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Tag: Film Independent

  • Ten projects selected for 13th Fast Track film financing market at LA Film Festival

    Ten projects selected for 13th Fast Track film financing market at LA Film Festival

    NEW DELHI: Ten projects were selected today for participation in the 13th annual Fast Track film financing market organized by Film Independent.

     

    Held during the Los Angeles Film Festival, Fast Track is designed to help producer-director teams “fast track” their projects forward through sixty meetings with top industry executives–financiers, agents, managers, distributors, granting organizations, and production companies. During three days of intensive meetings, participants gain valuable exposure and build vital relationships as they propel their films towards completion.

     

    Fast Track is supported by Film Independent Artist Development lead funder Time Warner Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, NEA Art Works, EFILM, Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television, and Netflix.

     

    “We are thrilled to bring this group of visionary filmmakers together with such esteemed industry executives at the 2015 Los Angeles Film Festival. Our annual Fast Track finance market is a unique opportunity for filmmakers to gain critical support for their films, and for the executives to discover some of the outstanding talent that Film Independent curates and develops year-round through our Artist Development initiatives. This year’s projects are truly exceptional,” said Film Independent director of artist development Jennifer Kushner.

     

    Film Independent presented two Alfred P. Sloan grants to support films that explore science and technology themes or that depict scientists, engineers and mathematicians in engaging and innovative ways at the annual Fast Track Welcome Dinner.

     

    Film Independent’s inaugural Alfred P. Sloan Distribution Grant was awarded to Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter produced by Uri Singer, Fabio Golombek, Isen Robbins, and Aimee Schoof. The filmmakers will receive $50,000 in funds to support the release of the film. Experimenter premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was acquired by Magnolia Pictures with a release planned for fall 2015. Additionally, the sixth annual Alfred P. Sloan Fast Track Grant, a $20,000 production grant, was awarded to writer/director Elena Greenlee and producer Márcia Nunes for their narrative fiction film in development, Dark Forest.

     

    The ten projects shortlisted are: A Paso de Mangles by co-writer/director Paola Mendoza; Dark Forest by writer/director Elena Greenlee; Ethel by producer Anil Baral; First Match by producers Chanelle Elaine and Veronica Nickel; Give Me Liberty (writer/producer/director Kirill Mikhanovsky); Last Call (documentary) by director/producer Lana Wilson; Millie to the Moon by director Jen McGowan; Shot in the Dark (documentary) by director Dustin Nakao Haider; The Bad Kids (documentary) by director Lou Pepe; and Wild Nights by director Kyle Henry.

     

    Current industry participants include: Alchemy, Amasia Entertainment, Amazon Studios, And So It Begins Entertainment, Apex Entertainment, Black Label, Bloom Project, Broad Green, CAA, Canana, CBS Films, Chicken & Egg/Gamechanger, Cinedigm, CNN Films, Cold Iron Pictures, Dreambridge Capital, Electric City Entertainment, Electric Entertainment, Endgame Entertainment, Europacorp., Film Finances, Inc., Fluency Studios, Fortitude Int’l/BiFrost, Fox Digital, Fox International Channels, Fox Searchlight, Haven, Heidi Levitt Casting, ICM, Indian Paintbrush, Joanna Colbert Casting, Junto Box Films, Loeb & Loeb, Los Angeles Film Festival, Los Angeles Media Fund, Mosaic, Participant Media, Playback Motion Pictures. Preferred Content, Radiant Films, Rhino Films, River Road, Roadside Attractions, San Francisco Film Society Filmmaker360, Sandbar Pictures, Shoreline Entertainment, Slated, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions, Straight Up Films, Sundance Documentary Fund, Sundance Institute, Super Crispy Films, The Film Collaborative, Treehouse Pictures, UTA, Vega Baby, Voltage Pictures, WME, and XYZ Films.

  • Tarantino to premiere leaked script with an exclusive stage reading

    Tarantino to premiere leaked script with an exclusive stage reading

    MUMBAI: Many of the Film Independent, The New York Times Film Club and Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) members are geeking out over the news that Film Independent is presenting what’s sure to be one of the most exciting happenings in the film world this year: Quentin Tarantino is going to direct a staged reading of The Hateful Eight for Film Independent at the LACMA!

