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But maybe you’re curious how some of those prior subjects have turned out. Well, you’re in luck! Once again it’s time for another FiSpo Update highlighting the recent achievements of previous subjects of our Fiscal Spotlight hosannas. For the uninitiated, Fi’s Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists. The projects and makers participating in the program express a uniqueness of vision, celebrate diversity and advance the craft of filmmaking through the creation of these special works....

And while we take time to tout rookie Fi Fiscal Sponsorship projects (and encourage your support of them!) in each month’s Fiscal Spotlight column, you may be wondering how some of that column’s previous subjects have been progressing. So! We’re introducing a regular blog feature, FiSpo Updates, to highlight some of the recent special achievements of projects that are part of the program. Film Independent’s Fiscal Sponsorship program opens the door to nonprofit funding for independent filmmakers and media artists....

Saturday’s centerpiece? The Farewell filmmaker Lulu Wang’s incredible hour-long filmmaker keynote, delivered in conversation with fan and legendary showbiz maker-of-things Judd Apatow. But there was plenty of other stuff too, just as there will be throughout Friday, August 7. More keynotes! More panels! More networking opportunities! More… you get the idea. See below for Day Two highlights and be sure to keep up with Film Independent’s blog and YouTube channel more great event coverage throughout the week....

Sure you could spend this Thanksgiving weekend communing with your friends and family at crowded shopping malls searching for $3 copies of last year’s romantic comedies OR you could choose to be true to your film loving self and catch up with some of our 2014 Film Independent Spirit Award nominated films. After all, movie watching is a communal experience—improved all the more with leftover candied yams and a slice of pumpkin pie at your side....

Gentrification isn’t just a huge issue here in Los Angeles or even the U.S. The economic displacement of urban communities is something that’s happening in metropolitan areas all over the world. Such forms the backdrop of SAF, Global Media Makers Fellow Ali Vatansever’s new feature set amid the redevelopment upheaval of Instanbul’s Fikirtepe district—once a haven for Syrian refugees, but where poor neighborhoods are now being swept away at an alarming rate....

It’s not unusual that someone would take a look at these tragic headlines and imagine that they’d be compelling fodder for a movie or play… but a musical? But that’s exactly what happened when writer Alecky Blythe, composer Adam Cork and director Rufus Norris created the innovative theatrical-documentary-musical hybrid London Road, which brought the grisly fallout of the Ipswich murders to theater stages in April of 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8NxcsH9o4A In adapting the story to the stage, Blythe and Cork took interview transcripts from Ipswich residents, members of the media and local sex workers and converted them into lyrics (performed verbatim by the cast) and writing the songs that would become the centerpiece of a completely unique theatrical experience....

In today’s constantly evolving digital landscape, one of the biggest challenges facing filmmakers is how to get their film in front of the audience that is hungry for it. At last month’s Film Independent Forum, a panel of leading experts in the marketing and distribution world sat down for a discussion entitled “Your Film + Your Audience: A Marketing & Distribution Clinic.” Panelists included: Mercedes Yolanda Cooper, Director of Marketing at Array; Suzanna Lee, VP of Digital Strategy and Content at Cinedigm; David Magdael, CEO and founder of David Magdael and Associates and Felicia Pride, Director of Independent Film at Tugg, Inc....

Taking home six Spirit Awards including Best Feature, Best Cinematography and Best Director, Moonlight now holds the record for the most Spirit Award wins in the past decade. Before presenting the Robert Altman Award to its ensemble cast, actress Kerry Washington lauded the film about a black man struggling with his sexuality in a Miami housing projects thusly: “Robert Altman once said, ‘I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn’t seen before....

It was another great Film Independent Live Read, this time of Steve Tesich’s Oscar winning script of the Peter Yates directed 1979 cult classic Breaking Away, which took place on Tuesday, February 25 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, the first of two Film Independent Live Reads in as many weeks—to be followed the following Wednesday by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This Live Read had a kind of improvisatory quality that managed to poke fun at the performance’s own stage bound limitations while still delivering an impactful telling of Breaking Away’s heartfelt coming-of-age story....

Earlier this year, the New Zealand-born filmmaker was selected to receive a production grant presented in partnership between Film Independent and LA-based advocacy, educational and child-services organization Children’s Institute, to create a public service announcement touting the Institute’s trauma-informed services—and, hopefully, to de-stigmatize the act of asking for help. The spot Chambers and her collaborates created together is a powerful and poetic piece of work—equal parts art and informational. We recently spoke to Chambers about the spot and her approach to doing work-for-hire that’s meaningful and compelling....

Documentary director Amy Berg has made the leap to dramatic features with Every Secret Thing. The film is a psychological thriller about a detective searching for a missing child with the prime suspects being two young women previously convicted for a infant’s death. Best known for West of Memphis and Deliver Us from Evil, Berg sat down with Film Independent’s Elvis Mitchell and cast members Danielle Macdonald and Sarah Sokolovic to discuss the film following a Film Independent at LACMA screening Friday evening....

