Back when Billy the Kid hit theaters last December, I wrote an essay calling Jennifer Venditti’s non-fiction feature  “The Anti-Juno.” The films begged to be compared at the time, not just because they were both, as I wrote, “films about the inner lives and social stumbling blocks of precocious, ‘outsider’ teenagers,” but because they were actually opening in New York on the same day. Juno came riding in with the best indie cred that Fox Searchlight could buy, so it’s a no-brainer that the eventual Oscar winner would outshine the truly indie Billy on a short timeline. But on a long tail, Billy has a huge advantage, if only because, as Cullen Gallagher put it today at /Hammer to Nail, “Jennifer Venditti has managed the incredible feat of both finding and conveying cinematically a character who is absolutely singular and unique, and at the same time exists as an “everyman” who sums up our collective adolescence.” Honest to blog.

Billy, which I named as one of my favorite films of 2007, comes out on DVD today, in a special package including a commentary track by director Venditti with Ryan Gosling, and a liner notes essay by Miranda July. If you go to the film’s official website and click on the DVD flag on the bottom right, you can actually get 25 percent off your purchase.

Lynn Shelton’s My Effortless Brilliance (which I reviewed at SXSW) has its New York premiere tonight at Rooftop Films in Williamsburg, before heading to IFC VOD later this summer and DVD later this year. The film was co-written by and stars Harvey Danger singer Sean Nelson, who has given Ann Powers a recap of how he’s spent the last ten years since his band’s one massive hit for her LA Times blog. “10 years ago (pretty much exactly), we had the number one song on KROQ, and sold out the Troubadour, The Roxy and The Viper Room during the summer,” he writes. “Next week we’ll play in front of 60 people [at LA's Largo]. And we’re happy.”

More from Nelson, including details on the “exaggeratedly autobiographical” nature of the character he plays in Brilliance and his recent experience singing with R.E.M., here. You can buy tickets to tonight’s screening (which actually will take place not on a rooft, but on the lawn outside a Williamsburg high school) at the Rooftop Films site. In addition to Brilliance, there will also be a happy hour, a performance from Drew and the Medicinal Pen, and an open bar afterparty at inner Greenpoint bar Matchless.

Since the conversation about internet and day-and-date distribution really started to heat up in 2005, the alternatives to theatrical distribution have seemed to only multiply and evolve, while the general perception of public exhibition has remained about the same: filmmakers like it, but in terms of bottom line, it’s only useful as an extended commercial for ancillaries such as DVD. But is that perception changing? Two related quotes of note popped up in the feeds this morning.

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• Paramount doesn’t seem to be completely shutting down indie arm Paramount Vantage––they don’t seem to have given up on producing smaller-ticket prestige films, unlike Warner Brothers––but they are “folding the marketing, distribution and physical production departments of Paramount Vantage into the larger studio,” and eliminating three jobs in the process.
• Legendary 70s exploitation film I Spit On Your Grave is getting a remake. The producer of the remake cites the continuing meaninglessness of the rating system as the remake’s commercial imperative: “After seeing what was done with an R rating on films like ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel,’ we think we can modernize this story, be competitive with what this marketplace expects and not have to aim for an NC-17 or X rating.”
• Independently produced films are expected to “dominate activity in the late summer and early fall,” as SAG continues to issue waivers to producers not affiliated with studios as strike talks drag on. Also: Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant has a July 8 start date!
• Brian DePalma will make a film about The Boston Strangler. Yawn.

Andrew O’Hehir’s annual survey of the year in indie film is up at Salon today. Consider it a companion to yesterday’s discussion of the best “undistributed” films of 2007. The big theme: the increasing dominance of studio indie arms (like Fox Searchight and Focus Features, which exist primarily because their parent companies want to win awards without actually having to take their attention away from their bread and butter tentpoles) is forcing “true” indies like Magnolia and IFC (which is still part of a huge corporation, but manages to operate under a curation strategy that’s more like MoMA than Miramax) to take risks, both in what they release and how they attempt to deliver it to an audience. Oh––and beware of iPods!

Ah, futurism. O’Herhir gives the impression that if the indie industry can’t figure out how to get anyone to see the legitimately good films that they have been distributing, their solution will be to basically scrap all that and start making content for the devices that they’re pretty sure kids are paying attention to instead (again with the kids!) Killer Films’ Christine Vachon acknowledges that iPods, “the YouTube universe and the whole notion of making things for cellphones” are forcing producers like herself to “shift with the times.”

