Documentary about Repatriation of North Korean Spies to Open

By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
More than 60 North Korean spies returned to their homeland in September 2000. They had spent nearly 30 years in a South Korean prison because they refused to disavow their political beliefs. A local documentary looks at their lives and their long and difficult journey home, not only from a political perspective but also from a humanitarian point of view.

The Local documentary ``Songhwan (Repatriation),¡¯¡¯ which will open on March 19, revolves around two North Korean spies, Cho Chang-son and Kim Suk-hyung, two men who had no place to go. The director met them because he was asked to take them to his village.

``I had both curiosity and fear when I first met them. I didn¡¯t think that I would make a movie for the public when I started to film them,¡¯¡¯ Kim Dong-won said. ``But I became interested in their stories, and later the more I knew about them, the more I wanted to help them go back to the North.¡¯¡¯

When he saw Cho taking care of his kids like a grandfather, he grew closer to him and a desire to film the individual lives of North Korean spies who tried to acclimate themselves to life in South Korea while struggling to return to North Korea after serving nearly 30-year sentences without converting their Communist ideology.

Since 1992, when friendly relations began to solidify between Kim and the two North Korean spies and other long-term Communist prisoners, Kim recorded their process of repatriation and all the troubles and conflicts it brought.

The noted documentary filmmaker had no idea he would spend almost 12 years and 500 hours of video tape making the documentary or that his diligence and fortitude would pay off last year in the form of the Freedom of Expression Award for ``Songhwan¡¯¡¯ at the Sundance Film Festival, one of the biggest independent film festivals in the United States.

Kim has made documentaries dealing with social issues, including gentrification, a modern-day trend in which a city¡¯s redevelopment pushes out lower-income residents such as ``Sangye-dong Olympics¡¯¡¯ in 1988 and ``Standing on the Edge of Death¡¯¡¯ in 1990. He has also documented the pro-democracy movement and the schism between North and South Koreas.

``The reason why I sent my work to film festivals was that I thought winning an award from a film festival would help me play my movie in a local theater,¡¯¡¯ the director said.

Kim layers his story of the prisoners by approaching it from a myriad of angles. He highlights the peninsula¡¯s contemporary history, weaving it with the personal histories of the former prisoners, and gets up close and personal through interviews with them, drawing empathy from his audience by depicting their hard life after release.

The documentary unravels the prisoners¡¯ arduous trials by spending time with South Korean supporters who struggled for their repatriation and illustrating serious conflicts inside South Korean society.

The camera sometimes observes their lives at a short distance and also listens to them. But, combined with Kim¡¯s direct narration throughout the nonfiction film¡¯s two and-a-half hours, the documentary also explains how the director came to understand them.

The narrator is awestruck by the prisoners¡¯ endurance through the dehumanizing, systematic torture that lasted throughout their 30 years in prison and is shocked by their too strong beliefs when they sing a song of praise about the former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung at a picnic in South Korea. But, after 12 years of relations with them, Kim concluded that they are just ordinary men who tried to maintain their integrity by holding onto their beliefs.

When they were finally repatriated to the North, the director started worrying about them and began to miss them even though they were revered as heroes who attempted to defend the North.

After his efforts to visit them in Pyongyang, North Korea, fell short, he asked a visitor there to film them for him. When he was handed his tape, he was touched by Cho¡¯s comment. Cho said in the tape that he thinks of the director as a son.

The documentary will be released locally on March 19. It will be the first film distributed by the Art Cinema Network, an organization of local art film theaters.

e3dward@koreatimes.co.kr

McDonald's creates Super Size debate
Decision to cut larger portions pits customers against health care experts.

By Karen Robinson-Jacobs
KRT News Wire

DALLAS | Chad Johnson doesn't apologize for eating a lot. He changes truck tires for a living. It's strenuous work that he says burns a lot of fuel.

So he had no stomach for a decision this week by McDonald's Corp. to slice Super Size french fries and soft drinks from its menu.

''That's messed up,'' said Johnson, 20, pausing between bites of a Double Quarter Pounder and Super Size fries Wednesday at a McDonald's in downtown Dallas. He had a Super Size drink and extra Quarter Pounder on the side.

''I'm a big fellow,'' he said. ''It's my money and that's what I want to eat. Why do they have to mess with that?''

