All these wonderful things

The Pre-Christmas Brief: THE COVE Leads the Laurels, LA DANSE Breaks Into the Top 20 and the Docs of Hopenhagen

We are winding down for the year and our posting over the next two weeks will be intermittent at best.  But we'll be back in the New Year with our look back on 2009, including our favorite films, nonfiction heroes and the issues that defined our community.

During the holidays, we will be twittering the important (and occasionally trivial) doc news (there will also be utterly incomprehensible nonsense), so if you aren't following us yet, now's as good a time to start as any.

But before we go...

Film critics are continuing to pile on the end-of-the-year honors, most recently with the Chicago Film Critics being the latest group to throw their hats in the ring for ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, the St. Louis Film Critics going for CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and the Florida Film Critics lining up for THE COVE.  Spreading the love a little bit further, those rapscallions at the Satellite Awards awarded their Best Documentary prize to EVERY LITTLE STEP.

We're keeping track of all of this year's major honors - from festival jury prizes to critics awards - on our 2009 Nonfiction Feature Honor Roll.  At the moment, THE COVE is way out in front with the most laurels, with substantial support from film critics groups proving the difference.  ANVIL, BURMA VJ and FOOD, INC. also have a strong showing.

Further signs that the year is almost done - the docs have nearly cleared out of the art houses as Oscar bait comes to town.  According to Box Office Mojo, the only feature documentary to make more than $3,000 total in North American theaters this weekend was Frederick Wiseman's LA DANSE: THE PARIS OPERA BALLET.  That film took in $27,500 on 25 screens this weekend for a total box office take to date of $342K.  That's enough to edge LA DANSE into the Top 20 Nonfiction Box Office for 2009, replacing UNMISTAKEN CHILD (which quietly doubled the take of FLOW to become the highest grossing doc yet for Oscilloscope Laboratories).

An interesting piece of box office trivia - THE COVE looks to end its theatrical run with a box office take of approximately $850K - nearly the exact same box office total for 2007's SHARKWATER.

The Monday Brief: Critics Love Them Some COVE, Grant Deadlines & Oprah Takes the Doc Plunge

Good afternoon and apologies for a slightly late (and abbreviated) Monday brief - a combo of internet failures and trying to stay on top of the Top 25 Film Festival list (as well as my real job(s)).

As the midday sun hits Los Angeles, the orgy of film critics prizes is in full effect and it's pretty clear that the early favorite for crix nods will be Louie Psihoyos' THE COVE.  Just this weekend, it picked up prizes from the Los Angeles Film Critics (which split the award between COVE and Agnes Varda's THE BEACHES OF AGNES), the Boston Film Critics, the New York Film Critics Online and even the Alliance of Women Film Journalists (which also gave two awards to Varda - the Lifetime Achievement and Perseverance Award).  11 days ago, THE COVE picked up the Best Documentary laurel from the National Board of Review.

Only today did some critics groups start to break away from THE COVE, as the New York Film Critics gave their doc prize to OF TIME AND THE CITY and the Southeast Film Critics awarded FOOD, INC. (which previously picked up the DC Film Critics award), with THE COVE as runner-up.

This is setting up and interesting dynamic heading forward, with THE COVE seemingly the critics choice and FOOD, INC. sweeping the major pre-Oscar documentary awards (winning at the Gothams, nominated for the IDA, the Spirits and Cinema Eye), where THE COVE was mostly shut out (it leads Cinema Eye nominations with 7 but was bypassed by the other awards).

Also today, the Broadcast Film Critics named their 5 nominees.  In addition to front-running COVE and FOOD, they nommed ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY and MICHAEL JACKSON'S THIS IS IT.

And at the European Film Academy's Awards on Saturday, Peter Liechti's THE SOUND OF INSECTS: RECORD OF A MUMMY received the Documentary Prix Arte.  The film is up for Cinema Eye's new Spotlight Award.

The Monday Brief: Indie Film in Hell - The Bloodbath, CineVegas & Polanski, But Signs of Hope With Ondi Timoner's Innovations, CAPITALISM, SEPTEMBER & IT MIGHT GET LOUD

Is the entire indie film world going to hell?  That's been the question vibrating through our community for the past several weeks, particularly after a Toronto International Film Festival that was light on sales and a summary paper issued by Anne Thompson, in which she labeled this year's TIFF an "indie bloodbath":

"The old independent market is over. A new one will take its place. But we are smack in the middle between the end of one paradigm and the start of another, and it’s a scary place indeed...

If nobody knew anything before, they know even less now. The one sure thing is that moviemakers will now PAY to get their films released. The few remaining distributors can sit back and wait for movies to drop in their laps, often with P & A funds attached. All hopes of a hot sale at a festivals were dashed this year."