Microcinema’s Joel Bachar takes it a step further: our devices have ruined our ability to respond to traditional content. “There’s this social-networking mentality; they’re Twittering, they’re blogging,” he says. “There’s more commitment to, you know, the experiential moment, and not much commitment to longer moments.”

Interesting. I’m going to go back to Twittering about the three 3-hour films that are sure to make my 2007 Top Ten while you ponder it.

So says one of the many party invitations that I’ve received here at IDFA–this one from a Guests Meet Guests cocktail hour hosted by the Krakow Film Foundation, Polish Film Institute and Estonian Film Foundation. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, look alive.

I’m currently working my way through screenings of as many award-nominated films as I can, but between the Forum events, Talk Shows, panels and other events here, it’s a challenging festival to navigate. Veterans were disoriented, too, because everything in this snowglobe town shifts a bit when you change your focus and, this year, the venues changed. You feel like you’re in a bit of a spiderweb if you spend too much time here.

Luckily, I can go to the Docs for Sale viewing stations and watch screenings of films that are sold out. So, I’ve seen dozens of films and my head is spinning and I’ve spent a week standing next to the likes of Peter Wintonick and Werner Herzog talking about vampires and losers–more on this later. (I’ll refrain from using the other word Werner spouts a lot because even in this day and age, it’s dicey. But that’s why we love him, right?) And for the record, Werner, people smiled in pleasure when recalling seeing your film, so kudos on that.

Audiences here are the most brutal I’ve seen. Now, granted, I’ve been hanging out in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina and Silver Springs, Maryland so I’m no sophisticate, but, holy crap, the Dutch are rude as fuck. It’s humbling; you’re just their bitch if you want to spend time in their town. And I’m saying that mostly in admiration, for some reason.

Really long-winded way of saying that I will be posting reviews and impressions, interviews, etc. for a while–seriously, it could have been more fun, but I’ll be getting a lot of mileage out of the knowledge I gleaned going to this festival outside my own country. Tres different. Where those things will appear, who knows, because I want to spend the next little bit rocketing around the planet trying to be a goodwill ambassador for our humble States. Seriously, we have a lot of ’splainin’ to do.

More soon from Amsterdam. Our lovely Mr. Schnack, and the little devil on his shoulder, have a post on the winners at IDFA last night. Next stop on the daisy train, south of England to frolic in the type of place Morrissey sings about. Ciao, ciao.

Paul Lovelace and Sam Wainwright Douglas’ new documentary, The Holy Modal Rounders. . .Bound to Lose, is opening in New York at the Anthology Film Archives down in the East Village for one week starting December 7. Each of the seven nights will bring a unique event with special guests and related films. The Holy Modal Rounders were a 1960s Greenwich Village psychedelic folk duo. Sounds interesting already, huh?

Featured in the film are Dennis Hopper, former Modals drummer, now famous playwright/director/writer/actor Sam Shepherd, Peter Tork of The Monkees (like most, I had the biggest crush on Davey, but always thought Peter was really cute), Wavy Gravy, The Fugs, Loudon Wainwright III and other various and sundry celebs, burnouts, music lovers and friends of fiddler, Peter Stampfel and guitarist Steve Weber (whose resemblance to a giant muppet is uncanny). In a lot of ways, it’s a familiar music story where we see the young, idealistic goof-offs get together when they’re in their 20s and full of beans and storytell about the trajectory of their careers (in this case, it’s usually straight ahead or torked a bit down most of the time; success eludes these men like the plague). And the reasons success eluded these men brings up the usual suspects of drugs, alcohol, and living a life of unrestricted mayhem 24/7 for years on end. The gray matter takes a beating.

The co-directors are going the self-distribution route (yay) and have booked week-long runs and one-off screenings across the country. Lots of work–let’s see if it pays off for them. This film is a bit of East Village, New York history and they gather some really striking, very gritty black and white archival footage of the city in the 60s and 70s, well before Times Square was Disney-fied and when you could still go home, after being in a bar all night, smelling like a cigarette butt.

As part of their “hey, we’re playing in your hometown soon!” approach, the myspace page is in place and a crack team of dedicated friends and supporters are on board the train. They are presenting each night as a special curated event with other films, musical guests and some really interesting moderator/special guests like Nick Tosches and Lenny Kaye introducing films. They are also showcasing the theatrical premiere run of their film here with Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, co-written by Sam Shepard while the band was recording its psychedelic landmark album The Holy Modal Rounders Eat the Moray Eels. Now that’s a fab film-geek factoid, ain’t it?

