How much money does film production bring to the Valley each year?
About $25 million a year, according to a report by the Phoenix Film Office.
There’s a Republic story on the report here.
A Will Ferrell movie called Everything Must Go was filmed here this spring.
In typically irritating Republic fashion, the newsworthy angle of the story—and, no doubt, the whole reason the film office did the report— isn’t divulged until literally the last two paragraphs:
The future for films in the Valley could decline, the report noted. The Motion Picture Incentive Program administered by the Arizona Department of Commerce offers incentives to production companies in the form of tax credits equaling up to 30 percent of their dollars spent in Arizona, with a cap of $9 million per project.
The incentive program is scheduled to end Dec. 31. Senate Bill 1409, which would have extended the program, was not passed by the Legislature.
7:31 AM
Dan Harkins getting a "visionary award" at Phoenix Film Fest in April
From the Phoenix Film Festival:
DAN HARKINS TO RECEIVE VISIONARY AWARD AT OPENING NIGHT OF 2010 PHOENIX FILM FESTIVAL
PHOENIX (April 8, 2010) – When the Phoenix Film Festival begins its Tenth Anniversary event on April 8, 2010 with an Opening Night Gala, Dan Harkins will be on hand to accept the Festival’s first ever Visionary Award. This award, which will be presented annually, will be given to individuals who provide leadership and a commitment to their industry and to the community.
According to Festival Director Chris Lamont, Dan Harkins, owner of Harkins Theatres, seems the obvious choice to be the first recipient of the Visionary Award. “One of the great champions of independent film, Dan Harkins exemplifies the importance of giving people a chance to experience the cultural wonder that is motion pictures,” he said. In addition to receiving this award, The Phoenix Film Festival has worked with Dan Harkins to create the Dan Harkins Breakthrough Filmmaker Award. Dan Harkins himself will present this award at the Opening Night Gala to a director whose film is screening in the 2010 Phoenix Film Festival.
The Phoenix Film Festival, which will be celebrating its tenth anniversary, takes place from April 8-April 15, 2010, at Harkins Scottsdale 101 Theaters located at 7000 E. Mayo Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85054.
If you are a movie lover, this is an event that shouldn’t be missed. Tickets and passes are on sale now and available through the Phoenix Film Festival Website www.phoenixfilmfestival.com. Tickets may also be purchased in person at the Phoenix Film Festival office at 1700 N. 7th Ave. #250 in Phoenix. Tickets will also be available the day of the event at the Phoenix Film Festival Welcome Center next to the Harkins Scottsdale 101 Theater located at 7000 E. Mayo Blvd. Phoenix, AZ 85054. Tickets range in price from $10 for a single screening to $350 for the Platinum Pass. For more information call 602-955-6444 or go to www.phoenixfilmfestival.com.
###
6:12 PM
Movies in AZ generate $38 million in 2009
The PBJ reports that Arizona made $38 million from in-state moviemaking last year, per the state’s film office:
Overall in 2009, the film industry in Phoenix employed 4,795 technicians and actors who worked on 362 projects accounting for 1,290 shooting days and 2,080 hotel nights, the film office reported.
“Maneater,” which aired last May, employed hundreds of local crew members and actors during its three-month shooting schedule. Although the story was set in Los Angeles, producers selected Phoenix because of the visual similarities LA and the Motion Picture Tax Incentive Program administered by the Arizona Department of Commerce, according to the Phoenix Film Office.
Maneater was a Lifetime movie. It sounds like quite a tale:
Beautiful, fashionable and fun, Clarissa Alpert (Sarah Chalke) is a shallow socialite whose speed dial is a veritable Rolodex of Hollywood power players. Staring her 32nd birthday directly in the eyes — though she will admit only to being 28 — the spoiled daddy’s girl is in a panic because she is still single. Clarissa, though, always gets what she wants — even if he’s Aaron Mason (Philip Winchester), the hottest new producer in town. With the help of her family and friends, Clarissa sets into motion an elaborate plan to lasso the dashing filmmaker.
Other prestige projects included “Supernanny,” “America’s Most Wanted,” and “Wife Swap.”
2:19 PM
The Pat Tillman movie
Variety says the Weinstein brothers have bought the distribution rights at Sundance to The Tillman Story, a documentary on the life, death and aftermath of the former Cardinals quarterback safety:
Distrib’s [sic] snagged North American, U.K., Australia and New Zealand rights on docu “The Tillman Story,” the military death exposé about NFL player Pat Tillman, helmed by Amir Bar-Lev and written by Mark Monroe (“The Cove”). “Tillman” is produced by John Battsek of Passion Pictures.
