| In the Company of Strangers has meet with some success on the film festival circuit over the last six months. It was chosen as a FEATURE FILM WINNER in the Telluride IndieFest 2002 held in Telluride, Colorado over Labor Day weekend. The IndieFest runs concurrent with the bigger Telluride Film Festival but has no official connection to that event.
...Strangers was screened on the festival's closing weekend to a crowd of approximately 65 people. The audience response was very positive and encouraging.
After returning from Colorado and a series of editing sessions during which 14 minutes of movie were excised, ...Strangers made an appearance as an OFFICIAL SELECTION of the Ohio Independent Film Festival in Cleveland. The movie screened in Cleveland to a much smaller audience but again was well received.
In November of 2002, ...Strangers was screened in Las Vegas on the first leg of the three-city New York International Indepedent Film & Video Festival (NYIIFVF). Once again, the audience, though enthusiastic, was small.
It was at this festival that ...Strangers received an award for BEST DRAMATIC FEATURE FILM.
ITCOS was taken to the West Coast for the Los Angeles leg of the NYIIFVF. The screening was held on Friday, February 14, (Valentine's Day) at Raleigh Studios in the Charlie Chaplin to a crowd of approximately 175 people. It took 45 minutes to clear the room after the amazingly successful screening.
ITCOS was screened for the last time in 2005 in Park City, Utah as part of the Park City Film Music Festival where it received top honors as the Director's Choice / Gold Medal for Excellence.
Prior to the film festival circuit, the film had been screened three times. The first screening was at a small gathering of actors and musicians involved with the film. In this first screening the movie was in a very rough form and the feedback from the screening was vital in moving forward to a more finished edit.
The second screening was held at the Valentine Theatre in Downtown Toledo on November 3, 2001. One of the reasons for screening it here is because it was filmed entirely on location in Toledo using a predominantly Toledo-based cast and crew. The screening was held as a fund raiser for David's House, an AIDS/HIV treatment center in Toledo. David's House was used for two weeks as a location for the movie. According to the Gay People's Chronicle, the event raised nearly $20,000 for David's House.
A third screening was held on Sunday, May 5 in Toledo at the Dana Conference Center. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, it was one of the first beautiful days of the spring and the movie took a back seat to first communions, first lawn mowings, and an Orthodox Easter. This screening day saw a combined audience of approximately 100 attendees.
At this time, no further public screenings are planned although we are looking into opportunities to screen it at high schools and universities. These screenings would be followed by Q&A sessions.
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