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By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

[PR] Rebecca Yeldham new director of LA Film Festival

Rebecca Yeldham.jpgLOS ANGELES (March 12, 2009) – Film Independent announced today that Rebecca Yeldham is joining the organization as the Director of the Los Angeles Film Festival, effective immediately. Rachel Rosen serves as Director of Programming for Film Independent and the Los Angeles Film Festival, and had been working with Film Independent’s Senior Director Sean McManus as interim Co-Directors during the search for a new Festival Director.
“Rebecca has a wide range of experience in the industry and she’s an inspiring leader—her many talents make her a natural fit for the Los Angeles Film Festival,” said Dawn Hudson, Executive Director of Film Independent. “She has been intimately involved in the building of this festival and the organization over the last nine years as a Film Independent Board member. Rebecca shares our vision of expanding the festival within Los Angeles and the global film community by introducing audiences to unique filmmakers and their films.” [S]aid Yeldham. “In these times, there is such a desire to come together and celebrate our unique city, community and industry, to bridge differences and champion great filmmaking and film-going experiences. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to join this dynamic team and lead the charge in taking this Festival to the next level.” Yeldham has built a career as a producer, festival programmer, and production and acquisition executive. In addition to serving on Film Independent’s Executive Board, she has also participated in several international film festival juries and selection committees, including the Spirit Awards, the Edinburgh Film Festival, and the Buenos Aires International Film Festival. As filmmaker Walter Salles’ producing partner, Yeldham is currently developing On the Road, based on the seminal novel by Jack Kerouac, and in post-production on the documentary Searching for the Road. Her producing credits include Marc Forster’s The Kite Runner, Walter Salles’ Linha de Passe and The Motorcycle Diaries, and Sacha Gervasi’s i>Anvil! The Story of Anvil.


Prior to becoming an independent producer, Yeldham served as Senior Vice President of Production at FilmFour, where she headed up the U.S. production wing. From 1997 to 2001, she was the Senior Programmer of the Sundance Film Festival and Associate Director of the Sundance Instituteís International Programs. During this time, she was responsible for organizing initiatives to support emerging screenwriters, producers and directors around the world, and helped launch a generation of filmmakers, including Marc Forster, Walter Salles, Miguel Arteta, Karyn Kusama, Chris Smith, and Darren Aronofsky. From 1990 to 1994, Yeldham served as Director of Acquisitions and Business Affairs for Fox/Lorber and Associates, where she acquired such films as John Wooís first major U.S. release, The Killer, and George Sluizerís The Vanishing.
This summer, over the course of ten days from June 18 – June 28 in Westwood Village, Film Independentís Los Angeles Film Festival will showcase the best of American and international independent cinema. With an expected audience of more than 100,000 people, the festival will screen more than 175 narrative features, documentaries, shorts, and music videos, alongside gala premieres, panels and seminars, free outdoor screenings, Family Day, and live musical performances.
ABOUT THE LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL
Now in its fourteenth year, the Los Angeles Film Festival is widely recognized as a world-class event, providing the movie-loving public with access to some of the most critically acclaimed filmmakers, scholars, critics, film industry professionals, and emerging talent from around the world.
The Festival also features unique signature programs including the Filmmaker Retreat, the Spirit of Independence Award ceremony and gala, and Financing Conference. Additionally, the Festival screens short films created by high school students and has a special section devoted to music videos.
Approximately 110 features, 100 shorts, and 50 music videos, representing more than 40 countries, make up the main body of the Festival. Films submitted to the Festival are reviewed by Film Independentís programming department, which evaluates each film, looking for the best in new American and international independent cinema.
Awards are given out in the following categories at the conclusion of the Festival: Target Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature with an unrestricted cash prize of $50,000; Target Filmmaker Award for Best Documentary Feature with an unrestricted cash prize of $50,000; Outstanding Performance in the Narrative Competition; Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature; Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature; Audience Award for Best International Feature; Best Narrative Short Film; Best Documentary Short Film; Best Animated/Experimental Short Film; Audience Award for Best Music Video; and the Audience Award for Best Short Film.
For more information, please visit www.LAFilmFest.com.
ABOUT FILM INDEPENDENT
Film Independent is a non-profit arts organization that champions independent film and supports a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation, and uniqueness of vision. Film Independent helps filmmakers make their movies, builds an audience for their projects, and works to diversify the film industry. Film Independent’s Board of Directors, filmmakers, staff, and constituents, is comprised of an inclusive community of individuals across ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, and sexual orientation. Anyone passionate about film can become a member, whether you are a filmmaker, film industry leader, or a film lover.
With over 250 annual screenings and events, Film Independent provides access to a network of like-minded artists who are driving creativity in the film industry. Film Independent also offers free Filmmaker Labs for selected writers, directors, and producers; provides cut-rate services for filmmakers; and presents year-round networking opportunities. Film Independent’s mentorship and job placement program, Project:Involve, pairs emerging culturally-diverse filmmakers with film industry professionals.
Film Independent produces the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Spirit Awards. For more information or to become a member, visit FilmIndependent.org.
ABOUT THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
The Pulitzer-prize winning Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country with a daily readership of 2 million and 3 million on Sunday.~ The Times has been covering Southern California for 127 years and reaches a combined print and interactive local weekly audience of 4.5 million. ~The fast-growing latimes.com now draws 10 million unique visitors monthly.
The Los Angeles Times Media Group portfolio of products also includes LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine; The Envelope (www.theenvelope.com); Metromix (www.losangeles.metromix.com); Times Community Newspapers; Hoy (www.hoyinternet.com) and California Community News, with an overall reach of approximately 5.3 million or 40% of all adults in the Southern California marketplace.~ It is part of Tribune Company, one of the countryís leading media companies with businesses in publishing, the Internet and broadcasting.~ Additional information is available at www.latimes.com/mediacenter.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon