Editor

As noted in last year's review the New York IFP (Independent Feature Film Project) Market was established in 1979 as a side bar to the New York Film Festival and response to block buster Hollywood. Over its long history the market and other services IFP provides have become indispensable tools for aspiring and newly established producers, directors and screen writers to check the pulse of the independent film industry and to launch their projects. What started as a screening venue for independent productions close with little support from the industry has turned into a massive networking platform with more than 2100 one-to-one meetings in 2007. The IFP's Independent Film Week showcased new projects by film makers and awarded last year more than $100,000 in cash and services to independent film makers.
Over the last decades the not-for-profit IFP attracted more than 20 000 independent film makers to its programs and was involved in the development, funding and distribution of 7000 independent films.

Yet realizing the obvious, namely that interpersonal relations and networking are the essential prerequisite for any business transactions and that most of the independent film makers are not involved in business networks, IFP dropped the market label; and morphed completely into the Independent Film Week. As Michelle Byrd, the Executive Director of IFP put it:"in the film industry, the word "Market" suggests business transactions, but IFP's commitment to film makers and their projects extends long beyond the six days of Independent Film Week. Our goal is to provide a launching pad for career-spanning relationships, and we want our new name to encompass that broader mission."

Thus there is a greater emphasis during the Independent Film Week on one to one meetings between film makers and industry executives, the showcasing of 150 new works in the Project Forum drawn from the emerging narratives, international co-productions and documentaries sections, and numerous of seminars,
panel sessions and "conversations". As in 2007 there will be free
screenings of films for the general public by IFP graduates complemented this year by productions from CUNY students, including TRINIDAD, a documentary on the sex change capital of the world in Colorado and SHOWCASE, with excerpts from prospective festival circuit films. To incorporate the best works in progress for the Project Forum, IFP has dropped submission fees for successful entries. Another important change is the expansion of space for IFP activities by relocating the Independent Film Week to the Fashion Institute of Technology and adjacent venues. Kevin Smith (CLERKS), Robert Greenwald (OUTFOXED) and Rick Allen (CEO SnagFilms) will
shepard the film week's public events. HBO and Eastman Kodak are
the principal sponsors of the Independent Film Week held from September 14-19, 2008


Claus Mueller
New York Correspondent
filmexchange@gmail.com