Box-office politics: CONSERVATIVE Liberty Film Festival in HOLLYWOOD 11/10-12, L.A. Chapter invited!

The Jewish Journal ^ | 10/20/06 | Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief

[RonDog]

2006-10-20

Box-office politics

by Rob Eshman, Editor-in-Chief

The first person I met at the Liberty Film Festival preview was a riled up Asian American man with a pompadour, who quickly explained to me what was wrong with Hollywood: It is a vast liberal conspiracy.

"But the founders of the studios were conservative," I said, thinking of the Goldwyns, the Warners and the Mayers.

"Yes," he said. "But their children are communists."

The Liberty Film Festival, now in its third year, aims to present and promote the work of conservative filmmakers who, according to the organizers, are ignored, persecuted and otherwise absent from "Hollywood."

I put Hollywood in quotes because its meaning, as the evening at the Luxe Bel Air Hotel wore on, was elusive.

The Festival, said Mike Finch, executive director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center that sponsored the event, "is a voice for sanity. [Hollywood's] not just for the far left. All these viewpoints deserve to be heard in Hollywood."

For him, Hollywood seemed to mean Westsiders who work in the entertainment industry and read the Huffington Post.

"It's really important that we have films going out with the conservative viewpoint," said actress Govindini Murty, who organized the festival with her husband Jason Apuzzo. "Because Hollywood is making a major effort on the left to undermine the war on terror."

For her, Hollywood seemed to mean documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. But Moore himself railed against "Hollywood" when Disney refused to release his controversial documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11." A bit later, Murty referred to "Hollywood's" love of documentaries "that undermine the military. They are all extremely radical, very anti-Israeli."

Here she had me stumped. This clearly wasn't the Hollywood of "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Marine," which opened this week. And I couldn't think of any anti-Israel Hollywood films. Which made me think that for Murty, "Hollywood" means anyone who won't make movies she likes, or, perhaps, that she's in.

This is the festival's third year, and it has grown substantially since its founding, last year attracting some 3,500 viewers. This year's event will be held Nov. 10-12 at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

About 100 people gathered at last week's preview to meet the organizers and get a taste of the 28 films on offer.

If the trailers are telling, I suspect there will be a lot of documentaries and some uneven features with a kind of look-ma-I-have-an-Apple quality. There will be some violence -- I saw terrorist body parts splattered in something resembling POM -- but no sex or nudity. At Liberty, "conservative" means Christian, and Christian means Family Research Council.

The most promising documentary appears to be "Suicide Killers," by the Algerian-born Israeli filmmaker Pierre Rehov. The Arabic-speaking Rehov infiltrated a terrorist cell to provide a firsthand look at the people who perpetrate such inhuman crimes.

But the night's preview was less about these movies and more about why "Hollywood" would never want to make them.

It took me a beat -- as they say in Hollywood -- but eventually I realized where I'd heard that same complaint: from liberals in Hollywood, from Asians in Hollywood and Latinos in Hollywood. From screenwriters and actors and union members and women and newcomers and old-timers in Hollywood. Heck, I'd even heard it from Jews in Hollywood.

Because here's the truth: Hollywood doesn't make anybody's film.

Zillions of people dream of making a movie. But the studios only release a couple of dozen each year.

Chances are excellent your film -- whether it's about a Chinese lesbian dockworker who stands up to a right-wing corporate conspiracy, or about a blogger from Duluth who brings down a left-wing Washington conspiracy -- isn't going to be one of them.

The five top-grossing films of 2005 were "Star Wars-Episode III," "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "The War of the Worlds" and "King Kong." There's not a political plotline in the bunch -- unless you count Narnia's Christian polemic.

Hollywood's primary, overriding focus is on making movies that do big box office. That explains how this week, Paramount Studios tapped Oliver Stone, the bane of the Michael Medved School of Wholesome Cinema, and Cyrus Nawasteh, whom Clintonites despise for writing "The Path to 9/11" to make a movie version of "Jawbreaker," about the CIA in Afghanistan. Ideology, shmideology -- go make us a hit.

