Nic Wistreich

Co-founder, co-editor

Remembering Jess Search, web pioneer and culture-maker

18 August 2023

Remembering Jess Search web pioneer, force of culture Intro Inbetween time Shooters culture Web pioneer The lau...

Why Web Monetization makes me more hopeful about film funding than anything in 22 years since Netribution launched…

24 December 2021

In 2006 we wrote here about this new idea of crowd-source financing to fund films, which had funded a few short films – a couple of years before IndieGoGo and Kickstarter took off. We'd followed the growth of a new we...

If context is king; could version control counter context collapse?

30 July 2021

I stumbled across some of my old writing still online on Netribution from over two decades years ago that was so bad I wanted to cancel myself before anyone else had a chance to. I was scrolling down my old year 2001 ...

Music streaming, monopolies, interopability & the chaos monkey

16 April 2021

“The reality is a single stream only amounts to 0.003p, which means I would need millions of streams to earn at least the minimum wage” Ayanna Witter-Johnson, singer-songwriter Last weekend The Guardian published...

"Old Man Shakes Fist at Algorythm", but Scorsese has a point, and is WebMo an answer?

21 February 2021

So I finally hit the big time and moved up a decimal place in my daily Web Monetization payouts. As I mentioned last month I've added Web Monetization here and a few other sites (FundYourFilm.com, Visuali.st – my wor...

Crowdfunding’s lack of sophistication around risk: is staged-finance the answer?

15 March 2016

“Staged financing must become the film business’s immediate goal.” – Ted Hope, Producer & Head of Production, Amazon Studios, September 2013 Crowdfunding’s lack of sophistication around risk Much, if not most, o...

Film's monopoly problem

27 January 2016

Not before time, the new year started with some promising news about selling films online. For the first time, the annual decline in DVD and Blu-ray sales in the US has been outstripped by the growth in digital sales,...

Berlin day 14; Oh Boy

28 December 2015

I marched thru the night, looking up to the snow kissed trees, and arrived too late for Cloud Atlas. Half an hour later a film I didn’t know, beyond reading that it was about a student dropout in Berlin, and was Black...

Berlin day 14; Oh Boy

28 December 2015

A loose thread

28 December 2015

I counted the coins left in my hand on the escalator – 345 florins – around £1. Most of the shops after check-in were selling water for twice that amount, but just when I’d resigned myself to carrying a pocket of coin...

Understanding DRM: back to the days of Edison & the Motion Picture Patent Company

11 December 2015

The monopoly that created the independents that created the studios Imagine having to pay a license fee every time you filmed something or screened your work. At the start of the 20th century, the Motion Picture Pate...

Lessons from TV: pirates compete on 'quality, price, and availability'

04 December 2015

Perhaps no sector has been more involved in shifting the debate around video piracy than the TV industry. It perhaps began in late 2006, nine months after Steve Jobs had sold Pixar to Disney, joined their board and be...

Subject of new doc Dead Donkeys jailed in Ethiopia on 'terrorism' charge

01 October 2015

Last year I built the website for a new documentary due to premiere this year about the issue of land-grabbing in Africa. I'd first been introduced to the production team at an remarkable week as part of the Swim La...

What might a Coop Uber look like (or should we be thinking bigger)?

27 September 2015

I learnt of an interesting coop recently: the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, responsible for clearing and settling most US securities (i.e shares & derivatives). At the heart of global neoliberalism...

What is open source? Five analogies.

13 June 2015

Open source is one of those phrases that gets thrown around, from the Cabinet Office now asking for it in government ICT contracts, to cyber-libertarians saying it heralds the start of a post-capitalist age. But what ...

Site back, upgraded

19 February 2015

Netribution 1 was great in that it was all HTML and a bit of CSS – 15 years on not a single page has ever been hacked and most of them are still there. Netribution 2.0 launched in 2006 on a CMS and unless CMSs get re...

Why Selma's not a 'challenging race biopic'; it's much more

20 January 2015

There's a rather funny viral doing the rounds by UK blog the Shiznit about what if the 2015 Oscar nominations told the truth, following similar posts they've done in previous years. I didn't feel like sharing it howev...

How 2014 might be the most hopeful year in 66 million years or so

31 December 2014

Amidst gloom-laced end-of-year summaries, I’ve decided to make like a salmon and swim against the flow with ten reasons why 2014 might be the most promising year in about 66 million years. Well there's one ...

My life as a game: notes from the tenth Nordic Game Conference

30 May 2014

I arrived for once a little early, as the last gold balloons were being lifted into place. I decided to walk the block, attempting to hide my game industry noobiness with some assertive power walking. Ah a river. I wi...

"Dear lover cinema, forgive me"

22 April 2013

When I look through my adult life so far there are a few constants - the love of family and some good friends - yet the most regular rhythm, the most dependable refrain is that of change and disruption, of uncertainty...

How to support the indie film & music companies who lost 1000s of DVDs/CDs in Enfield fire

09 August 2011

As well as helping the countless small businesses and shops who've lost stock and suffered damage, buying digital downloads from any of the indie companies who've lost all their stock in the huge depot fire in Enfield...

Personal filmmaking abounds at impressive 51st Krakow Film Festival

08 June 2011

Amateur: barely a few letters from Auteur - but what, in our social media world, is the difference? If there was a dividing line of the 51st Krakow Film Festival, it was between the crowed-sourced YouTube world of L...

Michael Moore’s impassioned plea on UK healthcare reforms

14 April 2011

"All I can do is really beg you not to go this route" Michael Moore Michael Moore, whose film Sicko highlighted the inefficiencies and unfairness in private healthcare, has warned that the changes are ‘absolutely the...

As web moves to TV, child protection is key, but ISP-level filtering won't work

20 December 2010

So, Digital and Culture Minister Ed Vaizey has backed MP Clare Perry's calls to create a firewall of Britain to support the seemingly reasonable aim of protecting children from pornography (and potentially keepin...

King's Speech, Monsters, Arbor, Never Let Me Go lead noms for British Independent Film Awards

01 November 2010

THE MOËT BRITISH INDEPENDENT FILM AWARDS ANNOUNCE NOMINATIONS AND JURY FOR 13th EDITION The nominations and jury members for the thirteenth annual Moët British Independent Film Awards were announced today, ...

Freedom of expression, privacy, remix + autoblur - the 2nd Open Video Conference

11 October 2010

It's taken me a while to gather my thoughts about the Second Open Video Conference which took place at the start of October in New York. It featured a vast mix of people and organisations interested in the future of v...

The Future of Exhibition: Opening the Box Office - our panel at OVC

28 September 2010

For those in New York on Friday, the second Open Video Conference kicks off with a packed schedule including academics, makers (from Sally Potter and the Yes Men to Autotune the News and OK Go), enablers (Mozilla, Mir...

Musings on the media: Ban adverts and introduce a distributed license fee for content

24 September 2010

It is no exageration to say this has been perhaps the toughest year I can remember. I lost my sister to cancer in April and a dear friend to depression a few weeks ago. In some ways it seems peverse to continue a norm...

The Open Video Conference returns - NYC Oct 1 and 2

15 September 2010

This much I know: that while there are very bright people in both worlds, there are very few film industry people who really understand software development and web technology, and not that many coders who understand ...

UK Film Council to be scrapped as part of quango mass cull

26 July 2010

Details of the surprise announcement about the axing of the UK Film Council amidst dozens of other arts quangos. 23.58 With the Facebook group inching towards 5,000 members, and the petition well over half that, th...

Skeletons, Dry Land, Oath, Thewelis & Gareth Edwards top Ed Film Fest Awards

26 June 2010

Once in a while comes a film that has me looking fearfully at the clock, worried it will end soon, not wanting to leave the world it creates. With the word on the street that the team behind Skeletons - Britain's answ...

A lesson in how to profit from the free for the film industry

19 June 2010

A few months ago I downloaded an open source add-on for Joomla, the (free) software that powers Netribution. It's a powerful tool which should make a nice addition here at some point - and it was free. So impressed wa...

Son of Babylon - a devastating, breathtaking masterpiece: Ed Film Fest review

15 June 2010

Back in March during the battle between The Hurt Locker and Avatar at the Oscars, much-loved political theorist Zizek waded in with a comparative review of the politics of the two films. His conclusion was that Jame...

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, opening Edinburgh Film Fest 64

15 June 2010

Under director Hannah McGill, Edinburgh International Film Festival has been steadily building its reputation as a platform for great animation - showing the UK premieres of Ratatouille, Wall*E, Up - and this year T...

One week left to submit a proposal for the Open Video Conference 2010

01 June 2010

Arriving at last year's Open Video Conference, after a decade of writing mostly outside of the tech sector about how the web is shaping film, was like walking into a bar after walking across a desert with little water...

The Digital Creative Economy - five suggestions for Vince Cable & Jeremy Hunt

13 May 2010

While there is some hint that the new British coalition government will follow through on the Lib Dem policy of rescinding the rushed and hated Digital Economy Bill to let it get full and appropriate scrutiny, I would...

Leigh, Kitano and Innaritu in competition as Cannes 2010 unveiled

15 April 2010

New films from Woody Allen, Mike Leigh, Stephen Frears, Jean-Luc Goddard and Oliver Stone will premiere at the 63rd Festival de Cannes, while Ridley Scott's Robin Hood is the opening night film. Running from May 12 t...

Glimmer 2010 kicks off next week, featuring Herzog's Plastic Bag

14 April 2010

THE 8th Hull International Short Film Festival - Glimmer - gets underway on the 19th of April (until the 25th) and includes a look at the work of Jeff Keen, a retrospective of a 14-year-old filmmaker and the UK festiv...

Three reasons why the Digital Economy Bill will damage British biz & what to do about piracy

05 April 2010

Part 1 - Three reasons why the Digital Economy Bill will damage British businesses Part 2 - What can be done? Five steps the UK content industries could take to offset piracy losses A few weeks ago I chatted with a ...

UKFC launch new £15m fund, appoints Wharton, Collins & Franke, confirms Innovation Fund

01 April 2010

Incorporating UKFC Press Release Biggest shake-up since UKFC's creation £15m film fund open for applications today £5m Innovation Fund confirmed for Autumn 2010 New online application system for funds An am...

Indie filmmaking, the Minimum Wage, BECTU, Co-Ops and all that

27 March 2010

About eight years ago I sat in a cosy Islington pub with BECTU acting general secretary Martin Spence to discus his problems with Shooting People's posting of non-union (and non-NMW) jobs. Flickr CC image from tompag...

New Producers Alliance Shuts Down

16 March 2010

A sad day for British film - the New Producers Alliance, lynchpin of the UK independent film world over the past two decades, and long term friend and supporter of Netribution, has closed its doors. They ceased trad...

The Fall

07 March 2010

Last night I rewatched Tarsem's, The Fall. I first saw it at Edinburgh Film Festival in 2008 amidst a dreamy stream of great films. Starting with a bong toking Ben Kingsley going through a breakup in The Wackness, to ...

