The Freedom Cinema Festival was the best thing about Park City during the Sundance Film Festival this year. If there was a prize for "Best Vibe" they would surely have won. There was a consciousness in all the organizers choices that did not pervade the larger festival down the street. This is a festival that doesn't just choose excellent films that delve into important issues, it actually DOES something about them. Check the companies and organizations that were invited to support the Freedom Cinema Festival. They demonstrated a human rights consciousness (ACLU); an animal rights consciousness (Turtle Island Foods/Tofurkey); a fair-trade consciousness (Equal Exchange); and an ecological manufacturing consciousness (Interface carpets) to name a few. Co-promoting these organizations and businesses is about more than getting money and free stuff for the festival. It's about promoting real world values, which is to me what the Freedom Cinema Festival stands for.

Mark Achbar, Director, "The Corporation" "Manufacturing Consent"

"Finding the Freedom Cinema Film Festival was like "coming home". A Fair trade coffee bar, socially aware films and creative people running the festival. It was the perfect venue to screen our film about the very same kinds of expressions."

Adriane Rice
Producer "Confessions of a Burning Man"

"What an experience! The Freedom Cinema Festival combined creativity, passion, and collaboration to provide a powerful outlet for telling overlooked stories. Equal Exchange has found a new ally in the movement for social justice."

Lynsey Miller
Organizer, Equal Exchange

"I had a great experience at Freedom Cinema Festival. My film was really well attended and well received ... The people running it were great, you felt like you were part of a family while you were there which was really nice. There was a lot of support for and mutual support among filmmakers and it was probably the best small festival I've been to in that regard. I would urge anybody to submit their film or sponsor this festival. "

Chuck Sklar
Emmy winning writer for the Chris Rock Show

"FCF was great to be a part of to promote LUNA and LUNAFEST through a venue and festival that was located right along main street during Sundance. ÊAs our festival grows, we are working to raise awareness within the film community about a unique festival by, for and about women. ÊAs we find locations and other groups to work with that are intertwined with the independent film world such as FCF at Park City, we are able to generate great awareness about LUNAFEST."

Heidi Slavsky
Cliff Bar/Luna Bar/Lunafest

Keith Cohen and all of the staff at Freedom Cinema Festival went out of their way to MAKE THINGS GO RIGHT for my screenings. This type of help is
essential to filmmakers, who have enough to worry about. This festival not only created an environment to showcase my work, but to help further my reach as a filmmaker, such as setting up interviews with local TV stations.

Thanks for an awesome experience!

Celia Xavier
Producer, "Headrights"

What a great experience I had at the Freedom Cinema Festival in Park City, Utah. The energy within the whole group involved was exciting and the films they selected were incisive and provocative. I was proud to be there.

Mike Lemon CSA
Director, "Touched"

"The Freedom Cinema Festival provides a much needed venue for films that exist outside of the Indie-wood box."

Rich Hoffmann
Director, "Invisible Mountains"

"The Freedom Cinema Fest was the bastion of true undreground indie film in Park City in 2004. Keith Cohen worked tirelessly to coordinate the event and to see that things ran smoothly. Myself and my associate Mark Bernardi owe a debt of gratitude to Keith and his crew for helping us put "Rise By Sin" on the map."

Greg Santarsiero
Writer, Producer, Director "Rise By Sin"

"A true groundbreaker for DIY, activist and culture jamming cinema, the FCF was more like being part of a well-organized guerrila operation to inject a heroic dose of social & political consciousness into the heart of Sundance's mainstream indie film scene."

Chad Schultz
Writer-Director - "Conspiracized"
www.declaration.tv

Thank you so much! For all your hard work and hospitality. It was a pleasure meeting you, and I have great expectations and high hopes that even greater things are in your future. "...this gig was an amazingly positive experience for me. I learned a lot from you guys, and truly enjoyed myself the whole time I was there. The comedy show was great fun, and I had a blast. It was really cool meeting you, as well as Keith Cohen, Sean Kinney, Chuck Sklar, Jessica, Scott, and a host of other people too numerous to mention whose names are already fading from my tired sleep-lacking brain. Park City was memorably beautiful, and I am truly grateful to you for making such a great experience possible for me..."

Lori Chapman

Dear Andrew,
I wanted to write you and tell you about my experience in your festival.  "We were offered a deal on our film! Thanks for the opportunity to have a professional screening and pitch the film in Park City. A lot of festivals say they have industry, you do! Also I was very Impressed by the family feel, you guys were very supportive to the filmmakers.

I thought it was great that numerous winning films from other festivals had their parties with you guys and not with the "bigger" festivals; it gave me access to meeting people that I never would have at the other festivals.

Thanks a million.
Keep up the great work. Let "Freedom" Reign!!!

Sean Kinney
Fender Bender Films - "Accidents Don't Happen"
I.A. Ross Martin