Sign of the Times? Insiders React To Picturehouse, Warner Indie Closures

The tragedy was in plain sight, but nobody thought it would hit this hard. As word spread today that Warner Bros. planned to close its specialty divisions Picturehouse and Warner Independent Pictures, shifting all projects currently in development to the larger studio and its recently absorbed subdivision New Line, a mournful tone took hold of the independent film industry. "It is a sad day when any film company, large or small, bites the dust," said President of THINKfilm Mark Urman. "One had heard and one had even considered that this was a possible scenario. It's still surprising when you see it in print."
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Battle for Haditha" Director Nick Broomfield

As a documentarian, Nick Broomfield has dissected American pop culture with films like "Biggie & Tupac" and "Kurt & Courtney." With his more recent forays into narrative feature filmmaking, he has broadened his scope to include global issues. "Ghosts" explored the dark world of Chinese migrant workers in the UK, and his latest work, "Battle for Haditha," which opened at Film Forum earlier this week, recreates the infamous 2005 incident where U.S. marines murdered two dozen Iraqi civilians in a small village, driven by rage after encountering a roadside bomb. An attempt by the military to cover up the role of the American soldiers in the slaughter didn't last long. Media scrutiny led to an internal investigation, and the events have now been thoroughly recorded in various reports.
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BIZ | Cablevision Stretches its Rainbow to Sundance Channel

Rainbow Media announced today a plan to purchase the Sundance Channel for $496 million. Confirming reports that the network was seeking a buyer and Rainbow Media was the lead contender, the deal finds Rainbow Media Holdings, LLC, a programming subsidiary of Cablevision Systems Corporation, buying the channel from its current owners NBC Universal, CBS, Showtime Networks and Robert Redford. The Sundance founder, meanwhile, will continue his role as the network's creative director, in addition to recieving just under $50 million from the deal, with the rest of the money divided up between the other owners.
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iW BOT | Chart-Topping 'Mister Lonely' Makes Harmony Korine the Comeback Kid

"Mister Lonely," filmmaker Harmony Korine's sweet-natured drama about two lovelorn celebrity impersonators, rocketed past all art-house releases with a debut, per-screen average of $16,769 at New York's IFC Center. "Son of Rambow," British filmmaker Garth Jennings' coming- of-age comedy for Paramount Vantage, also debuted in the iWBOT top five, which ranks films by per-screen average, with $53,778 in weekend box office from five runs in New York and Los Angeles. Rounding out the iWBOT Top Five, were "Redbelt," director David Mamet's fight drama for Sony Pictures Classics, "Viva," director Anna Biller's sexploitation drama for Vagrant Films Releasing and Samuel Goldwyn's "Roman de Gare," a thriller from French master Claude Lelouch.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Hollywood Chinese" Director Arthur Dong

Documentary director Arthur Dong has been working since the early 1980s, when one of his first shorts, "Sewing Woman," was nominated for an Academy Award. Since then, he has directed a series of docs on political and social issues, including 1994's Peabody Award winning "Coming Out Under Fire" and 1997's Sundance favorite "Licensed To Kill," which took a chilling look at the lives of people convicted of violent hate crimes against gay men (Dong himself was a victim of gay bashing in 1977). His latest work, "Hollywood Chinese," goes in a different but certainly not less imperative direction, examining the placement of Asian-Americans in Hollywood cinema. Premiering at last year's Toronto International Film Festival, the doc shines a light on decades of underwhelming representations. The film opens Friday, May 2 at New York's Quad Cinemas.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Redbelt" Director David Mamet

Well, you can't accuse David Mamet of slacking off. That "Redbelt," his new martial arts film, hits the screen May 2, while "November," a hilarious political broadside, plays to packed houses on Broadway highlights the man's amazing productivity. In the theatre, Mamet has created, of course, his own dramatic idiom, a tough-guy vernacular of fractured speech and pauses which masks male insecurity, while skewering venality and the decline of values. With his 1988 "House of Games" he annexed a second career directing films, often centered on con men and tricksters. The hyper-busy Mamet has also written numerous screenplays. Add to that essays, novels and non-fiction books, the TV series, "The Unit." Plus he's got a family and a life.
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DOC COLUMN | Arts Engine Celebrates 10 Years

Ten years can either be a blip or an eternity depending on your perspective. The year 1997 saw President Bill Clinton inaugurated for his second term, James Cameron's "Titantic" was the top movie and a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter first hit shelves. It was before the Internet stock bust and "information superhighway" was still a promise. The world of documentary in the U.S. was one of foundation funding, public television broadcast and educational distribution with precious few docs breaking into any kind of commercial success. It was in that entrenched world that then-new filmmakers Katy Chevigny and Julia Pimsleur felt like they had little opportunity.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Old Man Bebo" Director Carlos Carcas and "Donkey in Lahore" Director Faramarz K-Rahber

