Fall Movie Bonanza – November
We're right in the thick of things, movie fans. Fall movie season is in full swing, and we've seen some great titles release to date. But November brings another round of great titles opening and it's time to take stock.
Featured in November are releases that define what awards season is all about - big names, lush productions and dramatic storylines. From a silent film quieting even the most skeptical critics to a leading man in his second release of the season, the temperatures are cooling down just as the box office is heating up, particularly with a promising Thanksgiving weekend slate on the books.
Check out previous Fall Movie posts (here's September, and here's October) to see what else I've been seeing these last few weeks, and then click over to continue reading what I'm looking forward to in November.
Advanced Screening – get tickets here!
We're excited to have a limited number of tickets an upcoming advanced screening to Sundance Film Festival smash hit MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE here in Indianapolis.
The screening is Thursday, November 3 and since we have so few tickets, we're going to make it interesting. The film is getting a lot of buzz because it stars the younger sister of two well known actresses, twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. But that seemed like too easy a trivia question for you, so how about this one:
The film also stars an actor who broke out in another Sundance hit from last year, Winter's Bone. Name that actor in a comment below, and you'll be in to win tickets!
Getting Crafty
Everyone recognizes the Oscar statue. Awards and film just go hand in hand. Indy Film Fest gives out awards too - but this year we learned the marble trophies we'd been using for years were no longer available. With the old style being discontinued, we decided to mix things up. The idea was to create hand-crafted awards to reflect the personal style of our featured films. Here's the result:
The award art work was silk-screened onto actual birch paper, which absorbed the ink in unexpectedly cool ways. Each award turned out a little different from the next — a one-of-a-kind memento from the 2011 Festival. After adding a simple frame to commemorate the recognition, these festival trophies are ready to hang with their new filmmaker friends.
Huge thanks to our creative partner, Lodge Design for dreaming these up and making it happen!
Festival Films – see ‘em again!
There's maybe no worse feeling during a festival than realizing you missed your last chance to see that doc you'd been eying, or the great indie you'd been hearing so much about.
Fear not, movie fans! Several 2011 Indy Film Fest selections are making their way to other nearby festivals where you can see them again!
47th Chicago International Film Festival
This stalwart of the midwest film festival scene is featuring a couple great festival selections, both features and shorts. Catch racy short film Ex-Sex on Friday, 10/14 - how exactly do you break up with someone you're still sleeping with? For film lovers looking to get the scoop on international film industries, Cinema Komunisto is a great peak into the Yugoslavian film industry of the last century. And definitely worth driving up I-65 for if you missed it in Indy is Natural Selection - snagging both Best American Spectrum Feature Film and the 2011 Grand Jury Award, this one's still wowing audiences. It screens 10/15 and 10/16 - weekend trip to the Windy City, anyone?
See the entire @ChiFilmFest line-up here; the whole thing is housed at the AMC River East in the heart of downtown and runs through October 20.
Heartland Film Festival
Though it's the city's better-known festival, we're excited to say that we brought a couple of their selections to Indianapolis earlier this summer. Really, it works out great for you - maybe you were on summer vacation or otherwise enjoying the warm weather back in July. Grab your sweater this month and catch both Boys of Bonneville, about the land-speed record-setting feats of some very daring men, and our Closing Night selection These Amazing Shadows, which chronicles the creation and significance of the National Film Registry, at Indy's fall film festival. You can see the whole schedule here; Heartland runs October 13 - 22 at the AMC Castleton 14.
One of the greatest things - no, THE greatest thing about film festivals is experiencing those films you wouldn't otherwise have a chance to check out - they might not make it to the multiplex or won't land in your Netflix queue. It's always exciting to see some great titles within reach again, so make some time this month to see these Indy Film Fest selections again while you can!
Fall Movie Bonanza – October
As you may recall, I'm posting each month those Fall movie releases I'm most looking forward to (and some I'm ignoring all together!). It's an exciting time of year for movie-lovers, so I thought it'd be fun to start a conversation around the best, most anticipated films hitting the big screen each month as the year wraps up.
