One week run of Date Number One in DC area July 12 - 18

Little over a year after its 2 screening/one night world premiere in DC & after playing a weekend in Seattle & a few more one night only screenings in NYC, DC, Takoma Park MD & Kensington MD, Date Number One will have its first one week run July 12 - 18, in the DC area, in Kensington, MD. Get all the info. here:


http://diyfilmmaker.blogspot.com/2007/04/date-number-one-july-12-18-kensington.html





- Sujewa

About 30 years after completion, Killer of Sheep gets theatrical run

Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep was shot on weekends in the 1970's for around $10,000, as a grad school thesis project. Now, about 30 years later, the much praised film is receiving a theatrical release. Read all about it at GreenCine Daily.

- Sujewa

Remix HEAD TRAUMA screening this SAT.

Come catch a very special REMIX presentation of HEAD TRAUMA as it plays on
the big screen one final time in Philadelphia. This is the kick off to a number of national and international remix HEAD TRAUMA presentations - more details soon.



WHAT:
SPECIAL REMIX screening of HEAD TRAUMA - a collision of music, movies,
theatrics and gaming.
music - Live soundtrack performances by Bardo Pond, members of Espers, Fern
Knight and DJ Chief Wreck'em
movies - HEAD TRAUMA and a special screening of a short claymation
adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's classic THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
theatrics - sets, props and characters from the movie will emerge from the
audience - lights, fog and creepy fun
gaming - use your mobile phone to interact with the movie and watch in
amazement as all the phones in the theater ring at once!

WHEN:
This Sat. March 31st @ 7:30pm

WHERE:
Philadelphia's International House (37th and Chestnut) on the U of Penn's
campus - on street parking and two parking garages in walking distance

HOW MUCH:
$14 for all seats - seating is on a first come first serve basis

FOR MORE INFO:
http://www.ihousephilly.org/programs-live-at-IHouse.htm show info and advance tickets
http://www.headtraumamovie.com for more info on HEAD TRAUMA

The Kensington Real Independent Film Festival, September 6 - 9, 2007!

In lovely Kensington, MD. 15% of tix sales $s from each screening goes to the filmmaker, plus other goodies. Screening at the 250+ seat Armory Building. More info. here.

- Sujewa

The Real Indie Films News Blog

Check it out here. Some IF filmmakers are mentioned there already.

- Sujewa

IndieFilmPedia group blog set up

At Lucas McNelly's 100 Films blog there is a quite a bit of enthusiasm by a handful of people, yours truly included, about starting a web based independent film encyclopedia - a wikipedia for indie films, if you will. As a very early step in harnessing this energy, the group blog IndieFilmPedia has been set up. Interested people at the 100 Films blog have been invited to start organizing material for the wiki at the IndieFilmPedia. Maybe this will turn out to be something, maybe nothing, maybe a better working tool will be discovered, but, for the moment, here it is. We'll see what Lucas & the 100 Films commenters will want to do, I am certainly all for the project (as time permits).

- Sujewa

Conversation about creating an indie film encyclopedia on the web

At the 100 Films blog, at the comments for this entry, there is a long conversation happening about creating a web based indie film encyclopedia, kind of like a wikipedia for indie film. Go check it out & join in if ya feel like it.

- Sujewa

Lucas @ 100 Films wants to review your real indie film

Read all about it here. And here is a bit of the post where Lucas talks about his new project:

" I've been trying to think of ways to make the no-budget filmmakers who, in my opinion, are an extremely important niche in the indie world, all that more viable to the larger film community. One method I've come up with is using the internet to write about them in much of the same way I'd write about the latest release from Focus Features. This serves two purposes: 1) it provides much needed exposure (even if it is only a little bit) for filmmakers who work very hard with little to no recognition, and 2) it's a critical voice by which they can get a sense of just how their film plays to someone who isn't inclined to dole out empty praise or criticize needlessly[1]. And being a no-budget filmmakers myself, I figure shining as much light on others as possible has to have some benefits, in terms of karma."

And here again is the total post at 100 Films.

- Sujewa

American Messiah at AFI Dallas

(Also posted at my blog):

So -- the schedule is finally official, and I can now announce publicly that The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah will screen at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival.

The film will screen twice during the festival, at the Magnolia Theatre in Dallas:

Screening #1: Saturday, March 24th, at 4:30pm
Screening #2: Sunday, March 25th, at Noon

Very pleased to be screening at such a prestigious fest! Scheduled to be in attendance: uber-indie filmmaker David Lynch, Sydney Pollack, Lauren Bacall, Laura Dern, Sarah Polley, and Jack Valenti!

