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MIKE REYNOLDS
Metro is looking to add a little marquee value - and some movies - to its New York Stories series.
Metro, part of Rainbow Media's suite of MetroChannels, is teaming with Angelika Entertainment to create a new film festival dedicated to independent features and shorts made in and about New York.
New York Stories: The Metro Angelika Film Festival, premiering for three days in mid-May, will simultaneously present select shorts and features on Metro, the channel devoted to New York-area culture and entertainment, and at the Anthology Film Archives in lower Manhattan.
Angelika Entertainment is the production, distribution and exhibition company headed by Angelika Saleh, who made such landmark films as Streetwise and Sweet Lorraine and co-founded Manhattan's Angelika Film Center.
Under terms of the deal, MetroChannel will contribute promotional support, as well as license fees for the simultaneous airings during the festival and subsequent showings on the network.
VP-programming and development for MetroChannels Judith Tolkow says Angelika is "contributing its expertise within the independent film world and will be doing the initial screenings to determine the festival's lineup."
The submission process, in its early stages, will continue into March.
Tolkow says, "We are going to use as many resources as possible to let people know about the festival, which will benefit from plenty of on-air promos" on Metro and its sister channels, Metro Learning and Metro Traffic & Weather.
"There will also be messages during pre-screenings at the Angelika and Anthology Film Archives," she says. "We will be tapping into their mailing lists. We want to develop as much exposure and awareness as possible within the independent film community."
Other marketing plans were still being finalized at presstime, but street-level promotions and trailers at Cablevision Systems-owned Clearview Cinemas could come into play.
"With our award-winning weekly series, New York Stories [Saturdays at 8 p.m.], we have long been dedicated to presenting the best works of local independent documentarians," says Tolkow. "This partnership with Angelika underlines our commitment to independent filmmakers and lets them know we are an outlet for them. We also want to use this festival to expand the presence of the New York Stories franchise."
She notes that with the proliferation of digital technologies, New York has become even more of a hotbed of independent film activity. However, she adds, with "the folding of many Internet sites, there isn't much of an outlet for many of these filmmakers. We want them to look to Metro and New York Stories as a platform for their work."
Adds Barney Oldfield, GM of Angelika and chairman of the Anthology Film Archive Board: "Cable will undoubtedly replace the Internet as the place to see independent short and feature films. It is an exciting new opportunity for filmmakers to greatly expand the audience for their films."
EXCHANGES JOIN Mediapassage and OneMedia Place merged, creating what they call "a single-source, Web-based destination for implementing ad buys" that will handle $1.2B in transactions this year. Gilbert Scherer will be chairman of One MediaPassage and co-CEO with Jerry Machovina. The company will be based in Seattle with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
HSN GETS CRAFTY HSN acquired the operating assets of Craftopia .com, giving the home-shopping network entree into the arts and crafts industry. Craftopia offers more than 60,000 unique products and projects that will be available via HSN retail channels, including TV, online and direct marketing. HSN is a unit of USA Networks.
FORD GOES ITV MetaTV has designed an interactive TV application for Ford Motor Co. that will run on the AT&T Digital Cable Network using WorldGate headend systems. The application uses the back-end infrastructure of Ford's Web site but will give the automaker access to bigger audiences, as well as an early presence in the emerging ITV arena. Viewers will get more product information. The new application is available to 6,000 AT&T Digital Cable subscribers in Waterloo and Cedar Falls, Iowa.
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