RIFF_AWARDS's blog

The Roma Independent Film Festival (RIFF) is Rome 's first independent and international film festival. Its aim is to unite enthusiasm for films and filmmaking among young filmmakers with the realities of film production and distribution. The main aims of the Association are:

• To create better international distribution opportunities for independent films excluded from the major distributors
• To create a lively and mutually beneficial point of contact between new or underrepresented European filmmakers and established industry professionals.
• To provide a platform for young people with a passion for filmmaking; to inspire and help them communicate issues effectively; and stimulate discussion among audience members and fellow filmmakers alike.

RIFF is a seven-day celebration of new European and international independent films. As well as offering the chance for young filmmakers to present their work to the general public at film screenings, RIFF offers a series of special events designed to stimulate enthusiasm and create discussion: retrospectives, seminars and workshops on various aspects of cinema, as well as exhibitions, collaborations with theatre, dance, fashion, and music concerts. In order to encourage and assist filmmakers in their endeavours, the festival concludes with an awards ceremony, The RIFF Awards, which awards prizes of either monetary value or money in-kind. The winning films, in a number of categories, are chosen by an international jury of experts from various fields within the film industry.

Our plan for the future is to continue with the promotion of our festival, and to make RIFF become a highly prestigious institution through the promotion and distribution of the works presented. We are more and more focusing on high quality, aiming to be able to represent, for all our directors, the first step towards high standard recognition, as has already happened in the last editions of our festival. In the last editions the quality of our materials has in fact become very high, and this allowed us to show mainly world premieres. We wish to continue and implement this "tradition" and we therefore do our best to select an important jury that can guarantee the quality of the competing films.

In the next edition there will be an even stronger interest by the various distributors and this will to guarantee a growing visibility of the material. The festival's popularity is in fact growing more and more, and we are confident that we will have an even wider range and number of audiences and partner institutions.

In order to achieve the above goals, RIFF also organizes various events throughout the year, as follows:

1) Riff Series - a yearly event; monthly exhibitions of independent national and international films in program for the awards session. The audience is invited to participate with a vote at every screening. We currently introduce 12 monthly screenings which lead up to the RIFF Awards.

2) Riff Expanded Cinema (REC) - this new training school helps young filmmakers in the development of their projects, by providing assistance in the following sectors:

• development sector - a workshop during which emerging filmmakers learn screenwriting fundamentals, from pitching and writing to marketing a finished script.
• screenplay competition - RIFF will choose a project and aid in its production.
• production - REC assists the development of the independent films by providing of technical materials such as television cameras and editing material.

Members of the RIFF Honorary Board of Advisors may subsidize both school and competition through the RIFF Film Grant

3) Riff Awards - annual ceremony in which the best films in the series are awarded the Riff prizes.

4) Rome film market - as part of our charter statement , the 'Associazione' protects the copyrights in the field of communications by keeping a catalogue and an archive of the art works submitted. and also, by distributing the art works to cultural institutions, museums, universities, cinema distributors, and agencies, nationwide, and at an international level.

5) Riff TV - the transmission on line of trailers of the films, and the airing of the works chosen for the contest on a satellite digital channel are planned for the wake of the RIFF Awards.

6) RIFF On Tour - RIFF aims to promote Italian arthouse films of quality and present them worldwide through international festivals. We will be present at the next international appointments such as Syracuse, Temecula, Mar del Plata and Istambul as well ours festivals partners.