Schedule note: David Lynch's new film, Inland Empire, will be screening directly after mine on Saturday, March 24th. Mr. Lynch himself is supposed to be in attendance to receive an award from the festival. Now, I ask you, wouldn't it be cool if he came just a little bit early to catch a little film about a guy who thinks he's a messiah?

updates on my '07 feature Filmmaking For The Poor

No site/page for this film yet. But until the project is done & or until I set up a site for the film (& possibly even after that), updates on my new feature Filmmaking For The Poor, a comedy about low budget filmmaking, can be found here. I am working on the script now and I expect to be able to shoot this movie starting in May - June. Most likely the movie will have several stories about low-budget filmmaking, including one inspired by making & self-distributing Date Number One.

- Sujewa

Turning your festival experience into cash

exploring some ideas along that line, check it out here. add your own tips & ideas through Comments on that post.

- Sujewa

date number one screening no.1 of 2007!

3/15/07

photo copyright 2007 sujewa ekanayake/wild diner films

Filmmaker Mag blog post re: my microinvesting in indie films idea/project

Scott at Filmmaker Mag blog places a little side project of mine in wider economic development context. Check it out here:
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2007/02/filmmaker-as-financier.php

- Sujewa

Killing Down in Indie Slate

There's a piece on my film Killing Down in the new issue of Indie Slate...

http://www.indieslate.com/

Instead of focusing on the normal "How I Made" the film, the article talks about my foreign distribution and delivery requirements, etc. I haven't seen the story yet, but hopefully it's got some good info in it for filmmakers.

You can get a copy at most Borders Books or Barnes & Noble.

Also, just an FYI - we have two offers we're currently considering for our domestic rights. However, we might do a "service deal" to keep more control. Can't decide. Since we did well on our foreign sale we have more flexibility to choose on the domestic side.

One way or another though the movie should be available pretty much everywhere later this spring and summer. :)

-Blake

So what do we think about self-distribution now?

In early '06 a few filmmakers, myself included, had a long discussion about the prospects & potential of self-distribution - the discussion was spread out over several blogs, most noticeably at David Lowery's blog. 2006 proved to be a year that, in my opinion, offered an unprecedented amount of highly visible (possibly due to blogging) self-distribution activity in indie film. Now I am interested in what interested people think about self-distro, post-'06. So at my main blog there is a post to get the conversation started. Check it out, comment if you feel like sharing some opinions & observations. Specially filmmakers who self-distributed a work in '06 or filmmakers who are thinking about doing so in '07. Thanks! So go here to get started.

American Messiah DVD available

Well, I've chosen the CustomFlix route for releasing The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah (for now, anyway -- still seeking a distribution deal, of course).

You can buy the film (a 2-disc special edition with the film, a making-of documentary, and 30+ minutes of deleted scenes) at: http://www.customflix.com/221546

Filmmaker Profiles DIYdistribution

Hey everyone,
In the current issue of Filmmaker, you can read about the efforts of several indie filmmakers in DIY distribution. In addition to jumping off bridges, there's articles by Lance Weiler, director, Head Trauma), Jay Craven (writer-director, Disappearances) and Lance's interview with EricBassert about Inland Empire.
Here's the link.

Four Eyed Monsters interview at The Workbook Project

Check it out here.

Gordy Hoffman Interview

I just published an interview with Gordy Hoffman (writer of Love Liza, director of A Coat of Snow, founder of The BlueCat Screenplay Competition) at the WDF blog. Check it out here.

- Sujewa

Date Number One MERCH at a CafePress store

Made a cool yellow t-shirt with black art (ad art from the '06 World Premiere, pictured), a coffee mug, button & a couple of magnets & an '07 calendar. A fun effort to raise some cash for the many distribution expenses that will come due this year as I distribute Date Number One. Check out the CafePress store & if ya wanna support the project, buy something please. The most important merch item of them all, the DVD, is on the way (definitely this winter/before March). Here's the store link. Thanks!

Fest Mob hits Park City

Since I won't be able to make the annual pilgrimage to Park City this year, I started thinking about how I might be able to experience it first hand. The fest mob is a way for people who can not make it to the festival, to interact with those who can, in a sense creating a social network around the experience.

The "fest mob" http://workbookproject.com/mob is a social mobile experiment that makes use of a “mashup” of freely available websites and web 2.0 services. The goal of the experiment is to capture the festival environment from various perspectives in real time. Participants will be using mobile phones to text, photograph, and record their daily activities.

Festival goers use mobile phones to document what they are watching, attending, eating, drinking and seeing. Those who cannot attend the festival are able to contribute questions, comments and news that they are reading about the festival online.

