Moondance December News & 2016 Call-for-entries!
MOONDANCE 2016 CALL-FOR-ENTRIES:
Accepting submissions
January 1 through June 30, 2016
IN THIS NEWS-BLOG:
- ABOUT MOONDANCE
- ANNOUNCING THE 2016 MOONDANCE FESTIVAL EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
- MOONDANCERS COME FROM AROUND THE WORLD!
- SAVE THE MANATEE
- SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
- THE CASE FOR MELANCHOLY
- THERE’S ALWAYS HOPE!
- IT’S A WONDERFUL WORLD VIDEO
Lights, Camera, Action! The Moondance International Film Festival invites all talented US & International filmmakers, writers and music composers to submit their films, written works and film scores to its 17th annual season, planned to take place in September 2016. Our fabulous & memorable festival event location venue will be announced shortly.
Moondance is known as the “American Cannes” of film festivals, and features the very best of indie films, music & writing by talented artists from around the world, Plan now to participate in this unique competition and film festival! For the last 16 years, the annual Moondance International Film Festival has showcased many hundreds of top-quality award-winning indie films, and hosted filmmakers, writers, composers, actors, industry professionals and media, from around the world.
Get Ready for Your Close-up! Moondance celebrates, encourages, inspires, and supports original independent films, written works and music, not just during our film festival, but throughout the year. Moondance screens the very best in independent cinema to enthusiastic audiences from the US and around the world. Our super-productive workshops, pitch-panels, networking parties and events, film screenings, filmmaker Q&A’s, and gala awards ceremony and reception are very popular and always very well-attended. Thanks for helping keep Moondance in the international entertainment community spotlight!
ANNOUNCING THE 2016 MOONDANCE FESTIVAL EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
GEORGES LECLERE:
A native of Paris, France, Founder and President of LGMA Inc., a global media consulting company, Georges Leclere is also the creator of several initiatives using television and media to fight the causes of global warming. Through LGMA, Leclere advises international companies on worldwide media, ranging from classic television events to future visual media on any platform. Among its clients and endeavors, LGMA was appointed director of the Banff World Television Festival Program Competition and Awards. Leclere created the Francophone TV Programs Competition and the Banff International Pilots Competition (see www.banffmediafestival.com). That same year, Leclere produced the History-Makers Awards competition and awards, (see www.historymakers2011.com). Georges is also advisor for the Foundation for International Understanding, an initiative of the US Congress, advisor for the Sichuan TV Festival in China and the Seoul Drama Awards, La Cinquième, the Franco-German Cultural Channel, ARTE, and Sesame Street Workshop. Most recently, Leclere was consultant for several companies from the Monaco Media Forum and the Rose d’Or Festival, The Prix Galien, the Elie Wiesel Foundation and will be a co-producer of the 2016 Canada International Film & Television Festival in Vancouver, Canada.
Leclere, together with the board of directors, has started a new initiative: Music as a Natural Resource, (www.musicasanaturalresource.com), for which he produces the awards ceremony. Georges Leclere is an international journalist, producer and communications specialist who from 1986 through 1993, served as director of radio and TV for the United Nations. Currently a Fellow of the International Academy, Leclere is credited with the creation of the iEMMYs Festival, screening International Emmy-nominated programs. The French Government has awarded Georges Leclere the prestigious Medal of “Chevalier des Arts & des Lettres”. He is now the executive producer for the Moondance International Film Festival!
MOONDANCERS COME FROM AROUND THE WORLD!
Moondancers are part of an amazing worldwide community; a unique collaboration of multi-talented writers, film score composers, filmmakers and audiences. The Moondance mission is to entertain, inform, inspire, encourage and educate. We honor those artists who, through their creative work, actively increase awareness, provide multiple viewpoints, address complex social issues, and strengthen ties between international audiences At Moondance, you can come together with film audiences, filmmakers, writers, directors, producers, actors, agents, and composers to create new opportunities, develop tools for success and forge new alliances within the international film and entertainment industry.
In our continuing efforts to promote top-quality original filmmaking, writing and music composition by talented artists from around the world, the Moondance International Film Festival is very pleased to announce that our festival competitions have brought in great submissions, in all categories, from: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Curaçao, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Marshall Islands, Mexico, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tasmania, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Republic, the UK & US, Venezuela, and more! Come join us!
MOONDANCE RECOMMENDS & SUPPORTS:
Manatees are gentle and slow-moving animals. Most of their time is spent eating, resting, and traveling, and it is believed they can live 60 years or more.. The manatee’s closest relatives are the elephant and the hyrax (a small, gopher-sized mammal). Manatees are believed to have evolved from a wading, plant-eating animal. The average adult manatee is about 10 feet long and weighs between 800 and 1,200 pounds. The Florida Manatee Recovery Plan was developed as a result of the Endangered Species Act. The recovery plan is coordinated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and sets forth a list of tasks geared toward recovering manatees from their current endangered status. Manatees are easily injured or killed due to their large size and generally slow pace, which makes them vulnerable to being hit by motorboats and caught in fishing nets.
