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Success Stories


•Filmmaker Testimonials

We want to thank you for choosing us to be part of the Ojai Film Festival 2003. It was an honor to be there. We felt that everyone was very accessible and we were able to make contacts and get our film out there to audiences who are able to appreciate it on a very deep level.
- Stephanie and Jack Cleary


The big update about us, which I'm sure you already know, is that Daughter from Danang was nominated for an Academy Award. We want to thank you again for the exposure and recognition we received from the Ojai Film Festival.
- Gail Dolgin, Producer/Co-director

We have been very busy as Why Can't We Be A Family Again?, the documentary short that screened at your festival, has since screened at San Luis Obispo, Sundance Film Festival, Sedona Film Festival, Victoria Independent and Newport Beach film festivals. We also have the exciting news that the film has been nominated for an Academy Award for the documentary shorts category. It was wonderful participating in the Ojai Film Festival, and certainly when our next films are completed we will be entering them for consideration.
- Jessie Pepper, Public Policy Productions

I wanted to thank everyone involved with the Ojai Film Festival for including my film, JULIA BUTTERFLY HILL/ADVENTURES IN TREE SITTING in your festival, and for staging such a great event. It was very gratifying to have a large and appreciative audience watch the show, and I felt that they truly responded to the spirit of the piece. It is to your credit that in a town the size of Ojai so many people would attend a Sunday afternoon screening, while another was going on at the same time, and I assume it was equally well attended. Congratulations on a fine event, and thanks again.
- Lou Angelo

Many thanks for including Arisman Facing The Audience in the festival—a pleasure to be there for such responsive audiences. Your dedicated staff and volunteers were all terrific—a measure of just how engaged they are in the fulfillment of your Festival's vision. Congratulations, and best wishes for its continuing, expanding success. - Tony Silver

I just wanted to send a note thanking you for all the hard work and planning that were so obvious during the Ojai Film Festival. You should be thrilled with how smoothly things ran. I met so many wonderful filmmakers and was overwhelmed with the physical beauty of the Ojai Valley. It was refreshing to see so many films that embraced the potential of visual media to inspire and penetrate the human psyche. Bravo! A Chance to Grow was broadcast on The Discovery Channel, and has also been picked up abroad by National Geographic, New Zealand Television, Hong Kong Television, and Swedish Television, as well as having a healthy educational/non-theatrical distribution life here in the States.
- Claire Marie Panke

I had a great time in Ojai and especially appreciated getting a chance to meet and talk with Conrad Hall before he passed away. Since Ojai [2002], my short film The Box Man has gone on to win several awards including the audience award at AFI FEST 2002 and best animation at Cinequest. Recently, it has been selected by Cannes to screen in this years Cinefoundation for student films.
- Nirvan Mullick

I just got home from the Sedona Film Fest where my short Valette [Ojai Film Festival 2002] won the Best Student Short award. I had such a wonderful time in Ojai that I’ve since been inspired to apply to many more small town film festivals, as it’s so wonderful to see how the whole community turns out and supports both the event and the filmmakers. Ojai was very special!
- Susan Vaill, director

Although Make Me A Match screened at a number of film festivals, I can’t say that any of them wrote back asking us what we’re working on or to keep in contact. That said a lot to us. Make Me A Match went on to win The Videographers’ Award for excellence. It has also since Ojai, aired on Trio TV and a local PBS station in Dallas. And it will be showing at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia on the 10th of this month.
- Michael Edens, Media Projects, Inc.

The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It has recently won both the John O’Connor Film Award from the American Historical Association for the distinguished history film of the year and the 2002 Eric Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians. Since winning Best Documentary at Ojai, we've won a Special Jury Prize at Canyonlands Film Festival and honors at the Ann Arbor and Columbus Film Festivals.
- Judith Ehrlich

I enjoyed spending time in Ojai during fall of 2000 and thought you folks were so gracious. Merry Christmas won the 2001 SKYY Vodka Short Film Award and had its broadcast premiere on Sundance Channel this past December. I'll have work to share in the near future.
- Paul Marashlian

In January, The Book and the Rose [Ojai Film Festival 2002] was short-listed for an Oscar nomination. The film was selected as one of ten semi-finalists for an Academy Award in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. In December, The Book and the Rose signed with a boutique a distributor, Candlelight Media Group. The film is currently lining up television broadcasts, with premieres scheduled in two of the largest PBS markets in the country---San Francisco's KQED, and Boston's WGBH. - Jeff Bemiss

You played our short documentary Trip to Tehuacan in your 2001 festival and we were honored to be there. Since then it's gone on to Sundance and now it is being distributed by Seventh Art Releasing.
- Sisters Vecchione

Razing Appalachia [Ojai Film Festival 2002] got picked up by the PBS series Independent Lens and will air nationally on Tuesday, May 20th at 10pm (check local listings, as they say). It will also play later this month at the D.C. Environmental Film festival and the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, NC.
- Sasha Waters

After your festival, Poles Apart [Ojai Film Festival 2001] went on to be aired on National Geographic in Europe, Asia, and Africa and domestically on the Sundance channel. I toured other festivals and enjoyed meeting other filmmakers and getting acquainted with the world of festivals.
- Greg Stiever

My documentary THE RETURN OF PAUL JARRETT [Ojai Film Festival 2000], has won 33 awards to date. I now have two distributors and will represented in Cannes in May. I am in the process of writing the screenplay on my grandfather's experiences in WWI. Thanks again for your support of the indie filmmaker!!
- Clark Jarrett

One Small Step is doing well. We have three festival screenings next month. I will be doing a Q&A at the Maryland Film Festival May 1-4. Pretty exciting stuff considering this project began as a student project on a shoestring budget and evolved from there. We just got picked up for international distribution and are having our sales launch at MipDoc. Ojai was our first festival, but everything took off from there.
- David Cassidy