xtcian

10/2/02 Made it in time

10/2/02

Made it in time to see Andy Brown's film Pop Life at the IFP Market they said the Market would be dying down by today, but there seemed to be more people milling about than ever. I wish more of them had come to see Andy's film, which is not only quite funny (a mockumentary about the reunion of a "Real World"-like cast 15 years later) but produced by Kendall Morgan, one of the girls at Carolina who lived in the estrogen-charged 505 N. Greensboro Street house.

From there, we attended four different industry panels where acquisition folks from Miramax, Samuel Goldwyn, IFC and United Artists all gave their advice on getting their films seen by them. I would have titled the panels "You Think You We're Going To Take YOU Seriously? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!" but thankfully, there were some scraps of hope thrown around. The one mantra we've heard at least 23 times from different sources is this: wait. Wait for the right festival to show yer movie, and for god's sake, don't fucking show it to anybody until every last nanosecond of it is exactly perfect. Not like we were all Johnny and Josephine Show Your Movie, but we're heeding this advice very strictly, and if yesterday's screening interested some of the big fish like we think (and heard) it did, then we're going to be Johnny and Josephine Demure and Coy.

Speaking of our screening, we may not have won that IFP award for Best-Seeming Picture or something, but we were told that more big shots from big places (Miramax, Fine Line, Lion's Gate, United Artists, HBO, Sundance) came to our screening than anyone else in the festival. I credit Liz and Kim for this, as they were relentless in getting buzz worked up through fabulous T-shirts worn by random people, a great postcard, a kick-ass poster, and dogged emails & faxes. Add Tessa's preternatural charm, Gill's one-degree-of-separation from everyone on the planet, my brother Steve's excellent website, and my pink Chuck Taylor All-Stars and you have a recipe for the van to start a-rockin'.

Liz, ever working an angle

Instead of attending another IFP party, we decided to play hooky and went to 24 Hr. Party People instead. I don't recommend it if you're in the mood for a movie that takes the conventional rules of storytelling seriously, but if you're feeling saucy and have a love for New Order, the Happy Mondays and other such early 80s Manchester New Romantic lore like me – it's a blast. I was in London during the inception of their predecessors: the Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, Joy Division. But I was ten years old and listening to ABBA! Why didn't someone tell me what I was missing, huh?!?