Indianapolis Gets an Honorable Mention as a Top City for Independent Filmmakers for 2004

Excerpts from MovieMaker Magazine, Winter 2002

If ever there were an opportunity to join a growing film community in its early stages, this is it.

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Much of the excitement has built from the success of Shari Lynn Himes' award-winning short, A Song for Jade, and the first Indianapolis Underground Film Festival, organized by a loose-knit group of film school cohorts called The Film Commune. "That festival was a flashpoint," says Pogue, "as people realized how much work was being done."

With the local ABC affiliate, the Film Commune is now running a 13-episode TV show on the local scene; Indy's mayor has appeared on it twice already to boost arts awareness. Shari Lynn Himes runs The Screening Room, a showcase for independent work from the film festival circuit, while The Key Cinema invites local moviemakers to screen their works and take questions and answers every month. And moviemakers like Garrett Crowe, Williamson Howe, Richard Payne and Dan Hall are making feature films of high quality with commercial success. Local audiences are steadily growing and, as Hall notes, "Indy is incubating film into a viable source of income for people."

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