Declaration of Principles
Film Festivals: Playing the odds
DIY Film Projects
Cinema vs. Home Theatre
For Those With Writer's Block
So You Wanna Go to Film School: 1
So You Wanna Go to Film School:2
The Self-Reliant Film blog was started in November 2005 by Paul Harrill. The site was launched to champion small-crew, low-budget, and regional filmmaking. Soon after its beginning the blog was listed as one of indieWire’s “Blogs We Love” and has been named part of Film Festival World’s The Essential Film Blog Reader. For more about the philosophy of self-reliant film (the practice and the blog) visit the first post.
In 2010 Paul Harrill and filmmaker Ashley Maynor formed Self-Reliant Film, LLC to produce and distribute new films with compelling stories, a personal sensibility, and regional character.
Taken together, Harrill and Maynor’s films have screened at over 40 festivals and on five continents. Screening venues have included Sundance, the Museum of Modern Art, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Institute for Contemporary Art London, the Library of Congress, and numerous regional festivals. Their work has been broadcast on television nationally and internationally.
ABOUT PAUL HARRILL Paul Harrill’s short films include Gina, An Actress, Age 29, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking, and Quick Feet, Soft Hands, a co-production with the Independent Television Service. He is the producer and co-cinematographer of the documentary For Memories’ Sake, directed by Ashley Maynor.
Called “one of America’s finest and most sensitive directors of actors” by film critic Ray Carney, Harrill’s films have screened around the world at festivals (Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Los Angeles, Sydney, Nashville, etc.), museums (the Museum of Modern Art, ICA London, Warsaw Centre for Contemporary Art, etc.), and on television. His work has been supported by the Aperture Film Grant, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Harrill has also been named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine.
A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Harrill lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Southwest Virginia.
ABOUT ASHLEY MAYNOR Ashley Maynor is a filmmaker whose documentary films and new media works have been exhibited around the country. Her most recent film as director is the award-winning documentary For Memories’ Sake, which has been screened at the Library of Congress, the Nashville Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival, and the Indianapolis Film Festival, among others. Maynor has also worked as a producer on Paul Harrill’s narrative films, including the ITVS co-production, Quick Feet, Soft Hands.
In addition to her own film work, Maynor is also engaged with building communities through video partnerships, empowering youth and communities to tell their own stories as the co-founder and program director of the Blacksburg Stories Youth Video Workshop. Maynor has also taught workshops as a video facilitator for Scribe Video Center’s Precious Places Project and as a guest artist in the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge’s Artists in Schools program.
Maynor’s creative work, outreach, and research have been supported by the Southern Humanities Media Fund, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
