Editor

The 37th Annual WorldFest - 59 Features, 104 Short films.

WorldFest Artistic and Program Director, Kathleen Haney, stated, "We are continuing our focus on a quality selection of individual films to maintain a smaller, yet effective program rather than an overly large and unwieldy slate of 150-300 films. In consideration of both our festival audiences and the independent filmmakers, we feel that a solid high-quality program of no more than 60 features is optimum in a ten-day festival with twelve screening slots (on three AMC theater screens) per day." Haney continued, "We are looking for 'A good story, well told' as our time-tested approach to film selection. We have special sidebars of Foreign, Children's and Family Film Sections. All of our films are totally Indie productions, and each film is well represented by their filmmakers, who attend to introduce their films!" All 35mm & DVD films are screened at the AMC Meyer ParkTheatre, host of the 2004 WorldFest, the Indie Film Festival for the New Millennium. The Official HQ Hotel for WorldFest is the beautiful Renaissance Hotel in Greenway Plaza, with very special rates for festival attendees, starting at just $59 a night.

WorldFest will continue with its annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of 104 new short and student films...from the festival that gave first honors to Spielberg, Lucas, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, and David Lynch, among many others! No other festival has such a "discovery" track record. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest film festival management in the world with the same director, continuously for 36 consecutive years. A few other festivals are older, but they have had as many as ten different directors.

Make your newsletter a valuable source of information and advice and you will successfully position yourself as an expert.Most USA Film Festivals today have evolved into publicity platforms for major studio distributors. WorldFest showcases the true independent film, offering a fiercely dedicated special venue for directors searching for an independent forum for their works. WorldFest continues with a focused emphasis on new, premiering films that are seeking a distributor. The Festival also screens DVD video via Christie Digital DLP Projection and Wagner Media, major sponsors of the festival, in addition to 35mm film.

By having a small, highly selective schedule of new Indie films, WorldFest is a better showcase each film and spotlight its individual character, rather than merely act as a preview platform for an upcoming regional release from a large US distributor. Most of the so-called 'Independent Films' featured at other festivals are actually high budget films produced by one of the major studios' special "Indie" divisions. In fact, most of the films featured at Sundance actually already have their distribution deals well in place.