The Circuit

In an article for Variety's weekly, I tackle the glut of film festivals:

At the fourth annual Intl. Film Festival Summit in Las Vegas last week, fest honchos huddled together in panel sessions with names like "Creating a Sustainable Festival," showing a sense of camaraderie, friendliness and mutual support.

But then, most attendees there were new to the game. Among veteran fest programmers and execs, it's more a case of strong rivalries, poaching and a secret desire that their compatriots would disappear in a puff of smoke.

Competition among film fests has always been sharp, but it's become cutthroat as fests proliferate, with literally thousands of them vying for world premieres, stars and, crucially, sponsors. If the films are good, it's almost a bonus.

The piece also touches on a growing controversy amoung fest execs - rising distributor and sales agents fees. 

Full piece here.

Films about life in war's shadow swept the AFI FEST jury awards on Sunday.  The fest announced that Lee Isaac Chung's tale of Rwandan genocide, "Munyurangabo," has won the Grand Jury Prize.  Andreas Mol Dalsgaard's post-war bodybuilding doc, "Afghan Muscles," and Nina Davenport's Iraq war-set "Operation Filmmaker" both won the doc award.  The three winners will each get $5000 of Kodak film stock and film budgeting software.  Audience awards went to Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell And The Butterfly" and "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story," Jeffrey Schwarz' ode to the legendary horror film showman.

Before the closing night screening of Mike Newell's "Love in the Time of Cholera," AFI FEST Artistic Director Rose Kuo remarked "the members of our jury had a particularly difficult time singling out one film."  The feature jury included director Agnieszka Holland, writer John Ridley, "Lust, Caution" actress Joan Chen, "Life Without Me" director Isabel Coixet, and screenwriter Henry Bean.  "The Nines" d.p. Nancy Schreiber and doc filmmakers Kirby Dick and Doug Pray judged the nonfiction section.


Pictured: Shaz Bennett (Associate Director of Programming), Lund, Schwarz, Dalsgaard, Lane Kneedler (Senior Programmer), Nash Edgerton (winner of the narrative shorts jury prize for "Spider"), Natalie Mcmenemy (Documentary Programmer), Lauren Greenfield (winner of the doc shorts jury prize for "Kids + Money", and Rose Kuo (Artistic Director)

Everywhere you turned at AFI FEST, Superman was there - drinking Merlot, posing for pictures, passing out a business card emblazoned with an S (slow crime week).  He also pissed off many a fanboy by donning a tool belt. To quote: “Superman doesn’t need Batman’s trinkets!  Idiot!”

When I took this picture I had no idea why producer and dp Charles Gruet (right of Superman) asked this skinny Batman to step away.  The doc he produced, “Confessions of a Superhero,” stars Superman (Christopher Dennis), The Hulk (Joe McQueen, not in costume) as well as a Wonder Woman and Batman talking about their lives as unofficial tourist attractions outside the Chinese Mann Theater. 

But this Batman isn't the one featured in the movie, I was told.  (So I used this photo instead.)  But I was confused.  Were there two Batmans working the same sidewalk?  Was this a stand-in for the other stand-in Batman?  In fact, the Batman in the movie didn't make the Q&A either.  Where was the real faux Batman?

As the doc illustrates, each actor the filmmakers followed seemed to adopt their superhero’s traits.  It turns out Superman is a kind, standup guy.  He shows the ropes to other street performers, he doesn’t lose his cool, he’s loving and devoted to his girlfriend.

The Hulk leads an unrecognizable dual life.  He was homeless for years until he started making money by being green.  The full-body outfit, though, is a curse that he’s dying to get rid of.  Especially in the LA summer heat when he passes out from exhaustion. 

And Batman has a big anger problem, especially with non-tipping tourists.  After a run-in caught on tape, a restraining order keeps him out of this zip code and thus away from this film festival.

