Room 999
Here’s something interesting that I wanted to share with you guys:
From the site Room 999
“Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” This question was answered by a.o. Jean Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Steven Spielberg, in Wim Wenders’ 1982 film Room 666, which he made during the Cannes Film Festival.
We would like to update that question and rephrase it:
How does arthouse or independent film relate to growing commercialism?
We’ve invited film professionals from around the world to answer this question in our contemporary, but nonetheless equally urgent, spin off: Room 999.
Nowadays, cinema has a central position as a source of imagery, supplying our encompassing audiovisual culture. Still, as an artform, cinema is under fierce pressure. Development of thought and language has been narrowed down to elite arthouse cinema, which has troubles in reaching it’s audience. The loss which Wenders was fearing, has appeared to be the alienation between cinema and the public.
PAf (Pressure group Arthouse film) strives to keep the debate alive about the positioning of filmart in our society. Not because we don’t have a clue, but rather to sharpen our ideas, and to get them known. Our films contain these ideas too, but they need to be backed up by a contemporary discussion. Room666 was dominated by a postmodern frenzy, but it’s central concern seems actual as never before.
Interviews
We’ve invited a selection of international directors, producers, distributors and sales agents – all IFFR guests – to reflect on our central thesis: How does arthouse or independent film relate to growing commercialism? Cinema is an expensive artform and every fim is a challenge to finance. We ask ourselves if pure artfilm is possible to maintain itself in these circumstances. Isn’t a director forced to bend to the wishes of financers, funds, televisionstations, private parties, or the bigger audience? What we call arthouse today seems to be subjected to market mechanisms. It seems that artistic freedom is only reserved to the few big directors like Almodovar, Ozon, von Trier and Wong Kar Wai – and still just possible with the coöperation of celebrities, respectively Penelope Cruz, Catherine Deneuve, Nicole Kidman and Norah Jones.
Others will have to submit to smaller budgets and the consequential lesser public appeal.
We’ve asked a reaction to the following statements:
* Arthouse cinema nowadays is subject to market-mechanisms.
* The director’s artistic freedom is a fairytale.
* A film involves many financing partners. This limits the director’s artistic freedom.
* What do you choose: an author’s signature, or box office success?
Room999 is intended as a survey. After the IFFR 2008 we will research our material and publish our learnings in Dutch national filmmagazine De Filmkrant.
CLICK HERE TO ENTER THE ROOM 999 & SEE THE INTERVIEWS
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
hey partho …
interesting stuff…thanks a lott…
ciao
nitin
thnx parto!!!
r u involved with this?
kick-ass stuff man! Thanks for reigniting memories of Room 666.
DPac, Partho is one of the speakers there.
@partho
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting to say the least.
Waah Dada!!! Bahot hee interesting discussion hai!!! Thanks a lot!!!
What do you choose: an author
Author’s signature, if I am bloody rich.
@ tushar
u have to be the producer as well!!!
Film financing is a complex discussion, it always takes me away from my area of fun, but seriously this is a good discussion. creativity and economy, when the twain meets, its utopia, perfect bliss for all. Like Liang says in one of the interviews on the site, “most film makers these days are factory workers. I do not like to be involved with any department of the film other than creativity. How it is going to be promoted, budgets, they are least of my concerns. I realize I have a limited time and I would rather use that to build my forte with the viewer. I believe in having a marked image as a creative artist, a film maker”
(tried to retain what I could remember).
Hey Partho…
A article by Castro…
Thought you would be interested.
http://www.counterpunch.com/castro02192008.html
cheers