So far, the signature aspect of LA’s Collaboration Filmmakers Challenge (CFC) is that the audience and judges agree.

At the 2012 inaugural edition of this short film competition, which gives paired filmmakers two weeks to crank out works based on a “theme” quote, Bethany Orr’s Winner was, yes, the winner of both the Audience and First Place awards. This weekend, at a May 4 event featuring Orr as one of the judges, the Audience-First Place winner was A Simple Test.

During Saturday night’s Q&A at Harmony Gold with judges Orr, actor Matthew Lillard, Reason Online critic Kurt Loder, producer-talent manager Andrew Wilson and StyleHaul head of production Melody Hammer (fellow judge and Slamdance co-founder Peter Baxter, who was unable to attend, announced the winners via taped video message), one of the key pieces of advice offered was that it is best for entrants to not try to literally include the theme quote as spoken dialogue. Sure enough, A Simple Test, written and directed by Jonathan Smith with collaborative help from Mike Carrier, never has either one of its principal characters parrot the Emiliano Zapata words, “It is better to die on your feet than live on on your knees.” Rather, it cleverly embodies the Mexican revolutionary’s advice by means of a teenage girl (Lucy Tarquinio), her MIT-bound suitor (Bill Kottkamp) and an imminent pregnancy test.

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Across Twitter today, a sizable gallery of journalists and fans are rolling their eyes at the idea of TV sitcom millionaire Zach Braff joining the Kickstarter ranks to fund indie sequel Wish I Was Here. Below is a small sampling of that sentiment, from EW‘s Anthony Breznican, TheWrap’s Tim Molloy and Chicago moviegoer Clayton Smith:

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Long before Watergate and a starring role in All The President’s Men, Robert Redford knew there was something off about Richard Nixon.

Chatting last night with LA Times “Indie Focus” reporter Mark Olsen at his new Sundance Cinemas on Sunset Blvd. after a newspaper subscriber screening of The Company We Keep, the actor-director remembered the time he was presented at age 13 in Santa Monica with a high school athletic award. “I didn’t know who he was,” Redford said of the 1949-50 school year encounter. “He was just a guy in a suit. But it was Earl Warren, the governor, and Nixon, then a senator. When Nixon handed me the award and shook my hand, it was just a vibe. I thought, ‘I don’t like this guy.’”

There was also some great reminiscing during the Q&A about how Redford gradually became interested in the investigative efforts of Bob Woodward and  Carl Bernstein. ”When I read an article about them, I realized one was a Jew and one was a WASP,” Redford recalled. “One guy was a Republican, the other was a radical; one guy was a very good writer, the other wasn’t so good. They didn’t like each other, but they had to work together. I thought, ‘Wow, that’s fascinating, that’s a great story.’”

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Earlier today, at Kickstarter deadline, Wendy Haines squeaked past her target goal of $100,000. As a result, many will soon be educated about the remarkable and largely forgotten story of Hollywood trailblazer Dorothy Arzner.

As Hopkins told Long Beach Press-Telegram reporter Phillip Zonkel earlier this week for his personal blog “Out in the 562,” the story of Azner stretches well beyond three silent films, 14 “talkies” and the invention of the boom mike:

“Dorothy was a compelling character. She made her place in a completely male world,” says Haines. “Her drive to do what she loved in spite of the world around her telling her it wasn’t possible inspires me.”

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At the opposite end of Kickstarter and Indiegogo lie the independent short film realms of corporately co-sponsored contests and content. Ventures like “Four Stories,” an Intel-W Hotels initiative that came to a close last night in Westwood.

The global screenplay competition, curated by filmmaker Roman Coppola and (his) LA talent agency The Directors Bureau, asked back in August for submissions meeting two simple criteria. Plots had to anchored to a W Hotel and feature an Intel Ultrabook laptop as a central narrative component.

Last night at the Bruin Theatre, four winning filmed entries were screened, as chosen by Coppola, actor judges Chloe Sevigny, Michael Pitt, PJ Ransone and W Hotels global music director Michaelangelo L’acqua. There was also a fifth bonus entry from Coppola himself, vampire spoof Hollywood: Die Again, Undead One, starring Jason Schwartzman. That one was filmed across the street from The Pantages.

