We had a fantastic evening of panels at Rooftop Films on Saturday night – and the rain was no match for the incredible folk at Rooftop Films and their magical Brooklyn Can Factory! My favorite quote from the evening has to be this from Esther Robinson during the Cinema and Social Justice panel: “Make your life good, don’t get in a lot of debt and do something meaningful.” Amen Sister! Photo: Copyright Sarah Palmer 2008 Cinema and Social Justice: Simon…

John Tozzi’s Business Week article Indie Filmmakers Hit Their Target shows the abundance of new methods of distribution available to independent filmmakers. He details success stories of films and their creators who, rather than following traditional routes, are opting to take distribution on with the same entrepreneurial spirit they channel into their films. By maintaining their distribution rights, these filmmakers are carving new roads into advertising and distribution, while managing to draw a greater interest in their films (as opposed…

There’s an interesting article on Digital Journal about Cinetic Rights Management, including an interview with Janet Brown and Matt Dentler from the company. Many of you may have heard of Cinetic but CRM is a new addition to the company, focusing specifically on exploiting digital rights which means they will be able to leverage films that aren’t going to get traditional theatrical or television distribution. This is what CRM say they can offer the filmmaker/producer on their website: We maintain…

I went to see Captured (Ben Solomon, Dan Levin and Jenner Furst) at Rooftop Films last night – on the Open Road Rooftop in the Lower East Side. It was an incredible night – feeling so plugged into the neighborhood, looking out over the ever changing skyline, and watching a film about a man, Clayton Patterson, who has tirelessly documented the LES for 30 years. Clayton’s photographs and videos tell a fascinating story of a neighborhood in constant flux –…

From XKCD.

Reframe, an online film distribution website from the Tribeca Film Institute in partnership with Amazon, launched today. According to their website, Reframe aims to solve the problem of rare or important works that end up without any means of centralized, convenient distribution: Substantial amounts of film, video and media arts remain “stuck on the shelf,” inaccessible to large segments of the public. Sometimes this is due to rights-clearance issues, but more often it is because of the high cost to…

The acclaimed documentary series P.O.V. begins its Summer Season on PBS on June 24th with Katrina Browne’s Traces of the Trade, the story of Browne’s slave-trading New England ancestors and her family’s contemporary retracing of the trade triangle (and the fallout that ensues). See the complete list of films screening this Summer on P.O.V. here. Yance Ford, P.O.V.’s Series Producer will be at DCTV at 7.30pm tonight to talk at a Shooting People/DCTV event about how the films are chosen,…

I went to the Where Internet and Film Collide event at the IFC Center last night, presented as part of Internet Week New York and hosted by IndieGoGo and Filmmaker Magazine. You can read more about the event on The Film Panel Notetaker but I wanted to link to some of the cool films I saw last night here too. First Green Porno. I love Isabella Rossellini – she’s beautiful, funny and the sort of person I would love to…

The excellent and knowledgeable Laure Parsons has recently started a new blog on distribution in the digital age called Infinicine. It’s pretty new and shiny right now but subscribe to it to get future updates on things happening in the big wide world of digital distribution. This stuff changes so quickly – blogs like this help you stay on top of things so you can make smart distribution decisions and not glaze over when people start talking about VOD and…

AJ Schack gives sound advice to filmmakers navigating the festival circuit over on All These Wonderful Things. His key advice is to be strategic, respectful and not to burn any bridges: If you get in to a festival, make yourself available to them for press. Make a contact that you can rely on (and who can rely on you). Meet your deadlines. Have a healthy dialogue about screening times and potential audiences. And treat everyone with respect. If you don’t…