Hollywood mourns loss of Indie film visionary

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The film village is anguish a genocide of Indie maestro

Bingham Ray

on Monday following a stroke.

Ray was usually 57 when he died after pang a cadence during a

Sundance Film Festival

.

Head of a

San Francisco Film Festival

when he died, Ray had been a co-founder of

October Films

, and after headed

United Artists

.

Oct was folded into USA Films, that after became Focus Features. And on Monday, James Schamus, CEO of Focus Features, mourned a detriment of his associate indie veteran.

"All of us during Focus are sanctified to know that Bingham -- a really clarification of an eccentric suggestion -- is partial a DNA," Schamus pronounced in a matter to TheWrap. "If anyone could explain paternity of us, it would be he.

"I wish, on interest of all my colleagues here, we had something suggestive and musical to say, though a detriment is too conspicuous and too good -- we simply refuse, during slightest for this one day, to pronounce of Bingham in a past tense."

"It's a extensive loss," Joe Pichirallo, a former writer who is now undergraduate chair of a Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film & Television during NYU's Tisch School of a Arts, told TheWrap. "He will be remembered for his charm, disagreeable amusement and his passion for films. No one was some-more ardent about films than Bingham."

One of a initial things Pichirallo did on fasten NYU was ask Bingham to learn strategies for

independent film

producing.

"I knew he'd be a good clergyman since he has been a good mentor, and I'm so blissful he had that opportunity," Pichirallo said.

Eddie Schmidt

, a Academy Award-nominated writer of a 2006 "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," remembered Ray as "a guardian and defender of artists and their visions."

He pronounced that Ray was "tenacious and variable to a times as things change in a industry, and those are qualities that are rare."

Ray seemed in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," in that he said, describing a MPAA ratings board, "I'm going to use a F-word. It's a nazi system. we trust it's a nazi organization."

Schmidt removed a movie's premiere at, in fact, a Sundance Film Festival.

"He was there," Schmidt said, "and he slapped me on a behind and said, 'Way to go,' and that was indeed really meaningful."

In an email to TheWrap, a censor Roger Ebert pronounced that "at each festival we attended, Bingham was always there, always friendly, never rushed, always curious, always acid for good films. He had good taste, and infrequently was some-more confident about a film's box bureau prospects than a makers were. Outside a business, people like Bingham Ray are subsequent a radar, though any film partner checking his credits during IMDb would comprehend they had many reasons to be grateful to him."

"I am repelled and sad by his passing," pronounced Chris McGurk, who knew Ray for 20 years. "He was a brilliant, understanding voice for eccentric film and we will all skip him dearly," he told TheWrap. "His passion, glow and suggestion will live on inside all of us who knew him and whose lives he touched. My heart goes out to his wife, Nancy, and his family.

McGurk, now a CEO of Cinedigm Corp., is a former clamp chair and COO of MGM and a former boss and COO of Universal Pictures. While during MGM, he brought Ray on as boss of United Artists. When he was during Universal, that association bought Oct Films.

Rick Allen, a CEO of SnagFilms and Indiewire -- where Ray was a consultant -- pronounced in a matter that "the film universe knew him as a extreme champion of artists, always looking for new ways to spotlight their work and augmenting their leisure to emanate it. At SnagFilms and Indiewire, we knew this lane record when we asked Bingham to join us and assistance draft a subsequent proviso of a growth."

He added, "What we did not know until we had a possibility to work together was how brilliant, honest and hysterically humorous Bingham Ray was."

Allen pronounced that Ray "taught all of us a context for a efforts -- a story of eccentric film in and before a time. ... He infused all with his unquenchable passion for film, filmmakers and a audiences who adore them. And he done us giggle very, really tough and often."

Teri Schwartz, vanguard of a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, called Ray "a loyal visionary" who was "universally reputable by a whole filmmaking community. He was a friend, believer and coach to so many filmmakers. His conspicuous intellect, inexhaustible suggestion and passion for films will be sorely missed."

(news.yahoo.com)