Reeler Archive for August, 2006
Longley vs. Atkinson: Flyweight Film-Wonk Fisticuffs Entertaining Nevertheless
Lest you could not tell, Thursday was something of a catch-up day around Reeler HQ: Fend off hate mail from World Trade Center apologists; organize screeners I am about three weeks behind in viewing; and read through all the usual film coverage I happened to miss with everything else going on this week. In the latter category of things-to-do, I glimpsed a D-list but intriguingly nasty contretemps in the letters section of the Voice.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you James Longley and Michael Atkinson:
It’s one thing for Michael Atkinson to give a positive review of the excellent documentary My Country, My Country [“Unembedded,” August 2–8]; it’s quite another for him to make the baseless and false accusation that my film, Iraq in Fragments, is an embedded prevarication. I certainly never embedded while making the film, and if I am to be charged with making a prevarication I think I deserve some explanation. After spending two years of my life in Iraq making my film, I find it more than a little disturbing that the Voice would publish such a libelous accusation without a shred of substance to back it up. In the world of nonfiction, war zone filmmaking it is not a trivial thing to accuse a director of lying—it’s much the same as accusing a journalist of inventing sources. If you make the charge of prevarication regarding a documentary film it is not sufficient to argue that the director didn’t follow what you wanted him to follow in the aesthetic style you would have liked; you have to show that the actual content itself is dishonestly portrayed.
James Longley
Seattle, Washington
Michael Atkinson replies: I’ll admit that the use of “embedded” in this context was both generalized and suggestive of the film’s attitude, not an explicit accusation about Longley’s activities. But prevarication (not lying per se; see Webster’s) pervades the film, each and every time Longley invents a reaction shot he could not have had the additional cameras to capture. (Multiple cameras hovering around Iraqi children would have entailed its own compromises.) Robert Flaherty and Walt Disney did it too, and it’s dishonest.
Leave it to Atkinson to put the “dis” back in “Disney”; he invoked The Living Desert in his last excoriation of Iraq In Fragments a few months ago, and he clearly has a few months of therapy to go before the film’s “cheap narrative-building suture(s)” no longer stink up his sweet dreams of Laura Poitras. I look forward to the next epistolary volley, in which the aggrieved Longley fires back with the default auteur war cry, “Well, where is your Iraq documentary, mister?” Followed, of course, by Atkinson’s reply threatening various permutations of “lying filmmakers in fragments” and any number of intellectual implements “embedded in Longley’s ass.” It’s almost enough to make me miss Kevin Smith and Joel Siegel. But just almost.
'Half Nelson,' Full House: Film's Brooklyn Homecoming Packs Them In
Well, that went well. Last night’s installment of the Reeler Screeing Series welcomed a packed house to BAM for the Brooklyn premiere of Half Nelson, following which filmmakers and local heroes Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden joined the film’s producers Jamie Patricof and Alex Orlovsky for an audience Q&A. Between the spirited debate on dialectics, hope vs. hopelessness and teacher/student relations, we actually did get some nuts and bolts insights from the Half Nelson gang, including the following:
Your humble editor looks on as (L-R) Half Nelson producers Alex Orlovsky and Jamie Patricof, co-writer/editor Anna Boden and co-writer/director Ryan Fleck take questions Wednesday night at BAM (Photo: Jennifer VanAirsdale)
FLECK ON DIRECTING RYAN GOSLING AND THE REST OF HIS GREAT CAST: “I mostly just tried to stay out of the way and cast good actors who we knew could deliver. We at least made sure we were aware of their work in some way and had seen a glimpse of something they could do, because I’m not going to tell them how to do it. I don’t know how to do it. So they were good. We did it in a bunch of ways and gave them the freedom in a loose style that allowed them to move around on the set without bumping into some kind of crazy lighting rig. And our DP also had freedom to follow them… That was the only plan we had going in.”
BODEN ON THE EDITING PROCESS: “It was very organic, because I approached it first as a writer. And then being able to write the final draft as an editor was really exciting and not exactly what we expected it to be. A lot of material wound up on the cutting room floor that we really loved and that, when we were shooting, made us say, ‘Oh my God–this is amazing.’ It just didn’t end up being right. But I don’t know. We assembled it, and the first assembly was three hours long, and we were like, ‘Nobody’s going to sit and watch this whole thing.’ What ended up not in the movie is another full movie.”
