Bend Film Festival

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The Oregonian's film critic Shawn Levy has written a piece about how October is a great old time for film festivals in his neck of the woods. He chooses to mention three -- the Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (Oct. 6-15), the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival (Oct. 6-8) and the Local Sightings Film Festival (Oct. 6-11) -- but he can't afford any space for the poor little Bend Film Festival (Oct. 12-16) -- an indie-attitude shebang happening in Bend, Oregon, a nice little town a bit south of Redmond.

Late Monday afternoon/Yom Kippur update: Levy has written to explain he was only covering first-week-in-October festivals in his piece and will cover Bend big-time next weekend. I'm going to be part of the Bend Film Festival as a juror starting a week from Thursday. (I've been trying to watch the submitted films on DVD over the last two weeks...don't ask.) MCN contributor Ray Pride will also be juror-ing there. I wouldn't even be going if Levy, a Bend Film Festival fan along with Gus Van Sant and John Waters, hadn't recommended my services to the organizers in the first place.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 2, 2006 at 2:27 PM

comment #1

shawn says ...

BendFilm (which I adore) wasn't in my Sunday column yesterday because that column only covers the coming week (i.e., the weekend of Oct 6 in this case). Trust me that the fest, which has dibs on the place of honor next Sunday, gets plenty of ink from us! See you then.

-- Shawn Levy, who neither expresses nor implies warranties as to the films themselvs but is well keen on the event

Posted by shawn at October 2, 2006 3:03 PM

comment #2

GeeseOPlenty says ...

So, like, this is good? For the exposure? The change of pace? What if you have to completely diss some young artist's film and watch his or her face collapse like a soufflÃ© after a sonic boom? It seems to me that a visitor to a small indie fest would be awesome; being a judge would be nothing but stress and guilt.

Posted by GeeseOPlenty at October 2, 2006 3:34 PM

comment #3

jeffreywells says ...

Stress and guilt are constant factors in my life anyway, so the Bend Film Festival won't touch me.

Posted by jeffreywells at October 2, 2006 3:36 PM

comment #4

shawn says ...

What separates BendFilm from other festivals and makes jurying it a treat is that the festival gives out major cash prizes to the winners. I'm talking $10-20K, depending on the category (one ingenious prize is the Audience award, which is a dollar for each ticket sold: the bigger the turnout, the more votes, the bigger the prize).

Bend is not some sleepy old logging town but the fastest-growing city in the Northwest, with lots of high-end homes that have sold to wealthy retirees or to folks who want vacation places near great skiing, horseback riding, fishing, golf, etc. The fest has worked that newly arrived population for enormous endowments and achieved nice results.

Trust me, the faces of the disappointed make no impact compared to the prize-winners' (completely positive) shock and awe at being handed a big chunk of the budget of their next project at the closing festivities. It's one reason that I believe that BendFilm can break through to the enxt-to-top tier of American film fests: word got around after the first year (2004), and the prizes and film submissions have grown in number and quality each year since.

Posted by shawn at October 2, 2006 3:45 PM

comment #5