My major discovery -- though it may yet win the Audience Prize at Sundance in the World Dramatic Competition, is the new “Divorce, Italian Style”. Or as my friend Gary Meyer said, maybe it’s more like the great Norman Lear’s “Divorce, American Style”. “Divorce, Sharia Style” is actually entitled “Halal Love (and Sex)” and depicts four tragi-comic interconnected stories about devout Muslim men and women as they try to manage their love lives and desires without breaking any of their religion’s rules.
“Halal Love (and Sex)” is hilarious and eye-opening, culturally open and sharing, and God knows, we all need a good laugh about what we spend 90% of our mental life wishing for…good sex.
The film opens in an elementary school classroom as the teacher begins to explain to the young girls how babies are made.
In Beirut, Awatef is recruiting a second wife to help her satisfy her overly loving husband. The jealous Mokhtar needs to find his ex-wife another man to be able to marry her again, for the 4th time. Lubna, freshly divorced, can finally marry her true love, but on a short-term contract only. Everyone tries to live and love, by the rules of Islam.
This is a sophisticated, bourgeous comedy, somewhat French in character but most likely 100% Lebanese in its warm humor and its depiction of love and sex in civilized society today. Assad Fouadkar, the writer and director and the two Razor Film producers Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner are all fully educated in the U.S. as well as their own respective countries of Lebanon, Australia and Germany and their understanding the meaning of cross-cultural brings special veritas to this comedy of manners.
Assad Fouladkar was born in Lebanon where he taught at the Lebanese American University before going to study filmmaking at Boston University. His thesis short, “God Have Mercy” was a finalist at the Student Academy Awards. Fouladkar’s debut feature, “When Maryam Spoke Out” won major awards worldwide and was selected as Lebanon’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Recently he has also directed the sitcom “Ragel W Sit Sitat”.
He originally took the treatment of his idea to Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors and while it attracted interest, no company came aboard definitively until the script was developed.
Roman Paul says, "We met Assad via the commissioning editor of 'Wadjda', Layaly Badr. Then we teamed up with Sundance to further develop the script."
That development took place with the Sundance Institute’s own Paul Federbush who felt it merited his personal efforts outside of any Lab. Assad was already an alumnus of the Sundance Institute. Being head of the international labs however, Paul had the protection of a firewall between the lab and the festival, so its ultimate selection for this year’s festival was not a result of his involvement or the lab’s involvement. The film was accepted on its own merits. The Guardian gave it four out of five stars. Assad will be interviewed by Newsweek Magazine; the BBC has taken note of the film and U.K. is now awakening to the film’s attractive merits. And I was not alone in my surprise at encountering such a fun film here in Sundance; I have heard many others buzzing about it too.
Producers Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner have been focused on international feature film production for worldwide distribution since forming Razor Film Produktion in 2002. Their movies have premiered and been awarded at major festivals all over the world. They have won two Golden Gloves and one Emmy, were nominated twice for an Academy Award and received the Bernd-Eichinger Award for Outstanding Achievements in Production at the German Film Awards in 2014. They have been codirectors of the International Productions Masterclass “Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris” at Filmakademie Ludwigsburg and La Femis Paris. Roman Paul studied at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and in Paris, the U.S., and Japan. He holds a Masters Degree in Theater, Film and Media Studies and American and German Literature. He started his career in the film business as an assistant of acquisitions for the arthouse distributor Prokino in Munich which is, I think, where I met him one year at the Hof Film Festival. In 1999 he took over as head of international acquisitions at Senator Film Distribution in Berlin and Los Angeles. He is a member of the European and the German Film Academy and Ace (Atelier du Cinema Europeen) initiated by the late Claudie Cheval.
Gerhard Meixner originally trained in economics before working in marketing. He went on to study film production and media studies at the Hochschule fur Fernsehen and Film in Munich and at UCLA in Los Angeles. He worked for MGM/ United Artists. After graduating, he worked as a freelance story editor and script reader for various companies in film and TV. He began working as a producer for Senator Films in Berlin before setting up Razor Film. He too is a member of the German and European Film Academy.
Razor’s past films, the Uruguayan coproduction "Mr. Kaplan" 2014, the groundbreaking "Wadjda" 2012, the sleeper of Tiff 2012 "The Patience Stone" (coprod), "The Future" 2011, "Goodbye First Love" 2011 (coprod), "Womb" 2010 (coprod), "Paradise Now" 2005, the debut film they coproduced, "The Wind Journeys" by Cirro Guerro (current nominee for Oscar Award Best Foreign Language Film "Embrace of the Serpent") 2009 prove that Roman and Gerhard have a sharp eye for talent and good material as well as the broad cross-cultural understanding which makes for international film successes.
"Halal Love" was not produced by Razor alone however. Sabbah Media is the Lebanese production company, a company established in the 1950s. Aside from producing they distribute for Dreamworks, Warner Bros., BBC and others and have two other media companies. Sadek and Ali Sabbah currently lead and manage the full line of the whole business, to preserve a leading market position and carry on their ancestors' dear mission: honoring the past and promoting the future.
It is refreshing to see a comedy from the region and particularly one that bucks traditional stereotypes and depicts strong women in control of their own lives within their respective relationships.
“Halal Love (and Sex)” is edgy but it just skirts the far edge of propriety and never oversteps what is halacha or kosher. I think Americans and other citizens of the world will get great enjoyment out of these human stories and it will soften the hard edges of mistrust growing around religious factions today much to the rest of our collective distress. Laughter is the best medicine and this provides plenty of laughs.
Sundance 2016 – World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Rt: 94min
International Premiere
Lebanon
Director: Assad Fouladkar
Writer(s): Assad Fouladkar
Producer: Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Sadek Sabbah
Starring: Darine Hamze, Rodrigue Sleiman, Mirna Moukarzel, Ali Sammoury, Zeinab Khadra, Hussein Mokadem, Fadia Abi Chahine
International sales agent: Films Distribution.
“Halal Love (and Sex)” is hilarious and eye-opening, culturally open and sharing, and God knows, we all need a good laugh about what we spend 90% of our mental life wishing for…good sex.
The film opens in an elementary school classroom as the teacher begins to explain to the young girls how babies are made.
In Beirut, Awatef is recruiting a second wife to help her satisfy her overly loving husband. The jealous Mokhtar needs to find his ex-wife another man to be able to marry her again, for the 4th time. Lubna, freshly divorced, can finally marry her true love, but on a short-term contract only. Everyone tries to live and love, by the rules of Islam.
This is a sophisticated, bourgeous comedy, somewhat French in character but most likely 100% Lebanese in its warm humor and its depiction of love and sex in civilized society today. Assad Fouadkar, the writer and director and the two Razor Film producers Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner are all fully educated in the U.S. as well as their own respective countries of Lebanon, Australia and Germany and their understanding the meaning of cross-cultural brings special veritas to this comedy of manners.
Assad Fouladkar was born in Lebanon where he taught at the Lebanese American University before going to study filmmaking at Boston University. His thesis short, “God Have Mercy” was a finalist at the Student Academy Awards. Fouladkar’s debut feature, “When Maryam Spoke Out” won major awards worldwide and was selected as Lebanon’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. Recently he has also directed the sitcom “Ragel W Sit Sitat”.
He originally took the treatment of his idea to Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors and while it attracted interest, no company came aboard definitively until the script was developed.
Roman Paul says, "We met Assad via the commissioning editor of 'Wadjda', Layaly Badr. Then we teamed up with Sundance to further develop the script."
That development took place with the Sundance Institute’s own Paul Federbush who felt it merited his personal efforts outside of any Lab. Assad was already an alumnus of the Sundance Institute. Being head of the international labs however, Paul had the protection of a firewall between the lab and the festival, so its ultimate selection for this year’s festival was not a result of his involvement or the lab’s involvement. The film was accepted on its own merits. The Guardian gave it four out of five stars. Assad will be interviewed by Newsweek Magazine; the BBC has taken note of the film and U.K. is now awakening to the film’s attractive merits. And I was not alone in my surprise at encountering such a fun film here in Sundance; I have heard many others buzzing about it too.
Producers Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner have been focused on international feature film production for worldwide distribution since forming Razor Film Produktion in 2002. Their movies have premiered and been awarded at major festivals all over the world. They have won two Golden Gloves and one Emmy, were nominated twice for an Academy Award and received the Bernd-Eichinger Award for Outstanding Achievements in Production at the German Film Awards in 2014. They have been codirectors of the International Productions Masterclass “Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris” at Filmakademie Ludwigsburg and La Femis Paris. Roman Paul studied at the Goethe University in Frankfurt and in Paris, the U.S., and Japan. He holds a Masters Degree in Theater, Film and Media Studies and American and German Literature. He started his career in the film business as an assistant of acquisitions for the arthouse distributor Prokino in Munich which is, I think, where I met him one year at the Hof Film Festival. In 1999 he took over as head of international acquisitions at Senator Film Distribution in Berlin and Los Angeles. He is a member of the European and the German Film Academy and Ace (Atelier du Cinema Europeen) initiated by the late Claudie Cheval.
Gerhard Meixner originally trained in economics before working in marketing. He went on to study film production and media studies at the Hochschule fur Fernsehen and Film in Munich and at UCLA in Los Angeles. He worked for MGM/ United Artists. After graduating, he worked as a freelance story editor and script reader for various companies in film and TV. He began working as a producer for Senator Films in Berlin before setting up Razor Film. He too is a member of the German and European Film Academy.
Razor’s past films, the Uruguayan coproduction "Mr. Kaplan" 2014, the groundbreaking "Wadjda" 2012, the sleeper of Tiff 2012 "The Patience Stone" (coprod), "The Future" 2011, "Goodbye First Love" 2011 (coprod), "Womb" 2010 (coprod), "Paradise Now" 2005, the debut film they coproduced, "The Wind Journeys" by Cirro Guerro (current nominee for Oscar Award Best Foreign Language Film "Embrace of the Serpent") 2009 prove that Roman and Gerhard have a sharp eye for talent and good material as well as the broad cross-cultural understanding which makes for international film successes.
"Halal Love" was not produced by Razor alone however. Sabbah Media is the Lebanese production company, a company established in the 1950s. Aside from producing they distribute for Dreamworks, Warner Bros., BBC and others and have two other media companies. Sadek and Ali Sabbah currently lead and manage the full line of the whole business, to preserve a leading market position and carry on their ancestors' dear mission: honoring the past and promoting the future.
It is refreshing to see a comedy from the region and particularly one that bucks traditional stereotypes and depicts strong women in control of their own lives within their respective relationships.
“Halal Love (and Sex)” is edgy but it just skirts the far edge of propriety and never oversteps what is halacha or kosher. I think Americans and other citizens of the world will get great enjoyment out of these human stories and it will soften the hard edges of mistrust growing around religious factions today much to the rest of our collective distress. Laughter is the best medicine and this provides plenty of laughs.
Sundance 2016 – World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Rt: 94min
International Premiere
Lebanon
Director: Assad Fouladkar
Writer(s): Assad Fouladkar
Producer: Roman Paul, Gerhard Meixner, Sadek Sabbah
Starring: Darine Hamze, Rodrigue Sleiman, Mirna Moukarzel, Ali Sammoury, Zeinab Khadra, Hussein Mokadem, Fadia Abi Chahine
International sales agent: Films Distribution.
- 1/28/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Thoughts in response the news that the Sundance Cinemas sold to Carmike for $36 million were shared on the Art House Convergence Group Mail. The buyout concerns members of the Art House Convergence because the Sundance Cinemas represents the second of three Art House “chains” (Landmark being the largest, Sundance second and Laemmle third)
Read the article this conversation is based upon in The Hollywood Reporter.
John Toner of Renew Theaters: Branding is such an important part of our world. And it turns out that the Sundance name was part of this sale:
"The deal does not provide for Carmike to expand the Sundance brand, but Carmike will have the ability, under a license arrangement, to operate the five theaters under the Sundance brand name."
Interesting. A major, mainstream chain will now fly the Sundance flag.
The Sundance Cinemas website says that they "bring the finest selection of art, independent, foreign and documentary film programming to cities across the country."
Hmmm.
Does the Carmike chain operate any purely art house style theaters? I don't know the answer to that question.
And I wonder if that license limits how Carmike can operate their Sundance Cinemas?
And will this sale affect the Sundance Institute brand in any way?
Or can people differentiate?
What do you think?
Anonymous:
Given Carmike’s history, it will be a race to see what happens first: they go bankrupt (again) or destroy the brand.
Gary Meyer:
Sundance was financed by Oaktree and it is not a surprise that they would wait for the moment when they thought they could make a profit. Though I was part of the original team developing a concept when General Cinema (remember them?) was the major partner, the theaters play a very different on screen menu than was proposed.
Redford wanted it to be pure art, one screen dedicated to documentaries 365 days a year, another showing experimental films. Never in a mall. The most "green" place you ever saw. An outdoor amphitheater on the roof for film and live shows, art gallery, filmmakers flown in.
Damn but we had fun coming up with ideas. We (Redford included) were kids..."Let's put on a show like nobody has ever seen." But the reality is when you spend the kinds of multi-millions they did to build their very nice places, you have to play studio blockbusters to pay the bills. Only the Sunset Sundance in Los Angeles (booked by Jan) is a true art house. The others play mostly commercial with a sprinkling of art.
And plaudits must go to Paul Richardson who carried out the mission of designing and building classy cinemas that often set a new standard. He oversees the look and feel but it is hard to imagine he will stay too log after the transition period.
As has been pointed out there have been many for-profit Sundance ventures. Redford dominates that brand and can do what he wants ---- though I doubt he is happy about Sundance cigarettes considering his vehement anti-tobacco position and who knows about Sundance Hottubs and Sundance Microprocessors amazingly owning the url http://www.sundance.com/.
Many non-profits bring in for-profits to operate businesses (the National Park system are a prime example) but museums, symphonies, operas generally do operate those shops and some of their restaurants (others are for profit concessionaires). And there are conventions just for running those shops. It is an art.
My wife Cathy points out:
All the nonprofits who have shops etc pay what is called Ubit, or Unrelated Business Income Tax.
Gary Meyer
Founder/Director
EatDrinkFilms.com
An Online Magazine & Presenting events throughout the year
Food Day / Film Day event - October 24, 2015
Feastival - Summer 2016
John Toner:
SunDance cigarettes!
Oh, yeah, in my Sundance hot tub, smoking a SunDance menthol. Livin’ La Vida Loca!
I guess the word Sundance, itself, is not completely trademarked.
Opens up all sorts of ideas for unauthorized spinoffs, doesn’t it?
Yes, the nonprofit Sundance Institute is separate from the for-profit Sundance Cinemas, which will be owned by Carmike.
Heck, the for-profit Sundance Channel/ TV was previously sold off and is now owned by AMC.
And then there’s the for-profit Sundance Catalog, the for-profit Sundance Resort, and I’m sure there are others…
Branding is about perception. But the nonprofit Institute brand does not seem to be affected by these for-profit cousins.
Does anyone else find that interesting?