And if you think filmmakers going to festivals have it bad, what about the festivals themselves?  This year has seen an unprecedented upheaval, as five of the top 10 festivals for documentaries saw a change in leadership (Sundance, Silverdocs, Los Angeles, Tribeca and Full Frame) and a number of film festivals found themselves making news - Toronto over its choice of Tel Aviv for its City to City Spotlight, Los Angeles in its battle with the BANANAS!* filmmakers and lawyers from Dole, SF Jewish Film over its screening of RACHEL, Tokyo due to its rejection-then-capitulation/acceptance of THE COVE, not to mention the coup at the Denver Film Society.  And what does it say about the New York Film Festival if most of NYC's indie film cognoscenti took the first flights out of town to be in Austin for Fantastic Fest, just as NYFF was opening?

Now we learn that CineVegas, one of the best regional festivals in the US, will not be back for its 2010 edition (although they state publicly that they will try to return sometime after that) and yesterday  the news that filmmaker Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland as he was en route to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Zurich Film Festival.

Add to all this what any filmmaker on the festival circuit (including this one) can tell you with certainty - for many festivals, the days of largesse have passed.  No travel, no accommodations, no screening fees.  Oh yeah, and if you want more than a couple tickets to your film, you're going to have to pay for them.

Let that sink in for a moment.

IFC's Sundance Selects Acquires ART OF THE STEAL, First TIFF '09 Doc to Sell

Two days after the close of the Toronto Film Festival - and on the same day as it screened for New York Film Festival press, Don Argott's THE ART OF THE STEAL became the first documentary from TIFF to sell when it was acquired by IFC's Sundance Selects imprint.

indieWIRE has the details:

"A bidding situation with four different buyers resulted in the deal, which is reported to have come with a substantial six figure advance. Sundance Selects - which has a mix of execs from Sundance and IFC Films handling both acquisitions and marketing - will release the film widely in theaters in 2010 in at least fifteen cities."

Sundance Selects was unveiled last month with the release of Spike Lee's PASSING STRANGE.  Our TIFF round-up of ART OF THE STEAL can be found here.

The Monday Brief: Post-Toronto Glow for ART & COLLAPSE, Moore Returns and Are These 5 Films Your Oscar Frontrunners?

The end of the Toronto International Film Festival means the two-month headlong rush toward IDFA is upon us, wherein there will be a major or mini-major film fest on pretty much every single weekend.  So get ready for Atlantic, New York, Camden, Woodstock, Mill Valley, Morelia, Pusan, Chicago, Hamptons, London, DocLisboa, Tokyo, Rome, Leipzig, Jihlava, Sheffield, AFI, Mar del Plata, Copenhagen, Denver, St. Louis, Gijon and, finally, yes, IDFA.  That's at least 23 fests of some import in just 10 weeks.  Hold onto your hats...

But before we plunge headlong into the future fall festival frenzy, we pause to think of this year's Toronto Fest filmmakers, battered and bruised from several days of screenings, press, parties and the roller coaster ride that is a major premiere date. 

While there has yet to be a major sale announced for docs at this year's Toronto Fest, we should remember that some of last year's major TIFF titles (IT MIGHT GET LOUD, MORE THAN A GAME) didn't sell until well after the festival and at least one, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, made very good money going it alone.  But there are rumors of a deal pending for THE ART OF THE STEAL and lots of strong critical praise for COLLAPSE, which probably left the biggest impact of any doc in Toronto.  Check out our wrap on many of the top nonfiction titles at TIFF: COLLAPSE, ART OF THE STEAL, COLONY, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA, HOW TO FOLD A FLAG, CLEANFLIX, HUGH HEFNER: PLAYBOY, ACTIVIST AND REBEL and People's Choice Award winner THE TOPP TWINS. 

The Monday Brief: A Big SEPTEMBER Expansion, the Underground Oscar Docs & Remembering Christian Poveda

It's Day 5 of the Toronto Film Festival and while a new crop of documentaries are being unveiled this weekend, three that debuted at this year's Sundance fest are making box office waves in the US...

RJ Cutler's THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE went wide this weekend - really wide - and, for a change, the expansion was a huge success.  After a two-week NY run that sported one of the best debuts of the year, the Vogue Magazine doc expanded to more than 100 theaters and still managed to average $6,577 per.  That pushes SEPTEMBER ISSUE past $1.25M, making the Roadside Attractions release the 8th nonfiction of 2009 surpass the magical million dollar mark.  With both Michael Moore's latest as well as Sony's Michael Jackson doc coming this fall, the year should have a minimum of 9 films clearing that hurdle - at least one more than last year.

