| The American International Film and Video Festival
(AIFVF) originated in 1930. It has been organized and juried by the American
Motion Picture Society (AMPS) since 1990 when the Photographic Society of
America (PSA) divested itself of the Festival and George Cushman of Long
Beach, CA founded AMPS specifically to run the Festival. It has never been
under the management of AMMA. AMPS continues to survive thanks to the efforts
of a few people.
The Ten Best of the West (TBW) was founded by George Cushman in 1956
to give the clubs in the West a contest. The intention was that the contest
would rotate around the clubs in the West each taking turns to judge and
host the contest. Theoretically there was no support organization; the clubs
automatically setting up the contest each year but in practice Roger Garretson
the Secretary/Treasure of AMPS acted as the Executive Secretary and asked
clubs to take on the task, AMPS also supplied seed funds where required to
set up the meeting and the award certificates. As the Western clubs have
closed it has become increasingly difficult to run the contest and there
has been a steep decline in entries and this year we at AMPS decided to
concentrate our efforts in a different direction. If the Western clubs wish
to continue the TBW then they will have to find an organizer and enough active
clubs to rotate. TBW was never actually part of AMPS but Roger took it under
his wing when it became difficult for the clubs to organize. |
|
North American Movie Makers Awards (NAMMA) was created in 2009
by AMPS as a contest open to residents of the USA and Canada. This is a Ten
Best style contest covering a wider geography than TBW and so hopefully
attracting a wider entry. It also answers the concerns that many of the European
entries are of such a high standard they are believed to be made by
quasi-professionals with access to funds and equipment outside the scope
of the average amateur. From 2009 we have included NAMMA entries into AIFVF
at no additional cost.
AMMA (Amateur Movie Makers Association) ran two contests, the open annual
AMMA Ten Best contest (nothing to do with the Ten Best of the West
or AMPS) and the Magic Moments contest for one minute films open only
to AMMA members. Sadly AMMA closed its doors due to the difficulty in finding
people to take on the tasks of management.
The Festival
For some years the traditional contests were combined into one Festival of
screening, frequently held in the West. This was originally organized by
the club that hosted the TBW but for the last two years organized by Roger
Garretson, Dicie Sizemore and Walt Gilmore on a purely voluntary and unofficial
basis. The last such event took place in 2008. |