Check out the trailer:

   

Described as a "modern day message in a bottle," San Fran artist "Someguy" sent 1000 journals into the world, leaving them in public places or simply handing them out. 

As they started to trickle back to him, doc filmmaker Andrea Kreuzhage started filming.  Her finished film, "1000 Journals" had its last screening on Monday, as the Arclight bookstore sold Someguy's book downstairs - select pages from the journals he got back plastered with art, photos, and ramblings.  Pictured, Someguy (right) with the project's dp, Ralph Kaechele in front of the display.

Below, Someguy with some of the "journalists" at the film's premiere:

Every inch of space inside the AFM's main hub at the Loews is sold, so it's no surprise the ambitious Dubai Film Festival would try to carve out some promo space somewhere.  Their answer?  Variety's Patrick Frater pointed out the scorched, desert city is giving away its second most precious asset - water.


Across town, AFI FEST filmmakers were given their stuff in cool bag made from festival trash - years of obsolete, old light pole banners.  A company called RetroActif took the banners out of the warehouse, scrubbed them, and sewed them up with padding - finally making a festival bag that you aren't embarrassed to carry.  The signage on the surface is refreshingly restrained, too.


The camera line at the AFI FEST Village.  "4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days" filmmaker Cristian Mungiu answers questions.  Like "Juno," his film has also had a great festival run.  Screenings here were sold out.


AFI FEST's Filmmmakers Lounge, as the crowd watches silent short films with a DJ accompaniment. Glowing in the center, the Rabbi reports.  (aka Mark Rabinowitz, festival fixture).

Charles Gruet (middle), producer of the doc "Confessions of a Superhero," with Christopher "Superman" Dennis and Joe "The Hulk" McQueen.  Photo evidence that Superman does sweat and The Hulk isn't all that angry or all that green.


SXSW's Matt Dentler goes through the catalog with a red pen.


AFI FEST director Christian Gaines with Alex Holdridge, director of "In Search of the Midnight Kiss" at the festival's opening night party.

Tomorrow night’s big AFI FEST opening, Redford’s “Lions for Lambs” and the swank afterparty, may be overshadowed by events east.  All industry eyes will be on the LA Convention Center - the site of a historic WGA meeting where thousands of writers will be told to either stay on the job or strike.  Their contract will have expired hours earlier.

The "Lambs" screening starts at 7:30pm.  The meeting starts at 7pm.  If the audience hasn’t been checking their blackberries throughout the film, they’ll be a mad dash out at 10pm, to see what the word from downtown is.  The small-talk at the party has already been set.

As a guild member and "Lions" ticket holder, in many ways the choice is about which war I want to step into on Thursday.  The ill-conceived, disastrous war in the Middle East that serves Redford’s plot, or the long-planned for, highly organized, and (as John Ridley writes here), "ill-conceived, potentially disastrous war" in the industry. 

[Edited to add:  That's Ridley's opinion. Not mine, but not one to be dismissed.]

Ironic that the choice comes down to scripted or reality. 

Several writers I know are scrambling for babysitters, reading developments hourly, yapping on ichat.  There is hardly a sense of dread.  In fact, it's guarded excitement.  All the melodrama and bad behavior of the past few weeks... you just can't make that stuff up.  And to crescendo on a particular day, at a particular hour and place colors it an unmissable season finale, an edge-of-the-seat third act, a Norma Rae moment.  Perhaps making light of this day is a defense unique to writers.  Perhaps it's too much to comprehend the devastating, rippling effects Friday could bring. 

For this writer, "Lions" didn't stand a chance.  Even if I wasn't WGA, I'd be one of the many aisle-seated bodies in the audience, front-lit by a PDA, waiting for word. 

AFI and the U.S. Department of State, among others, have announced a group of filmmakers participating in this year's AFI Project 20/20, a team charged with infiltrating foreign countries with their indie film propaganda.  Last year a similar exchange group screened their work in Kuwait, South Africa, Israel and Kazakhstan, as well as such international hot-spots as St. Louis, Miami, and Salt Lake City.  

