Amidst the rush to find new digital models and preserve a business for indies, how do we save film as an art form? Can we monetize movies and also save cinema? Do we risk films being judged differently as the vast majority of movies are seen on smaller screens? These were the questions in mind at a panel earlier this week at the SXSW Film Festival and Conference in Austin, Texas. And as the festival head into its final days, it’s a good time to look to the future through the words of four industry leaders. 

This is now officially a battle royal between corporate raider/shareholder activist Carl Icahn and Lionsgate management. This just issued press release is like a manifesto of war:

Susan Levison has joined the newly formed FishBowl Worldwide Media as executive vice president of creative affairs.

Launched in January by Vin Di Bona and Bruce Gersh, FishBowl develops properties for film, television and digital properties, partnering with marketers, digital companies and ad agencies in addition to the traditional Hollywood creative community.

The following is a series of interviews with directors whose films are screening at the 2010 South by Southwest Film Festival.  All descriptions of the films are provided by SXSW.  The festival takes place March 12-21.

NARRATIVE COMPETITION

AMERICAN cinema’s debt to its foreign-born directors is like sea travel’s debt to the starry night. From Fritz Lang to Ang Lee, filmmakers have come fleeing political oppression, limited opportunity, even bad taste. Far fewer have been driven from their native shores by overwhelming success and the feeling that they had nowhere to go but down.

But after the European release of something like “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” the Danish director Niels Arden Oplev said, you can’t go home again. Not professionally, anyway.