Think about it. The cast and crew are all there, staring at you, judging—eyes hungry for instruction, practically searing a hole through your natty mustard cardigan, question after question coming after you like deathless, brain-devouring zombies straight out of Return of the Living Dead. And the only way to beat them back is to answer decisively… even if you’re totally full of shit. After all, the old cliché is true: you gotta fake it ‘til you make it....

Really, the only bad part about these events is the fact that you have to change out of your pajamas to attend—seeing as, y’know, you’re an adult in a public space and all. That, and your inability to freeze our guest speakers eerily in place, Saved by the Bell style, while you take a quick 10-1 or go make a sandwich (but hopefully not at the same time.) Plus, you might not live anywhere near Los Angeles, which until now has made attending these events impossible....

Our new digs will be located on the ninth floor of 5670 Wilshire Boulevard. We’re incredibly excited to be upgrading to a brand new space custom-designed to better serve the needs of our Members and Fellows; a fresh and welcoming new space better calibrated to service Film Independent’s mission. So kiss our longstanding Pico HQ goodbye and ramble on up the road closer to the heart of the city, just steps away from the La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA, which will continue to host our weekly Film Independent at LACMA screening series and other events....

Under intermittently overcast skies on a late-wintry afternoon that thankfully warmed up once guests arrived for the pre-ceremony cocktail reception, the 38th Film Independent Spirit Awards returned to the beaches of Santa Monica. Inside the giant white tent adjacent to the Santa Monica Pier, we were there to honor the crème de la crème of independent films made under Fi’s $30M budget cap. With Fi’s Artist Development celebrating its 30-year anniversary, one of the networking tents was dedicated to spotlighting success stories birthed from Film Independent’s various programs, including the Directing Lab, Project Involve, Fast Track, Documentary Lab, Global Media Makers and many more....

“Why do we choose to stay in a business that seems too hard, too unprofitable, too undignified, and too unstable to keep at it year after year?” These were just a couple of the provocative questions veteran producer and Film Independent Board Member Alix Madigan proposed as keynote speaker at the Sundance Producer’s Lunch on January 19. “I was touched when you asked me, but it threw me into a panic when I realized I would have to follow Ron and Albert’s great keynote of last year,” Madigan began....

Negin Farsad and Jeremy Redleaf, who wrote, directed, and starred in the film said their inspiration for the story was the real-life blackout caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, which forced the two of them to sit in the dark and realize how much they missed their televisions and phones. Their intention in making the film was to cause a revolution of reconnection in this increasingly digital age. “I remember right after the blackout and there were five minutes where the internet was working and I tweeted, “Oh my god, we’ve had a blackout,” Farsad admits....

In honor of the day when we give thanks over food that sends us into depressive slumbers, we thought it would be nice to talk to those who feed us in the film industry: craft services. I had the pleasure of speaking to two veterans of the industry on both coasts, Danielle Wilson, the owner and operator of Eat Catering NYC and Mark Ilvedson, long-time crew journeyman who started in craft services and now works in production design....

“Chosen family” also describes Ahn’s relationship to Film Independent. In addition to Project Involve, the Spa Night and Driveways filmmaker’s path through the industry includes stops at Fi’s Directing Lab (2014) and Screenwriting Lab (2013)—not to mention a John Cassavetes Film Independent Spirit Award win for Spa Night in 2017. All of which made the special May 25 screening of Island, Ahn’s third feature, at Film Independent’s Wilshire Boulevard screening room something of a homecoming....

By tomorrow, the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival will be wrapped, which means there are still a few hours left to celebrate the achievements of all of the extraordinary filmmakers who made this year’s Festival such an inspiring event. Above all, we are proud to honor the 2015 Festival competition winners. If you missed seeing their work at the Festival, keep an eye out for their films to hit theaters....

This week: After a teenage boy’s father goes to prison, he is forced to live with his older brother who has a compromising trade. GREEN IS GOLD Type: Narrative Feature Writer/Director: Ryon Baxter Producers: Anthony Burns Budget: $110,000 Financing: Self-financed/Loans Production: 30 days, July-August, 2013; + pickups in July 2015 Shooting Format: RED Epic Screening Format: DCP World Premiere: LA Film Festival 2016 Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films Website: www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/green-is-gold/ DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCING In 2008, writer/director Ryon Baxter was preparing to leave for film school in Vancouver when he was arrested for a non-violent offense related to medical marijuana—and his plans for the future were put on hold....

