To the Jurors of the Cannes Film Festival

You will spend the next 11 days watching 22 films that the programmers and leaders of the Cannes Film Festival deemed to be the worthiest of this year’s competition.

The Cannes Film Festival is one of the most prestigious festivals in the world. Festival Films including last year’s Oscar winner The Artist have gone on to have long and successful lives, and filmmakers’ careers have been launched on the Croisette. As we all know, the opportunities to have your film seen on a world stage is invaluable.

For the 2012 edition, as with the 2010 edition, there are NO FEMALE DIRECTED FILMS in competition, and in the 64 years of the Festival only one woman — Jane Campion — has been awarded the Palme D’Or.

Festival director Thierry Fremaux responded to the recent manifesto from La Barbe – a French feminist action group – which decried the lack of women by saying:

“I select work on the basis of it actual qualities. We would never agree to select a film that doesn’t deserve it on the basis it was made by a woman…There is no doubt that greater space needs to be given to women within cinema. But it’s not at Cannes and in the month of May that this question needs to be raised, but rather all year and everywhere.”

We call for Cannes, and other film festivals worldwide to commit to transparency and equality in the selection process of these films. We judge films as human beings, shaped by our own perspectives and experiences. It is vital, therefore, that there be equality and diversity at the point of selection.

Mr. Fremaux is correct in stating that women’s rights must be addressed year round. We, the undersigned, encourage an industry-wide discussion about this issue, and call on the leaders throughout the industry to participate in and contribute to a dialogue about how we can, to quote Mr. Fremaux, “create a greater space for women within cinema.”

Sign the petition and see all the signatures.
https://www.change.org/petitions/cannes-film-festival-where-are-the-women-directors#

I have signed. Have you?

The first is June 18th at the IFC center, and the second is on June 19th at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.
Hal Hartley will be there to present on the 18th, and Martin Donovan and Ted Hope will be there to answer your questions on both nights.

June 18th
IFC Center
7pm
Buy tickets online.

June 19th
Museum of the Moving Image
Tickets onsale soon.

Find out more about Collaborator on Prescreen.

Collaborator premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, winning several awards including best actor for David Morse.

Read director, writer, and star, Martin Donovan’s thoughts on creating Collaborator.

Check out Collaborator’s Facebook page, and find more information about the film and its upcoming release from Tribeca Film on VOD, iTunes, Amazon, VUDU on June 19th here.

And read about previous coverage of Collaborator on Hopeforfilm here, here, and
here

More info here: http://vimeo.com/awards/festival/conversations#failure-ftw

The other panels look to be pretty f’n awesome, so you might want to check those out too.

Available nationwide on Cable VOD, iTunes, Amazon – June 19
Opening in select theaters – July 6

Robert Longfellow (Martin Donovan, THE OPPOSITE OF SEX, “Boss”, Weeds”) is a famous playwright who can’t seem to catch a break. His recent Broadway play was met with horrible reviews and an early cancellation, and his marriage is being tested as an old flame (Olivia Williams, THE GHOST WRITER, RUSHMORE) has reentered his life during a particular moment of weakness. Retreating back to his childhood home to visit his mother (Katherine Helmond, BRAZIL), Robert crosses paths with his childhood neighbor, Gus (David Morse, THE GREEN MILE, DANCER IN THE DARK, “Treme”). A right-wing, ex-con who still lives at home with his mother, Gus is Robert’s polar opposite in every possible way. When Gus holds Robert hostage at gunpoint during a drunken reunion gone terribly wrong, the drama unfolds as social status, celebrity and the imminent threat of violence converge, building up to a climax that will leave both men forever changed.

Ted Hope and acclaimed documentary director and producer Peter L Stein discuss what makes a project great in terms of artistic innovation and financial viability at the Disposable Film Festival, 2012.

2012 VIMEO FESTIVAL + AWARDS PROGRAM GATHERS THE GREATS TO EXPLORE WHAT’S NEXT FOR CREATIVE VIDEO

When first features work, as this one does, they can be remarkable displays, often representing what the director has long dreamed of expressing, free of the general self-censorship that market considerations bring.  On their first feature,  creators often feel a far greater pressure to demonstrate what their authorial voice represents; perhaps it is because of this pressure that it is hard to find true confidence and discipline on display in many early works.  But, holy cow, that is that not the case with Jean-Baptiste Leonetti's CARRÉ BLANC (White Square) — yet a further proof of the colossal wave of international greatness that is defining cinema today.