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Long before John Singleton hit it big as a writer-director, he was an intern working on the Columbia Pictures lot in Culver City. As he recalled over the weekend at the 2012 Film Independent Forum, he could find no parties of interest for his script Boyz in the Hood until he finally connected with producer Stephanie Allain.

What’s cool about this particular keynote address is that among those in the audience listening to Singleton was – you guessed it – Allain:

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A year that began with Ava DuVernay claiming the first-ever win by a black woman of Sundance’s Best Director prize continues apace this month for the former film publicist. As she told AP entertainment writer Sandy Cohen, “I’m living my dream.”

DuVernay’s sophomore effort Middle of Nowhere has received Twitter seal of approval from Oprah Winfrey. Her previous, first effort was endorsed by Roger Ebert. With that kind of Chicago backing, it’s no surprise that DuVernay is already hard at work on her next project – a documentary about Venus Williams – and palns to make a movie a year. From Cohen’s profile piece:

There’s a massive congratulatory bouquet of orchids on the desk in her small office overlooking Van Nuys Boulevard… A magnum of Moet with a big gold bow on top sits on the floor…

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It’s a lot of money, especially for anyone toiling in the realm of short films shot in the qualifying region of Shreveport-Bossier, Louisiana. Now, thanks to a panel of judges that included Movie City News’ Kim Voynar, EW‘s James Hibberd and USC School of Cinematic Arts’ Tara MacPherson, a lucky trio of filmmakers are $50,000 richer.

Thomas Woodruff, Noah Scruggs and Chris Armand (pictured, above) won the grand prize for their short Western The Legend of Luther Anderson. The film was was one of more than 80 entries and 20 finalists at the inaugural Louisiana Film Prize Festival Weekend (October 5-7). From today’s announcement:

The Legend of Luther Anderson is a Western comedy about a set of boots that transforms Luther Anderson, a meek cowboy, into a hero and an instant legend. As Luther blazes a trail across the frontier, his evil nemesis is in hot pursuit after the magical cowboy boots. In the end, the two men stand tall in a showdown to the death.

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Get ready to read and hear a lot this fall about David Oyelowo (pronounced “oh-yellow-oh”), the 36-year-old British actor who gained some prominence last year via The Help and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. He’s got four films coming out in the next three months: Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy (October 5); 2012 Sundance award-winning drama Middle of Nowhere (October 12); Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (November 16); and the Tom Cruise action drama Jack Reacher (December 21).

Oyelowo is very good in The Paperboy, playing one half of a crack Miami newspaper reporting team (together with Matthew McConaughey) that comes to Lately, Florida in 1969 to investigate the possibly wrongful Death Row conviction of a local man (John Cusack) for the murder of a town sheriff. The actor has a big fan in Daniels, who planned earlier to make a civil rights era movie with Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. and has the performer in his next film, The Butler. From The Paperboy press notes:

Daniels rewrote the character specifically for Oyelowo, transforming the part of Yardley Acheman from a white reporter into a cultured and sophisticated black man, whose English accent helps him navigate the still largely segregated American South of the 1960s. “As a black man himself, Lee was very interested in how a black reporter in Florida in 1969 would have been greeted and how he would react in that situation,” says Oyelowo.

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Culminating with an awards ceremony Tuesday night at the Backstage Theater on the Sony Lot, TheWrap’s inaugural ShortList short film festival recognized the top vote getters from a dozen hand-picked entries.

A judges’ panel consisting of Roadside Attractions co-president Howard Cohen, producer Cassian Elwes, actor Zachary Quinto, producer Lynette Howell and Sundance Institute feature film program founding director Michelle Satter crowned Fishing Without Nets – a drama about Somali pirates told from the pirates’ point of view – as the Jury Prize winner. The audience vote, gathered via thewrap.com and MTV websites film.com and nextmovie.com, favored The Maker. From Lucas Shaw’s report:

[Fishing Without Nets] director Cutter Hodierne nets a $60,000 reward from Panavision to be used for a future filmmaking project… Hodierne and [The Maker director] Christopher Kezelos will receive a new Sony Alpha A77 DLSR Cameras, as well as a first-look deal with Cinedigm.

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