The film industry’s best creations risk being seen only by “two people and a dog” because unfair competition dooms them to struggle from their opening credits.
Such is the reported take of Brian Cox, the Emmy-award winning actor from The Bourne Supremacy, who created and first played Dr Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter.
Crusading for his latest film The Escapist, at an alternative film festival in Nairn, the 62-year-old pointed to his reason for attending as proof of the plight independents face.
“It did very well [at film festivals] but we have no distribution,” Cox told the Independent. “I am trying to get it seen by more than two people and a dog.”
Speaking at the weekend, he said it was hard working to create a film independently and then “not to have [the] recognition” that blockbusters receive as standard.
Evidencing his grumble - that independent films are subject to an “inequity,” he said that in the festival's Scottish town, Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean was once screened 52 times a day.
“I want a reasonable platform to show the work which I consider to be my best work,” Cox reportedly explained, pointing to the Escapist, which also stars Joseph Fiennes.
“I’m not knocking it, because I earn my living” from the industry, he added, but “we are too busy flogging it, making the bucks, as opposed to thinking about what the thing is.”
Cox should feel at home at the festival, co-founded by Tilda Swinton, which strives to spotlight alternative, independent and grass-roots productions that would normally fall under the radar.
Described as being a “6 out of ten on the grunge scale,” the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams festival offers visitors cheap tickets, (£2-£3) beanbags on the floor, home-made cakes and nine days of almost non-stop viewing.
Since it opened on Friday, to Swinton's tagline, “the Edinburgh International Film Festival is the chicken, the Ballerina Ballroom Cinema of Dreams is the egg,” the festival has drawn international crowds, and contributors, including Oscar-winning director Joel Coen.
Aug 18, 2008
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