Films Official Websites

More international than ever, the city of Rotterdam is ready for a twelve - days long film fiesta. During this 35th edition of the International Film festival, all the major screening venues located in the city center will open to the world cinematography. Not less than 3.000 press representatives are waited to report on the event. An equivalent number of film industry representatives will take part in CineMart, the largest co-production market for film projects.

This year is very Asian for the Tiger Awards competition with, almost one out of five productions coming from South East and East Asia. Some of the Asian selected films are making their World premiere in Rotterdam. This will be the case with “Nine DRAGONS” by Rudi Soedjarwo (Indonesia), and ”BAHAG KINGS” by Khavn (The Philippines). Japan, China, Thailand, and Korea are also presenting their films as International or European premieres. A work in progress by festival favorite Lav Diaz (The Philippines) is already called a highlight by the festival organizers

The Tiger awards, which are now entering in their eleventh year have been introduced in the Dutch festival by former IFFR director Emile Fallaux in 1995. The Awards Competition is for first or second features from new talents. An international jury grants three VPRO Tiger Awards consisting of Euro 10,000 each as well a TV airing in The Netherlands guaranteed.

At the 2005th edition of the RIFF the Vietnamese female filmmaker Doan Minh Phuong together with Malaysian filmmaker Ho Yu-hang from received the Special Mention of the Tiger competition. Doan Minh Phuong is based now in Germany. She came in Rotterdam to present “BRIDE OF SILENCE” her first feature film.

The Dutch award worked as a magical effect, bringing the new Vietnamese talent at once on the international stage. It had eventually rewarded the work of a woman who tried in Vietnam to find her place in a largely man-dominated film industry. It also helped to discover a film made in a developing country, which does not have yet any film promotion policies to bring local works to the international market.

The festival award has also largely contributed to promotion of the film over the web. There are about 800 results from Google pointing to the Official Website of “BRIDE OF SILENCE” and, the film found its place in the Internet Movie Data Base.

Because Phuong could not expect any support from her own country, she decided to take some of her time and, work with her small team on the promotion of her film through the World Wide Web. Doan Minh Phuong brilliantly succeeded to make an “Official website” that can be used as a model for many filmmakers, not only from Asia.

I have asked her some tips in relation to the management of a film Official Website.

(Read the interview with Doan Minh Phuong “THE WEB AS YOUR PERMANENT SCREEN”)

By Gyora Gal Glupczynski