You can check in on all of my September picks here. As for October, the releases kick into full gear this month, so there are a lot of titles to cover. This month includes one of September's stars popping up again, the debut of a younger sister with a familiar last name (and it's not Fanning), as well as two action-flick players (who co-starred in 2009's Star Trek) appearing in very different roles than their sci-fi counterparts.
Continue reading to get up to speed on all I'm anticipating (and one I'm very much avoiding) in October.
Movies over lunch? Yes, please!
The last month or so post-festival has been one big brainstorming session for us - we've been mulling over all kinds of awesome events and opportunities to bring to Indy all in the name of film.
One we're excited to kick off is the first of hopefully many in a series - a brown bag lunch shorts screening series. (We might need to think of a better name for it - like I said, it's new!)
Every year, we program dozens of amazing short films - quick cinematic experiences that are funny, dramatic, captivating and entertaining. At the festival, you can see these in programs where half a dozen are presented in succession, like going to a full length movie but actually seeing so many more.
Once the festival wraps, though, it's hard to find the best way to get these great gems out to our audiences. So the idea was hatched to try something new - something informal, casual and completely approachable.
It's simple, really. You bring a lunch, we bring the films.
Our first foray into this new series is a partnership with Ivy Tech's Center for Community and Culture Studies. On Friday, October 7, we'll feature the best of our recent animated short films - including 2011 Best American Spectrum Short film Something Left, Something Taken. All the details are here. It's free, come as you are and totally worth your time.
So mark your calendar to sneak away from the office or class, stop at your favorite shop for a sandwich, and join us to see these great shorts among your fellow festival fans. It'll be the best lunch meeting on your calendar.
Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then
Fall may be fast-approaching, but there's still one more chance for an outdoor film at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. (NOTE: Film has since been moved inside to The Toby to keep you warm!) You'll be in good company too - the IMA is being joined by the IMA Contemporary Art Society, iMOCA and us over at Indy Film Fest to present "Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then" (2010, 75 min., dir. Brent Green, USA) on Saturday, October 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Filmmaker Brent Green & His Touring House
Based on a true story, the film follows Leonard, a church-music playing hardware clerk from Louisville. Upon his wife's diagnosis of cancer, Leonard begins building his house into what he hopes will be a "healing machine" to rid his wife of her disease. The unexpected windows and doorways might call to mind Alice in Wonderland meets Picasso, but it's like nothing you've ever seen. A total dream land.
Filmmaker and narrator Brent Green visited the real-life home of Leonard before it was demolished and recreated it in his own back yard for the film. When asked how long it took to re-build the house and the rest of the set, he says, "A while. A great long while." I'm guessing that means waaaaay longer than you and I can even imagine.
Brent and his crew have packed up the house, all the handmade furniture and toured with the film to museums and places all over the world. You might think carrying around another man's story with all that baggage would begin to feel burdensome, but not so for Green. When I asked, he answered, "It's great. I wanted to celebrate Leonard Wood's story. It seems like, as a society, we ignore the folks that make our culture one worth living in. Leonard was certainly one of those people, and it's thrilling to me people are letting me drag this story, with or without the house attached, all over the globe. Thrilling."
A Live Score?!
The folk-punk score will be performed live along with the film by Brendan Canty (Fugazi), Drew Henkels (Drew and the Medicinal Pen), John Swartz (Guy Maddin’s orchestra), and Donna K (who plays Mary in "Gravity..."). The movie was always meant to be shown with the live soundtrack, so they don't screen it often without it. IMA's outdoor amphitheater, with the trees towering around, is a dreamy place to see live music and how often do you get to hear the live score with a movie?
Add in a cash bar, a few blankets (it's BYO-blanket or lawn chair) and we're set for a one-of-a-kind film experience. Tickets are $10-15, and are available on IMA's site. 
According to Rachel Saltz in The New York Times, the film “radiates an oddball homemade charm.” Oddball homemade charm. Sounds magical, indeed.
View the trailer:
Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then from Brent Green on Vimeo.
