The 46th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival continues its totally dedicated Independent Film screening format for the upcoming April 12-21, 2013 unspooling. WorldFest will screen just 50-60 feature film premieres, with a total and absolute emphasis on the American and International Independent feature films and a continuing annual spotlight on award-winning short films and documentary films.
Entry forms & complete entry information are on our website (www.worldfest.org) – Click on Enter Film Festival, then on History, FAQ, Categories, Entry Form…
WorldFest Artistic and Program Director, Kathleen Haney, stated, “We are fiercely dedicated to the Indie Feature and Short Film and look for a quality selection of individual films to maintain a smaller, yet effective program rather than an overly large and unwieldy slate of 150-300 films. Haney continued, “For the 2013 WorldFest we continue to use ‘A good story, well told’ as our time-tested approach to film selection”. (For complete winner info from the past 2012 WorldFest, go to – http://www.worldfest.org – click on View the 2012 Remi Winners).
After he received the WorldFest Grand Remi Award, Ridley Scott commented “WorldFest is in the business of validating excellence!” The mission of WorldFest is to recognize and validate creative excellence in film & video production in every facet and category of filmmaking. Many filmmakers report that a Remi Award from WorldFest opens doors to advance their careers.
WorldFest will continue with its annual Short Film Showcase, a special review of 100 new short and student films...from the festival that gave first top honors to Spielberg, Lucas, The Coen Brothers, Ridley Scott, Robert Rodriguez, Spike Lee, Gavin Hood, John Lee Hancock, Michael Cimino, Leslie Linka Glatter, Oliver Stone, Ang Lee, Atom Egoyan and David Lynch, among many others! Few other festivals have such a “Discovery” track record. WorldFest has emerged as the oldest continuous film festival management in the world with the same executive director, serving for 46 consecutive years. A few other festivals are older, but they have had as many as ten different directors. It is the oldest film festival in The South, and the 3rd oldest International Film/Video Festival in North America, after San Francisco & NYC.
The 45th Annual WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival concluded with a good 20% upturn in box office. Highlights of the 45th Annual WorldFest-Houston were: several hit films, a Gala Awards Banquet with top honors presented to up-and-coming attending filmmakers from over 35 countries from round the globe, Indie Panels, a VIP tour of NASA and an exciting Houston Yacht Club Sailing Regatta & Texas BBQ. Attendance at the 10-day Fest was over 25,000, up from 2011 box office figures. The overflowing Awards Dinner at Houston’s Hotel Marriott Westchase hosted the WorldFest Gala, on Saturday night (April 21) with a record number of more than 550 international filmmakers, award winning international Russian & Mexican dancers, and a special hi-energy dance presentation by Shawn Welling’s ELCX Planet Funk.
The WorldFest 2012 Grand Remi Statuette Awards went to:
Click on the picture to view the YouTube Trailer video. Enjoy the 46th
Annual Worldfest Houston from April 12 - 21, 2013. Worldfest Houston is
the third oldest international film festival in North America and the oldest
independent film festival in the world. For more information, click on
www.worldfest.org.
• BEST THEATRICAL FEATURE ~ CHINESE TALE (Un Cuento Chino) Argentina, Sebastián Borensztein, represented by Stuart Strutin from Panorama Entertainment, NY who personally accepted the award.
In Buenos Aires, the bitter and methodic Roberto is a lonely man and the owner of a hardware store. Roberto collects bizarre worldwide news in an album as a hobby and his acquaintance Mari has an unrequited love for him, but Roberto is always evasive. One day, Roberto sees a Chinese named Jun being expelled from a taxi while he is watching the landing of airplanes in the airport and he helps the man to stand up. Jun does not speak Spanish and shows a tattoo with an address on his arm. Roberto heads to the spot with Jun and discover that the place belonged to Jun's uncle that sold it three and half years ago. Roberto goes with Jun to the police station, to the China's embassy and to a Chinese neighborhood to seek out his uncle but it is a fruitless search. Roberto lodges Jun in his house and after a series of incidents, he finds a delivery boy to translate Jun and he learns the dramatic story of his life.
Click on the picture to view the YouTube Trailer video. Enjoy the 46th
Annual Worldfest Houston from April 12 - 21, 2013. Worldfest Houston is
the third oldest international film festival in North America and the oldest
independent film festival in the world. For more information, click on
www.worldfest.org.
• BEST FILM & VIDEO ~ STEVEN CARAS: SEE THEM DANCE, Deborah Novak, WITEK &
NOVAK, INC., Huntington, WV, USA.
Against a backdrop of the ballet world in the 1960s and 1970s, this feature-length documentary traces the life and times of dancer/photographer Steven Caras. Despite bullying at school and parental rejection at home, Caras pursued his dream of becoming a dancer and was invited by George Balanchine to join the New York City Ballet. Balanchine also took note of Caras's talent as a photographer and granted him privileged access to photograph all aspects of City Ballet's private world. Ultimately, Caras created over 100,000 images including "Last Bow" depicting Balanchine's final curtain call.
Click on the picture to view the YouTube Trailer video. Enjoy the 46th Annual Worldfest Houston from April 12 - 21, 2013. Worldfest Houston is the third oldest international film festival in North America and the oldest independent film festival in the world. For more information, click on www.worldfest.org.
• BEST TV & CABLE PRODUCTION ~ THREE KINGDOMS, Xiaojun Yang, BEIJING ORIENT
HENGHE FILM & MOVIE CO. LTD., Beijing, CHINA.
A joint project between Chinese and Korean investors started in 2007 and released in April 2008 in Asia, Resurrection of the dragon was marketed as an epic movie based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel; sadly for us, it turned out to be more of an epic trailer than anything else.