Juliet Goodfriend, President at Bryn Mawr Film Institute:
Everything we know about branding is that it is a perception not necessarily affected by facts or by the relationship of the brand to the values trying to be communicated. Certainly becoming a commercial brand even into the exhibition area will affect adversely the Sundance brand. We can be sure that the customer will be confused at the very least.
Chapin Cutler, Boston Light & Sound:
The non-profit Sundance Institute and the commercial Sundance Cinemas have no connection except both being "owned" by Mr. Redford. This, the sale will have no effect on the Institute or any of its projects.
David Bordwell, Film Historian & Blogger:
It seems to me that the Sundance Cinemas and the Sundance Festival are very different in their taste orientations.
In Madison (where the firm opened the first dedicated Sundance venue) the theatre shows pretty much what the multiplexes are showing: “Black Mass”, “The Intern”, “Grandma”, “Sicario”, “Everest”, “Testament Of Youth”, and “The Martian”. “Princess Bride” is thrown in for extra.
The other Sundance Cinema I know, the one in Seattle, is only a little less standardized (has “Going Clear”, which we have yet to get), but still is mainstream.
https://www.sundancecinemas.com/seattle_film_info_reviews_discussion.html )
I saw “Gone Girl” there.
Some of these titles might screen at the Sundance Festival, because of its increasing industry orientation. But I see a real split between the festival’s tastes and the chain’s taste.
Incidentally, I’m told by our local Sundancers that they have no ability to program specifically for our community; the programming is done at another corporate level.
Interesting to compare the Sundance playlists with the Landmark ones. By and large—there are outliers here and there—they seem to me to have similar programming around the country.
http://www.landmarkreccinemas.com
They even have “Hotel Transylvania 2”.
One of the things I’ve learned from lurking on this list is that there can be a huge difference in terms of programming (or curating, your call) for non-profit and for-profit art houses.
Which only makes Tim League (Drafthouse) all the more heroic. How the devil can Alamo do what it does in Lubbock, Texas? And, Tim, if you’re reading this, why not look at Madison, Wisconsin?
Ps: I assume that one attractive aspect of Sundance to Carmike is the liquor licenses. True?
John Toner:
The Smithsonian, National Geographic, and the Metropolitan Museum are great examples of nonprofits pushing into for-profit territory.
But I think that most people would recognize that a gift shop is significantly different from the core mission of an institution.
A magazine is closer, but still different.
A TV channel is closer still. Those channels easily could be packaged as nonprofit, like a PBS or BBC operation.
But aren’t the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Cinemas really close in mission?
Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with for-profit art houses. In fact, I’m a little bit in awe. It’s sort of like tight rope walking without a nonprofit net.
Can anyone think of any other examples?
Gary Meyer:
The non-profit brand being used for for-profit purposes isn't unique to Sundance. Our friends here in DC at the Smithsonian, a government-chartered public non-profit, partnered with Showtime and CBS to run a for-profit cable channel, as do our friends here in DC at National Geographic, who partner with fucking Rupert Murdoch, who just also took over the iconic magazine :(.
Amy Heller, Milestone Films:
Not to mention that every museum has a shop that bears its name. The Metropolitan Museum also has stores at airports and Rockefeller Center.
John Toner:
I think that most people would recognize that a gift shop is significantly different from the core mission of an institution."
But for whatever it is worth, I found this online: "The mission of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store is to connect people to the world of art and to the museum experience. Just as visits to the Met are enjoyable, educational, and inspirational, our products evoke fond memories, invite moments of reflection, and foster day-to-day enjoyment and appreciation of art, artists, and cultures from around the globe and across the centuries. We work closely with art historians and master craftspeople to assure that each reproduction, adaptation, and publication meets the highest standards of design, quality, and value. All purchases—whether through our catalogue, online, or in person—help support the Museum and its programs."...
Read the article this conversation is based upon in The Hollywood Reporter.
John Toner of Renew Theaters: Branding is such an important part of our world. And it turns out that the Sundance name was part of this sale:
"The deal does not provide for Carmike to expand the Sundance brand, but Carmike will have the ability, under a license arrangement, to operate the five theaters under the Sundance brand name."
Interesting. A major, mainstream chain will now fly the Sundance flag.
The Sundance Cinemas website says that they "bring the finest selection of art, independent, foreign and documentary film programming to cities across the country."
Hmmm.
Does the Carmike chain operate any purely art house style theaters? I don't know the answer to that question.
And I wonder if that license limits how Carmike can operate their Sundance Cinemas?
And will this sale affect the Sundance Institute brand in any way?
Or can people differentiate?
What do you think?
Anonymous:
Given Carmike’s history, it will be a race to see what happens first: they go bankrupt (again) or destroy the brand.
Gary Meyer:
Sundance was financed by Oaktree and it is not a surprise that they would wait for the moment when they thought they could make a profit. Though I was part of the original team developing a concept when General Cinema (remember them?) was the major partner, the theaters play a very different on screen menu than was proposed.
Redford wanted it to be pure art, one screen dedicated to documentaries 365 days a year, another showing experimental films. Never in a mall. The most "green" place you ever saw. An outdoor amphitheater on the roof for film and live shows, art gallery, filmmakers flown in.
Damn but we had fun coming up with ideas. We (Redford included) were kids..."Let's put on a show like nobody has ever seen." But the reality is when you spend the kinds of multi-millions they did to build their very nice places, you have to play studio blockbusters to pay the bills. Only the Sunset Sundance in Los Angeles (booked by Jan) is a true art house. The others play mostly commercial with a sprinkling of art.
And plaudits must go to Paul Richardson who carried out the mission of designing and building classy cinemas that often set a new standard. He oversees the look and feel but it is hard to imagine he will stay too log after the transition period.
As has been pointed out there have been many for-profit Sundance ventures. Redford dominates that brand and can do what he wants ---- though I doubt he is happy about Sundance cigarettes considering his vehement anti-tobacco position and who knows about Sundance Hottubs and Sundance Microprocessors amazingly owning the url http://www.sundance.com/.
Many non-profits bring in for-profits to operate businesses (the National Park system are a prime example) but museums, symphonies, operas generally do operate those shops and some of their restaurants (others are for profit concessionaires). And there are conventions just for running those shops. It is an art.
My wife Cathy points out:
All the nonprofits who have shops etc pay what is called Ubit, or Unrelated Business Income Tax.
Gary Meyer
Founder/Director
EatDrinkFilms.com
An Online Magazine & Presenting events throughout the year
Food Day / Film Day event - October 24, 2015
Feastival - Summer 2016
John Toner:
SunDance cigarettes!
Oh, yeah, in my Sundance hot tub, smoking a SunDance menthol. Livin’ La Vida Loca!
I guess the word Sundance, itself, is not completely trademarked.
Opens up all sorts of ideas for unauthorized spinoffs, doesn’t it?
Yes, the nonprofit Sundance Institute is separate from the for-profit Sundance Cinemas, which will be owned by Carmike.
Heck, the for-profit Sundance Channel/ TV was previously sold off and is now owned by AMC.
And then there’s the for-profit Sundance Catalog, the for-profit Sundance Resort, and I’m sure there are others…
Branding is about perception. But the nonprofit Institute brand does not seem to be affected by these for-profit cousins.
Does anyone else find that interesting?
Juliet Goodfriend, President at Bryn Mawr Film Institute:
Everything we know about branding is that it is a perception not necessarily affected by facts or by the relationship of the brand to the values trying to be communicated. Certainly becoming a commercial brand even into the exhibition area will affect adversely the Sundance brand. We can be sure that the customer will be confused at the very least.
Chapin Cutler, Boston Light & Sound:
The non-profit Sundance Institute and the commercial Sundance Cinemas have no connection except both being "owned" by Mr. Redford. This, the sale will have no effect on the Institute or any of its projects.
David Bordwell, Film Historian & Blogger:
It seems to me that the Sundance Cinemas and the Sundance Festival are very different in their taste orientations.
In Madison (where the firm opened the first dedicated Sundance venue) the theatre shows pretty much what the multiplexes are showing: “Black Mass”, “The Intern”, “Grandma”, “Sicario”, “Everest”, “Testament Of Youth”, and “The Martian”. “Princess Bride” is thrown in for extra.
The other Sundance Cinema I know, the one in Seattle, is only a little less standardized (has “Going Clear”, which we have yet to get), but still is mainstream.
https://www.sundancecinemas.com/seattle_film_info_reviews_discussion.html )
I saw “Gone Girl” there.
Some of these titles might screen at the Sundance Festival, because of its increasing industry orientation. But I see a real split between the festival’s tastes and the chain’s taste.
Incidentally, I’m told by our local Sundancers that they have no ability to program specifically for our community; the programming is done at another corporate level.
Interesting to compare the Sundance playlists with the Landmark ones. By and large—there are outliers here and there—they seem to me to have similar programming around the country.
http://www.landmarkreccinemas.com
They even have “Hotel Transylvania 2”.
One of the things I’ve learned from lurking on this list is that there can be a huge difference in terms of programming (or curating, your call) for non-profit and for-profit art houses.
Which only makes Tim League (Drafthouse) all the more heroic. How the devil can Alamo do what it does in Lubbock, Texas? And, Tim, if you’re reading this, why not look at Madison, Wisconsin?
Ps: I assume that one attractive aspect of Sundance to Carmike is the liquor licenses. True?
John Toner:
The Smithsonian, National Geographic, and the Metropolitan Museum are great examples of nonprofits pushing into for-profit territory.
But I think that most people would recognize that a gift shop is significantly different from the core mission of an institution.
A magazine is closer, but still different.
A TV channel is closer still. Those channels easily could be packaged as nonprofit, like a PBS or BBC operation.
But aren’t the Sundance Film Festival and the Sundance Cinemas really close in mission?
Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with for-profit art houses. In fact, I’m a little bit in awe. It’s sort of like tight rope walking without a nonprofit net.
Can anyone think of any other examples?
Gary Meyer:
The non-profit brand being used for for-profit purposes isn't unique to Sundance. Our friends here in DC at the Smithsonian, a government-chartered public non-profit, partnered with Showtime and CBS to run a for-profit cable channel, as do our friends here in DC at National Geographic, who partner with fucking Rupert Murdoch, who just also took over the iconic magazine :(.
Amy Heller, Milestone Films:
Not to mention that every museum has a shop that bears its name. The Metropolitan Museum also has stores at airports and Rockefeller Center.
John Toner:
I think that most people would recognize that a gift shop is significantly different from the core mission of an institution."
But for whatever it is worth, I found this online: "The mission of The Metropolitan Museum of Art Store is to connect people to the world of art and to the museum experience. Just as visits to the Met are enjoyable, educational, and inspirational, our products evoke fond memories, invite moments of reflection, and foster day-to-day enjoyment and appreciation of art, artists, and cultures from around the globe and across the centuries. We work closely with art historians and master craftspeople to assure that each reproduction, adaptation, and publication meets the highest standards of design, quality, and value. All purchases—whether through our catalogue, online, or in person—help support the Museum and its programs."...
- 10/14/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Art House Convergence is taking theatrical exhibition and distribution to the next level. The Ahc members’ e-letter recently had a most interesting view of programming for shorts. I believe “The Animation Show of Shows” offers the very first look at the likely Oscar-nominated animated shorts - before anyone else gets to see them.
Carlos Aguilar, SydneysBuzz correspondent reviewed them here .
The letters about this reveal their point of origination:
Dear Ahc,
I am pleased to present a new animation compilation called “The Animation Show Of Shows”.
This compilation is a blessed return to the varied and sophisticated animator's art that was new and popular 30 years ago.
The compilation is curated by Ron Diamond who is a recognized expert in international animation. Ron has presented “The Animation Show of Shows” annually for 16 years to animation students and professionals from the top studios. The 162 shorts that Ron has curated include 14 Academy Award® winners, as well as 37 nominees, and other films that have won major prizes at Cannes, Annecy, Zagreb, Ottawa, and Berlin. Ron shows his compilation annually in the 6,500 seat theater at Comi-Con. This work has been a labor of love for Ron. He wants the world to love and understand the artistry and power of the animated short film.
For the first time ever, The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows will play publicly in cinemas across the U.S.
This film was a huge Kickstarter success - far exceeding the original ask. Animation fans are rabid fans and will come out to see these shorts in force.
We premiered in L.A. on Sept. 24 at The Arclight, Hollywood.
Ron has asked me to go to all of the indie theaters first for this compilation, so that they'll have their chance at the huge grosses that these shorts can bring in.
Please let me know if we you would like more information.
Thanks,
Susanne
Take a look at a sampling of some of the shorts that await in the full program: Here
Gary Meyer wrote:
Finally a chance for a really high quality animation show again. Ron was part of the team that created the Tournee of Animation and Animation Celebrations shows we packaged during the 70-s-90s [with Terry Thoren]. He works with the world's best animators and has been taking a package around for private screenings for animators for several years. He has finally decided to bring a new show to rest of us. Between the shorts are brief interviews with some of the animators...sort of like DVD extras on the big screen.
If you do well with the Oscar animated shorts this should be at least as good at the polar opposite tie of the year.
And you know it won’t be playing at the multiplex down the road.
Susanne added:
I'm delighted to share with you that we have had a very positive response to the “The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows”. Those programmers and the press who have seen it have been enchanted by this feature presentation of 11 curated international animated short films.
Since I mentioned the Oscars, it might also be reassuring to some to know that all of the press and promotional materials for this program have been submitted to The Academy and that they have been approved as acceptable.
Carlos Aguilar, SydneysBuzz correspondent reviewed them here .
The letters about this reveal their point of origination:
Dear Ahc,
I am pleased to present a new animation compilation called “The Animation Show Of Shows”.
This compilation is a blessed return to the varied and sophisticated animator's art that was new and popular 30 years ago.
The compilation is curated by Ron Diamond who is a recognized expert in international animation. Ron has presented “The Animation Show of Shows” annually for 16 years to animation students and professionals from the top studios. The 162 shorts that Ron has curated include 14 Academy Award® winners, as well as 37 nominees, and other films that have won major prizes at Cannes, Annecy, Zagreb, Ottawa, and Berlin. Ron shows his compilation annually in the 6,500 seat theater at Comi-Con. This work has been a labor of love for Ron. He wants the world to love and understand the artistry and power of the animated short film.
For the first time ever, The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows will play publicly in cinemas across the U.S.
This film was a huge Kickstarter success - far exceeding the original ask. Animation fans are rabid fans and will come out to see these shorts in force.
We premiered in L.A. on Sept. 24 at The Arclight, Hollywood.
Ron has asked me to go to all of the indie theaters first for this compilation, so that they'll have their chance at the huge grosses that these shorts can bring in.
Please let me know if we you would like more information.
Thanks,
Susanne
Take a look at a sampling of some of the shorts that await in the full program: Here
Gary Meyer wrote:
Finally a chance for a really high quality animation show again. Ron was part of the team that created the Tournee of Animation and Animation Celebrations shows we packaged during the 70-s-90s [with Terry Thoren]. He works with the world's best animators and has been taking a package around for private screenings for animators for several years. He has finally decided to bring a new show to rest of us. Between the shorts are brief interviews with some of the animators...sort of like DVD extras on the big screen.
