June 2003

Tucson, Arizona, has a long history of filmmaking, dating back to the good old days when Old Tucson Studios was built, in 1940, for the epic western "Arizona". There is a clique of skilled filmmakers that still try to eke out a living making feature films in Tucson, and some of them, looking for word of paying gigs, occasionally show up at AIVF Salon meetings. And then there's the rest of us—film lovers who are tired of waiting around for Hollywood productions to come to town and just want to make movies. We make up the core group of the AIVF Salon.

The notion of the starving artist is a romantic one. Sepia-toned images float through our collective minds of creative geniuses scraping together enough pennies to drink a pastis in a Boulevard Saint Germain cafe, tummies growling while masterpieces bubble up in their brains.

STEP 1: GENERATE SUPPORT

When and why was Samuel Goldwyn Films created?

Independent producers in Los Angeles are finding more ways of getting their work produced, critiqued, and distributed. Still, there is a need for a local group that can address the concerns shared by all independents. The active members of the LA Salon represent as diverse a cross section of the media community as one could imagine.

While cleaning out my attic in 1998 I had an idea for a short film. I found a box of notes I had passed back and forth with my high school friends. Aside from bringing back a flood of memories, I found many to be extremely intimate, present-day windows into the lives of adolescent girls, and began plans to stitch them into a film.

Even though no new episodes will be produced past the current season, the production unit behind PBS’s "EGG": The Arts Show is going strong.

Over the past six years, the New Jersey Salon has been hosting networking events and screening works from local filmmakers. In the first couple of years, it was difficult for the Salon to gel, as it bounced around local coffee shops before finding a permanent home three years ago in the offices of Salon leader Allen Chou's Passion River Productions, in Edison.