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“It’s been amazing, the response to the film,” Strauch enthused. The reviews of the doc, which is about celebrated BASE jumper Carl Boenish and his wife Jean, have been primarily very positive, but “we’re actually most excited about how people who are seeing the film are responding,” Strauch said. After a great critical response and sold-out opening night screening at Toronto, the film’s sales agent and executive producer, Josh Braun, guided Strauch through the festival distribution market....

Through the Global Media Makers (GMM) program, we have ignited collaborations between our group of international Fellows and US-based Film Independent Fellows to create a series of original short films, shot entirely on iPhone. During their six-week LA residency, a core element of the international filmmaker exchange initiative’s effort was to create a dialogue between artists from different countries, joining forces to explore their surroundings both home and abroad. Global Media Makers is supported through a partnership between Film Independent and the U....

HIGH SPIRITS (1988) Where You Can Watch It: iTunes, Vudu Director: Neil Jordan Starring: Peter O’Toole, Steve Guttenberg, Daryl Hannah Why We Love It: In Neil Jordan’s comedy from the late 1980s, a group of American tourists travel to a mysterious Irish castle that’s been converted into a modern hotel. Little do they know, decades before their arrival a terrible death occurred—an event replayed each night by the ghosts who still inhabit the castle grounds....

If you had trouble keeping up, you should know that our full library of #FiForum20 content will remain up (for Forum pass holders only) through October 31. So if you missed any of Day Five, it’ll still be there, waiting for you for almost three whole months, to enjoy at your leisure. And if you were able to catch Day Five LIVE, well… you already know how much fun it was....

Each day you spend hours and hours inside text editors: composing your iMessages; snarking on Facebook and Twitter; leaving comments underneath this very blog, etc. You probably use MS Word and Pages for work documents. And if you work in the film and television industry—or hope to work in the industry, or imagine that you already do—then your prime text editor is called Final Draft, aka the stalwart software solution for screenwriters for 25+ years....

We talked to film restoration expert Paul Korver and ex-American Cinematheque head programmer Dennis Bartok, who are at the helm of Cinelicious, about what they’re looking for from independent filmmakers. Tell us about your approach to selecting and distributing films. Bartok: I love the theatrical experience. We firmly believe that we want all the movies we pick up to be put out theatrically first, followed by VOD and DVD and Blu-Ray and TV....

Sometimes those subjects were too honest. During the Q&A that followed last night’s Film Independent at LACMA screening of the film, Shiva told how one young woman, 16-year-old Marideth Bridges, often took quite a while to warm up to the camera before an interview. “It was always a 45-minute coffee and a barrage of questions—‘Tell me about Alaska, tell me about India, tell me about Thailand,’” said Shiva, quoting Bridges....

Here are five of Pollard’s strategies for increasing the chances you’ll succeed in drumming up capital for your films. Build relationships with potential backers. One thing potential investors have in common is that there is no shortage of people asking them for money. So when you approach an investor and have no history or personal rapport, it’s like asking a random girl in a check out line to come home and look at your baseball card collection....

Well, look at you. The independent filmmaker, your project completed. Sitting there utterly dazed, short of breath, atop of a pile of warm DCPs—a ticker tape Elder’s scroll of SVOD rental receipts choking your ankles like a low coastal fog. You ask yourself: What the hell just happened? And: How did we pull that off? And possibly: What’s next? Well, just when you thought your obligations as a steward of cinema were nearing the finish line, there’s still a long and winding road to travel paved with awards season gold, glass and bronze....

BEDLAM Guests of honor: Kenneth Paul Rosenberg (writer/director/producer), Peter Miller (writer/producer), Joan Churchill, ASC (co-producer/director of photography), Alan Barker (co-producer/location sound), Buddy Squires, ASC (additional cinematography and project development), Bob Richman (cinematographer); moderated by Caroline Libresco (curator, producer, consultant) About: Through intimate stories of patients, families and medical providers, Bedlam is a feature-length documentary that immerses viewers in the national crisis surrounding medical care of the severely mentally ill. Filmed over five years, it brings us inside one of America’s busiest psychiatric emergency rooms, into jails where psychiatric patients are warehoused and to the homes–and homeless encampments–of mentally ill members of our communities, where silence and shame often compound personal suffering....

