CMP Media's First-TV Names Break Out Of The Box Contest Winners at Slamdance International Film Festival

$25,000 in prize money given away

PRNewswire
PARK CITY, Utah.
Jan 20, 1997

CMP Media's First-TV named the winners of its Break Out Of The Box contest today at Slamdance '97.

First-TV is the founding sponsor of Slamdance '97, an alternative film festival for independent filmmakers running concurrently with the Sundance Festival, in Park City, Utah, Jan. 16-23.

Eric D. Howell, Minneapolis, won first place and $15,000 for "The Interview." Chee-Hoon Kim, Brooklyn, N.Y., won $5,000 and second place for his film entitled "Graffiti." Five third-place winners each received $1,000. They are: Eric Jewell, Farmers Branch, Texas; Matt Ehling, Minneapolis; the team of Jason Wen, David Cooper and Vince McGinley, of Sarasota, Fla.; Kurt Bauer, Denver, Colo.; and Julie Swenson, Minneapolis.

"With more than 125 entries we had a tough time choosing the winners," says Scott Bourne, executive director and founder of First-TV. "The quality of the seven projects we honored is second-to-none. The contest, the award of $25,000 in prize money and the response by our users, proves that emerging artists now have a place to show their work to an international audience."

More than 500,000 different people have logged onto the First-TV web site (http://www.first-tv.com/) since it was launched Sept. 18.

Besides its core program called "Fresh Click: Life Online," First-TV offers a forum for independent filmmakers and producers, and desktop videographers. Independent video and film projects can be viewed and rated by visitors to the Web site.

Background:

CMP Media Inc., now in its 25th year of uninterrupted growth, is the only provider of publishing, marketing and information services to reach the entire spectrum of the high-technology market -- the builders, sellers and users of technology. With projected sales of $420 million in 1996, CMP has marked its quarter century of success with an average yearly growth of 20 percent. All of CMP's publications and a series of innovative news and interactive services, are available on the World Wide Web through CMP's TechWeb http://www.techweb.com/, the industry's first free daily technology news and interactive services super site, since 1994. CMP Media is also the creator of NetGuide Live (http://www.netguide.com/), the first comprehensive daily online guide to the Net, and parent company to First-TV (http://www.first-tv.com/), the world's first Internet-only 24-hour TV/video network.

The Slamdance Film Festival was founded in 1994 by Jon Fitzgerald as an alternative forum and a support system for the independent film community, providing industry information and networking opportunities.

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SOURCE: CMP Media Inc.

CONTACT: Scott Bourne, 612-221-2629, sbourne@first-tv.com; Jana Bourne,
800-452-2171, jbourne@avatar.net; Leslie Dunbar, 516-562-7040,
ldunbar@cmp.com, all for CMP Media