Juan Diego Pérez/Entendre Films An Ecuadorean cancer victim’s reflection in an oil-polluted stream near her home in the documentary “Crude.”

5:10 p.m. | Updated

A federal judge in Manhattan on Thursday granted a petition by Chevron to issue a subpoena for hundreds of hours of footage from a documentary about the pollution of the Amazon rainforests of Ecuador and the oil company’s involvement.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of United States District Court said that the director Joe Berlinger would have to turn over more than 600 hours of footage from his documentary “Crude.” The film, which was released last year, chronicles the Ecuadorians who sued Texaco (now owned by Chevron) saying the operations of the companies’ oil field at Lago Agrio contaminated their water.

CTD…

Dispatch from Toronto | Hot Docs ’10: Pitch Perfect at the Toronto Documentary Forum

by Basil Tsiokos (May 7, 2010)

The scene at the Toronto Documentary Forum. Photo courtesy of Hot Docs/Joseph Michael.

Hundreds of broadcasters, funders, filmmakers, and other observers convened this Wednesday and Thursday morning for the Toronto Documentary Forum, North America’s largest documentary market, as part of the ongoing Hot Docs film festival. Led for the second year by Elizabeth Radshaw, the TDF selects twenty promising new projects for filmmakers to pitch for potential co-production support, providing invaluable access to the movers and shakers of the non-fiction world and allowing them to make an early impression that may pay off with a broadcast deal or at least open a door to acquisition meetings down the line.

A number of strong-sounding docs got pitched at this year’s TDF at HotDocs… but I’m a little astounded by the proposed budgets. When producers of fiction features (generally higher grossing than docs) are being told to keep budgets to the $200K range (see Ted Hope’s comments at IFP marketplace last fall), how do documentary makers think their ever going to recoup these budgets?

Tribeca looks to expand notion of film festival

By JAKE COYLE (AP) – 6 days ago

NEW YORK — When British director Mat Whitecross was growing up in Oxford, only so many movies screened in his local cinema — and not the intriguing movies he read about playing at film festivals or elsewhere.

Whitecross estimates that 90 percent of the films that were influential to him — such as “Taxi Driver” and “La Dolce Vita” — he watched “on very dodgy, knocked-off VHS tapes” or on TV early in the morning with commercial breaks.

“Better to have seen them that way than not at all,” he says.

Whitecross’ experience guides the ninth annual Tribeca Film Festival, which kicks off Wednesday amid concern that the volcanic ash disrupting air travel in Europe might ground some of the many European filmmakers who were planning to attend.

. In an effort to help films find audiences, movies won’t just be screening in downtown Manhattan.

A new distribution company, Tribeca Film, founded by the festival’s parent company, Tribeca Enterprises, will make a dozen movies — including Whitecross’ directorial debut “sex & drugs & rock & roll” — available on TV by way of video-on-demand in some 40 million homes. A “virtual festival” will also stream eight movies and 18 shorts online for viewers willing to shell out $45.

…ctd

A win-win for indy filmmakers and indy-loving audiences who can’t get to Manhattan (or can’t get a ticket.) Get the films on VOD and watch in your home theater. Now I’ve got to convince my little cableco to sign up!

How I Lost the Big One, Bigtime

By Marvin Ammori, April 7, 2010

On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit ruled on an important Internet law case I argued for Free Press on behalf of a range of “supporting intervenors” in the case. I wanted to post a few thoughts about the decision.

I’ll begin with how the decision affects you: It’s really bad news. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but I’m sure you’ve heard (from multiple news sources). The court decision is a stunning, sweeping defeat for the FCC and for its ability to protect consumers, foster competition and innovation, and preserve the Internet’s role as an engine of free speech and democratic discourse. It means, essentially, that the largest phone and cable companies can secretly block dozens of technologies used by large corporations, nonprofits and individuals to speak and organize, and the FCC can do nothing to protect us. (The subject of the Free Press-Comcast case, which this decision ctd…

SpringBoardMedia: Ken Price, Bukowski, Curation and Film

My favorite part of the show was over at the Franklin Parrasch Gallery in Midtown (only until April 20) – they have a collection of ephemera, books, postcards, album covers and even tequila bottles designed by or featuring art works by Ken Price. If you like his sculptures (I’m not as big of a fan of these as his other work, though they are what he’s most known for), then you must stop by to watch the ten minute video showing his process (layering up paint and then sanding it down to expose layers in patterns). Note to curators – put this video on YouTube once the show is over and his sales will likely triple. Anyway, the piece I most liked, and that I think is in a weird way most relevant to film, was a limited edition hard-bound coffee table book of Charles Bukowski’s Heat Wave, with drawings and original art work by Ken Price. The cover is the photo I’ve used here. As Black Sparrow’s website explains, the book was a large format (15×12) portfolio, with text by Bukowski (poems), illustrated with 17 black and white works by Price, handbound and including a disc of Bukowski reading his poetry and containing a compartment in the back with 15 original serigraphs which could be removed and framed. A limited, signed edition was made as well as a limited, unsigned edition and the entire thing came in a slipcase with a cool design.

I’m a fan of both Price and Bukowski (yes, I’ve not left my college reading days too far behind), but you don’t have to like either to think about how this could be used for film. Not every film, but some. I’ve often talked about ways to monetize content in a world where everything is increasingly becoming free – well, here’s a great example. I can see Price’s works for free, in galleries and online. Bukowski’s poems are all over the place, and even with his popularity, I can find them in numerous used bookstores for cheap. But this is a piece of art – when it first came out in 1996 it sold for about $3,500 and I imagine it’s worth much more now. I can’t afford it, but I bet the 100+ editions they made sold out. How can filmmakers duplicate this? Again, not everyone can, but I imagine there are fans who would buy something similar from many indie films. Perhaps stills from the film, coupled with the script, a DVD, etc. Or maybe the film, the soundtrack and text from an author that is in a similar vein as the subject of the film.  I’ve got lots of ideas for this, and I’m helping a few filmmakers whose films could definitely be re-purposed this way, but thought I’d share the idea with all of you, perhaps you can come up with an even better way to copy the idea in your work.