SXSW
Live Chat on FUTURESTATES
ITVS will host a live chat with filmmakers from the FUTURESTATES series on Wednesday, March 16 at 11AM PT / 2PM ET. The discussion will be moderated by Michella Rivera-Gravage, Director of Digital & Interactive Media for The Center for Asian American Media (CAAM).
Panelists will include filmmakers Nisha Ganatra (Beholder), Mia Trachinger (Exposure), and J.P. Chan (Digital Antiquities). Keep up with FUTURESTATES online and join us on BTB for the live discussion.
FUTURESTATES will screen tonight at the 29th annual San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. SFIAFF (running through March 20) is the largest showcase for new Asian and Asian American films in North America, annually presenting approximately 120 works in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Jose.
FUTURESTATES Premieres Second Season at SXSW
Original online series explores America — 20, 30, 50 years from today
If you were given a glimpse into the future, would it change the way you live today? Now in its second season, the FUTURESTATES series offers a collection of 10 fictional shorts that explore possible future scenarios through the lens of today’s global realities.
FUTURESTATES & ITVS on Display at SFIAAFF
The San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival runs from March 10 through March 20
The 29th San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF) gets started today and will run through March 20. The festival is the largest showcase for new Asian and Asian American films in North America, annually presenting approximately 120 works in San Francisco, Berkeley, and San Jose.
Among the featured films this year are several shorts from the second season of our online series FUTURESTATES, which premieres next week at SXSW.
Michella Rivera-Gravage is SFIAAFF’s director of digital media and will be moderating a discussion with filmmakers from the FUTURESTATES series on Beyond the Box next Wednesday, March 16.
Robby Henson, director of Asparagus, Talks FUTURESTATES
ITVS online series will premiere at SXSW Film Festival
In this week’s FUTURESTATES profile, we chat with Director Robby Henson about his film, Asparagus, which premiers this March at SXSW, then online on March 24, 2011.
Henson sat down with FUTURESTATES Series Manager Karim Ahmad about the film, which follows one introverted agricultural engineer as he finds love among genetically modified crops.
Find more at http://futurestates.tv/
FUTURESTATES Website Now Live
ITVS online series will premiere at SXSW Film Festival
The FUTURESTATES website is live and running, as the online series premieres its second season next month at the SXSW Film Festival. Season two kicks off with Nisha Ganatra’s Beholder, which offers a futuristic portrayal on one socially conservative community known as Red Estates. Enjoy the above filmmaker discussion led by FUTURESTATES Series Manager Karim Ahmad.
ITVS Docs Headed to SXSW 2011
The South By Southwest Film Conference and Festival has announced the features lineup for this year’s festival, which will take place March 11-19 in Austin, Texas.
Among the films announced are two ITVS projects: Better This World, by Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega and Where Soldiers Come From by Heather Courtney.
Congratulations to the filmmakers!
The Making of Independent Lens
Lois Vossen, VP of ITVS & Series Producer of Independent Lens
With the September 24 deadline for Independent Lens approaching, and the new season premiering next month, BTB has decided to give you an intimate, inside look at how the Emmy Award-wining series gets made.
Lois Vossen is the show’s series producer and vice president of ITVS. We sat down with her recently to learn about the curating process behind the program, and what she looks for in an Independent Lens film.
At SXSW with ITVS Programming Manager Karim Ahmad
Held annually in Austin, Texas, South By Southwest (SXSW) is considered one of the world’s premiere festivals, recognizing the best of film, music and interactive projects. ITVS Programming Manager Karim Ahmad gives some of the highlights from ITVS’s participation –– including the FUTURESTATES theatrical world premiere.
Programming Manager Karim Ahmad.
Matthew Meschery, ITVS director of digital initiatives, discusses FUTURESTATES at the SXSW trade show.
Preparation for a trip to the SXSW film festival usually entails digging through their program guide jam-packed full of screenings and panels and the like, and trying to figure out how to fit it all in. Soon thereafter, you realize that fitting it all in is a Sisyphean exercise –– it’s just plain impossible. This year in particular was a real banner year for ITVS at SXSW because we had the great pleasure and privilege of presenting the theatrical premiere of FUTURESTATES, our new series of short films, at the festival.