Depending on your view, the issue is either simplicity or damage control. For McDonald's, the Super Size offerings had become a lightning rod that made the company the object of scorn from obesity lawyers, a movie director and super-sized patrons who all blame the world's largest restaurant chain for expanding the nation's waistline.

The company announced Tuesday that in revamping its ''core menu,'' it will phase out the 7-ounce French fries and 42-ounce sodas ordered as part of a Super Size meal.

By the end of this year, the items will be removed from the menu in all 13,000 U.S. stores — both franchised and company-owned — though the company said it may offer them as promotional items for limited periods.

McDonald's, of Oak Brook, Ill., has been sued twice for allegedly contributing to obesity and attendant ailments in patrons who said they dined regularly on McDonald's fare.

At a gathering in Boston in the summer, health professionals and trial lawyers mulled even more ways to hold the restaurant industry — and fast food companies specifically — legally responsible for the nation's obesity epidemic.

In addition, the independent film, ''Super Size Me,'' in which director Morgan Spurlock suffers ill health after dining on only McDonald's for a month, is expected to shine a negative light on fast food portions when it comes out this summer in wider release.

''Whether it's a legal issue or PR issue, I think they feel, 'Let's just take this issue off the table and give everyone one less reason to blame McDonald's,''' said Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc., a Chicago restaurant consulting firm. ''There's a lot of finger pointing going on.''

McDonald's said the move is part of an overall campaign, begun two years ago, to revamp its ''core menu'' and is unrelated to lawsuits or unflattering films.

''It has nothing to do with this documentary,'' said McDonald's spokesman William Whitman, who said Super Sizing accounts for less than 10 percent of the chain's meal orders.

''There is no connection between this initiative and anything else other than simplification of the restaurant menu and offering a simplified, consistent relevant menu to our customers. … In many markets we have removed things like cookies and some of the pastries we offered for breakfast.''

With the subtraction of the mondo-sized french fries and sodas, the company will have three sizes of fries — ranging from 2.6 ounce, (the average serving size a few decades ago) to 6 ounce — and four soda sizes. They will range from 12 ounces to 32 ounces.

Both rationales are equally valid, restaurant analysts said. Menu shrinkage will help solve the company's speed-of-service problems, and the move helps offer ammunition against lawsuits.

''Their operations will probably benefit from a simplification of their menu and they're also probably concerned about lawsuits and about appearing health conscious to consumers,'' said Dennis Milton, Standard & Poor's restaurants equity analyst.

It costs food servers little, in terms of incremental food costs, to bump up the size of fries, or even movie theater popcorn. In the case of the fries, fast-food restaurants can charge an extra 30 cents or more for the larger size, which helps expand the average check.

But it can also expand your belly.

A Super Size order of fries has 160 more calories, and 7 more grams of fat than a medium order, according to the chain's Web site.

A super size Coke has 410 calories while a large Coke is 310. A large Coke contains 21.5 teaspoons of sugar, or about one-third of a cup, while you'd get 28 teaspoons of sugar in a super-size Coke, said Dr. Lewis Pincus, Medical Director of the Weight Management Institute at Methodist Health System in Dallas.

As the nation has grown increasingly alarmed about the health effects of eating sugar and fat-laden foods, McDonald's downsizing can help the company reap perception points.

''I'd say it's more about the PR and avoiding lawsuits and it has the added value of simplifying operations,'' Milton said. ''This is going to help them in the media.''

Some of the harshest critics gave begrudging approval to McDonald's. The move is ''a small step in the right direction,'' said John F. Banzhaf III, a law professor at George Washington University, one of the chief proponents of using legal action to halt the spread of obesity. ''The hope would be that this would and if it does, it would be more significant.''

The nation's major chains didn't immediately follow suit. Ohio's Wendy's International, which operates the nation's No. 3 burger chain, has no immediate plans to downsize its Biggie drink, which is 32 ounces, or Great Biggie fries, which weigh in at 6.7 ounces.

But the company, which led the industry with the introduction of premium salads in 2002, plans to expand its healthful menu with a spinach salad offering in spring, said Wendy's spokesman Bob Bertini. The chain is testing the option of substituting fruit for fries in children's meals.

Milton said that even if chains do not drop over-sized fries from the menu, he expects them to play down their marketing.

Though consumers such as Johnson bristled at the notion of having their meals interrupted by the portion police, others saw the move as a good first step.

