Erasing David

Thanks to the NYT for mentioning the film in their recent article about new distribution models.

“Just this week, one such service, FilmBuff, said it had acquired the right to show a pair of films, “Erasing David” and “Crying With Laughter,” on iTunes and Amazon.com, simultaneously with their premieres at South by Southwest, in Austin, Tex., later this month.”

#SXSW Wrap, Hits and Misses

Continuing to build its rep as a balmy spring destination for genre fans and cinephiles alike, the 17th South by Southwest Film Festival saw a strong turnout at films and panels appealing to young males and indie filmgoers, from opener Kick-Ass and stoner-comedy Leaves of Grass to the more finely calibrated critics’ faves Tiny Furniture (which won the dramatic jury prize) and Cold Weather. Clearly, the fest hasn’t lost its indie cred, although a hardcore midnight screening of A Serbian Film tested the limits of many filmgoers.

On the commercial side, Lionsgate opener Kick-Ass, Universal’s ensemble comedy MacGruber and Apparition’s rock biopic The Runaways built up some launch momentum, while two college pics, frat thriller Brotherhood (which won the narrative audience prize) and randy coming-of-age fantasy Cherry (starring breakout Kyle Gallner) piqued some buyer interest. Also likely to find a distrib is New York writer-director Lena Denham’s witty post-college drama Tiny Furniture, while IFC was circling the gorgeously crafted, genre-tinged Cold Weather.

Among those who scored at the fest, Rhys Ifans carried the meandering comedy biopic Mr. Nice with his sexy portrait of dope-smuggler Howard Marks, aging from teens to 40s without makeup (Ifans is also the best thing in Greenberg). Fresh from Cargo‘s SXSW world premiere, CAA is setting meetings for young Swiss director Ivan Engler, who delivered the eye-popping sci-fi thriller on a miniscule budget. How did he pull it off? Once committed to his VFX plans, he had no wriggle-room to change his mind. And he worked seven years for virtually no pay.

The worst things to befall SXSW 2010 were far from disastrous. An exhausted Quentin Tarantino showed up for the pre-SXSW festivities at the Texas Film Hall of Fame, coming through for his Austin chums Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez, only to skip town before the much-anticipated SXSW genre panel (Rodriguez, who also showed early footage from Predators, filled in).

One night the Elektra Luxx projection died mid-screening, never to come back—requiring rescheduling. James Franco couldn’t make the premiere of his ecstatically received behind-the-scenes SNL doc Saturday Night, because he was filming Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours. And while Joan Jett eschewed her planned SXSW Runaways gig in favor of a David Letterman taping Monday, fans ate up the sight of Kristen Stewart in red leather. (Music attendees were lured by such attractions as Smokey Robinson, Courtney Love and Hole, The Whigs, Efterklang and the Stone Temple Pilots.)

Yes, Austin got very crowded. According to Daily Finance, six years ago only 35 reporters and 3,000 people attended SXSW. In 2010, the WSJ reports that the music fest counted more than 400 press and 13,000 registrants, up 11%, while the film fest marked 9500 and the interactive side 14,200 registrants, each up by 33 %.

The SXSW screenings were bursting at the seams, partly due to fewer available screens at the Alamo Drafthouse on Lamar (which was selling out 3-D showings of Alice in Wonderland). Many folks weren’t getting into screenings, even when they lined up an hour early. (I tracked down film contacts to help me get into smaller venues.) Time and again, film fest producer Janet Pierson gently apologized in her pre-screening intros for people being turned away from films, suggesting they schedule alternatives. “A good problem to have,” she added. SXSW believes strongly in staying democratic: everyone stands in line, badge or no badge, no press and industry screenings.

The crossover among different groups makes SXSW a heady mix. I hung out with interactive attendees at the bustling IFC House, over meat skewers at Fogo de Chao, and at an impromptu twitter-meet at the Hotel Driskill bar via the NYT’s Dave Carr, who tracks SXSW goings-on here. We talked about privacy (the topic of Danah Boyd‘s consciousness-raising opening keynote), Twitter, @anywhere, Foursquare, the future of journalism, criticism, online distribution, social networking and mobile apps. Just like everyone else. (Stay tuned for more pieces informed by the panels I attended.)

Great Buzz:
And Everything is Going Fine (doc biopic, Steven Soderbergh, USA, Magnolia)
Erasing David (doc, David Bond, UK, Cinetic Rights Management: Filmbuff VOD)
Four Lions (terrorist comedy, Christopher Morris, UK)
Micmacs (action fantasy, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, SPC)
Monsters (quasi-doc alien romance, Gareth Edwards, UK, Magnet Releasing)
The People vs. George Lucas (doc, Alexandre O. Philippe, USA)
The Red Chapel (doc comedy, Madds Bruger, Denmark)
Saturday Night (SNL doc, James Franco, USA)
The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights (concert doc, Emmet Malloy, USA, IFC VOD)
Waking Sleeping Beauty (doc, Don Hahn, USA, Disney)
World’s Largest (doc, Amy C. Elliott and Elizabeth Donius, USA)

Interview with David and clips from the film..

Lovely review from Kristen Coughlan on the Uncover The News blog…

Review: ERASING DAVID

By Kristen Coughlan

Erasing David is a British documentary on big brother and privacy concerns.  The basis of this documentary is filmmaker David Bond proposes a challenge to Cerberus, a private investigator company. He challenges two of their investigators to find him in thirty days. All they had to go on is David’s name. At the same time, David has to try to do things that will keep the investigators off his trial and escape big brother.

Throughout the film, David is doing research before and during his experiment into past and present, ways of surveillance. David contacts companies he had dealings with like an online book store and his cell phone company to see what data they have on him. He had a privacy expert follow him throughout the course of a day to show what will end up in a database.

During this experiment, he meets some men in Germany that had encounters with the stasi and they told him how the stasi worked.  He also meets with a woman that was trying to get a job and during a background check and she was prevented from getting the job because someone with the same name as her had a criminal record.

While David was traveling to meet with these people, the investigators from Cerberus were on his trial. They looked through his garbage, social networking page, and watching his cell phone usage. They used the website http://whereisdavid.co.uk/ to show their process and as a way to try to track David. They even followed and gathered information on David’s family.

At one point in the documentary, David was having concerns in signing up his daughter in daycare. He went to a school where they used fingerprints to buy their lunches and even for computer use to log in to their lessons.  He felt concerned what the data obtained might be used for in the future.

How David was tracked down was a simple trick.  After the experiment, David was invited to the investigator’s office and he was stunned at what he saw. On the wall was every piece of information that the investigators have dug up on him.

The movie ends when his wife has given birth to a son. The baby’s information is being put in a database for his birth certificate.

This is a must see documentary.  It really opens your eyes on how you can be tracked and traced. It also shows that it is old methods such has looking through trash and getting information from others still works in the present.

The lovely people at Production Focus interviewed David recently at the Sheffield Doc Fest. You can read the interview here… They get the scoop on what motivated David to make the film, self-shooting, the research process and David’s advice for aspiring filmmakers..