Film Journey

Now that the Moving Image Institute is over, some lingering images and quotes:

ïIndie publicists telling us they have no idea how three of their favorite films at Sundance–Sugar, Ballast, and Trouble the Water–could possibly be marketed to an ideal audience of young black viewers.

ï Gratitude toward Roger Ebert and Jonathan Rosenbaum for being the only print critics to offer enthusiastic words about online film culture in Gerald Peary’s For the Love of Movies.

ï Ace cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Swoon, Personal Velocity, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) telling us …

More than once this weekend at the Moving Image Institute, we’ve been told that filmmakers have an intense, almost irrational desire to have their work exhibited theatrically rather than on video, even if that means losing considerable sums of money. Distributors shake their heads while describing filmmakers turning down straight-to-video deals or spending virtually all of their cash earned from video sales to make prints, advertise, and book a screen or two here in New York City (a venture that can cost anywhere from $75,000-$100,000, three to four times what it costed fifteen years ago). No doubt this is …

The last few days have been a true whirlwind at the Moving Image Institute in New York City, and I’ve only got a couple of hours before we’ll be seeing Gerald Peary’s new documentary on American film criticism. Rochelle Slovin, David Schwartz, Dennis Lim, and Livia Bloom (who just published an interview with Errol Morris in the latest issue of Cinema Scope) and the entire staff at MoMI have been impeccable hosts, and genuinely care about the dialogue we’re generating about the divide between print critics and online critics, or the shrinking publicity market for smaller, more independent distributors…