Before you check out “Taking Woodstock,” check out this exclusive interview with Ang Lee. He recently appeared at The Film Society with cast and collaborators to discuss his film “Ride with the Devil.”
For more exclusive Film Society video, please visit our YouTube channel.
From Erin Crumpacker, a video of the Q&A between Richard Peña and Amreeka director Cherien Dabis.
Be sure to check out Erin’s blog, Briefly Noted, for more.
Filmmakers, now’s the time to brush off those fantastic ideas celebrating the art of film. Our search for the next great New York Film Festival has just three weeks left! That’s plenty of time to whip up a masterpiece, so get cracking! The winner will live it up like a VIP, but there’s plenty of great stuff for finalists, too. You can enter at Poptent.net.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Fancy yourself a budding Scorsese? The chance to appear at a major festival may be closer than you think!
The Film Society of Lincoln Center has long cultivated a community of passionate film enthusiasts and filmmakers. On the web, Poptent.net brings together a community of 10,000 independent video makers who apply their know-how to assignments from big brands and organization.
For the 47th Annual New York Film Festival, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Poptent have joined forces to create a unique opportunity for filmmakers to create a 30-90 second trailer that will premiere during the New York Film Festival and be adapted to run year round in front of Film Society programming.
The exposure and excitement are priceless, but here are some things you can win if your trailer is selected:
There are fantastic prizes for runners-up as well. What are you waiting for? Enter now!
HOW TO ENTER:
What do Jack White, The Edge and Jimmy Page have in common? A borderline psychotic obsession with their guitars, naturally. On Thursday, July 30, Young Friends of Film presents a preview screening of It Might Get Loud, a documentary examination of these legendary axemen from Inconvenient Truth director David Guggenheim.
Over in the current issue of Film Comment, Chris Chang (who’s been rumored to rock himself) has a great Hegelian analysis of the inherent drama of bringing together three such charismatic personalities:
“Page nicely fits the bill of rock ‘n’ roll progenitor, at the very least nominally, having, among other things, co-authored the 1971 Zeppelin staple “Rock and Roll.” Contra Page’s blistering finger virtuosity, we have The Edge’s militantly reductive technique, a method that favors open-stringed, ringing chords over aggressive solo noodling—albeit after said chords have passed through towering racks of effect processors. Jack White is a bit too young, and has come late to the “roots” variety of rock he emulates, so he must necessarily be categorized, at least for now, as postmodern anomaly. But his generation will always gleefully admit to the vampiric joys of pastiche. On the way to the film’s on-screen summit, he lets slip an ulterior motive: “stealing” the chops of his guitar elders. Given the same opportunity, who wouldn’t?”
Come for the potential chop-stealing opportunities, but stay for the director Q&A and afterparty. These Young Friends of Film events are always packed with great conversation, free drinks, and interesting people. And if you want to feel like a VIP all year, you might consider joining Young Friends of Film. For just $250, you’re on the A-List for parties and events designed especially for younger film enthusiasts at the Film Society of Lincoln Center. You can let your Netflix queue languish while you sit in on engaging conversation with top actors about their craft, meet influential directors, and hob-nob with other discriminating film lovers all year long. What are you waiting for? Join now.
We’d also like to give a shout-out to our media partner KEXP. Maybe you’re like me, a long-time listener to KEXP’s excellent internet radio stream via iTunes. Turns out the pioneering Seattle station was so popular in New York via the internet that in 2008, the KEXP folks joined with Radio New York to launch a Gotham-centric offshoot called Radio Liberation, 91.5 FM on your radio dial. Same adventurous musical mix, but with 75% less rain. Seriously, tune in, they rock.
Don’t forget to join us on Thursday July 30th for a rocking screening and party!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
From Funny or Die! an inventive cinematic take on Sonia Sotomayor’s rise to judicial prominence. I especially like the part where the sharks come it. Coming soon to a theater near you?
The Human Rights Watch 20th International Film Festival closed last week with a righteous guffaw.
