Still in Motion

Goodbye to All That

David Mogdigliani's wonderful debut documentary, Crawford, is an award-winning film about a small town thrust into the spotlight when George W. Bush moved into the 'hood, several months after announcing his candidacy bid to run for president.   (Pictured, GW clearing cedar at his ranch in August of '02, courtesy of the White House web site).  The film chronicles the impact of Bush's political stagecraft in making Crawford his de facto hometown.  The doc debuted on Hulu in October as its  movie premiere and was the most watched film on the site for over two weeks.

Today, from Austin, Texas, B-Side Entertainment announced the launch of a nationwide screening for fans to host their own "Farewell to W" party from January 1st through the 19th.  This nationwide Screening Party is modeled on the program B-Side developed for Netflix's Red Envelope Entertainment with the film Super High Me, where fans were invited to a "Roll Your Own" screening.  In just a month's time, close to 1,100 venues in 850 markets across the country booked screenings for a nationwide event, marking the widest single-date release ever for a nonfiction film.  B-Side, itself, booked close to 1,600 screenings in about a thousand markets garnering an audience of over 40,000 with a total marketing budget that cost less than what a two inch ad in the New York Times would run.

Similarly, this campaign for Crawford will allow fans, organizations, indie theaters and other groups to watch the film as a collective event (you know, the way movies are supposed to be watched), allowing viewers to fondly look back on the Bush era through the particular point of view of the citizens of Crawford, Texas who were lucky enough to call GW their neighbor.

B-Side is waiving their normal screening fee for exhibitors and asking screening hosts to pre-purchase five DVDs for $50.  Those DVDs can be re-sold at their event for whatever they want to charge and they're also free to charge whatever admission fee they want, keeping all of the proceeds.  The campaign will be driven from a community web site for the film built with B-Side technology which allows self-serve screenings, automatic event signups, event listings and an interactive screening map off the film's site www.crawfordmovie.com.  See you at the movies, ya'll.

Tribeca Film Institute Fund Entry Deadline

Tribeca Film Institute's Sloan Filmmaker Fund is now accepting applications.  The Fund provides up to $170,000 in support for film projects that explore scientific, mathematical and technological themes and stories; or there should be a leading character who is a scientist, engineer, inventor or mathematician.  They are seeking exceptional narrative work in any genre, except science fiction and fantasy.  The story must contain scientifically accurate themes and characters.  Some selected projects will be highlighted at the Tribeca Film Festival in May 2009.  Entries must be postmarked by Friday, January 9.

CITY OF CRANES on P.O.V.

Eva Weber's City of Cranes is a stunningly beautiful short cinematic work and has won numerous awards on the festival circuit this past year.  Tomorrow night, December 10, the film will have its US broadcast premiere on PBS' P.O.V. series, screening through December and January.  Tomorrow night, it plays with the feature doc, Inheritance. 

City of Cranes explores the world of London on-high as we vertiginously peek in on the lives of construction crane drivers, watching the ever-changing landscape far below them appear as if out of a mirage.  They make slow and graceful swings through the burgeoning cityscape sitting hundreds of feet above the ground, protected only by a small metal cage. 

The film is divided into distinct contemplative parts, narrated by the drivers themselves, that show different aspects of life working a crane--the relationship of the drivers with their machines, a look at London's booming growth, and the magnificence of these agile machines as they perform an eerily quiet ballet far above our heads.

The piece won Best Documentary Short at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June for Weber, its director, and Samantha Zarzosa, its producer.  It also garnered notice at Full Frame in April, winning the Jury Award for Best Short and won the Hellenic Red Cross Audience Award at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival.  It was also showcased in a theatrical exhibition here in New York at the MoMA.  Check your local PBS affiliate's listings for exact dates and times. 

Weber and Zarzosa also send word that this festival season they will be traveling the circuit with a newly-finished companion piece called The Solitary Life of Cranes, which focuses on the "invisible" life of a city seen through the drivers' eyes, capturing a full 24-hour period with its changing light, its changing patterns and its changing rhythms.  I saw this as a work-in-progress at Britdoc in July where it won Best Short; it also just screened at the Sheffield Doc/Fest in October where it was described in The Guardian as a film that "got it all beautifully right. . . .  Very simply, the film did what art should do: it opened your eyes."

You Know You Want to Order This in Time for Christmas

And there's even a discount, so there's no excuse to not find this in your "stocking."

Alive Mind is currently offering Sacred Love-Making.  "Discover the Ancient Asian [?] Secrets of Sexual and Spiritual Satisfaction Available on DVD."  Now I know all you want to know is where to buy it.  Click here and use the coupon code SACLOVE15 (yea, baby!) during checkout.

Happy holidays and please do try this at home.  Merry, merry.

THE END OF AMERICA Comes to New York

A new nonfiction piece from dynamic filmmaking duo, Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (pictured), is playing at the IFC Center starting tonight, December 3, through Tuesday the 9th.  Based on the New York Times' bestseller by Naomi Wolf, The End of America, A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, the film captures Wolf in a live presentation, a la Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, as she passionately argues her case for immediate and unconstrained action on the part of the American people to take back our country, to come together as a nation and recommit ourselves to not ever again allowing a serving president, whether Democrat or Republican, to possess the unchecked power (and resultant corruption) that the Bush administration has enjoyed for the past eight years.  Yes, we'll have Obama in the White House now, thanks to a collective shaking-off of complacency and massive indifference (and not a moment too soon).  But, Wolf's urgent message makes clear that we are living in a time where that kind of negligence on the part of the citizenry of this country cannot happen again--not without even more dire circumstances than already exist. 

Wolf will be there at selected screenings throughout the week along with Sundberg and Stern for discussion and Q&A sessions.  Each evening after the 6:30 screenings, Wolf will be there with legal specialists from the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other guests.  Information on other theatrical showings outside of New York and a place to buy the DVD can be found by clicking here.