Walk from hotel in historic Greenwich Village to the East Village's Snapper Bear Studio on Bond Street for check-in and badge. Bag of materials, it's heavy. No Borders brief is heaviest. The IFFM '98 offers a program of 63 seminars, workshops and roundtables, many featuring renowned indie filmmakers and top industry execs to provide first-hand insights. The seminars are scheduled for Friday through Friday.
Evenings are for gala films, film fest cocktails or dinners.
The welcome material contains the invitations. The first edition of the IFFM was created by Sandra Schulberg in 1979 with seed money from the National Endowment for the Arts and the collaboration of colleagues Miles Mogulescu and Joy Pereths. This followed a favorable reception they had with a group of American filmmakers at Rotterdam Film Festival the previous year. The trio formed the IFFM to heighten industry awareness of independent films made outside the studio system. Beer asked for show of hands for number of filmmakers in room with finished features looking for distribution.