Film Flam
Preserving Mondo's archive, Fantastic Fest first wave, farewell to Sherry Mills, and what's happening with lots of local productions
By Kimberley Jones, Fri., July 15, 2011
In last week's profile of the Alamo Drafthouse's poster boutique Mondo, we hinted at big news to come. It's arrived: Mondo is partnering with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library to preserve Mondo's voluminous backlog (and future log) of limited-edition original film posters. Mondo has already corralled its collection at www.mondoarchive.com... In other Drafthouse news, the first wave of Fantastic Fest 2011 programming, announced today, boasts 20 international titles, including the North American premiere of Aleksei Balabanov's The Stoker and digitally restored prints of Eighties 3-D Western Comin' at Ya! and gore maestro Lucio Fulci's 1979 Zombie (aka Zombi 2)... Sherry Mills, the longtime executive director of Reel Women, is stepping down from the organization, which tripled in size under her leadership. A farewell event takes place Wednesday, July 20, 7-9pm, at the Picture Box Studio (701 Tillery Ste. A-7). Rakeda Lashae takes over as interim executive director... Ben Foster and Mark Dennis' Strings took home an audience award and the Best Song award for Billy Harvey's "The Great Escape" at last month's Breckenridge Festival of Film... Oscar-nominated director Michael Radford (Il Postino) is attached to direct the long-in-development Castro's Daughter, produced by local outfit Mankind Entertainment. The film is based on the story of Fidel Castro's exiled daughter Alina Fernandez... After we name-checked a few local productions looking for funding in our last column, filmmaker Andrew Matthews dropped us a line about his own soon-to-shoot film Zero Charisma, about Dungeons & Dragons diehards. The IndieGoGo campaign is now over – in fact, it overshot its $15,000 goal by an additional $10,000 – but you can view a teaser trailer at www.zerocharisma-themovie.com... Not all indie filmmakers are gambling on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo, all-or-nothing enterprises that don't pay out if you don't reach your target goal and take a cut of the earnings, to boot. To fund postproduction on their lifeguards-vs.-firefighters turf-war comedy The Man From Orlando, the filmmakers (including producer Michael Bartnett, a Chron staffer) are soliciting donations the old-fashioned way: with open palms. Check out the trailer at www.manfromorlando.com, where you'll conveniently find a donation button... And finally, a very hearty, very happy congrats to the Chronicle's Senior Film Editor Marjorie Baumgarten, who is one of three finalists for an AltWeekly Award in the category of Arts Criticism (circulation 50,000 and over). Huzzah!
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