IN THE BEGINING
Created in 2015 by Ian Bennett MBKS, an award winning English film maker with the love of the charismatic Cypriot coastal village of Pervolia in his heart, over several evenings, Pervollywood, or Pervolia International Film Festival to use the full title, delivered a unique experience with more than 50 films in an outdoor cinema completely free of charge to its audience supported by more films in smaller screenings in tavernas and hotels around the village.
. For the main screening, Pervolia village Town Hall Authorities created a 250 seat cinema in a large open space, with a big screen designed by Ian Bennett and contracted a front-line projection company.
. The cinema programme ran for three nights with a grand opening ceremony on the first night followed by Greek language films and films made by Cypriot directors. Night two highlighted humorous films and night three documentary or true to life. With creation of the cinema in the capable hands of village authorities, teams working from the
. The cinema programme ran for three nights with a grand opening ceremony on the first night followed by Greek language films and films made by Cypriot directors. Night two highlighted humorous films and night three documentary or true to life. With creation of the cinema in the capable hands of village authorities, teams working from the
UK and in Cyprusworked tirelessly behind the scenes to assess film submissions, create the playlists, compile graphic links for each performance, identify suitable tavernas and locations for supporting screenings and create promotional publicity vehicles to be printed locally and distributed around the village by the authorities.
DELIVERY
. Ian led the UK team and Marios Argyrou the team in Pervolia, with everything in-place and ready to go six weeks before the opening, except that publicity distribution by the authorities hit unexpected issues which, naturally, impacted on attendance. Even so, Pervollywood opened on schedule, ran outdoors on the big screen and was supported by smaller more personal screenings and events around the village.
WHY NOT ANOTHER FESTIVAL?
. As a one-off festival, Pervollywood (aka Pervolia International Film Festival) had brought hitherto unseen films to Pervolia. With interruptions only for the years of the Covid 19 Pandemic, Ian visited the village regularly over the following decade and with the big screen he had designed still gracing the outdoor space in early 2024, was often quizzed on whether there would be another Pervollywood. During those years however he was heavily involved with his own movie projects - three of which are still streaming on the (Amazon) Prime Video broadcast stream - so could not guarantee levels of involvement.
. Festivals and events could not be held through the Covid 19 pandemic anyway, a period that witnessed great development in digital delivery as a result. More recently, the abundance of digital TV channels and even more streaming options, the uptake in digital viewing by families across the world has opened up the option of a Pervollywood digital streamed film festival.
. Certainly, such an option makes sense for instead of 250 viewers in a temporary open air cinema, a streamed festival could have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of viewers.
. Festivals and events could not be held through the Covid 19 pandemic anyway, a period that witnessed great development in digital delivery as a result. More recently, the abundance of digital TV channels and even more streaming options, the uptake in digital viewing by families across the world has opened up the option of a Pervollywood digital streamed film festival.
. Certainly, such an option makes sense for instead of 250 viewers in a temporary open air cinema, a streamed festival could have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of viewers.
WHAT'S THIS - SOMEBODY PRETENDING TO BE IAN - AND MARIOS?
. To enable films to be entered in festivals, producers list their festivals in entry portals, one of the biggest and most respected being FilmFreeway. During research for the digital on-line streamed Pervollywood festival Ian came across a listing on FilmFreeway for what he thought was his old 2015 festival, later realising that it was actually a listing for a festival in 2024. The listing used both of the titles Ian had created in 2015 - Pervollywood and the Pervolia International Film Festival. It also claimed that Ian was the Festival Director and Marios the local contact, all of which were lies!
THE FINAL INSULT - DO NOT USE DOT COM
. The Internet works on a system where domains are never actually purchased and have to be renewed and the final insult came when Ian's Pervollywood.com domain was also grabbed by the rogue and registered in Lithuania. Following three hectic days of communication, a new domain at Pervollywood-film.cloud was registered that more accurately identified the new streaming festival. Research continued and it was established that in addition to the actual festival titles created by Ian Bennett, most of the text from the 2015 Pervollywood listing had also been copied without permission even though all content from the 2015 festival documents was, and remained, Ian's intellectual property. At that point FilmFreeway deleted the rogue listing so that it could no longer be viewed and Ian commenced detailed research prior to taking legal action against the rogue festival.
The message here is - for your own protection - do not use the dot com web site where claims are fraudulent and most statements are just lies.
