Kim's Video finds a home in Italy

When I was a teenager, I started taking tickets at the US Film Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah, after the screenings, I would ask the filmmakers to give me a list of the films they loved and thought I needed to see!

I remember taking this list to the local video store and the clerks would look at me blankly, like I had made up the list of film titles on the paper. I'd have to drive 14 hours to San Francisco to find some of the films.

Later I moved to New York City and I lived on 7th Street between B & C. I found Kim's Video, the second day I lived in NYC. It was like paradise and only one block from my house. I lived at Kim's, I would go in there at least once a day and often more. I went through thousands of videos in their collection.

So when I read this article in the New York Times, I almost cried.

I love that the collection has found a home and I really love that the city of Salemi decided that the way to renew their town was to put the artists in charge and to put on a Never-Ending film festival!

I love love love this line: "promoting “culture as an everyday thing, something you consume every day,” ...an effort to give artists political power."

I might need to move to Salemi now. "Salemi is the future, New York is the past"

My favorite films of 2008 and can't wait for 2009

Every year Indiewire compiles a list of top favorites from the editors of indieWIRE and industry insiders. Included in these "industry insiders" are festival programmers and acquisitions folks.

I have a love/hate with "top ten" lists but I always love to read this one since Festival Programmers see so many films that don't break through and have seen so many films overall that I love to see what makes it into these lists. I can never narrow mine down to ten - that's one thing I love about my job is I actually like movies and honestly like a lot of them. If you asked me my top ten favorite films of all time, I would be more selective but in any given year, I like films for a variety of reasons... sometimes, a film stands out, because I feel like it's a new talent and someone to watch out for their next film and sometimes, the film captures the mood of that year and time. And sometimes a film stands out enough to even make it into the "of all time" list but mostly I just love films.

Here is my list with some additions that I forgot!
Also, my friend had posted sarcastically lovingly, I'm sure: "A list of films you can't see in the theatres or rent - how helpful!" Well sir, many of these are available on Netflix and others are available on that new thing called "the internet". Plus, many of them played in festivals, like AFI FEST and smaller regional festivals - once again making festivals so important!

I had a really hard time narrowing it down to 10 - there are 15 I think stood out above the rest. (Note: unranked, alphabetical order)

"The Class"
"Encounters at the End of the World"
"Frozen River"
"Happy-Go-Lucky"
"Hunger"
"Man on Wire"
"Milk"
"Momma's Man"
"The Order of Myths"
"Rachel Getting Married"
"Secrecy"
"Slumdog Millionaire"
"Synecdoche, New York"
"Waltz with Bashir"
"Wendy and Lucy"
"The Wrestler"

And films released I forgot that are awesome:
"The Pleasure of Being Robbed"
"California Dreamin' (Endless)"

Best as yet undistributed films of 2008:
"Acne"
"Afterschool"
"Anvil! The Story of Anvil"
"Goodbye Solo"
"Finally Lillian and Dan"
"Intimades de Shakespeare y Victor Hugo"
"I'm Gonna Explode (Voy a Explotar)"
"Last Days of Shishmaref"

I forgot to mention in the undistributed:
"Prodigal Sons"
"Dear Zachary"
"Of all the Things"

From my last year's best undistributed films:
"Silent Light"
"Still Life"
"Flight of the Red Balloon"

I love that Matt Dentler added these categories:
My new obsession is finding films online!

Web Series:
1. "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"
2. "Wainy Days"
3. "The Stagg Party"

Original Viral Video:
1. "Where the Hell is Matt?"
2. "Prop 8: The Musical"
3. "JC Penney's 'Beware of the Doghouse'"

New Film Portal:
1. Hulu
2. YouTube Screening Room
3. SnagFilms

Relaunched Film Portal:
1. Amazon VOD
2. Joost
3. Babelgum

Happy Hunting

It's not too late to get to Ann Arbor!

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is still going strong even after all the censorship shite they've been through and runs through Sunday.

You can see the whole line up here.

Christen McArdle totally rocks and this festival is celebrating 46 years!

It's time to watch!

New Directors / New Films

Some wonderful films playing in New York this week in the New Directors / New Films film series.

Saw these two articles that were great, one from the New York Times and the other from Indiewire. Both "Jellyfish and "Munyurangabo" played at AFI FEST this past year.

If you are interested in "Munyurangabo" and Rwanda, you should take a look at JB Rutagarama's personal documentary "Back Home".

I'm a huge fan of Aza Jacobs, we've screened all of his films at AFI FEST and his new film "Momma's Man" was just sold to Think Film.

And "Frozen River" won an Award at the Sundance Film Festival and is produced by the fantastic Heather Rae who made "Trudell".

Such a great line up, if you're in NYC check them out.
Full schedule and ticket information is available here.

Film Festivals develop talent!

So, Lane and I were just talking about how everyone loves to talk about all the films at Sundance that don't make any money... which may be true, but one awesome part of film festivals is that you see films from emerging artists and films that may never get distributed. So, I'm glad to see that some folks are writing about the Frontier filmmakers and I love that Geoff reminds everyone that sometimes it's about supporting new filmmakers, who become established filmmakers so they keep on making good films...

I wish people could get over the 11 million dollar sale and go see some of the other films too!

If you haven't been to the New Frontiers on Main. Go! It's awesome, Shari and Cooper rock that place.

I love festivals.

Mexican Cinema

The Goteborg International Film Festival is highlighting Mexican Cinema.

http://www.filmfestival.org/filmfestival/info/en/press/nyheter?itemId=161058

Cinevegas highlighted Mexico this year and we at AFI FEST had several amazing Mexican films at the festival.

When we screened DEFICIT at the film festival, Producer Pablo Cruz talked about what's happening in Mexico and how the struggles of modern Mexican life are inspiring filmmakers and artists to create.

http://www.afi.com/onscreen/afifest/2007/media/video1.aspx

I love it when artists speak up and something extraordinary happens.