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Carlos Carcas' "Old Man Bebo and Faramarz K-Rahber's "Donkey in Lahore" are both screening in the World Documentary Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. "Bebo," a Spanish doc, follows the career of legendary musician Bebo Baldes, a key figure in the development of mambo. "Donkey," from Australia, details couple Brian and Amber, who are tested when Brian has to convert to Islam to marry Amber. Both directors talked to indieWIRE about their films and their expectations for Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Baghdad High" Co-Directors Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter's "Baghdad High" follows the lives of ordinary Iraqis during the war. Screening in the World Documentary Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, O'Mahoney and Winter gave four Iraqi high school seniors a digital camera to record a year in the lives. The result is a film that shows how remarkably similar these teenagers' lives are compared to those in the Western world. indieWIRE talked to both filmmakers about the film and their expectations for its North American Premiere at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "57,000 Kilometers Between Us" Director Delphine Kreuter

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Narrative Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, director Delphine Kreuter makes her feature film debut with "57,000 Kilometers Between Us." Kreuter, a photographer and video artist, takes on the idea of connecting in today's world by following one dysfunctional family. Kreuter talked to indieWIRE about the film and her hopes for its North American premiere at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA PROFILE | "My Winnipeg" Director Guy Maddin

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Guy Maddin's "My Winnipeg" is screening at the 7th Tribeca Film Festival, currently underway. IFC First Take will release the film in theaters beginning in June in the U.S.] "I was going in the direction that all indie directors go," said filmmaker Guy Maddin, reflecting on his career. "It was fun to do a U-turn and go in the opposite direction. Ironically, if I go to Hollywood, I'd be happier going this way. I'll get there on my own strengths, if I get there at all." Maddin, talking to a moderator Dennis Lim in front of a crowd that gathered at the Apple Store SoHo Sunday night (co-hosted with indieWIRE), is referring to the primitive nature of his recent films, most particularly "My Winnipeg," which is making its U.S. debut at the Tribeca Film Festival this week.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Mister Lonely" Director Harmony Korine

Much time has passed since Larry Clark discovered Harmony Korine skateboarding in Washington Square Park and hired him to write "Kids." In its wake, Korine exploded into the mainstream as a radical artist with a bad boy streak. His first two features, "Gummo" and the Dogme '95 entry "Julian Donkey-boy," divided critics and furthered his reputation as a fiercely independent figure. Just when his world seemed to be moving too fast, Korine left New York City for his native home in Nashville, got married and made a new movie to reflect his comparatively happier state of mind.
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iW BOT | Chinese Dam documentary "Up the Yangtze" Floods NY; Abu Ghraib film "Standard Operating Procedure" Fails to Catch Fire

With the Tribeca Film Festival underway at cross-town venues, "Up the Yangtze," the Zeitgeist Films documentary about China's Three Gorges Dam and its destructive impact, led all specialty films with a standout $15,851 in earnings at New York's IFC Center. Director Yung Chang's first feature-length documentary also became 2008's top non-fiction debut; out-performing Sony Pictures Classics' highly anticipated "Standard Operating Procedure," veteran filmmaker Errol Morris' documentary about the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Other new releases in the iWBOT top five, which ranks by per-screen average, included "Roman de Gare," French master filmmaker Claude Lelouch's thriller for Samuel Goldwyn Films; and ThinkFilm's "Then She Found Me," actress Helen Hunt's directing debut. Returning to the iWBOT for the third straight week was Overture Films' "The Visitor," featuring Richard Jenkins as a middle-aged professor whose life changes after helping an illegal immigrant. "Holly," a drama about child prostitution from Priority Films and Slowhand Cinema Releasing, took advantage of corporate sponsorship from business information provider LexisNexis and advance group sales to earn $15,687 at New York's Quad Cinema.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Trucker" Director James Mottern

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Narrative Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, John Mottern makes his feature directorial debut with "Trucker." The film follows Diane Ford (Michelle Monaghan), a truck driver with a tendency for bar benders and one-night stands. That changes when her estranged 11-year old son shows up at her door when her ex-husband (Benjamin Bratt) is hospitalized. Mottern, who previously wrote and directed documentaries for BBC and Discovery, talked to indieWIRE about the film and his expectations for its world premiere at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Ball Don't Lie" Director Brin Hill

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the Discovery section of the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, short film director Brin Hill makes his feature debut with "Ball Don't Lie." "Ball" tells the tale of Sticky, a young streetballer who with a lot of talent for the sport but also a lot of baggage from a childhood tragedy. Starring newcomers Grayson Boucher and Kim Hidaglo, as well as Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Nick Cannon and Rosanna Arquette, "Ball" is based on the popular novel of the same name by Matt de la Pena, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hill. indieWIRE talked to Hill about the film and his expectations for its world premiere at Tribeca.
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Nonfiction Campaign: Can Errol Morris's "Standard Operating Procedure" Break the Political Doc Deadlock?

