The Sundance Film Festival is going digital this year, and since I was just talking about the Edinburgh International Film Festival I thought this would be quite relevant.

For the last two years I've answered the call from the EIFF for comments and suggestions for the following year, and I've filled it with online suggestions. Finally they've gone MyMarketingSpace and added blog entries, but there's still a long, long way to go. Sundance look like they're well ahead.

According to The Hollywood Reporter there's a raft of incentives:

...a new YouTube Sundance Channel Video Blog Festival, shorts for sale on iTunes, official blogs from the network and fest sponsors, an avatar community on Second Life, offerings from MySpace...

...YouTube will post daily videos from "Four Eyed Monsters" directors Arin Crumley and Susan Buice...will interview filmmakers and travel to screenings, panels and parties...

...an "island" on Second Life, a virtual environment where computer users engage with each other as "Sims"-style avatars...visitors can attend screenings and virtual parties...

...Lynn Hershman-Leeson will host an invitation-only screening of her ecological docu feature "Strange Culture," co-hosted by an online avatar of Tilda Swinton...A limited number of Second Life members can attend a Q&A about the film...

...sell 32 short films at Apple's iTunes Store for $1.99 each. The films also will stream for free on Sundance's Web site along with 14 others from this year's selection...

...Twenty-two Live at Sundance mini-festival streaming videos (webcast twice a day) and 27 Meet the Artists filmmaker interviews will provide an official view of what isn't onscreen...Ten panels also will be podcast on the official Web site and at the iTunes store, all for free...

Then there's a list of blog sites that are covering the festival, there's only a few there and they are the bigger names which kind of makes me think where are all the mentions of all the smaller blogging sites that are managing to get there, where's their mention? What about all the bloggers that have been attending in the past years?

Regardless of that I think this is superb. There's a fair raft of digital and virtual additions that really could expand the reach of these films. Perhaps it's time for other festivals to consider the Internet.