The Weinstein Company, run by the brothers Bob and Harvey, is the organization the pair formed after leaving Miramax behind at Disney. The story says it will hit theaters later this year.
Says IndieWire:
“What they said happened, didn’t happen,” Pat Tillman’s mother, Mary, says early on in “The Tillman Story,” “They made up a story, so you have to set the record straight.”
Mystery surrounded the passing of Tillman after he was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, sparking a Congressional investigation into the cause of the pro football player’s death. He was awarded the U.S. military’s Silver Star for dying in the line of enemy fire, but facts later revealed that he was killed by friendly fire. The film takes a broader look at Tillman’s life and the often conflicting accounts of his death, including a tug-of-war between the U.S. military and his own family as the facts surrounding the incident are revealed.
11:10 PM
A George Kuchar documentary's Phoenix premiere ...
… is screening at ASU West on Saturday. Kuchar has been an underground filmmaker for nearly 40 years from his perch at the SF Art Institute; It Came From Kuchar is a profile of the director and his twin brother, a sometime collaborator, by director Jennifer Kroot.
Here’s a bit of Variety’s review of it:
“It Came From Kuchar” gleefully piles on everything anyone could want in a docu on the fabulous Kuchar brothers, whose deliriously campy zero-budget mellers — with titles like “Hold Me While I’m Naked” or “Sins of the Fleshapoids” — enlivened many otherwise somber evenings of ‘60s underground cinema. Critics and aficionados seek to distill the essence of the twins’ work, while clips from the films in question unspool in a fever dream of compelling non sequiturs. Meanwhile, George and Mike Kuchar themselves hold forth unstoppably. A must-see for filmmakers of all persuasions …
(A “meller” is a melodrama in Varietyspeak.)
No Festival Required, the local independent film group, has Kuchar himself on hand after, to screen some of his work and answer questions.
And it’s free!
The “George Kuchar Film Symposium” is on Saturday February 6, 2010, at 5 p.m. in the Kiva Lecture Room of the Sands Building at ASU West.
ASU West is south of Thunderbird and west of 43rd Ave. A campus map is here. The Sands building is in the middle of the campus.
Details from NFR here.
4:49 AM
Sedona Film Fest sched is out
Full schedule here, as a PDF.
The closing night films haven’t been released yet, but should be early this week.
The festival boasts some 150 screenings over seven days in eight screening rooms, most of them at the Sedona Harkins. It runs from Feb. 21 to Feb. 28.
Here’s some other tidbits from the fest:
• Appearances by Oscar-winning documentary director Michael Moore and screening of three of his films;
• Turner Classic Movies’ host Robert Osborne returns with three classic films: “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (1938) with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland; “A Place in the Sun” (1951) with Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters; and “Leave Her to Heaven” (1945) with Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde and Vincent Price.
• Aiden Quinn’s “A Shine of Rainbows” as the opening-night film.
• New films by Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan (“The Greatest”) and Barry Levinson (“PolliWood”).
• “Another Harvest Moon,” featuring an all-star cast of Ernest Borgnine, Richard Schiff, Piper Laurie, Doris Roberts, Cybill Shepherd and Anne Meara.
• “Waking Sleeping Beauty,” a documentary about the inner workings and conflicts at Disney during the Michael Eisner years with an appearance in Sedona by director/producer Don Hahn.
While the fest says The Greatest is “by” Brosnan and Saradon, they just appear in it. The film is a reputed heart-tugger about the death of the couple’s son; it played at Sundance last year but apparently hasn’t yet had an American release. The Levinson film, which is called PoliWood, not Polliwood, is a documentary about celebs and the 2008 presidential campaign.
2:06 AM
Desperado Gay Film Fest dates set—trailer released, too
The Desperado Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is scheduled for Paradise Valley Community College on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 29 and 30.
Here’s the trailer for the fest, which is amusing:
The main film is a Swedish work called Patrik, 1,5, written and directed by Ella Lemhagen; the odd title refers to the film’s plot, which sees a gay couple adopting what they think is going to be a one-and-a-half year old boy, but who turns out to be 15 and not very gay-friendly.
The film won an audience award at this year’s San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. There’s no official trailer yet (and the poster to the left is from the retitled French version), but you can see scenes from it here.
7:00 AM