As many of you know, my documentary feature debut, A Powerful Noise, premiered at Tribeca last year. Now everyone will have a chance to see it March 5, 2009 for one night only as we roll the film out to 450 theaters. I know what you are thinking, “But Tom, this is a documentary without Al Gore in it. How could it possibly be in 450 theaters?” Well, it has been a long climb and through the magic of satellite broadcast by Fathom Events we have made it happen in Regal, AMC, and Lowe’s theaters everywhere. After the film, there will be a live panel on solving global poverty and injustice that everyone can see and be a part of that night. Please make every effort to support this movement of women changing the world and support independent documentary film… And bring 5 friends with you! Since this release is nationwide, please invite at least 5 Facebook friends to go to the film. I am curious to see if my FB friends alone could sell out the film just by telling their friends to go and invite their friends. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT! WE WILL ONLY SELLOUT IF EVERYONE BUYS A TICKET!

Panel Will Feature:

Former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright
New York Times Reporter, Nicholas Kristof
CARE Ambassador/Model, Christy Turlington Burns
President of CARE, Dr. Helene Gayle
[Removed Unconfirmed Guests]

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Watch the Trailer>>

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1. I love SXSW. It is hands-down my favorite festival (and it was so before I got to Austin). I do a bit of screening for them and last year I did some program notes, so I consider myself invested in their success in a small way. I have to admit that bias, though I feel no less supportive of any other festival. I love film festivals in general.

2. Before I left for Sundance this year, I was hearing ads on my brand new Time Warner digital cable OnDemand that they would be offering 13 films from the Sundance line up while the festival was happening. IFC & SXSW are not the first to create this kind of partnership, they just happened to have held a press conference about it, while I never received so much as a press release from Sundance about their Time Warner partnership. Are you feeling like the general public is over Sundance already because it was on Time Warner? Probably not.

3. Sundance’s 10 for 10 made available 10 shorts from the festival available on iTunes during the fest. I believe they did this last year as well. I’ll grant you that shorts aren’t features, but there might actually be more of a market for shorts via download. I haven’t heard any filmmakers or festival programmers wonder if they won’t be able to show a great short they saw at Sundance because it was on iTunes.

4. The trend in the marketplace for video content is toward availability on all screens at the same time. Some people are devoted to the theater, others want to watch on their phone, others want to stay in the comfort of their homes and/or save money. The hardware and companies that bring about total convergence (Netflix, Amazon, Apple so far) are the ones who are going to win. Trying to preserve release windows is a recipe for illegal downloading because release windows are something that the people with know-how are not willing to respect but they just might buy it if it is available for purchase.

5. There was a huge debate around day-and-date back when Mark Cuban’s company launched Soderbergh’s Bubble in the theaters and VOD. There was a lot of hoopla about the strategy and “the sky is falling” predictions, and the film didn’t rake in millions, so the experiment was deemed a failure in the press. But, all concerned with the deal appeared to walk away happy. Bubble wasn’t the kind of film that would appeal to a mass audience so the idea was about capitalizing on the audience that would pay to watch a new, quirky Soderbergh movie. According to their accounts, they achieved that goal. Again, I’m not convinced that preserving windows helps the filmmakers or the companies who are hoping to capitalize on those windows.

6. Most regional film festivals I have attended have significant community followings. They turn out for the festival because the program has been curated by people they trust, to meet the filmmakers and hear Q&A, and to take advantage of the fun parties and events that happen as part of the festival (what can be better than the True/False Mucca Pazza parade?). These kinds of experiences can’t be replaced by sitting in one’s living room and if you have created a valuable experience, don’t discount its power to move people to the theater. I work for the Austin Film Society; we exhibit independent and foreign films, documentaries and even regional experimental work all year round, in addition to tentpole premieres. We can still turn out an strong audience so I’m confident that Sarasota and others like them can too.

7. There is a real lack of information on the numbers here. IFC proudly boasts the many millions of homes that VOD is available in, but I don’t know one filmmaker who has given up the idea of selling DVDs or getting theatrical release because they are making money hand over fist via VOD. Even on VOD, the film is still an unknown to most of those households that have it available. I have to admit to going to my own VOD service and not recognizing the titles as films I’ve wanted to catch, and not being willing to drop $5 to check it out.

There is no replacement for word or mouth, and/or good curation. Maybe if a VOD user sees the SXSW brand associated with the movie, that will mean something and they’ll watch, but it could just as easily and more probably go in the other direction en masse. It might alleviate some festival fears if the IFC folks met with programmers to discuss the kinds of numbers they are seeing in downloads. My guess is that you needn’t worry, though honestly, wouldn’t it be fabulous if we weren’t trying to split a dollar 50 ways while Mall Cop rakes in millions, as Tom points out? Oye, we are really feeling the effects of the lack of funding in the arts and arts education. We need to get Obama on this after he saves the economy and makes peace in the world

I would be very sad if Tom’s questions were answered by his worst fears. Desanguination of festivals in favor of sitting in front of a television at home would be the fall of the last bastion, as far as I’m concerned. I think the only thing we know now is that everyone is willing to experiment to try to find a strong, workable niche in a vast media landscape, and it probably won’t hurt for festivals to jump into the experiment too. Let’s see how it goes in March.

