I never have. I should have gone to some of the showings from the Las Vegas film festival when I lived there, but I guess I was too busy with law school at the time.
I was looking at the lineup of the San Francisco Film Festival and it seems cool, like something you might plan a vacation around. There's a big-screen showing of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST I would have loved to see, and a screening of THE LOST WORLD (1925) with a new score. And of course there were tons of new films that sounded great from the descriptions, but probably suck in reality. Still, it's cool to window shop and imagine that these are all great films that are much better than anything playing at the Cineplex 20!
So what about you? Have you ever gone to a film festival? How was it?
No. :bluesad: I have wanted to go to one of those B-Movie type things they have in Indiana...but I just haven't had the opportuinty. Maybe someday...(sigh...!)
Quote from: RCMerchant on April 18, 2009, 02:46:59 PM
No. :bluesad: I have wanted to go to one of those B-Movie type things they have in Indiana...but I just haven't had the opportuinty. Maybe someday...(sigh...!)
Hey, that one's so close I have no excuse not to go. It's at the end of September this year. Make it down and I'll buy you a beer. :cheers:
I have made it to a few screenings during the past two week-long "Toronto After Dark" film festivals. It was held around Halllowe'en (moving to summer in 2009), with a Zombie Walk and after-parties. The films tend to be new releases (premieres!) - many of the filmakers attended to introduce their features and shorts: 2007 featured Boll's "In the Name of the King" and the so-popular "Poultrygeist"; 2008 saw "REPO! The Genetic Opera" "Let the Right One In" "Tokyo Gore Police" "Treevenge" "Trailer Park of Terror" "Netherbeast Incorporated" and "I Sell the Dead".
Was attending worth it? YES! Just being in the theatre with all those like-minded souls was a blast! I think I am hooked.
(Hey: the next one is in August this year: sounds like a reason to make Toronto a vacation destination to me!)
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 18, 2009, 02:59:04 PM
Quote from: RCMerchant on April 18, 2009, 02:46:59 PM
No. :bluesad: I have wanted to go to one of those B-Movie type things they have in Indiana...but I just haven't had the opportuinty. Maybe someday...(sigh...!)
Hey, that one's so close I have no excuse not to go. It's at the end of September this year. Make it down and I'll buy you a beer. :cheers:
If I can...I will-but make mine a boiler-maker! :drink:
Quote from: Newt on April 18, 2009, 03:09:25 PM
I have made it to a few screenings during the past two week-long "Toronto After Dark" film festivals. It was held around Halllowe'en (moving to summer in 2009), with a Zombie Walk and after-parties. The films tend to be new releases (premieres!) - many of the filmakers attended to introduce their features and shorts: 2007 featured Boll's "In the Name of the King" and the so-popular "Poultrygeist"; 2008 saw "REPO! The Genetic Opera" "Let the Right One In" "Tokyo Gore Police" "Treevenge" "Trailer Park of Terror" "Netherbeast Incorporated" and "I Sell the Dead".
Was attending worth it? YES! Just being in the theatre with all those like-minded souls was a blast! I think I am hooked.
(Hey: the next one is in August this year: sounds like a reason to make Toronto a vacation destination to me!)
Toronto After Dark
is one of the cooler sounding festivals. Something to consider for sure!
I'm generally lucky in that my city generally has quite a few special event film festivals often.
Some at the moment that are have just finished or coming up are:
French Film Festival
Turkish Film Festival
Spanish Film Festival
Every year around August they have the Melbourne International Film Festival [MIFF] which tends to show a fantastic mix of films, fiction, non-fiction, horror, drama and more. It is good fun.
Last year was especially good since George Romero was a special guest and had an interview panel that was quite interesting. Then I got to see Diary of the Dead on the big screen [amongst some others] which was fun with a sold-out crowd of theater goers.
Also everynow and then there are special one-off events like 24 hour film showings [the last I remember was an action one. 24 hours straight of action movies... man I missed that one]
Good times.
The only thing I dislike about MIFF though are the 'hardcore' festival goers who sit and watch half a movie before getting up so they can make the next session of another movie they want to see. I never understood that: JUST SIT AND WATCH THE EFFING MOVIE!
No respect at all.
Yup, I was at the Titanic film festival, but I only watched one movie. Edison and Leo, Canada's first stop motion film. It was alright.
