It’s easier now to get films made because of digital technology and falling costs for production. But “African-American directors still find it difficult to get financing for independent black films that don’t feature, say, Will Smith picking a gunfight on a freeway during rush hour. Obtaining theatrical distribution is an even greater challenge.”
Blog
How Indy Films Got Sold Out
A new book about Miramax studios and Harvey Weinstein chronicles the commercialization of independent film. The book “shows how Mr. Weinstein led greedy studio execs down a path paved with profits, promising and doling out Oscars with the help of megabucks publicity campaigns—and in the process, independent films became as commercialized as studio films.”
O’Keeffe Stolen, Then Recovered
A painting was stolen from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe early Thursday but was quickly recovered, and a security guard who reported the theft has emerged as a suspect, police said.
Harlem Boys Choir Leaders Under Fire To Resign
An explosive memo concerning leaders of the famed Boys Choir of Harlem and how they handled a case of abuse against one of the choir’s boys, threatens to result in the ouster of the choir’s founder. “The accusations against the Turnbulls have dealt the choir and its academy a painful blow at a time when both are struggling with their finances, as they have on and off for many years. The crisis could signify the end of an era for the group, which has performed from Yankee Stadium to Tokyo, and the beginning of a decidedly shaky future.”
Restoring The Grand Fenice
The restoration of Venice’s historic opera house La Fenice is completed. “In the local parlance, this house was realized com’era, dov’era–how it was, where it was. It’s as if you are walking into La Fenice for the very first time in 1837 (year after the first La Fenice, built in 1792, was burnt down and redesigned by Meduna brothers). It’s a paradox: old yet spanking new.”
Scottish Opera To Undergo “Fundamental Change”
The chief executive of Scottish Opera says that his company will have to endure “fundamental” changes in size, shape and output” because of funding caps by the government. “One authoritative insider last night suggested that the potential job losses in the ‘difficult transition’ at Scottish Opera could be as much as 80 from its current staff of around 200.”
Taking Vermeer To The Screen
A film is soon to be released about the painter Vermeer. But there’s a problem. “It’s not only the man but his art that is tantalisingly silent: just as no pithy quotes from Vermeer or anecdotes about the time he punched Pieter de Hooch in the face survive, nothing is known about the women in his paintings, or the stories they seem to hint at. And there’s the rub. In fact it makes film-makers of us all as we mentally complete the hints of narrative in his paintings, picturing scenarios, possibilities suggested by his inscrutable glimpses. Vermeer painted more than two centuries before the invention of cinema, but he anticipated the way films make a world and fill it with light.”
Jarvi – At Home In Gothenberg
Neeme Järvi is “one of those conductors who never quite made it to the leadership of one of the world’s great orchestras but who has made an essential contribution by bolstering symphonic music on the periphery. When he arrived at Gothenberg in 1982 the orchestra was decidedly second division; now its only rival as the leading Scandinavian orchestra is the Oslo Philharmonic, and on many counts it can claim superiority.”
British Recording Group Investigates Amazon For CD Sales
Amazon.com is being investigated by the British Phonographic Industry for selling cheap CD’s acquired outside the UK. “The BPI said it was questioning as routine whether Amazon was selling CDs obtained outside the European Economic Area, contravening UK law.”
The War On Terrorism (and Foreign Artists?)
New U.S. customs rules put in place by the Bush administration have the potential to severely limit the ability of foreign-born artists to tour North America, and Canadian organizations are worried that their cultural trade will be directly affected by the actions of the American government. Artists who were born outside of certain pre-approved countries “can expect to be detained [at the U.S. border] under the new U.S. Homeland Security regulations for digital fingerprinting, photographing and a short interview, even if their work visas have been pre-approved by U.S. authorities.” Many performers are unwilling to risk such humiliating treatment, and are cancelling planned trips to North America.