Checkout HollyShorts Film Festival Award Winning Films “Sarah & Dee”and “Small Jeans” at UCLA’s May Flowers With Women Filmmakers event on Saturday, May 10. Filmmakers/Actresses Karen Dee Carpenter and Jennifer Watko will attend. The event will also feature shorts from Kate Hudson and Kirsten Dunst. Thanks to Cheryl Quintana Leader for making this event happen!
Thanks to all of the filmmakers and fans who attend last night’s HollyShorts monthly screening series at the Echo Park Film Center. The house was packed and the shorts were great! Stay tuned for the May installment which will once again be held in Echo Park.
Breaking News! HollyShorts Film Festival (HSFF) has been selected as one of MovieMaker Magazine’s “Top 25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee” in the publication’s Film Festival Spring 2008 special issue. Pick up your copy today and go HollyShorts!
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Festival’s Acclaimed Short Film Showcase Returns This Week
The April installment of the HollyShorts monthly screening series returns on Friday, April 25 at the Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles. The organizers of HollyShorts will highlight 5 new acclaimed short films with the filmmakers in attendance for Q&A with the audience. Tickets are $10 and available at the door. Doors open at 7:30 pm. Refreshments provided. The Echo Park Film Center is located at 1200 N. Alvarado Street (@ Sunset Blvd) Los Angeles, CA 90026. RSVP by emailing staff@hollyshorts.com
Friday’s lineup includes the following shorts:
Grand Wheel by Gavin Heffernan (sunchaserpictures@gmail.com) (6 minutes, Experimental)
As one of the most dramatic Presidential campaigns in U.S History reaches a boiling point, Gavin Heffernan’s experimental documentary about the Peace Movement in the United States takes a passionate, often disturbing look at a divided nation. Created in the vein of KOYANNISQATSI, GRAND WHEEL features exclusive footage from an eclectic list of settings - including a Surfside Veteran’s Memorial, a California Carnival, and an Iraq War Protest in downtown Los Angeles.
“Love Conquers Al” by Kamali Minter (kamali@lucentrain.com) (13 minutes, Comedy)
Al dreams about having one thing… Bridgette, his clutzy but cute co-worker.
Before he can make his dream come true, he must convince all the personalities
in his head that this is what’s best. In the Central Post Between Thought and
Reality, Al battles all parts of himself, to determine if love really can conquer all.
“Sacrament” by Craig Ouellette (Thriller, 3:52) (craigofilm@gmail.com)
In a desperate attempt to rescue their son, distraught parents interrogate the cult member who kidnapped him.
“Sleeper” by Philippe Casseus (casseus@gmail.com) (12 minutes, Drama)
(World Premiere)
Simeon wakes up in a coma with no idea how long he’s been sleeping. The sound of Noelle’s voice reaches him, urging him to wake. But Simeon’s ego has other plans for his id.
Sound Machine Vera Freitag (freitagvera@yahoo.com) (15 minutes Drama/Sci Fi)
Sound Machine is a modern psychological drama that takes place in a world parallel to ours. Professor Henry Kleeblatt, a former biophysicist, trapped in a mental institution, believes that plants can talk. In order to prove that his theory is correct, he builds the Sound Machine, an instrument which can capture high pitched sound waves such as those of plants and converts them into sounds that the human ear can hear.
The last HollyShorts monthly screening series took place in March at the Echo Park Film Center and featured a standing room crowd.
About Echo Park Film Center
Echo Park Film Center is a volunteer-run, non-profit media arts organization located in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. We provide equal and affordable access to film/video education and resources via:
• a community microcinema and meeting space
• free and nominal cost media arts education programs
• a comprehensive small format film equipment and service department
• a touring film festival showcasing local established and student filmmakers
For more information, visit: www.echoparkfilmcenter.org
HollyShorts Film Festival late deadline is May 16, 2008. Submit today online by using Withoutabox. Below is the link:
You can also submit via our online form here:Call For Entries 08.pdf.
Check out this game-changing video about the 2007 HollyShorts Film Festival. Join host, Damon Campbell, for an exclusive look at last year’s fest.
After competing against 150 other aspiring directors over several months and across multiple rounds, Lauren Marie Pena has been named the 2007 Breakout Filmmaker by Project Breakout, the premiere online video competition community www.projectbreakout.com
Ms. Pena, a twenty-one-year-old film student from Studio City, California, earned the respect of both the online audience and the panel of expert judges who were jointly responsible for selecting a grand prize winner from the pool of fifteen finalists.
While her original short film, Easy Money, earned Ms. Pena her place in the finals, it was her next competition entry, Christmas Confessional, which catapulted her into the opportunity of a lifetime for a young filmmaker. After winning the competition, Ms. Pena traveled all-expenses paid to London, England to work with Academy Award(R) winning producer David Parfitt and veteran director Andy Cadiff on the set of their current production, A Bunch of Amateurs.