What is the State Department saying with this selection of films?  One need only look at some of the titles to uncover the hidden, right-wing agenda: AFGHAN MUSCLE directed by Andreas Mol Dalsgaard (Denmark); PLEASE VOTE FOR ME directed by Weijun Chen (China); AMERICAN FORK directed by Chris Bowman (USA); and BIG RIG directed by Doug Pray (USA).

Also included are CYRANO FERNANDEZ directed by Alberto Arvelo (Venezuela) and FARO - GODDESS OF THE WATERS directed by Salif Traore (Mali).

Also involved are the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Still dusty AFI Village on top of the Arclight parking garage.  It officially opens on Friday.

One AFI FEST doc I'm anxious to see - "Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terror Dome."  There should be a good doc on hip hop's first huge rap group, something beyond another "Behind the Music."  Let's hope it delivers. AFI's Shaz Bennett detailed the film:

It's a world premiere covering the band from past to present - including footage they just shot in Japan about a month ago. The film charts their cultural significance on the rap world and their continuing impact on music and politics.

What most interested me personally is that the documentary interviews the Beastie Boys, Tom Morello (Audioslave, Rage Against the Machine), Henry Rollins, Talib Kweli and Jonathan Davis of Korn talking about the influence Public Enemy had on them.

Sharon Swart has a short piece on the AFI-AFM relationship.  While execs (and me) grumble about the distance - it takes an hour to get between the two events - fest director Christian Gaines says the link works, and he's got a point:

Last year 56 films shared both an AFI selection slot and an AFM sales company. Of those films, 28 made some kind of deal, says Gaines: "They either were acquired for U.S. distribution or sold international territories or negotiated U.S. remake rights."

This year, fewer films -- 34 -- share both AFI and AFM berths.

Speaking of Gaines, check out his fantastic festival report he wrote for indieWIRE for the Midnight Sun Film Festival.


Photo:  Gaines at 2005's AFM, by Rebecca Sapp/WireImage.com.

Javier Bardem will get Santa Barbara fest's Montecito Award, "created in recognition of a performer who has given a series of classic and standout performances."  Reaching back from his recent turn as the coin-flipping killer Anton Chigurh in "No Country for Old Men," the fest highlighted his roles in "Jamon, jamon," "Live Flesh," and "Before Night Falls," for which he became the first Spaniard to garner and Oscar nom. 

Bardem also stars in Mike Newell's "Love in the Time of Cholera," screening next week at AFI FEST as the closing night film.


Photo: Scott McDermott, Corbis

The LA Times reports that Southern California supermarket Glensons has pulled the AFI FEST guide from its shelves and revised its festival sponsorship after a customer (a single customer, it seems) complained of a particular film catalog picture showing two girls wearing thongs in a changing room.  Adam Rifkin's "Look" is about surveillance saturation.  According to a mass email from the director, it's legal 37 states to put video cameras in public dressing room:

"Yes, the image of two tweens' glutes might be controversial to some, but millions of people unknowingly undressing under surveillance is way more shocking if you ask me.  Who is watching this footage and who is keeping it safe from public distribution? preventing it from being distributed. Who has access to it and for how long?  What safeguards exist to make sure highlights of YOUR ass are not making it onto the most viewed list on YouTube?"

This soapbox email keeps on-topic, making the film suddenly sound like an interesting, important, timely, ACLU-endorsed documentary.   But it's not.  It's a "serious drama" shot entirely from the POV of surveillance cameras, from the screenwriter of "Underdog" and "Small Soldiers" and "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe."  Looking at the "controversial" guide pic from "Look" (above), you can feel the air deflating out of this teapot tempest.  Stupid for Glensons to pull the catalog but it'd be surprising if this garnered much more than a collective "what a shame" just before a collective shrug.

