Monday, May 26--------With major U.S. distribution companies, for the most part, sitting out this year’s Cannes Film Festival, there was some last minute activity as the Festival came to a close this past weekend. Among the winners announced on Sunday (a European clean sweep), only Three Monkeys, the latest film from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (who won the Best Director prize), has a U.S. distributor in place. New Yorker Films, a specialty outfit, picked up the rights prior to the ...

While the bulk of film professionals and hopefuls who have crowded into the ski resort of Park City for this week's Sundance Film Festival represent the high and low of the independent film world (those with VIP connections, and those scrambling to get meetings and into lavish parties), Sundance has become a place for Hollywood producers and bigshots to hobnob with their contemporaries and, heaven forbid, young filmmaking talent. This makes for a very odd mix, since these communities rarely ever...

 Friday, January 18------------While the bulk of film professionals and hopefuls who have crowded into the ski resort of Park City for this week's Sundance Film Festival represent the high and low of the independent film world (those with VIP connections, and those scrambling to get meetings and into lavish parties), Sundance has become a place for Hollywood producers and bigshots to hobnob with their contemporaries and, heaven forbid, young filmmaking talent. This makes for a very odd mix, sin...