Five cracking free, pay-what-you-want feature films online

06 March 2010

Here's some picks of filmmaker owned and distributed free (as in lunch) feature films you can download or watch online that really stood out over the last year. Most of them are 'pay what you want' and as ultra-indies...

Site design update

06 March 2010

Another year, a new design. This has been a while in coming, and is built on the Blueprint CSS framework, with some tableless Joomla code from YooTheme. The backgrounds should change with the time of day and are taken...

Yorkshire/Iraqi feature gets two awards in Berlin, makers donate 10k prize to charity

24 February 2010

While BAFTA was making history on Sunday with all four directing awards going to women, Yorkshire based Mohamed Al Daradji's Iraq set feature follow-up to Ahlaam became the only British film* to take any awards at the...

Dozens of new UK Film Council funding awards announced

24 February 2010

New features from Peter Mullan, Paul Andrew Williams, Hideo 'the Ring' Nakata, Stephen Frears, Mike Leigh, artist Gillian Wearing, Neil Marshall and James 'Man on a Wire' Marsh have all received production finance fro...

Top animators around globe collaborate on Coalition of the Willing

19 February 2010

Coalition of the Willing is a collaborative animated film and web-based event set in our 'post-Copenhagen' world exploring the role of the Internet. Directed and produced by Knife Party, it brings together a network o...

Food Inc

07 February 2010

One of DogWoof's two Oscar nominated documentaries (the other - Burma VJ) goes on release this week following a Stella McCartney-hosted cleb-packed premiere tonight.. Elizabeth H...

StudioCanoe's Facts About Projection

07 February 2010

"This is a short film about my job as a Projectionist. I am quite proud of this film, mostly because I’m so proud of my job – it seems like a fulfilment of my childhood romantic notions of what...

Netribution at ten years

02 February 2010

Sometimes it takes a good film to put things right. Like when your computer needs to be rebooted to get it working normally, or the benefits of a good night's sleep. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was just ...

Roy Disney : 1930 - 2009

17 December 2009

Roy Disney, nephew of Walt and general protector of Disney, has passed away. I was lucky enough to meet Roy in 2000 at the Belfast Cinemagic Conference, and it has stood as one of the more memorable encounters of my w...

The Open Cinema Unconference: Today at Leeds International Film Festival

11 November 2009

Film festivals around the world present thousands of outstanding new and archive films that don't get the exposure they deserve. Beyond film festivals, audiences are severely limited by what they can see in public ven...

Leeds Int Film Festival gets underway with Bright Star, Men Who Stare at Goats

05 November 2009

The Men Who Stare at Goats and Keats biopic Bright Star opened the 23rd Leeds International Film Festival - the UK's largest film festival outside London and Edinburgh - last night. The writer of the book behind the m...

London Film Festival unveils auteur-packed programe and star-studded opening

09 September 2009

George Clooney, fresh from his naked press conference proposal for The Men Who Stare at Goats in Venice will join Bill Murray, Steven Soderbergh, Jim Jarmusch, Julian Moore, Emma Thompson and Michel Gondry at the 53rd...

Plan Bee from the Co-Op pairs film release with environmental strategy

20 August 2009

Vanishing of the Bees released in October, backed with Co-Op commitments for change The rise of socially focused documentaries since the success of Gore and Moore has been partly supported by UK doc distributor DogWo...

The Yes Men fix the world. We ask what keeps them going?

08 August 2009

As the Yes Men - the thinking-person's Sacha Baron Cohen - see their latest film released in the UK, Netribution sneaks its way into a secretive underground political cell known only as 'Soho House' to find them out a...

The Co-Op backed Burma VJ shows the reality behind the monk rebellion & crackdown

08 July 2009

The first feature film to ever be screened at Number 10, in an event set-up by Sarah Brown on Aung San Suu's birthday, and the first feature from the Co-Op Group's new partnership with distributor DogWoof - Burma VJ i...

After the Open Video Conference part 1: background

06 July 2009

Two and a half weeks may be a little late to begin writing up the Open Video Conference, but then my first essay, penned in the few days after, discussed Pirate Bay at some length and even mentioned Michael Jackson an...

Johann Poo's Brain Water, a beautiful Chinese 3D short film

29 June 2009

From the ever dependable BoingBoing comes details of Brain Water, a exquisite Mayazaki-esque short 3D animation from Johann Poo, by way of Jason Li. I like its illustration of the power of playful communication. Inc...

Open Video from Iran: 10 essential web videos

22 June 2009

The importance of open video and free media has been established beyond doubt this last week following the events in Iran. Ten key videos, including the heart-stopping 'Poem from the rooftops of Iran' (below) have bee...

Ed's Off to a flying start - the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival underway

18 June 2009

Sam Mendes was in Edinburgh last night with Sean Connfery and Alan Cumming for the opening night gala of his film Away We Go - which has great buzz here in New York where it's already openend. Amidst news that Lars vo...

The enviornment is the protagonist in Europe's biggest environmental film festival, Ecovision

05 June 2009

From the Ecovision Press Release: 55 films in competition, selectioned among the 1020 arrived, representing 70 countries of the world. 10 world premieres, 3 European premiers confirm the EcoVision’s growing trend, on...

Scott brothers launch Purefold - Blade Runner inspired video universe for brands under CC license

05 June 2009

New digital agency AG8 has partnered with Scott Free - digital agency for Tony and Ridley Scott - to launch PureFold, which 'enables participating brands to take an alternative route to brand integration than traditio...

French Temptation Island camera fodder win employment tribunal

05 June 2009

Gotta love the French, especially as C4 continue their 9-year long bukaki over the nation's psyche and moral compass: "Temptation Island constitutes a job and therefore justifies an employment contract," the court sa...

BFI runs Refugee Week programme, 16-22 June

05 June 2009

RefugeeYouth, Nueva Generacion and Refugee Action bring a collection of films about exile to BFI Southbank on 16 - 22 June. The BFI Southbank marks National Refugee Week with a series of award-winning and moving fil...

Arts Beyond the Classroom brings parents and children together to explore art and blog about it

26 May 2009

It's easy to talk about the digital revolution and the benefits of giving everyone a free and open platform for self-expression if the only people who use the best of the webs tools are contained to one social or econ...

US campaigning journalist 'instrumental' in exposing UK expenses scandal

22 May 2009

"We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch and not their terror." Angelo, Measure for Measure Because I don't read ...

New free carbon calculator for film production from Film London

20 May 2009

As Obama continues to walk on water with plans to cut car emmissions drastically, Film London - perhaps the UK's most pioneering screen agency - has released in Cannes its Green Screen plan, with a Carbon Calulator Ex...

Milk, Chocolat and Pi as the Co-Op moves into the film business

19 May 2009

Finally some exciting news out of the Croisette - Britain's fifth largest retailer, the UK's biggest farmer and the world's biggest seller of fair trade, non-animal tested and ethically sourced products and services, ...

Open Video Conference marks major meetup of video 2.0 pioneers (19/20 June, NYC)

18 May 2009

For those feeling underwhelmed by the scarcity of film 2.0 news coming out of Cannes, hold your breath as some of the biggest drivers and thinkers in the emerging Open Video movement will be heading to New York next m...

Sony Pictures CEO 'doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet - period'. Question mark?

16 May 2009

It's kind of like a guy who grows his tomatoes in his kitchen complaining about never benefiting from all that lovely sunshine outside. Sony was the company who were five years behind Microsoft with web access for the...

Which video sharing sites offer the best filmmaker-friendly licenses? Not Vimeo

15 May 2009

Apologies for the quiet around here lately - I've been completely emerged in a family health crisis. I hope to pick things up in the next few days. Meantime here's some suprising news (by way of BoingBoing) from Marku...

Trailers for most of the Cannes 2009 Competition selection

24 April 2009

As Cannes Film Festival relaunches it website with a new service offering all films selected for the festival the chance to preview the first five minutes of their film, on release, on their site, and in a year bursti...

Hull lights up from tonight with shorts

21 April 2009

The biggest British short film festival north of London, and Netribution partner, Glimmer (the 7th International Hull Film Festival), opens tonight with a packed program. I will be at the festival over the weekend for...

Does Pirate Bay verdict threaten Google - and who has been funding them?

17 April 2009

According to Engadget: "The Stockholm district court in Sweden found the defendants guilty not of hosting materially illegally, but of "providing a website with sophisticated search functions, simple download and stor...

New government anti-piracy campaign finally takes the post-Cluetrain carrot

14 April 2009

Communicating the message that films are generally very expensive to make, and that widespread piracy will directly affect the number and quality of films produced and released, should have been a straight forward pit...

A Living Cinema in Newcastle on April 18th

08 April 2009

Wall-E DVD review - part 1

06 April 2009

I did not get sent a review disc, but saw this one in Morrisons on Sunday in a two for one offer on Disney films. There weren't many classics, but picked up Ratatouille which I could watch a fair few more times yet, a...

Salad Fingers' web legend David Firth has first retrospective at Hull International Film Festival

06 April 2009

6 days, 5 masterclasses, 4 competitions, 3 days of industry events, 2 retrospectives and 1 Hull Short Film Festival. Now in it's seventh year, the Hull International Short Film Festival is cementing its position as ...

Netribution's submission to House of Lords Select Committee on Film & TV industry

25 March 2009

It's easy enough to criticise the government for being out of touch with the web - I frequently do - but without the industry explaining to them the needs and issues at play, it's hard to blame them entirely. In other...

Stupid premiere turns spotlight on film industry's footprint

16 March 2009

The Age of Stupid has had its world premiere across 65 screens throughout the UK, including a green carpet premiere in London with a solar powered cinema and bike powered popcorn. As Channel 4 News points out in this ...

Mark Gorzynski, Silhouilimaker for Quantum of Solace

09 March 2009

From Glasgow-based Phase IV, behind the long gestating Simulation feature, comes an interview with Mark Gorzynski, Silhouette Technician behind Eon Production's Quantum of Solace, who speaks about his work, his family...

Haile Gerima's 'Teza', from Ethiopia, wins Africa's Golden Yennenga Stallion

08 March 2009

In the heat of Bollywoods' renewal, it is interesting to read of the Fespaco Film Awards In Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, where Ethiopian Haile Gerima has continued the film's awards success, nabbing the top African fi...

Mohamed Al Daradji's Son of Babylon feature wraps filming in Baghdad

06 March 2009

Film looks at Saddam regime's 'modern holocaust' - second feature from Leeds based Oscar-shortlisted producers Human Film - 400,000 bodies in mass graves found since 2003 from over 30 years of rule - cast and cre...

More good ideas from the music industry : crowdfunding perks

06 March 2009

Former drummer of Nine Inch Nails' Josh Freese's offerings for his micro-presales / crowdfunded album has some great possibilities for filmmakers going the same route. "For £10,000, name film's villain after your high...

