The 15th Annual Slamdance Film Festival, scheduled to take place, January 15-23, 2009 in Park City, Utah, officially launched its Call for Entries today, looking for short and feature film submissions in all genres. New this milestone year, Slamdance is also accepting music video submissions. Entry forms, rules and regulations are available on the Slamdance web site -- www.Slamdance.com. The early submission deadline is August 25, 2008 and includes a significant entry fee discount. The final submission deadline is October 10.
The 2008 festival received more than 3,300 submissions from all over the world, but only 20 features in the narrative and documentary feature categories combined screened in the main competition, which is strictly devoted to films without domestic theatrical distribution, from first-time feature directors, working with relatively low budgets. Slamdance has remained true to its founding mandate that it is a festival "by filmmakers, for filmmakers," whereby the programming team is comprised of filmmakers, many of whom are Slamdance alumni.
Slamdance will screen about 100 films in total. All film selections will be posted on the 2008 festival page during the second week of December. Presenting sponsors of the 2009 Slamdance Film Festival are Kodak and Indie Road. For the first time, Slamdance will also showcase music videos.
As a year-round organization, Slamdance serves as a showcase for the discovery of new and emerging talent and is dedicated to the nurturing and development of new filmmakers and their cinematic vision. The feature competition programs are reserved for first time directors working with limited budgets, thus enabling the festival's mission to give exposure to emerging filmmaking talent. Slamdance is programmed through a unique democratic method, just one of many elements that make Slamdance a pioneering standout among its festival counterparts. Every film is programmed by majority rule by a committee of filmmakers. Slamdance alumni are recruited to serve as programmers, so first-timers are represented and assisted by Slamdance veterans. The mantra of "by filmmakers, for filmmakers" resounds at every level of the organization, and plays a part in all of its undertakings.
With the renowned film festival as its core, Slamdance has expanded its ventures to include the popular Slamdance.com website, writing competitions for screenplays, teleplays and horror scripts; the Anarchy Online Short Film Competition; the Dirty Dozen Short Film DVD Series; and a $99 Special short film production project.
Each year several Slamdance films have been purchased and distributed commercially, and almost all films were invited to other festivals around the world. Acquisitions from the 2008 festival include PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which will be released by DreamWorks, JACK BROOKS: MONSTER SLAYER and TRAILER PARK OF TERROR. Slamdance films have won Spirit Awards, the Palm d'Or and even an Oscar. Alumni include NAPOLEON DYNAMITE director Jared Hess ('03 PELUCA); THE DARK KNIGHT director Christopher Nolan ('99 award-winner FOLLOWING); the Russo Brothers ('97 entry PIECES) and MONSTER'S BALL and upcoming James Bond film THE QUANTUM OF SOLACE director Marc Forster ('96 Audience Award winner LOUNGERS). Participation in the Slamdance Film Festival helped to discover these filmmakers and to propel them into their next feature productions.
The 2008 Slamdance Screenplay competition received over 1,500 submissions. Winners will be announced in September. Past winners of the screenplay competition, THE WOODSMAN by Nicole Kassell and Stephen Fetcher, MARIA FULL OF GRACE by Joshua Marston, and NEO NED by Timothy Boughn, were made into award winning films. 2006 Screenplay Competition winner DROOL is currently heading into production with Upload Films, with writer Nancy Kissam also directing. As ever, Slamdance has its Park City headquarters at the top of Main Street at the Treasure Mountain Inn.
