Picture our delight in being contacted out of the blue, via the contact form on this website, by the Director of Reel Rasquache in California.  He was interested in programming The Devil’s Tail based on what he had heard about it at BLIFF.

Another great example of what’s good about being online, and what’s good about getting your feature on to the festival circuit. Once it’s out there, it starts to take on a life of its own…

So! The Devil’s Tail will have its West Coast premiere in Los Angeles at the 7th annual Reel Rasquache Art & Film Festival.
The trailer for the film festival is beautiful, and we’re honored to have a clip from The Devil’s Tail included in it.
If you go to this page, you can watch the trailer.

WHY WE LOVE BENJAMIN BRATT

Oh sure, he’s handsome and all that blah-blah-blah, but he’s also a great and we think, underrated actor. See his work in The Cleaner and Modern Family… and now La Mission. It’s with his new film, directed by his brother Peter Bratt, produced by and featuring Benjamin, that he helped RRAFF this year! La Mission launched the 7th annual Reel Rasquache, co-presented by Latin Heat, and Benjamin Bratt, with fellow actor Jeremy Ray Valdez, attended the screening and followed it with a Q&A.

What a great launch for Reel Rasquache 2010!

Jeremy Ray Valdez; Director of the Reel Rasquache Film festival, John Ramirez; Latin Heat’s Bel Hernandez and Benjamin Bratt

The Beloit International Film Festival IS a great festival that lives up to its reputation. People that have seen me since or read Chris’ last post may think that it’s easy to say BIFF is a great fest because I won an award. Or because they start throwing booze and food down your neck the moment you arrive. Or because they ferry you about in limos. Or because of the Hospitality Lounge for filmmakers and press or because of the Awards event and Press Conference. Or because they throw a good party.

Becky Rogers and Fest Director Rod Beaudoin introduce the Press Conference and Honorary Chair Greg Lamberson speaks.

There’s no question, all of that IS fun. Damn fun. But that’s not what makes it a great festival. What makes it great is that there’s no question that it’s a festival made BY film lovers FOR film lovers.

Charmed by the Central Box Office in the town’s Visitor Center for Tourists

From the moment we arrived in town, we were welcomed and connected with a warm, enthusiastic festival staff and audience and filmmakers from around the world.

We barely had our first coffee the morning we arrived before this year’s Honorary Chair, filmmaker Greg Lamberson, came up to introduce himself along with his longtime collaborator, writer-actor Robert Sabin. I can’t imagine two nicer fellows than these two, who only reinforced that we were in for a great time at the festival.

We met dear Amelah Resnik in the flesh for the first time and checked into our suite at the hotel and attempted to get sparkly in time for the Awards Ceremony and Press Conference. Actor Rob Fulton was racing to meet us there after flying for a day from Santiago Chile where he had been shooting.

Any resolve to appear tough flew out the window when it was announced that I won the award for Best Screenplay. Cocktail dress or no, I blubbed teary eyed at the microphone, twice, at both the private and public presentation. New friends Greg Lamberson and Robert Sabin cheered and clapped like old friends when I made my way back to my seat. Nothing cynical about those two. Between them and Amelah Resnik, I truly felt like I was being cheered on. Several people came up to me over the course of the evening’s reception to congratulate me, but I was very touched by Heidi, a local student who wanted to introduce herself and congratulate me because she thought it was really cool that a woman won the screenwriting award. She had noticed that film seems to have more men than women – or she felt at least, that men seemed to get recognized more and that you don’t see a lot of girls up there at the awards. Heidi wants to write herself, so I thought it best to include a snapshot of us together here. So that we can all recognize her in a few years when she starts to win her awards.

Across the board, filmmakers are treated as artists with something of
value to contribute to the community – and by extension – the culture,
from the very first invitation to screen at the festival.

In the Hospitality Lounge on Saturday, I thanked a volunteer for looking
after “us” – meaning all filmmakers at the fest – and for working so hard.

He smiled with real warmth and said “Oh I’m just a volunteer. Thank YOU
for bringing your work to us here”. I apologize that I do not remember the
gentleman’s name.

