IFC Films

[Tribe]

Surprisingly, there is no thread devoted to IFC Films releases (likely, because most discussion is concentrated in the Criterion and IFC thread). That is, until now.

[mfunk9786]

Fuck IFC. Seriously. First I saw The Human Centipede II at the Ritz at the Bourse in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago - we were told that IFC provided a Blu-ray in lieu of a print of the film. Which would have been fine, were the theater equipped with a 4K projector - instead, we saw a pixellated projection that looked absolutely terrible (the projector they had couldn't even keep up with the motion of the film).

Enter tonight: I went to the Ritz East in Philadelphia for a Philadelphia Film Festival presentation of A Lonely Place to Die. Yet again, IFC provides a Blu-ray to a theater unequipped for it, and this time I'm watching a cinemascope pic with high production values projected through an old fashioned digital projector. I just up and left during the opening credits. Apparently IFC doesn't even offer film prints to theaters anymore (at least not ones in the Philadelphia area, I was told) and unless the Ritz theaters spend thousands of dollars to conform, every IFC release I see, regardless of how it was originally filmed, will look awful. The three Ritz theaters in Philadelphia are the only theaters in the area that would even play IFC stuff, so I'm basically... boycotting IFC? Sounds weird to say, but I'm not going to see another film projected like that. Shame on you, IFC.

[ianungstad]

I have seen your concern voiced by many others on the net. It seems to have become a real problem with IFC releases over the last year or so. I recall someone contacting IFC about the issue and were basically told that they have a policy of only creating prints for primary markets and secondary markets get sent discs. To be fair, a lot of small labels do this, even Janus films...so it's not an issue that applies only to IFC films.

What concerns me more about IFC is that the quality of their output has went down the toilet over the last year. Seems like the Dolans or Sapan have forced them to try and be more commercial. Which in itself is not a bad thing but when the execution of that goal seems to be quanity over quality, you have to wonder what their longterm goals are. Magnolia is also making moves to acquire more Hollywood product but they are much more selective and will do much better in the long run offering a smaller selection but quality product. (I should mention that the material under the Sundance Selects banner fares better overall.)

[Tribe]

Wow. I really wasn't aware of these issues.

For whatever it's worth, whatever happened to Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch? Did IFC ever release this, much less issue it as a DVD?

[domino harvey]

If there's an IFC movie playing near me, it's always just cheaper to order it on OnDemand, so I hadn't encountered this yet and sounds like I shouldn't bother anyway!

[med]

I had the above happen when I saw Certified Copy. I stuck with it because I wanted to see the movie, but I've avoided going to IFC-distributed films since.

[Brian C]

Wow. I really wasn't aware of these issues.

For whatever it's worth, whatever happened to Bruno Dumont's Hadewijch? Did IFC ever release this, much less issue it as a DVD?

I saw Hadewijch theatrically here in Chicago back in February, at Facets. It was, happily, a 35mm print. Don't know what's happened to it since.

[htshell]

Fuck IFC. Seriously. First I saw The Human Centipede II at the Ritz at the Bourse in Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago - we were told that IFC provided a Blu-ray in lieu of a print of the film. Which would have been fine, were the theater equipped with a 4K projector - instead, we saw a pixellated projection that looked absolutely terrible (the projector they had couldn't even keep up with the motion of the film).

Enter tonight: I went to the Ritz East in Philadelphia for a Philadelphia Film Festival presentation of A Lonely Place to Die. Yet again, IFC provides a Blu-ray to a theater unequipped for it, and this time I'm watching a cinemascope pic with high production values projected through an old fashioned digital projector. I just up and left during the opening credits. Apparently IFC doesn't even offer film prints to theaters anymore (at least not ones in the Philadelphia area, I was told) and unless the Ritz theaters spend thousands of dollars to conform, every IFC release I see, regardless of how it was originally filmed, will look awful. The three Ritz theaters in Philadelphia are the only theaters in the area that would even play IFC stuff, so I'm basically... boycotting IFC? Sounds weird to say, but I'm not going to see another film projected like that. Shame on you, IFC.

The Ritz / Landmark theaters are kind of an embarrassment. Awful projection, especially digital. I've seen things screened in the wrong aspect ratio (Finisterrae at a festival this summer), things projected far out of frame, and things that should have been film screened digitally in blu-ray or lesser quality. Twice this year I've seen things presented on DVD that glitched out during the film. Things that are shown 3-D in other cities are shown in 2-D, things like Mysteries of Lisbon are presented in standard def when they should be presented in HD (I saw the film in HD in NYC and went for a second viewing at the Ritz and was completely disappointed).

...all this and I try to avoid those theaters as much as possible! Can't imagine how many more incidents I would have if I went there regularly.

So, I'm not sure if I trust that IFC patently refuses to send prints to these theaters because I've seen them cut corners and go downhill since they were bought by Landmark. If IFC does refuse them, perhaps they've had prints damaged by bad projection? Or perhaps they are just refusing to send stuff to the markets. Either way, I think in this case it could be a number of reasons.

[mfunk9786]

Landmark isn't blameless in this, but theaters shouldn't be forced to conform to digital if they don't feel it's necessary, particularly when dealing with films that weren't ever intended to be projected digitally. IFC is buying rights to foriegn pics shot on film and then cutting corners by sending discs out to theaters. Nuts to that.

[hearthesilence]

I rarely go to IFC in NYC, but I just remember a few times feeling burned about paying $12 for a shitty looking projection.

When digital was first introduced in some theaters, it didn't seem so bad. In retrospect, they were really trying to sell the technology to the audience, and standards were kept high. Now that it's accepted in so many places, it's become a lot more slipshod.

[Brian C]

When digital was first introduced in some theaters, it didn't seem so bad. In retrospect, they were really trying to sell the technology to the audience, and standards were kept high. Now that it's accepted in so many places, it's become a lot more slipshod.

...and we have a winner. Of all the arguments for digital projection, the one that always rankled me the most (and they all rankled me) were the quality arguments. Of course lamps weren't going to be kept at proper brightness any more than they had been before. Of course unattended projection booths would lead to unfixed problems. Of course aspect ratio problems would still happen. Etc.

...theaters shouldn't be forced to conform to digital if they don't feel it's necessary, particularly when dealing with films that weren't ever intended to be projected digitally

MichaelB (I think) has made this point before, but these days it's virtually impossible to say what is and isn't "intended" to be projected digitally. Since virtually every new film is finished via a digital intermediate, 35mm prints are little more than analogue copies of a digital product anyway.

This has no bearing on the quality of the digital presentation, of course, but even I've more or less given up the ghost on the 35mm vs. digital issue. It's a digital world now. It already happened. There's no going back.

[TMDaines]

I rarely go to IFC in NYC, but I just remember a few times feeling burned about paying $12 for a shitty looking projection.

When digital was first introduced in some theaters, it didn't seem so bad. In retrospect, they were really trying to sell the technology to the audience, and standards were kept high. Now that it's accepted in so many places, it's become a lot more slipshod.

Yeah. It's not digital that's the problem but it's the slipping of standards and the corner cutting that's the problem.