A new venue, old gems, and Web offer many film choices
In August, when Ben Affleck was wrapping up his directorial debut , "Gone, Baby, Gone," he said at a press conference in Dorchester that he was glad to be able to come back to his native city to shoot the picture.
"There has been a perception, historically, of Boston as a difficult town to film in," he said. The state's November 2005 tax credit legislation for motion pictures was a significant step in the right direction, he said. Companies will now "be met with enthusiasm" and get to film in a place that "doesn't look like Toronto."
The tax incentives are important, and high-profile jobs came to town in 2006 with Affleck's film as well as
But yet another year has wrapped up with the state's public face to the film industry still a work in progress. Baby steps were taken: The Massachusetts Sports & Entertainment Commission, the official agency in charge of film, named former Boston Bruins executive VP Richard Krezwick managing director in July. Although he conceded at a meeting of 250 industry players in November that his film experience is limited to being an extra in a 30-second commercial, a search was launched for an executive director who will become Massachusetts' s official film sales person. Krezwick also promised a robust online resource for filmmakers at mafilm.org.
Competing organizations have been trying fill the gaps. The independently financed Massachusetts Film Bureau (at massfilmbureau.com ), says it's promoting the state. Motionmedia.org , launched over the summer by the Alliance for Independent Motion Media, wants to become a central information source. And the Massachusetts Production Coalition , which was founded in 2005, is a trade organization designed "to pool efforts for growing and retaining media production in the state of Massachusetts."
A New Year's Resolution for 2007: one resource, led by the state, to weave all these efforts together.
Looking back at 2006, there was significant action for Boston film fans and movie makers behind the scenes and, this year, on home computers. Notable highlights:
The ICA: A sparkly new venue for film with a tilt toward local programming. To start with the most recent of the bright spots, the December opening of the Institute of Contemporary Arts at its waterfront location brought a comfortable new 325-seat venue to town. Armed with two 35 mm projectors and a state- of- the- art digital projection system, film and video director Branka Bogdanov plans to feature local, international, and experimental films and filmmakers.
The continued blossoming of the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The Brookline cinema, which started life as a church in 1906 and almost bit the dust 20 years ago, has been reborn thanks to community film fans. It now qualifies as a great independent theater turnaround. This year it unveiled swank renovations including new seats in the main theater and an expanded lobby. While curator Clinton McClung left in April, he has been ably succeeded by program manager George Bragdon.
With three rooms, the Coolidge now hosts the region's most eclectic programming. Along with first- run movies, it presented this year a gala celebration of Meryl Streep (with an April 2007 celebration of film editor Thelma Schoonmaker already in the works); live concerts, sing a longs and midnight shows; screenings of local films; and a Science on Screen series with top notch guest speakers such as Rodney Brooks of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab.
Online experiments making it easier for filmmakers to find audiences -- and audiences to find filmmakers. YouTube.com and MySpace.com became heavily trafficked sites in 2006 for directors to market their work on the cheap by posting shorts and trailers.
One of the most exciting successes has been Framingham native Susan Buice's film "Four Eyed Monsters," which she made with boyfriend Arin Crumley . As they detailed at a workshop on alternative distribution at the Independent Film Festival of Boston in April, they built a website, MySpace site, and behind-the-scenes podcasts to promote the movie. After asking online fans what cities the film should come to, "Four Eyed Monsters" played the Somerville Theatre in September. And earlier this month, it won the $100,000 grand prize in an indieWIRE contest.
Film festivals moving online. The national Campus MovieFest '06, which awarded the best drama prize to a team from Emerson College, posted all winners and runners-up online. The Boston Film Night short film festival put almost all its movies online, and the Boston Jewish Film Festival has links to two of its short films at its website.
The Harvard Film Archive settling in with a new director. With a rich background in conservation, Haden Guest says the HFA will focus on preservation while still keeping its theater doors open to the public -- great news for fans of the Archive's program of known and little-known art gems. Ted Barron, the archive's senior programmer, was given a commendation earlier this month by the Boston Society of Film Critics for overseeing programming at the archive in recent years.
The Museum of Fine Arts' s continued commitment to the fine art of conversation. With programming by Bo Smith , MFA audiences were invited to talk with independent directors (such as Laura Poitras of "My Country, My Country"), subjects of documentaries (architect Moshe Safdie ), and international stars (directors Liv Ullmann and Patrice Chéreau , and younger talents Daniel Burman and Lucile Hadzihalilovic ).
The Brattle Theatre is still alive and kicking. In October 2005, the Cambridge venue announced a "Preserve the Brattle" campaign to raise $500,000 by the end of 2006 to keep it from going under. Fund - raisers included a November gala with actress Geraldine Chaplin and Cy Harvey , the cofounder of both Janus Films and the Brattle itself. Theater creative director Ned Hinkle says he expects to finish out 2006 with $375,000 for the campaign, "enough to continue moving forward and keep connecting -- we're so energized by the response."
Leslie Brokaw can be reached at lbrokaw@globe.com. 