Hurray, our Mana blog is finally up and running! We are thrilled to announce that three years of production and one successful Kickstarter campaign later, “Mana” is ready to see the light of day! Some of our backers have already watched the film (a digital download was part of the perks), but the rest of the world is still holding its breath. We think! Well, no need to torture yourselves any more, “Mana” will be receiving its world premiere at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, taking place in Greece March 11-22! Director Valerie Kontakos, producer Despina Pavlaki and a few other members from our cast and crew will be there to answer questions and launch the production into the festival circuit. After Thessaloniki, the sky’s the limit! Watch this space for additional venues and dates as “Mana” rolls out, but for the time being, you can watch the film on the following dates:

• THURSDAY 19/3 at 20:45 @ Pavlos Zannas movie theater
• SATURDAY 21/3 at 17:30 @ Tonia Marketaki movie theater

Valerie will also be giving a joint press conference with other Greek filmmakers at IANOS bookstore (Aristotelous Square 7) on Friday 20/3 at 13:00. Come say hello!

So it’s official, we’re funded and we’re done! But don’t worry, our Facebook and Twitter accounts will still stay alive with updates, behind-the-scenes insight and daily anecdotes from the Exile Films office. We are extremely grateful to everyone who helped make our dreams come true and we have just released a detailed report of everything we’ve learned through crowdfunding and every single thing that went wrong. Click for here some hard-earned kickstarter wisdom.

THE STATS:

• $46.117 of our $45.000 goal (102% funded)
• 139 backers
• 2.258 Kickstarter video plays
• 1.616 Kickstarter page likes
• 620 Facebook page likes
• 324 Tweets, 256 Twitter followers
• 10.624 newsletter mail-outs
• 1 live presentation (lame, we know!)

If you want to check out our campaign, it’s still up on Kickstarter right here.

See you soon!

Watch out New Yorkers! Mana is going to be hitting the Big Apple very very soon! We’re very proud to announce that our film will be part of the New York City Greek Film Festival that takes place all around the city and beyond, starting October 2 and stretching all the way to November 8. Mana will open during the Manhattan leg of the festival, screening on Wednesday, October 21st at 9pm at the Bowtie Chelsea Cinema on 260 West 23 St. And the best part is, Valerie Kontakos will be there for a Q&A! The festival will move on to Cambridge and Atlanta, so make sure to check back with us for additional dates! If you care to take a gander around the festival website, you’ll find the first stretch of NYC screenings at the Museum of the Moving Image are already online and can be found right here. We’re tickled pink to be screening at Bow Tie, a family owned chain that got its start back in the 1900s through Vaudeville and currently owns 55 locations and close to 400 screens! Not to mention there’s a Doughnut Plant outpost right near the theater, so better show up early enough to grab a Tres Leches. See you there!

Hey there Mana fans,

we just got back from DokuFest in Kosovo and it was quite a ride! It looks like Prizren, the city where the festival took place, is a popular summer destination for teenagers looking to party until the wee hours of the morning! The good news is that, although we didn’t exactly fit this demographic, the festival was quite fun and we got to screen “Mana” at some very interesting venues. Our first night was at Kino ne Lum, a temporary open-air cinema balancing on stilts that’s built right inside the river bed! Incredible but true!

We had a lovely, well-attended screening and since the movie theater has open access from all sides, we got a bunch of passers-by who stopped to check out the film and ended up watching the whole thing from the bridge! We were told that this venue is temporary and gets dismantled every year after the festival is over. Another interesting fact is that Kino ne Lum gets pushed further down the river, as the party crowds have started getting a little two rowdy for uninterrupted movie-watching.

Our second screening was two days later at a very obscure venue called        Kino    Klubi that somewhat cave-like but has super comfy sofas and was a  real haven  away from the summer heat. Perhaps a little too comfortable,  as we discovered  someone sleeping soundly at the back – he didn’t even  wake up during the lively  Q&A session with Valerie! Another venue we  won’t be forgetting in a hurry was  Kino Kalaja, which was attached to the  side of the castle. A really killer to reach  but once you got up there, the  viewing experience was truly magnificent – not to  mention the view! We  managed to catch 2 films there, “Into The Wild” by Ron  Lamothe and  Democrats by Camilla Nielsson, both worth the steep hike uphill!

All in all, DokuFest was a positive experience, we got some interest from the Ukraine and The Netherlands (stay tuned for more news) and got a glimpse into a culture we knew very little about. The festival staff was super helpful and the festival T-shirts rocked! We can’t wait to see where the “Mana” festival adventure will take us next…

For more DokuFest pics, please visit our Facebook page!

After much ado, we would like to give you the grand tour of our brand new website, designed by Leonidas Ikonomou. It took a few months and a lot of work, but we definitely think it was worth it! Leonidas is an architect by training and a musician by whimsy, with graphic design stuck somewhere in between. You can check out his work.

Our logo (top left of each page) is the representation of our four protagonists, intricately entwined with the title of the film. We will be using this space to keep raising funds for the project, open a new channel of communication with the people who follow our work and keep everyone up to date with what’s going on in the production.

We hope you enjoy the website, come back soon for frequent updates!