IFFB Line-up

The Independent Film Festival of Boston, which runs from April 23 to 29, recently announced their line-up for this year's festival. Looking over the line-up, I'm both excited by what I see and disappointed by what I don't see. 

On the list for IFFB 2008: Azazel Jacobs "Mamma's Man," Barry Jenkin's "Medicine For Melancholy," the Zellner Brother's "Goliath," Jay Delaney's "Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie," and Lance Hammer's "Ballast," along with a few films that have  been around for sometime, such as Alex Orr's "Blood Car," Guy Maddin's "My Winnipeg," and Ronnie Bronstein's "Frownland".

What's not on the list? Jake Mahaffy's "Wellness," Jonathan VanBallenberghe's "Ostrich Testimonies," Josh Safdie's "The Pleasure of Being Robbed," Frank Ross's "Present Company," Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard's "Beautiful Losers," and many others I was crossing my fingers for. (The Duplass Brother's "Baghead" and Joe Swanberg's "Nights and Weekends" are not at the fest this year either. But then again, they both have received distribution deals.)

Putting together a festival must be a daunting task, especially with so many films being made nowadays. The all-volunteer staff at IFFB has always put together a great event and I know I'll have a great time this year, even if many of the films I was hoping for this year didn't make it. 

A clarification: I do not mean to imply that any of the "What's not on the list" films were rejected by IFFB. In fact, I do not know if these films were even submitted to IFFB for consideration. These are merely films that have played at recent festivals that I was hoping would play at IFFB as well.  

-Eric