Whereas America's corporately engineered cinema implicitly lusts for a dystopian future while it delivers pat excuses of psychological backstory (instead of character complexity), empty images full of flash (but devoid of real-world emotion, politics, ethics, or meaning), surface level editing (that removes any understanding of place), a willingness to introduce new narrative elements solely to advance the plot, & shock  (for sensation not understanding), cinema worthy of the term art — like CARRÉ BLANC — does quite the opposite.   If you are looking  for an antidote to THE HUNGER GAMES or even want to see a true alternative, join us.  Some people may call CARRÉ BLANC too tense or brooding, dark or bleak — but for me it is nothing short of exhilarating, heartfelt, electrifying. thoughtful, and fully capable of maintaining a sense of humor and fun in these dark times.  

Leonetti's nameless and brutal totalitarian regime is far more scary than what we've been delivered as of late precisely because it seems like a future we not only could have had, but still might.  CARRÉ BLANC is delivered in haunting precise images, sounds, and actions. Full of legitimate suspense, references and riffs, from Stanley Milgram's social science experiments to classic sic-fi cinema like SOYLENT GREEN & SILENT RUNNING, we are given a world that extends far beyond the narrative's confines, where constant threat of violence indicates the begging need for revolution — be it of the society and it's practices or that of the individual's heart and mind.  At the heart of CARRÉ BLANC remains a love story, capturing both the trauma and shared mission that modern society needs to breed honest love and it does this with us, not in spite of us.

This is a world of cinema that I want more of: sci-fi for adults, expressing ideas while maintaining a discipline, love, and even sense of humor for composition, and an appreciative commitment to both restraint and excess — the ying/yang that makes each element truly sing.  CARRÉ BLANC is a film that benefits from its financial limitations, enhancing its art with imagination, while remaining committed to cinema's core attributes of image, sound, & time (composition, juxtaposition, pace).  It raises the bar for what we should demand from all cinema.

CARRÉ BLANC is the type of film that summons your memories of great works by the great directors, and it doesn't suffer for it.  BRAZIL, 2001, SOLARIS, THX 1138.  It made me giddy in the same way that Aronofsky's PI & Jone's MOON did, in that I knew a major new director arrived, and one that would take me to places I myself would never imagine, yet once arrived, would forever dream (not always pleasantly!) about.

Order tickets: www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/carre-blanc

If the following review doesn't make you order a ticket right now then you clearly are not the audience for the film: www.dailyfilmdose.com/2011/09/tiff-2011-carre-blabc.html

"George Orwell as filtered through Andrei Tarkovsky" — Todd Brown / Twitch.com

And more: smellslikescreenspirit.com/2011/09/carre-blanc-review/

Watch the trailer here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3X4YW50Ptk

And please come see the film Wednesday May 2nd at 8:00 PM at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Wed, May 2

8:00 PM

Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center

144 W. 65TH St

New York, NY 10023

Take a break and come join me, director Jean-Baptiste Leonetti, and some of his team at Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Indie Night”.

Most sincerely, and forever hopeful about film,

Ted

Our debut screening at Lincoln Center last month was a great success and completely sold out. Everyone had a great time. I encourage you to order tickets to our next show right now, and use the "affiliate" code to save money when you order. The café in the theater has terrific food and drink so you can make a night of it as we did last month. And of course we have another great, truly indie, film for you this coming Thursday night.

What with the bombast of Hollywood's regular fare, I find sanctuary in the true indie work that is committed to unlocking our present day reality. My next screening at The Film Society of Lincoln Center's INDIE NIGHT delivers all of this to you: 

emotional truth and honesty,

clarity and discipline, 

simplicity yet reach and ambition – 

and most perhaps, 

enjoyment and pleasure in the odd, little moments that can define a life.

Director Matthew Petock's A LITTLE CLOSER, won best feature at the Lone Star Film Festival.  A remarkably assured first feature for a director barely out of film school, Petock's debut rips a page out of Raymond Carver's stories.  Far more seasoned artists have struggled to capture emotional truth while not falling into the trap of sentimentality. Petock manages to walk that line.

Martin Scorcese had this to say about A LITTLE CLOSER:

"Matthew Petock's first feature shows him to be a director of depth sensitivity and assurance. He captures the quiet emotions and heartbreak of his characters with profound respect for the dignity of the everyday struggles in life and what it means to be a family. A LITTLE CLOSER is a hauntingly beautiful film and a remarkable debut."

As with last month's WITHOUT and its director Mark Jackson, Petock’s A LITTLE CLOSER is part of a trend (dare I say: a movement) of naturalist micro-budget filmmaking emerging from Brooklyn, but blossoming in far off locales.  They share a gaze towards the class divide that defines our time, a respect for working people and the challenges we all now face.

