Today’s New York Times has an article describing the current trend by indie filmmakers to make use of online financing to make their cinematic dreams a reality, citing of our own “Brasslands.”
This Friday the “Brasslands” trailer and Zlatne Uste, the subject of our new feature documentary will be featured in the Kickstarter Film Festival as a part of the Rooftop Films Summer Series.
Come out Friday night for a peek at our new project, the incredible music of Zlatne Uste, and an evening of other great kickstarter-supported films!
Brasslands has the distinction of being picked Kickstarter Project of the Day! This is very exciting because there are hundreds of quality projects the folks at Kickstarter have to chosen from. . .and they picked us!
Check out the Kickstarter homepage and thanks again for your support! We couldn’t have done this without YOU.
We are proud to announce that we’ve been featured in indieWIRE magazine, one of the top sources for independent film news and buzz. Each week, they feature a select few of their favorite upcoming films – Brasslands recently caught their attention!
indieWIRE is a fantastic publication to be noticed by: it was lauded as a “must read” by Variety, branded the “online heartbeat of the world’s independent film community” by Forbes, dubbed “best indie crossroads” by film critic Roger Ebert, and Entertainment Weekly writes that “the straightforward no-nonsense reporting most sites lack can be found here in abundance.”
A few of us got to spend the weekend at the POWfest (Portland, Oregon Women’s film fest) where we were representing our feature docStages and meeting lots of nice and talented lady makers. We got to be a part of Andrea Leoncavallo’s photo project dedicated to inspiring/inspired women — which is absolutely worth a gander:
An excellent weekend all around! Thank you, POWfest, thank you Portland, thank you talented women!
watch the new music video for FIELDED’s (Lindsay Powell solo project) song ‘another time’. we made it together on cold mornings in january before heading into the studio/rehearsal for the next FESTIVAL record. no animals were harmed during the creation of this video.
A year and a half ago, a group of filmmakers went out to shoot a protest. It would be a short little piece, poetic and informed, and go viral among various community groups and activist sites. For me personally, it would also be the first time to work with Meerkats. How could I say no? The project happened to be about the lot of land that sat outside of my window, the Atlantic Yards. I also knew about the controversy that surrounded it and was eager to get involved in the debate. Brooklyn Boondoggle seemed like the perfect fit — work with nice people that had just become my neighbors about a subject all too politically and socially relevant to ignore.
Needless to say, one shoot at a protest turned into days into weeks into a full-blown project for the Collective. And as I am now awakened by bulldozers at 7:45am, protests have turned into endless legal battles into the construction we were all hoping to forestall.
While Brooklyn Boondoggle has screened at various venues and film festivals, it never seemed like the right time to be officially unveiled. It’s inherently difficult to make a fluid subject stay relevant, gutsy and lasting, but we did our best. I’ll be forever grateful for the experience of making it with the group of dedicated people that have become my dear dear friends.
We thank the countless writers, artists, council members and community leaders that continue to voice opposition. We also eagerly await to see the feature doc, The Battle of Brooklyn. And even as the lightweight of our flock, I have yet to turn down a night of going to Freddy’s Bar, a true original and what we sincerely hope to be a mainstay of our neighborhood.
24 crazed hours. 10 brilliant people. 1 awesome film. Vote for our film in the online competition! We stand the chance to win up to $40,000 in prizes, so help out your local filmmaker (that’s us ) by clicking the link below – takes about 3, maybe 4 seconds.
We made the film in just 24 hours, soup to nuts. We harrowedly stayed up late writing the script, shot all day long and wrangled both kitties and fish, scored and recorded the brilliantly simple music, and (re)wrote the film in the editing room – all in a day’s work for the Meerkat Crew. Check out the raw results of our work below, and watch for a tuned-up version coming your way soon.
so, i’ve been up to my neck in newnesses. moved across the country to portland. lots of art/music/film happening here (trying not to stalk gus van sant or matt mccormick, for example). i have a little blog where i put the things i think about and make: hearsayandhyperbole.tumblr.com. here’s the latest, a stop-motion in a series about dreams/dreaming. it is an intimate arena and sometimes we share it with near strangers. i think that’s ok, and we should just let it happen. that’s what this video/song is about.
Here’s the trailer for an amazing theatre/multi-media production by the brilliant Temporary Distortion out of Queens. Beautiful. Thought-provoking. Terrifying. See it! Oct 24 – Nov 14 Performance Space 122
Hey, remember when Whole Foods CEO John Mackey crap talked public health care in a Wall St Journal op-ed this summer, alienating his liberal consumer base? I believe he said something like “A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This ‘right’ has never existed in America.” Boy, that gets me steamed. The poor don’t have the right to survive, but the rich always have the right to profit, right?
Luckily, our friends at the Brass Liberation Orchestra took action a couple days ago, and executed a kickin’ flash mob in a Whole Foods store in Oakland, California! They called Mackey out for his “let them eat cake” richie-richery, and shook their booties for health care as a human right–check the cool video above.
Thirsty for more? The Single Payer Action website has some good follow-up coverage of the action (as well as lyrics to the BLO’s awesome song!) Plus, if you’re interested, I had some words of my own for Mr. Mackey on my blog recently.
Our festival run is underway! Since it’s premiere, STAGES has been accepted to 5 different film festivals around the country. Here is the information about our upcoming screenings