"We're coming down to the ground" as Slumdog Sweeps Up Oscars

22 February 2009

I've been searching around trying to find a feed of the Oscars. Finally find an unofficial one on Justin.tv and arrive just as Heath Ledger's name is announced. There's wet eyes all over the place and for once it see...

Obama's stimulus and the strikers - the 'lines of tribe' quite a way from dissolving

03 February 2009

"Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation" Dennis Leigh So despite (or because of) a cultural renaissance of knowledge and skills sharing, empowering new production models, to...

Free online premiere of excellent lowfi Scots comedy feature, One Day Removals

30 January 2009

French-based video sharing site Dailymotion is continuing its short-run free streams of independent British films with the Online World Premiere of the new feature One Day Removals, directed by Scottish filmmaker Ma...

BBC Director General increasingly isolated as Tony Benn evokes Howard Beale on air

25 January 2009

"People will die because of the BBC decision, let me be clear about that" Tony Benn In the midst of the BBC's latest PR disaster, let's just remember for a moment the ...

British film 2009 preview

13 January 2009

The ever excellent BBC Film Network (when will it join iPlayer fullscreen flashness?!) has recommendations (republished below) of some of the British films to look out for this year, including Lone Sherfig's ...

India gets first Globe on night of international success

12 January 2009

One of India's best loved film composers, AR Rahman, picked up the country's first Golden Globe, on a night which saw Danny Boyle's Mumbai-set Slumdog Millionaire take home four awards, including Best film, Best scr...

London Short FIlm Festival kicks off

09 January 2009

The projector with teeth returns as the institution formerly known as Halloween rides into town for a a short film extravaganza spanning 13 programmes in ten venues across London. Highlights include a Berlin program...

Groundbreaking web video project builds documentary bridge between Gaza and Sderot

03 January 2009

"The day after the war we need a new beginning. Let's start planting seeds of humanity and trust now" Hope Man, Jan 2nd 2009 The Israeli city of Sderot lies a few miles from Gaza and towards the end of 2008 the Frenc...

Harold Pinter : 1930 - 2008

26 December 2008

Writer, actor, director, conscientious objector, uncompromising activist and - by all accounts - much loved and utterly decent person, Harold Pinter was not just a great contributor to our times, but a real inspir...

Mapping Christmas

24 December 2008

So much to write about, so little time! Part of the reason I'm not reviewing the year's moves in indie finance, rights, piracy or environmentally sustainable filmmaking is the time taken up with a new research proje...

David Holroyd's MI6 thriller WMD premieres at CineCity and Daily Motion simultaneously

06 December 2008

David Holroyd's independent British thriller WMD, produced by Netribution member Christine Hartland , is to receive its online world premiere on Daily Motion simultaneously to its screening at the Brighton CineCity...

Slumdog, Hunger Shines at BIFAs

01 December 2008

Picking up Best Film and Director at the BIFAs for his Mumbai set feature, Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle, who like many fell in love with the city, referred to the tragic events of the week : "It is weird t...

As crunch and piracy hits indies, micro-presales, crowd-sourcing and other options

25 November 2008

An article in the LA Times features news of a crowdsourced / micro-presales success story: Actress-writer-producer Sybil Temtchine has raised about half of the $600,000 budget for her film "Au...

UKFC Â£740k shorts funds to now back disabled filmmakers and animators

21 November 2008

News just in from the UKFC on the New Cinema Funds' planned short film investment for the next year. As well as support for the first time for disabled filmmakers through the new Magic Hour strand, support has been ...

Happy 10th Birthday Shooting People

20 November 2008

Remember, if you can, ten years ago. You connected to the web by rubbing two telephones together. The film world was a dark and mysterious place, illuminated only by the appearance of Jones and Joliffe's Guerilla Fi...

Age of Stupid signs UK distribution and launches vast new site

09 November 2008

Franny Armstrong's The Age of Stupid, produced with Oscar Winner John Battsek has been getting very strong early buzz, and recently celebrated bringing DogWoof Pictures onboard to handle distribution in the UK while...

Movie Mogul's Microbudget Cookbook online as feature contest enters new phase

09 November 2008

After selecting the pitch and screenwriter for their user-funded and produced feature, UK crowd-financing site Movie Mogul Fund are currently inviting votes for producer and director, with the likes of Martin...

JonÃ¡s and Alfonso CuarÃ³n Launch new short film competition

09 November 2008

A contest by Alfonso 'Children of Men' Cuarón to accompany his son Jonás' debut feature Año Uña (pictured) has had its entry date extended to November 19. The competition is inspire...

Acclaimed new screenwriting book raises funds for Childline

09 November 2008

Adrian Mead, hairdresser-turned-writer, has written a guide to selling your screenplay that's been getting great reviews from some of the big names of the screenwriting world. Best of all, all the money raised from th...

Teen pregnancy linked to TV new study finds

04 November 2008

A new US study has found that teenage girls who watch a larger than average amount of sexually charged TV were twice as likely to have a teenage pregnancy. Boys who watched a greater amount were also more like to b...

Viacom signs deal to let people repost video on MySpace

04 November 2008

Apparently when YouTube's big content partners are offered the choice between pulling copyrighted content that a member has uploaded, or serving adverts on it, 90% of the time they choose to keep it up with adver...

Nos Enfants Nous Accuseront : New doc puts food under spotlight

04 November 2008

The documentary Nos Enfants Nous Accuseront (Our Children Will Accuse Us) is released in France this Friday looking at the effect of agro-chemicals on the environment and human health, noting that young people tod...

British Independent Film Award nominations announced

28 October 2008

Steve McQueen's Bobby Sands biopic Hunger battles it out with Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, James Marsh's Man on A Wire, Danny Boyle's LFF closer Slumdog Millionaire and Shane Meadow's Somers Town in the nominations ...

The Blue Tower tops Raindance as Frost settles over London

13 October 2008

The Blue Tower - the first feature by award-winning Indian British writer/director Smita Bhide, set in Southall, West London's colourful and bustling Indian community - picked up the best British Film at Raindance...

Roleplaying, Autism and Normality : Nic Balthazar on Ben X

26 August 2008

"For me the film isn’t really about autism, it’s about what we do as a society to everyone who has a problem functioning and to all the people we call the nerds, the geeks and the dorks because they’re not what everyo...

Hull's Glimmer fest follows Radiohead with Pay What You can submission fees

08 August 2008

FILMMAKERS TO CHOOSE THEIR OWN ENTRY FEE FOR GLIMMER : 7th HULL INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 21st-26th April 2009 Given the number of entries they normally receive and the costs of watching and reviewing them...

Edinburgh Winners: Eurostar's Somers Town, Man on a Wire, Herzog's Encounters at End of the World

28 June 2008

Sorry for the shortage of updates recently, I've watched too many inpsiring films in the past few weeks, with not enough time to do them justice with a good enough review. And after seeing Wall-E on Thursday - towa...

Doctorow's Creative Commons licensed book enters fifth week on NY Times Bestsellers list

11 June 2008

Cory Doctorow's latest novel, Little Brother, is available to download for free from his website, as well as remix, share and distribute to your friends. The book has just had its fifth week on the New York Times Be...

Free online screenwriting and scheduling tool releases v1.0

11 June 2008

Celtx is a free open-source Canadian scriptwriting programme that connects with an online community where you can develop the script with other collaborators and writers. Unlike some of the other pretty cool free onli...

Edinburgh video previews : Shirley Clarke, Mirrorball docs and Hannah's picks

04 June 2008

With less than a fortnight until Edinburgh Film Festival gets underway, the big question lingers - will the move to June work? On the one hand, Edinburgh in August is an invigorating and inspiring place, and set ...

Nuru Rimington-Mkali: 22-year-old winner of Filmaka.com's $5m feature prize

28 May 2008

"No matter how powerful an enemy is, you can always escape - there’s always a way, somehow. But how the hell do you escape your own head?" Nuru Mkali Director of I Refuse to Forget, winner of $5m feature funding...

Latest anti-piracy tactic penalises paying cinema goers of Indiana Jones

27 May 2008

"Companies that don't realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity." Cluetrain Thesis 18 ...

Sydney Pollack : 1934 - 2008 : interviewed in 2001 by Anthony Minghella

26 May 2008

Sydney Pollack, director, actor and writer, has passed away from cancer aged 73, and surrounded by his family. Link to LA Times obituary , Wikipedia page, IMDB page. Pollack was a friend and business partner ...

Turner winner McQueen picks up Camera D'Or, as The Class takes Palme

25 May 2008

British artist Steve McQueen's film debut, Hunger, detailing the hunger strike and death of IRA prisoner Bobby Sands, has picked up the Camera D'Or at Cannes, for best debut work. French docu-drama, The Class, looki...

The sun shines in Cannes on a New Voice in World Cinema

21 May 2008

"Religion is something private, it's about you and your God. You respect me, I respect you - we live together this fantastic life. This is why God made us different. If he made us the same with one religio...

Cries for Peace, new film scheme seeks your messages of reconcilliation

16 May 2008

This in from Enakeno Ogbo at Spiraluniverse - thanks! As part of the Week of Peace 2008, Spiraluniverse are seeking entries on the topic of peace as a response to recent news and media highlights of viole...

Impressive graffiti stop-motion in Buenos Aires from BluBlu

14 May 2008

Muto is a rather neat stop motion graffiti in Buenos Aires and Baden, by the artists collective BluBlu. Thanks Ann, for forwarding, it seems a cross between Rinpa Eshidan and that Mark Ronson video, with a whole l...

UK-India co-production treaty finally gets greenlight

11 May 2008

After three years of discussions that looked like they may never end, the UK-India film co-production agreement is finally set. Both governments have completed negotiations which began after Tessa Jowell signed the ...

Finnish creators of epic Star Wreck fanfilm to send Nazis to the Moon

07 May 2008

Star Wreck Studios, the guerilla filmmaking collective behind one of the most popular Finnish films of all time - and a big success story of online film distribution - have unveiled a teaser trailer for their follow...

Roccos Faintheart to close a Best of British Edinburgh

06 May 2008

Those concerned that the movement of the Edinburgh Film Festival from its August spot would mean a shortage of quality titles may need to hold their breath as the festival unveiled it's 2008 lineup today. There are ...

GTA sales of $500m give Edinburgh's Rockstar no.1 entertainment launch of all time

06 May 2008

The Scottish games developers behind the highly controversial yet critically acclaimed Grand Theft Auto IV: Liberty City have announced first week sales of $500m, on over six million copies. The figure - with $310 o...

Recent awards: Sick in Houston, Tantric Tourists in London and I Refuse To Forget wins feature funds

27 April 2008

A quick roundup of recent award winners We're pleased to hear that Alexander Snelling's debut feature Tantric Tourists, covered here recently, picked up the Best UK Debut at the East London Film Festival, whe...

