For once in my life, the fact that you can search your browser history turned out to be a good thing. As I scrolled past all the porn, sports and social networking sites I was on last night, I came across the links you see below... which were all in a post that I wrote last night, but it didn't save for some reason. So, yeah... this is the second time I've written this. And it better work this time...Let's take a look at three distinctly different events going on, one's a festival, one's a convention and the last is a film center.
The Toofy Film Fest, founded by Jeff and Mark Siebert in 2004, takes place in Boulder, Colorado in the Boulder Theater every September. As it's mid to late September right now, they're obviously closed for submissions, but keep an eye out for when they re-open for 2009. It's a more laid-back festival than most and it plays out more like a big party... for example, one of their tag lines was "Relax... they're just movies." Be careful when submitting, though, as they're not genre specific. They probably wouldn't be into anything that's too hardcore. Having said that, you never know. One of the cool things about them is that they're partnered with Current TV, whose chairman is former Vice President Al Gore, and their producers meet with filmmakers and will entertain pitches. I can just see how the meeting would go between a Dead Harvey reader and Al Gore... "Yeah, so... the main characters are a family of super-rich, psychotic midgets who live like royalty during the day, but dress up as chimps and kill the 'regular folk' at night... what do you mean, 'No'?, that's bullshit."
Rotten Jack's Creep Show takes place this weekend, September 20, in Buffalo, NY. Now, Rotten Jack's is actually a store, they're "America's premiere horror & halloween boo-tique", in fact. However, this weekend is their second annual "Creep Show" and it's a big convention, where you can buy movie apparel, props, horror collectibles, etc. There's also tattoo artists, paranormal groups, musical acts and celebrity guests. If you're a regular reader, you know my stance on conventions. I think they're equally as important as the film festivals. If you've made a few films or if you could band together with other filmmakers, you should become a vendor and sell DVD's, talk with the people and, hell, get everyone's name, number and email address, so you can keep in touch with them. Great places to sell merchandise and network, as it's all like-minded people there... who've come to a convention to spend money.
Lastly, let's look at The Echo Park Film Center. The only reason I found them is because if you look at the last post, Fewdio is screening their short "Laundromat" at the 62nd Film Festival in L.A. So, I just assumed that was it was the 62nd time that an event called "Film Festival" was occuring in L.A., but when my crack google skills couldn't come up with anything close to that, I dug deeper. Then I found The Echo Park Film Center, which is is doing an event called "62nd CINEMA", as in "Sixty-Second Cinema". Quite witty, but it does make it hard to search for. Anyhow, when I went to the Echo Park Film Center, I found that they do tons of screenings, events and shows. Just go to their site, it's crazy. Anyhow, if you're in the L.A. area, you should check it out and get involved.
