Interviews

Dynamic Duo

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Philip Seymour Hoffman and Todd Louiso met over ten years ago, when both were acting in Scent of a Woman. Since then, they have become friends, lived together for a year and a half, and worked together on a short film, The Fifteen Minute Hamlet (1995), Louiso directing, Hoffman acting. Then came the big challenge:… Read more »

HEAVEN SENT:

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"We’re not altruistic," says Jonathan Sehring, IFC Films president, "although somebody said at Cannes, ‘Oh, you guys are the one patron saint now of financing independent films, because there’s not a lot of equity out there without strings attached.’ Well, we have strings, if you want to call them strings, but they’re supposed to be… Read more »

War Stories

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When the year was young, the hot topic was Monica, not Kosovo. So at the Sundance Film Festival in January, war was the furthest thing from most people’s minds — unless they happened to catch Regret to Inform,Rabbit in the Moon, or Return with Honor,three documentaries dealing with war and its aftermath. Ten years in… Read more »

ONE YEAR AT THE HELM:

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One year ago, William J. Ivey was quietly confirmed by the United States Senate as the seventh Chair of the bruised and battered National Endowment for the Arts. Ivey’s appointment occurred just as the dust was starting to settle from a decade-long assault against the government-funded arts agency by congressional critics who had targeted controversial… Read more »

THE GORE COMMISSION REPORT

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Between the impeachment proceedings in Washington and the bombing runs over Iraq, the mid-December release of a final report by the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters didn’t stand much of a chance. Even on a slow news day, this was not the kind of material to create much of a… Read more »

IT’S A DONG DEAL

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After three ver the course of an auspicious career, documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong has created an extraordinary body of work, including the Academy Award-nominated Sewing Woman (1982), Forbidden City, U.S.A. (1989), the Peabody Award-winning Coming Out Under Fire (1994), and Out Rage ’69, a program in the ITVS series The Question of Equality. He is… Read more »

First Run/Icarus Films

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What is First Run/Icarus? First Run/Icarus Films is one of the leading distributors of documentary film and video in the U.S. and Canada. What is First Run/Icarus’ relationship to other arms of First Run? I would not say that First Run/Icarus Films, Inc. is an arm of First Run Features. It is a separate corporation… Read more »

First Look Pictures/Overseas Filmgroup

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First Look Pictures/Overseas Filmgroup, 8800 Sunset Blvd., Suite 302, Los Angeles, CA 90069; (310) 855-1199; fax: 855-0719 What is First Look? First Look Pictures (FLP) was established in 1990 to assist producers in the development and packaging of new projects. In 1993, FLP created a theatrical distribution division to package, finance, and distribute theatrical motion… Read more »