miranda july Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Today YouTube launched a new section of its site titled The YouTube Screening Room, which it calls a "platform for films from around the world to find the audiences they deserve." Here, they will showcase four short films every two weeks and will even offer an occasional feature. Some of the films have been previously screened at film festivals and some have been nominated for or have won an Academy Award. But others will be premiering on the site. Apparently, the filmmakers will be paid a percentage of YouTube's ad revenue based on views and each film will also feature a "Buy Now" button so that you can purchase that film or other films.

Today's debuts include Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody?, a 2005 short written by Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), directed by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl) and starring John C. Reilly, Mike White and July. I've embedded it above for your viewing pleasure. The other three are The Danish Poet, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2007, Love and War, which is a stop motion opera from Sweden, and Our Time is Up, which was nominated for Best Live Action Short in 2006 and which stars Kevin Pollak.

What's been going on over at Cinematical Indie the past few days? Let's take a peek ...

• In film distribution news, the provocatively titled Your Mommy Kills Animals (yeesh), which takes its name from a PETA brochure, scored distrib this week. The film played at HotDocs earlier this year to positive reviews from the likes of Variety and eFilmCritic, and sold out screenings at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival. Congrats to director Curt Johnson.
• This week's Indie Film Blog Group Hug tossed some love around to lots of blogs writing about interesting things in the world of film. Highlights: Christopher John Stack's film An Exercise in Vigilance is screening at the Action on Film International Film Festival in Long Beach, Movie City Indie's Ray Pride interviews filmmaker Usama Alshaibi, Lost in Negative Space blogger Peet Gelderblom has seen Famke Jenssen's sister in her underwear, and guess who's dating indie-film darling Miranda July ... ?
• Been wondering what the members of The Fugees are up to? Even if you haven't, you might be interested to know that former Fugee Pras Michel is starring in a documentary about homelessness. In the film Skid Row, Pras lived as a homeless person for nine days, recording the results on video. The film has been picked up for distrib by Screen Media Films, and will open August 24 in a limited NYC-LA-Washington DC run. If it plays well in those cities, maybe it will get a wider open down the road and the rest of us might get to see it.
• The Guardian posits the question: What great filmmakers haven't had real bios?
• Jette tells us about Paul Verhoeven's Soldier of Orange being made into a musical in the Netherlands -- but she's holding out hope for Showgirls!
• Ryan Stewart reviews Dr. Bronner's Magic Soapbox.

The sun went down on Sundance without festival audience fave and jury winner Quinceañera finding distribution, but it didn't take long for the film to get picked up in the opening days of the European Film Market at the Berlinale. According to indieWIRE, Celluloid Dreams, which last year handled 40 Shades of Blue and Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, acquired Quinceañera for an undisclosed sum.

Cinematical reviewed Quinceañera during Sundance, and also interviewed directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.

UPDATE: Cinematical just heard from director Wash Westmoreland, who confirmed that Celluloid Dreams are handling foreign sales for Quinceañera and are "knocking out territories left and right". American rights for the film, says Westmoreland, are "still up in the air, but we have some great possibilities".