ORLOVSKY AND PATRICOF ON SHOOTING IN NEW YORK: O: “Everyone was from here, and you can’t get better crews, especially when you’re working on a small budget. It’s just true. We figured out at one point that the average age of our crew was 27, and I think it’s one of the only places you can find people who are so dedicated, so talented and committed and who can make a smaller project like this possible.” P: “We couldn’t have made this film for this budget anywhere but in New York. It’s just one of those strange things.” O: “Having shot stuff in other places, it just makes you miss working in New York because you just notice how special everyone is. It’s true.”
And… scene. The Reeler owes a debt of gratitude to ThinkFilm’s Mark Urman and Alex Klenert for the opportunity to screen the film, and huge thanks go out to BAMcinématek’s Florence Almozini and Molly Gross for so graciously welcoming this event on short notice. Brooklyn Brewery was kind enough to sponsor our after-party, and Moe’s bar in Fort Greene was kind enough to host it. Thanks as well to Fleck, Boden, Patricof and Orlovsky for dropping by, and best of luck to them as Half Nelson opens Friday at the Angelika and Lincoln Plaza cinemas.
Meanwhile, the next Reeler Screening Series event takes place Sept. 19 at the Pioneer Theater, with director Chris Terrio stopping in for a presentation of his marvelous 2005 film, Heights. More information will be forthcoming, but go ahead and save the date.
Reeler Screening Series Continues Tonight With 'Half Nelson,' Brooklyn Beer
I know most of you good-hearted readers within a 100-or-so-mile radius of Brooklyn have already penciled tonight’s Reeler Screening Series event into your calendars, but for those of you non-committal types who keep their nights open until the last minute, here is my last bit of nagging: Please drop by BAM tonight for a preview of Ryan Fleck’s superb Half Nelson. Fleck and partner Anna Boden will be on hand afterward for a discussion and Q&A, and the whole evening wraps up with an after-party down the street at Moe’s. Bring your ticket stub, get a pint (courtesy of our sponsors at Brooklyn Brewery) and toast this terrific film’s homecoming.
Event and ticketing details follow the jump; as always, I look forward to seeing you there.
Stone Unturned: The Irresponsibility of ‘World Trade Center’
I think I am at peace with World Trade Center being a bad film. God knows I wanted it to be more than the treacly mess Oliver Stone made, but I have spent the last couple of days working through my issues of what Stone intended and what I craved. As the Wall Street Journal’s Brian Carney wrote last weekend (before eviscerating it anyway), “Mr. Stone set out to make a narrowly focused film… He has done that well, and it would be foolish to argue that he should have made some other movie instead.”
No, Nic, seriously, it is not political: Stone and Cage on the set of World Trade Center (Photos: Francois Duhamel/Paramount Pictures)
That is kind of where I sit with World Trade Center, and the best criticism of Stone’s film I have yet read (Jim Hoberman’s, in particular) applies pretty much the same standards of evaluation. I would say, however, that Stone’s claim to have not made a political film is disingenuous at best–everything about this film is political, from the Brooks & Dunn jangle exhorting American virtue over the radio to a former Marine’s claim that “this country is at war” to President Bush’s telegenic resolve to avenge the dead at the WTC, the Pentagon and on Flight 93. As the portrait of a moment–the rescue of two Port Authority cops from the WTC rubble–the film strives for more than authenticity; it clamors for atavism. It does not want to recreate Sept. 11, 2001. It wants to relive it–but only the best parts, the humane parts–over and over and over again.
'Factotum': Dillon Does Bukowski (But Only Sort Of)
IFC Center welcomed a (literally) standing-room-only crowd to Tuesday night’s Factotum premiere, where Matt Dillon, co-star Lily Taylor and director Bent Hamer were more than warmly received for their adaptation of Charles Bukowski’s 1975 novel. The packed-house chaos spilled over to the after-party on the Bowery’s Blvd. nightclub–not quite Bukowski’s skid row, but where “25-year-old new owner of the NY Observer” (per the tip sheet) Jared Kushner hosted and where the IFC family’s new addition, one Abel Ferrara, joyfully reconnected with Dillon (at right) in the VIP area.