As part of the discussion moderated by Michael Tronick, the pair showed clips from one of their recent collaborations with Abrams, Star Trek Into Darkness. To illustrate how editing choices can add real emotional weight to a story line, the clips were of differently edited versions of the same pivotal scenes. For instance, they showed the editing changes Markey made in the scene where Uhura approaches the Klingons. Markey said, “I remember at one point J....

Nicole Papincak said her ultimate goal is to “avoid having a claim filed.” The LA-based entertainment transactional attorney has been in the business since 2005 and is currently an associate at Reder & Feig. She’s been presenting on legal topics with Film Independent since 2014, returning once again last Tuesday, July 25 to help dispense advice on a variety of pre-production legal issues. The workshop focused on four important “watch-outs” you’ll need to keep in mind to make the production of your film or TV show run more smoothly: corporate formation, chain of title, clearances and contracts....

On April 20, Film Independent at LACMA hosted a screening of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, HBO’s new film adaptation of Skloot’s nonfiction novel. Following the screening, Film Independent at LACMA curator Elvis Mitchell sat down for a conversation with director George C. Wolfe and Henrietta Lacks executive producer and star Oprah Winfrey, who plays Henrietta’s conflicted daughter Deborah. The film co-stars Renée Elise Goldsberry as Lacks herself, Rose Byrne as Skloot and Reg E....

Official Synopsis: Brilliant, visionary Nikola Tesla (Ethan Hawke) fights an uphill battle to bring his revolutionary electrical system to fruition, then faces even thornier challenges with his new system for worldwide wireless energy. The film tracks Tesla’s uneasy interactions with fellow inventor Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan) and his patron George Westinghouse (Jim Gaffigan). Another thread traces Tesla’s sidewinding courtship of financial titan J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz), whose daughter Anne (Eve Hewson) takes a more than casual interest in the inventor....

Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine Directed by Alex Gibney Prolific documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney’s interest in creating a documentary on Apple CEO Steve Jobs was sparked by the enormous public grief over Jobs – “why so much for this particular person? He was very much a counterculture person,” said Gibney. Jobs’ interpersonal relationships and obsessive nature are the focus of this controversial documentary, which became one of the most talked-about films at SXSW this year....

Conceived in response to the our nation’s ongoing coronavirus lockdown, the experience’s narrative revolves around an actor—previously scheduled to play Prospero in a version of the Bard’s classic—who, thwarted by his theater’s shutdown in the face of COVID-19, instead guides audience members through an interactive dreamscape-imagination of what the production might have been, with audience members assuming the roles of Prospero’s helpful spirits. The Tempest is, in fact, a spin-off component of Tender Claws’ ongoing longform experience The Under Presents, which we first profiled in at a special panel at The Portal in 2019, Film Independent’s immersive storytelling showcase....

Hopefully you already know all about this year’s wonderfully talented crop of Spirit Award nominees (and if not, watch). But were you aware that these awe-inspiring artists and auteurs will be joined by presenters including—deep breath here—Fred Armisen, Kate Beckinsale, Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jon Hamm, Taraji P. Henson, Samuel L. Jackson, Danny McBride, Janelle Monae, Viggo Mortensen, David Oyelowo, Amanda Peet, Freida Pinto, Aubrey Plaza, Issa Rae, Edgar Ramirez, Jenny Slate, Miles Teller and Kerry Washington?...

The series opens in 1962 and imagines a world in which the Nazis won WWII by developing the atomic bomb before the Americans. The Germans and Japanese rule a divided United States with an uneasy alliance as they try to crush a nascent resistance effort among the citizenry. At a recent Film Independent at LACMA screening of the show’s first two episodes, cast and crew discussed the almost interminable process of bringing the book to the screen....

Freedom of expression is of course at the heart of what Film Independent is all about. Especially (as you might guess from the name) freedom of expression as communicated through visual storytelling—particularly through the stories of people from marginalized, maligned or underrepresented communities. Not to scaremonger, but these are precisely the sorts of stories and voices that are most at risk in today’s topsy-turvy global mishegas of accelerated corporate mergers, imperiled net neutrality and the disassembly of the free press....

PROJECT INVOLVE Enter Project Involve. As Film Independent’s signature diversity initiative, Project Involve has, for nearly 25 years, served to help build and sustain the careers of filmmakers—specifically, those from traditionally marginalized or underrepresented backgrounds. Each year, 30 (or so) Fellows are selected, collaborating together to produce short films, participate in master filmmaking workshops, engage in one-on-one mentoring sessions and network with top entertainment industry professionals. Sounds fun, right? Well, you’re right....