Also in this Issue
- Satan Claus The man in red runs rampant in 'Bad Santa'; Reliving 'Silent Night, Deadly Night' (Film)
- Free Opie Director Ron Howard cuts loose and goes 'Missing' (Film)
- More articles from this issue...
More Film Articles
- Spike and Sofia on the Skids? Opposite aesthetics would seem to spell splitsville for indie cinema's power couple (Nov 19, 2003)
- The Objects of Our Affection There's plenty to love at the LGBT film festival (Nov 12, 2003)
- Beast of Burden 'Elephant' takes on the full weight of tragedy (Nov 12, 2003)
- If I'm So Crazy, Why Do I Have My Own Movie? Unconventional wisdom from unstable characters in the City Pages Documentary Film Festival (Nov 5, 2003)
- Sweet Smell of Cosmopolis The new 'People I Know' is so old-fashioned it's already gone (Nov 5, 2003)
- I Spit On Your Taste Vidiot savant Joe Bob Briggs drops some scary science for Halloween (Oct 29, 2003)
- Get Me Gwyneth How to remake the New York Film Festival's arthouse esoterica for the midwestern megaplex (Oct 22, 2003)
- Bad Buzz The new 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' has us rooting for Leatherface (Oct 22, 2003)
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The Revolution Will Be Digitized
Sporting a chic red-and-black design, the posters that advertise Cinema Revolution, a new DVD rental store in south Minneapolis, read like post-Marxist propaganda for digital filmmakers, declaring "Burn Hollywood Burn" and "The Revolution Will Be Digitized."Some patrons may note the irony in this radical outfit's upscale location at 28th Street and Hennepin Avenue. But the Revolution, first launched in October, shows genuine signs of having an underground agenda.
"I see this place as a hub for local filmmakers," says store founder and all-around digital fanatic John Koch. "The film community here in the Twin Cities is solid, but really disjointed. I hope to help bring [filmmakers and viewers] together."
An MCAD graduate who runs his own commercial production company by day, the 30-year-old Koch aims to stock a shelf full of DVDs by local filmmakers, placing the collected works of Minnesota splatter auteur Jon Springer ("Heterosapiens") across from those of world-class experimentalist Matthew Barney ("The Cremaster Cycle"), and music videos of the Soviettes near a row of classics by Sergei Eisenstein.
Thus far Koch has only gathered a handful of local films amid his nascent collection of indie and foreign titles on DVD. However, he has banded together with numerous Twin Cities filmmaking networks and companies such as DV-Cinema, a St. Paul-based digital distribution company that sold him one collection of local shorts and another of music videos showcasing the above-mentioned local artists.
Koch's first feature comes from a fellow MCAD alumnus: Ryan Becken's Smoke Fire, which premiered at the recent MCAD Alumni Film Festival. Having approached IFP MSP and MCAD to draw in more films and customers, Koch has far-reaching dreams that include an online resource directory for local filmmakers and regular meetings and screenings at the store.
"I would like to make filmmaking accessible for the people at the very bottom," says Koch, standing behind the counter. "IFP serves its purpose, but, in my experience, some filmmakers are left out. I'm all about the little guy."
Koch may well need Castro-like longevity to realize the full vision of his Revolution. For now, however, he's pretty busy working nights as the store clerk and soliciting crowds at the Lagoon and Uptown theaters with flyers and oral manifestos on the order of "Local Indie Auteurs of the Twin Cities Unite!" Every firebrand revolutionary has to start somewhere, right?
About Jeremy O'Kasick
From the Archive
- Dancing at the Edge of the World Kids say Club Apocalypsis is the best Latino club in town. We say, "¡ queremos bailar!" (Music - Sep 24, 2003)
- Tanzanian Dream 'Bongoland' travels from East Africa to the Central Standard (Film - Sep 10, 2003)
- Mogadishu Day Is the most vital television news in the cities taking place on cable access? (Arts Feature - Aug 27, 2003)
- Class Action With 'Justice,' a pair of Twin Cities civil rights lawyers raise the bar for African American filmmaking (Arts Feature - Jul 9, 2003)
- Mid-East Summit In Midwest Minnesota's first Arab film festival speaks louder than CNN (Film - Mar 26, 2003)
- Mamá Said Cut It Out (Film - Feb 19, 2003)
- Road To Zanzibar The Zanzibar Film Festival reflects the African island's position as a cross-cultural hub (Film - Jul 10, 2002)
- More articles from the Jeremy O'Kasick Archive...