But none of this realmovietik puts conservative tushies in the Liberty Festival seats, so Murty and the other speakers resort to victimhood and conspiracy. Several speakers referred to left-wing Jewish billionaire investor George Soros' reported interest in buying the 59-film library of Dreamworks. "Soros has taken over the Democratic Party," said Finch, "and is now making a major play to take over Hollywood. But [Murty and Apuzzo] are gonna beat George Soros."

Since when is buying the DVD rights to "Gladiator" "taking over Hollywood"?

All these ill-defined, overheated intimations of evil Hollywood are where the Liberty folks lose me. They begin to join thematic forces with the Internet cuckoos, for whom "Hollywood" means only one thing: the Jews. For centuries Jews were kept outside society's gates. But in the industry they created and in which they are still heavily represented, Jews are often the gatekeepers. And though the Liberty folks stand with Israel and against anti-Semitism, their antagonism toward an amorphous, conspiratorial "Hollywood" has a discomfiting resonance.

The conservatives at Liberty should ease up on the rhetoric. The twin gods of Hollywood are talent and a track record. If you have those, you're in, no matter how repellent your ideology, or your actions. Just ask Mel Gibson.

---

© 2004 The Jewish Journal, All Rights Reserved

[RonDog]

Note: I am posting this article in the ACTIVISM side bar, since last year's festival NEEDED FReeper "activists" in the audience (from the L.A. Chapter, of course) to help protect David Horowitz from attack by leftist goons -- who charged the stage.

We may also need some FReeper help THIS year, although I understand that the 3rd annual Liberty Film Festival **is** hiring PROFESSIONAL security.

See also, from www.reason.com (October 26, 2005):

WEST HOLLYWOOD—For a few seconds, the only thing separating David Horowitz from the two heavyset protesters bearing down on him was Melrose Larry Green, a semi-regular on the Howard Stern show who had leapt to the stage to defend his hero. Horowitz is a red-diaper Republican who's made a name for himself as a refugee from the left, right-wing pundit and provocateur; he had come to the second annual Liberty Film Festival to introduce the documentary Brainwashing 201.

The protesters were there to stop him, yelling "You have no right to speak!" as they stormed the stage and "Traitor!" as they were dragged away...

[RonDog]

Note: I am posting this article in the ACTIVISM side bar, since last year's festival NEEDED FReeper "activists" in the audience (from the L.A. Chapter, of course) to help protect David Horowitz from attack by leftist goons -- who charged the stage.

And, I am ALSO posting this also because Liberty Film Festival co-founder Govindini Murty is a FRiend of this forum, and she ASKED me to help spread the word. :o)

See also:

NEW photos!
ANN COULTER joins the U.S. Marines [and L.A. FReepers] at party after "Late, Late Show"
Ann Coulter pics from Craig Ferguson's Late, Late Show ^ | May 24, 2005 | RonDog [and FRiends]
Posted on 05/24/2005 9:11:20 PM PDT by RonDog

Govindini Murty and Ann Coulter

CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread

[bmwcyle]

bttt

[RonDog]

Tickets are available online NOW, at:

www.libertyfilmfestival.com

[reaganandme]

And for those who don't already know, the Liberty Film Festival has one of the greatest blogs around:

libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas

[RonDog]

And, I am ALSO posting this also because Liberty Film Festival co-founder Govindini Murty is a FRiend of this forum...

See also:

Discover the Secret Right-Wing Network Behind ABC's 9/11 Deception
Huffington Post via Yahoo News ^ | September 8, 2006 | Max Blumenthal

Posted on 09/09/2006 10:45:19 PM PDT by Lorianne

Less than 72 hours before ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is scheduled to air, the network is suddenly under siege. On Tuesday, ABC was forced to concede that "The Path to 9/11" is "a dramatization, not a documentary." The film deceptively invents scenes to depict former President Bill Clinton's handling of the Al Qaeda threat...

-- snip --

...In fact, "The Path to 9/11" is produced and promoted by a well-honed propaganda operation consisting of a network of little-known right-wingers working from within Hollywood to counter its supposedly liberal bias. This is the network within the ABC network. Its godfather is far right activist David Horowitz, who has worked for more than a decade to establish a right-wing presence in Hollywood and to discredit mainstream film and TV production. On this project, he is working with a secretive evangelical religious right group founded by The Path to 9/11's director David Cunningham that proclaims its goal to "transform Hollywood" in line with its messianic vision.

