All these wonderful things

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".

John Cooper Announced as New Sundance Fest Director

In a widely anticipated move, the Sundance Institute early Wednesday announced that John Cooper would succeed Geoffrey Gilmore as Director of the Sundance Film Festival.  Cooper previously served as Director of Programming.  Gilmore departed Sundance last month to move to Tribeca.

From the Sundance press release, Sundance Founder Robert Redford said, "When we established the Festival, it was always with two goals in mind: supporting new artists and inspiring new audiences. Cooper has never lost sight of these goals. He brings to the position an infectious enthusiasm as well as a deep understanding of the Sundance brand and culture. Forward thinking, he is a natural choice of succession to lead the Festival into the 21st century."

A Peek Behind the Festival Programming Curtain

Festival programming is often bewildering:  how and why a festival chooses to program one film as opposed another is a crazy mix of curation, personal relationships, local (and, in some cases, national) audience tastes, previous experience, publicity potential and, oh yeah, quality.

With all the changes going on at festivals this past year (the latest being Geoffrey Gilmore's exit from Sundance for Tribeca, which we will cover in more depth shortly), the goings-on in festival programming offices can sometimes seem even more confusing.

How, for example, would Janet Pierson combine her own tastes with the successful SXSW programming of past director Matt Dentler?  How will Sadie Tillery put her own fingerprint on Full Frame this year?  What will the shuttering of BritDoc mean for Sheffield?

Luckily, Pierson has done a few interviews with folks talking about her choices for this year (one was here, another was with Eugene at indieWIRE), giving us a sense of where she might take the fest.  We hope to be doing a couple more of these with programmers over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, my massive blog crush on seafar, Hot Docs' programmer Sean Farnel's blog, continues unabated.  He's been writing at length about his process in selecting titles for this year's festival, and it's a primer that any filmmaker should read.  Currently, there are a series of 6 posts, each a weekly update into one programmer's decision making.

In summary:

Week One:

"We, the Hot Docs programming team and I, are looking for about 175 films which are appropriate. Not for a six-year-old, but for our smart, generous, curious Hot Docs audience, which includes the international industry that attends our event looking for “product.” More than 2000 films will be viewed, the vast majority of them at least twice. We won’t watch ALL of ALL of the films. Sorry.

But, we will cull our submission shelves as thoroughly and thoughtfully as any film festival in the world. On this point, I’m obsessive. Filmmakers pay submission fees (which only cover a portion of properly administrating an unsolicited submissions process) with the expectation that the work they’ve just went broke making is going to be considered by capable people." 

Week Three:

"We are now deep into the sea of submissions at Hot Docs, and at last count there are 225 films on the Short List (also called, internally, “The Prog List”…as it is at TIFF, from where the term migrated). It will get longer before it gets shorter. We have two weeks of HEAVY screening, then Berlin, then we shape this big mound of documentary clay into a semi-coherent film festival."

Roadside Grabs THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE

Just after we'd posted our Sundance wrap yesterday and said that we'd heard deals might be in the works for certain festival docs, including RJ Cutler's THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE, Roadside Attractions emerged as the suitor in question.

The company will release the film, which goes behind the scenes of Vogue Magazine, to theaters in September, natch.  Where you might be able to catch the film before that is still in the planning stages.

In a statement late Wednesday afternoon, A&E IndieFilms Executive Producer Molly Thompson told us, "RJ and I are very flattered and excited by the interest from top festivals and we're working out the plan with the awesome team at Roadside."

Roadside was previously responsible for the release of the 2008 Oscar shortlisted doc I.O.U.S.A. as well as Morgan Spurlock's Oscar-nominated SUPER SIZE ME.

Sundance 2009: Park City in Repose (Or: The Fest That Was)

Now nearly 10 days out from Park City and this year's anniversary edition of the vital US independent film mecca is beginning to come into sharper focus.  What we were sensing mid-week - the gathering word-of-mouth buzz that the fest was coming up short (at very least in comparison to 2008's remarkable lineup of WIRE, TROUBLE, MYTHS, POLANSKI, BETRAYAL, ANVIL and many others) has continued to play out as everyone returned from the high altitude.

News broke Monday afternoon on what will likely go down as the fest's biggest sale - a multi-layered deal for the Narrative Competition winner PUSH: BASED ON THE NOVEL BY SAPPHIRE that involved LionsGate, Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey.  The $5.5 million deal was the result of some fancy footwork by sales rep kingpin Cinetic Media, as indieWIRE's Eugene Hernandez reported:

"'This a return to what Sundance is supposed to be as a market,” an enthused John Sloss from Cinetic told indieWIRE today, elaborating a strategy that included screening the movie at the Magic Johnson theater in Harlem days before it’s Sundance world premiere. Buoyed by an 80% definite recommend rating out of the Harlem showing, they battled an unfortunate first screening time that had PUSH playing against Antoine Fuqua’s BROOKLYN'S FINEST.

By awards night last Saturday at Sundance, Lee Daniels and Cinetic had enlisted the support of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who watched the movie prior to the festival. They then spent the week putting together a deal, with the Lionsgate team at Cinetic’s New York office to close the deal. Winfrey will support the release through her Harpo Films, while this will be the first movie affiliated with Perry’s 34th Street banner."