Dillon is solid in Factotum as Henry Chinaski, the Bukowski alter-ego who bumps around Minneapolis drinking, gambling and getting fired from any number of low-wage hack jobs that cannot sustain his interest. He fancies himself a writer, drafting pages of copy he sends to publishers who never respond. After falling in love with fellow drunk Jan (Taylor), Henry glimpses a hint of his soul that confirms his destiny as a “bum”; his resolution to avoid regular work, family or commitment becomes a torpid responsibility of its own. Henry’s mediations between the two fuel Hamer’s narrative, and as such, the jaundiced, hollow spaces these characters occupy physically and emotionally are anything but desolate. Bars, flophouses and bus benches all attain the flavor of home, where Henry readily accepts his acute, squalid solitude.
Dillon spoke to reporters Tuesday afternoon about how a charter member of the Teen Idol Hall of Fame wound up riffing on a guy like Charles Bukowski.”I first read Hot Water Music, I think, in 1983,” Dillon said. “Or ’84, maybe? This book of short stories that my friend gave me. I read the first story and I kind of got hooked right away. I don’t remember which short story it was; I think it was called The Great Poet or something. Anyway, I liked it right away because it was so irreverent. The humor? I think it definitely really appeals to guys in their early 20s, and I was just, like, 21 or 22 or something. And then I read most of the short stories and novels–none of the poetry–in a four-year period or something like that. It was right around the time Barfly came out that I just stopped reading them and moved on to other writers or whatever. And then all these years later, you know, Jim Stark, the producer of the film, approached me and told me that Bent–and I didn’t know who Bent was–had done an adaptation of Factotum. I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ And they wanted me to play Hank, or they were interested in me doing it. And my first reaction was like, ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?’ I mean, first of all, after I read him, I never thought about me playing anybody in the film. I’m so physically not the type–especially at that age, because he achieved success so late in the game. I always knew him as the white-haired guy who wrote Notes of a Dirty Old Man, you know?”
For Christ's Sake: IFC Films Picks Up Ferrara's 'Mary'
The Reeler hears this afternoon that IFC Films has picked up rights to Abel Ferrara’s long-languishing Mary. Featuring Juliette Binoche as an actress transformed by her portrayal of Mary Magdalene, you might recall the film earning its recent local buzz via co-star Matthew Modine’s late-night phone calls to Cindy Adams and a particularly spirited Ferrara appearance at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. It probably bears mentioning Mary won a Special Jury Prize at Venice in 2005 as well, and the pick-up coincides with the upcoming Sarajevo Film Festival’s plans to honor Ferrara and Béla Tarr with career retrospectives.
No word yet on a release date, and the details do not specify whether or not IFC will be releasing via its First Take day-and-date arm. Look for those specifics eventually as official announcements are made this week.
Can We 'Trust the Man' Freundlich's New York?
Bart Freundlich’s new romantic “comedy” Trust the Man premiered Monday night in Chelsea, where the filmmaker and his wife/star Julianne Moore (right) were on hand to have a look with a few hundred friends. Anchored deep in bourgeoisie crisis, scatology and the existential black hole of the West Village, Trust the Man follows the exploits of two New York couples who just cannot seem to get their relationships in working order: Unemployed Tom and actress Rebecca (David Duchovny and Moore), frazzled parents who chum around/commisserate with Rebecca’s underachieving brother Tobey and his long-time girlfriend Elaine (Billy Crudup and Maggie Gyllenhaal).
The story is not complex: Rebecca will not give Tom sex, so he cheats. Tobey will not give Elaine a baby, so she makes him leave. Everybody meets somebody else, and in fairness, I should acknowledge that Freundlich does offer a mildly refreshing, matter-of-fact view of infidelity. Followed, of course, by the singer-songwriter-accompanied moving-out montage. And then by the equally cloying coming-around montage. Estrogen-drunk monologues and men who actually say “boo-yah.” A climactic, slow-motion moment of romantic truth onstage at Lincoln Center. It is all just…. so… easy.
As such, with all of this nagging conventionality in mind, I had to ask him and Moore during a chat last weekend: Who the hell are these people? And 25 years after Woody Allen’s prime, with artistic heirs ranging from Ed Burns to Noah Baumbach contorting his legacy with various degrees of success, is the “crazy-ass-middle-class-white-New-Yorker-in-trouble” genre possess even half the intrigue for anybody outside New York as it (theoretically) yields for us?