''The reality is that meal portions are too large,'' said Kylie Wurl, a student at El Centro College. ''Maybe people will think a little bit more.''

But Jesus Cabrera, another El Centro student, saw the announcement as more of an exercise in political correctness than something that will change America's eating habits.

''It's up to me what I want to eat,'' he said. ''If one's not enough, I'll just buy two.''
Copyright © 2004, The Morning Call

"Passion" Tops $200 Million and Nears "Big Fat" Record

by Eugene Hernandez

Jim Caviezel as Jesus with the apostles at The Last Supper in a scene from "The Passion of The Christ." © 2003 Icon Distribution Inc. Photo credit: Philippe Antonello.

With an estimated $51 million weekend, Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" has topped the $200 million mark at the box office after only 12 days in release. Newmarket's Bob Berney and Icon's Bruce Davey said Sunday morning in a conference call with reporters that the film screened on about 4,800 screens this weekend in a total of 3,170 theaters. Its estimated per screen average was more than $16,000.

The estimated gross of $212,034,304 after two weekends is nearing the record independent film box office figure of $241.4 million earned by IFC Films' "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" during its 51 weeks of release of from April of 2002 through April '03. The film surpassed the $140.5 million earned by Artisan's "The Blair Witch Project" during 17 weeks in 1999 and the $128 million record earned by the subtitled "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" by Sony Pictures Classics from late 2000 through the summer of 2001. Miramax's release of "Pulp Fiction" made $107.9 in 1994 and 1995.

read the rest here

Chicago film industry gets jump start in 2004
Production companies and government officials lure major studios

Matthew Jaster
A&E Editor

Chicago was a perfect fit for the upcoming drama The Weatherman, starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Gore Verbinski. The cast and crew came to town to shoot scenes involving Chicago's typical winter weather. What they got instead was sunshine and temperatures in the upper 40s.

“I'm looking out the window right now, and the weather doesn't want to cooperate with the film,” said Richard Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office in a recent telephone interview. “Despite that, they've finished shooting the tougher scenes and things seem to be going along quite well.”

The same could be said about the film scene here in Chicago.

According to a press release from the Chicago Film Office, since 1999, 18 films that were set in Chicago were actually filmed in Canada.

“If we're losing projects to California and other areas around the world, we're also losing the opportunity to be in control of our own future,” Moskal said.

Last year, with the combined efforts of city and government officials, Chicago was able to make changes to increase revenue and encourage industry professionals to film here.

“There is no one solution that can put Chicago back on the map,” Moskal said. “Although the tax incentive has triggered a great deal of interest, there is a unified front here working to bring attention to filming in Chicago and Illinois.”

Working hand in hand with the Chicago Film Office is the Illinois Production Alliance, a nonprofit organization made up of production companies, talent and craft unions and professional organizations that deal with all aspects of the visual media.

In August 2003, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich introduced a tax incentive to restore the struggling film community. The work seems to be paying off.

Major studio features, such as The Weatherman, Ice Harvest, Ocean's 12 and Batman: Intimidation Game, plan to shoot scenes in Chicago. There are three to four other major studio productions currently in talks to film in the city.

“There is plenty of talent right here in the city,” Moskal said. “We certainly have the opportunity to make Chicago a place where filmmakers can live and work.”

Moskal is quick to acknowledge the independent film scene as the driving force behind the film community.

“Independent features are doing quite well right now. They've managed to hold their own here in Chicago year after year,” he said.

Bruce Sheridan, chairman of the Film and Video Department at Columbia, believes students are beginning to pay attention to the options available outside of Hollywood.

“When I came to Columbia two and half years ago, students who wanted to dedicate themselves to filmmaking thought they would have to leave the Midwest,” Sheridan said. “This has changed partly because they've started to believe in the potential of Chicago as a major, independent-oriented, creative center for the visual media. They also know more about the difficulties of making an impact from inside the Los Angeles entertainment industry.”

“The notion of Columbia College film students staying in the area after graduation is a powerful one,” Moskal said. “There are opportunities here to fill the job ranks and improve the community.”

It also helps to have support from Hollywood. Harold Ramis, a Chicago native, is responsible for directing films such as Caddyshack, Groundhog Day and Analyze This.

Recently, he's been very instrumental in getting Focus Features to use Chicago as the backdrop for his latest film Ice Harvest, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton.

