Description
Collection consists of announcements, entry rules, posters and a "Certificate of Acceptance" designed and drawn by Eldon Dedini,
programs, awards lists, judges' comments by Eldon Dedini, filmmaker John Schofill, editor and Academy Award winner Thomas
Stanford, screenwriter and director Ben Maddow, poet and filmmaker James Broughton, and instructor/film distributor Prescott
Wright; annual reports, newspaper and magazine pieces, financial statements, correspondence with filmmakers and judges, film
entry logs, one committee voting log, budgets, contracts, cancelled checks to filmmakers and judges, and miscellaneous notes
for the five years of the Festival (1968-1972), and for two Summer Film Institutes (1972-73) associated with the Festival.
Background
The Monterey Independent Film-makers Festival originated in 1968, the brainchild of Peninsula painters Gerald Wasserman, Eugene
Newmann, and James Gore. They and a few friends had made 8mm and 16mm films out of self-motivated curiosity with the medium
or as college film students. Through the assistance of Monterey Public Librarian Ethel Solliday, Wasserman arranged for the
use of the library's Community Room to present a small festival of local films and, by invitation, of films from students
and other filmmakers in the Monterey, San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles areas. Three local film society and commercial exhibitors
served as judges and non-cash, trophy awards were made. Encouraged by the initial response of filmmakers and audience and
by then growing interest in independent and student films in the 1960s, the Committee decided to expand to a national festival
in 1969. The Festival allied with Monterey Peninsula College, which provided screening and theater facilities in the late
summer, between semesters. One thousand dollars was offered in prizes, 122 films were submitted, and paid attendance for most
programs sold out. The Festival also started enlisting professional filmmakers and critics as judges, along with local cartoonist
and former Walt Disney animator, Eldon Dedini, who served as a judge in 1969 and remained on the committee for the ensuing
festivals. Attendance, prize money, and film entries (169) increased in 1970. The Festival gained international attention,
with submissions and inquiries from England, Australia, and India. For a committee of volunteers with a low-paid coordinator,
the demands on time were growing substantially. In 1971, attendance fell off, despite more than 250 entries, $2000 in prize
money, and the use of a commercial movie theater in Carmel. The Festival lost money. In 1972, back in the non-profit accommodations
of M.P.C., attendance continued to decline and there was a decrease in film entries; prize money also had to be reduced. In
light of this situation and because the amount of work involved in putting on the Festival had not diminished, the organizing
committee, now minus several members from the original group, decided to disband the Festival. In four years as a nationally
recognized event, the Monterey Independent Film-Makers Festival had experienced accelerated growth, community concerns about
the content of some films (especially those depicting sexual conduct), an intense demand in a three-month time period each
year on a group of interested but varyingly available volunteer committee members, and a decline in public support that was
later reflected in other film festivals of this kind.