prfilmfest

September
29, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

‘VIP CELEBRITY GUESTS LINE UP FOR NOVEMBER DEBUT OF

DIGITAL FILM FESTIVAL IN WINE-COUNTRY’S PASO
ROBLES, CA

There
may be no place more likely than in Central California’s town of Paso Robles,
for the birth of a brand-new, world-class film festival, in this historic area
with its roots in the Old West, population 29,000, surrounded by hillsides
covered with thousands of acres of premium wine grapes. Boasting a host
of Hollywood VIP personalities, famous musicians and guests from all over the
world, the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival will not only be webcast world
wide, but filmed for a special DVD, showing an inside look at a film festival,
and the film business itself in the Digital Age. The film submissions now
submitted to the festival number in the hundreds, and are from 15 foreign
countries, now PRDFF is an International Festival. The website is PRDFF.com.

Scheduled
for November 20 through 25, 2008, seasoned event promoter Benford Standley, a
Paso staff, advisors, film makers, students, interns, and an extended network
of friends and associates from Nashville, to Austin and Hollywood, are going to
show up here in cowboy wine country, with what promises to be a first-class
film festival debut. The kick-off theme is ‘Music In Film’, which means that
aside from dozens of digital screenings of films and documentaries with the
music front-and-center, there will also be a number of outstanding Jazz, Rock
and Country-Western performances by well-known personalities and bands in and
around Paso. Saturday and Sunday concerts, screenings and an Arts and Craft
Show with food and wine will be at the beautiful MARTIN & WYRICH WINERY,
here just South and Sideways of Sundance in Cowboy Wine Country.

Headlining
acts include The Bacon Brothers featuring actor Kevin Bacon and his brother and
musician Michael Bacon, recipient of the President’s National Medal of Arts and
Grammy-winning legend Ramblin' Jack Elliott, the ‘Kyle Eastwood Band’
(featuring the son of film-star Clint Eastwood), as well as a special guest
appearance by The Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. Also featured will be
gigs with musician Jack Tempchin, (songwriter singer and recorded by the The
Eagles), legendary guitarist Norm Stephens (who played with Lefty Frizzell and
Merle Haggard), Harold Jackson, (the only surviving member to be recruited by
the original ‘Ink-Spots’), Grammy Winner Louie Ortega, and many other award
winning and notable music-makers. Other ‘big surprise’ musical guests To-Be-
Announced. Aside from cozy venues like Level Four, Hotel Cheval, Firefly
Gallery, Matt’s Music, Paso Robles Inn, Franklin’s Hot-Springs, and others
To-Be-Announced, where the music and screenings will take place, the festival
will feature a 1,000-seat circus-tent with stage for musicians and bands, and
the Wild West Film Fest and Awards Concert that will then be followed by two
days of screenings at vineyards near Paso.

In
addition to world-premieres of films by emerging filmmakers from all over the globe,
with films already submitted from over 15 foreign countries, a number of
classic films and music documentaries will be viewed on a rotating schedule,
during the festival. A very special ‘Make My Saturday’ screening, paying
tribute to the musical and cinematic genius of Clint Eastwood, will screen Tony
Bennett: The Music Never Ends, with director Bruce Ricker, and
Academy-Award-winning Editor Joel Cox attending the screening, the 1980 Clint
Eastwood film, Bronco Billy, for kids and family, and Honkytonk Man,
directed by Eastwood and starring himself and son Kyle Eastwood. Plus, the
Martin Scorsese Presents Clint Eastwood's Piano Blues, also produced by
Bruce Ricker, who is a film festival advisor, and will also moderate a very
special panel on The History of Malpaso, Mr. Eastwood's company at Warner
Brothers.

Joel
Cox will be the first recipient of the ‘Ignace Paderewski Lifetime Achievement
Award for Contribution to the World of Music and Movies’. Joel has
worked with actor and film-maker Clint Eastwood for more than 30 years, on
films that include "Bird," "Eastwood After Hours: Live at
Carnegie Hall," Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends," and co-edited
Clint Eastwood's "Piano Blues." Joel has been editor on movies like
“Flags of Our Fathers,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “Mystic River,” “Blood Work,”
“Space Cowboys,” “True Crime,” “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,”
“Absolute Power,” “The Bridges of Madison County,” “A Perfect World,” and “Unforgiven,”
for which he won an Academy Award for Best Editor in 1992.