Contact Anthology Film Archives and get your tickets to one of these fun evenings. (Drugs not included.)

Capturing an artist’s creative process on film can be a tricky proposition. There have been many films, both fiction and non-, that have managed to capture that intimate intensity that only scratches the surface of what’s bubbling beneath. In fact, the best films about artists and musicians leave more unanswered questions than answered ones about the mystery of the creative impulse.There is a certain freak-show curiosity about those of us who really don’t do much else with our lives but make art–those of us who skirted the path of least resistance and jumped into a realm in which, in order to survive, one must do some heavy creative lifting. And for some artists, that can be a torturous existence since we live in a society that doesn’t tend to support or understand that kind of thing.I met Matthew Wallin, the director of the film project I Die Daily, at this year’s IFP Conference and Market. I saw a work–in-progress cut of Wallin’s film about artist and filmmaker, Matthew Barney, and was immediately intrigued and wondered if there was a chance for me to jump on board the project as a creative/consultative producer to help the filmmakers find funding to move into post, and to act as added support to see if we could get the project out there, looked at, and noticed. Not to mention exhibited, marketed, distributed and sold. It’s garnered a special invitation from the Berlin Film Festival early next year, and so it’s a key time for the director to show what he’s got to the European market. …Read more

Directors Bradley Beesley (Summer Camp, Roller Girls), James Payne and Julianna Brannum (Payne and Brannum are first-time directors here) have collaborated on a project that looks at the toxic legacy of lead mining in a small community in Oklahoma. The town of Pilcher, and its surrounding area, were declared a Superfund site way back in 1981 (that’s almost 30 years, folks) and the residents have been fighting for justice, and their children’s health, ever since. The Creek Runs Red is the next installment on Independent Lens this season and airs tomorrow night on your local PBS affiliate station. Here’s the trailer.

I had a chance to speak, at length, with Brannum about the making of the film and the unique collaboration the three directors shared in its creation. All working from different locations and never in the editing room simultaneously, it proved to be quite a challenge in presenting a strong directorial voice, since that was split three ways, in more than one sense. Beesley’s photography background shows itself off in fine form–since sound and image can coalesce so easily in completely random ways, the precise tone and palette and framing he uses throughout the film speak to a very deliberate eye. He uses the poisonous landscape for his beauty shots and it’s quite affecting, especially as a counterpoint to the story which is narrated solely by the people who have lived in this town all their lives. As the directors’ statement says, it is truly “the point of view of a small community.”

Brannum also explained that finding their subjects took quite a few trips out there over several years’ time. Understandably leery of more “outsiders” coming in and poking around their backyard and then leaving again without really doing much to help them, the townspeople eventually rewarded the filmmakers for their dedication and patience with their heartfelt and honest interviews–and compelling characters they are, with craggy, sculpted faces and rough-hewn voices that bring the best of Dorothea Lange’s depression-era photography to mind.

Beesley has also worked extensively with the band The Flaming Lips (one of my personal faves, I’ve had their official screen saver on my Mac for years) and their music is featured as part of the original soundtrack. Beesley has also directed the definitive Lips doc, Fearless Freaks. Check out the cool trailer on Beesley’s site here.

Check your local listings and try and catch this public TV broadcast debut. On my blog in the near future, I will be posting an in-depth interview with Brannum as part of my series on international female nonfiction filmmakers. Right now, you can read a new interview with spitfire, Cynthia Wade, director of this year’s festival fave Freeheld. Due to extremely sensitive Academy Award rules and regs, we don’t get to talk about her run for Oscar in this initial conversation, but we do talk about all the ethical, and other hairy, issues inherent in doing the kind of excrutiatingly intimate films Wade does. Check it out here.

Yes, hello, I’m your stranger-than-fiction girl, so happy, and honored, really, to have been asked to guest-blog for the day for the downtime-deprived, hard working Karina Longworth. Hope you’re soaking in a big tub for two right now, dearest.

I am a documentary geek and I’m open about that. So, most of what I’ll be writing about today centers on the nonfiction world.  If you’re not into docs, hopefully, you’ll find it all interesting and entertaining, anyway.

