“More than a movie about a slave rebellion, it’s about the difficulty of reconciling the great moral chasms between thought, vision, and deed.”

“Why don’t we do a trial of five years throughout the industry, of hiring those writers, developing those artists, hiring those executives and see what happens?”
Variety Cover-Stories Whiteness

Rejected Netflix $20 Million Bid For Birth Of A Nation Demanded Day-And-Date Streaming

“This self-perpetuating notion of the black lead as box office poison often kills material before it takes flight. I’ve often seen this issue ‘remedied’ with a white co-lead to offset the ‘risk’ of having a black lead on his own. The Nat Turner story doesn’t lend itself to the ‘two-hander’ model.”

Birth Of A Nation Sets Sundance Acquisition Record, Going To Searchlight For $17.5 Million, Besting Weinstein, Sony

“This is exactly like MTV was in the 1980s. Could you imagine now if MTV only showed music videos by a majority of white people, then after 11:00 it showed a majority of black people? Could you imagine that happening now? It’s the same situation happening in the movies.”
Says Oscar-Winner Steve McQueen

“Netflix Of Africa” Takes On Netflix In Africa

“Instead of sitting around and complaining about that, do something. Go write something, go do something. And that’s easy to say. Like, f—, it’s hard to get movies made. It’s a huge luxury. Who gets to just make movies? But that subject is just so prevalently everywhere right now, and it’s boring.” 
Kristen Stewart At Sundance

But – Variety Retracts False Claim That Stewart Was Talking About Diversity

“You are still eligible to receive screeners. The Academy does not distribute screeners. Production companies and studios do. We will ask our members who run these companies not to make an issue of it. Rest assured, your status—whether active or emeritus—will not be shared with any other outside entity.”
Oscar FAQs The New Rules

“My movies are always about the person wanting to do the right thing, or the people wanting to do the right thing—people who are very selfless, who try to save others. There’s a lot of hero archetypes, but remember: Benghazi is not made up. That’s what happened. It’s written by five guys who were there, and they were just trying to do the right thing.”

The Birth Of Birth Of A Nation, Sundance Slave Revolt Hit

“In the Sunday Review, one commentator named Roxane Gay refers to Hollywood’s ‘diseased industry’ and demands a boycott of studios. In the arts section, A.O. Scott refers to Oscar voters as “those pasty old members” and Wesley Morris, identified as a critic at large, accuses distributors of Creed and Straight Outa Compton of deliberately undermining their films’ Oscar chances while Manohla Dargis insists ‘the only way the industry will change is if people give them hell.’ Really?”
Bart & Fleming Pooh-Pooh Academy Diversity Initiatives
With – Roxane Gay’s Op-Ed
And – DargisMorrisScott

Disney Wants Lots Of Credits For Star Wars Television Rights

Jada Yuan And Spike Lee Discourse On Protest, Boycotts And Being In The Room

Relativity Media Claims $100 Million In New Finance

Lindsey Bahr On The Two Suicidal Christines Of Sundance

“Just the technical problems with film, I’m sorry, it’s over.”
Roger Deakins On Hail, Caesar!, Old H’wd And Shooting Celluloid

Alice Walker And Colm Toibin Look At Adaptations Of Their Bestsellers

Sony Pictures Classics Takes Equity At Sundance

Woody Allen 6-Episode, 1960s-Set Amazon Series To Star Himself, Miley Cyrus And Elaine May

“Statements, statistics, pleas, and calls for action have done little to move the needle. It is time to be clear–structural changes are needed. Those who control the pipeline and entryway to jobs must move beyond the “old boy” network and word-of-mouth hiring.”
States Directors Guild President Paris Barclay

Guardian To Cut Costs By 20% In Survival Move

“The reason for the importance of The Big Short is the relevance of its subject matter—the greed, stupidity, and corruption that led to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008.”

John Krasinski Criticizes Politicians For Invoking Bay Benghazi Movie

“You want to break stuff in–essentially stonewash the whole wardrobe. With shirts, you need to pick something in a cheerless color–light blue or khaki green–then pop a bit of Cascade in the wash, maybe a little bleach, and that takes the color out.”
Spotlight Costume Designer On How To Dress A Journo

Scott Eyman On Late MoMA Film Curator Charles Silver

“We’re hearing a lot about diversity. I hate that word so, so much. It’s a medicinal word that has no emotional resonance, and this is a really emotional issue. It’s emotional for artists who are women and people of color to have less value placed on our worldview.”
Ava DuVernay Talks Inclusion At Sundance

Kenneth Turan On The Art Of Adaptation At Sundance

Arguing Against The Charter–Time Warner Cable Merger

At Sundance, Vachon & Koffler Offer Six Survival Tips For Producers

Sony Takes Int’l On Blade Runner Sequel

“Within a few years, Kavanaugh had funneled billions of dollars from banks and investment funds into Holly­wood.”
NYMag’s Relativity Chronicles

Ryan Cavanaugh Reps Warn New York Magazine Non-Cover Story Could Be “Character Assassination”

“Lonergan is the rare trained writer who can write intricately/’correctly’ structured films—with plants, reveals, climaxes—and still seem like he’s discovered something organic and surprising; any putative messiness is intricately designed.”

Sundance: Eric Kohn Avers “Weiner Is The Best Documentary About A Political Campaign Ever”

“Look, culture and business take time to change organically. We live in a culture of society where there has been a very white picket fence that has surrounded a lot of the precincts where decisions get made. These things don’t change overnight. It’s just that if you’re going to ask an Academy member like me, an old white guy, to die sooner so that somebody else can come in that doesn’t look like me, I will demur.”
James Schamus, In Second Part Of Mike Fleming Interview, On Starting With Ang Lee, 3D, And Latest Shifts In What’s Called The Indie Film Biz

Sundance: Todd Solondz And The Love Of Benji

Drunk Who Allegedly Shot Woman At Benghazi Movie Says He Feared A Mass Shooting

Anonymous Ad Buyers Quoted As Saying ABC Could Take 2017 Oscar Hit If Controversy Persists

“That’s the big problem with the Oscars: you never know how many people see all the films. And if it’s a lot of white people, the last bunch of films seen are going to be black films. Lord knows everybody knew Compton was a black film.”
Josh Rottenberg And Glenn Whipp Find Acting Branch Members In Degrees Of Uproar

“Some attendees, especially distributors seeking potential hits, are complaining that this year’s festival has fallen too deep into the arthouse rabbit hole.”
Brooks Barnes Dismayed To Find Fetishes And Flatulence In Park City

Amazon Takes Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester By The Sea Off Market For $10 Million Domestic; Theatrical Partner Planned