film

This is the second blog in a three-part series about film festival submission by Emily Long, Mountainfilm in Telluride’s Program Director. Part 1 was titled “Making a Film is Only Half the Battle.” Hopefully, this series will help filmmakers understand this sometimes-confusing world because Mountainfilm is now accepting entries for our 35th festival, held May 24-27 in Telluride, Colorado. (Submit your film or learn more.)

So you’ve filled out the application for Mountainfilm in Telluride, provided an online screener link and thrown down a credit card to pay the entry fee. Now what happens with your film behind the scenes?

This is the first blog in a three-part series about film festival submission by Emily Long, Mountainfilm in Telluride’s Program Director. Hopefully, it will help filmmakers understand this sometimes-confusing world because Mountainfilm is now accepting entries for our 35th festival, held May 24-27 in Telluride, Colorado. (Submit your film or learn more.)

You’ve just spent a good chunk of time, and a larger chunk of cash, to finish your film. Congratulations. But now that it’s complete, a new kind of work begins. Even some of the best documentaries struggle to find an audience, and a film that screens to a sold-out crowd in one town might only attract 10 people at a film festival elsewhere. Or a film that won a respectable audience award somewhere might not even get into another festival at all.

It’s movie season. Shorter days and holiday family time beg for cozying up on the sofa and watching some good flicks.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled dozens of shorts that screened at the 2011 and 2012 Mountainfilm in Telluride festivals. All you need to do is bookmark this page of shorts. Then, click on “film details” for any film you care to watch, and the film will play in a new window.

(If you like these films, please let us know, and we will go deeper into our archives to bring you more Mountainfilm movies.)

Don’t forget the popcorn.

A week ago, Good Pitch held a gathering in San Francisco that was a platform for documentary filmmakers to network and fundraise. Having leveraged more than $3.4 million from various entities, Good Pitch (which was created by BritDoc and the Sundance Institute) selected seven films in various stages of production from applicants around the world. The filmmaking teams are then invited to present to an audience that is able to support these projects through funding and outreach.

It's not easy to make a compelling film about climbing or skiing, but of all the adventure pursuits producing high-quality films about kayaking may be the hardest. The sport itself is inherently challenging to film, and the shooting locations are often remote waterways with few stable platforms upon which to place a camera. Go-Pro helmet cameras have certainly helped give audiences a closer look at what is happening on the water, but kayak films are still evolving.

On February 11, 2012, thousands are people around the globe will watch the award-winning film Happy, which won the Audience award at Mountainfilm in Telluride in 2011. From filmmaker Roko Belic, a longtime Mountainfilm regular — who, along with his brother Adrian, is one of the filmmakers behind Genghis Blues — Happy is infused with wisdom and warmth and abounds with life lessons with footage from more than fourteen countries. Because the filmmakers discovered that community is an important ingredient to happiness, we encourage you to find out where you can see Happy with your neighbors on February 11.

Our programming team — David Holbrooke and Emily Long — spent several days at the recent Sundance Film Festival, seeing documentaries to consider for Mountainfilm in Telluride.

There is nothing quite like Sundance Film Festival, which darkened its theaters Sunday after 10 days of movie madness. Two representatives from Mountainfilm in Telluride — programmers David Holbrooke and Emily Long — went to Park City in search of films for the festival Telluride in May.

“The Dust Bowl” Explores One of the Most Profound Man-Made Disasters in History

Telluride, Colorado (January 17, 2012) – Producer and director Ken Burns will premiere his upcoming PBS documentary series, “The Dust Bowl,” at Mountainfilm in Telluride. The production is due for television release in the fall of 2012, but Mountainfilm will offer an early showing of the series during its 34^th annual festival, May 25-28. 

“The Dust Bowl” examines the decade-long, man-made ecological disaster that began in 1930 and nearly ruined the breadbasket of the nation. Intensive agricultural cultivation had displaced the natural grasses and rich topsoil of the southern plains and, coupled with severe drought, produced enormous dust storms that blackened the air and eventually forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee from the region.

Submit your film by February 3 to be considered for Mountainfilm in Telluride’s 34^th annual festival. Our Call for Entries is open only through our web site at this link for the upcoming 2012 festival, held May 25-28.

Started in 1979, Mountainfilm now receives an average of 500 submissions each year and screens around 75 films from micro-short animation to feature length documentary. Your labor of love could be featured alongside future Academy Award nominees and the best films of the year on adventure and activism, culture and environment. Our programming is curated to reflect Mountainfilm’s mission: to educate and inspire audiences about issues that matter, cultures worth exploring, environments worth preserving and conversations worth sustaining.