I'm currently holed up in a hotel room at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, banging out a few words to get the International Film Festival Summit started tomorrow. They've asked me to be the "conference chair" for the day - which is basically a glorified way of saying I'll be the emcee.
This is my fifth year at the Summit and I'm really looking forward to it. Festivals are terrific of course but this is a chance to retreat from the chaos of that activity and talk shop with festival directors from around the country (and sometimes around the world) about what they do. I usually come away from the experience energized and full of new ideas, just from being exposed to so many different people all focused on essentially the same idea – that independent filmmakers deserve champions, and that audiences deserve access to those films.
It's generally pretty difficult to get away to do any writing during a conference but I hope to jot some things down to post afterwards. And who knows? Maybe you'll see some pictures from the show floor. Stay tuned.