The results can be viewed in real-time at http://workbookproject.com/mob via a mobile site http://winksite.com/workbook/mob or on a mobile phone by texting FOLLOW FESTMOB to 40404.

Joining the “fest mob” is a simple process for more information visit http://workbookproject.com/mob

American Messiah update

Received this note from Chris Hansen, director of The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah today:

" American Messiah Fans,

I have received several requests for Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah posters — they are now available. Please visit the official storefront at www.cafepress.com/americanmessiah, and you can find large, small, and mini-size posters with the Andy Warhol-inspired American Messiah poster design!

Also -- an announcement about DVD availability is coming VERY soon. I’ll send out an email with a link to the online store where you can purchase your very own 2-disc special edition of the film.

Chris
http://www.AmericanMessiah.com "

- Sujewa

theatrical mapping project

Hope this finds everyone well. In an effort to build a venue database, we've started a theatrical mapping project over at the workbook site.


The map is meant to be "embed and spread." If you know of a good digital screen feel free to add it. Once something is added, it will be viewable where ever someone has embedded the map.

Copy and paste the following code into your pages:
<iframe src="http://platial.com/map/11858/workbook/s0" style="width:800px;height:600px;" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe>

A flash version for myspace and other social networking profiles that only take flash. Copy and paste the following code into your pages.
<embed src="http://platial.com/publish/yahoo/ymap_publish.swf?id=11858" quality="high" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="400" width="450" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"><br /></embed>

6 links to official sites of Indie Features movies added, MORE COMING SOON

The plan has been, for some time now, to add links to all the official sites of the movies that members of this blog have written about during the past year. I am going to finish up that project in the coming days. If you look to the right hand side of the main page (you may have to scroll all the way down), you'll see the LINKS section. Added 6 links today:

Links

Date Number One

Head Trauma

Killing Down

Jumping Off Bridges

The Proper Care & Feeding of an American Messiah

LOL

More coming soon!

- Sujewa

CustomFlix announces support for internet downloads of indie movies through Amazon Unbox

Thanks News of the Dead for the link. Here is the opening paragraph of CustomFlix's press release re: the new service (links by me):

" CustomFlix Labs, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced its support for Amazon.com's video download service, Amazon Unbox, by adding video downloads to its current DVD and CD on Demand services. This new CustomFlix service now enables independent filmmakers and other DVD content owners to make their content available as video downloads to tens of millions of Amazon.com customers through Unbox."

Read the rest of it here.

I checked out a download time chart of theirs, with a high speed cable connection (6 Mbps) you can start watching a 2 hour movie in less than 3 minutes through this download service, & you can watch the downloaded material on your TV once you hook your computer up to your TV (more on the Amazon Unbox FAQ).

- Sujewa

A US Art/Indie/Foreign/Alt Critics List

Here is the link for the indieWIRE page with the names of the critics (& their publications) who participated in iW's year end poll re: best films & performances, etc. (which is a feature imported from Village Voice). Filmmaker/distributors who are distributing a film next year may want to get a screener to the hands of some or all of the critics listed on the page. If a lot of them like your film, it will be another useful marketing thing. The list includes print & web critics.

Lance Weiler interviews Absurda's Eric Bassett re: INLAND EMPIRE self-distribution

Sounds very exciting. Check it out here & hear all about how David Lynch & co. is gonna do their INLAND EMPIRE self-distribution magic.

- Sujewa

Getting your DVD on Amazon.com

If you are self-distributing, there are 3 options for getting your film listed & sold through Amazon.com: 1) CustomFlix, 2) Advantage, & 3) Pro Merchant. Read about them & get links here. Advantage looks like the best option for me. CustomFlix maybe the least expensive & the option that requires the least amount of work on the part of the filmmaker.

- Sujewa

future of web video

NEW "this conference is being recorded" PODCAST . This week's guest is Scott Kirsner. Scott discusses his new book "The Future of Web Video" The conversation covers a wide range of subjects around the new emerging web video economy. Scott shares some insight into how certain filmmakers have even been able to gross upwards of $30,000 dollars off their viral web shorts.

To hear, download or subscribe to the podcast visit http://workbookproject.com

Big thanks to everyone who has sent in project info to be included in the first edition of the "workbook" If you still would like to have your project listed in the 1st edition it's totally free and painless. Just send us the following

- project description
- status (shooting, post, distro - fest, theatrical, DVD, online etc.)
- shooting format and budget
- link to sites, blogs, social pages etc.
- link to trailer

thanks!

Fylmz interview re: Date Number One & self-distribution

Check it out here. Thanks!