“That’s something I thought a lot about, and I think it does,” said Freundlich, who ackowledged the autobiographical elements–friends, family, geography–that influenced his film. “Becuase I think people in New York are fascinated to see the place they live painted in a real way, but I think that New York is kind of this beacon, and that everyone is fascinated by it. And I like the idea of showing it as a small town, and hopefully although people may have kind of high class problems in the movie, showing that they have the same type of issues people have anywhere else. I didn’t think too much where it was going to fit in; I just tried to be as true as I could to what I knew New York to be. … I tried to stay true to it because there’s something very unconscious that goes on when you know that it’s real.”
Closure at Last as Hollywood Christians Forgive Mel Gibson
I had resolved to sit out Mel Gibson’s bloody celebrity abortion for a number of reasons: Obviously it has nothing to do with New York, and to the extent that Hollywood has emphasized its jurisdiction over such affairs, Nikki Finke and Jeff Wells were enjoying too beautiful a gossip mating ritual for me to do anything but sit back and watch. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
But things changed yesterday–all the hearsay and supposition and anguish toned down as former Paramount and Disney exec David Kirkpatrick chimed in from his current front office at Good News Ministries, offering desperately needed perspective and perhaps even hinting at Gibson’s possible comeback vehicle:
Good News Holdings Asks, Is Mel Gibson the Modern Day George Bailey and Is This His ‘Wonderful Life’?
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 7 — Good News Holdings, a Christian entertainment company, spoke out in support of Mel Gibson’s statement of accountability and apology following his arrest last week.
“The American Film Institute named It’s a Wonderful Life the most inspiring picture of all time,” said David Kirkpatrick, Co-Founder of Good News Holdings and former Production Chief of Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures. “In that movie, while drunk on Christmas Eve, decent man George Bailey chastises his wife, reduces his children to tears, and destroys the living room of his home with his own hands. Suicidal, Bailey prays to God for help, seeks his family’s forgiveness, and finds redemption. AFI voted George Bailey one of the top ten movie heroes of our time.”
“Mel Gibson is the gifted film-maker of both Braveheart and The Passion of the Christ,” added Kirkpatrick. “Sometimes when the gift shines brightly, we overlook the raw reality of our humanity. Like each of us, Mr. Gibson struggles with personal challenges, but his journey is highly visible. We cannot condone the behavior or language that led to his arrest. But in the aftermath, what more could a repentant person do than acknowledge his wrongdoing, sincerely apologize, ask for forgiveness, seek medical help for his disease, and initiate dialogue with those whom he has hurt?”
A shrewd, beautiful statement, to be certain. But surely no defensive-minded Christian organization worth its salt would issue an entire press release without blaming the victim? Or better yet: Getting a victim to blame himself?
The Company quoted Rabbi Daniel Lapin, broadcaster and author, “He (Mel Gibson) has never supported organizations that encourage the murder of Jews … and has utterly resisted the natural human temptation to snap back at the so-called ‘Jewish Establishment’ for its vicious assaults on The Passion.”
Right. Now if only a spokesperson for the long-suffering “Sugar Tits” contingent would speak up on Gibson’s behalf, we could finally let bygones be bygones.
Follow the jump for the full press release.
Screening Gotham Special Edition: The Reeler's Guide to Outdoor Cinema in NYC
The heat wave has broken, the Yankees are pretending to care and pictures of kids playing with fire hydrants have reached critical mass. It can only mean one thing: Summer is on the downturn in New York. But there is still plenty of seasonal pleasure to be had at the half-dozen film series unspooling in parks and outdoor venues around the city, which The Reeler has tested, tire-kicked and/or endured so that you may make the most of your August movie expeditions.
Screen test: Movies With a View at Empire-Fulton Ferry Park, one of a half-dozen outdoor screening series continuing this month around New York (Photos [except where noted]: STV)
I know what you’re thinking: “But STV, why did you hold out until summer was two-thirds over to review all of these?” A great and answerable question: Some of these series–Summerscreen, for example–only started two weeks ago. Others will not start for another few weeks to come (Solar 1’s annual solar-powered screening series launches Aug. 18). I also thought I would wait until the worst of the summer weather hit to see how manageable the settings were in the shittiest, most humid and inhospitable of urban conditions. And there is a difference, as you can probably intuit: Riverfront lawns fare a little better than heat-radiating empty pools on a 90-degree night. Such series present rare examples of moviegoing that is not necessarily “all about the films”; if it was, the 40-minute round-trip walk from the N/W train to see The Straight Story at Socrates Sculpture Park in Astoria would feel much breezier than it actually is.
