'Silent Radio', the 2007 ECU festival's BEST FOREIGN FILM and BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY winner has just won BEST SHORT SUBJECT at the 2007 Ellensburg Film Festival in Washington. The film, which is written and directed by Alan Arrivée, has screened in numerous festivals around the world, including Breckenridge and the Long Island International Film Expo where it picked up their TRIPLE PLAY AWARD for Best Technical Integration (Cinematography, Art Direction and Original Score) and BEST ACTOR for Eric Winzenried.

Hi there!

I wanted to write a quick introduction to our inaugural newsletter giving everyone an update on where the festival is right now.

Firstly, our totally revamped website (www.ecufilmfestival.com) has been launched after many sleepless nights for the talented Jenny B! We have added an interactive section where you'll find excerpts from some of latest submissions, cool stories about what is happening out in the indie film world and blogs where you can leave us comments on the festival as well as updates on your latest projects. Go and have a look!

Secondly, submissions are streaming in and our selection committee is hard at work helping us get the very best slate of films for the festival. As our mantra states we are always searching for great stories so if you have a film that does that send it in!

Thirdly is our newsletter. We are looking forward to this evolving into an important resource for indie filmmakers around the World. In this month’s issue we have contributions from Rhiannon Hobbins, Ben Cookson and Anita Falusi. The stories cover a great cross section of news, views and feature articles. We've also asked young independent filmmaker Frederike Migom to write us a monthly diary entry as she follows her dream of making her film Nobody. I'm very interested in Frederike’s quest and can't wait for next month’s installment. We are always open to story ideas so please don’t hesitate to comment on the newsletter stories in the blog section.

Lastly is the opening of the Much More Than A Script Competition. Great films start with great scripts and I feel that one of the best ways to get your scripts into the right hands is via competing in festivals. I look forward to this growing into an important part of The ÉCU Festival and to read scripts from great story tellers.

At ÉCU 2007 we screened nearly one hundred films from more than forty countries. I know that the festival helped to kick start several filmmaking careers and initiated corelationships between several dozen filmmakers from all over the planet (there was also a divorce, a trip to the hospital due to a wonky heart, a romantic entanglement - or two). The current slate of films going through the selection process shows me that ÉCU 2008 is shaping up to be another great year of discovery of the freshest filmmaking talent for us here at The European Independent Film Festival.

For decades the film industry has suffered from a lack of female directors. But the tide looks to be finally turning with more and more chicks sitting in the director’s chair making some exceptional flicks. These filmmakers are determined not to let anything stand in their way of telling a story - even if that means working on storyboards whilst giving birth.

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Not many writers like the idea of having to pay people to look at their scripts. So why are an increasing number of them paying for the privilege of professional script reports? The clue may be in the word “professional”, but if that means Hollywood, which it invariably does, then can it really offer a benefit to writers in Europe?

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Paul Bickel’s film Hollow has screened in 28 film festivals and has won Best Picture at the Beverly Hills Short Film Festival. It is also enjoying success on iTunes where it is in the top 15 most downloaded films behind a lot of big budget studio productions. Emma Caulfield has also won two best actress awards for her part in Hollow.

A Cigar at the Beach, the winner of the Best Non-European Dramatic Short category, by another debut film maker Stephen Mills, has since gone on to screen at 159 film festivals in over 30 countries and has won 43 awards. It now has representation for worldwide distribution. Mills has said himself that he feels that being a part of ECU 2007 and the recognition that came with that is a major part of his films success and has enabled him to begin work on a new short.

The 20 minute Spanish short, Anonymous, by Christian Pozo which won Best Director and Best Editor at last years festival has been in over 70 festivals and has won more than 20 awards.

Nu, the Film of the Festival last year, which was written, directed and produced by first timer Jan-Willem van Ewijk from Holland has gone on to show at the Seattle Film Festival and the Montreal World Film Festival. It has also enjoyed critical success with Variety’s Dennis Harvey labeling it a ‘small gem’ due to the ‘spontaneous feel that balances humor and poignancy in deft, understated strokes’. Van Ewijk’s production company Propellor Film also has three more films in development.

My father called me a few months ago to tell me “the big news,” the new Hungarian Studios are looking for talented and skilled film professionals. This is my time to leave the western world behind and finally go back home. Ten years ago, when I left Budapest, the only way someone could work in the film industry if they received their diploma from the College for Cinematic and Theater Arts or they had relatives in the field. The College accepted 16 people every three years for the film director track and the same was true for acting, cinematography, editing and similarly for television and theater majors. About seven hundred people applied for each major, some of them already in their forties, trying fifth or sixth time. After three rounds of elimination about 16 remained. The Hungarian film industry changed a great deal since then, as I found out.

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