IFC First Take Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Acclaimed Indie 'Ballast' Goes the Self-Distribution Route
Filed under: Drama », IFC », Distribution », Cinematical Indie »
Talk about conflicted emotions! In a very fine article at indieWIRE, Anthony Kaufman reports on filmmaker Lance Hammer's recent decision to pull out of a distribution deal with IFC Films for his Sundance award-winning feature, Ballast. While I'm heartened that Hammer is willing to place creative control ahead of financial concerns, I'm also discouraged that there appears to be little room in the current distribution landscape for Hammer's critically-acclaimed independent drama to find its audience.
Ballast details the lives and connections between a man, a woman, and her son. It won praise from our own James Rocchi -- "Cineastes, looking for an American film that offers something on-screen other than glossy consumerist fantasies, will embrace Ballast with the ardent fervor of a drowning victim offered a rope" -- even though James acknowledged the challenges the film would face in drawing viewers from "outside the film festival circuit."
Paris-based sales outfit Celluloid Dreams nabbed nternational rights (outside the US) at Sundance, and then IFC made a deal for US rights in February. But Hammer told indieWIRE that, while he wasn't thrilled with the prospect of not even recouping his production budget from the deal, he was "particularly dissatisfied with the lengthy terms of the contract." All things considered, Hammer decided to walk away: "It becomes difficult to justify giving up creative control."
TIFF Update: Deals for President and Nation
Filed under: Documentary », Drama », Deals », IFC », Newmarket », Toronto International Film Festival »
Two more films that premiered in Toronto this week have acquired U.S. distribution: ...So Goes the Nation and, perhaps surprisingly, Death of a President. IFC bought the North American distribution rights to ...So Goes the Nation, a documentary about the American electoral process with a focus on Ohio during the 2004 Presidential campaign. IFC hopes to release the film before U.S. midterm elections this fall through its First Take arm, which simultaneously releases movies in theaters and on cable-on-demand channels.Newmarket took a chance and grabbed the U.S. distribution rights to Death of a President (aka DOAP), one of the more controversial films screening at TIFF this year. The mock-documentary narrative portrays a future in which President George W. Bush is assassinated, and manipulates live-action footage to make the fictional events look plausible. It seemed highly doubtful that any U.S. distributor would be interested in the film, which was produced by Channel 4 in the UK. Newmarket is probably used to controversy, having distributed The Passion of the Christ. I'll be interested to see what kind of release the film will have, and how amenable theaters will be about showing the film.
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