Fest Updates

Another week, another bunch of festival acceptances for UCF films. Yahoo!

First up, Maria Gabriella Pennington ('07) says her Directing 3 project, Social Experiments with Simon Snow has been accepted for screening at the Griffon International Film Festival.

The ever-busy Kyla Tomlin ('06) says her Capstone short, Katie & Kasey will screen at the Out In Akron Queer Shorts Film Festival. By our count, that makes number 11 for Kyla as well as a sale to LOGO, a new cable channel. A busy girl, no?

And from Ben Piety ('06), who recently bemoaned his film's lack of festival acceptances, came word that his Capstone short, Lonely Lights. The Color of Lemons, has been selected for programming in Reeling 2006: The 25th Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival, the second oldest LGBT film festival in the world! That's the third festival for Ben.

BTW - for those who might poo-poo all these festival acceptances because they aren't Sundance, please read the words of Andrew Gay, who's fine Directing 3 short LOVE IS DEAF, was featured on the 2005 FIVE STORIES dvd.

Sez Andrew:
I remember when "Love is Deaf" got into a Louisiana festival called Moviesauce, I heard a lot of jokes about Moviesauce being the Sundance of the Bayou. Fast forward a few months, and I wake up today to find an email from a man in Chicago asking me if there's any way he can purchase any of my films. As it happens, this man graduated from Loyola University in New Orleans and is now one of the managers of the Hotel Burnham, an historic luxury hotel in downtown Chicago. He recently ran into an old friend from New Orleans who told him about my film.

I offered to send him a copy of Five Stories for free. He was so appreciative, he's sending me a gift certificate for a free weekend stay at the Hotel Burnham. I'm thinking about surprising Angelyn (my wife) with a trip to Chicago next year (neither of us have ever been, and we never got a proper honeymoon either).

I guess a free weekend stay in a luxury hotel isn't much to someone with their sights set on Sundance, but I'm thrilled. I think it's just one more example of why Five Stories works, why it's better to have your film seen at small festivals than none at all, and why UCF deserves a lot of credit for promoting their student films in a way that few other schools do. My film's played 20 festivals, won 5 awards including a trip to Los Angeles to pitch to Mandalay Pictures, and has now garnered a free hotel stay in Chicago. All because of Five Stories. Thanks again, Steve, Rich, and everyone else at UCF Film.