The concept: every month, 1 film selected from submissions all over the world, under one minute, and a grand champion announced at the end of the year. Check out SWEEPER, the winner for March. "Astonishing" is a good word for it. You've got a minute to spare to see something astonishing, don't you?

Renderyard 1 minute Film Festival

As anyone who is involved with the entertainment industry knows, sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands to make things happen. That is exactly what Tonisha Johnson did, starting her own company, TOMI Enterprises, in 2007. Not yet two years old, TOMI already has one successful film festival under its belt (there's a festival recap here), a second one in the works, and a wealth of resources set up to bring business knowledge to people in the entertainment industry. With a focus on minority and underground filmmaking, TOMI is setting the pace for showcasing and promoting emerging talents. Check out this inspiring and personal interview with Tonisha about the challenges and rewards of DIY business.

Click here for the Sell Sheet for
'She's Got It' - Produced by Fear No Man Productions
Winner of Best Feature at the 2008 TOMI Film Festival.


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"The ‘Other’ Movie Industry: How TOMI Brought Indie Urban Film to the NBA All Star Weekend"

SXSW 2008 Film Festival wrapped up this weekend, leaving in its wake a single tattered, oh so earnest, snapshot of Indie filmmaking.  If Sundance is the official word on the state of indie filmmaking, SXSW is what you’ll learn going to your local bar.  Getting down with SXSW is what it takes to get your ear close to the American independent film underground. Here’s a look at the Top 5 Key Trends that emerged from this year’s diverse group of fiction features and documentaries. 

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"The 5 Trends That Make SXSW 2008 the Indie Film Fest You Need to Know About"

South By Southwest 2008 Film Fest winners have been announced, see results at: http://2008.sxsw.com/film/

Over at Cinematical, they give top marks to Doug Benson’s Super High Me, a silly but incredibly funny stoner-comedy doc.

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/03/13/sxsw-review-super-high-me/

SXSW veteran and San Francisco native Gabriel Fleming showcased his second feature The Lost Coast to positive press. I admit I know Fleming form back in the days when we were both schlepping at the Telluride Film Fest and I’m thrilled for his success. He’s also the epitome of the sort of emerging artist that SXSW caters to.

http://www.cinematical.com/2008/03/13/sxsw-review-the-lost-coast/

Reviews of lots of SXSW films can be found at:

http://www.spout.com/sxsw

and http://www.filmthreat.com/

Final Farewell To Austin
Here at IPEX we looked at the whole sweding fad tied to the online promotion of Be Kind, Rewind. And, as you know, we’ve also have been following the blog coverage of the SXSW film fest in Austin. Now these two obsessions have miraculously dovetailed. While neither a part of SXSW nor a part of the official promotion of Be Kind, Rewind, the Austin based Filmmaking Frenzy and Austin Drafthouse have the results of their own Rewind, Kindly sweding contest online now. A bunch of sweded films of everyone’s romp favorites, the results are well worth checking out. See them at:

http://beta.filmmakingfrenzy.com/ViewFrenzy.aspx?FrenzyId=5

and start your schemes and dreams for SXSW 09.

If I had my druthers I’d take a year to just film fest. Not a difficult thing to do with a world-class festival running every month of the year. Here’s where you want to be from March to June.

March 7–15: Austin’s South By Southwest
The film component of SXSW has been growing every year and this year looks to be one of the film fest’s finest.

http://2008.sxsw.com/film/screenings/date/2008-03-07.html

April 17–27: Toronto’s Hot Docs
Hot Docs has become one of North America’s premiere documentary film fests. Every year promises a who’s who of current docs and a state of the union for the industry as a whole.

http://www.hotdocs.ca

May 14–25: Cannes, Festival de Cannes
Every year about 100 000 people cram into a 3 block radius by the sea and celebrate the full-out glamour and cheese of the International film scene. The festival for seeing and preening.

http://www.festival-cannes.fr/index.php/en

June 16-21: Toronto, Reel Heart International Films Festival
4th year for this TO newbie that wants to get away form “niche” festival and cover a broad spectrum of films, genres, languages and all. Could be interesting to watch this fest grow.

http://www.reelheart.com/

Film fan bloggers are up in arms all over the information superhighway over the recent announcement that Sony Pictures Classics has purchased distribution rights to Sundance fest favorite The Wackness. The film features unlikely cast-mates Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen (we were all wondering when these crazy kids would finally get together), in a dark comedy about getting high and getting therapy.