If you do well with the Oscar animated shorts this should be at least as good at the polar opposite tie of the year.
And you know it won’t be playing at the multiplex down the road.
Susanne added:
I'm delighted to share with you that we have had a very positive response to the “The 17th Annual Animation Show of Shows”. Those programmers and the press who have seen it have been enchanted by this feature presentation of 11 curated international animated short films.
Since I mentioned the Oscars, it might also be reassuring to some to know that all of the press and promotional materials for this program have been submitted to The Academy and that they have been approved as acceptable.
- 9/30/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Gary Meyer’s blog EatDrinkFilms captures three of life’s great pleasures in a single dose. I am very pleased to have one of my favorite tales from my book excerpted there now.
Picture this: it is the first film you’ve financed yourself. You and your team are in a foreign land. Your money has been cut off and your financier picks you up, refusing to speak, and takes you up into the mountains where you are required to disrobe.
“One trait that helps producers is an imagination that can take you to the worst-case scenario, so that you can guard against it. I am prone to many dark thoughts, but I hadn’t anticipated this.”
Read the excerpt here.
Tweet...
Picture this: it is the first film you’ve financed yourself. You and your team are in a foreign land. Your money has been cut off and your financier picks you up, refusing to speak, and takes you up into the mountains where you are required to disrobe.
“One trait that helps producers is an imagination that can take you to the worst-case scenario, so that you can guard against it. I am prone to many dark thoughts, but I hadn’t anticipated this.”
Read the excerpt here.
Tweet...
- 12/6/2014
- by Ted Hope
- Hope for Film
The 54th Edition of the Cartagena Film Festival has come to an end and the winners have been announced. The indisputable protagonists this year were Marmato by Mark Grieco, winning three awards, Rubén Mendoza's Dust on the Tongue, and the Chilean film To Kill a Man by Alejandro Fernández Almendras, with two awards each. Surely these three films and several other winners will become important works at other upcoming festivals since many of them have already done well at Sundance, Rotterdam, and Berlin.
Official Competition: Narrative Feature
Members of the Jury: Wendy Mitchell - Jose Maria Riba - Pawel Pawlikowski
Best Film: Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la Lengua) by Rubén Mendoza (Colombia- Winner of $15K
Special Jury Prize: The Third Side of the River (La Tercera Orilla) by Celina Murga (Argentina, The Netherlands, Germany)
Best Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras for To Kill a Man (Matar a un hombre) (Chile, France)
Best Actor: Fernando Bacilio for El Mudo (Peru, Mexico, France)
Fipresci
Members of the Jury: Carlos Heredero - Hiroaki Saitô - Michal Oleszczyk
Best Film: To Kill a Man by Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile, France)
Other Awards
Oclacc Award (Catholic Organization of Communications for Latin America and the Caribbean)
Special Mention: Mateo by María Gamboa (Colombia
Official Competition: Colombian Cinema
Members of the Jury: David Melo - Alissa Simon - Daniela Michel
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA) Winner of the I.Sat Award for $30K and the Cinecolor Award for $11k in deliveries
Special Jury Prize: Mateo by María Gamboa
Best Director: Rubén Mendoza for Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la lengua). Winner of Hangar Films Award for $30K in film equipment to produce his next film.
Additional Awards
Audience Award Colombia: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of $15K
Official Competition: Documentary
Members of the Jury: Gary Meyer- Luis Ospina - Laurie Collyer
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of the Cinecolor Award for $13Kin post-production services.
Special Jury Prize: What Now? Remind Me (E Agora? Lembra-me) by Joaquim Pinto (Portugal)
Best Director: Justin Webster for I Will Be Murdered (Seré asesinado) (Spain, Denmark, U.K.)
Official Competition: Short Film
Members of the Jury: Oswaldo Osorio - Pacho Bottia - Denis de la Roca
Best Short Film: Statues (Estatuas) by Roberto Fiesco (Mexico). Winner of a professional Sony camera and $3K from Cinecolor in post-production services for his next project.
Special Jury Prize: About a Month (Pouco Mais de um Mês) by André Novais Oliveira (Brazil)
Best Director: Manuel Camacho Bustillo for Blackout chapter 4 "A Call to Neverland" (Blackout capítulo 4 "Una llamada a Neverland") (Mexico). Winner of a Sony photographic camera.
Gems
Members of the Jury:Mauricio Reina - Manuel Kalmanowitz - Sofia Gomez Gonzalez
Best Film: Like Father, Like Son by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan). Winner of the Rcn Award for $50 to promote the release of the film in Colombia.
Special Jury Prize: Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
New Creators
Members of the Jury: Javier Mejía- Diego Vega - Cynthia García Calvo
Best Short Film: Alén by Natalia Imery (Universidad del Valle).
Runner-up: The Earth's Whisper (El murmullo de la tierra) by Alejandro Daza (Universidad Nacional)...
Official Competition: Narrative Feature
Members of the Jury: Wendy Mitchell - Jose Maria Riba - Pawel Pawlikowski
Best Film: Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la Lengua) by Rubén Mendoza (Colombia- Winner of $15K
Special Jury Prize: The Third Side of the River (La Tercera Orilla) by Celina Murga (Argentina, The Netherlands, Germany)
Best Director: Alejandro Fernández Almendras for To Kill a Man (Matar a un hombre) (Chile, France)
Best Actor: Fernando Bacilio for El Mudo (Peru, Mexico, France)
Fipresci
Members of the Jury: Carlos Heredero - Hiroaki Saitô - Michal Oleszczyk
Best Film: To Kill a Man by Alejandro Fernández Almendras (Chile, France)
Other Awards
Oclacc Award (Catholic Organization of Communications for Latin America and the Caribbean)
Special Mention: Mateo by María Gamboa (Colombia
Official Competition: Colombian Cinema
Members of the Jury: David Melo - Alissa Simon - Daniela Michel
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA) Winner of the I.Sat Award for $30K and the Cinecolor Award for $11k in deliveries
Special Jury Prize: Mateo by María Gamboa
Best Director: Rubén Mendoza for Dust on the Tongue (Tierra en la lengua). Winner of Hangar Films Award for $30K in film equipment to produce his next film.
Additional Awards
Audience Award Colombia: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of $15K
Official Competition: Documentary
Members of the Jury: Gary Meyer- Luis Ospina - Laurie Collyer
Best Film: Marmato by Mark Grieco (Colombia, USA). Winner of the Cinecolor Award for $13Kin post-production services.
Special Jury Prize: What Now? Remind Me (E Agora? Lembra-me) by Joaquim Pinto (Portugal)
Best Director: Justin Webster for I Will Be Murdered (Seré asesinado) (Spain, Denmark, U.K.)
Official Competition: Short Film
Members of the Jury: Oswaldo Osorio - Pacho Bottia - Denis de la Roca
Best Short Film: Statues (Estatuas) by Roberto Fiesco (Mexico). Winner of a professional Sony camera and $3K from Cinecolor in post-production services for his next project.
Special Jury Prize: About a Month (Pouco Mais de um Mês) by André Novais Oliveira (Brazil)
Best Director: Manuel Camacho Bustillo for Blackout chapter 4 "A Call to Neverland" (Blackout capítulo 4 "Una llamada a Neverland") (Mexico). Winner of a Sony photographic camera.
Gems
Members of the Jury:Mauricio Reina - Manuel Kalmanowitz - Sofia Gomez Gonzalez
Best Film: Like Father, Like Son by Hirokazu Koreeda (Japan). Winner of the Rcn Award for $50 to promote the release of the film in Colombia.
Special Jury Prize: Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen (Singapore)
New Creators
Members of the Jury: Javier Mejía- Diego Vega - Cynthia García Calvo
Best Short Film: Alén by Natalia Imery (Universidad del Valle).
Runner-up: The Earth's Whisper (El murmullo de la tierra) by Alejandro Daza (Universidad Nacional)...
- 3/22/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Greetings from Paradise. My blessed good fortune -- actually Steven Raphael, founder of Required Viewing.net (producer rep, publicist, theatrical distributor) -- invited me to join a small group going Costa Careyes, Mexico where the fourth edition of Infiniti ArteCareyes Film & Arts is taking place March 5th through 9th.
Situated on the Pacific coast of Mexico, a lush tropical forest in the state of Jalisco (a four hour drive from Guadalajara where the Guadalajara Film Festival will soon be held), about an hour and a half north of Manzanilla and south of Puerta Vallarta, Costa Careyes’ beauty defies description. But I am going to try to describe all that happens in the four days we spent here: nightly open air feature film screenings, contemporary art exhibitions, a charity auction, a live music program, matinee screenings and workshops held in venues sharing the land with huge permanent art installations in a tropical mountain terrain by artists including Retna and Jeffrey Sharf, two muralists whose West Hollywood Library murals illustrate an extraordinary coincidental synchronicity which continued throughout this long weekend.
In our little group, John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, here for the second time, is on the board of Arte Careyes. His husband Paul Louis Maillard, an executive of Kaiser Permanente, spent hours studying for his Harvard Leadership Course where he will spend the next two weeks. The documentary filmmaking and married team Jarrett Engle and Cort Tramontin and David Zellner, half of the Zellner Brothers filmmaking team whom John invited to present Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the sleeper of Sundance which went on to show in the Forum of the Berlinale, were also part of our little group which shared a stunning four bedroom house, built in an extravagant Mexican style incorporating inside and outside living. David and I were consigned to our own little guest houses just down a flight of stairs. All our windows looked out onto the ocean which at night was domed by stars in an equatorial splendor, bright and disconcerting, different because we are so much closer to the equator. I was reminded of that marvelous Ray Bradbury short story, Nightfall.
Our late evening talks and early morning breakfasts together with Steven and John telling great stories were such fun and also deepened my appreciation and knowledge of the special part of “the biz” we are in.
John Cooper has been a member of the Sundance Film Festival programming staff since 1989 and assumed the role of Festival Director in April of 2009 after serving as the Sundance Film Festival's Director of Programming since 2003. Parenthetically, he is the only gay head of a major film festival, an achievement no woman can claim…yet.
His early work in theater, ranging from performance to design, took him to New York City. By chance, he volunteered at the Institute's Summer Labs in 1989 and fell in love with the process and energy of Sundance (and with his future husband). He returned to California to become part of the Festival programming team, which at that time consisted of two people. In the Festival's early years, Cooper created the short film program and quickly transitioned into programming documentaries and feature films.
In recent years, he took the lead in developing the Institute's online presence, which has garnered two Webby Awards. As Festival Director, he oversees creative direction of the Festival and has final decision on all films and events.
Other work includes guest curator or juror at major film festivals around the world. From 1995-1998 Cooper served as Programming Director of Outfest, a Los Angeles festival held annually in July, and until 2002 served on the Outfest Board of Directors.
John Cooper was a dancer before he became director of Sundance and though he did not dance for us, his performance skills are top. Watching him navigate as our “house father” was worth the trip.
The purpose of this art, music and film event as described by its founder Filippo Brignone and the film curator, Marina Stavenhagen, is to link creative people across disciplines – pictorial and plastic arts, music, design, literature and filmmakers in dialogues that will result in greater creativity for the good of the community and beyond.
Our host Filippo Brignone, who has been working and reworking this event for four years is intent as well about preserving the nature of the area along with incorporating the most progressive education in science and math as well as the liberal arts in a system which includes the interactions between the 100 + families who are creating a community and the children of the families in the town who have been here since time immemorial.
Our conversations around all these subjects flowed freely among the guests over the past four days.
The patriarch of the family, Gian Franco Brignone, the 86+year-old Italian onetime banker with an artistic sensibility and a love of nature, bought eight miles of coastline with more than 5,000 hectares of coastal forestland in 1968 and began inviting friends like Bill and Melinda Gates and Paris Hilton to visit.
Bignone père and his two sons, Filippo and Georgio, have continued to build Careyes into a glamorous residential community and resort with accommodations ranging from cozy beach bungalows to “castles,” like the six-bedroom, sunshine-yellow aerie Casa Oriente where we stayed. Filippo also took us to his home, equally beautiful and mystic in its nature.
There’s also a small hotel, a contemporary art gallery, – curated by Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum Los Angeles Hammer Museum curators Ann Philbin and Laurie Firstenburg, who is also creating a tropical Marfa, were instrumental in organizing both Pacific Standard Time, a citywide showcase of Los Angeles art of the 1950s and 60s and Laxart are curating the art side of this community. More on the art of Careyes can be read here.
This community also contains a world class polo club overseen by Giorgio, five restaurants, and 8 glorious miles of coastline which Felippo plans to allow families and individuals to build on if they fit certain qualifications.
Filippo, his brother Giorgio and PR and Communications executive Viviana Dean operate this entire enterprise under the auspices of The ?! Careyes Foundation. Btw, the Foundation is looking for a general manager who will know how to share the vision of what they are building here. Filippo himself is a bon vivant with an enormous curiosity and the executive ability to develop his vision. From speaking with him, my perception of whom they would grant residency to would be those the ability to enjoy the life that is here in all its aspects. Not only partying (which is extraordinary) and conversational abilities, but intelligence, an excellence in achievement, originality, a compassion which includes curiosity and the wish to include, discuss and implement all aspects of what makes life better for all.
The ?! Careyes Foundation's mission is to catalyze innovative programs related to education, health, sport, ecology and art in order to improve the well-being of local communities along the coast. Over 30 years of individual philanthropic efforts in Careyes, Mexico, and the surrounding villages along the Mexican Pacific Coast are consolidated in The ?! Careyes Foundation. From Perula to Agua Caliente, the region of initial concentration includes a population of approximately 6,000 people. In 2013, The ?! Careyes Foundation registered as a non-profit public charity with 501(c)3 tax designation in the United States in order to make its efforts in the region more accessible and impactful. The Foundation is in the process of obtaining a similar status in Mexico and in other countries over time.
The Foundation is overseen by a an Executive Board over which our host Filippo presides and a Board of Trustees and Advisors with expertise in each of the Foundation’s concentrated areas — community, sea, land, and arts. The Executive Committees determine the scope of projects, initiating proposed ideas that prove to be transformational, scalable, and sustainable. Members of the international Honorary Board serve as global ambassadors for the Foundation and its work, supporting programmatic and philanthropic efforts.
On the Executive Board:
Executive Board Secretary, Emanuela Brignone Cattaneo, is an architect who has spent most of her life travelling to Careyes, and lending her design vision to create a large new urban space, the Plaza Caballeros del Sol, including a Sanctuary and the Contemporary Art Space of Careyes. She is also dedicating herself in the restoration of many historical Italian buildings from the Xii century transforming them into Museums such as the Modern Art Gallery of Genova or Palazzo Lomellino listed as a Unesco world heritage. Emanuela holds a Ma from Colombia University in NY and serves as a Trustee of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, the Wolfsonian Foundation in Miami and Genoa. Emanuela is an Advisor of Airc , the Italian Association for Cancer Research.