Of the seven world premieres at AFI FEST announced yesterday is a doc on William Castle, one of the great horror movie showmen made famous by installing vibrators under seats, jolting the audience at key moments. 
Check out the "Spine Tingler" trailer:

The doc's director, Jeffrey Schwarz, is currently in post on "Wrangler: Story of an Icon" about adult film star Jack Wrangler whom New Yorkers may remember fondly when he sued the city after his wife tripped on a sidewalk crack.  They cited a loss of sexual relations as one of the damages.

AFI, so far, is looking just like Telluride, which is a good thing.  Nine of the recently announced 15 just played at the mountain fest.  Of the others, two are doc World Premieres and two narrative US Premieres.  Docs are Robert Patton-Spruill’s “Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome,” a history of the hip hop group, and Andrea Kreazhage’s “1000 Journals,” about how someone named “Someguy” who sent out 1000 journals blindly in all directions, and got 25 back with writings and art from people living in 35 countries. 

Feature premieres are Bruce McDonald’s Toronto entry “The Tracy Fragments,” (pictured) about a girl looking for her lost brother and Paprika Steen’s “With Your Permission” about an opera-loving , annoying cafeteria worker.

From the press release, here are the other films:

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS (Romania)
Director: Cristian Mungiu
The Palme d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the drama follows the
harrowing choices two young women must make when one of them seeks an illegal abortion in 1987 Romania.

THE BAND’S VISIT (Israel)
Director: Eran Kolirin
The film follows a brass band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force as they make the trip to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Israeli arts center only to become lost and stranded along the way.

THE COUNTERFEITERS (Austria/Germany)
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Taking place in 1936, the film details the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis which utilized Jewish prisoners who were bankers, printers and professional forgers before their imprisonment.

DEFICIT (Mexico)
Director: Gael Garcia Bernal
Bernal makes his feature film directing debut with the story of a social class war being played out during a party hosted by a privileged young man concerned about his university schooling prospects. 

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (USA/France)
Director: Julian Schnabel
Film follows the true-life story of Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body except for his left eye. Using that eye, he blinked out his memoir.

FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON (Taiwan/France)
Director: Hao Hsiao-hsien
An overwhelmed mother (played by Juliette Binoche), enlists the aid of a babysitter to help her care for her two children. Soon her little boy and the baby-sitter find they inhabit the same imaginary world, in which they are followed through their adventures by a strange red balloon.

JELLYFISH (Israel/France)
Director: Etgar Keret, Shira Gefen
The winner of the Camera d’Or for Best First Feature, the film features a series of overlapping encounters and intertwining relationships revolving around a couple’s wedding preparations, the effort of an actress to find a caregiver for her aging mother and the arrival of a mysterious child.

JUNO (USA)
Director: Jason Reitman
The film stars Ellen Page as a girl, who, when faced with an unplanned pregnancy makes an unusual and bizarre decision regarding her unborn child. The cast includes Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Michael Cera and Allison Janney.

PERSEPOLIS (France/Iran)
Directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Parranoud
An animated feature with voice work by Catherine Deneuve, among others, PERSEPOLIS is the poignant story of a precocious and outspoken young Iranian girl who comes of age during the Islamic Revolution.

THE SAVAGES (USA)
Director: Tamara Jenkins
A drama focusing on a sister and brother (played by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman) who face the realities of familial responsibility as they begin to care for their ailing father.

SECRET SUNSHINE (Korea)
Director: Lee Chang-dong
The film follows the travails of a woman, played by Jeon Do-yeon (in a performance which gained her the Best Actress award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival) who relocates with her son to the hometown of her husband after he dies tragically in a car accident. Her sense of welcome in the new town quickly leaves after tragedy strikes once again. 

LA's AFI FEST will open November 1st with Robert Redford’s political feature “Lions for Lambs,” starring Redford, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise.  The hotly anticipated film is the first production from the new United Artists, remade last year by Cruise and his partner, Paula Wagner.