Check out our 2019 reel with new footage from our latest projects as a collaborative team!
IndieWorks: Best of Fest Year 6 Recap
in IndieWorks
INDIEWORKS: BEST OF FEST
Last Tuesday was a special night at IndieWorks! We celebrated the conclusion of our 6th year! Between watching the 9 fantastic films, mingling with the talented filmmakers, and engaging with the wonderful audience, we had a ton of fun! In total, we had over 70 people in attendance and it was clear the crowd enjoyed the lineup. We hope new connections were made! There was, unfortunately, some bar noise towards the end of the night, but thankfully it didn’t disrupt the films as a whole. Please know that we’re addressing this behind the scenes and will be making an announcement regarding our venue very soon!
THANK YOU.
To all of the incredible people involved in this community who submit their work, attend our monthly series, follow our content, and spread the word of anything IndieWorks... we truly thank you. It's been another great year of innovative, local films and filmmakers.
Six years ago, Christina decided she wanted to create a monthly film series for local independent filmmakers to showcase and discuss their work with an audience and connect with their (our) peers in a friendly, supportive, engaging and still encouragingly competitive environment. Sure enough, we made it happen and it has grown into something so wonderful, more so than we could have imagined over the past six years. It's been a real passion project from our team, and we hope it has stayed true to the ideals of helping independent filmmakers find an audience and build a network & community of likeminded, productive & talented individuals. Thank you all for being part of it! We're honored to screen & support your work!
The full lineup & nominations can be found in our previous post.
THE AWARDS GO TO...
AUDIENCE CHOICE: "Adult" (Tatienne Hendricks-Tellefsen & Cynthia Silver) - Wins $50 towards a Seed&Spark campaign, a free one-year subscription to Seed&Spark’s streaming platform, and script coverage from the CongestedCat team of one future short screenplay.
BEST EDITING: "Goodbye Old Friend" (Rafael De Leon Jr) - Wins $50 towards a Seed&Spark campaign, a free one-year subscription to Seed&Spark’s streaming platform, and script coverage from the CongestedCat team of one future short screenplay.
BEST ENSEMBLE: "Her Being Home" (Ellie Gravitte) - Wins $50 towards a Seed&Spark campaign, a free one-year subscription to Seed&Spark’s streaming platform, and script coverage from the CongestedCat team of one future short screenplay.
BEST WRITER/DIRECTOR: "AMYDEE" (Amy DePaola - Wins $50 towards a Seed&Spark campaign, a free one-year subscription to Seed&Spark’s streaming platform, and script coverage from the CongestedCat team of one future short screenplay.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY (Adam Volerich) & GOLDEN WHISKERS (BEST OF FEST): "We Were Kids" (Adam Taylor (Pictured: Marquis Wood)) - Wins (collectively) $250 towards a Seed&Spark campaign, a free one-year subscription to Seed&Spark’s streaming platform, a 1TB G-drive, an hour production, post-production, or marketing phone consultation from 4milecircus., script coverage from the CongestedCat team of two future short screenplays, and a day of social media promotion from the CongestedCat team.
See all the fun we had and testimonials from the filmmakers below!
THAT'S A WRAP!
Check out the recaps from ALL 10 SCREENINGS of Year 6 of IndieWorks.
As we take next month as an opportunity to go out and make things, we hope you will too. Our 7th Year of IndieWorks kicks off in June on the 11th, with our Pride-themed screening -- so keep in touch & stay up to date through our social media accounts. We want to see YOU at the next screening!
Be sure to submit your films on our IndieWork page, and watch episodes of our Insider Series with the monthly Winners from all 6 years to get more insight into their screened films & upcoming work. Also, films that are available for free online from ALL 6 years are watchable on our Past Films page.
CongestedCat Movie Night & Mixer
in Short Films
As we take May off to transition to our new season at IndieWorks, we're celebrating a bit of our own latest work by screening new projects and toasting to our About a Donkey VOD release. It's free to attend, so if you're a fan and supporter of what we do, we hope to see you tonight! RSVP HERE.
UPDATE:
It was a great night! We had 30 people in the room & got to celebrate our work together with a few new friends!
Blackbird Film Festival Recap
I spent Saturday and Sunday at Blackbird Film Festival for a screening of my short “Night In,” and to teach Seed&Spark’s Crowdfunding to Build Independence workshop. I really enjoyed the festival last year when I screened “Enough,” so when they reached out about offering the Crowdfunding workshop, I knew I’d like to attend again. I planned to submit my latest short “The Gaze,” but when the deadline was approaching and I realized I wouldn’t finish that new project in time, I decided to submit “Night In,” since it’s always a fun one to screen in front of an audience and I had only recently released it online.