How Netflix Got it Wrong…
When I was a new grad, waiting tables to pay bills and wondering if I'd ever find a job, I cut back on every single expense out there. I got haircuts at the salon training school; I ate a LOT of Spaghetti Os; I dreamt of watching cable one day when I'd "made it."
But as hard as my mother tried to convince me to, I would not, under any circumstances, compromise on my 3-disc at a time Netflix habit. It was years before streaming existed, and those three discs - in heavy rotation - were all that kept me entertained on nights I was sure I'd be eating ramen forever.
Today, I'm down to one disc at a time and stream the service on my computer, my TV (via Wii) and my phone (it came in mighty handy one cold winter evening I was stranded on the interstate because of an accident ahead of me).
When it was announced weeks ago that they'd be separating out discs and streaming plans, I griped. How could you charge the same for a streaming library no where near as big (or at least vastly different) from the cavernous reach of the DVD library? But I figured I'd pay the extra (maybe finally cancel the cable I'd since been able to afford) and nothing much would change for me.
Then the bottom dropped out. Shares dropped 8%. One million subscribers dropped the service all together. Reed Hastings sends a "humble" email acknowledging the mistake.
Except that's not at all what the email does. Instead, it's one big "eff you" to customers, saying in no uncertain terms where exactly we stand in the company's priorities: the bottom.
Read on for my take on all that's wrong with this latest "solution"...and once I calm down a bit, we'll see about Netflix alternatives
Festival Intern: join the team today!
We're currently seeking a Festival Submissions and Operations intern for the 2011 - 2012 season! Interested in learning all about what it takes to make a festival run? This is the role for you.
The Indianapolis International Film Festival is an all-volunteer organization, and we need an enthusiastic, organized individual to join us in all the work it'll take over the next several months to make the annual festival happen.
What can you expect to work on? Everything!
Film Submissions - the festival sees over 500 films come through our doors hoping to land a slot in the annual event. We need your help in managing all these incoming movies. From tracking to filing to screening them (with the help of a Screening Committee!), you'll be at the front lines of managing the 2012 Festival experience!
Office Management - as the organization grows, we're making more and more friends. We're hoping to keep track of all of them in our management systems and processes, and you can help! From entering all the data to organizing it in a way that makes it easy to access, you'll be helping to make sure our friends are all accounted for.
Event Participation - this is probably the most fun part - the screenings, parties, discussions and more. As a part of the festival team, you'll always be on the invite list to every event we host. These include cocktail parties, advanced screenings and even some great meet & greets. Want to be on the right side of the red carpet? You will be in this role!
We're looking for college upperclassmen or recent grads; you're local to Indy with reliable transportation. Your schedule is fairly flexible, available for evening meetings and weekend work sessions. You're plugged in to email, social media and ideally, the local arts scene. Sound like you? Check out the complete job description, then shoot us an email with your info to apply!
Image credit: Beth Gray via flickr
A Small Act: a not-so-small impact
Admit it - you've sat up at night, unable to sleep and staring blankly into those infomercials about helping one child for just pennies a day.
What if I told you that it's possible, and it does help? Maybe not through those infomercials, but that just $15 a month can - and has - completely altered the direction of one Kenyan boy's life and set him on a path to have a similar impact on the generation behind him?
That's the exact turn of events in A SMALL ACT, the 2010 Sundance Film Festival hit that's coming to the Indianapolis Museum of Art on Thursday, September 15. This special engagement is a chance to see the story for yourself, and we're proud to help bring it to Indy.
What's more, the woman who helps change one child's life with her simple gift is a survivor herself - a Holocaust survivor, she found it in her heart to cultivate life and hope after a childhood of terror and uncertainty. Watch the trailer below.
The story is, in a word, incredible. And filmmaker Jennifer Arnold has captured all the best of it for the film, crafting a documentary that compels, enlightens and inspires. Join us for this exceptional evening - enjoy the film, and learn how you can give back; how one small act can set off a series of positive events that ripple outward like a pebble dropped in the pond.
RSVP on Facebook, or get your tickets in advance here. Interested in winning a couple tickets? Keep an eye on @IndyFilmFest on Twitter!