Film Northants 2010 begins

For some the summer is the time of holidays, BBQs and sitting back with a glass of Pimm’s but for the organisers of Film Northants it is mad rush to get publicity out, entries in and a red carpet premiere organised for September. And as founder and chair of the festival my days are rapidly being filled to the max.

The Northamptonshire film festival is now in its third year and has stepped out from under the wing of the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, to set up as an independent not-for-profit group. There is a fully formed committee (rather than me running around like a loon trying to do everything) and we were lucky to be successful first time at getting funding from Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

The event is still run on a relative shoe string by volunteers but funding has enabled us to scoop Quentin Falk as awards ceremony host, and confirm Claire Youngs (2008 finalist on BBC show The Apprentice) to present the awards. We also have a £500 Jessops gift card first prize, plus the usual cinema passes and movie merchandise. Not bad considering the first year we relied on one annual cinema pass to entice entries.

We have also moved venue from Vue to Cineworld Cinemas (due to that old cliche ‘creative differences’). The benefit of the move means we have an on-site bar to hold the after show champagne reception, an in-house PA system, free parking and permission to put up a massive banner advertising the event in the cinema foyer.

But the biggest change this year has been going independent which has really allowed the festival to reach out to a wider community. The Chron has been supportive from the start but being their festival meant other rival media organisations sadly wouldn’t publicise the event. Unfortunately it is an all too familiar story in local media that local papers, magazines, TV and radio stations would often prefer to compete for, than work together, on community events.

However since becoming an indy event we have been inundated with media requests! Film Northants has appeared in radio interviews, magazine articles, website pages, school newsletters and has even been invited to a YMCA conference.

Another new thing for us this year is the launch of our own website http://www.filmnorthants.co.uk/ which is getting hundreds of hits each week, and our Facebook group which allows local film-makers to share their news, views, trailers and short films.

The winners of the past two festivals are currently out filming their 2010 entries, so it will be a tough competition. We hope to be seeing some entries trickling in over the next month, with the usual flood in the last week before the deadline of August 20.

Since things appear to be ticking over nicely, maybe I do have time for a Pimm’s after all...