Resfest: the Festival World Tour
September 3 - December 7 (various cities worldwide)

Unlike most festivals, which stay grounded in one city, Resfest pauses for three to five days in cities around the world. Organized by the RES Media Group (res.com), Resfest grew out of the success of their first festival effort, the "Low Res Fest." Just one year later, it dropped the "Low" from the title and has since built a reputation of showcasing up-and-comers, including Spike Jonze (who later directed the hit Being John Malkovich), Love God (which went on to be the first DV feature at Sundance), and The Last Broadcast (a $900 DV feature that was the first to transmit to theaters via satellite).

Today, the official sponsor is IBM and others include: BARCO, Adobe, Canon, Discreet, Eveo, Directors Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild, Pinnacle Systems, sputnik7, MediaTrip, Ultra 16, Skyy Vodka, Thousand Words, Artbyte and Total Movie Magazine. Organizers screened more than 1,200 films and narrowed the field down to a final selection of just 75. These have been divided into seven categories: Resfest Shorts, Long Shorts, Features, Cinema Electronica, Net Cinema, Shorts Interactive, and Lobby Films.

Two popular portions of the festival, the Shorts and Long Shorts programs, will premiere new films by artists working in a variety of digital media formats, including: Figures of Speech by Tommy Pallotta and Bob Sabiston; Sweet, a short DV film by Elyse Couvillion and renowned cinematographer Allen Daviau (whose feature film work includes The Color Purple and ET); Jubilee Line by Tim Hope; and Avenue Amy, an innovative short by Joan Raspo, featuring Amy Sohn, a sex columnist at the New York Press. World premieres at Resfest include Beebeard and the World Record Heroes (Beebeard.com); Kozik's Inferno and Anita Bomba (Wild Brain); and Rocket Pants (Mondo Media).

This year, Resfest will launch "Net Cinema," which includes short animated works created exclusively for the Internet. In addition to the international touring schedule, Resfest has dedicated Saturday, November 4th and Sunday, November 5th in Los Angeles for "Net Cinema 2000," a special conference featuring exclusive screenings, panel discussions and seminars devoted to the topics of content creation and distribution over the Web.

The Net Cinema works produced and directed by Angry Monkey include Sub: Division, an animated story set in 1968 about the inability to let go of the past, and Unnecessary Surgery, a story of a young man's visit to Dr. Cthulu. With Unnecessary Surgery, viewers can use a Mood-O-Meter on the screen to select their viewing preference: either as a horror tale or a laugh-track-laden sitcom. This piece was created using Shockwave and Flash animation software. This year's tour begins at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco (September 7 - 9) with a screening of Sam The Man from Gary Winick starring Maria Bello, Luis Guzman, Rob Morrow, Annabella Sciorra, and Fisher Stevens.

The festival will close with Wave Twisters from San Francisco directors Eric Henry and Syd Garon (from Angry Monkey). The film is billed as a sci-fi/kung-fu epic, with original music from QBert. After San Fran, the fest heads to Seattle (September 14 - 17); London (September 28 - 30); Chicago (October 5 - 7); Montreal (October 16 - 18); New York (October 18 - 21); Los Angeles (November 1 - 3); Los Angeles (November 4); Los Angeles (November 5); Seoul (November 16 - 19); Tokyo (November 24 - 26); and Osaka (December 2 - 3). In all the cities, films are projected using state-of-the-art digital projection systems at venues including the Directors Guild of America (NY/LA), the Palace of Fine Arts (SF), and the American Cinematheque (LA), among others.