THE TRAILBLAZER
L-P OPEN WATER
PARALLEL LINES When filmmaker Nina Davenport hops in her car and heads cross-country after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, she uses her video camera to unlock the personal stories of hope, loss and redemption of the strangers and unexpected soul mates she meets along the way. Much more than a singular portrait of 9/11, this funny, intimately insightful and life-affirming documentary is a spiritual snapshot of rural America.
OPEN WATER
PASSING HEARTS In this quiet drama about a young boy’s search for answers, Daniel meets the family whose late son saved his life.
THE PAWN SHOP Chaplin competes with his fellow shop assistant in this classic twist on the workplace comedy. He is fired by the pawnbroker and rehired, nearly destroys everything in the shop, destroys a client’s clock and helps capture a burglar.
POROROCA: SURFING THE AMAZON No matter how many surfing documentaries you have seen, this one-of-a-kind look at the fast and endless wave, Pororoca “The Destroyer,” will still thrill you. The tidal bore wave occurs as the result of a combination of lunar, tidal and river conditions, providing the ultimate Amazon jungle surfers adventure. Ross Clarke-Jones and Carlos Burle, two of the world’s leading surfers, lead a motley crew through the jungle to the world’s largest river to attempt to ride this muddy, mysterious and seemingly endless monster wave in this combination of Apocalypse Now and Endless Summer.
PROTEUS This award-winning documentary weaves poetry, photomontage, mind-blowing animation, oceanography, technology, history and myth to tell the story of Ernst Haeckel. The 19th century biologist, artist and visionary, who found in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art, was an inspiration to scientific giants such as Charles Darwin and Thomas Edison.
LETTERS
NEWS
FILM FESTIVAL
SURF
There are a number of awards given out at this year’s Maui Film Festival, to famous types like Woody Harrelson, Bill Maher and Angela Bassett. But the guy winning the inaugural Trailblazer Award is producer Ted Hope. His company This is That has produced 50 films including the critically acclaimed 21 Grams, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, In the Bedroom, The Ice Storm and The Brothers McMullen. The honor is for “producing movies that matter in a world that does not always make sense,” as well as being excellent and creative and all that. But missing from the Festival tribute handed out to the press is any mention of the critical role Hope played in stopping a plan last year that threatened to shut out independent filmmakers from consideration for major awards like the Golden Globe or Oscar. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) began threatening a so-called “screener ban” last fall—an end to the old practice of filmmakers sending screener tapes of their movies to award judges. Seemingly an innocuous decision, such a ban would have made it nearly impossible for indy-filmmakers to compete for awards, since their low budgets and minimal distribution networks often meant many judges had never even heard of their work. Hope heard about the pending decision when making his usual New York-Baltimore commute. Talking to his head of distribution, Hope asked how they were planning to send out screener copies of his new film American Splendor. His distributor told him they probably weren’t sending any, since a ban was coming into effect—a response Hope said appalled him. “Lots of people had conspiracy theories,” Hope said, explaining why the big studios were considering a ban. “I always wish there were conspiracy theories. I wish they cared enough [about independent films]. But it was their level of arrogance—they thought the only movies that matter are the big blockbusters that get pirated. [They forgot that] as long as tapes get into the critics hands, these films get noticed.” Hope was looking at some cold arithmetic. He’d just spent the last five years watching independent and “specialized” films—typically darker, stranger or just more colorful than big studio productions—gain a real foothold in the movie industry. His own In the Bedroom,
BY:ANTHONY PIGNATARO
-P-
HOW TED HOPE HELPED SAVE SPECIALIZED FILMS
FEATURE
Whether you scuba dive, surf or paddle, this “Jaws for the 21st Century,” a spine–tingling drama about two scuba divers accidentally stranded in shark-infested waters, will have you holding your breath for 90 minutes! No mechanical or computer-generated special effects were used in the making of this film. When you see the sharks in the water, they’re real!
which cost $3 million to make, had brought in ten times that, allowing him to further his distribution and make more movies. “It was a threat to movies and my overall livelihood,” said Hope. “I had to keep deals going. I was shocked there was no outcry.” Hope began querying other distributors. They told him not to worry. “I had the sense to know I’d better worry even more,” he said. Eventually, Hope and and a few others managed to get 300 individuals—including Robert Redford and Francis Ford Coppola—to sign a protest against the proposed screener ban. The protest ran as an ad in Variety, which got Hope a meeting with MPAA president Jack Valenti. Then things stopped happening. Nothing substantive came of the Valenti meeting. People told Hope not to ruffle feathers. He and his allies responded by suing the MPAA. It was just before Thanksgiving when they finally went before a judge. “The judge asked if it was so pressing, why we’d waited so long,” Hope recalled. “Because we wanted to be nice!”
The Golden Globe awards were coming up fast. Hope and his crew tried to get specialized film distributors to testify, but they were under gag orders handed down by the studios. They were then subpoenaed, but “miraculously” no one was available when the servers came around. “It was a complete jam,” said Hope. “Then Harvey Weinstein agreed to sign an affidavit and go on the record. He was the only one that stepped forward. That turned out to be crucial.” Finally, the judge ruled in their favor. People he referred to as “predominantly L.A.based producers” began approaching Hope. “What are you doing, Ted?” Hope said they asked him. “[The studios] are going to retaliate.” So far, Hope said there’s been no retaliation. Quite the opposite, Hope said defeating the screener ban led to closer relations between specialized filmmakers and the big studios—even to the point of Valenti offering indy-filmmakers a chance to participate in future discussions. “I’ve always been told that specialized films share less than five percent of the marketplace,” Hope said. “But that activity’s been increasing—closing on 15 percent. The audience for these films has been bigger than it’s ever been.” MTW
TED HOPE’S DOOR IN THE FLOOR
DINING
DAY&NIGHT
A&E
FILM
DA KINE CALENDAR
THE GRID
CLASSIFIEDS
MAUI TIME WEEKLY
JUNE 17, 2004
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