But I digress. Listed by their respective days of the week–and with typically hyperactive subjectivity–follow the jump for August’s remaining cinematic goings-on outdoors around New York.
Screening Gotham: August 4-6, 2006
A few of this week’s worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:
–It would be awfully easy to dismiss director Hans Canosa’s latest film, Conversations With Other Women, as a pretentious conceptual stunt even without it being edited entirely in split-screen (or “dual-frame,” as the director is wont to call it). Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart portray star-crossed old flames reunited at a wedding in a New York hotel; they talk deep, retreat to a room upstairs, and you can probably imagine the attenuated talkiness and groping that follows.
Dual-image? Split-screen? Whatever–Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart in Conversations With Other Women, previewed this weekend at the SoHo Apple Store.
But in the end, Canosa’s split-screen stunt does what it needs to do: allows simultaneous flashbacks; close-ups as two-shots; and a redistribution of space that bestows an oddly comforting theatricality on the tired old hotel-room set. And though Conversations does not open for another week, Canosa will be at the SoHo Apple Store on Saturday afternoon to explain how (and why) pulled the whole thing off on a Mac. If only Apple could have written his script.
–RockDocs continues at Lincoln Center this weekend, showcasing Stewart Copeland’s Everyone Stares: The Story of the Police Saturday night. This was perhaps my least favorite film from Sundance ’06, but considering what it could have been–assembled from seemingly miles’ worth of unseen Super 8 concert and backstage footage from the great rock trio’s doomed run–Copeland’s autoerotic failure makes the film the type of unironic, delicious disaster that has CULT FUCKING CLASSIC written all over it. Dig his narration, and then feed it back to the filmmaker/former drummer during the post-screening Q&A to see if he laughs as hard as you did.
–Fix your lipstick and get your best groupie sneer on: Magnolia boss Eamonn Bowles takes a breather from the Jesus Camp snafu to rock with the Staggering Gents tonight at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn.
'Runnin' ' Into Montiel: More About Dito's New Project
One thing led to another Thursday and I found myself on the phone with Dito Montiel, whose recently announced project Runnin’ came up in this spot earlier this week. Montiel, whose writing/directing debut A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints hits theaters Sept. 29, is rewriting Robert Munic’s original script about what Variety describes as “the underground world of sports betting”; producers Kevin Misher and Patrick Baker brought him to their little corner of Paramount after falling in love with Saints.
“It’s fun, you know?” said the ever-ebullient Montiel of the rewrite process, not too many degrees removed from his adaptation of his own novel for Saints. “There’s like a blueprint. I always enjoy getting into the characters more than the entire story. They already have their thing, but now it’s just making sure that the people are people that I think are worth meeting for two hours in a movie theater. So that’s kind of fun for me.”
But after crafting his first film’s characters from the dysfunctional tapestry of his youth in Astoria, Queens, is there any research Montiel is doing to affirm his new project’s authenticity? Digging into bookies, gambling cons, so on and so forth?
He half-laughed, half-hedged.
“I’ve been around,” he replied. “I just kind of roam around and feel it out. I’m not going to gain 70 pounds to direct a film, you know? I kind of just feel my way around. It’s more about people being able to relate to the characters than to get too into that. It’ll be real, and that’s key. Too much research makes things unreal.”
Obviously, I still have no production dates to pass along–the guy is still slashing through old drafts–but again, you will know more when I do.
Yo-Ho No 'Mo: Lumenick Review Enters No-Faggot Zone
You know what Friday in New York means: Time for Lou Lumenick to dose up his sturdy, workmanlike aesthetic authority for another round of Post film criticism. Today’s highlight does not quite reflect the mouth-breathing conserva-twat paranoia of last week’s anti-Communist screed, but it nevertheless presents the pleasingly abrasive antidote to good taste you have come to expect for your 25 cents:
“I want the man to look like a pirate, not a mollycoddle,” went a studio memo. “You have him standing up here dealing with a lot of hard-boiled characters and you’ve got him dressed up like a goddamned faggot.”
