RiverRun International Film Festival
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April 22-29, 2009 in Winston-Salem, NC
Male
26 years old
WINSTON SALEM, North Carolina
United States
Last Login: 4/21/2009
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| Status: | Single | | Zodiac Sign: | Taurus |
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Mark your calendars... the next festival is: April 22-29, 2009!
The RiverRun International Film Festival is one of the country's fastest-growing regional film festivals. Located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the festival annually presents a rich blend of new films by established and emerging filmmakers, showcasing a diverse collection of cinematic voices from around the world.
Held annually each spring, RiverRun screens a wide variety of feature-length and short films from all genres, and also presents a broad range of special events, including high-profile regional premieres of significant films, celebrity tributes, family matinees and classic retrospectives as well as a full mixture of panel discussions and parties.
On behalf of our many staff, volunteers and supporters, I’d like to welcome you to the 11th annual RiverRun International Film Festival. A lot has happened since we last gathered here twelve months ago.
With headline-screaming, life-changing events occurring with increasing regularity, it might even seem as if our lives have fundamentally changed in some way. But I think that if the last year has taught us anything, it’s that our world is a more interconnected place than most of us ever realized. As we read stories about the global recession impacting faraway places that most of us have never visited, it’s become obvious that we are all in this together. It’s worth noting that while our economy is undergoing a crisis, so too is the film industry. In the last year, many of the American distributors who focused largely on showcasing new independent or international cinema have either gone out of business or folded into a corporate parent. The reasons for these closures are many – but they largely come down to economics. The simple
fact is that the business of independent film distribution is an incredibly difficult one in the best of times – and these are hardly the best of times. The costs are extremely high and the profits are incredibly narrow. Increasingly, companies just couldn’t make
a go of it.
There is some good news, however. During this turmoil in our industry, attendance at film festivals across the country has risen dramatically. Last year’s RiverRun, for instance, experienced a 35 percent increase in box office grosses – and that’s not out of
line with what other festivals experienced. It is my firm belief that this increase is a direct response to the increasingly limited options available for so many of us at the multiplex. Once you reach a certain saturation point, there just seem to be only so
many big-budget explosion-packed extravaganzas or overly-simplified romantic comedies that you can stomach in a given year. And so film festivals, with their intoxicating mix of bold new ideas and fresh voices and stories, seem more and more attractive.
At this year’s RiverRun, we are incredibly proud to present what we think is our most prestigious lineup yet. We’ve programmed films from 27 different countries representing six of the seven continents (it’s really hard to find any films, let alone good ones,
from Antarctica, incidentally). Our Narrative Competition, in particular, contains a wealth of strong new international films – such as Three Monkeys, Tulpan and Il Divo – that have made a tremendous impression on the global film industry in the
past few months. For the first time ever, we’re also showcasing two animated features – including Idiots and Angels, by our old friend and RiverRun alum, Bill Plympton. In order to help further discussions about cinematic trends and ideas, we’ve also
created a new sidebar section – Spotlight – which we will present with a different focus every year. For this year’s installment, we’re focusing on a group of exciting new documentaries from American and Canadian filmmakers.
And of course, this year we’re also thrilled to present our inaugural Emerging Master Award to filmmaker Ramin Bahrani, whose wonderful new film, Goodbye Solo, was shot almost entirely in his hometown of Winston-Salem.
I hope that you will take the opportunity to sample a wide variety of films at this year’s RiverRun. We’ve tried to find just the right mix of styles and stories for you to enjoy. Be sure to take some risks, though, and watch something you wouldn’t normally. You
never know when you’ll discover your new favorite film!
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