In being advised of her victory, Ms. Pena said, “Project Breakout has given me the opportunity of a lifetime and winning this award has really helped solidify my career in film. Not only has it given me more credibility in my directing skills, I have gained the correct exposure an aspiring filmmaker needs.”
When asked about his involvement in the Breakout Filmmaker competition, producer David Parfitt said, “We are delighted to support Project Breakout and we hope that Lauren’s visit to our set will help prepare her for a great future as an independent filmmaker.”
Gregory Sukornyk, Founder and CEO of Project Breakout, added, “We have been amazed at the contestant and audience turnout for our inaugural Short Film competition. Lauren has distinguished herself in the eyes of the online audience and our expert panel of judges as a filmmaker on the rise. We are thrilled that Project Breakout is continuing to help budding talent and look forward to giving more people a leg up by offering them real career-advancing opportunities.”
The Breakout Filmmaker short film competition was open to aspiring filmmakers from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Registered fans from around the world were eligible to vote for and comment on contestants during each round of the competition. In excess of 500,000 votes were cast over the course of eight weeks.
Congrats to filmmaker Jackie Liao for picking up the Best Student Film for her animated short film ‘DANDELION’ at the Backlot Fest in Culver City. Jackie’s film was an official selection at last year’s HollyShorts. Backlot ran Wednesday, April 2 through Friday, April 5 and included 14 premieres, in its four-day run, in the independent feature, documentary, shorts and student shorts categories. Best Short Film winner was Paula Jimenez and JC Nunez’ comedy PENCIL FIGHTING. Documentary was won by OJ IS GUILTY-BUT NOT OF MURDER, THE OVERLOOKED SUSPECT and accepted by private investigator, author and filmmaker William C. Dear. LA CUCINA and YESTERDAY WAS A LIE tied for Best Independent Feature.
Co-director Zed Starkovich accepted for LA CUCINA, a romantic dramedy, and executive producer, writer and director James Kerwin accepted for YESTERDAY, a sci-fi film noir.
LESS THAN ONE WEEK REMAINS FOR HOLLYSHORTS FILM FEST REGULAR SUBMISSIONS….ACT NOW!
Tell every filmmaker you know… Less than one week until the HollyShorts April 16 Regular Submission deadline.
You can submit online by visiting the HollyShorts section ofWithoutabox.
HollyShorts New Sponsor
The Best Student short film Award winner at this year’s festival will win a 5 day HVX-200, HD Camera rental package from our new sponsor Martini Crew Booking. Below is a description of the camera and new Martini Crew Booking HollyShorts Prize package!
About the HVX-200
The HVX-200 looks very much like the DVX100 but physically bigger, and it retains all the best features of the DVX100 (including CineGamma, CineMatrix, the Scene File Dial, the true manual zoom, the precise manual focus, the excellent stock wide-angle 4.5mm Leica lens, and the best audio subsystem on any prosumer camera). It even uses the same batteries. But to this great pedigree it adds more: a longer zoom range (13x, as opposed to 10x on the DVX, for a focal range of 4.5mm to 58.5mm, which will help provide for shallower depth of field); 16:9 CCDs for native 16:9 recording in either high-definition or standard-def; more recording formats (in addition to DV, there’s DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO-HD); more recording mediums (in addition to miniDV tape, it offers the revolutionary P2 solid-state memory cards, and may also record or transfer footage directly to optional external 1394 hard disks); more audio (it can record up to four tracks of audio at once); more remote control capability (in addition to the familiar remote zoom jack, the HVX provides for remote focus and — get this — remote iris control!), more feedback (in addition to the familiar distance scale for focusing, it now reads out the focus distance in feet & meters). All of this plus a tripod & monitor, courtesy of Martini Crew Booking, LLC.
About Martini Crew Booking
Martini Crew Booking, LLC, was established by CEO Clay Westervelt as an answer to the growing need for courteous, intelligent crews with personality. Martini Crew Booking adheres to a policy of “no surprises” as we work carefully to keep our clients informed of financial impact of creative choices before the invoices roll in. Our crews are experienced in formats from 35mm and HD to Betacam and MiniDV, and we’ve provided equipment and personnel for international shoots from Mexico to China.
Whether you’re producing a TV series, feature film, or documentary, instill confidence by turning to Martini Crew Booking for creativity and charisma…
“Martini Crew Booking….good to the last shot.”
Marcus Ashley on Music, Movies and Modern Masculinity
Interview by Hara Finnegan
As I sit down for my very first interview with actor and musician Marcus Ashley, something dawns on me. There is a way a person is perceived and the way a person really is. Sitting down with someone for a few hours is surely not going to let me know who a person really is, but I did in fact gain some insight into the dark recesses of Mr. Ashley’s mind. And there was light to be found. To be more specific, provocation.
Sitting in a dirty wicker chair, he puts his boots up along the edge of a wall, tucked a bit uncomfortably. He is tall, clearing a decent 6 foot 3, and he resembles a young Peter Fonda. Within the first few minutes, I notice what would be the theme of our interview. “A man out of place in the modern world.” Full story on HollyShorts Blog.
