Industry News

A report of news & happenings in the local industry for August 2008. 

By Erin Trahan

Email news to news@newenglandfilm.com. 

This Month

New Boy screens this month at RIIFF. [Click to enlarge]

The numbers are in for Maine’s media industry.  The direct economic impact of motion pictures, television, broadcasting, video, and photography in Maine, from 2005 data, was measured at $371 million; indirect spending was nearly $630 million, according to a study just released by the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Researchers said that Maine continues to have a strong visual-media industry but recommended that the state expand its incentives.  To download the study, visit www.econdevmaine.com/resources.  

Catch films at the Roxbury Film Festival through August 3^rd and the Woods Hole Film Festival through August 4th.   

The Rhode Island International Film Festival runs August 5-10.  Actress Blythe Danner will be the 2008 recipient of the Creative Vision Award.  Her latest film, Side by Each, will have its world premiere on August 9th at the Columbus Theartre Arts Center in Providence, one of 14 festival venues.  Also NewEnglandFilm.com Publisher Michele Meek screens her film Red Sneakers at the festival on August 5.  Read more in the second installment of her How to Make a Short Film this month.

The sixth annual Student Independent Film Festival takes place at Images Cinema in Williamstown, MA August 8-9.   

Chris Stinson of Live Free or Die Films begins shooting his latest feature in the Boston area in August.   

Coming Soon

The Tribeca Film Festival (April 22 - May 3, 2009) opens its call for films on September 15^th and its call for applications to the Tribeca Film Institute on September 22^nd.   

Wild Beagle Productions, a new film company in North Andover, has been filming its first production, 27 Down, in Boston and Kittery, ME.  The film is about a Boston detective who gets embroiled in a hit-and-run investigation.  Co-writer and director, John Depew, promises plot twists and surprises.  In a press release he said, “The film uses a crossword puzzle as metaphor for predicaments the characters must untangle in their lives.”  They expect to complete production in August and release the film in early 2009.  

Jon Artigo and Andrea Ajemian, 'makers of We Got the Beat. [Click to enlarge]

Dan McEleney wrote to tell us about a teen comedy being shot in Worcester this summer -- We Got the Beat -- about the making of the first boy band.  Like any respectable movie with a jock, a stoner, and an ex-figure skater, it’s set in 1983.  

The Way We Get By by Gita Pullapilly (current WGBH Filmmaker in Residence) has been accepted into the IFP Market in New York in September. Boston audiences can see a rough cut on October 2^nd at The New England Institute of Art.  Learn more at www.thewaywegetbymovie.com.

Held Over

Flashover (by Paul Medico and Sean O'Connor of 82Films in Boston) picked up a Best Documentary Short Award and nominations for Best Actress and Achievement in Filmmaking at the Action on Film Festival in Pasadena, CA.  The mockumentary includes scenes shot in Attleboro, Cambridge, and Concord and has also screened at AOF, Boston International Film Festival, and Woods Hole Film Festival.   

Berklee College of Music grad JJ Lee was one of six musicians selected for the 2008 Sundance Institute Composers Lab.  Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country) earned a grant from the Sundance Institute Documentary Program for Release, about men released from Guantanamo Bay prison and returning home. 

From the Editor

Worried about the status of film criticism in US newspapers?  You’re not alone.  Film critic Mary Pols' recent take on her experience sparked a lively debate at the Alliance for Women Film Journalists (AWFJ) website.  In case you’re wondering, AWFJ pools the talent and resources of professional female movie critics, reporters and feature writers to support work by and about women both in front of and behind the cameras.  (Full disclosure:  I’m a member.)   

So it’s a natural that AWFJ just released Dr. Martha Lauzen’s latest report, “Thumbs Down - Representation of Women Film Critics in the Top 100 U.S. Daily Newspapers.”  But it’s not so natural that women continue to be underrepresented in all areas of film journalism, dwindling resources or not.  Among Lauzen’s findings: larger proportions of the films women reviewed had romantic themes, were made by women filmmakers or featured women protagonists or ensemble casts.  However, the actual reviews written by men and women did not differ significantly in their length or nature.  It’s never too late to share your opinion, whether in the form of a review, or a comment on the study.  Or sit back and let the data, and reviews from fewer and fewer sources, speak for you.

Screenings, festivals, meetings and other events at at www.NewEnglandFilm.com/events/

Erin Trahan is the editor of NewEnglandFilm.com and the managing editor of The Independent.  Contact her at editor@newenglandfilm.com.

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