The Valley Film Festival Concludes Its Twelfth Season, Announces Award Winners

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.

 

The festival screened over 30 films, including shorts and features, documentaries and fiction.  Nearly half had some direct connection to the San Fernando Valley, such as being a location for filming.  Fifteen films were premieres and eight came from foreign countries.  On closing night, the festival presented the following awards:

JURIED “10 DEGREES HOTTER” AWARDS:

Feature – Tie:  VINYL (Sara Sugarman) and THE GHASTLY LOVE OF JOHNNY X (Paul Bunnell)

Short – LUMINARIS (Juan Pablo Zaramella)

AUDIENCE AWARDS:

“Alumni Showcase” – SITTING BABIES (Cameron Fay)

Comedy Short – INCEST! THE MUSICAL (Grant Reed)

“Girls on Film” – YOU GOT THIS (Simo Manfredi)

“Happy Endings” – HI, LILLIAN (Douglas Wood)

Looking ahead, The Valley Film Festival will begin accepting submissions for VFF13 in January.

About The Valley Film Festival:
Founded in 2000, The Valley Film Festival, a project of Community Partners®, is the first and longest continually running film festival in the San Fernando Valley.  With a mission to join established filmmakers and emerging talent with adventurous audiences in Los Angeles, the VFF has screened a total of nearly 500 shorts, features, documentaries, animated films, and music videos from all over the world.  While emphasizing independent film, the festival also has occasionally shown studio productions, including BOOGIE NIGHTS, CHINATOWN, ENCINO MAN, FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH, MAGNOLIA, TERMINATOR 2, VALLEY GIRL, and WORLD TRADE CENTER. 

About Our Sponsors and Supporters:

The Valley Film Festival thanks its generous sponsors and supporters including The Art Directors Guild, Big Sugar Bakeshop, Bow & Truss, Cine Gear Expo, Citizen L.A., Creative Handbook, Decor Art Galleries, Footage Firm, The Hollywood Guild, iBlakeStudio.com, Kirin, Pretzel Crisps, ProductionHUB, Valley Relics, and Video Blocks.  And we thank Gregory Laemmle, the managers, and the staff of the Laemmle NoHo 7 who made us feel welcome.  And all our volunteers, alumni judges, and filmmakers who helped make VFF12 a success.

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Screening at VFF12: Closing Night Feature: “A Few Best Men”

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:

“A sheep in drag, a runaway floral arrangement and Olivia Newton John as you’ve never seen her before are some of the memorable moments of this riotous comedy in which the humour varies from the outrageous to the ridiculous.  Scripted by Death at a Funeral’s Dean Craig, A Few Best Men cleverly combines its culture clash and buddy themes with a wild tale embracing family secrets, a drug deal gone wrong and a romantic wedding filled with hilarious mishaps.”

“Directed by Stephan Elliott (“The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”) with his indefatigable joie de vivre and wicked sense of humour, the film is a sure fix if you need a laugh. It’s a perfect marriage of British and Australian humour that fuses into its own form. The refined, the raucous and the rip-roaringly rude collide in 97 minutes of sparkling mayhem.”

Co-produced by VFF alum Laurence Malkin, the cast includes Xavier Samuel, Laura Brent, Kris Marshall, Rebel Wilson, and, yes, Olivia Newton-John.

Come for the fun and stay for the awards.  After the 5:00 screening, we’ll relocate to nearby Gallery 800 for our closing night awards announcement and party.  See you there!

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Screening at VFF12: “Alumni Showcase" Shorts Program

Have some laughs, and a little horror, with us Sunday afternoon as we welcome back some of our previous filmmakers to screen their latest shorts. 

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.

Check out our sneak-peek clip, with writer and co-producer Dan Greenberger introducing the film.

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. 

Checkout these and the rest of our alumni shorts program on Sunday, November 11, at 3:00.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Screening at VFF12: “Luminaris” and “The Ghastly Love of Johnny X”

Saturday night we’re screening two films with playfully creative takes on film and reality itself.   

 

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:

“The setting of the film is a classic Buenos Aires, revisited from a fantastic point of view. The film uses a collage of styles, combining art deco, tango, surrealism, and neorealism. This mix of influences is directly linked with the history of Buenos Aires:  the city and its population themselves are a mix of different cultures.”

In addition to numerous other honors, Luminaris was named to the 2011 Academy Award shortlist for Best Animated Short Film.

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.

Johnny X also is the last feature shot on Eastman Kodak's discontinued Plus-X 5231 stock, which was used on the likes of Raging Bull and Schindler's List—and will look great at the NoHo 7.  And it has the final screen appearance of Kevin McCarthy, which alone makes it a must see for some of you out there.