BIFF is a new festival, and I will admitthat we have had screenings at other festivals that have also been full and sold out – but that was at least partly down to an extraordinary amount of advance hustle and effort on our part. Certainly I do think that it’s part of the filmmakers’ job to be “good festival attendees”; that is to say, promote your film so that your screening and the festival gets an audience; be available for panels & Q&A’s, etc., and just be “present”.

But sometimes, it feels like we do that in a vacuum. Not so in Beloit. Combining the awards with a press conference was brilliant – as is broadcasting radio live from the Hospitality Lounge. Thank you WCLO’s Stan Milam Show and Ron Nief for inviting us to the interview line-up. Thank you Becky Rogers.

We have the excellent Craig Allen who designed new smaller BIFF-specific posters along with our standard larger poster, which we had printed & shipped to the fest arriving a week in advance of the festival. Volunteers were in place to poster the town with our 200 posters… easily paving the way for our arrival with t-shirts and buttons in hand. Thank you PR Volunteers.

The community of Beloit made us feel so welcome, and that goes beyond festival staff and volunteers. Audiences attended screenings. Residents offered rides. The foursome representing our feature would gather back in our suite at the truly comfortable Beloit Inn and say to each other “Are these the nicest people you have ever met?!?” and compare stories. Robert went to the bank simply to change currency and got asked by the tellers if he was in town with a film. When he told them yes and gave them Devil’s Tail buttons, they said “oh yes, that sounds like a great movie, already have that circled in the schedule” and showed him a copy they had handy!

A final sweet note on which to end: a member of Housekeeping at the Beloit Inn came to clean the room on Friday, while Chris & I were at work preparing for our first screening that night. I apologized and told her I hoped we weren’t in her way and she said the same. We all returned to our work and as she was leaving she said “I saw you won Best Screenplay last night; congratulations!” Chris and I stared at each other, jaws dropped. “I never want to leave this town” I said.

Director snaps another shot of me with award in the sunny hotel room before the Friday night screening

Thanks finally to Festival Director Rod Beaudoin. He signed correspondence to filmmakers “thank you for your art”. Maybe it’s best to just say “You are most welcome.”

I think I have finally recovered from the whirlwind of the Beloit International Film Festival (BIFF), where The Devil’s Tail played last weekend.

We got in the car Wednesday night around nine, and picked up Ryan Greig, our producer for the next feature project, Nothing To Declare.  Rob Fulton, the only actor who has been in everything I’ve ever shot, and the lead in Devil’s Tail, was originally going to be doing the drive to Wisconsin with us, but booked a commercial shoot in Chile at the last moment. Now he was going to have to fly from Santiago to Madison and pray that his connections worked and he would make it to the festival in time for the awards.  He was adamant that he be at the awards, because he said he wanted to see Samantha win for best screenplay, for which she was nominated.

The next ten hours or so are a blur of white line fever and an insane number of toll booths. It was great having another driver in the car for a change, and I handed the wheel over to Ryan and fell unconscious immediately after entering Michigan.  I woke up near Chicago around 3 am and took over while Samantha and Ryan fell asleep.  I spent the next couple of hours conducting imaginary interviews with myself, something I often do while driving, in the hope of sounding coherent and intelligent should someone ever ask me a question about making movies.  By sunrise I was sounding pretty suave, if I say so myself.

I looked over at Ryan, his handsome bald cranium bouncing gently against the window as he slept.  I experienced a moment of dread as I realized that I hardly knew the guy, and here we were about to spend nearly five days in close quarters, either sharing a car or a hotel room.  How long before we started to get on each other’s nerves?  Or would one of us just suddenly decide that the other was a complete tool?  I’d been down this road before, many times.  But, you have to keep trying.  Give people a chance to surprise you.

We finally arrived in Beloit, about three hours earlier than we had anticipated.  It’s a very pretty little city of about 36,000.  We were booked into the Beloit Inn, which is where the filmmakers’ hospitality suite is, i.e. free booze, coffee, breakfast and snacks, as well as a parade of press opportunities as reporters from local media set up one after another to interview festival participants.

I can’t say enough good things about this festival.

