geoff gilmore Tagged Articles at Cinematical

After almost a month in limbo that left the film community eagerly awaiting the news of a replacement for Geoff Gilmore, Sundance Institute announced in a press release late last night that they are appointing John Cooper as the director of the Sundance Film Festival. According to a story in indieWIRE, Gilmore announced, much to the surprise of many industry professionals, last month that he would be leaving the fest after 19 years to take the position of Chief Creative Officer for Tribeca Enterprises.

Cooper, the former Director of Programming for the Sundance Film Festival and Director of Creative Development for the Sundance Institute, has pioneered several new initiatives for Sundance over the past few years including New Frontier on Main, Sundance at BAM, The Sundance Institute Art House Project and the distribution of Sundance shorts through various digital platforms like iTunes and XBOX.

In the press release, Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford is quoted as saying, "When we established the Festival, it was always with two goals in mind: supporting new artists and inspiring new audiences. Cooper has never lost sight of these goals. He brings to the position an infectious enthusiasm as well as a deep understanding of the Sundance brand and culture. Forward thinking, he is a natural choice of succession to lead the Festival into the 21st century."

In this week's Indie Roundup: The reverberations in the indie film world continue from yesterday's announcement about Geoff Gilmore's job change. (See Festivals below.) One person really can make a difference!

Deals. John Travolta may have put away his dancing shoes year ago, cinematically speaking, yet his role in Saturday Night Fever continues to be influential. Pablo Morrain's Larrain's * disturbing Chilean drama Tony Manero was picked up by Richard Lorber for his new Lorber Films label, according to indieWIRE. The film follows a 50-year-old man who is obsessed with the title character played by Travolta in the 70s disco sensation. Lorber Films plans a quick release in April or May. The trailer is embedded below.

IFC Films acquired US rights to Bruce McDonald's Pontypool, described by iW as a "Canadian zombie horror-thriller." The film will be released for VOD on May 27 and will also get a theatrical release beginning on May 29.

Box Office. An Italian mob movie and a Brooklyn romantic drama made noticeable impressions at the box office last weekend. Gomorrah scored $15,540 per screen at five theaters, and Two Lovers did $13,569 at seven, per Box Office Mojo. Did Joaquin Phoenix's appearance on David Letterman's show help or hurt the movie? Advertising Age wonders.

Festivals. Anne Thompson of Variety says that Geoff Gillmore has been talking about leaving Sundance for quite a while; the native New Yorker told Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE: "I really want to move to New York." Gilmore will be exploring "the ways that festivals become platforms for new enterprises." The Wrap claims that "In the industry, the consensus was that however Gilmore changes Tribeca, his efforts will better the organization." I'm waiting for the first comparison of Gilmore to President Obama.

In a move that has shaken the foundations of the independent film world (italics and exaggeration added), Geoff Gilmore has left the Sundance Film Festival and accepted a position with Tribeca Enterprises. indieWIRE has the complete story, which has sparked widespread reactions in the blogosphere, ranging from "What?!" to "Woah."

Gilmore has been named Chief Creative Officer with Tribeca Enterprises and will be responsible for "Tribeca's global content strategy, lead creative development initiatives and expand the Tribeca brand." (Into what -- shoes?) Gilmore spent 19 years at Sundance and has overseen the festival's rise to prominence as the premiere showcase in the world for American independent cinema. He has become synonymous with the fest, and the idea that he would leave, much less for the company behind the Tribeca Film Festival, which has a reputation for being "too rich and too big" (Variety, reporting on grumblings from a film fest summit) and for increasing 'premiere status pressure' among fests and filmmakers (A.J. Schnack provided an overview), has caught many by surprise.

"Woah," is what Karina Longworth said at Spout, before noting the "very different identities" of the two fests. "I am not 100% sure what to make of [it]," David Poland wrote at The Hot Blog. Tribeca faces the same problem as "any film festival with Top Tier fest ambitions faces ... they are not needed ... Is this really a big step or is it Mr. Gilmore leveraging his brand to get a contract that pays him double what Sundance was paying"? Jeff Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere echoes the latter thought: "He must have been offered a pretty rich deal to leave the top berth at Sundance." Wells also points to recent financial problems at Tribeca.

Sundance Film Festival director Geoff Gilmore announced the lineup of films that will be screening at the 2007 festival today, and said that choosing the 64 films that will appear in the four competition categories (dramatic, documentary, world cinema dramatic and world cinema documentary) was harder this year than ever before. While that's a bit like someone saying "You guys are the best crowd ever!" they definitely did have more films to choose from for the same number of slots, so who can blame him? They received 3,287 films for consideration this year, the most in the festival's 39-year history.

122 total films were chosen (not all of them screen in competition), and 82 of them will be world premieres. That's a heck of a lot of movies over two weeks. If you've ever attended Sundance in the past, then you know how difficult it is to get tickets. Passes are expensive and sell out quickly (in fact, only one level of pass is currently left, the $2500 Express Pass-B), however individual tickets will go on sale the week of January 9. You can pre-register right now through January 4 on the Sundance FIlm Festival website to receive a random, lottery-style time that will allow you to log in and purchase tickets that week.

Sundance is one of my favorite film festivals because of the sheer volume and variety of films that you are able to pick and choose from. Plus it's a chance to meet the filmmakers, other film lovers, and to experience it in beautiful Park City, Utah. The last two years that I've gone it was with minimum preparation and usually as a last-minute decision, but I've still managed to see at least 15 films in about five days each time. It's well worth the trip and enduring the cold to step out of your own world and into a creative environment, if just for a little while.

You can download a PDF file of all the 2007 Sundance Film Festival selections here. The festival runs from January 18th through the 28th -- time to start picking and choosing!

Entertainment Weekly has a Sundance Q&A with Kevin Smith up. In it, Smith discusses how Sundance director Geoff Gilmore pretty much guaranteed Clerks 2 a slot at Sundance (how many filmmakers would love to have that kind of in to Sundance?), but Harvey Weinstein turned the offer down cold in favor of debuting the film at Cannes instead. Smith talks in the piece about how he would have preferred to debut Clerks 2 at Sundance, since he got his start as a filmmaker after debuting Clerks there way back in 1994 (1994? Really? God, I feel old now).

I'm not sure how I feel about this move, actually. Smith says he trusts Weinstein knows what he's doing, but really -- wouldn't it seem to make a lot more sense to debut the follow-up to Clerks at Sundance? I'm not just saying that because I would have been able to see it there, either, although I wouldn't have complained about that. Smith fans, what do you think about Weinstein snubbing a Sundance offer for Clerks 2? Brilliant marketing move guaranteed to have the worlds' eye on the film at Cannes? Or major misstep by Weinstein?

[ via News Askew ]

I got a chance yesterday to sit down with Geoffrey Gilmore, longtime Director of the Sundance Film Festival. Geoff is all about the films, and through the course of our conversation he talked about everything from his programming strategy, to the potential impact of technology on the festival's future. You can download the file directly here, or scoop it up from the iTunes music store.

Format
QT MPEG4 (3IVX), 18:39, 66.8 MB

[Download Here]