Some More Comments on the Trailer

Thanks you so much for everyone's support. It means a lot and I am glad to have so many people watching and waiting

Email Title

Sigh, so after making and tweaking this month's email, I sent it out to a newly enlarged email list with last month's title. Well shit. I re-sent it with the right one. Arg, that is really frustrating.


Oh well. Nothing I can do now. I have gotten offers from several folks to help proofread, which is very generous. Don't know if anyone could have helped me catch that though. It is not the first time I send things out with the wrong title.

Have You Seen Our Trailer!?

Click on the trailer and check it out! This is the 8 minute promo piece we uploaded. Its views have steadily increased and we want as many people to see it as possible.

The Word Is Out- Now Give Us A Hand!!

five thousand to go!

Indie GoGo Widget

Ok, see that widget on the upper right hand corner of this page? That is the Indie GoGo widget. You can use that to help change that statistic that shows up there from "$0 raised of a $5000 goal" to "Oh my God We Go So Much Support!!!"


Thanks to all!!!

Let's Go! Indie Go Go

For those of you who do not know what Indie GoGo is, it is a fundraising website where I post a project and an intended goal to be reached, and all of my avid fans and supporters put in their two cents, or five bucks or one hundred as a pledge. If the pledges get to add up to my goal or more, you are charged the amount you promised and I get the money! If I do not reach my goal, you are charged nothing and I get nothing.


This is Step One of a short term, grassroots fundraising effort on my part to get $5000 dollars!

Why do I need $5000? No, I am not going on a vacation to Tahiti or buying a whole new wardrobe. I actually find myself in a crucial moment in my documentary!

After meeting a good number of broadcasters, sales agents, distributors and commissioning editors at the HotDocs Film Festival 2010 in Toronto, I have lots of request to see a rough cut of The View From Bellas Luces! This is fantastic news!!! There was so much interest and the concept was so well received!

The only problem is that I do not yet have a rough cut. I hardly have an assembly.

This much interest though, really lit a fire under my editor Alan's and my butt to get this show back on the road. Alan is great and is loyal and has agreed to work or some time on deferred payment, but unfortunately he also has to pay rent and feed himself and cannot put in a bunch of time for free. And I cannot wait for grants to pour in, as I will lose momentum.

$5000 will get Alan through to a rough cut without me having to worry about another paying job coming his way. I need this quick so that all these big shot industry peeps get the material while it is still hot on their mind. Six months from now they will not even remember who I am.


Every little bit helps. It does, really!

$5? That's five bucks for Alan I didn't have before.

So please please please wake up the philanthropist inside of you and go to http://www.indiegogo.com/TheViewFromBellasLuces

Help me pay Alan and help me not miss this huge opportunity!!!!!

Your's Truly Blogs for IFP

I got an email yesterday from one of the directors of IFP asking if any members who are at Hot Docs would be intersted in blogging about it for the IFP Blog. Since I am writing about the festival here, and writing blogs for Down & Dirty DV, I volunteered and my first entry is up on their blog now!

I am cutting and pasting the entry here, but please also check out the IFP Blog if you are a filmmaker!

IFP Member and U.S. Delegate Christa Boarini Blogs Hot Docs

I guess depending on your level of experience in film festivals and your degree of success within the film industry, you view festivals quite differently. I, Christa Boarini, am a New York based filmmaker, working on my first feature length doc. Needless to say I am more of a buzz-following festival goer than one who is buzzed about. At least for now.

It is day 3 at Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival, here in Toronto. True, the real heavy industry stuff begins tomorrow, Monday, but even in these past three days there has been a lot of mingling, theatre-going, crying, laughing and badge-reading. Things may have been a bit slow here in the Filmmaker Internet Lounge/Sales Desk (the first couple of days offered only complementary water, while now there are tables decked out with coffee and gourmet local teas).

But now fellow Industry Pass holders wander in an out, having meetings, checking their email, having some coffee or trying to sort through the three or four thick textbooks of information that came in the goodie bags they give us at registration. We get a Program Guide, an Industry Guide, a guide of attending commissioning editors, etc etc etc. All great and useful information, but it takes a while to sort it all out.

Oh, and if you are coming to Hot Docs later next week, be sure to ask for a flexible badge holder. The others break.

In any case the festival so far is has proven to have nicely balanced programing, combining the heavier humanity-is-awful features with equally as compelling docs that leave you feeling happy to be human. For example, yesterday I watched Talhotblond, a cautionary film where a cyber love triangle of people who have never met ends in a 23 year old man's death. The young man's parents were there, they cried, we cried, it was wonderfully heartbreaking. I then walked over to the screening of Wasteland and my broken heart mended and soared to see a mixture of art and opportunity and good things happening for good people. You simply must see Wasteland and you will instantly understand why it has won the Audience Awards of basically all the film festivals it has been at.

Another great thing to take advantage of is a new program added to Hot Docs this year called "Ripping Reality: Essentials from Documentary's New Wave". This compilation of great documentaries made in recent years gives us the opportunity to see these wonderful films on the big screen. Whether you've seen the film a million times and it is the reason you decided to quit your job and go into documentary filmmaking, or if it is a movie you've heard of but never got around to seeing, Ripping Reality has so far been a great success.

So, between the regular film screenings, the Industry Only events, the parties, the Rendezvous meetings, the Documentary Forum, the International Co-Production day etc, I have had to make out meticulous schedules for every day, reminding me of what I am going to see, what meetings I have and what are the must-attend events of the day. So far it has been a great experience and I plan to take full advantage of it. By the time I get back to New York on May 10th I plan to be absolutely exhausted.

Comments on the promo