Cucalorus Film Festival

Dan's Picks.
Over the next few days, I'll be posting my daily picks for the festival. Just a little rundown on where I'll be during Cucalorus and a special nod to my favorite filmmakers. I'll also be highlighting a few of the over 90 artists who will be in attendance.

To kick off my picks, I want to announce a couple of great things happening throughout the festival:

Moving Arts Expo
Our hands-on, head heavy look behind the scenes of the artform. The Expo has a full schedule of workshops and panels, several hours of face time with industry business leaders and a Tuaca sampling from 6p-7p each day. Everyone should stop by the Expo to meet, greet, drink and eat. The Moving Arts Expo is located in the Thalian Ballroom.

Festival Cafe by the Balcony on Dock
The festival cafe (located adjacent to the Moving Arts Expo in the Thalian Ballroom) will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. I'll definitely be hanging out in the Moving Arts Expo to grab a quick bite to eat during the festival. It'll be like a restaurant in the middle of a tradeshow. Pretty cool, huh?

Lumina Theater
Cucalorus welcomes a new venue this year, adding UNCW's Lumina Theater at the Fisher Student Center as our fourth festival screen. Easily Wilmington's finest venue for cinema, this state of the art theater is another indication of how serious UNCW is about film. A little disclosure here - UNCW is the presenting sponsor of the festival. But our decision to use Lumina was all based on the venue itself. Lumina is an outstanding 360 seat, stadium-style cinema with a great image. The lineup for Lumina during Cucalorus is outstanding - a selection of the finest international films, some great Amercian indies and four of the best doc features in the festival. I'll definitely be hitting Lumina once each day, even if it's just to stick my head in and look at the sweet, sweet image on that big, big screen.

On the more practical side....
Cucalorus will operate a festival shuttle service for all festival attendees. The shuttle will pick up every 20 minutes at each venue, taking festgoers from Lumina to Thalian to Jengo's and back again.

Check back tomorrow for Dan's Picks II, topics to include:
• Traffic Light Party - what's that all about. Green, green, go, go.
• Jengo's Playground - trivia, video installations, random and organic.
• 5 filmmakers who rokk!