making it in
Indie TV
BY ANITA RAFAEL
October’s Independent Television Festival is a
showcase of small-screen success.
H
ere’s the formula–extend an open invitation to thousands of television fans worldwide
and ask a group of highly talented international and U.S. artists to screen their latest
TV and short film projects, and then top that with a cadre of hard-to-get television
executives. Put them all together in Manchester, Vermont, in October, and, yes, let
them all watch television shows with each other. To be precise, let them watch five days and nights
of shows and web series they would otherwise never see. Exposure–that’s the name of this game.
Sounds so simple, and if you’ve been to the annual Independent Television Festival in past
years, then you already know that this is one of the most brilliant celebrations of small-screen
entertainment anywhere in the nation. The feature film industry, both Hollywood and indie,
has long luxuriated in the prestige of Cannes, Sundance, Tribeca, and others like them, and by
adapting that same “jamboree of the best of the best” format to give awards to outstanding
productions in television and indie projects, the ITVFest has been making an impact on which
kinds of shows you have been watching (and hoarding on your DVR). If you are already hyper-
curious, then you can jump right now to the ITVFest archive online and get a taste of the high-
quality projects that are selected for the festival by watching trailers and full episodes of many of
the past winners. (Oh, go ahead–we’ll wait.)
Founded in 2006, and debuted in Los Angeles, ITVFest later
moved east, when Philip Gilpin Jr. became the event’s executive
director in 2013. Now in its fifth season in this state, Gilpin,
a Vermont resident, banks on the fact that the extraordinarily
beautiful setting amidst the autumn glory of the state’s most
colorful season adds to the feeling that the event is “the Sundance
of independent television.” Having flown in from the West Coast
to attend ITVFest one year, Liz Shannon Miller, an L.A.-based
IndieWIRE editor wrote, “You’d step outside and be in rural
Vermont .... Which, to be clear, is not a bad thing.”
48 manchester life | www.manchesterlifemagazine.com
“We are the only
festival that focuses
exclusively on
independently
produced projects
for television,”
says Gilpin