These past few months have been busy – after trips to HistoryMakers, beautiful Prague for One World and Documentary Campus, New York for Tribeca and now  Hot Docs , we are feverishly preparing for the excitement of the inaugural year of Sheffield in June!

We are also very excited to announce four new additions to our portfolio!

In On The Day audiences will enjoy the stirring sounds of bagpipes and the humor and talent of the men and women behind the kilts as they compete at the bagpipe World Championships! We learn the inside stories of the first entrepreneurs and financiers who ignited the world of venture capitalism in Something Ventured and bear witness to the gender-defying women who made their mark on space exploration in No Gravity – imagining a cyborg future. And in Reliance, a police officer who overcame trauma has dedicated his life to using the bond between man and dog to find the lost and save the living.  

In festival news The Loving Story and Raising Renee, both co-produced by HBO Documentary Films, enjoyed their World Premieres at Full Frame Film Festival and are next at Tribeca and Independent Film Festival Boston, respectively. We’re also very proud that sparked by the recent UK theatrical launch, A Small Act has earned tremendous praise from media outlets across the UK.

In other news, award winning Summer Pasture from Lynn True and Nelson Walker has been sold to MDR and ARTE and will have its broadcast premiere on POV this fall and The  Brothers Hypnotic has received funding from ITVS!

Two highly anticipated films which reveal two fascinating characters; the “Bad Boy” of Buddhism, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche in Crazy Wisdom and legendary boxer Smokin’ Joe Frazier in Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears, have recently been completed and are now arriving on the festival circuit!

I will be attending the upcoming Hot Docs Film Festival and Forum from May 3-6, then Sheffield Doc Fest from June 7-12. Please let me know if you have time to meet – I’d love to catch up!

Media Contact: Emily Radaker / 1.207.725.8215

Brunswick, MAINE (March 31, 2011) – Media organization the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP) has selected Louise Rosen for its 2011 Advisory Board. Rosen is a Maine-based international film and television executive who provides project development, financing strategy, consulting and distribution services to independent filmmakers.

IFP represents a network of 10,000 filmmakers in New York City and around the world. Through its workshops, seminars, conferences, mentorships, and Filmmaker Magazine™, the premier publication in the field, IFP schools its members in the art, technology, and business of independent filmmaking and provides special programs to promote racial, ethnic, religious, ideological, gender, and sexual diversity. IFP builds audiences by hosting screenings, often in collaboration with other cultural institutions – and also bestows the annual Gotham Awards™, the first honors of the film awards season. Through its various efforts, IFP fosters the development of 350 independent feature and documentary films each year.

Rosen joins more than 20 other key industry execs and filmmakers, including representatives of theatrical distribution companies, television networks, talent agencies, executive producers and others. The IFP Advisory Board is tasked with providing counsel to the IFP organization on new trends and developments in the industry, helping shape and deliver content-rich events for the filmmaking community, offering industry expertise to members and assisting in the organization’s outreach efforts.

IFP’s Milton Tabbot said “Louise is a welcome addition to our Advisory Board, bringing valuable expertise in the worldwide marketplace and a longstanding commitment to independent film. From her base in Maine we know she’ll help expand and connect our New England membership as well as serve as an ambassador for the IFP on her international travels.”

Louise Rosen has been working in international film and television for over 30 years. Among the projects she’s represented are nominees and winners of awards such as the Oscar, Emmy, Sundance, International Emmy and Prix Italia.

Said Rosen, “I’m delighted to have been chosen to join the IFP’s Advisory Board. This dynamic organization is a critical part of the international community of independent media makers, a leader in maintaining a vibrant worldwide presence for these diverse voices and perspectives. At a time of increasing media consolidation, a strong independent production and distribution sector is essential. And, independent work is often where innovation, provocation and inspiration happen first.”

Rosen is a tutor and lecturer each year at Europe’s Documentary Campus Master School and speaks at many conferences and film festivals including HotDocs, Sheffield and History Makers. She is on the board of directors of the Camden International Film Festival and the Maine Media Workshops. After starting her career in Boston, she has lived in Los Angeles, London and northern France. She now resides in Brunswick with her family.

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By Emily Guerin

January 12, 2011

As a new addition to our portfolio, we are proud to be working with Nancy Buirski, known to many of you as the founder and former director of the Full Frame Film Festival. Nancy is in post-production on her debut feature doc The Loving Story (w.t.) on the couple whose interracial marriage ultimately resulted in one of the landmark achievements of the Civil Rights era. At a time when marriage equality is in question, this story has a powerful resonance for all audiences to consider. Also spanning this period of history is Joe Frazier: When the Smoke Clears the life story of champion boxer Joe Frazier. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the bout known as “The Fight of the Century” between Frazier and Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden. Frazier won, but the rest of his career – and life – was lived in Ali’s shadow.

