Sat. June 20th

The screening date for the Urban Suburban is out. Fifth Form will be on Sat, the 20th of June at 10AM at the Crowne Plaza Main Line. And then the panel that I'll be on will be later in the day.

One of the things that I'd like to talk about is how segregated the festival world. One more way in which things have changed. And one more way in which you can ensure that you'll only see films that show you what you want to see, what you expect to see. You can watch channels that agree, read blogs and newsmedia that agree with you and now go to festivals with ever more specific agendas and niches so as to virtually eliminate the element of surprise.

A distributor told me that he thought Fifth Form would have a hard time with festivals because it's not dark enough and it's not light enough. That's a hard pill for a director to swallow. I don't know how these things work, clearly, but I do feel like Fifth Form will be accepted by Jewish Festivals even though I don't think of it as a Jewish film. Fact of the matter is I think the reception would be very different if this were a film about ethnic tension at an inner city public school. That's something that a film festival audience can stomach because it's happening over there. But seeing a neorealist film about hatred in their own backyard just may not play that well. Maybe I'm being simple and bitter but, heck, it's monday morning. Let me know when the last time you saw a film that was totally surprising. And let me know when the last time you saw a film that showed the day to day lives of upper class people, kids or otherwise. That's what I'm curious about today.