It is with very great pleasure that we, at indieIN, congratulate our friend, Jacques Thelemaque on his film,
"Transaction" winning the Grand Prix Du Jury Award at the 28th Clermont Ferrand International Short Film
Festival. Not only is this the festival's highest award but it is the first American film to ever win the award in the
Lab Competition category and the first American film to win the Grand Prix Du Jury Award in any category since 1995.

For those of you who are not aware, Clermont Ferrand is arguably the most prestigious short film festival in the world. It also boasts a higher attendance rate than major festivals like Sundance with over 100,000 people attending each year. Started by a group of student filmmakers in 1981 out of the need to both exhibit and celebrate short films, the festival has since 2000 been housed in a building appropriately called La Jetee in homage to Chris Marker's seminal short film of the same name. Note to readers: if you haven't seen this film, see it as soon as you can because I guarantee, you will never be the same.

Speaking of never being the same, I would be remiss in not mentioning the fact that we lost three incredibly independent minded women recently without whom the world (creative and otherwise) would be a much different place. All three, Betty Friedan, Wendy Wasserstein and Coretta Scott King, spoke their minds, stood their grounds and changed the face of and opportunity for women (and men) everywhere. There is nothing more indie than that.

Keeping it indie,
Julie