I again drove up with my amazing mom and we had a fun time over the weekend together. We didn’t get to experience opening night because we were actually coming from Toronto, where I taught a workshop as part of Hot Docs. And We didn’t get to stay beyond Sunday morning because I had a 6am flight to catch for more workshop teaching (this time in beautiful Grenada)! But from what we experienced all-day Saturday and Sunday morning, it was another strong lineup with uniquely curated blocks and tons of opportunities to connect with other filmmakers. I especially enjoyed spending time with some of my NY-filmmaker friends who I don’t get to see very often outside of when we happen to be at the same festival. The overall local attendance was excellent, with most screenings averaging 75 people. Opening night had 125, I was told, and even the 9am Saturday block had 60. My screening, The Dark Side, was unfortunately the lowest attended with just over 50 people; but still a solid turnout when compared to most festivals and especially when considering the late hour, genre focus (for a non-genre festival or audience) and the fact that there was only one local film in the bunch. Like last year, I felt the horror Q&A was more rushed and less personalized than all the other blocks, which was disappointing (my only real critique of the festival and one I will offer feedback on for hopeful improvement), and “Night In” didn’t get the laugh I had gotten used to with genre and especially women in horror fans, but it was still well received. And it was just nice seeing it on the big screen again after a year since the last live screening I was able to attend. All in all, the weekend & festival were a lot of fun, and I hope to be back again next year!
Local Vegan Treat:
Brix Pubaria has a great vegan menu, with vegan s’mores as a listed dessert. I didn’t try it but hope to next time!
Capital City Film Festival Recap
Saturday was the final festival screening of our feature About a Donkey. It was our 10th festival (though 15th public screening) and thankfully a solid way to end our run! I honestly hadn’t heard of CCFF before 2018. I came across them on Moviemaker’s 25 Coolest Film Festivals list, then saw their reviews on FilmFreeway were good, and then their photos looked … well, cool! That and a low submission fee made it worth giving a shot; and I’m so glad I did. The festival itself is fairly small (they expanded this year from just 4 days to 11 days), and seems to have no major funding, so they aren’t able to offer the perks I’ve experienced at other festivals (like filmmaker swag and free accommodations), but they stand out in other ways. For one thing, the programming director and staff are some of the most welcoming people I’ve ever met. They were truly excited to meet Kelsey & me and had such wonderful things to say about our film. Multiple staff members throughout the weekend kept emphasizing how much they loved our movie and the charming world we created with characters they wanted more of. One programmer said that films can sometimes end on such a depressing note, which can be a lot in our current political climate; so it was such a pleasure to watch our film that left him feeling so good. The needed optimism of our story was a frequent comment throughout the weekend, and it was really lovely to hear. The other thing that made the festival standout is how incredibly inclusive it is. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a festival that wasn’t a specifically LGBTQ and/or women-focused festival that was so intentionally inclusive in its programming. I also love that it’s not something they necessarily market or make noise about, they just commit to it in all that they program. Some of my favorite examples of this beyond the films, they had local musicians perform after hours that were overtly intersectionally feminist and they had an interactive, experimental exhibit that was inspired by Black feminist critical theory, as well as a panel devoted to discussing trauma and sexual assault specifically through the lens and voices of women of color.
As for our our actual time there, we unfortunately were only able to be there for a few days and didn’t get to see as much as we would’ve liked; but we enjoyed what we did get to experience. Lansing isn’t the hippest of communities on first glance. Despite having the MSU campus there, it feels a lot like the farm town it apparently is. But there’s a ton of diversity within the community, and a real appreciation for the arts, as witnessed by the turnouts and conversations had at the festival.
Our screening was on Saturday at 5pm in a hot tub warehouse that had been converted into a cool art exhibit and screening space. The sound and picture were solid, and all seats were nearly full with 45 locals in attendance. The film got a lot of laughs and sweet comments afterwards. One woman told us how much she loved the multi-generational approach and only wished that Annie, the pregnant sister, had delivered by the end so that there could’ve been 4 generations of women onscreen at once. And another woman raved about how much the film touched her and that she appreciated our portrayal of how animals can change lives; she told us about how rescuing her dog saved her life after her husband’s death. Overall, it was a sweet way to end our festival run. We’re now excited to start reaching viewers online!
Local Vegan Treat:
For Crepe’s Sake has vegan batter as an option! Their sweet sauces (chocolate, caramel, cinnamon butter) aren’t vegan, but maple syrup with strawberries & bananas was a go-to for me.
Catch the film next at:
I’ll be putting out a blog post about this further, but we’ll be on Vimeo on Demand and VHX on May 7th, with later releases on Amazon Prime and Seed&Spark. Our Vimeo on Demand is already available for pre-order, and we’d love it if you helped spread the word about that as we get closer to officially being available to public!
Thanks for following the run of this film! I hope my recaps have been interesting & informative. And thanks for making it all possible if you were a Seed&Spark supporter who started it all!