Checking In From The 17th Annual St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival
This year’s International Women’s Film Festival in St. John’s has a vibrancy and energy that would seem to be nonpareil from years past. The opening night gala was no exception.
The people, filmmakers and film goers of St. John’s, and filmmakers from around the world, packed into the sold-out theatre, The Arts and Culture Centre, to be welcomed by the festival Chair of the board, Noreen Golfman. Our premier, Danny Williams, looking dapper in his cool, soft, black velvet jacket, white-collared shirt and no tie (yes, our slick Premier also has great fashion sense!), was the first Premier in the festival’s history to make an appearance, as he acknowledged the plentitude of brilliant talent in this province.
Mary Walsh directed, co-produced, co-wrote and starred in the film that opened the gala, “Young Triffie’s Been Made Away With”, and was as entertaining and charmingly colourful as ever. The film was co-written by Ray Guy, Newfoundland writer and journalist, so the result is predictably witty, funny, dark, quirky, bizarre, and has a fantastic payoff.
My Panel: The Social Web
Pattie Lacroix from Catapult Media in Halifax invited me to join her here to share our combined knowledge on social networks and softwares. Since locating me last week, we’ve been communicating and preparing for this workshop at the festival on the social web and how the film industry can take advantage of the tools available. With Pattie’s years of experience in the industry of web design and consulting, and my knowledge and familiarity of some key social softwares, our panel discussion was quite well received.
The room was full (extra chairs were needed!) and while Pattie explored the concepts of the next generation of the web, the new culture of the unregulated and unbounded internet, I introduced several social softwares and walked the room through some of the more useful ones that are relevant to the film industry in promoting and marketing their work online:
Of course we spoke about the importance and influence of the blogosphere. I set up a quick blog in WordPress, just so they could grasp how easy it is to initiate the process and start the tinkering.
I took a look at some case studies of how podcasting, vlogging and blogging can be used to market your film with: The Inconvenient Truth, Snakes On A Plane, Battlestar Galactica.
We also all learned of another resource for filmmakers from a woman who was in attendance, Celtx, a local software company here in St. John’s that has developed a social software for filmmakers to form communities and promote their work.
Over the following days, there are workshops and films – over 80 shorts and features – to take in throughout the city. If you’re reading this from outside of this great province, make your plans to get into the festival or at least visit Newfoundland next fall to see for yourself all there is here to offer in the rich flavours of the people, the history, the culture, the art, the talent and the pride. But don’t tell too, too many people about this – we like to keep our gem somewhat on the down-low!
I apologize for the lack of photography. My digital camera is busted and my roll of film I’ve been snapping is still sitting in my Minolta waiting to be all snapped up!
I am slowly resurfacing from a much-needed 2-week offline hiatus. In a word: lovely, but I am looking forward to exercising these itching fingers. I am delayed, again, in flight travel. The first delay was waiting for the heat to pass over Mexico. This wait is due to a blustery snow squall blowing over this glorious island in the middle of the Atlantic. It’s been a true coast to coast (to coast) whirlwind holiday. I am so fortunate. This holiday has been wonderful, filled with plenty of good: sunshine, snowstorms, plenty of bevvies, family, friends and laughter.