The PUSH sale marks a business-side highlight for the festival, which began with a number of hot titles that didn't attract the attention or buyers that they had hoped.  Among these, the Micheal Cera/Charlene Yi-starring hybrid film PAPER HEART.

Most of the Sundance 2009 docs that were looking for a theatrical deal are still in the hunt.  Arthouse Films made deals last week for two documentary competition titles - ART & COPY and WILLIAM KUNTSLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE and to date, that's all she wrote.  Granted, many of the films already had a television home waiting for them (counts vary, but HBO seems to have had as many as 7 films amongst the two competitive documentary sections), but even many of those films were holding out hope for a theatrical run.

However, one must keep in mind that the biggest doc to emerge from Sundance 2008 - James Marsh's MAN ON WIRE, didn't close its deal with Magnolia until a couple weeks after the fest was over.  A number of films are said to be in ongoing talks with distributors, including RJ Cutler's THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE and Grand Jury Prize winner WE LIVE IN PUBLIC from director Ondi Timoner.  We will likely hear more about those films and others in the coming weeks.

Also worth watching are the films themselves - particularly whether (or should we say how much) some of them will change in the months to come.  Tweaks, both large and small, are nothing new following major festival premieres.  Last year alone, Oscar nominee THE BETRAYAL (NERAKHOON) and shortlisted film I.O.U.S.A. both underwent revisions between their Park City premiere and the eventual theatrical release.  In his Sundance summary on the Stranger Than Fiction blog, Thom Powers notes that one of the World Cinema award winners is already planning on heading back into the edit suite:

"(BIG RIVER MAN Director John) Maringouin told me after the awards that he’s still not finished. He intends to go back to the edit room where I expect he’ll make a strong film even stronger."

Agnes Varnum, who came to Sundance for the second time, offered a pointed (and on-point) critique of this year's festival, questioning the fest's reliance this year on films that already had a home:

"My impression of more recent years, before I attended, was that it was an over-hyped, corporate A-list party. But it isn’t really either of those things… for me. The work is solid. Too solid. While there are more filmmakers than I can name off the top of my head whose new work was presented and I was as eager as anyone to see, there were few surprises. As many others are saying, I appreciated the mellow atmosphere so I didn’t have to fight crowds or miss out on screenings I really wanted (except THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE) but there wasn’t any film that wowed me with its exceptionalism.

As a friend pointed out, why do we need to trek all the way to Sundance to see films made for HBO or American Experience or Sony Pictures Classics or Focus Features? This is work we will be able to see, despite Redford and long-time Sundance fellows’ comments to the contrary in the festival’s opening trailer shown before each screening. Sundance might once have been a spot where you could see work that you couldn’t see anywhere else, but with so many movies already poised for distribution, everyone will have the ability to see them in the coming year. That is a great thing for the filmmakers and audiences who will enjoy such well made films, but where is the heady experimentation or shock or freshly inspired work?"

Arthouse Goes Shopping for ART & COPY and WILLIAM KUNTSLER

While sales for documentaries were slow during the Sundance Film Festival, distributor Arthouse Films, led by former Palm Pictures acquisitions head David Koh, has picked up two films from the festival's US Competition slate - Doug Pray's ART & COPY and Emily and Sarah Kuntsler's WILLIAM KUNTSLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE.

The deal for ART & COPY was announced on the last day of the festival, marking the only sale for a doc during this year's Sundance.  The KUNSTLER acquisition was announced late last week.  Both deals were brokered by sales rep Josh Braun.

Arthouse plans a 2009 theatrical launch for both films, followed by a DVD release.  The KUNSTLER film will air on P.O.V. in 2010.

Sundance 2009: ART & COPY Review

The thought of advertising generally brings a bad taste to my mouth.  It seeps into our lives from so many directions and is completely unavoidable.  Although Doug Pray's (SCRATCH, SURFWISE, etc.) ART & COPY contains spare statistics about the amount of advertising we are subject to, his new film is not about the effects of advertising.  It's about the craft.  It's about artists.  It's about pioneers.  It's about those ads out there that are truly innovative and inspiring.

The beautifully shot film takes an in-depth look into the creative processes involved in some of the most monumental American ad campaigns of the last half century.  It is interwoven and book-ended with visuals of a satellite launch accompanied by ad-exposure statistics, and thoughts from a long-time billboard putter-upper-guy.  The creators of the "Where's the Beef", "Got Milk?", and Apple's "Think Different" campaigns are among those interviewed, and the ads themselves play a major role in the narrative.   

Adman George Lois, who is probably best known for his Esquire magazine covers and his "I Want My MTV" campaign, stands out as a larger-than-life character through his work and his interviews in the film.  He tells the story of making a then-unknown Tommy Hilfiger into a household name practically overnight by comparing him to classic designers like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein.  It seemed like a stretch at the time, and even Hilfiger seemed reluctant to step into such big shoes but admits that it forced him to prove himself.  Bold-moves like this defined Lois' career and revolutionary attitude toward advertising.  It's inspiring to realize that someone in such a position continues to work against the grain in order to create ads that people actually want to see.

