What does it mean for our independent film world that the best film from Sundance 2008 is self-distributing? Has the indie infrastructure failed Lance Hammer's "Ballast"? Well, it's more complicated than that, as Hammer told me for this indieWIRE article, "'Ballast' Steadies Course Alone" -- mainly because his budget was probably more than the film could withstand in the marketplace. But Hammer also has an important point, independent of the financial realities that dog the art-film business: "If Sundance is considered the acme of American festivals, and 'Ballast' was one of the films that was rated highly there," he said, "then it would be a total tragedy if I couldn't make another film like it again."

(Updated) Sundance sleeper hit "Momma's Man," which may be this year's "Old Joy," will not be handled in theaters by ThinkFilm, as I reported last week (and was already considered a done deal in the industry). Just last week, ThinkFilm even announced press screenings for the film, but today they were canceled, with all press requests directed instead to Kino International (which distributed "Old Joy"). Azazel Jacob's intimate portrait of a young father who refuses to leave his parent's New York loft was a hit with critics in Park City. The film is on schedule for an August 22nd release, now with Kino owning U.S. rights, the company has confirmed. More bad news for Think...

Here's excerpts from my write-up on the film for a FilmCatcher Sundance wrap-up:

"Then there's the fabulously understated "Momma's Man," which in its very title, broadcasts the pathetic state of its male protagonist. Directed by Azazel Jacobs, the film stars his own parents, noted avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs and his wife Flo Jacobs as the father and mother of Mikey, a thirtysomething man who finds himself unable to leave their cluttered, womb-life New York loft and return to his wife and infant back in Los Angeles.

A wry and tender study of regression, "Momma's Man" (also backed by Paul Mezey, give this man an award) shows Mikey digging into his high-school notebooks, singing immature songs from his adolescence ("Fuck Fuck You") and commisserating with old-school chums who he clearly has nothing in common with anymore. Filled with brilliant instances of humor and pathos, and one magnificent inclusion of home-movie footage, "Momma's Man" was this year's quiet revelation, the sort of patient, intimate, handwoven film that gets lost at Sundance (see 2006's Old Joy), but finds plenty of fans in the wider world of cinephilia."

The humble success of Zeitgeist Films, celebrating 20 years in the indie business (with a month-long retro at MOMA, starting this Friday) offers a valuable lesson to all the cynics who say the sky is falling for indie film. I've written about the death of independent film multiple times over the last decade, but a company such as Zeitgeist (who I profiled in the Village Voice this week) proves that it still exists, as long as you keep your ambitions small.

Mark Gill, according to his oft-cited speech on the eve of the Los Angeles Film Festival, would tell you that the "sweet spot" budget for specialized movies is "between $15 and $50 million," which must strike the ladies at Zeitgeist -- or any one else who has been in the artier end of the business -- as kind of funny. I was having a conversation with a filmmaker this week who said the sweet spot is actually $100,000. I guess this is what people mean when they talk about economies of scale.

I love to hear Zeitgeist's execs champion their most successful movies with pride: Nowhere in Africa ($6.2 million ), The Corporation ($1.9 million), Aimee & Jaguar ($927,000) -- box-office grosses that would be considered by most other companies as mediocre to weak, at best. But when you're lean, shrewd and you have good taste, and you're operating in the realm of truly independent cinema -- not this Hollywood-lite sham version that tries to pass itself off as indie -- such numbers are cause for celebration.

These days, lots of folks are lamenting the contraction of the market and the implosiion of major companies, but just take a look at Zeitgeist: They're not trying to capitalize, aggregate or innovate; they're just doing the same thing they've always done and they're doing just fine.

Missing kids, dead kids, wayward kids—they haunted the frames, drove the plots, and without necessarily ever taking center stage at the 61st Cannes Film Festival, stood out as a recurrent presence at this year's prestigious world movie showcase: a collective symbol of lost innocence, perhaps, or a looming dread about the future of the human species. At film festivals, where risqué subject matter is de rigueur, attendees frequently get treated to provocative depictions of sex and violence: All I saw was the ravages of parenthood and the pains of youth.

See the complete article at the FilmCatcher link.

More than any year than I can remember, I was excited about this year's Cannes lineup. More than any year that I can remember, the festival was also back-loaded in such a way that some of the festival's most anticipated films screened after I left. I missed Soderbergh's "Che," Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York," Atom Egoyan's "Adoration," and this year's Palm d'Or winner "The Class," by Laurent Cantet, whose film "Time Out" remains one of my all time favorites.

Because I also arrived late, I also missed "Hunger," this year's Camera d'Or winner and a favorite among discerning critcs. All this is preface to say that I can't say definitely anything about the quality, overall, of this year's festival. While I'll never be one of those journalists and critics who do the festival for two straight weeks, as my stamina and family are more important to me, I now have a new found understanding of what I'm missing. Regardless, here is a rundown of my Cannes favorites:

#1
Overall, it's hard to pick a favorite film, but Lucrecia Martel's masterfully concise "The Headless Woman" may be the one. In this indieWIRE Critic's Notebook, I called it "moody, mysterious and suffused with ominous portents and subtle critiques of the bourgeoisie." The film's images continue to haunt me. On first viewing, I thought it inferior to Martel's previous movies "La Cienaga" and "The Holy Girl," but now I'm not so sure. They're all of a piece, and confirm Martel's visual talents and unnerving worldview.

And ten other faves -- all worth seeing -- in order of preference:
"A Christmas Tale" (Arnaud Desplechin)
"Shaking Tokyo" (Bong Joon-Ho, as part of omninus "Tokyo!")
"Gomorra" (Matteo Garrone)
"24 City" (Jia Zhang-ke)
"Afterschool" (Antonio Campos)
"Lorna's Silence" (Dardenne brothers)
"Three Monkeys" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
"Tokyo Sonata" (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
"Tyson" (James Toback)
"Linha de Passe" (Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas)

Called "an open and chaotic network of diverse but interconnecting ideas, people, projects, events and venues," TURTLE is the brainchild of filmmaker Michael Shamberg, whom I first met and interviewed in Vienna some years ago. In the 40th anniversary collective spirit of May '68 -- decades away from today's mean-spirited and pandering political environment (yes, you Hillary) -- TURTLE is defined as a salon, a sort of utopian creative environment that celebrates the free-flow of ideas and intellectual exchange that some of us would like to think is not an outdated concept. This week, after stops in the UK, Paris, Dusseldorf and Switzerland, TURTLE comes to the IFC Center for screenings of Ellen Kuras's "The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)," Grant Gee's "Joy Division" music doc, and Chris Marker's 1981 short "Junkopia," with live musical accompaniment by Christina Courtin.

The TURTLE moniker comes from a real turtle sanctuary in Lebanon along the border of Israel, according to Shamberg's website. "It is the result of being a protected area during the civil war. The almost extinct Mediterranean sea turtle was allowed to flourish. This is something good that came out of the war. This is poetry. I have gone through my own corporeal civil war and TURTLE is my sanctuary and celebration."

Shamberg hopes that other TURTLES will pop up naturally across the land, "outside large cities, sharing items and info,'" he writes on his website. "TURTLE is a spirit. TURTLE should always be open and continue to change and build throughout its exhibition time, and beyond. It will embrace the last minute and unexpected. TURTLE should be an environment which is alive, inspiring and unpredictable.... The audience for TURTLE includes its participants - they are, in truth, the primary audience."

For more info, see Shamberg's TURTLE site: http://turtlesalon.com/