The Specialty Film Division for Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony Pictures Classics is taking a blog-beating for its film’s poor box office showings, moving too slow to go into wide release, and just generally not being hip enough to handle the promotion of non-mainstream films in the manner that Fox Searchlight and Focus Features have come to excel at. 

Well, I may be sent to Hell for it, but I am going to defend SPC on this one.

Just in case you missed the brouhaha (thanks to Cinematical for the summary):
Neil Miller (Film School Rejects)
Peter Sciretta (Slashfilm)
Alex Billington (First Showing)
Edward Douglas (ComingSoon.net)
Josh Tyler (Cinema Blend)

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"Indie Film Distributor Spotlight: Sony Pictures Classics deserves an Indie Spirit Award. Really."

The Sundance Film Festival, though firmly in its mid-twenties and suffering all the expected crises, is one of the world’s most important cinema venues. It’s been said that what plays well up in the mountains of Park City this year will be trickling into the Hollywood mainstream by the summer after next.  If this is true, the 2008 iteration of the festival leaves us with a lot to think about.  Here are 5 things to chew on as American movies face what is likely a pivotal year.

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"Sundance Film Festival 2008: Five Key Trends and Must-Knows for Indie Directors and Producers"

Submarine Entertainment, found at the unassuming website submarine.com (home of a mysterious, lo fi, and little-bit-creepy splash page), are quickly becoming a Sundance mainstay, especially after previous successes as sales agents for Super-Size Me (2005) and Control Room (2004). Yet another New York producer’s rep company (though they also much more), twin brothers Josh and Dan Braun and former CAA agent Kevin Iwashina arrive at Sundance 2008 with an intriguing roster of documentaries and feature fiction including The Duplass Brothers comedy Baghead.

How are they doing so far?  Submarine Entertainments’ 2008 Sundance Scorecard:

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Cinetic and Submarine Entertainment repped.  Sold to the Weinstein Company.

Kicking It Submarine repped for Worldwide Sales. Sold to ESPN.

The Black List Submarine brokered the deal (along with Arthouse Films). Sold to HBO.

Baghead - Josh Braun brokered a low six-figure deal with Sony Pictures Classics.

Cinetic Media is hardly an unknown around the Sundance Film Festival, but the majority of movie goers will be hard pressed to say they recognize the name or logo.  That’s because Cinetic Media occupies the nether realm of broker, a position they occupy so successfully that Defamer jokingly called them, three years ago, the Sundance Unseen Hand.

Now in 2008, things haven’t changed much, except perhaps Cinetic are much less ‘unseen’.  The Hollywood Reporter ranked legendary lawyer/producer/sales agent and Cinetic Founder John Sloss and his partner, former CAA top agent Bart Walker, number 21 in their list of the 50 most powerful indie related execs. At Sundance, Cinetic is well known for their annual party...and for having an uncanny knack for being close to all the best deals.

Cinetic Sundance 2008 Scorecard (so far):

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Cinetic and Submarine Entertainment repped the deal.

UPDATE (23 Jan): American Teen: this documentary on a high school in Indiana was sold to Paramount Vantage after a long negotiation session.  Cinetic and CAA repped.  Deal is worth 1 million and includes all world rights excluding the UK.

Just passed the half way point in the festival, and sales at Sundance 2008 have been a bit disappointing.  Though commentators last week were predicting loose purse-strings in Park City in response to the threat of a prolonged writers’ strike (fears mitigated last Thursday by the DGA’s deal-making), the perceived over-spending of last year has so far resulted in a more conservative buyer’s marketplace.

What’s the deal so far? Kudos to considerate and writerly spout.com blogger Karina Longworth for providing this Sundance 2008 Scorecard.  The 2008 list of sold films is notable, so far, for the preponderance of documentaries.

