Press Release

Andrew Herwitz, president of the The Film Sales Company, announced that the company has acquired worldwide (less UK) sales and US distribution rights to the documentary Derek. Directed by famed artist and filmmaker Issac Julien (Looking for Langston, Young Soul Rebels), the film was written and is narrated by 2007 Academy Award Nominee Tilda Swinton. Funded by Film London, Channel 4, MoMA and the Sundance Documentary Fund, the film was produced by Eliza Mellor and Colin MacCabe and executive produced by Swinton and James Mackay. more

Park City’s been overcast and gray since Day 1, but this morning a brilliant platinum light tore a hole in the endless cloud cover and ignited the overlooking Wasatch peaks, back-lighting a sparkly veil of glassy no-see-ums, tiny ice crystals too delicate to form flakes, that danced on wafts of air until they melted in my face.

Yes, I admit the night before I’d seen Academy-award nominee (Taxi to the Dark Side) Alex Gibney’s latest masterwork, Gonzo, the Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, but I deny any pharmaceutical inspiration, at least this early in the morning, as I stop before the Yarrow Hotel to marvel at this floaty, twinkly, sun-lit scrim. Inside the Yarrow a press screening of Morgan Spurlock’s latest saga-in-cheek, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, is almost underway, and I race into the theater to find a seat just as the lights fall.

Both docus, I’m happy to report, are polished to high theatrical sheen with eye-catching graphics, animated illustrations (the great Ralph Steadman in Gonzo), and well-crafted high-definition cinematography (D.P. Maryse Alberti in Gonzo). Both acquaint audiences with past and present avatars of U.S. politics: the tragic George McGovern, smarmy Richard Nixon, idealistic Jimmy Carter (Gonzo); the hubristic tag team of W. and Osama (Where in the World…). Both deserve and will likely obtain limited theatrical runs (though Sundance 2008 has been notably short of acquisitions so far). more

Click here for a handy, continually updated chart of distribution deals from Sundance 2008 so far.

Editor Monique Zavistovski was 8 months pregnant with her first child when she innocently agreed to cut Circus Rosaire. Director Robyn Bliley wasn’t a mother, so couldn’t have known just how optimistic Zavistovski’s commitment really was, or how central the Baby Chloe would become to post production. You’ll hear filmmakers talk about family—that’s how close things sometimes get making some films. But among filmmaker family stories, the making of Circus Rosaire, stands out. First, the documentary (screening at Slamdance) is about a family—the Circus Rosaire family, both human and animal. The director and DP Chad Wilson have been married for 10 years, in business together as the LA-based Progressive Productions for six.

Bliley had known the Rosaire family since she was 6 years old, so her five years of access to the family was an act of trust.

And then there was the edit. Bliley changing diapers in Zavistovski’s small apartment while the editor worked. When Zavistovski nursed Chloe, Bliley looked at cuts, or the three of them sat in front of the computer, Zavistovksi’s left hand around Chloe, right hand on the mouse. “Chloe didn’t sleep,� Bliley says, “she maybe napped a half hour a day—and that was my job, soothing her, begging her to sleep. She was so steeped in the sounds of the circus, the lions and tigers, the elephants, the monkeys, that those were some of her first words.� At a year old, Chloe sat rapt through the first screening, lulled by the familiar sounds of her own infancy. more

I overhear director Alex Rivera’s publicist telling him that my interview will probably focus on some technical aspects of the film. He seems to think he’s not the right person to address that topic. I’m thinking “ok not all directors are technical�’ Except it soon emerges as we talk that Alex cut Sleep Dealer himself on Final Cut Pro, built the animatic for the 400+ effects shots in After Effects and Photoshop, and even did a couple of final effects shots himself in AE (on his laptop). To him, that’s not technical. His fluency in editing and effects software is just how he gets the job done. No more technical than using Microsoft Word to write this post. more