Board Treasurer, Isabel SantoTomás, is Vice President of Investments for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management focusing on portfolio management for ultra high net worth individuals, family offices, and endowments. She joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 and has 26 years of industry experience. Isabel received her Bachelors degree at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has spent the last 25 years in New York City and is relocating to Miami, Florida with her two children. She has been a part of the Careyes community for over 20 years.
Jonathan Congdon, co-founder of Beachbody LLC, has been instrumental in shaping the mission of the company, expanding its vision and growth, and overseeing media distribution channels and International business to increase the Beachbody market worldwide. After starting his career at Procter & Gamble, Jon traveled the world “on walkabout” before teaching science for more than three years in California. In 1995, he launched an educational consulting firm, but soon felt the call back to the world of marketing entrepreneurship. Jon was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year on two boards, including his second term on the Electronic Retailing Association (Era) Board of Directors. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds a degree in political science with dual emphases in American Constitutional Law and International Relations. Jon has been part of the Careyes community for over 10 years.
The fifth member of the Executive Board, Guillermo Barnetche Davison, is also Chairman of Grupo Profesional Planeacion y Proyectos, S.A. de C.V. (Pypsa) where he is in charge of the leadership and operating direction of multiple projects in the industrial, agricultural, sea, infrastructure, and building sectors. Guillermo received his Civil Engineering certification at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before getting a Masters in Hydraulic Resource Planning at Georgia Technology Institute and studying Economy and Systems Engineering at Stanford University. He has more than 40 years of professional experience in civil engineering and is a long-standing member of the Careyes community.
On the Honorary Board (a list in progress):
Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Daniela Michel, Director of the Morelia Film Festival, Gian Franco Brignone the Founder & Visionary of Costa Careyes, Johan Van Lengen, The “Barefoot Architect”, Founder of Tiba School Brazil and our own John Cooper, the Director of the Sundance Film Festival.
The Advisory Board is made up of:
Jennifer Arcenaux, Director, External Relations Sundance Film Festival, Arceneaux previously served as Director of Development for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Moca). During her seven-year tenure at Moca, Arceneaux cultivated philanthropic relationships and fostered the careers of artists and curators in the Los Angeles art community. Arceneaux also launched the successful Moca Now communications and development campaign to increase grassroots engagement in fundraising and create transparent communication with Moca members and patrons. The campaign evolved into the Moca New initiative raising more than $70 million in operating and endowment support. Prior to joining Moca, Arceneaux served as Director of Development at the Accelerated School in Los Angeles where she executed a $60 million capital campaign for a new campus and community center. Her professional experience spans over ten years working with non-profits and community-based arts organizations including Rand Corporation, Inner-City Arts, CityLife, A.R.T.S. Inc., The Housing Rights Center and more recently in a board and advisory capacity with the Watts House Project, and Laxart.
Sarah Ezzy is a Director of the Global Philanthropy Group. As a Director at Global Philanthropy Group, Sarah has advised a range of high-profile individuals and corporate clients on their philanthropic strategies. She has worked on a variety of issues including global education for girls, poverty alleviation, domestic homelessness, youth and fitness, and sustainable agriculture. She was previously with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization Practice where she worked with international organizations, developing country governments, and domestic policymakers and NGOs on a range of development issues. Sarah holds a BA in French Studies and Geography from Dartmouth College and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She speaks fluent French and is co-founder of Sadiq, a non-profit organization created to support Iraqi refugees in the Middle East.
Douglas K. Freeman, J.D., LL.M. the Senior Managing Director of First Foundation Advisors, Director of First Foundation Inc. and Director of the First Foundation Bank. First Foundation provides strategic planning and organizational management advice for business, nonprofit, foundation, and family clients. He brings to First Foundation clients his experience gained as a consultant to nearly 300 family foundations, support organizations and public charities throughout the United States. Mr. Freeman is a noted retired tax attorney and founder of the Los Angeles based law firm, Freeman, Freeman & Smiley, Llp. From 2005 through 2008, he was recognized by Worth magazine as among the 100 top attorneys in the United States. In 1999, he was featured by Bloomberg Financial as one of the nation’s leading estate planning attorneys. He is the founder of National Philanthropy Day, proclaimed by Congress and celebrated throughout the United States since 1986. Mr. Freeman serves as a director of family foundations, independent foundations, and public charities. He is the past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of California, Irvine Foundation and chairman of its $1 billion campaign. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Orange County’s Pacific Symphony and a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Southern California Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy.
Mr. Freeman is the author of three books and over 30 articles and treatises on philanthropy and wealth planning. His new book, published in 2009, co-authored with Dr. Lee Hausner, Ph.D., is entitled “The Legacy Family… The Definitive Guide to Creating a Successful Multigenerational Family“. He is the co-author with Dr. Hausner of a leading treatise for family foundations, entitled “A Founder’s Guide to the Family Foundation“. He speaks throughout the country on behalf of professional associations, such as the Council on Foundations, the Association of Small Foundations, and the American Bar Association. He is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A. with Distinction, 1967), University of California at Los Angeles (J.D., 1970), and the University of San Diego (LL.M. in Taxation, 1984). Until retirement, Mr. Freeman was designated a Certified Specialist in Taxation under the State Bar of California.
Members of the Board of Trustees includes members like (list in progress):
Adam Lindemann – Art Collector & Advisor ; Alejandro Ramirez Magaña – CEO of Cinepolis ; Eric Goode – Founder & President of Turtle Conservancy; Esthella Provas – Art Advisor, Careyes ArtCommittee for special projects ; Eugenio Lopez – Collector, Jumex Collection; Patricia Marshall- Art Advisor, Careyes Art Committee; Piero Golia – Artist ; Serena Cattaneo Adorno – Director, Gagosian Gallery Paris, CareyesArtCommittee.
Continuing a trend of coincidences occurring for me on this incredible journey, out of the blue, at the first cocktail party held at this event, there appeared Christian Halsey Solomon, the son of a twenty-plus-year resident of Careyes, Michael Jay Solomon, whom I have known since the days when we were in our 20s when he set up McA Television in Latin America and personally bought prize winning shorts from the company where I was the acquisitions person. Years later, when I was buying feature films for Lorimar, his company Telepictures bought Lorimar. Christian and I also go way back to the days when he was 23, and I was working for the first time in independent international sales. We worked together in Milan, Italy at the Mifed film market with someone who has long since left the film scene. As if that were not enough of coincidences, my own brother Barry was the photographer for his first wedding.
Michael and Luciana had bought land here twenty years ago where they built their dream house. It is now home to Christian, his wife and two beautiful children who attend the incredible school here. Cuixmala School is a private non-profit school teaching core academic subjects in a bilingual environment while it emphasizes experiential learning about nature and the world; the students ride horses, raise their own food and have guests from every field from buddhists to biologists from the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve nearby. Christian showed me his home which was two doors down from our own Casa Oriente (next door to Seal) and he and his wife invited me back to visit and stay a while to write.
After each screening we were served delicious locally grown lunches and dinners. One wonderful night at the "ranchito", there was an art show of the old bones of animals who have died in this area where they are left out for the buzzards to pick clean. These bones, as if they were a precious as the fur and leather of beasts were decorated like Versace luxury items and showcased as art in the former stables of this former ranch. The best was the unicorn, a cow skeleton, whose short ribs look like they must have been really delicious before they were cleaned of all meat. This unicorn however, was missing its single horn. What a funny art show. The first two stalls looked like rooms where people were living, only the inhabitants were selling the furniture as art. Little stools made in traditional simple peasant style, were recreated in heavy marble. You can sit on them, or use them as little side tables. And shipping them home is not a problem.
Elegant community meals put us at the table one night where I sat next to Guillermo Arriaga, his wife, son and daughter. He was being honored with a tribute and he showed his short film The Blood of God (La Sangre de Dios) from the anthology which he produced as well, Words with Gods. Another coincidence is that he had just finished his short film Texas from Rio, I Love You, the franchise of our good friend Emmanuel Benbihy with whom we worked on Paris, Je t’aime and New York, I Love You. The Arriagas’ son and daughter are students at Mexico's private Ibero-American University’s School of Communications where Arriagas himself was a student and then a professor for twenty years and where is wife was a student of his. Coincidently that is also where he met his future partner Alejandro González Iñárritu with whom he worked on Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, and where Marina Stavenhagen and her sisters and brothers are alumni as well as the 2013 Academy Award Winner for Cinematography, Emmanuel Lubezki.
Sr. Arriaga and I spoke quite a while - first about hunting which was not a topic I could speak much about beyond expressing surprise on hearing he was a hunter. But when we spoke about my Spanish and then about words and their derivations and meanings in Spanish and English, I became more actively interested. What I only realized afterward was that the conversation about words could have developed into the issue over words that ruptured his relationship with Iñárritu. The word for screenwriter in Spanish is objectionable to him because the word "guionista" means a tour guide or a writer of travel books and so a screenwriter accredited as “guionista” is merely a tour guide, putting up signposts for the director aka "The Auteur" in French parlance. I agree that the director alone is not the “auteur” of the film. Not only is a superbly written screenplay (which Arriagas writes often in close collaboration with his brother-in-law) an absolute necessity if a film is to have any chance to excel, but the producer who turns on the lights and turns them off and produces the money both before shooting and after shooting via distribution deals is required for a film’s success. Personally we think the producer and writer are the "Auteurs". The Auteur Theory proposed by Francois Truffaut in Cahiers de Cinema and promulgated in the U.S. by Peter Bogdanovich is merely a theory and not etched in marble. Pity about their falling out after their collaboraton on three greatest films in new Mexican cinema. But we did not get into all that.
The curator of the ArteCareyes film program, Marina Stavenhagen, also graduated from the Ibero-American University. Marina and I spoke the next day more about this event, which by its location and by design must stay small (around 300 - 400 people). Her thoughts concern creating an artist residency program, perhaps a think tank on a different topic every year such as music for film or producing along with two or three master classes, mentorships and inviting young filmmakers with shorts who can benefit from the intimate setting.
Marina Stavenhagen is a screenwriter and film developer with over 20 years of professional work in Mexico. Her work as a writer includes several short film and feature film scripts and has obtained several awards and recognitions. Marina has been a teacher, counselor and script consultant with many public and private Mexican institutions, and a jury in various national and international film festivals.
As a promoter of film, she has actively participated in the organization of exhibitions and film festivals in Mexico. She has been president of the Association of Women in Film and Television (Wift-Mexico), and was Director General of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (Imcine). She is Member of the Board of Advisors of the Phoenix Film Ibero American Award and the Academic Council of the Bergman Cathedra, of the Unam University. For her work in promoting quality films and cultural exchange, Marina was honored by the Government of the French Republic with the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
After leaving her six year term as the head of Imcine, Marina was invited to create an interesting film program by Filippo Brignone while she returns to screenwriting.
Coincidently (again!), Marina’s sister is Andrea Stavenhagen, who was the head of the Iberoamerican Coproduction Meeting and Director of Industry at Ficg (Guadalajara Film Festival) until August 2013. She also co-directed the Morelia Lab Workshop for Young Producers in Latin America at the Morelia Film Festival and is now the San Sebastian Film Festival's new delegate for Latin America. All three of her siblings are in film, as is her husband.
Marina has invited other creative thinkers here, surprisingly my good friend Gary Meyer, Artistic Director of Telluride, Ivan Trujillo, Director of Ficg and Daniela Michel, General Director of Morelia Film Festival, with her husband, an educator, who is also renovating a jewel of an art deco theater just outside of Morelia.
Filippo took us on a tour of the land his father bought in 1968. We saw La Copa (The Cup) a folie his father built where the sun at the solar equinox beams a ray into the pyramid inside the mountain several miles away.
Situated on the Pacific coast of Mexico, a lush tropical forest in the state of Jalisco (a four hour drive from Guadalajara where the Guadalajara Film Festival will soon be held), about an hour and a half north of Manzanilla and south of Puerta Vallarta, Costa Careyes’ beauty defies description. But I am going to try to describe all that happens in the four days we spent here: nightly open air feature film screenings, contemporary art exhibitions, a charity auction, a live music program, matinee screenings and workshops held in venues sharing the land with huge permanent art installations in a tropical mountain terrain by artists including Retna and Jeffrey Sharf, two muralists whose West Hollywood Library murals illustrate an extraordinary coincidental synchronicity which continued throughout this long weekend.
In our little group, John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, here for the second time, is on the board of Arte Careyes. His husband Paul Louis Maillard, an executive of Kaiser Permanente, spent hours studying for his Harvard Leadership Course where he will spend the next two weeks. The documentary filmmaking and married team Jarrett Engle and Cort Tramontin and David Zellner, half of the Zellner Brothers filmmaking team whom John invited to present Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter, the sleeper of Sundance which went on to show in the Forum of the Berlinale, were also part of our little group which shared a stunning four bedroom house, built in an extravagant Mexican style incorporating inside and outside living. David and I were consigned to our own little guest houses just down a flight of stairs. All our windows looked out onto the ocean which at night was domed by stars in an equatorial splendor, bright and disconcerting, different because we are so much closer to the equator. I was reminded of that marvelous Ray Bradbury short story, Nightfall.
Our late evening talks and early morning breakfasts together with Steven and John telling great stories were such fun and also deepened my appreciation and knowledge of the special part of “the biz” we are in.
John Cooper has been a member of the Sundance Film Festival programming staff since 1989 and assumed the role of Festival Director in April of 2009 after serving as the Sundance Film Festival's Director of Programming since 2003. Parenthetically, he is the only gay head of a major film festival, an achievement no woman can claim…yet.
His early work in theater, ranging from performance to design, took him to New York City. By chance, he volunteered at the Institute's Summer Labs in 1989 and fell in love with the process and energy of Sundance (and with his future husband). He returned to California to become part of the Festival programming team, which at that time consisted of two people. In the Festival's early years, Cooper created the short film program and quickly transitioned into programming documentaries and feature films.
In recent years, he took the lead in developing the Institute's online presence, which has garnered two Webby Awards. As Festival Director, he oversees creative direction of the Festival and has final decision on all films and events.
Other work includes guest curator or juror at major film festivals around the world. From 1995-1998 Cooper served as Programming Director of Outfest, a Los Angeles festival held annually in July, and until 2002 served on the Outfest Board of Directors.
John Cooper was a dancer before he became director of Sundance and though he did not dance for us, his performance skills are top. Watching him navigate as our “house father” was worth the trip.
The purpose of this art, music and film event as described by its founder Filippo Brignone and the film curator, Marina Stavenhagen, is to link creative people across disciplines – pictorial and plastic arts, music, design, literature and filmmakers in dialogues that will result in greater creativity for the good of the community and beyond.
Our host Filippo Brignone, who has been working and reworking this event for four years is intent as well about preserving the nature of the area along with incorporating the most progressive education in science and math as well as the liberal arts in a system which includes the interactions between the 100 + families who are creating a community and the children of the families in the town who have been here since time immemorial.
Our conversations around all these subjects flowed freely among the guests over the past four days.
The patriarch of the family, Gian Franco Brignone, the 86+year-old Italian onetime banker with an artistic sensibility and a love of nature, bought eight miles of coastline with more than 5,000 hectares of coastal forestland in 1968 and began inviting friends like Bill and Melinda Gates and Paris Hilton to visit.
