Local Group Threatens to Steal Event Name Following Ventura Film Festival 'Fun Day'

Local Group Threatens to Steal Event Name Following Ventura Film Festival 'Fun Day'

VENTURA, Calif., Feb. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The Ventura Film Festival, which was started in 2004 by Jordan Older and his father, has recently concluded its first event of 2009 at the Majestic Ventura Theater in Ventura, California with the Ventura Film Festival "Fun Day" on February 16, 2009 at 2pm.

The Ventura Film Festival "Fun Day" featured Ventura hometown hero and independent film maker Dylan O'Neil and his controversial and sometimes horrific film "Otis N'Dwayne" as well as Dylan O'Neil's Star Wars short titled "Trip To The Darkside" and Ric Rew with his video documentary of the stage play "Quadrophenia" about the rock band "The Who." Also present was Ventura Film Festival board member, Ventura High School graduate, and Hollywood heavy- hitter and Fox Film/DVD executive, Dustin Dean.

The Ventura Film Festival is a combination online and traditional film festival requiring all submissions to be uploaded online and submitted via traditional means. The Ventura Film Festival is in progress to becoming a non- profit organization and is a "green" organization that has maintained that one of its main goals is to give a large part of any proceeds to forest and ocean preservation efforts. The Ventura Film Festival features independent films from around the world and from local film makers focusing on environmental issues such as forest and ocean preservation, humanitarian issues, surf, skate, extreme sports, martial arts, and music films.

The long standing Ventura Film Festival has received threats of legal action from attorney Sandy Lipkin and the Bell Arts Factory/Lorenzo DeStefano, claiming "tortious interference" and outlining plans to take over the rights to the Ventura Film Festival name and trademark despite having registered their name 5 years after the start of the Ventura Film Festival and have not yet put on a film festival event.

Ventura Film Festival founder met with Ventura County Assistant Clerk and Recorder, James Becker and his staff on February 25th 2009 and was shown legal code and told that the Bell Arts Factory and Hawaiian film maker Lorenzo DeStefano have acted unlawfully by attempting to register a knowingly similar and confusing fictitious business name from the Ventura Film Festival, and that, unfortunately, the only way to proceed will be via a law suit. The Ventura Film Festival sent a cease and desist letter to the conflicting group, who uses the domain "venturafilmfest.com," in December 2008.

Source: The Ventura Film Festival

CONTACT: Jordan Older, +1-805-644-9981, info@venturafilmfestival.org,
for The Ventura Film Festival

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