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1. Matthew had a secret weapon! When the Best Male Lead winner was prepping to play the complicated, fascinating rodeo cowboy-turned HIV activist Ron Woodruff in Dallas Buyers Club, he was privy to a diary Ron kept for two years prior to contracting the deadly disease. “That was my secret weapon,” Matthew McConaughey told the press backstage. The diary revealed “who Ron was before he got HIV. He was a little bit wandering and a little bit lost....

In the film, Brand plays an emotionally troubled woman trying to keep her life together when her husband mysteriously disappears. The film premiered at last year’s SXSW, where it was nominated for Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature. Despite proving herself time and again to be a versatile, effortlessly watchable performer over the course of her career on the small screen, Claire is Brandt’s first starring role in a feature film, stepping into Claire’s shoes to portray a complicated, multi-dimensional modern woman who becomes consumed with answering the mystery of her spouse’s sudden disappearance....

Likewise, the movies are (arguably) the world’s most universal and immediately accessible cultural product. Memorably, the late critic Roger Ebert once described the motion picture camera as a “machine that generates empathy.” And it’s empathy that provides the key to understanding and appreciating the experiences of those from cultural or geographical backgrounds that may seem weird or alien to us—a lasting bridge connecting fans and storytellers on a plane far above the choppy waters of international politics....

Director: Jay and Mark Duplass Producers: John E. Bryant, Jay Duplass, and Mark Duplass Budget: $60,000 (in the can); approximately $200,000 (delivered) Financing: Filmmakers Production: Austin, Texas, 3 weeks Shooting Format: 1080i HD and Panasonic HVX 200 Screening Format: 35mm World Premiere: 2008 Sundance Film Festival Development and Financing Mark Duplass says, “Jay and I, we write a script and we cast our friends who are actors. The films are designed specifically to be shot cheaply and easily....

If you’ve at all been watching CNN this week, perhaps you may have heard a much different Warren (eg, not yours truly) animatedly elucidating the difference between debate and action. And regardless of your ideological stance on any one of the myriad third rails currently slicing their way through America in the year 2019, one thing that engaged people of every political stripe can agree on is this: its crunch time for democracy....

It’s a really interesting, exciting time in the independent film space. The studios are doing Batman and Superman and Ironman and all these big studio level films, big tent poles and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the budgets and P&A, and they’ve left everything else to independent sources of financing. So it’s a good opportunity for independent filmmakers and financiers to put movies together at a lower cost and more commercial movies on the independent side....

As long as there have been motion picture cameras, filmmakers have been using the tools of cinema to place viewers inside extraordinary real-life experience. But even in the most gripping and visceral nature documentary, the experience is mediated by the constraints of the traditional film form—as a viewer, you’re only privy to what’s in the frame. But with the emergence of new VR technologies and 360-degree video, that’s no longer the case....

The South By Southwest Film Festival gets underway tomorrow, and Film Independent Fellows and Members will be out in full force! We are excited to announce that 16 Fellows and 35 Members will represent 31 films in Austin this week. (See the full list below.) We’re especially proud that our Members and Fellows had a hand in half of the 10 films in this year’s competition slate. Four of our Fellows (Steve Bannatyne, J....

Just as a reader may judge a book by its cover, even more so do moviegoers judge films by their posters. It’s easy to understand why, especially in today’s age. With the onslaught of streaming services available to everyone instantly, options are limitless and decisions difficult. Compounding the problem, many of the films available to casual streaming viewers don’t have huge marketing campaigns—meaning that when someone sees a film pop up on Netflix, Hulu, or whatever other service they may be using, it’s often the first time they’ve heard of it....

You’ve finally finished your film and have just received your first distribution offer. Now what? Negotiation is an essential—but little understood—part of dealmaking. To make fair deals with good distributors, there are mistakes you must avoid and steps you need to take. I recently gave a presentation to a full house of Film Independent Members on the secrets of negotiating distribution deals. Here’s a rundown of some of the key points—particularly, eight big mistakes to avoid....

This past June, Mark Webber did something different as he introduced his third directorial debut, The Ever After, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. He wrote a heartfelt speech. He said typically he would just tell the audience “I hope you enjoy the film,” but The Ever After is a different beast. It’s such a personal film and there was a lot of love and excitement in the room. Webber told the audience that the film is truly independent because his wife actually paid for it....

