Tuesday, September 5

The Chicago Underground Film Festival is designed to showcase the defiantly independent filmmaker. The festival's mission is to promote films and videos that dissent radically in form, technique or content from the "indie" mainstream presenting works that challenge and transcend commercial expectations. The festival will award cash prizes to films and videos selected by the jury as best in these categories: Feature, Short, Documentary, Animation, Experimental, Audience Choice and "made in Chicago." The Chicago Underground Film Fund has been established to provide completion funds for films that are in keeping with the festival's defiantly independent and deliberately scandalous spirit. Recipients are awarded grants of US$500-$2,000 in cash and services. The festival screening committee will select the films and videos. Notification of entries making the festival will be before July 1, 2000. Screening dates and times will be announced by July 15.

The Crested Butte Reel Festival is a competitive short film festival with an animation, experimental and student category. The shorts must be under 40 minutes. There are cash awards, unusual "trophies" and industry exposure. The festival also presents filmmakers' panels and a director's workshop. Entry fees: regular entries, $30; student entries $20.

Rushes Post-production facility is hosting the second Rushes Soho Shorts Festival to showcase short film art. The festival screens 53 films in free screenings held in cafes, bars and cinemas across Soho. On August 3, the festival will hand out their awards. The five categories in this year's festival are: The Switch2.net Short Film Award for the best short film submitted by a professional filmmaker; The Sony ProMedia Newcomer Award; The Avid Softimage Titles & Idents Award; The Wam!Net Animated Short Award; and The Innovation TK Music Video Award. This year's list of judges include: Laurence Kaye (head of film, TV & multimedia, Universal Music Publishing Group), Eva Tarr Kirkhope (Metro Cinemas Ltd.), David Sin (director ICA Projects), Ken Ingles (director Film House, Edinburgh), Robert Campbell (Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R), Mike Cannaris (Mcasso Music), Dave Knight (Promo News), Trevor Beattie (TBWA), Adam Perry (Channel 5 Television), Gub Neal (head of Drama Channel 4 Television), Roger Shannon (BFI), Roger White (Music for Films), Patrick Uden (Uden Associates), John Hegarty (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), Ian Williamson & Jonathan Burley (HHCL), Clare Wilford and Bob Dorman (CGI Magazine). New to the festival this year will be a short filmmaking seminar held in conjunction with the New Producers Alliance on August 1. On-line screenings of selected films will air on Switch2.net.

Cine-Clube de Avanca and the C

The First Annual Queer Short Movie Awards presented by PlanetOut (www.planetout.com) and IFILM (www.ifilm.com) highlights films and videos by, for, about, or of-interest to gay, lesbian, bi or transgender audiences. Cash awards include: one Grand Prize of US$10,000 and five First Prize awards of $1000 in each of the following categories: drama, comedy, documentary, animation and experimental. Twenty-five finalists will be showcased on PlanetOut throughout the month of June for an Audience Awards competition. The awards will be announced and presented at a special Queer Short Movie Awards ceremony and program at Outfest: The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

The 8th International Short Film Festival Curtas Metragens celebrates works in animation, documentaries and fiction. All works submitted must be under 60 minutes in length. The festival gives grand prize awards in each of the three categories and honourable mentions that are selected by the jury. Awards are also given to best Portuguese film and young Portuguese filmmaker. An audience prize will be given by the votes of the attendees.

In its 17th year, the Showbiz Expo and Conference is a major spot for companies to showcase their production products and discuss the future of the entertainment industry. Among this year's seminars will be "Digital Hollywood: Bringing Entertainment Project Management into the New Millennium." The event will be hosted by Creative Planet and feature a look at how new technology will transform the efficiency of entertainment production. Another seminar of interest is "Storyboards For People Who Can't Draw." The discussion will be lead by James O. Fraioli, the author of STORYBOARDING 101. On Saturday, the expo will hold "Compositing Live-Action and Animation." The seminar will be moderated by Mark Simon, author of STORYBOARDS: MOTION IN ART and owner of AARGH! Animation Inc. On Sunday, there will be a seminar entitled "Live-Action Special Effects." Various other seminars will center on production, direction, scriptwriting and much more.

DancesWithFilms is a competitive event featuring a line-up of more than a dozen full-length narrative films and sixteen narrative shorts. DWF's mission is to open a venue for new and upcoming filmmakers to present their work without the fear of politics overshadowing their screen time. The criteria for entries are: 1. Is the person attached able to raise financing (even small sums) at any point based solely on the "name"? 2. Is the person attached able to open doors that might otherwise stay closed? (They do not exclude "working" persons in the industry.) The film must have been completed no later then January 1998.

The Nantucket Film Festival is dedicated to screenwriters. The event will feature film screenings, staged readings, morning chats with writers, panel discussions, forums and an awards ceremony for best writer, feature and short. This year screenwriter Paul Schrader (TAXI DRIVER, MISHIMA) will be honored. The sponsors for the event are Entertainment Weekly, NBC, Showtime, iCast and Listerine.