Marfa Film Festival screens Visioneers

Special screening was sponsored by Austin Film Festival

The Marfa Film Festival presents a special pre-release screening of Visioneers on Thursday, April 30th. The screening was sponsored by the Austin Film Festival, B-Side’s first festival partner, as well as the festival where B-Side initially saw Visioneers and met filmmakers Jared and Brandon Drake.

“Partners like the Austin and Marfa Film Festivals help us discover truly unique and entertaining films like Visioneers,” said Chris Hyams, founder and CEO of B-Side. “The Austin Film Festival is known for having great taste in comedies, and the Austin audience flipped for Visioneers. Without them, this amazing movie would have slipped through the cracks. We’re thriled to be launching Visioneers alongside our festival partners.”

“Visioneers was one of the films on the festival circuit last year that really pushed boundaries,” said Kelly Williams, head programmer for the Austin Film Festival. “Given the film’s excellent script, it was a natural fit for us and for the Marfa fest. We’re especially happy to be among those who helped B-Side to discover the picture.”

Visioneers was directed by Jared Drake, written by Brandon Drake, and features comedian Zach Galafianakis in his first starring role. It is one of ten feature films to be distributed by B-Side in 2009. Cinematical called the film “insightful, intelligent, and melancholically funny.” Learn more at the official Visioneers web site.

9 B-Side Partner Festivals named in MovieMaker’s Top 25 List

Check out this month’s issue of MovieMaker magazine (issue 80) for their annual list of the Top 25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee.

“You already know many of the larger names, so to find worthy alternatives we searched the country (and our good neighbor to the north) to bring you a list of 25 of the finest, though perhaps lesser-known, festivals that are very much worth the fee. And maybe because of the recession, this year we paid special attention to festivals that emphasize shorts.”

Of the 25 festivals named, 9 choose to present their festival schedules using B-Side’s Festival Genius service. Using Festival Genius, the filmmakers at these festivals can contribute directly to their film pages on the festival sites, audiences can recommend films to one another, and festivals can offer cutting-edge
features to moviegoers who demand a first-class online and mobile experience.

The nine B-Side partner festivals listed are:

Austin Film Festival
Bermuda International Film Festival
Dark Carnival Film Festival
DC Shorts Film Festival
L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival
Marfa Film Festival
Napa Sonoma Valley Wine Country Film Festival
Oxford International Film Festival
Red Rock Film Festival

Congratulations to all of our partner festivals for this distinction!

The Second Annual Marfa Film Festival will be held April 29 – May 3, 2009, screening over 50 features, shorts and experimental works. Designed as a breath of fresh air, Marfa Film Festival is a retreat far away from the chaotic and competitive environments found on the festival circuit. Because of the area’s beautiful natural landscape, the festival will feature a number of outdoor screenings. Indoor screenings will be anchored at the state-of-the-art Goode-Crowley theater, with the festival headquartered at the famous Paisano Hotel (where James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor lived while filming “Giant”). Check out the schedule online.

Festivals that started this week include:

Rincon International Film Festival Puerto Rico (April 28-May 3)

SCENE: BROOKLYN Independent Film & Media Arts Festival (April 29-May 6)

Sunscreen Film Festival (April 29-May 3)

Los Angeles United Film Festival (April 30-May 7)

FirstGlance Film Fest Hollywood (May 1-3)

Festivals coming up next week include:

Santa Cruz Film Festival (May 7-15): Santa Cruz kicks off with Gospel Hill, Giancarlo Esposito’s stunning directorial debut starring Angela Bassett and Danny Glover. Other highlights include Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love, a deeply inspirational and spiritual portrait of the Senegalese pop sensation and “Voice of Africa,” and Automorphosis, about a delightful collection of eccentrics, visionaries, and just plain folks who transform their autos into works of art.

British Film Festival Los Angeles (May 3-8)

Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival (May 8-17)

Delta Moon Student Film Festival (May 9)

Parts one and two of “Understanding Film Festivals” covered the annual festival cycle and the benefits of film festivals — part three wraps it up with some often-asked questions and a summary of the essays.

What does “festival circuit” mean?

When a filmmaker talks about “doing the festival circuit,” it generally means showing your film at a series of film festivals. There’s no prescribed order of these festivals except by their arrangement on the calendar; you can submit to whichever festivals you want, whenever you want. Some festivals will refuse to show a film based on the other festivals that film has played. See Film Festival Secrets the book for more discussion on this.

What’s the difference between a film festival and a film market?

A film festival generally has its origins in the celebration of film as an art form, while a film market is explicitly created as a marketplace for filmmakers to sell their films to distributors. Some festivals have become de facto markets (like Sundance) and others now have markets attached (like Cannes), but in general there’s not a lot of buying and selling going on at film festivals.

Read the rest of this article at Film Festival Secrets by Chris Holland.

Photo by Ian Muttoo.