Bignone père and his two sons, Filippo and Georgio, have continued to build Careyes into a glamorous residential community and resort with accommodations ranging from cozy beach bungalows to “castles,” like the six-bedroom, sunshine-yellow aerie Casa Oriente where we stayed. Filippo also took us to his home, equally beautiful and mystic in its nature.
There’s also a small hotel, a contemporary art gallery, – curated by Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum Los Angeles Hammer Museum curators Ann Philbin and Laurie Firstenburg, who is also creating a tropical Marfa, were instrumental in organizing both Pacific Standard Time, a citywide showcase of Los Angeles art of the 1950s and 60s and Laxart are curating the art side of this community. More on the art of Careyes can be read here.
This community also contains a world class polo club overseen by Giorgio, five restaurants, and 8 glorious miles of coastline which Felippo plans to allow families and individuals to build on if they fit certain qualifications.
Filippo, his brother Giorgio and PR and Communications executive Viviana Dean operate this entire enterprise under the auspices of The ?! Careyes Foundation. Btw, the Foundation is looking for a general manager who will know how to share the vision of what they are building here. Filippo himself is a bon vivant with an enormous curiosity and the executive ability to develop his vision. From speaking with him, my perception of whom they would grant residency to would be those the ability to enjoy the life that is here in all its aspects. Not only partying (which is extraordinary) and conversational abilities, but intelligence, an excellence in achievement, originality, a compassion which includes curiosity and the wish to include, discuss and implement all aspects of what makes life better for all.
The ?! Careyes Foundation's mission is to catalyze innovative programs related to education, health, sport, ecology and art in order to improve the well-being of local communities along the coast. Over 30 years of individual philanthropic efforts in Careyes, Mexico, and the surrounding villages along the Mexican Pacific Coast are consolidated in The ?! Careyes Foundation. From Perula to Agua Caliente, the region of initial concentration includes a population of approximately 6,000 people. In 2013, The ?! Careyes Foundation registered as a non-profit public charity with 501(c)3 tax designation in the United States in order to make its efforts in the region more accessible and impactful. The Foundation is in the process of obtaining a similar status in Mexico and in other countries over time.
The Foundation is overseen by a an Executive Board over which our host Filippo presides and a Board of Trustees and Advisors with expertise in each of the Foundation’s concentrated areas — community, sea, land, and arts. The Executive Committees determine the scope of projects, initiating proposed ideas that prove to be transformational, scalable, and sustainable. Members of the international Honorary Board serve as global ambassadors for the Foundation and its work, supporting programmatic and philanthropic efforts.
On the Executive Board:
Executive Board Secretary, Emanuela Brignone Cattaneo, is an architect who has spent most of her life travelling to Careyes, and lending her design vision to create a large new urban space, the Plaza Caballeros del Sol, including a Sanctuary and the Contemporary Art Space of Careyes. She is also dedicating herself in the restoration of many historical Italian buildings from the Xii century transforming them into Museums such as the Modern Art Gallery of Genova or Palazzo Lomellino listed as a Unesco world heritage. Emanuela holds a Ma from Colombia University in NY and serves as a Trustee of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, the Wolfsonian Foundation in Miami and Genoa. Emanuela is an Advisor of Airc , the Italian Association for Cancer Research.
Board Treasurer, Isabel SantoTomás, is Vice President of Investments for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management focusing on portfolio management for ultra high net worth individuals, family offices, and endowments. She joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 and has 26 years of industry experience. Isabel received her Bachelors degree at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has spent the last 25 years in New York City and is relocating to Miami, Florida with her two children. She has been a part of the Careyes community for over 20 years.
Jonathan Congdon, co-founder of Beachbody LLC, has been instrumental in shaping the mission of the company, expanding its vision and growth, and overseeing media distribution channels and International business to increase the Beachbody market worldwide. After starting his career at Procter & Gamble, Jon traveled the world “on walkabout” before teaching science for more than three years in California. In 1995, he launched an educational consulting firm, but soon felt the call back to the world of marketing entrepreneurship. Jon was a finalist for Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year on two boards, including his second term on the Electronic Retailing Association (Era) Board of Directors. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, and holds a degree in political science with dual emphases in American Constitutional Law and International Relations. Jon has been part of the Careyes community for over 10 years.
The fifth member of the Executive Board, Guillermo Barnetche Davison, is also Chairman of Grupo Profesional Planeacion y Proyectos, S.A. de C.V. (Pypsa) where he is in charge of the leadership and operating direction of multiple projects in the industrial, agricultural, sea, infrastructure, and building sectors. Guillermo received his Civil Engineering certification at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before getting a Masters in Hydraulic Resource Planning at Georgia Technology Institute and studying Economy and Systems Engineering at Stanford University. He has more than 40 years of professional experience in civil engineering and is a long-standing member of the Careyes community.
On the Honorary Board (a list in progress):
Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Daniela Michel, Director of the Morelia Film Festival, Gian Franco Brignone the Founder & Visionary of Costa Careyes, Johan Van Lengen, The “Barefoot Architect”, Founder of Tiba School Brazil and our own John Cooper, the Director of the Sundance Film Festival.
The Advisory Board is made up of:
Jennifer Arcenaux, Director, External Relations Sundance Film Festival, Arceneaux previously served as Director of Development for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (Moca). During her seven-year tenure at Moca, Arceneaux cultivated philanthropic relationships and fostered the careers of artists and curators in the Los Angeles art community. Arceneaux also launched the successful Moca Now communications and development campaign to increase grassroots engagement in fundraising and create transparent communication with Moca members and patrons. The campaign evolved into the Moca New initiative raising more than $70 million in operating and endowment support. Prior to joining Moca, Arceneaux served as Director of Development at the Accelerated School in Los Angeles where she executed a $60 million capital campaign for a new campus and community center. Her professional experience spans over ten years working with non-profits and community-based arts organizations including Rand Corporation, Inner-City Arts, CityLife, A.R.T.S. Inc., The Housing Rights Center and more recently in a board and advisory capacity with the Watts House Project, and Laxart.
Sarah Ezzy is a Director of the Global Philanthropy Group. As a Director at Global Philanthropy Group, Sarah has advised a range of high-profile individuals and corporate clients on their philanthropic strategies. She has worked on a variety of issues including global education for girls, poverty alleviation, domestic homelessness, youth and fitness, and sustainable agriculture. She was previously with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Strategy and Organization Practice where she worked with international organizations, developing country governments, and domestic policymakers and NGOs on a range of development issues. Sarah holds a BA in French Studies and Geography from Dartmouth College and a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. She speaks fluent French and is co-founder of Sadiq, a non-profit organization created to support Iraqi refugees in the Middle East.
Douglas K. Freeman, J.D., LL.M. the Senior Managing Director of First Foundation Advisors, Director of First Foundation Inc. and Director of the First Foundation Bank. First Foundation provides strategic planning and organizational management advice for business, nonprofit, foundation, and family clients. He brings to First Foundation clients his experience gained as a consultant to nearly 300 family foundations, support organizations and public charities throughout the United States. Mr. Freeman is a noted retired tax attorney and founder of the Los Angeles based law firm, Freeman, Freeman & Smiley, Llp. From 2005 through 2008, he was recognized by Worth magazine as among the 100 top attorneys in the United States. In 1999, he was featured by Bloomberg Financial as one of the nation’s leading estate planning attorneys. He is the founder of National Philanthropy Day, proclaimed by Congress and celebrated throughout the United States since 1986. Mr. Freeman serves as a director of family foundations, independent foundations, and public charities. He is the past Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the University of California, Irvine Foundation and chairman of its $1 billion campaign. He is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Orange County’s Pacific Symphony and a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Southern California Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy.
Mr. Freeman is the author of three books and over 30 articles and treatises on philanthropy and wealth planning. His new book, published in 2009, co-authored with Dr. Lee Hausner, Ph.D., is entitled “The Legacy Family… The Definitive Guide to Creating a Successful Multigenerational Family“. He is the co-author with Dr. Hausner of a leading treatise for family foundations, entitled “A Founder’s Guide to the Family Foundation“. He speaks throughout the country on behalf of professional associations, such as the Council on Foundations, the Association of Small Foundations, and the American Bar Association. He is a graduate of Stanford University (B.A. with Distinction, 1967), University of California at Los Angeles (J.D., 1970), and the University of San Diego (LL.M. in Taxation, 1984). Until retirement, Mr. Freeman was designated a Certified Specialist in Taxation under the State Bar of California.
Members of the Board of Trustees includes members like (list in progress):
Adam Lindemann – Art Collector & Advisor ; Alejandro Ramirez Magaña – CEO of Cinepolis ; Eric Goode – Founder & President of Turtle Conservancy; Esthella Provas – Art Advisor, Careyes ArtCommittee for special projects ; Eugenio Lopez – Collector, Jumex Collection; Patricia Marshall- Art Advisor, Careyes Art Committee; Piero Golia – Artist ; Serena Cattaneo Adorno – Director, Gagosian Gallery Paris, CareyesArtCommittee.
Continuing a trend of coincidences occurring for me on this incredible journey, out of the blue, at the first cocktail party held at this event, there appeared Christian Halsey Solomon, the son of a twenty-plus-year resident of Careyes, Michael Jay Solomon, whom I have known since the days when we were in our 20s when he set up McA Television in Latin America and personally bought prize winning shorts from the company where I was the acquisitions person. Years later, when I was buying feature films for Lorimar, his company Telepictures bought Lorimar. Christian and I also go way back to the days when he was 23, and I was working for the first time in independent international sales. We worked together in Milan, Italy at the Mifed film market with someone who has long since left the film scene. As if that were not enough of coincidences, my own brother Barry was the photographer for his first wedding.
Michael and Luciana had bought land here twenty years ago where they built their dream house. It is now home to Christian, his wife and two beautiful children who attend the incredible school here. Cuixmala School is a private non-profit school teaching core academic subjects in a bilingual environment while it emphasizes experiential learning about nature and the world; the students ride horses, raise their own food and have guests from every field from buddhists to biologists from the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve nearby. Christian showed me his home which was two doors down from our own Casa Oriente (next door to Seal) and he and his wife invited me back to visit and stay a while to write.
After each screening we were served delicious locally grown lunches and dinners. One wonderful night at the "ranchito", there was an art show of the old bones of animals who have died in this area where they are left out for the buzzards to pick clean. These bones, as if they were a precious as the fur and leather of beasts were decorated like Versace luxury items and showcased as art in the former stables of this former ranch. The best was the unicorn, a cow skeleton, whose short ribs look like they must have been really delicious before they were cleaned of all meat. This unicorn however, was missing its single horn. What a funny art show. The first two stalls looked like rooms where people were living, only the inhabitants were selling the furniture as art. Little stools made in traditional simple peasant style, were recreated in heavy marble. You can sit on them, or use them as little side tables. And shipping them home is not a problem.
Elegant community meals put us at the table one night where I sat next to Guillermo Arriaga, his wife, son and daughter. He was being honored with a tribute and he showed his short film The Blood of God (La Sangre de Dios) from the anthology which he produced as well, Words with Gods. Another coincidence is that he had just finished his short film Texas from Rio, I Love You, the franchise of our good friend Emmanuel Benbihy with whom we worked on Paris, Je t’aime and New York, I Love You. The Arriagas’ son and daughter are students at Mexico's private Ibero-American University’s School of Communications where Arriagas himself was a student and then a professor for twenty years and where is wife was a student of his. Coincidently that is also where he met his future partner Alejandro González Iñárritu with whom he worked on Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel, and where Marina Stavenhagen and her sisters and brothers are alumni as well as the 2013 Academy Award Winner for Cinematography, Emmanuel Lubezki.
Sr. Arriaga and I spoke quite a while - first about hunting which was not a topic I could speak much about beyond expressing surprise on hearing he was a hunter. But when we spoke about my Spanish and then about words and their derivations and meanings in Spanish and English, I became more actively interested. What I only realized afterward was that the conversation about words could have developed into the issue over words that ruptured his relationship with Iñárritu. The word for screenwriter in Spanish is objectionable to him because the word "guionista" means a tour guide or a writer of travel books and so a screenwriter accredited as “guionista” is merely a tour guide, putting up signposts for the director aka "The Auteur" in French parlance. I agree that the director alone is not the “auteur” of the film. Not only is a superbly written screenplay (which Arriagas writes often in close collaboration with his brother-in-law) an absolute necessity if a film is to have any chance to excel, but the producer who turns on the lights and turns them off and produces the money both before shooting and after shooting via distribution deals is required for a film’s success. Personally we think the producer and writer are the "Auteurs". The Auteur Theory proposed by Francois Truffaut in Cahiers de Cinema and promulgated in the U.S. by Peter Bogdanovich is merely a theory and not etched in marble. Pity about their falling out after their collaboraton on three greatest films in new Mexican cinema. But we did not get into all that.
The curator of the ArteCareyes film program, Marina Stavenhagen, also graduated from the Ibero-American University. Marina and I spoke the next day more about this event, which by its location and by design must stay small (around 300 - 400 people). Her thoughts concern creating an artist residency program, perhaps a think tank on a different topic every year such as music for film or producing along with two or three master classes, mentorships and inviting young filmmakers with shorts who can benefit from the intimate setting.
Marina Stavenhagen is a screenwriter and film developer with over 20 years of professional work in Mexico. Her work as a writer includes several short film and feature film scripts and has obtained several awards and recognitions. Marina has been a teacher, counselor and script consultant with many public and private Mexican institutions, and a jury in various national and international film festivals.
As a promoter of film, she has actively participated in the organization of exhibitions and film festivals in Mexico. She has been president of the Association of Women in Film and Television (Wift-Mexico), and was Director General of the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (Imcine). She is Member of the Board of Advisors of the Phoenix Film Ibero American Award and the Academic Council of the Bergman Cathedra, of the Unam University. For her work in promoting quality films and cultural exchange, Marina was honored by the Government of the French Republic with the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
After leaving her six year term as the head of Imcine, Marina was invited to create an interesting film program by Filippo Brignone while she returns to screenwriting.
Coincidently (again!), Marina’s sister is Andrea Stavenhagen, who was the head of the Iberoamerican Coproduction Meeting and Director of Industry at Ficg (Guadalajara Film Festival) until August 2013. She also co-directed the Morelia Lab Workshop for Young Producers in Latin America at the Morelia Film Festival and is now the San Sebastian Film Festival's new delegate for Latin America. All three of her siblings are in film, as is her husband.
Marina has invited other creative thinkers here, surprisingly my good friend Gary Meyer, Artistic Director of Telluride, Ivan Trujillo, Director of Ficg and Daniela Michel, General Director of Morelia Film Festival, with her husband, an educator, who is also renovating a jewel of an art deco theater just outside of Morelia.
Filippo took us on a tour of the land his father bought in 1968. We saw La Copa (The Cup) a folie his father built where the sun at the solar equinox beams a ray into the pyramid inside the mountain several miles away.
