5 posts tagged “film festival”
A couple of us from TOOTH FAIRY made it to the Tacoma Film Festival this past weekend. Although Tooth Fairy played in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, this was the first festival I attended. I picked it among the other festivals because they were kind enough to give us a room at the Courtyard Marriott for the weekend. It was a really nice hotel, much nicer than I was expecting. The festival did a great job welcoming us. On Friday night, we missed our flight (DOH!) so we were really late for the Friday night party. In fact, there was only one filmmaker pair there with their family. We hung out with them for about an hour, and had a nice chat with Margo Pelletier and Lisa Thomas who flew out from NY. Later in the festival, their documentary, Freeing Silvia Baraldini, won the best documentary award! We were really excited for them because they had obviously put in a lot of work over the 8 year trek of their film. Congratulations again to Margo and Lisa!
Saturday morning, I attended a filmmakers' workshop by Warren Etheredge of the Warren Report, who also MC'd the awards brunch on Sunday. Wow, what an entertaining speaker. I'll have to do another post just on his workshop presentation because I got a lot out of it. I really wanted to chat with him after the workshop but it ended just as my film was starting so I had to say a quick thank you and run off.
The Tooth Fairy showing was...well...awesome! :-) It was great fun seeing the film on the big screen. The audience laughed in all the right places and clapped enthusiastically at the end. It was fun! There was a Q&A session at the end but it was very short due to the schedule. I quickly mentioned how I learned VFX for the film and that my crowning achievement was digitally changing the sheets on the bed to fix a continuity problem.
Oh, and I really, really enjoyed wearing the "filmmaker" badge. :-)
Sunday brunch was also good. We sat at the table with Mark Hug and May Charters who were from LA. They made a film called Lovers in a Dangerous Time which played on opening night. At the table were also the filmmakers of a film called Spooners, which is supposed to be really great and we regret having missed it, but they were hung-over and weren't socially alert enough to give me their cards, so no link for them on this post.
Overall, it was a fun weekend. Many thanks to all the festival volunteers, and a special thanks to the festival coordinators, Emily and Rachel, who made us feel welcome!
Susan Ee
www.Tooth-Fairy-Movie.com
www.feraldream.com
Withoutabox, the one and only online submission center for film festivals, gets my vote for the buggiest website ever. Amazon should be ashamed to own it.
Susan Ee
www.feraldream.com
Interesting article in Time regarding festival online distribution: The Film Festival Comes to Your Living Room.
Much to my delight and surprise, Psychopath has spontaneously generated another invitation to a film festival. Viscera Film Festival is a horror festival for films directed and produced by women. Their motto is "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter," and it's organized by the horror production company, Chainsaw Mafia! Ha! I love it!
One of the films that played at the Northern CA Film Festival was directed by Michelle Fatale (The Cleaner) which was a huge crowd favorite. She and another filmmaker, Shannon Lark (It's My Birthday) who's film also played at the festival, are organizers of the Viscera Film Festival. Michelle saw my film at the festival and contacted me to invite Psychopath into their Festival. FUN!
Last night, I went to my first film festival. It was really fun to see Psychopath on the big screen! The audience was great -- obviously there to enjoy the movies and support the filmmakers. The films were funny, cute, gory and one was a super-slick sci-fi shot on film with a budget of $25k starring a very good TV actor who's name I don't know. The projectionist was in 3 of the films! He leaned out of the projectionist window to talk to us about his film. I, too, got up to discuss my film. The audience got a kick out of the fact that this was my first film and that it was inspired by a Dear Abby column.
My film was not in the running for the audience vote as invited films (as opposed to submitted films) were not part of the contest. That just made it more fun for me since there was no pressure. :-)
The Northern California Film Festival (where Psychopath played) is part of the Festival of Festivals. This week, four fun-filled film festivals play at the Galaxy 12 Theatre in Riverbank for 6 glorious days of festival films: Northern California Film Festival, California Animation Film Festival, Zomiefest, and Shockerfest! All of these festivals are put on by the Fireside Foundation which is run with loving and friendly care by George and Louise Baker. Thanks, George and Louise!