John Lyons knew director Boaz Yakin from years ago on Uptown Girls. “I was on vacation in Woodstock, Labor Day weekend,� Lyons recalls. He said, ‘I want my film in Sundance, can you start Tuesday?’�

Yakin was shooting in NY and when Lyons showed up day one there were hours of footage sitting in the production office that no one had seen. No assistant on the film. Lyons thought he’d start digitizing, but the sound recordist still had all the sound on his PD6. So Lyons started digitizing picture—there really was no time to wait. more

When I meet John Lyons in the Filmmaker Lodge, on Saturday Death in Love has only been finished for four days; when they went to do the audio mix the previous weekend, 8 seconds were missing from the middle of the reel. That got fixed, and the film premieres tomorrow. So as nail biters go it was a medium one.

Lyons is here with two premieres, Boaz Yakin’s Death in Love and his first feature as an editor, Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace starring Julianne Moore. He cut Savage Grace first on his Avid Xpress Pro and thought he could live with digitizing at 28:1. “But when I saw it I was pretty sure Tom wouldn’t be able to stand it,â€? Lyons says. Post Factory loaned him a PC (HP) Adrenaline and he redigitized at 14:1. Kalin also cut—he used the Adrenaline, while Lyons cut next to him in the same room on the Xpress Pro on a G4 laptop. “We each cut half than flipped them,” he says.

With Death in Love, Lyons digitized on an OS9 Meridian at the Post Factory facility in NY. “It had been in storage and they threw it up in the reception area. I would digitize there then take it home on a Firewire Drive.� He cut on the same Xpress Pro system until Yakin told him he only had 7 weeks. “I bumped up to a software-only Media Composer.� Cutting in Yakin’s pool house (glorified garden shed) in Silver Lake, the 24-bit audio started to crackle for lack of ram and Lyons had to spring for a new dual core G4 or risk his director’s sanity. more

On Saturday I paid a visit to the production wing of the Sundance Institute Online, housed on the south end of Park Ave. in a century-old former miner’s hospital.

The festival’s daily newspaper has a home on the third floor of the same building, and the podcast department is in the basement. When I visited the second floor, a team of frazzled editors were putting the last touches on the interviews they’d shot the night before for the Live@Sundance video series.

The previous night, a team of Sundance videographers had shot three sequences between 10pm and midnight — it was the big U2 3D premiere. more

In Chimayo Friday night, when the blackout took down most of Main from for most of 90 minutes, people were cheerful in that resigned way that seems to be catching on all over. Of course the blackout only reinforced what every human in Park City already knows: there are more of us than ever. The Festival now sprawls across every logistical boundary, as the balance between people who are here to work and watch films, tips in favor of a limitless supply of people here for other reasons. For the last several years, this always comes up at the opening press conference as Robert Redford–in a kind of cheerful/resigned way–acknowledges the circus rings that orbit Sundance and says it’s still about the films. more

AND ANNOUNCES NEW DIGITAL DEALS FOR DOWNLOADABLE FILMS

Press Release

Website Announces Digital Rights to 20 Highly Acclaimed Foreign Films from Pyramide International

Partners with FilmAid International

FilmCatcher.com, which aims to bring attention to the freshest cinema while highlighting excellent and often under-appreciated films, debuts at the Filmcatcher Cyber Lounge in Park City, UT during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Hosting a newly designed home page, new community functionality and deeper editorial coverage, Filmcatcher.com becomes the destination website for discovering, viewing and discussing smart films with smart people. The site is devoted to all aspects of American independent and foreign language film and serves as a place where people can congregate and communicate about the best of past and present films. Composed of an experienced team of veteran indie film players, Filmcatcher.com has secured its first ever digital distribution deals with Pyramide International and Originial Thinkers and has partnered with FilmAid International. The curated site offers exclusive editorial coverage of art house films, on-camera interviews with cutting-edge filmmakers and actors, in-depth festival coverage, insightful reviews, unique celebrity picks and profiles of the independent film community. more