Machete causes headaches for white supremacists and producers; Spain revolts with carrots

by David Largman Murray

A clever Spanish theater owner came up with a literally organic way to avoid paying what he saw as a punitive tax increase. In Spain, recent austerity measures have raised sales tax on various commodities—including movie admissions. For Quim Marce, it meant that the duty on tickets to screening in his 300-seat theater would increase from eight to 21 percent. Quim knew that the local residents of Bescano, one in four of whom are unemployed if the national average applies to the municipality, wouldn't stomach the increase. So to avoid the new penalty, Quim decided to go into the carrot business.

IFFS Austin: Why you can't miss this year's Film Festival Summit

by James Kaelan

Film festivals are so numerous these days that counting them is tantamount to tracking migratory birds. The hard number of events grows annually—more new festivals flutter in each year than fall dead from the sky—but the figure is constantly fluctuating; and it's huge! I'm preaching to the choir if you're a filmmaker who's tried, recently, to weed through Withoutabox.com's list. The website boasts that you can submit to more than 5,000 festivals and contests through their database, but that 5,000 doesn't include, say, SXSW.