The River Bend Film Festival has recently received a generous grant from the “Paul Saltzgaber Memorial Fund for Reading, Writing & the Arts of the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County”, which goes directly toward bringing in our guest speaker Lloyd Kaufman.

Paul was a local filmmaker who had his work screened at our festival in the past when it was held at Indiana University South Bend.  A huge thank you to his parents, Connie and Mark Saltzgaber, for their support of the River Bend Film Festival, as well as to Angela Butiste at the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County.  We appreciate your support of local filmmaking. A big thank you to our sponsor Mid America Filmmakers for being the non-for-profit receiver of the grant for our use at the festival for educational purposes.

We are very excited to welcome Troma Entertainment’s very own Lloyd Kaufman, the irreverent and brilliant master mind behind such cult classics as Class of Nuke’Em High, The Toxic Avenger, Sgt. Kabukiman N.Y.P.D, Tromeo and Juliet and most recently Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead. He is also the author of the book “Make Your Own Damn Movie.”

Lloyd will be speaking at the festival and hosting an independent filmmaking workshop on Saturday. We will also screen a Troma film at some point, which he will do an introduction and Q&A. Stay tuned for more details and other Troma-tastic events planned for the festival weekend.

You can visit his website at www.troma.com.

RIVER BEND FILM FESTIVAL 2010 CALL FOR ENTRIES

We are now accepting entries for the 2nd Annual River Bend Film Festival, which will be held April 30 & May 1, 2010 at the Century Center in downtown South Bend, Indiana

Formerly the I.U. South Bend Independent Video & Filmmakers Festival for 7 years, the festival has been an excellent opportunity for Midwest filmmakers and beyond to screen their shorts and features and to network with other filmmakers.  We’ve screened hundreds of shorts and features from across the U.S. and from around the world.

We accept entries by students and filmmakers of all ages, and submission fees range from $15 to $30, and include student discounts. Our current deadlines are as follows:

Earlybird Deadline: October 1, 2009
Regular Deadline: January 1, 2010
Late Deadline: January 30, 2010

More information and the submission form can be found at our website www.riverbendfilmfestival.org. We are sponsored by the non-for-profit Mid America Filmmakers (www.midamericafilmmakers.org) and Downtown South Bend (www.downtownsouthbend.com).

I look forward to seeing your films and meeting you at the festival.

Sincerely Yours,
Tim Richardson
Festival Director
riverbendfilmfest@gmail.com

“The festival and their organizers were exciting and generous, and the entire weekend was a bit of a retreat for us all.” - Cole Simon, Glass City Films

“The Mid America Filmmakers are a great group…they put on a festival that was fun to attend and even better to be a part of. I’m sure I’ll go back to next year’s River Bend Film Festival.” - Chuck Budreau, IndyFilmNews.com

“I really enjoyed myself. Thanks for all your hard work.” – Andrea Rogers, Grass Roots Media (sponsor)

“The exposure you received this year was outstanding. DTSB looks forward to being a part of RBFF 2010.” -Marco Mariani, DTSB (founding sponsor)

“Organizers were, like always, very congenial and super helpful! The people that are there are just terrific!” - Jason Butler, Substance Productions

“I want to thank you and the selection committee for choosing Measured Sacrifice to be in the festival.  Good Luck next year and congratulations on this year.” - John Whitney, filmmaker

“As expected, the 1st Riverbend Festival was a fantastic experience.  Seeing the great work and meeting some seriously motivated indie-minds is always a great time. I see a good future here” – Alex Rhodes-Wilmere, ARWorks Productions

We want to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped make the First Annual River Bend Film Festival an amazing success.

The films, the panels, the speakers (especially producer Jack Olesker on Friday night) were all outstanding and all the independent filmmakers learned a lot and shared a lot about experiences in creating films. We had many local filmmakers there as well filmmakers and actors from California, Oklahoma, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Indianapolis  and Toronto.

Our key note speaker, Grudge screenwriter  Stephen Susco  (who couldn’t make it in person) was able to introduce his film Red and do an hour long Q&A about the movie and screenwriting via Skype with his webcam. He also offered to personally call any attendees who had planned on coming to his script pitching workshop and work with them on their ideas.

Again, thanks to Century Century, Mid America Filmmakers, DTSB and all our sponsors, and especially a huge thank you to all our festival staff and volunteers who worked incredibly hard to make this incredible event happen. We also greatly appreciate the wonderful efforts of the local media to help get the word out.

Due to unforseen circumstances, screenwriter Stephen Susco will be unable to attend this year’s festival.  Some other opportunities to talk with Mr. Susco are currently being discuss and we will still be screening his film “Red” as scheduled. His 4:30 p.m. workshop is currently being revised and more details will be at the festival.

We have extended our online ticket sales to midnight on Friday evening. After that tickets are only available at the door. Please remember to bring a print out of your e-mail receipt and a valid I.D.

Our TICKETS area of the website contains all the information regarding ticket sales and online purchases.

We do not accept credit cards or checks at the door.  Cash only or money orders made out to Mid America Filmmakers.

We want to thank The Vickers Theatre in Three Oaks, Michigan for their continued support and promoting of local independent film artists and showcasing the works of Mid America Filmmakers, and for their  support of this festival.

MAF’s annual summer screening is always at the beautiful Vickers Theatre, usually in August, and we hope that everyone will come visit their theatre after the River Bend Film Festival is over to continue enjoying independent film and art films.

You can visit their website at www.vickerstheatre.com to see what’s going on there every week.

Check out the local films preview trailer created for the Mayor’s Press Conference.  Thanks to Brian McLaughlin for putting this together!

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

On Tuesday, April 28 Mayor Steve Luecke announced the premiere of the River Bend Film Festival at the South Bend Century Center and emphasized it as a great addition to the downtown Arts community.

He was joined by DTSB Executive Director Marco Mariani, River Bend Film Festival Director Tim Richardson, and Mid America Filmmakers President Scott Dokey. Local filmmaker Michael Kouroubetes and “Sound Guy” Brian McLaughlin were also on hand, as well as South Bend’s crime-stopping fruit, The Benevolent Banana (alias Kevin McInerney).

You can view the brief Fox 28 News clip online here and in our Press section of the website.