I spent some time with Inside Cinequest during the film festival and had the honor to see, first hand, interviews with producers, directors, and everyone in between.
So far I have had the privilege of meeting with Jeff Lam (Producer) and Timo Chen (Music Producer) from the film Why Am I Doing This, Mary Haverstick (Director/Producer/Writer) and Michele Mercur (Executive Producer) from the film Home, as well as Wayne Lachman (Director) and Scott Macgregor (Executive Producer) from the documentary film Life For A Child. One thing each of these people shared was a personal passion of the art of film making and conveying a message.
Cinequest is a great launching point for many films. While speaking with the Director of Corps Run (John Michael Thomas), he mentioned that just by being a part of Cinequest, his movie was going to gain traction it wouldn’t achieve by any other method. The recognition and prestige of having a film at Cinequest is something in and of itself.
On average there are 3000 independent films made each year – of those, only about 1000 find their way into a festival. Beyond the 1000 in festivals only a 100 get any sort of recognition. Only a few, maybe 1-5 of the top films get distributed to the rest of us once passing the rigorous battery of judging sessions and peer reviews.
Films like Slumdog Millionaire are an example of the top percentile that truly makes headway into the big time blockbusters. However, can we really call films with huge 10+ million dollar budgets, Indies? It’s a tough concept to lock down but some have characterized it by the amount invested to create a film, others have defined it by a film, which isn’t supported by a major studio. The definition isn’t as clear as one might think but one thing we can agree on is that Indie films are becoming more the rave than anything before as the big studios and actors are taking on Indie film roles to gain popularity and grab a piece of the growing audience.
One thing we can be sure of is that Cinequest 19 has been one of the best we’ve seen. To top it off, it was just a few steps from out backyards – or balconies for those of us in high-rises.
Keep in touch, as I’ll be writing more about the experience and the films I’ve seen along with my experience hanging out with the crew of Inside Cinequest.
I think this is a great post. One thing that I find the most helpful is number five. Sometimes when I write, I just let the flow of the words and information come out so much that I loose the purpose. It’s only after editing when I realize what I’ve done. There’s defiantly a lot of great tips here I’m going to try to be more aware of.
What you write plus the great observations already made before I get around to reading not to mention commenting, result in me feeling like I need to say something profound.