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.