“In a jolt to the independent film world, Geoffrey Gilmore has resigned his longtime post as director of the Sundance Film Festival to become the creative director of Tribeca Enterprises, a New York company that includes the Tribeca Film Festival among its ventures. The move promises to realign two of independent cinema’s most powerful institutions.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Needed ASAP: A Stronger Case For The Arts
Arts partisans are celebrating their stimulus victory, but Greg Sandow contends that it really wasn’t such a coup. The arguments made on behalf of the arts “aren’t nearly strong enough,” he writes. “The arts are going to need a better strategy. And in the end it’s going to have to come from art itself, from the benefits art brings, in a world where popular culture — which has gotten smart and serious — also helps bring depth and meaning to our lives.”
Helen Mirren To Play D.C. In National Theatre’s Phèdre
“In something of a glittery coup for the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren will be featured this September at the troupe’s Sidney Harman Hall, in a visit by the Royal National Theatre’s new production of ‘Phèdre.’ … Officials of the Shakespeare Theatre say that Mirren’s D.C. appearance, which will follow a three-month run of the play in London, is at this point the only U.S. engagement of the Jean Racine tragedy.”
Art Moscow Postpones, Hoping Things Will Perk Up By Fall
“Art Moscow, one of Russia’s biggest contemporary-art fairs, has been postponed to September to tap a crowd headed for a larger exhibition, as falling oil prices and squeezed credit quell art purchases among the nation’s rich.” The director of the company that puts on Art Moscow, which was to have opened May 14, put it this way: “By September, everyone will have gotten used to the new reality of the crisis.”
B’way Survey: Advance Sales Climbed, Critics Have Clout
“International ticket sales for Broadway shows dipped slightly last season, but advance purchases rose. Those were among the trends logged by the Broadway League in a study of Rialto demographics in the 2007-08 season.” Last season saw “the highest percentage (12.4%) of children or teens on the Rialto in 30 years,” the survey found, “and legit critics still have the power to sell tickets to Broadway plays.”
To Symbolize Peace, A Building With Bomb Shelters
“With all the ironies crushing down on it, it’s amazing this building is still standing. Opening shortly after a devastating conflict, the Peres Peace House is a venue for propagating peace and improving ties between Israel and its neighbours. Furthermore, this smart new piece of architecture is named after Shimon Peres…. While the Peres Centre arranges for the treatment of injured Gaza children in Israeli hospitals, Peres publicly defends the military attacks that put them there.”
Lawyer: Dreamspace Artist Could Not Have Foreseen Deaths
“A jury should clear the creator of an inflatable artwork that blew away killing two people, because the prosecution had not offered enough evidence to convict him of manslaughter, a court heard today. Dreamspace artist Maurice Agis, 77, could not have predicted the conditions that saw his 164ft by 164ft (50m by 50m) PVC creation flip into the air after a gust of wind lifted it from the ground, his barrister told Newcastle Crown Court.”
Cinemas Sued Over Lack Of Captions For Hearing-Impaired
“Captioned showings remain rare, and existing technology that would allow attendees to read along at their seats is rarely used. Now, a small group of Washington residents hopes to change that through a lawsuit filed earlier this month in King County Superior Court. As others have around the nation, the lawsuit’s proponents claim that most King County theaters are violating disability laws by failing to make the movies accessible to people with limited hearing.”
Envy Is To Schadenfreude As Hunger Is To Eating
“It is a vice few can avoid yet nobody craves, for to experience envy is to feel small and inferior, a loser shrink-wrapped in spite. … Now researchers are gleaning insights into the neural and evolutionary underpinnings of envy, and why it can feel like a bodily illness or a physical blow. They’re also tracing the pathway of envy’s equally petty foil, the sensation of schadenfreude — taking pleasure when those whom you envied are themselves brought down low.”
Their Target Gone, Billionaires For Bush Disband
The fallout of Obama’s inauguration has been particularly harsh for the satirical group Billionaires for Bush, whose raison d’être was skewering the last president. “The group might have recast itself as Billionaires for Obama. But that would have required ‘irony we can believe in,’ said Andrew Boyd, who sometimes goes by his Billionaire name, Phil T. Rich. ‘Here’s the conundrum,’ Mr. Boyd said. ‘Can you point out that the emperor has no clothes when you like the emperor — and his clothes?'”