Beloit Film Festival

For my blog lived experience, I want to write about the Beloit Film Festival my buddy entered in this past summer. Every summer my buddy and I mess around with shooting short films with our friends. Every summer we write and then create them, but never think about submitting them to a film festival. We would think that our films were not professional enough to submit and no one would take them seriously. Well this past summer I unfortunately could not work with him this summer because I have becomes very busy in my own life. He wrote and directed a film called The Capability. It is a twenty three minute short film about three guys and one has the capability to kill. They get put into a situation and in the end you find out what one has the capability to kill. It is a great short film especially being made on no budget with four guys and a camera.

The end of the summer came and my buddy called to tell me how everything went and also decided to tell me he entered this film into the Beloit Film Festival. He was like, “I probably won’t get it in, but it is worth a shot isn’t it?” I said yes of course and wished him good luck. A couple weeks went by and I get a voice mail from my excited friend saying that they accepted his short film into the festival. This festival is by no means at all small, last year the main movie that won starred Katherine Heigel from the movie Knocked Up. He asked me if I would go with him to it and I said I would not miss it.

I feel this whole story relates with what we are learning in American Independent Cinema. The way my friend got into the festival, is like every other indie filmmaker in the world. They might work with larger budgets and better equipment, but he is starting off in the right direction. He also kept a journal like Robert Rodriguez did when he was filming El Mariachi. He explained all the troubles he went through with lighting and places to shoot. He also used actors that are not known at all, which are his friends. His production budget really just included food and mine dv tapes. His friends did not ask for money and he had no one assisting him because I could not help out. This whole procedure shows the independent filmmaker versus the Hollywood production route that was broken down in class for us. I feel it is a great example that you can start off at smaller festivals and work your way up to bigger ones.

In the end he did not win a prize, but being accepted to his first film festival at the age of 19 was winning enough. He was happy with the audience’s response to his movie. They laughed when he wanted them to laugh and jumped when he wanted them to jump. He also felt the Q&A was very fulfilling because a lot of people were interested in his topic and asked him questions. It shows that you don’t need a blockbuster, Hollywood production to start off in this industry. Bryan Pechacek