The success of SEPTEMBER means it will likely become - by next weekend if not sooner - the highest grossing film yet for A&E IndieFilms.  Currently, MURDERBALL - ironically considered by some to be a disappointment at the time - holds that honor, with just over $1.5 million in box office receipts.  It's also a bit of a balm for Roadside Attractions, which had high hopes for its other big Sundance acquisition, THE COVE - only to find disappointing audience response.

In more limited release, two other Sundance 2009 docs did well:  Joe Berlinger's CRUDE had a terrific exclusive engagement at NYC's IFC Center, making more than $16K on that single screen this weekend.  Laura Gabbert's NO IMPACT MAN averaged nearly $9K on two screens in NY and LA, making that film the strongest debut yet for an Oscilloscope Labs release. 

The Monday Brief: IT Does GET LOUD in Theatres, A Tough Week for THE COVE and WOODSTOCK At 39

Good morning.  We're more than halfway through August and just under three weeks away from the World Premiere of Michael Moore's CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY at La Biennale di Venezia...

But the big documentary news of the weekend is the stellar debut of the new film from another Oscar winner.  Davis Guggenheim's IT MIGHT GET LOUD, the story of the electric guitar as seen through Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, broke out this weekend - and big.  Playing at just 7 theaters, the Sony Pictures Classics release made more than $100K, marking the best release for a documentary this year that was playing on more than 2 screens. 

IT MIGHT GET LOUD continues the sensational nonfiction streak for SPC this year, coming on the heels of WALTZ WITH BASHIR (just under $2.3M) EVERY LITTLE STEP ($1.6M and still going) and even TYSON ($886K).

It also marks the latest nonfiction feature from the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival to become a hit with moviegoers (following BASHIR, VALENTINO: THE LAST EMPEROR, EVERY LITTLE STEP and FOOD, INC.  Together, those five titles (including IT MIGHT GET LOUD) have taken in nearly $8.5M.  The highest grossing Sundance film this year is ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL from the 2008 fest (although many haven't been released yet).

One 2009 Sundance title that entered theatres with lofty expectations - huge box office, Oscar nominations, changing maritime law - was THE COVE.  But this was not a good week for that film in terms of the things that worry filmmakers and distributors - box office and press. 

First, despite strong reviews and a new promotional push - including an appearance by director Louie Psihoyos on the Today Show - the film slipped to a per theater average of just $1,660 this weekend and a total cume of $424K.  It now looks like the film will have to struggle to make it to $1M at the box office Worse was a piece in the LA Times by John Horn that used THE COVE as the poster child for why environmental docs aren't working at the box office (we wondered why Horn never bothered to mention Disney's EARTH in his story).  It's never a good sign to have your distributor (in this case, Roadside Attractions' Howard Cohen) quoted as saying, "It's not what we would have hoped" and "the concept of the movie is much more off-putting than the experience of watching it".

Faux-Outrage of the Week: Youth Culture is Killing THE HURT LOCKER

It all started with a throwaway line in a John Horn column.

You remember John Horn, the LA Times writer who we like to pick on for declaring YOUNG@HEART an unmitigated disaster (what with box office topping out just shy of $4 million).  Well, in a recent column, Horn wrote about the surprising success of Kathryn Bigelow's excellent new film THE HURT LOCKER, which - at the time - had just passed $7 million and seemed like it was eluding the box office troubles that beset other Iraq War films (both narrative and documentaries).

In the midst of praising Summit Entertainment (the upstart distributor behind the TWILIGHT franchise) for their handling the release of the film, Horn suggests a possible dark lining for his silver cloud:

"For all of the film's early commercial and critical achievements, Summit now faces a HURT LOCKER test nearly as tricky as the film's central theme of disabling Iraqi improvised explosive devices. Younger moviegoers are not flocking to the film, which could limit its ticket sales."

Something about that last line has shaken both Roger Ebert and blogger Jeffrey Wells to their very core, leading both to write hysterical, sky-is-falling screeds against young people for turning their backs on such cinematic excellence.

Says America's favorite film critic in a posting entitled - get ready for it, "THE GATHERING DARK AGE":

"If I mention the cliché "the dumbing-down of America," it's only because there's no way around it. And this dumbing-down seems more pronounced among younger Americans. It has nothing to do with higher educational or income levels. It proceeds from a lack of curiosity and, in many cases, a criminally useless system of primary and secondary education. Until a few decades ago, almost all high school graduates could read a daily newspaper. The issue today is not whether they read a daily paper, but whether they can." (emphasis his)

Wells goes even further:

"Excuse me? The Young and the Empty are paying to see big-studio CG crap but they're steering clear of a genuinely cool, gripping and seriously thrilling film that is unquestionably among the year's best and which runs circles around the filmmaking chops of Michael Bay and Stephen Sommers? And the youth of the nation can't be bothered? There's really and truly something wrong with these guys, honest to God. A deficiency in their souls."

Balderdash.

