Phoenix Film Festival begins!

The Phoenix Film Festival technically began last night with a Filmmakers’ Dinner at Streets of New York Brewery in Scottsdale. Most of the out of town filmmakers flew in yesterday, and this was an opportunity to get everyone together in an informal way before the real festivities start tonight with the Opening Night Party. Executive Director Chris LaMont and a lot of his Festival staff were there, many of whom I have previosuly met at other film functions here in the Valley. They are a great group of people who care passionately about indpendent films and filmmakers and about putting on a world-class festival. They seem to be doing a great job at it, too. This is the Phoenix Film Festival’s 4th year, and Chris says that ticket pre-sales are already TRIPLE what they were last year.

Interesting tidbit… the Festival received 125 feature film submissions and selected 12 to screen. 1 in 10 odds. Garden State on the other hand received 100 submissions (not sure if that was total including shorts and animations, or if that was just features) and my film was one of 4 fiction features that was selected, making GSFF statistically more difficult to get into. Not sure what it all means, it’s just interesting to compare the two fests.

Anyway… big Opening Night Gala tonight. Steve Briscoe gets here around noon, and my Uncle Mike arrives at 8:30 this evening. Ken Dapper should be getting here today or tomorrow, too. This is going to be awesome.