Useful Info in #50

Absolutely love this last issue! Came away with a lot of very useful information. Just wondering how many people have pointed out to your art director that the large picture of the Canon XL1 with the Mini 35 adapter on page 28 is… reversed! No biggie. Your mag is great. Keep it up.

—Ted Stratton, PHOENIX, AZ

Ted—A few! Thanks for the kind words. —TR

Long Live Duvall

Ijust finished reading your wonderful interview with Robert Duvall in the latest issue of MM. All I can say is Bravo! It's the best interview I've read... ever. I've met Mr. Duvall and he is positively charming and I think you captured this charm and his intelligence, along with a wonderful rundown of his career. I've seen Assassination Tango and to say that I loved this movie would be an understatement, since I've managed to see it nine times and can't wait for the DVD. So Mr. Duvall, independent moviemaker, needs a new story to tell? Well, I for one will be thinking of something. I hope this man works until he's 100. Thanks again.

—Mary Ann Cavalleri, NEW YORK, NY

Letter to Editor was “Sour Grapes”

As a filmmaker who will sorely miss Next Wave Films, I feel compelled to offer a rebuttal to the reader whose letter you published in your Winter issue. My film, Fighter, was repped and received finishing funds from Next Wave Films, and I found them anything but “unresponsive.” On the contrary. Once they took on a film, that film became their personal crusade. Mark Stolaroff and the gang burned the midnight oil many a night for Fighter, even after they found me a distributor. Peter Broderick never ignored my calls. On the contrary, we spent long hours on the phone hashing out minutia like the precise wording of press releases. I found their investment in the film generous, at no small risk to themselves. And I know my perspective on Next Wave is not unique. Every filmmaker I know who worked with them had a positive experience. This reputation was widespread, as evidenced by the over 2,400 submitted films that Next Wave had to turn away. Which, by the way, may explain the reader's sour grapes. Paine mentions “mature” filmmakers in his diatribe. Mature filmmakers don't complain about a popular institution just because their phone calls aren't returned right away.

—Amir Bar-Lev, NEW YORK, NY

Moviemaking Booming at “End of World”

Dear Mr. Rhys:

Hello, I'm writing from Santiago, Chile. I subscribed to your magazine a few months ago, and I received this week your Special 50th Issue, with a smiling Robert Duvall on the cover. I didn't know anything about your magazine until I discovered it on the Internet when I was searching for a good movie magazine, because here we don't really have any. Very interesting and complete source. Just exactly what I needed! I subscribed and now have my first issue of your great magazine in my hands. I read your “Notebook” and I totally agree with you about the DV phenomenon. It's to be a huge movement in U.S., but believe me, here at the end of the world it's not so different.

In Chile it used to be common to hear the saying, “Pick up a stone from the floor, and you'll find a poet.” We have a great historical tradition of poets, including two Nobel prizes. But now, under every stone and in every cafe you seem to find a filmmaker that says to you “Shhhh! We are shooting!” Starting five or six years ago, we are in a real boom of cinema—and it's still growing. Lots of young people are making shorts or movies on DV and 35mm, and a lot of universities are including film in their offerings. The demand to study filmmaking is enormous. But we don't have a film industry yet—it's growing up like a teenager, searching for maturity and identity, with the same energy, doubts and dullness of adolescence. That's the same situation for our country, really.

This is a country in the middle—not in the third world anymore, but not in the first world, either. Just growing and growing (for good or for bad). Ten years ago, Chile was very different  than now. It's no longer anymore “Macondo” (like the little town in Gabriel García Márquez's, One Hundred Years of Solitude), now it's more like McOndo (like a McDonald's in Plaza Tobalaba Shopping Mall, a low  class suburb of Santiago). In the '70s and '80s, all the films here were about the difficult political situation, in a sort of guerrilla style. Today, the political issues in Chilean movies are minimal. You can find almost all genres, especially social comedies like in Italy in the '50s and '60s. This is good, but still I'm waiting for great Chilean movies, for a real industry with diversity and power. In some Latin countries you can find very powerful films, like Adrián Caetano's Bolivia in Argentina and Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También in Mexico. But I have a lot of hope in Chilean Cinema.

I want to make movies in the future... I bought a Panasonic DV camcorder and every week I write some ideas in my sketchbook. I'm in the middle of the poles you mentioned, between your 10-year-old son and 72-year-old Robert Duvall; part of this global movement. I started to shoot recently, and I've taken many courses—film criticism, theory and screenwriting—over the past five years. Here in Chile you have a lot of chances to do things. It's not so difficult to make some media noise—you only need ideas and enthusiasm. Even this e-mail encourages me to get out and shoot something.

— José Luis Gaete, SANTIAGO, CHILE

”Mean-spirited” Attack on Next Wave Unfair

Having been President of Next Wave Films during its five-and-a-half years of operation, I’d like to correct the most glaring inaccuracies in John Paine’s mean-spirited letter about Next Wave (Issue #49, Vol. 10). Paine clearly misunderstood or misinterpreted what he asserts “one Next Wave associate” said, since his description of Agenda 2000’s record is patently false. Next Wave provided production financing through Agenda 2000 to three features, two of which we fully financed without stars. Paine also states that Agenda 2000 “went nowhere.” Two of the films are in post-production and the third, Manic, premiered at Sundance, played at Toronto, Rotterdam, Seattle and other festivals and is opening theatrically this spring.

Paine’s description of our record of finishing films is also erroneous. He states that we acquired films “at a pittance.” The truth is that Next Wave made substantial investments in the films we finished—both in terms of money for completion and delivery, and in the countless hours of staff support with festivals, press, sales and distribution.

Paine is entitled to his embittered opinions, but his analysis of the role of money in independent filmmaking today is also false. The crisis is one of distribution, not financing. Filmmakers with limited financial resources are using digital tools to make exceptional movies. But as the barriers to production have fallen, the barriers to distribution have risen. The old distribution system is no longer serving independents. We need to create new models that will give audiences around the world full access to outstanding independent cinema.
—Peter Broderick, LOS ANGELES, CA