IndieWorks: October 2014 Recap

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Last week was the October edition of IndieWorks, and it was a wonderful night! We screened 5 excellent films by talented and unique filmmakers, who all brought something original and innovative to the line-up and Q&A. Thank you everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us. We definitely had a great time. We hope you enjoyed all the films and the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts!

See our photos from the evening:

The films of the night:

Sweetness (Directed by Joe Lueben)
Both dreamy and brutal, magical and true, "Sweetness" is a window into the life of two lovers torn apart by alcoholism. A life plagued with fear and painful memories haunt the home they share and will seduce them into destruction if they are unable to find forgiveness for each other within this beautiful dance between darkness and the light. 

A Girl And A Gun (Directed by Eileen McQueen)
Girl meets gun...a modern western.

Museum (Directed By Dani Tenenbaum)
In a museum, the interesting things happen after dark.

The Bureau of Short-Term Affairs (Directed by Bryan Artiles/Written& Produced by Sissy Denkova)
A matchmaking bureau focuses on finding the wrong partners for clients instead of the right. Clients seek short-term affairs that exclude the the promise of a bright and committed future, which is exactly the arrangement Mark is looking for when he comes in for his interview. Little does he know, he will get a lot more than he bargained for in the first place.

The Real Truth Behind The Real True Story: Donnie Miller (Directed by Mike Piccirillo/Produced by Shannon Michael Wamsur) Professional charades champion Donnie Miller was at the top of the mountain in the World Charades Federation. He suffered a downfall that retired him from the sport and cast him into obscurity. 'The Real Truth Behind The Real True Story' examines what happened to the charades legend and tries to uncover the mystery behind his sudden downfall and disappearance.

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a system rating 8 categories of Story, Dialogue/Writing, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, and Production Value. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen at our end of year Best of Fest event in April, while both winning filmmakers have the option to be featured in our Insider Series. 

For the October 2014 lineup, our winning filmmakers were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "The Real Truth Behind The Real True Story: Donnie Miller"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "The Bureau of Short-Term Affairs"

Check out the following video & photo below for the Donnie Miller trailer and Bureau FB page.

Donnie Miller, the greatest professional charades athlete of all time, is the topic of investigation on news program "The Real Truth Behind The Real True Story". They attempt to dissect the mystery surrounding Donnie's epic career downfall. Starring Shannon Michael Wamser, Katie Locke O'Brien, Kelly Carlton, Dominic Conti, Travis Stanberry and Orion Acaba.

 

Our next IndieWorks screening is our Halloween special on the 29th!

After that is our last screening of 2014 before the holidays on November 19th. Both line-ups are already full, but you can always submit your film for future screenings through our submission form. We'll be filling the January and February line-ups over the next couple months. 

We hope to see you at the next IndieWorks!

 

FirstGlance Short Online Contest: Juice It

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Christina's latest short film "Juice It," was selected to participate in FirstGlance Film Festival's Online Contest, marking this the temporary online premiere of the film! It's up against 14 other truly unique, creative and some excellent shorts.

 

We're honored to be included. If you want to watch the film and support us, register as a fan of the contest with the promo 'fest' and then pay the one-time fee of $2. It gives you access to the 15 films through November 8th. You can watch all the films an as many times as you want and vote once every 24 hours. The winner will screen at their prestigious festival in LA and win a cash prize! 

We hope you like it & thanks for the support!

Coney Island Film Festival "Juice It" Recap

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Three Saturdays ago "Juice It" premiered at the 14th annual Coney Island Film Festival. I was hoping to do this update earlier, but held off in hopes of getting copies of their professional photos from my screening and Q&A. Unfortunately, they haven't released them and may not anytime soon. So, in the meantime, I post this with my terribly out of focus camera phone pictures and will simply reshare it when the good ones go live! (BTW, there are some nice ones not of me, but of the festival overall on their Facebook page). 