No, it wasn’t a Disney executive complaining about Johnny Depp’s swishy Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean – these words came from Warner Bros. production chief Hal Wallis, grousing to director Michael Curtiz about Errol Flynn’s frilly costumes in 1935’s Captain Blood.
Flynn’s Captain Blood and Leslie Howard’s equally foppish (and rousing) The Scarlet Pimpernel – along with the Warner Bros. cartoon The Scarlet Pumpernickel – lead off a series of Summer Swashbucklers that make Depp look like, well, a mollycoddle, beginning today at Film Forum.
For those of you keeping score at home, Lumenick indeed went the long way around to call Johnny Depp a “goddamned faggot”–such a long way, in fact, that this anecdote occupies about a third of his entire Swashbuckler preview. But it is small price to pay, really, for the understanding that faggots and their Communist brethren know the Post is onto their mainstream scams. Not to be outdone, expect Kyle Smith to fire back next week with a 10-point plan to retrieve America’s $366 million from “that limp-wristed bagelmaker” Jerry Bruckheimer.
BREAKING: Wong Kar Wai Captured in NYC Bakery Shooting
For those of you for whom production of Ridley Scott’s American Gangster here in town just does not possess the glimmering urbane fabulousness of, say, Jodie Foster’s fleet of tow trucks, IndieWIRE kingpin Eugene Hernandez offers up this tantalizing dispatch on his blog:
Walking around hot and humid downtown Manhattan tonight, I was frankly stunned to spot filmmaker Wong Kar Wai (pictured center). It turns out that movie shooting near Canal St. is My Blueberry Nights, Wong’s first English-language film. After midnight, I observed for a bit and then snapped a quick pic from across the street as WKW leaned up against a doorway to plan a shot inside a bakery.
For a larger glimpse at the pic above right, pay Eug a visit. Then drop back by here over the next few days to see if The Reeler’s own eventual WKW stalking expedition yields any berries of its own.
1 Comment »Happy Ending: Pioneer Screens Jarecki's 'Outsider,' Showtime Buys It
Big ups to the gang that turned out for last night’s screening of The Outsider at the Pioneer Theater. I was too busy moderating the post-screening Q&A with James Toback and Nick Jarecki to get a picture (God, do I have to do everything around here?), but at any rate, the scoop of the evening came early when Jarecki announced he had sold the film to Showtime.
Jarecki said the cable network will package his documentary with selections from its rather deep Toback catalog; pending The Outsider‘s planned theatrical runs outside New York this fall, however, no network premiere date has yet been announced. Look for it here soon, hopefully. Meanwhile, congrats to Jarecki, who has been at this thing for about three years now, from the set of Toback’s When Will I Be Loved to Tribeca ’05 to last night’s screening. He worked for this one, and it’s great to see it come through for him.
All right, all right–enough warm fuzziness. Back to the whip: The Reeler Screening Series resumes at BAM next Wednesday, Aug. 9, with a preview of Ryan Fleck’s Half Nelson. Click here for more information, call in sick to the night job, hire a sitter, whatever you have to do. Just make the plans now and be there. Many thanks in advance.
Five Out of Seven Ain't Bad: New Yorkers Win Big in Sundance/Annenberg Fellowships
New York’s Sundance dominance continued Wednesday when the Institute announced its Annenberg Film Fellows for 2006. Five of the seven selected projects have stories or filmmakers from the city, including Sundance ’06 alum So Yong Kim (Treeless Mountain) and Tribeca/Cannes ’05 veteran Kit Hui (pictured at right; A Breath Away).
Along with Kirsten Johnson (My Habibi) and the duos Cruz Angeles and Maria Topate (Don’t Let Me Drown) and Andrew Dosunmu and Darci Picoult (Mother of George), the fellows receive an initial grant of $10,000 and “extended creative and financial support over a two-year period to facilitate the continued development of their projects.” In other words: More labs, more money and a virtual guarantee that these films will not only get made, but also bow at Sundance in the next year or two.
So tip your cap or raise your coffee or whatever else you are drinking this morning and wish them luck. Full filmmaker bios and project descriptions follow the jump.