The films premiered Sunday evening to a huge crowd and some very animated reactions in the Austin Convention Center’s 500-seat G-Tech Theater. For me, it was a real thrill after over a year of developing these projects with the filmmakers, to finally get to watch these films with an audience and see how people relate to these innovative new stories about life in a future America.
Of course, the hordes of people who attended our opening didn’t get there all on their own. We had our work cut out for us getting people to the screening (see the aforementioned scheduling impossibilities). Luckily, in addition to me pounding the pavement from screening to screening promoting the FUTURESTATES premiere –– a tall order, when one is pre-occupied with reaching out to the next round of prospective FUTURESTATES applicants –– I also helped out our communications team. They manned a booth at the festival trade show, which was decked out to the nines in full FUTURESTATES regalia. At the booth, we screened some of the films; had a “Predict-O-Meter” station, where folks could enter their predictions into the interactive timeline; and of course, a generous supply of FUTURESTATES-branded microwave popcorn (must-have for any trade show booth).
Filmmaker Aldo Velasco at FUTURESTATES World Premiere at SXSW
Last weekend, FUTURESTATES had its theatrical world premiere at South by Southwest (SXSW). These narrative mini-features explore many of today’s complex social issues by imagining how they play out in the world of tomorrow. Find out what happened at the screening from Aldo Velasco, filmmaker of the FUTURESTATES episode Tent City.
Actor Mikel Chase with Aldo Velasco after the FUTURESTATES screening at SXSW.
When I learned that my film Tent City would be screening at SXSW as part of the FUTURESTATES presentation, I was editing a feature film in production in a jungle in India, near the Bhutanese border. I wanted to go to Austin but wasn’t sure if it was worth it; I’d have to leave production a week early, then travel for three and a half days around the globe to make it in time.
It was a crapshoot, because festival screenings are often a bit of a letdown. You arrive full of high hopes, but audiences rarely provide the kind of rapturous response that every filmmaker craves. But I had to see Tent City in front of an audience. This might be my only chance, because the FUTURESTATES shorts were created for Internet broadcast. Would my film’s complex story-within-a-story structure play in front of a crowd? One thing was for sure: I myself would not be able to enjoy my own screening. I’d be too nervous and too hypersensitive to the audience’s mood to relax.
But on Sunday, March 14, I was very pleasantly surprised. My film –– in fact all the films –– looked gorgeous splayed onto that stadium-sized screen at the Austin Convention Center. My previous digital shorts had looked a bit fuzzy when blown up to the silver screen. But Tent City, which was shot on the RED camera by the very talented Mathew Rudenberg, looked breathtaking –– at least to me! A large portion of my film is composed of black and white stills, used to relay a futuristic science-fiction story in the manner of Chris Marker’s La Jetée. With their inky blacks and icy whites, these stark still images surpassed all my expectations for the force of their narrative power.
Watch the FUTURESTATES series trailer:
FUTURESTATES Theatrical World Premiere at SXSW
Plan on attending South by Southwest (SXSW)? If so, you won’t want to miss the theatrical world premiere of FUTURESTATES –– ITVS’s new fictional series that explores what life will look like in America in the decades and centuries to come.
Join us on Sunday, March 14 at 5:00 PM, where we’ll be screening the following FUTURESTATES mini-features:
Mister Green, directed by Greg Pak
Plastic Bag, directed by Ramin Bahrani
The Rise, directed by Garret Williams
Silver Sling, directed by Tze Chun
Tent City, directed by Aldo Velasco
Tia & Marco, directed by Annie Howell
This is a unique opportunity to see these groundbreaking new films on the big screen at the one-of-a-kind SXSW Film Festival in high definition. Filmmakers Greg Pak, Annie Howell, Aldo Velasco, and Garret Williams will also be in attendance for a Q&A session, in addition to members of the ITVS staff.
This is your chance to ask all your pressing questions and learn more about this innovative project that’s unlike anything you’ve seen in public media.
We look forward to seeing you there!
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