Click here to see filmmaker extraordinaire Paul Bunnell introducing the film for us.

 

Screening Saturday evening (11/10) at 9:30.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Sneak-Peek Clips from Some of our VFF12 Filmmakers

Check out some of our filmmakers for this year, introducing their films:

Di Koob, Writer, Producer, and Actor in Liking Men, screening Friday, 11/9 @ 7:30 pm

Simo Manfredi, Director of You Got This, screening Friday, 11/9 @ 7:30 pm.  We also have an interview with Simo here.
 

Sara Sugarman, Director of VINYL, screening Saturday, 11/10 @ 6:30 pm

Paul Bunnell, Writer, Director, and Co-Producer of The Ghastly Love of Johnny X, screening Saturday, 11/10 @ 9:30 pm.  We also have an interview with Paul here.

Dan Greenberger, Writer and Co-Producer of A Day in the Life of Your Cats, screening Sunday, 11/11 @ 3:00 pm

 

We also have an interview clip with Kai De Mello-Folsom and (Writer and Producer) and Grant Reed (Writer and Director) about Incest! The Musical!, screening Saturday, 11/10, at 1:00 pm

And one with Peter Paul Basler, Director of Chad and the Alien Toupee

 

And with Eric Casaccio, Writer, Producer, and Director of Freak

 

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

 

Screening at VFF12: “The Little Team” and “VINYL”

Saturday at 6:30, we have a pair of entertaining youth-oriented films about underdogs.

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. 

Shot in just a few hours by a small crew, this film is great for kids and the grownups who can learn from them.  As the filmmakers said in an interview, “We are a little film company and we like to win but it can’t be always expect this.  We try to have fun with the process, not just with the final result.”  Fortunately, the final result is a winner!

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.”

Loosely based on the true story of The Alarm and Mike Peters, this film was directed by Sara Sugarman, who has experience in bands herself and as a longtime acquaintance with Peters.  Click here for a sneak-peek clip of Sara introducing her film.

Screening Saturday evening (11/10) at 6:30 pm.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Screening at VFF12: “The Human Race”

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.”

If you liked Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, “you will constantly be entertained” here.  Part of what sets this film apart is its large and diverse cast of characters from all walks of life, including young and old, male and (pregnant) female, physically fit and disabled, white-collar and homeless.   

This film has been described as “an extremely effective high concept thriller that belies its budgetary constraints with those all-too-rarely-used secret weapons:  strong characters and fine acting.”  For example, the one-legged Iraq War veteran played by Eddie McGee.  As one reviewer put it, “Eddie is great in the film, showing charisma, acting skill and action-hero chops.  He is faster and more agile on crutches than some people are on two feet.  Trained in Toronto by one of Jackie Chan’s students, Eddie does all his own stunts including a mind-boggling fight sequence.”

Another reviewer writes that, “In a ballsy move, director Hough allows big chunks of the film to unravel solely through subtitled sign language exchanges, but to his credit this actually works quite well, and along with McGee's physical performance, give this a unique vibe that we don't usually [see] in more mainstream fare.  Hough also thoroughly examines the baser part of human nature (hence the doubly appropriate title), with some coming out as noble and heroic, and others turning into blood-crazed lunatics willing to do whatever they have to do in order to survive.  Even people that start out as heroes may turn into monsters by the time the race draws to an end, as there can only be one victor.”

Screening Saturday afternoon (11/10) at 3:00.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Screening at VFF12: “108.1 FM Radio” and “End of the Road”

Our Friday evening program is a pair of thrillers, each playing suspensefully with murder and who’s really the villain. 


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.

A terrific movie for fans of the genre, and of the many cast members who are film and TV veterans, including Doug Jones, Michael Dorn, Robert Picardo, Zack Ward, Danielle James, Davina Joy, and Todd Tucker. Directed by first timer J.P. Pierce, from a script by Monte M. Moore, it’s already won awards at several other festivals, and we’re proud to have it here.

Screening Friday evening (11/9) at 9:30.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Party Like It’s the Valley: Social Events for VFF12

Mark your calendar.  Here are our parties for next week:

MEET THE FILMMAKERS PARTY

Monday, 11/5, 7:00 pm

@ Decor Art Galleries

12149 Ventura Blvd.

Studio City, CA 91604

Filmmakers and Invited Guests Only

"GIRLS ON FILM" HAPPY HOUR

Friday, 11/9, 4:30 pm

@ Bow & Truss

11122 Magnolia Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 91601

The More the Merrier!

