All these wonderful things

The True/False Is Out There

Sunday night in Columbia, Missouri: After seeing a film about Ozark Mountain hillbilly music inside a sold out 1200-seat theater - and before hanging out at a party inside a historic soda bottling plant (and soon to be art house/bakery/videostore empire) - I sat at a table inside a small Mexican restaurant and talked with four excellent people about how we could change the world. Or at least our little corner.

What to do now that companies like Wellspring are being swallowed up? Should we do our own distribution? How do we harness the power of what is new and come up with what is possible?

All the conversations that we’ve been having here (as well as here and here and here) came to life. Self-distribution. Co-op distribution. DIY marketing and publicity. Tearing down the old and no longer relevant paradigms and asserting our own collective ability to get our films out there.

All of it seeming very very possible after a weekend at the True/False Film Festival.

True/False Day 3

Quick note as my True/False experience comes to a close and I prepare to head back to Los Angeles. Saw 2 1/2 films today - Marshall Curry's Oscar nominated Street Fight, Rich Minnich's Homemade Hillbilly Jam, and portions of the Beastie Boys concert film Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That. Also had a great time at our panel on music documentaries. Will blog in depth and post photos when I get home.

But wow. Really proud of my old stomping grounds and particularly of David and Paul and everyone who helped make the festival so amazing and welcoming. Honored to be a part of it.

Sundance 2006: It's Brokeback, Bitch

It's very late at night (early morning) on my first day in Park City and I'm in the hot tub with two of my condo-mates. Inside the condo are five guys, strangers all, two of whom were invited by other condo-mates for purposes of commingling, three of whom have tagged along for purposes only they can truly know (other hot chicks? free booze? all-night party?) - imagine their surprise that it's just the six of us and a single bottle of scotch. Finally, one of the three non-invited guests can take it no more and begins to put the full-on move on one of the girls - his shirt is off, his hands deep inside her jeans - and she shimmies and grooves her way away from him.

Finally, something draws this guy out onto the deck and he talks to those of us in the condo for the first time.

"It's Brokeback, bitch."

We inaudibly voice a collective, "huh?"