Photo credit: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Stranger Than Fiction, the weekly documentary film series hosted by Thom Powers and Raphaela Neihausen and presented by IFC Center, takes a new approach to its programming this winter season with a thematic focus on music documentaries. The season opens on Tuesday, January 28 with a sneak preview of FINDING THE FUNK, directed by Nelson George, tracing the past, present and future of funk, featuring interviews with Sly Stone, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and more. The season combines classic docs such as Timothy Greenberg-Sanders’ LOU REED: ROCK AND ROLL HEART (Feb 4) and D.A. Pennebaker’s MONTEREY POP (Feb 18 including a historic reunion of the crew) with previews of forthcoming releases such as BROTHERS HYPNOTIC (Feb 11) about a family of street musicians turning professional and THE ROAD TO FAME (Mar 4) about Chinese students putting on a production of the Broadway musical “Fame.” The 1994 Oscar-nominated film A GREAT DAY IN HARLEM, about a famous group portrait of jazz musicians, will screen on Feb 25 and include a tribute to its producer Jean Bach who died last year at age 94. The STF winter season takes place at the IFC Center every Tuesday night at 8:00 pm for eight weeks, plus a special Thursday screening on Jan 30. Each event includes a discussion with the filmmakers, followed by a gathering at a nearby bar. Tickets are available for individual shows or season passes can be bought for $99 for 9 films.
“Music is a great way to beat the winter doldrums,” said Artistic Director Thom Powers, who also programs for the Toronto International Film Festival, DOC NYC and SundanceNOW.com. “This eclectic group of films gives insights to favorite performers and showcases emerging talent.” One exception to the music-themed Tuesdays is a special Thursday night screening on Jan 30 of THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns & David McMahon, featuring a Q&A with two of the film subjects Yusef Salaam and Korey Wise who were wrongfully convicted in the case of the Central Park jogger. Mayor DeBlasio has vowed to settle their case seeking restitution for the years they spent in jail.
The two final STF winter screenings on March 11 and 18 will be announced later in January.
Give Manohla Dargis credit for surveying 70 film professionals about the state of independent cinema. She draws upon that research for an article published in the New York Times titled As Indies Explode, An Appeal for Sanity. She published further excerpts in an online piece So Many Indies, So Many Reasons. I take issue with her plea for the film industry to “stop buying so many movies,” but I appreciate her starting the conversation. Her observations have already elicited reflections and dissents from Indiewire’s Anne Thompson, Filmmaker’s Sarah Salovaara and Criticwire’s Sam Adams. Below are my full responses to her original questionnaire:
1. How would you characterize the current state of American independent cinema from your specific industry point of view? Is it strong, average, poor – or somewhere in between?
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THE DOG, a documentary telling the true story behind DOG DAY AFTERNOON, was acquired by Cinedigm and Drafthouse Films for theatrical release in 2014.
INTRODUCTION
by Thom Powers
Over the years, I’ve seen too many filmmakers become embittered by their distribution deals. Sometimes they had unrealistic expectations, sometimes they got caught in bad deals. The filmmakers who feel disgruntled range from those with niche titles all the way to the most successful directors. I remember seeing an esteemed director at the Toronto International Film Festival being greeted warmly by the head of a distribution company. “That’s funny,” the director later told me, “I’m currently suing his company for unpaid royalties.” Behind the diplomatic smiles lie many untold stories.
As we start off 2014 and head into Sundance, I want to explore how filmmakers can make better deals for themselves in all distribution channels: theatrical, television, digital and international. Most filmmakers go into distribution negotiations for the first time, or with a gap of several years since their previous film–which might as well be their first time in this changing landscape. That puts them at a disadvantage negotiating with distributors who are regularly making deals and confident about stipulating what’s “normal.”
What filmmakers frequently lack are points of comparison. To change that I reached out to several filmmakers and other industry insiders for feedback. I’m grateful to everyone who shared their experiences. I’ve edited and condensed contributions to reduce repetition (though some points are worth repeating).
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THE ACT OF KILLING distributor Drafthouse Films released a promotional bundle for the film via BitTorrent this week.
The New Year holiday has left us with another light news week. Perhaps the most interesting news was that distributor Drafthouse Films released a “bundle” of content related to THE ACT OF KILLING via BitTorrent, a medium most closely associated with pirating. The bundle dropped at the same time the film was being released on iTunes. Realscreen’s Adam Benzine covered the development, as did Paula Bernstein of Indiewire. And Anthony Ha of TechCrunch also had the news.
Indiewire rounded up all of their doc advice from last year in one incredibly helpful post that you can check out here.
Melena Ryzik of the New York Times took note of the fact that both PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER and THE SQUARE had been banned in the respective countries in which they had been shot, while also landing on the Oscar shortlist for docs. Vanessa Thorpe of The Guardian mentioned PUSSY RIOT in a piece noting the political nature of those getting on the shortlist. Jezebel’s Rebecca Rose had details on a screening of PUSSY RIOT intended to take place in Russia that was scuttled by the government there.
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The Act of Killing from director Joshua Oppenheimer topped a number of best docs of 2013 lists.
There was little doc news to report over the past holiday week, but some writers managed to get their year-end lists out. At the British Film Institute’s Sight and Sound site, Robert Greene continued his effort to put cinematic nonfiction into the doc vernacular. Programmer Basil Tsiokos also released his own list of his favorite films from 2013 at his What (Not) to Doc blog. Nonfics.com hosted a list of the year’s best music docs from Andy Markowitz of MusicFilmWeb. Writing for the SundanceNOW site, Anthony Kaufman released a list of six under-viewed docs from the year.
Writing for The New York Times, Brooks Barnes linked docs that screen at Sundance to the ones that show up on the Oscar shortlist some months later. And Stranger Than Fiction’s Thom Powers rounded up some advice from filmmakers on how to prep for Sundance and other festivals.
Indiwire’s Paula Bernstein published a list of 25 doc filmmakers worth following on Twitter.
Heather McIntosh of the Documentary Site announced her plan to watch 365 docs in 2014, following in the footsteps of Dan Schindel.
Price Peterson of Netflix announced the launch of its Documentary Club, in which a different doc on the site will be discussed each week.
At Nonfics.com, Christopher Campbell shared his top home picks for the week, and also highlighted those films hitting theaters.
This week saw the passing of Bill Knight, a member of the Bangor Troop Greeters, a group in Maine that welcomed U.S. soldiers home from overseas deployments. Knight had been featured in the film THE WAY WE GET BY by director Aron Gaudet.
Finally, the folks at The Black and Blue culled the best professional advice ever received from 88 different cinematographers.
That’s it for this week (and year). Be sure to keep sending tips and recommendations for the Memo via e-mail here, or by Twitter to @GuerrillaFace. Happy New Year everyone!
