TIME Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.

Current subscribers for full access. Not a TIME subscriber? .

Cinema: To Be Young, Gifted and Broke

Three shoestring movies tilt at the Hollywood system

Going to an independent American film can be like watching an event in the Special Olympics. Handicapped by budgets as low as $50,000 (when the average Hollywood movie costs more than $10 million), struggling with unknown actors and make-do shooting schedules, independent films demand the viewer's rooting interest to see them over the rough spots and through the inevitable longueurs. Indulgence has its own rewards though. When independent films clear their high hurdles, they can point to new ways of looking at both cinema and American life and demonstrate that film has other pleasures...

Time.com on Digg

POWERED BY digg

Quotes of the Day »

OMAR SHAKIR, an activist. Syrian government forces on Tuesday brushed aside a stern castigation from the top United Nations human rights official, resuming the brutal shelling of the city of Homs, particularly targeted at the neighborhood of Baba Amr.
For use in rail of Articles page or Section Fronts pages. Duplicate and change name as necesssary to distinguish.