BIFS 2018 Indie film fest

http://www.bifilmseason.lu/current-season

You have a great example of an Indie festival on your doorstep. Co-sponsored by the British and Irish embassies, but featuring many films which are co-productions with various EU nations (including Luxembourg, eg Eaten By Lions), the festival also gives you an opportunity to hear from ... and directly speak to a range of film directors (and actors, producers...).

That's quite a line-up!!! See the site for screening dates

Here's the list with Wiki link, or other as available + a trailer playlist

NB: some of these contain swearing. Any BBFC age rating is listed, but many are pre-release (use trailers and descriptions as a guide). Do bear in mind that UK ratings are routinely much higher then in BeNeLux. Synopses from BIFS.

• 
  

Playlist Link

Any guest speaker/s in red.

Black 47 (IE / LU / US) [official] Lance Daly (director) BBFC: 15 Fri 21st 830 Cinematheque
Genre : Drama - Duration: 96 mins
Synopsis : Set in Ireland during the Great Famine, the drama follows an Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, as he abandons his post to reunite with his family. Despite experiencing the horrors of war, he is shocked by the famine's destruction of his homeland and the brutalization of his people and his family.

Popcorn is cinemas sweet spot not movies

This is a companion post to the analysis of the $10 MoviePass announcement, and what that (and other schemes I also discuss) means for the distribution and exhibition industries.

From a business point of view, cinemas are only partly about films. "When we bought [Odeon]," Guy Hands of private equity group Terra Firma famously said, "the management team really believed they were part of the film business. I had the difficult job of explaining to them that they were in the popcorn-selling business." (Oliver Thring, Guardian 2012)

With the emergence of NATIONAL movie passes, not just schemes within individual chains (Curzon and Kineopolis being being two examples), the revenue model of the film industry faces a huge shake-up with a disruption of the traditional models of renting 'prints' and passing some share of ticket revenues back to distributors (depending on the movie).

That hideous diabetes/clot-encouraging popcorn is set to become the main revenue stream for cinemas - movies could become a loss-leader, just as budget airlines seek to make money from flight 'extras' and in-flight sales more than the actual seat purchase - very bad news for distributors.

That process is arguably already here though...

The pic above is from a Guardian article on an American cinema-goer launching a doomed lawsuit against the US cinema chain for charging $8 for a coke. From the same article: