Banksy Doc - "Exit Through the Gift Shop" opens Friday!

This weekend - April 16th - "Exit Through The Gift Shop" opens in New York, San Francisco and LA.
Banksy has started to release a series of exclusive videos on the film's official Youtube channel. And his art has started to show up around LA.
Check it out - one of my favorites from Sundance 2010.

Banksy Hybrid Doc World premieres at Sundance

The rumors are indeed true. Banksy's first film will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival, describes it this way, “Exit Through the Gift Shop is one of those films that comes along once in a great while, a warped hybrid of reality and self -induced fiction while at the same time a totally entertaining experience. The story is so bizarre I began to question if it could even be real... but in the end I didn't care. I feel bad I won't be able to shake the filmmaker’s hand and tell him how much I love this film. I think I will shake everyone's hand that day and hope I hit on Banksy somewhere. I love his work in all forms.”

“It’s the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable,” said Banksy. “And failed.”

I can't wait to see it!

Official Site: http://banksyfilm.com/

Vic Chestnutt - The Speed Racer I know.

Not too long ago, my husband was talking about the movie "Speed Racer" - the one about the car. I thought he was talking about the documentary about Vic Chestnutt. For a minute it was a very confusing conversation. I loved this film! I have been thinking about Vic Chestnutt obviously alot since he died. I remember seeing this film at Sundance and just fell in love with it. Where can I find a DVD? Anyone?

Filmex Trailers on You Tube

I love these old Filmex Trailers, especially this one with Phil Hartman and Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman. Filmex was the precursor to AFI FEST and last year when we celebrated our 20th Anniversary of AFI FEST, we had these trailers transferred from 35 MM.

I started my film fest life working at the US Film Festival, the precursor to the Sundance Film Festival, taking tickets when I was in high school. I have so many fond memories of that festival. It was so awesome to go back and find all this memorabilia from Filmex and hear all the amazing stories about elephants on Hollywood Blvd. and Alfred Hitchcock showing up to his premiere in a golf cart.

Anvil and Mike Plante in the hot tub!

Okay so I was in Guadalajara this weekend with Mike Plante from Cinevegas and Cinemad and he was telling me that he interviewed Anvil in the hot tub in Sundance...
And here they are - man, I'm jealous!
Anvil rocks as I've said before in this blog!

More on Sales at Sundance...

I was listening to Tilda Swinton on public radio talking about how the Sales agents and Buyers need to be more adventurous and trust that there will be an audience for some of the smaller film but that they might need more time than just a weekend.

Along those lines, I thought this was an interesting article.

x
shaz

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.