Great film, but no market for it: Sorry...

[steve hyde]

...I find it really fascinating and also troubling that great films die on the vine. Some films win prestigious awards - like the Golden Palm at Cannes - and then don't get picked up by distributors! (L'Enfant, 2005) and also a film from local Seattle filmmakers (Iraq in Fragments, 2007) a film that was nominated for an Academy Award!! and lost only to Mr. Al - should be President - Gore for best documentary. Distributors still passed on it! As far as I can tell this excellent new film is going to die on the vine.

It is astonishing and deeply troubling that a film as brilliant and important as "Iraq in Fragments" gets washed to the way side because there is no market for it. A filmmaker spends four years *alone* filming in Iraq, obviously risked his life to bring a much needed portrait documentary into the world, wins awards at Sundance, has a limited theatrical run, then gets nominated for an Academy award and then......nothing! Nobody wants to touch it.

Can you imagine the disappointment? It just goes to show that making a brilliant singular and important film is still no guarantee to financial success. Pretty depressing...


EDIT: July, 31
[more specifically no major U.S. theatrical release]






http://iraqinfragments.com/











Steve

[MovieStuff]

It just goes to show that making a brilliant singular and important film is still no guarantee to financial success.

Yes, that's what I found out after making Jet Benny.....

Just kidding. Distributors seem to have no balls these days. I mean, documentaries are hotter than ever, thanks to Moore, Gore and Burns (or should that be Burns Moore Gore?) But only if you are a "brand name" director. If the media were to pick up on this guy's story about the making of the documentary and make him a media darling like "those other guys" then perhaps the distributors might be more interested.

Roger

[Joe Gioielli]

I recently discovered something.

I discovered that the best material to make a teapot out of is solid gold. So I made up a bunh of solid gold tea pots.

Now, I was wondering if I could borrow several hundred thound dollars for a nation wide marketing campainge. I know that there really aren't too many people that need soild gold teapots, but I'm telling you, these are the best darn tea pots you'll ever see.

Hollywood is a company town, they don't make movies-they make a profit. -- John Houston I believe.

[steve hyde]

It just goes to show that making a brilliant singular and important film is still no guarantee to financial success.

Yes, that's what I found out after making Jet Benny.....

Just kidding. Distributors seem to have no balls these days. I mean, documentaries are hotter than ever, thanks to Moore, Gore and Burns (or should that be Burns Moore Gore?) But only if you are a "brand name" director. If the media were to pick up on this guy's story about the making of the documentary and make him a media darling like "those other guys" then perhaps the distributors might be more interested.

Roger

Sure, but if he was a brand name director the price of the product would also be more expensive. I find it interesting to think about the ways that power relations play out in the film business and it is interesting to see how films on sensitive subject matter get silenced by the "invisible hand of the free market."

Iraq in Fragments is a portrait documentary. It is not a polemical anti-war film in any way. For me it is just a film that says children are children anywhere you go. I think that is a painful message for people that want to believe something different than that. You can't sell a story like that to an audience that wants to have an affirming experience and doesn't want to walk away from a movie with a changed world view.

It's depressing to me, because one of the great virtues of cinema is its power to change a persons world view and expand the geographical imagination. In a country like the United States where less than 20% of citizens hold passports, that means 80% of the citizens never leave the country. 80% are bound up inside the borders celebrating how *free* they are. So free they don't even have to leave the prison.

Point is that 80% relies largely on audio-visual media to learn about the outside world and I think that 80% really need to see this film..

Steve

[steve hyde]

I recently discovered something.

I discovered that the best material to make a teapot out of is solid gold. So I made up a bunh of solid gold tea pots.

best of luck with your teapots.

Steve

[MovieStuff]

Sure, but if he was a brand name director the price of the product would also be more expensive.

But the product is already made and he isn't a brand name director and that's the problem faced by any potential distibutor. Films like Hoop Dreams or El Mariachi or Blair Witch or SuperSize Me or Roger and Me were sellable because of the backstory behind the making and not necessarily the film, itself. This guy needs to get a good publicist online if he's going to get anywhere. As painful as it may be to admit, bad films get released and make money all the time because of good publicity.

Roger

[steve hyde]

Sure, but if he was a brand name director the price of the product would also be more expensive.

But the product is already made and he isn't a brand name director and that's the problem faced by any potential distibutor. Films like Hoop Dreams or El Mariachi or Blair Witch or SuperSize Me or Roger and Me were sellable because of the backstory behind the making and not necessarily the film, itself. This guy needs to get a good publicist online if he's going to get anywhere. As painful as it may be to admit, bad films get released and make money all the time because of good publicity.

Roger

Yes, you are absolutely right. I totally agree.

Steve

[Nigel]

Whatcha gonna do??

It is the way it is. It kinda sucks that the people with money make the choices but then again who says that their choices are wrong or that we wouldn't make the same ones if it was our money.

It is just the way that film distributions goes...It's fickle and all is in the eyes of the distributor.

You know my thoughts on the free market Steve ;)

Good Luck

[Chris-B]

I have never met anyone in the UK who has not been abroad.
But I guess the USA is a big place and traveling around the US not so different to traveling around Europe distance wise.

I wonder how many people have never traveled outside Europe?

