Press Releases Archive for January, 2018

Sundance Director of Programmer Trevor Groth Joins 30WEST

[pr] 30WEST HIRES SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAMMING CHIEF TREVOR GROTH LOS ANGELES (January 29, 2018) – 30WEST has hired the Director of Programming of the Sundance Film Festival, Trevor Groth, who will join the company in February. Groth first joined the programming staff of the Sundance Film Festival in 1993, was named Senior Programmer in 2003 and Director in…

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Nat’l Hispanic Media Coalition Targets Oscar

[pr] ACADEMY AWARDS TO BE TARGETED BY NATIONAL HISPANIC MEDIA COALITION ACTION NETWORK Feb. 5 and March 3 demonstrations launch nationwide campaign protesting “institutionalized racism” against Latinos by major movie studios PASADENA, CALIF., Jan. 23, 2018 – The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) Action Network today announced it will hold two demonstrations targeting the 2018 Academy Awards® that will…

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Easterseals; Wal-Mart And Coca-Cola’s Bentonville Film Festival; AT&T And DirecTv Join In “Disability Film Challenge” at Sundance

[PR] Easterseals Disability Film Challenge & Bentonville Film Festival to Announce Alliance at Sundance Together, Celebrities & Entertainment Industry Professionals are Changing the Way the World Views & Defines Disability PARK CITY, Utah — Jan. 20, 2018 — For Immediate Release — Easterseals Southern California (ESSC) – which assists more than 10,000 people with disabilities throughout…

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30WEST CONTINUES HOLLYWOOD EXPANSION TAKING MAJORITY STAKE IN FILM STUDIO NEON

LOS ANGELES (January 19, 2018) – 30WEST, a leading-edge investment and advisory company focused on film, media and other areas of popular culture, is continuing its Hollywood expansion, acquiring majority ownership in NEON, one of the most coveted theatrical marketing and distribution companies in the independent film space.  Both companies collaborated successfully on the theatrical release, I, TONYA, starring…

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The Producers Guild’s Anti-Sexual Harassment Guidelines In Full

PRODUCERS GUILD OF AMERICA ANTI-SEXUAL HARASSMENT GUIDELINES 1/19/18 The Producers Guild is an organization that represents, protects, and promotes the interests of all members of the producing team and is committed to fostering work environments free from sexual harassment. We are in a transitional moment as a society, in which we are re-evaluating behavior in the…

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Dolby Donates Atmos Sound System To The Ray, New, Permanent 500-Seat Theater to Sundance

[pr] Dolby Atmos Elevates the 2018 Sundance Film Festival at The Ray, New 500-Seat Theatre Dolby Sound Fellowship Awarded to I Think We’re Alone Now and Blindspotting, Sundance Film Festival’s Opening Night Film SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17, 2018  — Sundance Institute and the Dolby Institute, along with the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Family Fund, announced…

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Sundance Sets Juries

Sundance Film Festival: Juries, Awards Night Host Announced 24 Jurors to Award NUMBER Prizes, Including New NEXT Innovator’s Award Los Angeles, CA — Sundance Institute will convene 24 experts in film, art, culture and science to award feature-length work shown at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival with 28 prizes, announced at a ceremony January 27 that will be…

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TRUE/FALSE & THE CROSSING TO ANNOUNCE THE 2018 TRUE LIFE FUND FILM AND NEW TRAVELING DOCUMENTARY SERIES.

Columbia, Missouri – True/False and The Crossing invite members of the press and community to The Crossing on Wednesday, January 17th at 9:00AM CST when they will announce the 2018 True Life Fund Film along with a new outgrowth of the partnership, the Alethea Project: a 10-week traveling documentary screening series that will take place…

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GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER KICKS OFF AWARDS SEASON WITH 90TH ANNUAL OSCAR NOMINATIONS PANEL, JANUARY 23, 2018

GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER KICKS OFF AWARDS SEASON WITH 90TH ANNUAL OSCAR NOMINATIONS PANEL, JANUARY 23, 2018 Panel Discussion Features Top Chicago Film Critics J.R. Jones, Sergio Mims, Michael Phillips, Pamela Powell and Ray Pride CHICAGO — The Gene Siskel Film Center (GSFC) of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) presents the 90th Academy Awards® Nominations Panel Tuesday,…

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Press Releases

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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