It wasn’t that long ago that Katie Merritt was the crazy lady with the big idea.

Her brainstorm: A film festival in Bend, Oregon.

Sounds nice, some replied. Sounds like an enormous task to pull off.

There was reason for concern, Merritt says. After all, even now, the artistic films that do make it to Bend’s Regal Pilot Butte 6 cinema often flash through town in days.

”Sometimes it’s like having your own private showing out there,” Merritt says.

She recalls that some friends, watching her toil without pay to build momentum for a Bend festival, gently suggested that she find a job.

”There was a 50 percent chance it would succeed, but also a 50 percent chance it would fail,” says Merritt, settling onto a couch in the lime green office she has lately called home.

On the eve of the second BendFilm Festival, Merritt, 39, is still marveling at last year’s debut success.

The four-day event celebrating independent film sold roughly 7,500 tickets last year. Filmmakers like Zana Briski, a director of the documentary that eventually won an Oscar, ”Born Into Brothels,” said the BendFilm crew pulled it off like veterans.

”I can’t believe this is a first-time festival,” Briski said at the event’s close last year. ”This is by far one of the best I’ve been to, and I’ve been to 20 this year.”

The idea that Merritt says sparked during good dinner conversation transformed in one year into a staple Bend event. And she says that in its second run – which starts this coming Thursday – the BendFilm Festival is going to be even better.

”I was really proud to find a great group of films,” Merritt says. ”It’s rich in the best independent films of this year.”

Last year’s success

BendFilm’s premiere year came off as a spread of the best of that year’s indie film scene.

Briski’s ”Born Into Brothels” was one of an array of films that had already earned critical buzz by the time it reached Bend. Most films had made previous stops on the festival circuit.

One feature film that came here, ”The Invisible,” is now being remade by a major Hollywood studio, Bend resident Jeff Dawn says. Dawn is a member of BendFilm’s advisory board, served on this year’s documentary selection committee and is also an Oscar-winning makeup artist.

”That’s huge success when it comes to the indie world,” he says. ”People start returning your calls.”

What also wowed Merritt from the festival’s first year was the attendance: Locals comprised 95 percent of the seats.

Lounging momentarily in her downtown office, Merritt mused about festivals past and future, even as the present one is about to commence. She wore a Sundance Film Festival T-shirt, jeans and a BendFilm cap.

”Last year, the key thing, as with everything, was the people,” she says. ”The filmmakers, the volunteers, the attendees, they made it happen.”

After last year’s initial run, Merritt says she began the next phase – fundraising and promotion.

BendFilm is a nonprofit, and ticket sales cover only about 60 percent of the cost to put on the event.

Merritt says the festival projects 9,000 in ticket sales for 2005, which is 30 percent growth from last year. She calls it ”steep, but achievable.”

When not out fundraising in the interim, Merritt hit the festival circuit.

At festivals like Sundance (the Robert Redford festival in Park City, Utah), Merritt approached certain filmmakers and invited them to enter their work in BendFilm.

It’s an opportunity, Merritt says. BendFilm happens late in the year as far as festivals go. She would like BendFilm to become a place where people premiere films, but right now feels that establishing firm roots for it is more important.

Dawn also notes that the level of exposure experienced by some of the works coming to BendFilm by no means vaults them into the realm of mainstream Hollywood. They fit the mission of promoting independent cinema.

”This is definitely something different,” Dawn says. ”It is a little bit more of a grab bag. There are no big reviews, no trailers, no word of mouth.”

”But there’s not only something for everyone, there’s a lot for everyone,” he says.

An expanded festival

If there is something for everyone, attribute it in part to there simply being more films this year.

Since last year’s fledgling effort, the number of entries submitted to BendFilm increased from 119 to 300. Sixty-seven of the 300 will be screened at the 2005 festival.

The festival has also expanded in other realms. Merritt says that as a nonprofit, the festival wanted to do more this year to help filmmakers and promote film education.

To BendFilm, helping filmmakers meant recognizing them with cash.

”Film is one of the most important means of communication, and it’s still terribly cost-prohibitive,” Merritt says. ”The filmmakers competing at BendFilm today … all make profound sacrifices to get this far.”

Last year, BendFilm started with a $10,000 prize for the piece the judges deemed best of show. The organization for 2005 built on that, adding a $2,500 best documentary prize and a chunk of change for the audience-voted favorite, which will be funded by a $1 increase in ticket prices.

Dawn says the festival’s approach is unusual.

”Keep in mind, the vast majority of the 1,800 film festivals out there don’t give away money,” he says. ”Not only do we give you that stamp of approval, we give you a stack of money.”

On top of that, BendFilm launched several efforts to promote film education.

The festival debuted a special category for films by university-level students, with a judges’ prize of $3,000 for the best one. Merritt says it’s a niche she believes other film festivals aren’t tapping.

”The work that we got from NYU and USC is brilliant,” she says, referencing two of the top film schools in the nation, New York University and University of Southern California.

For younger would-be filmmakers, there is a $300 award for a project called The Bump. It’s a new annual competition for middle and high schoolers to show their 60-second production at the festival.

Two youths have been awarded The Bump prize and will show their projects on the silver screen. Bend resident Orion Honaker, 12, will premiere ”Cat’s On My Mind” and Brandon Miletta, a 16-year-old Salem resident, will show ”The Infinite Universe.”

And for the youngest, BendFilm assembled the most child-friendly shorts into a package called Indie Kids, which will screen at 10 a.m. Saturday at McMenamins.

”The festival is by-and-large an adult event,” Merritt says. ”Still, we weren’t satisfied leaving the kids out.”

The buzz is building

BendFilm doesn’t yet anticipate receiving the star power it did last year, when director Gus Van Sant milled the streets.

But those involved in the sophomore festival predict that big things await quite a number of the films on the slate.

Scott Ramsey, a Bend resident who previously worked on films in New York City, organized the selection committees for shorts, documentaries and features. He believes people will particularly enjoy the documentary selection.

”They’re really entertaining,” he says. ”Only two of them are war related. The rest are really amazing documentaries about places in the world you would never know about.”

The most resounding praise came for a documentary that has already snagged three other festival awards. ”The Real Dirt on Farmer John” follows a maverick Midwestern farmer trying to make it in a dying line of work.

Other documentaries that drew local praise are ”Beauty Academy of Kabul,” a look at a beauty college that recently opened in Afghanistan; ”Favela Rising,” about how music and dance lift some youths out of Rio de Janeiro’s poverty; ”Reality Check,” a Portland screenwriter’s funny take on how not to break into Hollywood; and ”Parallel Lines,” in which average folks talk about their lives right after 9/11.

Ramsey also says one short, ”9,” contains animation equal to or exceeding that of Pixar, the studio responsible for films like ”The Incredibles.”

Nearly all the films in the festival received praise elsewhere, Ramsey notes. This gives Bend its chance to interact with the film industry.

”Average people make films,” Ramsey says. ”They are down to earth, not the heroes and icons Hollywood makes out 1 percent of the industry to be. Some people have sunk their whole life into a film. Because this is their lifeblood, they want to be here.”

Merritt says that even on the eve of this year’s festival, she is planning for next year. It’s a think-big approach, one financial supporter says, that he believes is making BendFilm a success.

”They started out at the five-year mark for its size and intensity,” says Jody Denton, executive chef and owner of Merenda Restaurant and Wine Bar in downtown Bend. Denton offered BendFilm monetary support from the get-go, and last year made the second floor of his restaurant the filmmakers lounge.

Denton says the entire establishment was packed all that weekend last year.

”I’d like to see what they’ll do in five years,” Denton says. ”I think this thing’s got legs.”