The end of 2010 brought outstanding news for many of our projects – ITVS finance for The Brothers Hypnotic, the selection of A Small Act for the first Sundance Film Forward Program, enthusiastic reception for Summer Pasture at the Camden and IDFA festivals, major funding progress for The Biosphere Experiment (details tba in February) and completion of Crazy Wisdom, having its world premiere at next month’s Santa Barbara Film Festival. Also just finished is Oscar nominees Jeanne Jordan and Steve Ascher’s Raising Renee .

See you soon!

Louise

The new festival and market season is underway and I look forward to seeing you at one of many upcoming events – Independent Film Week in NY, CIFF and the Points North Documentary Forum here in Maine, followed by DOKLeipzig and the Documentary Campus Pitching Session, Sheffield and perhaps even IDFA. Here in northern New England, we’ve had a truly lovely summer which means the 6th Camden International Film Festival (Sept. 30 – Oct. 3) will unfold against a brilliant backdrop of Fall color. The film selection is fantastic and this 2nd year of the Points North Forum will bring together key industry figures from Europe and the US, with media makers from across New England and beyond. All of it taking place in a special part of the world – beautiful Midcoast Maine.

Our latest portfolio of projects and films features outstanding work, from both established and emerging filmmakers. Summer Pasture on changing nomadic ways in Tibet is at once modern and accessible while portraying a quickly fading way of life. Citizen Architect is startling in its demonstration that beautiful, functional design is for everyone, a foundation that adds depth and inspiration to students’ work. Musical genius is revealed in Play That, Teo and The Brothers Hypnotic and obsessed about in Do It Again. Empowered kids are the theme in A Small Act and The Game Must Go On, issues of development, the environment and our connection with other species are the topics of $H*T!, The Biosphere Experiment and Elephants Never Forget. And two long-awaited projects are now moments away from completion – Raising Renee – a film where the art world, civil rights history and a family promise collide and Crazy Wisdom – a Buddhist path that wends its way across the Himalayas as Tibet is invaded by China , through the Swinging Sixties, to our contemporary world.

Stay tuned!

This Friday, February 12th marks the beginning of October Country’s Academy qualifying US theatrical run premiering at the IFC Center in NYC!

Don’t miss your opportunity to see this incredible work of art that has been called… “A Small and quiet masterpiece of transcendent filmmaking.” - Pamela Cohn, HAMMER TO NAIL, “An ingenious fusion of dream and reality… a small miracle.” and considered “The most beautifully realized film at this year’s Locarno Film Festival!” – Fabio Ferzetti, IL MASSAGGERO, Italy

October Country has been shown at festivals in over 10 countries including Silverdocs, Locarno, Amfest, Doc Lisboa, Doc Leipzig, Sheffield, Tromso, DocPoint and more! The film has also taken home 7 awards including two Cinema Eye Honors for Best Debut Feature and Best Musical Score, the 2009 SILVERDOCS Sterling Grand Jury Prize for Best US Documentary Feature, 2009 DocLisboa Best First Feature, Montreal RIDM Editing Prize and Special Jury Prize at Starz/Denver Maysles Brothers Award for Best Documentary!

October Country is a beautifully rendered portrait of a family struggling for stability while haunted by the ghosts of war, teen pregnancy, foster care and child abuse. Vibrant and intimate, this documentary closely examines the forces that unsettle the working poor and the violence the lurks beneath the surface of American life.

“The intense intimacy of their honesty is staggering.”

Don’t miss this opportunity to see this remarkable film! For more information on the film and for a full listing of screenings, please visit www.octobercountryfilm.com!

October Country
Produced and Directed by: Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher
Total Run Time: 1×80 Minutes

Every family has its ghosts. In a decaying industrial town on the Mohawk River in upstate New York, the Mosher family has more than most. Examining war, teen pregnancy, foster care, child abuse and molestation, this vibrant film captures a working class family struggling for stability. Richly photographed over a year from one Halloween to the next, October Country hums with textured visual metaphors, offering subtle motifs that illuminate each character. Four generations of the family are intimately revealed – from middle-aged grandparents locked in a marriage shadowed by military service, to an adolescent girl carrying the weight of a dreadful family secret, to an infant great-grandchild bounced from one family member to the other as her teen mother loses her ability to cope. But even as their situations unravel, the quiet strength and rich humor of each family member infuses the film with a fragile sense that good intentions may prevail.

