Revisiting the point of entry into the greater indie film blogging community

I am writing a possible intro/narration piece for my doc The Indie Film Bloggers, and had to look up exactly when I got involved in the wider world of indie film blogs/the community (beyond whoever may have been reading my first blog Watch This Movie & stuff that was then at my site wilddiner.com). Luckily for me, the first mention in someone else's blog (at least the one that I recall as being the first mention) of something indie film related that I wrote for the web was at GreenCine Daily - one of the giants in the indie film blog world. It happened on October 16, 2005. David Hudson, editor of GreenCine Daily, mentioned an interview I did with DIY filmmaker Jon Moritsugu, here's what David wrote/published that day:

"Filmmaker Sujewa Ekanayake has also interviewed Moritsugu; in general, his site's quite an interesting browse. He's been blogging about the feature he's been working on, Date Number One and has interviewed Californian indie filmmaker Amir Motlagh."

See David's full entry here; lots of links, including one for a then new movie called I Am A Sex Addict.

Several days after that bit of blog publicity (bloglicity?) I pointed David to a post I wrote about self-distribution, and David mentioned it at GreenCine Daily, on October 25, 2005. I was mentioned at the top of a post called Any means necessary (with a graphic from my site), about distribution, and that GCD post made a few new friends for me in the blogosphere; people that I am in touch with to this day - more than 2.5 years later (decades in internet years :).

So those early GCD mentions brough new attention to my internet writing efforts, which led me to create the Filmmaking for the Poor blog, which was later (a few months later, less than 12 months I think) added to indieWIRE's Blogs We Love section, and then ultimately I created this blog - DIY Filmmaker Sujewa - which replaced Filmmaking for the Poor in iW's Blogs We Love section. Being a part of iW's Blogs We Love section has opened many doors for me; in the blog world, festival world, and as a result in other areas when it came to production & distribution.

So, there you have it, the starting point of my association with other indie film blogs & sites, and some of the highlights/important moments in the journey so far.

So, big thanks to GreenCine Daily & indieWIRE for supporting my blog writing work.

But, prior to that, everything started with me needing to share some ideas & typing them out to the web in my own site & early blogs. A good thing to keep in mind if you are thinking about the idea of starting a blog; before other people can help you with your blog, you've got to get started.

And all this now leads us to The Indie Film Bloggers doc.

I have 5 interviews with bloggers scheduled, in DC area & NYC, for the Thu 7/24 - Mon 7/28 period. After that, few more interviews in NYC in August. So, in the fall I should be able to show the finished doc to people, and in it will be a more detailed account of how my identity as an indie film blogger came into existence along with those of others who are featured in the doc. Origin Stories I guess, in superhero speak :)

- Sujewa