Election years are typically strong for political documentaries. Capitalizing on citizens' hunger for issues that the mainstream media is either ignoring or mishandling, audiences flock to theaters to get a deeper sense of what's going on in the world. At least that was the thinking in 2004, with the blockbuster sales of "Fahrenheit 9/11" and also given the multi-million-dollar grosses of "The Fog of War," "Control Room," "Super Size Me," and "The Corporation." Even "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" wasn't swift-boated in theaters, earning more than $614,000.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "My Marlon and Brando" Director Huseyin Karabey

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Huseyin Karabey's "My Marlon and Brando retells the true story of Turkish actress Ayca Damgaci, who heads to Baghdad in search of her husband (her "marlon and brando"), Kurdish actor Hama Ali Khan. Damgaci co-wrote the script with Karabey and stars as herself i the film, which also features Khan's actual love letter videos he sent to Damgaci. indieWIRE talked to Karabey about the film, which is screening in the World Narrative Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Newcastle" Director Dan Castle

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Narrative Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Dan Castle makes his directorial debut with "Newcastle." Previously helming a number of award-winning short films, Castle tells the story of three Australian brothers, each struggling to find a role in a world centered around surfing culture. indieWIRE talked to Castle about the film and its world premiere at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Love, Pain & Vice Versa" Director Alfonso Pineda-Ulloa

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Narrative Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, Alfonso Pineda-Ulloa's "Love, Pain & Vice Versa" follows Chelo, a woman whose dreams are visited by a mysterious man. The dreams develop into an obsession, as Chelo is certain the man in the dreams is the man of her dreams. Pineda-Ulloa, currently an MFA student at UCLA, is making his directorial debut with "Love," and talked to indieWIRE about the experience, and his hopes for Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "War, Love, God & Madness" Director Mohamed Al-Daradji

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Four years ago, Baghdad-born Mohamed Al-Daradjireturned how after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, and directed the award-winning narrative feature "Ahlaam." The experience of shooting in the film was so challenging that Al-Daradji made a documentary about it. The result, "War, Love, God & Madness," is screening in the World Documentary Feature Competition at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Al-Daradji talked to indieWIRE about the film, and his hopes for the festival.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Up the Yangtze" Director Yung Chang

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Yung Chang's interview for his doc "Up the Yangtze" first appeared in indieWIRE as part of our profiles of first-time feature directors with films debuting at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Zeitgeist Films opens the film today (4/25) at IFC Center in New York.] Premiering at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in November and then Sundance in January, Yung Chang's "Up The Yangtze" examines the effects of the construction of the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The dam is to become the largest hydroelectric power station in the world, but with this comes the displacement of millions of residents and the destruction of landmarks. Yang follows two young people effected by the project, and the result provides "a final snapshot of a rapidly disappearing cultural landscape," says Sundance's Rosie Wong. Wong notes that "juxtaposing the Yangtze's stunning panorama with the reality of Yu Shui's poignant story, Chang shows the tenuous balance between China's rich cultural past and its modernized future."
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Guest of Cindy Sherman" Directors Paul H-O and Tom Donahue

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Documentary Feature Competition, "Guest of Cindy Sherman" is a series of interviews between Paul H-O and press-shy artist Cindy Sherman that began in the early 1990s. During the interviews, H-O, a fixture in the New York art scene, attains not only gains unique access to Sherman's artistic process, but also develops a romantic attachment to her. Filmed over 15 years, H-O and co-director Tom Donahue have turned in the sessions into a film, adding interviews with a wide array of personalities (including John Waters, Carol Kane and Danny deVito). Both directors talked to indieWIRE about their experience and the film's screening at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Pray The Devil Back To Hell" Director Gini Reticker

