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A cautionary
tale of the perils of distribution
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After going
to Cannes for the third time, I have a lovehate relationship with
the place. My first experience was in 1998 when our short film
On The Edge was shown in the Forum section. We had a great time,
meeting people who inspired myself and Maria Elena to go on to
make Rage our debut feature.
The second time, in 1999, was a hateful experience: we had no
film, only a five minute trailer for Rage which at the time was
still in postproduction. Our mission was to attract funds to finish
it and like desperados, Maria and I ran from distributor to distributor
but this yielded nothing. Still, we completed the film and the
first cut of Rage had its world premiere at Toronto and UK premiere
at London Film Festival.
Toronto was great, it brought us into the radius of Hollywood
studios and opened up dialogue with a couple of them, which is
still ongoing. On the UK front, screening at Toronto attracted
British Screen who agreed to put up money for a blowup and print
of Rage.
The London Film Festival billed Rage as "the arrival of a
new British Talent" and our four screenings were totally
sold out with excellent reviews. The press screening was so packed
people were sitting on the stairs and others standing at the back.
It was here we met Rupert Preston, managing director of Metrodome
Distribution. Also there was David Shear from the Feature Film
Company who had been enthusiastic about Rage since seeing the
trailer. His enthusiasm heightened a thousandfold after he saw
the film; he was ready to announce his company's acquisition of
it the next day. When we arrived home three hours later we found
a fax from Rupert at Metrodome wanting to discuss distribution
of Rage.This was something to celebrate. Metrodome had had an
enormous success with Human Traffic, they were into cutting edge
films and from their record they knew how to handle them.. We
felt we had finally found a good family to belong to.
... As the
story unfolds, things take a much different turn for this talented
filmmaker. Find out more. Newton Aduaka tells his tale in bfm
magazine Issue 12
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