Blog:

It's hard to imagine that the digital film festival Resfest that sweeps through San Francisco city every year and across the rest of the world is already celebrating its tenth anniversary. I first learned about the festival from a WIred News article (similar to this one though I think it was 1999 when I first attended). Of the nine previous festivals, I think that I've probably hit about five at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. It's a blast and I recommend the late night Cinema Electronica session.

Resfest offers a bi-monthly magazines to its fan base that I only started subscribing to about a year ago. My primary motivation for the subscription is a DVD that ships with it that includes an eclectic mix of short films, music videos and other interesting content -- some of which is ultimately featured at the festival. The articles tend to be hit and miss, but the most recent issue featured an intriguing story about do it yourself mobile drive-in theaters by creator and organizer Bryan Kennedy. The article describes how, with an FM transmitter, a capable power inverter and a portable projector, groups of people can create drive-in theaters anytime and anywhere (see the MobMov Manifesto).

This sense of techcommunity reminds me a bit of Geocaching in that virtually anyone can participate ("open source" real-world entertainment). New chapters are appearing all over the world -- from Berkeley where it started all the way to Moscow. If you are interested in participating, go to the MobMov Sign-up Page, sign-up, and check out the MobMov Forums for upcoming shows. Or read the MobMov Manifesto and start yo ur own chapter. Fair warning: not surprisingly, most of the films shown seem to be fairly obscure independent films in part due to the target audience and for legal reasons.