Although I wasn't buying what it was selling at Sundance (neither were any distributors as it turns out), its worth noting that Lance Hammer's nearly universally acclaimed Ballast opens at Film Forum tomorrow. After signing a deal with IFC, Hammer and his brain trust turned down the nascent, vertically integrated indie distributor, finding their platform release model inadequate. I can't blame him. The courage with which they're pushing themselves into the Darwinian indie marketplace without any corporate support for P&A is admirable, but I still think this film will just about never find its intended audience until IFC opens up one of their six screen palaces on the Mississippi Delta. Wait... that's assuming Mr. Hammer intended to make a film for the type of people he claimed enough intellectual and emotional knowledge of to make a film about. I think the jury is still out on that one.
Sep 30, 2008
Self distributed Ballast opens at Film Forum
Although I wasn't buying what it was selling at Sundance (neither were any distributors as it turns out), its worth noting that Lance Hammer's nearly universally acclaimed Ballast opens at Film Forum tomorrow. After signing a deal with IFC, Hammer and his brain trust turned down the nascent, vertically integrated indie distributor, finding their platform release model inadequate. I can't blame him. The courage with which they're pushing themselves into the Darwinian indie marketplace without any corporate support for P&A is admirable, but I still think this film will just about never find its intended audience until IFC opens up one of their six screen palaces on the Mississippi Delta. Wait... that's assuming Mr. Hammer intended to make a film for the type of people he claimed enough intellectual and emotional knowledge of to make a film about. I think the jury is still out on that one.