“We can't say enough about Harold Ramis,” Moskal said. “He's put his money where his mouth is, and everybody has backed him up to get the film made in Chicago.” Ice Harvest begins filming in late March.

Film students have mixed opinions on the idea of staying in Chicago to pursue a film career.

“I'll go wherever the jobs are, whatever happens to the industry in the next five to 10 years,” said Austin Blank, a freshman film student.

Paul Ruffolo plans to head to the West Coast after graduation.

“They have a beach, an ocean, better weather, and there just isn't as many opportunities here in Chicago right now,” he said.

Moskal and his staff at the Chicago Film Office are doing everything they can to keep the industry thriving here in Chicago.

“There's always going to be a cheaper destination than Chicago or Illinois,” Moskal said. “But the interest and impact that the industry has brought to the city can't be denied.”

March 08, 2004, 8:30 a.m.
The Life They Lived
Osama, a horror story.

If you are having trouble remembering what the war on terrorism is all about, or if you just want to have an unforgettable movie experience, check out Osama, the 2003 release from Afghan writer-director Siddiq Barmak. The movie opens with an inexplicable screech, and propels the audience into a street scene somewhere in Afghanistan with no explanation or context, showing a bright-eyed dusty-faced urchin (Khwaja Nader) offering hexes for dollars. Nearby a mob of women, a bobbing sea of blue burkas, parades down a narrow avenue demonstrating for jobs. Chaos ensues when the Taliban show up with guns and fire hoses, having not taken kindly to this act of civil disobedience. The camera flees with the demonstrators, down back alleys, through dark doorways, and for the unlucky, into wire cages. None of this is explained; the movie disorients from the beginning, and imposes a tension that does not diminish throughout. The film would not have been possible in Taliban Afghanistan, cinema having been outlawed in 1996, along with television and music. Ten days after the ban, Barmak fled to Pakistan, a wanted man, and stayed there until 2002. Osama is his first feature, and the first to come out of Afghanistan since its liberation. It documents life under the Taliban, but is not a documentary as such; it is closer to a horror movie.

Osama tells the story of a young girl, played by 13-year-old Marina Golbahari, a convincing actress who was discovered scavenging on the streets of Kabul. (Most of the children in the film are real-life street kids.) She plays the daughter of a female doctor who is forbidden to practice under Taliban law. In fact, women are not allowed to work at all. Since the men of their family are either dead or refugees, Marina is forced to find work posing as a boy. The movie is a cross between Yentl and 1984, though most of the story is true, a composite account based on tales Barmak collected while in Pakistan and after his return.

The film is a microcosm of the Taliban utopia, a convincing portrait of life under totalitariansm. It touches several of the themes one would expect, such as the hypocrisy of the ruling class, the pervasive unease generated by the randomness of authority, and the little acts of rebellion people engage in to maintain their humanity. Barmak is particularly focused on the subjugation of women, and feminists would benefit from the perspective the film provides. Forget the alleged wage gaps and glass ceilings, this is actual oppression. (One scene gives new meaning to the expression "wedlock.") Osama bin Laden is mentioned, but plays no particular role (he is not the title character). Yet, these were the people with whom he made common cause, and this is the society his movement seeks to export to the world. Al Qaeda released a statement in the fall of 2002 stating, "We regret to inform [the United States] that you are the worst civilization in history." Comparing our way of life to that depicted in Osama, the battle lines in the war of civilizations could not be clearer.

The townfolk live in nondescript mud and brick houses, any expressions of individuality or private life either carefully hidden or destroyed. There are few personal possessions, and almost everything looks old and worn, apart from the Taliban's weapons. There are some striking scenes of outdoor gatherings near crumbling buildings, the surviving remnants of a more prosperous age, reminiscent of the ruins at the end of Thomas Cole's The Course of Empire series. One has to remind oneself that this is not a set, the movie was filmed on location. Post-Taliban Afghanistan is making important progress towards reconstruction, but one understands why Marina Golbahari's contemporaries Asadullah and Naqibulah, who were detained by Coalition forces in the Fall of 2001 and repatriated last January, miss their cells in Guantanamo and want to come to America.

Barmak makes good use of sound and imagery throughout. The few slow-motion sequences are subtle, and one scene has a group of women being herded into a cage with the faint sound of chickens squawking in the background, which may have been unplanned, but I'll give him credit for it. The editing is sharp, and there are some twists in the structure of the film that keep it from being episodic. The last ten minutes tie up plot elements one may not realize exist. The end is surprising; the audience at the showing I attended let out a gasp.