Cox
has spent his entire career at Warner Bros. starting in 1961, most notably on Eastwood’s
films. The relationship began in 1975 when Cox worked as an assistant editor on
“The Outlaw Josey Wales.” Since then, he has cut 30 more films that have, in some
combination, either starred, been produced or directed by Clint Eastwood.
He just finished the soon-to-be-released Eastwood film "Changeling,"
staring Angelie Jolie, which will be released just prior to the festival, and
presently is working on "Gran Torino", staring and directed by
Eastwood.

Adding
to this special tribute to Joel Cox is the attendance of folks from Eastwood’s
company Malpaso. The festival is honored to be joined by Eastwood's
producer Rob Lorenz, producer/director Bruce Ricker, producer Judie Hoyt, Joe
Hyams, legendary PR-man at Warner Brothers, who began doing Eastwood’s press in
1971, editors Gary Roach and Blu Murray, Deana Lou, Jessica Meier, and others
from Malpaso.

Other
classic documentaries to be screened are Martin Scorsese’s 1978 film, The
Last Waltz, with some of rock-n-rolls’ most well-known talent, and
his Bob Dylan doc No Direction Home. D.A. Pennebacker's, Dont'
Look Back, another classic documentary on Dylan, Jonathan Demme’s film,
Neil Young: Heart of Gold will be viewed, with Young’s long
time base player Rick Roas attending the screening. The film, The
Festival Express, which chronicles a tour with Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead,
and The Band, Les Blank's The Blues Accordin' To Lightin' Hopkins, with
Les attending the screening, Los Lonely Boys: Cottonfields and Crossroads, with
director Hector Galen attending. There will be a special screening of Crazy,
inspired by the life of Hank Garland, The Ballad of Ramblin’ Jack
with Jack Elliott himself also on-hand, and Cecil Taylor : All The Notes
by film maker and photographer Christopher Felver, who will also attend the
Festival.

‘Digital’
is a big part of the festival theme, as per the name. Most of the screenings
will use the latest home-theater and digital-projector technologies, or
flat-panel HD screens with high-quality sound. Panel-discussions will
also ‘go digital’, on topics such as Video-On-Demand, Multi-Platform Digital
Distribution, On-line Social Networks, Webcasting and Podcasting, 3D, and other
concepts related to the cutting-edge of the digital revolution as it relates to
film and music. With some of the historic lineup great film makers,
composers and musicians on panels much will be learned.

Event-promoter
Standley wants the atmosphere to be open and encouraging for young or emerging
film-makers, with plenty of opportunities to rub shoulders with very successful
award-winning film-artists, actors and entertainers, and to ‘talk-shop’ about
films and career-dreams, with the greats in the biz. Standley produced
one of the world’s first Internet webcasts in 1995, from Hollywood’s Troubadour
club, and in 1997 created a historic Internet webcast with Country-Western
artist Willie Nelson. He has worked with music-world royalty such as Merle
Haggard, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Les Paul, Waylon Jennings, Hoyt Axton,
Emmylou Harris, and many others, over the course of a 40-year career. He
has four children and owns a home in Paso Robles.

“Our
target audience is from Hollywood to the Silicon Valley,” Standley said. “That
fits in with the tank-of-gas vacation. This is a small-town, Norman Rockwell
setting, but it’s a very rich environment. On the local level, this festival
can serve as a catalyst to help the tourist-industry, and bring the movie
business into town. It’s kind of an infusion, and the second Paso Robles
Digital Film Festival is already on the drawing board.”

Standley,
with advice from local authorities on children and youth, is planning to donate
a percentage of proceeds from the festival to benefit the High School
Resource Program in Paso Robles. He is already setting up a
link with Kevin Bacon's charity organization, www.sixdegrees.com, paypal.com
and ebay.com, to network with this charitable element of the event, and direct
other funds and donations to charity. Area youth from the High School
will be involved with the actual production of the Festival, and screening of
youth films from Paso Robles High School and Middle School kids. There will be
an online auction through ebay.com to benefit the program.

Paso
Robles, California, is located about 210-miles South of San Francisco, or 230 miles
North of Los Angeles, and is historic for its natural hot-springs, home to the
Salinan Indians, Old West history (such as the legend of Jesse James), and
26,000 acres of California’s best wine grapes. The town is located directly on
U.S. 101, with numerous high-quality hotels, fine restaurants,
wine-tasting venues and just South and Sideways of Sundance.