Packing For Your Spring Festival Run? Bring This With You.

(A Primer For Your Festival Tour, In Three Parts.)

Tribeca, Florida, Nashville, Atlanta, Sarasota, IFFBoston, Maryland, River Run, Ashland, HotDocs, BamCinemaFest, etc etc etc…

If you made a film that’s on the US festival circuit this year, chances are that over the next two months, you’ll be headed to one of these …

Reading Sundance 2012

The Sundance Film Festival ended two weeks ago, but the conversations it started will be continuing and evolving throughout the year, as this year’s films travel on to the rest of the world. Sundance is always a milestone. It marks chapters in our own lives as we see a new …

The Overlooked of 2011: Six Great Women Directors

Each New Year, I feel at the mercy of year-end lists: popular tools for identifying our essential favorites, but a very imperfect tactic for preserving our memory of a year in cinema. Top ten lists are invariably dominated by a certain level of epic mini-major, and while THE TREE OF …

Your To Do List: Regional Festival Strategy

The Sundance announcement rollout is always a charged and emotional time.  This year, I was so excited to see some of my favorite names in American narrative filmmaking listed in the lineup: Ira Sachs! So Yong Kim! Craig Zobel! Ry Russo-Young! There will be an abundance of tasty treats in …

Journaling Autumn: The Hamptons International Film Festival

October was a month unlike any other I have had or will have again.  On October 22nd, I got married at home on my family’s farm.  In the weeks prior to my wedding, from October 13-17th, I helped to throw another party: the 19th edition of the Hamptons International Film …

A Programmer’s Introduction

The wearing of multiple hats in the little world of independent film is so common that it is hardly worth mentioning.  I know critics who are programmers, distributors who are critics, and filmmakers who run distribution labels.  Mostly, I’m a festival programmer who programs film festivals, but I feel like …