There are so many highlights to share: Quentin Tarantino gave film fans a once-in-lifetime experience by directing a staged reading of The Hateful Eight. Alfonso Cuarón shared his behind-the-scenes perspective on the making of Gravity at our Directors Close-Up. Lupita Nyong’o warmed hearts with her ecstatic reaction to her win at the Film Independent Spirit Awards. We had the pleasure of screening hundreds of films, connecting a variety of innovative filmmakers to each other and creating unique cinematic experiences for our nearly 5,000 Members to enjoy....

Three and a half decades later, immersive technology has finally emerged—for real this time—as a powerful and exciting new form of storytelling. And for the first time ever this year, the LA Film Festival presented a showcase of immersive storytelling from visionary creators working in the often-intersecting fields of augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR). The program—The Portal Immersive Storytelling Showcase, curated by Festival Guest Director Jacqueline Lyanga—was free to the public and was presented in partnership with the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television, taking place at the brand-new LMU Playa Vista Campus between Saturday, September 21 and Sunday, September 23, with a special opening event on Friday, September 2o that also serves as an introduction to the Peggy Rajski, the new Dean of the LMU School of Film and Television....

Enter the 2017 Sloan Film Summit. Held triennially, the Sloan Film Summit is a weekend-long conference devoted to exploring the intersection of science, technology and entertainment. Not just the tech used to create movies and TV shows—but rather how science, scientists and technology are represented onscreen in popular media. To learn more about the impact science has had on cinematic endeavors, check out this video co-produced by Film Independent and Intrinsic Value Films, featuring commentary from Neil deGrasse Tyson, Geena Davis, Emily Mortimer, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Ginny Mohler, Michael Mitnick and more:...

But despite this, the director’s newest film Crimes of the Future—distributed in the US by Neon, in theaters now—is Cronenberg’s first foray back in the subgenre he helped popularized since 1999’s prescient MR gaming caper eXistenZ. That’s over two decades without any signature Cronenbergian mutated flesh or repulsive (yet weirdly erotically charged) biomechanical shenanigans on display! Which isn’t to say the genre has at all been dormant… On the contrary, a whole new generation of transgressive filmmakers have been ably carrying the body-horror torch in their clammy tentacle-like fingers—and winning major film awards in the process....

“They’re all quite connected, aren’t they?” observed the passionate British-born, Amsterdam-based filmmaker, who was having so much fun with chatting with his fellow Best New Scripted Series Spirit Award nominees—Lee Eisenberg, Emily V. Gordon, Kumail Nanjiani (all repping their Apple TV+ original Little America) and Anna Winger, co-creator of the Netflix drama Unorthodox—that he elected to stay well past his supposed hard out. The March 10 panel was the second of nine weekly sessions leading up to the 36th Film Independent Spirit Awards ceremony on April 22, featuring shoptalk and Hollywood war stories from the creators behind 2020’s most arresting and innovative movies and TV shows (highlights from Week One here....

Supported by Founding Sponsor Netflix, the second annual Amplifier Fellowship is a nine-month program designed to propel a marquee project from each Fellow forward both creatively and strategically, as well as provide Fellows with a customized mentorship pairings with both a Netflix Executive Industry Advisor as well as a Film Independent Board Member. “This year’s Amplifier Fellows bring an incredible passion to entertain and create change through their films,” says Angela C....

Last week, our Film Independent Presents stay-at-home VOD Playlist was a salute to March’s Women’s History Month. But inevitably there was so much stuff we wanted to talk about that our tribute has spilled over into April—though we’ll doubt anyone will be complaining with so many great and varied titles to enjoy. And to kick things off, let’s start with one of my favorite lesbian comedy directors of all time… MADELEINE OLNEK Madeleine Olnek got her start acting and writing at the WOW Café, a legendary space for feminist theater in New York....

It’s that time of year again! Before we enter the glamour and prestige of awards season, let’s see if Hollywood made the grade this fall with its representations of women in film. Please note that Hollywood is on academic probation for failing to improve on one of its grades from our summer report card, in which it received an F for having zero female-directed films among the 25 highest-grossing movies of the season....

If you weren’t one of the lucky Edgar Wright fans who caught last month’s Film independent Members’ Preview Screening of The World’s End, you missed a spirited post-screening Q&A with Film Independent at LACMA Curator Elvis Mitchell, Wright and his quirky cast and co-writer (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). Good news: now you get a second chance to hear from the idiosyncratic director. On last week’s episode of KCRW’s The Treatment, Wright revealed his comedic inspirations and cracked up Elvis with quotes like, “There’s something fun in playing up to the stereotype of Brits being drunks....