I haven't. Kind of regretting never going now. But to be honest, I'm not aware of any in the St. Louis area that cater to my kind of films. Anyone know any? I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not willing to go to a festival just to see a few interesting imports and art house films. I want to go to see B-movies, foreign action films, underground horror, exploitation, that sort of thing - genre stuff. It'd be worth it to meet like-minded people.
I've been thinking about trying to make a trip to Chicago, as I know there a few out there.
Quote from: Jim H on April 20, 2009, 01:07:20 AM
I haven't. Kind of regretting never going now. But to be honest, I'm not aware of any in the St. Louis area that cater to my kind of films. Anyone know any? I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not willing to go to a festival just to see a few interesting imports and art house films. I want to go to see B-movies, foreign action films, underground horror, exploitation, that sort of thing - genre stuff. It'd be worth it to meet like-minded people.
I've been thinking about trying to make a trip to Chicago, as I know there a few out there.
Jim, that b-movie fest near Indianapolis in Spetember that RC and I were talking about would be closer to you than Chicago, I think.
Well, Philly has one every year where they show a bunch of films from all over the world and give out some awards at the end I think. I'm not sure if it's exactly Cannes or Sundance, but they call it a Film Festival. So I guess I can say I've been to that.
I'm in NYC a lot these days so I keep seeing a lot of stuff about the Tribeca Film Festival, which was co-founded (with Jane Rosenthal) by Robert de Niro. Maybe I'll try to see some of those, though I'm not sure if I'll have time.
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 18, 2009, 02:41:35 PM
I never have. I should have gone to some of the showings from the Las Vegas film festival when I lived there, but I guess I was too busy with law school at the time.
I was looking at the lineup of the San Francisco Film Festival and it seems cool, like something you might plan a vacation around. There's a big-screen showing of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST I would have loved to see, and a screening of THE LOST WORLD (1925) with a new score. And of course there were tons of new films that sounded great from the descriptions, but probably suck in reality. Still, it's cool to window shop and imagine that these are all great films that are much better than anything playing at the Cineplex 20!
So what about you? Have you ever gone to a film festival? How was it?
We (the SA Film Archives) normally assist with or host quite a few festivals throughout the year ~ the major one for me anyway, is the yearly Volksblad Arts Festival, which is held in the Orange Free State in July in the dead of winter. It gets cold enough there (in the minus degrees!!) to freeze the balls off a brass monkey, I can tell you. :buggedout: I usually do the projection myself and also have a chat to the audience before I screen the film. When a member of the audience stands up and starts talking to the others, the looks on some of their faces are priceless. One person asked me to please sit down as they wanted to see the film. :teddyr:
You know that I'm about to drive four hundred miles down there when I post a thread whose subject line reads:
CHEEZEFLIX: YOUR NATIVE BEARERS ARE NEEDED ONCE AGAIN! This is all due to a joke made by buddy Cheeze in 2007 when he asked me why I bothered to drive down and said "Doesn't Africa still have native bearers?"Cheeze: they didn't turn up last year, my friend and I had to carry those films down there myself.
This year in July we'll be screening the following:
10H00 ~ 12H00: DR KALIE Filmed in my mom's hometown!! The touching story of a hobo who brings meaning to the life of all the people (and himself, indirectly) he encounters on his travels. (Ivan Hall, 1968)
14H00 ~ 16H00: PAPPALAP A heart-tugging story of a penniless sharecropper farmer who literally gives all he has to make his ugly duckling daughter the belle of the ball at the high school prom. (Jans Rautenbach, 1971)
18H00 ~ 20H00: DINGAKA A very serious film from a pioneer in comedy ~ an African tracks down his daughter's killer in Johannesburg and becomes a fugitive from justice.
(Jamie Uys, 1964)
10H00 ~ 12H00: DIE RUITER IN DIE NAG AKA The Rider In The Night ~ a Afrikaner agent does double duty as a spy for the British during the Anglo-Boer War. A strange film this: a very serious war film with a good sense of humor. (Jan Perold, 1963)
14H00 ~ 16H00: DIE PROFESSOR & DIE PRIKKELPOP AKA The Professor And The Beauty Queen. Another one from Jamie Uys: a nerdish maths professor inadvertently becomes a judge at a beauty pageant. (Jamie Uys, 1966)
18H00 ~ 20H00: RIDE THE HIGH WIND A truly creepy film this: AKA "African Gold". A pilot does a Sole Survivor / Flight of the Phoenix prang in the desert and discovers clues that might lead to a fortune in Anglo Boer War bullion. (David Millin ASC, 1965)
10H00 ~ 12H00: DAAR DOER IN DIE BOSVELD AKA: Faraway In The Bushveld. Jamie Uys' first film and also the first film made in color in Africa, as well as the first film made here with optical trick FX. This film's basic story gave rise to The Gods Must Be Crazy.
