Excitement is building for the second year of the Iberia Film Festival. Already an international festival of short films, 15-minutes or less, local producers, hopeful filmmakers and international directors are vying for the top honors without being aware of a new prize offered this year.

A discussion this spring at the Louisiana Entertainment Summit in Baton Rouge with Dr. Lucas Fry, general manager at WLFT-TV, the ME-TV of Baton Rouge, resulted in exposure for a trio of projects entered in the Iberia Film Festival. Fry offered to interview three winners, out of eight categories, to feature on an episode for the Louisiana Film Channel weekly program promoting the subscription based channel launching in January. At the present time this series of interviews will be broadcast within the state on syndicated television as a promotion for the new Louisiana Film Channel. A prerequisite for airing a program on the channel is that it must have a Louisiana connection — filmmakers, actors, locations, storyline or other links to the state.

“For now the core issue is to get the word out to filmmakers to submit their films online to the LFC website,” Fry said. “Initially we thought we’d have an overwhelming response, and six months into this we’ve got a couple of hundred films. In order to get the word out, we’ll begin with a television show hosted by Leo Honeycutt. He’ll interview the filmmaker and show all or part of a film directing viewers to LFC to view the full film or others by Louisiana filmmakers.”

Fry said the other objective is what all filmmakers want — to be paid for their films. To address that issue, the channel is set up like Netflix and Amazon Prime. In fact it is the exact payment system used by Amazon Prime.

“If you go to the website, you can sign up to say ‘I want to be on’ and promote your show or to be listed in SVOD (subscription video on demand). People will pay to watch the film,” Fry said.

Basically subscribers will pay $4 a month to start watching films. As the film plays, the computerized monitoring keeps track of how many viewers watch and how long they watch. Then for those who have generated interest in their films resulting in views, a check will be issued to the filmmaker.

Fry said he wasn’t sure why the International Film Channel has not offered this service to smaller filmmakers, but with the challenges of finding distribution — the greatest hurdle for small market independents — this is an immediate access to the viewing public. Promotions to drive viewers to the channel for viewing will continue to be the responsibility of the filmmakers, but at least now there is a paying platform available around the world for Louisiana connected projects.

“We hope we can help Louisiana filmmakers get known, show their expertise and hopefully help them grow their careers,” Fry said.

The biggest problem is getting people to send their films. Fry said LFC needs to be in front a lot of people. That’s the strategy of the weekly television show about Louisiana filmmakers.

“The first step is our weekly television show that will feature segments about Louisiana film history and the industry, as well as interviews with local filmmakers and showing their films uncut. The second venue will be our online VOD service where all accepted films about Louisiana can be viewed at any time, from anywhere,” Fry said.

Lafayette and New Orleans have already agreed to air the program and Fry will continue to seek other outlets including streaming every Saturday evening at WLFT.com. The films accepted at this time are P- and PG-rated with R-rated to be reviewed before acceptance.

“Shorts, animation, 5-minutes and feature lengths have been submitted, educational, hard-hitting news pieces that will never make it on network,” said Fry. “There’s no charge to the filmmaker. We’re here to help them make money, not take your money.”

The frustration of having great programming and not being able to get it seen across the world was one of the motivating factors for the LFC distribution system.

“Let’s start local and see where it takes us,” Fry said. “This is a prerequisite to where I want to take this in the future with new televisions. In the next couple of years, Next Generation TV will give you video on demand across the nation without cable. It’s an entirely new generation of television.”

Fry said all things have a beginning, and for new or independent filmmakers, as well as established content creators with product that can be uploaded to this non-exclusive distribution channel, Louisiana films and producers will have increased availability that can reach around the world.

Fry will be in New Iberia to present certificates and invitations to be interviewed on the LFC television show to three of the winning shorts featured at the day-long Iberia Film Festival. Viewing blocks Saturday, Aug. 3 at the Essanee Theater will feature only one showing per film.

Tickets are available at the Bayou Teche Museum and The Daily Iberian for the Thursday night Opening Reception featuring “Pavy,” based on “Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting” by Dr. Donald Pavy, and Friday night’s “Gumbo” 43-minute film. A portion of Gumbo was shot during the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce World Championship Gumbo Cookoff and featured winners will be serving dinner after the show. Tickets for either night are only $10 benefitting the Iberia Performing Arts League.

Mark Boyance, founder of Iberia Film Festival said the last entries were submitted July 12 and the full list for the film blocks showcasing Saturday, Aug. 3 will be in the July 28 Teche Life section of The Daily Iberian. Among the entries prior to the last deadline, were filmmakers from Spain, Mexico, Portugal, France, Hong Kong, Ireland and in the U.S. Missouri, New York, Texas and Iowa. From Louisiana are films from New Orleans, River Ridge, Youngsville, Jeanerette, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, Belle Chasse, Ponchatoula and New Iberia.

For information visit IberiaFilmFestival.com.