Filmmaking / Directing : The Crystalline Film Festival by Cesar Erba

Hello Everyone,

My name is Cesar Erba and I am an actor, producer, director, and as of now, I'm a film festival co-director. I was encouraged by Karen "Kay" Ross to share a little about my journey in starting a film festival.

First, I'd like to thank Karen for the compliments and for being so kind to reach out.

The Crystalline Film Festival was inaugurated this year on September 1 and the festival is presented by Caprius Films a company I started with Laura Steponchev, my business partner and a good friend of mine. Our company is based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and our mission is to inspire our community and fellow creatives by using our artistic voices to offer a professional and diverse platform to explore a kaleidoscope of unique stories.

From the inception of Caprius Films, a company we built from the ground up, we knew we wanted to push the envelope creatively and find innovative ways to also give back to the generous film community we've been a part of for so long. While Caprius Films is a platform we utilize to express our creative voices to tell stories, the Crystalline Film Festival was conceptualized to celebrate filmmakers and their work. Our compassionate way to give back to our fellow creatives.

Laura and I, both have over fifteen years in this industry and started our filmmaking journeys as performers and have gradually explored other mediums within the biz to survive. Laura is a wonderful writer and eventually immerse her talents and organizational skills into producing and in the ruthless reality that is to be a starving artist, unable to afford headshots I took up photography, then graphic design and eventually began producing and recently directed my first film. All our traits as a team have supported our indie filmmaking dream and have become the tools that have helped us both frame our film company and now our lovely film festival.

We believe that to succeed in an industry like film particularly in Canada filmmakers need to embrace one another and be a positive support for the other. It's a chaotic and resentful world out there and the art we live for is what we wanted our company to focus on. We want to build a community that encourages filmmakers to remember why we've immersed ourselves in this artistic medium, to begin with. Initiating a festival for filmmakers that is run by filmmakers we believe we are perpetuating positive encouragements to other artist's hard work. In encouraging the importance of diversity and inclusivity we are affirming a culture we want to continue to excel and create in.

Caprius Films has been a wonderful opportunity that has paved a way for us to take our talents to build something new that we can as artists be proud of. We currently have a film called REASONS that is circulating the festival market and three other film projects in early development. While we continue to build a union within this industry we can feel proud to call home, we are excited to expand our horizons with the Crystalline Film Festival and embark on a journey that promotes our mutual love for film.

This Season we are emerging from the ashes of a crazy pandemic and celebrating filmmaker's work from January 1, 2018, until now. If anyone wants to be a part of something fun and new, we'd like to invite you all to submit your film to the Crystalline Film Festival and check out our website. http://www.crystallinefilmfestival.com

http://filmfreeway.com/crystallinefilmfestival

Be sure to follow our socials for updates and say hello.

Thanks again for the reach Kay and for wanting to know more about the behind scenes of how we've inaugurated our festival. It was a generous gesture.

Stay safe everyone.

Cesar