- 3/14/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Opening night’s screening was the debut film of Mexican filmmaker ---- The Amazing Catfish (Los Insolitos Peces Gato) the debut feature of Claudia Sainte Luce. It is close to autobiographical as it tells of 22-year-old Claudia living alone in a big city in Mexico. One night, she ends up in the emergency room with signs of appendicitis. There she meets Martha, lying on the bed next to her. 46-year-old Martha has 4 children and endless lust for life, in spite of her illness. Moved by the lonely young woman, Martha invites Claudia to come and live with her when she leaves the hospital. At first, Claudia is bewildered by the somewhat chaotic organization of the household, but soon she finds her place in the tribe. And while Martha is getting weaker, Claudia's bond with each member of the family gets stronger day by day. The director’s honest vulnerability touched me as much as the movie.
During the Toronto Film Festival, Claudia told the interviewer at Twitch:
“The character Claudia has the obsession of cutting out funny newspaper notes. Before the filming began, I read a note about the appearance of some catfishes in an American city. The catfishes always live in family so I thought it was curious. Having cut the titular ("los insólitos peces gato"), I pasted it on the fish bowl. In the movie, Claudia begins sleeping in Armando's bedroom and pastes that sticker.
She (the mother) had eight years to think what she wanted to say to their children. For eight years her death was imminent. She had a lot of time of think what to say but maybe not what to do.
I think every member of the family is amazing and their force is staying together. That's why I called the film The Amazing Catfish.”
Claudia said more to me about the autobiographical part (the rest is fiction):
“I made this movie to thank this family that gave me a sense of belonging. The more I helped Martha in her dying process and living the additional time Death was giving her, I understood that you have to live with the Death by your side every day to value your own life. They saw me; when someone sees you, you become alive, you exist and that's what they gave me, existence.’
This film which premiered in Locarno where it won the Young Jury Award went on to Toronto 2013 where it won the Fipresci Critics’ Discovery Award. The next month it played at the Morelia Film Festival. At the Baja Film Fest it won the Mexico Primero Award. It also played at the Rotterdam and the Belgrade Film Festivals. This Mexican-French coproduction was sold by France’s premiere international sales agent Pyramide. Knowing the head of Pyramide International’s Eric Lagesse, the filmmaker can feel secure that she is in good hands and that the film will play to a broad and international range of audiences as it deals with a dysfunctional family, having both funny and sensitive parts.
It has already sold to Strand Releasing for U.S , Austria went to Polyfilm, Belgium – Imagine, France – Pyramide, Germany – Arsenal, Japan - Bitters End, Latin America - Palmera International, Mexico – Canibal, Netherlands - Imagine , Switzerland – Cineworx, Taiwan - Swallow Wings Films.
The next day we saw Eco de la montaña (Echo form the Mountain), Nicolas Echevarria’s documentary about an indigenous artist of the Wixarika people in Jalisco whose traditional mural, made of millions of small beads, was installed (incorrectly) in the Paris metro station Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre in 1977 at a grand ceremony by the French and Mexican Presidents who failed to invite him. Since then Santos de la Torre has lived forgotten and isolated in his village in the Sierra Madre Mountains. As the film follows him and his family on their yearly peyote ritual and pilgrimage to Wirikuta and other Wixarika sacred places and as he creates a fourth mural is unfolded in such a modern way that I think it should open discussions of how the artistic taps into the higher sources of creativity among the selected guests of this festival. The producer Michael Fitzgerald was here with his wife, in from Taos where they live. Michael Fitzgerald produced such films as Malcolm Loewry’s Under the Volcano and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, another film Arriagas wrote, Bruce Beresford’s Mr. Johnson. Such illustrious company!
Gary Meyer and I sat together during the outdoor screening in the plaza. Of Horses and Men (Isa: Filmsharks), a wonderfully droll film from first time filmmaker and Iceland’s submission for this year’s Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film was just covered in my blog on Indiewire. It was a perfect film for showing here with its magnificent landscapes where horses are part of the villagers’ lives as they are in many part of Mexican culture. For a review and an interview with its director, click here for the interview and here for the review on SydneysBuzz.
Seeing Iceland reminded me of Jim Stark, as did the Zellner Brothers' Kumiko, Treasure Hunter (Isa: Submarine), the sleeper of Sundance. This film of a young Japanese woman’s trip to Fargo, Minnesota in search of the money Steve Buscemi buried in the movie Fargo, with its large snowy landscapes and cold snow which could not be more the opposite of this lush tropical paradise reminded me of Jim Stark’s Cold Fever which was also about a Japanese fish-out-of-water in the freezing Icelandic climates, though David Zellner was not aware of that film until after his own was finished. When we went upstairs for cocktails, how surprised I was to see that Jim Stark himself is also there, as Marina’s guest, giving master classes to the young Mexican filmmakers. He is working on at least two features now with Mexican directors and has bought a house in Mexico City just as he did in Iceland when he was active there.
And yet another coincidence: the star of Kumiko is Rinko Kikuchi who played an important role in Arriaga’s Babel. And, just to throw in one more coincidence, Babel's director, Alejandro González Iñárritu will be one of the special guests at the next festival I am about to go to, Cartagena Colombia's Ficci (Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias).
Continuing the tradition of ArteCareyes showcasing emerging talent, eight young filmmakers showed their shorts after which we all had lunch and discussed their films and their plans with them. The filmmakers will be ones you will hear more about in the near future, so here are their names:
. Manuel Camacho Bustillo (Blackout, Chapter 4: Calling Neverland), a film Gary Meyer particularly liked
. Sofia Carrillo (The Sad House), a film Jarrett and I loved.
. Erik de Luna Fors (Home Appliance). Everyone liked this darkly humorous animation
. Amaury Vergara Z (Tide). We called him over to discuss this dreamy, mysterious story of a young man of the land.
. Indira Velasco (Music for the ultimate dream). This film was a marvelous study of music and life
. Lubianca Duran (Supermodern times). Wonderful tug-of-war between Kodak and Digital. Very funny old-fashioned silent take on modern times.
. Ricardo Torres Castro (Dry Land). Animation with a message. Well done 7 minutes.
. Dalia Huerta Cano (The End of the Existence of Things). How a boy fasses the loss of a great sadness. Really libertating.
I was sorry that I had to miss the closing night film ¡Que viva Mexico! Partially filmed 1931 by the master Sergei Eisenstein shortly after the Mexican Revolution but never edited and show by the great Dp Gabriel Figueroa (whose show at Los Angeles County Museum of Art was extraordinary). The 1931 uncredited version editor was Kenneth Anger. Also uncredited technical advisors for foreign locations are the great muralists Orozco, Rivera and Siquieros (who coincidently has a mural newly restored on Los Angeles' Olvera Street). Completed finally in the 1970s based on Eisenstein’s writings and his own memories, three sements were shown with live accompaniment commissioned by ArteCareyes based on a guiding score Eisenstein worked on with Sergei Prokofiev by the Ensemble Cine Mudo.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this event as a 12. It is an event matched only by the million dollar trip to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Petershof and the set of Stalingrad which 25 U.S. Distributors, Anne Thompson, Peter and I were invited to by Rosskino in 2012 when our Italianate Eleonora Granata was the Russian Film Commissioner in L.A.
This work in progress shows a promise reaching beyond this event. The practical idealism and magic of the location and the timing of such an Arts & Film event, together with the other elements in this magnificent venue are thrilling. I will always be grateful to Steven, John and Filippo for including me.
During the Toronto Film Festival, Claudia told the interviewer at Twitch:
“The character Claudia has the obsession of cutting out funny newspaper notes. Before the filming began, I read a note about the appearance of some catfishes in an American city. The catfishes always live in family so I thought it was curious. Having cut the titular ("los insólitos peces gato"), I pasted it on the fish bowl. In the movie, Claudia begins sleeping in Armando's bedroom and pastes that sticker.
She (the mother) had eight years to think what she wanted to say to their children. For eight years her death was imminent. She had a lot of time of think what to say but maybe not what to do.
I think every member of the family is amazing and their force is staying together. That's why I called the film The Amazing Catfish.”
Claudia said more to me about the autobiographical part (the rest is fiction):
“I made this movie to thank this family that gave me a sense of belonging. The more I helped Martha in her dying process and living the additional time Death was giving her, I understood that you have to live with the Death by your side every day to value your own life. They saw me; when someone sees you, you become alive, you exist and that's what they gave me, existence.’
This film which premiered in Locarno where it won the Young Jury Award went on to Toronto 2013 where it won the Fipresci Critics’ Discovery Award. The next month it played at the Morelia Film Festival. At the Baja Film Fest it won the Mexico Primero Award. It also played at the Rotterdam and the Belgrade Film Festivals. This Mexican-French coproduction was sold by France’s premiere international sales agent Pyramide. Knowing the head of Pyramide International’s Eric Lagesse, the filmmaker can feel secure that she is in good hands and that the film will play to a broad and international range of audiences as it deals with a dysfunctional family, having both funny and sensitive parts.
It has already sold to Strand Releasing for U.S , Austria went to Polyfilm, Belgium – Imagine, France – Pyramide, Germany – Arsenal, Japan - Bitters End, Latin America - Palmera International, Mexico – Canibal, Netherlands - Imagine , Switzerland – Cineworx, Taiwan - Swallow Wings Films.
The next day we saw Eco de la montaña (Echo form the Mountain), Nicolas Echevarria’s documentary about an indigenous artist of the Wixarika people in Jalisco whose traditional mural, made of millions of small beads, was installed (incorrectly) in the Paris metro station Palais Royal-Musee du Louvre in 1977 at a grand ceremony by the French and Mexican Presidents who failed to invite him. Since then Santos de la Torre has lived forgotten and isolated in his village in the Sierra Madre Mountains. As the film follows him and his family on their yearly peyote ritual and pilgrimage to Wirikuta and other Wixarika sacred places and as he creates a fourth mural is unfolded in such a modern way that I think it should open discussions of how the artistic taps into the higher sources of creativity among the selected guests of this festival. The producer Michael Fitzgerald was here with his wife, in from Taos where they live. Michael Fitzgerald produced such films as Malcolm Loewry’s Under the Volcano and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, another film Arriagas wrote, Bruce Beresford’s Mr. Johnson. Such illustrious company!
Gary Meyer and I sat together during the outdoor screening in the plaza. Of Horses and Men (Isa: Filmsharks), a wonderfully droll film from first time filmmaker and Iceland’s submission for this year’s Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film was just covered in my blog on Indiewire. It was a perfect film for showing here with its magnificent landscapes where horses are part of the villagers’ lives as they are in many part of Mexican culture. For a review and an interview with its director, click here for the interview and here for the review on SydneysBuzz.
Seeing Iceland reminded me of Jim Stark, as did the Zellner Brothers' Kumiko, Treasure Hunter (Isa: Submarine), the sleeper of Sundance. This film of a young Japanese woman’s trip to Fargo, Minnesota in search of the money Steve Buscemi buried in the movie Fargo, with its large snowy landscapes and cold snow which could not be more the opposite of this lush tropical paradise reminded me of Jim Stark’s Cold Fever which was also about a Japanese fish-out-of-water in the freezing Icelandic climates, though David Zellner was not aware of that film until after his own was finished. When we went upstairs for cocktails, how surprised I was to see that Jim Stark himself is also there, as Marina’s guest, giving master classes to the young Mexican filmmakers. He is working on at least two features now with Mexican directors and has bought a house in Mexico City just as he did in Iceland when he was active there.
And yet another coincidence: the star of Kumiko is Rinko Kikuchi who played an important role in Arriaga’s Babel. And, just to throw in one more coincidence, Babel's director, Alejandro González Iñárritu will be one of the special guests at the next festival I am about to go to, Cartagena Colombia's Ficci (Festival Internacional de Cine de Cartagena de Indias).
Continuing the tradition of ArteCareyes showcasing emerging talent, eight young filmmakers showed their shorts after which we all had lunch and discussed their films and their plans with them. The filmmakers will be ones you will hear more about in the near future, so here are their names:
. Manuel Camacho Bustillo (Blackout, Chapter 4: Calling Neverland), a film Gary Meyer particularly liked
. Sofia Carrillo (The Sad House), a film Jarrett and I loved.
. Erik de Luna Fors (Home Appliance). Everyone liked this darkly humorous animation
. Amaury Vergara Z (Tide). We called him over to discuss this dreamy, mysterious story of a young man of the land.
. Indira Velasco (Music for the ultimate dream). This film was a marvelous study of music and life
. Lubianca Duran (Supermodern times). Wonderful tug-of-war between Kodak and Digital. Very funny old-fashioned silent take on modern times.
. Ricardo Torres Castro (Dry Land). Animation with a message. Well done 7 minutes.
. Dalia Huerta Cano (The End of the Existence of Things). How a boy fasses the loss of a great sadness. Really libertating.
I was sorry that I had to miss the closing night film ¡Que viva Mexico! Partially filmed 1931 by the master Sergei Eisenstein shortly after the Mexican Revolution but never edited and show by the great Dp Gabriel Figueroa (whose show at Los Angeles County Museum of Art was extraordinary). The 1931 uncredited version editor was Kenneth Anger. Also uncredited technical advisors for foreign locations are the great muralists Orozco, Rivera and Siquieros (who coincidently has a mural newly restored on Los Angeles' Olvera Street). Completed finally in the 1970s based on Eisenstein’s writings and his own memories, three sements were shown with live accompaniment commissioned by ArteCareyes based on a guiding score Eisenstein worked on with Sergei Prokofiev by the Ensemble Cine Mudo.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this event as a 12. It is an event matched only by the million dollar trip to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Petershof and the set of Stalingrad which 25 U.S. Distributors, Anne Thompson, Peter and I were invited to by Rosskino in 2012 when our Italianate Eleonora Granata was the Russian Film Commissioner in L.A.
This work in progress shows a promise reaching beyond this event. The practical idealism and magic of the location and the timing of such an Arts & Film event, together with the other elements in this magnificent venue are thrilling. I will always be grateful to Steven, John and Filippo for including me.
- 3/14/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
This informal treatise on theatrical exhibition in the states circulated among the Art House Convergence group's email and I am reposting it here for wider circulation as it deserves.
Thank you to Russ Collins, CEO, Michigan Theater - Ann Arbor, Director, Art House Convergence - Artistic Director of Cinetopia Festival and to Gary Meyer:
Close Encounters Of The Implosion Kind
Gary Meyer wrote: I do not like to be a doom and gloom guy but I think there are big changes afoot for commercial cinemas, but not the scenario predicted here. Steven Spielberg Predicts 'Implosion' of Film Industry
Like Gary, I am not a doom and gloom guy. However, it is tempting for older cinema artists (like Steven Spielberg and soon to retire artists like Steven Soderbergh or maybe it’s just filmmakers named Steven!) to see gloom in clouds of change. Change is hard. It frequently makes us feel discouraged or unfairly challenged. The shifting sands of change can cause us to see threats everywhere and feel the world as we know it will end. However, maybe we feel this way because it’s true. The world as we know it will indeed come to an end because change is the only constant, and creativity in art, business and all things is frequently born from what might appear to be destructive forces brewed from dynamic change. It is a defining story of living; a baseline truth, an ever repeating cycle of human existence that the Hindu religion represents so effectively in the story of Shiva, whose joyous dance of destruction celebrates the cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.
