Great news from our amigos over at either/or films. Aaron J. Wiederspahn is teaming back up with executive producer Buzz McLaughlin to bring the world his sophomore directorial effort, titled Someplace Like America.
Wiederspahn also wrote and directed the criminally overlooked The Sensation of Sight (see our 2007 interview with him about it right here), a quirky little drama starring David Strathairn as an aging English teacher who drops everything to sell encyclopedias door-to-door as he goes looking for the meaning of it all. It is a great little film, what independent filmmaking is all about. It’s a must watch, especially for Strathairn’s great work.
Needless to say, I’m looking forward to this next effort by these two talented fellows. Filming in New Hampshire later this year, Buzz describes Someplace Like America as “a contemporary tale set in the state’s North Country after the closing of its paper mills. Focusing on the struggles of people who find themselves suddenly unemployed or even homeless, it reflects in dramatic and cinematic terms on the possibilities of personal and communal rebirth in the aftermath of economic collapse.”
Very appropriate material considering the state of America, no? The film is inspired by Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a nonfiction book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Dale Maharidge and two-time Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Michael Williamson.
That’s all the word I have on this project for the time being, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on this and folks, you can count on me keeping you posted on this sucker. I won’t let you down. Goodnight… and good luck.
i bought the DVD for The Sensation of Sight after hearing about it on here a few months ago. why not even a limited theatrical release for this? it seems like it would have had that “indie feel-goodie drama” aspect that would appeal to, not the masses, but the masses of indie-lovers out there. was it just bad marketing? i don’t get it, especially with David Strathairn’s credibility as an actor after Good Night and Good Luck. this made my top ten of the year. it is chock full of GREAT performances and is a real show piece for Strathairn.
this new project is intriguing in its relevance, although i need to hear more about it before i can get too excited. i agree though that this is pure independent cinema though, something that a major studio would NEVER EVER greenlight because of the oddness of the story.
Just wanted to follow up on the first comment from ralph–THE SENSATION OF SIGHT did have a limited U.S. theatrical release from our distributor, Monterey Media, last summer, and is now with our foreign sales agents going to the world film markets, the last ones being Berlin and AFM with Cannes coming up. So it’s a loooong process for an indie film, especially in today’s market. From the time we shot this film in 2005 and then hit the world festival circuit–19 festivals on 5 continents–the whole indie scene changed, with mini majors collapsing and the economy tightening. We didn’t get picked up by a distributor, so started self distributing in NH and then got an offer from Monterey, which we took as it was better than previous offers. Last summer, however,Monterey was faced with art houses choosing to run “The Dark Knight” and “Mama Mia” to stay in business, rather than taking films like ours and others. The studios made art houses an offer they couldn’t refuse. They’re still pressuring art house exhibitors to run their films rather than true indies (do you think “Slum Dog Millionaire” is a true indie?!).
The other thing about marketing is that the average spent by studios to promote their films is $36 million per film. Our film was made in 18 days for $1 million and our small distributor doesn’t have a big budget either for promotion. Right now indie filmmakers are seeing the potential of internet marketing (which I’m doing right now) and SOMEPLACE LIKE AMERICA will hopefully have its audience in place by the time the film is in post. We’ll see…we need your support to keep indie films alive! Articles like this help us a lot and we can post them on FB, etc., which I’ve done today.
Also, the book SOMEPLACE LIKE AMERICA is loosely based on was in development for over a decade at a major studio; Dale and Michael finally got tired of being in turnaround and sought us out following the advice of their friend Ann Cusack, who’s in THE SENSATION OF SIGHT.
Thanks for your interest and feel free to contact us at http://www.eitherorfilms.com. Get on our mailing list if you’re not already. We appreciate all your supportive comments!
thank you for clearing some of that up, Kris. I agree that there there is “indie” and then there is real indie. this falls under the latter.
an 18 day shoot? holy crap, that is nothing! a very impressive feat. hopefully this can continue to find its audience because it is, like i said, a great little movie.
and kris, that art house cinemas playing big blockbuster stuff is just a load of crap. embarrassing really. shameful.
what america needs is government funded art houses that play these types of films and maybe some classic films too. that way the art houses don’t have to worry about “making the buck” all of the time, which really i guess is hard to blame them, especially in our economy today.
Thanks for the clarification, Kris. Obviously, you can explain it far better than I ever could.
While I was disappointed that this didn’t get picked up by a major distributor, considering the quality of a film that it is, I certainly understand the hardships of low-budget independent filmmaking.
At one point, we had quite the discussion about art houses showing The Dark Knight. Somebody (Matt Gamble, was it?) even went as far as boycotting their local art house cinemas because it upset them so much and there was a big ol’ debate going on about it.
And of course, Ms. McLaughlin, we’re big supporters of good cinema, big and small, so we’ll be following either/or films as long as you all keep pumping out quality films, which I have no doubt will continue.
you’re fortunate if you live in a place with an art house at all though. i have to drive 100 miles to the closest one.