IFC, SXSW Experimenting with Festival Releases

IFC continues to tinker with release windows, trying to expand the audience for indie films. The latest experiment involves releasing Joe Swanberg's 'Alexander the Last,' along with films from Javor Gardev and Matthew Newton, on cable video-on-demand the same time they play the South by Southwest Film Festival in March.

Here's the Variety coverage.

From that piece:

"It's our job to connect talent with audiences," said SXSW's [Janet] Pierson. "Conversations are getting louder about how festivals can and should aggressively help filmmakers."

"It's a smarter way to make the release an event," added Swanberg. "Better than just sitting in a theater, waiting on people to come."

..."At a time when the U.S. marketplace for truly American independent and foreign films is rapidly changing, and many films are having difficulty getting exposure, IFC Films has created opportunities for a wide range of films to find an audience," said [IFC president Jonathan] Sehring.

New made-for-the-Web series: 'Butterknife'

Matt Dentler of SXSW writes about the new made-for-the-Web series from Joe Swanberg, 'Butterknife.' It's sponsored by Spout.com, and stars real-life spouses Ronald and Mary Bronstein as husband-and-wife.

Right now, Joe has a production blog, and he has posted a preview of the first season.

Joe mostly makes feature films, but his earlier Web series, 'Young American Bodies,' was sponsored by Nerve.com.

One more set-top box ... NY Times covers the 'mumblecore' movement

- I've got a short piece in Variety today about Building B Home Entertainment, which is trying to create the ultimate set-top box: live programming, on-demand content, personalization, and Internet access, delivered through a broadband connection and over-the-air broadcasting.

Interestingly, Building B has been so stealthy that the guys at Vudu, who are also building a set-top box and also in Silicon Valley, had never heard of them.

- I enjoyed this Sunday NY Times piece on the so-called 'mumblecore' movement (which includes filmmakers like Joe Swanberg and Andrew Bujalski). What was interesting to me is that even though these filmmakers are in their 20s, they haven't been all that adventurous about online distribution. Swanberg has told me a bunch of times that he just doesn't think the Net is there yet as a delivery vehicle for his movies...so his are still available only on DVD or in theaters.

Two Great Podcasts for the Price of None

Remember podcasts? Those great audio files you can listen to on your computer while you're doing other stuff -- or transfer to your iPod? They're free?

- Back in March, I moderated a really informative panel at South by Southwest on "Building an Online Fan Base." The MP3 audio is here, and for context, there's some textual coverage of the panel here. Panelists were:

> Scilla Andreen, IndieFlix
> Jim Miller, Brave New Foundation
> Ian Schafer, Deep Focus
> David Straus, Without A Box
> Joe Swanberg, Filmmaker
> Lance Weiler, Filmmaker and Editor, The Workbook Project

- Speaking of The Workbook Project, Lance has just posted an interview with Nicholas Reville of the Participatory Culture Foundation, which is trying to ensure that the medium of Internet TV stays open and independent.