Food for thought â€“ follow-up

27 April 2008

"Investors fleeing Wall Street's mortgage-related strife plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into grain futures, driving prices up even more." Washington Post So its official. The UN anounced Mo...

Orange Film Funding Board gets a step closer, while Nokia employs Spike Lee

23 April 2008

Advertisers to start funding film and TV as WPP moves to production In a long-feared response to the rise of free video, Martin Sorrell's advertising giant WPP has announced plans to join forces with Hollywoo...

Salles, Kaufman, Wenders and Eastwood battle it out at Cannes 61

22 April 2008

The films selected for the official competition at the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25) were unveiled at midday today in Paris. They included the directorial debut of Charlie Kaufman, as we...

Never Mind The Celluloid Strikes Back - today at Hull Screen

19 April 2008

I woke this morning, at the godawful hour needed for my slow and pricey train ride to Hull , from a dream where I was a kid once more, back in my school hall at St Aidan's again. We'd just finished a double filmmaki...

Food for thought : how much are speculators driving the food crisis?

19 April 2008

"Cotton growers have been among the most vocal critics, having witnessed a baffling surge in prices over a few days in March. In one day, the price of cotton jumped 15 per cent despite reports showing cott...

Ahlaam gets Iraqi distribution, making of doc picked up for Tribeca Fest

18 April 2008

"War, Love, God & Madness is Lost in La Mancha for adults. The woes that filmmakers usually experience really do pale in comparison to what this production went through." Just a day after readi...

Glimmer : 6th Hull Short Film Festival shines a light

15 April 2008

Over the years I've been lucky enough to visit most of the main film festivals in the UK. By far my favourite experience was the Hull Short Film Festival, back in 2003, where I saw some truely mind-expanding films f...

Alexander Snelling : Shoots feature in India for same cost as his short Denial

14 April 2008

Tantric Tourists peers into the world of 'spiritual bling' and the 'mystic bourgeoise' One of the gala premieres at the East End Film Festival in London, is Alexander Snelling's first feature, Tantric Tourists (Frida...

VHS Bandits : Son of Rambow & Be Kind Rewind

06 April 2008

With the rise of so-called 'user generated content', a strange phrase that conjours up images of cinemagoers as drug users, and 'professional filmmakers' as dealers who would never use their own supply, it's i...

Three new contests for vloggers and online filmmakers

03 April 2008

From the brilliant Global Voices website , comes news of three contests for vloggers around the world. Two are on Spannish sites but are open to anyone anywhere. One is for mobile movies, one to promote causes you ...

Kuda Kay Liye, first Pakistani film in 43 years with wide Indian release

03 April 2008

From the BBC : A critically acclaimed Pakistani film exploring the relationship between liberal and fundamentalist Muslims has been released across cinemas in India. It is the first Pakistani film to get a wide...

Hull's Short Glimmer of Light : 15th - 20th April 2008

02 April 2008

The 6th Hull International Short Film Festival returns with a new name and attitude from 15th April. The debut festival from director Laurence Boyce, Netribution DVD editor, and one of the most passionate people...

Park Chan Wook : Cyborg Therapist

31 March 2008

Korean director of classics Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengence, returns in fantastic and upbeat style with I'm A Cyborg, and That's OK. The film was - for me and friends I saw it with - the highlight of the 2007 Ed...

500k from Nesta and UKFC for digital innovation in film

12 March 2008

Digital Innovation in Film is a new initiative from NESTA and the UK Film Council, which will help drive growth in British independent film companies by encouraging them to take better advantage of new technologies....

Custodians of a miracle

10 March 2008

I'd forgotten I wrote this - about the earth, debt and the challenges for filmmakers - from India almost 18 months ago. But now as Copenhagan enters the last few make or break hours it seemed relevant.. On my tenth d...

Democrat battle : view from a Brit in India

04 March 2008

The beaches of Goa are a bit like the United Nations, so many pepople from around the world, so many ambassadors of peace. They mostly seem lovely wise souls who will probably one day run companies and countries. ...

And back home to the forest

27 February 2008

UK's draconian anti-piracy proposal dissected

12 February 2008

So the UK government is looking at following in French President Sarkozy's footsteps by forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to monitor thier customer's web usage and disconnect them (after a warning) if the...

News from India : Dyke, Culture, Strike, Darfur and Lynch

12 February 2008

So I arrived in Mumbai on the coldest day there in 46 years. It gave me a brief sense of bravado, strutting around saying, 'but it's scorching' as locals shivered in the 13 C dusk. The strutting didn't last long aft...

Carbon Neutral Filmmaking

03 February 2008

Al Gore’s climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth opened up people’s eyes to the devastating potential effects of climate change around the world. There has finally been an increase in the fil...

The rise of low-budget: Paramount spends $25m on 2008 tentpole

13 January 2008

Prospective blockbusters are not usually built this way. From the NY Times Rob Moore, the executive who oversees Paramount Pictures' marketing and distribution operations, had an open date in his movie schedu...

Hollywood seeks Atonement at the Globes redux

13 January 2008

After years of efforts, the unions of LA have done what no awards show producers has ever succeeded in doing - getting the winners announced in under an hour. At Sunday's Golden Globes Press Conference , Britflick At...

New Producer training for 2008

10 January 2008

NPA producer training is legendary. I can credit it with getting the know-how to set-up both Netribution and another (now successful) production outift as limited companies while I was still a student. I also ...

Chris Jones' has Gone Fishing at BAFTA

10 January 2008

Chris 'Guerilla Film Superstar' Jones has his Oscar 2009-hopeful short Gone Fishing premiering at BAFTA Saturday night, accompanied with a full day's masterclass about the making of the Bill Paterson starer. Billed...

FilmStew gives thumbs up as handbook prepares to launch Stateside

03 January 2008

"Each one of the book's four main sections, printed it must be noted in a highly readable font, is a veritable treasure trove of information and inspiration." As we prepares to launch the Film F...

No-budget as ethical choice : director gives away $150,000 music vid budget

28 December 2007

Director Sophie Muller was given $150,000 to make a music video for Sarah McLachlan. Instead she spent $15 and gave the rest to the causes outlined in the resulting film. This was actually made in 2004 so is hardly ...

Ahead of the Arts Council cull, smaller companies turn to Facebook and YouTube for help

28 December 2007

“they wouldn’t dare take away funding from any of the larger organisations because they would be able to put up a huge fight. So they have mainly gone for the smaller companies.” Thelma Holt ...

Albarn follows Gervais with call for celebrity culture to be 'dismantled'

27 December 2007

As Ricky Gervais' celebrity-culture bashing (and brilliant) Extras finale scores 5.3m viewers, Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn - as a guest editor on the BBC Today programme - has called for celebrity cu...

Our top web videos 2007 part 1 : animation & stop motion

22 December 2007

As the season finally closes in on us, for those tired of the same old re-runs on TV or wanting to avoid the family warzone of the living room and watch TV on a computer under your bed - or better still are loo...

As WGA strike continues, writers form online co-ops and some earn millions

20 December 2007

At the touted advertising rate of $60 per 1000 web video views, this could have earned the producers up to $3m for a two minute short, with no notable initial outlay. With the Studios showing no sign of res...

News roundup : Paramount follows the free with Jackass, Look, Golden Globes and Alice in Wonderland

12 December 2007

Paramount has become the first studio to experiment with free downloads of features, releasing Jackass 2.5 ahead of the DVD release for free. Sister company Comedy Central recently announced that they would offer ev...

The future of film financing, an essay by Adam P Davies

07 December 2007

If it is clear that the producer wants the product on as many websites as possible, would market forces really create competition amongst filmsites or encourage them to scramble to pay money upfront in return for...

Control takes five BIFAs as the only true indie in competition

28 November 2007

Anton Corbijn's Control took five awards at the British Independ Film Awards, hosted at the Roundhouse, Wednesday night. Paddy Considine's short, staring Peter Mullan, picked up best short film. Special Aw...

Coalition for Artists and StakeHolders creates slick industry-free music service

27 November 2007

You have to feel sorry for the music industry. No sooner have they begun to back down over DRM, then the new bandwagon arrives - industry-free music. It didn't start with Radiohead, but that certainly pulled t...

Out of the strike: new models for film from Silicon Valley

27 November 2007

As talks restart in an attempt to end the US Writers Guild strike, commentators are discussing whether the dispute will drive more writers and talent out of the studio system and onto the web. It is one thing to win...

REVISED: Be Kind Rewind premieres at a lighter Sundance 2008

27 November 2007

"The fact is that the world around us is a very troubled place, but the response of the filmmakers isn't always dark, but is about people finding a way though it and about persevering, not succumbing.&qu...

And so it begins: Miro debuts 1.0, freeing online video

13 November 2007

A future of TV free from the monopolistic control of a single company or country has moved a step closer with the launch of Miro 1.0. Miro is two things - a far more powerful web video manager and viewer than siblings...

Jim Gilliam: building a people-powered movie distributor and financier with Robert Greenwald

13 November 2007

If you can't raise finance for your feature, and cinema chains don't want to touch your film, what can you do? Until recently that could have meant the end of the project, but the web offers some interesting ways of ...

Links to one thousand film funds in 46 countries

11 November 2007

In Europe last year there was €1.5bn in public funding for film & video projects - and its often the same people getting their hands on this cash. Information on media finance in 46 countries ...

News roundup: Google, festivals, copyright, Music scores, Miro and Moby

06 November 2007

Open is the new, erm, closed as Google figure the only way into two huge markets they currently aren't leader in - mobile phones and social networks - is through mass collaboration. Android, launched...

We Are Together: "we cannot all shout at the same time, but we can sing together"

01 November 2007

Paul Taylor takes a tragic story and makes an up-lifting, life-affirming, non-preachy film. We Are Together (Thina Simunye) has as its backdrop one of the most urgent (and shameful) issues of our time: the spread ...

Shooting a feature in Iraq against all odds, Al Daradji on Ahlaam

01 November 2007

Leeds filmmaker faced kidnap, torture and attacks to shoot debut feature in Iraq - now on cinema release in the UK There are tales of filmmakers acting like war heroes, battling against the odds to complete ...

David Lynch helping Donovan to open meditation university in Scotland

29 October 2007

"For a country the size of Scotland it would take only 250 students meditating to protect Scotland from its enemies and to bring peace, to stop violence and drug abuse," Lynch said. "That is just a ...

Putnam Ponders Problems with Virtual Worlds for kids

24 October 2007

"Might we not prefer to build worlds that encourage those same values and skills we wish them to exercise in the real world?" Virtual worlds threaten 'values' Opening the Virtual World ...

The Axeman Dumbeth as Thompson demands mass cull of talent at BBC

17 October 2007

The day Greg Dyke was pushed out of the BBC was a grave one for both the corporation and broadcasting in general, yet Mark 'the scissors' Thompson was reportedly seen that day skipping around the Channel 4 o...