 

As for how the festival went, it was a ton of fun! The thing about public screenings is that, while they're of course what we live for as filmmakers and are incredibly exhilarating, they're painfully nerve-wracking (at least for me) when it's the first time a piece is being seen publicly, as was the case here. I was terrified no one would laugh. To my delight though, the screening was filled with non-stop laughs, and rumbling, belly laughs at that. Some jokes were missed because people were still laughing at the one before. It felt pretty amazing. What was nice to hear, though I feel bad admitting so, was that they weren't polite, equal opportunity laughers. Most of the films that screened with mine were exceptionally funny, funnier than mine even, and a few had way higher production values. They got just as much laughter from the room. It was an honor to screen with them. However, there was one that was pretty weak. I wont specify which, but it wasn't very well done and it dragged on a lot. It just wasn't quite hitting the comedic beats, and didn't know when to let an attempt at a running joke die. So, to hear the audience not laugh at that one, while did make me feel bad for that filmmaker, felt validating in the sincerity of their amusement over "Juice It." People may tell you "I liked it" or even "I loved it," and if you're lucky they'll specify details that stood out to them and why, or explain actual emotions it provoked in them. For the most part though, you never truly know if people are just being polite to your face. What you can gauge though is the energy in the room and, in the case of comedy, the laughter from the audience. I'll stop rambling now, but needless to say, it was a successful screening and made me feel great (even in spite of the annoying cold I had)! 

As for what's next for "Juice it," well I'm eager to get it online for more people to see. I shot it over a year ago, and finished it about 9 months ago. I had hoped for a much earlier premiere for the film, especially considering it was a somewhat last minute project, shot in 2 days, on less than $500. My dream festival was the NBCU Short Film Festival (formally NBC Short Cuts), which happened in the early summer. It was a long-shot, of course, especially since my actors were non-union and no one involved was commercially known. However, I took a shot and set up my submissions to allow for that to be the potential premiere; and it was rejected. At the end of the day, I'm glad the premiere was at Coney Island because they were so welcoming and warm, the audience reaction was priceless, and the festival just has such character (we watched my film on bleachers in a rusted old sideshow). But since I was crossing my fingers for an NBC premiere, two local festivals I could have submitted to last year, I've only just submitted to this month. So it'll be a while before the film is public on vimeo; I'm thinking by the Spring.

HOWEVER, with that said, there has been some other good news for the film. One being that it was invited to screen in LA at the HollyShorts Screening Series late this month or next (they're still settling on a date for me). And more timely, it was chosen to participate in FirstGlance Film Festival's Online Shorts Contest, which launches tomorrow! The contest is hosted by itsashort.com. The way it works is that people register for the site for $2 and they can watch "Juice It" and the other 14 shorts in the contest as many times as they'd like for a month. The film that gets the most votes will screen at their 15th annual festival in LA, and the filmmaker gets a prize valuing $2,500 on top of an additional TBD cash prize (a percentage of the $2 fee everyone pays) based on how many daily votes they get. What's really cool about this is that over 90,000 people have participated in watching the films in past years, so I'll have increased exposure. What's not so cool is that the cash prize is not based on total votes, but daily votes, meaning it resets everyday. So if I want to win, I have to nag everyone I know to not just vote once but vote once a day for 30 days straight. I'm just not inclined to do that. However, please brace yourself for a lot of tweets from me about it for the next month (starting tomorrow). No worries, I wont be nearly as annoying as during my crowdfunding campaigns ;)

But in all honesty, if you enjoy the film and have the time and desire to be super supportive, a vote a day or every other day or once a week would be greatly appreciated. Regardless, I hope you're able to watch it during the contest. Or if not, see it at a festival; or worst case, see it when it goes live on the CongestedCat site in the Spring. 

I can't wait to share it with more people & get further feedback. Thanks for reading & supporting!

-Christina 

BTS Photos from Shooting CongestedCat Shorts

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Check out these behind the scenes photos from shooting our 2 new short films just a few weekends ago! See TWO galleries below!

Not Our Living Room was shot on day 1 with Alyssa Meadows doing on-set photography. 


We Had Plans was shot on day 2 with our resident photographer Chris Carroll doing on-set photography. 

 

We're hoping to have rough cuts of both films from our awesome editor Jordan Roberts by the end of this month. We're also hoping we'll be able to put out teasers for both films by November! We'll keep you updated as more progress is made. 

Want to know who all the talented people in these photos are? Check out the IMDb pages for NOLR & WHP!