The Yes Men Fix the World left a packed Walter Reade Theater in tears of laughter… and social awareness. The documentary drew its comic prowess from the hysterical deformity of corporate America’s moral compass. And while it’s hard not to laugh at a lodestone that points to a bottom line, it’s also hard not to see the danger in such a perversion.
The second documentary created by “Yes Men” Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, Fix the World begins with a voice over explaining that Andy is getting ready to impersonate a DOW spokesperson on the BBC in front of 300 million people, “…and that’s why he looks so nervous.” Some well-assembled backtracking shows us how The Yes Men function. For the most part, they create fake websites said to represent the various unjust organizations of the world, and wait until people fall into the trap and contact them. They then take various opportunities, for example, to participate in conferences, or to appear on international television.
Early in the film, Mike presents at a conference as a so-called representative of DOW. He claims to have created a model by which a company can calculate whether the human life an enterprise may cost is worth the probable monetary benefit. A character they have created personifies the model: Gilda, a gold skeleton. Alluding to a tragedy that occurred in Bhopal, India in 1984 when a plant belonging Union Carbide, now a subsidiary of DOW, released 42 tons of toxic gas into the air, Mike explained how a worthwhile “gold skeleton” can be differentiated from a futile “skeleton in the closet”: Mike asks, “how many Americans does it take to screw in a light bulb? Twelve. One to screw it in, and eleven to file the lawsuit. How many Indians does it take to screw in a light bulb? Oh, just one.” The Yes Men hoped that the concept of such a model would shock and disturb a room full of white collars, but instead the group embraced it with applause.
Unfortunately, all of the Yes Men’s other attempts at unearthing hearts beneath suits are similarly futile. It is thus that the documentary becomes not a story of problems fixed, but of problems illuminated. This is best illustrated by the pair’s biggest stunt. Masquerading as “Jude Finisterra,” a representative of DOW, Andy went on the BBC and promised at long last to compensate the hundreds of thousands of victims of the Bhopal tragedy. Upon realizing the hoax, DOW immediately released a statement saying that no such compensation would be provided, even though the hoax made it pretty evident that this would be the right thing to do.
Despite this stunt’s impotence when it came to actually changing corporate policy, Andy said in a Q and A following the evening’s screening that he saw the BBC appearance as the Yes Men’s biggest victory, because it succeeded in arousing awareness about the Bhopal tragedy. According to Green Peace, hundreds of articles that would have otherwise went unwritten came into being as a result of the hoax. While Andy concluded in the Q and A that, “DOW would never do the right thing” on its own, he sees a possible solution in further regulation of corporations on the part of the government. The hope is that the Yes Men’s reawakening of public awareness will somehow translate into public policy.
The most optimistic move the Yes Men make is the mass distribution of a “special edition” of the New York Times. Researched and compiled by a huge team of Yes Men, the paper is a vision of what the world could be like at a point in the future. Given that the future date chosen for headlines such as “Iraq War Ends,” and “Maximum Wage Law Passes,” is this Saturday, July 4, 2009, it’s obvious that the paper’s socialistic optimism is more than a little bit cock-eyed. But that’s the big upside of keeping your tongue in your cheek: outrageous hope.
The Yes Men Fix the World has its television premiere on HBO July 27. It will be screening at Film Forum beginning October 7.
-Morgan H. Green
Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the Open Video Conference at NYU. A far cry from other tech events I’ve attended seemingly packed with suited entrepreneurs pressing cards into your hands, this diverse gathering felt both more practical and more full of possibilities about the future. But it may be a sign of the times that fast-talking spiels about whimsical startups to sell us stuff we don’t need have been pushed aside in favor of discussions about the public engagement with online media.
Like “open source,” “open video” focuses on the free exchange of ideas, predicated on the idea that collaboration and exchange will foster better ones, and maybe even a better society. Situated as it was on the convergence of technology, public policy and the changing face of journalism and media, the Open Video Conference raised a number of questions pertinent to both media producers and media consumers:
How much media should be free?
Unsurprisingly, there seemed little consensus here. The Internet has long been a monolithic, unstoppable force pushing the free dissemination of everything, but without funding, who will create content that inspires, illuminates and informs?
One panelist drew attention to the Academy Award-wining short documentary “Smile Pinky,” which was funded by the nonprofit organization Smile Train as a compelling model for funding content that serves the public good. We better come up with others before the web is taken over with videos of cats playing the piano. (No offense, Keyboard Cat)
Do we get the public media we deserve?
Oh, Canada. Your National Film Board not only gives scratch to deserving filmmakers, it has also seen fit to create a free archive of the work they make. Unfortunately, we are not as blessed in the U.S. with a comprehensive system for media producers. But as one panelist said, paraphrasing H.L. Mencken, perhaps we get the public media we deserve. And if we don’t like it, it’s incumbent upon us to reinvent the system.
Who will be the librarians of digital media?
Amazingly enough, there is no national body with the mandate to collect and preserve our public media. It’s true that President Obama has plans to strengthen the nation’s “digital infrastructure,” but it’s a little staggering to think about all those thousands of tapes out there moldering, time running out, and YouTube just isn’t going to cut it.
At present, it’s really up to nonprofit media organizations to build those archives, and in the coming months, look to the filmlinc blog for a more in-depth exploration of moving image archives and the important work they do.
What does Open Video mean for the social web?
My favorite illustration of what open video might mean for content creators came from the Middle Eastern television network Al-Jazeera, who decided to license footage from the conflict in Gaza under Creative Commons, meaning people can freely use the footage with attribution. It was exciting to see the different types of people who picked that footage up: Wikipedia, filmmakers, artists, educators, video game makes, activists, independent media and more.
The conference program postulates that by 2013, online video will account for 90% of all Internet traffic. We are long overdue for a serious discussion of what that will mean for the film business, online media and journalism. Packed with developers, public policy experts, and content creators, this conference was an important step in that direction.
The “secret” is out: for six glorious days in late June, the Film Society will be host to The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival. To the uninitiated, that’s a collection of benefit shows, made in Britain on behalf Amnesty International, that feature the leading lights of comedy and rock in the service of a good cause. These concert specials, many of them never screened in the States before, and unavailable on DVD or VHS, feature live renderings of some of Monty Python’s best bits. To wit:
We know all you Python fans out there will be positively swooning over this chance to immerse yourselves in so much comedy gold, and so we wanted to invite you to be a part of the fun. Show us your best interpretation of a classic Python sketch in a video of under five minutes and you could win the V.I.P. treatment during this rare line-up:
A pair of series passes to see any FIVE of these great films over six days, complimentary popcorn and soda, and ultimate bragging rights.
To play the “Show us your Python” video contest:
1. Create a video interpretation of a classic Python sketch in less than five minutes. For inspiration, see above. Act it out, animate vegetables, have fun with it. Creativity and originality are the most important criteria.
2. Upload your video to our YouTube Group.
3. Videos must be received by midnight E.S.T. on Tuesday, June 23rd.
4. Winner will be announced on the filmlinc blog on June 24th.
Please note:
Videos will be judged on creativity, originality and humorousness ONLY. You do not have to be a technical genius for this one, or even own a nice camera or fancy editing software. A single set-up will suffice.
Good luck!!
RSVP to the Secret Policeman’s Film Festival at the Film Society on Facebook.
Get your tickets early, before all those Python maniacs get to them!
Fresh from the Festival du Cannes, the filmlinc blog’s intrepid video diarist Melanie Shaw along with cohorts Ella Hatamian and Izak Rappaport offer this look inside the festival, including early reactions to some of the fest’s buzzworthy entries. And because noteworthy titles from Cannes often end up in the New York Film Festival, perhaps you’ll see one of these titles in New York come fall?
the filmlinc blog 
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