Leeds Film Festival to celebrate its 21st with a packed programme

14 October 2007

New films from Werner Herzog, Wes Anderson and the Coen Brothers pepper the programme for the UK's biggest film festival outside London and Edinburgh. The Leeds International Film Festival, now in its 21st...

More lessons from the music industry: from Yahoo exec

09 October 2007

"Inconvenient experiences don’t have Web-scale potential, and platforms which monetize the gigantic scale of the Web is the only way to compete with the control you’ve lost, the only way to reclai...

UK and South Korea sign film distribution pact

07 October 2007

The highlight of Edinburgh Film Festival for me was Korean feel-good masterpiece, I'm a Cyborg And That's OK (pictured left), sort of like Michel Gondry remaking One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. For those wan...

UKFC Development Fund unveils changes to script funding

30 September 2007

New UK Film Council Development Fund head Tanya Seghatchian has unveiled her new plans for the department, with a big focus on supporting writers who haven't had a feature released yet. At first glance this look...

Radiohead embraces trust over DRM: will it work for film?

30 September 2007

I recently heard from a music industry insider that Radiohead make some 80% of their income from touring, which opened up the question of why they put so much effort into packaging, selling and protecting albums. A ...

It's official: Summer of British film is most popular since 1967

27 September 2007

The wettest British summer since records began in 1914 appears to have helped British cinema going reach it's highest admissions in 40 years, up some 25% over an average year, and up 44% on 2000. 50.8m vis...

News roundup: Virgin vs Creative Commons, Wikipedia, iTunes, Amazon, P2P art & Scorsese

26 September 2007

Virgin Mobile Australia pulled over 100 Creative Commons images off Flickr to use in an advertising campaign without contacting and asking the photographers or subjects. One teenage subject found a photo of herself ...

Reconstructing Iraq's Film Industry: Antonia Bird and Human Film in Jordan

24 September 2007

When the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq in August 1990, the cinema industry went into steep decline. New equipment, film stock, and chemicals for film laboratories were forbidden under import rules and ...

Compass of Resistance Points to Bristol

23 September 2007

The Compass of Resistance takes Bristol on a cinematic journey across the globe, presenting a series of encounters, dialogues, events and screenings that will allow a rare, fresh and innovative look at the notion...

Raindance forecast with frequent spells of cool: Iggy Pop, Jean Luc Godard & The Clash

21 September 2007

Raindance Film Festival, now in its fifteenth year, will take place from September 25 – October 7 2007 in London. Highlights include a Jean Luc Godard retrospective, curated by the man himself, a pitching pan...

Hull Short Film Fest runs half-sized fest in October

15 September 2007

With the recent decision to move the legendary annual Hull short film shindig to April, a special mini festival entitled the 5 ½ Hull International Short Film Festival will take place between 5th and 7th Oc...

Majority of films watched online are not through video sharing site

15 September 2007

9 billion films were watched online in July 2007 in the US alone, according to the latest figures from comScore Networks. The figure is up from around 7 billion in March, with 134 million people each watching an ave...

News Roundup: Dali, Gervais, Beirut, Potter & Paddington Bear

13 September 2007

Wanton Muse Phillipa Goslet (right), formerly profiled on Netribution, finally has her Dali film, Little Ashes, Greenlit and into production, with an autumn shoot. The film, backed by APT Films, Aria FIlms, M...

This is Edinburgh Film Fest 2007, Day 1

06 September 2007

Hallam Foe, Edinburgh 2000, Protagonist, Rataouille & Planet B-Boy "You know, everytime someone says they don't believe in cinema, someone, somewhere makes a sequel to a bad movie." I'm slammed head ...

EIFF - winners and video

31 August 2007

OK, so Edinburgh was so good I've not yet managed to write it up and now I'm away again, so in the meantime here are some of the films made by Colin, Ian and the rest of the festival video team, published on the fes...

Black Filmmaker Int Film Fest kicks of with Perry's Daddy's Little Girls

20 August 2007

The Black Film Maker International Film Festival (BIFF) will be launched on 6th September at City Hall. A week of screenings from 7th – 14th September in London, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) &...

lookandlisten return from summer break with Grafiti themed event

20 August 2007

Leeds' (and the north of England's) premier AV pioneers looknlisten are heading Back to Cool (sorry) with a grafiti styled event for early September. First up is a return to their residency at the reform...

Scottish Mental Health Film Festival to launch in October

20 August 2007

Call for entries for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival, October 2007 Glasgow is set to host the first Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film festival, in celebration of World Mental Health Day. With...

Call for peace-themed content for new online peace channel

20 August 2007

World Peace day to launch new free web channel, although only on Joost From Peace One Day founder Jeremy Gilley: I am writing to you from the international film project Peace One Day, which I launched in 1999...

BuynLarge - hilarious web attack on excesses of capitalism by.. Disney?

20 August 2007

In an upcoming Olympic games, athletes will be assessed on both their ability, but also their financial fitness. A new breed of corporate punk musicians, who previously sang about stable interest rates plan a one ho...

Calls for Social Networks to open up

06 August 2007

"Humans are migratory beasts and as soon as they figure out that they’ve been locked-in-they’ll rebel." Marc CanterAs Facebook faces a lawsuit from uni-peers of founder Mark Zuckerberg claiming...

News roundup: Crude, YouTube, Funds, new mag, book and Gondry

06 August 2007

A roundup of some of the latest news, events and funds doing the rounds at the moment - McLibel docmaker Franny Armstrong's new film Crude, made with Oscar-winner John Batsek, is shaping up as a Bri...

Democracy arrives for Web TV with Miro Player

18 July 2007

Imagine having to use a different TV set to watch every TV channel - one for Channel 4, one for Sky, one for Viacom channels. Because every media company wants to control the user interface for online video, that...

Alan Johnston Freed

03 July 2007

After 16 weeks in solitary confinement, Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist held hostage in the Gaza Strip since March, has been released. Watching him now in the press conference, it's hard to imagine the kind o...

Film and the audience of tomorrow: lessons from social networks

28 June 2007

Danah Boyd, currently in the news over her blog-essay theory that Facebook vs MySpace represents a social divide, gave an insightful talk at Cannes 60 about the future of film consumption and the changing habits of ...

Michael Moore: "I think ideas, information and art should be shared"

17 June 2007

As Sicko gears up for release in the US on June 29 to strong reviews from the left and right, it has already hit the BitTorrent sites in a high quality version, getting more rave reviews from the blogsphere, and eve...

Susan Buice and Arin Crumley - web film pioneers become YouTube's first feature filmmakers

11 June 2007

There are few poster-stars of the web-led film evolution quite like Susan Buice and Arin Crumley. The NY duo - who James MacGregor sourced for a Shooting People interview, and then for an interview for the new funding...

Acclaimed Yorkshire feature returns to Bagdhad for screening

05 June 2007

Leeds-based filmmaker Mohamed Al Daradji has returned to Baghdad, where he shot his Oscar-shortlisted debut feature Ahlaam, screening it to over a 1000 locals and politicans at the national cinema. The journey has b...

So it happened.. an editorial

15 May 2007

"For any idea you can imagine — and some you can't — there are thousands of articles and images electronically swirling around the globe. But that's not the real story. That's not the bi...

The long tail: why the web loves indie filmmakers

13 May 2007

“Our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number o...

Creative Commons: An introduction for filmmakers

12 May 2007

“Obscurity is a far greater threat to artists and authors than piracy” Tim O'Reilly Copyright law was originally created to settle a dispute between English and Scottish publishers in the early 18th Century and has g...

UK Film Council unveils latest strategy with £1.5m festival fund

09 May 2007

"The fact that the UKFC is supporting off-line events, specifically film festivals, is good news for cinema lovers on this dull, damp island." Eliot Grove, Raindance The UK Film Council have unve...

ePetition to save UK public funding from 35% Olympic cuts

08 May 2007

Paul Gilbert recently posted to Shooting People about a new petition on the website of YouTube vlogger 'No 10 Downing Street'... "Does everyone know about this? There is a petition on the Number 1...

Blockbuster matures as Spiderman 3 looks at shades of grey

08 May 2007

Will Self, I think, once blamed Hollywood in part for the current 'war on terror' because its depiction in epics such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter of good and evil as black and white absolutes lea...

Netribution's Plans at Cannes 2007

03 May 2007

As Cannes puts the finishing touches to its 60th edition, we're just making plans for the launch there of our new world funding book on May 16th. With information on funding and tax incentives in over 50 ...

Jesse England pioneers desktop printing of 8 & 16mm film.

28 April 2007

Great thing about the web no.1 - people sharing tricks. BoingBoing has details of a system for printing from an inkjet to create home-made Super 8mm and even 16mm prints. While the resolution of the samples isn...

The Reactable: Music meets light meets table

28 April 2007

Bjorks' recent show at California's Coachella festival is described in BoingBoing (again) where she used the Reactable, 'a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface&#...

First Bolly, then Nolly, and now Hillywood

24 April 2007

I'm just emerging from the cocoon of work on a new book, so I'm a few weeks late on this story from the BBC- but fascinating nevertheless: Nyagatare is a rural and dusty town in the east of Rwanda. Bu...

EMI begins the DRM detox with Apple

01 April 2007

Responding to overwhelming public demand, Apple and EMI announced at an event in London plans to release a number of EMI catalogue titles without the DRM software which dictates what can and cannot been done with&nb...

Aardman ink cracking new Sony deal

01 April 2007

The future of the UK's largest animation studio looks safe after signing a three year deal with Sony. The Dreamworks deal had put the previously autonomous wunderkids under the thumb of Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose...

Rupert is in your network: Are MySpace Acts Independent?

29 March 2007

"We have lost the online equivalent of parks... where the limits on what we can reasonably say and do are set by society as a whole and not by the commercial interests of one company." If almost ever...

David Thompson reunites DiCaprio, Winslett and Mendes

25 March 2007

The news that Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio are to reunite for the first time since Titanic, in a feature directed by hubby Sam Mandes, is a great coup for BBC Films who developed the project. I interviewed...

EFF sues Viacom over YouTube BraveNewFIlms Pulldown

22 March 2007

As Universal, NBC, News Corp, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo join forces on a new video platform, MoveOn BoingBoing reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing Viacom on behalf of MoveOn.org and Brave New Fil...

Penultimate helps bring another feature to Shetland

21 March 2007

After Devils Gate, The Blackening finally set to shoot in April, with possibly two more to come from Fresh Paint Pictures Leslie Lowes, tireless champion of both British indie film and the Shetlan...

For want of a missile a nation was lost?

12 March 2007

As the film industry makes record box office glorifying 'war porn' in 300, its easy to forget the reality that we as voters have some impact on. Apologies for bringing politics in, but tomorrow in a rushed v...

May Miles Thomas sets out to unlock Glasgow's Da Vinci Code

10 March 2007

Pioneering filmmaker May Miles Thomas - long tracked on Netribution - whose microubudget One Life Stand was one of the first digital films has been awarded the Scottish Arts Council's Creative Scotla...

