YOUR TIME.

Navigation: Main page

Author: Unknown

Film

The pedal-friendly festival of shorts and features celebrates the glory of the bicycle. Now in its sixth year, it's expected to draw 40,000 fans in each of 10 venues, including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Minneapolis, Minn. Among the more than 50 films to be screened is Lucas Brunelle Video.

Presented by the Cleveland Film Society each March, this Ohio cinefest is renowned for its diversity and inclusiveness. Specializing in foreign films and shorts, the lineup this year includes family features, independents, documentaries and gay and lesbian movies.

Wilmington, N.C., may be better known in show business as the location of TV's Dawson's Creek, but this annual festival could change that. For four days this November, the focus is on rebellious underground film. At this festival, unlike others, there are no prizes awarded; the ruggedly independent event celebrates the pure love of filmmaking.

For six years the mountain setting of Boulder, Colo., provided a scenic backdrop for this intimate festival, which gave audience members a chance to rub shoulders with the stars of tomorrow. (Three Moondance winners have gone on to be nominated for Academy Awards.) This year the stars won't have as far to travel: the seventh annual Moondance festival will be held later this month in Hollywood.

Fittingly in October, this ghoulish fall festival celebrates the horror genre in all its gore and glory, with frightening features, parties to network at and a scream-filled-screenplay contest.

The September fest in the theater district of Birmingham, Ala., is an industry favorite, named a MovieMaker "film festival worth the entry fee" and one of Chris Gore's "best film-festival vacations."

Austin, Texas, is home to three standouts. In October more than 100 short and feature films are screened at the Austin Film Festival. SXSW Film is an offshoot of a music festival held every spring. And in April the Best of QT Fest draws die-hard Quentin Tarantino fans to the Alamo Drafthouse.

The artsy New York State town is famed for the rock festival, but all the arts are celebrated there. Each September the place fills with filmmakers and celebrities. Some 125 films are screened, and yes, there is good music as well.

If you want a critic for a guide, this may be the festival for you. Each April in Champaign, Ill., the TV and Chicago Sun-Times film reviewer selects movies--from the famed to the obscure, like U-Carmen eKhayelitsha--that he feels have fallen through the cracks.

What began in a small Philadelphia theater company as a one-time opportunity for friends to show their films on a rented video projector has grown in five years into a big bicoastal event, with festivals in Los Angeles in April and Philadelphia in June.

PHOTO (COLOR): Brunelle's underwater bike ride

PHOTO (COLOR): The Crystal Skull award goes to Screamfest's scariest film

PHOTO (COLOR): U-Carmen eKhayelitsha

PHOTO (COLOR)

PHOTO (COLOR)