IFP's Independent Film Week & Conf. Courts Fresh Voices

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Parent Category: Expos and Conventions

Category: Previews

Published on Friday, 10 September 2010 16:47

Written by Laura Blum

Revving up for its 32nd edition, IFP’s Independent Film Week and Filmmaker Conference is set to turn New York City into a pageant for independent film maker royalty from September 19 to September 23, 2010. Let the discussions, screenings and networking begin.

If the recent past is an indication, these two inter-related events --essentially a professional conference that is open to the public in various ways -- will draw more than 2,000 filmmakers, film industry professionals and lay cinephiles. 

The country’s oldest convocation of indie cinema types centers on the Project Forum, where selected filmmakers show projects ranging from films in development to those in the early stages of production and even nearly completed work. Attendees will shop among the offerings of the Independent Filmmaker Labs and the prête à porter tiles of the Showcase Screening Series.

The former will bring first-time directors whose fiction and documentary projects are in the post-production or at the rough cut phase. The latter shows new films for the wider public, in partnership with Rooftop Films and other organizations.

Under the aegis of IFP Executive Director Joana Vicente, Independent Film Week allegedly saw a 90% increase in submissions in 2010, yielding a roster of 150 projects.

A leitmotif of this year's endeavor is to rethink old axioms, cultivate artists beyond the usual New York and Los Angeles strongholds and seduce the industry with new work while garnering popular support for independent film projects. Matching independent film and media artists with potential funders, stakeholders and/or producers is another big mission of the event.

Narratives on tap include Jodie Foster’s Cockeyed; Fred Schepisi’s The Secret River and new work by Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Jack Goes Boating) and Mira Nair (The Namesake). Among the nonfiction slate are Earth Camp One, from Jennie Livingston (Paris is Burning) and Fame High from The Garden director Scott Hamilton Kennedy.

The Emerging Narrative section has burnished its reputation as a discovery forum for producers, agents and managers and development executives seeking promising projects. Established directors shopping projects include Maggie Greenwald (Songcatcher), Tony Kaye (American History X) and Dover Kosashvili (Late Marriage).

This year’s No Borders International Co-Production Market carries 45 projects, and the Spotlight on Documentaries, 70. Established documentary directors in the mix include Judith Helfand (Blue Vinyl), Robinson Devor (Zoo), Sarah and Emily Kunstler (William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe) and William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One)

For the first time, the Independent Film Week, formerly called the IFP Market, will also present an in-gathering of festival programmers called the Festival Forum.

This year’s annual Independent Filmmaker Conference is titled The Future of Film. Its task is to engage the indie film community in a collective forecast of what’s next on the filmmaking horizon. Headlining the forum are HBO Documentary Films President Sheila Nevins, Cinetic Media founder John Sloss and Power to the Pixel’s Liz Rosenthal. 

To launch each day of the Filmmaker Conference, there will be a Conversations With… Rosenthal will share her thoughts on mining movies for other media platforms; Nevins will draw lessons from her many-splendored experience in marketing documentaries; and Sloss, reflecting on wisdoms gained from his The Kids Are All Right and Exit Through the Gift Shop, will discuss selling and distributing films that defy easy categorization.

Delving into specific experiences, the Conference will also examine daily Case Studies on the year’s salient indie films, from Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture and the Duplass Brothers’ Cyrus to Sundance 2010 Grand Jury Prize laureates Winter’s Bone, by Debra Granik, and Restrepo, by Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger.

Not everything is a matter of How To. Each day of the Conference will witness Cage Match, pitting industry heavy hitters against one another to duke out truths about provocative issues. For far-flung audiences following the slam online, there will be a chance to weigh in on the IFP website.

To be sure, the push to create give and take is a recurrent theme in this year’s program design. As if taking the cue from crowd sourcing, the IFP is urging filmmakers and viewers from around the world to join the fray and work towards a plurality of ideas about film’s future. Users needn’t wait till the Conference begins in order to participate; already they can go online and joust with selected panelists, among numerous other initiatives inviting their genius. 

For the full picture, see www.ifp.org

Independent Film Week
September 19 to 23, 2010
Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.)
Seventh Avenue at 27 Street
New York, NY 10001
(212) 217-7999

Project Forum
28th Street
(between 7th- 8th Avenues)

Filmmaker Conference
27th Street
(between 7th - 8th Avenues)

IFP
68 Jay Street Room 425
Brooklyn, NY 11201
212-465-8200

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