“I’m interested in what people do, not what they say.” In her latest documentary, CITIZENFOUR, which had its West Coast premiere at Film Independent at LACMA last night, Laura Poitras trains her camera on what one idealistic 29-year-old did when he learned that the US government was conducting a covert campaign of tapping into the personal phone and internet records of millions of Americans without cause: he set off a global shit storm....

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY Bob Nelson, Nebraska BEST SUPPORTING MALE Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club BEST FIRST FEATURE Ryan Coogler, director; Nina Yang Bongiovi and Forest Whitaker producers, Fruitvale Station BEST EDITING Nate Sanders, Short Term 12 ROBERT ALTMAN AWARD Jeff Nichols, director; casting director Francine Maisler; ensemble cast: Joe Don Baker, Jacob Lofland, Matthew McConaughey, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Tye Sheridan, Paul Sparks, Bonnie Sturdivant, Reese Witherspoon, Mud...

The most rewarding day for a filmmaker is the one when the theater lights go dim and those bits of an idea first hatched months—if not years before—get projected, fully formed in all of its storytelling glory on the big screen. We take great pleasure in announcing that for 14 Fellows who have gone through our Artist Development programs and eight Film Independent Members, that day is about to arrive: they will be screening their work at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival....

The Los Angeles Film Festival is almost here! We’re excited—obviously—we’re the ones throwing the party. But you should be excited, too. Because today is the day we announce the entire line-up of 2015 Festival films. Congrats to all of the filmmakers who’ve put blood, sweat and tears into their work—and welcome to the Film Independent family. We are proud also to announce—and congratulate—the 19 Film Independent Fellows and 15 Members who will be screening at the Festival....

With the release of Zach Braff’s Kickstarter-funded sophomore feature Wish I Was Here and, of course, the successful fundraising of over $50,000 for what is evidently a much-needed bowl of potato salad, we’ve got crowdfunding on the brain this month. Two weeks ago, Film Independent hosted an education event with Emily Best, the founder and CEO of crowdfunding platform Seed & Spark, during which she shared a step-by-step plan—sprinkled with insider tips and some funny anecdotes—to strategically launch a successful crowdfunding campaign....

Winners were chosen by a panel of Blue Ribbon judges including Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little), Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk) and Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby)—to name a few. What’s more, the winners received the opportunity to premiere their shorts on June 15 at the 2017 LA Film Festival in front a live audience including Elfman and judges. Moderated by LA Film Festival Director of Programming Roya Rastegar, the screening was immediately followed by conversation with Elfman, Van Sant, Minkoff, Nicole Greenwood from Indi....

When it came time to finally make his long-in-the-works feature debut, Sound of Metal, filmmaker Darius Marder invariably did things the hard way. Like the challenging production trifecta of shooting on location, chronologically and on film, capped off by an intensive post process. Also, the film’s lead would need to A) be proficient in the American Sign Language that Sound of Metal protagonist Ruben eventually learns to speak in within the film, but also B) credibly play complicated drum patterns in front of a live audience....

Moderator Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?) set the tone for the discussion quoting renowned documentarian Albert Maysles: “If you ended up making the film you set out to make you weren’t listening along the way.” Neville then asked the panel, “What did you originally think your film was going to be versus what it became?” Maite Alberdi (The Mole Agent) shared that originally she wanted to tell a detective story, but when the private investigator she’s collaborating with hires an older gentleman to go undercover in a retirement home, “the focus of the story became about old age and abandonment....

It’s no secret that we’re big, big fans of IFC’s Documentary Now! We’ve already praised the idiosyncratic sketch show’s wonderfully observed, note-perfect parodies of our favorite nonfiction film classics. But it’s not enough. We don’t just wanna know how the sausage is made. We wanna know how the sausage is filmed. So like any good documentarian,we went straight to the source: series directors and show co-creators Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono, who along with stars Bill Hader and Fred Armisen and collaborators Seth Meyers and John Mulaney have managed to take a niche comedy concept and turn it into one of TV’s most critically acclaimed half-hours....

On September 19, Film Independent Education welcomed a group of three accomplished Hollywood screenwriters for its annual Writers Salon conversation in Los Angeles. Settling into a cozy “living room” style seating arrangement at Film Independent HQ, the panel included Julian Breece (When They See Us), Allison Schroeder (Hidden Figures) and Virgil Williams (Mudbound), and was moderated by Jane Anderson (The Wife.) This year, the focus was primarily on the art of adapting real-life stories and historical figures for the big screen....