The Bentley Film Festival

This past Tuesday (April 22nd 2008) Bentley hosted its 3rd annual film festival. The Bentley Film festival exclusively featured films that were made and submitted by Bentley students. The genres of the films ranged from short animated films all the way up to social commentary.
While certain films we’re more authentic and more smoothly edited, the overall quality of the student produced films was largely impressive. It was clear that the students put incredible amounts of time and effort into their works. It was refreshing to see students from a business school interested in the art of film making. One of the films submitted to the film festival was a documentary covering the conflict and genocide that has been taking place in Sudan. The film revolved around a Bentley Student whose village was destroyed by Sudanese militants. His story was incredibly moving and inspirational and was the first film in the festival that made me realize this film festival was going to be more than amateur films without any meaning.
The Bentley Film Festival was especially important for me because I actually had a film submitted. My film “The Squirrely Man” was a mock-documentary that was meant to spoof films such as “The Grizzly Man” and television shows such as “The Crocodile Hunter”. The film revolved around an eccentric squirrel researcher who goes mad studying squirrels in the wild. This film took me and my group members a vast amount of time and work and I was very pleased with its reception at the film festival.
My favorite film of the night was a unique suspense thriller called “Fortune”. The film’s plot revolved around a man who orders Chinese food and receives a fortune cookie that contains mysterious assignments that he must accomplish. The film had excellent writing, acting and production values. In my opinion it was head and shoulders above the rest of the films which was an impressive feat.
The night concluded with an award ceremony where various awards were given out. These awards included, Audience Award for Best Film, Best Animation, Best Art Design, Best Cinematography and various others. My favorite film of the night, “Fortune” took home the Audience Award for Best Film, much to my delight. All in all the Bentley Film Festival exceeded my expectations and I will certainly be attending their 4th Annual Film Festival next year.

The Coolidge Corner Open Screen

One of the film screenings we attended was at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. This event consisted of several local film makers in the area presetenting their short movies to other attendees. In terms of our project, these types of film were as local as they get. Anyone who had made a short film had permission to enter their film into the screening. The most noteable film we saw was titled "Joe's Journey" by Smooth Feather Films. You can watch it at http://www.joedamon.com. This film was about a patient's recovery from brain trauma. The film maker and stars of the film were available after the film screening, which we noted was a big difference between very independent film and commercial film. Another thing to note is that indie film is that it can be used for purposes other than financial gain. "Joe's Journey," as stated by thr film maker, serves as a free movie for everyone in order to benefit the community. Smooth Feather Films dedicates a ton of time to helping others and revealing inspirational messages to people who might otherwise not receive them. We think that this is one of the most powerful tools in the indie film business.

The IFFA

The Independent Film Finance Alliance (IFFA) is an organization dedicated to providing funding for independent film makers. The organization is made up of finance-savvy individuals who are into making, producing and distributing indie film. On the website, you can sign up for a multiple subsciptions - they have various prices and contracts. Your membership to the IFFA places you in a community of like-minded creative individuals. Being in this community allows for a larger and quicker flow of information and service sharing.

Organizations like this are important because independent films need to be funded somehow. Indie films can bring out new ideas and new topics that could allow for a better society.

The Greg Anderson Presentation

Gregory Anderson is an Independent Film producer. He gave a presentation at MIT that we attended, describing the issues and struggles around being and indie film producer. First, he told us his background story:

Greg's first movie was called "Chocolate City." He and a few friends wrote and produced this movie; but as an independent, they found it challenging to distribute their film. They did not want to have anyone else's hands in this movie. The way they distributed their film was by traveling city to city across the US, creating a hype for "Chocolate City." When there was finally enough buzz about it, everyone wanted to see it. Greg received a call from a distribution company that wanted to work with his film - he agreed, but only if they would send out the film 'as is.' For a first movie, "Chocolate City" proved to be successful for the crew.


Mr. Anderson is willing to do whatever possible to keep art into film. Recently before the meeting, he turned down a $5 million offer to produce a movie because it was altered to fit the Hollywood corporate structure. Money alone is not enough for Greg to lose his independent reputation and to give up his personal goals and beliefs for film making.

Greg's ultimate goal is to combine art and pop culture, or rather, bring art into pop culture. He refuses to let Hollywood block the art out of his movies.

The hardest struggle for an independent film maker is to have the final director's cut on their movies. The Hollywood business of film making is closing in on the independents, making it very difficult for them to release completely original films. Successful indie film makers often get sucked into the Hollywood business, which no longer makes them independent. Houses that used to help indie film makers have also moved corporate.

I think that it is important to have people like Greg in this world to help our society progress past greed. He has proved to make a successful living with film and does not need to become a billionaire because of it. He proved that film does not have to fall into a typical, repetitive structure in order for everyone to watch and enjoy it.

The Authors

Hello, our names are Jay and Kevin. We are two young whipper-snappers with a knack for going to film festivals. We have taken Introduction to Video Production in our first semester, Junior year. Kevin has taken several film courses over his collegiate and high school careers. Jay also has had experience making films outside of his academics.

This semester, we will be attending film festivals throughout the greater Boston area and documenting our experiences along the way. Our first event is tonight at 5:00pm, where we will be travelling to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to see a few independent films.