It was extremely well organized.  The venues ranged from decent to very good.  The organizers put money and effort into making sure even the ad hoc venues had good sound and picture.  Help was never more than a phone call away.  The attitude overall was very positive, with absolutely no whiff of cynicism from anyone involved.  From the festival staff to the citizen on the street, everyone was great.  I find it hard to believe as I write it, but here’s an example.  Our group had to get from the awards ceremony to the hotel.  I called Melinda Schumacher, the Artists’ Liason, and asked her for local transportation – in this case, a limo that they provide for filmmakers at the fest.
A Beloit local saw us waiting and offered us a ride.  We took it and called off the limo.  I just realized I never took a single limo ride because the locals kept taking it upon themselves to ferry the filmmakers around.
I know, I know, never get into cars with strangers.
But this is cheese country.

Rob Fulton, our lead actor, made it to the awards after 24 hours of travel just in time to see Samantha win for Best Screenplay.  So here’s another great thing about BIFF:
they have excellent taste.

This all happened within our first few hours in town, so we were on a very pleasant high for the rest of the festival.

SAMANTHA SWAN, BEST SCREENPLAY AWARD IN HAND

As more news from the Beloit International Film Festival makes its way to us here in the Ontario cold equal to Wisconsin’s… we discovered the fest’s hottest tix, published by the head of the Selection Committee and the Executive Director who say:

If you can’t decide which film to see first, those wtih their finger on the pulse have selected their Top Ten Films, which are decidedly the hottest tickets of the festival…

This most important nod comes straight from the Chair of the BIFF Selection Committee after months of screening hundreds of film submissions .

and

Previous films on Rod’s Top Ten list have gone on to screen at prestigious festivals such as Sundance after winning their first of many coveted awards at BIFF!

Yes, both Steve Fass and Rod Beaudoin have included THE DEVIL’S TAIL in their top 10!!!

We are absolutely delighted, to say the least.

Rather interested in this piece in The New York Times; yes it’s already from back in 2006 when the festival was considerably newer, but it gives people a chance to to check the temperature of the water and read about comparisons to Sundance.

“The Beloit International Film Festival in Beloit, Wis., has a loftier goal — to return to the spirit of film festivals’ golden era, when guests talked film all night with directors and writers who were on hand and available for questions. “And I’ll bet no one else has limousine service for their guests,” joked Ron Nief, the festival’s public relations director. This year’s lineup of more than 100 films is from 26 nations, and many fall under themes like human rights, food-based films, or an international genre called neo-noir.”

To read the original article, you can follow it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/15/travel/escapes/15ahead.html

As we move forward on our preparations for BIFF – the printing of big Devil’s posters, the consulting with the designer on BIFF-specific posters, changes to travel plans, etc. – we have to say a word about Beloit and fellow filmmakers.

Amelah Resnik will also be in Beloit with her documentary THE FLOWERS OF MADISON. In this case, Madison refers to Madison Wisconsin, where some of the doc was shot. Because of Resnik’s familiarity with, and her movie’s relationship to the area, she has been in Beloit this week to attend the festival’s Reveal Parties and to do some advance promotion of her film.

Like THE DEVIL’S TAIL, THE FLOWERS OF MADISON also has some Spanish dialogue, and both movies have their Wisconsin premieres in the same venue at La Casa Grande. But before we even knew about sharing a venue, Amelah got in touch, having discovered some of our filmmakers’ posts on WithoutABox. She emailed to congratulate us on playing at this great festival and just to say that with both movies having Spanish language content, we’ll be bringing some different flavour to the area.

After a pleasant email exchange, we asked her about how the first Reveal party went etc.; we just hoped she could be our ears and eyes, given that she was there and we’re operating from a distance…

Not only did Amelah get back to us, she got back to us IMMEDIATELY, volunteered some advice, and started talking up our movie. We wished her well and cheered her and her film on… imagine our delight that when she gave a radio interview about FLOWERS, she also urged listeners to see THE DEVIL’S TAIL and sent us the message that at Reveal Party #2 in Janesville, when they thrust the mic in her hand, before she talked about her own movie she announced the dates and times of ours, that everyone should see it and “Go Canada!”

Like Amelah, we’ve contacted fellow filmmakers in the past prior to other festivals, but have been met with an underwhelming response. We’d like to take this moment to point out that she did not HAVE to contact us at all, and she certainly is not required to do anything on our behalf. Instead, we’ve been contacted and aided by a warm, fellow festival filmmaker, and it must be stated again; if this is the kind of generous person Beloit attracts, it’s no wonder they have such a sterling reputation.

