This week, the Screen Actors Guild and the producers union agreed on a new contract. For the last year, the two have been fighting over pay, and the threat of a strike has held up production on films, especially studio pictures.

For New Mexico, many in the business say, the new contract will mean several films will be given the go-ahead. Both the New Mexico Film Office and the Albuquerque Film Office say they've seen scouts recently, and both expect that to turn into real film work.

Watch the state office's newly revamped Web site, www. nmfilm.com  , for crew and casting calls.

No Shootout

For nine summers the Duke City Shootout has been a big deal.

But the folks who run the annual make-your-own-movie festival are calling it quits, at least for now.

For some, it was burnout. For others, it was simply to hard to raise cash right now. Whatever the reason, the Shootout will be missed.

It was a one-of-a-kind event where teams would make seven movies in seven days. Sure, they were short films, but they were done right with real crews, cameras and editors.

The Shootout was designed to be more than a festival, said co-founder Tony DellaFlora.

"There were 1,000 film festivals at the time - there's 10,000 now - and the point was that you need to do something unique to get people to come to a film festival. You have to carve a niche out," he said.

"As we were riffing on it, we said, ‘What if we made the movies and showed them? A few weeks later, we had our call for scripts out. It was a blur."

It was ambitious, for sure. Since its start, the festival has made 65 films. Several have hit the film festival circuit.

But, said festival co-founder Jim Graebner, it's done.

"The money disappeared as everybody knows last year, so I shifted gears because I didn't want to be caught without money," Graebner said. "I wasn't going to put on a festival that cost $150,000 if I didn't have $150,000.

Beyond that, he said, Central New Mexico Community College students the festival relied on as the backbone of its crew are busy making a feature film this summer and the overall volunteer base has shrunk.

But hope remains it may return.

On Wednesday, Rich Heinrich, of the new Albuquerque Film Festival planned for early August, said he is working with the people from the Shootout to bring it back next year.