Discover Indie Film
Camila’s world seems perfect on the outside, but appearances are deceiving. She risks everything by keeping a book a secret.
Director(s): Luisa Novo
Writer(s): Luisa Novo
Producer(s): Luisa Novo, Denise Szabo, Vanessa Sandre
Cast: Vanessa Sandre, Lucas Lacerda Albuquerque, Clei Grött
Narrative Feature Film
American SciFi
Collision
Desire Lines
DOUG
Hawk and Rev: Vampire Slayers
Life’s A Bitch And Then One Kills You
Lupe
Three Roads
Documentary Feature Film
Comfort Farms
Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America
Documentary Short Film
JESSYCA
Narrative Short Film – Comedy
Casanova
First States
Granny Knows Best
Grief Vigilantes
How To Save A Marriage
Joseph turns 42 (Or the Inconsistency of Wonders)
Nailed
Possibilities
Sidepiece
Sofa Queen
Narrative Short Film – Drama
Bengal
Fantasmas (Ghosts)
FLAT
Happenstance
Kama’āina (Child of the Land)
Kids Don’t Die
LA Break up
Micky
Passenger Man
Renchik
Supernova
The Bus to Birra Birra
The Hostess
The Squirrels in the Attic
The World Inside
To the Moon and Back
Torch
Narrative Short Film – Experimental/Arthouse
His Mother
Kiko’s Saints
Narrative Short Film – Horror
Cold Hard Blood
Far Gone
Stew
Village of the Gramned
After suffering abuse from her stepfather, a 16 y/o queer Mahina must navigate life on the streets, until she eventually finds refuge at the Puuhonua o Waianae – Hawaii’s largest organized homeless encampment.
Director(s): Kimi Howl Lee
Writer(s): Kimi Lee
Producer(s): Anastasia Solovieva and Sabina Friedman-Seitz
Starring: Malia Kamalani Soon, Twinkle Borge, Sabina Friedman-Seitz, Alex Suvusa, Nainoa Brown-Kahananui, Aria Alexander, Lenny.
A conflicted adult film actress attends a meditation group and mixes with an offbeat clientele and their troubled guru.
Director(s): Mehdi Avaz
Writer(s): Mehdi Avaz
Producer(s): Misam Avaz, Kim Magnusson, Sara Victoria Bjerre Pedersen
Starring: Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Cecilie Stenspil, Karla Avaz, Henning Jensen, Tommy Kenter, Sebastian Jessen, Emilie Kroyer Koppel.
Online Screenings. Physical screenings are cancelled. We are exploring options for online screenings. Any online screenings will be voluntary. We are aware that some filmmakers save their “online premiere” while others fear the piracy risks posed by streaming. Next week filmmakers can expect us to share options with them and see who prefers what, if any, online screenings to participate in.
Online Filmmaker Awards. We will announce our Grand Jury Prize, Filmmakers Prize, and Programmers Prize awards with a videoconference on Sunday, June 7 at 12pm Pacific. (We are going to skip the Audience Awards because, sadly, we cannot have an audience this year.). We intentionally chose a time that allows our filmmakers in Europe to participate without being up in the middle of the night.
Online Screenwriting Awards. As we do every year at FILA, we will hold a ceremony specifically for the unproduced screenplays that are Official Selections at our festival this year. This year it will be a video conference in which each screenwriter will get their own time “on stage” to share their logline and talk a little about their script. Once everyone has shared their pitch, we will announce the Grand Jury Prize winner for Best Unproduced Screenplay.
Q&A Sessions. With or without screenings, we plan to record video chat Q&A sessions between our programmer and each filmmaker (or filmmaking team.) We plan to prepare for this by having members of our award juries write questions for the filmmakers in advance. This way the Q&A’s will have questions posed by an audience immediately after viewing your film just like we would’ve had at an actual screening. If we do work out some online screenings, we may include Q&A’s then as well. It is our hunch that a videoconference Q&A with a handful of attendees would be bedlam, but maybe we will try it.
In-Person Mixer. It is our plan to invite all of the filmmakers, screenwriters, their crews and their friends to an actual gathering as soon as it is safe to do so. July? September? Who knows. When the coast is clear and we can come out of our bunkers, everyone who should have met at FILA 2020 will meet! Hopefully we can do this somewhere fun that can show a loop of everyone’s trailers playing on TV’s in whatever bar/club/theater we rent for this event. We even plan to set up the Stand & Repeat so that we can make up for the lack of festival photographs.
Every year FILA has four deadlines. Why? Withoutabox basically demanded it and even though they are no longer with us the four deadlines remain. THIS SATURDAY is deadline 3 of 4. We are one month away from our final deadline. After March 15 we will no longer be accepting films, videos and scripts.
We are proud to announce the Grand Jury Prize winners for the 2019 festival!
Best Feature Film – Groupers
Best Short Film – Drama – The Wind Phone
Best Short Film – Comedy – Beach Day
Best Short Film – Horror – Nocturne
Best Documentary Film – Suffer For Good
Music Video – I Could Have Died
Best Director, Feature Film – Anderson Cowan, Groupers
Best Director, Short Film – DAVI.IN, Dream/Life
Best Actress in a Lead Role – Nicole Dambro, Groupers
Best Actor in a Lead Role – Elliott Kashner, The Last of the Manson Girls
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Jenna Curtis, The Man and Mel
Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Cameron Duckett, Groupers
Best Performance by a Full Cast – The Wind Phone
Best Screenplay – Kristen Gerweck, The Wind Phone
Outstanding Cinematography – Jon Keng, The Wind Phone
Best Art Direction – Alex Dixon, Beast
Best Screenplay (Unproduced) –
Rube by Dan O’Brien
Run! Run! Run! – The Lives of Abbie Hoffman by Michael J. Shapiro
Stuck by Rich Van Tine
We are proud to announce the following award winners for the 2019 festival!
Outstanding Short Films – Dream/Life, Shanghai Sole
Outstanding Directors – Kristen Gerweck, The Wind Phone; Mike Trainotti, Nocturne
Outstanding Screenplay – DAVI.IN, Dream/Life; Laura Holliday, Girl Friend
Outstanding Acting, Cast – Lemon, The Man and Mel
Outstanding Acting, Individual – Megumi Kabe, The Wind Phone; T’ai Hartley, The Man and Mel
Outstanding Cinematography – Justyn Moro, Lemon
Filmmakers Awards – given only to short films, these are determined by a panel of fifteen filmmakers whose films have been Official Selections previous years.
We are proud to announce the Audience Award winners for the 2019 festival!
Audience Award, Feature Film – The Last of the Manson Girls
Audience Award, Short Film – Worthy
Audience Award, Documentary Film – Radical Acts of Love
Outstanding Films: How To Get A Boyfriend, The Man and Mel
Every year it’s a challenge for us to look at the jury votes and hand out awards. Invariably, I see some things that bother me. This is especially because I watch every film a second time with an audience at the festival, while the majority of the jury members do not. In 2019, I was very happy with the award winners but I noticed two things. One, the wonderful How To Get A Boyfriend was a runner up in several categories including writing, directing, and acting. I get it; it’s a dark comedy steps across the line and slips into gore. Not for everyone but it’s GREAT. Programmer’s Prize to the rescue. Two, the remarkable film The Man and Mel only won awards for its actors. That’s another thing I couldn’t let happen. The Man and Mel is wonderfully written, artfully directed, and beautifully shot. So it gets a Programmer’s Prize, too.
