The Circuit

"Smile 'Til It Hurts" producer Bari Pearlman pointed us to this fantastic teaser to her Slamdance doc, a chronicle of the people who "averted a third World War" -- the Up With People! singers. 

"Being gay in Up With People was not possible.  There was no such thing as gay in Up With People even though it attracted every closet case... All the boys who put on tights and danced in front of their mirror ended up in Up With People.  So you had tons of fairies." 

"But in the Up With People world, homosexuality did not exist.  There was no gay when in fact you were surrounded by other gay people whom you could never talk to about it.  It was sick."

Slamdance has become the latest fest to take their event online, partnering with Indieroad.net to stream their 2009 fest films hours after they preem in Park City, Utah. 

For films opting in to the program, hi and low resolution streams will be available on Indieroad for $9.00.  Of that, filmmakers will get $3 while Slamdance and Indieroad will split the rest. 

"It's a way of empowering the filmmaker at a time when many are still dependent on a broken distribution system," said Slamdance topper Peter Baxter. "This way, we are making these films available to everyone and taking our festival worldwide."

Baxter said the 2 hour delay between preem and stream is their way of prioritizing the theatrical experience.  Sales agents prefer buyers watch an available title on the big screen with a receptive audience.

Indieroad creative director Vince Di Pierro said films will only be available during the fest, adding "Because it's a stream and not a download we'll have the ability to pull the film immediately if a distributor wants to buy it."

Launched this year, Indieroad specializes in streaming festival films, charging between 80 cents and 2 dollars, depending on run-time.

The Hamptons Int'l Film Festival announced a similar collaboration with SnagFilms last week.  Sundance has also moved online with Apple, offering some of their short film slate on iTunes and sharing the proceeds with the filmmaker.

The 15th annual Slamdance Film Festival will unspool January 15-23, 2009, in Park City, Utah.   Films will stream on www.indieroad.net/slamdance.

Oscilloscope has grabbed North American rights to Kurt Kuenne's award winning docu "Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about his Father."  The doc about a murder and a cross-border custody battle first preemed at Slamdance.

O-scope will release the pic in partnership with MSNBC Films, the channel's new banner for TV and theatrical runs for docs.

O-scope topper Adam Yauch said, "I was blown away by the intense, fast-paced editing, and the way Kurt uses this to convey raw emotion."

Deal was finalized between Submarine's Josh Braun and O-scope's David Fenkel.

"Dark Knight" helmer Christopher Nolan and "Che" director Steven Soderbergh will celebrate Slamdance's 15th anniversary with screenings of early work that preemed at the Park City fest. 

In LA, Nolan will unspool his first feature, "Following" (1998) at LACMA's Bing Theater on Sept 5. Soderbergh will work the other coast by screening his cerebral satire "Schizopolis" (1997) at New York's IFC Theater on Sept 16.  Both events will be followed by Q&As with the directors.

More info at slamdance.com.

Tribeca has announced their call for entries for the eighth fest, running April 22 - May 3, 2009.   Starting September 15 they'll accept narrative and doc features and shorts.  Deadline is December 15, 2008.  Tribeca's All Access program (pictured), which provides high-level meetings between select producers and execs, will run April 20-25.  Check out tribecafilmfestival.org.

Slamdance is looking for films for their 15th fest, skedded for January 15-23, 2009.  New this year -- they're taking music video submissions.  Forms and rules are at slamdance.com.

Film Independent's fourth annual Filmmaker Forum is set for September 26-28, 2008.  The Forum gives attendees access to indie execs via panels on all aspects of filmmaking and distribution.  This year's panelists will be announced shortly.  Go to filmindependent.org.

Slamdance has announced their awards, giving best film awards to Tom Quinn's narrative "The New Year Parade" (pictured) and to Greg Kohs' doc "Song Sung Blue." 

This follows the pickup of "Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer" by Anchor Bay Entertainment.  They also expect four other 2008 Slamdance films to be acquired soon.

Full list, from their press release:

Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature
"The New Year Parade" directed by Tom Quinn

Special Jury Honorable Mention for Narrative Feature
"How To Be" directed by Oliver Irving

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature
"Song Sung Blue" directed by Greg Kohs

Special Jury Honorable Mention for Documentary Feature
"My Mother¹s Garden" directed by Cynthia Lester

Grand Jury Award for Best Animated Short
"Blood Will Tell" directed by Andrew McPhillips

Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary Short
"The Ladies" directed by C.A. Voros

Grand Jury Award for Best Experimental Short "Doxology" directed by Michael Langan

Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Short "Son" directed by Daniel Mulloy

Special Jury Honorable Mention for Narrative Short
"4960" directed by Wing-Yee Wu

Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature
"The Project" directed by Ryan Piotrowicz

Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature
"Song Sung Blue" directed by Greg Kohs

Global Audience Award for Best Anarchy Film "Rock Garden" directed by Gloria Kim

Spirit of Slamdance Award*
"Woman in Burka" directed by Jonathan Lisecki

Award for Best Feature Length Screenplay
"The Wonder Girls" by Anthony Meindl

Award for Best Short Screenplay
"Easy Pickins'" by Will Hartman

Award for Best Teleplay
"Stage Six Pandemic" by Barbara Marshall

Award for Best Horror Competition Screenplay
"The Punished" by Tony Mosher         

Creative Excellence Award for the Horror Screenplay Competition
"Child in the Dark" by Damian Lahey & Ian Ogden

Kodak Vision Award for Best Cinematography
"Portage" cinematography by Sascha Drews & Ezra Krybus

Dennis Hopper and Sundance programmer Trevor Groth at the Cinevegas Lunch.


"Bottle Shock" director Randall Miller and producer/screenwriter Jody Savin at the USC party.  Check out Robert Koehler's review here.


At Slamdance, "Spine Tingular! The William Castle Story" director Jeffrey Schwarz is tended to as a giant bug crawls out of his pants.

As temperatures rose slightly, there were whispers of deals and wildly successful screenings but nothing concrete.  Nanette Burstein's doc "American Teen" (pictured) unspooled to huge raves followed by a rumored bidding war starting at $3 million.  Alex Rivera's "Sleep Dealer" had been quiet building buzz in the weeks before, but last night's screening was called "sleepy" by one critic.  The Q&A began with the theater not half full.

While being heavily courted, the team behind "Sunshine Cleaning" have said they aren't rushing into a deal. 

A North American deal still hasn't has closed for "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."  The film is repped in part by the sales company, Submarine, which has a lot of product this year.  They stepped into Slamdance last night and signed a deal to rep a much-talked about doc, "Dear Zachary."  Submarine head Josh Braun said, "Submarine does not traditionally pick up films to represent once we get to Park City but this amazing and emotionally charged film packed such a punch we couldn't get it out of our heads."  It's the film's ending that leaves many people breathless.

Anne Thompson has a view of last night's two biggies, Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened?" and Sean McGinly's "The Great Buck Howard."

Both of these movies feel like tentative low-budget efforts on the part of folks who are accustomed to a much bigger playpen. They are turning to the indies and Sundance to give them a chance to escape from that studio prison.

But they don't escape enough. Levinson's film is far superior, and feeds off heart-felt personal experience. After the screening, buyers filed out into the night. Some will call Sloss and line up outside his Deer Valley condo. Others will take a pass.

The expected buying frenzy has been muted as buyers seem more cautious this year. Unless it's all about to explode.

Full post here.

Slamdance has announced their 2008 jury members and fireside chats.  Jury members include MicroCineFest director Skizz Cyzyk, IFP Managing Director Amy Dotson, Sidewalk fest Co-Founder Erik Jambor, Film Arts associate editor Laurie Koh, filmmaker Leah Meyerhoff, YouTube Manager of Film and Animation Sara Pollack, “Guatemalan Handshake” director Todd Rohal, “Without a King” director Michael Skolnik, and True/False fest Co-Founder David Wilson.

Fireside chat topics include “Alternative Funding Methods for Indies,” “New Technologies and Online Distribution,” “The Art, Craft and Business of Screenwriting,” and “New Production Technologies.”  All chats are free and held at the festival headquarters at the Treasure Mountain Inn.

Also, co-founder Dan Mirvish and East Coast Director Paul Rachman host a Hot Tub Social, where 2008 filmmakers soak with “a variety of surprise alumni.” 

For those not keen on stepping into a filmmaker soup, there are heated benches.

67 shorts out of 2000 submissions will compete for the Slamdance Grand Jury award.  Docs do better than last year, commented Slamdance's Sarah Diamond. As always, the 14th edition of Slamdance will run alongside Sundance at the Treasure Mountain Inn. 

The 67 were selected by Slamdance alum for five film competition categories:  Narrative Shorts Before Features, which screen before like-minded narratives in competition; Gallery Shorts, which are six one-hour short film programs; Documentary Shorts, which screen before documentaries in competition; the Polish Shorts Block, which was programmed by a festival jury in Krakow; and Animated Shorts.

There are also two out-of-comp categories - Anarchy Online Finalists and $99 Specials, the latter of which are films with $99 budgets given by Slamdance, for Slamdance alum.  The filmmakers have 99 days to deliver a 5-minute film.

Narrative feature competition is here.