 Don’t Take Rejection Personally |
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Page 1 of 3 The list of Canadian films brought to international attention through the Raindance Film Festival in London, England, is short but noble. Theatrical Poster, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter Among them: 32 Short Films about Glenn Gould (1993, starring Colm Feore), Love & Human Remains (1993, from director Denys Arcand), Kissed (1996, starring Molly Parker), Hard Core Logo (1996, the breakout movie for director Bruce McDonald), Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001, the quirky hit that scripted Jesus Christ as a kung-fu fighter), Clean (2004, nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival and winner of two other prizes there) and Battle Chess (2005, a short from the director John Dunstan). there’s something amazing about the Canadian way of doing things Now Raindance’s Canadian founder, Elliot Grove, is setting up a miniature version of the festival in Canada to try to foster more Canadian filmmaking. “The more I travel around, the more I think there’s something amazing about the Canadian way of doing things,” says Grove. “Canadian, done right, is elegant.” To begin with, Raindance Canada will mean screenings of short films and some training courses. Grove intends to “keep it small and see how it goes.” An international phenomenonIf his efforts with the British Raindance festival are any hint, this could be big news. Raindance, founded in London in 1992, has become the biggest international film festival in Europe. Grove founded it when, he says, the British independent film industry was “wallowing in self-pity” and all but dead.The idea was to give independent film in the U.K. a place to flourish, a first port-of-call for those breaking into the industry. It appears to have worked. Raindance (U.K.) has gone on to become an international phenomenon with 2,800 submissions for the festival in 2005 from 42 countries and paid admissions of 18,000. Its first festival had a total of 105 submissions, each of which was shown, and admissions of about 1,300. TIPS
On Entering Festivals: The festival is credited with giving the British film industry mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and independent film as a whole a shot in the arm. Among the independent films from all countries that premiered at Raindance is director Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. Film distribution arm launchedOver the years, Grove has expanded Raindance with a training division that offers master classes in writing, directing, producing and marketing feature films. Students of those classes have gone on to make commercially successful films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Memento, and the Canadian film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.In 1998, Grove established the British Independent Film Awards as another mechanism to promote British talent. As well, Grove has recently launched a film distribution arm because he says that is the current bottleneck for independent filmmakers all over the world. (When he started Raindance in London, the bottleneck was the cost of post-production. But modern computers now allow post-production to be done cheaply.) Continued... |
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