The New York Times earned its three-day weekend with a fistful of nifty film stories, including Lynn Hirschberg’s probing profile of Vera Farmiga, a glimpse at the birth of the Long Island Big Fish Film Festival and a long-awaited peek at The Brave One–the Jodie Foster/Neil Jordan “genre movie” that spent a romantic summer wooing fans on East 88th Street. But if we are choosing favorites, I vote for Sylviane Gold’s unbelievable story about this year’s Hamptons International Film Festival emphasizing the, well, international:
If nothing else, check out HIFF artistic director Rajendra Roy keeping it real for all of independent cinema:

Mr. Roy said he had chosen [opening-night film The Situation], which was directed by Philip Haas, to throw down the gauntlet and make a statement about the direction of American independent filmmaking. “This film’s view of its subject is very complicated — as is the world,” he said in a telephone interview. “We want to encourage American filmmakers to tell stories that have a more encompassing, more cosmopolitan take on the world. It’s time for them to move beyond the initial phase, beyond the personal storytelling. It will make for better movies.”

Whoa–wait a second. Did I just hear that? One more time, Raj:

Wow. Where to start? Maybe I am taking this too literally, but I suppose we should ask at what point glorified administrators determined gatekeeping was no longer enough and decided that “dictating content” is the new “lift ev’ry voice.” I always thought such presumptions were the purview of studio heads and publicists, with perhaps (of late, anyhow) the upper tier at CAA thrown in for good measure. I mean, I know how thousands of navel-gazing submissions must burden Roy each year, but even Sundance’s Geoff Gilmore and Tribeca’s Peter Scarlet–who likely have it a lot worse and have arguably earned the mandate to wish upon a star–would not conflate “initial phase” and “personal storytelling” in public. Tacky tacky tacky.
But let us just say Roy has the right idea. Where does this leave minority filmmakers? Should So Yong Kim have made In Between Days or be planning her forthcoming Treeless Mountain, both intensely personal stories about Korean youth? Where do those fall on the taste hierarchy? Should Ramin Bahrani have made Man Push Cart or Iron Triangle, both weaving narratives from the privation of ethnic New York? Should Cruz Angeles have bothered with Don’t Let Me Drown, or Thomas Allen Harris with his Paulding Avenue Trilogy?
And going back to Tribeca, I understand how that festival has poked a hole in HIFF’s hot-air balloon and that adaptation is essential to survival. I understand why Roy wants to reposition and redirect the Hamptons’ momentum away from Scarlet’s sluggish catch-all (which did him a favor, in part, by attracting and accepting some of HIFF’s shittier potential entries since 2002), and I do not disagree that solid international programming is a good way to do it. The problem with American filmmaking is not the content, however–it is that there are so many demands for content. Movies are portable, online video is booming and anyone with a cell phone can be a director. And there are scores of festivals for all of it. As such, Roy has more pressing issues than his programs’ international flavor; he simply cannot adjust fast enough. Thus the all-call to filmmakers to get it together, which is like Blockbuster blaming Netflix on lazy customers.
So: The bell is rung, you cannot unring it, it is not intrinsically a bad thing, and at any rate, it is all art. Be more selective and take all the passes you want, but at the very least, give me a fucking break.
(Photo of Rajendra Roy: Maxine Hicks / NYT)

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