*THE FLOWERS OF MADISON is a documentary that plays
Friday February 19th at 5:00 PM @ La Casa Grande
and
Saturday February 20th at Noon @ Domenico’s

at the Beloit International Film Festival

*And while visiting the FLOWERS website, listen to that gorgeous atmospheric Latin guitar theme by Joe Myers.

We’re delighted to announce that The Devil’s Tail has been nominated for BEST SCREENPLAY at the Beloit International Film Festival.

The awards will be presented at the cocktail reception on Thursday February 18th, 2010.

Happy New Year!

For those of you who have been following the posts here by Christopher and myself, you have seen or read about the New England Film Junkie piece on The Devil’s Tail we were asked to do for The Boston Herald.

The head of the film and television department department of a Boston college read that piece and got in touch via the contact form on this website. He sent a very nice email telling us that he found what we wrote about making a feature on a shoestring to be very true and refreshing, and wondered whether or not we’d be available to do a speaking engagement for his students.

The whole point of contributing to this blog, was that it started as a kind of Production Diary, and we wanted to share it with movie fans and aspiring or new filmmakers. You could call it evangelizing the process somewhat, but we DID decide to write here in part to make new or student or aspiring filmmakers feel like they could do it too. Or for other truly independent filmmakers to feel like they’re NOT alone; because when you’re working outside the system with very little or no money, that can be a lonely process indeed.

I’m reluctant to name the college here yet as the details have yet to be ironed out, so that might not be appropriate until the event can be publicized, but it looks as though The Devil’s Tail will be screened in April for the film and television students and followed by a talk by Christopher and myself… which is what we tend to do at film festivals anyway.

So yes; we ARE available for college screenings and speaking engagements, and we never would have been contacted if it weren’t for the piece in the Herald.
A reminder of the power of the press once again!

And I can’t think of a nicer way to return to Massachusetts.

newest Devil's Tail poster by Craig Allen

Newest version of Devil’s Tail poster by Craig Allen

While BLIFF is not yet over for the year – one more weekend to go; ends this weekend December 13th! – our part in it is over, as we screened on Sunday. And it took us this long to recover…

Cast member Arthur Pellman drove to Boston from NYC and joined us for the exhibition of the film and the Q&A!

Festival Director, Actor and Film Director

Festival Director, Actor and Film Director

Actors reunite under their movie poster

Just a couple actors reuniting under their movie poster

Big thanks to Festival Director/Founder José Barriga and Programming Director Erin Scheffler for their support of the film and for being truly gracious and generous hosts.

The best looking Festival Director and Programmer on the circuit

Best looking Festival Director and Programmer on the Festival Circuit

Thank you also to the rest of the festival staff and volunteers who worked so hard on our behalf: especially Hospitality Coordinators Yvonne Ng and Wanda Droz, and Cynthia Barnes, BLIFF’s unofficial Queen of Twitter. Thanks to her efforts, she got word of the screening out to literally thousands of people in the Boston area.

Damn cool Pellman in front of poster

Damn cool Pellman in front of poster

Special thanks also go to Darren Garnick of the New England Film Junkie of the Boston Herald, who wrote a great intro to the column he asked us to write as guests; Marc Jacques of the Canadian Consulate in Boston, who promoted the film with a press release and stills that went out to thousands of members on their membership list; and Evonne Wetzner, proprietor of The Video Underground, clearly the coolest indie video store (& small summer screening venue!) in Boston, who let us come in and be-flyer and be-button her store.
And did we mention Festival sponsors José’s restaurant? Great warm casual atmosphere in Cambridge, and some of the friendliest proprietors and staff you could meet… we were flattered they placed our flyers and buttons top spot where their menus normally go… 

Audience for our screening was quite full; enthusiastic and asked intelligent questions. Sign of a good festival. Our only regret is that we’re not still there and screening there again this weekend.

Audience coming in as Festival Director Jose Barriga looks on

Audience enters as Festival Director José Barriga looks on

Jose Barriga y Devil's Tail poster

José Barriga charming us in front of  The Devil’s Tail poster

Our article in The New England Film Junkie of the Boston Herald has been published!

And with a cool intro from Darren to boot…

Read it here.

Enjoy!