Sundance and Slamdance

Subject: 2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL NOTIFICATION
From:"programming@sundance.org ..(External Utility Mailbox..)"
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:07:08 -0700

RE: Film ID#2675 - Praxis

Dear Alex,

On behalf of our programming staff, I would like to thank you for submitting your film to the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, we are not able to include it in our program this year. We received nearly one thousand more submissions this year (over 8,500 in total) than we did for the 2007 Festival, so many tough decisions had to be made in order to narrow the field down to under 200 films. Please rest assured that your work was carefully considered by our programming team, and the decision was incredibly difficult to say the least.

My sincere hope is that this decision does not discourage you in any way. I would like to wish you the best of luck with your film, and we look forward to having the opportunity to view your work in the future.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey Gilmore

Director, Sundance Film Festival

Subject: SLAMDANCE 2008 NARRATIVE FEATURE SUBMISSION From: Sarah Diamond Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:09:16 -0800 To: Sarah Diamond

Dear Filmmaker,
We am so sorry to tell you we were unable to include your feature into the 2008 Slamdance program. Thank you so much for submitting. Slamdance is limited by space constraints in Park City to program 15 narrative features, though the quality of submissions would allow us to program many more than that.

Please keep in mind that Slamdance is just one festival out of hundreds of others. Our film program is based on the subjective decisions of our programming committees. Please don’t take this rejection as any indication of the quality of your film, or its potential for a successful, well-regarded future.

We wish the best for you and your film.

Warm regards,
Slamdance Programming Department

a new day

hard to believe that it's december already. the year seemed to fly by, but in reality, there have been lots of really great things that have happened this year. but the cold air is coming really soon, and it's a great time to stay in, and work.

i've been watching a lot of an show called BROTHERHOOD, that's on showtime, and i guess they're hoping for it to replace the sopranos. anyhoo, if you haven't seen the show, i highly recommend it, particularly because the acting is incredible. ethan embry and jason issacs are both amazing to watch, and i think the thing about the show that i find appealing is that the story is told heavily on what's implied, on the visuals, the subtle and umcofortable feeling that develops when you don't know what people are really up to. there isn't a ton of background music to influence how you should feel about a scene, and you end up feeling pretty edgy about what's going to happen next. i love this kind of visual storytelling, and i definitely find it inspiring in the kind of filmmaking that i'm into. anyhoo, if you haven't seen the show, it's definitely worth checking out, and a definite must see for any aspiring actor.

on the film distribution end of things - i picked up a book called the insider's guide to independent film distribution by stacey parks, and so far it's right on target. the film industry is completely different than what it was even only a few years ago. when i first started writing PRAXIS, it was still difficult to make an indie feature, but in the time that it's taken to produce the film, the film distribution market has been flooded by miniDV features that it's incredibly difficult to get your work even shown. it helps to have something screen at a festival, but at the same time, if you think of the number of every film screened at every festival every year, even a distributor has a hard time figuring out what's worth investing in. it's not the distributor's fault - if you just think about it on your own terms, if a filmmaker came up to you and asked you to give up your own money to invest in distributing a film, what would it take? for me, it would be the least amount of risk and a higher chance at return and even a profit.

even though this is all the business side of things, it's the area that i need to do more research on, particularly on promoting PRAXIS. none of this has anything to do with art. it's all business. what it is that it's a new day, and it's important to remain patient and realistic. and also to develop a plan A, plan B, and plan C. in the meantime, i'm also working on some new scripts too, which gives me a good respite.

i think it's important to remember why you chose to make films, and to stick to it.