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Once again, nominees will be revealed in a special video announcement set to premiere on Fi’s website and YouTube channel. With a resurgent film year cautiously realigning after a bleak, theater-less pandemic season, the upcoming awards calendar is bound to be one of joy, celebration and possible drunkenness. Special guest presenters for Tuesday’s online announcement include Spirit Award friendlies Beanie Feldstein, Regina Hall and Naomi Watts—pretty damn cool, huh? Bookmark the 2022 Spirit Award playlist now to avoid missing it....

INDIE FILM DISTRIBUTION Another edition of the LA Film Festival is in the books. Thirty-nine films had their world premieres at the 2015 Festival and 59% of the films that screened were from first-time directors. Audiences applauded and filmmakers left the theaters grinning from ear to ear. But… where do their movies go from here? Scott Mansfield, Founder and Managing Partner at Monterey Media, an independent distribution company that acquired Runoff at the LA Film Festival in 2014, says most of the filmmakers he works with know very little about distribution....

The screening was followed by a lengthy discussion of the American actor’s venerable career—including his work in this year’s acclaimed The Florida Project, directed by Sean Baker. One thing is for certain: Willem Dafoe knows how to pick roles, whether he’s conscious of it or not. Light Sleeper follows Dafoe’s John LaTour, a middle-aged New York drug dealer who exclusively appears at night. Already disillusioned, John’s routine is further disrupted when a woman from his past (Dana Delany) returns following a troubled life of languish and addiction....

It’s these performances that we identify with, root against and even lust after. But as much as their agents and managers might care for you to believe otherwise, actors don’t pop up in these roles by accident. Enter the Casting Director. One of the most important (and unsung) positions on any film crew, the Casting Director is the person responsible for assembling the actors tasked with translating the script’s character description and dialogue into flesh-and-blood....

Ask any of the 20,000 Deadpools roaming around Comic Con each year—dressing up like your favorite pop culture characters can be a surprisingly creative way to express your enthusiasm for the art you love. But why should superheroes, KISS and The Rocky Horror Picture Show have all the fun? Indie movies feature just as many memorable and visually distinctive characters and poses as any mainstream piece of entertainment. Don’t believe us?...

Notorious for his own explorations of tragedy, obsession and insanity in such films as Pi (1998), Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006) and Black Swan (2010), Aronofsky—a multiple Film Independent Spirit Award winner (Best First Feature for Pi, Best Feature for The Wrestler and Best Director for Black Swan)—is himself no stranger to controversy. He began the Q&A by addressing a question about the frailty of women in his films....

It’s no secret: casting is an absolutely crucial part of the pre-production process. The cast is, arguably, the backbone of your entire film. Without the right cast in place, the process of making a film, of bringing truth to your story, would be spoiled—wrecked, even. Watching the panelists interact, it was fascinating to observe the relationship between filmmaker, casting director and co-star. Attendees learned what it takes to bring realistic, memorable characters and stories to life on the big-screen....

So! With that in mind, we’re honored to announce our nominees for the 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards, unveiled this morning at The Jeremy hotel in West Hollywood by presenters Lily Collins (To the Bone, Okja, Rules Don’t Apply) and Tessa Thompson (Dear White People, Creed, Thor: Ragnarok). Once again, this year’s Spirit Award nominees represent a true uniqueness of vision and innovation in visual storytelling. They are: BEST FEATURE CALL ME BY YOUR NAME PRODUCERS: Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges, Rodgrigo Teixeira, Marco Morabito, James Ivory, Howard Rosenman THE FLORIDA PROJECT PRODUCERS: Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch, Kevin Chinoy, Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks, Francesca Silvestri, Shih-Ching Tsou GET OUT PRODUCERS: Jason Blum, Edward H....

In this, the first of a thee-part Festival Prep blog series, we’ll focus on finding the right producer’s rep. Below is a compilation of the collective wisdom we’ve gathered from filmmakers in the trenches, those behind 2012-2013’s most innovative indie films, who we featured in our annual compendium of case studies in the Film Independent Forum guide. A Producer’s Rep List of contact information for more than 30 of some of the top reps is available online to Film Independent Members....