World box office defies expectations and grows in 2006

07 March 2007

Piracy and the explosion of video on the web did not impact people's hunger to see films on the big screen last year, with world box office takings up 11% to an all time high of $25.82bn. After a dip in 2005, th...

Roundup: Black Friday, the Development Fund, FESPACO, Adobe and Apple

03 March 2007

I'm in the final throws of pulling together a new book so haven't time to post properly, but here's a round up of some of the latest stories.. The big story in the UK is the sudden closure of the G...

BBC to launch three YouTube channels

01 March 2007

"We don't want to be overzealous, a lot of the material on YouTube is good promotional content for us" Ashley Highfield BBC clips - including The Mighty Boosh, Faulty Towers and Planet Earth - wi...

China takes Berlin Bear

16 February 2007

Tuya's Marriage, a Chinese film about a woman and her life supporting her family in Inner Mongolia, has won the Berlin Film Festival's top honour, the Golden Bear. This follows the Golden Lio...

Could BBC's DRM approach leave them as web losers?

12 February 2007

If YouTube can show video that streams without jumping and stalling, why can't the brains of the BBC? Ever since I saw BBC Head of Innovation Matt Locke descibe the BBC's scary 'Creative Commons = c...

2007 BAFTA Film Award winners in full - regal night for the Brits

10 February 2007

A night of royalty as The Queen picked up best film and best actress for Helen Mirren (what a suprise) and The Last King of Scotland scored best actor for Forrest Whitaker and the Alexander Korda Best British Film A...

Murdoch’s MySpace Moves to Movie Making with £1 Million Mashup Prize

16 January 2007

Social network expected to launch biggest ever short film contest MySpace are set to make a major marketing push to independent filmmakers in the next week with the a new short film prize. Provisionally titled &...

Mirren crowned twice in Golden Globes

15 January 2007

Dame Helen Mirren picked up Golden Globes Monday night for playing Elizabeth I on TV and Elizabeth II in cinemas for Stephen Frear's The Queen. The actress, who missed out at the British Independent F...

Craig and Mirren bring royalty to BAFTA nominations

11 January 2007

BBC Films' The Queen has topped the BAFTA Film nominations for 2007 with 10 nods. Small arthouse film La Casino Royale has picked up nine (ahem), while Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth has taken eigh...

Satyajit Ray Foundation offers free workshop with Ken Loach

11 January 2007

Ken Loach, winner in 2006 of the Cannes Palme D'Or, is offering a free workshop about his films and working methods at the Nehru Centre on January 24th. The event is put together by the Satyajit Ray Foundation, ...

Apple unveils iPhone, merging phone, web and iPod

08 January 2007

"Today, we're introducing three revolutionary new products. The first one is a widescreen ipod with touch controls. The second is a revolutinoary new mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet ...

Halloween blows short fuse at the ICA

05 January 2007

London's legendary limited length film love-in goes live Saturday. Kate and Phil are returning to the ICA, Curzon Soho and Roxy Bar once again for nine days of sweet and sour short f...

As Skype and KaZaA founders move into TV, BBC begins filesharing

18 December 2006

The BBC has announced plans to start distributing its programmes for free across the filesharing network Azuerus. While the programmes available - which includes Red Dwarf, Little Britain, Doctor Who and possibly Mo...

Time Magazine crowns YOU as Person of the Year 2006

16 December 2006

"This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person." In a somewhat gimmicky y...

Disney's Caspian becomes first 'British' film to not shoot in UK

13 December 2006

Variety is reporting that, as previously anticipated here, Disney/Walden Media's new Narnia film Prince Caspian will be able to access the new British tax incentives without shooting in the UK. This is down to c...

Greengrass's United 93 Kicks off Awards Season with double win

11 December 2006

"these images of a bloody struggle for the controls of a plane that’s plunging to the earth is an image that speaks to where we’re going if we’re not very careful" Working Title&#...

After MySpace, Murdoch ties with Google

05 December 2006

Google's first international partner for shared video, email and content provision is BSkyB, with whom the search giant is building a broadband platform for the UK. Days after BT announced its entry into the TV/...

3,000 human rights groups collaborate to develop web services and now search

05 December 2006

In an impressive display of cooperation, over 3,000 human rights groups around the world have been working together to share resources and develop a catalogue of human rights abuses. Huridocs, the name of the collab...

Beyond Dogme 95, Lars von Trier introduces 'interactivity' with Lookey

05 December 2006

"Film as media has one great flaw — it's a one-way media with a passive audience. As much as I love to dictate the storyline and control the experience I still wish that the audience c...

Human Film's Ahlaam picks up Golden Globe Foreign Language nod

27 November 2006

Mohamed Al Daradji's Ahlaam which is Iraq's entry for next year's Academy Awards has been announced as one of 56 films pre-selected for the Golden Globes Foreign Language Film prize. The announcement com...

Arts Council publishes report into Creative Commons and emerging attitudes from artists

27 November 2006

"In theory copyright represents the ability to make a living off my work. In practice it represents the threat of myself or my children not being able to express themselves without fear of the rich and powerf...

From Leeds Film Festival: Khadak, A Taste of Tea & Paprkia

25 November 2006

A trio of films from the east exploring the subconcious world offered a mind-expanding taste of world cinema at the 20th Leeds International Film Festival. Khadak, A Taste of Tea and Paprika each show exactly ...

Details of new Cultural Test for British Films and transitional arrangements confirmed

22 November 2006

Revised guidelines appear to no longer require film to be shot in the UK or have UK cast and crew to qualify as 'British' Details of the new cultural test for qualifying British Films for new tax relief we...

European Commision okays new Cultural Test for film tax relief

21 November 2006

New UK Tax Relief to replace Section 42 from January 1st 2007 A new 'Cultural Test' for British films has been given the green light by the European Commission today, and should come into force on 1 J...

Legend Robert Altman dies age 81

20 November 2006

"Filmmaking is a chance to live many lifetimes." Robert Altman The man behind such diverse and acclaimed films as Shortcuts, M*A*S*H, McCabe and Mrs Miller, Nashville and Gosford Par...

Golden Owl swoops for I don't Care if Tomorrow Never Comes at Leeds

19 November 2006

Belgium film I Don't Care if Tomorrow Never Comes, from Guillaume Malandrin, has picked up the Golden Owl at the 20th Leeds International Film Festival, with a Special Mention going to Human Film's Ahlaam....

Participant Productions Partners Errol Morris to Document Abu Ghraib

07 November 2006

Legendary Oscar winning docs director Errol Morris, director of The Fog of War, is to document the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, it was announced at the AFM over the weekend. The film is to be produced by Particpant ...

Leeds Film Festival adds extra screenings to meet demand

06 November 2006

Giving in to popular demand, Leeds Film Festival is giving some of the favourites of the festival a second screening on the 12 November. Films including Japanese animation Paprikia, and Czech comedy favourite Wron...

Iraq's Oscar entry Ahlaam gets a UK premiere at Leeds

03 November 2006

The first post-war film from Iraq - shot by British filmmakers - makes its UK debut in Leeds ahead of a Foreign Language Oscar campaign Ahlaam, which means dreams or utopia, made it's British premie...

"If you keep going down you'll hit the bottom"

01 November 2006

As I left the job interview yesterday, the words by the kindly woman wishing me off left me with no small sense of irony. In short I had bombed. I sometimes wonder about orbits, how we tend to revolve around...

People-powered film financing raises $267,000 from 4 emails in 9 days

01 November 2006

Adam P Davies and I have recently begun work on a new film funding book - an update to the One With The Pig on the Front. One of the things I'm most interested in this time round, following on from the Cluetrain...

MATT HANSON: From onedotzero to Open Source filmmaking in A Swarm of Angels

01 November 2006

We were moaning about bank bureaucracy in the flat the other night when I started to fantasise about an Open Source bank. As Open Source software - which supposedly backbones some 80% of all websites - goes from stren...

20th Leeds International Film Festival gets underway

01 November 2006

A quartet of premieres Thursday night kicked off the 20th Leeds International Film Festival Venus from Notting Hill's Roger Michell with a Hanif Kureshi script stood face to face with Penny Woolcock's co...

EWAN MCGREGOR: How it all began - Exclusive video interview

01 November 2006

In a 30 minute non-PR interview, Ewan McGregor talks with Netribution's Nicol Wistreich about his early days, the beginning of interest in drama at school, and travelling around Africa with Aids campaigners. He talks ...

News roundup: Flushed Away with Saw fainters, copyright rethink, and Borat's next move

30 October 2006

As the first UN sponsored World Internet Governance Forum gets under way, Amnesty International is calling for greater awareness of countries with censorship and freedom of speech violations. The forum aims to provi...

British Independent Film Award Nominations Announced

25 October 2006

The 9th British Independent Film Awards (BIFAs), set to run November 29th at the Hammersmith Palais, has announced its 2006 nominations. Formed by Elliot Grove in 1998 off the back of Raindance, the awards - now und...

Documentary film at the East European Forum

23 October 2006

The sixth East European Forum begins Wenesday October 25 and for the first time includes a meeting of East European documakers, comissioning editors, and other doc professionals. Running until October 29 in Jihlava,...

Hull International Short FIlm Festival - winners

23 October 2006

A little late in publishing the award winners for the Hull International Short Film Festival, but better late than never. I was lucky enough to visit the festival a few years back (when I first came across Virgil Wi...

Never Like the First Time is 14th nom for European Film Awards

23 October 2006

Swedish film Never Like the First Time! (ALDRIG SOM FÖRSTA GÅNGEN! ) last week picked up the Cork Film Festival Prix UIP award, rounding out the 14 nominations for the UIP European Film Awards short fil...

Latest UK Film Council P&A Awards

17 October 2006

The UK Film Council have unveiled their latest round of Print and Advertising funding. The Prints and Advertising Fund (P&A) provides £2 million a year for the wider release of specialised, art-house...

GYPO - director Jan Dunn and producer Elaine Wickham

17 October 2006

Made for £50,000, the UK's first certified Dogme film hits cinemas this Friday "Some films just make you really proud of UK filmmaking" Iofilm.com If you've ever staggered away from industry networking evening...

David Lynch to self distribute his next film

16 October 2006

"David's completely avant-garde attitude towards life make this the right film at the right time for this approach." David Lynch's three-year in the making Inland Empire is to be self distri...

lookandlisten at Leeds with Jeff Mills, Buster Keaton and Sylvain Chomet

15 October 2006

Legendary techno DJ Jeff Mills 2005 accompaniment of Buster Keaton's classic The Three Ages is one of the highlights offered by Leeds AV Group lookandlisten during the Leeds Film Festival. Other events include ...

Eight Killed in Attack on New Satellite TV Station

11 October 2006

Gunmen dressed as police stormed the offices of the Shaabiya channel in Zayouna in the east of Baghdad killing eight workers. The channel has so far only broadcast test images and patriotic music, and is said to ...

