Now Playing: Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You

The 11th annual Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You is set to unspool. New York's Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) Department of Film, in association with IFP, and Filmmaker magazine curates the best and unsung cinematic expression from the film festival circuit that have yet to be picked up for theatrical distribution.

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You has become an invaluable resource for cinephiles who seek to take in the newest emerging talent in American filmmaking on the big screen from visual film, video and digital artists to the freshest indie filmmakers.

This film series is dedicated to bringing New York audiences conversations around independent cinema and in-person engagement with filmmakers. The selected films are All This Panic, directed by Jenny Gage; Free in Deed (New York Premiere), directed by Jake Mahaffy; Hotel Dallas, directed by Sherng-Lee Huang and Livia Ungur; The Nine, directed by Katy Grannan; and The Pearl directed by Jessica Dimmock and Christopher LaMarca.

BFNPTNY takes place from December 16th - December 19th at MoMA. For more information on films, screening times, and filmmaker Q&As, visit:  MoMA.

Thee Awards Season, Again

It is that time of year once more, autumn leaves, pumpkins, turkeys, silver bells, Santa and red carpets. As a dedicated independent filmmaker, who can only deal with Hollywood in the 4th quarter when $100 million dollar film productions are set aside to unroll the $100 million marketing and PR campaigns as Hollywoodteurs unleash their best and most thoughtful film fare with dreams of Oscar gold on their minds, ostensibly ushering in Thee Awards Season. It is a very special time of year where celebriots seek vindication after a year of bombastic cinemaplex distraction.

This year, 2016, showed promise for the likes of 'The Birth of a Nation,' however, in a bit of irony, as the nation elected its first outright racist, homophobic, xenophobic, misogynist, and so many of anti-human behavior traits, US President, a long overdue cinematic unfolding of the true story of American hero, Nat Turner, a man seeking full ownership of his body and person, the film was marred in reckless scandal, while the most unpopular 60,000,000+ Americans elected a completely unqualified verbal brut to the highest office in our land and the world.

Of course, there are no guarantees in the Oscar votership of Hollywood nor with the attitudes or behavior of the American public; however, unpredictability seems always to be omnipresent throughout the land. While films like 'Moonlight,' 'Loving,' 'Fences,' 'Manchester by the Sea,' 'La La Land' and 'Lion,' are certain to make Hollywood feel great again with nuanced, if familiar, storytelling and narratives, the red carpet and epic award season is the ultimate Hollywood escape.  

Once upon a filmmaking, there was a time in the not so distant past, where I eagerly awaited Filmmaker Magazine's 25 New Faces of Film, Sundance Film Festival Audience Winners, Festival de Cannes Official Selections, and the IFC Gotham Independent Film Awards.

This morning, the 2016 Gotham Awards nominees were announced. For many insiders, journalists, filmmakers and Academy voting members, today signals the advent of awards season and the red carpet parade. Each year the list of names, production companies and distributors become more recognizable and achingly familiar, leading to the inquiry: Where is the independence? What is independent film?

While posing the rhetorical threat, I will offer some of this year's roster of nominations: Paramount Pictures, Amazon Studios, Roadside Attractions, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Annette Benning, Natalie Portman and Jeff Bridges. There is nothing particularly independent about said nomenclature and as a producer of independent film, the evolution from indie to Hollywood is to change or evolve the studio system from a closed narrative to an inclusive movie production arena where all stories are told. It is also to emerge from meager budgeted innovative cinema production to fully secured productions capable of being articulated to larger audiences.

With that said, I congratulate the 2016 Gotham Awards nominees, and look forward to not fully knowing any of the winners.

Making the Circuit. Flickeria's latest film Juliens's Bed has been accepted into the prestigious Thessaloniki Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival.

Known for its highly selected programming, TGLIFF always delivers a provocative slate of stand-out international cinema gems which veers entertainment into the fresh voices shaping the future of cinema and well beyond. Thessaloniki provides emerging filmmakers a platform to showcase their talent and vision while unfolding story narratives addressing issues in human rights, political, environmental and global issues without being didactic or pedantic.

