Blog

To start off with, I want to say how honored I am that Maria let me take over her blog for the day.  This is a blog that I pay close attention to, and when Maria asked if I would write something about the EgoFest Short Film Festival here in Minnesota, I just about fell off my chair.  Of all the topics I could blather on about, EgoFest is the easiest.

What’s EgoFest?

EgoFest is a one day film festival for shorts.  It takes place in Brainerd, MN on February 20th, 2010.  EgoFest was originally a one time festival four years ago.  Since EgoFest was never planned as an ongoing event, everyone had a great time and then went their separate ways.  But in the last year, questions started coming in from our small community about when the next EgoFest was going to happen.  Now you can only say “I don’t know” so many times before you need to honestly look for a better answer.  That answer…  was to bring back EgoFest.  I’m sure there are a lot of people thinking “that’s nice, but there are tons of film festivals all over the place, and some of those are only for shorts, too.”

How is EgoFest different?

Our motto is “EgoFest is Filmmaker Friendly”.  For starters, we have no entry fee.  Submission to EgoFest is free for all the people who have toiled and cried and bled and screamed and gone without sleep for days, you know… filmmakers.  These filmmakers are trusting us with their babies, what more can we ask?  We gladly get the money to put on the festival from other places.  Also, I’ve heard filmmakers say that for them it’s all about the audience, but for the staff at EgoFest, the festival is all about the filmmaker, they are the stars of the show.  We know how hard filmmaking is and how stressful a screening can be.  So we try to do what ever we can to help put your mind at ease and enjoy the festival.

We are available.

We feel one of the most important parts of “filmmaker friendly” is just plain being available.  We have made sure, with the technology today that we can always be reached.  Check out our contact us page .  If you have questions, concerns, or just want to say hi, you can give a call.  I’ll be happy to hear from you.  You can also email, Facebook, or Myspace (if you’re into that).  Or perhaps, my personal favorite, Twitter.

Let’s tweet.

Twitter has become a tool EgoFest can no longer do without.  We can keep in touch with filmmakers all over the globe, and we do, on an everyday basis.  There are many we have met on twitter that support our festival.  Some have then reached out to us outside of twitter. Film Courage (@filmcouage), Film Snobbery (@filmsnobbery) and Video20Q (@video20q)  were kind enough to invite us onto their shows and let us talk about EgoFest.  We have also recieved many entries as a direct result of meeting filmmakers on twitter.  There are entries from Jessica King and Julie Keck (@kingisafink) , John Trigonis (@Trigonis) , 4D4 Films (@4D4Films) just to name a few.  Twitter also happens to be where I met Maria (@Maria_56).

Alright, I’ll wrap it up.

You don’t have to take my word for it, go look around our website (and don’t forget to take a peek at this years prizes) or go on Facebook or Twitter.  Really, I think that if you take nothing else away from this post (which may be easy to do) I simply want you to know that EgoFest is rooting for you.  We want to see you succeed and we will be here to answer filmmakers’ questions, give some advice, get the word out about your film, or what ever we can do to help you in this crazy business.  And that offer stands, whether you send us a film or not.  Us indie film people need to support each other and stand together.

Thanks again Maria!
Phil Holbrook (@Philontilt)

I met Phil on Twitter, he’s a creative filmmaker I admire and respect, and he’s got a damn good sense of humor.  You’ll see what I mean when you view his latest short film  “Honest Work”. – Maria