IFP FILMMAKER CONFERENCE

September 19 – 23, 2010 – NYC

Taking place during the 32nd annual Independent Film Week, IFP’s five-day Filmmaker Conference: The Future of Film, is the must-attend event that welcomes the independent film community to participate in discussions on financing for docs and narrative films, finding an agent and manager, outreach and audience building, working on a micro-budget and much more during a full week of case studies, panels and debates.

Buy passes by Friday, September 3 for a chance to pitch your film, tv or new media project to top executives.

Don’t pass up your chance to learn the ins-and-outs of financing, producing and distributing your movie and sustaining a career with reps from BBC, BMI, Cinereach, College Humor, Cinetic, HBO, Impact Partners, Kickstarter, Magnolia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Roadside Entertainment, Sony Picture Classics, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival and many more.

For more information about the Conference and to purchase passes go to: www.filmmakerconference.com

Years ago the president of the KC Independent Filmmakers Coalition described his job as “trying to teach cats to march.”

We may never get moviemakers to move in lockstep, but perhaps through the efforts of some local film supporters they all might be nudged in the same direction.

That’s the idea behind CinemaKC, a new not-for-profit described by its organizers as an umbrella under which all aspects of the regional film industry can gather to share information and ideas.

CinemaKC will have its first public meeting at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 16 at the Screenland Crown Center.

Read more on the KC Star website.

Visit the Cinema KC website at http://cinemakc.com/.

Laird created the comedy web series in an effort to showcase her work as an emerging director, choosing the internet as her medium.

“Getting a foot in the Hollywood door is an enormous challenge,” she said. “The internet has become a way for some to slip in through the back.”

Laird partnered with T2 + Back Alley Films owner Teri Rogers as Executive Producer and VEMO’s Nicholas E. Vedros as producer to create six, six-minute web episodes.

“It’s a faux reality series,” said Laird. “It’s a fictional realty show that tracks the trials and tribulations of real-life casting director John Jackson.”

Jackson, who is the primary casting director for the award winning director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt), also has a long acting resume under the stage name of “John Durbin”.

Other Kansas City companies who lent production support to the project include Liquid 9 and Wheeler Audio.

A Hollywood mainstay, NATPE is dedicated to the “creation, development and distribution of televised programming”. The annual NATPE Market & Conference is considered to be the largest trade show event worldwide for buying and selling television and new media content.

The Best of Fest from Kansas City FilmFest is screening as part of the KC Fringe Festival. Tickets are $8, plus a one-time festival button fee of $5 which funds the festival and allows you to buy tickets for any performance for the rest of the festival.

Screenings are Wed. July 28th at 6pm and Saturday, July 31st at 2pm and 7:30pm.

The Line-Up (90 minutes):

LoopLoop / US Intl Best Experimental
Patrick Bergeron
Experimental • 0:05:00 • Canada

Using animation, sound warping and time shifts, this video runs forwards and backwards looking for forgotten details, mimicking the way memories are replayed in the mind.

LoopLoop is made from a sequence captured in a train going to Hanoi in Vietnam. The 1000 images of this sequence have been stitched into one long panoramic image. Into this long still image, other moving elements were integrated and smooth transitions built over it. LoopLoop is a video loop.

Sebastian’s Voodoo / US Intl Best Animation
Joaquin Baldwin
Animation • 0:04:07 • U.S.A.

When I’m Not Alone / won Best of Fest short / Best US/Intl Doc
Rhianon Gutierrez
Documentary • 0:20:33 • U.S.A.

Born female but raised as a male for twenty-eight years, Sam Durbin experienced unspeakable abuse, never learned to read or write, and drifted in and out of institutions. His uncontrollable behavior and disheveled state led doctors to declare him a “hopeless case”. When he found Integrity House, a clubhouse for people with disabilities in Orange County, he learned to read, write, and advocate for himself, eventually becoming a published author and nationwide advocate for people with disabilities. Despite his successes, his past continues to affect him in profound ways—from how he trusts people to his own self-image.