Although our French-American-Arabic collaboration, Julien's Bed, screening has been pushed back until 2017. Flickeria is proud to be included into such an important world film festival and among those designing the future.

Flickeria is proud to announce our latest film Julien's Bed is now an Official Selection of the Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival.

Get Into the Directors' Chair

Warner Bros. Pictures launches yet another Emerging Film Directors' Workshop to incubate your cinematic talent.

While we struggling and slightly starving filmmakers, video artists and digital content creators welcome the thought of a salary, noted million dollar mentor and access to Warner Bros. Pictures, selecting only five (5) potential emerging film directors out of a spool that must be limitless and daunting casting. Might I suggest Hollywoodteurs (yes, I coined this term), attend emerging and diverified film festivals, scan YouTube, peruse Vimeo, access Artist-in-Residence participants, and scour emerging filmmaker websites to court and woo potential and innovative filmmakers whose filmatic flourishes catches a fancy suit's eye driven from the creator's unique vision and sui generis voice.

For us, emerging filmmakers, of course, we must apply, what else is there for an emerging artist in a land where Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump are the zenith of popularity alongside of 'Deadpool?' However, consider this, as you gather up your documentation, tweak your essay, update your bio, and link your samples to apply and spend days, weeks, months waiting for word from WB:

• Brainstorm an Idea or Story
• Research the Idea
• Write a Script
• Get a Producer
• Set a Budget - $0.00 is a budget in the indie film world
• Cast
• Assemble a Crew - in 2016 a Producer and a Director can equate a Film Crew
• Schedule a Shoot
• Grab a Camera (Mobile Device, Ipad, Laptop, HD, Film, Video) 
• Shoot
• Edit
• Screen the Finish Project (Online, Home, Film Festivals)

In the end, the most important thing is to repeat this process and to be innovative, original and place something new, and if not new, because we all know this is the ultimate challenge, at least something that is fresh and feels new and inspires other emerging talents -- even a man in a $5,000 made-to-measure suit to launch.

AS OUR NATION celebrates Black History Month, Flickeria wants to acknowledge the pioneers of African American Cinema. 'Pioneers of African-American Cinema' is a Kickstarter funded project curated by Charles Musser and Jacqueline Stewart, executive produced by Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), and produced by Bret Wood for Kino Lorber.

From the 1920s and into the 1940s, there is yet another unsung chapter of African American history and American cinema history, known as the “race film.” Race films were funded, written, produced, directed, distributed, and often exhibited by people of color throughout the nation in convention theaters as well as churches, halls, fields, and anyplace these cinema innovators could pitch a screen and attract an audience.

While previously circulated in poor quality 16mm prints, these newly restored versions (The Blood of Jesus, Birthright, Within Our Gates, Dirty Gertie from Harlem, U.S.A.) allow audiences to witness the legacies and brilliance of filmmakers Oscar Micheaux, Spencer Williams, and other African American cineastes with an engaged eye and fresh perspective onto the process and this important legacy to Hollywood, the nation, the African American community, and indeed, the world.

PIONEERS OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN CINEMA series is now unspooling at Film Forum.

The 2016 Oscar Nominations Are. . . .

THE 2016 OSCAR NOMINATIONS have been announced. The current members of the Academy has brought forth a listing the is pretty much the same and reflective as the very first list of cinema professionals from the year 1929.

Greenlight is a blog dedicated to presenting opportunities to the diversification of filmmakers and cinema. Greenlight shares information on fellowships, grants, and filmmaker residencies to showcase a broad range of films with a wide range of genre and storytelling.

When filmmakers of all classification can greenlight their own productions and share engaging stories, innovative camera operation, dynamic cinematography and a wide range of cast and crew members who bring their vision into fruition, only then will the academy evolve to an Oscar list of nominations that captures the essence and culture of the American landscape rather the economic and marketing strategies of Hollywood.

When that Oscar nomination list appears, Greenlight will gladly provide you with a link. Until then. . . . .STAY TUNED.