Directed by Daniel Lee, a not-so-famous director whose past productions were definitely lacking (Star Runner, Dragon Squad), Three Kingdoms’ trailer showcased during Cannes Film Festival of 2007 was promising. Casting Andy Lau, Maggie Q and Sammo Hung, displaying an original artistic direction and focusing on the life of one hero of the novel (Zhao Zilong, played by Andy Lau), it looked like everything was in it for a great ride.
The movie revolves around the life of Zhao Zilong (Zhao Yun), a general of the
Shu kingdom who has to defend its country against the kingdom of Wei, led by Cao
Cao’s grand-daughter Cao Ying (a fictional character created for the movie,
played by Maggie Q). The story depicts him as an old man reaching his last
battle, as well as some of his early days’ deeds.
Zhao Yun is famous among fans of the novel as one of the five tiger generals of
the Shu kingdom, an almost perfect warrior of fantastic strength and perfect
loyalty to his master, glorified for his many heroic deeds. One the paper,
choosing to focus on one hero of the novel seemed like a clever script decision,
leaving room for better characters development and more drama than if it was
purely a tale of war.
Click on the picture
to view the YouTube Trailer video. Enjoy the 46th Annual Worldfest Houston
from April 12 - 21, 2013. Worldfest Houston is the third oldest
international film festival in North America and the oldest independent film
festival in the world. For more information, click on
www.worldfest.org.
• BEST NEW MEDIA ~ AXI: AVENGERS OF XTREME ILLUSIONS, Shawn Welling, WELLING
FILMS, Houston, TX, USA
• BEST EXPERIMENTAL FILM & VIDEO ~ TEN QUINTILLION, Romilly Spier,
Director/producer, SWINBURNE SCHOOL OF FILM & TV, Prahran, AUSTRALIA.
• BEST SHORT SUBJECT ~ GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKI, INSTANT FIRES, Taos, NM. USA.
• BEST STUDENT FILM, SHOOT THE MOON, Alexander Gaeta, CHAPMAN
UNIVERSITY, Orange,
CA., USA. (Actress Pamela Bower
on hand to accept.)
• BEST MUSIC VIDEO ~ VUCCIRIA, Massimo Massara, NOTA PREZIOSA S.R.L.Palermo
ITALY
WorldFest Best Actor Remi Awards
go to Jed Rees, in Phil Volken’s Garbage, Filmmuse Prods. CA., USA; Gwendoline
Yeo, Best Actress in Torque Entertainment’s, Heathens & Thieves, CA., USA; Alex
Meraz, Best Supporting Actor in Camilo Vila’s City of Gardens, Four Fish Films,
CA,USA: Nazneen Contractor, Best Supporting Actress (Séance: The Summoning,
directed by Alex Wright, Berkshire Axis Media, BAM, Toronto, Canada.)
The Houston Film Critics Society presented two Critics Choice Awards selected
from the World premieres submitted into competition Gotthard Schuh: A Sensual
Vision of the World for the Best Documentary and Three of a Kind directed by
Gregory James Green, Abruzzo Prdns., Boise, ID,
USA for Best Feature. Other HF Critic’s Choice Awards this year were Best
Actress, Jodi Russell (Three of a Kind), Best Actor, John Savage (Caporale’s The
Black Dove) and two new awards, to best young actors; Brandon Tyler Russell
(Opening night’s Smitty, Michael Baumgarten, Writer/producer) & Grace Powell
(Larry Wade Carrell’s, Jacob, TX, USA). The Closing Film,
America – was acquired by Panorama Ent.
The Russian-American Publication sponsored the Best Foreign film award which
went to Chinese Take Away (Un Cuento Chino) directed by Sebastian Borensztein in
Argentina and repped by Panorama Entertainment. NY. The Best Houston Production
Remi Award went to Still Born, Thomas Jackson, Houston, TX. The Best Texas Production
Award went to Damian Horan’s Children of the Air.
WorldFest began in August 1961, as Cinema Arts, an International Film Society. It began screening Independent, foreign & art films. It became an officially competitive International Film Festival seven years later, in April 1968, and has been in continuous operation since. It is one of the original three film festivals in North America, with San Francisco and New York as the first two events. Following WorldFest was Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, and Seattle. Then Sundance and SXSW, Toronto and Tribeca. Now there are more than 2,000 USA film festivals of various types, levels and quality, most being simply non-competitive screening events! WorldFest is international, competitive and invites filmmakers worldwide.
The 46th Annual WorldFest offers International Competition in; Features, Shorts, TV production, TV commercials, unproduced Screenplays & Teleplays, Experimental, Student, Documentary, Business & Industry, New Media, and Music Videos. WorldFest is the largest film & video competition in the world, in sheer number of actual category entries, with more than 4,300 category entries received in 2012. There are almost 200 sub-categories for competition, allowing each film to compete in its own individual genre.
WorldFest-Houston is sponsored by the State of Texas, the City of Houston, HBU Fitness
Center, Kodak, NASA, AMC Theaters, Tippit and Moo, Service, Inc., Premier IMS,
the Houston Film Commission, Boxer Properties, Wagner Media, The HQ Hotel
Marriott Westchase, The Houston Chronicle,
Regent
University Film School and the Houston Arts
Alliance (HAA).
For more information on the 46th Annual 2013 WorldFest-Houston, send your name
and address to:
Entry Team WorldFest - 2013
PO Box 56566, Houston, Texas 77256-6566 USA
or call toll free: 1-866-965-9955 (or 713-965-9955) or fax: 1-713-965-9960
or simply email us at: entry@worldfest.org
The complete Entry Kit with Entry Forms - is on our website: http://www.worldfest.org
(The 46th Annual WorldFest-Houston is April 12-21, 2013)
