Saturday, May 3------One of the more intriguing new players in the digital download field is Film Annex. Through its website, Filmannex.com, the company's mission is to provide a new channel for promoting filmmakers and their works as well as distributing their films — to anyone with an Internet connection and selective corporate clients. Since art and independent films (particularly non-English language films) are often hugely popular at film festivals, but suffer at the distribution level to the point where they often remain undistributed or barely available with low revenues. Filmannex.com brings a new form of promotion and distribution for the art and independent film.

Film Annex empowers the filmmaker to take vital decisions for the distribution of his/her productions. The filmmaker decides the sales prices for each film, the type of player (ex. Quicktime, Flash, Microsoft Media, etc.) and the quality/size of each film/file on-line. The filmmaker can post multiple versions of the same film title at different quality and price. The filmmaker is also provided the tools to drive traffic, interest and affiliates to his/her film titles. The Filmannex.com concept is a free, flexible and global way for filmmakers to own their distribution, reach billions of potential viewers and promote their films.

This past week, Film Annex hosted a series of events at the Tribeca Film Festival to promote the company and its creative artists. The Film Annex TriBeCa Project was a series of nightly events, featuring film screenings, great music, and drinks. Events were held at M1-5 (http://www.M1-5.com), a 5000 square feet lounge on 52 Walker Street in Tribeca, New York City.

At the nightly meet-and-greets, Film Annex screened clips from its own collection of classic films, contemporary art installations, and the works of independent filmmakers and animators. Film Annex also showed clips from the latest IFC Films releases as well as short films produced with grants awarded by CTV's Bravo!FACT (Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent).

For more information, log on to: www.filmannex.com

Sandy Mandelberger, Tribeca FF Dailies Editor