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Fact Sheet 2003 |
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| Dates: |
Thursday, April 3 - Sunday, April 6, 2003 |
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| Locations: |
The Brattle Theatre 40 Brattle Street, Harvard Square Cambridge, Massachusetts 617-876-6837 Coolidge Corner Theatre 290 Harvard Street Brookline, Massachusetts 617-734-2500 |
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| Presented by: |
Beacon Cinema Group |
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| 2003 Major Sponsors and Supporters: |
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| Additional Support: |
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| Audience: |
Annual festival attendance is over 3000, with an estimated increase to 5000 as the festival expands to the Coolidge Corner Theatre. The audience is estimated to be approximately 60-65% women, 75% college educated, multi-racial, and 70-75% between 25 and 65 years of age. |
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| Promotions: |
The festival is promoted through the Brattle Theatre printed calendar (30,000 pieces distributed, 3,000 through direct mail) and through the Coolidge Corner Theatre marketing material. In addition, an advance ticket order form (print run of 10,000) and a 24-page program book (print run of 5,000) are distributed throughout the greater Boston area. The Boston Phoenix provides full and half page advertising for the festival screenings beginning two weeks prior to the opening. Prominent web sites offer major promotional tie-ins, online and email advertising. Each year the festival secures feature articles in all of the major Boston newspapers and specialized publications with additional daily printed "picks," online support, and radio and television coverage. A press release is sent to over 300 film critics and arts editors. |
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| Presenter: |
The Beacon Cinema Group is a partnership owned by Marianne Lampke and Connie White. Since 1986 Lampke and White have gained national recognition for their programming and marketing/publicity work at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA, the Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema, and the Provincetown International Film Festival. They have won over 40 awards and were the recipients of the prestigious "2000 Image Award for Vision and Excellence" from Women in Film & Video New England. Their work has been profiled in several national publications including Box Office Magazine, Variety, Ms. Magazine, Boston Business Journal, Newsweek, The Independent, and the Boston Globe. |
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Festival history: The festival was founded in 1993, at the initiative of former Brattle Theatre co-directors Marianne Lampke and Connie White. From 1993 through 1997 their sister company, Running Arts, produced the festival and co-presented it with the Boston Film/Video Foundation. In its first year the festival gained instant critical acclaim, winning a "Best Festival Award" from the Boston Society of Film Critics. In 2001, the festival expanded to include the Coolidge Corner Theatre, giving it even greater visibility and a broader and more diverse audience base. The festival is now hosted at the areas two most prominent movie theatres -- the Brattle Theatre in the heart of Harvard Square, Cambridge and the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts. Over its eleven year history, the Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema has developed as a leading showcase for commercial and independent works by and about women. Each year the festival secures "sneak preview" screenings from prominent art film distributors including Miramax Films, Fine Line Features, Sony Pictures Classics, and others. The festival also launches world and Boston-area premieres of independent works and has helped to secure theatrical film and cable television distribution for independent filmmakers. Many premieres from the festival have received important critical recognition including reviews in Variety. Guests of the festival have included: Academy Award-winning directors Christine Lahti (My First Mister) and Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line, The Luzhin Defense), as well as director Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), director Nicole Holofcener (Lovely and Amazing, Walking and Talking), director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry), director Rose Troche (Go Fish, The Safety of Objects), director Susan Siedelman (Desparately Seeking Susan, Gaudi Afternoon), director Alison Maclean (Jesus' Son), director Allison Anders (Gas Food Lodging, Sugar Town), producer Dolly Hall (The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love, High Art), director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art), director Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman), producer Christine Vachon (Boy's Don't Cry, Happiness), director Mary Harmon (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho), director Claire Denis (Chocolat, No Fear No Die, Beau Travail), director Beeban Kidron (Great Moments in Aviation, Used People, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit), writer/director team Jill and Karen Sprecher (Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Clockwatchers) and several others. In 1997, the festival won its second "Best Festival" award from the Boston Society of Film Critics and continues to be hailed by critics across the city: "As the seven-day International Festival of Women's Cinema opens its fifth edition at the Brattle Theatre, the exciting thing is that it refuses to be defined, or settle comfortably into any particular niche...The best films in the festival aren't just fresh and edgy. They resist categorization, bending genders, genres, narrative styles, even subjects...the rest of the film world should be as alive as the women's festival." "Most of the best movies to be seen this week locally will be screening at the Brattle Theatre in the Fifth Annual Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema. Always a fascinating film event, the festival has grown from an expression of a genuine if limited agenda to a harbinger of hope for the future of cinema." "This year's Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema is much rawer and edgier than in years past, featuring films that will challenge even the hippest of art house audiences." "The Boston International Festival of Women's Cinema...offers some of the most compelling, contemporary and original new films to be screened anywhere...women filmmakers, whether veterans or young directors unveiling their first films, are making movies with more confidence and complexity than ever before about women's sexuality, independence and choices. The results are nothing short of amazing." |
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