Michelle Prevost's doc "Trained in the Ways of Men," a film about a transgender hate crime, was well-received upon its film festival premiere, but like many fest offerings, it occupied too narrow a niche to interest mainstream distributors.

So festival execs took a page out of the do-it-yourself playbook written by Sundance -- which has expanded into a year-round institute, a cable channel, a DVD label and a theater chain -- and decided to distribute the film itself.

The DVDs were a success right off the bat, says San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival co-founder and director of distribution Halfdan Hussey. "Orders have poured in from major retailers. We've sold 10,000 units so far. For a doc, that's a huge surprise."

With the festival scene more crowded than ever, individual fests are coming up with innovative ways to stand out from the crowd and help filmmakers broach the indie gulf that leaves so many titles each year without distribution.

"We are a full distribution company," explains Hussey of Cinequest, which started a DVD label in 2006 using festival buzz to drive sales. "We create the artwork, we market the films and we sell them to major chains like Blockbuster, as well as on our website."

Hussey can't handle every film that plays at the fest, and the ones believed to be marketable are encouraged to shop for potential theatrical offers before committing to Cinequest distribution.

Still, Cinequest Distribution offers a generous split. After the company takes modest hard costs of creating the artwork and pressing the discs, "the split is either 70/30, benefiting the filmmaker. Or it's 60/40 if we pay a minimum guarantee," Hussey says.

The push to get downloading and DVD sales for festival titles points up the difficulty in generating distributor interest for smaller films.

In fact, there's so little chance that most festival titles will see theatrical distribution that many filmmakers are counting on booking fees from the festivals themselves to provide a minimal cash flow while they hope for eventual distribution deals.

This year, North Carolina's River Run Film Festival has been hit up by filmmakers for "screening fees" ranging from $300 to $1,000. Fest programmer Andrew Rodgers says these fees are so prevalent that "other festival directors now warn me off films they know ask for money."

PFLAG "Friends of the Children Award"

April 20th 2007

Fremont PFLAG awarded me the Friends of the Children award for making my movie and all the other support that have done with them.

Special Congressional Recognition

April 20th 2007

I was awarded the Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition for my movie. Pete Stark has been a long supporter of the GLBT community.