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I dig the interesting things people are doing to find audiences, and the trailer looks wonderful. Lemme know if you’ve seen the movie.

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Ah, but the film was just what I needed! Murray finds herself drawn in some indomitable way to travel across the country on the train. Embracing the hobo life when she had no “rational” reason for doing so. But she takes to it so fully, while making a film about it, that the film stands as one of the few stories about true freedom. Freedom from bureaucracy, family ties, material belongings but also artistic freedom. The friendships are fast and intense and end not abruptly but like a berg of ice broken into two that slowly drift apart.

Oddly nostalgic at times, but also whimsical and driving. Striking cinematography with amazing scenery, and music that moves your spirit along with the hobos and trains. The film is a true pleasure.

Hollywood Can Suck It is the name of Scott Beiben’s distribution effort. Scott, this is a totally awesome choice with which to launch this company. Hollywood Can Suck It.

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Many filmmakers, distributors and archives can’t afford the high conversion cost to the digital format, and have been reluctant to invest in digitizing “niche” content. Reframe converts all content to high-quality digital files; Works in video formats will be digitized for free, and film formats will be digitized “at-cost.” In a unique arrangement, Reframe returns a digital copy to the rights-holder for free, and allows them to make their content available to others in a nonexclusive arrangement. Reframe then makes these works available for sale to the public, sold at prices based on the suggested retail price set by the rights-holder. All content is made available for sale on DVD on Demand at Amazon.com as well as digital download to own or rent through Amazon’s Unbox service. More About Reframe>>

Part of the community building portion of the site is curated lists. Here is a link to my previously mentioned Hybrid Documentary list. We were limited to films that are currently available on Amazon, so this is by no means meant to be all-inclusive. I did send a long a few titles that aren’t available on Amazon, which I’ve been told will help Reframe staff when reaching out to content holders to get them on the site. I’d love to hear your additions to my list, or if you make your own, please let me know!

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It is a beautifully shot film about the love lives of several prisoners in Spain who all happen to participate in a karaoke-like singing competition. To be honest, as I watched, I had two thoughts–one, the film is quite long. At 2 hours, it requires a commitment to watch and I’d venture that cutting it down would make it tighter story-wise as well as pick up the pace a bit. But it’s so beauitful and there are so many wonderful moments, that is the lesser issue. The bigger issue is that the film is about prisoners but unlike punishment in the US where we seem to collectively agree that unending sentences, vile conditions and heavy-handed personnel are the pathways to make our society safer, in Spain, they believe (and their low recitivism rate attests) that better prisons result in reforming criminals. Or it could be, as Bosch suggested, that since the film doesn’t show horrible conditions, it’s not what distributors want. Possibly that is two sides of the same coin?

Septiembres shows humanism between state and individual; it illustrates that putting energy and resources into criminals pays off with low crime rates; if the film doesn’t gain traction in the US, it might very be because it makes clear that where another country is succeeding, we are failing miserably. But we are too proud to admit that we might be wrong. Wouldn’t all those people who have been treated illy by our system then want to sue? Probably. The film launched the Cine Las Americas Festival here in Austin, and what a wonderful way to kick off an international fest. It painted so clearly a picture of life outside of our own myopic view… the very wonderful thing that happens when we sit down to watch stories that come from afar.

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As I was reading the article, I was feeling like some of us (myself included) come across as quite snarky about the whole thing. I can’t hold back when it comes to Moore; in a typical fashion, he couldn’t bother to comment for Anthony’s article, which just adds fuel to my snark about the man. But as Thom Powers says at the end of the article, “When you have a curated event, you’re building a relationship with the audience. When they have a couple of good experiences, then they don’t have to be sold on each title individually.” I was a season pass holder for Thom’s excellent Stranger Than Fiction series in New York and would gladly promote something similar in cities across America.

Sean Farnel, the programmer for Hot Docs, the fabulous Canadian doc fest in Toronto, shared his positive experience building a theatrical program in Canada like the one Moore suggests, on AJ Schnack’s blog (see comments section). “There are several models for such a circuit around the world. In fact, my first job out of film school was running one, which started in Northern Ontario and became the Film Circuit, which now stretches across 100 cities/towns in Canada. Its run by the Toronto International Film Festival Group.” He goes on to describe the details.

When I was at The Center for Social Media, we programmed a Human Rights Film Series each fall. One thing that struck me with each screening of usually 5 or 6 films playing one a week, was that each film drew a different audience, as opposed to the audience at Powers’ screenings. The films would draw out folks who were issue-oriented, not documentary oriented. It was a great feeling to be sharing films I loved with a new group each week. But it is perhaps also partly this experience that leads me to be pragmatic about the idea of a national doc night at multiplexes. We had a 100 seat theater situated on the American University campus in Washington DC. We would get around 60-80 folks at each of these screenings, which were really excited about but those kinds of numbers won’t excite theater owners when you consider the effort (and cost) it takes to cultivate that audience, even in a metropolitan area.

As Anthony says in his article, we all want more information and I’d argue that it would make sense to gather the folks quoted in Anthony’s article into a room and start brainstorming with Moore. I bet something really great could happen if they could all play in the same sandbox for one day.

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