Congratulations to Mike Plante. As reported by Variety, Plante has been named the director of programming for the CineVegas Film Festival, which runs this year from June 10-15. Plante previously served as associate director of programming of CineVegas, and has held positions at both Sundance and HBO's now defunct U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.

Plante has a long history with alternative, edgy cinema. He published the film zine Cinemad from 1998 to 2002 and has since kept it going at iblamesociety.com. He is also the creator of the short film experiment LunchFilm. Described in his own words: 

I buy a filmmaker lunch and in trade they give me a short film made for the cost of the lunch. It started by accident – and necessity. In all, 50 short films have been commissioned (or eaten). Rules and ideas based on whatever we talked about at lunch are written on a napkin contract. While each film has its own logic, it’s all about a variety of tastes. The overall metaphor is about community. It is very easy to help a filmmaker. Buy one lunch today. 

Last year I served on the Pioneer Documentaries Jury for CineVegas. You can find the account of my adventures here. This year's lineup is as follows (taken from the CineVegas website):

Pioneer Documentaries,” a competitive section for documentaries that explore new territory and world perceptions, includes Douglas Tirola’s All In - The Poker Movie (world premiere), a comprehensive look at the history and current excitement of poker; James Rasin’s Beautiful Darling exploring the life and times of Warhol Superstar Candy Darling; Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, Jessica Oreck’s exploration of Japan’s enriching social relationship with insects; Jennifer Kroot’s It Came From Kuchar, about filmmaking twins George and Mike Kuchar and their outrageous, no-budget movies; Sea of Darkness (world premiere) from Michael Oblowitz, the true story of surfing pioneers/criminals Mike Boyum and Martin Daly; Ben Steinbauer’s Winnebago Man about Internet superstar Jack Rebney; and Youth Knows No Pain, Mitch McCabe’s journey through America’s $60 billion-a-year anti-aging world.