But happily for all of you prognosticators and fantasy-awards-draft wheeler-dealers, 2021 Spirit Award noms are just around the corner; coming next week in fact, on Tuesday, January 26—to be revealed in a special video announcement premiering on Fi’ website and YouTube channel. Presenters for the (remote) event include Laverne Cox — who in her Film Independent Presents Q&A for the documentary Disclosure shouted out the Spirit Awards for its pioneering recognition of a trans performer — and (not to be outdone) past Spirit Award winners Barry Jenkins and Olivia Wilde....

Just kidding! We love love. We’re nice people who love our partners and pets, of course, but as connoisseurs of the arts we also love love as the animating dramatic element in our favorite stories, songs and celebrity TikTok meltdowns. Which is why for this most amorous of months we’re taking a look at three film projects built around the chaos and complication love creates–from queer road trips, to divorzio all’zombie, to extraterrestrial infatuations....

Of the many groups and identities of which Hollywood has continually neglected, people with disabilities ranks among the most egregious. After all, we’re all due to be impacted by limited physical abilities at some point in our life, permanently or temporarily—either through sudden accident, degenerative medical condition, lifelong congenital trait or even just the natural process of aging. And if that fact fills you with some amount of dread, well… that’s part of the problem....

We call this Actors Coffee Talk—the second of four intimate and informal panels to claim the second-floor ballroom of the historic Culver Hotel on Sunday, preceded by Directors and followed by Screenwriting and Documentaries. But at 1:00 pm, it was the Actors’ time to shine. What follows is the collected wisdom of panelists Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep), Michaela Watkins (Afternoon Delight, Transparent), John Cho (Star Trek, American Pie) and Paul Scheer (The League, Adult Swim), who all seemed to hit it off—and who had way, way too much fun talking about acting....

The effort required to successfully communicate an idea with a maximum of economy often exists in direct inverse proportion to temporal real estate ultimately consumed by said idea in its final form. Or to put it more simply: brevity is the soul of wit. Last week, the LA Film Festival parted the kimono just a bit (more big announcements coming soon!) to reveal our 2018 competition lineup— including the 41 short films and 10 web series now laden forevermore with our leafy, symmetrical LA Film Fest laurels....

After years of a yo-yo-ing scriptwriting career, Yule Caise decided to tap out. He’d written film and TV (Heroes), but his successes were separated by disconcertingly long fallow periods. When financing for a feature project fell through at a very late stage, it cued him to quit. At the time, he thought, “Now not only have I run out of money, but I have nothing to show for it. I was at end of my rope....

Dear Film Independent, I cannot fully articulate how much your support has impacted me both professionally and personally, but this is my attempt to put it into words… I vividly remember my first movie going experience. I was six and my uncle snuck me in to a drive-in to watch Terminator 2: Judgement Day—I hid under a blanket in the back of his dusty Datsun 120Y. I was in awe of the moving pictures....

An example: at Siggraph ’95 I stood in front of a monitor where I saw my image augmented with a cartoon duck’s head. I turned my head, and my now duck head matched it with zero lag. Twenty-two years ago this was a mind-blowing feat of graphics virtuosity running on a liquid-cooled SGI machine. Today, it’s a SnapChat/Instagram feature. With that anecdote in mind, I decided to pour over the presentations and exhibitors from Siggraph ‘17 to see what part of the future was presented this summer in LA....

EASY LIVING To paraphrase this year’s Democratic Presidential hopeful, it takes a village to make an independent feature. Just ask New York-based filmmakers Laura Wagner and Adam Keleman, whose hybrid comedy-drama-thriller Easy Living (which Kelemen directed and Wagner co-produced) is currently in post-production and looking ahead to a 2017 release. Easy Living was made possible in part by the Film Independent AbelCine Feature Film Grant, which furnished—free of charge—the production’s camera package....

FRANCESCO Guests of honor: Evgeny Afineevsky (director/producer), Ted Hope (executive producer); moderated by Pete Hammond, Deadline About: As head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis is one of the most revered individuals on Earth and arguably the most progressive Papal leader in history. With unprecedented access to the man behind the cloth, Francesco takes an unsparing look at the Pope and his response to urgent issues including climate change, refugees, racial tolerance, economic justice and LGBTQI+ rights....

At this point in the week’s deluge of new information, we’ve already introduced this year’s Global Media Makers Fellows, explored the roots of G-Funk with Warren G and gazed wistfully out onto the twinkling lights of Tokyo with Sofia Coppola and The Beguiled. But have we laughed yet? Not as such. But we will now, with these three great events designed to shine a light on the best work being done in comedy on the small screen:...