CLOSING NIGHT AWARDS AND PARTY

Sunday, 11/11, 7:00 pm

@ Gallery 800

5108 Lankershim Blvd.

North Hollywood, CA 91601

Ticket Holders and Invited Guests Only

Screening at VFF12: “Girls on Film” Shorts Program

On Friday evening, our annual selection of films by and/or about women is as strong as ever.  Whether you like drama, comedy, or documentary, these films will speak to you about the ups and downs, the complexities, of the female condition. 

As its title suggests, The Oldest Lesbian in the World is a documentary about a woman—Bobbie Staff, a butch lesbian born in 1913—who’s seen a lot in her time.  Accompanied by her longtime friend, Sweet Baby J’ai, Bobbie takes us on a whimsical and revealing trip down a very steamy memory lane, through photographs and vivid memories of many decades living as an out lesbian in New York City and Los Angeles.  This story comes from the filmmaking team of Mary Jo Godges and two-time Emmy-award winning video journalist Renee Sotile.

One of our comedies, Bathing and the Single Girl, is about a single woman in her 30s comically recounting her dismal attempts at a “first trip to cougartown.”  Desperate after a long romantic dry spell, she lowers her standards and reminds us of why she had them in the first place.  A witty monologue written and performed by Christine Elise McCarthy (who also directed and produced)—part of the fun of the film is seeing how it uses cinematic techniques to be more than just a monologue.  Elsewhere in the festival, you can see Christine in Route 30, Too!

You Got This is a drama about two young women, each struggling with their own lives, crossing paths and learning from each other.  Lauren is a troubled teenage musician caught stealing money by a high school security guard, who holds her guitar hostage in order to teach her a lesson; the ransom is that Lauren must train with his charity marathon team. Through this forced interaction with running—and her assigned training partner, Susie—Lauren learns more about life and friendship than she could have ever expected.  This film is an MFA student production by Simo Manfredi, a Directing Fellow at the AFI.  Click here for a sneak-peek clip with Simo introducing her film.  And here for an interview with her.

 

In Liking Men, a woman embarks on a restless odyssey of healing after a traumatic rape.  While receiving the guidance of a wise woman, her journey takes a surprising direction, as she tries to reconnect physically with her husband.  A terrific dramedy—based on a Margaret Atwood short story of the same title—written, produced, and starring Di Koob.  Click here for a sneak-peek clip of Di introducing the film.

Inspired by the book The Green Hat by Michael Arlen, Le Chapeau (The Hat) is a drama about a Los Angeles photographer who recalls his love affair with a French model.  Click here for an interview we did with the film’s writer Sahag Gureghian, producer Rehn Dudukgian, and director Marie Tang.

Check them out Friday evening (11/9) at 7:30.

And come to the “Girls on Film” Happy Hour beforehand:  4:30 pm @ Bow & Truss, 11122 Magnolia Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 91601

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.

Screening at VFF12: “Route 30, Too!”

Our opening night feature is the sequel to John Putch’s comedy Route 30, which we screened back in 2008.  Route 30, Too! is set in the same south-central Pennsylvania area where Putch grew up, along U.S. 30 in Caledonia, Fayetteville, and Chambersburg.  As a native, he knows the local culture, quirks and all, and plays them for more laughs than in the first film.  Picture a sort of unpretentious Northern Exposure where the ensemble includes a choreographer hired to revitalize a failing Gentleman’s club; and a successful real estate agent who gives new meaning to “customer service.”  And a clerk at the local elephant museum and candy store, who suddenly started speaking Spanish five years ago when something strange happened outside the museum.  And then there are the ghosts and space aliens…. 

Robert Romanus returns this time with Jamie Rose (whose TV credits include Falcon Crest) as a husband-and-wife team tracking paranormal activity.  Curtis Armstrong returns as Deer Hunter Bob, living in camouflage and the woods while awaiting deer season, when he’s not drinking beer.  At another festival, Armstrong described this sequel as totally different from the first film:  “The first one is like a chamber piece. This one is like a symphonic piece that's composed by Daffy Duck!  For this kind of low-budget film, it's got a lot of actors and special effects, which is nuts!”

Nuts indeed.  Check out the nuts and flakes in all their glory on opening night, Wednesday, 11/7, at 8:00.

This film has some adult situations, strong language, and simulated sex—so leave the kids at home.

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By James Latham

The Valley Film Festival returns to NoHo for its twelfth annual celebration of independent film and local production, Wednesday, November 7 – Sunday, November 11, 2012.

For more on The Valley Film Festival, visit our website or Facebook page.