MPI is proud to announce the premiere of An Inconvenient Tax, a striking and timely documentary about how our tax code got broken -- and what we can do to fix the system before it's too late. The film will be in theaters and on campuses across the nation beginning April 15--get showtimes and sign up for the electronic newsletter at AnInconvenientTax.com.
Meanwhile -- to arrange a screening in your area, contact us at info @ thempi.org. And please consider donating to our Kickstarter pledge drive to raise funds to bring this film to the widest possible public. We have until April 15 to raise $20,000 -- and every little bit helps!
APRIL 16 - The Cartel opens in New York and Los Angeles
APRIL 23 - The Cartel opens in Houston
APRIL 30 - The Cartel opens in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and St. Louis
The film will play for at least a week in each location--longer if the crowds come out and interest is high. So be there and make sure your friends and family go, too!
Roger Simon thinks so. Here he is on the subject of last night's Academy Awards:
The 2010 Academy Awards may not have marked the end of "liberal Hollywood" as we know it, but they certainly put a solid dent in it. With the pro-military "The Hurt Locker" winning over the enviro-pabulum of "Avatar" and Sandra Bullock garnering the Best Actress Oscar for a Christian movie, the times are a-changin' at least somewhat, maybe even a lot.
But one thing is now certain. It is time for conservative, center-right and libertarian filmmakers to stop feeling sorry for themselves and go out and just do it. Their "victocrat" days are over. No more excuses. "The Hurt Locker" and "The Blind Side" have proven that it can be done. Get out of the closet, guys and gals. If you want to make a film with themes you believe in, quit whining about Industry prejudice and start writing that script and trying to get it made. That's not an easy thing, no matter what your politics.
Right siders can take inspiration too from Sunday's Oscar ceremonies themselves. They weren't defamed for a moment. Missing in action was the usual libo-babble, no extended hymns to the cause du jour or ritual Bush-bashing. And Barack Obama wasn't even mentioned. Not once. But the troops were - several times by Kathryn Bigelow.
And, yes, we can all take pleasure in her being the first woman to win Best Director, again no matter which side of the political spectrum we come from. She did a Helluva job.
We need movies from all perspectives. We'd like to thank the Academy for recognizing that!
The Cartel has been named an official selection of the Washington D.C. Independent Film Festival! This is a great venue for this film. If you live in the area, mark your calendars and be there! The festival runs from March 4-14, and The Cartel will screen on Saturday, March 13 at noon.
David Theroux of the Independent Institute calls 2081 "remarkable and haunting"--and devotes some space to reflecting on C.S. Lewis and the philosophical origins of egalitarian tyranny. Check it out.
This is simply one of the most powerful portrayals of the modern totalitarian state on film. Visionary as if a new Peter Weir had appeared on the movie making scene. A film financed by the Moving Picture Institute perhaps the most powerful force in films for the Libertarian point of view and philosophy, psychology.
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The scenes are lit in a spectacular manner. Perhaps some of the best art direction I've seen in any current films. The music by the incomparable Kronos Quartet. They set a perfect background to this brilliant short film. Perhaps the most powerful short film I have ever seen.
The film 2081 marks the arrival of a film company called the Moving Picture Institute (MPI) as the major film voice for the libertarian philosophy.
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It will be interesting to watch what future films MPI will create. They have set the bar pretty high with their entry into the current political arena with 2081. It offers a powerful commentary of an equalitarian world of the future. One wonders if they will be able to continue to spin out brilliant and powerful stories like 2081. It offers that one scene that our Founding Fathers fought against. In effect, it offers a future version of what the Founders of America wanted to avoid. Perhaps it offers a vision of their worst nightmare.
With this powerful film from MPI there is the announcement that a new voice has entered the arena for the Libertarian cause. It's the powerful voice of the young filmmaker Chandler Tuttle. It is a voice that the Founding Fathers would most likely endorse. The ideas for MPI films really stories from the ideas (their philosophy and psychology) of freedom rather than equality. This film marks a powerful statement to the powers of equality in the modern world.
Scifiblock calls 2081 an "amazing twenty-six minutes," adding:
In short fiction of any medium, everything has to be perfect. Chandler Tuttle understands this and has crafted a film in which not a single step is out of place. "2081," adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's short story "Harrison Bergeron," depicts an imprisoning "ideal" United States, in which everyone is forced to wear handicapping devices so that they are equal on every level. The strong wear weights, the intelligent wear headphones that emit distracting bursts of noise, and the beautiful wear masks. The film alternates between a tired, weighted-down man watching television with his wife, and a rebel disrupting a ballet to fight for inequality. What transpires is beautiful.
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It would seem natural to call this film an Orwellian warning, but it is more accurately a portrayal of the necessity of embracing individuality - even, perhaps, if that individuality is abject. It is possible that in the far future such measures of social equalization would be considered by a government -- who knows? -- but "2081"'s value now is its demonstration of how great our differences make the world. And in a world devoid of such differences, a carefully coordinated defiant act becomes a moment of salvation. That which we thought was profane will become sacred.
In this morning's New York Times, columnist Thomas Friedman calls on President Obama to place Mary Mazzio's remarkable new film, Ten9Eight, in every classroom in the country:
The president should also vow to bring the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, or NFTE, to every low-income neighborhood in America. NFTE works with middle- and high-school teachers to help them teach entrepreneurship. The centerpiece of its program is a national contest for start-ups with 24,000 kids participating. Each student has to invent a product or service, write up a business plan and then do it. NFTE (www.NFTE.com) works only in low-income areas, so many of these new entrepreneurs are minority kids.
In November, a documentary movie -- "Ten9Eight" -- was released that tracked a dozen students all the way through to the finals of the NFTE competition. Obama should arrange for this movie to be shown in every classroom in America. It is the most inspirational, heartwarming film you will ever see. You can obtain details about it at www.ten9eight.com.
This year's three finalists, said Amy Rosen, the chief executive of NFTE, "were an immigrant's son who took a class from H&R Block and invented a company to do tax returns for high school students, a young woman who taught herself how to sew and designed custom-made dresses, and the winner was an African-American boy who manufactured socially meaningful T-shirts."
This film, Friedman argues, can be a cornerstone of an urgently needed effort to inspire innovation within our culture--and to generate the jobs that come with it. "You want more good jobs, spawn more Steve Jobs," says Friedman. "Obama should have focused on that from Day 1. He must focus on that for Year 2."
Watch the trailer above, and find out about screenings the the upcoming BET broadcast at Ten9Eight.com.
