Go Here for the new one:  http://factorytwentyfive.wordpress.com

Here's the Variety Article:

New indies find fertile ground

Shingles tailor biz to new rules

Borderline got a jolt of coin from the sale of 'Martha Marcy May Marlene.'

Reports of the death of New York independent filmmaking have been greatly exaggerated.

Jolted by startups like Celine Rattray and Trudie Styler's Maven Pictures, suddenly adventurous financiers, record-high state tax credits, lower budgets, revamped business models and reopened distrib pocketbooks, indie film producers are experiencing a renaissance.

Yes, outfits like New Line Cinema and Rattray's former shingle Mandalay Vision are still being consolidated into their parent companies' Los Angeles homes. Producers' fees are lower, and overhead deals are nearly impossible to find. But as they make painful adjustments to post-recession realities, emerging producers are adapting, finding funds and having their first big breakthroughs.

"The old model of how an independent producer grows has changed a lot, and new producers are navigating new territory," says producer and Filmmaker Magazine editor Scott Macaulay. "Making a first-time film for $2.5 million wasn't a crazy idea, but now a number of people say you should make it for $600,000 or $300,000. New technologies and digital projection at festivals have allowed budgets to come down."

The first big ray of hope came with last fall's sales boom in Toronto. The watershed was Sundance, where low-budget narrative films without big-name stars were snapped up by specialty divisions like Fox Searchlight ("Another Earth," "Martha Marcy May Marlene") and Focus ("Pariah").

Combined with niche hits like "Winter's Bone," these deals offered further encouragement to producer/financiers like BCDF Pictures ("Higher Ground"), Maybach Cunningham Entertainment ("Martha …") and Super Crispy Entertainment ("Like Crazy"), as well as individuals who can now afford to play patron of the arts on very low-budget projects. Features from upstart Gotham-based outfits like Red Bucket Films (home of the picmakers Joshua and Ben Safdie) and the nonprofit Artists Public Domain ("Another Earth") suddenly seemed like much safer bets.

"There's a real outlet for movies at this budget level on VOD and in a festival platform," says "Tiny Furniture" producer Alicia Van Couvering, whose $50,000 film earned about as much from on-demand rentals as from the $392,000 it made in theaters.

Some producers are setting up shop because of the lack of Gotham opportunities, not in spite of them. "It didn't make sense to go out into the marketplace hoping a production company would hire me," explains Table Ten Films co-founder Molly Pearson, who raised funds for her upcoming debut feature, "The Green," through her theater company's investors. "It seemed like the safer thing was developing content with (partner) Paul (Marcarelli) and having that potentially function as a calling card."

Others are encouraged by the overall economics. "I've made three movies in Michigan in the last two years. (State tax credits there are) now capped and much harder to pull off in terms of a guaranteed rebate," says Maven's Rattray ("The Kids Are All Right"). She loves the record high $420 million annual cap on New York State's 30% film tax credit enacted last fall, and that it won't expire until December 2014. "It makes so much sense to shoot here now, just from a financial standpoint."

Styler ("Moon") says Gotham has financial advantages that London (home of her other production shingle, Xingu Films) and other cities don't. "There are more supporters of the arts here who will have a punt because they're passionate about movies, so you have a bigger list to draw from for equity," she says. "You can find money in some unexpected places."

Paper Street Films co-founder Austin Stark has one partner (Benji Cohen) from Bear Sterns and another (Chris Papavasiliou) who still works at Goldman Sachs. (A fourth, Bingo Gubelmann, focuses on producing such films as Tony Kaye's "Detachment"). "The main reason we wouldn't move (to Los Angeles) is that without our investor base, we wouldn't be making films," he says.

But Wall Street friends aren't always essential. Parts and Labor co-founder Jay Van Hoy ("Beginners") notes that production partners, grants from New York-based nonprofits like Cinereach and even the online fundraising site Kickstarter can be essential to many of the low-budget films that drive his prolific company. "Twenty-five thousand dollars is a major help for a film (that costs less than) $700,000," he notes.

Indie film outfits are adapting and surviving primarily by diversifying, with an increased focus on more lucrative television, commercials, branded entertainment and Internet projects.

"At Sundance, everyone saw that you can have a business making movies for a couple of hundred thousand dollars and not a couple of million, but those movies are hard to make," notes Van Couvering. Her sophomore producing effort, "Nobody Walks," is funded by Super Crispy and stars John Krasinski, yet she still needs to write for magazines, ghostwrite and consult on film budgets and scheduling to pay the bills.