Here’s the link: Sundance 2008 Deals

HBO, Weinstein, United Artists, ESPN(!) – the usual suspects.  But what about the others?  Throughout the rest of the week, we’ll be profiling some of the lesser known Sundance deal makers.  Stay tuned.

The National Film Board of Canada is schlepping an excellent slate of films to Park City this week including the absolutely gorgeous short animated film Madame Tutli-Putli. This hand crafted stunner was licensed at MIPCOM '08 to Canal + France, ARTE, and Switzerland's TSR. Already a winner at last year's Cannes Film Festival, this crowd favourite is sure to bring attention to the many other worthy NFB produced films playing this year at Sundance. These films, created with pure passion and commitment, represent some of the finest results socially conscious government funded arts can produce.

Take a look at this clip of Madame to get the cinephilic juices flowing, and check out some of the great coverage of Sundance 2008.




Madame Tutli-Putli - Distributed by The National Film Board of Canada


NEWS FLASH: The National Film Board of Canada's UP THE YANGTZE is the official first sale at Sundance 2008. It was acquired by Zeitgeist, for release in April.

Esteemed and often peeved Chicago Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum has done the heavy lifting, and here are the numbers he’s crunched from Film Comment‘s Annual List of films played theatrically in the United States:

Major studios released 119 films

Specialty divisions of major studios released 49 more

Independent distributors were behind nearly 500

Films playing at Festivals accounted for the remaining 1,600-plus titles

Total: 2,400 titles

With that many films, of course, it’s impossible to see them all.  That makes the anointed best of the year either really impressive, or not impressive at all.

[Source Jonathan Rosenbaum’s Year End Piece from the Chicago Reader.  Yes, Mr. Rosenbaum plans to retire from film reviewing at the end of February 2008 and we wish him well. A truly great critic and a tireless prospector for the rarest of cinematic gems.]

Finally, a film festival that targets those of us with limited attention spans.  We may be easily distracted, but it doesn’t mean we aren’t discerning. Check out Renderyard’s One Minute Challenge Online Film festival.  You can submit through Withoutabox, and there is a winner every month.

Here’s the December 2007 winner...very likable, quite buzzable, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome:

Shhhh: Short Film Festival Winner

Renderyard Film Competition 1 Minute Challenge

IPEX TV Festival Central, launched this week, is an evolving resource, a new space to help both buyers discover films garnering festival buzz, and rights holders discover great new venues for their work.  Film Festivals have become a key player in helping content travel not just to the big screen, but around the world.  As it becomes easier to move content across borders, new and exciting opportunities open up for buyers and sellers.

We first launched the IPEX TV video trailer marketplace to serve the traditional film and video licensing industry—the crowd of professionals you will meet at tradeshows like MIPCOM and NATPE.  Since then, we’ve been approached by a number of independent content creators and rights holders interested in using our service to break into the industry.  The licensing industry has been fairly closed to self-distributing indies, but the web is helping change things.  We are very happy to offer indies a chance to get in front of registered buyers on IPEX TV through our free Sell Sheet Broadcaster tool.  We’d love to hear from you if you have any ideas about new features you’d like to see on IPEX TV.

If you have any comments, or you have a festival you think should be featured on Festival Central, e-mail me at info@ipextv.tv.

This is a weekly post showcasing a film festival we think should be on the radar of international buyers, and on the submission list of rights-holders looking to reach out to new audiences.

The Barbados International Film Festival will be hosting its inaugural festival from December 5th-9th 2007. It will be an annual celebration of film, both in and out of competition, showcasing the very best of filmmakers and storytellers of the world for the audience of the world.  A great mix of local and global, new indie and classic festival fare--oh yes, and the beach--makes this one festival to keep a close eye on.

Obviously it’s a great venue for a festival...but even more important than the beach is its geographical location. BIFF is literally in the perfect spot to bridge the gap between North American film festival audiences and Latin American and Caribbean cinema.  BIFF’s dream of a vibrant mixture of classic, independent, world renowned, and regional cinema says a lot about the globalization of content.  It’s a festival on the threshold, and if you happen to be in Barbados this December, it’s an amazing chance to get close to paradise: a major international film fest, still on a human scale...and walking distance from the beach.