Looking ahead, in early January we’ll begin accepting submissions for VFF13. Stay tuned.
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By James
Latham
The official blog of The Valley Film Festival::Cinema so independent it can only be found in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley.
North Hollywood, CA (November 13, 2012)
– The Valley Film Festival has completed its twelfth annual season of
independent film from around the Valley and the world. On closing night, the festival presented juried
and audience awards.
Our
closing night feature, A Few Best
Men, has played internationally and is now coming to the Valley. It’s hard to top what one reviewer wrote
about it:
Jeffrey Williams returns with A Day in
the Life of Your Cats, a terrific comedy about what cats do all day at
home. What they think of their lives,
their owners, each other, and the dog. And what
they do when you’re not looking. A fun
romp with witty dialogue, scene ideas, and acting by Zach Palmer and Ryan Tutton as the hipster
housecats.
Cameron Fay wrote and directed
his latest short, Sitting
Babies, which also sets up an awkward situation and mines it for
laughs. In this case, it’s a beleaguered
babysitter’s evening from hell, taking care of a defiant and manipulative young
teen boy played by Justin Bright. Jack
Quaid plays the hapless sitter who had no idea what he was in for, and
struggles with each new challenge from young Joey. And then mom comes home….
These are
just some of the comedies on tap. To mix
it up a little, we have the horror film Happy
Anniversary, about struggling newlyweds who come clean with each other by
deciding to kill those they’ve had affairs with. Thanks to Edward Payson for his latest
contribution to the festival.
Luminaris
is a short comedy about a worker in a light bulb factory who tries to get ahead
by cheating, and what goes wrong—and right—when he’s caught. This gem of a film is beautifully crafted
with pixilated animation and a snappy story—told only with visuals and a score,
no dialogue—by Argentinian director Juan Pablo Zaramella. Cinephiles will recognize elements of silent
film comedy, day-in-the-life documentaries like The Man with a Movie Camera,
and other great works. And not just
films. As noted on the website ShortOfTheWeek:
Our accompanying
feature fits our independent sensibility to a T, or an X. The Ghastly
Love of Johnny X is a campy mash-up of 1950s juvenile delinquent films,
sci-fi thrillers, musicals, and comedies.
Banished to Earth for intergalactic juvenile delinquency, Johnny X and
his gang set off in search of a piece of alien technology that could change the
fate of the universe forever—the so-called “resurrection suit.” They’re soon embroiled in a wacky scheme with
characters including a femme fatale, a shifty concert promoter, and a recently
deceased musician “who won’t let a little decomposition stop him from rocking.” Really.
The Little
Team, or “L'Equip Petit,” is a fun and inspiring documentary short from
Spain about a youth soccer team that’s never scored a single goal but keeps
going anyway—for the fun of playing the game, to make friends, and learn
lessons about life and sports.
Our accompanying
feature, VINYL,
is an underdog comedy about an aging British punk band, Johnny Jones and the Weapons of
Happiness, returning to the music scene by creating a younger group to mime
their songs. Sort of Spinal Tap meets School of Rock—as The
Santa Barbara Post put it, this is “a heartwarming rock mockumentary.” A fresh and funny film that
“delves into the relationship of rock star dads and their illegitimate
children, the misdirection of today's spotlight on the young rather than the
talented, and the role of technology in today's music industry.”
Saturday
afternoon we have some high-adrenaline thrills and chills for you, with The Human
Race, a grindhouse-style feature written and directed by VFF alum Paul Hough. The "race" is to the death, as 80 people
plucked randomly from their everyday lives must race through an obstacle course: “Stay on the path or you will die. If you are lapped twice, you will die. Do not touch the grass or you will die. Race or die.”
In 108.1 FM
Radio, it’s either a driver, or the hitchhiker he picks up late one night,
or neither. Accompanied by a radio
program bringing bad news, tensions rise between them: is the radio right? Should somebody get outta there before it’s
too late? Or is it just a false alarm? Find out in this short film—the third by Italian
filmmakers Angelo and Giuseppe Capasso, and a great
companion piece to our feature.
End of the
Road is a feature that ventures to remote Idaho for the filming of a
reality show pilot about a haunted house.
As you might expect, tragedy strikes and the cast and crew find
themselves struggling to figure out what’s going on, and how to survive. Some big unexpected plot twists make this
more than a typical thriller or horror movie.
Like the characters, we think we know what’s going on, but really don’t.