In Boston? Making Media Now Takes Place on June 5th

The agenda looks great for this year's Making Media Now conference at Bentley University in Waltham, Mass. The theme is "Surviving as a Filmmaker in Tough Times," and the speakers include Sandi DuBowski ('Trembling Before G-d'), Robert Greenwald ('Rethink Afghanistan') and Doug Blog ('51 Birch Street'). I'll be there for the tail end of the day, to moderate a filmmaker pitch/feedback session.

I've been to this event once before, and it seems to be the biggest and best annual gathering of filmmakers in the Boston area. The early registration rate expires May 21st. The conference is organized by Filmmakers Collaborative.

A Coupla Monday Links

Just sharing some stuff worth reading (and viewing) that I collected over the weekend:

- NY Times piece on declining DVD revenues. Movie attendance is up 14 percent this year so far, compared with 2008... but sales of movies newly-released on DVD are down 40 percent.

- Robert Greenwald's real-time approach to documentary filmmaking, with 'Rethink Afghanistan.'

- Some great videos from January's "Art House Convergence" gathering, which took place just before Sundance.

- Anne Thompson shares some links related to the debate going on between Mark Cuban and Avner Ronen, CEO of Boxee, the company that makes open source software for set-top boxes. The focus is on the future of channels, bundled content, and a la carte content consumption.

- Noah Harlan has some thoughtful responses to our SXSW breakfast conversation last week.