Welcome to The European Independent Film Festival’s October 2008 newsletter. Faithfully edited by the indefatigable Rhiannon Hobbins, we hope this newsletter will give you a thorough and concise update on the hottest independent film festival in Europe, as well as some relevant (and hopefully interesting!) news about the Indie film industry from around the World.

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For the longest while I have been struck by the fact that with so many great indie films being made all over the World but they seem to be nearly impossible to see when I WANT! Coupled with the never-ending requests ‘where can I see this film again?’ that happen after films screen at ÉCU, it seems to be only logical to have a place where audiences and independent filmmakers connect.

Now there are a lot of avenues for this to happen, and we have all been bombarded with requests to go on this digital system here, or this web platform over there, but I’ve decided to launch The European Independent Film Channel in conjunction with JOOST and Boulder Creek International. Again, as we know we are in the infancy of this revolution and there is nearly no, I repeat nearly NO, money in this (the revenue stream is a transparent split).

But as a filmmaker whose films have made successful festival circuit tours, I’m bugged when I see them snuggled up nice and cozy-like under my bed doing not much at all. I’d like to have them out in front of people earning a couple of cents every time one is watched. Anyone agree?

Boulder Creek International (www.bouldercreekinternational.com) is a distribution company closely associated with ÉCU and Matt Jeschelnik is heavily committed to this project. For more information send a mail to annie@bouldercreekinternational.com

The pilot programme for EUROINDIE TV – a mixture of Entertainment Tonight and the BBC’s Talking Movies – has been finished and got good responses at Cannes during MIP. It will start airing on The European Independent Film Channel on JOOST early 2009. The show features interviews with filmmakers, excerpts from great Indie films, indie musicians who’ll be great on film soundtracks, latest news and of course all of the juicy gossip that we hate – but love listening to...

We have been working hard on building partnerships with other film festivals around Europe and beyond. My goal in developing these partnerships is three-fold.

• First is to scout for the best indie films and try to get them into ÉCU thus getting more exposure for the films.

• Second is to show a selection of our award winning films under the banner of ‘Europe’s Best Independent Films’.

• Third is to give our partner festivals any publicity that we can as we mutually broaden our exposure.

The end result for indie filmmakers is that they can enter their films to one festival (ÉCU) and have the chance to be screened not only in other festivals around Europe, but also through the States and soon to come in Asia and South America.

I was recently in Switzerland for the Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival, in Italy before that at the very cool SEDICICORTO International Film Festival and I’m hoping to get to Film Festival Cottbus in Germany as well as to Poland and Estonia before Christmas. Each time I come back with my head full to the brim with great imagery from the films I’ve seen and a great feeling of warmth from the welcome our festival has received.

Our two new categories are going well. Ecology Now! and Made on Mobile Telephones are very topical and exciting. In our crazy world of today it is hard to forget that there is nothing more important to our survival then good old Mother Earth, and if there is any way that we can bring that fact to the attention of even just one person through the projection of films dealing with the environment then let’s do it! Video cameras in mobile phones making films? My purist friends hold their hearts and scream NO! – and I do so like shooting 35mm – but a cinema story can be told with any format. It just has to be original, enthralling and be well told. I say bring it on..

After the huge success of the workshops at ÉCU 2008 we have decided to introduce a new event called ‘Prepare your Pitch’ where you will be involved in a workshop to prepare your pitch and then actually perform your pitch to a panel of producers who are looking for new projects. This is a limited space workshop and I’m afraid that while all of our other workshops are free, there is a fee involved. The line-up of producers sitting on the panel will be released on our website closer to the festival. I’ve made literally hundreds of pitches in my life as a filmmaker and I’ve had to hone my limited skills very much through trial and error and I wish that I’d been able to attend a session like this years ago!

We have already had several film schools / universities and art colleges from around Europe contact us to say that they are on their way over to Paris for ÉCU 2009 in March. If you are planning the same PLEASE let us know so that we can help sort out the trip and to pre-book places in workshops (which always seem very popular and fill up quickly!)

With the European Independent Film Festival on the horizon, my thoughts turn to 2008’s indie big-hitters and what it takes to win those coveted festival prizes.

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Europe’s Best Independent Film 2008 & Best Actress (Pia Lanciotti)

David Sibaldi’s Italian film L’Estate d’Inverno won the prestigious title of “Europe’s Best Independent Film 2008” along with the “Best Actress” award for Pia Lanciotti’s performance.

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Best Editing & Best Experimental

Martin Gauvreau’s films look set to be a permanent feature at The European Independent Film Festival. At ÉCU 2007, his dark and very compelling short film Poland Nights caught the audience’s attention. The young Polish director’s trippy sci-film, Agnieska 2039, definitely turned heads at ÉCU 2008, where he was awarded “Best Experimental” and “Best Editing”. I can’t wait to see what’s next in store.

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