But every three-ring circus needs its ringleader. And this year, the woman in the (metaphorical, probably) pinstriped pantsuit and velveteen top hat is brand-new LA Film Festival Director Jennifer Cochis—a longtime member of the programming team who succeeds outgoing Festival Director Stephanie Allain. For her freshmen year in the driver’s seat Cochis hopes to retain what’s special about the LA Film Festival while expanding and innovating, including branching out to new venues in Santa Monica and Culver City....

“We decided we were going to be the change we were looking for,” Festival Director Stephanie Allain said before the closing night show, “and guess what, LA? We did it!” She thanked her dedicated team of programmers, who curated a lineup that exemplified diversity and uniqueness of vision in independent filmmaking, as well as “a sweet spot for LA.” Which makes Fast Times at Ridgemont High the perfect Live Read with which to say goodbye....

According to Callif, there are a few common misconceptions about what crowdfunding revenue is. “Some people think they are donations, which they are not. Some people think they are gifts, which they are not,” says Callif. Watch her explain why experienced CPAs are often treating crowdfunding revenue as a pre-sale: How to handle crowdfunding revenue on your taxes is just one of the topics Callif covers in Film Independent’s monthly LEGAL EASE series....

Where does an aspiring showrunner or ongoing series creator even begin? It can be a perplexing landscape, to say the least—with streamers exploding and collapsing at a dizzying pace, the native volatility of Hollywood multiplied by the high highs and low lows of the tech industry, to say nothing of the creative and logistical challenges of episodic series writing, pitching and producing. Luckily, that’s where the Episodic Lab comes in, providing a structured, two-week virtual intensive program to help further the careers of Fellows by making introductions to industry veterans offering guidance on both craft and business, topped off by a closing networking and pitch event for studio and network execs....

Any director venturing into the world of indie filmmaking should anticipate absolute insanity, whether production leads you to rural Nevada to tame wild horses, urban New York to shield J. Lo from paparazzi or somewhere in-between, it’s critical to remain optimistic in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Such sentiments were echoed by the five Film Independent Spirit Award-nominated filmmakers featured on our February 5 Directors Roundtable at Night Four (the final one is tonight) of the 2020 Directors Close-Up....

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960, telling the story of an ugly court case between an innocent black man and an aggrieved white family in 1930s Alabama—as seen through the eyes of six-year-old protagonist, Scout and her brother, Jem. When the novel was adapted into a film by screenwriter Horton Foote and directed by Robert Mulligan in 1962, Scout’s perspective was recreated with cinematic grace. Fifty-three years later, eventual Film Independent Spirit Award winner Emma Donoghue adapted her own novel, Room—about a young boy named Jack living with his abducted mother in a locked shed, and their subsequent transition back into the real world—into a screenplay directed by Lenny Abrahamson....

This past Friday, word spread all the way to the East Coast when The New York Times featured our Festival Director Stephanie Allain and her vision for a new Festival section called LA Muse, showcasing movies made in and about Los Angeles. Allain, along with Film Independent at LACMA curator Elvis Mitchell and Roya Rastegar, who teaches film at Bryn Mawr College, will curate the section designed to revitalize our city’s image as the filmmaking capital of the world....

At least, that’s the goal of Film Independent’s Fast Track, a three-day quick-pitch (think speed dating) film marketplace held each year at the LA Film Festival, wherein select participants are invited to pitch their fiction or documentary projects to top industry execs, financiers, agents, managers, distributors, granting organizations and production companies hungry for new ideas. Applications for Fast Track 2017 are now open. But before you rush to Expedia to begin pricing out mid-June hotel rooms in Culver City, you might want to brush up on your pitching skills with these helpful “Do’s” and “Don’ts” courtesy of the Fast Track Class of 2016: DO always get out right away a concise set-up of what the project is: the Who, What, When, Where and Why....

Combining elements of revenge thriller, cat-and-mouse style suspense movie and shoot-‘em-up action adventure, Outlaws and Angels is Mollner’s vision of the true and untold story of the Old West. The film stars Chad Michael Murray, Luke Wilson and Teri Polo, and features a breakthrough performance by Francesca Eastwood, daughter of Hollywood legend and Western movie icon, Clint. Film Independent recently spoke with Mollner about the challenges of working with vintage equipment, how making eight short films prepared him for his ambitious feature debut, and how fortunate he feels to see his vision come to fruition uncompromised....