…and that blogger isn’t me. I suppose I could’ve strung together three or four hundred words of gushing praise, but considering the fact that I acquired this fantastic debut feature of John Yost’s for IndiePix, I’m guessing folks might see through that.

But someone else gave it a try, so here it is.

Is it worth it, seeing a tiny movie like ‘Every Good Thing to Rust’? Well, as last night’s Oscar broadcast taught us, a stripper can write the best original screenplay of the year, and two unknown actors can run around with 100K and some mini-DV cameras and tell a story powerful enough to warrant an Oscar, and a congratulatory text message from fellow countryman Bono. Soo….

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT FILM! IT’S, LIKE, WORTH IT!

Filmmaker Tom Stern, the writer/director/co-producer of the quirky comedy ‘This Is A Business’, was recently profiled in a written podcast hosted by NY production company Renart Films. The interviewer, filmmaker Daniel Schechter, quizzed Tom on his reasons for making the film, the themes and subplots that came out during production, and his experiences as a first-time director searching for distribution. Between pithy responses, Tom took the time to deliver a gracious shout-out to the folks here at IndiePix. Please do check out the article, and then put that newfound warm and fuzzy feeling that develops to use and buy their film! It’s fantastically funny, and well worth your business.

Click here to read the full interview.

This Is A Business Now available on DVD and Download-to-Own, at http://www.indiepixfilms.com/thisisabusiness.

I recently watched a couple of wildly different independent films that truly captured my heart, and wanted to pass them on to you faithful readers (wherever you may be) for your viewing pleasure. The first we screened during our few moments of down time at the Woodstock Film Festival. The programmers were handing out DVD copies, and playing it in ‘fest hangout The Colony Cafe. It’s a film of truly Rocky-esque proportions, the tale of patriotism and shadow-rockin’ known as Air Guitar Nation.
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Not that we would expect IndieWire to make a deal about it, but today (October 5, 2007) on their front page here, four top IndiePix are featured.

First up is Billy The Kid from Director Jennifer Venditti, Produced by Jen and Chiemi Karasawa. Their film was a great success at the IFC screening earlier this week, playing to a sold out, waiting line crowd. Here they are with friend, John Tuturro. We’ll hear more about this film as we get further into the Fall. IndiePix exex’s are Executive Producers on this great title. Here is the link to that story.

Next in line is My Kid Could Paint That from Director Amir Bar-Lev. Amir has a great project, supported by A&E and picked up at Sundance by Sony Pictures Classics. Amir was previously a contributor to The Katrina Experience with a compelling documentary, New Orleans Furlough. This 20-minute short film finds the intersection of drugs, war, and failed love in one National Guardsman returning from Iraq to help after Katrina. It is one of the most powerful films in the Full Frame/IndiePix collection The Katrina Experience, available for the Library and Educational markets through IndiePix. IndiePix contributed finishing funds for that project. The front page today will scroll by into history, but here is the link to the article on his new film.

Still on the IndieWire front page, just a few paragraphs down, is an interview with Alex LeMay, director of Desert Bayou. Desert Bayou is the lead title in the Full Frame/IndiePix collection The Katrina Experience, and we commented on its very successful screening at MOMA last week in another post. Alex gave IndiePix a “special thanks” in the credits for our help in funding some of the editing on this project. Desert Bayou is being distributed by Cinema Libre Studios, IndiePix’s partner for retail DVD distribution. Check out this whole interview here.

We’re very proud of our filmmakers, and very happy to be associated with them. And we’re very pleased when so many of them are up front and center (where they ought to be!).

I had the opportunity to attend the screening of Desert Bayou at the MOMA on Thursday night. It was a terrific presentation.

Desert Bayou first played at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in April of 2006, just 8 months after the Katrina event. Filmmaker Alex LeMay (from Chicago) had read about the relocation of 600 citizens of New Orleans to a National Guard Camp near Salt Lake City, Utah and was immediately caught by the story. His film was selected by Full Frame as part of their “Katrina Experience” slate of films. Shortly after the festival, IndiePix and Full Frame teamed up to bring 7 of the 9 films to the library and educational market. Alex was the first filmmaker to commit to that project, and we have a close relationship to this project. (Thank you, Alex, for including us in the “special thanks” credits!)

Desert Bayou is a clear-eyed, troubling look at the whole event. No easy rush to judgment, no simple solutions, no rhetoric. The lives of the people who experienced “the worst disaster in American history” were complicated before it happened, and complicated afterwards. In the process of telling this story, the fears and prejudices across racial, social, political, and cultural lines seem like ragged tears in the social fabric. How on earth will this ever be put back together?

The presentation was introduced by Jimmy Finkl, Executive Producer, who asked a simple question: “I thought Americans cared about each other, took care of each other. What happened here?” It’s through work like this film from Alex LeMay and his team at TapRoot Productions, the judgment of Nancy Buirski, Artistic Director at Full Frame, the commitment of Philippe Diaz and Cinema Libre Studios (who are distributing the film theatrically in a few weeks) — that (using Nancy Buirski’s phrase) “the power of culture to heal” may offer some positive outcome.

We are very pleased to have been able to be part of this project and we are very pleased to be able to represent it, along with 6 other outstanding films from the Full Frame track “The Katrina Experience” to the library and school communities. Our goal is to put enough of these sets in the public and school libraries that a documentary record of the event from top independent filmmakers will stand for all to see.

Here are some additional links …
The Movie Site on the web
Press Release on the MOMA screening
IndieWire interview with Alex
The mySpace page

In a recent post on her blog, Agnes Varnum proposes the idea of “Trifecta” which she defines as: “3 films that … together [showing] different facets of an issue that have given me a new way to look at or think about something happening in our world.” I think this is a really powerful idea.

Agnes is careful to point out in a reply to a comment that I made that she is not talking about a “sidebar” in a film festival that may give you three tries at the same topic in similar ways. She wants three shots from different sides that illuminate something going on in a useful and stimulating way.

IndiePix is releasing 8 documentaries in cooperation with the Full Frame Documentary Festival that achieve this goal (we hope!). But there are other examples, too … (more…)