Matthew Petock does not wallow in the filmmaking constraints financial hardship imposes, but instead delivers a full vision, never wanting, with all the creative aspects in full service to his vision. A LITTLE CLOSER introduces us to a working mother who may be a single parent with two young sons who try her patience and test their boundaries, but we also get to share in her joy when she too gets the brief respite she's been yearning for.

Great movies!  Great discussion!  Discount tix!  Discount food & booze!  Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Check out the trailer: http://alittlecloserfilm.com/trailer

Check out A Little Closer's website: http://alittlecloserfilm.com/

Order tickets now at: http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/a-little-closer

And please come see the film Thursday April 5th at 8:00 PM at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

"A LITTLE CLOSER"
Thursday, April 5th
8:00 PM
ELINOR BUNIN MUNROE FILM CENTER
144 W. 65TH St
New York, NY 10023

Take a break and come join me, director Matthew Petock, and some of his team at Film Society of Lincoln Center’s “Indie Night”.

Most sincerely, and forever hopeful about film,

Ted 

We’re nearing the end of an ambitious Kickstarter campaign for an independent film, “The Sisterhood of Night.” Adapted from a short story by Pulitzer prize-winning author Steven Millhauser, our movie is a modern twist on the Salem witch trials. It deals with teen girls and the wild west of the Internet, its potential for casual, breathtaking cruelty, and its capacity to connect and share – all slippery new challenges to this transitional generation. "The Sisterhood of Night" is about holding close what makes you different, through diversity of thought and culture. It shines a light on the dangers of cyberbullying, but it also suggests that there are ways of using the Internet to find your inner creative spirit and tap into positivity.

But this journey began a few years ago. When my producing partner, Elizabeth Cuthrell, and I first met director Caryn Waechter and screenwriter Marilyn Fu, we fell in love with their irrepressible energy and their quest to find beauty, fun, and meaning in the dark edges of life. We worked for a couple of years with Caryn and Marilyn, further adapting the original material from an 80's setting to our contemporary digital world.

Despite our passion–having a first time feature director and deeply female material, and a teen cast with no vampires–we found it hard to gain traction with the conventional ways of financing. It’s no surprise that women are more likely to green light women's pictures, have more confidence in women directors, and be more interested in stories about female characters. The scarcity of women at the top of the business-end of the film industry could have a lot to do with the fact that women made up only 5 percent of directors in Hollywood in 2011.

In addition, the issue of entry and retention in our industry for independent filmmakers, women filmmakers, and diverse filmmakers is a very serious matter. It takes someone with real vision in the studio executive's chair, and strong-minded passionate producers, to push back against the mediocre middle ground which studios tend to feed.

With crowd funding, audiences now have a vehicle to push back as well. Kickstarter and other crowd funding sites provide an opportunity for individuals to influence the development of independent film projects at the ground level, and give these films the momentum they need to go into or finish production, with or without Hollywood’s consent. Audiences can vote with their dollars and contribute to the development of projects, rather than just be mere consumers at the end of the line.

Last year saw Dee Rees’ Pariah break out of the pack at Sundance to be picked up by Focus Features, making it the first film in Kickstarter’s two year history to do so. The 2012 Sundance festival unveiled a total of seven out of fourteen Kickstarter narrative and documentary film projects by women directors and co-directors, including Aurora Guerrero’s Mosquita y Mari, Alison Kayman’s Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry; Lisanne Pajot’s Indie Game: The Movie; Erin Greenwell’s My Best Day; Katie Aselton’s Black Rock and Valerie Veatch’s Me.

And for The Sisterhood of Night, beyond getting financial momentum for the project itself, the biggest reward of our campaign has been the community we are building around our movie.

We’ve been impressed by the number of women directors backing us in order to help another woman director. Katherine Dieckmann, director of “Motherhood,” emailed to say, “I absolutely want to back this, so count me in, and I’ll pledge right now… I teach so many amazing young female filmmakers at Columbia (and they are super-diverse, often coming to me from everywhere from Russia to Laos) & it breaks my heart when they can’t get their projects made.” Other women directors who are backing Sisterhood include Mary Harron, Mehreen Jabbar, Katja von Garnier, Maggie Greenwald, Gina Prince Bythewood, Mira Nair, Tina Mabry, Pamela Yates, Sara Terry, Lilly Scourtis Ayers, Angela Tucker, Stephanie Wang-Breal, Ursula Liang, Suzi Yoonessi, Joyce Dragonsky and we’re still counting!

While our director, Caryn has been tirelessly shooting and editing videos for our campaign updates (you can see them all on our Kickstarter page), our screenwriter Marilyn Fu tapped into her Taiwanese-American community, and they in turn showed huge support for Marilyn’s unique voice as well as for positive cultural images in the media. One of the Sisterhood characters is Taiwanese American, loosely based on Marilyn’s teen years growing up in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.

