Vote for the 10th Film to Screen at IndieWorks Best of Fest!

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March 16th concluded our monthly screenings for the 3rd year of IndieWorks, and our Best of Fest is just around the corner on April 19th. The event will feature the 9 Silver Whiskers Award Winners of the year, plus a 10th Audience Chosen film.

Before each Best of Fest, we select three films to compete for the last spot at the screening and encourage the audience to choose the winning film. This allows the community to participate in our selection process and the public to see a few of the best of the total 51 films screened this year building up to our celebratory screening! 

All three did exceptionally well in the Audience Choice voting and were high contenders for the Silver Whiskers at their respective screenings. We also feel that they reflect the off-beat & innovative approach to narrative visual storytelling that we aim to support and showcase at IndieWorks.

Please watch all three films and VOTE BELOW for the ONE you'd like to see screen with the Silver Whiskers Award winners of the year at Best of Fest.

The contest has ended. Find out which film won! See you on April 19th!

"We Had Plans" at Queens World Film Fest Recap

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Last week was the Queens World Film Festival screening of "We Had Plans," and Kelsey & I had such a lovely time being part of the festival! Unlike last year when I was only able to attend the kick-off & trailer parties and my own screening, we attended the kick-off & trailer parties, some press events, AND 3 of the 6 days of the actual festival. Out of the 144 films, we only got to see 5 shorts (including ours) and 3 features (plus the special honoree screening of the brilliant Smithereens). We loved what we did see though, and hope to see more at next year's festival, which we also hope to be part of with our latest project because we just love this festival! I've attended a lot of local festivals, and none have matched Queens World in bringing filmmakers together, and making them feel welcome and part of something bigger than just themselves and their films. There's so much genuine love, integrity, dedication and hard work coming from the festival, especially from Executive Director Katha Cato, who I find so inspiring. There are festivals that have been around much longer than Queens World, but don't feel even half as organized or momentous. 

As for our actual screening, it went very well. We screened in a church, which was cool & a bit ironic considering our film and the feature in our block both have LGBTQ characters. Because the feature was having its NY premiere, most of the 40+ audience was there for them. But we had a few people in the audience there for our film, as well. The Q&A was fun and the audience response was wonderfully attentive. Kelsey & I had our favorite moment of the night when a woman from the audience came over and said, "I loved your film. It was like a one sentence novel. The characters will really stay with me ... more than most." We were in awe of that moment. It was truly spectacular. She got the film and what we were going for. It felt great. 

The rest of the festival was a lot of meeting filmmakers, watching films, talking film and generally just celebrating film & Queens, which is really what I would love to be doing most weeks. So, like I said, fingers crossed we'll be back again next year!

See some photos below. We hope to add more when the festival releases all of theirs, particularly from our screening. 

 

 

IndieWorks: March Recap

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Last Wednesday was the March edition of IndieWorks, and our first time trying out Subject (near where the People Lounge was). We're so grateful to them for letting us use their space, but unfortunately, just like Stone Creek last month, it was a bit smaller than suitable for our needs. We again screened 5 films instead of our usual 6, but still about 60 audience members showed up overfilling the place. Unlike last month, we did have just enough space to fit everyone, but there was more standing than sitting, and we were told it was a bit harder to see the screen and the filmmakers during the Q&A. Because of this, we're removing Subject from the running for our permanent venue. Next month, April 19th, is our Best of Fest (where we rescreen the 10 best films of Year 3) and it's being held at The Local in Long Island City. The space is much larger, has a beautiful, big screen and is run by super cool artist & indie friendly people. We're very excited about this space and they've already offered it to us monthly. We're going to see how Best of Fest goes before deciding between it and Stone Creek. The Local would mean permanently moving to LIC and Tuesday nights, but the perks do seem pretty sweet. Sticking with Stone Creek would mean trimming our lineup to 4 each month and having more privacy but less space to work with. So, we will see...

Anyway, aside from the room size issue, last Wednesday night was a lot of fun! We had an eclectic lineup with varying approaches to storytelling and filmmaking. The filmmakers seemed to enjoy themselves, especially during the Q&A, and everyone in attendance seemed to enjoy the films and the night as a whole. 

We'd just like to say thank you to everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us & them. We do hope you enjoyed all the films and the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts, and we hope some connections were made! 

See photos from the evening (by guest photographer Grayson Davis):

The Films of the night:

Wade in the Water (Directed by Abbesi Akhamie)
Follows a young African-American boy on the day of his baptism. Jamal must decide whether to go forward with his baptism and please his mother or continue his silent protest of the religious ritual. 

Meet Me Here (Directed by  Maria Riboli)
After yet another huge, embarrassing public lovers’ quarrel Nestor makes the inconvenient offer to his girlfriend, Jeri to meet him on an abandoned building. Jeri shows, believing this to be yet another reconciliation. And Nester shows with his own version of a truce. 

Living the Dream (Directed by Chris Beier)
Perhaps being an actor isn't as glamorous as one thinks.

The Fragrance Thief (Directed by Tanmaya Shekhar)
Arian (8) & Fragrance (12) are in love. When Fragrance's family leaves town Arian is heartbroken. Twenty years later Arian journeys to find Fragrance. 

The Confession ( by Jaclyn Gramigna & Michael DiBiasio)
Jacob and Ellen wander through Brooklyn, the morning after spending the night together for the first time. Jacob's acting strange. Ellen wonders why. A confession is coming. And it's not what you expect.

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers Award is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a system rating 8 categories of Story, Dialogue/Writing, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, and Production Value. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen again at our end of year Best of Fest event on April 19th!

The Silver Whiskers winner also receives $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign on SeedandSpark.com should they use the platform, and both winners received a free 2016 subscription to Bright Ideas Magazine and have the opportunity to be interviewed for our Insider Series. 

For the March 2016 lineup, our winning films were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Living the Dream"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "The Fragrance Thief"

You can actually watch both films in full below: