Guest blogger Bart Weiss is director of VideoFest.

As director of VideoFest (the event formally known as the Dallas Video Festival) I am always on the lookout for fascinating, innovative programs for the fest. Several years ago I happened on a conference called INPUT, which is an international public television conference. It’s kind of like a festival at which everybody there is a maker and or producer of public TV. Now we all know and love KERA and what public television is like here in the U.S., but have you ever wondered what it is like in Estonia, Japan, South Africa or any number of other countries? Sometimes it can be strange and beautiful. Every year, INPUT is held in a different country. I have been to conferences in Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Taipei and as far away as Fort Worth. It is a strange thing to go halfway around the world and sit in a dark room to watch TV, but I plan to come back with several amazing programs that I can share with the North Texas community at this years VideoFest (Nov. 5-8).
This year’s conference will be held May 10-15 in Warsaw, Poland. I found out that at the same time there is a Polish documentary film festival going on in another part of the same building, so that should be very cool. While in this part of the world,  I will head out to Hungry, where all my grandparents came from. I have seen many, many films about people going back to find their roots, and I will not be making one. But I will be blogging from my trip and hopefully bringing some video back from the journey.
Now, it’s off to pack.