Disney Co-Chair recognises 'piracy is a business model'

09 October 2006

"Pirates compete the same way we do - through quality, price and availability." Giving the Keynote address at Mipcom, Disney co-chair Anne Sweeney has broken with studio convention and recognised piracy as a business...

Google Picks up You Tube for $1.65bn

08 October 2006

Having previously turned down MySpace, Google has paid more than three times the amount of money NewsCorp paid for that community to pick up the video sharing social network YouTube. Conceived in February 2005 by...

Virgil Widrich's Fast Film finally up on line

06 October 2006

It should have won an Oscar for best animated short, but its use of copyrighted images prevented that (albeit printed onto paper and folded into origami shapes). When I briefly met Virgil Widrich, whose Copyshop d...

Gilliam and Grisoni Grab Good Omens for a Groat

05 October 2006

We've said no to lots of people who want to make it into a cool, big commercial film... The ever wonderful BoingBoing is reporting on an RU Sirius interview with Neil Gaiman earlier this week where the au...

Leeds Film Festival Line-up Unleashed

05 October 2006

New strands for spiritual cinema, human rights & music documentary Leeds International Film Festival, the UK's largest regional film festival unveiled today a mouth-wateringly rich programme for 2006,...

New BFI Southbank to open early 2007

03 October 2006

The BFI have announced February 1st 2007 as the date for opening the new BFI Southbank centre, the reincarnation of the National Film Theatre. As well as the existing three cinemas, the space will include a...

Peter Jackson bored with movies, moves to Xbox

28 September 2006

After returning from Mordor and battling Kong, Peter Jackson has just signed with Microsoft to develop 'a new form of interactive entertainment' for the Xbox 360. The Oscar winnner, soon to begin producti...

Current.TV turns a 'small profit', offers US filmmakers $100k prize

28 September 2006

Current.tv, a pioneer of user-generated web content, unique in having an accompanying cable channel in the US has apparently turned a 'small profit' according to Derek Baine, a senior analyst with Monter...

Cory Doctorow's speech on copyright and successful media internet business models

26 September 2006

"no one woke up this morning looking for a way to do less with their music or movies" Cory Doctorow has long been a tireless champion of emerging business models and shifts in copyright for crea...

DFG and Channel Five Films call for entries

25 September 2006

There is a month left to get applications in to the FiveNews / Documentary Film Group Five Films competition. The new talent initative, now in its second run, sets out to produce five three-minute topical docume...

Bridging the Gap with seven 16k awards

25 September 2006

Bridging the Gap, is another documentary talent initative which, like Five Films, offers training alongside production. Now in its fourth year it is commissioning seven documentaries with an £8k cash, £...

Raindance Film Festival Kicks off this Week

23 September 2006

Wednesday sees the opening of the 14th Raindance Film Festival, with the Tony Grisoni-penned conjoined twin punk film Brothers of the Head. Other festival highlights include a Stanley Kubrick retrospective, a musi...

Warner Bros files patent for joint Blu-Ray / HD-DVD Disc

20 September 2006

Could this be the sollution to the forthcoming DVD-war? Warner Bros has applied for a patent on a technology that will allow DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD to be burnt and played on the same disc. It should make choice...

Disney expect to make $50m in year one from iTunes

20 September 2006

After a strong first week on the new iTunes Movies service, with over 125,000 paid downloads, Disney chief Bob Iger has said he expects the company to make at least $50m on the service in its first year. In...

Neuros launch Open Source TV box - users get paid to develop it

20 September 2006

A technology company has released a TV-stereo-computer interfacing device that fully embraces the open source idealogy by encouraging end users to modify and produce its core software. Unlike most consumer hardwa...

Art and Porn, who draws the line?

19 September 2006

A friend recently told me about clearing up at the Prince Charles cinema after a packed screening of Salo, where she found the leftovers of one man's excitement in a popcorn box. It was a startling tale as Passoli...

Exasperated by lack of media interest in genocide, filmmakers headed to Darfur

17 September 2006

Back on March 27th 1994, when Schindlers List won seven Academy Awards, it seemed that the film - giving an entire generation a glimpse of the full scale and horror of the holocaust - would help ensure such genoc...

New $5m fund for experiments in community journalism

17 September 2006

The Knight Foundation have launched the 'Knight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge', investing up to $5 million in its first year in web 2.0-style community news projects that best use the digital world ...

50th London Film Festival line up announced

14 September 2006

London Film Festival, the UK's largest film event, on Thursday unveiled a 312 film lineup for its 50th anniversary year. 4 World premieres, 32 European and 123 UK premieres include the latest films from Lars ...

Google hire lobby firm behind the Al Gore YouTube Fraud

14 September 2006

BoingBoing is reporting today that Google have appointed controversial Washington-based lobying and 'astroturffing' firm DCI to represent them in the US. DCI, run by Republican Party officials, came into p...

Here's an Inconvenient Truth: Arctic Ice Shrinks 14% in one year

14 September 2006

"I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change, no longer than a decade at the most." James Hansen, NASA Scientist The NASA satellite results reported yesterday re...

YouTube's top vlog turns out to be LA filmmaking trio

13 September 2006

"We did this with zero resources. Anybody could do what we did" It was only a matter of time. LonelyGirl15, the most subscribed channel on YouTube - whose very username suggests nubile illicit desp...

Vast collection of 9/11 Documentaries online

11 September 2006

Jon H from Finland at JonHs.net has pulled together a remarkable list of 9-11 related documentaries online. All are free to watch and most are created by unfunded groups and individuals. There's a few extreme...

Goodbye broadcasting? Apple to launch "iTV" wireless set-top box in early 2007

11 September 2006

iTunes Movie Store also unveiled At a special media event today, Apple CEO Steve Jobs previewed a wireless set top box to be available from the first quarter of 2007. The much rumoured device, provisi...

Philip Pullman amongst critics of effects on children of modern 'virtual' media

11 September 2006

Citing research by King's College, London showing that 11-year-olds measured in cognitive tests were "on average between two and three years behind where they were 15 years ago" a number of leading...

Animators get paid $100 to enter competition to win $5000

09 September 2006

Got an email through this week with one of those hard to believe offers. Register on SMS.ac, upload a Flash movie or Shockwave file of any description by September 15th and get sent a cheque for $100 - to anywhe...

MySpace builds in revenue model for unsigned bands

08 September 2006

The social network giant MySpace is introducing a way for the three million bands hosted on the network to sell downloads of their music, through a partnership with Napster-founder Shawn Fanning's venture Sno...

TV on mobiles becomes reality as BBC, ITV & E4 get Lobstered

08 September 2006

Versions of BBC 1, ITV1 and E4 will be available on the BT Movio Service running on Virgin's new Lobster phone from October 1st. The channels will be the same as the terrestrial TV versions, but without...

Amazon unboxes TV and Film with downloads to own service

08 September 2006

Amazon has unveiled its download service, Amazon Unbox, which offers thousands of TV programmes and films. Content appears from 30 major studios and production companies - including the BBC - with the notable exc...

Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Howard Hawks Triple Bill

08 September 2006

When I was very young I was never as excited by films as I was by going to the theatre - it wasn't until my teens that I started geeking out on films. The only only exception to that is Buster Keaton, I...

Torrents, piracy and beyond: will the film industry survive?

03 September 2006

"So the guys who started this business all cheated somebody to get there, and now they're being cheated, perhaps, by all these crazy, geeky people all over the internet. I must say, my anguish level is not great." Ric...

Peter Jackson to remake the Dambusters

01 September 2006

New Zealand legend Peter Jackson is to produce a remake of DamBusters, based on a Royal Air Force bombing raid on a German dam in World War II, for Universal Pictures and StudioCanal. The film is partly based o...

The Yes Men Strike Back at New Orleans event

28 August 2006

The Yes Men, a group of legendary corporate spoof artists who were the centre of 2005's feature documentary The Yes Men have struck again. On Monday Andy Bichlbaum, a 42-year-old former college teacher of video ...

First imprisoned US blogger Josh Wolf continues to update from jail

22 August 2006

Josh Wolf, the US vlogger who was put in jail at the start of August after refusing to hand over video footage of a demonstration to US federal authorities, is continuing to blog from prison via friend's tran...

Snakes on a Plane scrapes top spot, still shakes marketing rulebook

21 August 2006

The Samuel L Jackson film, Snakes on a Plane, described by one blogger as 'the most Internet-hyped movie of all time' has disapointed in it opening weekend, struggling to hold the top spot in the US ahead ...

Edinburgh in August is one of my favourite places in the world

20 August 2006

The first time. I can never forget that. Shunted to the outskirts of town to watch Robert LePage juggle love and war in his heartstopping multimedia devised play the Seven Streams of the River Ota, which wo...

Number 5 is Alive for Hull Film Festival

11 August 2006

The 5th Hull International Short Film Festival will take place at venues around the city from 27 September – 1 October 2006. During my time at Shooters I was lucky enough to spend a few days in the city at t...

From Free Film Movement to Cluetrain: the importance of personal filmmaking

11 August 2006

"As filmmakers we believe that no film can be too personal. The image speaks. Sound amplifies and comments. Size is irrelevant. Perfection is not an aim. An attitude means a style. A style means an attitude.” Lorenz...

Cinema Extreme Open for Submissions

23 July 2006

Cinema Extreme, the UK Film Council New Cinema Fund / Film Four backed high budget short film award is open for entries. Managed by the Bureau and Lifesize pictures, a number of awards of up to £50,00...

Peace Activist heads to Lebanon to get less 'biased' coverage

23 July 2006

Caoimhe Butterly, an Irish social justice activist and one of Time Magazine's Heroes of 2003 is heading to the Lebanon next week. She is aiming to get more impartial and unbiased reportage from the ground of t...

BritDocs Fest looks to Shake up British Documentary World

20 July 2006

One of the most exciting things I spotted in the bursting inaugaural programme for the Brit Doc film festival - which runs next weekend - is a networking event where 20 filmmakers are introduced to charities...

Herald critic Hannah McGill to Head Ed Film Fest

19 July 2006

Following this year's 60th Edinburgh Film Festival (yes, that's the longest continuosly running film festival in the world), Shetland-born Hannah McGill - film critic for Scottish newspaper The Her...

Disney Ditches Films Lacking Tie-in potential, axes 650 jobs

19 July 2006

Disney this week confirmed earlier reports in Variety by slashing the number of major films produced each year from 18 to 12. Despite having one of its most successful summers in years, with Pirates of the Caribb...

Glasgow Film Office's Crooks to head New Cinema Fund

17 July 2006

Lenny Crooks, currently head of the Glasgow Film Office is set to take over from Paul Trijbits when his tenure as head of the UK Film Council's New Cinema Fund comes to an end on September 18. Crooks founded t...

YouTube hits 100m a day and 60% marketshare

16 July 2006

Video download and streaming site YouTube has passed the 100m views a day mark with 2.5 billion videos viewed last month, according to the latest online stats. In April that figure was 35 million a day, an indica...

