Well, Di Longo's a smart woman. One who has always met challenges, especially in this world of film so new to her. She picked up the gauntlet and declared, "Let's do it." And they were off.

While she was co-producing the Video Tribute to Sidney Lumet for the 2004 Director's View Film Festival in Stamford, Di Longo visited with Sean Connery and taped his reminiscences of the great director. 

Posted by the New York City Midnight Movie Making Madness, the challenge was to join filmmakers from around the world in a competition that takes place in two rounds. In the first round, all teams would receive randomly assigned subjects and genres. Armed with that much information, participants would then have two weeks to write, shoot, edit and submit a short movie. Twenty-four finalists were to be chosen from the first round and each would receive an award of $1,000 cash and the chance to compete for the grand prize in the final round of competition - a twelve-hour version of Round One, to be held in New York City. THE NEW YORK POST dubbed it "Cinematic Survivor."

Di's team was the first runner-up in their heat; their film BAPTISM BY FOOD, honored more than the winning entry, was lauded for its achievement. Di Longo's film about friendship, family and food and fantasy earned Di another opportunity to get hooked on filmmaking.

"We had an incredible team," Di exclaims. Her passion for this work is evident. The kind of passion you get from a convert.

"I had a corporate job," Producer Longo sighs. "In a corrupt world. When I got laid off, I thought I would just find another job; so I started working in another office, but I still needed something more. Even the work I was doing for an AIDS agency did not exercise my need to be creative. Then I discovered and accepted my first challenge from Robert Kesten."

First Shot of the opening scene, BAPTISM BY FOOD, by Di Longo

On line, Di found The Director's View Film Festival, then in its first year in Stamford. Robert Kesten, its Executive Director, sought volunteers to help the fledgling festival find its footing. Di was intrigued. A film festival sounded like just the kind of stimulus she was looking for.

She met with Robert and was hooked. "He's brilliant," she says. "I knew we could work together."

By the time her first year on the volunteer staff of the festival was complete, Di had been promoted from a volunteer selling merchandise to Venue Manger; later she advanced to Logistics Manger, to Logistics Manager and Associate Director, and finally to Director of Documentary Programming, and Associate Festival Director.

The Festival will move in 2005. A new venue has been secured in New York City, and Director's View will premiere there in spring, Longo reports.

A great training ground for a budding producer, the DVFF now keeps Di busy as the overseer of everything and everybody. She assembles the committees and subcommittees that make the festival hum; she holds the monthly meetings, plans for projects and keeps the festival on target. And she is still working as a volunteer!

"What I do for Director's View is really what makes me aware of the myriad details I need to monitor as a film producer," Di observes.

Movie Madness competition, and Michele Grace relax after the Food Fight Scene in Di Longo's BAPTISM BY FOOD

And they came in very handy on the Midnight Movie Making Madness Competition.

On July 31, Di's team was assigned their genre, Comedy, and their subject matter, Food. They then had two weeks to write, shoot, edit and send the film in for judging.

"Our team was literally fanned out across the country, and I was the one in the center of it all making everyone come together." For two weeks, Di juggled, and kept all the balls in the air with ease and grace.

Robert Kesten, from his home in North Salem, NY, and his office in New York City, wrote the screenplay. A mother-in-law Mona and her daughter-in-law Alexandra, whose love for Lance seems to be the only thing they have in common, collaborate to cook and discover that they are actually more alike than they are different. Both neurotic and driven by similar obsessions, Mona and Alexandra bond for life over a raucous food fight.

"As soon as we had the script, we knew we had a winner," says Longo. She enlisted her husband Jean-Marc Longo to be the Executive Producer. "Even though there was no budget, and no one got paid, there were lots of money details to be coordinated." Co-DVFF Volunteer, Greenwich resident Janis Shahlhut, came on as Art Director/Production Designer.

Producer/Director Di Longo confers with Script Supervisor/AD Abraham Blanco on the set of her award winning Midnight Movie Madness entry BAPTISM BY FOOD

Actors were recruited locally: As Lance, David Pollard, as Mona, Michele Grace, and as Alexandra, Victoria Roy.

On ShootingPeople.com, Di found her crew from places like Astoria, NY, Delaware and Poughkeepsie. She signed on veteran shooter Manfred Reiff to DP the project (they shot on the Panasonic DVX100 24-P), Abraham Blanco to supervise continuity and to be Associate Director, high school student Johann Grimm to be Key PA, Stamford resident Jeff Um to edit, Bob Kessler to design sound and record on location, Bob Buchanan to design and set lighting, and Nathan Bush to operate boom.

For music, Di enlisted the creative energy of her longtime friend Rhonda Boos, a Minneapolis, Minnesota, resident. Rhonda collaborated with Andy Silvers whom she met on the Internet but who lives on the East Coast. They have never yet met, and they incorporated a new Music company FLO and created the music over the net, uploading to a MAC site and downloading by way of the editor in Stamford.

"It was an amazing process," the producer attests. "They never saw the script. Jeff talked to them, gave them some guidelines, set up some of the situations and described the characters, and they went from there."

FLO members had never participated in a film project before. The testament to their achievement is that they won the prize for Best Music by the contest sponsors.

In fact, Di Longo's production, despite the distance and the fact that none of her cast or crew had worked together before, was honored with three prizes in the overall competition. Victoria Roy was named Best Actress, Jeff Um won for Best Editing, and, of course, Rhonda Boos and Andy Silvers brought home the award for Best Music.

Di was thrilled with the entire experience. "What an exhilarating process! Who would have thought that two days of shooting could yield so very much?"

She sums it all up by saying, "I think what was really good about it was it got me to make a film. I would still be wondering what to do. I need deadlines, finite times."

Now she does all that for herself. On ShootingPeople.com, she found a job as DP for Lunar Moth Films, shooting footage of protesters at the Republican National Convention for a film currently titled PROFILES IN PROTEST.
She and Johann Grimm, whom she identifies as a brilliant young writer/director, are collaborating on a short film about a troubled teen and his difficult relationship with his father.

At the moment, Di is busy campaigning for the local Connecticut Democratic candidates as well as for John Kerry, but The Director's View Film Festival will kick into high gear soon. And then there's her first feature, an adaptation of a book she recently read. "As soon as the election is over, I can focus some attention in that direction," she promises herself.

And she'll do it. Di Longo meets her challenges.