The Iowa Independent Film Festival is underway this weekend in Clear Lake featuring a sneak preview from an Iowan actress who’s now living in L-A. Mason City native Tanna  Frederick is one of the co-founders of the festival and says she wants to bring a part of Hollywood back to north-central Iowa every year.

She says she wanted an experience where people in Los Angeles could come out to the Midwest and have intelligent people giving them feedback on their work. Frederick also wanted to have a venue to showcase local filmmakers. Frederick says tonight will feature a “rough cut preview” of her newest film.

She says “Queen of the Lot” also stars Noah Wylie of “E-R” fame, and is a sequel to her 2007 film “Hollywood Dreams” about an Iowa girl who now is a semi-star in Hollywood but is under house arrest. Frederick says her film, as well as one from Walter Matthau’s son, Charlie, will be presented in the “rough cut preview” form so people can give their input.

She says it’s one of the “treats” of the festival to ask people for feedback on their works and make them part of the editing process. Director Julie Davis, who is bringing her new film “Finding Bliss” to the festival, says showing “rough cuts” at a film festival is an ingenious idea.

She says the concept of having rough cuts is completely novel, since there’s no other film festival that has allowed the audience be a part of the process before the film is done and give their comments to the film maker so they can utilize the input before finishing the editing. For more about the Iowa Independent Film Festival, visit: “www.iowaindie.org“.

By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City