Ted Hope to lead Viewster fest jury

Ted Hope, one of the leading US independent film producers is heading up the jury of first quarterly Viewster Online Film Fest (#VOFF) which will showcase films and series made by emerging international producers.

Viewster, the free European video-on-demand service, is launching the new online festival and is offering total prize money of $100,000 to the winning producers.

#VOFF It will enable up-and-coming producers to submit their films or series to be voted on by Viewster’s online audience. These will whittled down to create a shortlist for Viewster’s ‘Jury of Experts’ to be headed by Hope, the former Good Machine and This Is That producer.

The theme of the first #VOFF is black humour and is called ‘When Life Gives You Lemons..’. The submission deadline is February 20, 2014. The winners will be announced on April 1, 2014.         

“I wish a competition like this existed when I started out,” says Hope, whose producing credits include In The Bedroom, 21 Grams and Martha Marcy May Marlene. “The film business is damn hard and you need to jump through all sort of hoops to make a name for yourself. Viewster is the perfect platform for producers, independent or not, everyone can take part and that’s what our community needs - a platform that enables talent to showcase their work.”

“I’m extremely proud to be able to give something back to the film community,” said Viewster CEO Kai Henniges. “In the #VOFF, we empower our audience to become the curators and bring them very close to the creatives.”