Washington, D.C., November 05, 2009 | SHOOT Publicity Wire | --- AmericaFree.TV LLC (www.americafree.tv), a leading Television Internet broadcaster, will offer state-of-the-art virtual networking opportunities for independent filmmakers and studio executives at their first annual film festival.

The festival will be held online with an award ceremony in Los Angeles, CA, on February 2, 2010. AFTV is accepting feature-length and short films (45-150 minutes long) of any genre. The regular submission deadline for filmmakers is November 15.

Independent filmmakers whose films are accepted into the film festival will have them distributed in high definition (HD) to the more than 10 million AFTV viewers. AFTV will also include links to each film's website throughout the festival and provide interactive conversations with movie producers and international distributors. There is also potential for virtual "worldwide viewing parties" with festival attendees, fellow filmmakers, and film executives. AmericaFree.TV will also facilitate the sale of distribution rights for Festival movies by offering Telepresence sessions between film-makers and distribution partners. The winner of the virtual movie fest will receive a grand prize of $2,000, a public screening in Los Angeles, CA in concert with film institute, and publicity on behalf of their movie from AmericaFree.TV. "We are reinventing the film festival and transforming it into a virtual gathering," noted Sanna Choe Lund, production manager of the festival. "AFTV's virtual film fest makes it easy to connect communities around great films that might otherwise sit in studio vaults."

Judges for the online film festival will include Chuck Porter (Advertising Executive, Crispin Porter & Bogusky), Eleanor Tagliati (filmmaker), Gigi Johnson (UCLA), Jeff Porro (Writer, The Great Debaters), Bob Eisele (Hollywood Exec), and Sanna Lund (Production Designer, Zentropa films in Copenhagen, Denmark).

"The motion picture industry is going the way of the recording business, and the film festival will have to change with the rest of the industry" said Marshall Eubanks, CEO of AFTV. "Independent film-makers need to start taking advantage of the opportunities provided by new technologies as their old models of finding an audience and distribution will soon cease to work. In addition, our film festival will have a tiny fraction of the carbon footprint of even a small conventional festival."

To submit a film for the AmericaFree.tv Virtual Film Festival, please visit www.americafree.tv, Without a Box (www.withoutabox.com), keyword "AmericaFreeTV", or contact Sanna Choe Lund, Virtual Film Fest Producer at SannaChoeLund@gmail.com.

AmericaFree.TV (AFTV) broadcasts professionally-produced content on 20 channels that can be viewed over the Internet. To learn more about AFTV, visit the AmericaFree.tv site at www.AmericaFree.tv, or learn about AFTV's virtual film festival at www.virtualmoviefestival.com.

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