Osama won Special Mention at Cannes, Best First Feature at the London Film Festival, the 2003 Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, but for some reason missed the Academy Awards. The production cost was $46,000, which goes to show that if you have good writing and some visual imagination you can make a great film on a low budget. And this is not another tiresome independent film trying self-consciously to be "an independent film," it is a pure non-Hollywood product. Osama is showing at only two dozen cinemas nationwide, but has grossed over half a million dollars in five weeks; its per-screen average last weekend was higher than 50 First Dates. This is a movie that deserves a much higher profile. It challenges intellectually and emotionally, and it reminds us that unfortunately evil exists in the world. Osama is an antidote to the messages from politicians seeking to find ways to minimize the impact or the purpose of the war. Anyone who thinks that threats like al Qaeda and the Taliban can be defeated by lawyers and diplomats might walk out of the theater with a clearer perspective.

Independent Thinker

By Scott Tobias

When the MPAA announced that its member companies were not going to send screener tapes out this Academy season, the Independent Feature Project turned the situation into a David vs. Goliath-style battle, filing a lawsuit in New York Superior Court that ultimately saw the "screener ban" ruled unconstitutional. IFP executive director Dawn Hudson was seen by many to be the driving force behind that turning tide. Hudson talked with Scott Tobias for The Hollywood Reporter about the battle of the ban and a host of issues facing the independent film community.

The Hollywood Reporter: You were heavily involved in the effort to reverse the screener ban. What do you take away from that experience?

Dawn Hudson: At the very beginning, I thought, "This is crazy. As soon as it's brought to Jack Valenti's and the studio heads' attention how detrimental this will be to the independent film business, they'll understand and they'll reverse this ban immediately. Maybe they just didn't think about it or something." I was much more naive when I started the process of how to challenge that concentration of media power. In the film business, from the studio heads down to the small indie producer, you feel like you're part of one big family. A large, extended, dysfunctional family, maybe, but still a family. Especially at IFP, because we broker relationships between young, new filmmakers coming through the ranks and studio executives and studio filmmakers. It's part of our job to help the independent movement sustain itself and thrive in the larger filmmaking community. And that's how we approached (the ban) when it was first announced: We were just going to write letters to studio heads and explain how detrimental this will be to how independent films are marketed. But that didn't evoke a response at all, much less the response we wanted. We realized, "Oh, this is very tight little world here." So we had to fight fire with fire and challenge them legally to get them to understand how wrongheaded this was. When it got to the point where we were deciding about litigating, I thought we had very little chance of a judge ruling in our favor. The resources of the studios are infinite. What they spend on a conference to talk about anti-piracy is more than the budget of many of these (independent) films. I remember when someone was deciding to join us as a plaintiff in this suit, that person said, "I just don't think -- and our lawyer doesn't think -- you can win this suit." And I was thinking, "Win?! Of course we're not going to win. We're going up against the MPAA!" But you have to make the statement. You have to challenge it because it's wrong. That's what IFP is for. We have to stand up for independent filmmakers, and pursuing that lawsuit was just the right thing to do. I guess I didn't have enough faith in the American justice system. But even in the initial hearings, the judge clearly got it and picked up a lot about the film business very quickly. I thought, "How does someone outside our family understand so much of the way things work?"

THR: What impact, if any, did the screener ban have on the awards process?

Hudson: Our nominating process is so early that our deadline was actually before the ban was announced. So most of the films that were submitted for consideration were prior to the ban. Our committee wasn't hurt, but there were a few films in which the videotapes themselves weren't available before deadline and they couldn't submit them to us later because of this rule. One was "In the Cut," one was "Sylvia." And to be painfully honest, I don't feel like those films completely got their due because screeners weren't available. Some people had seen them in theaters, but not the entire committee. Another one was "House of Sand and Fog." Now this is the great thing about the resources of the studios. DreamWorks scheduled daily screenings of that film, twice a day, at a centrally located theater in L.A. They made it really easy to see that film. But I think it's important to point out that these examples are just a tiny microcosm of what goes on in the larger nominating process. This is a 12-person committee of people who dedicate two months of their lives to watching films. That's all they do. They take on another full-time job to be on this committee. It's incredibly taxing. And just the few instances of not getting a screener affected that film's consideration. If you extrapolate from that to the Academy nominating process or the Golden Globes or the SAGs or whatever, when you have 200 people nominating or 80 people nominating, you can really see how not having a screener will affect a film's chances of being nominated. And that affects the whole marketing campaign.

