Christine Vachon can now add “Cinequest Maverick” to honors ranging from the Frameline Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lesbian and Gay Media in 1994, Producer of the Year from the National Board of Review in 2003 and New York MoMA retrospective honoree in 2005. Her films have garnered Independent Spirit Awards and Oscars in numerous categories. Following a rollicking interview with Jens Hussey, Cinequest Director of Public Relations, Vachon accepted the festival’s highest honor, the M...
Friday, March 2---Christine Vachon can now add “Cinequest Maverick” to honors ranging from the Frameline Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lesbian and Gay Media in 1994, Producer of the Year from the National Board of Review in 2003 and New York MoMA retrospective honoree in 2005. Her films have garnered Independent Spirit Awards and Oscars in numerous categories. Following a rollicking interview with Jens Hussey, Cinequest Director of Public Relations,...
Thursday, January 11-----One of the highlights of the upcoming Sundance Film Festival (at least for me) is the opportunity to see the latest film from Hal Hartley, who really put independent film on the map back in the day when it was still a small community of individual risktakers. With such films as THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH (1989), TRUST (1990), SIMPLE MEN (1992) and AMATEUR (1992), Hartley stood at the nexus of European film artistry and American independent virtuosity. His last few films h...
Thursday, November 30----One of New York's biggest film parties was held last evening. The 16th Annual Gotham Awards were presented at New York's fashionable Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River. The star-studded program is a fundraiser for the Independent Feature Project (IFP), a not-for-profit filmmmaker association that helps novice indies throughout the year.
The Awards were recently reorganized to be half film celebration and half film tribute. While the Gothams have awards for Best Pictur...
Friday, November 24----The Independent Feature Project (IFP), the membership organization that represents the interests of independent filmmakers across the United States, has announced the nominees for its 16th IFP Gotham Awards, which will be given out at a gala Awards Ceremony on November 29th in New York City. The event, which was begun in 1991 as a way of recognizing New York-based independent producers and distributors and their films, also serves as a major fundraiser for the organizat...
Saturday/Sunday, October 21/22-----THE ARCHITECT is a sophisticated urban drama about a Chicago architect (played by Anthony LaPaglia) confronted by an outspoken female activist (Viola Davis) living in a dangerous housing project of his design. LaPaglia plays Leo Waters, an idealistic architect and patriarch of an affluent, suburban Chicago family. Viola Davis is Tonya Neeley, a pragmatic activist who is trying to keep her family together while living in one of the city’s most drug and crime...
Saturday, June 10---When screenwriter Barry Stringfellow was pitching his original screenplay of a teenage boy dying of cancer whose final wish is a date with a blonde supermodel, he was repeatedly asked how to much the film more "upbeat". Well cancer is never very upbeat, but, as Virginia Woolf famously said, "a character needs to die so that the other characters can value life".
That is the sentiment and the message of Stringfellow's alternately moving and hilarious ONE LAST THING, directed b...
NEW YORK PITCHXCHANGE - FIRST ROUND OF EXECUTIVES ANNOUNCED Finally, East Coast screenwriters have access to industry decision makers!Companies confirmed to be hearing pitches include: Miramax, Dimension, Blue Sky, The Hudson Agency, Andrew Lauren Productions, Bigel/Mailer Films, 4th Row Films, Deutsch/Open City and HDnet Films, Emerging Pictures, Eric Hanson Management, the Howard Stern Production Company and Hallmark Entertainment.The Inaugural New York City PitchXchange brings one-on-one pitc...
