Congratulations to IndieWire’s longtime editor-in-chief, Eugene Hernandez, whose appointment as the first director of digital technology was announced today by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. One of the nicest and hardest working guys in the business, Eugene and his colleagues have taken IndieWire from a small website founded 15 years ago to a widely read trade journal-like competitor to Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.

I met Eugene in 2001 at my very first Sundance Film Festival, back when IndieWire was still handing out a printed newsletter daily at the festival. The Post liked a piece I filed on a documentary called “Raw Deal” — which included actual cam-corder sex footage taken in a Florida frat house that the female dancer involved later claimed was not consensual — so much that they wanted to make it a front page story.

I had interviewed the filmmakers, but it was Eugene who was on the scene at a midnight screening the night before when the woman in the film made an unannounced appearance and immediately left Park City. I was unable to track her down, but Eugene got a long interview with her, which I quoted from liberally, giving IndieWire ample credit. Unfortunately, the attributions somehow got lost in New York as my then-editors asked for more and more quotes to flesh out the story, which ended up as the big front page story in the next day’s print edition.

I was mortified when Eugene very quietly and calmly walked up to me the next day at a screening and pointed out the lack of attribution. He was cool when we printed a clarification giving credit next day. He’s been a friend ever since, especially encouraging about this blog at a time when few people read it or even knew it existed. As for “Raw Deal,” it never found theatrical distribution — though whether this was because the purchaser had buyers’ remorse (the filmmakers’ version) or because the filmmakers failed to imdemnify the distributor for musical clearances was debatable.

Eugene’s first tasks will be to clean up FSLC’s wildly dysfunctional website, develop digital partnerships for FSLC’s Film Comment magazine and develop a Film Society digital channel. His hiring by Rose Kuo, FSLC’s executive director, comes as the society prepares to open a couple of new theaters next year to complement the Walter Reade. We wish him the very best of luck.