With a tight focus on the needs and wants of indie filmmakers, the Local Heroes International Screen Festival will let loose on Edmonton March 9-15 with 17 short films featured in the Declaration of Independents. The films were chosen from 137 entries, an increase of 40% over last year’s numbers.

And for those 120 entries which didn’t make the nsi’s cut for the main festival, Jason Margolis and Maureen Prentice are – with the blessing of Local Heroes – organizing an offshoot called the Hero Sandwich Film Festival: The Canadian Filmmakers Open Screen. nsi has helped the organizers secure venues for the late-night screenings of another half-dozen Local Heroes entries, including Aftershock, a film by Margolis and Prentice.

‘While Local Heroes likes to support the underdog, our philosophy includes films which are more commercial,’ says Margolis. ‘Jan Miller [Local Heroes’ festival director] has been really supportive of us.’

As for the main stage, Miller says she’s tried to make the industrial components of Local Heroes ‘unlike your typical panel discussions.’

‘At every festival we’ve been trying to bridge the gaps between tv and film, and now we’re working to tie in multimedia.’

To that end, one of the four seminars – entitled ‘Reel Propeller Heads’ – will explore means of marrying the filmmaker’s sense of storytelling to the tech-head’s know-how. Other confirmed seminars include ‘Go, On Your Mark, Get Set,’ a look at marketing and distribution for independents using Paul Pope’s project Extraordinary Visitor as a case study; and ‘Butting Heads, Scratching Backs,’ a look at communication pitfalls between producers and directors/writers and how to avoid them.

Miller will also be bringing in international short film distributors and programmers during the audience feedback sessions which follow each and every Local Heroes screening. Halifax filmmaker Lulu Keating will host the sessions.

Opening night will feature the Canadian premiere of The Alloy Orchestra, a three-man ensemble which uses ‘instruments’ like horseshoes, garbage can lids and bedpans. The trio will be creating a live soundtrack to the 1927 silent film classic The Unknown, the bizarre story of a circus knife thrower and his assistant.

Global Heroes screenings are New Zealander Gregor Nicholas’ Romeo and Juliet story Broken English, Edoardo Winspeare’s Italian period drama Pizzicata, Adao E Eva from Portugal’s Joaquim Leitao, and Australia’s Lust and Revenge, a biting comedy from director/writer/producer Paul Cox.