The sun came out yesterday afternoon for gin and tonics on the Quad while The Bollywood Brass Band marched around the college playing famous songs from Bollywood movies. Today it’s The Big Pitch in the Oxford Playhouse and screenings including Up the Yangtze, Thriller in Manila, At the Death House Door and Heavy Metal in Baghdad.

Croquet on the Quad

The Bollywood Brass Band

Heather Croall, James Mullighan, Charlie Phillips and other peeps sipping G&Ts on the lawn

Ryan Harrington and Debra Zimmerman

Blurry distribution: Matt Dentler (Cinetic), Tim Sparke (Joining the Dots TV), Jess Search (moderator), Jamie King (Steal This Film) and Andrew Creighton (Vice)

I was up with the birds this morning to prepare for Britdoc which starts today. It’s so great to be back at Keble and there are so many really fantastic people attending this year. My Surgeries (nothing medical, just one-to-one meetings with industry experts) start with aplomb at noon today with Cara Mertes from Sundance. Followed my some of my favorite doc folk: Julie Goldman, Ryan Harrington, Matt Dentler, Danielle DiGiacomo, Debra Zimmerman, Judith Helfand and Robert West. . . it’s a long and distinguished list.

Here are some photos I took this morning as I wandered around the college.

Bootiful Keble College

Bootiful Keble College Quad

Our volunteers are mighty strong

Delegate bags awaiting delegates

Extremely helpful signage

Magazines in the Surgery waiting room - awaiting doc patients!

Big indie film news this morning as SnagFilms launches a Beta site with free streaming features including Super Size Me, Run Granny Run and Dig! - films that you can also embed as a widget which I am very excited about (I’m a big fan of widgets). I’m desperate to have a play with SnagFilms but am so snowed with work in London that I only have time to write this very brief blog post. So check out all the news on indieWIRE and explore SnagFilms on my behalf.

Full Battle Rattle opens at Film Forum today and we have an interview with the directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber up on Shooting People. Read the interview and see the film. It’s surreal and powerful - the US military can’t control a simulation so how can they control a war?

I may be over-tired and over-sentimental but this video does make me grin like a fool. Just like Boing Boing said it would!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Another new post is up on TOOLS, this time about The Conversation “a two-day conversation — definitely not a conference — about the future of cinema, video, games, and telling stories with new media” coming up in Berkeley, CA later this year and bought to you by Ken Goldberg, Scott Kirsner, Tiffany Shlain and Lance Weiler.

I definitely plan to attend this because I know many of the people involved and I’m sure it will be a really useful and inspirational couple of days. Plus I’m determined to be looking forward, not back, as we figure out how to live digitally as artists (who need to eat and pay rent!)

The 2008 SXSWclick! finalists have been announced and you can watch all fifteen online and vote for your favorites. I’m really pleased to be a juror in the Really Real Shorts category along with Ambulante Documentary Film Festival’s Elena Fortes Acosta and Frownland DoP Sean Williams. Check the films out online now.

I have just published a post on our TOOLS blog about the current discussions over Mark Gill’s talk at the Los Angeles Film Festival’s Financing Conference.

I am consumed with how to get from here (between past and future models, looming recession, endless noise, very little signal, embattled communities) to there (is there a there there?) I know this is all terribly obtuse but I’m figuring this stuff out too! Bottom line: I know that organizations like Shooting People are going to have to be at the forefront of experimentation, community building and innovation. It’s daunting but I know so many amazing people working hard to figure this out and we have tools and resources like never before. As William Gibson said: “The future has already happened, it is just unequally distributed.”

The BRITDOC festival is coming up later this month in the UK: July 23-25 at Keble College, Oxford. I should declare my allegiances straight away because I am good friends with the BRITDOC gang and have helped out at the fest since its inception but, blatant bias aside, it really is a wonderful event and does all the things a good festival should by showing great films, creating genuine community and giving filmmakers useful resources going forward (from strategic knowledge and contacts to cold hard cash). BRITDOC’s themes this year are comedy and music, and events include pitching forums, speed networking with composers, talking sessions (including Larry Charles in conversation) and the Handlebar Moustache Disco!

I’m producing the Surgeries again this year which gives filmmakers the chance to get one-on-one meetings with experts including Cara Mertes (Sundance Institute), Debra Zimmerman (Women Make Movies), Cynthia Kane (ITVS) and Matt Dentler (Cinetic). If you are coming to BRITDOC make sure you apply to see one of our good Doctors!

With so much attention on the hardships faced by some sectors of the independent film community at the moment, an event like BRITDOC is a real tonic. We may be a ship of fools but it is a ship I am happy to be sailing on!

I know this has been around for a while but I often play this clip from the South Park “Canada on Strike” episode when I’m talking to people about digital distribution so I thought it was about time I put it up on my blog!

And I just gotta throw in this clip too. All the internet stars waiting to collect their money. Priceless!