Sadly Victoria Wood has finally left the festival and moved on. Victoria was with the festival from the start and in 2003 came along to support and took tickets on the door, albeit after enjoying the bar. In 2004 Victoria again was on hand to work front of house and be there taking tickets and smiling as guests arrived. In subsequent festival outings Victoria has been a major face greeting everyone as our main ticket person and in Cannes worked the whole party on the beach as door bitch.

We wish her well as she moves on to do her own independent things and hope she finds a career she is looking for. We will no doubt look forward to finding someone new to work the door at the screenings but thank Victoria for her valliant work and effort in ensuring those that visited the festival were safely taken to their seats.

After a very exhausting run up to the festival and sadly no support from the venue Odeon we look to ever increasing new challenges. One of the challenges we are looking to assist a new dynamic company achieve is a distribution and exhibition arm to rival the Odeon and for once have people truly fanantical about film and supporting Independent Filmmakers.

The response to the films screened was unanimous as always in the fact that the audience were bowled over by the quality and diversity of all the films screened. Everyday after every screening the audience would walk past and thank us for getting them the chance to see the incredible films that are produced here and often not seen due to cinema chains owned by banks playing subservient to American majors, which is why we have so much crap screened every week in cinemas like the Odeon. CGI generated films, with no story, badly acted and just loud to cover up the fact that cerebral content is nil. Even the British based American Harry Potter is now stretching out stories to get as much cash as humanly possible from the audience and forgetting to entertain. The latest is long and dull as you watch painstakingly for another wonderful CGI moment. The magic has been lost to merchandising and the characters we all love are just not believable as young adults, which is a shame.

So a new battle cry is drawn up and it is to find a screen for British based film in the UK. This is much more simple than majors have you believe. The demand for quality is there and we will be a part of the new company producing the distribution opportunities for filmmakers straight to screen. I am off to make my feature this winter and look forward to having you all come and see it next year. On a screen that promotes and is proud to give the audience films that are original voices for the cinematic screen.

Kind regards and thank you for your support