Indie filmmaker Bigfoot has an inside track to theater

If you feel like the time you spend sitting in movie theaters has been getting longer, you're not imagining it — you are.

Veteran independent cinemas are losing customers to major chains booking more specialty films and new high-end theaters offering a mix of movies along with premium services.The day before Laemmle Theatres closed its Sunset 5 last month, patrons and filmmakers showed up at the West Hollywood movie house to share their memories of one of L.A.'s most popular art house cinemas.

Tugg's library includes independent, foreign and specialty films as well as repertory titles.

As Baghdad writhed with violence in 2006, Emad Ali set out to make a film about the iconic Shabandar Cafe. But he turned the camera on himself after the teahouse was bombed, a deadly mortar killed his wife and a gunman shot him three times.Despite the ordeals, he finished "A candle for the Shabandar Cafe," screening it for the first time in Iraq at this month's Documentary Film Festival in Baghdad, organised by the capital's struggling, non-governmental Independent Film and Television College to showcase student films made between 2004 and this year.

Loyal reader Lewis Lehe writes to ask about how economics is explained in popular media.  Are there any films/videos/pieces of visual media that show "the unseen" well?  Films can only depict a few characters or places, so they tend to underweight benefits that are spread across large groups. Roger and Me is a fine example: we can see the devastation of Flint, but it would be difficult to see the gains from comparative advantage--i.e. returns to shareholders, slightly cheaper cars for consumers and so forth...

TechCrunch submits: By Robin Wauters

By Soundview Technology Group: Summary Cinedigm (CIDM) enters 2013 with one of the largest independent film content libraries and a stream of upcoming new releases. This year the company will shift its content business from "investment mode" to "harvest and invest" mode. This dynamic will help increase revenue growth and expand margins.