The INDEPENDENT FEATURE FILM MARKET...was a great success. The Market itself was held at New York's Angelika Theater in Manhattan. A very cool theater devoted to "showing films, not movies." We screened at the Angelika on Saturday, September 16 at 3:00pm. Our screening went extremely well (except for a minor sound problem, something we've come to expect from most 16mm projectors in general.) It was a sort of mixed blessing screening on the first official day of the Market since most of the distributors and festival reps didn't arrive at the Market until Monday. As a result our screening was not filled to the capacity we would have liked nor are used to seeing - also due to the fact that the Market screenings are closed to the public.

On the other hand it was good to get the screening out of the way up front and get the pressure off, leaving the rest of the week to just promote, Promote, PROMOTE without any of the nerves. You see, the Market also has copies of every film in what they call the 'Video Library' - for obvious reasons - which is where distributors and festival reps can settle in and watch your film in uninterrupted peace. Actually everyone at the market seemed to agree this is where most of the "screening" took place.

During the day all of the Angelika's screens are closed to the public for IFFM screenings and filmmakers strategically plaster their posters and postcards in designated areas around the theater lobby. Then in the evening everything is torn down and the theater is re-opened for regular public admittance. In the morning it starts all over again as filmmakers scramble to line up for the best possible spot to post their artwork and screening announcements in the limited space available. Everyday, dozens of callused, paper cut hands pass out hundreds of postcards and screening announcements...Okay so that's a little exaggerated, but not by much.

It wasn't uncommon to be handed the same postcard three or four times a day depending on how many times you passed through the "Hot-Zone" - the memory retention of those handing out postcards was about ten seconds. That's not so much an observation of the filmmakers as it is of the sheer volume of people passing in and out of the theater and the high energy of competition to get warm bodies into the cold theaters. At any given hour five or six other films were screening at the same time, not to mention a host of very well attended seminars and panel discussions across the street.

With the fury of the Market just now settling the follow-up begins. We've received some very nice interest from some distributors and festivals as a result of the exposure we received at the Market. As soon as we hear more and get more definitive answers we'll pass the news on to you. We've also made some really incredible contacts for our upcoming projects which is what the Market is really about. Making contacts. We're nearly ready to go into our next film and the contacts we made at the Market will help us out tremendously to get things going in the right direction.

We're looking forward to the next few months and as usual will keep you informed of upcoming screenings, awards and the latest developments...

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