Even more established Gotham producers need creative ways to supplement the industry's less-than-steady income. Swarovski Entertainment, the branded-content division of the crystal house, hired Primary Prods. founder Amy Kaufman ("The Whistleblower") as an consultant for its features. "I think you have to be incredibly crafty in these times," Kaufman says. "That's been my little side business, which has worked out really nicely."

Producer Noah Harlan (the Cannes entry "Return") develops mobile apps through his Two Bulls outfit. And newer players like Toy Closet Films use branded entertainment to fund their inhouse development slate, which includes George A. Romero screenplays.

Many Gotham outfits that set out to exclusively tackle film have turned to TV for the larger, often more reliable income it provides. Locomotive's Lucy Barzun Donnelly and Joshua Astrachan got into it when their first planned theatrical outing, "Grey Gardens," ended up at HBO. They are now considering a reality series, though their main focus will remain on features like the upcoming "Friends With Kids."

Commercials and musicvideos are now essential for several New York-based film companies. One of Sundance's biggest success stories is Brooklyn-based Borderline Films, a collective run by director/producers Antonio Campos, Sean Durkin and Josh Mond, who've been able to pay crew members more on commercials than features.

"We're paying our rent just to survive with commercial work," said Campos in January, shortly after Fox Searchlight nabbed their "Martha Marcy May Marlene" for a reported $1.6 million. "My phone literally shut off about an hour into the negotiations because I couldn't pay my phone bill," he added. Things have changed: Mond says they're now looking for their own Brooklyn office thanks to the Searchlight sale.

Speak to any New York producer and themes you'll hear time and again are community, collaboration, mentorship and unselfishly sharing information with others -- more what you'd expect from Peace Corps volunteers than the cutthroat film industry. Many extol organizations like IFP and their shared hardships during dire economic times seem to have only strengthened their bond.

"We borrow a lot from what Silicon Valley does when small startups there share information -- it's one big think tank," notes Toy Closet partner Ryan Silbert. "That's going to be the future for producers in New York."

Factory Boy: Matt Grady Talks Distribution

By Durga Chew-Bose   



Until then check out the article in the Wall Street Journal Today...

The Art is in the Packaging by Steve Dollar

Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

The DVD appears to be an endangered species, soon to join such formats as the cassette, the VHS tape and the struggling CD in stoop-sale oblivion.

"More people are counting on VOD [video-on-demand] or, sadly, torrents," Matt Grady said, acknowledging the popularity of both legal and illegal downloads as a media-delivery system.

Mr. Grady, who distributes independent films through his Factory 25 label, makes several of the dozen titles in his growing catalog available on iTunes. But he's also gone in a seemingly contrary direction. He's released select titles in elaborate special-edition packages with vinyl LPs.

"I wanted to take these art films and make them into a physical piece of art," said Mr. Grady, who since launching in September 2009 has run Factory 25 out of his Park Slope apartment. His first release was "Frownland," an intense, low-budget psychodrama directed by Ronald Bronstein (who recently won a Gotham Award for breakthrough actor in the film "Daddy Longlegs").

The package is over the top: a gatefold album containing the film's soundtrack and the DVD; a comic book drawn by actor Mary Bronstein (as her alienated character); printed excerpts from a 70,000-word email exchange between the two lead actors (in character); a poster; and an actual snippet of 16mm film from Mr. Bronstein's work print. "Buy several thousand copies and reconstruct the entire film!" Mr. Grady urges customers perusing the catalog page on his website (factorytwentyfive.com).

"I'm trying to make the packaging as great as possible," he said, "so hopefully people if they are buying things, they want to buy something nice that someone put some time and effort into—not some throwaway package."

Mr. Grady was previously a partner with filmmaker Gary Hustwit ("Objectified") in Plexifilm, which favored music-themed projects such as the Wilco documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." His background in music video and distribution helped secure backing from Warner Music Group, as did an emphasis on releases that targeted a range of music genres: "You Weren't There," about the Chicago punk scene of the 1970s; "Until the Light Takes Us," a documentary about Norwegian black metal; "All the Way from Michigan, Not Mars," a documentary about the singer-songwriter Rosie Thomas; "High School Record," an obscure 2005 feature starring members of Los Angeles bands No Age, Mika Miko and Lavender Diamond.

"I'm drawn to uniqueness in authorship and something that really hits me," Mr. Grady said of his curatorial instincts. "They're a wide range of films, but they have the same edge."

The label also champions more mainstream fare. Factory 25's latest release is "NY Export: Opus Jazz," a filmed performance of the 1958 Jerome Robbins ballet reprised by members of the New York City Ballet at various locations around the city. The vibrant document, shot by young New York filmmakers Jody Lee Lipes and Henry Joost ("Catfish"), aired as part of the PBS series "Great Performances."