14H00 ~ 16H00: DANIE BOSMAN A biopic of the short tragic life of the talented SA music composer. (Elmo de Witt, 1969)
18H00 ~ 20H00: DOODKRY IS MIN Translation: They Can't Keep Us Down. A very controversial film by Jamie Uys on the rise of the Afrikaner nation and their language. Last seen in public in 1961 and there are many reasons for it being in the archives unseen by anyone since then. (1961)
10H00 ~ 12H00: HIER'S ONS WEER Translation: Here We Are Again or It's Us Again. A ghost scare comedy filmed not far from my home in Pretoria starring SA's version of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello, Al Debbo and Frederik Burgers. (1951, Hyman Kirstein)
14H00 ~ 16H00: LORD OOM PIET Oy yoy yoy, again with the Jamie Uys. SA's first political comedy about an Afrikaans farmer who discovers that he is in fact a British lord. Hilarious is not the word for this comedic gem. (1962)
We'll be screening from 15 ~ 18 July: come see us!
18H00 ~ 20H00: FUNNY PEOPLE Jamie Uys' hit candid camera comedy which he made with the assistance of Allen Funt.
Yep, for the past few years I've attended our very own BIFFF (that's Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film to you). You can see some things that hardly make it to theatres. Even for the 'mainstream' movies, there is the special atmosphere of being surrounded by like minded people.
This year I caught Coraline and 20th Century Boys.
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 20, 2009, 10:52:24 AM
Quote from: Jim H on April 20, 2009, 01:07:20 AM
I haven't. Kind of regretting never going now. But to be honest, I'm not aware of any in the St. Louis area that cater to my kind of films. Anyone know any? I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not willing to go to a festival just to see a few interesting imports and art house films. I want to go to see B-movies, foreign action films, underground horror, exploitation, that sort of thing - genre stuff. It'd be worth it to meet like-minded people.
I've been thinking about trying to make a trip to Chicago, as I know there a few out there.
Jim, that b-movie fest near Indianapolis in Spetember that RC and I were talking about would be closer to you than Chicago, I think.
Are you talking about this one?
http://www.bmoviecelebration.com/ (http://www.bmoviecelebration.com/)
If so, that is indeed closer than the city of Chicago. About 50 miles closer, actually. Looks like around a 5 hour drive. Might be worth it, I'll have to see what the schedule is.
Last year they had Lloyd Kaufman, Harry Manfredini, and Tom Holland as guests - pretty good ones, I think.
Only film festival I've been to was B-Fest in Chicago in 2002. It was definitely worth the drive.
Quote from: Jim H on April 23, 2009, 02:54:49 AM
Quote from: Rev. Powell on April 20, 2009, 10:52:24 AM
Quote from: Jim H on April 20, 2009, 01:07:20 AM
I haven't. Kind of regretting never going now. But to be honest, I'm not aware of any in the St. Louis area that cater to my kind of films. Anyone know any? I like a lot of stuff, but I'm not willing to go to a festival just to see a few interesting imports and art house films. I want to go to see B-movies, foreign action films, underground horror, exploitation, that sort of thing - genre stuff. It'd be worth it to meet like-minded people.
I've been thinking about trying to make a trip to Chicago, as I know there a few out there.
Jim, that b-movie fest near Indianapolis in Spetember that RC and I were talking about would be closer to you than Chicago, I think.
Are you talking about this one?
http://www.bmoviecelebration.com/ (http://www.bmoviecelebration.com/)
If so, that is indeed closer than the city of Chicago. About 50 miles closer, actually. Looks like around a 5 hour drive. Might be worth it, I'll have to see what the schedule is.
Last year they had Lloyd Kaufman, Harry Manfredini, and Tom Holland as guests - pretty good ones, I think.
Yes, that's the one. I wish they had the schedule up. Last year they showed at least 50 B-movie classics, and perhaps 1-3 new films.
They have the River's Edge Film Festival here, mostly low budget independent stuff, occasionally one will be good.
I've been to many/most of the local film festivals here in Portland. I've never been to a major one like cannes or sundance. I have submitted a short to sundance... I have my rejection letter somewhere... :wink: