues in the industry who have either worked with Netflix or know people who have worked with the company told him that Netflix was giving him a low offer.

Business Insider spoke with documentary insiders and sales agents who agreed that it was a low offer by Netflix standards but respectable for a first-time filmmaker (some filmmakers Business Insider spoke with said they would have taken the deal in a heartbeat).

With the deadline for the deal quickly approaching, Atkinson’s lawyer, Jody Simon, a partner at the firm Fox Rothschild, was able to negotiate the price of the movie up $100,000 more, but the lawyer also relayed to Atkinson a sobering fact about how Netflix negotiates.

“During the course of the conversation our lawyer had with the Netflix lawyer, he got a lecture, as he described it, from the Netflix lawyer about the fee because he was pushing back about how it seemed incredibly low for an all-rights deal,” Atkinson said. “The Netflix lawyer lectured him on how it was their algorithm that determined the price of the film and that there’s really no discussion to be had because this algorithm determined how much the film should be worth and that basically was the end of discussion.”

Simon confirmed the content of the conversation with Netflix’s lawyer to Business Insider, adding that it was the first time he’d encountered a deal figure put together by an algorithm. Still, he said, he’s not surprised by it.

“I find it as a culture clash between the tech people and the creative people,” Simon said. “They really just do things differently — Hulu and Amazon and Netflix. They draft differently. A lot of it is inside baseball and pretty subtle, but it’s a different approach and a different way of thinking.”

When asked for a comment about Atkinson’s recounting of events, a Netflix representative told Business Insider: “Every deal at Netflix is unique — we have no comment about the specifics of our deal negotiations.”

The negotiation with Netflix was a sobering reality for Atkinson, who was getting his first taste of the way the company uses its analytics to make decisions that at traditional distributors often come through gut instinct and decades of trial and error. (Numerous sources in the acquisitions field told Business Insider they did have data they refer to when choosing movies to acquire but did not rely on it heavily.)

It wasn’t just the money that concerned Atkinson, however. He could never get the Netflix executive to give him specifics on what the company wanted to change in his film.

Craig Shot Ferguson Vanish Films finalAtkinson filming “Do Not Resist” in Ferguson, Missouri. Vanish Films

“I have student loans to pay off, so the money would have been great,” Atkinson said. “But the bottom line was if we couldn’t put in some kind of provision where we mutually agree on changes, it’s a deal-breaker.”

Atkinson’s inability to relinquish control of his film had to do greatly with the way he got access to make “Do Not Resist.” Atkinson, the son of a police officer, and Hartrick promised the multiple law-enforcement agencies featured in the movie that the film would be an authentic portrayal of their job and that only the two filmmakers would edit the movie.

“So here we are again looking at this contract where I have to make a decision,” Atkinson said. “If I’m going to compromise myself and say I don’t care what I told these cops, just so I can get the deal. And I thought we were going to have a sympathetic ear because of the severity of the situation and it has to do with people’s safety, and when we asked to just put in the contract specific changes you want so we can go forward, they wouldn’t do that.”

“Their response to that was basically, ‘Trust us,'” Simon said.

After two sleepless nights, Atkinson finally told Simon on Wednesday to tell Netflix he was declining the offer. Atkinson would see what kind of offers the film would get from playing at Tribeca.

‘There’s only one way in’

“Do Not Resist” had five sold-out screenings at the Tribeca Film Festival and was beginning to find interest from distributors. Atkinson still couldn’t find a sales agent to take it on (he later found a sales rep to handle his international sales).

Craig Atkinson Cindy Ord GettyAtkinson accepting the best documentary prize at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Cindy Ord/Getty

During the festival, Atkinson sat down with companies like Magnolia Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Films to discuss potentially acquiring “Do Not Resist.” The possibility of the movie still getting on Netflix wasn’t dead, as any company that acquired the movie would have service deals with Netflix to make it available to stream on the service following its theatrical and home-video release.

On top of that, the movie won the best documentary prize at the festival: a $20,000 cash prize sponsored by … Netflix.

But Atkinson came back down to earth when he learned after the festival that suddenly all the prospective buyers of the movie pulled out. He said he was told that Netflix blocks any service deals for movies on the streaming platform after they have turned down Netflix Original deals. Buyers told Atkinson that in today’s market, in which being on Netflix and other streaming services is so important, his movie was no longer an attractive title because a company could no longer own all revenue streams.

Netflix did not comment when asked by Business Insider about a policy of blacklisting titles that reject an Original deal, or whether requiring creative control over its Original documentaries was standard.

“Around that time I saw the [Netflix] executive at a party and I said, ‘What happened?’ And the person answered, ‘Yep, there’s only one way in,'” Atkinson said.

‘Is this how it goes down?’

Two months after the Tribeca Film Festival, and still trying to forget the bad taste from the Netflix experience, Atkinson moved forward by putting together a self-distribution theatrical release for “Do Not Resist.” He also began a conversation with Amazon to be the film’s home for a streaming release afterward.

Then suddenly Netflix contacted him again.

“I get a text from the Netflix executive,” Atkinson said. “The person wanted to know if I had sold the rights to the film yet because they are still interested. The person felt bad for how everything went down and saw how great the film was doing on the festival circuit.”

Atkinson and the executive came to an understanding, with the executive agreeing to relinquish some of the creative control, according to Atkinson.

But when Atkinson went back to Netflix’s lawyer to hammer out the financial side of the new agreement, the lawyer had no idea of the new conversation.

“He said, ‘We would never give up that control — I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Basically that the deal was still the original deal,” Atkinson said. “He thought that I was coming back to Netflix begging to make a deal.”

When Atkinson tried to get back in touch with the Netflix executive, he said, his texts and calls were never returned. He hasn’t heard from the executive since.

“As a first-time filmmaker I was like, ‘Is this how it goes down?'” Atkinson said. “Netflix can say they respect the artist all they want, but you can tell where their loyalties are, and it’s not with the artists.”

Atkinson moved forward with his own theatrical release. He said the $20,000 cash prize that Netflix sponsored at Tribeca helped greatly. And he signed a streaming deal with Amazon (for about a third of the amount he would have gotten from the Netflix deal). “Do Not Resist” will be available on Amazon on Wednesday.

‘We dodged a bullet not taking the deal’

Atkinson said he wanted to go public with his experience because he wanted filmmakers and fans of Netflix to understand that for as much good as Netflix was providing mass audiences with exceptional content, he believed himself to be living proof of some cracks in its process.

“This will be a concern for filmmakers because Netflix are the titans,” a major figure in the documentary industry who asked to remain anonymous told Business Insider after hearing of Atkinson’s experience. “If the documentary community is to remain vital, it needs a multiplicity of voices and points of view, and by narrowing the pipeline Netflix is privileging a very few voices.”

Prominent documentary filmmaker Robert Greene (“Kate Plays Christine”), however, isn’t surprised at all by Atkinson’s story.

“Netflix helped the video store to go out of business, and they have now replaced it with a fairly absurd business model that seems to only value certain kinds of things, and it’s just depressing,” Greene told Business Insider. “It has always been difficult to get films with a voice seen, and it used to be that Netflix represented something better. Another choice. Another possibility. But that seems to be going away, and I would just tell young filmmakers don’t make decisions based on what’s going to get on Netflix, because art survives and eventually Netflix is going to get boring.”

Atkinson said that looking back, he had no regrets about turning down the more lucrative Netflix offer.

The film has played around the US, often in theaters filled with active police officers, who take part in Q&A sessions and interact with their communities, an experience that would have been lost if the film played only on Netflix.

“It’s fantastic business by Netflix,” Atkinson said. “Tell a filmmaker it’s the most timely film you’ve ever seen, make an offer, and if you can’t get it, do what you can so the film’s not seen by anyone.”

Atkinson pauses for a moment to compose himself.

“We dodged a bullet not taking the deal,” he said. “They would have destroyed three years of work.”

(Source: http://www.businessinsider.com)

Cairo International Film Festival

Cairo International Film Festival – There’s Always Next Year

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Posted by Larry Gleeson

By Jamie N. Christley

From the window of an airplane, metropolitan Cairo seems to stretch into infinity, a truly ancient city that keeps adding onto itself, year after year. A handful of cities occupy a greater land area, but fewer appear to be as impossibly intricate and dense, its overwhelming breadth a dreamed thing. The next thing you notice is that Cairo wears its history on its sleeve. Very little fails to carry signification of events and people, past and present. Does your town have a bridge named after an historic date? The river island of Zamalek connects with Tahrir Square and points east using the “6th of October Bridge,” named for a successful show of force against Israeli occupiers in 1967. Even the hotel where most guests of the Cairo International Film Festival stayed, the Cairo Marriott, has thick roots in the 19th century, as related by a short documentary preloaded in each room’s television set, explaining the co-location of a sleek, modern hotel within the 150-year-old Gezirah Palace. The Marriott, by the virtue of its dual structure, symbolizes the city’s relentless, incremental layering of the new upon or within the old, the way a very old cathedral might be built over the ruins of an ancient one.

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You can experience the festival from beginning to end without leaving the island of Zamalek, which sits in the Nile River the same way as Roosevelt Island sits lodged between Manhattan and Queens on the East River. A 20-minute walk or—at peak times—a 30-minute drive conveys festival attendees to the Cairo Opera House, where, at each individual screening, you to pass through up to four metal detectors. The cadre of security personnel at each juncture carry out their duties without panic or fuss, occasionally taking a drag off a cigarette or a sip of koshary tea. Breaking up the landscape outside the Opera House is a solitary figure holding an assault rifle and standing at perfect attention for hours on end; in his 100% black outfit, kevlar accoutrements, and totally concealed face, he looks like none other than Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens. One doesn’t talk to him.

Every screening observes assigned seating protocol. When I took my seat for This Life of Mine, the usher led me, with the grave precision of a funeral director, to my exact chosen seat in an auditorium that remained empty but for one other attendee. Dozens of ticket-holders enter any given screening up to half an hour late, the insidious maglights that are now a standard feature on smartphones bathing the room in errant stabs of piercing light, as if they were volunteers combing the woods for a missing child.

Navigating the festival structure was challenging in some ways, simple in others. The tactic employed by festivalgoers in Toronto and elsewhere, of timing a contingency screening in case something goes wrong with your main choice (projection failure, a shutout, a bad film), staggered by a few minutes to allow for travel between venues, has no play in Cairo, where upward of 10 to 12 films start at exactly the same time, four times a day. If, say, the projection for one film fails, which actually happened to me when the correct media files for the 2003 Chinese film Cell Phone went missing, you’re out of luck for anything else playing during the same timeslot, unless you can suppress your inner Alvy Singer and miss the opening 15 or so minutes.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

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The Cairo International Film Festival ran from November 15 —24.

(Source: slantmagazine.com)