Since 2002, for five years running, Cineworld Cinemas is proud to once again be the principal sponsor of the Raindance Film Festival. The landmark Cineworld Haymarket hosts the opening and closing night gala celebrations with the bulk of the festival unspooling at the Trocadero. Festival screenings take place at Cineworld Shaftesbury. Cineworld staff and Unlimited passholders are amongst the festival’s staunchest supporters

Back for their fourth year as a major supporter of the festival, Tiscali are once again holding the Tiscali Short Film Award competition which is open to first time, UK filmmakers. The award voting takes place online at Tiscali.co.uk with the winner taking home £1000 in cash.

Tiscali are also introducing an innovative online scheme with Raindance, hosting virtual screenings of selected features and short films from the festival on Tiscali.co.uk. These screenings will take place simultaneously with the off-line festival allowing film fans who are unable to travel to Central London the chance to enjoy the Raindance experience as it happens.

After a successful debut year, Raindance welcomes Delta as the official airline of the festival. Delta supports the Best UK Short Film Award with a prize of 2 return tickets to anywhere in the US. The prize was designed to give UK filmmakers the opportunity to attend screenings of their film in US festivals. Last year’s winner, Osbert Parker, used his tickets to fly to Aspen Shorts Fest where he was awarded the best animation prize for his short film.

New for this year, Delta are enabling three US filmmakers to fly to London to attend their films’ screenings at Raindance Film Festival.

In 2004, Diesel introduced the Diesel Film of the Festival Award to a film chosen for showing bravery and originality in filmmaking. Part of the award is a cash budget to the winning filmmaker to producer the cinema ident for the next year’s festival. That year, Cam Archer won the award which got him noticed by Gus Van Sant who ended up producing his debut feature film which premiered at Sundance in 2006.

The award proved such a success, that the 2005 winner, the Japanese director Kosai Sekine won 3 Gold Palms at the 2006 Cannes Advertising Festival. The trailer for this year’s festival has been created by last year’s winners: the Australian based filmmakers Kasimir Burgess and Edwin McGill. To learn more about the Diesel Film of the Festival read here

Canon is proud to support independent moviemaking at the 15th Raindance Film Festival. Raindance celebrates the spirit of cutting-edge film and has an admirable record uncovering fresh moviemaking talent. Just like Raindance, Canon is committed to supporting independent filmmakers – by consistently providing accessible, high quality camcorders to help them realise their creative ambitions. 

Canon’s activities at Raindance include sponsorship of a new award that recognises the best cinematography in a short film. Judged by a panel of leading DoPs, the most exciting new cinematographer at this year’s Raindance will receive a Canon XH A1 – the indie moviemaker’s camcorder of choice.

Canon is also hosting a special HD Masterclass with Anthony Dod Mantle, one of Europe’s most respected DoPs, as host for the session. An HD pioneer, Anthony was one of the first cinematographers in Europe to shoot on the XL H1. Anthony is joined by Stefan Ciupek, one of Europe’s leading HD gurus. As close collaborators on a number of projects – many of which were shot on Canon HD. The Canon HD Masterclass is not to be missed.
Full event details

Make sure you also visit Canon’s HD Touch & Try stands, located in London’s Trocadero Centre over six days – during the periods 27-29 September and 4-6 October Canon experts will be on hand to demonstrate the ins and outs of our HD range.
 
Canon wishes you a great festival.

The Rex Cinema + Bar is hosting this year’s Festival Lounge with special events, advance screenings, and a networking centre ironically sited in the same premises as the debut Raindance Film Festival in 1993. Stylish, decadent, yet relaxed, the Rex is the perfect match for Raindance.

2007 marks the creation of the Adobe Animation Award for best animated short film, the Adobe Masterclass series in the festivallounge on topics such as creative manipulation of audio, HD, and visual effects. Raindance will also throw the Adobe Filmmakers Networking Party. You don’t need to be a filmmaker to benefit from Adobe’s sponsorship. Drop in the fetival lounge for Adobe’s daily demos.

Raindance is pleased to announce that the fashion jewelry and watch designer, Fossil, will once again be sponsoring the Closing Night Party on October 7th.

Additionally, Fossil has kindly supplied the 15th limited edition Raindance bag.

It’s easy to sit in a cinema, watch a movie and forget how everything arrived in the cinema on time for the screening. National Screen Services makes certain that prints, posters and marketing materials are distributed to cinemas across the country. This year NSS has sponsored the printing of our leaflets and flyers.

Raindance has always been associated with cutting edge music films. HMV has agreed to sponsor the screening of Performance, chosen by jury member Mick Jones, founder of The Clash.

SAE, the international digital training college with British camuses in Glasgow, Liverpool and London, returns to Raindance for the 2nd year running. Raindance created the SAE Best Digital Short Film Award – honouring a short film made using digital means only, and SAE is sponsoring a special event

Through more than 70 facilities in California, New York, London, Singapore and other locations throughout the world, Ascent Media provides effective solutions for the creation, management and distribution of content to major motion picture studios, independent  producers, broadcast networks, cable channels, advertising agencies and other companies that produce, own and/or distribute content.

Raindance has enjoyed the premium design services of Bitch Rabbit since 1998.

Official beer sponsor of the festival and all special events again in 2007. This includes opening and closing night galas, Live!Ammunition!, our monthly Raindance Film Club, and Raindance Open Evenings. Cobra run a shorts competition entitled Cobravision which gives selected films their own 50-second slot before featured films on itv4.

Raindance utilises the powerful PR tools of ImageNet to assist us in promoting the festival to a wider audience

Kodak sponsors a Special cinematography masterclass. Last year’s event featured  cinematographer Phil Meheux (Casino Royale).

The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation supports our critically acclaimed Way Out East programme, Making it possible to import/export heavy film prints and pay screening fees.

The Italian Cultural Institute makes it possible to meet the import/export costs of Italian films screened at Raindance and offers support in sourcing the best new Italian films.

Thanks to the generous support of The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Raindance is able to fund the trip of prolific indie Japanese filmmaker Ryuichi Hiroki to the festival who will be screening 3 of his films and holding Q&A’s

Instituto Cervantes makes it possible to meet the import/export costs of Spanish films screened at Raindance and offers support in sourcing the best new Spanish speaking films.

Who said indie film had a small audience? Rotten Tomatoes boasts over 25 million visitors each month, and are covering Raindance on their international website

Shooting People and Raindance go back ages, and this year, Shooting People is once again getting behind the premiere indie festival in the UK, hosting panel discussions, and filmmaker Q&A’s.

What better media support could Raindance expect, than from a cool magazine run by passionates who love to DJ at Raindance parties? Answer: Plan B.

Indie freelance writer Anthony Quinn is on our jury for the 2nd year