Stranger Than Fiction is also the name of Thom Powers‘ series, almost winding down, at the IFC Center. Tomorrow night at 7:30 p.m., there will be a screening of Jessica Yu’s powerful documentary, Protagonist, followed by a Q&A with the director and an after-party hosted by exec producer Greg Carr in a swanky penthouse. The last swanky penthouse to which I got to go had the most fabulous views of our fair city, so I highly recommend trying to get into one. All you have to do in this case is buy a ticket to the screening and it will be money well-spent, trust me. …Read more

Agnes Varnum points to a preview clip on New York Magazine’s website, from the upcoming third season of Joe Swanberg’s Nerve.com series, Young American Bodies. In a very inside-baseball bit of humor, the clip features Swanberg himself literally in bed with film festival programmer Holly Herrick. Both appear in various states of undress, so don’t watch it at work. And if you’re a Swanberg fan, keep your eyes on SpoutBlog, as we’ll have a surprise from Joe here within the next 24 hours.

AJ Schnack has written a great post on the so-called “doc depression”. And no, we’re not talking about the emotional trauma that follows a screening of Lake Of Fire--though “depressing” documentaries likely have something to do with it, this depression is purely financial.

Only three nonfiction films are on track to gross a million dollars or more this year, making it the slowest year for documentary box office since 2001. There are are lot of potential factors–the always handy Iraq/political fatigue; the fact that studios and their indie arms are mainly distributing docs with name-brand directors (which, if you take Man From Plains‘ opening weekend as evidence, are less than safe bets); the unfortunate reality that docs that are winning awards at festivals are not getting picked up by powerful distributors, and thus, if they’re entering the marketplace at all, they’re relying on grassroots promotions to slowly build a successful run–but I think AJ’s really on to something when he cites the logjam that has become the fall release schedule:

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• indieWIRE broke big acquisition news over the weekend: Having seen just a script and a two-minute show reel, up-and-coming distribution force Summit Entertainment has purchased Rian Johnson’s unfinished The Brothers Bloom. The film was expected to open and be offered for sale at Sundance, but fears over an unpredictable buying season convinced the filmmakers to allow Summit to take Bloom off the market. Exact numbers weren’t disclosed, but the resulting deal is surely much bigger than anything that’s been seen in the recent festival market; Eugene Hernandez says it “may ultimately be valued at more than $20 million.”
• A gimme headline, no slanguage required: Saw IV butchers competition. At Variety, the sequel’s $32 million bow is a shot in the face to the “conventional wisdom that hardcore horror no longer works.” The Hollywood Reporter notes that, above and beyond a victory for torture porn, this is a victory for indie studio Lionsgate, who have now had three number one hits in the past two months.
• Meanwhile, for all the grumbling over the sluggish specialty division market, Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead opened huge in limited release this weekend, netting $36,750 on each of its two New York screens. We’ll see how word of mouth carries through its expansion; the people I sat next to at brunch on Saturday said they preferred Before Sunset, whatever that means.
• Warner Brothers has hired WB TV network survivor Greg Berlanti to direct Green Lantern. Berlanti was a writer and executive producer on Everwood and Dawson’s Creek, which I guess makes him uniquely qualified to tell the story of “an ordinary man who has been charged with defending a sector of the universe” … ? Anyway, do not confuse Green Lantern with Green Hornet, which, as far as we know, Seth Rogen is still on board to write and star in.
• The president of Libya, Moammar Gadhafi, is financing a film about the Italian occupation of his country. Just the press conference to announce the project is said to cost $400,000.

Inc.com [via Hacking Netflix] recently asked five entrepreneurs what they would suggest to help Netflix win their on-going battle against Blockbuster once and for all. Let’s ignore, for a minute, the fact that it seems really weird to ask a handful of confirmed capitalists what they would do to help a single corporation to secure a market monopoly. I think Withoutabox’s David Strauss is right on the proverbial money with his suggestion that Netflix should seek out niche audiences and put a greater push behind indie films:

Netflix should distribute more obscure films. It started down this path last year when it helped to distribute The Puffy Chair, which got raves at Sundance. Targeted niche outreach of this kind is harder to do than mass outreach, but if you develop a lot of loyal little audiences over time, in the way that eBay did, you often end up with a larger audience than if you go after the mainstream.

It wasn’t that long ago that Netflix seemed to be on the forefront of this. But at this point, I’m not sure they have any interest.

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