     

    On Thursday, 24 April at 8:00 pm, the iconic director will show up with a hand-picked cast to LACMA’s Bing Theater for a world premiere reading of the unmade script that’s been causing a ruckus since January, when Tarantino pulled the plug on the picture immediately upon learning that the script had been leaked by someone connected to the small circle of actors he’d circulated it to.

     

    “I like the fact that people like my shit, and that they go out of their way to find it and read it,” an outraged Tarantino told Deadline. This staged reading could be an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see something that has never been seen before and probably won’t be seen again. It will not be recorded or live-streamed. Also, the cast is likely to remain secret until they appear on stage that night at the Bing.

     

    The Hateful Eight follows the steadily ratcheting tension that develops after a blizzard diverts a stagecoach from its route, trapping a pitiless and mistrustful group, which includes a competing pair of bounty hunters, a renegade Confederate soldier and a female prisoner in a saloon in the middle of nowhere.

  • Film Independent announces nominees for next year’s Spirit Awards

    Film Independent announces nominees for next year’s Spirit Awards

    MUMBAI: Wes Anderson‘s Moonrise Kingdom and David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook dominate the field with five nominations each at the 2013 Spirit Awards.
    They will compete for best feature award alongside Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie and Keep the Lights On.

    Moonrise also scored nominations for director Anderson, its screenplay by Anderson and Roman Coppola, supporting actor Bruce Willis and Robert Yeoman‘s cinematography. The Focus Features release that debuted at the Cannes Film Festival was also named best feature at the 22nd Gotham Independent Film Awards.

    In addition to Moonrise‘s Anderson, other directors who have been nominated include Playbook‘s David O. Russell, Beasts‘ Benh Zeitlin and Lights‘ Ira Sachs. The fifth directing slot went to The Loneliest Planet‘s helmer Julia Loktev.

    Playbook‘s two lead actors – Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence – both earned nominations in the acting categories. The Sessions, the account of a man living with an iron lung who seeks out his first sexual experience, also picked up two acting nominations — one for lead actor John Hawkes and another for supporting actress Helen Hunt. The mother-daughter movie, Middle of Nowhere, was represented by three acting nominations, with Emayatzy Corinealdi in the best actress category, Lorraine Toussaint in supporting actress and David Oyelowo in supporting actor. Matthew McConaughey was not only nominated as lead actor for playing the title role in the crime movie Killer Joe but also as supporting male for emceeing a club full of male strippers in Magic Mike.

    Rounding out the list of lead actors were Bernie‘s Jack Black; Lights‘ Thure Lindhardt and Four‘s Wendell Pierce. The lead actress contingent also included Return‘s Linda Cardellini, Smashed‘s Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Beasts‘ young Quvenzhane Wallis.

    On the documentary front, the Spirit nominations singled out David France‘s How to Survive a Plague, which looks at the gay community‘s response to the AIDS crisis, Matthew Akers‘ Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present, a portrait of the Serbian performance artist, The Central Park Five, an account of injustice in New York City from Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon, Kirby Dick‘s The Invisible War, which investigates rape within the military and Peter Nicks‘ The Waiting Room, which examines the health crisis by focusing on one public hospital.

    In the best international film category, two of this year‘s most celebrated films from Cannes — Michael Haneke‘s Amour and Jacques Audiard‘s Rust and Bone — will compete with Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, from Turkey; Ursula Meier‘s Sister, from Switzerland; and Kim Nguyen‘s War Witch, from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which also happens to be Canada‘s submission for the foreign-language film Oscar.

    Film Independent also announced that it will give its annual Robert Altman Award, which recognizes a film‘s director, casting director and ensemble cast, to Sean Baker‘s Starlet.
    Among distributors, Fox Searchlight could boast of the most nominations. It collected nine nominations for Beasts, Sessions, Ruby Sparks and Sound of My Voice. Music Box Films also had surprisingly strong showing with seven noms spread among Lights, Abramovic and Starlet. IFC Films, Focus and Sony Pictures Classics each collected six nominations.

    Winners of the Spirit Awards will be announced Feb. 23 at the annual awards luncheon held in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica. The ceremony will be broadcast that evening at 10 p.m. ET/PT on IFC.