Before The Path to 9/11 entered the production stage, Disney/ABC contracted David Cunningham as the film's director. Cunningham is no ordinary Hollywood journeyman. He is in fact the son of Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission (YWAM). The young Cunningham helped found an auxiliary of his father's group called The Film Institute (TFI), which, according to its mission statement, is "dedicated to a Godly transformation and revolution TO and THROUGH the Film and Televisionindustry." As part of TFI's long-term strategy, Cunningham helped place interns from Youth With A Mission's in film industry jobs "so that they can begin to impact and transform Hollywood from the inside out," according to a YWAM report...

-- snip --

...Early on, Cunningham had recruited a young Iranian-American screenwriter named Cyrus Nowrasteh to write the script of his secretive "Untitled" film. Not only is Nowrasteh an outspoken conservative, he is also a fervent member of the emerging network of right-wing people burrowing into the film industry with ulterior sectarian political and religious agendas, like Cunningham.

Nowrasteh's conservatism was on display when he appeared as a featured speaker at the Liberty Film Festival (LFF), an annual event founded in 2004 to premier and promote conservative-themed films supposedly too "politically incorrect" to gain acceptance at mainstream film festivals. This June, while The Path to 9/11 was being filmed, LFF founders Govindini Murty and Jason Apuzzo -- both friends of Nowrasteh -- announced they were "partnering" with right-wing activist David Horowitz. Indeed, the 2006 LFF is listed as "A Program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center..."

[ConservativeDude]

With regards to the early guys, Cecil B. DeMille was a fantastic conservative, fiscally, religiously, foreign policy, gun owning. He led the right to work movement for many decades in Cali, and could have had the GOP nomination for Senate once but turned it down. He worked the natl convention in 1952 for Taft. He was great.

And his final film set up another legendary conservative, Heston, for best actor.

Those were the days.

[ZGuy]

BTW - NewsTalk 870 KRLA (www.krla870.com) will broadcast "The Michael Medved Show" live from the Reagan Library on Wednesday, November 1st from 12:00 p.m. until 3:00 p.m. The broadcast is free to attend (regular admission rates apply to visit the Museum exhibits), however reservations are required. To reserve your seat, call 805-522-2977.

[riverrunner]

"The five top-grossing films of 2005 were "Star Wars-Episode III," "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "The War of the Worlds" and "King Kong." There's not a political plotline in the bunch -- unless you count Narnia's Christian polemic."

Maybe, but I had never seen the original King Kong, so I rented it and saw it and the latest remake. There is a huge political difference between them.

The original is pro-capitalist, with the filmmaker a risk taking merchant adventurer who sails with the full knowledge of the crew and their support. He carefully orders his men to "fire over the heads" of the natives to prevent bloodshed.

The remake shows the filmmaker as a lying, scheming scoundrel who cannot be counted on for anything. He lies to the crew, to the actress, and is generally despicable.

Needless to say, I liked the original much better.

[MHGinTN]

So, is there a market developing for conservative values stories regarding embryonic stem cells and abortion?... Evil Interrupted may have a future after all, if I can find the right venue.

[RonDog]

See also, from www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas:

Tickets for the 2006 Liberty Film Festival are now on sale here!

The 2006 Liberty Film Festival promises to be the most sensational yet, featuring films on: The Iraq War, 9/11, Illegal Immigration, Israel and The War on Terror. Outstanding festival speakers this year include (in alphabetical order):

author David Horowitz,
producer Ron Maxwell ("Gettysburg"),
film critic Michael Medved,
producer Jerry Molen ("Schindler's List, "Minority Report"),
Lt. Col. Buzz Patterson ("Dereliction of Duty"),
Frank Price (former President of Columbia Pictures & Chairman of Universal),
KFI talk show host John Ziegler,
producer/director David Zucker ("Scary Movie 4"), and many others!

Plus The Liberty Film Festival will present a special Freedom of Expression Award to The Production Team of ABC's "The Path to 9/11."