Because of its warm waters, Florida’s Blue Spring State Park is a winter refuge for a growing number of manatees (pictured). Photo by Paul Nicklen, National Geographic
Sailors across many cultures have thought these aquatic mammals were the mythical mermaids! The scientific name for manatees is Sirenia, a name reminiscent of mythical mermaids, or sirens of the sea. Save the Manatee Club’s mission is to protect endangered manatees and their aquatic habitat for future generations. To achieve this mission, we work to: increase public awareness and education; sponsor manatee research, rescue, rehabilitation, and release efforts; and advocate for strong protection measures, such as boat speed zones and sanctuaries. SMC also supports research and conservation efforts for other sirenian species around the world. Adopt-A-Manatee® now and help support manatee protection efforts! Unlike some other animal adoption programs, the manatees in our adoption programs are real, living manatees with names & known histories.
SOME THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:
“True peace is a state of mind brought about only by peaceful people.” ~ Jawaharal Nehru
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“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle, or the mirror.” ~ Edith Wharton
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Illustration by E. H. Shepard
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.” ~ A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
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“Seek freedom, and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline, and you find your liberty.” ~ Frank Herbert
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“Amelia” Photo by SKV
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect, and beginning to work on just becoming your best self.” ~ Anna Quindlen
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“There is much more to creative endeavors, riding races, and survival than fearlessness and being able to stay in the saddle; more than tactics, more than experience, more than ambition. Winning races, like survival or success, begins in the mind.” ~ Excerpted & edited from “Longshot”, by Dick Francis
THE CASE FOR MELANCHOLY
Melancholy’s Sweet Allure
By Laren Stover – Nov. 7, 2015 – NYT (excerpted)
Illustration by Shannon Freshwater
Everywhere you look these days you see something on how to be happy — how to manifest abundance, desires and success, find your bliss. A quick Google search will produce instantaneous remedies for the blues: the promise that it’s possible to find happiness in 10 or 15 easy steps. Some strategies promise happiness in as few as three steps.
Whatever happened to experiencing the grace of melancholy, which requires reflection: a sort of mental steeping, like tea? What if all this cheerful advice only makes you feel inadequate? What if you were born morose? Melancholy, distinguished from grief, is not caused by events, like losing your job, the passing of beloved pets, your miscarriages or health problems. Nor does it vanish when you receive excellent news, like a big film star optioning your novel, or being invited to an all-expenses-paid trip to Venice for the Biennale.
Melancholy is more … ephemeral.
It visits you like a mist, a vapor, a fog. It is generally uninvited. And as some people are born into royalty, wealth and prestige, others inherit a disposition for sadness. Personally, I’d much rather open the windows to the fragrant garden of melancholy, and spritz on something to go with ennui, reflection, wistfulness. Such a gentle perfume might smell like autumn rain, or a rain-damp windowsill infused with wilted, decaying roses and tears.
Should melancholy descend, you may as well welcome it, wear your finest lounging outfit; give it your finest fainting couch or chaise to lounge in, or that hammock stretched between two elm trees. Let it settle in. You may as well enjoy it reclining with a pot of green thunder tea as you watch the rolled leaves unfurl their poetic fury as it steeps, as you listen to Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloé” or Jean Françaix’s Concertino for Piano and Orchestra, 2a.
I propose there be melancholy perfumes, fashions, footwear (no running shoes under any circumstances), music (Lana Del Rey is the melancholy diva du jour, and Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday still work), elixirs (no alcohol; look what happened to Edgar Allan Poe) and furniture ideally suited for indulging in or succumbing to the deeply tinted blue moods….I want moonlight.
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Photo by Paul Emerson
“Hope requires stepping out from the past and looking to the future. It’s about imagining a better tomorrow and being prepared to do what it takes to make it so. It’s about creating a vision and taking affirmative action. It makes the difference between success and failure, triumph or defeat, confidence or fearfulness. Hope is the leading indicator of success in relationships, academics, career, and business—as well as of a healthier, happier life. Without the proactive approach of constructive and creative endeavour, the belief that tomorrow will be better than today is merely an optimistic attitude. Wishful thinking doesn’t get us where we want to be, hard work in the right direction does. To create a hopeful attitude we must use our imaginations to envision positive outcomes, we must develop a plan of action and we must take the necessary steps. When we actually do something about making the future a better place, then we are living in the real definition of hope.” ~ Lou Hamilton, award-winning screenwriter & filmmaker, career coach, UK READ MORE
Clark Little shooting a wave in Hawaii, www.clarklittlephotography.com
“It requires bravery to do something no one else around you is doing.” ~ Amber Heard
IT’S A WONDERFUL WORLD VIDEO:
Don’t miss this beautiful & inspiring BBC video,
narrated by Richard Attenborough!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/auSo1MyWf8g?rel=0
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PROFESSIONAL COVERAGE OF YOUR SCRIPT OR FILM!
Ready to get your screenplay or film on the right track? 7seas Productions now offers script reading services, critiques, coverage and edits to all screenwriters, playwrights & filmmakers, and to production companies and agencies, at special discount prices!
Focusing on the elements crucial to creating a compelling and readable script, and/or a winning, marketable film, our helpful comments will allow you to concentrate on solving the problems that will make your material move toward receiving a CONSIDER or a RECOMMENDED from a studio or production company reader, and will assist in advancing your script or film up toward WINNER in screenwriting competitions & film festivals.
A big advantage of this low-cost critique service is that we will help you prepare your screenplay before sending it to screenwriting competitions, film producers, agents, managers and others who may have requested it. READ MORE
~ ELIZABETH ENGLISH ~
Please forward this news-blog to your creative artist colleagues!
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?
WEBSITE: www.moondancefilmfestival.com
BLOG: www.moondancefilmfestival.com/blog
