On the panel after the Denver Newspaper Agency screening were (left to right) film critic and moderator Bob Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News finance editor David Milstead, Dow Jones business columnist Al Lewis and yours truly

We had great success at the Starz Denver Film Festival last month, in part because the print journalism situation in that city is so precarious. Awareness is high, and worried reporters and editors turned out in force for our screening at the offices of the two daily papers, hosted by the Denver Press Club. It was followed by a lively and occasionally contentious panel discussion.

Denver is one of the last cities in America with semi-competing newspapers, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News. Their business operations merged in 2001 under what’s called a Joint Operation Agreement while their newsrooms remained separate.

Now comes word that the Rocky has been put up for sale by its parent company, E.W. Scripps, which reports losing $11 million on the paper in the first three quarters of 2008. As circulation and ad revenue continue to plummet — accelerated by the recession — newspapers aren’t just dealing with falling profits anymore. Some are operating in the red.

I want to thank Brit Withey, Adam Lancaster, Elizabeth Alley and all the other fine folks at the festival for creating a great experience for us and the movie-going public. Thanks to them, we received a lot of media, (which I will post shortly), sold a bunch of DVDs and got to see some worthwhile films. Another 200 people saw Stop the Presses in Denver, bringing our total festival audience to more than 1,000.

I asked producer-director-cinematographer-editor Mark Birnbaum to create a photo essay of our trip. The following pictures are by him (or a passerby when he’s in the shot), unless otherwise noted.

Manny Mendoza

Mark and I on a bench on the 16th Street Mall outside the world-famous Tattered Cover bookstore

I took this one of Mark inside the Starz Film Center with his iPhone

Me taking questions after our nearly sold-out screening at the FilmCenter

Mark and I on the local Fox station’s Good Day Colorado, photo by festival publicist Elizabeth Alley

Mark and I outside the FilmCenter

Mark and I outside our FilmCenter screening

Me on the red carpet with a Starz channel reporter

I took this shot of Mark in the Filmmakers Lounge, and after we got back he discovered this iPhone app that allows you to insert cloud quotes in photos