A friend of mine runs a monthly film show. He likes to show films which are a little offbeat and unusual - from his own 16mm film projectors. However, in the past week, he received an unusual type of free publicity...

On the first Monday of every month he shows these films in a particular bar (or pub), called the "Empress Hotel". It's set up as a "film society" - people pay a quarterly membership fee to attend the films. (The money is kept by the film society to be used for expenses - to pay for rental of the films and things like that.) My friend's film night brings in patrons to the bar who also buy food and drinks while they are there - on an otherwise slow Monday night.

Last weekend, the bar received a flood of calls from people all over the state asking about the film night. They all wanted to know its name! They said there were so many calls, that people making regular inquiries couldn't get through! What was going on?

The film night is called "Splodge". What had happened is that one of the major newspapers featured it as one of the questions in their Sunday crossword puzzle! The question was something like, "What's the name of the film festival at the Empress Hotel?"

Apparently, many puzzled crossword puzzle fans looked up the "Empress Hotel" in the phone book and gave them a call so they could complete the crossword!

I don't know how they choose the questions for these crossword puzzles.... However, it's an unusual type of free publicity!

I've never read about this happening before - so I thought I'd share the story here. :)

- Dien Rice

P.S. If anyone reading this in Melbourne, Australia is interested in what's showing this Monday at Splodge, you can find out here - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/splodgefilms/