It would be much simpler to make a film about bad advertising or the effects of consumerism on the human psyche, so it's refreshing to see a positive film that celebrates craftsmen in their finest hours.  These folks are masters of concise communication and strive to make ads that not only move products but also appeal to emotions and intellect.  For example, when the film conducts man-on-the street interviews to capture people's reactions to Nike's "Just Do It" campaign.  No talk about the shoes, only about the desire to chase their dreams.

Sundance 2009: Jury Winners ROUGH AUNTIES & WE LIVE IN PUBLIC Reflect the Festival's Split Personality

When, on Saturday night, the last award was handed out and the applause died down, two very different, very good films had won grand jury prizes at the 25th Sundance Film Festival - one a wrenching tale of South African child advocates from an acclaimed director (and bearing the stamp of approval from Home Box Office), the other a quick-cut, deeply-thought, '90s-era pop culture nugget from a previous Sundance winner (and bearing the producorial stamp of John Battsek).

That Sundance should fete both of these films might come as no surprise.  This is, after all, the festival that has, in previous years, brought us AMERICAN TEEN and F.L.O.W., CRAZY LOVE and BANISHED in nearly equal measure.

This then is the split personality of the Sundance Film Festival, where high profile docutainment and Very Important Subjects share top billing.  And often, it is the stories of Indiana high schoolers, child prodigy painters, moon astronauts and crossword enthusiasts score first weekend bidding wars and big distribution deals, while the films that seek to shine a light on Darfur or pollution or race relations head home to cobble together a TV deal, a festival strategy and maybe a limited theatrical run. 

Save for this year, when no one goes home with that big distribution deal and many of the films in competition already had some kind of release in place.  At least six competition films - including World Cinema Grand Jury prize winner ROUGH AUNTIES - are booked to screen on HBO.  P.O.V. already has acquired EL GENERAL, winner of the Directing Award, and WILLIAM KUNTSLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE.  A&E IndieFilms, which is usually responsible for the big get of the fest, was here once again with Sundance's most poppy concoction, the well-regarded, Vogue documentary THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE from RJ Cutler.

It's probably no surprise that at this year's veteran-heavy Sundance, two Sundance alums should helm the Grand Jury prize winners - Kim Longinotto, the highly-lauded UK filmmaker with two decades of work to her credit, and Ondi Timoner, the outspoken LA director who often seems to have worked two decades on each one of her films.  Timoner, in particular, made history with her Grand Jury win, becoming the first filmmaker in Sundance history to win the Grand Jury prize for Documentary twice.

Sundance 2009: ROUGH AUNTIES Review

Last week in Park City, I was privileged to attend a screening of ROUGH AUNTIES, the latest FILM from documentary veteran Kim Longinotto (HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO; SISTERS IN LAW, etc.).  this observational piece follows the women OF Operation Bobbi Bear in Durban, South Africa over a 10-week period: Jackie, Mildred, Studia, Thull, and Eureka, hard-nosed and courageous women who have dedicated their lives to helping the abused and neglected children of the region.

First off, lemme just say, wow, only 10 weeks?  The ladies deal with so much tragedy over this period that I'm left with a hopeless feeling for the world.  Multiple rapes, a murder, a drowning and the abandonment of a child are just a few of the scenarios that the tough-skinned women must face during this two month period.  We witness both the worst and the best of people, all in a very short window.  

The opening scene throws us directly into the world of Bobbi Bear as Mildred, a thirty-something South African native, kindly, but systematically, gathers information from a child victim of rape.  Mildred shares a teddy bear with the child and asks her to describe the incident by placing band-aids on the parts of the bear where she was violated.  We, the audience, sit on the floor right in the midst of the discussion.  The film pulls no punches.  It is an extremely delicate situation that is a testament to not only Mildred's professionalism and courage, but also to that of the filmmaker.  

It is completely amazing and inspiring to watch the women work and the extreme lengths to which they go to protect the children - from going on police raids, to cleaning up crime scenes, to offering up their own money and homes.  This is true dedication; a job that most folks just wouldn't be able to do.  Longinotto's complete access allows us to see and deal with the entire picture of their lives, even when the picture is not one that we want to see.

This film can be very hard to watch due to it's unwavering and unbiased look into such tough subject matter, but it definitely should be seen.  While I wasn't able to watch all of the World Cinema Competition titles during my short time in Park City, I can say that it doesn't surprise me that ROUGH AUNTIES won the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize.

Editor's Note - Nathan Truesdell is my filmmaking compatriot on both of my current feature projects.  This is his first contribution to the blog.  Full disclosure: Paul Taylor, one of the producers of ROUGH AUNTIES, is one of the filmmakers who worked with Nathan and I on our CONVENTION project.

Sundance 2009: Obama's Stealth Visit Caught By Filmmakers

Filmmakers Jesse Epstein and Natalie Difford and the folks at Chicken and Egg Pictures created a little piece of viral video in Park City last week: