Derby City Film Fest premieres Feb.19
Adrienne Todd
Issue date: 3/10/10 Section: Entertainment
By Adrienne Todd
We are pretty familiar with film festivals: Sundance, Cannes, and Tribeca. Louisville now has their own, the Derby City Film Fest. The film fest, which will be in its second year, will premiere February 19. The festival was established last year when Kris Rommel, a filmmaker in his own right, wanted to have a night of all of his films. His films had screened at several other festivals, but he had never shown in Louisville. He contacted Bluegrass Film Festival, however the festival no longer was in operation. Kris and his wife contacted Eifler Theater and have a night of Rommel's films. This eventually evolved into the Derby City Film Festival.
Though the film festival was created out of a personal exposition that grew, much more went into the formation. Rommel called for entries on social networking sites and websites and received over 300 entries. Eventually, these were whittled down to 50 films, which were screened over 5 days. Something new this year is a selection committee, which then moved certain films onto the jury. Finally, the jury will select winners in each of the festival's four categories.
Interestingly, the inaugural festival was conceived a mere 100 days before its unveiling. It was a very quick process, almost just thrown together if you will. However the festival, by many measures, was successful. "The first festival had about 1000 people come out for the five days of the festival," says Rommel. The follow up has been in development since January of last year. While this year's has had much more preparation, Rommel has learned from last year. "We learned that we have no control over how many people show up. The only thing we can control is to put on the best festival we can, take care of the filmmakers as best we can and have as much fun with whoever shows up. Following that motto has taken a lot of pressure off this year. Our goal is to break even, this is not a money making venture. Keep our prices low, encourage people to come and have fun watching films they may never see anywhere else. Anything else is gravy," stated Rommel about the festival.
We are pretty familiar with film festivals: Sundance, Cannes, and Tribeca. Louisville now has their own, the Derby City Film Fest. The film fest, which will be in its second year, will premiere February 19. The festival was established last year when Kris Rommel, a filmmaker in his own right, wanted to have a night of all of his films. His films had screened at several other festivals, but he had never shown in Louisville. He contacted Bluegrass Film Festival, however the festival no longer was in operation. Kris and his wife contacted Eifler Theater and have a night of Rommel's films. This eventually evolved into the Derby City Film Festival.
Though the film festival was created out of a personal exposition that grew, much more went into the formation. Rommel called for entries on social networking sites and websites and received over 300 entries. Eventually, these were whittled down to 50 films, which were screened over 5 days. Something new this year is a selection committee, which then moved certain films onto the jury. Finally, the jury will select winners in each of the festival's four categories.
Interestingly, the inaugural festival was conceived a mere 100 days before its unveiling. It was a very quick process, almost just thrown together if you will. However the festival, by many measures, was successful. "The first festival had about 1000 people come out for the five days of the festival," says Rommel. The follow up has been in development since January of last year. While this year's has had much more preparation, Rommel has learned from last year. "We learned that we have no control over how many people show up. The only thing we can control is to put on the best festival we can, take care of the filmmakers as best we can and have as much fun with whoever shows up. Following that motto has taken a lot of pressure off this year. Our goal is to break even, this is not a money making venture. Keep our prices low, encourage people to come and have fun watching films they may never see anywhere else. Anything else is gravy," stated Rommel about the festival.
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posted 3/14/10 @ 6:45 PM EST
Yeah, thanks for information, I really like movies so it's very useful information for me
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