by Iain Blair
Got a call from a friend at the Berlin Film Festival where the biggest story this year is The Rolling Stones and their big new two-hour concert film, Shine a Light, directed by Scorsese. The band and the director took the place by storm when they all showed up for the premiere, and […]

by Iain Blair
Went to a special screening of Mongol the other night at the Landmark. Mongol, which received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, was directed by Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains), and tells the story and legend of Genghis Khan. Based on leading scholarly accounts, and written by […]

by Dyana Carmella  
Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on the Preservation of California’s Entertainment Industry Paul Krekorian congratulated the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers for finally coming to an agreement to end the strike.
According to Krekorian, Los Angeles was severely impacted by the three-month strike. “This […]

 by Iain Blair

Talk about survival of the fittest! I have been chatting with Emmy-winning writer/director Todd Robinson, whose credits include 07’s Lonely Hearts (with Travolta and Gandolfini), Law & Order and Mermaids. He says the Writers Strike was a “real wake up call. I’ve been so frustrated with the movie biz, as it’s so unforgiving, […]

 by Iain Blair
I got some real insight into Sean Penn’s filmmaking methods from his longtime editor, Jay Cassidy. Jay, who’s nominated for his editing on Into the Wild, worked on last year’s Oscar winner, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and has cut all of Sean Penn’s films. “He’s a great person to work with and he approaches […]

by Iain Blair
There’s lots of buzz about the strike getting settled any minute now ─ and not a moment too soon for guys like Eric Hulett, a decorator buyer who was on the acclaimed show Pushing Daisies for ABC/Warner Bros.  “We did the pilot and eight shows before we got shut down.  It’s been very […]

by Dyana Carmella
Axium International, once one of the three largest payroll companies serving the entertainment industry, has filed for bankruptcy protection and is no longer in business. They are still obligated to send out W-2 forms to performers who were paid through Axium during calendar year 2007. In fact, AFTRA, in an effort to protect […]

by Iain Blair

Latin cinema is growing by leaps and bounds, and after talking to a lot of Latin filmmakers, it seems all are very excited about the Silver Anniversary of the Miami International Film Festival (MIFF) happening later this month. In fact, MIFF’s 25th Anniversary edition program has had a 300 percent increase in […]

by Dyana Carmella
The brutal three-month Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has finally ended.
“Our membership has voted and writers can go back to work,” WGA West president Patric Verrone said. “This was not a strike we wanted but one we had to conduct in order to win jurisdiction, and establish appropriate residuals for writing in […]

by Dyana Carmella
The strike has taken a huge toll on the state of California, the industry and related businesses. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “An estimated $733 million in production has been lost and another $1.3 billion came from the pockets of caterers, florists, valets, hotel operators, restaurant workers, costume house employees and others.” Dramatic […]