Very nice of the Ukraine film festival to put us on the front of their film journal and thanks to the good people at Reel Ireland for sending us on the picture. We’re in a flurry of festivals still around the planet this March as St. Patrick’s day approaches. 32A is participating in festivals and screenings in the Ukraine, Zagreb, Florida, The Hague, Guyana, Vienna, Dusseldorf, Cuba, and Marian’s hometown (finally...) Chicago.

We see we were on television in The Netherlands last night. Hi to all of you, very nice of you to come and visit.

If any of you missed it and will be near Den Haag this coming St. Patrick’s Day we will also be screening outdoors there, which sounds like a lot of fun.

One of the joys of the internet is we know when our film has screened in different territories from all the visitors to our site. We are very happy to have screened in France, a country which has inspired us as filmmakers. To the land of Truffaut et al, thanks for coming by, merci bien.

Just to let you all know that Mount Analogue Revisited by Joe and Pat Walker will have it's official first screening this week in Mother's Tankstation gallery in Dublin.

Full details are available on the Mother's Tankstation site.

Admission today for the premiere with screenings this Thursday and Friday.

Marian is off to Washington DC this week to participate in the wonderful Capital Irish Film Festival, run by the very good folks at Solas Nua who do an incredible amount of work showcasing all aspects of Irish culture in Washington.

If you're in the Capital you can purchase tickets on the site, 32A screens this coming Tuesday at 7PM with Marian doing a Q&A afterwards. There's even a meetup organised by a group called The Culture Club.

On a side note it was very nice to see a still from 32A at the top of the Washington Posts listings guide today.

First things first, 32A is on the Leaving Cert English course for the class of 2012. Which is fantastic. And we really do hope that the students enjoy 32A.

Secondly, we thought we should let you know that the good folks at the IFI have done a study guide which is available from their site. This features interviews and an analysis of the film which should be useful. In addition to that, we also have a study guide prepared for students of English in Germany which accompanied our tour around cinemas over there. People might find the differences and similarities interesting.

Feel free to peruse and download the stills and clips and reviews and history here on our site.

And finally, and not least, the DVD is still available for sale at these links!

Francis Ford Coppola calls it in 1979.

It's the year 32A is set in so... heck we thought we'd share. They're about to award the directing Oscar to Michael Cimino for The Deer Hunter and something tells me he didn't let Ali McGraw know what he was going to chat about. And while he was wrong about the Eighties... in principle he was right on the money.

We’ve been big fans of Arin Crumley and Susan Buice’s Four Eyed Monsters project, a pioneering approach by two filmmakers who blended their online presence, video podcasts, crowd-sourced screenings and the feature itself to bring a small film to a global audience.

Arin has partnered with Kieran Masterson in the UK to develop a new venture OpenIndie. And we’re proud to be a part of that with our feature 32A.

Essentially it’s way that distribution can happen in a very local way, people can log in and express interest in exhibiting feature films to audiences. It could be an individual theatre, or a film society or a particular College or Festival. Filmmakers can, in turn, choose where to show and in what way, either via download or print.

Why the need for this? Independent filmmakers are seeking new ways of reaching audiences as the global market becomes ever more cautious and studios move towards guaranteed success with hugely marketed rides like Tron Legacy or Avatar. Moviemaking becomes more like engineering and less like storytelling. Part of the answer lies in embracing the web technologies, from audience reach and promotion to actual film downloads, when you make a connection with your audience that’s based upon a relationship.

OpenIndie is at an early beta phase right now and things are still being rolled out but they're off to a great start and it’s a ground up venture initiated by filmmakers themselves.

It’s March... My goodness. How did that happen. We must have been busy...

We’ve recently been producing a website for an author friend of ours Ivan Robertson. He’s someone we’ve known for a while and who’s written work for us, including the low budget The Angelus, an Irish Film Board Short Short a few years ago. It toured on 50 prints around Ireland with Bruce Almighty, so quite well known to a few people. A spoof of Ireland’s Angelus on television, it’s even spawned a few spoofs itself.

Ivan is an author and we’re publishing with him a set of short stories entitled Routes 1&9. A collection of ten stories covering the distance between a roadside motel in Oregon, a gas station in Ohio, a dead man’s basement in Upstate New York, and the Harry Truman Museum. Some of the stories were first published in The Stinging Fly and Books Ireland.

We’re releasing the stories progressively, people can download the audiobook format, the PDFs or listen directly on the site. Heck, there’s even a podcast. Ivan writes a mean blog as well, an interesting twist on what a writer’s blog can be.

Anyway, hope you enjoy, please check it out. www.ivanrobertson.com

First of all, thank you to all of you who picked up the DVD of 32A. It means a lot to us that so many of you rented the DVD. In fact a lot of you bought it which is amazing. We’ve had wonderful comments and feedback from everyone, which is much appreciated, thanks to all.

Now it’s Christmas and hopefully a few of you will be getting up to a DVD of 32A in your stocking. And in case Santa doesn’t pop one in, you’ll be glad to hear that 32A is on RTE2 this coming New Year’s Eve at 9.00PM. We’re not quite a Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special but it’s still nice to be part of so many people’s Christmas.