The TEMECULA VALLEY INT'L FILM FESTIVAL...first a word. Neither of us were able to attend the festival in Southern California's wine country, because we were both in New York drinking big apple martinis at the Independent Feature Film Market. Our feeling was, since we screened on VHS at the Temecula Int'l Film Festival, that doing a lot of marketing and publicity was not in our best interest. Trying to get people out to a screening of your film only to have them watch it projected over a large VHS screen isn't really our ideal way for people to see our film.

But why screen at the festival anyway you ask? Well, the festival invited us to screen The Innocents after hearing about our film at Cannes and the programmers had already confirmed screenings of Ken Loach's Bread and Roses and a handful of Miramax Films to premiere at the festival. That said, to be included in such esteemed company it would have been foolish to turn them down even though we needed to screen on VHS (the reason being that they only show 35mm films.) Another nice compliment. They thought The Innocents was 35mm. It is, in fact, 16mm. But alas, we did not attend. New York beckoned…

I wish I had more news to offer here about this festival but when you are not present it makes it difficult to give out those juicy bits of info one craves to know. I will end this entry simply by saying that I think any festival you can be involved in is a good festival. It gets your film out there and seen by audiences. And that's what it's all about, that's what makes it all worth it. Of course it's especially worth it when you're screening alongside premiere films from Miramax and award winning films from Cannes and Sundance. Not bad at all.