At the Philadelphia Film Fest, it's not about the deal.
Greg Kohs followed a sequin-wearing Neil Diamond impersonator and his faux-Patsy Cline wife for more than eight years.
Whenever he had down-time between his day job directing MasterCard, Wal-Mart and Nike commercials, Kohs traveled to the Midwest, where he filmed a husband-and-wife team that called itself Lightning and Thunder, performing both singers' greatest hits at bars and state fairs. He also watched them at diners, at home and even at the dentist's office.
Then he turned their lives--full of unusual twists and tragic turns--into a documentary called Song Sung Blue. It'll screen twice during the Philadelphia Film Festival, which starts this week.
"It's a love story," says Kohs, a 10-time Emmy Award-winning director who honed his skills producing programs for NFL Films. "The guy just happens to sing Neil Diamond songs."
Turns out Philadelphia will be the fourth stop for the film that's already won the Grand Jury and Audience awards at the SlamDance Film Festival in Colorado. The South Jersey-based Kohs will spend much of the spring and summer bouncing across the country, attending film festival after film festival.
"It's a way of sharing my film with a captive audience," he says.
Few films shown at regional festivals ever get distribution deals. Major-label industry buyers don't frequent the Philadelphia Film Festival or the dozens of other smaller festivals that have popped up over the last 20 years. But that isn't exactly the point.
The festivals offer independent filmmakers the opportunity to showcase their work, and they bring filmmakers and film lovers together.
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Summer Guide 2009
