NewEnglandFilm.com

For anyone who has ever felt that Boston should be on the map as a city with a strong film community, the Boston Independent Film Festival, taking place May 1-4, is on your side. Started by Jason Redmond and Scott Moomaw, the festival seeks to promote collaboration and bring the independent film scene together. For its premiere year, the festival founders have compiled an impressive list of award-winning regional and national films to be showcased at several venues including The Somerville Theater, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and Brattle Theatre.

"[Moomaw and I] had worked pro bono, media relations for the Harvard University Film Festival, and after doing that we kind of took a look at the overall Boston market because we had a good time," said Redmond, who is also the executive director. "We researched Boston film festivals and realized that the Boston didn’t have a mainstream independent film festival." The pair worked long hours to put forth a festival that would be truly unique to Boston. They strove for a film festival that would, "encompass the entire festival experience, the parties every night, panel discussions, jury award competitions and an award ceremony. Our goal was to program an entire festival different from what Boston already has."

While planning the event, films that were chosen were high profile independent films that did not have distribution, as well as films from first-time filmmakers from around the country. That doesn’t mean that local filmmakers were overlooked, in fact it’s just the opposite.

"Several locally based films are playing at festival. We are also looking to collaborate with other film festivals, including other film festivals already based here. Our idea is to bring the Boston independent film community closer together. At least 3 or 4 films have local ties. We did not want to overlap the program with what the New England Film & Video Festival does. We didn’t specifically look for local films but searched for people who had went to school or lived in the Boston area." There is even a co-presentation with the Boston Jewish Film Festival and talk of future collaboration with the Boston Film and Video Foundation (BFVF). "That’s the sort of thing we are looking to do."

Competition was tight for the selection of films. There were over 600 hundred submissions total. "About 40 percent of the program was made up of submissions and the rest was films that were invited in order to place in specific area of programming, for example documentaries were invited to plug some more holes." The 2003 festival jury includes several familiar locals such as Anne Marie Stein, long-time BFVF executive director; documentary filmmaker Joshua Seftel of "Taking on the Kennedys"; Demane Davis of "Lift"; and "Boston Globe" film critic Ty Burr; in addition to others.

Overall, the careful planning of this festival has paid off in producing an impressive festival schedule, never mind for one in its first year. For those interested in starting their own festivals, Redmond suggests, "If you can find a market and match films up to that market then definitely go for it. It’s a lot of work be warned, 18 hour days are not uncommon in film festival planning."