Neither Here Nor There / Best Heartland Doc

Neither Here Nor There documents the growing Bosnian population making Missouri their new home. More than 50,000 refugees have made Missouri their home since the war in Bosnia. Neither Here Nor There follows a widow, Fatima Selimovic, and her family living in Columbia, Missouri. For each family member, their new home provides different opportunities and their sense of home differs. This all comes to a climax when the family returns to Srebrenica for the 10th anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica where they will bury their relatives that had been identified in mass graves. Would it be better if they just stayed in Bosnia? Or is America truly the land of opportunities? Sometimes a refugee’s home is neither here nor there. It’s somewhere in between.

Watch the trailer on YouTube.

NEXT! is the creative brainchild of Kansas City based casting director Heather Laird. In an effort to showcase her work as an emerging director, Laird chose the internet as her medium. “Getting a foot in the Hollywood door is an enormous challenge,” she said. “The internet has become a way for some to slip in through the back.” Laird partnered with T2 + Back Alley Films owner Teri Rogers as Executive Producer and VEMO’s Nicholas E. Vedros as producer to create a total of 6, six-minute web episodes. “It’s a faux reality series,” said Laird. “It’s a fictional realty show that tracks the trials & tribulations of real-life casting director John Jackson.” Jackson, who is the primary casting director for the award winning director Alexander Payne (Sideways, Election, About Schmidt), also has a long acting resume under the stage name of “John Durbin”.

Other Kansas City companies who lent production support to the project include Liquid 9 and Wheeler Audio. NEXT! was entered in the Comedic Webisode category at the NATPE LATV Fest and is one of three finalists selected. NEXT! is at www.nexttheseries.com. For more information about NATPE and the LATV Fest go to www.latvfest.net.

Heather Laird won the Kansas City Filmmaker Jubilee’s 2008 Outstanding Service to the KC Film Community Award.

FLIKS (Facilitated Film Discussions in Kansas) is a facilitated film and discussion program using short humanities-themed films to talk about both historical and contemporary topics of interest to Kansans. The FLIKS program will be utilized by libraries, museums, art centers, and other cultural organizations in Kansas.

Films can be documentary, fiction, animation, or experimental but must be less than 15 minutes in length. Films are due by December 17, 2010.

For more information, visit kansashumanities.org.

Download a submission packet.

MovieSet is a dynamic toolkit that combines both consumer and business applications in the same platform. It revolutionizes entertainment marketing by enabling real-time engagement with the actual film production process. Fans can authentically track each film’s progress from green-light through to delivery.

During Production the prime directive is to get the movie in the can on time and on budget. At the same time, marketing is mission critical. With the advent of MovieSet, the two competing objectives are aligned, ultimately creating stronger films and film communities.

For more information: http://www.movieset.com

It was the “Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations Coast to Coast TV Weasel Roast” on March 4th that brought together volunteers from many of Kansas City’s film groups. Members from the Women of the Motion Picture Industry, Women in Film and Television, and the Independent Filmmaker’s Coalition joined up with the Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee to answer phones for KCPT during their March membership drive.

TO ORDER: http://www.laszloandvilmos.com/

KU Alum Gordy Hoffman, the Sundance award-winning writer/director (LOVE LIZA, A COAT OF SNOW) and founder of the BlueCat Screenplay Competition, comes back to Kansas City to lead a screenwriting workshop on Sunday, December 13th from 9:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival for LOVE LIZA, Gordy is a former Adjunct Professor of screenwriting at the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, as well as having led workshops across the US and Canada, London and Poland. To read Gordy’s articles on screenwriting, visit http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/news/advice.php

Gordy Hoffman is now attached to direct a movie in 2010 in UK and France, written by Melissa Brandt.

THE FIRST TEN PAGES WORKSHOP
This workshop will consist of 12 writers each submitting ten pages of a work in progress in advance. We will go over each work individually, reading the pages aloud, while discussing the specific, unique challenges each writer is facing on the page.

This discussion will include the technical aspects of description and dialogue, the depth and reality of the characters, and how the ten pages reflect where the entire story goes.

The intimate, focused interaction with fellow writers in the workshop will provide all with a greater understanding of the work that lies ahead on their screenplay, and more importantly, a detailed sense of how they might develop as writers themselves.

REGISTER: http://www.bluecatscreenplay.com/workshop/

Any questions? Email: Email Bluecatworkshop@bluecatscreenplay.com

First Ten Pages Workshop (limit 12 writers)
Sunday, December 13th, 9:00am – 6:00pm
Screenland Theatre at the Crossroads
1656 Washington
Kansas City, Mo. 64108
Fee $75