Da Vinci Code ban necessary to 'maintain peace'

29 June 2006

The Tamil Nadu Government in India told the Madras High Court on Thursday that it had powers under the Cinematography Act, to stop the screening of the Da Vinci Code, even though it had previously been approved. ...

Over 10,000 Euros in Prizes for third International Video Journalist Award

28 June 2006

Entries are now being invited for the third annual International Video Journalist award, which takes places in Berlin in October this year. Prizes range from 500 to 1500 Euros for a range of awards, inclu...

First Youtuber to Get TV Deal from Vlog

28 June 2006

Brooke "Brookers" Brodack has become the first person to get picked up from YouTube by a recongised Hollywood producer after being signed earlier this month to an 18-month talent and development deal wi...

Apple Slices Shake by 80% and begins phase out

28 June 2006

Apple has updated its Shake video compositing application, adding support for Intel Macs and slashing the price from more than £1,600 has been cut from the price to £329. The industry leading 3D compo...

Lyra found for Philip Pullman's Dark Materials

28 June 2006

With no previous film experience, 12 year old Brit Dakota Blue Richards has beaten off 10,000 other hopefuls for the part of Lyra in New Line Cinema's His Dark Materials trilogy. The Cambridge schoogirl got ...

Del Toro, Grisoni, Roeg & Fellowes in Cheltenham Screenwriting Festival

14 June 2006

Masterclasses from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas adaptor Tony Grisoni, writer/director Guillermo del Toro, Don't Look Now's Nicholas Roeg, Gosford Park's Oscar winner Julian Fellowes and Hilsborough'...

Digital TV overtakes analogue for the first time in the UK

07 June 2006

According to the latest figures from OFCOM, Digital Terrestrial TV through the Freeview service, has overtaken analogue terrestrial in the UK for the first time. The numbers bring the total percentage of th...

Thich Nhat Hanh: the Buddha biopic and the road to peace

07 June 2006

It was announced at Cannes this year that Vietnamese zen monk Thich Naht Hanh's biography of the Buddha, Old Path White Clouds, would form the basis of Dr BK Modi's long gestating $120m Buddha biopic. The film was ori...

Before Pirate Bay & Cluetrain: The Temporary Autonomous Zone

05 June 2006

A rushed three hour write-up on the Pirate Bay en route to the Star and Shadow cinema in Newcastle on Friday, got me looking back to the first time the Pirate Bayern was in the news, when I wrote a piece here linkin...

UK Government Inquiry into DRM calls for full disclosure

04 June 2006

"once someone has purchased a great deal of protected music for an iPod then if their next player is not manufactured by Apple this music could become inaccessible to them." The All Party I...

Da Vinci still rules globally, as X Men top US Box Office

29 May 2006

Fox's X Men 3 grossed $120m in the US over the 4-day weekend to become the highest grossing Memorial Day weekend film ever, and pushing Da Vinci Code into second place with an estimated $45m over the weekend ...

Bringing Open Source to Filmmaking, an Elephant's Dream?

29 May 2006

Elephant's Dream, an 11 minute animation which premiered on the Internet earlier this month, describes itself as an 'open movie'. It was animated on the open source (ie user-built, free and modifiable) 3D package Blen...

Paul Trijbits: Red Road and Ken Loach Cannes double is dream swansong

27 May 2006

To win one major Cannes award is fortunate. To win two, is just plain careless. The suprise double win for Ken Loach's The Wind that Blows the Barley and Andrea Arnold's Red Road at Cannes on Sunday nig...

The march for net neutrality continues

19 May 2006

A battle has been raging in the US which goes to the very core of the Internet and the freedoms which enshrine it. On the one hand is the idea that the Internet flourishes as a place free from regulation. On the...

Dan Hartley - from Harry Potter to Joseff Hughes

18 May 2006

Who gets the first cut on a Harry Potter film these days? Thanks to desktop editing many scenes are now roughly edited on set - and in some cases effects and music added - so that the director can tell if a sequ...

Gnarls Barkley Loons Large As Crazy is 1st UK No1 from iTunes Alone

02 April 2006

“You are the best. You are the worst. You are average. Your love is a part of you. You try to give it away because you cannot bear its radiance, but you cannot separate it from yourself. To understand your ...

Scotland's National enters Home Run

13 February 2006

Scotland's answer to the Royal National Theatre launches later this month. Inevitably being largely ignored by the London-based media, this is the formation of a major cultural institution, the endpoint of over a...

Is America facing an economic crash?

28 January 2006

OK, you’re already saying - there’s enough to worry about in the world - war, terrorists, human rights, technology, poverty, global warming - enough already! But one issue that looks set to dominate the gl...

We're back - early spring blossom

27 January 2006

"We have killed all our Gods, they offer us nothing that a scientist cannot dismiss or add doubt to. Yet our hunger for a force or parental energy bigger than ourselves or our all-too-human parents has move...

Nik Powell: 4 Nov 1950 - 7 Nov 2019

20 January 2006

After Nik Powell co-founded Virgin with school-friend Richard Branson, he ran Palace Pictures with Stephen Woolley, and later Scala Productions, where they both produced and found some era-defining films and filmmaker...

Snake befriends hamster fed to him in zoo

19 January 2006

A snake in a Japanese zoo has made friends with a hampster fed to him as food, and now the two are inseperable. from news.bbc.co.uk A rodent-eating snake and a hamster have developed an unusual bond at a...

The fish dream and the launch of Netribution

08 January 2006

So I decided to give myself the Christmas break - from just after boxing day until the 9th of January when I returned to work to tryand get Netribution 2.0 up online. I ordered one of the most boring christmas p...

The Castle of Cagliostro

13 January 2006

Early work by Hideo Miyazaki is cheap fun but lacks the depth admirers of the animation master will recognise in his later works. Director: Hideo Miyazaki Country of origin: Japan Length: 110 mins Format (DV, 35mm, et...

Free Short Film Festival opens in Soho on Mon 17 July 20006

15 July 2006

The 3rd Talent Circle Super Shorts Film Festival takes place in venues across Soho between 17-24 July. All events are admission free and include screenings, semina...

Nic Wistreich

Co-founder, co-editor

Remembering Jess Search, web pioneer and culture-maker

Why Web Monetization makes me more hopeful about film funding than anything in 22 years since Netribution launched…

If context is king; could version control counter context collapse?

Music streaming, monopolies, interopability & the chaos monkey

"Old Man Shakes Fist at Algorythm", but Scorsese has a point, and is WebMo an answer?

Netribution is 21 today; expirements with Web Monetization

Why TV's lack of an innovation strategy is a growing problem

Filming hip hop on 9/11 – remembering 15 years on

Perspectives from a microbusiness: why free movement is a deal breaker

Crowdfunding’s lack of sophistication around risk: is staged-finance the answer?

Film's monopoly problem

Berlin day 14; Oh Boy

Berlin day 14; Oh Boy

A loose thread

Understanding DRM: back to the days of Edison & the Motion Picture Patent Company

Lessons from TV: pirates compete on 'quality, price, and availability'

Subject of new doc Dead Donkeys jailed in Ethiopia on 'terrorism' charge

What might a Coop Uber look like (or should we be thinking bigger)?

What is open source? Five analogies.

Site back, upgraded

Why Selma's not a 'challenging race biopic'; it's much more

How 2014 might be the most hopeful year in 66 million years or so

My life as a game: notes from the tenth Nordic Game Conference

"Dear lover cinema, forgive me"

How to support the indie film & music companies who lost 1000s of DVDs/CDs in Enfield fire

Personal filmmaking abounds at impressive 51st Krakow Film Festival

Michael Moore’s impassioned plea on UK healthcare reforms

As web moves to TV, child protection is key, but ISP-level filtering won't work

King's Speech, Monsters, Arbor, Never Let Me Go lead noms for British Independent Film Awards

Freedom of expression, privacy, remix + autoblur - the 2nd Open Video Conference

The Future of Exhibition: Opening the Box Office - our panel at OVC

Musings on the media: Ban adverts and introduce a distributed license fee for content

The Open Video Conference returns - NYC Oct 1 and 2

UK Film Council to be scrapped as part of quango mass cull

Skeletons, Dry Land, Oath, Thewelis & Gareth Edwards top Ed Film Fest Awards

A lesson in how to profit from the free for the film industry

Son of Babylon - a devastating, breathtaking masterpiece: Ed Film Fest review

Sylvain Chomet's The Illusionist, opening Edinburgh Film Fest 64

One week left to submit a proposal for the Open Video Conference 2010

The Digital Creative Economy - five suggestions for Vince Cable & Jeremy Hunt

Leigh, Kitano and Innaritu in competition as Cannes 2010 unveiled

Glimmer 2010 kicks off next week, featuring Herzog's Plastic Bag

Three reasons why the Digital Economy Bill will damage British biz & what to do about piracy

UKFC launch new £15m fund, appoints Wharton, Collins & Franke, confirms Innovation Fund

Indie filmmaking, the Minimum Wage, BECTU, Co-Ops and all that

New Producers Alliance Shuts Down

The Fall

Five cracking free, pay-what-you-want feature films online

Site design update

Yorkshire/Iraqi feature gets two awards in Berlin, makers donate 10k prize to charity

Dozens of new UK Film Council funding awards announced

Top animators around globe collaborate on Coalition of the Willing

Food Inc

StudioCanoe's Facts About Projection

Netribution at ten years

Roy Disney : 1930 - 2009

The Open Cinema Unconference: Today at Leeds International Film Festival

Leeds Int Film Festival gets underway with Bright Star, Men Who Stare at Goats

London Film Festival unveils auteur-packed programe and star-studded opening

Plan Bee from the Co-Op pairs film release with environmental strategy

The Yes Men fix the world. We ask what keeps them going?

The Co-Op backed Burma VJ shows the reality behind the monk rebellion & crackdown

After the Open Video Conference part 1: background

Johann Poo's Brain Water, a beautiful Chinese 3D short film

Open Video from Iran: 10 essential web videos

Ed's Off to a flying start - the 63rd Edinburgh International Film Festival underway

The enviornment is the protagonist in Europe's biggest environmental film festival, Ecovision

Scott brothers launch Purefold - Blade Runner inspired video universe for brands under CC license

French Temptation Island camera fodder win employment tribunal

BFI runs Refugee Week programme, 16-22 June

Arts Beyond the Classroom brings parents and children together to explore art and blog about it

US campaigning journalist 'instrumental' in exposing UK expenses scandal

New free carbon calculator for film production from Film London

Milk, Chocolat and Pi as the Co-Op moves into the film business

Open Video Conference marks major meetup of video 2.0 pioneers (19/20 June, NYC)

Sony Pictures CEO 'doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet - period'. Question mark?

Which video sharing sites offer the best filmmaker-friendly licenses? Not Vimeo

Trailers for most of the Cannes 2009 Competition selection