The 2006 Liberty Film Festival will be held this November 10-12, 2006 at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA. The Liberty Film Festival showcases films that celebrate the traditional American values of free speech, patriotism, and religious freedom. Please note that festival tickets are only available for purchase on-line at The Liberty Film Festival website.

Full Festival Passes sold out last year within days, so be sure to buy your passes right away! We're also selling a limited number of VIP Full Festival Passes that include a ticket to our exclusive VIP Opening Night Party! Individual tickets also sold out very quickly these last two years, especially for our Opening Night and Saturday night screenings, so be sure to buy those tickets early too!

Here are the festival pass options...

CLICK HERE for more information

[RonDog]

The 2006 Liberty Film Festival will be held this November 10-12, 2006 at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, CA.

From www.architecturetoursla.com:

Pacific Design Center

8687 Melrose Ave. West Hollywood, CA 90069 Phone: (310) 657-0800 Map  Website

[Victoria Delsoul]

Bumpity bump!

[RonDog]

Hi, Victoria! Are you related to Govindini?

You two seem to share the same "sultry" expression. :o)

From your profile page:

And, from www.libertyfilmfestival.com:

Govindini Murty Festival Co-Director Actress/Writer Govindini Murty is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Liberty Film Festival, Hollywood’s first conservative film festival. Govindini also co-writes and edits LIBERTAS, the premier weblog for conservative thought on film.   She is currently a guest film critic for AMC TV’s 'The Movie Club,' and Govindini’s 'Hollywood Confidential' columns on film and Hollywood history are featured on Newsmax.com.  Govindini has also appeared on Fox News, MSNBC’s “Scarborough Country,” Fox 11 News LA, The Michael Medved Show, The Al Rantel Show, The Jim Hirsen Show, the Steve Yuhas Show, The Inga Barks Show, and numerous other talk shows. She’s otherwise worked in film, TV, commercials and theater in Vancouver and Los Angeles. Govindini came to the US to attend Yale University, where she received a BA in East Asian Studies.
Jason Apuzzo Festival Co-Director Jason Apuzzo is a writer/director living in Los Angeles, currently with several film projects in development. He is also the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Liberty Film Festival, Hollywood’s first conservative film festival.  He also edits LIBERTAS, the premier weblog for conservative thought on film. Jason graduated from the USC School of Cinema-TV in 2001 with an MFA in Production. Prior to USC, Jason received his Ph.D. in Germanic Literature from Stanford University, and a BA in Philosophy from Yale University. Jason writes a weekly 'Hollywood Confidential' column for Newsmax, and has appeared on CNN, Fox News and numerous radio talk shows to discuss contemporary film.

[Victoria Delsoul]

LOL! Thanks for the vote of confidence, Ron.

Long time no see. How are ya doing?

[RonDog]

I have been working a lot OFFLINE...

..but I keep getting pulled back here to promote worthy causes --- like the Liberty Film Festival. :o)

It is hard to get excited about the local elections here in "deep blue" California.

[peggybac]

I don't know Rob Eshman but it's apparent he doesn't know the insides of Hollywood. I know first hand the hatred of conservatives in the industry and have many times had to bite my tongue so I wouldn't lose a job. It is there and it is real.

[Victoria Delsoul]

It is hard to get excited about the local elections here in "deep blue" California.

LOL! I don't blame you, but keep up the good work!

Gotta go.

Nighty night, Ron. :-)

[RonDog]

And for those who don't already know, the Liberty Film Festival has one of the greatest blogs around:

libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas

See also, from www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas:

...Otherwise, from now until the festival I will be spotlighting here at LIBERTAS different festival films and programs, but you should visit the The Liberty Film Festival website to see the full list.

Director Leigh Scott’s The 9/11 Commission Report, featured below, is a gripping, fast-paced, stylish suspense thriller based on the events leading up to the 9/11 attacks.

The film is shot in a pseudo-documentary style, and really picks up where Path to 9/11 left off … you’ll want to get tickets for this one soon because we expect it to sell out quickly!

CLICK HERE to see the streaming video TRAILER

[RonDog]

:o)