Las Vegas' annual independent film festival, CineVegas, is the latest casualty of the economy. After hosting its 11th annual festival this year, CineVegas, failed to generate enough sponsors to make a 2010 festival viable. CineVegas president Robin Greenspun said that this cancellation does not necessarily signal the demise of the festival.
Given the current economic climate and the pressures it has created, we made the difficult decision to put CineVegas on hiatus for the coming year. CineVegas has become such a well-respected film festival, and rather than allow the economy to affect its level of quality we have opted to put the event on hold.
Sundance's Trevor Groth acted as artistic director for CineVegas, putting together programming that combined commercial films, bizarre indies, and films about Las Vegas.
We are very sad to be announcing this hiatus, but it is our hope to keep the CineVegas brand alive and relaunch the festival once the economy recovers.
Other film festivals have scaled back in the wake of the economy crunch, and some have been cancelled, including the Jackson Hole Film Festival. Larger events like Toronto and Sundance have been relatively unscathed because of long-term sponsorship deals.