Mr. Grady also distributed Mr. Lipes's previous project, "Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same," a challenging, provocative documentary about the Brooklyn artist that has divided audiences with transgressive scenes not likely to show up on public television.

"Matt creates a beautiful presentation that says a lot about what you are going to see, and he makes the owning of a film sacred by designing its contents with so much care," Mr. Lipes said. "A DVD/record from Factory 25 is always something you want to put out in your apartment so everyone can see it. It's a work of art in itself."

Ry Russo-Young, whose new film "You Wont Miss Me" will be released by Factory 25 on DVD next spring, is part of a circle of promising New York indie filmmakers who are working with Mr. Grady.

"It's almost like a Criterion model," she said, referring to Criterion Collection, which has set the standard for high-end video packaging with imaginative graphic design and archival extras. "Matt's thinking about film as an extension of more material objects."

The standard-edition DVD of Ms. Russo-Young's film will include items such as excerpts from an improvised session with the lead actor, Stella Schnabel, developing her volatile character, Shelly Brown. The limited edition will include the diary Ms. Schnabel created as Shelly, as well as an LP by Stylofone, a now-defunct band featured in the film.

"There's no indie equivalent of Criterion," Mr. Grady said, "and that's what I'm trying to build. I want to bring it to the next level. I want these packages to be like fetish pieces."

 

From Pitchfork

If you're in search of this generation's Brooklyn hipster-pop equivalent of Singles (or at least Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist), there's a promising candidate in the form of Wah Do Dem, a new movie from directors Sam Fleischner and Ben Chace. Singer-songwriter Sean Bones stars as a recently-dumped Brooklyn skateboarder who gets lost in Jamaica after winning a free cruise. Norah Jones and Yeasayer's Ira Wolf Tuton also star in the film, and it features appearances by Suckers (who perform live in the film) and MGMT's Ben Goldwasser, as well as music from Santigold, Yeasayer, MGMT, Suckers, the Congos, and Bones.

The film arrives on DVD October 26, via Factory 25. Watch a trailer below, and click here to hear songs from the soundtrack.

The film screens at BAMcinemaFEST on Tuesday, June 15th and opens in Boston on Friday, June 25th with additional dates to follow
 
NEW YORK – WAH DO DEM, a new reggae-infused film starring Sean Bones and Norah Jones, will open in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, June 18th. The film will screen at the BAMcinemaFEST film festival on Tuesday, June 15th at BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY), and will open theatrically in Boston on Friday, June 25th with additional dates to follow.

mabye by brock enright and kirsten deirup from factory twenty five on Vimeo.

The "Apartment Sessions" album features acoustic tracks from sessions recorded in Sufjan Stevens' apartment prior to the Friends of Mine release.

Limited Edition LP Tracklist:

1. If This City Never Sleeps
2. Why Waste More Time
3. The One I Love
4. Much Farther to Go
5. Talking Bit
6. Paper Doll
7. Kite Song
8. Songbird
9. Talking Bit
10. All the Way to New York City
11. Say Hello
12. Talking Bit

Top 100 Most Anticipated Films of 2010: Braden King's Here

Posted by Eric Lavallee on Jan 14, 2010
Source: IONCINEMA.com Feature

#55. Here

Director: Braden King
Writer(s): Dani Valent and King
Producers: Parts and Labor's Jay Van Hoy and Lars Knudsen
Distributor: Rights Available.

Photo Exclusive: Featuring Lubna Azabal and Ben Foster. (Photo credit) Lion & Wheel.

The Gist: Will Shepard (Foster) is an American satellite-mapping engineer contracted to create a new, more accurate survey of the country of Armenia. Within the industry, his solitary work - land-surveying satellite images to check for accuracy and resolve anomalies - is called “ground-truthing”. He’s been doing it on his own, for years, all over the world, but on this trip, his measurements are not adding up. Will meets Gadarine Najarian (Lubna Azabal) at a rural hotel. ....(more)
 

Cast: Lubna Azabal and Ben Foster.
 

Why is it on the list?: It's hard enough making an indie film, even more difficult to make an indie film in a country that doesn't have the infrastructure for filmmaking whatsoever. I imagine that the screenplay about a human connection between two people via a landscape that is foreign to them may hold something special since it was workshopped and supported by the folks at Sundance, Rotterdam, Tribeca and Cannes.
 

Release Date/Status?: Was still in post when Sundance made its selections, so this is going to a Cannes sidebar and it might make sense for a U.S. preem at NYFF.