Shiva Danced On The Movies In The 1950s
Movie attendance at theaters in the USA by the late 1940s appeared stable at 4 Billion admissions per year. By the early 1960s movie attendance at theaters had fallen dramatically and re-stabilized at around 1 billion admissions per year – the theatrical audiences was just 25% of what it had been 16 years earlier. It’s hard to imagine. We can feel better about movie attendance over the last 16 years because at about 1.4 billion annually, USA theatrical movie admissions have been fairly stable. However, as a highly profitable, highly centralized business model, the movies – the pre-tv, Hollywood studio system heyday of the 20s, 30s and 40s – died in the 1950s. Shiva danced and Hollywood’s heyday died as television became a mature mass media market. During the 1950s, television replaced movies as the mass market media phenomenon of the 20th century. So the truth is, since the 1950s, movies, meaning all movies shown in theaters, are not “main stream.” Movies shown in theaters are merely a specialty market with larger market segments (Hollywood blockbusters – action blockbuster, comedy blockbusters, Black blockbusters, chick flick blockbuster, kid live-action blockbusters, kid animated blockbuster, etc.) and smaller market segments (Indie American, documentary, classic, foreign, Masterpiece Theatre style, etc.) and sub-segments (mumblecore, experimental, films by local filmmakers, silent-era, Black American Indie, Jewish, French, German, Polish, Chilean, Brazilian, Iranian, Burkina Fasoian, Senegalese, Palestinian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Scandinavian, Ethiopia, Nigerian, Mexican, Canadian, classic noir, restored films, screwball comedies, Marx Bros., Woody Allen, Hitchcock, Kubirck, Ford, Sturges, Fellini, Truffaut, Warhol, Waters, etc., etc. etc.). Today, broadcast television is flat on its back because pay-per-view, paid-legit streaming, pirate streaming, cable, computer, smart phone, tablets, etc. are the “television” of today.
Every Cinema Era Is A Halcyon Era To Somebody
During the second-half of the 20th Century, the era in which TV has dominated, movie journalists and scholars seem to divide the post-Hollywood studio movie era into the following sub-eras:
· The foreign film Art House / college movie society / Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll generation saves Hollywood world of the late 50s, 60s and on into the mid-70s;
· The Indie Cinema / Burgeoning Home Video / Hollywood Summer Blockbuster world of the late-70s, 80s and 90s;
· The Diy-Mumblecore -Funny or Die / Pirate ethos / Digital Transition / Netflix queue / Hollywood Comic Book-Remake world of the early 21st century.
People in the movie business of different generations attach a “halcyon days” glow to different eras:
· The Post-wwii-Early Baby Boomer generation seems to think the 60s youth reinvention of Hollywood is the halcyon era – folks like Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola.
· The mid-to-late Baby Boomers and early GenXers appear to think that the Sundance/Miramax/New Line-Fine Line / Video Store / Indie Film Paradise of the 80s and 90s are the halcyon days – folks like Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, Kevin Smith.
· Probably folks like the Duplass Brothers, Greta Gerwig, Debra Granik, Benh Zeitlin , the Funny Or Die guys and gals and other filmmakers finding success in the current era will look back at the tweny-00s as a halcyon era of celluloid dreams found during the digital transition. An era that provided limitless YouTube possibilities, when the number of community-based, mission-driven Art Houses cinemas were growing (due to the Art House Convergence!) and everyone had the ability to earn a post graduate motion picture education at Netflix U.
So, instead of filmmakers and pundits making broad statements assuming that movie exhibition exists as one giant main stream market; let’s instead think about the theatrical exhibition market place as the segmented and diverse market that it is – and has been for generations!
STeven Spielberg Was An Agent Of Change: Why Is Change Foreboding To Him Now
The media and the general public seem to easily accept sweeping unsubstantiated statements about the movie exhibition market place. However, people seem to have a more nuanced and complex understanding of the music market. No one thinks of Lady Gaga, Winton Marcellus and the Boston Symphony playing to a large, singular music market. People seem to understand that each of these artists [has a particular] niche. So if pundits or a prominent musician said that the music industry will collapse unless arena shows continue to be successful (by the way, there are fewer and fewer arena shows these days), that pundit or musician would be mocked by John Stewart on the “Daily Show.” However, this is basically what Steven Spielberg said would happen to the film market. To illustrate this point I have replaced references to “movies,” in Steven Spielberg’s recent statement postulating that the movies will “implode,” with the appropriate musical reference:
“[Some ideas from young Musicians And Music Students] are too fringe-y for Music. That's the big danger, and there's eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget Concerts are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm."
Mr. Spielberg is a great artist in my opinion. He has a peerless career. His artistry and craftsmanship was so resonant with broad audiences in the 1970s and 1980s, that he was significantly responsible for creating the summer blockbuster dynamic (“Jaws”) that allowed for the development of “megabudget” movies. For him to say that young filmmakers and film students are “too fringe-y” is absolutely true – they always have been fringy (but some are not – which is also true). To say that “[an implosion is] going to change the paradigm” is also true, because something is always changing paradigms – clearly Spielberg was an innocent agent of paradigm change as a young filmmaker!
Think about the world that Mr. Spielberg came into as a young filmmaker in the late 1960s and 1970s. The old line Hollywood Studios were reeling. There were no megaplex theaters – the movie exhibition innovation of that era was multiplex cinemas in shopping malls with postage stamp size theaters and screens. These shopping mall cinemas were causing the few remaining movie palaces, as well as single screen neighborhood cinemas to be abandoned or “twinned” or “quaded.” In the 1970s there was no generally accessible Internet or movie streaming. For all intents and purposes there were no video rental stores or home video. Mr. Spielberg’s career was established during a period of a Huge paradigm shift. He benefited from the newly created blockbuster movie marketing. He profited from the soon to follow home video explosion. But, I have to imagine from Mr. Spielberg point of view, the paradigm shift in the 1970s was just the new “normal,” a “halcyon era” from which we are straying in the 21st century – because theatrical exhibition is tenuous (as it has been since the 1940s), the home video markets has dried up and people are watching pirated movies on their phone. Spielberg’s coming of age era was for him the halcyon period that the 21st century “implosion” will cause to go “crashing into the ground.”
But he is wrong. As said previously, the market for movies is actually diverse and highly segmented – although from the top down movie industry vantage point and media punditry you would not think this to be true. Would we really mourn for Mr. Spielberg or ourselves if “Lincoln” would have been made for cable or had played on Public Television? Is it bad for humanity that cable television is creating wonderful, resonate stories in long-form moving image series that people want to watch at home on TV (or streamed onto their computer)? I don’t think so, but it is a paradigm shift and it might affect people’s theatrical movie going habits. Televisions in people’s homes have had that effect for seven decades – it is not a new phenomenon.
As Art House cinema impresarios we need to focus on what We can do at our theaters and in our communities. It is not productive for us to fret over what pundits say or about what well-meaning filmmakers like the Stevens – Spielberg and Soderbergh – say. We should fret about what we can do in our communities. What we can do to support filmmakers. What we can do to raise philanthropic support from our communities. What we can do to increase the appreciation of film as art and as a transformational form of creativity. We need to be professional and be constantly innovative and clearly focused on building a robust cinema exhibition businesses in our communities. We do not need to worry about commercial megaplex movie theaters. They will find ways to make money or they will implode and be replaced by other ways to promote large scale, broadly targeted cinema.
Commercial movie theaters have had several “implosions” through the years and new, effective and profitable paradigms have emerged. 1920s era Movie Palaces killed Nickelodeons, the mom and pop storefront cinemas that establish movies as a viable art form and profitable market. Mom and pop theater owners were very upset and felt unfairly treated by the Movie Palace paradigm shift; it was a most tumultuous and difficult era in theatrical movie exhibition. Technology forced dynamic change as talking pictures made Movie Palaces inefficient. What emerged was the more efficient but less spectacular, single screen cinema-style theaters of the 30s and 40s. Television nearly killed single screen theaters and Movie Palaces, and the shopping mall multiplex theaters of the 1970s finished the job. Megaplexes killed multiplexes. Who knows, maybe megaplexes will be killed by high-priced deluxe cinemas with fine dining options – who cares! Maybe all commercial theaters in the future will be like IMAX theaters. The paradigm shift that takes down the megaplex is not a dynamic we as an Art House community will control. We can learn from and adapt to whatever changes may occur to the Megaplex paradigm. However, we do not control those changes so it is fruitless to fret about them. The cinema market is large and diverse and our job is to focus on our small but essential piece of the movie market – the community-based, mission-driven piece of exhibiting cinema to movie lovers in our home towns. As Ira Deutchman said to us at the Convergence, we must understand and embrace the fact that what we do is hard, but we should never take the easy path.
IN A Time Of Change Art House Cinemas Have An Advantage
Being connected to your community you have a role in defining that community. You can make sure your community values having an Art House. You must strive to be consistently innovative in how You run Your Art House; this will create consistent success. But it requires capital, hard work and the willingness to adapt to changes; changes in technology (digital cinema), in programming (day and date release with home viewing opportunities), in being an effective fund raising professional and a teacher of moving image aesthetics, history and practice. You are the impresario of the most important cultural product created in the American century. You deserve to be a key quality of life institution in your community.
Although the venal dynamics of Hollywood cause the Art House to be undervalued, we must remember that the Art House is vitally important because it is where the beating heart of cinema culture lives. We must keep that heart healthy. Let us execute our heart based Art House cinema in the best possible way, for its own sake and for the general health of our community and cinema art. And, please, let us not be afraid of change.
Change is inevitable. It is foolish to think that change will not happen. Change brings with it opportunity, and there is great opportunity for the Art House to flourish. Why? Because there are more movies made now than at any time in human history. This means all vital channels in which cinema can be presented can succeed – they won’t, but they can. And the community-based Art House has a distinct advantage because, as we have known for a little over 100 years ago, seeing a movie on a big screen, in a darkened room full of strangers is a profound and moving experience. Many humans, many of our neighbors seem to need the experience of gathering communally to experience stories and receive information. The Art House is that place, because it is the community’s living room, or better still, the communal campfire where people can learn, be entertained and transported by stories that are spun by that most brilliant of story tellers – the motion picture.
Keep the faith, Art House friends. You are the best, now let’s get better!
Thank you to Russ Collins, CEO, Michigan Theater - Ann Arbor, Director, Art House Convergence - Artistic Director of Cinetopia Festival and to Gary Meyer:
Close Encounters Of The Implosion Kind
Gary Meyer wrote: I do not like to be a doom and gloom guy but I think there are big changes afoot for commercial cinemas, but not the scenario predicted here. Steven Spielberg Predicts 'Implosion' of Film Industry
Like Gary, I am not a doom and gloom guy. However, it is tempting for older cinema artists (like Steven Spielberg and soon to retire artists like Steven Soderbergh or maybe it’s just filmmakers named Steven!) to see gloom in clouds of change. Change is hard. It frequently makes us feel discouraged or unfairly challenged. The shifting sands of change can cause us to see threats everywhere and feel the world as we know it will end. However, maybe we feel this way because it’s true. The world as we know it will indeed come to an end because change is the only constant, and creativity in art, business and all things is frequently born from what might appear to be destructive forces brewed from dynamic change. It is a defining story of living; a baseline truth, an ever repeating cycle of human existence that the Hindu religion represents so effectively in the story of Shiva, whose joyous dance of destruction celebrates the cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.
Shiva Danced On The Movies In The 1950s
Movie attendance at theaters in the USA by the late 1940s appeared stable at 4 Billion admissions per year. By the early 1960s movie attendance at theaters had fallen dramatically and re-stabilized at around 1 billion admissions per year – the theatrical audiences was just 25% of what it had been 16 years earlier. It’s hard to imagine. We can feel better about movie attendance over the last 16 years because at about 1.4 billion annually, USA theatrical movie admissions have been fairly stable. However, as a highly profitable, highly centralized business model, the movies – the pre-tv, Hollywood studio system heyday of the 20s, 30s and 40s – died in the 1950s. Shiva danced and Hollywood’s heyday died as television became a mature mass media market. During the 1950s, television replaced movies as the mass market media phenomenon of the 20th century. So the truth is, since the 1950s, movies, meaning all movies shown in theaters, are not “main stream.” Movies shown in theaters are merely a specialty market with larger market segments (Hollywood blockbusters – action blockbuster, comedy blockbusters, Black blockbusters, chick flick blockbuster, kid live-action blockbusters, kid animated blockbuster, etc.) and smaller market segments (Indie American, documentary, classic, foreign, Masterpiece Theatre style, etc.) and sub-segments (mumblecore, experimental, films by local filmmakers, silent-era, Black American Indie, Jewish, French, German, Polish, Chilean, Brazilian, Iranian, Burkina Fasoian, Senegalese, Palestinian, Indian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Scandinavian, Ethiopia, Nigerian, Mexican, Canadian, classic noir, restored films, screwball comedies, Marx Bros., Woody Allen, Hitchcock, Kubirck, Ford, Sturges, Fellini, Truffaut, Warhol, Waters, etc., etc. etc.). Today, broadcast television is flat on its back because pay-per-view, paid-legit streaming, pirate streaming, cable, computer, smart phone, tablets, etc. are the “television” of today.
Every Cinema Era Is A Halcyon Era To Somebody
During the second-half of the 20th Century, the era in which TV has dominated, movie journalists and scholars seem to divide the post-Hollywood studio movie era into the following sub-eras:
· The foreign film Art House / college movie society / Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll generation saves Hollywood world of the late 50s, 60s and on into the mid-70s;
· The Indie Cinema / Burgeoning Home Video / Hollywood Summer Blockbuster world of the late-70s, 80s and 90s;
· The Diy-Mumblecore -Funny or Die / Pirate ethos / Digital Transition / Netflix queue / Hollywood Comic Book-Remake world of the early 21st century.
People in the movie business of different generations attach a “halcyon days” glow to different eras:
· The Post-wwii-Early Baby Boomer generation seems to think the 60s youth reinvention of Hollywood is the halcyon era – folks like Robert Redford, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola.
· The mid-to-late Baby Boomers and early GenXers appear to think that the Sundance/Miramax/New Line-Fine Line / Video Store / Indie Film Paradise of the 80s and 90s are the halcyon days – folks like Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, Kevin Smith.
· Probably folks like the Duplass Brothers, Greta Gerwig, Debra Granik, Benh Zeitlin , the Funny Or Die guys and gals and other filmmakers finding success in the current era will look back at the tweny-00s as a halcyon era of celluloid dreams found during the digital transition. An era that provided limitless YouTube possibilities, when the number of community-based, mission-driven Art Houses cinemas were growing (due to the Art House Convergence!) and everyone had the ability to earn a post graduate motion picture education at Netflix U.
So, instead of filmmakers and pundits making broad statements assuming that movie exhibition exists as one giant main stream market; let’s instead think about the theatrical exhibition market place as the segmented and diverse market that it is – and has been for generations!