Through this Kickstarter campaign and a teen art contest we’ve created called Wanna Know A Secret?, we’re using social media in a way that wouldn’t have been imagineable a few years ago. And because of this, we have no doubt, our movie will be deeper and evermore far reaching.

Kickstarter has filled a real need in bringing people together to fund the projects they want to create, and the results have been — and continue to be — amazing. Kickstarter is expecting to bring in a total of $150 million in funding this year – more than the $146 million provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Last weekend we surpassed our goal of $100,000 and we will continue to receive pledges thru March 10th, the last date of the campaign. Now we want to keep building our Sisterhood community, reaching out to our audience, and discovering new supporters. We plan to start shooting this summer, and the funds that continue to come in during this final week will get us that much closer to the final film. By pledging as little as a dollar you can become a member of the Sisterhood, privy to all of our progress updates as we bring this movie to your screen -whatever size that may be! Every pledge at every reward level proves that we are a fan-funded film that has found an audience before the director has even called "Action!"

Feel free to share wildly. Who knows what other discoveries we will continue to make together?

Lydia Dean Pilcher is founder of Cine Mosaic, a production company making independent feature films with an energetic focus on provocative and entertaining stories that promote social, cultural and political diversity. Pilcher has produced over 30 feature films and is currently in post production with The Reluctant Fundamentalist, directed by Mira Nair, based on the highly acclaimed novel by Mohsin Hamid. Also upcoming for production is Fela: Music is the Weapon, which she developed at Focus Features with Steve McQueen set to direct.

I know, it’s been awhile since I invited you to a screening. My apologies.

In my efforts to make the world safe for Indie Film, I am pleased to invite you to a new venue: no less than the Film Society at Lincoln Center’s re-born Indie Night series, now at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center. We’ve got more seats, and more comfortable ones too! We will be taping & streaming the Q&A with the director!! And now we are also going to be able to pay the filmmakers a small fee (yay!)!!!

I want you to come see Mark Jackson’s WITHOUT. It truly is one of my favorite films of the past year and I am thrilled I can show it to you. WITHOUT has won numerous awards, including most recently, the Indie Spirit Someone To Watch Award. It is a remarkable film, made even more remarkable by the fact that it is a first feature, and one made for a micro, micro budget. Not only is Mark a directing talent to watch, so is the star Joslyn Jensen, and the DP & Producer Jessica Dimmock.

Like all good movies, it’s complicated to describe. At its heart, is a one-sided love story about one of the most powerful emotions in both life & cinema: longing — a desire capable of altering both the perception & interpretation of our experiences. Few films, of any scale, have captured the essence of longing as well as Jackson’s debut feature, WITHOUT, does in both its form and content. The film’s economy of means helps to deliver a rare truth throughout its beautiful images, precise framing, quiet tone, & the mesmerizing introduction to star Josyln Jensen. Long after it has ended, even long after having watched it, WITHOUT still resonates: did we just live a love song, a ghost story, or a quiet thriller? Jackson delivers with his first outing what filmmakers strive for decades to obtain: the realest of real, the beauty of beauty, & the sweet pain of a never-ending early love. What more could one want?

There are few times when you can recount “I was there when”, but I do think you will want to say it about this trio of talents, collaborating so well, and presenting it at this citadel of cinema, Lincoln Center. The fact that they will inaugurate this new series, which will bring you the faithful, the latest of the greatest of true indie work, is just more icing on the cake. When the lights come on, we will discuss the work with them, and then celebrate with drink and more discussion. Seriously, vote with your dollars for the culture you want. This is it. Trust me. Occupy the seats. Don’t settle for pale corporate approximation. This is where cinema lives, survives and thrives. For real cinema, truly free film, is a dialogue with the audience, a pledge by the community, and a reminder that we won’t settle for culture that doesn’t reach higher, speak truth, innovate form and process, and deliver us honest and original beauty. WITHOUT honors us with all of this and more.

Check out all the great reviews and awards at: www.rightonredfilms.com

Order tickets now at: www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/without

And please come see the film Tuesday March 6th at 8P at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and then stay as I moderate a discussion with the filmmakers.

Follow the film on Twitter @withoutmovie.

And follow DP/Producer @jessicadimmock and star @joslynjensen on Twitter.

Thanks for coming. Vote with your dollars for the culture you want. We can build it better together. We have to support the things we love. The future is up to us.

Ted

Screening at SXSW:

Sunday, March 11th, 7pm: Stateside Theatre

Monday, March 12th, 11:30am: Alamo Lamar C

Thursday, March 15th, 6:30pm: Alamo Lamar C

Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

I was in London for the film festival, and took the time between drinks to answer a few questions.