Hi everybody!

With less then two months to go, activities are reaching warp-speed here at The European Independent Film Festival! Screeners are being spirited off to our submission judges, poster designs OK’d and printed, venue floor and seating plans are being scribbled upon and tickets being sold… Whew, what excitement for The ÉCU 2010 team who hail from Poland, France, Lithuania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, England, Scotland, Belgium, Italy, America and Australia!

To the many filmmakers who are waiting anxiously to find out if their films will be a part of the ‘ÉCU 2010 Official Selection’ slate, I beg patience. Our selection committee, made up of 40 people in 20 countries, is meticulously screening their allocated films and getting back to us with their notes as quickly as they can. These will be evaluated, sorted and collated in readiness for the announcement of the Official Selection on 15th February, 2010.

Submissions for ÉCU 2010 came to us from 42 countries and I’m astonished by the imaginativeness that I have been treated to while screening the films. I’m happy to say that from where I sit, independent filmmaking is definitely alive and kicking! As independent filmmakers we wear many hats. We are fundraisers, writers, directors, drivers of crew vans and carriers of heavy silver boxes; We uncomfortably champion our own cause incessantly; We solicit unreachable actors and demand improbable locations; We cajole our exhausted crews and plead to our banks for more credit – but at heart we are dreamers.

Carl Jung said: “The dream is the small hidden door in the deepest and most intimate sanctum of the soul,” and because I believe that soul is found in the shadows I figure that we are blessed, as indie filmmakers, to have the freedom to explore those shadows – and I cannot wait to share that tour of exploration with our audiences at ÉCU 2010!