The online universe has become one of the best places to promote, distribute, and gather attention for independent films. The Beneath the Earth Film Festival takes advantage of the online experience each year by hosting an entirely online film festival. A grand jury comprised of film reviewers will decide on the best film, screenplay, soundtrack, cinematography, and editing categories but the audience award is open for voting to everyone–this means you, the internet perusing movie watcher.
The online universe has become one of the best places to promote, distribute, and gather attention for independent films. The Beneath the Earth Film Festival takes advantage of the online experience each year by hosting an entirely online film festival. A grand jury comprised of film reviewers will decide on the best film, screenplay, soundtrack, cinematography, and editing categories but the audience award is open for voting to everyone–this means you, the internet perusing movie watcher.
The 2012 festival selections have been announced and include one feature film and six shorts, from all over the world, and all of the films are available to watch at the festivals website: Beneath The Earth Film Festival. Voting ends on November 18, 2012 and the winners will be announced on November 19, 2012.
The selected festival films are:
Ditching School to Whistle
Documentary Short, RT 14:23
In April 2012, Ien Chi set out to enter an international whistling competition and make a short documentary film about it. This is what resulted.
Director: Ien Chi
The Double
Dramatic Short, Taiwanese, RT 31:18
In Japanese colonial era of Taiwan, the rain season bore twins destined to be abandoned. Ameko has been in illness isolation since childhood. While Yu has nightmares every night. Their mother died early and Father is always away from home. Rippling waves stir memories of youth. A heavy fog gradually disperses, revealing the end of a dream and a flower called ‘the double’.
Director: Yu Tong Weng
Drowned Out
Dramatic Feature, RT 1:22:50
A young man is confronted by his past when he visits his childhood summer house. After spending an evening with old friends, he wakes up to a very different environment. As he struggles to understand what is happening in his house, the hitherto unexplained events from his past begin to resurface and he is plunged into a state of manic paranoia. The film takes place during a summer day in an old house in Germany.
Directors: Leo Claussen and Nicholas K. Lory
Extranjero
Dramatic Short, RT 5:00
Shot over just two days, Extranjero gives the viewer a unique and unusual take on immigration as it follows a refugee trying to run from his past as well as the confusion in his own mind.
Directors: Dan Lumb and Crinan Campbell
Jackpot
Dramatic Short, Thriller, RT 16:24
Shontae wakes up in the middle of the night in a luxurious hotel suite. Deandre, an NBA star, is sleeping soundly. Shontae creeps into the bathroom and finds a used condom in the wastebasket. A few weeks later Shontae takes a pregnancy test and moments later finds the solid blue line that prompts a celebration in her bathroom. The ensuing sequence of events will shock and astound. Writer/director Tony Ducret has created an addictive storytelling experience with a group of fascinating characters whose true natures and motivations, when revealed, will mesmerize. Packed with riveting excitement and sensuality, Jackpot! is a compelling thriller that grabs you and never lets go.
Director: Tony Ducret
Refuge
Dramatic Short, RT 17:30
Grant is possessed by guilt. He is ready to confess and come to terms with the lies that he has told. On his long drive across Iowa it becomes increasingly clear that these transgressions run far deeper than just one good act can mitigate. They are habitual and insidious. As he confronts himself, his place of refuge becomes an inescapable prison of thought – a claustrophobic asylum of haunting self-examination.
Director: David Schmudde
Stay Still
Dramatic Short, RT 17:30
Two impoverished teenage brothers are bullied into making a drug run by their mother’s unstable boyfriend. Over the course of a dangerous journey through an urban night scape, their relationship is tested in ways that neither of them expect.
Director: David J. Kelly
Watch the Official Selections and vote now at Beneath The Earth Film Festival
Kathryn Schroeder, Promotional Materials, 2012, News, Film Festival, Online Film Festival, Audience Award, Feature Film, Short Film, Beneath The Earth Film Festival