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Documentary Feature Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival, Gini Reticker's "Pray The Devil Back To Hell" tells the often overlooked story of how thousands of women in Liberia helped end a horrific civil war. Under the dictatorship of Charles Taylor, hundreds of thousands of citizens were being raped, murdered and terrorized. The women of Liberia used nonviolent and peaceful protest, culminating in the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's first elected female head of state. indieWIRE talked to Reticker about the film and its screening at Tribeca.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Kassim The Dream" Director Kief Davidson

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. American director Kief Davidson's Tribeca Film Festival world documentary competition film "Kassim the Dream" is the story of world champion boxer Kassim "The Dream" Ouma. Born in Uganda and kidnapped at the age of six to be a child story, Kassim was forced to commit horrific atrocities. He also discovered the army's boxing team and realized it could be his way to freedom. After living with 12 years of war, he defected to the United States and quickly rose through the boxing ranks and became junior middleweight champion of the world...
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "Milosevic on Trial" Director Michael Christofersen

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Director Michael Christoffersen's doc competition film "Milosevic on Trial" is based on 2000 hours of tape from court proceedings pf tje four year-long trial of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic before the international tribunal in the Hague. The former leader is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by an international court and the case itself proved dramatic when Milosevic himself refused to be represented by counsel, and then later died in prison shortly before the conclusion of the trial. Incorporating interviews with people involved in the case, including prosecutor Geoffrey Nice and Milosevic lawyer Dragoslav Ognjanovic, the film presents the case and its controversy in full detail.
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FIRST PERSON | Jeremy Walker on Independent Film PR: "What I think publicity really is and also what it should not be"

Here's some of what I know: in the next seventy-two hours I will attend a TriBeCa Film Festival screening of Dan Myrick's smart, scary new movie "The Objective" with Sara Vilkomerson of The New York Observer as my date; the next morning the movers will arrive and remove about forty cardboard boxes, a few pieces of beloved furniture and the huge French "Mommie Dearest" poster; and the morning after that my partner Judd, our cat and I will board a California-bound Delta Airlines flight out of JFK. I am much less sure of everything else swimming in my head: hard facts are elusive and everything else is tinted with every stripe of emotion.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "An Omar Broadway Film" Co-Director Douglas Tirola

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Documentary Feature Competition, first-time director Omar Broadway collaborated with director Douglas Tirola on the "outside" to create "An Omar Broadway Film." The film documents Broadway's life as an inmate inside Newark's high-security Northern State Prison. Broadway had secretly got a hold of a video camera in 2004 and began to film his experiences, before joining forces with Tirola to bring the footage into a film. indieWIRE spoke to Tirola about his experiences and hopes for its screening at Tribeca.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Standard Operating Procedure" Director Errol Morris

Boston-based Errol Morris is that rarity among filmmakers: an intense documentarian (he has worked as a private investigator) and a great aestheticist. Harper's called him "the most obsessive and relentless forensic documentary filmmaker of our time." He probes thoroughly, interviewing his exceptionally candid subjects through a device he invented known as the Interrotron, a two-camera set-up allowing the interviewee to see Morris but also inviting the viewer into an eyeline rapport with the witness. "Standard Operating Procedure" is in the tradition of Morris's "The Thin Blue Line" (1988), in which he spoke to many people in pursuit of the truth about a murder case, rather than, say, "The Fog of War" (2003), in which he deconstructed top decisionmaker Robert McNamara's role in the Vietnam War.
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TRIBECA '08 INTERVIEW | "My Life Inside" Director Lucia Gaja

EDITORS NOTE: This is part of a series of interviews, conducted via email, profiling directors who have films screening at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival. Screening in the World Documentary Feature Competition, director Lucia Gaja's "My Life Inside" chronicles the journey of 17 year old Rosa Jimenez. Rosa immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a teenager, finding work and a husband in Texas. But tragedy struck when an incident involving a two year-old boy Rosa was babysitting resulted in her incarceration in a Texas prison. For murder. indieWIRE talked to Gaja about the film and her expectations for its screening at Tribeca.
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indieWIRE INTERVIEW | "Roman de Gare" Director Claude Lelouch

That the number of French films to find distribution here continues to dwindle is hardly news. What's less noted is that while American cinephiles are familiar with French art film -- Jacques Rivette, Olivier Assayas, Arnaud Desplechin come to mind -- they've had less exposure to France's "boulevard" crowd pleasers. (Exceptions, of course, are art crossovers "Amelie" and "La Vie en Rose"). Now along comes "Roman de Gare" from Claude Lelouch, a thriller with the pace and jolting twists of a studio film. It proudly flaunts its pop creds: roman de gare translates as "airport reading' or "potboiler" and Lelouch embraces the strong suit, as he sees it, of commercial fare.
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