So back to film - It's even more shocking is when a company pays for what many consider to be a great film and then do not release it as it's not, what they would consider, marketable or would not fit their companies image or just hate the director so much they want to ruin them (as per the El Topo and The Holy Mountian issue - Jodorowsky vs' Alan Klein)


Chris.

[steve hyde]

Whatcha gonna do??

It is the way it is. It kinda sucks that the people with money make the choices but then again who says that their choices are wrong or that we wouldn't make the same ones if it was our money.

It is just the way that film distributions goes...It's fickle and all is in the eyes of the distributor.

You know my thoughts on the free market Steve ;)

Good Luck

...well the thing about freedom of choice is that while it is true that in a free market people have the freedom to choose what they want and don't want - they don't have the freedom to choose the conditions under which they make such choices. The great genius of Capitalism is this: If you can find a way to buy the conditions under which people make choices, you can work to limit their choices to what you want them to choose.

That is why free-markets under Capitalism are not a "level playing field" as the late Milton Friedman insisted. There is nothing level about the free market.... or anything free about the free market for that matter. It is all rhetoric and spin that starts with words like *freedom*, *free* and *liberty* and then the meaning behind the words is spun to mean the exact opposite.

It's why words - it's why the language of words has become so problematic. We need a coherent system of non-verbal signs and symbols to communicate with. We need a new language. Words are getting on my nerves lately. 8O

Steve

[steve hyde]

I have never met anyone in the UK who has not been abroad.
But I guess the USA is a big place and traveling around the US not so different to traveling around Europe distance wise.

I wonder how many people have never traveled outside Europe?

So back to film - It's even more shocking is when a company pays for what many consider to be a great film and then do not release it as it's not, what they would consider, marketable or would not fit their companies image or just hate the director so much they want to ruin them (as per the El Topo and The Holy Mountian issue - Jodorowsky vs' Alan Klein)

Chris.

Yeah, I imagine there are plenty of Europeans that have never left their rural villages, but I'm sure there are not many in proportion to the population of Europe. Maybe a fraction of 1% is my guess.

My cousin, who grew up in the UK and lives in Brooklyn told me the story of sitting next to a 17 year old kid (who grew up in Brooklyn) on the train into Manhattan and over the course of the conversation he learned that the kid was heading to Times Square for the first time. He was shocked. By the way - in New York - I've met a few adults that have never left the Five Burroughs of greater New York City. I asked them about their travels and they looked to me and said: "Why would I need to go anywhere? Everything is right here."

They did have a point.

Steve

[Scotness]

I would say there's definitely a market and distributor for this Iraq film - he just needs to find it outside of the US because no matter what angle you take on it (or how valid your points are about the suffering of children) Iraq is just too hot a topic in the US now.

I think the pioneer of these politically alternative doco's is John Pilger and his work is broadcast regularly on the BBC - even when it is critical of the UK - he doesn't get a look in in his home country of Australia!

The maker of Iraq in fragments just needs to get a distributor in a country where they're a bit more opened minded and don't mind a bit of criticism.

Or get a personal publicity profile like Michael Moore.


Scot

[yolia]

...I find it really fascinating and also troubling that great films die on the vine. Some films win prestigious awards - like the Golden Palm at Cannes - and then don't get picked up by distributors! (L'Enfant, 2005) and also a film from local Seattle filmmakers (Iraq in Fragments, 2007) a film that was nominated for an Academy Award!! and lost only to Mr. Al - should be President - Gore for best documentary. Distributors still passed on it! As far as I can tell this excellent new film is going to die on the vine.

It is astonishing and deeply troubling that a film as brilliant and important as "Iraq in Fragments" gets washed to the way side because there is no market for it. A filmmaker spends four years *alone* filming in Iraq, obviously risked his life to bring a much needed portrait documentary into the world, wins awards at Sundance, has a limited theatrical run, then gets nominated for an Academy award and then......nothing! Nobody wants to touch it.

Can you imagine the disappointment? It just goes to show that making a brilliant singular and important film is still no guarantee to financial success. Pretty depressing...





http://iraqinfragments.com/











Steve

It's definitely sad that this guy can't get his film distributed. I haven't seen the film, but if he's humanized the Iraqi people and and focused on their suffering, then he may never get distribution considering the politics of our time and the politics/religious/ethnic make up of the Hollywood power structure. I've read great things about Iraq in Fragments, but if he can't get distributions after winning such prestigous awards, then he's definitely being silenced by "the powers that be."

[Jim Carlile]

One of the saddest things I ever saw was how Les Blank had to drive around in an old station wagon and go town to town to show his movies to tiny little audiences who knew he was the greatest documentarian ever. We're talking about Les Blank, and not that long ago, either. He still can't get money.

It's an occupational hazard, and in these hypercapitalist days the only solution I think is to get your own station wagon and drive around and do the things you want to do, and don't expect much. Remember, Thoreau had to publish his own books and keep them in the garage, and the only reason we know about him today is because he had famous friends.

http://www.lesblank.com/main.html

[T-Scan]

Does Netflix count? I just watched "Iraq in Fragments" the other night on DVD. It's a very good perspective from the Iraqi side of the war, some great photography too... I heard it was shot with a DVX100.