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Welcome to Our Newsletter and Platform
International Mobile Film Festival | The red carpet is in your pocket™
This is the International Mobile Film Festival Newsletter, a newsletter about our film festival for films shot with smartphones. We encourage you to subscribe to receive access to newsletters, updates, and other useful information. Including, opportunities to connect with participants in our film festival in person and online.
Our film festival has never been solely a film festival event that takes place once a year. It’s always been a community building effort by founder Susy Botello because when IMFF was created, there was no other festival like it. IMFF has persisted through many years, since the spring of 2009, before the iPhone 4 was launched with the first HD camera on a phone.
The festival hosted and attended networking events in San Diego. It also interacted with people who were interested in supporting the festival as collaborators.
Before the inaugural festival in April 2012, Susy had organized the Mobile Film School, a non-accredited school with one instructor in Spain, offering to teach cinematic filmmaking with iPhones, and another in New Zealand interested in teaching experimental and documentary filmmaking with iPhones and Android phones. At the same time, Susy began teaching in San Diego with hands-on workshops and masterclasses throughout the year. The Mobile Film School in San Diego launched officially in September 2012.
In order to grow the global audience, Susy Botello continuously reached out to people in San Diego and nationally. Our festival’s first sponsor found us online through those efforts. SanDiegodotCom reached out in 2010 and offered us a marketing sponsorship. Susy secured the first award sponsor for IMFF in 2010, Red Giant who continued to sponsor the festival through 2020.
Susy continued generating interest through an organic push for filmmakers to make cinematic films using mobile phones, it was not until the spring of 2012 that the IMFF was granted a community partnership sponsor, Grossmont College, where Susy is an alumni.
Our festival received praise from others who had been watching closely to see if we would succeed at creating a traditional live event film festival that only accepts movies shot with cameras on mobile phones.
During our first festival, filmmakers from California and San Diego attended. One filmmaker traveled from Macedonia to present his film, and instruct a workshop. The filmmakers walked the red carpet and attended the Awards Ceremony.
Susy launched a mobile filmmaking podcast with mobile filmmaking guests in 2017: SBP Podcast Mobile Filmmaking is available and has over 125 episodes with multiple guests.
The story of how our festival was born goes back to our founder’s personal story of connecting phones, cameras and storytelling during September 11, 2001.
S. Botello Productions™ (2006) created the festival.