“A central idea behind October Country is that people who cannot make their voices heard begin to feel like ghosts in their own lives. When this happens, they no longer feel they have the power to change their world. At a time when working class families find themselves disenfranchised and trapped by circumstances beyond their control, it is vitally important to give them a voice – one that brings an understanding of their lives and an opportunity for change to both the speaker and the audience. With this in mind, October Country was created to be both a universal story of family struggle and a socially conscious portrait of compelling, articulate individuals grappling with the forces that tear at their homes and relationships. By intimately following one family and allowing each member to reflect upon the problems that beset them, the film gives a personal voice to the issues of economic instability, domestic abuse, war trauma and sexual molestation.

As the Moshers do their best to confront their ghosts, the viewer confronts the broader issues that haunt working class lives. In a key scene, the witchy Denise stands in a cemetery, asking the unseen spirits, “Anybody want to talk to me? Can you tell me your name? Why do you stay here?” With October Country we wanted to give the Mosher family, and families like them who feel they are losing their place in the world, a chance to answer.”

- Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher

Don’t miss filmmaker Kimberly Reed talking about her film Prodigal Sons on The Oprah Winfrey Show today (Thursday February 11th)!!

Prodigal Sons has been called “One of the most acclaimed documentaries of 2009!” by Indiewire, “An example of superb documentary filmmaking.” by The San Francisco Chronicle and hailed by the Viennale Jury saying “If you want to only see one documentary this year, it would have to be Prodigal Sons!”

Now the recipient of 12 awards, (including a FIPRESCI at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Jury Prizes at both Florida and Nashville Film Festivals for Bravery in Storytelling and Fearless Filmmaking, Best Documentary at Copenhagen and Tampa’s LGBT Festivals and more!) Prodigal Sons is about to embark on a US theatrical release, opening in NYC on February 11th and playing in 15 cities across the country!

In the run up to the theatrical launch, Reed and the film are getting extensive media attention. Reed has just been featured in an in-depth article in Details Magazine, which you can read here.

Click here www.prodigalsonsfilm.com to watch the trailer and please feel free to email us for a screener and/or more information!

I am proud to say that I was the co-producer of Prodigal Sons and we pre-sold it to BBC Storyville, IFC/Canada, CBC/Canada and The Sundance Channel. It has since been sold to SVT/Sweden, YLE/Finland, YES/Israel and DR/Denmark.

A Big Sky Film production in association with CBC/Canada, BBC “Storyville” and Sundance Channel

Director: Kimberly Reed
Producers: Kimberly Reed, John Keitel
Executive Producers: Gail Silva, Robert Hawk
Editor: Shannon Kennedy
Co-Producer: Louise Rosen

Returning home to a small town in Montana for her high school reunion, filmmaker Kimberly Reed hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother, Marc. But along the way she uncovers stunning revelations, including his blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender that force them to face challenges no one could imagine.

Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Best Documentary Jury Prize at NewFest, and Special Jury Prizes for Fearless Filmmaking at the Florida Film Festival and Bravery in Storytelling at the Nashville Film Festival, PRODIGAL SONS is a raw and provocative examination of one family’s struggle to come to terms with its past and present.

Filmmaker Kimberly Reed dives headfirst into an unflinching portrait of her family that is absolutely engrossing and marks her coming-out, in more ways than one. Returning home to a small town in Montana for her high school reunion, Reed hopes for reconciliation with her long-estranged adopted brother. But along the way PRODIGAL SONS uncovers stunning revelations, including a blood relationship with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, intense sibling rivalries and unforeseeable twists of plot and gender. Reed’s rare access delicately reveals not only the family’s most private moments, but also an epic scope as the film travels from Montana to Croatia, from jail cell to football field, from deaths to births. Kim Reed’s compassionate vérité style of filmmaking captures the lives of her family in such an organic way that their exceptional and challenging stories puncture the surface of our expectations. Questions of sexual orientation, identity, severe trauma and family love are effortlessly explored as the subjects freely open up their lives to the camera. Raw, emotional and provocative, PRODIGAL SONS offers a moving, illuminating examination of one family’s struggle to come to terms with its past and present. It’s sure to open both your mind and your heart. www.prodigalsonsfilm.com

-Shaz Bennett, Director of Programming, AFI Film Festival