THR: Do you feel, in general, that the voting membership gets around to considering some of the more low-profile nominees?

Hudson: No. I think the nominations are a very considered process, with everyone seeing all of the films. That's why you have "Virgin" nominated, (as well as) "Anne B. Real," "Better Luck Tomorrow," "Blue Car," "Quattro Noza," "OT: Our Town," "Power Trip." You have all of these films and so many other small films that were considered by this committee. Those nominations were very carefully vetted. Then you go to a 9,000-person membership -- and we schedule screenings for that membership -- but they've got to go out to those screenings. So the smaller films are at a disadvantage because "In America" is in theaters, "Lost in Translation" is in theaters. However, I think often the distribution process does tend to reward the better independent films. I think "Lost in Translation," for example, is a near-perfect film, so the fact that that got wider distribution ... hey, it deserved wider distribution. I feel the same way about "American Splendor." But then again, "Raising Victor Vargas" wasn't as widely distributed, so I don't know how that will do. The distribution system in place now leaves out tiny independent films or quirky independent films or more difficult independent films. I think that's a gap that needs to be filled, but I don't know how. Maybe Internet distribution.

THR: Could you talk a little bit about the "economy of means" requirement?

Hudson: The IFP board did not want to set an exact budget limit for the Spirit Awards because if they say, "The limit is $12 million," well, then there's going to be this $12.5 million film that the committee would love and it's kind of crazy to leave it out. One year, the committee honored "Bullets Over Broadway," which was a $22 million film. They felt that it met the economy of means because it's Woody Allen and if anyone else would have made it, it would have been $50 million, and it's obviously his vision and it should be nominated. And the board said, "OK, now you've gone crazy. We don't consider $22 million to meet the economy of means." So it was back to the drawing board. I know it causes a lot of confusion among everyone that we don't set an exact number, but the committee every year looks at the crop of films and says, "Mmmm, we're going to stick with a number around $15 million, and anything over that will not be considered." One year, we didn't nominate a film over $12 million; another year we didn't nominate a film over $10 million. Usually it's around $15 million or $16 million.

THR: Why would a studio picture like "House of Sand and Fog" be deemed eligible for nomination and not something like "21 Grams"?

Hudson: Because "House of Sand and Fog" had a $15 million budget and "21 Grams" had a $21 million or $22 million budget.

THR: What stands out to you about the year in independent film? Do you see any significant trends and patterns in this year's Spirit Awards nominees?

Hudson: I feel like there's a trend towards diversity -- different voices, different technologies, different approaches, different ways of telling stories. I think there's a wide spectrum of storytelling, and that's what has been really exciting for me. You have "Shattered Glass," with its classic cinematography, and "American Splendor," which employed all sorts of innovative filmmaking techniques. Then there's the improvisational feeling of something like "Raising Victor Vargas" and veteran filmmakers like Jim Sheridan doing a small personal film like "In America." I feel like one of the things that's remarkable about this year's nominees is that independent filmmakers are really branching out from making movies about their lives to bigger, more ambitious subjects.

THR: With Halle Berry and Adrien Brody winning Oscars recently, and films like "Lost in Translation" in contention this year, do you feel the continued emergence of specialty divisions as awards-season contenders might herald a time when the Spirit Awards will have to reinvent itself?

Hudson: No. I hope all these great independent films are nominated for Oscars. Until the Academy Awards are wholly taken over by independent films, I don't see the Spirit Awards needing to change itself.

THR: Practically speaking, have you been able to measure the impact the Spirit Awards has had on the nominees and winners, particularly in some of the smaller categories?

Hudson: Absolutely. We moved the nomination process up in order to give the filmmakers more time to use the nominations in support of their work and their careers. We used to announce them in mid-January, and now we announce them in early December. When films are in the theaters, I feel people use the awards as one more way to promote them, like on display ads. But I think the real benefit of being nominated for the Spirit Awards is more specific to a filmmaker's career. With Academy Awards, you get that boxoffice bump. With us, it's a little different. We're supporting a lot of emerging filmmakers with the Spirit Awards.