The Monday Brief: The OBAMA Doc Hunts for Oscar, Spirit Awards Move Off the Beach and What if You Made a John Hughes Doc and John Hughes Died?

Good Monday morning to you, with summer winding down and the fall festivals seeming to be nearly upon us, but in the documentary feature world, August means Oscar qualifying...

Like lots of other folks with films set to debut later this year (or even later), HBO moved to qualify its forthcoming Obama documentary BY THE PEOPLE: THE ELECTION OF BARACK OBAMA by screening it theatrically in New York and Los Angeles.  And while the pay network took some lumps last year for hiding its theatrical run of ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, this year's qualifying took place in the sunshine, or at the Sunshine, to be exact.

Opening Friday and screening through this week, BY THE PEOPLE is playing at New York's Sunshine Cinema in SoHo and at LA's Laemmle Sunset 5, and while it's pretty clear that HBO didn't go to a lot of effort to screen the film for critics (note the lack of reviews at Rotten Tomatoes), they aren't screening the film in Pasadena or on W. 181 Street either (God bless, you know I do love Pasadena, so no offense).  So mazel tov. 

The limited response thus far from those who have written about the film seems positive, if not glowing.  The Chicago Tribune's political writer Lynn Sweet writes that the film is "an important historical document" because of the exclusive access that filmmakers Amy Rice and Alicia Sands had to the campaign, and argues that we shouldn't expect a film like DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus' classic THE WAR ROOM, writing, "THE WAR ROOM didn't have Clinton".

Turner and Bill Ross Talk About 45365's Online Launch Just 5 Months After Their SXSW Victory

Bill and Turner Ross' 45365 was one of my favorite films at this year's SXSW Film Festival - I wasn't alone, the film won the Grand Jury Prize - and has continued to be one of the films that has stayed with me.  At the time, I described it as "a non-narrative, impressionistic, whisper of a film" and in the months since Austin, it has lingered and returned to my psyche on numerous occasions, long after I'd forgotten what got me excited or turned off to numerous so-called high profile docs.

So, I must admit that I didn't quite know how to react when I started getting press releases earlier this week that the folks at SnagFilms had locked up the film for their online Summerfest.  Starting tomorrow, you'll be able to watch 45365 on your computer for one week.

As an admirer of 45365 as well as someone who admittedly is confused about what online distribution is really doing for filmmakers (three times this week I've heard someone ask, "Is anybody making any money with it?"), I had questions.  Isn't this all too fast?  Five months for an award winning film to move to free viewing online?  Won't that eliminate other possibilities for the film? 

Corresponding with Bill and Turner, I was struck by something else.  Often it seems that we - as independent filmmakers - are like farmers who have harvested our crop (often with less of a yield than we anticipated) but we think that if we keep watering or fertilizing the barren land that maybe something else will grow.  The push-pull of when to stop struggling to get that rock uphill is something we all think about.  Hell, I'm still doing interviews for a film I finished three years ago. 

While Bill and Turner have not completely abandoned their field - they will shepherd 45365 through more festival dates, followed by potential limited theatrical and DVD (I think that museums should be getting in touch with them) - they seem to realize that the SnagFilms deal offers something else: a way to reach an audience that they may not get otherwise.

ATWT: First off, can you tell me about the Snagfilm deal - how did it happen and why was it appealing to you?

Bill and Turner Ross: It happened (Monday).  They reached out to us a while back, but our distributor wasn’t sure whether or not we could make it work.  Apparently we could.  It’s actually been rather sudden, but we’re certainly honored by it.  We’ve used SnagFilms as fans since they started.  It’s a great avenue for films that may not otherwise be readily available.  And to be honest, in regards to our experience, we are still struggling with how and where this film will be available to a mass audience.  We want people to have access to it.  Seems a bit of a gamble to wait in the wings for something bigger and better when an opportunity like this presents itself. 

ATWT: Part of my inquiring is that I'm so glad that I saw your film on the big screen in Austin, where the total immersion forced me to adapt to the film's rhythms and language.  Not to be a snob about the theatrical experience, but certain films, and I'd argue 45365 is one of them, should be seen in theaters or at festivals.  Was there any fear that you'd lose opportunities for that with this deal?

BTR: Absolutely.  And we certainly would concur that 45365 is a film meant to be projected.  We shot it for presentation at that scale, for that environment.

That said, however, we want folks to see our work.  Growing up out of sight line of an urban environment we learned well that not everyone has access to certain kinds of artwork.  We spent much time and funds as kids trying to track down certain films that we wanted to see.  If the technology is there, why shouldn’t we embrace it and have our work available to all who want to experience it?  DVD is not looking real good right now so this makes a lot of sense to us.  Fans of the film will still go to the theater, others will at the least have access to it – be aware of it.