STeven Spielberg Was An Agent Of Change: Why Is Change Foreboding To Him Now
The media and the general public seem to easily accept sweeping unsubstantiated statements about the movie exhibition market place. However, people seem to have a more nuanced and complex understanding of the music market. No one thinks of Lady Gaga, Winton Marcellus and the Boston Symphony playing to a large, singular music market. People seem to understand that each of these artists [has a particular] niche. So if pundits or a prominent musician said that the music industry will collapse unless arena shows continue to be successful (by the way, there are fewer and fewer arena shows these days), that pundit or musician would be mocked by John Stewart on the “Daily Show.” However, this is basically what Steven Spielberg said would happen to the film market. To illustrate this point I have replaced references to “movies,” in Steven Spielberg’s recent statement postulating that the movies will “implode,” with the appropriate musical reference:
“[Some ideas from young Musicians And Music Students] are too fringe-y for Music. That's the big danger, and there's eventually going to be an implosion — or a big meltdown. There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even a half-dozen megabudget Concerts are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm."
Mr. Spielberg is a great artist in my opinion. He has a peerless career. His artistry and craftsmanship was so resonant with broad audiences in the 1970s and 1980s, that he was significantly responsible for creating the summer blockbuster dynamic (“Jaws”) that allowed for the development of “megabudget” movies. For him to say that young filmmakers and film students are “too fringe-y” is absolutely true – they always have been fringy (but some are not – which is also true). To say that “[an implosion is] going to change the paradigm” is also true, because something is always changing paradigms – clearly Spielberg was an innocent agent of paradigm change as a young filmmaker!
Think about the world that Mr. Spielberg came into as a young filmmaker in the late 1960s and 1970s. The old line Hollywood Studios were reeling. There were no megaplex theaters – the movie exhibition innovation of that era was multiplex cinemas in shopping malls with postage stamp size theaters and screens. These shopping mall cinemas were causing the few remaining movie palaces, as well as single screen neighborhood cinemas to be abandoned or “twinned” or “quaded.” In the 1970s there was no generally accessible Internet or movie streaming. For all intents and purposes there were no video rental stores or home video. Mr. Spielberg’s career was established during a period of a Huge paradigm shift. He benefited from the newly created blockbuster movie marketing. He profited from the soon to follow home video explosion. But, I have to imagine from Mr. Spielberg point of view, the paradigm shift in the 1970s was just the new “normal,” a “halcyon era” from which we are straying in the 21st century – because theatrical exhibition is tenuous (as it has been since the 1940s), the home video markets has dried up and people are watching pirated movies on their phone. Spielberg’s coming of age era was for him the halcyon period that the 21st century “implosion” will cause to go “crashing into the ground.”
But he is wrong. As said previously, the market for movies is actually diverse and highly segmented – although from the top down movie industry vantage point and media punditry you would not think this to be true. Would we really mourn for Mr. Spielberg or ourselves if “Lincoln” would have been made for cable or had played on Public Television? Is it bad for humanity that cable television is creating wonderful, resonate stories in long-form moving image series that people want to watch at home on TV (or streamed onto their computer)? I don’t think so, but it is a paradigm shift and it might affect people’s theatrical movie going habits. Televisions in people’s homes have had that effect for seven decades – it is not a new phenomenon.
As Art House cinema impresarios we need to focus on what We can do at our theaters and in our communities. It is not productive for us to fret over what pundits say or about what well-meaning filmmakers like the Stevens – Spielberg and Soderbergh – say. We should fret about what we can do in our communities. What we can do to support filmmakers. What we can do to raise philanthropic support from our communities. What we can do to increase the appreciation of film as art and as a transformational form of creativity. We need to be professional and be constantly innovative and clearly focused on building a robust cinema exhibition businesses in our communities. We do not need to worry about commercial megaplex movie theaters. They will find ways to make money or they will implode and be replaced by other ways to promote large scale, broadly targeted cinema.
Commercial movie theaters have had several “implosions” through the years and new, effective and profitable paradigms have emerged. 1920s era Movie Palaces killed Nickelodeons, the mom and pop storefront cinemas that establish movies as a viable art form and profitable market. Mom and pop theater owners were very upset and felt unfairly treated by the Movie Palace paradigm shift; it was a most tumultuous and difficult era in theatrical movie exhibition. Technology forced dynamic change as talking pictures made Movie Palaces inefficient. What emerged was the more efficient but less spectacular, single screen cinema-style theaters of the 30s and 40s. Television nearly killed single screen theaters and Movie Palaces, and the shopping mall multiplex theaters of the 1970s finished the job. Megaplexes killed multiplexes. Who knows, maybe megaplexes will be killed by high-priced deluxe cinemas with fine dining options – who cares! Maybe all commercial theaters in the future will be like IMAX theaters. The paradigm shift that takes down the megaplex is not a dynamic we as an Art House community will control. We can learn from and adapt to whatever changes may occur to the Megaplex paradigm. However, we do not control those changes so it is fruitless to fret about them. The cinema market is large and diverse and our job is to focus on our small but essential piece of the movie market – the community-based, mission-driven piece of exhibiting cinema to movie lovers in our home towns. As Ira Deutchman said to us at the Convergence, we must understand and embrace the fact that what we do is hard, but we should never take the easy path.
IN A Time Of Change Art House Cinemas Have An Advantage
Being connected to your community you have a role in defining that community. You can make sure your community values having an Art House. You must strive to be consistently innovative in how You run Your Art House; this will create consistent success. But it requires capital, hard work and the willingness to adapt to changes; changes in technology (digital cinema), in programming (day and date release with home viewing opportunities), in being an effective fund raising professional and a teacher of moving image aesthetics, history and practice. You are the impresario of the most important cultural product created in the American century. You deserve to be a key quality of life institution in your community.
Although the venal dynamics of Hollywood cause the Art House to be undervalued, we must remember that the Art House is vitally important because it is where the beating heart of cinema culture lives. We must keep that heart healthy. Let us execute our heart based Art House cinema in the best possible way, for its own sake and for the general health of our community and cinema art. And, please, let us not be afraid of change.
Change is inevitable. It is foolish to think that change will not happen. Change brings with it opportunity, and there is great opportunity for the Art House to flourish. Why? Because there are more movies made now than at any time in human history. This means all vital channels in which cinema can be presented can succeed – they won’t, but they can. And the community-based Art House has a distinct advantage because, as we have known for a little over 100 years ago, seeing a movie on a big screen, in a darkened room full of strangers is a profound and moving experience. Many humans, many of our neighbors seem to need the experience of gathering communally to experience stories and receive information. The Art House is that place, because it is the community’s living room, or better still, the communal campfire where people can learn, be entertained and transported by stories that are spun by that most brilliant of story tellers – the motion picture.
Keep the faith, Art House friends. You are the best, now let’s get better!
- 6/17/2013
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Once upon a time, local movie theaters staged “spook shows” for Halloween. These usually consisted of vintage horror movies like the original Frankenstein and Dracula along with a live stage presentation or at the very least staff members dressed up in ghoulish outfits. My friend Gary Meyer recently sent me some images from an Oakland, California magic journal of the 1940s and 50s that I’m pleased to share with you, in the hope that they may stoke some happy memories. If you want to see more of these—even on t-shirts—click Here. (Long ago, at a Halloween Saturday matinee in Paramus, New Jersey, the theater manager announced that anyone in a costume would be...
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- 10/31/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Once upon a time, local movie theaters staged “spook shows” for Halloween. These usually consisted of vintage horror movies like the original Frankenstein and Dracula along with a live stage presentation or at the very least staff members dressed up in ghoulish outfits. My friend Gary Meyer recently sent me some images from an Oakland, California magic journal of the 1940s and 50s that I’m pleased to share with you, in the hope that they may stoke some happy memories. If you want to see more of these—even on t-shirts—click Here. (Long ago, at a Halloween Saturday matinee in Paramus, New Jersey, the theater manager announced that anyone in a costume would be admitted for free. I happened to be wearing my Cub Scout uniform that day and he waved me in! I can’t tie a knot or start a fire with sticks, but I’ve never forgotten this life-altering incident.
- 10/31/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Once upon a time, local movie theaters staged “spook shows” for Halloween. These usually consisted of vintage horror movies like the original Frankenstein and Dracula along with a live stage presentation or at the very least staff members dressed up in ghoulish outfits. My friend Gary Meyer recently sent me some images from an Oakland, California magic journal of the 1940s and 50s that I’m pleased to share with you, in the hope that they may stoke some happy memories. If you want to see more of these—even on t-shirts—click Here. (Long ago, at a Halloween Saturday matinee in Paramus,…...
- 10/31/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
The Film Society of Lincoln Center director Rose Kuo threw a Cannes party at the Stella Artois beach attended by New York Film Festival director Richard Pena (pictured), Film Comment editor Gavin Smith and columnist Amy Taubin, former Film Comment editor Harlan Jacobson, Film Society and Snagfilms consultant Bingham Ray, festival players such as Sundance Institute's Keri Putnam, San Francisco's Rachel Rosen, Venice's Giuilia d'Agnolo Vallan, SXSW's Janet Pierson, Telluride's Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Hutsinger, and critics Todd McCarthy, Melissa Anderson, Stephanie Zacharek, John Powers and Karina Longworth. Among other things the Film Society is celebrating and promoting its new theaters by offering free screenings to the public. They've booked a movie marathon of Nyff classics and appearances by Kevin Smith, Jason Reitman, ...
- 5/17/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
San Francisco, CA -- Roger Ebert will receive the Mel Novikoff Award at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival (April 22 - May 6). The award, named for the pioneering San Francisco art and repertory film exhibitor Mel Novikoff (1922-87), acknowledges an individual or institution whose work has enhanced the filmgoing public's knowledge and appreciation of world cinema. The Novikoff Award will be presented at An Evening with Roger Ebert and Friends, Saturday, May 1 at 5:30 pm at the Castro Theatre. Confirmed guests to date include directors Jason Reitman and Terry Zwigoff, with others to be announced soon.
The program will close with a screening of Julia, touted by Ebert as one of the finest films released in 2009. Erick Zonca's character-driven thriller, starring the fearless Tilda Swinton, barrels straight into the sleazy wasteland of an abrasive alcoholic kidnapper who is in way over her head.
"It's an honor to pay...
The program will close with a screening of Julia, touted by Ebert as one of the finest films released in 2009. Erick Zonca's character-driven thriller, starring the fearless Tilda Swinton, barrels straight into the sleazy wasteland of an abrasive alcoholic kidnapper who is in way over her head.
"It's an honor to pay...
- 3/30/2010
- Makingof.com
Click above for event stills The curtain closed on the 11th edition of Mumbai Film Festival organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (Mami) at Mumbai amidst the who's who of the of Indian and World cinema gracing the closure of the event with their presence. A glittering closing ceremony herald the closure of the 7 day Festival that laid out some real sumptuous fare for film-buffs in Mumbai. Mff is a Reliance Big Entertainment initiative and has the distinction of being the only international film festival in India to be organized by an independent body of practicing film professionals. Mami committee led by Chairman Mr. Shyam Benegal and trustees Mr. Yash Chopra, Mrs. Jaya Bachchan, Mr. Amit Khanna, Mr. Amol Palekar along with the festival jury Members including: renowned Hollywood screenwriter and director Mr. Paul Schrader, Sri Lankan filmmaker Mr. Vimukthi Jayasundara, Philippine filmmaker Mr. Brillante Mendoza, Indian filmmaker Mr.
- 11/6/2009
- by Bollywood Hungama News Network
- BollywoodHungama
Click above for event stills The curtain closed on the 11th edition of Mumbai Film Festival organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (Mami) at Mumbai amidst the who's who of the of Indian and World cinema gracing the closure of the event with their presence. A glittering closing ceremony herald the closure of the 7 day Festival that laid out some real sumptuous fare for film-buffs in Mumbai. Mff is a Reliance Big Entertainment initiative and has the distinction of being the only international film festival in India to be organized by an independent body of practicing film professionals. Mami committee led by Chairman Mr. Shyam Benegal and trustees Mr. Yash Chopra, Mrs. Jaya Bachchan, Mr. Amit Khanna, Mr. Amol Palekar along with the festival jury Members including: renowned Hollywood screenwriter and director Mr. Paul Schrader, Sri Lankan filmmaker Mr. Vimukthi Jayasundara, Philippine filmmaker Mr. Brillante Mendoza, Indian filmmaker Mr.
- 11/6/2009
- by Bollywood Hungama News Network
- BollywoodHungama
It was a solid if not stellar year at Telluride. Co-directors Tom Luddy and Gary Meyer persevered through the crazy economy by cutting back their budget (due to sponsor fall-offs) without sacrificing their high programming standards. “We made a commitment to figure out how to do more with less,” says Meyer. After the well-publicized Into the Wild/Juno year of 2007, festival attendance broke records in 2008 but fell off slightly this …...
- 9/8/2009
- Thompson on Hollywood
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As is my custom, I fell into a deep and dreamless slumber after arriving at the Hotel Splendid from the overnight flights. I was awakened two hours later by Chaz: "Pierre Rissient is downstairs!" If Barack Obama had been downstairs, I would have rolled over and buried my head in the pillow. But Pierre! My mentor of all things Cannes! Who knows more different people in the world of cinema than any other man! And there he was, in the little lobby of the Splendid, deep in thought with Laura Kim! Laura! Who in her days as a publicist always knew the skinny on all the good films in a festival, and touted them even if they weren't hers.
This is how Cannes works. At home, you read about the films and directors, but the moment you arrive in town the buzz takes over.
As is my custom, I fell into a deep and dreamless slumber after arriving at the Hotel Splendid from the overnight flights. I was awakened two hours later by Chaz: "Pierre Rissient is downstairs!" If Barack Obama had been downstairs, I would have rolled over and buried my head in the pillow. But Pierre! My mentor of all things Cannes! Who knows more different people in the world of cinema than any other man! And there he was, in the little lobby of the Splendid, deep in thought with Laura Kim! Laura! Who in her days as a publicist always knew the skinny on all the good films in a festival, and touted them even if they weren't hers.
This is how Cannes works. At home, you read about the films and directors, but the moment you arrive in town the buzz takes over.
- 5/15/2009
- by Roger Ebert
- blogs.suntimes.com/ebert
November is lining up to be Animation Month here in San Francisco, not only with the San Francisco Film Society’s International Animation Festival mid-month, but kicking off with a rare public appearance by award-winning animator Richard Williams at San Francisco’s Balboa Theatre on Sunday, November 2, 7:00Pm. Winner of three Academy Awards, animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and author of the definite The Animator’s Survival Kit, Williams will be in the Bay Area to meet with animators at Pixar, Ilm and other effects and animation houses. He has agreed to appear at this public showing to benefit the local Animation Association, Asifa-sf. General Admission is $9.00. Seniors and children under 12 years are $6.50. Advance tickets are available here.
As Gary Meyer has advised, Richard Williams has been in the animation business for over 50 years. He created the Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol, directed the animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?...
As Gary Meyer has advised, Richard Williams has been in the animation business for over 50 years. He created the Oscar-winning A Christmas Carol, directed the animation in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?...
- 10/27/2008
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
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